Undercover in High Heels (16 page)

You’re very talented.

“Thanks!” Okay, the guy couldn’t be all bad if he knew a good pair of heels when he saw them.

Show me your toes.

“Oh. Well…okay.” I let one pump drop to the floor and wiggled my half-painted toenails at the camera. “I usually get a pedi down at the salon, but I was late for the Terror’s party, so I only got one foot done. Sorry.”

Take the other shoe off.

I complied, letting the other shoe drop to the floor. As long as we stuck to bare feet, I could do this. I glanced at my silent cell phone again. What was taking him so long?

Let me see your toes.

I leaned back on the bed, supporting myself on my elbows as I lifted both feet up in the air, wiggling my toes at the camera. “Like this?” I asked.

Beautiful.

“Thanks.”

Now, suck your big toe.

Excuse me? I blinked at the screen.

A) Grooooosssss! B) Who’d wanna watch that? And C) Um…was that even possible? I mean, I wasn’t Gumby here.

“How about I just take my top off instead?” I offered, suddenly thinking stripping wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

There was a pause. Then the words,
I’ve got to go
flashed on the screen.

“No, wait! Okay, I’ll.”—I paused, trying not to grimace—“suck my big toe.”

Do it.

Ugh. I closed my eyes, picturing Dusty’s face. I was doing this for her. I’d failed her once; I wasn’t going to let her killer get away with it. I would find the bastard. I would nail his ass to the wall.

I would suck the toe.

I took a deep breath and leaned forward as far as I could. But since the last time Dana had dragged me to yoga class I’d fallen flat on my face while doing a downward-facing dog, my face came about six inches shy of my big toe.

“Hang on.” I gave the camera the universal one-finger “wait” signal. I scooched closer to the edge of the bed and curved my spine over into a ball, grabbing my right ankle with both hands and straining to reach it. I felt my leg start to cramp up as I attempted human pretzel. I was close, if I could just roll forward a little more, just another half an inch…

Unfortunately, I rolled up so well that I rolled right off the bed. Headfirst. Landing with a thud on the pink carpeting. “Ow.”

I stood up and rubbed my forehead, stomping feeling back into my legs. “Sorry, ” I told the camera. “I, uh, kinda fell. But I think I might have licked my toe. A little, ” I added hopefully.

I leaned over the bed and checked the monitor.

I have to go now.

“Wait, no! Let me try again. I can totally do this. I was this close, ” I protested, holding my thumb and index finger up.

But it was too late. A red line of text slashed across the screen, informing me that BigBoy78 had logged off of the system.

Shit, shit, shit! I grabbed my cell and quickly dialed Felix’s number. He picked up on the first ring.

“Please tell me you got him?”

Felix chuckled. “Your head all right, love?”

“Fine.” I rubbed at my forehead again, where I could feel an imprint of the carpet. “Did you get the trace or not?”

“Yeah, we got him.”

I did a sigh of relief. “Thank God. What took you so long?”

“I actually had him five minutes ago.”

I narrowed my eyes at the phone. “Then why didn’t you
call
?”

He chuckled again. “I was enjoying the show.”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to love me after I give you his location.”

“This had better be good, ” I mumbled under my breath. I grabbed a pen from my purse and wrote the address Felix read off onto the back of my hand. It was a Hollywood zip code, though the street wasn’t familiar. Felix pulled up MapQuest.com while I waited; then he gave me directions from the 101.

Which would have been very helpful, I realized as I hung up, if I’d had a car.

Damn.

Jasmine opened the door to the bedroom. “You done in here? ’Cause we got another customer logging on.”

I grabbed my purse and bolted for the door. No way did I want a repeat of that performance. “It’s all yours.”

Jasmine ushered Anna back into her pink room and shut the door behind her. “You get what you need?” she asked, turning to me.

“Yeah. The only problem is, now I need a car.” I paused, doing my best puppy-dog eyes at her.

She planted both hands on her bony hips. “Well, don’t look at me.”

“Please, Jasmine, ” I pleaded. “I can make it worth your while.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How worth my while?”

“Three months of ads in the
Informer
?”

She shook her head. “No way. Back-cover ad. In color. And I drive. Nobody drives my baby but me.”

I bit my lip, hoping Felix really was loaded. “Deal.”

“Okay, where are we going?”

“Hollywood. But…” I paused, remembering the armed officer waiting outside for me. I had a feeling I’d been lucky to talk Officer Mustache into taking me here. A detour into Hollywood to confront a possible killer with a toe fetish was probably out of the question. Besides, I was pretty sure this was one of those “harebrained” things Ramirez had been talking about, and when Officer Mustache reported back, I was likely to be put under some sort of house arrest.

