by AR Winters
“Wasn’t it a good idea we made these cupcakes?” Ian said.
I wasn’t so sure. “Where do we keep them?”
“Glenn stores his cupcakes in boxes.”
“Have you got any boxes?”
“No. Just the cardboard one Snowflake’s sitting in.”
We glanced over at Snowflake. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t about to give up her throne. Not that it would be any good for housing cupcakes.
“I’ve got a box Glenn gave me some cupcakes in last week,” I said. “It’ll fit about six cupcakes.”
“Well, ten of these are yours. We’re sharing, remember?”
My eyes narrowed involuntarily. For me, the words “cupcake” and “sharing” didn’t really go together. But a split second later, I remembered that Ian had helped me and encouraged me, and without his help, these cupcakes wouldn’t even exist.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to take this tray of cupcakes with me. Maybe you can cover the rest with Saran Wrap?”
“I’ll put the whole tray in the fridge,” Ian said. “They’ll be fine.”
I grabbed my tray of cupcakes and headed back to my place. Now that I’d had a few cupcakes and watched some of the Singing Duos show, I’d made up my mind about Lana. She wasn’t an airheaded diva; she was a savvy businessperson. Tomorrow, I’d head over to the police station and verify her story.
Chapter Twelve
My alarm went off at eleven in the morning, and another hour later, I had a cupcake and a mug of instant coffee inside me. The outside of me was looking pretty presentable, too, and I put some cupcakes on a plate and headed over to Mrs. Weebly’s.
“I can’t stay and chat today,” I told her. “I just came to drop these off for you.”
I beamed proudly. I couldn’t help it. For the first time in my life, I was giving someone else cupcakes! Ian and Glenn were right—this learning-to-bake thing really paid off.
I was about to step out when Lana called my cell phone. “Made up your mind yet?”
Her voice was slow and hoarse, like she hadn’t quite had enough coffee yet. I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “Yeah. I’ll meet you at the Café de la Rue again, and you can sign the PI contract.”
“Sure. But hurry. Vegas auditions start in a couple hours, and I need you to start before then. What if the killer tries to kill me during auditions?”
“Wouldn’t that make great TV?”
Lana took a moment to think about it. “Sure. But I don’t get paid enough to do that. So you better be here.”
***
The LVMPD precinct is a drab “nothing but business” building on the outside, and the inside doesn’t hold any surprises either. I’ve been here quite a few times, and today I asked for Detective Elwood, who came out to meet me in the lobby.
He grimaced when he saw me. “You again.”
I didn’t take any offense—that’s his usual reaction to seeing me.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said, taking my mother’s advice to always be polite, and to try to see the best in people.
Detective Elwood is a short, chubby man with a perpetual scowl and constant five-o’clock shadow. He eyed the Tupperware container in my hands suspiciously. Ian had gone to Anderson’s again this morning and had gotten enough Tupperware and flour to start a bakery, and I’d borrowed a container to put some of my cupcakes in.
“This is for you,” I said, handing the container over to Elwood.
He opened the lid suspiciously, then beamed. “Cupcakes! Yum!”
“They are yum,” I agreed. I didn’t tell him that I’d dropped one when I’d packed the box. That poor cupcake had landed on its head—on the icing side. I’d scooped off the icing, replaced it with new insta-frosting, and then decided not to give it to anyone else. There could have been one extra cupcake in the box, but instead, thanks to the mishap, there was one extra cupcake in my tummy.
Elwood pulled a cupcake out and began gnawing it ferociously. Watching him, I began to think that maybe he’d been a wolf in another lifetime.
“So, have you met Lana Fierst?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Who’s that?” Elwood asked, mouth half-full of cupcake.
“She said she’s scared for her life, that she talked to the cops here? She’s a big reality TV star. Judge. Something.”
“Don’t watch reality TV,” Elwood said. “Sissy stuff. The only TV for real men is sports.”
