by Ally Gray
The others looked dutifully shamed and mumbled their apologies. Rod still took notes, drawing connecting circles and crossing through earlier ideas.
“No wait, this is actually really good. Even though you don’t want anyone gossiped about, this could very well speak to the motive. Who can tell me the latest tabloid gossip on who was dating Stephanie, J-Max, and the groomsman—what’s his name, T-Spot—over the course of the last year or two?”
Hands shot up around the table, and Stacy rolled her eyes at her staff. “Seriously? You people are artists and professionals! Why are you keeping up with this craziness? And even you Max?”
“What? I love TMZ as much as the next guy! It’s how I keep up with my colleagues’ work.”
“The paparazzi are NOT your colleagues! As I said, you’re an artist, and they’re nothing more than…” She stopped herself, straightening her back and calming her demeanor before continuing. “Like I said… an artist.”
The groups broke into pairs to compile their lists and make a flow chart of how many jilted partners had been a part of the scenario. It only took forty-five minutes to come to the realization that J-Max and his groomsman had both dated the same six female stars at different points in their careers, including Stephanie.
“Well, there’s your motive, Detective. J-Max was jealous that T-Spot had dated Stephanie, and didn’t like the looks he was giving her around town. You know, that kind of…”
“WAIT. Wait a second,” Stacy said, holding both hands up in front of her for everyone’s attention. “I’m remembering something, something horrible and painful and humiliating… where’s Sassy?”
“Sassy? What do you want with that carnival side show freak, unless you’ve got plans to recreate the crime scene and let her stand in for the dead guy… for real?” Cathy, the firm’s in-house seamstress, said, laughing at her own joke and the universal disdain the group had for that flake.
“No, she said something. Something important. When she grabbed Stephanie… I can’t remember, I was so shocked at how she ran in here and grabbed the bride—it would be bad enough to manhandle any bride, but of course it had to be that bride—but she said something strange when she came in.” Stacy paced the room with the palms of her hands pressed to her forehead as though she could tangibly reach into her brain and retrieve the nugget of information that was poking her conscience. Everyone watched her silently, waiting for her flash of inspiration to appear.
“She said… I’m sorry about T-Spot.” Stacy’s eyes had a clouded over appearance as she searched for the exact words, the memory of the whole scene still fuzzy from the awkward way it had played out. Finally, she nodded. “Yes, I’m sure that’s what she said. ‘I’m sorry about T-Spot’.”
“Okay… so what?” the detective asked. “It’s a perfectly natural thing to say to someone whose friend has just died, no matter what the circumstances.”
“No, it wasn’t that kind of an apology. It was weird… I can’t explain it.” She frowned, shaking her head as she grappled with the right frame of mind.
“So where is this Sassy girl now?”
Everyone was silent for a beat, but then suddenly began talking to each other about the assistant’s last known whereabouts. Rod raised one hand for quiet as he began furiously jotting down the information everyone provided. Stacy continued to frown, now resorting to biting her thumbnail, a habit Abigail had practically beaten out of her years ago. She was missing something, some piece of the puzzle, and it was physically painful that she couldn’t grab it.
Chapter 10
“Well, that took longer than I thought it would,” Michaela said, waltzing into her sister’s suite and dropping a grocery store tabloid on her chest. Stephanie sat up suddenly and flung the grimy newsprint off her silk robe, brushing at imaginary pieces of black ink that might have stuck to her newly tanned cleavage. “I would have thought the press would have been here before the zipper was pulled all the way on the body bag.”
“First of all, have some damn respect, could you please? A fellow human being is dead, and the way you’re talking about him is just low class. But what are you running your mouth about?” Stephanie demanded, leaning over slightly to see the headline on the paper her sister had brought in. She screamed when she read the three-inch high letters declaring that either J-Max or Stephanie had killed T-Spot in some sort of twisted love triangle. “What is this?! They can’t do this!”
“Relax, you knew they were gonna come up with this stuff. It sells newspapers. Besides, it’s not like anyone believes the stuff they print.”
“Oh yeah? How about last year when that stupid twit tried to rip my hair out on the red carpet at Fashion Week, all because she read in some gossip column that I was cheating on Justin Tobyville?”
“Well, if I might be so bold as to remind you, dear sister, you were actually cheating on Justin Tobyville. You know, with J-Max? The guy you’re marrying pretty soon?”
“Yeah, but the tabloid didn’t know that for sure. They just suspected it or something, and they wrote that awful story about me anyway! That crazy stalker woman attacked me because of what they wrote about me! And now this? Why does everyone hate me?!” she moaned, covering her eyes with her open hands.
“Do you want that list alphabetically, or chronologically by date of event? Because chronologically would give us a clearer picture of the nastiness that you’re capable of.”
“Shut up! Why are you even here?” Stephanie screamed, her carefully done eye makeup running in streaks down her otherwise flawless face.
