I immediately came up with a plan, though it was a shaky one. In an ideal world, the glasses would already be set up to stream to one of Mack or J. Chris’s social media accounts. One of their fans would see Dante trying to kill us and call the police. It wasn’t the best plan I’d ever had, but it was all I had. And it could work. I just needed to turn the thing on and keep Dante distracted until help arrived.
“Can I sit?” I asked him. He was leaning against the window in the small space between the bed and the built-in drawers. “My heels are killing me.”
“Fine,” he said.
I walked toward the other side of the bed—and the Focals.
“No, next to Kitt.”
Blurg. She was at the bottom of the bed, nowhere near the glasses on the nightstand. I took a seat next to her. If I could lay down, I could reach them. But I doubted Dante would believe me if I said I needed a nap. With “record and distract” not an immediate option, I went with just distract.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
He just gave me a look, all traces of the affable driver dead and gone. “Yeah, I already heard the spiel from Kitt. She started all of this. If she hadn’t tried to blackmail Mack, he wouldn’t have contacted Anani, and she wouldn’t have run that blind item.”
At the mention of her name, Kitt started bawling. I tried to ignore her. Dante? Not so much. “You need to shut the hell up!” he said.
In her defense, she tried. But she just couldn’t do it. The silence lasted for less than a second. Her next round of sobbing started off low, then slowly gained momentum as if tumbling downhill. I tried to keep him focused on me.
“It’s not her fault. It’s Mack’s. He’s the one who took advantage of you in the first place. Who used your talent for his own gain. Because you have an amazing voice.” It was stalling tactic 101, keep the guy talking. But it was also true. Dante had a beautiful voice.
By now, Kitt sounded like a thunderstorm. Dante banged the gun against the window. Kitt and I both instinctively jumped back as he screamed. “You think that’s all it takes to make it? A pretty voice?”
The good news was that I was in reaching distance of the glasses.
“No,” he went on. “It takes looks. It takes luck. It takes having the balls to get onstage in front of thousands of people and sing.”
I “knocked” the Focals off the bed, then reached down to pick them up. He didn’t notice. He was still too busy yelling.
“I sounded like Mack Christie. I just didn’t have his luck or his confidence. I definitely didn’t have his looks. I was stuck doing cover band shows at bars for $100 a night. You’re acting like he was just making money off me. I was making money off him. Until you all ruined it. And what the hell are you doing with those?”
He used the gun to motion to the glasses in my hand. “Cleaning up my mess,” I said as I pushed the record button and put them back on the nightstand. When I spoke again, it was a bit louder so the glass’s built in mic could catch what I was saying. “You’re about to kill me in the back of Mack Christie’s tour bus, Dante. Sorry if I’m acting a bit nervous.”
That calmed him down a bit. “You know I actually liked you,” he said.
“Yeah? I actually liked you too.”
“Even went and spoke to Junior’s girlfriend for you so you could get that reward money.”
He paused then, as if expecting him to thank me. I was too momentarily shocked to say anything. He was the one Regina was talking to in the parking lot that day? Before I could fully digest it, he continued talking.
“Hoped it would be the end of it, but you had to keep going.”
“Yes, and I’m regretting it. Trust me on that. Can you just answer one question, since it doesn’t matter?”
He motioned with the gun, a stark reminder of its presence. “Fine.”
“You didn’t know Anani was Lyla?”
“I did. I’ve known for at least a year. Just didn’t care much until I had to. She mentioned it on a phone call when I was taking her somewhere. When you’re a driver, people pay you no mind. You overhear their drama, their lovey-dovey sex talk, their business dealings. You did it yourself on the way here. How do you think I found out about Kitt?”
Kitt moaned but managed to keep quiet. I talked over her. “What about Junior? How’d you meet him?”
“My dealer.”
His phone beeped just then, the notification ironically a Mack Christie song. He pulled it out of his pocket but didn’t give it a glance. He was too busy looking at me. “He only wanted $10,000 for the job. Idiot.”
The phone immediately beeped again. He finally glanced at it. “I was so happy when he killed himself. Saved me the hassle. He … ”
Dante trailed off, too busy reading whatever was on his phone. It didn’t take a mind reader to realize what was going on. He jerked his head all around the room. “There’s a camera in here. My boy says it’s streaming on J. Chris’s Instagram.”
I felt immediate relief but it was short-lived. Dante spoke again, addressing anyone who was watching. “I swear if anyone comes in here, I will kill them both.” Then he turned to us. “Help me find that camera.”
I pretended to look for it as Kitt checked the dresser. Dante did more pacing than looking. He became more and more unhinged with each step until he finally screamed, “Where is it?”
That’s when he went bananas. He started with the drawers, pulling them out one by one, throwing clothes on the bed, practically covering the Silver Sphere Award. Kitt and I just stood there. We exchanged a look. And I knew we were both thinking the same exact thing.
There was no doubt that he was going to kill us.
I needed to do something. Pronto.
But what?
He was mere feet from the bedroom door. There was no way I could get past him. Maybe Kitt and I could work together to take him down, but we weren’t exactly in a position to have a planning session without Dante hearing the entire thing.
I looked around, getting frantic myself. I didn’t want to die.
Dante abandoned the drawers and went after the blinds, trying to rip each one down. His back was turned and I just went for it, grabbing the Silver Sphere Award from under a T-shirt and using all my might to smack Dante in the head. He dropped the gun as I pulled the bedroom door open and ran, yelling, “Come on, Kitt!”