“Uh-huh.” I wasn’t quite sure what else to say, since I wasn’t a big TV watcher myself, nor did I really understand sports. I tried to think of something polite and came up with, “Sports are fun.”
“Damn straight.” Elwood inhaled the rest of his cupcake. “C’mon, I’ll go look up this Lana Alice.”
“Lana Fierst.”
“Right.”
I sat on the other side of Elwood’s desk and watched as he pulled up records. The precinct was buzzing with life at this hour—phones going off, detectives rushing out to do something, maybe solve cases or grab donuts.
“This is her,” Elwood said. “You’ll want to talk to Dimitriou. He’s the one she talked to.”
“Hmm.” I should’ve known Lana hadn’t talked to Elwood. She’d mentioned the LVMPD cops being yummy, and Elwood was the furthest thing from a yummy man I could think of.
“Hey, Dimitriou,” Elwood yelled.
His call was directed to a tall man with dark, wavy hair who stood with his back to us. At Elwood’s voice, the man turned around, and my jaw dropped to the floor. It was the man from the parking lot. My knees turned to jelly, and I could feel my stomach doing flip-flops.
Dimitriou looked from Elwood to me. His gray eyes glimmered softly in recognition. I hoped I made a much more dignified figure sitting here in a chair, compared to when we’d last met and I’d been crouching in that parking lot.
“This is Tiffany Black,” Elwood was saying. “She wants to talk to you.”
Dimitriou walked over to us. He must’ve walked at a regular speed, but my brain managed to slow down the image into a Baywatch-like slo-mo. His shoulders were broad, and his muscles rippled under the rolled-up sleeves of his white shirt. Lana was right: the man was yummy. Probably even yummier than my chocolate cupcakes. I touched the corner of my mouth, just to make sure that I wasn’t drooling.
“I’m Ryan Dimitriou,” he said, extending a hand.
I gripped it, trying not to look too shocked. His fingers were strong and powerful, and the palm of his hand was warm. A shiver raced up my forearm, and I tried not to draw my hand back in shock. Had he felt it too?
“Tiffany Black,” I said mechanically.
Dimitriou smiled thinly. “Are you in trouble, Tiffany? Again?”
“I—” Thankfully Elwood missed the word “again.” There was the heavy innuendo that I was always in trouble. All kinds of trouble. I gulped. “Uh, no, I…”
Elwood opened the Tupperware again, reached in and pulled out another cupcake. At this rate, he’d be through them all within an hour.
“Cupcakes,” said Dimitriou. “Where’d they come from?”
Elwood fixed a death stare on his coworker and swallowed his mouthful. “Why?”
“Just wondering. Tiffany appears, and so does a magic box of cupcakes…”
Elwood’s brows knit together. “If you must know,” he said slowly, “Tiffany brought them. For me.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I tried one.”
He focused a dazzling smile on me, and I all but whimpered. “Sure,” I said. “Try one.”
“Thanks. I do love cupcakes.”
He grabbed one out of the box before Elwood could stop him, and dug in. “This is delicious!” Dimitriou said. “And you made it?”
I blushed and shrugged modestly. “Yeah.” And then I frowned. I hoped he didn’t think I was a woman who baked. I didn’t want him thinking that I’d bring him cupcakes every day. So I added, “I don’t bake. This is my first try with cupcakes.”
“For me,” Elwood growled. “She brought them for me!”
“Well, technically,” I said slowly, “I brought them to get some help with the Lana Fierst case.”
Elwood glared at me. “I shoulda known you didn’t just bring them out of the kindness of your heart.”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “I wanted you to have them. I know you’re having a hard time with—how’s your wife doing?”
“Great,” grumbled Elwood. “I think she’s cheating on me.”
He always thought she was cheating on him.
I turned to Dimitriou again. He’d managed to finish the whole cupcake in the time that it had taken Elwood to say those few words.
“So you talked to Lana?”
