Hollywood Secrets

by Gemma Halliday

  “Ohmigod, who are you?” she squealed. “Ohmigod! Trace, help!” She flapped her hands in front of her in classic girl-fight fashion, smacking me in the face.

  I swear to God if I lived through this, I was going to kill her.

  I held tight to the back of her shirt, propelling her forward.

  “The gun! Get the gun!” she screeched.

  Good thinking. Still gripping the back of her shirt, I spun toward the metal desk.

  Too late.

  I found myself nose to nose with the barrel of said gun. In the hands of Ferret.

  “Freeze,” he growled.

  Like I had a choice.

  I froze, my eyes cutting to the right, finding Trace, his nose bleeding and quickly swelling, pinned up against the wall by Crew Cut’s bulk.

  Not good.

  I bit my lip.

  Ferret’s beady eyes were shooting daggers at us as a thin trickle of blood trailed down his chin. Crew Cut was shifting menacingly from foot to foot. Jamie Lee was alternating between screeching, “Ohmigod” and sobbing in my arms.

  But it was Trace’s eyes that held me. Dark, defiant, no long playing a role but a real guy in real trouble. He stared at Jamie Lee with a look of devotion that I would have killed for.

  Then his eyes cut to me.

  Back to the semi-hysterical actress.

  To me again.

  The meaning was clear. He was counting on me to get his girl out of this mess alive.

  I shot a look to the door. It was a good three feet away. No way could we make it there before Ferret got off a shot.

  I looked around the room for anything I could use as a weapon. Chair? Out of reach. Crate? Shattered. Desk? Too heavy for me to lift.

  “Ohmigod, I am too young to die!” Jamie Lee sobbed, waving her hands in front of her face again.

  I looked at her - flapping, sobbing, throwing a fit a two year old would find over-the-top. And I did the only thing I could think of.

  I shoved the spastic actress square into Ferret.

  “OHMIGOD!” She screamed, tipped over on her spiky heels, her flailing hands flapping at Ferret as she crashed into him.

  On instinct his finger squeezed the trigger, a loud crack ripping through the air as his shot went wild, Jamie Lee knocking into his arm. At that instant, Trace kicked Crew Cut in the shins and lunged forward, propelling himself toward Ferret and the gun.

  Ferret went down, Trace went down on top of him, Crew Cut went down on top of him, and Jamie Lee found herself at the bottom of the dog pile.

  “Uhn. Help! I can’t breathe!” she wheezed.

  I dove for the desk and grabbed the stapler. Hardly a deadly weapon, but…

  I aimed it at Ferret. Which was kind of hard considering he, Trace, Crew Cut and Jamie were all grappling together on the ground so fast they were a blur.

  I squeezed the stapler, a small metal staple flying out…

  … and hitting Jamie Lee in the temple.

  “Ouch! Trace, help!” she screamed.

  Oops. My bad.

  I squinted one eye shut and tried again, aiming for Ferret.

  I squeezed.

  “What the hell!”

  Five small, metal staples hit him square in the face. Not enough to damage, for sure, but definitely enough to distract him long enough for Trace to smack his head against the floor. I heard a sickening crunch and blood spurted out from Ferret’s nose. I think I even heard a couple teeth tinkle along the concrete floor. I swallowed down the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, as I watched Trace palm the gun. He stood up, panting, but pointing the gun with a straight arm down at Crew Cut and Ferret.

  “You move, and you’re a dead man.”

  I grinned. It was exactly the same line he’d uttered at the end of Die Tough.

  But I figured that the bad guys had seen the movie, too, because they didn’t, in fact, move. The look in the actor’s eyes was enough to tell them that even if the line was a fake, the intention behind it was real. Trace looked only too eager to put a hole or two in the guys.

  The five of us sat frozen as the sound of sirens in the distance moved closer.

  “You okay?” Trace asked, not taking his eyes off his pinned prey.

  “Ohmigod, Trace, they were going to kill me!” Jamie Lee sobbed.

  “No, I meant you.” His eyes cut to me for a quick second. “Your arm.”

  I looked down.

