“How much would they need to do a short film?” Regan asked.
“It depends. Some young kids out of film school do it on a shoestring budget, spending almost nothing. Others manage to get grants. Cody said they wanted their film to have great production values, which obviously costs plenty. You know, Regan, we’d probably have better luck driving around and looking for their camera set up on a street corner than searching the computer.”
Regan looked thoughtful. “We could start by going back downtown and showing Cody’s picture to the doormen of the high-rises near the bar.”
“Will they give out information?”
“They might.”
Abigail’s cell phone rang. She saw that it was her parents calling. “Here we go with the birthday calls,” she said to Regan.
While Abigail told her parents she was fine and that she’d take good care of Grandma, Regan packed up her computer. Abigail had no sooner hung up with her parents when her phone rang again. “I wish I could turn this thing off,” Abigail said. “But I guess I can’t…Hello.”
“Abigail, it’s Kaitlyn. Happy Birthday!”
“Thanks, Kaitlyn. How are you?”
“I just got back from my trip a couple of days ago. I have a present for you and want to take you out for your birthday one of these nights.”
“My grandmother is coming to town today and wants me to invite friends to join us for a birthday dinner this evening. Are you free?”
“I’d love to. Is this the grandmother that—”
“The very one. She’s flying out here to buy me a condo but thinks I still have the money she gave me to help pay for it. Lois spotted Cody in downtown Los Angeles two nights ago. My friend Regan Reilly is here from New York to help me track him down.”
Kaitlyn’s eyes widened. “Wow. And did you hear about Nicky Tendril?”
“Hear about him? The police called to question me. He had a picture of the two of us in his apartment with a line about me being a witch written on it.”
“Oh, Abigail, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault!”
“No it’s not. But with each passing day, I feel as if I was put on this planet to be paid back for all the rotten things I did in my past life. I’ll admit I was stupid to lend Cody money, but the rest of this isn’t my fault.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Kaitlyn said as one of the residents of the facility poked her head in the door. “Abigail, I have to go. Where should I meet you tonight?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll call you later. Figure we’ll have dinner around 7:30.”
Abigail hung up. “That was my friend Kaitlyn who works at the assisted living facility that led me to Nicky. She’ll join us tonight for the big celebration.”
“I’m determined to make it a celebration,” Regan said. “We’re not going to find Cody sitting here. Let’s get in the car and head downtown.”
“Okay,” Abigail responded as her cell phone rang yet again.
“You’re very popular,” Regan teased.
Abigail looked at the caller ID. “It says ‘Restricted.’” She opened her phone. “Hello?”
“Is this Abigail Feeney?” a man asked, his voice husky.
“Speaking.”
“Oh good. I’ve got a delivery for Princess and Kingsley Martin. I called their house and your number was on the recording. You’re their Gal Friday or something?”
“Whatever,” Abigail answered. “What are you delivering?”
“Mattresses.”
“Mattresses! What for?”
“My guess would be sleeping. How am I supposed to know? My job isn’t to ask questions. It’s to make the deliveries. If I don’t make the delivery, I don’t get paid.”
“But they’ll be back next week. Can’t you deliver them then? You’ll still get paid.”
“I drove here from Arizona. If you don’t accept delivery today, the mattresses go back to the warehouse and the Martins get charged extra delivery fees. These are very expensive top-of-the-line mattresses. It says on the order that Princess Martin wants them ASAP.”
I don’t believe this, Abigail thought. “Where are you?”
“I’m an hour away. It’s our company policy to give at least sixty minutes’ notice before showing up.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you there.” Abigail hung up the phone and groaned. “I can’t take this!”
“What?”
“We have to go to Malibu before we can do anything else today. Princess must have ordered new mattresses. I have to be there to accept delivery.”
“Mattresses are being delivered today?”
“Yes.”
“But mattresses are usually delivered about five minutes after you buy them,” Regan said. “Princess is in Switzerland. When could she have ordered them?”
“Who knows? They’re top of the line, of course. Let’s get going. We’re going to lose so much time.”
“You’re right, Abigail, we can’t lose another minute.”
28
Lonnie Windworth woke up with a splitting headache, still wearing his clothes from the night before. He’d been out drinking shots with a bunch of his friends at a bar on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was his buddy’s twenty-first birthday, and they were going crazy. Then what happened? Lonnie wondered. He didn’t remember leaving the bar. Oh, wait a minute. There was an earthquake. He remembered falling to the ground next to a car.
At least I made it home in one piece, he thought as he sat up in his messy bedroom. Then he saw it. An unfamiliar black bag. A bag whose contents had been dumped all over the floor.
Lonnie owned a black bag he carried to the gym around the corner. But I haven’t been there for weeks, he thought guiltily. So I couldn’t have mistakenly picked up this one at the gym. It doesn’t even look that much like mine. Did one of my friends come home with me and crash on the couch?
Lonnie got up unsteadily and walked through his kitchen to the living room. No one was there. The front door was locked with the chain on it. At least I remembered to protect myself from intruders, he thought.
