Peril in High Heels (High Heels Mysteries Book 11)

by Gemma Halliday

  "Nothing," he said. "As far as I know."

  "Oh. Then what's up?" I asked, relaxing back into my seat.

  "Everything's fine," he assured me. "Dana just wanted to hide out from the press, so we decided to binge-watch old Seinfeld episodes in her room instead of going out for dinner."

  "Is she doing alright?" I asked.

  "She's fine. Really. She's just tired."

  I could well imagine.

  "I ordered some food from the tavern, and she's going to eat something whether she likes it or not. Right, honey?" I couldn't make out Dana's muffled reply. "Anyway, Mrs. R and your mom are at the Tipsy Moose having dinner. They said they were going to question some locals I think."

  Uh-oh. "How long ago did you leave them there?" I asked, checking the time.

  "I dunno. Maybe fifteen minutes ago?"

  That was fourteen minutes too long. "Maybe I should go keep an eye on them," I said. "If you're sure you and Dana are okay?"

  "Sure. Go. I'm totally on Dana-watch tonight."

  "Thanks," I told him before hanging up.

  Ramirez glanced at me. "What was that all about?"

  "We've got to meet my mother and Mrs. Rosenblatt at the Tipsy Moose for dinner."

  "We?" He shook his head. "Oh no. You're on your own there."

  "They seem to behave better when you're around."

  He laughed. "Define better."

  "You're really abandoning me?"

  He shook his head. "Don't you think abandoning is a little harsh?"

  "So are Mom and Mrs. R."

  "I want to talk to the manager of the hotel again," Ramirez said. He turned his attention back to the road as he pulled to a stop at the curb in front of the Tipsy Moose. "Get a list of guests. See if I can narrow down who might have been at the pool this afternoon."

  Meaning who had attacked me. I could tell he was trying to keep his cool for my benefit, but that telltale little vein in his neck pulsed again.

  I leaned over and gave his stubbled cheek a soft kiss. "Thank you."

  He raised an eyebrow my way.

  "For being here. And helping Dana. And me."

  The lines of his jaw softened some and a dimple flashed in his left cheek. "Come on," Ramirez said. "I'll walk you in."

  "You don't have to do that. I'm sure I'll be safe crossing the sidewalk."

  "Humor me," he said, getting out of the car.

  Maybe I could humor him right into staying for dinner.

  We walked the few paces down the sidewalk to the Tipsy Moose, where Ramirez held the heavy wooden door for me.

  Immediately I could see the place was packed. As we pushed through the crowd, I saw that my dinner dates had snagged a window table and were dressed to be seen. My mother was in head to toe white that set off her fire engine red hair and 1984 blue eye shadow, which extended clear up to her drawn-in eyebrows. Her pants were snug, her top loose, and her shoes a pair of gladiator sandals that cut into her fleshy ankles in a way that I was sure would leave marks later. Mrs. Rosenblatt had gone with a billowing silver and black striped muumuu that night, which looked like a sparkly circus tent. Her feet were in a pair of silver Crocs with several plastic charms stuck on the front, and her ears were adorned with gold hoops that touched her shoulders.

  My mother seemed to be in earnest discussion with the server, a pained looking young man with pale blond hair and prominent ears. Mrs. Rosenblatt spotted me and started waving both arms, as if she were flagging down an airplane.

  "Jack, what a nice surprise!" My mother greeted Ramirez, tilting her cheek up for his kiss as he approached. The young waiter took advantage of her distraction to slip away. My eyes followed him with envy.

  "This is Girls' Night Out," Mrs. Rosenblatt told him. "No offense intended."

  "None taken." Ramirez's smile was part relief, part amusement. "I have some work to do anyway."

  "I'm sure we could make an exception," I cut in before he could make his escape.

  "I really can't stay," Ramirez said. He winked at Mrs. Rosenblatt. "Keep an eye on her, will you?"

  "No problem," she said. "We've got it covered."

  I felt as if I was being handed off to a couple of babysitters. Although, after the day I'd had, I kind of didn't feel terrible about there being safety in numbers.

  "Where'd our waiter go?" Mrs. Rosenblatt demanded as I sat down. "I want another moose-tini."

  "You don't need another martini, moose or otherwise," my mother said. "Order white wine."

