I braced myself against the steering wheel as the SUV slammed into the side of the car again.
“Holy shit! Is this guy nuts or what?” Dana screeched, grabbing onto the dash in a white-knuckled grip.
The light in front of us turned green just as I saw the Range Rover back up for another run.
“Go, go, go!” Dana yelled.
I admit, up until that point I’d been paralyzed with shock. But as I saw the Rover’s tires spin, revving toward us again, adrenaline kicked in full force and I slammed my wedge down on the gas pedal, hard enough to send my Jeep fishtailing through the intersection.
I watched in the rearview mirror with horror as the Rover cut into traffic behind us and sped up to kiss our bumper.
“Ohmigod, who is this creep?” Dana asked, swiveling around in her seat. “What does he want?”
I bit my lip, my eyes ping-ponging between the cars in front of me and the SUV closing in behind us. We were coming up on Sunset and the traffic was three lanes thick. “Hold on, ” I warned, making a sharp right turn onto a side street, just barely missing the curb. The Rover didn’t have quite our turning radius, jumping up on the sidewalk and knocking into a bus stop as it followed.
“Dammit, he’s still coming after us, ” Dana said, her eyes glued to the back window.
A point he illustrated by surging forward and ramming into my back bumper.
Dana and I both whipped forward.
“Unh.” My head snapped back against the headrest so hard it rattled my teeth. I pushed the gas pedal down as far as it would go, quickly making another right and swinging into an alley behind an all-night diner.
The Rover followed and, since it had about fifteen horses on my little Jeep, easily caught up to us. Only this time instead of ramming us from behind, it pulled up alongside us, so close that Dana could reach out and touch the white metal beside her window. She let out a whimper and ducked as the driver swerved left, bumping us against the side of the building. I could hear the sickly sound of metal scraping as we careened out of control down the alleyway.
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ” Dana chanted in the seat next to me.
Ditto. Only my adrenaline was pumping too hard to form actual words. Instead, I closed my eyes, prayed, and slammed on the brakes, pulling hard to the right.
The Rover sailed past us as my little red Jeep whipped around in a circle, tires squealing against the pavement. When the world stopped spinning, we were facing the opposite direction. I switched to the gas again and surged out of the alleyway as fast as I could, making a hard right into the parking lot of a Hollywood Video before pulling the car to a stop.
I cut the engine, the only sound Dana and I panting like Rottweilers as we both tried to bring our heart rates to something slightly lower than a Pomona drag race.
Dana was the first to recover, digging her fingernails out of the dash and slowly flexing her limbs. “Ohmigod, Maddie. He could have killed us!”
A vision of my squirrel friend with the tread marks flashed through my head. “I think that was the general plan.” I pried my hands off the steering wheel, doing a slow mental check of my person. My neck was starting to tense up, but other than that everything else seemed to work. Toes wiggled, arms moved. I looked down. Miraculously, I hadn’t even wet myself.
“Are you okay?” Dana asked, rubbing her temple.
“I think so. You?”
She nodded, even though I could see a bump starting to form on her temple.
I tried my door handle. Wouldn’t budge. Not surprising, since what I could see of the driver’s side looked like it had been shoved in a trash compactor. My poor baby!
Luckily, Dana got hers open, and, after navigating over the gearshift, we both climbed out on legs that felt like overstretched rubber bands. I gingerly walked around the car to assess the damage.
“Wow, ” Dana said.
All I could do was stare. The driver’s-side door was smashed beyond recognition, the front lights busted out, the back bumper hanging on by a thread. The entire rear quarter of the Jeep was twisted at a forty-five-degree angle, and my back tires were flat.
“It’s, like, totally totaled, ” Dana said.
I felt tears well behind my eyes. She was right. The Jeep was toast.
That was it. I was so gonna get this guy.
“Do you think we should call the police?” Dana asked.
I thought about it-for about half a second. Calling the police meant calling Ramirez. And calling Ramirez meant another chapter in the “what’s Maddie gotten herself into now?” book. I was already verging on tears; the last thing I needed was another confrontation with Ramirez to top off my day.
