Published: July, 2017 Publisher: Audacious ISBN: 978-1-909577-14-5 ASIN: B073WBMXXY Genres: Cozy Mystery, Contemporary Mystery, Women Sleuths, Amateur Sleuth, Romantic Suspense |
From the author of the bestselling Lexi Graves Mysteries comes a gripping, fast-paced Hollywood whodunit! Shayne Winter, former chief reporter turned begrudging entertainment columnist, is desperate for a real story. But her grumpy editor insists she stick to fluff pieces, leaving the hard-hitting headlines to golden boy Ben Kosina. When Hollywood’s brightest starlet, Claudia Gilbert, is found dead, Shayne sees her chance. She was tailing Claudia just yesterday, prepping for a juicy gossip column—but now Claudia’s glamorous life has come to a tragic end. The police suspect her estranged husband, but Shayne isn’t so sure. Claudia’s every move was carefully controlled, and Shayne is convinced her death was no different. To uncover the truth, Shayne will need to stay one step ahead of Ben and dive deep into Hollywood’s secrets. But if she’s not careful, this story could be her last deadline. |
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CHAPTER ONE
“Shayne, where’s my column?” yelled Bob Chance.
“I’m working on it,” I told him for the third time, barely restraining the sigh that slipped out. I doubted he heard me the first two times but it wasn’t like my editor, Bob, would let me say much during our two-minute conversation. Well, maybe not a conversation, more like Bob’s soliloquy about the importance of being the first to get the juicy gossip. Of course, I knew that. Finding the entertainment stories was a job that got dumped into my lap despite my advanced qualifications and skills. At my last newspaper, I specialized in searching out and publishing the hard-hitting headlines. Chasing down cheating starlets or reporting on cellulite never figured into my resume until now but that was the kind of juice Bob wanted. The LA Chronicle thrived on getting the big stories first, especially after a recent dip in readership. That was something the chief reporter, Ben Kosina, aka the man who sort-of stole my reporter gig, and I had been working hard at repairing.
Only a month ago, we hit the highest circulation figures in more than six months, thanks to the murder of a former child star. Chucky Barnard was poised for his big return to the nation’s TV screens, but Bob wrote him off as an unfortunate death of a former actor. He also instructed me, Shayne Winter, to write-up his obituary. However, my meeting with Chucky’s sister put me on the trail that ended in me solving his murder. Everyone was happy. Jenna Barnard knew what really happened to her brother, Bob got his headline, and I got the byline I so badly needed since starting this job. I was expecting to get Ben’s former job, only no one thought to tell me before I arrived in Los Angeles that Ben had returned. He swiftly snapped up my reporter gig, leaving me with a choice: write the obituaries and the entertainment column or don’t work at all. With no other prospects on the horizon, I begrudgingly accepted the new role. Strangely enough, the two strands of reporting seemed to blend well together; and not necessarily in the macabre, overly-invasive sense.
“So, I’ll have it today?” Bob yelled again, snapping me back to the conversation.
“Yes, absolutely,” I promised as I rubbed my ear. With little more than a light rewrite to wrap up my column, once I got back to the office, it would take me hardly any time.
“Where are you now?” he wanted to know. “I can’t see you at your desk.”
“I’m following a lead.”
“Atta girl,” growled Bob before he hung up.
I pulled a face at the phone, tossing it onto the seat next to me. I fully expected Bob to demand what story I was following but since he didn’t insist, I wasn’t about to volunteer. I didn’t even know if it were a story yet. It might just have been a tidbit for my entertainment column, but after staking out the house high up in the Hollywood Hills for two hours, I was hoping for something better. It was no good just grabbing one headline, I wanted more. Not that I intended to oust Ben from his job — I liked him — but I also wasn’t content to pen the back pages for years in the vain hope that Bob would eventually notice my talent. No, I had to prove it to him by delivering headline after headline.