“Because I’m court-ordered to watch you after the stunt you pulled last year leaving a night club in a ‘borrowed’ Ferrari. Or did you forget that little incident too? The one where the man in the black robe ordered you not to drink or leave the state for at least eighteen months, even though you left the state a week ago to come to this little shindig of yours?” Michaela sat across the room from her younger sister and stared at the ceiling, contemplating her lot in life as the babysitter of a spoiled actress with more money than brains.
“My attorney got special permission for me to come here, thank you very much. And if you’re supposed to be watching me, why aren’t you doing a better job of it? Why is there a dead guy in my wedding party if you’re supposed to be watching me, huh? Answer me that!”
“Do you even hear yourself? What does my watching you have to do with a dead guy?”
“Forget it! Just never mind. I knew you’d never understand.” For a split second, something resembling an actual human emotion flashed across Stephanie’s face, one that Michaela recognized all too well from her little sister: guilt.
“Stephanie…” Michaela said quietly, a note of warning in her voice. “I know that look on your face. I’ve been avoiding it since the day you were born. You’re not telling me something.” Her sister turned over and pressed her face into the couch cushions. “Stephanie…”
Michaela got up and crossed the suite, her feet sinking into the luxurious high pile carpet, dampening the sound of her footsteps as she reached for her sister. She pulled Stephanie back to face her and saw for herself the angry tears in the girl’s eyes.
“Stephanie, what have you done?”
Chapter 11
“I’m sorry, sir, we’ve put out postings on all the stations looking for this assistant. We’ve even put out some coded information on social media sites. Nothing’s turned up yet, but I’ll keep you posted,” the patrolman said. Rod nodded grimly in response and patted the officer on the shoulder before going back into the house. He’d hoped to have better news, but somehow the girl might not be as stupid as the others made her sound. It wouldn’t be the first time a suspect had managed to play their part to a tee.
“Anything?” Stacy asked quietly, a professional smile plastered in place on her impeccably made up face. Rod looked over her shoulder and shook his head. “I see. Let me know if something changes.”
“Miss East, wait,” he said in a low voice, catching her
by the elbow as she turned to leave. “I mean, Stacy. Look, it was a good hunch. And we’ll get to work on it as soon as we find the girl. But for now, you’ve gotta prepare for the possibility that this wedding isn’t happening this weekend, at least not here.”
“Are you suggesting I cancel on a client, Detective?” she asked coldly, emphasizing the use of his title instead of his name, the way he had used hers. He shook his head.
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you. If we don’t wrap this up, this whole property will be unrecognizable. The press is already camped out behind the barricades waiting for this circus you call a ‘beautiful event’ to get underway, but they’re not dumb. They’re pretty good at being predators, and they have an uncanny knack for smelling blood in the water. Once they find out there’s a crime involved, they’ll have every excuse to sweep these lifestyle reporters out of here and get news teams on the property, and then you’ll be exposed.”
Stacy pulled her arm out of his grip and leaned closer. “Then why don’t you hurry up and solve this thing already?”
“Hey, I could, if I didn’t care so much about protecting your reputation. I’ve already sat on this for as long as possible, and I can’t do anything else unless I get a team of investigators in here to interview every possible suspect.”
“I handed you a suspect, you just can’t find her.”
“If you’ve got her address, I’ll be happy to go hunt her down,” he replied angrily, trying to keep his voice down to avoid attracting attention from the packs of temp workers and hired labor who swarmed the hallways.
“Well, just as with my job, I see that I have to handle all the details in this case, too.” She turned and sauntered off, depositing the stacks of chair covers she’d been holding and returning to her office to see what she could dig up on her former assistant. She looked up, startled, when her office doors slid open a crack and Max wedged himself in between the two wooden doors. He closed them back and came to stand beside Stacy.
“I think I found your missing assistant,” he said, holding out his smartphone where a picture lit up the screen. It was a close up of Stephanie Bindle, obviously walking a red carpet somewhere, her face lit up in an unusually pleasant expression as she smiled and waved for the cameras.
“Wow, give that woman an Oscar. That 100-watt smile is nothing like the pissy girl I’ve had the pleasure of meeting,” she muttered, breaking her own rule for once about being catty towards the clients. “But what’s that have to do with Sassy?”
“Look in the background.” Max took his phone back and pushed his fingers against the screen, zooming in. “I thought she looked familiar, and when you said it was weird how she talked to the actress, it sort of clicked. I told you already, I love TMZ, what can I say?”
“Max, you’re an absolute genius!” Stacy exclaimed, taking his phone again and peering closely at the sort of mousy character in the background, the one loaded down with supplies and holding out an umbrella as she frowned up at the rain pelting her head. “But how in the world did you manage to connect her from one little phone snapshot? You must have quite a memory!”
“Not quite, but you’re close. I told you I still have friends who make their money doing this kind of stuff. Well, let’s just say I’ve never forgotten who my friends are. This kind of photography is tricky, especially when no one wants you there in the first place. I’ve helped a few friends out by doing some good edits on their pictures before they sell ‘em to a magazine. I must have looked at this exact shot twenty times, taken from twenty different angles. I remembered thinking about what kind of hell that girl with the umbrella must be living in.”