What I needed was a distraction.

I pulled my cell back out and hit number two on my speed dial. Mom picked up on the first ring.

“Maddie? Are you okay? Oh lord, what’s happened this time?”

I rolled my eyes. Geez, give me a little credit, huh? “Nothing, Mom. I’m fine. I was just wondering what you were doing right now.”

“Mrs. Rosenblatt and I are at Molly’s. We’re helping her send out thank-you notes. Why do you ask?”

“Are all the kids there, too? And Connor?”

“Yes.”

Perfect! I almost felt sorry for Officer Mustache.

“Why, Maddie? What’s going on?”

“Listen, I was wondering if you could do me a little favor. Could you pack all the kids into the car, Molly and Mrs. R, too, and drive them to my friend’s house?” I recited Jasmine’s address.

I could sense Mom frowning through the phone. “What do you want us to do when we get there?”

“Oh nothing. Just be yourselves.”

Fifteen minutes later a gold minivan pulled up in front of Jasmine’s house, and I watched from the window as the occupants burst out. Mom was first (in peg-legged white pants, an oversize Day-Glo green T-shirt tied at her hip in a large knot, and penny loafers with no socks), then Molly (waddling due to her ever-growing belly encased in a huge maternity dress that looked like a tent with eyelets), all four of my cousin’s kids (in various states of sticky-mouth, sucking on leftover piñata candy as two of them wielded some sort of Nerf noodles and popped the unarmed one on the head), the Terror (blowing big, fat spit bubbles that dribbled down his chin onto his Baby Gap sweatshirt as he wailed), and, last but not least, Mrs. Rosenblatt (in a bright orange-and-red muumuu and Birkenstocks). Oh, yeah. And Pablo.

“Squawk. Don’tcha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me? Squawk. Yeah, don’tcha?”

“What the hell is that thing?” Jasmine asked beside
me, gesturing to the cage dangling from Mrs. Rosenblatt’s chubby hand.

“That is the best distraction ever.”

I peeked between the curtains as Molly’s kids ran circles around the lawn, Molly waddling after them and yelling at the munchkins to stop hitting their siblings. Connor wailed as he got whacked in the side of the head by a noodle. Mom picked up Connor, who promptly tried to wiggle out of her grip, doing the patented toddler back arch. Mrs. Rosenblatt told Pablo to stop singing or he was going back to the salon in a teeny-tiny body bag. Molly’s eldest found a pile of doggie doo on the lawn and starting singing about doggies that made “hunks of stinky chunks.” And above it all, Pablo screeched, “A freak like me!”

Officer Mustache didn’t know where to look, his gaze ping-ponging between the players straight out of a madcap British comedy.

Some days I loved my family.

“Let’s go.” I grabbed Jasmine by the sleeve, and we slipped out the side door, making a beeline for the garage. Jasmine unlocked a tiny yellow Miata and hopped behind the wheel. No wonder she existed on a diet of vitamin water and Tic Tacs. Any bigger and there was no way she would have fit in her toy car. I dove into the passenger seat and ducked down, crossing my fingers as she pulled out of the garage, backed into the street, and punched it down the road. I waited for the sound of sirens to follow us. I held my breath, counting to four-Mississippi before I peeked my head up.

“Coast clear?”

“Yep.” Jasmine nodded, her eyes shining. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was enjoying this.

I pulled out my cell and dialed Mom’s number,
telling her thanks for the rescue and that I owed her one—the “one” being dinner at her house next week with her, Faux Dad, and my Irish Catholic grandmother. But considering I’d just asked her to help me escape police custody, I figured it was a fair request. (Besides, my steady diet of Chinese takeout and Hamburger Helper was, I admit, getting a little old.)

We sped down the 101 into Hollywood, making a left on Cahuenga until we reached the address Felix had given me. Jasmine killed the engine in front of a large, split-level ranch with a yard full of garden gnomes. The windows were covered in chintz curtains, and the front door was adorned with a big heart-shaped wreath made of pink silk roses. Didn’t exactly scream
murderer
in bright neon.

“You sure this is the right place?” Jasmine asked.

I looked down at my hand and doubled-checked the address. Granted, after my great escape, I’d sweated some of the street name off, but the number was still visible enough. “This is it.”

She shrugged. “I guess it takes all kinds.”

I followed her up the rose-flanked pathway to the front door, nerves starting to build. I admit that the idea of coming face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer did more than a little to creep me out. Not to mention the fact that I’d just done a high-heeled striptease for him. I looked down at my pumps and blushed. If he made one reference to licking anything below the ankle, I was so out of here, killer or no.

