I looked down at my hand and doubled-checked the address. Granted, after my great escape, I’d sweated some of the street name off, but the number was still visible enough. “This is it.”
She shrugged. “I guess it takes all kinds.”
I followed her up the rose-flanked pathway to the front door, nerves starting to build. I admit that the idea of coming face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer did more than a little to creep me out. Not to mention the fact that I’d just done a high-heeled striptease for him. I looked down at my pumps and blushed. If he made one reference to licking anything below the ankle, I was so out of here, killer or no.
Jasmine gave the bell a ring and we waited while it echoed inside. Two beats later the door opened, and I got my first glimpse of BigBoy78.
My jaw dropped, and I stared in disbelief.
Deveroux Strong’s frame filled the doorway, his broad shoulders clad in a baby blue sweater with skintight white leather pants beneath. He wore alligator-skin black ankle boots, and one diamond stud winked at me from his left earlobe.
“Hey, Maddie, ” he said, a big white smile flashing across his tanned face. Then he looked behind me and spotted Jasmine. At first his eyes went big, as if he’d seen a ghost (or a fifty-foot billboard come to life), and then his cheeks turned a red to rival Rudolph’s shiny nose as he realized why we were here. “Oh.”
“Yep, that’s him. That’s the guy I saw Veronika bring home, ” Jasmine said, jabbing me in the ribs.
Deveroux gave a fleeting glance at my pumps, then, if it were possible, blushed even deeper. “Uh, look, I can explain.”
“You were dating Veronika?” I sputtered, finally finding my voice. Theories tumbled one over another in my head, making me question whether we’d made a mistake after all.
Deveroux looked nervously from side to side. “Maybe you’d better come in.”
I nodded, mutely following him into a neatly decorated living room just a little on the floral side for my taste. Deveroux sat on an orange, hibiscus-printed sofa set next to a lilac-covered armchair, and gestured for Jasmine and me to take the petunia-studded love seat. (Okay, a
“You’re BigBoy78?” I asked.
Deveroux went red again, his blush spreading all the way to his blond roots. “Look, it’s not what you think. I’m not into that porn stuff. I just…I just have a thing for feet.”
“I noticed, ” I mumbled, tucking my heels underneath me.
“Specifically Veronika’s feet?” Jasmine prodded. She leaned forward in her seat, her heavily lifted eyes intent on Deveroux’s face. For how badly I’d had to bribe her to get here, she was really getting into this questioning-a- suspect thing. Any second now I feared she’d pull a spotlight and a billyclub from her leather clutch.
He nibbled at his lip. “Yeah. Look, not that it makes any difference now, but Veronika and I were…well, kind of an item.”
“Wait-I thought you were gay?”
Deveroux put one hand on his leather-clad hip and tilted his frosted tips at me. “What makes you think I’m gay?”
Hmmm…
“Okay. So, you’re not gay.”
“No, I’m not, ” he said emphatically. Then picked at a stray piece of lint on his sweater. “That’s just a vicious tabloid rumor.”
“And you were dating Veronika?”
He nodded. “For the last four months. We met when she started working on
“And soon after
The blush worked itself into an all-out five-alarm fire across his forehead. “Look, it’s perfectly normal for a man to enjoy a woman’s feet. Feet are the most beautiful part of a woman’s body. Ancient cultures have revered women’s feet for thousands of years. It’s not weird!”
Not wanting to aggravate a potential killer, not to mention relive my moments as a foot whore, I changed the subject. “How serious were things between the two of you?”
“Very. We were both going to leave the show at the end of my contract. One more season. We were…” He paused, a watery look in his eyes, and sniffed hard. “We were going to get married.”
“Married?” Jasmine spit out. “She never said anything like that to me. And she had a six-month lease!”
I shot her a look.
“Deveroux, did you know that Veronika was pregnant?” I asked.
He nodded, his eyes tearing up in earnest. “She told me just last week. I was so exited. We were going to get married and move to Oregon. My sister’s got a big place up there near the coast.”
“Oregon?” Jasmine yelled. “Why, that sneaky little…”
I gave her a quick shot to the ribs.
“Veronika was okay with leaving the show?”
Deveroux nodded. “It was her idea to move away-away from all the Hollywood types. In case you hadn’t noticed, the set can get kind of wild at times.”
Understatement alert.
“Anyway, ” he continued, “she said she was coming into some money soon and we could put a down payment on a place near my sister.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Money?” I asked, remembering how little Dana said stand-ins made. “What kind of money?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. But she said she’d been working on something and her investment was about to pay off.”
“Investment? That’s what she called it?”
He nodded.
I turned to Jasmine.
“Hey, don’t look at me, ” she said. “My girls get free room and board from me, but that’s it.”
I wondered. Veronika hadn’t struck me as the kind to put her pennies into stocks and bonds. Granted, I hadn’t known her that well, but the fact that she was playing strip Go Fish for rent didn’t speak to a bank account bursting with extra funds.
Which left one alternative.
Blackmail.
I worded my next question carefully. “Deveroux, was Veronika particularly close to anyone on the set? Anyone who might have shared, say, a secret with her?”
His white-blond eyebrows (perfectly waxed, I noticed-wait till I told Felix this guy was straight!) drew together. “Well, she did have coffee with Kylie a couple of times.”
My ears pricked up. Coffee? Or a confession where Kylie let slip a deep, dark secret worth killing Veronika over? I had to admit, I had a hard time putting the perky cheerleaderesque Tina Rey in the role of homicidal maniac. But stranger things had happened.
“But, ” Deveroux continued, “Veronika was really careful about keeping her personal life separate from her work. She was worried that if someone on the set found out she worked for the Web site, they’d fire her. I mean, despite the drama in the script, our core demographic is Middle American housewives. It’s one thing to have scandalous story lines, but an
He turned to Jasmine as an afterthought. “No offense.”
She shrugged. “None taken. You paid for my last two photofacials.”
Deveroux blushed again.
“No one else she was particularly close to on the set?”
He shook his head. “Why do you ask?”