  And for the first time registered a dull ache in my left bicep as I saw a red stain spread along the sleeve of my T-shirt. I blinked. Apparently Ferret’s shot hadn’t gone completely wild.

  “I’ve been shot,” I said dully. And then for the second time that day crumpled to the ground as I watched the world fade to black.

  * * *

  I came to in a haze of blue and red flashing lights, police radios crackling, and my battered self laid out on a white stretcher surrounded by paramedics in blue uniforms with stethoscopes hanging off their necks, shouting a bunch of words I didn’t know, let alone could pronounce. I was pronounced “stable” (one of the few words I understood) and whisked away to the nearest hospital for surgery. Three hours later I had a semi-private recovery room, a hell of an anesthesia hangover, and the bullet they’d dug out of my bicep as a souvenir of the evening. It was somewhere around dawn, and I was just about to close my eyes for a well-earned rest, when my two partners in crime came bustling through my hospital room door.

  “Cam!” Mrs. Rosenblatt immediately rushed toward me, enveloping me in a boa-constrictor worthy hug. I could hardly breathe, but, to be honest, after the night I’d had it was nice to be breathing at all.

  “Oh, honey, are you okay?” Allie asked.

  I nodded. “Mostly.”

  “You look like hell,” Mrs. Rosenblatt observed.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “Let me do a healing chant for you,” she offered, then put a beefy palm on my forehead and started to hum low in her throat.

  Frankly, I didn’t have the energy to protest at that point.

  “What happened?” Allie asked.

  I went over the entire evening’s events from the time we parted ways until I saw stars and a bloody hole in my own arm.

  “Holy cow, you reporters live the dangerous life,” Mrs. Rosenblatt said when I was done. “I can just imagine the look on that guy’s face when you used Jamie Lee as a weapon against him.”

  I grinned. Painfully. “Yeah, he did look a little surprised.”

  “I wish I’d been there,” Allie said wistfully, no doubt thinking of the lost opportunity to report a firsthand account.

  Which reminded me…

  “Yeah, why weren’t you there? What happened to you guys? Why didn’t you pick up your cell?”

  Allie rolled her eyes. “The parking garage blocked cell reception. We didn’t realize we were in a dead zone until it was too late, and you were already gone.”

  “It wasn’t until you called us again from the warehouse that we honed in on your exact location and called the police.”

  “And they believed you?” I asked, remembering my own attempts to get the authorities on my side.

  “Well, not exactly…” Allie hedged. “We kinda told them that we’d found that car the parking cop was looking for. After he put out the APB on you at the MGM, the police were more than happy to drive out and pick you up on the outstanding tickets warrant.”

  I laughed out loud, even though it caused another round of throbbing in my head. Who would have thought that my parking violations would be my saving grace?

  “Wait, how did you guys even know about the parking cop’s APB and the warrant?” I asked.

  Allie grinned. “Police radio of course.”

  I blinked. “You have a police radio?”

  “I can tap into one. On my iPhone.”

  “They have an app for that?”

  She rolled her perfectly made-up eyes at me. “No, silly! But I can pretty easily break into their scanner frequencies.”

/>   “How on earth did you learn to do that?” I asked, staring at the bubbly blonde.

  “Felix taught me.”

  Oh, yeah, she was totally sleeping with him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  AMERICA’S FAVORITE COUPLE SURVIVES HARROWING ORDEAL

  TRACE BRODY AND JAMIE LEE LANCASTER ARE ONCE AGAIN SAFE AND SOUND IN MALIBU, BUT THEIR HAPPY ENDING WASN’T QUITE SUCH A GUARANTEE JUST A FEW SHORT DAYS AGO. JAMIE LEE WAS KIDNAPPED – YES, KIDNAPPED! – BY TWO ARMED MEN, BUT TRACE, IN HOLLYWOOD LEADING-MAN FASHION, SINGLE-HANDEDLY RESCUED HIS BELOVED IN A FILM-WORTHY SHOWDOWN.