Jasmine gave the bell a ring and we waited while it echoed inside. Two beats later the door opened, and I got my first glimpse of BigBoy78.

My jaw dropped, and I stared in disbelief.

Deveroux Strong’s frame filled the doorway, his
broad shoulders clad in a baby blue sweater with skintight white leather pants beneath. He wore alligator-skin black ankle boots, and one diamond stud winked at me from his left earlobe.

“Hey, Maddie, ” he said, a big white smile flashing across his tanned face. Then he looked behind me and spotted Jasmine. At first his eyes went big, as if he’d seen a ghost (or a fifty-foot billboard come to life), and then his cheeks turned a red to rival Rudolph’s shiny nose as he realized why we were here. “Oh.”

“Yep, that’s him. That’s the guy I saw Veronika bring home, ” Jasmine said, jabbing me in the ribs.

Deveroux gave a fleeting glance at my pumps, then, if it were possible, blushed even deeper. “Uh, look, I can explain.”

“You were dating Veronika?” I sputtered, finally finding my voice. Theories tumbled one over another in my head, making me question whether we’d made a mistake after all.

Deveroux looked nervously from side to side. “Maybe you’d better come in.”

I nodded, mutely following him into a neatly decorated living room just a little on the floral side for my taste. Deveroux sat on an orange, hibiscus-printed sofa set next to a lilac-covered armchair, and gestured for Jasmine and me to take the petunia-studded love seat. (Okay, a
lot
floral for my taste.) The only thing breaking up the garden of furniture was a small black TV set in the corner, tuned to
Inside Edition
. I sank down onto the petunia seat, crossing my legs selfconsciously, as Dana’s dress rode up my thigh.

“You’re BigBoy78?” I asked.

Deveroux went red again, his blush spreading all the way to his blond roots. “Look, it’s not what you
think. I’m not into that porn stuff. I just…I just have a thing for feet.”

“I noticed, ” I mumbled, tucking my heels underneath me.

“Specifically Veronika’s feet?” Jasmine prodded. She leaned forward in her seat, her heavily lifted eyes intent on Deveroux’s face. For how badly I’d had to bribe her to get here, she was really getting into this questioning-a-suspect thing. Any second now I feared she’d pull a spotlight and a billyclub from her leather clutch.

He nibbled at his lip. “Yeah. Look, not that it makes any difference now, but Veronika and I were…well, kind of an item.”

“Wait—I thought you were gay?”

Deveroux put one hand on his leather-clad hip and tilted his frosted tips at me. “What makes you think I’m gay?”

Hmmm…

“Okay. So, you’re not gay.”

“No, I’m not, ” he said emphatically. Then picked at a stray piece of lint on his sweater. “That’s just a vicious tabloid rumor.”

“And you were dating Veronika?”

He nodded. “For the last four months. We met when she started working on
Magnolia Lane
and began dating soon after that.”

“And soon after
that
started logging on to my site to watch her, ” Jasmine piped up.

The blush worked itself into an all-out five-alarm fire across his forehead. “Look, it’s perfectly normal for a man to enjoy a woman’s feet. Feet are the most beautiful part of a woman’s body. Ancient cultures have revered women’s feet for thousands of years. It’s not weird!”

Not wanting to aggravate a potential killer, not to
mention relive my moments as a foot whore, I changed the subject. “How serious were things between the two of you?”

“Very. We were both going to leave the show at the end of my contract. One more season. We were…” He paused, a watery look in his eyes, and sniffed hard. “We were going to get married.”

“Married?” Jasmine spit out. “She never said anything like that to me. And she had a six-month lease!”

I shot her a look.

“Deveroux, did you know that Veronika was pregnant?” I asked.

He nodded, his eyes tearing up in earnest. “She told me just last week. I was so exited. We were going to get married and move to Oregon. My sister’s got a big place up there near the coast.”

“Oregon?” Jasmine yelled. “Why, that sneaky little…”

I gave her a quick shot to the ribs.

“Veronika was okay with leaving the show?”

Deveroux nodded. “It was her idea to move away—away from all the Hollywood types. In case you hadn’t noticed, the set can get kind of wild at times.”

Understatement alert.

“Anyway, ” he continued, “she said she was coming into some money soon and we could put a down payment on a place near my sister.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Money?” I asked, remembering how little Dana said stand-ins made. “What kind of money?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. But she said she’d been working on something and her investment was about to pay off.”

“Investment? That’s what she called it?”

He nodded.

