Hot Secret (6 page)

“I want to get to a phone,” he replied.

“Why didn’t you just use the one in Veronica’s room?”

“I didn’t want Jeffrey Meyerson listening in.”

“Why not?”

“Because the last flight from L.A. should have gotten in about three hours ago. Unless that flight was very late, it should have put him in town just in time to have murdered Greg Kinsey.”

CHAPTER
FIVE

Molly tried not to gloat. She really did. But even though she knew she should leave well enough alone, the first words out of her mouth were, “I knew you couldn’t resist.”

Michael turned, his expression puzzled. “Resist what?” he asked. He didn’t seem nearly as pleased as she was by the observation.

“Getting involved.”

“I am not involved,” he said emphatically. He jammed his hands into his pockets as if that would keep them from reaching for the phone again.

“Then why are you calling to check on flight schedules?”

He lowered the receiver of the pay phone back into place. “Instinct,” he admitted. “But you’re right. This is not my case. I’ll find Jenkins and tell him what I suspect. Wait here.”

Before Molly could protest, he’d stalked off
across the black-and-white hotel lobby that looked like a set from some thirties musical with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

“Well, damn,” Molly muttered as she watched him disappear into the meeting room off the lobby where the police had apparently set up a temporary headquarters. This was not what she’d had in mind at all. Obviously, the hook hadn’t sunk in deep enough. Michael had wriggled loose.

Thoroughly disgruntled, she walked over to the front door of the hotel, expecting to find the throng of reporters still lurking like seagulls awaiting a tasty catch. Instead, they had vanished, either satisfied by statements from the police or in search of more cooperative sources.

More likely, like Ryan’s photographer, they’d headed for the fire escapes.

At any rate, outside it looked like any other Saturday night. Molly watched the endless parade of couples in attire that ranged from the downright eccentric to the most stylish available. As their conversation and laughter filtered through the glass, she tried again to sort through the various relationships she’d observed among the cast and crew on Greg’s production.

Twenty-nine-year-old Duke Lane, of the slicked-back hair and bad breath, had been Laura’s choice for leading man, from what Molly had read in the trades. His box-office following climbed with each new project. While Veronica’s scathing assessment of the way he’d chosen to play the character of Rod Lukens was right on track in Molly’s opinion, there
was no arguing that he was giving a compelling, realistic performance. It was no doubt based on his own experiences. The man had an enthusiastically reported history of charming older women who could advance his career.

Still, if he hadn’t been the director’s first choice and if Veronica’s complaining was beginning to get through to Greg, was it possible that Duke might have felt he had to kill the director? Molly dismissed the idea almost before it was fully formed. In that scenario, he’d probably have gone for Veronica. Besides, the picture was nearly complete. Greg would not have recast the role at this late date, no matter how he felt about Duke.

As for assistant director Hank Murdock, he’d get a directing break now that Greg was dead, but again, at this late date, how much good would it do him?
Endless Tomorrows
would always be regarded as Gregory Kinsey’s last picture no matter who directed the final few scenes.

Production assistant Jerry Shaw didn’t stand to gain anything from the director’s death. To the contrary, he was barely out of the UCLA film program. He was riding quite happily on Greg’s coattails.

Cinematographer Daniel Ortiz, who’d allegedly been busy setting up for the next scene at the time of the killing, owned a piece of GK Productions. The company’s fate rested with the rise or fall of Greg’s star. Molly would have to find out what would happen to GK Productions now that its primary owner was dead, but odds were it had a better future with him than without him. If so, the temperamental but talented Ortiz wouldn’t want him dead.

All of which brought Molly right back to the women in the case. Again she dismissed Veronica as the least likely of the suspects. Laura Crain was Molly’s first choice, if only because the producer had blindsided her earlier with that attack suggesting that Molly had used sex to lure Greg to Miami. There was also the jealousy motive to substantiate the choice. Laura might have sought revenge against the man who was publicly humiliating her.