  "White wine gives me a headache," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "Besides, this is Girls' Night. I'm a girl. I can order anything I want."

  "You haven't been a girl for fifty years," my mother said with a laugh. "And martinis make you loopy. You're liable to end up dancing on a table."

  This was going well so far.

  "So what if I do?" Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "That's my prerogative. Didn't you hear that director? Time's up."

  "Time's up doesn't mean you can dance on tables," my mother snapped.

  "It means no man can stop me if I do," Mrs. Rosenblatt said.

  With a massive eye roll, Mom turned to me. "Maddie, have you had any vegetables lately? You should order a salad."

  Really well.

  I pretended to study the menu until Mrs. Rosenblatt ordered a second moose-tini, my mother ordered her white wine, and I ordered a margarita—heavy on the tequila. Then we all added burgers to sop up some of the alcohol, which all arrived just a few minutes later.

  "Wasn't that press conference something?" Mom asked, taking a bite of her double cheeseburger. "That Tarrin Walsh should be a motivational speaker. She really knows how to inspire a crowd."

  "Only the female half was inspired," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "The men, not so much."

  "No wonder," Mom said. "She kind of threw them all under the bus, didn't she?" She looked at me. "I saw you talking to Alia Altor after the speech. What did she think of it?"

  "If I had to guess, she thought it was spot on," I said, sipping my drink. I quickly filled them in on what Marco and I had found and Alia's admission that her mother and Frost had had a relationship and the possibility he was her father. "Apparently Frost has been making the moves on his actresses for years," I finished. "From Vida Altor in the nineties, all the way up to Dana."

  "Vida Altor." Mrs. Rosenberg tapped her finger to her chin, thinking. "I've heard that name before."

  "She was in a movie Frost directed called Renegade Road," I supplied.

  She snapped her fingers. "That's right. Fast and Dangerous number two. Honey, that was the best one." She extracted her phone from her purse, presumably pulling up info on the film in question.

  "You saw those movies?" I asked, digging into my burger.

  She nodded. "You kidding? All those shirtless men, all that raw testosterone. What's not to love about them?"

  Mom shook her head. "I prefer a nice rom-com. Give me Renée Zellweger any day."

  "Oh sure, but only if Colin Firth is involved. Rawwr," Mrs. R said, making the sound of cat in heat. I looked down at her empty second moose-tini glass. Maybe it was time to cut her off.

  "Anyway," I said. "Alia admitted blackmailing Frost into giving her the part. It's possible he was having second thoughts keeping her as the Dragon Queen, and she killed him over it."

  "Would he do that, though?" Mom asked. "I mean, fire an actress this far into filming? Don't they have a lot of scenes shot already with her in them?"

  I shrugged. "Honestly? I have no idea. I know Jaden Plume is their second Evil Prince, so Frost wasn't above substitutions."

  "Her mom was a looker," Mrs. R said, turning her phone so Mom and I could see the photo of Vida Altos circa Renegade Road on it.

  "How sad," Mom said with a sigh. "She looks so innocent."

  Mrs. Rosenblatt shrugged. "She was an actress." She licked a drop of raspberry liqueur from the edge of her drained martini glass. "I remember seeing this movie in the theaters. Summer of 1996. I remember because that was the summer I—
"

  "TMI," my mother interjected.

  Mrs. Rosenblatt blinked. "I haven't said anything yet."

  "I know," Mom said. "But I've known you over a decade, and none of your stories ever end without TMI."

  Mrs. Rosenblatt cackled with laughter. "That's 'cause I've lived, baby." She signaled the server for a refill on her glass.

  I vigorously shook my head in the negative at him behind her back.

  "Wasn't this right after his big wedding?" Mom asked, looking at Mrs. R's phone now.

  "Whose wedding?" I sipped my drink, licking salt off my lower lip.

  "Jasper Frost's. I remember Joan Rivers covered it. Huge event. I think the Prince of Wales even showed up, right?" she asked Mrs. R.

  Mrs. Rosenblatt nodded. "Could be. That prince got around in those days."

  "Do you remember that, Maddie?" she asked. "Oh, you probably would have been in school then. Let's see, what grade would that have been…"

  But I was stuck on the first part of the conversation. That Frost had shot Renegade Road right after his wedding.

  "Are you sure?" I asked Mom.