I thought I’d at least stunned him. I was dead wrong. I heard someone behind me, but it wasn’t Kitt. Dante tackled me before I could even get past the kitchen. We both went down. I managed to scramble a few feet away but he grabbed my leg.
I tried to Single White Female him with a heel to the eye. It worked better in the movie. Dante just deflected, knocking my foot away so it crashed into a cabinet. I tried to kick him again. And that’s when I heard the gunshot.
Dante and I looked up to see Kitt standing a few feet away, holding the gun with way more confidence than I would have expected.
“Go, Dayna,” she said. “Get help.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I scrambled up and got to the front door without even looking back. I opened it to find a blur of faces. I ran for my life until a cop caught me and pulled me toward him. We stayed like that for I don’t know how long. “They’re still in there,” I managed to get out between breaths.
“We know,” he said. “You’re safe now.”
At least I think he did. I could barely hear him over my heart beating. He kept repeating it, which was a good thing because I needed the reminder.
I still didn’t feel it. Not yet. I still felt exposed, especially when I finally glanced around and noticed all the cops and the cameras and the camera phones. Everyone stared at me and all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry.
I willed them to look away. And then suddenly they did.
I glanced back to see why. The cops were dra
gging a cuffed Dante out. Kitt was a few steps behind, her arm around a female officer as they walked side by side out of the bus. Dante smiled at the commotion, as if finally happy to be in the spotlight. It made me sick.
The only thing that made me look away was Omari’s voice. “Dayna!”
I glanced over in time to see him and Sienna pushing through the crowd to get to me. The cop moved aside to give them access. They each took a side, Sienna cradling my head in her arms while Omari leaned down to kiss me. And that’s when I finally felt at peace.
He leaned back and looked at me, as if searching to make sure I was still intact.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m alive.”
“Touché.”
I noticed something in his hand. A Silver Sphere Award. “You won?”
He nodded. “My mom’s even more excited than I am. For some reason she keeps mentioning that I’m going to make an amazing father.”
I fainted.
Epilogue
Dante was convicted of murdering Lyla.
Kitt was arrested for blackmail, but she was released after Mack and J. Chris refused to press charges. Still, she was fired from SSO and blackballed from ever working in this town again. For some, a fate worse than jail time.
Mack’s secret came out during Dante’s trial. Even his manager couldn’t keep that under wraps. Instead, he sent Mack on a sympathy tour. A stint in rehab for exhaustion. An interview with the Today show and Dateline. Mack also signed a deal to write his memoirs and VH1 was currently casting for his authorized biopic.
J. Chris ultimately decided to stand by her man in his time of need. After Mack finished his rehab stint, they finally shot $3000. It was a flop.
Regina surfaced in Miami. I only know this because she started posting selfies again once Dante was arrested. I still haven’t spoken to her.
It turned out cameras had been rolling when Omari kissed me. The video went viral. Stories about Tomari were replaced with how people loved Omari even more for his “regular-sized” girlfriend. It wasn’t enough to warrant a nickname.
Sienna decided to create one for us. So far, nothing she’d come up with stuck. I was more than okay with that.
The mechanic finally figured out what was wrong with my car, which was a good thing. I still couldn’t afford a new one since we never received the SSO reward money. No surprise there.
I took a month off to recover. Sienna, Omari, and even Emme took turns bringing me Tommy’s chiliburgers. It definitely helped me feel better.
I was figuring out my next move when the envelope came in the mail. The return address was Aubrey’s house in Silver Lake. We hadn’t spoken since I’d given him that phone number. I was curious what he was sending me.
I tore the envelope open. Inside was a certificate letting Aubrey S. Adams-Parker know that ASAP Investigations was officially licensed by the state of California. I wouldn’t have to throw away those business cards after all.
Z stopped popping up at my car. I didn’t see or hear from him for three months.
Then one day, he was there like he’d never left, still smelling like cinnamon, still rocking just enough purple, still feeling like a pain in the you-know-what. He smiled when I approached him. “I need your help.”
Acknowledgments
The acknowledgements in my first book were two pages long, so I’m going to force myself to keep it short and just thank my family. So thank you to:
My Fuse family, especially Michelle Richter;
My Midnight Ink family, especially Terri, Sandy, and Jake;
My Pitch Wars family;
My iHeart family;
My Chicks on the Case family;
And, of course, my family-family, especially my parents, siblings, and aunties.
Your unwavering love means everything to me. I’m so lucky to have such an amazing support system in my life.
Finally, this book literally would not exist without the feedback, encouragement, and time of Stephanie Dodson, Mocumba Dimsey, Linda Halder, Marla Cooper, Ellen Byron, Cynthia Kuhn, Laura Heffernan, Roselle Lim, and Sonia Hartl. Thank you for giving me your amazing notes and reassuring me that the early drafts weren’t as bad as I thought—though I’m sure they were!
About the Author
Kellye Garrett writes the Detective by Day mysteries about a semifamous, mega-broke black actress-turned-private-investigator. The first, Hollywood Homicide, won the Agatha, Lefty, and Independent Publisher “IPPY” awards for best first novel. It was also nominated for Anthony and Barry awards. In addition to writing, Kellye serves on the national board for Sisters in Crime and is the Managing Director of Pitch Wars.
Prior to focusing on books, Kellye spent eight years working in Hollywood, including a stint writing for Cold Case. People were always surprised to learn what she did for a living—probably because she seemed way too happy to be brainstorming ways to murder people. Having moved back to her native New Jersey, she now spends her mornings commuting to Manhattan for her job at a leading media company—while still happily brainstorming ways to commit murder.
You can learn more at KellyeGarrett.com.
Hollywood Ending Page 27