Scandal Sheet aka Hollywood Scandals

Max chuckled. “Maybe he’s checking her experience.”

“Or he’s outlining the benefits of working here.”

Max snorted. Then tilted his head to the side, eyes clearly trying to get inside Ms. Jugs stretchy little top. “Tough being the boss, huh?”

“That’s why they pay him the big bucks.”

“How come you never wear little skirts like that, Bender?”

I shot him a look. “All right, enough ogling, old man. Back to work. Those people aren’t getting any deader.”

Max gave a watery-eyed last look at our new applicant, then disappeared back behind the partition.

I flipped on my monitor and, while I waited for my system to boot up, checked my voice mail for any salacious overnight news. Lucky me, I had two messages.

I keyed my pin into the Informer’s ancient message retrieval system and heard a male voice in answer.

“Hey, girl, I was at Basque last night and, baby, do I have a good story for you.”

I grinned. One of my informants. A former sitcom star from the nineties who still held on to enough fame to get into all the right places, but whose bank account had nosedived right along with his ratings. He needed cash, I needed insider info-the relationship was a win-win.

I grabbed a pen and listened as the message continued.

“Guess whose dealer was there, talking about how he’d delivered a certain package to someone in rehab last night?…Blain Hall.”

“No way!” I blurted. I did a little happy dance in my seat. Blain Hall was the front man for Dirty Dogs, an angsty rock band that had recently swept the Grammys. Unfortunately, it turned out Blain’s raspy vocals and unending stage energy were due less to natural talent and more to cocaine. A totally eighties drug. A fact I’d pointed out in my column, citing that his choice of vice was almost as passe as his ballads of teen malaise.

Yeah, I probably wasn’t going to be on Blain’s Christmas card list this year.

I made a note to call back for all the gory details and erased the message, moving on to the next one.

At first, heavy breathing was the only sound to come through. I was about to discount it as a wrong number and delete, when the caller finally spoke up.

His voice was distorted and mixed with some sort of electronic equipment. It almost sounded like he was far away or talking in an echoing tunnel. Mechanical, deep, and eerily inhuman.

“I’ve had enough,” the odd voice began. “Enough of your malicious lies. You delight in ruining people. Well, I’ve had it with your kind. Stop printing stories about me. If you don’t…” The voice paused, heavy breaths puffing through the other end before he finished his threat. “…Tina Bender, you’re dead.”

Chapter Three

I froze, my hand clutching the receiver as the voice mail system beeped and asked me if I wanted to delete, save, or listen to the current message again. On instinct, I replayed it, straining for any sign of the caller’s identity. Was it a friend punking me? Some irritated starlet out drinking with her friends? A couple of kids crank calling the local paper?

No clue. The voice was so distorted I couldn’t even be sure it was male. It was deep, but that could easily have been manipulated by whatever machine he/she had used to make it sound like I was getting a threat from Stephen Hawking.

While the Informer had an entire file of nasty reader letters to the editor, some that even bordered on terrorist manifestoes, this was the first time I had personally received anything this weird. Granted, every now and then I got an irate call from someone’s publicist, but generally Hollywood operated on the theory that there was no such thing as bad publicity. Celebs usually started worrying when they stopped showing up in our paper.

As soon as the message ended, I hit the save button and crossed the newsroom to Felix’s office. I knocked softly on the door before pushing it open.

Felix looked up from the blonde, his gaze slowly shifting from her “girls” to me.

“Tina?” he asked.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I started. Then took my first real look at the new interviewee. She was just as much the sorority girl up close as she was from across the room. Big blue eyes, gooey pink lip gloss, mouth in a permanent sexy pout. And a shirt that was at least a size too small. She looked like she was smuggling cantaloupes under her top.

And, I noticed as I gave her the up and down, she did the same thing back to me.

“Did you need something, Tina?” Felix asked.

“Uh, I need to speak with you.”

“About?”

“Something’s come up.”

“What kind of something?” Felix prompted.

“A phone call,” I hedged, not sure how much I wanted to say in front of Barbie.

“From?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What did they say?”

I glanced at the blonde again. “Um…any chance we could discuss this in private?”

Felix shook his head. “Sorry, where are my manners? Allie, this is Tina Bender, our gossip columnist. Tina, Allie Quick. Our newest reporter.”

I raised an eyebrow his way. Seriously? He’d hired the pair of tits?

“Nice to meet you,” Allie said, extending a hand.

Reluctantly, I shook it. Her grip was firm, though my hand came away smelling like some sort of peachy lotion.

“Allie will be taking over as field reporter,” Felix went on. “Covering my old beat.”

“Fabulous.” I swear I really tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I gave Barbie a week before she realized this job involved actual work, not just cozying up to Christian Bale.

“What was this call you got?” Felix asked.

Obviously I was going to do this with an audience whether I wanted to or not. So, I told him about the weird caller and the mechanical voice and the threat on my life. Though even as I keyed my pin into the system a second time, replaying the message for the boss, I realize how silly the whole thing was. We were a tabloid. It would have been surprising if people didn’t hate us. Ninety-nine percent chance it was just some idiot blowing off steam.

Unfortunately, Felix didn’t bet odds.

“I don’t like this,” he said, replaying the message a second time. “When did this come in?”

“Last night. The time stamp says eleven thirty.”

“Were you here last night?”

“No. At home.”

“Alone?”

“My aunt was in the other room.”

“Any idea what story this guy is referring to?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Are you kidding? I’ve reamed dozens of celebs this week alone.”

“Any of the articles nasty?”

I shot him a look.

“Right,” he said. “Stupid question. You check the caller ID?”

“Restricted number.”

“Maybe you can trace the call?” Allie piped up.

I nodded. Reluctantly. “Maybe,” I hedged. Techno genius I was not. However, considering our editor in chief’s