He nodded. “I remember her. She thought we should send her some full-time bodyguards.” He rolled his eyes at the memory. “‘Only hotties’ was what she said. ‘None of those bad-smelling, non-showering guys.’ That’s just sexism. Or anti-cop-ism.”
I laughed. “That sounds like Lana, all right. What did you tell her?”
“Well, we’re happy to help. But all she had to go on was a feeling that she was in trouble, and we can’t really do anything there. Besides, celebrities are…” He cast around for an appropriate way to word his sentiment. “Known for exaggerating things.”
“Did you ever hear from Lana after that?”
Dimitriou shook his head. “No. This was two days ago. I figured she’d moved on or thought of something else. Speaking of, how did you know about this?”
“Lana wants to hire me as a private investigator, to look into who wants to kill her.”
Dimitriou raised one eyebrow very slightly. “You’re a PI?”
I nodded. “I’ve solved a few cases.”
“That’s how you know Elwood.”
Elwood grumbled, “She’s always getting in my way. She owes me these cupcakes.”
“She just said we could share them,” Dimitriou said. He turned to me again. “Well, I can’t stop you from investigating Lana, but stay safe.” He pulled out his wallet and fished out a card. “Call me if you need anything.”
I looked at the number. “Uh-huh.” How big of an excuse would I need to call him? I stuffed the card into my bag and stood up. “I guess I should go. Enjoy the rest of your cupcakes.”
“Enjoy saving Lana,” Dimitriou said, looking at me bemusedly. “Don’t get into too much trouble.”
“I’ll try.” I forced myself to smile. That might be easier said than done, if there really was a killer lurking in the shadows.
Chapter Thirteen
I rushed back to my apartment, stuffed my dealer’s uniform and casino things into a large tote bag, and headed out again.
I ran into Ian in the hallway.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“You know how we spent last night watching Singing Duos?”
“Yeah.” Ian nodded his head enthusiastically. “It’s great that you’ve decided to like reality TV. We can have so much fun now, catching up on old episodes of Housewives.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not really into reality shows.”
Ian looked crestfallen. “I should’ve known it was too good to be true. Were you just trying to avoid watching Star Trek?”
“Kind of. I always try to avoid watching Star Trek. But other than that—Lana Fierst hired me. As a PI.”
Ian’s eyes went round. “No!”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She thinks someone’s trying to kill her.”
“Awesome! I mean, not awesome! I mean—of course someone’s trying to kill her! She’s so mean. But it’s great she hired you.” A look of consternation crossed his face. “I think.”
“Yeah, I think so too, but it might just be all in her head.”
Ian shook his head. “No, I read this article about her last week, and it said she was really smart, like she studied economics at Harvard or something. She wouldn’t be wrong about this.”
“Maybe. Anyway, I’m rushing off to meet her.”
“And you’re taking me with you!” He looked at me hopefully.
I sighed. Ian had come along on a few cases. On our last case, we’d split up in order to canvass a few hundred nasty neighbors. This time, I might need to talk to hundreds of contestants, and Ian might be helpful.
“Okay,” I said. “But you need to promise to behave.”
“I promise, I promise! Let me just go grab my phone.”
I rolled my eyes and waited for him by the elevator. Ian had probably made the promise in all sincerity, but once we actually started to talk to people, his good behavior would fly out the door. At least I was used to it by now.
We wound up at the café, and Lana was already sitting in the corner table, waiting for us and sipping a carbonated water.
“You’re here!” Ian gushed as soon as he saw her. “I’m such a huge fan!”
Without asking her permission, Ian leaned over and snapped a selfie of himself with her.
“Are you going to post that on Facebook?” Lana asked drily.
“No, no. I’m not on Facebook anymore. My parents made me take down the account after the last time I promised a high school ex-classmate I’d invest my trust fund in his company.”
Lana looked at me cynically. “Who is this guy?”
I took a deep breath, and Ian and I pulled out chairs opposite Lana and sat down. “Believe it or not, he’s going to help me work this case.”