The heat outside my car was blistering. Inside was even worse. I shifted position, attempting to stretch my legs and reaching for the bottle of water I stashed under the seat in the futile hope of keeping it cool. No such luck. The frozen strawberries I dropped into the central well of my trendy, fruit-infusion bottle had turned to mush and the drink tasted like strawberry tea. I drank it anyway and wiped a bead of perspiration from my forehead. All I needed for the sticky stakeout to pay off was to see something interesting.
A movement caught my eye. Picking up my camera, I focused on the house, quickly sweeping the area in search of what grabbed my attention. The white Range Rover hadn’t moved. The large, electric gates for the driveway were still shut. The street remained empty of traffic.
I panned my camera right and found what I’d been looking for. The front door was partially open. A moment later, it opened wider and a small, curvy brunette stepped out, tugging a large suitcase behind her.
Claudia Gilbert, TV star, and my current target and fondest hope for a headline story, wheeled the suitcase to her car. She popped the tailgate and hauled it into the trunk. I snapped a couple of photos and, through the zoom lens, followed her back to the house. She left both her trunk and the front door open. I watched, scanning the house as I waited for her to come out. A moment later, I had the shot. Another suitcase was hauled outside and stowed into the trunk before she closed it. She paused next to the car with her hands on her hips. I frowned, my finger ready on the capture button, wondering what she was waiting for.
Claudia fished a cell phone from her jeans pocket and raised it to her ear. Through the zoom lens, I saw her frown as her mouth pinched into a straight line but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. It seemed as though she didn’t have much of an opportunity to talk since every time she opened her mouth, she shut it again. I knew that feeling; I got it at least once a day from Bob. With her down-turned lips, Claudia didn’t look happy and I snapped another photo, then another, before she turned away and headed back into her house.
So far, so not very interesting. I might have wasted twenty bucks on this tip. I got it from the pool guy at my apartment complex near Venice. He heard it from his cousin, who took care of the pool here, that a lot of loud arguing was audible lately at Claudia’s house and this date came up a couple of times. My pool guy was more than happy to mention Claudia’s name, which immediately piqued my interest. Rumors in the gossip magazines claimed that Claudia’s strained marriage was currently on the rocks. Some said that she was dating again but the pool guy intimated something very different. A scoop was definitely going to happen today and I wanted to be the first reporter to snatch it. My job was to find out what, verify it, and then print it. So what if it might not have been the hard-hitting headline I was used to breaking? At least, it was something. The more I could manage to impress Bob, the more he might see how he wasted my qualifications on entertainment and obituaries.
Naturally, I hoped for a bigger story than watching Claudia Gilbert loading her suitcases in the car for a trip, but I figured I could spin it as a mystery vacation for my celebrity-spotting entertainment column. Even better, if I could catch her with another man instead of her estranged husband, Bob would no doubt enjoy the scandal. So, it wasn’t exactly hard-hitting news but I’d take any big story right now.
I waited for Claudia to reappear, this time with a ridiculously over-sized purse in one hand. She locked her front door, slipped on a huge pair of sunglasses that almost entirely covered the middle section of her face, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The gates slid open and the Range Rover rolled down the driveway, making a right turn before it powered along the street.
Dropping my camera onto the seat beside me, I fired up the engine and buckled up, stopping before I rolled onto the street. I didn’t know how to get from this street to Claudia, much less where to intersect her. By the time I figured out how to get that information from my SatNav, I feared she would already be gone. Plus, I didn’t want to tail her to the airport or wherever she was going. I wanted the AC and a cold drink.
Without a juicier reason to convince me to tail her, my mind was made up. I rolled up the windows of my car, turned up the air conditioning and directed my SatNav to return to the LA Chronicle’s offices. Today’s stakeout was over and I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. One one hand, it was too hot to follow anyone in the midday LA sun, especially when it didn’t seem like there was any big story. On the other hand, it was just another day, another missing headline, and that wouldn’t help me get anywhere at the Chronicle.
