Hollywood Confessions

by Gemma Halliday

  “How did you get in my house?”

  I spun around in the chair, the sudden break in the silence making my heart leap into my throat.

  Felix stood in the doorway, head cocked to the side, a frown marring his features.

  “Jesus, you scared me,” I told him, sucking in deep breaths.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” His voice was flat, clipped. Completely void of emotion.

  I bit my lip.

  I’d had about fifteen mental Morning After conversations in my head since this morning about how it was a mistake, how we were caught up in the moment, how we were adults that should be able to put it behind us and work together anyway. Unfortunately, none of those conversations in my head had gone well and with the dark, unreadable look he was giving me now, I doubted real life would play out better. So, I went with Plan B—total denial. Pretend nothing had happened. We were colleagues. Nothing more.

  “How did you get in my house?” Felix repeated, taking a step into the room.

  “Lock picking set,” I answered truthfully.

  He blinked at me. “The one I gave you?”

  I nodded.

  “Remind me not to give you any more presents,” he mumbled.

  With the terms we were currently on, I didn’t think that was going to be an issue.

  Holding on to that denial with all I had, I got up from Felix’s chair and cleared my throat, trying to clear some of the awkward from the room. “Uh, I was going to log in, but I didn’t know your password.”

  “At least there’s one thing you don’t know how to break into,” he said, taking my place behind the monitor and quickly pounding out his secret word. My instinct was to look over his shoulder, but considering the precarious slant to our relationship at the moment I decided against it, instead watching the monitor as he logged in.

  “You said you needed to see the crime scene report?” Felix asked, his tone all business. Apparently two could play at this denial game.

  Good. Great. That just made things easier on my end, right?

  “Yes. Please,” I added. “If we can find out what label of wine Barker drank that night, we might be able to trace the bottle to its owner.”

  Felix nodded, his eyes never leaving the screen as he pulled up the LAPD’s internal website. How he had access to it, I had no idea. And honestly it was probably better for my own deniable criminal culpability if I didn’t ask. So I watched as he hooked up a black box to his computer then typed in a string of letters. Rows of numbers appeared on the screen, flashing quickly in long columns.

  “What’s that?” I asked. Okay, criminal culpability only won out over curiosity for so long.

  “Passwords generator.”

  “Cool.”

  I thought I saw the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of his lips.

  We watched numbers flash across the screen in silence until finally one of the passwords generated seemed to hit pay dirt, and the monitor changed to a welcome screen for the active cases database. Felix typed in a query for Barker’s file. Immediately a list of scanned documents appeared.

  “There!” I said, stabbing my finger at a report halfway down the page. Felix clicked the link, and a moment later we were staring at the crime scene report, cataloguing every item found in the victim’s vicinity. And there were a lot of them.

  Half an hour later we’d read details about every piece of lint Barker had collected on his person, every crumb he’d dropped on his carpet, and every drop of wine spilled within a four-foot radius of the body. I was starting to go cross-eyed, and my back hurt from leaning over Felix’s shoulder by the time he finally scrolled down to item number seventy-nine collected by the crime scene techs—the wine bottle.

  I held my breath, adrenaline coursing through me as I carefully read the entry. It had been, as I already knew, a merlot. The bottle was dark green, found in the kitchen’s recycling bin. Wine residue was still present on in the bottom, though the bottle only contained Barker’s fingerprints. The label listed it as a 2004 vintage from Fleurie Vineyards in Napa Valley.

  Bingo.

  “That’s it,” I said, pointing at the line. “Can we google Fleurie Vineyards?”

  “On it,” Felix said, his fingers flying as he pulled up another window. A moment later the vineyard’s website filled the screen, photos of grapes and lush greenery on a hillside flashing above info on their tasting room, their address, and phone number.

  I pulled out my cell, punching in the number.

  “What are you doing?” Felix asked.

  “Calling them to ask if any of our suspects bought a bottle recently.”

  “It’s after nine. No one will be there.”

  I paused. He was right. I didn’t realize how much time had passed since my aborted dinner with Alec. “Oh.” I shoved my phone back into my pocket.

  “Besides,” Felix said, the corner of his lip turning upward in a smirk. “I have a better way.”

  I raised an eyebrow as he pulled up another screen, typing in strings of letter and numbers again. In a matter of minutes he had what looked like an accounting ledger up on the screen.

  “Do I even want to know?” I asked, squinting at the font.

  “The orders log for Fleurie Vineyards.”

  “Dude, how did you get this?”

  Felix grinned. “Be good, and maybe I’ll show you.”

  I punched him in the arm, quickly scanning the register for the names of our suspects. Ten lines down, one name fairly leapt out at me.

  Don Davenport.

  “That’s it! Don killed Barker!”

  “Not necessarily,” Felix cautioned. “This proves that Don purchased a bottle of the same wine.” He paused, reading off the order. “In fact, he purchased several bottles. Four merlot and two chardonnay. And for all we know, they could still be in his house right now.”

  I pursed my lips together. “Okay, then let’s find out if they are.”