  She blinked at me. "Sure about what?"

  "About when the wedding was. Are you sure Frost was married before he filmed Renegade Road?"

  "I-I think so," she said, still blinking in a way that showed off the hot pink eyeliner she'd applied to complement the powder blue eye shadow.

  "Easy enough to check," Mrs. R said, taking her phone back. A few clicks and swipes later, she nodded. "Yep. According to Page Six, Jasper Frost and Selma Lionetti tied the knot on June 1st, twenty-four years ago."

  Which was one year before Alia had been born. Three months before she'd been conceived.

  "Why?" Mom asked, eyeing me. "What does that mean?"

  "It means Selma might have had a very good reason to be upset with her husband." I thought back to that first day on the set. Originally I'd imagined Selma might have been upset by seeing Dana storm from her husband's trailer. But it's possible there had been much more concrete evidence of Frost's infidelity on the set. Living, breathing evidence. Alia looked strikingly like her mother. If Selma had seen her on set that day and recognized her, it might not have been a stretch for her to put two and two together. Alia had certainly put the timeline together easily enough. Had Selma seen Alia and realized her husband had cheated on her all those years ago as a newlywed?

  I wasn't sure, but I shared my theory with Mom and Mrs. R.

  "Wow," Mrs. Rosenblatt said when I was done. "If I found out my new husband had done something like that, well, there'd be no rock big enough for him to hide under."

  I knew that wasn't hyperbole.

  "So, maybe Selma realized who Alia was and confronted Frost with it." I paused, looking around. "Brock said they were arguing over dinner here. Maybe that was what it was about."

  "Good for her!" my mother said. "You can't let men get away with that sort of thing. Time is totally up."

  "She told him she wasn't going to take it anymore. Then she stormed out," I continued. "Maybe then she caught up with him later, when she knew he'd be isolated and alone, and killed him."

  "So how does that Prince fit in?" Mrs. R asked.

  "The one she gave the money to and took the envelope from?" Mom added.

  "Right." I paused, thinking about that. "Maybe he somehow put it all together afterward. Realized that it was Selma who did it and blackmailed her for his silence?"

  "They're all from LA, right?" Mom said. "Maybe he knew her before. Knew something about her that tipped him off."

  I nodded, liking that idea. "Yes! In fact, Ramirez said Jaden's last job was at a medical center in Beverly Hills. You think Selma's had any work done?"

  "Please." Mrs. Rosenblatt waved her hand. "That woman has had plastic surgery on her plastic surgery."

  "She's right," my mother said with a nod. "From the pictures I've seen of her, she's had her eyelids and jowls and nose done, at least."

  "That's before you even get to the nether regions," Mrs. Rosenblatt added. "I bet she's even had a Brazilian butt lift and a, you know, frontal rejuvenation."

  "What's that?" Mom asked.

  Mrs. Rosenblatt gave a shudder. "If you have to ask, you don't want one."

  "Anyhoo," I said loudly, cutting off that line of thought. "Maybe Jaden knew her from the medical center. Maybe something she said there clicked with him after Frost was dead. Then he blackmailed her, saying he'd keep quiet for a price?"

  "Oh, I have an idea!" Mom bounced in her seat. "Maybe they were in it together from the beginning!" Her eyes shone with excitement at this new theory. "Maybe the Evil Prince and the wife were even seeing each other!"

  "I don't know," I hedged. "He's a lot younger than she is."

  "Maybe she's a cougar," Mom said. "I read all about it. They're all over Hollywood. It's the Botox. No one looks their age anymore."

  "But what would be in it for him?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked.

  "Some guys like older women," she said. "You hear about that all the time, husbands trading their wives in for an older model."

  The blond server reappeared. "Can I get you ladies anything else?"

  "I'll prove you wrong." Mrs. Rosenblatt appraised him. "How old are you, young man?"

  He blinked at her. "I'm, uh, I'm nineteen."

  "Nineteen," she repeated. "Could you ever see yourself dating an older woman?"

  "You mean like a twenty-year-old?" he asked.

  "Like over forty," she said. "Or even fifty. Someone old enough to be your grandmother."

  A pink stain blossomed on his cheeks. "I've, uh, I've got a, uh, a girlfriend."

  She sat back with a triumphant smile. "You see my point?" she asked Mom.

