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Completely undone.
***
When Kate Monroe bursts into my office a few minutes later, I have a hard time focusing on the words spilling from her pursed lips. My supervisor has been furious ever since the clip was leaked. She shoots me a sharp look.
“Alma, I waited for you.”
“Sorry, Kate, something unexpected came up.”
Take it up with our boss…
“Is your friend doing better?” she asks, referring to Raphaël.
So, she does have a heart.
“Yes, thank you. It’s a slow process, but he’s recover...”
“Good for him, but your personal life is actually of little concern to me. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t planning to take another day off. Our offices were turned upside down yesterday, and despite all our efforts, we still haven’t found the source of the leak.”
Did I say a heart? One made of stone, maybe.
“So, how about you help me get my hands on the smart-ass who thought it’d be fun to sabotage our next movie?”
Kate’s smile is nothing but a façade. And the message is clear: if I want to keep my job, I’d better prove myself.
“Clarence, can you come to my office, please?”
The distribution manager is in for a bad day. If it is indeed a deliberate act, everything points to the culprit being in his team.
Over the next few hours, Kate, Clarence, and I go over the whole promotional campaign for Pretty Little Murders with a fine-toothed comb. We check who had access to the various clips, from the initial teasers to the all-important leaked video, as well as the trailer and the interviews with the cast. Once everything has been checked out and we find no glaring errors, we decide to move on to the next stage: devising a new strategy to turn the situation to our advantage. We need to figure out a way to restore the film’s mystery and prevent the blockbuster from flopping.
Millions are at stake.
“We don’t have much time,” Kate reminds us, pacing back and forth. “The premiere is in just ten days, and the movie hits theaters in two weeks.”
“I have a plan that should attract the attention of the media and moviegoers,” I say.
“Which is?”
“Shoot a series of promotional spots featuring the actors and broadcast them on all the networks within the next forty-eight hours.”
“So the leaked clip will get lost in the flood of content,” Clarence guesses.
“Exactly, and it will look like the leak was part of a last-minute promo campaign. As if we planned it all along.”
I can see in Kate’s eyes that she approves.
Maybe she’s even a little impressed.
Within the hour, Vadim signs off on the plan, kicking off a full-scale operation. Everyone jumps into action—the creative, production, distribution, publicity, and technical teams. These spots just became our top priority, and it falls on me to coordinate everything.
I have a lot riding on this.
Sophie, our production manager, hands me the cast list for Pretty Little Murders. I need to contact the actors or their agents right away, so they can get to our L.A. studios today.
It’s 6:30 p.m. here, 9:30 a.m. there. There’s still time. Glancing through the names at the bottom of the list, I spot one that’s familiar. In the Guest Stars and Supporting Roles section, Grace Montgomery appears.
How could I have missed that?
