Heather Graham - The Unholy

Bailey nodded. “Unless you open a fire door and, if you do, alarms will go off like firecrackers.” He grinned at his own mild joke.

Sean looked at Madison. “If we go to the right, that’ll still lead us to the main work areas?”

“Yes, the hallway to the left has two meeting rooms, plus the stairs up to the offices and meeting rooms on the second floor.”

He moved quickly, heading to the right. She followed him at the same pace.

The studio seemed strange. Empty. She came in early sometimes, but a lot of workers did, and Madison couldn’t remember a single time when she’d come in and one of the seamstresses or construction engineers hadn’t already been at work. The sounds of sewing machines, electric saws, hammers and other work-related noises were constant, although someone usually had a stereo system playing pop music or rock classics. Today, there was no stereo on. Materials were piled up on the tables that stood by the sewing machines, and the shop area itself felt eerie. It was almost like walking into a home whose owners had mysteriously disappeared.

The walls were pinned with fabric and materials and drawings. Creatures they’d made for movies, shows or advertisements were lined up on the floor and arranged on shelves—some might be used again, and some were kept because they’d required a great deal of work and had turned out exceptionally well. They also kept some of the projects that hadn’t worked quite as well, a reminder of the thought and care that needed to go into any creation.

A giant rat stood next to an equally large penguin. The rat had been used in a public service announcement and the penguin had been animated to advertise a new adventure park in Oregon. Robotic creatures from the last sci-fi movie they’d worked on were lined up together, and above them was an old bicycle being ridden by a very evil-looking big, bad wolf. Zombies created for Apocalypse from Beneath the Sea were against the far rear wall, and the bloodied victims from a Victorian-era murder mystery were on the high shelving ten feet above the floor—above the zombies. Madison noted that Sean was staring at the victims, Miss Mary, Parson Bridge and Myra Sue. He was thoughtful, and she suspected he was imagining that the appearance of Jenny Henderson’s body must have been disturbingly similar to these props. The studio was known for the realism of what they created.

“Life imitates art and art imitates life. In this case, the question is which came first,” Sean murmured.

Madison glanced down, troubled by the creatures that were just rubber, plastic, fabric and paint. She’d drawn the designs for some of them; she’d dressed Myra Sue. Suddenly, Myra Sue and the other “victims” didn’t seem like props designed for a movie. They looked like flesh and blood.

A lot of blood.

Madison found herself turning away from Myra Sue’s one sightless eye.

“Fire door is still in the back, right?” Sean asked her.

She nodded. “Between these guys and the Planet Mondo air creatures over there,” she said, pointing to the door. There was a large sign that said Fire Door, but it was partially obstructed by the wings of one of the Planet Mondo air creatures.

“Hasn’t changed much,” Sean said. He nodded to one of the giant robots across the workstations, beside the climate control room. “I worked on Hugoman. He’s been here awhile.”

“Really? He’s fantastic. And I love the movie!” Madison said. She did love the creature in the movie Hugoman. He was the invention of a mad scientist who’d given him his son’s personality through partial cloning; the massive machinelike creature was kind and fought only to save lives. Of course, he’d been misunderstood, and when he’d saved the community from an attack by mutant creatures, he had died—a moral about judging people, or creatures, on appearances. Hugoman had actually been low-budget and promoted as an action/monster flick, but it had been extremely well written and had become a cult classic.

She flushed; they were here because of a murder, and because someone they both cared about had been accused of that murder. And yet, she wasn’t sure why they were just touring the studio. The murder hadn’t taken place in the studio; it had happened in the museum tunnel.

He wasn’t appalled by her sudden enthusiasm; he smiled at her. “Thanks. I loved working here. I needed to go back to Texas for a bit, and then…then you get swept up in life, so I wound up staying and working there. But I did love the time I spent here, working for Eddie Archer. I was proud that we helped create a cult classic on a budget.” His tone became businesslike. “So, as far as I know, that’s our fire door on this side of the building downstairs, and we have another over by the offices?”

It took her a second to follow his quick change of subject, but she managed not to blink.

“To the best of my knowledge, yes,” she told him. “And there are corresponding exits upstairs, with ladders in case of fire. Eddie’s always been very careful, dealing with some of the flammable materials as we do.”

Sean nodded. “Okay, what’s going on in the shop. What are you working on right now?”

“Don’t you know?” she asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s kind of ironic. We’re working on a remake of Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum. It’s updated, and it’s been retitled The Unholy. The script is really good—and different enough to make this a different movie. From what I’ve seen so far, I’d compare it to Disturbing Behavior, which was, in essence, a remake of Hitchcock’s Rear Window.”

Sean frowned. “A remake of the movie—and Jenny was killed in front of the tableau?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not just ironic,” he told her. “That sounds intentional. And it changes everything.”

“The original movie was filmed well over half a century ago. What could this have to do with the movie we’re making now?”

“Everything,” he said curtly. “It could be a motive for murder. And lockdown—that’s incredibly important, too. Lockdown should eliminate anyone who isn’t close to the studio.”

Madison spoke through clenched jaws. She wasn’t in the FBI or the police; she wasn’t required to understand motive and investigation. “Even when we’re not in lockdown, the curious can’t just wander in. I have to have permission to bring in a guest on a regular day, and I wouldn’t have been given permission at all now.”

“Well, there’s permission, and there’s giving yourself permission by dodging the rules. On a regular day, someone could try to slip someone else in.”

“What about the security cameras, Sean? People here don’t want to risk their jobs.”

“Of course not. Still…”

He walked toward the climate-controlled room, but looked through the windows for a moment, and never tried the door. He seemed uninterested.

“Where’s your workstation?” he asked her.

Her work area was a few feet from the climate-controlled area. She pointed it out to him, and he went over to it.

It seemed bizarre that everything was just where she’d left it on Friday night. There were pieces of the leather coat she’d chosen for the costume of actor Oliver Marshall, playing antihero Sam Stone in the new movie.

“I saw the movie as a kid. But refresh me,” Sean said.

What did this have to do with the murder?

“In a nutshell? There are a series of murders—people ripped to shreds by something in the night. Then an incredibly wealthy philanthropist with a gorgeous young wife is found murdered in a similar manner in his Egyptian Museum. The cops want to arrest the wife, so she goes to Sam Stone. Various clues suggest she’s the murderer, but she denies it. The movie is great because it leaves the audience wondering—was something supernatural happening, or could it all be explained? The Egyptian mummy supposedly sent from the Department of Antiquities turns out to be a priest heading an ancient cult and in the end, needless to say, he proves to be the murderer. Sam Stone falls in love with the wife—Dianna Breen—but she dies at the hand of the priest before she’s proven innocent.”