He went back to his bedroom and sat on the floor where various drafts of a movie called Untitled were scattered. Pens, a calculator, a datebook, and various papers and notes were also among the mess.
Whoa, he thought. Whoa. This is not good. I don’t remember dumping the bag all over the place at all. He opened the datebook. It belonged to a dude named Dean Puntler who urged anyone who found his datebook to PLEASE notify him. He sounds like a nerd, Lonnie thought.
Then he laughed. I must have really been wasted. Not cool. Not cool at all. Lonnie’s head was pounding. I’ve got to take some aspirin, get in the shower, then figure out what, if anything, to do with this bag. I can’t bring it to a police station and say I found it. That would be lame. But I feel bad that this dude Dean must be freaking out, wherever he is at this moment.
Lonnie started to stand up but felt sick to his stomach. He lay down on his bed. I’ll never do that again, he thought. Never. Why did the bartender keep buying them shots? It was so stupid. How am I going to get to work at the restaurant by 11:00?
He got up again, walked to the shower, and turned it on full blast. Maybe I should just throw the bag in the trash, he thought as he shed his clothes and stepped in the old cracked tub. The water sprayed all over his out-of-shape body. I really should get to the gym he thought as he sat down, leaned his head against the tile, and fell asleep.
29
Abigail’s lawyer, Cornelius Cavanaugh, was on the line with Dom Hartman, one of the producers of the movie she’d been working on when she was injured.
“Surely you must be joking,” Cornelius huffed. “She broke her arm in two places and you’re only upping your offer to twenty thousand dollars?” He laughed. “How will she possibly be able to pay me?”
“That’s your problem. She had an operation,” Dom said. “She’ll be good as new in no time. She doesn’t want to get a bad reputation in the business now, does she?”
; “How about you?” Cornelius asked. “You’re the one with a reputation for accidents happening on your set.”
“A few mishaps,” Dom insisted. “But they only happen on the set. You know what I mean, Cornelius?”
30
Cody was all ready for the 10:00 A.M. meeting. He looked very L.A., with his expensive blue jeans, crisp white shirt, navy blue designer blazer, and loafers made of buttery leather. He’d dabbed on clean-smelling cologne and perched his trendy sunglasses on top of his head. The effect was dressed up enough to be respectful, yet hip enough to show that he was an “artist.”
“You look so handsome,” Stella said as she lounged on the couch of their bungalow, picking at a bowl of strawberries.
“And you look absolutely beautiful.”
“No I don’t. I think I’m getting a zit. It must be the stress of the earthquake.”
“Zit or no zit, you’ll still be the most gorgeous woman on earth.” He leaned over and kissed her. “What are you going to do today?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure out something. Maybe I’ll sit in the shade by the pool. When will you be back?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ll call you. We have a few meetings.” He rubbed his hands together. “This time next week, we’ll be in Vermont shooting our film! I can’t wait. I just saw on the television in the bathroom that they’re getting a lot of snow.”
“I can’t wait either,” Stella cooed. “Everything has worked out so perfectly from the time Dean handed me the script…The fact that my series would be on hiatus at the very time you’re shooting the film so I’d be able to do it…The fact that I met you and fell madly in love…The fact that we get to spend these days together in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel…It’s as if all our stars are in alignment.”
Cody’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID. “Dean, are you outside?…Great…I’ll be right there.” He hung up. “I’ve got to go.” He leaned over and kissed Stella again. “Good-bye, Beautiful.”
Stella laughed. “Good-bye. Hurry back!”
Out in the car, Dean was still in a state of shock after hearing the news report about Nicky Tendril.
Cody opened the door and bounced in. “Hey, partner,” he said as he pulled the seat belt around him.
“Hello,” Dean grunted as he started the car and pulled down the driveway of the hotel.
“You seem a little tired,” Cody said sympathetically. “But the sleep you lost last night was worth it. Stella was really touched that you were here. And that rose? That was the best. I’m so glad I suggested it.” He leaned back against the seat, a self-contented smile on his handsome face.
“Nicky Tendril was murdered,” Dean spat as he pulled onto Sunset Boulevard.
“What?”
“I heard it on the news this morning. Someone shoved him against the wall. He was found about 3:00 yesterday afternoon. Not long after we were there eating his rotten soup!”
“Are you kidding?”
“Why would I kid about that? I’ve got enough troubles.”
Cody shook his head and grimaced. “Maybe he tried to serve that soup to someone else,” he joked. “Whew. That guy deliberately waited until after we both politely dispatched those bowls of slop down our throats to tell us that he didn’t want to invest in our film. I could have killed him.”
“Did you?” Dean asked.
“Did I what?”
“Did you kill him?”
“Are you crazy?” Cody almost shouted. “Of course not. What’s wrong with you?”
“Maybe you developed greater impatience after being cooped up in jail for so long,” Dean suggested. “After we argued with him, I went out the door first and headed straight for the car. You were a minute behind me. Maybe you shoved him after I left.”
“I didn’t touch him. How can you think that?”
“Because we were right there before he died and we certainly had the motivation. If you didn’t do it, then who did?”
