I blinked, my mind going blank as I white-knuckled the coffee cup to keep from spilling it all over Ramirez’s sheets.
“Whose body?” I asked.
But it was too late. Ramirez was already out the door. I sprang up from the bed, wrapping the sheet around my middle as I trailed after him into the living room.
“Wait! Whose body?”
Ramirez was at the front door, shoving his wallet in his back pocket. “Look, just stay out of this, okay, Maddie? You’ve already got some psycho pissed off at you. Just stay here and I’ll be back later.”
“Jackson Wyoming Ramirez, don’t you dare walk out that door!”
Ramirez paused, hand hovering over the doorknob, and raised one eyebrow at me.
“Um, please?”
He shook his head at me, and I could swear the corner of Bad Cop’s lips quivered ever so slightly. “Look, I don’t know whose body yet. They just said they found a woman in the Central Park section of the lot. She was strangled, just like Veronika.”
I shivered, suddenly cold beneath my thin makeshift toga. “I’m going with you.” I dropped the sheet and grabbed my discarded sundress, cake stains and all, from the living room floor.
“No!” In one quick movement, Ramirez was across the room, grabbing one end of the dress in a tug-of-war. “No way. You are staying here.”
I tugged back. “Like hell I am.”
“Maddie, I’m warning you…”
“Let go of my dress!”
“Not until you promise to stay put.”
“You’re going to stretch it.”
“Then let go.”
“No, you let go!”
“No, you-”
But he didn’t get to finish that thought as the horrible sound of ripping fabric filled the air and I went flying backward, landing on my bare tush on his hardwood floor. I looked down. I had half a cake-stained sundress in my hands.
“You ripped my dress!” I moaned. “This was a discontinued Betsey Johnson summer-collection baby-doll dress! It’s irreplaceable. And now I have nothing to wear!”
For half a second Ramirez looked like he might have been sorry. But as he stared down at me, that wicked grin stole across his face again.
“Well, I guess you’re staying here then.”
That was it; he was dead meat.
I lunged for him, but thanks to his quick copreflexes, he was out the door before I could even peel myself off the floor.
“I am so not moving in with you!” I yelled to the closed door. But I was pretty sure he didn’t hear me over the sound of his SUV screeching out of the drive.
Great. Now what?
I pulled the sheet back around my middle and plopped down on the sofa. I stuck one fingernail in my mouth as my mind twisted over just whose body Ramirez was racing to view. Could it be Mia’s? Had the killer really been after her this whole time? Or maybe it was another victim of the killer baby-daddy. Maybe Veronika hadn’t been the only one he was fooling around with. Or maybe it was someone who had seen him offing Veronika. A witness? Maybe it was completely unrelated to anything. A copycat?
I grabbed Ramirez’s space-shuttle remote and tried to turn on the news. But since my technical skills ended at being able to program my Mr. Coffee, all I could get was a giant screen full of snow and static. I gave up, instead grabbing Ramirez’s cordless from the end table and dialing the one person I knew who just might know more than the cops.
“Felix Dunn, ” he answered. I could hear sirens and loud voices in the background.
“It’s Maddie. You’ve heard about the body?”
“Yeah, ” he responded, “I’m at the studios now.”
I held my breath. “Who is it?”
“No idea, love. Police aren’t releasing her name yet. But I saw Mia giving a tearful comment to Entertainment Tonight just now, so I know it’s not her.”
I let out a small sigh of relief. I could just imagine what Ramirez’s superiors would say if it had been the show’s star. (Not, mind you, that he wasn’t still on my shit list after the demolition of my Betsey Johnson.)
“Any luck with the PayMate site last night?” I asked.
“Some.” Someone shouted in the background, and I strained to hear what was going on. “I was able to get into their system, but the files are still all encrypted.”
“Can you read them?”
“Not yet. Honestly, I’m thinking the easiest way to find this guy is to catch him in the act when he logs in again. Now that I’m in their system, I can trace back to his address if he stays online long enough.”
