High Fall by Susan Dunlap Page B

said, “You told me Greg died in a fire gag. But he did high falls and acrobatic stunts. Why was he doing the fire gag at all?”
    “The stunt business is a small world, O’Shaughnessy,” Yarrow said, easing back into the comfort of pedantry. “Everyone’s got his specialty, but if you want to work, you’ve got to be able to do it all. Take me—I did great motorcycle gags, but if they needed a double for a cycle crash and a stair fall and it was a location picture, they’d have taken a guy who couldn’t handle the cycle as well but who could do both, before they’d pay two doubles.”
    Kiernan nodded. “The bottom line is the bottom line.”
    “And Greg, well, he was over forty. I’m sure when they called him in the middle of the movie, he told himself he couldn’t afford to turn down a job. And this one offered him the chance to do the Gaige Move—not in the fire gag, in an earlier scene. He hadn’t done that onscreen since his first picture. It was one more time to do the thing that he did better than anyone else in the world. Fire scared him shitless, but he wouldn’t have let that opportunity go even if it meant doing the fire gag nude.”
    Kiernan shivered. “One last chance to say it’s not just a memory, that you’re not a memory, yet.”
    Yarrow was staring at her. She realized she’d spoken out loud, and words he didn’t want to hear. But retirement wouldn’t have meant just the loss of fame, she felt sure, or even surrendering a way of life. For someone as consumed as Greg, it would have meant abandoning the rationale for living, watching what makes life make sense slip away. Leaving him with … nothing. She swallowed and forced out the words: “How exactly did he die?”
    Yarrow trekked back, and as he was taking up his post behind his chair, he said, “I wasn’t on the set then.”
    “But you think it’s suspicious. Why?”
    “Why? I don’t know. It’s just that he was too good to die like that.”
    “Too professional?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Like Lark?”
    His eyes widened. “Exactly. Like Lark.”
    “Then you think one of those five people killed him?”
    His eyes widened in surprise. “I never considered that.”
    “Yarrow! What the—”
    “Greg was meticulous about his preparations. He put everything he would need in that cabin the night before so it would be ready at whatever ungodly hour of the morning he needed to start smearing the fire-resistant gel—very pricey stuff—on every inch of his skin. You can’t get that stuff in your eyes, and it tends to run, so you’ve got to be real careful. Then he put on a Nomex suit over it—he should have put more than one on. Each suit is an extra layer of protection. I’ve seen guys use six suits in a ninety-second fire drop. But Greg never did; he couldn’t stand being confined like that. He dabbed flammable gel on the parts of the material farthest from his body. He should have …” He closed his eyes against the decision Greg had made. “Look, he should have been wearing three or four suits. He decided to wear only one. He had an oxygen bottle right there in the cabin and didn’t use it. What does that make you think?”
    “What did the autopsy find?”
    “I don’t know. Honestly. If they came up with anything fishy, it never made the trades—the papers—or the rumor mill.”
    “Yarrow, what is it you think happened?”
    He swallowed. “There’s nothing like doing gags. You’ve got friends you trust with your life, literally. Working gags are fun. Lots are challenges. There are always new skills to learn, vital things to figure out. Every day is different. I know what it’s like to leave. My job now, computer troubleshooting, is fine. I don’t hate it. Some days are more interesting than others, but none of them matter.”
    A truck roared down the alley. Yarrow didn’t look up. “What would Greg have done if he retired? Sell real estate in San Bernardino? He’d been the best; how could he live