Instead, I pulled out my cell and dialed the one person any independent, competent adult calls when a true crisis hits.
Mommy.
Fortunately, Mom picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me. Listen, I’ve been in a little bit of an accident-”
“Oh my God, you’ve been shot!”
“No, no, I haven’t been shot.”
“The pepper spray, you sprayed yourself?”
“No, Mom, I-”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been mugged?”
“No!” I yelled. “It’s my car.” I looked down at the carnage that was my Jeep and felt that lump in my throat return. “It’s been in a little accident.”
“An accident? Oh, honey, are you okay? Do you have whiplash? Did you get their insurance information?” Mom fired off in rapid succession.
“Yes. Maybe. And no. He sped off.”
“A hit-and-run? My baby’s been in a hit-and-run!”
I felt my neck growing more tense and wondered if maybe this wasn’t the wisest person to call after all. “Mom, I’m okay. Really. I just…Dana and I need a ride.”
“Baby, don’t move. I’ll be right there.”
After I gave Mom the address, I hung up and dialed Information for the nearest towing company, who said they’d be there in half an hour. I sat down on the curb to wait next to Dana, who was digging in her purse for an aspirin, and stared at my crushed baby.
“Look on the bright side, ” Dana said. “At least he didn’t have a gun.”
You know your day sucks when the high point is that you haven’t had a gun pointed at you.
Ten minutes later Mom’s minivan screeched to a halt beside the remains of my Jeep. She barely had the engine turned off before she vaulted out of the car, followed closely by Mrs. Rosenblatt. And Pablo the Parrot.
“Squawk. Love my lady lumps.”
Mrs. R held Pablo’s cage by the top and waddled toward us.
“What is that thing?” Dana asked, peering between the bars.
“This here is Pablo. Marco said he’d give me twenty dollars to take him for the afternoon.”
“Maddie!” Mom yelled, wrapping me in a rib-crusher hug. “Are you okay?”
I winced as my neck seized up again. “I’m fine.” I think.
“What happened?”
I gave Dana a sidelong glance. But before I could send her the psychic message to wait until I’d formed an edited-for-Mom version, she flipped her hair over one shoulder and launched into dramatic-monologue mode.
“Ohmigod, it was, like, totally out of a movie or something. This SUV, like, totally slammed into us, and we were like, ‘Holy crap, he just slammed into us!’ and then he did it again. So then Maddie did, like, this total street-racer move down this alley, and then this SUV, he jumped a curb and comes up beside us and totally starts trying to smash us against the wall! So then we, like, slammed on the brakes and did this killer spin, then flew into the parking lot. I totally think he was, like, trying to kill us or something!”
Mom blinked. Then she grabbed me in another fierce hug.
Mrs. Rosenblatt shook her head. “I tell you, that Mercury in retrograde makes people nuts. Did you try shootin’ him with your pepper spray?”
“Oh, well, I, uh, I kinda lost my spray.”
“Lost it?”
“Um, yeah. Sorry.”
Mrs. R dug around in her purse, pulling out a canister. “This here is from my personal stash. I always carry one. I used this sucker on a creep in this bar once. Knocked him flat. Course, I took him home after that and he turned out to be my second husband, Carl.”
I rolled my eyes. But considering I was still dealing with adrenaline aftershocks, I slipped the spray into my purse.
“Really, it was her car that took the brunt, ” Dana said, gesturing to what was once my Jeep.
Mom took one look at the smashed Jeep and hugged me again. Honestly, though, this time I didn’t mind. Staring at my car, I kind of needed a hug.
After the tow truck arrived and hauled my mangled Jeep to the nearest service station, Mom, Mrs. R, Dana, Pablo, and I all piled into her minivan and she drove us back to the studios. All to the tune of Pablo singing his little heart out. “Don’t you love my lady lumps! Squawk.”
Mrs. Rosenblatt should have held out for fifty.
By the time we got back to the lot, Dana was way late and Steinman was yelling out for that “new wardrobe girl” to get the hideous pair of chandelier earrings off Margo. After that it was changing Ricky’s sweater so it didn’t clash with the shoes Mia wanted to wear, and after that it was pinning Kylie’s hem higher so she didn’t look, and I quote, “all old ‘n’ stuff.” After that I was in serious need of an aspirin. With a tequila chaser. My neck was so stiff I couldn’t turn to the right, and my head was starting to ache. I was just contemplating an early leave when Steinman caught me at the Starbucks carafe.