I turned to Jasmine.

“Hey, don’t look at me, ” she said. “My girls get free room and board from me, but that’s it.”

I wondered. Veronika hadn’t struck me as the kind to put her pennies into stocks and bonds. Granted, I hadn’t known her that well, but the fact that she was playing strip Go Fish for rent didn’t speak to a bank account bursting with extra funds.

Which left one alternative.

Blackmail.

I worded my next question carefully. “Deveroux, was Veronika particularly close to anyone on the set? Anyone who might have shared, say, a secret with her?”

His white-blond eyebrows (perfectly waxed, I noticed—wait till I told Felix this guy was straight!) drew together. “Well, she did have coffee with Kylie a couple of times.”

My ears pricked up. Coffee? Or a confession where Kylie let slip a deep, dark secret worth killing Veronika over? I had to admit, I had a hard time putting the perky cheerleaderesque Tina Rey in the role of homicidal maniac. But stranger things had happened.

“But, ” Deveroux continued, “Veronika was really careful about keeping her personal life separate from her work. She was worried that if someone on the set found out she worked for the Web site, they’d fire her. I mean, despite the drama in the script, our core demographic is Middle American housewives. It’s one thing to have scandalous story lines, but an
actual
scandal like working for a porn site…well, that wouldn’t fit the studio’s image.”

He turned to Jasmine as an afterthought. “No offense.”

She shrugged. “None taken. You paid for my last two photofacials.”

Deveroux blushed again.

“No one else she was particularly close to on the set?”

He shook his head. “Why do you ask?”

I hesitated to tell him my theory. But then again, I was quickly running out of suspects and at this point didn’t have much to lose. “Do you think it’s possible that Veronika may have been blackmailing someone? Maybe someone on the set?”

“No. No way!” Deveroux vehemently shook his head. Then he stopped. He gave a little sigh and slumped his shoulders forward. “Maybe.”

“And she never mentioned anything to you?” I asked again.

“No, just that she was coming into some money soon.” His eyes got that watery look to them again. “You think that’s what got her killed? I mean, we didn’t have to move to Oregon. We could have stayed here.”

I rose and gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded, sniffling loudly. “Excuse me, I need to find a tissue, ” he mumbled, and slipped out of the room.

I sank back onto the sofa, my mind whirling with possibilities. If Veronika had been blackmailing someone on the set, it would have given them ample reason to want her dead. How easy would it have been for a blackmailer to lure Veronika to Mia’s trailer under the guise of more money, then stage the death to look like Mia’s stalker?

But it still didn’t explain Dusty. Or Mia’s threatening letters. Was it possible that it was all a coincidence? That Veronika really had just been in the
wrong place at the wrong time? What if Veronika had been waiting to meet the blackmailer at Mia’s trailer, but the stalker had gotten to her first? I had to admit, instead of explaining anything, this new development just added one more piece to the confusing puzzle that didn’t seem to fit in anywhere.

I was flirting with that headache again when the television piped up from the corner.

“That’s right, Tom, we’ve received breaking news about the
Magnolia Lane
Murders.”

Jasmine and I immediately turned our attention to the screen as a slim, African-American reporter came on, holding a microphone. The backdrop of the Sunset Studios Central Park, still cordoned off with crime-scene tape, was laid out behind her.

“We go now to Marcia Blanding at the scene, ” a voice just off-camera said. “Marcia?”

The reporter sprang to life, lifting her microphone to her cherry-painted mouth. “Thank you, Peter. As you know, we’ve been following this story all morning, bringing you updates on the latest death on the set of the popular television show
Magnolia Lane
.”

I winced as the camera moved left, showing a group of crime-scene technicians in slick windbreakers combing the area.

“Now it seems, ” Marcia went on, “that star Mia Carletto’s poisoned penman has struck again. We learned just moments ago from Miss Carletto herself that she has received another death threat. We come to you live from the impromptu press conference just outside her trailer on the Sunset Studios lot.”

I leaned forward in my seat, my eyes glued to the television as Deveroux wandered back in the room.

“I’m sorry; I just—”

“Shhhhh, ” I commanded, waving him off as Mia’s face filled the screen.

Reporters surrounded her. To her right stood her publicist, a thin, redheaded woman in a tailored black suit. To her left, the ominous presence of Ramirez, arms crossed over his pecs, his eyes ever watchful of the crowd pressing closer to Mia. For a second I had the tiniest prickle of guilt at giving my babysitter the slip, but it was quickly shoved to the background as Mia began to speak.

“Thank you all for coming, ” she said, her voice evenly modulated and booming over the assembled crowd.