by Lee Hollis
Poppy checked her watch.
It was already ten-thirty.
Poppy hastily jumped in her car, and sped along Date Palm Drive to Highway 111, veered right, and was pulling onto Pickfair Street within five minutes. Parking in the large adjacent structure, she hurriedly clicked along the pavement to the box office to purchase a ticket. Once inside, she bypassed the concession stand, although it wasn’t easy, and checked the theatre number on her ticket. Nine. She followed the numbers down a long hallway until she located the right theatre, glanced around to see no one else around except for a lone uniformed employee vacuuming up some spilled popcorn in the hall, and then entered the theatre.
There were some coming attractions playing on the wide screen, and a smattering of people, mostly retirees, spread throughout the theatre. Poppy trudged up the steps to the back row, which was completely empty, and sat down in a large, plush leather seat close to the middle. Then she waited. After the last preview, the lights dimmed until it was completely dark except for the stair and floor lights so latecomers could see where they were going, and the feature began with the Universal Studios logo. Poppy kept an eye out for anyone new entering the theatre as the credits unfurled with ominous, pulsating music. This was obviously not a comedy, but some kind of edge-of-your-seat thriller.
Poppy’s eyes kept flicking toward the theatre entrance, but no new moviegoers arrived, and she was soon distracted by the story unfolding on the big screen, not to mention a shower scene with Mr. Cooper unabashedly in the nude.
He certainly is a fine specimen of a man, Poppy thought to herself, also grateful she had never been asked to do any kind of nude scene during her own short-lived acting career. Even if the role called for it, not gratuitous, tastefully done, she was not certain she would have had the guts to go through with it.
Poppy suddenly felt a presence next to her, and cranked her head around to see a handsome young man, late twenties to early thirties, sandy blond hair, sitting next to her, eyes glued to the movie, crinkling the paper bag of popcorn as he dug into it and shoveled handfuls of popped kernels into his mouth.
The young man did not turn and make eye contact with Poppy yet. He just sat next to her, quietly watching the movie except for the loud crunching sound from eating his popcorn.
Poppy had never seen him enter the theatre, which probably meant he had already been one of the people in their seats, and just stealthily moved up to the back row and next to Poppy once the movie started.
The action on the big screen was taking place at night, and so the theatre was nearly pitch-black. Poppy could not see the face of the man who was sitting next to her, but when the scene cut to the following morning, the wide screen filling up with bright, blinding daylight from the sun, the whole theatre seemed to illuminate, and Poppy was able to finally identify the man who had urgently summoned her to the Mary Pickford.
It was Fabian Granger.
The tenacious, dogged, camera-ready investigative reporter who Greta had unceremoniously kicked off the set of Palm Springs Weekend for trespassing.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Fabian said in a hushed tone, eyes straight ahead, inhaling another handful of popcorn.
Poppy leaned over close to him and whispered, “Why all the subterfuge?”
Fabian scanned the theatre to make sure no one had moved to a seat closer to them in order to eavesdrop on their conversation.
“You need to be careful, people are watching you,” he warned, wiping some greasy butter off the corner of his mouth with a wadded-up napkin in his hand.
“Me? Whatever for?” Poppy gasped.
“You’ve rattled a few monkey cages, and now the monkeys are upset and agitated,” he said flatly.
“Hal Greenwood?” Poppy guessed.
Fabian nodded. “I just thought you should be aware. I’ll give you my phone number in case anything else develops.”
After exchanging phone numbers with Poppy, he started to get up to leave, but she reached out and grabbed his arm. “Wait, how do you know this?”
Fabian sat back down. “I have been working for months on an exposé of Hal Greenwood, and I’ve turned up a lot of deeply disturbing information. As I talked to people in his orbit, it got back to him and he started harassing me with phone calls, threatening to sue me for libel, spreading rumors about me to ruin my career, attacking my family, but I just kept my head down and kept going. . . .” A man a few rows down turned around in his seat and hissed, “Shhhh!”
