Not Wanted in Hollywood (8 page)

“
Take your
pick,” said Griffin. “There is more than one law enforcement agency
keeping an eye on the guy and when he sits down to lunch with my
girlfriend I start getting phone calls.”

At least that was one question for the day
answered, Griffin still considered that I was his girlfriend.

“I was sitting in a diner having lunch when
he came up to speak to me. It seems that Hammy owed him some money,
because that is the way my life goes. He wondered if I had any
ideas who could have possibly killed Hammy.”

“And he was asking you because...”

“Because for some reason the man values my
opinion.”

Griffin looked at me skeptically. I was with
him. Dominic Caldwell’s unswerving confidence in my powers of
observation and deduction caused me to question the man’s grasp on
reality.

“Are there any other men that I should be
worried about you keeping company with?” asked Griffin. “I mean in
twenty four hours I find you spending time in a strip club with
Cooper and then having a friendly lunch with Dominic Caldwell.”

Just like that my dreams of a mature
discussion and loving reconciliation went out of the window.

“
It wasn’t my
fault,” I said, wondering if I was overusing that phrase. “Dominic
came and spoke to me about Hammy’s death. He was in the middle of
buying the land that the club is on in repayment for some debts
Hammy had with him. According to Dominic, the death happened at an
unfortunate time during the negotiations.” I grimaced a bit. That
sounded a little bit too much like something Dominic would say. I
was beginning to sound like him. I was going to have to nip that in
the bud pretty quickly.

“
Really,”
said Griffin as he pulled out his phone. “And at which part of the
discussion did he feel the need to kiss you?”

“What are you talking about?” I really
couldn’t believe the way this conversation was going.

Griffin
showed me the screen on his phone and there was a lovely photo of
Dominic kissing my hand. Obviously one of those law enforcement
agencies had felt that Griffin needed that bit of information as
well. Good to see my tax dollars at work. Now that I thought about
it, I wouldn’t put it past Dominic to have known we were being
watched. It would appeal to his sense of humor to put me in this
position.

“He was leaving and I thought he was shaking
my hand when he kissed it lightly. You’re the one always telling me
how dangerous he is. Did you want me to just haul off and slap
him?” I said.

I could tell that there were two parts of
Griffin warring against each other. The side that wanted me to hit
the man who dared to touch me and the side that knew how bad a move
that would have been.

“
You have to
stop stepping into these situations,” Griffin said
tightly.

“What are you talking about?” I replied.

“
Finding
bodies, dealing with people who are dangerous. You just don’t think
about the consequences of what you are doing,” Griffin said as he
started pacing the room.

“
None of this
is my fault,” I said. I was getting tired of having to constantly
tell people this.

“
Yet you are
always in the middle of it,” Griffin said.

I stopped.
Maybe he was right. There had to be some reason why I found myself
in these situations. I’d spent my whole life being the good,
responsible, practical girl. Was it possible that I was actually a
trouble magnet who attracted the bad boys? I mean Dominic
definitely fell under that definition, but I preferred to think of
Travis as more slightly off track rather than completely bad. Maybe
I was giving out some weird psychic vibes that attracted trouble.
Seriously, I was working in a strip club for a man who thought it
was completely acceptable to film people without their knowledge.
How could that possibly come under the banner of being normal?
Maybe I should talk to Monique about getting me a nice quiet office
job for a change. No celebrities, no eccentric artists, just me, a
computer and a few weeks without dealing with the insanity that was
Hollywood.

“
You‘ve got
to start thinking before you rush into these messes Trudie, or one
day you’re going to get hurt.” Griffin kept going, not realizing
that he was now talking to himself. I was having the beginning of a
life crisis over in my part of the room.

“Are you even listening to me?” he asked as
he stopped pacing.

No I wasn’t. I nodded though, no point in
getting him madder than he already was. Unfortunately Griffin knew
me better than that and he knew that I had checked out of this
conversation several minutes ago. He stiffened noticeably. “If
you’re not interested in what I have to say then I guess I’d better
just go.”

“Don’t Jake, please.” I hated when Griffin
and I argued. “Can’t we just sit down and talk about this, try to
sort it out before it gets to the point we can’t fix it.”

I thought I’d
got through to him, but then the shutters came over his emotions
and that blank shell that he was famed for in the police force came
back. “I need to get back to work,” he said.

I stepped
aside from the door. “Fine.” I wasn’t going to stop him. If he
wasn’t ready to fight for us then I wasn’t going to try to force
him. Griffin opened the door only to find Sean standing outside,
hand raised, ready to knock. He nodded at Sean and stalked
off.

Sean followed Griffin with his eyes and then
swung around to me.

“
Griffin
looked mad,” said Sean.

“
Just a
little disagreement,” I said.

“What did you do?” asked Sean.

I turned my head to him slowly, trying
desperately to remember that he was a teenage boy and sometimes he
walked into areas where he had no business being.

“What do you mean what did I do?” I said
softly.

Of course, and I blamed his youth for this,
Sean didn’t see the warning signs. He unfortunately also had a bit
of hero worship when it came to Griffin and thought he could do no
wrong.

“You must have done something wrong for
Griffin to be so mad with you.”

“
Sean,” I
said, with all the patience of someone who had a teenage brother.
Sean had been kicked out by his mother and had ended up living in
the apartment block with the owner, Miss Betsy and I keeping an eye
on him. I didn’t want to upset him but he needed to know the
boundaries. “My relationship with Griffin is none of your business.
Believe me when I say you do not want to wander into the middle of
it.”

Sean turned around and walked away, but not
before I had seen the hurt on his face.

“
Sean wait,”
I said as he stalked off.

