"She still wins in the end." Pepper sat down in her chair again and kicked the Jax Comix bag. "Sorry." She leaned over it. "There's something else in there." She reached in and pulled out a shiny white folder. "Oh, cool. Stickers."

Lucy leaned to see but kept Daisy in the corner of her eye. She looked like hell, worse than when she'd come in. Damn it, Lucy thought, and then Pepper thrust the folder under her nose, saying, "Look!"

The cover said wonder woman ultimate sticker book over a picture of a beefy Wonder Woman with Angelina Jolie lips, standing with her legs spread and her hands on her hips, looking very snotty.

"This must be the eighties version," Lucy said, still keeping an eye on Daisy. "I think she was a cupcake in the sixties."

"She could crack walnuts with those thighs." Daisy leaned over to look, ignoring Lucy.

"Walnuts?" Pepper said, looking up from her book.

"Nice bracelets," Daisy said hastily.

"She catches bullets on them." Pepper went back to the book. "And the magic lasso makes people tell her the truth. She lassos them and they say, 'I am strangely compelled to tell you the truth.' That means they have to."

"That would be handy," Lucy said, looking at Daisy.

"Well, sometimes it's bad," Pepper said, "because they tie her up with it. But she always wins."

"My kind of woman." Lucy watched Pepper's serious little face pore over the sticker book. Pepper knew something was wrong, she was too serious, too intent on the book. So no more talking to Daisy with Pepper in earshot. Dumb, she told herself. You should have waited. Except there were no times with Daisy that were without Pepper. And she was already afraid she'd waited too long.

"I bet Wonder Woman could even beat Moot," Pepper said.

Lucy looked at her, surprised. "Don't you like Moot?"

Pepper looked up. "Moot is an alligator. He's dangerous. Alligators are not pets, they are very big and very fast."

"This is true." Lucy looked at Daisy. "Meant to ask. Animal of the Month?"

Daisy relaxed a little. "She picks an animal every month to learn about." She sighed. "Some are better than others. The Month of the Platypus wasn't pretty."

"People should not feed gators," Pepper said, still looking at her book. "Bryce should not feed Ding Dongs to him. Moot will attack."

Lucy was distracted by the image of Moot dragging Bryce away under the bridge. It was strangely plausible; Bryce was exactly the kind of guy who'd get eaten by an alligator while feeding it snack cakes.

"Let me see the sticker book," Daisy said, reaching across the table.

"It has cool stuff," Pepper said as Daisy took it. "There are all these stickers and then pages to stick them onto."

"Sounds excellent," Lucy said. Good job, Wilder. Who knew a Green Beret would know about stickers? Now, if he only knew how to rescue depressed, drug-addled sisters…

"Like it says she has winged sandals," Pepper said over her root beer, "but I like the boots better. They're like your boots, Aunt Lucy. Sort of. You should paint a white stripe up the front."

Lucy looked down at her snakeskin boots. "No. No white paint on snakeskin."

"I have red rubber rain boots," Pepper said. "Can I paint a white stripe on those?"

"Yes," Daisy said.

"So," Lucy said to Pepper, "why don't you go back and take a nap while your mom and I-"

"Time to go," Daisy said and stood up, sliding the sticker book back to Pepper.

"We just got here," Pepper said, outraged, but Lucy took one look at Daisy's stubborn, drowsy face and gave up for the night.

"It's hours past your bedtime," Daisy said to Pepper. "You can play in Aunt Lucy's camper all afternoon tomorrow if you want."

"No," Pepper said, "I have to be on the set. To bring Aunt Lucy apples. Because Stephanie is worthless."

"Pepper!" Daisy said.

"Okay," Pepper said with a dramatic sigh. "Can I take the Wonder Woman stuff with me?"

"Yes," Daisy said, not meeting Lucy's eyes. "Hurry up."

Pepper packed all her stuff back in the Jax Comix bag, checking first to see that there wasn't anything else in there.

"What are you looking for?" Lucy asked.

"I thought there might be another comic book," Pepper said. "I can read those."

Well, if she couldn't save Daisy tonight, she could at least give Pepper something to look forward to. She took the bag from her and read the stamped address. "I think this place is pretty close. Captain Wilder said he had an appointment someplace nearby, so he must have found it on his way there. How about tomorrow morning, we go look at this place and get you some comics?"

"Just you and me?" Pepper's face lit up.

"Just you and me, baby," Lucy said, relieved to be doing something right. "If that's all right with your mom."

"Yep." Daisy yawned. "First call isn't until one, so I'm sleeping in."

"Thank you, Aunt Lucy," Pepper said, her voice thrilled. "And then I can show Crafty and Estelle in wardrobe and Mary Vanity what I got."

I have to get this kid into school so she can play with somebody under twenty, Lucy thought and then looked at Daisy's strained face. And I'm going to save you, too, you dumb-butt. "I'll pick you up at eleven," she told Pepper, who hugged her and then climbed out of the trailer, the Jax bag clutched to her chest.

Daisy paused in the doorway. "Luce-I'm sorry I asked Connor to call you."

Lucy went very still. "You asked Connor to call me? I thought he'd sicced you on me when I told him no."

Daisy swallowed. "Connor wanted to just finish the shoot. Do it himself. But I told him he'd run into big-time union trouble, what with everyone bailing out after the director died; that he needed a real director. I told him he should call you."

Lucy frowned at her. "Why would you tell him that? You don't care about this movie, nobody here does."

Pepper's voice floated through the night air. "Come on, Mom!"

"I just wanted to see you," Daisy said, trying to smile. "And he did, too. He's never stopped loving you, Lucy."

"That would explain the ten thousand women he has undoubtedly slept with since I left," Lucy said.

"Come on, Mom," Pepper said.

Daisy shook her head and went out the door, and Lucy watched her take Pepper's hand and cross the parking lot to her car.

You told him to call me because you wanted me to save you, she thought. Big sister to the rescue again. So why won't you tell me what's wrong? She slumped back in her chair.

It was her fault. She should have kept a closer watch on Daisy, checked in more often with Pepper. She'd been all caught up in her own life, her career, and hadn't thought-

Well, that was then, this is now. Tomorrow, she'd talk to Gloom, find out what he'd learned talking to the crew, find out what Daisy was taking, solve whatever mess was driving her to take it, talk her into getting Pepper into school…

And she'd have to thank Captain Wilder for the Wonder Woman doll, too. Big day, she thought.

Then she got another root beer and sat down to read the script.

By the time Wilder recrossed the bridge, his hangover had turned into exhaustion despite the hair-of-the-dog beers in the diner. Or perhaps it was just Crawford and the fucking CIA suddenly showing up that had drained all his energy. Whatever the cause, he went back to the Westin to the room Bryce had gotten for him adjacent to his own, grateful to be away from both the CIA and the movie set. Those people were crazy.

But at the door he paused, his hand halfway to the knob that still had the do not disturb tag hanging from it. Someone had been in the room. The telltale piece of clear tape he'd left on the lower-left corner of the door had been broken. Either someone had fucked up and entered by mistake or someone was waiting in there to fuck him up or someone had gone through his stuff, which would just plain be fucked up. His left hand snaked behind his back and he pulled out his Glock automatic pistol, making the decision to fight not flee.