Those words made Lana smile and lean back. “Good. I’ll feel a lot better if you look into this. I checked into your previous cases, and you seem to be a smart PI. If there’s anyone who can find the guy trying to kill me, it’s you.”
“Thanks,” I said modestly. “But—”
“Tiffany’s great,” gushed Ian. “You’ll love working with her. She’s the best.”
I smiled at Ian and then looked back at Lana. “But there’s no guarantee we’ll find this guy.”
“Yeah,” said Lana. “With any luck, he’ll just see you and get scared off.”
Ian nodded. “Guys always get scared off when they see Tiffany. I think it’s her hair.”
I frowned. “I haven’t scared off anyone yet. At least, not recently.” I thought about Detective Dimitriou. He hadn’t seemed to be scared off by me. “I’ll have to bill you daily,” I told Lana. “Whether or not I find anything.”
“Of course,” Lana said.
We talked rates and advances, and Lana signed my PI form and wrote out a check for my advance.
“What about your friend here?” she said. “What does he do?”
“He helps out,” I said. “Here and there.”
“Exactly,” said Ian. “And I ask good questions. Like, who did your Botox? And why don’t you tell them to lay off? You look great anyhow.”
Lana smiled. “Not Hollywood great. Hollywood is a whole other world.”
Ian nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not fair. And what about boyfriends? How come you’re not seeing anyone? I know you’re old, but you’re pretty hot for an old lady.”
Lana laughed. “I’m completely offended, honey. I’m not even sixty.”
“Yeah,” said Ian. “But I’m twenty-three, and you’re older than me. So you’re old.”
Lana looked at me and said, “I guess he’s got a point there. Are you guys going to start talking to suspects now?”
I said, “Do you have any suspects in mind? Who’d want you dead?”
“Half the people who watch the show,” Lana said lightly. “My job is to make everyone angry and unhappy. Emotions sell.”
Ian said, “I thought sex sells.”
“Sex only sells because of emotion. Anyway, the stuff started happening in New York, after we kicked off this new season.”
“The car that jumped the curb.”
“Exactly,” said Lana.
“But that might’ve been
an accident,” said Ian.
Lana shrugged. “After that, we were in Texas, and the chandelier fell off and almost crushed me. I got out just in time.”
“Also could’ve been an accident,” Ian said.
Lana threw her hands up in exasperation. “Look, they could’ve all been accidents, right? But just so many of them. That’s why I’m paying you guys.”
“And then the gator in Florida,” I reminded her lightly. “And then the snake in Arizona.”
Lana calmed down a little. “Exactly. We just don’t know when it started.”
“Well, do you have anyone particular in mind?” I said, pulling out my notebook and taking notes. “Anyone who might know you, and want you to get hurt?”
Lana sighed. “Those who really know me don’t want anything bad to happen to me. I’m just a softie, right?”
“Yeah, but I’ve met some reality TV show fans. Some of them are really loco.” I slid a glance towards Ian.
“Why are you looking at me?” Ian said. “I’m just a regular TV watcher. I’m not cuckoo. But I’ve been on some TV show forums. There are people out there who can’t tell real life apart from fiction. Maybe some crazy fan’s trying to kill you?”
Lana shook her head. “No, it can’t be a fan. All these crazy things have been happening indoors.”
“Other than the car in New York,” said Ian.
Lana nodded. “Yeah, other than that. It’s all been stuff happening in the studio or in my room.”
“Who’d have access to there?” I said.
“Could be anyone from the crew, or anyone working on the show,” said Lana. After a pause, she said, “It could even be one of the contestants who’s made it through the first round.”
Ian nodded. “That makes sense. Plus, whoever’s trying to kill you needs to know where you’ll be for them to attack. Unless it’s a crazed fan who got in somehow?”
Lana shook her head. “No, I’m sure it’s someone on the inside. Fans can’t get access that easily, otherwise we’d have a hard time working.”