Fabian lowered his voice. “When verbal threats didn’t work, he hired some unsavory types to follow me around, and report back to him what I was up to. . . .”
“What kind of unsavory types?” Poppy whispered.
“A couple Ukrainian spies, hired by an Israeli private detective agency, real tough guys meant to intimidate me. I’ve been seeing them outside my LA apartment watching the building, tailing me when I’m driving around, keeping track of my movements. Last month, I found a GPS tracker attached to the undercarriage cover of my car.”
“Oh my . . .” Poppy murmured. “And you think I’m now a target too?”
“Yes,” Fabian said. “You set off a lot of alarm bells when you showed up at Greenwood’s office yesterday. I have an inside source who tells me you’re now on the list. Greenwood wants to find out what you know, and how bad it is for him.”
Poppy leaned back in the comfy leather recliner and took all of this in, stunned. If Hal Greenwood was going to the trouble of having her followed, what lengths was he willing to go to make sure she did not find the truth? Was her life in danger? Was Matt’s?
Poppy had many more questions, but Fabian was done with his stark warning and ready to go. He stood up to leave again, but knelt down next to Poppy, and with a darkened, dead serious expression whispered, “My source also has reason to believe your office has been bugged.”
And then, in a flash, he shot back up to his feet, and dashed out of the theatre, leaving a flabbergasted Poppy behind.
Chapter 28
“Bugs? We do not have bugs! It is impossible!” Iris snorted disdainfully. “I had the exterminator come out and spray my whole house and this garage less than a month ago when I saw a cockroach in my dishwasher!”
Poppy, eyes widening, put a finger to her lips, frantically signaling Iris to stop talking.
But Iris missed the cue.
“Let me see this bug you found!” Iris insisted as she marched over to Wyatt, who quickly squeezed his fist shut and shook his head, fearing if she saw what was in his hand, she would further alert whoever was listening to what he had found.
Poppy had once again been duly impressed with Violet’s grandson. When she had arrived at the office to find Matt and Wyatt playing a video game, she had written down on a piece of paper what Fabian Granger had told her. Poppy and Matt fumbled around, not sure what to even look for, but it had taken Wyatt less than a minute to locate a small square black device about an inch in diameter attached to the back of his desktop computer, which was facing the wall and out of sight.
Matt, always eager to showcase his acting talent, leaned into the device and began rattling off all kinds of false information about how they were ready to give up on the Danika Delgado case, how Hal Greenwood was no longer a suspect in their minds due to lack of evidence, how they were ready to move on and look for an entirely new case to investigate.
That’s when Iris blew in after her morning golf game and threatened to blow everything up. Poppy had tried to calmly explain what was happening, talking low enough so Iris could hear but not loud enough for her voice to be picked up on the transmitter. Her effort, however, only managed to thoroughly confuse Iris.
“Why are you whispering? I can barely hear you!” Iris shouted. “What is going on here? Why do all look so nervous? Why am I the only one talking?”
Matt finally bounded over and cupped a hand over Iris’s ear and whispered to her that they had found a bug planted in the office.
That did little to clari
fy matters.
And now Iris was skulking about the office, checking corners and desktops and inspecting the counter in the kitchenette, determined to find exactly where these insects were overrunning the office. “I told Violet not to leave food out when she made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Wyatt while he was working!”
Giving up, Poppy marched over and opened one of the kitchenette cupboards, grabbed a tall glass, and filled it with water. Then, she crossed the room to Wyatt and held it up. Wyatt opened his fist, revealing the black device in the palm of his hand. Iris opened her mouth in surprise, but Matt zipped up behind her and clapped a hand over her mouth to silence her. Wyatt dropped the device into the water where it floated to the bottom of the glass.
Matt released Iris, who wiped her mouth.
“Your hand smells fishy!” Iris barked.
“I had tuna for lunch,” Matt said, chagrined.
