Undercover In High Heels

I nodded. “What’s going on?” I asked, gesturing to the crowd, which I could swear was growing by the second.

Kylie grimaced, rolling her lips inward and stuffing her hands into her pockets. “You haven’t heard? It was all over the morning news.”

I shook my head. The only report I’d tuned in to had been traffic between Evanescence songs on Star 98.7.

Kylie frowned again, scrunching up her ski-jump nose. “It’s Veronika, ” she said. “Mia’s stand-in.”

“What about her? Is she okay?” I asked, craning to see again.

Kylie bit her lip, her voice cracking. “No, she’s not. Maddie, she’s dead.”

Chapter 5

I blinked at her, my vision going fuzzy. It was one thing to witness dead bodies on Law & Order, but the idea of someone I’d just seen alive and well yesterday suddenly needing a toe tag made my itty-bitty latte in my stomach feel like a loop-d-loop coaster at Six Flags.

“Dead?” I repeated. “What do you mean, dead?”

Kylie’s throat bobbed up and down. “They found her this morning. In Mia’s trailer.”

“Mia’s trailer?” My limbs turned to instant Jell-O. I leaned a hand on the side of the building for support, vividly remembering that creeped-out feeling I’d had in her trailer just the day before.

Even though Veronika had looked the picture of health yesterday, I had to ask. “Did she have a heart attack or something?”

But I already knew the answer even as Kylie shook her head, strands of blonde hair whipping her cheeks. Young pretty actresses didn’t just have heart attacks. Especially not in the trailers of women being stalked by obsessive fans.

“No. They’re saying she was”-Kylie lowered her voice to a whisper-“killed. Can you believe it? Stein-man said we should all go home. He’s closing the set today, you know, because of all this…” She trailed off, staring at the hovering gawkers.

I took a deep breath, trying to get that churning latte under control. This was way too much to absorb before 9:00 A.M. I craned to see through the crowd again. Grips mingled with extras, who mingled with hair and makeup, all straining for a glimpse of what would undoubtedly be Access Hollywood’s top story tonight. And mixed in with the curiosity seekers, I spotted someone I knew.

Someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

He hovered near the back in a rumpled white button-down, sneakers, and a pair of wrinkled khaki pants. He had to be the only person in the known universe who could wrinkle Dockers that badly. He looked like he’d slept in his car, or worse yet, not slept at all. His neatly clipped, sandy blond hair stuck out ever so slightly in the back, and his jaw bore the tiniest dusting of blond hairs, giving him an overall lived-in look. He was one of the few people not craning his neck to get a better look at the gruesome sight I now knew hovered just beyond my eye line. Instead, he was talking into his hand, where I’d bet anything he held a tiny voice recorder.

“Felix, ” I mumbled, stepping up beside him.

To his credit, when I hissed in his ear he didn’t jump nearly as high as Kylie had.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“You’re kidding, right?” he answered with the hint of a British accent in his deep voice. “This is the story of the century, love.”

Felix Dunn worked as a reporter for the L.A. Informer, which, as I may have mentioned, is one of Southern California’s sleaziest tabloids. In addition to regular photos of myself engaged in various…misunderstandings…they delighted in printing photos of celebrity cellulite, Bat Boy’s secret lover, and Big- foot’s love child with the Crocodile Woman. Generally their stories were ten percent truth and ninety percent sensationalism. I had worked with Felix on one of his rare real stories last year, purely out of need on my part, but I hadn’t seen him since. Which was a good thing, as far as I was concerned. Felix had an annoying habit of snapping unflattering photos of me, then pasting my head on Pamela Anderson’s body.

“Isn’t this a bit out of your league?” I asked. “I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that Sasquatch was involved.”

“Ha, ha. Bloody funny. You ever think of dropping the whole shoe career for the comedy stage?”

I stuck my tongue out at him. What can I say? Felix brought out the second-grader in me.

“For your information, ” he continued, “the Informer will pay thousands for a story like this. Not to mention photos.”

I paused. Thousands? For a half second my bank account warred with my sense of morality. “Thousands? Seriously?” I asked.

Felix shrugged. “What can I say? Tabloids sell.”

He lifted his hand, ostensibly to scratch his head, but I noticed his palm was facing toward the trailer. Not only a voice recorder, but he also must have had a camera tucked in there.

I couldn’t help myself. Curiosity got the better of me.

“What do you see?” I asked, standing on tiptoe again.

Felix shrugged. “Not much. They’ve got the trailer sealed off. They haven’t brought her body out yet. A few blokes with black bags have gone in. And there are cops all over.”

At the mention of the word cops, my mind suddenly went to one cop in particular. Ramirez. I wondered if he was here, and if so, how badly his superiors would rip him a new one this time. He’d been assigned to this “babysitting” job, as he put it, to watch the set. And now look. A dead body. Ironically, he was back in the middle of a homicide investigation, but I wasn’t altogether sure his superiors would see this as a good thing. Homicide detectives usually came on the case after the body was dead, not before.

As if he could read my mind, Felix said, “I saw your boyfriend go in a few minutes go. He didn’t look too happy.”

“Yeah, well, most people aren’t happy when some-one’s murdered. Unlike tabloid reporters.”

“What? I’m sorry the poor girl died, ” he responded. He grinned, showing off a row of slightly crooked teeth and dimples in both cheeks. It was, as I was learning, his charming look, a la Hugh Grant. Luckily I knew him well enough not to be deceived by a little thing like charm.

“Uh-huh. That’s why you’re grinning like the Cheshire cat, Tabloid Boy.”

“What can I say? I guess I’m just a happy-go-lucky kind of fellow.” And with that he did a mock stretch and yawn, pointing his palm toward the trailer for a few more clicks.

“So, what happened here?” I asked.

Felix shot me a sidelong glance.

“Come on, I know you’ve got all the dirt.”

He grinned again. “And suddenly Tabloid Boy has his uses.”

I rolled my eyes. “You going to share or not?”

Lucky for me, Tabloid Boy couldn’t sit on a juicy story. “All right, since you asked so nicely. It appears the wardrobe girl-”

“Dusty, ” I supplied.

Felix raised one eyebrow, making a mental note. “You know the bird?”

“Met her yesterday. Go on.”

“Okay, well, it seems Dusty found her this morning around six-fifteen. She was in Mia’s trailer, dead. Strangled with-you’re going to love this part-a pair of panty hose.”

I always knew those things were evil. I grimaced as Felix continued.

“So far, the speculation is that she died sometime between midnight and three A.M. They’re questioning everyone with access to the lot. But what Veronika was doing in Mia’s trailer, no one’s sure of yet.”

“And Mia?” I asked. “Where’s she?”

Felix shrugged. “Probably surrounded by body-guards at this point. I’ll tell you one thing she’s not doing.”