As much as she wanted to pin it on Laura, however, Molly couldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility that the mysterious model had ended her argument with Greg with a gunshot. Oh, how she’d like to find her before the police discovered her identity.

Just then she heard a commotion at the registration desk in the lobby. When she turned, she spotted a dark-haired, khaki-clad photographer, laden down with camera equipment, who was arguing with the clerk behind the counter. He hadn’t come through the door since she’d been standing there, so she had to assume the man was checking out.

She listened to the exchange for several minutes before realizing that the two were arguing in a mix of English, Spanish, and a third language.

Italian! Of course! This had to be the photographer on location with Greg’s model friend. As she had told Sergeant Jenkins, there were six crews currently shooting fashion layouts all over town, but only one that she knew of had an Italian photographer.

She inched closer to the desk, trying to detect
the man’s name in the barrage of words being flung back and forth. She finally gave that up as a lost cause. They were talking so rapidly she couldn’t even distinguish one word from the next.

When tempers seemed to have cooled a bit, she tapped the photographer on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”

He turned his still-stormy, intense gaze on her. “Yes?” he said, immediately studying her with a photographer’s critical eye. Boredom followed rapidly. Molly didn’t delude herself that she was model material, but his relatively quick dismissal hurt.

She pulled one of her business cards from her purse and handed it to him. “You are here from Italy, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you working with a particular model? Dark hair. Dark eyes.” Admittedly, it was a weak description given the likelihood that it applied to half the models on location.

“I work with many models,” he said carefully. “Why do you ask this?” He studied her card more closely. “You have work for one of my models?”

She considered a blatant lie, but settled for a half-truth. “It’s possible,” she said. “Someone told me this one is very beautiful. I’m in touch with a number of casting directors who might be interested.”

“Casting directors? These are from pictures?”

“Yes. We have a crew filming here now, GK Productions. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? Gregory Kinsey? He’s very famous.”

His expression immediately closed down. He handed the card back to her with a disdainful glance.

“She would not be interested,” he said, confirming her guesswork. She had the right photographer, and with any luck he could be persuaded to lead her to the right model.

“Perhaps I could ask her myself. What’s her name?”

“She would not be interested,” he repeated, then turned his back on her.

The reaction removed any lingering doubts that she had the right man. He clearly knew which model she meant, knew of her connection to Greg. And he was clearly protecting her, which must mean that he knew about the murder.

She moved to a more unobtrusive part of the lobby and watched as the photographer made a hurried call on one of the house phones. Then he gathered up his luggage and equipment and went outside, where a taxi was already waiting.

Molly nabbed a passing bellman. “Is there another way out of here besides that elevator?”

“The fire stairs. They come out on the alley in back.”

“Damn,” she muttered, racing through the door just in time to see the taxi turn into the alley.

She ran after it, cutting into the alley just as the taxi door slammed shut. It sped off in the opposite direction before she could get halfway down the alley. Cursing under her breath, she turned around and ran smack into Michael.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“Trying to stop Greg’s model friend from skipping town before we find out what she knows about the murder.”

He regarded her incredulously. “You found her?”

“I found the photographer she’s been working for. Unfortunately, he figured out what I was up to and had her sneak down the stairs and come out of the hotel back here. I never even got a glimpse of her.”

“Then what makes you so certain it was the right one?”

“Couldn’t you, just for once, trust me? If I explain all that, they’ll be halfway to Rome.”

He ignored the sarcasm. “Any idea where they were headed?”

“Offhand, I’d say the airport. Isn’t that where you’d go, if you wanted to leave town in a hurry?”

“Not at this hour. There are too few flights to choose from. I’d find some out-of-the-way hotel, hide out for a day or two, and then leave from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach on a flight going somewhere other than Italy. I’d be a lot less conspicuous that way.”

Molly shook her head. “Will I ever be able to think deviously enough to keep up with you?”

He grinned. “Is that a compliment?”

