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Chapter Three

Kadie wormed her way through the crew that remained standing by the trailer as they peppered her with questions, trying to glean information to sell to TMZ or another smutty website. Despite Lionel's admonition not to post the videos, she had no doubt that Sunshine's panicked screams would soon be on the internet. 

"Hey, what the hell is that?" 

"Gross!" 

"Oh my God, I think I am going to be sick." 

Dammit. They had spotted the rat dangling from her hand. In her haste to leave the trailer she had not thought to put the mutilated rat in a bag. Now the rumours would really fly and Lionel would be furious. Or would he? Wasn't the old adage there is no such thing as bad publicity? 

It was not out of the realm of possibility that Lionel, himself, had arranged for the rat to be placed in Sunshine's trailer. Maybe that was why he did not want the police notified - he was not worried about further upsetting his star, he was worried that his ruse may be discovered. No, that couldn't be it. Lionel was a smarmy weasel, but Kadie did not think he would sink that low to get his upcoming film put on the gossip radar. 

It annoyed her that she had been ordered to leave the trailer, but her dog Atticus remained. She hoped Sunshine was not feeding him any junk. Kadie had forgotten to mention that Atticus was on a strict diet. It was unlikely that there would be any further filming today - Sunshine was not a trooper who believed the show must go on. 

She was relieved. Between the rain, Sunshine's tantrums and the tricky stunts that Kadie had to perform, it had been a trying shoot. The one positive was that there was more downtime on this shoot than most. Movie sets were notorious for wasted hours as lighting was set, cameras where moved and take after take was performed. When neither Kadie not Atticus was on set Kadie had time to work on her thesis for her Masters. 

The dead rat acted as a talisman; the crowd parted and she slid through the group considering where to drop the carcass. Of course, there were phones whirring as pictures of the rat were taken. She supposed she could yell at the crew to stop taking pictures, but she knew it would be a waste of breath. This was too macabre, too juicy. 

She doubted that any of the bystanders would realize that the rat had had it's throat slit. Better they think that Atticus killed it. They may even think that Kadie killed it. She knew that many of the crew, having seen her stunts, thought of her as amazonian. Hardly a stretch for them to think she could kill a rat with her bare hands. 

She knew as soon as she took the rat from Atticus' mouth that he had not killed the rat.  There was no way his teeth could have severed the rat's neck so cleanly.  Which meant that someone put it there.  Sunshine was, to put it mildly, a pain; to put it more accurately, she was a bitch.  She treated the film set as her private kingdom with herself as the Queen and the crew as her minions, born to do her bidding.Members of the crew despised her, but did anyone hate her enough to put a rat in her trailer?  And how had they gotten in to the trailer? Kadie assumed that the trailer was locked while Sunshine was on the set.

She was probably worrying too much, but history had taught her to be very wary of situations that could be perceived as threatening.   She was irrevocably damaged from failing to take precautions to protect herself and, as much as Sunshine was a pain in the ass, she would be damned if she let some psycho hurt Sunshine the way Kadie had been. In her new world, it was better to overreact than be unprepared and bear the scars.She resolved to keep a watchful eye on the set and on Sunshine, in particular.  In that respect, Sunshine's newfound attachment to Atticus may come in handy.

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