A month ago, I abandoned my former life to move to LA for my big break. Not that I had much of a life to abandon. “No,” I told myself as I eventually merged into traffic a few turns later. The white Range Rover was nowhere to be seen. “No, I had a great life. Okay, I had a nice life.” It was that nice life I ruminated on as I drove to the Chronicle offices. I’d been living with my grandmother since I was a kid, looking after her during the last years of her life. By that time, I was Chief Reporter at The Montgomery Gazette, my byline gracing hundreds of headlines on the front cover and inside pages. I had a nice apartment and a coterie of close friends. But Gran kept urging me onto bigger and better things, telling me to follow and expand my dreams of being more than just a small city success. When Gran passed, I moved to LA, intending to fulfill those dreams but they fell flat on my arrival. The job I’d been offered didn’t exist, my chic apartment was on the nasty side of rustic, and my first couple of dates turned out to be the stuff of nightmares. However, things were picking up.
My previously depressing apartment complex had undergone a fantastic makeover. My boss was still a work in progress but I managed to achieve one headline that upped our circulation figures and gave it a huge boost. I’d also met several terrific people with whom I was working on turning into friends, and I met Ben.
Although we’d been on several dates since we saved each other’s lives while following a story, I wasn’t sure if I could call him my boyfriend yet. Not that I was dating anyone else but… was he? I didn’t know. I didn’t know what the rules were out here in La La Land. Did we need to talk about dating exclusively? Did we need to ask each other? Should I date other people? What if Ben were dating other people?
A knot of jealousy puckered in my chest and instantly soured my mood.
My disposition hadn’t improved much by the time I walked into the office and gave Bob’s assistant, Martha, a cheery wave from across the room. I dropped into the chair only a few paces away from the main doors. The Chronicle’s budget failed to include a shiny, new computer but I was happy to use my own laptop. The IT department — which was comprised of one person — hooked it up to the shared drive. I opened my laptop and called up my contacts list, a file I’d steadily been amassing. Back in my hometown of Montgomery, I had an extensive list of informants and people I could call on, not just for tip-offs and stories but for their comments and opinions too. Here in LA, I arrived with an empty book. Contacts were crucial to an investigative reporter’s success and it was my mission to glean as many as I could in order to advance quickly.
I found the phone number I was searching for but before I could place the call, the phone on my desk rang. “Shayne Winter,” I said, holding it to my ear.
“Please hold for Becca Gilbert,” said the voice as my mouth dropped.
Becca Gilbert was the woman whose name I’d just searched. Not only was she Claudia Gilbert’s mother, but also her manager. In the press, she liked to tout herself as Claudia’s momager, a term that never ceased to make me cringe. I placed several calls to her over the past few days trying to get an interview with Claudia for a broader entertainment story I was pitching to Bob, but, so far, I hadn’t any success… and now she was calling me? Perhaps she was as eager for Claudia to give an interview to the Chronicle as I was to get it, especially with the boosted circulation?
“Shayne?” came the voice I’d recognize anywhere. That was owing to an evening spent watching a tabloid-esque documentary about Claudia’s rise to fame the night before. “I’m returning your call.”
“Yes, hi, and thank you so much,” I blurted out. “I’m so pleased to talk…”
“I have a call with a producer in five minutes,” she cut in, “and I have seventeen calls after that. I can spare you… exactly two minutes. You want to interview my daughter?”
“Yes, I…”
“What’s your angle?” she snapped, cutting me off.
“Well, I guess, I… um…”
“You want to talk about her new show and her divorce.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Absolutely,” I agreed, wondering, did I? “It’ll be a super positive piece…”
“Of course it will! Shall we say tomorrow? At eleven? My assistant will make reservations for brunch.”
“That sounds perfect.” I stopped, remembering my photos. Claudia had just driven away with two large suitcases. “Is Claudia in town?”
“Of course she is. She’s very busy.”