“Really? You can do that?”
“You underestimate me, love, ” he said with a hint of humor in his voice. “Problem is, we’d have to know when he’s logging on.”
I chewed my lower lip, an idea brewing. “Hang on; I’m going to put you on speakerphone, Felix.”
After only three tries I found the right button to push on Ramirez’s phone, and the living room filled with the sounds of a Hollywood crime scene.
“Still there?” I yelled.
“Bloody hell, no need to shout, girl.”
“Sorry. Okay, hang on.”
I dug my cell phone out of my purse and dialed Information for Jasmine’s number. Only a 900-number under Jasmine’s Girls, but under her own name, Jasmine Williams, I hit pay dirt.
“Okay, I’m dialing Jasmine, ” I yelled at the speakerphone.
“I’m right here; no need to shout.”
“Sorry.”
I keyed in the number and waited while Jasmine’s phone rang on the other end. She picked up after the third one.
“Yeah?” came her high-pitched Barbie voice.
“Jasmine, it’s Maddie.”
There was a pause. “Who?”
“Maddie Springer.”
Nothing.
I sighed. If I ever got this chick to remember my name, I’d feel it was a life well lived. “The one who popped the boob and is now working with the police.”
I heard Felix snicker from the speaker.
“Oh right. You. Whadda you want?” she asked. I could hear her popping a wad of gum between her bleached white veneers.
“I have a favor to ask. That guy who logged on to see Veronika-could you call me at this number if he logs in again?”
“And why should I do that?” she asked. Pop, pop.
“Because it may lead us to Veronika’s killer.”
Jasmine snorted. “So?”
Gee, such a loving soul. My eyes roved the apartment as I racked my brain for anything I could barter with. Then they settled on the speakerphone.
“How about a free ad in the L.A. Informer?”
I heard Felix shouting, “No!” from the speaker.
“What was that?” Jasmine asked.
“Television. So, what do you think?”
“I don’t know…”
“Uh…okay, how about two months of free ads? Full-page, ” I added.
“Do you have any idea how bloody expensive that is?” Felix shouted from the speaker.
I covered the mouthpiece of the cell with my hand. “Relax, ” I whispered back at him. “I know you can afford it. Besides, think of the story you’ll get.”
Felix did a pained groan, but didn’t say anything.
“So, ” I said into my cell, “do we have a deal, Jasmine?”
“You promise, full-page?”
“Promise.”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll call you the next time he logs on. But I’m warning you, I have no idea when it will be.”
“Thanks, Jasmine!” I said, flipping my Motorola shut.
“We got it, ” I shouted to Felix.
His groan filled the room. “You couldn’t have offered her a free subscription instead?”
I ignored him. “I’ll let you know the second Jasmine calls me. In the meantime, just be ready to track him.”
“This had better be one hell of a story, ” he mumbled. I heard more noises in the background and someone else shouting. “Listen, they’re moving the body. I’ve gotta go if I’m going to get any decent pictures.” Then he paused. “Oh hell.”
“What?” I pulled the sheet up over my shoulders to ward off the sudden chill in the air again. “What is it? What do you see?”
“You’d better get down here, Maddie.”
“Why? Felix, who is it?”
But he’d already hung up.
Shit.
I looked down at my tattered sundress. What were the chances Ramirez had anything in his closet in a size six?
I scooped my cell back up and dialed Dana’s number.
Luckily, Dana was up early, and I quickly filled her in on the morning’s developments. After the appropriate amount of “Ohmigod”s and “He ripped your Betsey Johnson!”s, she promised to pick me up in twenty minutes with a new outfit in hand.
In hindsight, I guess I should have been more specific about what kind of outfit. It wasn’t that Dana didn’t have good taste in clothes, just that she tended to have a little bit different taste than I did. Me, I wore clothes that made me feel confident, pretty, even sometimes a little kick-butt. Dana tended to wear outfits that either a) were made entirely of workout-friendly spandex or b) were cut low enough to cause car crashes on the 101.
