He keeps things on track

"Okay, so we've established that she has a superficial similarity to you," Billy said louder than he really needed to. He felt like a high school teacher with a class of randy students. "She was out of action for a month and contacted us about doing a movie. Her **** use had her blackballed with a lot of companies," he frowned as Rachel giggled, and pushed on. "We figured she was trying a come-back."

"Barely eighteen and already having to make a come-back," Tyrone shook his head. "The bitch had potential, but she was just doing movies to get ****."

Billy nodded. "She was doing one-a-day and blowing through the money as fast as she got it. "This is the last movie she did," he said, clicking on the dvd.

Rachel watched the big plasma flatscreen come to life, and looked around the room with a frown. Aside from the TV the only other things that looked like they hadn't come from the town dump was the stereo, the dvd player and the hard-drive recorder beneath it.

On the screen she immediately recognized Rachel Spinner. As always she was doing a threesome, but Rachel couldn't for the life of her figure how anyone would call this girl sexy, much less say that she and Rachel bore a resemblance.

"She looks like a skeleton!" she said, and Billy nodded, pausing the video.

"No one would take her after that. Even the seediest and cheapest of places don't want walking skeletons doing their porn. Maybe a studio specializing in anorexia and food disorder fetishes would have...."

"What?" she exclaimed.

"Gross," Carl muttered, echoed by Tyrone.

Billy shrugged. "There's a market for everything, but apparently she didn't go to any of those. She disappeared for a month. Surprised the hell out of me when she contacted us." he motioned to his boys. "By then we thought she was dead. As it happens," he paused. "Do you remember how my phone went off and I left the room?"

Rachel nodded.

"Well, that was someone from the industry telling me that someone tentatively identified as Rachel Spinner was found in an alley, dead of an overdose of heroin, if not other things."

"Jesus," Rachel gasped, aghast.

Billy ran his fingers through his short hair, looking pained as he admitted, "I had no idea what to do. I thought you were her and we were getting what would be the hottest scoop. Rachel Spinner, back from the dead, so to speak," he finished bitterly, thumping down into his chair with dejection.

Rachel's hand taking his nearly had him jumping in surprise, but she ignored his reaction, stroking his hands soothingly. "You couldn't have known," she told him, and he shrugged. "Look, I can see that we bear a resemblance." she pointed to an earlier picture of Spinner and grimaced, "Sort of. With a bit of surgery."

"Yeah, well..." he sighed. "I should have told you then, I... I don't know...."

"Hey bro," Carl chimed in, moving up right next to Rachel to lean towards Billy. Rachel's eyes widened, he pupils dilating at his proximity. "It's simple. You were in shock. You acted on auto-pilot so it wouldn't panic."

Tyrone nodded, leaning toward his friend. "You did what anyone would have done. You were already in acting mode, you just stayed in character because you didn't know what else to do."

Billy looked down so they wouldn't see the tears in his eyes, but Rachel seemed to know, her soft fingers curling around his much bigger, rougher ones. "Yeah," he choked out. "I guess."

"Okay, so now what do we do?" Carl asked, breaking the morose mood.