“Wardrobe, right?” he barked.
I tentatively looked up from my cup. “Yes?”
“I need Blake out here in his hospital gown now. We’re shooting Mia and him in fifteen.”
“Okay, but then I need to go…” I started to say, but Steinman had already walked away.
So much for leaving early.
On the other hand, I hadn’t yet had a chance to talk to Blake alone. And while Veronika’s baby-daddy was at the top of our list, I couldn’t ignore the fact that being forced into a coma could give a guy one heck of a motive for murder.
I downed my coffee and, after stopping off at wardrobe to grab Ricky’s gown, made my way out back to the trailers. I passed by Mia’s, now void of the ugly crime-scene tape, and the one marked TALENT, until I got to Blake’s. The outside was the same white corrugated metal as the others, though I noticed it looked a couple of feet shorter than Mia’s.
I climbed the steps and gave a sharp rap on the closed door. “Wardrobe!” I called out.
I heard a muffled, “Come in, ” from inside and turned the metal latch.
While the exterior of the trailer was a match to Mia’s, the inside couldn’t have been more different. Instead of the custom drapes, plush furnishings, and granite-covered kitchen, Blake’s trailer looked like your standard-issue motor coach for the retired and idle. A small bench-style dinette sat in the middle, the top covered in papers, while a tiny kitchen holding a microwave and mini fridge done in seventies olive green sat to the right. The carpet was a matted brown that was so thin I’d bet my Via Spigas it was laid right on top of the plywood. The curtains were a dull, pleated polyester, and the entire place smelled slightly of burritos and stale Chinese food.
“Dusty, is that you?” Blake called from down the hallway.
I peeked my head to the left and noticed a bedroom, as in Mia’s trailer, this one considerably smaller and done in wallpaper made to look like wood paneling. “Actually, it’s Maddie. Steinman wants you in your hospital gown for the next scene.”
Blake groaned, then appeared from the bedroom, his slacks and white shirt looking rumpled, as if I’d caught him napping. “I don’t know why he even bothers. It’s not like I’m any more than a glorified prop at this point.”
“Sucks being in a coma, huh?” I asked, handing him the gown.
Blake shrugged his shoulders and shot me a sad look. “Well, at least I don’t have to stress over my lines.”
“How long has Preston been comatose?” I asked.
He gave a deep sigh. “Months.”
“Any idea when he’s waking up?” Okay, I’ll admit, this was just the TV junkie in me asking now.
He shook his head. “No. No end in sight. Be right back. I’ll just…” He trailed off, gesturing to the gown, then shuffled back down the little hall to the bedroom.
Keeping one eye on the door, I walked over to the dinette, gingerly sifting through the papers. Mostly racing forms, crossword puzzles, a few fan letters thrown in, though certainly not the pile Mia had. “So, I heard that the coma was originally Mia’s idea.”
“That’s right, ” Blake replied from behind the door. “She thought it would add some drama to her and Nurse Nan’s relationship.”
“Was that the only reason?” I quickly scanned through the fan mail. Nothing threatening, though I noticed that Blake’s fan base tended to be a bit older than Mia’s. There was one woman asking him to appear at her bingo club, another wanting to take him for an early-bird special at Applebee’s.
Blake popped his head out of the room and I quickly took two steps back from the table. Luckily, Blake didn’t seem to notice. “Why? What have you heard?” he asked.
“Nothing…” I hedged, watching his reaction. “Just that you and Mia had dated, and then she suggested that your character be put in a coma.”
Blake emerged from the bedroom, his hospital gown flapping pathetically around his bare ankles above black dress socks and loafers. “It’s true, things didn’t exactly end well between us.”
I raise one eyebrow. “Oh?”
“No. She said she wanted to see other people, but I didn’t. I…” He paused, biting his lip. “Well, I’m sure you’ve heard by now. I had a breakdown. It wasn’t just Mia. It was the whole pressure of the show. The press conferences, the interviews, the appearances.”