  WE CAUGHT UP WITH TRACE AND JAMIE LEE AT THEIR COZY LITTLE LOVE NEST JUST YESTERDAY, WHERE THESE EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS SHOW AN AFFECTIONATE JAMIE LEE PLANNING HER HONEYMOON IN PARIS WITH HER OWN PERSONAL HERO-

  I minimized the browser window, not able to stomach the photo spread that went with the online article. So far I’d already seen Jamie Lee with her arms around Trace outside their Malibu “love nest,” Jaime Lee with her arms around Trace at the local Starbucks, Jamie Lee with her arm around Trace as they visited the travel agent… you get the picture. The two were joined like Siamese twins. It was sweeter than a barrel of cotton candy and making me just as sick to my stomach.

  It had been a full week since I’d been back from Vegas, but Entertainment Daily was still milking the story for all it was worth. Of course the Informer had been the first to run with the story, Allie typing it up in the backseat of her VW as she, Mrs. Rosenblatt and I had driven home. Trace and Jamie Lee had flown home first class.

  In fact, the last I’d seen of Trace had been from a prone position on a stretcher as the police took his statement in triplicate and the paramedics whisked me away to the hospital. I’d spent two days in recovery answering a slew of police questions (Yes, I was the “unknown assailant” whose DNA was all over Decker’s place. No, I didn’t kill him. Yes, I cross my heart and hope to die promise to pay those parking tickets.), halfway hoping to see him visit my hospital room, halfway telling myself it was stupid to even halfway hope. He had his life back, he had Jamie Lee back, and I had the story of the century to turn in to Felix complete with a photo spread that would beat anything ED could print for the next ten years. Whatever tentative partnership Trace and I had forged had ended, and we’d all gotten our happy endings, right?

  Well, everyone except Ferret and Crew Cut who, according to Allie’s digging, had yet to do any talking to the police. Whatever was on that flash drive remained a mystery. But, considering the two had not only been caught red-handed kidnapping two Hollywood celebrities, but also were in possession of the gun that exactly matched Decker’s murder weapon, I didn’t think either of them would be seeing the outside of a jail cell for a very long time.

  The bad guys were in prison, I was back at the Informer, and Trace was apparently back at his love nest with Jamie Lee, if Mike and Eddie’s article was any indication. All was right in the world.

  Only for some reason all that was right left a slightly hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Hey, Cam.”

  I looked up to find Tina approaching my desk, her hair propped up in two pigtails held in place with a pair of pink skull holders that perfectly matched her pink skull jumper above her black boots.

  “Hey, Tina.”

  “You read today’s ED article?”

  I nodded. “Single-handedly my ass.” I looked down to where my arm was still in sling. Though, luckily, my goose egg had faded to a lovely baby poo brown splotch on my forehead that my hair mostly covered if I tilted my head forward enough.

  “Well, they never really do get a story right, do they?”

  “Mike and Eddie? Never.”

  “Though…” Tina grinned. “Tell me that it’s really true. You really used an Oscar-nominated actress as a weapon?”

  I couldn’t help an answering grin as I remembered the flailing actress. Without the threat of imminent death, I had to admit the scene had been kind of funny.

  “I’m sorry Allie got headline. I swear I was going to hand the story to you, but she kinda jumped in before I had the chance.”

  Tina shrugged. “Not your fault. Allie would eat her own young for a story. Speedial me first next time you catch a hot movie star skinny-dipping and we’re cool.”

  “You have my word.” “Anyway,” Tina went on. “I saw the ED article and just had to come by and offer my condolences.”

  “For what?”

  “The photos. Of Jamie Lee and Trace. Must be hard to look at.”

  I shrugged. “They aren’t that good. I could have got better.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.”

  I bit my lip. Was I that obvious?

  As if to answer me, Tina bluntly said, “Face it. You dig him.”

  “I do not!” I protested. Probably a little more loudly than a person telling the truth should have.

  Tina put her hands on her hips. She cocked her pigtails to the side. She stared hard at me. “Don’t bullshit me, Cam. Allie told me how you guys were looking at each other the whole time you were in Vegas. She totally thought you’d end up together.”