“That’s great, but it still doesn’t clear anything up. Why would Stephanie’s assistant quit working for her and come to work for me? And a picture of the two of them doesn’t tell us where she is right now.”
“This picture’s only two weeks old. She was already working for you while this picture was taken. I’m no detective, but I think it means she was planted here for some reason. But wait, Merv, there’s more.”
Max stepped back to the double doors and reached an arm through the opening. He grabbed the shirt front of a guy whose arms were currently pinned behind his back by two of Max’s lighting guys, and dragged the trio into the room. He dismissed his lighting team with a jerk of his head after shoving his captive down into a straight-backed chair. Detective Sims slipped into the room, sliding the heavy doors closed behind him.
“This guy look familiar?” Max asked, holding the smartphone next to the guy’s face. Stacy frowned at the screen, small as it was, and looked between the phone and the man’s face over and over. She shook her head. “That’s because he’s not dressed up. This guy right here would be part of Stephanie’s security detail. He’s one of her bodyguards. So what’s he doing signing up with this company four months ago if he’s still flying back to LA to handle the crowds at a movie premier?”
Stacy looked at the brawny guy, one of Max’s assistants, the very one who’d artfully swooped in and removed Sassy from the embarrassing scene with the bride, only to deposit her who knows where and out of the way. She looked from him to Max to Rod and back again, trying to piece together what was obviously sitting in front of her.
“But why?” she finally asked the man, the one she remembered at least filling out his application with the name Case. “What’s in it for you?”
He shrugged. “I’m just doing my job. I was told to report for work with your company so we could keep an eye on things around here before the wedding.”
“But you started working for this company before we were ever hired to plan this event. It’s not adding up somehow.” He shrugged again, looking a little less sure of himself than he had a moment ago. “And that doesn’t explain you jetting back and forth for her appearances.”
“A man can work two jobs, can’t he?” Case said with a smug look on his face. He seemed to almost be challenging Stacy to come up with something to pin against him.
“Actually no, he can’t. At least not a man who works for this company. You’re in violation of the terms of your non-compete agreement you signed that states you don’t get to have outside employment since it could be a conflict of interest with the private nature of this company. It also states that you can’t work in any form of event coordinating, and providing security at a public appearance would constitute an ‘event.’ Would you like me to spend some time getting creative with all of the other ways we get to sue you for everything you own?”
He looked duly frightened by Stacy’s rant, and for a moment it was obvious that this guy had secrets he wanted to keep buried, too. Anyone looking into his contractual obligations might uncover a few under the table cash payments, and that would reflect back on the well-known figures who’d paid him. He shook his head no and waited.
“Good. Now I want to know how you’re involved in all of this, and what Sassy’s part is, too,” she said, pointing to Max’s phone. Case looked out the window for a long time, gauging his answer against what kind of trouble he could get in.
“It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. We were just supposed to come out here, work for you guys, do our jobs, and just keep tabs on things.”
“What kinds of things?” Stacy asked before Rod could beat her to it. Rod shot her a look but held his pen against his notebook, ready to write it down.
“You know, just things like how the plans were going, how J-Max was behaving, stuff like. But then next thing you know, we’re being told to follow him and report back on what he’s doing. From there, we’re told to stage little ‘disruptions,’ like making sure there’s a mixup in the party plans if there are gonna be tons of hot girls there, or if somebody he’s hooked up with in the past is gonna show up at his concert. The worst was the time we was following J-Max to some party and we checked in. When Sassy reads off the list of who’s gonna be there, we were actually ordered to rear end his car, just to stage a little accident and make sure he gets held up.
”
“What kind of sicko would have you do that? You could have been killed!” Stacy yelled out before remembering her carefully crafted persona. She sat up taller and forced herself to try to remain impassive. “Pardon my interruption. Please continue.”
Case watched her for a second, not sure how much he should really share. “I guess you heard about J-Max getting pulled over with drugs in his car a couple of months ago.” They nodded. Even non-celebrity watchers had heard about that story, as it had made national headlines and been the subject of more than one talk show when the rap star had gotten off with a community service-style slap on the wrist. “There was enough drugs in that car to fund a Mexican cartel. I should know, I put ‘em in there.”
“What’s the point in that?” Rod asked, finally getting to ask his own questions.
“I was just following orders.”
“You know, you just admitted to a couple of different crimes just now. Why are you telling us this? And do I need to read you your rights before you say anything else?” Case shrugged again, which seemed to be his go-to answer.
“I’m telling you all the stuff I did do so that when I get around to telling you what I didn’t do—and by that, I’m talking about killing T-Spot—you’ll know you can believe me. Heck, the sheer amount of cocaine I put in J-Max’s car is probably a bigger sentence than shooting another rapper.”
Stacy and Rod exchanged a look, neither of them sure they should believe the oversized conspirator or not. With nothing else to go on, though, he seemed as good a lead as anyone.
Chapter 12
“So, back up a second, Case. If you’re copping to all this stuff you did on your boss’s orders, why would you go back to Hollywood and get involved even more? This lady right here had already given you a job, so you were out from under anyone’s control,” Rod questioned, pointing to Stacy.