I could well imagine how Blake wasn’t suited to being in the public eye. I could see him starting to sweat just talking about it.
“Anyway, it was after I came back that they put me in the coma. I guess Mia just felt it was too awkward to work with me.”
I phrased my next question carefully. “And you weren’t upset by this?”
Blake shrugged. “A little. But not terribly surprised. Before the coma, Kylie’s and Deveroux’s characters were the hot items in the ratings. Tina Rey and the electrician were getting all the press. Mia was in danger of slipping into a supporting role. The coma’s slowly pulling up her numbers. Well, that and the press she’s been getting lately over these letters hasn’t exactly hurt her.”
“And you?”
Blake did the sad-smile thing again. “At least no one’s hounding me for interviews. I’d better get to the set.”
I watched as Blake shuffled out the door and into the soundstage. Honestly, he didn’t strike me as the killer sort. More the lie-down-and-take-it-like-a-doormat sort. Then again, he was, after all, a trained actor. I wondered just how much lying down and taking it a man could do before he snapped?
It took Mia only fifteen takes to get her monologue in Blake’s hospital room right. By the time Steinman yelled an exhausted, “That’s a wrap, ” my neck was stiffer than a new pair of leather boots and I was ready to drop.
I gathered up my purse, thankful that tomorrow was Sunday-the one day the crew took off during shooting season, and met Dana near the rear gate. The bump on her head had grown and was starting to turn purple.
“Do you think maybe you should get that looked at?” I asked.
Dana shook her head. “I’m fine. Just a little bump. All I need’s an aspirin.”
I dug through my purse and came up with one, which I handed over.
“Are we ready to go try Veronika’s neighbor again?” Dana asked as she swallowed the pill.
I groaned. “I don’t exactly have a car.”
“No prob.” Dana held up a pair of keys dangling from a rabbit’s-foot key chain. “Ricky let me borrow his.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Ricky?”
Dana blushed. “Isn’t he just the sweetest?”
Uh-oh. I felt my internal radar pricking up. “Dana, please tell me you’re not-”
“No!” she cut me off. “I’m celibate, remember? Besides, he’s, like, totally famous. I’m sure I’m not even remotely his type.”
I had a bad feeling Dana was every guy’s type.
Dana twirled her borrowed keys in one hand. “We going to go talk to the neighbor or what?”
While my head was screaming for a long, hot bubble bath and a big, frosty cocktail (not necessarily in that order), I had to admit the idea of going home to my apartment alone wasn’t all that appealing. The last thing I wanted to find was more roadkill. Or, worse yet, Mr. Roadkiller himself, waiting in his menacing SUV. So, despite the whiplash and brewing headache, fifteen minutes later we were in Ricky’s silver Porsche on the 101 heading up through the hills and west toward the Valley.
We exited at Topanga Canyon, making a left on Victory as we wound our way into West Hills, a suburban area on the westernmost edge of the Valley. Strip malls lined the major streets, while residence clamored up the hillside, each just a little higher than the others to capitalize on the view.
Dana slowed as we approached Coronado, a tree-lined street set into the natural hillside flanked with a hodgepodge of oversize homes fairly bursting from their modest-sized lots. Most were set behind manicured lawns with mature, blooming foliage, and driveways sporting BMWs and racy-looking Italian sports cars.
Dana parked in front of 1342, a faux-Mediterranean villa set behind a row of neatly clipped palm trees.
“This is where Veronika lived?” Dana asked, gaping at the near mansion. “ ’Kay, I know how much a stand-in makes. Twenty bucks says she had a sugar daddy.”
Considering her prenatal state, that wasn’t a bet I was willing to take.
“Come on; let’s go talk to the neighbor.”
We locked the car and walked up the flagstone pathway to the house Ricky had indicated, just to the right of Veronika’s. This one was done in an English Tudor style, with exposed wood beams running diagonally across the stucco face. Dana knocked on the solid front door, which was opened two beats later by an older woman in a pastel blouse with little Scottie dogs running across it. She held a TV remote in one hand, and I could hear static in the background.
