Cereal Killer

said that a model must be in top shape, no matter what size.
    Next to her on the side of the spa was another equally beautiful model. Fair skinned, the brunette’s short curls had golden highlights that complimented her complexion. She had a European look about her heart-shaped face, and her eyes slanted upward at the outer edges. She was speaking to Matt Slater, and Savannah could hear a distinct French accent.
    Probably fifteen to twenty pounds less than the woman next to her, the French model wore a one-piece red suit with a halter strap around the back of her long neck.
    Savannah couldn’t have felt more awkward if she were a guppy swimming with a batch of prize koi in a pet store aquarium. And she silently cursed Leah Freed for insisting on this subterfuge.
    Not that she was above subterfuge. Quite the contrary. But she preferred to spin yarns, even tell outright whopping lies, that were of her own making.
    Okay, I'm here, she told herself. Now what the heck am I supposed to do?
    Fortunately, the awkward moment was broken when a tall guy with a shaved head, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, came bounding over to her, a clipboard in his hand, a pen behind his ear.
    “Are you”—he looked down at his clipboard— “Susan Ross?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    He held out his hand and gave hers half a shake. “I’m Paul Loman, the art director.”
    “Hi.”
    She shifted her bag from one hand to the other, wondering what in tarnation you were supposed to say to an art director at a shoot. “Leah was supposed to call you about me,” she said.
    “Yeah, she did.” He glanced up and down her figure with a critical eye that made her feel like a mannequin coming off an assembly line and not quite passing inspection. “Okay, you’ll do.” Then he focused on her face and frowned. “No foundation?”
    “Oh, yes,” she stammered, holding out her kit. “I have all kinds of foundation garments with me. I—”
    “Foundation. Makeup. I like my girls to take care of that before they arrive for work.” He snapped his fingers. “Time is money. In the future, if you’re going to work for me, arrive prepared.”
    She gritted her teeth, then smiled. “Of course. Sorry.”
    “Over there,” he said, motioning to a corner of the deck area where a blonde and a brunette, also dressed in swimsuits, were sitting at a picnic table, applying their own makeup. “And plenty of contour, too,” he said, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of his chin while staring at hers. ‘You’ve got some, you know, too much...”
    His voice trailed away as he left her and returned to the tub, where the photographer was positioning the two models who were apparently the “star” material here at the shoot today. A hairstylist was fussing with the Latin girl’s hair while another woman dabbed the French model’s forehead with powder.
    Lesson Number One, she told herself. Some models do their own hair and makeup; others have it done for them.
    And, apparently, at today’s shoot, she was one of the do-it-your-own-self “others.” Oh, well, she thought, you can't expect to start at the top. You probably need a dozen or more shoots under your belt before they give you champagne and caviar and your own personal masseuse.
    She joined the two girls at the picnic table, who greeted her with a subdued “Hi” and a “How’s it going?” Hauling out her makeup case, Savannah felt the way she had at her first formal dinner, when confronted with an assortment of twenty-five pieces of silverware. Granny Reid had once given her the sage advice: “When you’re in a social situation, and you don’t know what to do, pick out the classiest person in the room and do what they do.”
    While she wouldn’t necessarily label either of the girls at the table as “classy,” they seemed to know what they were doing, and that was—applying tons of makeup to their faces.
    “Painted Jezebels,” Granny would have called them. Or “Whores of Babylon,” if Gran had been in a particularly foul mood.
    Oh, well, when in Rome... or Babylon, she thought as she began to slap on an obscene amount of foundation. “You Leah’s new girl?” the blond one asked her.
    “Yes. Susan’s the name.”
    “Who’d you have before?” asked the brunette. “Have? Before?”
    “Your agent.”
    “Oh, ah...” She tried desperately to remember any of the names Leah had put on her fake résumé. ‘Just some guy in Hollywood.”
    There. That ought to be significantly