“What is going on here?” Iris demanded to know.
Poppy set the glass down on Wyatt’s desk. “Is it safe to speak freely now, Wyatt?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that thing’s short-circuited out by now,” Wyatt said.
“Hal Greenwood had someone working for him plant a listening device here in our office,” Matt said.
“What?” Iris gasped. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s worried stiff about what we might find out about him, which just makes me want to push ahead even harder,” Poppy said, folding her arms, determined. “I’ve known men like Hal Greenwood most of my life, especially during the years I was working as an actress in Hollywood, and believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to nail that bastard to the wall.”
Matt raised an eyebrow, fascinated by the fury in Poppy’s tone.
Iris turned to Wyatt. “How long do you think he has had us under surveillance?”
Wyatt shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment. That’s the smallest wireless transmitter I’ve ever seen. It’s highly sensitive and can pick up a whisper from something like thirty-five feet away. There is a tiny SIM card in it so all you have to do is send a text from your cell phone number to the device, then it knows you. You can place it anywhere and call it anytime to listen to surrounding sounds from anywhere on your phone. No rings, beeps, or clicks to tip off the target.”
“And how do you know so much about it?” Poppy inquired.
“Come on, Poppy, haven’t you figured it out yet? I’m really, really smart,” Wyatt cracked.
“And half your Internet history are spy gadget Web sites. You’re like a mini James Bond,” Matt said.
Suddenly the door to the garage office flew open and Violet breezed in. “Hi, everyone, what did I miss?”
“The office was bugged!” Wyatt excitedly told his grandmother.
“Well, it’s no wonder, I have begged Iris countless times to keep up with her housecleaning,” Violet sighed. “I even told her if she just invested in a mop and a bottle of Clorox, I’d do it myself. I really don’t mind. If you let it go too long, that’s when you can start to see an infestation.”
“Don’t be daft, Violet, he’s not talking about those kinds of bugs! We found a listening device! Someone has been eavesdropping on our private conversations!” Iris groaned, completely forgetting she had just made the exact assumption only moments earlier.
“Oh, dear,” Violet said with a furrowed brow as she undoubtedly recounted in her mind every possible embarrassing conversation she might have had in the office over the past few days.
Poppy noticed something oddly different about Violet and asked, “Have you done something with your hair?”
“Yes,” Violet said, brightening. “The girl at the salon called the style Stacked Ash Layers. Is it gray? Is it blond? You’ll never know with this expertly blended ash-toned hue. She did a lovely job, don’t you think?”
“Very chic,” Matt agreed.
Iris stepped forward, suspicious. “That’s very unlike you to experiment with a new hairstyle. You won’t even eat a bagel if it isn’t plain. What is going on?”
“Nothing,” Violet said, her face slowly turning crimson.
She was a terrible fibber.
“And where were you last night?” Iris asked brusquely. “I tried calling you four times and you never picked up or returned my calls!”
“I . . . I had a date,” Violet muttered.
This revelation stopped the presses.
“You what?” Iris gasped, obviously convinced she had misheard what Violet had said the first time.
“If you must know, I met a man square-dancing at the club the other evening, and he asked me out to dinner,” Violet said quickly. “And so last night he took me to John Henry’s for dinner and it was quite lovely.”
They all stared at her in disbelief.
“This is why I didn’t say anything, so I could avoid this exact situation with all your mouths dropped open in shock. Is it so hard to believe a man would show interest in me anymore?”
“Of course not!” Matt exclaimed. “You’re a beautiful, vibrant, dynamic woman, Violet!”
“Please, let’s not get carried away,” Iris remarked.
“What’s his name? What does he look like?” Poppy asked.
“His name is Phil, he’s a retired history professor from Boise, Idaho—”
“So he is boring,” Iris said.
“Iris, please!” Poppy scolded before whirling back around to Violet. “Do you have a picture?”