I stared down at the dress in Dana’s hand as she walked in Ramirez’s front door.
“What is that?”
Dana looked from the scrap of fabric (which from here appeared to be both spandex and cut to the navel) to me. “What?”
I held it up to my body. It was a formfitting blue dress, hemline hovering somewhere just below my panty line, neckline plunging somewhere just north of that. “Seriously?” I asked, giving her the one-eyebrow thing.
“What?” Dana blinked innocently. “You asked for a dress.”
I did a mental eenie-meenie-miny-mo between a pair of Ramirez’s oversize sweats and the reject from the J-Lo Awards Dresses Collection. In the end, I slipped the dress over my head, hoping my barely Bs didn’t fall out of the neckline clearly designed for someone about two letters larger. I slipped on my pink heels, cringing just a little at how badly they clashed with the electric blue spandex, and grabbed my purse before hightailing it out the door and off to the Sunset Studios.
If it was possible, security was even tighter today than it had been before. And to make matters worse, in addition to the actors, grips, and crew members, the line spanning around the block also included various TV reporters, cameramen, and paparazzi, all vying to get through the metal detectors and into the thick of Hollywood’s hottest story.
Dana and I stood anxiously in line as I tried Felix’s number again. Straight to voice mail. I chewed on a fingernail, wondering just what he’d meant by, “You’d better get down here.”
“Hi, Dana!” A guy in a black cap and jeans passed by us, giving Dana a little wave before finding a spot at the back of the line.
Dana waved back, sinking her teeth into her lower lip as she watched his denim-clad rear retreat.
I nudged her in the ribs. “Who was that?”
“One of the other extras. Carl. Awesome biceps, huh?”
I peeked over my shoulder. “Not bad. Which reminds me”-I gave her a pointed look-“how’s the SA thing going?”
“Right. Um, great. Wonderful, in fact. Fantastic, ” she said with false cheer bordering on Mary Poppins creepy.
“No relapse yesterday?”
Dana shook her head, her blonde hair whipping her cheeks. “Nope. I taught three spinning classes at the gym, went for a four-mile hike, did some Pilates, then dropped Ricky’s car back off at his place last night.”
“Ricky’s place?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m not sure Therapist Max would approve.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, ignoring me as she latched on to my forearm with a death grip. “Guess what Ricky told me last night?”
“Spill it, ” I encouraged as we inched forward in line.
“Well, after I dropped his car off at his place, he gave me a ride home-you know, he’s such a gentleman that he didn’t even make a move on me at all, and I was totally wearing this short little micromini that, well, I have to say, looked pretty damn hot on me.”
I made a circular get-to-the-point motion with my wrist.
“Yeah, okay. Anyway, we got to talking about Mia and Margo and their whole blowup on set the other day. Well, it turns out that Margo was originally cast for the part of Ashley. Mia was supposed to play Nurse Nan, but she convinced the producers that Margo was too old to play opposite Ricky. She got the parts switched.”
“Wow, Mia really knows how to make friends, huh?”
Dana nodded. “Apparently there’s been bad blood between them ever since.”
I didn’t blame Margo. If I’d lost out on the part of Ashley Culver because some diva had called me old, I’d be pretty pissed too. I was beginning to wonder whether maybe the LAPD was right after all. Maybe Mia was the target in all this.
Which made me wonder again just who was DOA in Central Park.
I shoved that fingernail back in my mouth, chewing anxiously, as Dana and I finally made it to the front of the line. After Billy checked our names against the list, I set my bag down on the conveyer belt, took off my shoes, ring, and necklace and, just for good measure, unhooked my bra, slipping it out through my right sleeve and dropping it into the front pocket of my purse. I was taking no chances this time.
Feeling confident (especially since I’d made Dana stash her vibrator in the car), I stepped through the metal detector. Nothing. Nada. Not a beep. I gave Queen Latifah a triumphant smile.
But, honestly, when was my luck ever that good?
