her talent for drawing people out in front of the lens.
David had been killed by a land mine while filming a rebel outbreak along the Western Tanzanian border where it met Burundi when Rina was just fifteen. He’d also been one of the earliest journalists to embed with troops, long before the term was actually coined and the concept became popular.
Things were never the same in her family after that. Her mother tried to put her children in a protective bubble, especially after Rina’s father died a few years later and her aunt went wild and ended up impulsively marrying a Navy SEAL who was as much, if not more, of a wild man than her uncle had been.
And Rina had done a little of both extremes, a little pushing of boundaries and then retreating to safety. And, as much as she wanted the grant proposal to go through, as much as she wanted to travel and see the world and meet extraordinary people—people who made a difference—and continue her uncle’s work, she was scared.
One year behind the camera on projects that pushed men and women to their physical limits and beyond hadn’t helped matters any. A good filmmaker had to keep an emotional distance from the subject on the other side of the lens, and her fear of getting involved, pulled in to any of that, helped a great deal on this project. Impartiality, being able to look at what the subjects were doing with a critical and non-judgmental eye, was crucial.
Rina wasn’t sure what had happened when she saw Cash, but nothing would beyond watching the tape pretty often over the next few weeks, anyway.
Her uncle would have pushed her hard to get that grant as soon as possible to go into Africa and begin shooting the first segment in the proposal. And she was scared to death at the thought of moving forward like that, and of telling her mother her plans.
Cross that bridge, and a few oceans, when you get to it. Her uncle had been passionate enough about his work to put himself out there, at risk. When the time was right, she’d need to rise to the challenge. Until then, just getting to that opportunity took up her focus.
“My uncle would be out there on the board himself,” she said.
“Maybe that surfer could show you a few moves. Loosen you up and remind you that there’s more to life than what happens behind the scenes.”
“I’ll leave the wild-child act to you, okay?”
Stella shook her head. “Well, at least hurry up and show the video to Vic. Like, this afternoon would work,” Stella urged.
“Not going to be a problem,” she murmured, more to the man named Cash than herself, who still smiled at her from the screen. “Not going to be a problem at all.”
“WE’VE GOT A not-so-small problem,” Vic said, and her heart sank.
Rina stared at her boss, who’d managed to find the loudest Hawaiian shirt she’d ever seen and pair it with bright orange swim trunks. How everyone else on this project managed to slip time in for vacation while she’d been holed up in this cubicle was beyond her, but now wasn’t the time for complaints. “Okay. Tell me.”
“This is shaping up to be the best video in the series. The best work you’ve ever done,” he said, and she waited, held her breath because so far she hadn’t heard anything that constituted a problem. “But Zoot’s assistant never got a release form from one of the surfers. That guy named Cash.”
Without a signed release form, she wouldn’t be allowed to use Cash’s face on film. These days, many people even balked at being a faceless image on a screen, and Vic insisted on signed releases for everyone captured on film in his video productions.
Her stomach sank and she could literally feel her big chance slipping through her fingers. She fisted her hands in an attempt to stop that from happening.
“Are you sure? Maybe the paperwork just got misplaced.” She heard the panic in her voice and she wished Stella was here with her instead of with Zoot in a jeep headed to the other side of the island.
“I’m sure. You’ll have to cut him out.”
“Vic, cutting him out is going to ruin everything,” she said. Everything. It would also require days of work, and the video just wouldn’t have the same impact.
Cash’s face—and her career dreams—flashed before her eyes. To have to hire a big-name surfer would cost money the production company didn’t have, and their focus on this particular line of videos was not to showcase pros, but rather, rabid fanatics of the sport who wanted to turn pro and devoted all their time and energy to it.
“I don’t see any other choice.”
“I can track him down,” she said, and Vic sighed and shook his head.
“The footage was shot only yesterday morning over in Oahu, near the Pipeline,” he offered reluctantly. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll find him there.”
“How could Zoot and Keith forget to get a release?” she asked, because the main cameraman on this series was usually far more on-the-ball about these things.
Her boss shrugged. “Keith said one minute the guy was there, and the next, he was gone.”
It was worth a shot trying to track him down. Because this film—this great film—was getting submitted as part of her grant proposal. The film was the part of the package that everything hinged on.
No way was she letting this go down without a fight. “Besides yesterday’s location, any idea where I could start to look?”
Vic handed her a piece of paper. “This guy runs a surf shop. Supposedly, he knows everybody who’s anybody in that area. If your surfer’s a regular, you might have some luck.”
“I KNOW CASH,” the man the natives called Bobo said.
Rina clutched the counter so hard she thought she’d leave dents. “Do you know where I can find him? This is really important,” she told him, but suddenly, everyone in the crowded surf shop seemed to have some sort of opinion on her wayward subject.
“Cash doesn’t live on the island. Dude comes here a few times a year to surf,” another man called out from the back of the store where he was setting up a display of surfboards.
“No one knows what his deal is, but the man can hang ten with the best of them. Could go pro if he wanted to.”
“Rumor has it he’s rich as hell, living off his inheritance and beach-bumming around the world,” surfboard display guy said.
“Another rumor says he’s got some kind of criminal past and he’s island-hopping and hiding from the feds,” a customer added, while Bobo rang up his purchases.
“I’m not sure you’re his type.” A tall, cool blonde, the opposite of everything Rina was, approached the counter and looked her up and down. “He likes blondes.”
“Don’t listen to her—she thinks everyone likes blondes,” Bobo said. “Cash is equal opportunity with women. He likes them all.”
“I’ll just bet,” she murmured, because that was par for the course with the men in these videos. Rina had learned from Stella’s example, since her friend had found out the hard way. She’d fallen for one of the drag racers from their first documentary