  "Sorry about that," I told him. "We'll just take the bill."

  "Yes, ma'am, I'll just, uh, go get…" He turned and fled.

  "Okay," I said. "Setting aside the fact that you just sent that boy straight into therapy, we can agree Selma probably wasn't sleeping with Jaden Plume. For one thing, Selma wouldn't have known about Alia until she hit the set the day that Frost died."

  "Well, she must have known her husband hired her," Mom countered. "Even we knew she was in the film. It's all over TMZ."

  I hadn't thought of that. "You're right."

  Mom nodded. "In that case, maybe Selma had this planned all along. Maybe she even hired Jaden to kill her husband for her."

  "Maybe she even got him the job as the Prince," Mrs. R cut in. "Didn't you say he wasn't the original choice?"

  I nodded. "Tarrin said Frost fired the first one."

  "So, Selma got him the job for the express purpose of killing her husband."

  "But he couldn't have killed Frost," Mom said. "He was in jail that night, right?"

  I nodded. "He's the only one with a rock solid alibi."

  "So Selma did what women do," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "TCB."

  My mother gasped. "She did drugs?"

  "That's THC," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "I'm talking about Taking Care of Business. Getting the job done. Whacking the mister."

  "Jaden gets out of jail, finds out Frost is already dead, and he immediately knows what happened," I said, constructing the scenario in my mind. "He could be blackmailing her now because he wants the payoff even though all he managed to do was get arrested in a bar fight."

  "That all sounds fine," Mom said, "but how do you go about proving it?"

  "That part's easy," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "We break into her bungalow and find the envelope he gave her. It must contain the proof of whatever he was blackmailing her for, right?"

  "I don't think that's a good idea," I said. Understatement alert. I thought it was a terrible idea.

  "We should wait until dark," Mom decided, nodding.

  I stared at her. "You're not seriously thinking about doing this."

  "Waiting until dark goes without saying." Mrs. R looked at her watch. "Would you look at that. Seven o'clock. It's dark out."

  "Should we change?" Mo
m asked, looking down at her outfit. "Don't burglars always wear black?"

  "We're not burglars!" I said.

  "We'll have to come up with a way to get her out of her hotel room," Mom asked, scrunching up her nose in thought.

  "She's gotta leave sometime. She's gotta eat, right?"

  "Maybe she ate early," I said, hoping to derail this nightmare.

  "Maddie, she's not that old. Besides, there's no early bird special here," Mrs. R informed me. "I checked."

  "She's in mourning. She's not going to go out to a tavern," I reasoned.

  The front door opened and Selma Frost walked in, heading straight for the bar, looking remarkably composed for a woman who'd just lost her husband of twenty-four years.

  Mrs. Rosenblatt and Mom both turned to me with triumphant smiles.

  I closed my eyes and thought a bad word, silently asking the Universe why she was against me.

  "You were saying?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked.

  "No one likes a show-off," I grumbled.

  "Look, I'll distract her here. I'll pretend I'm a big Jasper Frost fan. You two go look for the envelope."

  I shook my head. "No. This is not a good idea, and there's no way—"

  But Mom already had her purse in hand. "What if she tries to leave?"

  "We need a code word," Mrs. R suggested. "Something quick I can text you in case she slips away."

  My mother lifted her glass. "How about Chardonnay."

  "I can't spell Chardonnay," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "How about apple martini?"

  "That's not a code word. It's two words," my mother said. "That will take twice as long to type."

  "Oh, and Chardonnay is better?" Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "What, was oenophile already taken?"

  I tapped the handle of my knife on the table to quiet them. "This is ridiculous. No breaking and entering. No code words."

  Mom's eyes lifted to the moose head mounted on the wall above me. "How about Bullwinkle?"

  Mrs. R paused, then nodded. "I like it. It's whimsical. It's got no airs."

  Mom nodded. "Good. Then let's go, Maddie."

  I would have protested again, but she was already halfway to the door.

  At that point I had two choices: Go with my mother, who was clearly going to riffle through Selma's things with or without me. Or put my head in the sand and await the call from the police that my mother was in custody. I did an eenie-meenie-minie-mo, but in the end I decided that the least I could do was be there to bail her out when she got caught. She had, after all, gone through sixteen hours of labor to give me life.