  Felix shot me a look. “Please tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  Silence stretched for a good ten seconds before Felix finally broke. “Dammit, Allie, you cannot break into their house!”

  “Oh, come on. You know as well as I do that if I ask him, Don will just lie again. This is the only way to know for sure if that bottle is the one that killed Barker.”

  “No.” Felix stood up, shaking his head. “There’s no way I’m letting you do that.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “You’re breaking into the house of a person who you think killed a man and tried to kill you as well? What about that screams ‘careful?’”

  I’ll admit, he had a point.

  “It’s a huge house. What are the chances I’d run into anyone?” I countered.

  He shook his head again. “No. Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “You are not in a position to forbid me to do anything.”

  “As your boss, yes I am. Do you know how much trouble I’d be in with our publisher if one of my reporters got caught breaking into a celebrity’s house?”

  “Fine. Then I quit.”

  Felix froze. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. I quit,” I said with a whole lot more bravado than my meager bank account warranted. It was a brave bluff. If he really stopped paying me I’d have to live on Ramen, and even then I only had a couple weeks between me and starvation.

  Felix shut his mouth with a click, jaw going tense, eyes flashing a whole string of unsaid words at me. None of them good. “Fine,” he finally spat out. “As of now, you are no longer employed at the Informer.”

  I bit my lip. “Seriously?” I asked, that bravado slipping a little.

  “Seriously.” And by the set of his jaw, I could tell he meant it.

  But there wasn’t much I could do about it now. I held my head high and shot back a “Fine” of my own.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Felix said, gestu
ring to the front door, “I believe our business here is finished.”

  “Fine,” I said again. Yes, I was completely out of smart comments. I walked with my back as ramrod straight as I could to the front door as Felix kicked me out.

  “Oh, and just in case you’re still thinking of breaking and entering,” Felix said as he held the front door open for me. “Don’t. Because if I hear even the slightest whisper of information that the perimeter of the Davenport house has been compromised, I will go to the police with this harebrained plan of yours.”

  I blinked at him. “You’re not kidding, are you.”

  He gave me a hard look. “No,” he said then shut the door in my face.

  I spun around, stalked to my car, and gave myself a staunch lecture on how I was not going to cry. So what if I was now unemployed? So what if Felix not only just kicked me out of his house but, by the hard look in his eyes, completely out of his life too? So what if any feelings he may have eluded to were obviously a thing of the past now? So what if he was even now putting the LAPD on speed dial to lock me up?

  I didn’t care at all. At least, that’s what I told that stinging behind my eyes as I made my way back to my Bug.

  If that’s the way he wanted to play this, fine. I was so going to crack this case wide open, so going to write the best story ever, and I was so getting a position at the Times and rubbing it in Felix’s smug face.

  Only I realized, as I held onto my resolve with a two-fisted death grip, that if I was going to break into Don and Deb’s and not go to jail courtesy of one British asshole, not getting caught was priority numero uno. What I needed was a look out. Someone to watch my back as I nosed around the wine cellar.

  I mentally went through my options for that someone. But the truth was, I only knew one person who possessed both the qualities of deviousness and drive in quantities perfect for this escapade.

  Tina.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I dialed Tina’s number as I zipped down Laurel Canyon, listening to it ring on the other end. Seven rings in, it went to voicemail. I redialed, but she still didn’t pick up. Clearly I was being screened. I was going to have to do this in person.

  I pointed my car toward South Pasadena, making tracks to the retirement village where she lived with her aunt. Half an hour later I pulled up to her place and parked my Bug at the end of the driveway, blocking any means of escape. She could screen, but she couldn’t get away. I walked up the short pathway, past a flock of plastic pink flamingoes tended by a couple of fat garden gnomes, and knocked on the front door.

  I could hear a TV blaring in the background, and rang the doorbell for good measure.

  A beat later the door was thrown back, and I was face to face with Tina.

  She blinked, clearly surprised to see me as a frown settled between her eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “About what?”

  “The Barker story.”

  She shook her head. “No way, blondie. You need info, you find it on your own.”

  She moved to shut the door, but I was quicker, shoving my purse in the doorjamb.

  “Wait! I don’t need info, I have it.”

  Tina paused. “And you want to share it with me?”

  I nodded.

  Her eyes narrowed again. “Why? What’s the catch here?”

  “The catch is I know who killed Barker, but I need your help to prove it.”

  She contemplated this, staring me down for just long enough to make me start fidgeting on her doorstep, before she finally stepped back. “No promises,” she warned, holding the door open for me.

  I stepped into a small condo with a kitchen to the right that smelled like burnt lasagna and a living room to the left where Jeopardy! was playing at top volume. An older woman with tight white curls sat on the sofa, eyes glued to the screen behind a pair of bifocals.

  Beside her sat a guy with dark hair, dark eyes and a clear addiction to the gym that I pegged as Tina’s boyfriend, Cal. I’d heard his name thrown around the newsroom a few times, though this was my first in person encounter. “What is Mount Kilimanjaro?” he shouted at the TV.

  “No, it’s Mount Fuji,” the old lady argued. “Mount Kilimanjaro is in India.”