Violet rummaged for her phone in her bag. “Why, yes, I had the waiter take one of us while we were sharing a dessert, a key lime pie cheesecake, it was to die for.” Violet tapped her phone and brought up the photo and held it out for all of them to see.
It was an adorable picture of Violet and Phil both diving their forks into the cheesecake, laughing, at a corner table amidst the lush greenery on the patio of this popular Palm Springs staple. What was striking was just how handsome and sexy Phil was, at least a decade younger than Violet, probably early to mid-fifties.
“This picture doesn’t do him justice,” Violet said.
Poppy gasped. “It doesn’t?”
How could it be possible that Phil was even more good-looking in person?
“He’s quite the stud, Violet, congratulations,” Matt said.
“Am I going to have to call him Grandpa?” Wyatt asked.
“No, dear, of course not!” Violet laughed.
Iris grabbed the phone, inspecting the photo. “What does he want from you?”
Violet sighed. “Nothing, Iris. He just enjoys my company. He said, and these are his words not mine, ‘You’re a scintillating conversationalist, Violet.’ ”
“And no one else finds that highly suspicious?” Iris balked.
“Don’t be offended by Iris, Violet, she’s just jealous,” Poppy joked.
“I know,” Violet said, elated. “And it feels so good!”
Iris threw her hands up in surrender.
Poppy’s phone buzzed.
It was Sam.
“Speaking of dinner dates. Excuse me,” Poppy said. “I’m going to take this outside.” Poppy hurried out the door to Iris’s backyard and answered the call. “Hi, Sam.”
“Hey, beautiful,” Sam said hoarsely.
“Is everything all right? You sound strange.”
“I was wondering if we could postpone dinner tonight. . . ?”
“Of course. Are you sick? Are you running a fever?”
“No, just feeling a little off, that’s all. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Poppy sensed something was definitely wrong, but like most bullheaded men who refused to show weakness, Sam was trying to act like his normal upbeat, jocular self.
“Where are you, Big Bear?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like me to come up there and check on you?”
Sam chuckled. “Poppy, there is no need for you to drive an hour and a half up a mountain when I’ll prob
ably be asleep in an hour. I’m well-stocked with Tylenol and canned soup, so I’m good.”
Poppy hesitated. If there was one thing about Sam Emerson that she was sure about, it was that he was strong. But despite the calm, reassuring words coming out of his mouth, she could not ignore the overwhelming sense of dread building up in the pit of her stomach.
Still, she had to take him at his word.
“Okay, take care of yourself, I’ll call you first thing in the morning to see how you’re doing.”
“Sounds good.”
And then he hung up.
Rather abruptly, in fact.
And her sense of dread was not going away.
Chapter 29
As Poppy and Matt entered John Henry’s Cafe through the side patio entrance, Poppy couldn’t help but notice Matt wincing slightly, his body no doubt still hurting from having been in two separate car crashes in a matter of a few days.
“Are you in pain?” Poppy asked, full of concern.
Matt placed a reassuring hand on her arm. “A little, but don’t worry, I’ll be doing handstands in no time, not that I ever did them before.”
Poppy chuckled. “I appreciate you filling in for Sam tonight as my dinner companion.”
“What happened to him?”
Poppy shrugged. “I’m not sure. He didn’t sound like himself when we spoke, but you know Sam, he’s the last person willing to open up about what’s going on with him.”
“Poppy!”
Poppy turned to see Alfredo, the handsome, charming, fortyish owner of John Henry, who had started out as a busboy and worked his way up the ladder before buying the restaurant from the founding owner, a testament to the American dream.
Poppy hugged Alfredo. “Thanks for squeezing us in tonight, Alfredo.”
“Anything for you. Follow me, we have a table for two tucked in the corner, very romantic,” he said, leading them along past bustling waiters carrying food and taking orders, busboys cleaning off empty tables, diners eating, drinking, and chattering at a litany of white-clothed tables.