“Given the context, I’d have to say ‘Yes.’ Under ordinary conditions, however, it’s not a particularly attractive trait.”

“I’ll try to use it judiciously.”

She scowled at his teasing tone. “At any rate, the cab company ought to be able to tell us who’s right.”

“I don’t suppose you got a glimpse of the taxi number or the license tag?”

“Actually, I did,” she said. She repeated the digits, along with the name of the taxi company, which had its headquarters only a few blocks away.

“Then let’s get back inside and give it to Sergeant Jenkins.”

Molly tried to hide her disappointment and failed. “We’re not going to track it down ourselves?”

“Not a chance, sweetheart. You’ve done enough amateur sleuthing for one night. We are going home.”

“It would only take one little phone call. We’d turn the information over to the sergeant.”

“The taxi company is not going to give that kind of information to anyone other than someone on official police business.”

“You have a badge number, credentials, the whole nine yards,” she reminded him. “You probably even have a contact there who’d like to do you a favor.”

“But I am not the officer in charge of this case,” he said with the pious tone of an altar boy wrongly accused of snitching a taste of wine. “I’m off duty, out of my jurisdiction. Are you getting the picture yet?”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “What am I supposed to tell Vince? He expects me to handle things here.”

“Tell him that the police have everything under control. Tell him that they hope to have the case wrapped up very quickly.”

“Is that the truth? Or is that just meant to pacify him?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’ve spent too much time around stonewalling public information officers. By the way, did Jenkins check on that flight from L.A.?”

“Better a little stonewalling, than a lot of wild speculation.” He ignored the question about Jeffrey Meyerson’s flight.

Molly gave up on that and tried to explain that facts tended to put a lid on speculation. She was so busy making her argument convincing that she barely noticed that Michael had steered her down the block and into her car.

“Give me five minutes,” he said. “Then I’ll take you home.”

Obviously he had no idea what she could accomplish in five minutes if she put her mind to it. As soon as he’d left, she raced for the pay phone on the corner, dropped in a quarter, and called the taxi company.

“I’m calling from the hotel. One of our guests left something behind and I’m wondering if you could tell me where your driver dropped him off. The pickup was about five minutes ago, a couple. Italian. Giovanni, yes. That’s it.”

The dispatcher named an address in Little Havana. “That’s a motel, I think,” he added. Molly could visualize him leering as he said it. She was
familiar with the name. Not far from the airport, the motel wasn’t a stop-off for international travelers. Its usual clientele tended to rent by the hour.

Molly was back in her car, looking as innocent as it was possible for a guilty person to look, by the time he returned. He regarded her suspiciously.

“What’s up?”

“Actually, I’m starving,” she said. “I was hoping maybe we could stop for something to eat.”

“We could just walk to the News Café. It’s only a few blocks down.”

“Actually, what I’d really like is a
medianoche
or a Cuban sandwich. Could we go to Versailles or someplace else over on Calle Ocho?”

“This sudden craving for Cuban food wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain motel, would it?”

Molly felt her cheeks turning pink. “How did you know?”

“When Sergeant Jenkins called the taxi dispatcher, the man said he’d just had another call about the exact same couple. He said he’d told the woman they’d been dropped off at a motel in Little Havana.”

“Oh,” she said meekly. “I don’t suppose …”

“No.”

“But …”

“No.” He glanced across at her. “Still hungry?”

“No,” she muttered. “I’ll drop you at your car on my way home.”

He actually laughed out loud at that. “Not a chance. I won’t rest easy until I know you’re home and safely tucked in for the night.”

“You planning to stick around for that?” she inquired testily.

His gaze caught hers and held. “Don’t tempt me, Molly DeWitt,” he warned softly. “Don’t tempt me.”

Awareness slammed through her and left her downright shaky. “How’s Bianca?” she said in a desperate rush.

His eyes never left hers. “Fine,” he said. “Last time I talked to her.”

“You’re not living together anymore?”