He didn’t bother to turn around. Wonderful.
Another man in my life was now mad at me. I seemed to be batting a
thousand these days.

For the rest of the day I threw myself into my
work. One
thing I like about my job is I
am able to use it to forget the way the rest of my life was slowly
unravelling. That was a skill I was really grateful for currently.
By the time I finished work it was late and it hit me that Griffin
hadn’t bothered to call me. While we’d been together, even when he
was busy with a murder, I’d usually get at least a text. At the
moment my cell was silent. I think that more than anything brought
home to me the problems we were having. If he didn’t trust me there
wasn’t much I could do about it. I wasn’t going to spend my life
not talking to men just because my boyfriend didn’t seem to be able
to handle it. Of course, with Dominic Caldwell I would make an
exception. I would be quite happy never to speak to that man again
in my life.

As usual I was woken up by my cell ringing on
my bedside table. For the millionth time I swore that I would turn
it off before going to sleep.

“
What?�� I
croaked.

“
I need you
to go to the club and deliver some papers for Pollard’s wife to
sign,” barked Alistair.

“
What?” I
repeated.

Alistair
sighed. I could tell he was annoyed that I wanted an explanation,
but he was the inconsiderate one who was calling me at the crack of
dawn, so as far as I was concerned he could show me at least a bit
of courtesy.

“
Denise
Pollard is opening the bar up tonight. My lawyer is insisting that
I get additional paperwork signed by the new owner. When I tried to
speak to her she took something I said the wrong way. I need you to
fix it and get her to sign the papers. I’m at the office so you can
swing by here first.” Alistair finished and I’m sure he was
congratulating himself on how patient he was being with his
numbskull assistant who didn’t snap to consciousness immediately
when he called.

“
Fine,” I
said and hung up.

Rather than
rushing to Alistair’s bidding I took the time to make myself a
coffee. Considering how the day had started, I had a very good
feeling that I was going to need it.

“
What took
you so long?” snapped Alistair when I made it to the
office.

I was right. I was definitely glad I’d
stopped for a coffee. I didn’t even bother to reply. I just held
out my hand for the paperwork. That movement obviously annoyed
Alistair because I could see his face going red. He shoved the
papers in my direction and I turned around and walked out. I
berated myself when I got in the car. Usually I handled situations
like that with tact and diplomacy. Today I really didn’t feel like
it. I was missing Griffin. I was used to not seeing him for days on
end. It was the nature of the police business. When there was a
case, that took his attention. I understood that. What I didn’t
like was the fact that I knew I wouldn’t even be getting his short,
sharp text messages. They might not have said much but at least
they let me know that he thought of me.

The club was
quiet when I got there. It was early morning and when I took the
time to think about it and not just react to Alistair’s
orders
, I realized that maybe I should have
contacted Denise before turning up. I went around the back to the
staff entrance and was surprised to see it open.

“Hello
,” I
called out as I walked through the back rooms. Considering my
discussion with Griffin I was beginning to seriously
think
about walking out. If I was the trouble magnet
that everybody seemed to assume I was, then a deserted strip bar
was the perfect place for something to go terribly wrong. I heard
noises and followed them to the dressing room. There I found Amber
with her arm around the shoulders of one of the other girls. I
wracked my brain to remember her name. She was a quiet one who
stayed in the background and miraculously Alistair hadn’t yet
managed to turn her homicidal, so I hadn’t really had anything to
do with her.

“
Sorry,” I
said as they looked up. “I didn’t mean to intrude.

Amber waved me in. “It’s not a problem.
Brandi’s a little upset.”

I sat down next to them. “Is there anything I
can do to help?” I asked.

“
He
promised,” wailed Brandi as she took in gulps of air between
heaving sobs.

Great. I really didn’t want to know if
Alistair made promises to other girls that he had no intention of
fulfilling.

Amber caught my eye and I could see she saw
where my assumption had gone.

“
No,” she
murmured. “It wasn’t Alistair this time. It was Hammy.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“He said he would leave the bar to me. He
said he loved me.” Brandi continued sobbing.

Amber had the
same disbelieving look on her face that I did. I didn’t want to
point out to the distraught young woman how gullible she had been,
but I don’t think anyone would seriously believe that he would
leave the place to one of the dancers. Denise had given me a
firsthand account of how much sensitivity Hammy showed towards
women.

Brandi was a pretty little thing and I could
see how she appealed to Hammy. From what I recalled she was
friendly enough but not as out there as some of the other girls. It
was the reason she hadn’t caught Alistair’s eye.

“
Sometimes
men say things they don’t mean,” I said gently.

“
But he
showed me the new will. He just needed to get it signed,” Brandi
said.

“Has anyone else seen the will?” I asked.

Amber shook
her head. “I spoke to Denise yesterday. The only will that was with
the lawyer was the one that leaves the place to her. According to
the lawyer there was never an updated will.”

Brandi continued sobbing. I could understand
that she was disappointed but she was beginning to give me a
headache.

“
Maybe you
should go clean yourself
up
,” I said,
slightly concerned that I had seemed to lose my sense of
empathy.

Brandi tottered off to the bathroom on her
ankle twisting platform shoes.

“
Thanks for
that,” mumbled Amber. “I didn’t think she was ever going to stop
crying.”

“
She might
want to stop with the whole changing of the will talk or else
people are going to start looking at her as a viable suspect,” I
said.

“
Wouldn’t
want that,” said Amber. “Although it might take the heat off me for
a while.”

“Have you been having problems?” I asked.

“
Unfortunately the murder weapon comes from my act,” said
Amber. The cops have spoken to me several times about it. Luckily
it looks like I was on stage at the same time as Hammy was getting
killed.”