  “I think it’s in Africa,” the guy countered.

  “I’m sorry,” the host said from the TV, “but the answer is Mount Everest.”

  Both the old lady and the big guy sat back on the cushions with a collective groan.

  “Um, we can talk in the kitchen,” Tina suggested, leading the way.

  I nodded, following her to a pair of stools set up against a breakfast bar.

  “So, what kind of help do you need?” she asked, straddling one.

  I took a deep breath, hating that I had to ask but knowing Tina couldn’t refuse. “I need you to help me break into Don and Deb Davenport’s house.”

  She raised one heavily lined eyebrow at me. “Because…?”

  I spilled all about my wine bottle theory and my argument with Felix. When I finished she had one corner of her lip clenched between her teeth, a frown creasing her forehead. “So, let me get this straight…you actually quit the paper?”

  I nodded. Reluctantly.

  “So that means I’m the only reporter at the Informer working on this story now?”

  I slowly nodded again.

  “So when we get the proof that Don did this, I will be writing the headlining column?”

  “For the Informer,” I emphasized. “I’m submitting my story to the L.A. Times.”

  Tina nodded, turning this deal over in her head. “Okay. Tell you what, blondie, you have a deal. I’ll help you.”

  I let out a whoosh of air I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Phase One: complete. On to Phase Two: the actual breaking and entering.

  I waited while Tina changed into a pair of tight black jeans, a black hoodie and a pair of black combat boots. Then she kissed both her aunt and Cal on the cheek, saying she was “going out with the girls”. The half-truth seemed to suffice as neither looked up from the TV, still shouting answers at the contestants.

  Considering I was still wearing the cocktail dress I’d gone to dinner with Alec in, I pointed my Bug toward home for a quick wardrobe change of my own.

  “Whoa,” Tina said as she stepped into my apartment. “What happened here?”

  “Sorry, it’s kind of a mess,” I said, flipping on a couple lights (just to make sure we were alone this time).

  “And it’s really…pink,” she said, holding one of my daisy pillows up by the corner as if it might jump up and bite her with contagious happiness at any second.

  “I like pink.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I’ll just be a sec, okay?” I called from the bedroom, throwing on a pair of black stretch pants, a tight black T-shirt, black boots and a black leather jacket. Then I quickly twisted my hair up into a ponytail before joining Tina in the living room again.

  I was just transferring a few essentials from my purse to my jacket pockets (driver’s license, lipgloss, lock picking set) when a knock sounded at my front door.

  Tina raised an eyebrow. “Expecting someone?”

  I wasn’t. But for a fleeting second I had a vision of Felix standing on my doorstep, tail between his legs to apologize and beg me back to the paper.

  A very fleeting second, as I looked through the peephole to find the top of Gary’s head staring back at me.

  “Hey,” he said as I opened the door, not waiting for an invitation before pushing in. “I just came by to—” he stopped when he saw Tina. “Whoa. Who’s the new chick?”

  Tina narrowed her eyes at him. “Who’s the little guy?”

  Oh, boy.

  “This is Tina. She’s…helping me.”

  “Wait, helping you? I thought I was your assistant?”

  Tina shot me a questioning look. “You have an assistant?”

  “Sorta. Tina, this
is Gary.”

  “I know who he is. He was on Little Love,” she said. Then added, “What happened to your ‘stache?”

  Gary shot me a death look. “I told you it was my thing!”

  “You’ll grow a new thing. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re kind busy here, Gary,” I said, pointing to the door.

  Unfortuntely, he didn’t take the hint. “So, what’s with the outfits?” he asked instead, gesturing to our all-black motif.

  Knowing I wasn’t going to get rid of him until I did, I quickly filled him in on the wine bottle and the plan to prove it was Don that killed Barker with it.

  When I was done he looked from me to Tina.

  “So, you guys are going all ‘bad girl’ on his place?”

  I bit my lip. “Kinda.”

  His face broke into a grin just this side of a leer. “Haaaaaaaawt.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Exactly what are you doing here, Gary?” I asked.

  “I came by to give you the results of the fingerprint analysis Tandy did for us.”

  Tina leaned in. “Fingerprint?”

  “Of whoever trashed my place,” I explained. “So, who was it?”

  Gary shrugged. “The prints weren’t in the database. The person doesn’t have a record.”

  “Great,” I sighed. “That doesn’t help much.”

  “Oh, it might,” Gary continued, a glimmer in his eye. “The prints aren’t in the database because they belong to a child.”

  “Wait, a child did this?” I asked, looking around.

  Gary nodded. “Tandy said the print came back as consistent with the size of a seven- to ten-year-old kid.”

  My mind immediately went to the dozen seemingly innocent little divas living with Don. “That’s it, it’s got to be Don.”

  “How sick that he had his kids trash your place,” Tina said, wrinkling her nose as she looked around.

  Very sick. Which just made me that much more determined to prove he was Barker’s killer.

  “So when do we hit Barker’s place?” Gary asked, rubbing his hands together.

  I paused. “We?”