“You here to fix the cable?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at us. “ ’Cause it’s been busted all morning.”
“Uh, no. Sorry, we’re not from the cable company.”
“Then I don’t want whatever you’re selling.” She started to close the door, but Dana was quicker.
“Actually we worked with your neighbor, Veronika. On Magnolia Lane.”
“Oh?” The woman paused. “Oh, you’re TV folk?” She brightened up, standing a little taller. Then she squinted her eyes at Dana. “I don’t remember you. Were you on last season?”
“No, I’m an extra.”
“Oh.” Her interest waned again.
“Anyway, ” I jumped in before we lost her, “we were wondering if we could ask you a couple of questions about Veronika.”
The woman snorted. “Hmph. That tart. She thought she was really something. You know, when I heard she was gonna be on the TV, I went and baked her a pineapple upside-down cake, just like the one I seen them make on the Food Network. Anyway, she ate the whole thing, and when I asked if maybe she could get me that Mia’s autograph, she just laughed at me. Said Mia wouldn’t give the likes of me the time of day. Can you believe the nerve of that girl? Prima donna.”
I hated to say it, but Veronika was probably right.
“Do you know if Veronika was dating anyone?” I asked.
Her wrinkled cheeks parted in a smile. “Well, I don’t know about dating, but I do happen to know that she went out with that hunky gardener fellow from the show. Now, he gave me an autograph.”
“Yes, he told us that you might be able to help us.”
“He mentioned me?” She smiled so widely I feared her face might crack.
Dana nodded. “Uh-huh. He said you knew everything that went on on this street. That we could just ask you.”
The woman laid a hand on her chest and blushed. “What a nice young man.”
“Isn’t he?” Dana gushed.
I rolled my eyes.
“He said that you told him you’d seen Veronika come home with a man…the night before he met you…?” I prompted.
“Oh, yes.” She nodded vigorously. “Now, I’m not one to spread rumors-I keep to my own business, you see. But I’ll tell you I seen a man go in with Veronika late at night, just about when Jay Leno come on, and he didn’t come out until the ladies from The View had their first guest the next morning.” She nodded sagely. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure what they were doing.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Did you recognize him?” I asked. “Maybe from the show?”
She pursed her lips together. “No, I don’t think so. But it was dark. And the next morning I just got the faintest glimpse of him. But, ” she said, leaning in, “I will tell you he wasn’t the only one.”
My ears pricked up. “Really?”
“Oh, yes. Men were always going in and out of that place.” She gestured next door. “Girls too. It’s like a cheap motel, that house. Complete den of iniquity. I tried to get the neighborhood association to fine the owner, but she just claimed she had a lot of friends. I’ve got a mind to call that gal on channel four who does those neighborhood grievance reports.”
“So, Veronika doesn’t own the house?”
“I knew it, ” Dana mumbled.
“Goodness, no. She just rents a room. She moved in a few months ago. That place had been going south long before then.”
“Do you know the landlord’s name?”
“Ask her yourself, ” she said. “She just got home a few minutes before you pulled up.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime, and, uh, tell that nice young gardener fellow I said hi.”
I eyed Veronika’s house as the woman closed her door and went back to her cable-guy vigil. A lot of friends, huh?
“Maybe we should go pay our condolences to the landlord, ” I suggested.
Dana followed as I picked my way over the moist lawn and up the gravel-lined pathway to the front door. The home itself was a pale adobe-colored stucco, with white columns flanking the front door and large, flowering birds-of-paradise in glazed planters on the porch. The front windows were all closed and shaded behind heavy curtains. Unless you knew someone was inside, there’d be no way to tell.
I rang the bell beside the imposing front door and waited while footsteps approached from inside. Two seconds later I heard the sound of a lock being thrown and the thick door swung open.
“Yes? What do you want?”
I stared, blinking as I took in the woman’s liposuctioned thighs encased in tiny spandex shorts, her obviously man-made chest barely contained by a little red crop top, and those familiar collagen-enhanced lips, the likes of which I’d last seen six feet high on a billboard above the Taco Bell on Pico.
Jasmine.