“Miss?” Bug-eyed Billy called out, holding open my purse.
“It’s just my bra, ” I explained. “I didn’t want the underwire setting off the metal detectors.” Again.
Billy peered at me through his Coke-bottle lenses, his jaw set in as hard a line as a jowly eighty-year-old’s can get. Then he sent a warning look to Latifah. “It’s a two-fifteen.”
“A what?” I asked.
But apparently Queen Latifah knew exactly what a two-fifteen was, as she sprang into action, pulling her walkie-talkie from her belt and shouting into it: “Code two-fifteen, we’ve got a code two-fifteen at the west entrance. Requesting backup immediately.”
“Whoa-backup?” My gaze whipped between Billy’s hard stare and Latifah’s frenzied shouting. “What’s going on here?”
I blame it on the fact that I’m blonde, have been a little preoccupied with my crappier-than-a-tractor-full-of-fertilizer love life, and was on a set full of whacked-out actors (not to mention dead bodies) that I didn’t catch on sooner. That I didn’t remember the last time I’d seen Felix and the fact that, in my morning-after glow, I’d completely forgotten all about…
Bug-eyed Billy used a Sharpie to hook Felix’s handgun and pull it out of my purse. The grips in line jumped back, one of them actually gasping. Queen Latifah’s hand hovered over her own weapon, and she escalated her shouts into her walki-talkie until she sounded like she’d gone for the triple-shot espresso that morning.
“Ohmigod, Maddie! You have a gun?” Dana shrieked behind me.
“Look, I can explain, ” I said, holding my hands out in front of me. “It’s not loaded.” I think. “And it’s not even mine.”
Bug-eyed Billy narrowed his eyes at me. “Just like the neck massager wasn’t yours?”
“Right!” Only I realized too late that that was Billy’s attempt at sarcasm. “No! I mean, no, not like that. That was a misunderstanding. This is…It’s not mine!” I protested, really starting to worry now.
And then worry turned to downright panic as three more security guards rounded the corner, hands hovering over their weapons.
“Miss, please put your hands in the air.”
“I…I…” I sputtered.
“Just do it, Maddie. They look serious, ” Dana advised, taking a few steps backward.
I lifted my arms above my head, hoping my neckline didn’t shift low enough to give the grips a free show.
“Get down on your knees, ” one of the security guards barked.
“Is this really necessary-”
But Queen Latifah cut me off, tackling me from behind and slamming my body onto the ground beneath hers.
“Unh.” I felt the air rush out of me, my head going fuzzy as she pinned me with her bulk. This chick should seriously think about calling Jenny Craig.
“I got her! I got the two-fifteen!” Latifah called. I watched as three pairs of feet scuffled toward me, one of them pinning my hands behind my back a second before cool metal handcuffs slapped against my wrists.
“No, wait, it’s not like that…Please, you don’t understand…”
But it was useless. Even as I protested my innocence, the three security guards lifted me up by my armpits and were dragging me, still in my bare feet, toward the back of the lot.
“Don’t worry; I’m right behind you, ” Dana called.
I looked over my shoulder. The grips were giving Dana a wide berth, while Bug-eyed Billy meticulously went through her handbag.
Since my watch was in my purse, which had obviously been confiscated, I had no idea how long I sat at the folding table in the four-by-six room at the back of the Sunset Studios security office. But it was long enough that I was starting to fidget beneath the glare of the buzzing fluorescent lights. I nervously twirled one strand of blonde hair between my fingers, wondering what the charge for carrying a weapon onto studio property was. I wondered if it was even registered. Or legal. Maybe I was carrying a hot gun?
That was it: I was so switching back to pepper spray.
I was just wondering if Mrs. Rosenblatt had any more of her secret stash when the door opened and in walked Detective Prune Face, followed closely by Ramirez.
Gone was any trace of the guy who’d brought me coffee in bed this morning. Instead, his eyes were dark and unreadable, his jaw set into those hard lines of granite, his posture stiff and unyielding, as if it took every ounce of strength he had not to reach over the table and strangle the blonde in slutty spandex.