“I heard she was taking a vacation. She…”
“Certainly not! We’ll be in touch and I want copy approval before you print anything. Agreed? Good.” Becca hung up before I could squeeze another word in. I dropped the phone into the cradle, feeling steam-rolled by the mostly one-sided conversation.
A shadow fell across me and I looked up and frowned. Dating someone was one thing, but working with said person too was a situation in which I’d never found myself before. So far, Ben and I managed to keep our dating life under wraps in the office.
“I was hoping for a smile. Yours is upside down,” said Ben. He smiled brilliantly and if I weren’t already sitting, my knees would have buckled. My heart did a very girly thud-thud. “Hello, beautiful,” he added as he blew a tiny kiss, imperceptible to anyone but me, and my heart thudded loudly again.
“Hi!” I plastered a big smile on my face, but seeing his narrowed eyes, he wasn’t fooled.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I just got off the phone with Becca Gilbert. She’s like a runaway steam roller. I think I said maybe three words. I don’t even know why she decided to call me back. You know how many messages I left?”
“You’re welcome.”
“Huh?”
“I know her assistant so I made a call and…” Ben did a little flourish with his hand.
My stomach dropped. So much for Becca deciding I was the person to call to get her daughter into the newspaper. “You did this?”
His face fell. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
I pulled myself together quickly. I was new in town, and slowly building my contacts. Getting my name known would take time; plus, as any reporter should know, accepting help was a good thing! How many times had I used my influence to develop a lead? Or passed on a much-needed contact? Actually, I rarely passed on a top-drawer contact like Becca Gilbert, so for Ben to place a call on my behalf was extremely magnanimous. “I am! I’m just surprised. Thank you! I think. She offered me a meeting for tomorrow. Only…” I thought about the suitcases again. Maybe Claudia wasn’t heading off on a trip. Maybe my pool guy’s cousin got the wrong end of the net with the idea of a bigger story. So where was Claudia going with enough luggage for a two-week vacation?
“Only what?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head, temporarily ignoring Claudia’s low-key exit out of town. At least I didn’t add that secret vacation tidbit to my column and then look stupid when she inevitably popped up in town as the object of a paparazzi photo. “I really appreciate you making the call. Bob said he needed a fluff piece and Claudia is the hottest star of the minute, thanks to all the crazy goings on in her life.”
“I’ve heard,” agreed Ben. “How’s the column coming along?”
“I just need to read it again, tweak it a little bit, and then I can file.” I decided Claudia’s vacation was no longer important now that I had some face-to-face time with her. All I had to do was give the column a final read and hit send, then I could work on my notes for tomorrow’s brunch meeting.
“That’s great. I got our movie tickets; then I thought we could grab something to eat. What cuisine are you in the mood for? Chinese? Vietnamese? Mexican?”
“Romance,” I said with a smile, letting the word slip out before I thought about it. I could, however, kick myself later.
Ben didn’t miss a beat when he said, “I know the perfect place. You’ll love it.”
“I can’t wait.”
Ben flashed me another smile before walking away. I couldn’t help watching his graceful stride and his even more attractive behind. When I first met Ben, I didn’t like him, but soon learned that I read him all wrong. Initially, I thought he stole the job that was promised to me. Technically speaking, that was the case, but he didn’t return to the Chronicle and snatch up my job out of malice or even selfishness. He’d been going through a lot of grief during his prolonged sabbatical. In the weeks since our initial meeting, I discovered that he was a terrific guy. Smart, funny, self-deprecating, hard-working. Plus, once he understood that he’d unwittingly usurped my position, he was more than willing to give me a shot at the headline, provided I got the story.
On a personal level, this had to be our fifth date. The very idea gave me butterflies. Not only that, but his kisses were deepening into something hungrier with each successive date, and my feelings for him were growing increasingly stronger.
I sucked in a deep breath and forced my eyes back onto my column. Work first, kisses later.
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