  “Since when do you and Allie speak?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  I sighed, studiously avoiding looking at my minimized window. “Fine. I guess after getting to know Trace, he isn’t all that bad.”

  Tina smirked. “That’s a start.”

  “But it doesn’t matter in the least what I think of Trace. He’s… obviously happy where he is.”

  Tina placed a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry. I guess you win some, you lose some.”

  Easy for her to say. She was on the winning side of a relationship.

  Not that I wanted a relationship. Not that I’d ever even contemplated a relationship with Trace. I mean, Trace was in Malibu, I was on the wrong side of Hollywood, stuck between a dry cleaner and the Happy Time Go souvenir shop. He was planning a honeymoon in Paris. I was planning Chinese for one. Again. Our lives were worlds apart. Sure, we’d forged some sort of friendship while we had been working together. And, likely if I waved to him on the street, he’d wave back. But that was about as far as my imagination had taken it.

  I swear.

  I slumped down in my seat as Tina walked back to her cube, pulling up the ED window again, masochist that I was, and stared at the first photo of Trace.

  He was sipping a cup of coffee – black, I now knew – outside Starbucks after his morning run. His hair was a disheveled mess, the morning sun shining off his sandy highlights. Sweat glistened on his exposed biceps, making his warm, honey tan seem even darker than normal. His eyes were bright and happy with the kind of satisfaction that I knew could only come after putting a good five miles on your Nikes. He looked… perfect.

  “Cam!”

  I quickly closed the window as if I’d been caught looking at porn and spun around. “Yeah? What?”

  Mrs. Rosenblatt ambled up to my cube. “You busy?”

  I glanced at my dark monitor. “Nope. Not at all. Not doing a thing.”

  Geez, when did I get to be such a crummy liar?

  “Great,” she said, thankfully seemingly oblivious. “I need a favor. Max needs a couple pictures of Ben Carlyle to run in tomorrow’s edition.”

  “With the Tootsie article?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. This time it’s an actual obit. Carlyle passed away last night.”

  “Oh no. Please don’t tell me we gave the man a heart attack?”

  Mrs. Rosenblatt shook her head. “Died peacefully in his sleep. But get this – he left a note. Apparently it was filed away with his lawyer for reading only after his death.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It was a confession.”

  “Get out!”

  She nodded, her fleshy cheeks wobbling. “Yep. Turns out he was not only dating Tootsie, but he was also seeing Becky Martin on the side.”

  I had a hard time imagining one woman, let alone two,
falling for the aged anti-Romeo.

  “But he seemed to have such contempt for her.”

  “That was because she dumped him as soon as he offed Tootsie,” Mrs. Rosenblatt explained. “According to his note, Tootsie found out about the affair and threatened to ruin both Carlyle and Becky’s careers. And she had the clout in those days to do it, too. Carlyle freaked out and shot her, using Johnny as a scapegoat.”

  “Poor Tootsie,” I said.

  “No kidding.”

  “So what happened to Becky Martin?”

  “She couldn’t stand the guilt. Even though Carlyle pulled the trigger, she felt responsible. She moved back to the Midwest shortly after the death.”

  “And Ben Carlyle kept his secret all these years,” I mused.

  She nodded again. “But at least people will know the truth now. Max’s story is running in the weekend edition.”

  I whistled low. “Weekend edition? Jackpot. Good for Max,” I said. “Felix must be happy.”

  “Boy howdy, is he!” She grinned so wide I could see the lipstick stains on her molars. “Not only did he give Max a three-page spread, but he gave yours truly a little something, too.”

  I raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “I’m coming onboard as the Informer’s resident psychic and astrologer.”

  I grinned. “Congratulations.” I had to admit, it might be fun having Mrs. Rosenblatt around. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll email you a couple pics of Carlyle.”

  “Thanks, doll!” she said, giving me a wave as she waddled away.

  I pulled up the archives database, running Ben Carlyle’s name through the system. And swallowed a shock as a picture of a very debonair guy, handsome enough to give Clark Gable a run for his money, popped up. Wow. I guess the years could be cruel to a guy harboring a lonely secret like his.