I gulped down a dry lump.
Oh boy.
Prune Face looked at me, recognition dawning. “Wardrobe girl again.” He turned to Ramirez. “You wanna take this one?”
Ramirez’s granite jaw flinched. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
Prune Face hovered at the door a moment, his gaze bouncing between us. Finally he shrugged and backed out of the room. “Good luck.”
I wasn’t sure if that was directed at Ramirez or me. But by the death look in Ramirez’s eyes, it was clear I could use all the luck I could get.
I shifted nervously as Ramirez sat down in the folding chair opposite me and crossed his arms over his chest, silently staring me down.
“Okay, so here’s the thing. The gun-totally not mine. And I didn’t even remember I was carrying it. It just kind of slipped into my purse. Well, I guess technically Felix slipped it in-”
“Felix?” he interrupted.
“The reporter, remember? From the Informer. He’s…uh, a friend.”
Ramirez narrowed his eyes at me. “Friend?”
I bit my lip. “Yeah. Sorta.”
His eyes did that fine-slits thing again. “This the same ’friend’ who got you kidnapped last year?”
“Uh…”
He snorted. “That Felix is some guy.”
“Hey, he was just trying to offer me some protection. He was concerned about me.”
I’m not sure what made me defend Tabloid Boy, but clearly it was the wrong move. Ramirez leaned forward menacingly.
“I’m the only guy who gets to be concerned about you.”
If he didn’t look so scary, I might have been touched.
Instead, I gulped.
“What the hell are you even doing here?” Ramirez asked. He gave a long glance at my dress (lingering in what would have been the cleavage area, were I actually big enough to fill it out), and I could hear him mentally adding, In that. “I thought I told you to stay put.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, obscuring his view. “And I’m just supposed to do as I’m told, huh?”
“Once in a while it might be nice.”
“You know, you have some nerve-asking me to move in with you, then interrogating me.”
Ramirez raised one eyebrow. “Move in with me?”
“This morning you said I should stay at your place.”
Ramirez snorted again. “For a couple of days. Maddie, I didn’t say you should move in.”
I gulped back another lump, this one slightly larger. I know, I know. I’d been the one having the commitment freakout just this morning at the thought of cohabiting. But he didn’t have to sound so repulsed by the idea.
“I know!” I said a little too loudly. “I mean, it’s not like I thought you meant permanently. Of course you weren’t actually asking me to move in. I mean, hell, you’re the guy who can’t even bring himself to give me a key.”
Ramirez scrubbed a hand over his face and muttered, “Jesus, ” under his breath. “Look, just stay away from this Felix guy, okay?”
My turn to narrow my eyes. “I don’t think you’re exactly in a position to tell me who I can and can’t be friends with.”
“The guy slipped a loaded gun into your purse! You realize you could have been arrested for carrying that thing onto studio property?”
“He was just trying to help!”
“What would help is if you stayed the hell out of this investigation. Look, just go back to my place and wait for me there.”
“I can’t, ” I yelled, tears piling up behind my eyes. “I locked the door!”
Ramirez muttered another “Jesus.” He rubbed a hand at his temple, as if just talking to me gave him a headache. “Look, I’ll have a uniformed officer drive you home. He’ll wait with you there. Okay?”
No, not okay. I hated being treated like I needed a babysitter. But since I was currently without home, car, or decent wardrobe (not to mention being stalked by a crazy woman), I didn’t have much choice. “Fine, ” I muttered. “But tell me one thing first.”
He rubbed at his temple again. “What?” The word came out on an exasperated sigh.
“Whose body did you find in Central Park?”
Ramirez paused, putting his Bad Cop face firmly into place.
“I’m going to find out sooner or later anyway, ” I reasoned.
He gave me a look, then blew out a deep breath. “Oh hell, ” he said, caving. “I’m sorry, Maddie. It was Dusty.”