Cody flung up his hands. “I don’t know. I wish Abigail had never told me he had all that money. You wasted so much time trying to get friendly with him.”
“While you were in jail! You were in jail lifting weights, and I was staking out his house to see if he’d ever emerge and walk up the street to the supermarket. I sat there for days waiting for him to go out for a quart of milk! He finally does and I pretend to bump into him at the store, then offer to carry his groceries home and we start to talk. He was an amazingly boring old man. The whole process was laborious and we don’t end up with one dime! Now the cops could find out we were at the scene of the crime right before it happened. Are you sure you didn’t give him a little push?”
Cody slammed the seat. “I’m sure! But we didn’t leave anything behind, did we? It’s better if the cops don’t know we were there. For a lot of obvious reasons.”
“I didn’t leave anything there. I just hope he cleaned our DNA off those soup spoons before he passed over,” Dean sputtered.
Cody pointed at Dean accusingly. “And what about the bag you lost? That’s no help to us.”
“I didn’t lose it! Someone stole it out of my trunk.”
“Is there anything in there that could get us into trouble?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry, Cody. The postcards you sent me from jail are home in my scrapbook.”
Dean pulled through the gates at the entrance to Bel Air. The sun was shining and the perfectly manicured gardens were beautiful. The two drove in silence up the winding roads, passing one mansion after another, until they finally reached the imposing white-columned home of Thomas L. Pristavec.
“Not too shabby,” Dean muttered. He identified himself on the intercom at the entrance to the property. The gate clicked open and he pulled down a driveway, which was more like a courtyard, and parked his car next to a brand-new Bentley. “Twenty-five thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket for a guy like this,” he said as he reached in the backseat for the leather briefcase he used only for these meetings.
Cody opened his car door, then turned to Dean. “I don’t care how much money he has. He’d better not try and serve us any sauerkraut soup.”
31
From the moment Lois awakened, she was feeling disappointed that she wasn’t free to join Abigail and Regan in their search for Cody. I only wish I could have thrown a net around him the other night, she thought.
She showered, dressed, put on a pair of gloves, and hurried outside. Her next-door neighbor Hank, a twenty-year-old surfer, was just coming out of his door in a wet suit and looked half asleep.
“What’s happening, Lois?”
“Not much. How are you doing, Hank?”
“The earthquake freaked me out a little,” he drawled. “An empty beer bottle fell off the coffee table and smashed. I knew I should have thrown it out a few days ago.”
Lois laughed. “The water glass I keep next to my bed broke.” She paused. “How will the earthquake affect the surf?”
“I’m going to find out right now. Nice gloves. You have a different pair on every time I see you. They’re always so chic.”
“You need your wet suit for protection from the elements, I need my gloves. Because I have to wear them every day, I like a little variety.”
“Cool. I don’t care what my wet suit looks like as long as it keeps me warm.”
“Have fun. Hope you catch a big wave,” Lois said as she went down the stairs and out to her car. She programmed her cell phone into the car’s speakers and called Abigail as she started down the road. When Abigail answered, Lois cried, “Hey, Birthday Girl!”
“Hey, Lois, I spoke to my grandmother. She’s taking a few of us to dinner tonight. You have to join us.”
“Great. Where?”
“Not sure yet. You do okay with the earthquake?”
“I was fine. No problem.”
“That’s good. I can’t talk now but I’ll call you later and let you kn
ow where we’ll meet. Probably around 7:30. If your shoot runs late, just get there when you can.”
“Okay. Before you hang up tell me what happened last night when you went downtown.”
“We showed Cody’s picture to the bartender and the waiters at Jimbo’s but nobody remembered ever seeing him.”
“Too bad. Well, good luck today. Let me know if there’s any good news to share.”
“Don’t worry, Lois. You’ll be the first to know.”
32
Cody and Dean walked up the steps to the enormous front door of Pristavec’s mansion. Dean rang the bell.
“I had no idea the house would look like this,” Cody whispered.
“Me neither. Last time I met him in a restaurant. I guess he trusts me now.”
The door was opened by a butler. “May I help you?”
“Mr. Pristavec is expecting us,” Dean said. “My name is…”
The butler nodded. “Come in, please.”
Something tells me we’re not going to be forced to eat lousy sauerkraut soup, Cody thought as they stepped into a magnificent marble entryway.
“Mr. Pristavec will receive you in the living room,” the butler informed them. “Follow me.”
“Anything you say,” Dean said nervously, clearly awestruck and intimidated by the elegant surroundings. A grand staircase at the other end of the long foyer went up to the second floor. Framed portraits hung on the wall next to each step. This is unreal, Dean thought. If Pristavec saw my crummy apartment, he’d never in a million years trust us with his money.
They followed the butler around the corner and down two plushly carpeted steps into a living room that was unlike anything either of them had seen before. Where do you even find furniture like this? Dean wondered. Where? Everything here is on such a grand scale!
The seventy-year-old dark-haired Thomas Pristavec was standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, engaged in conversation with a very attractive woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties.
Carol Higgins Clark Boxed Set - Volume 1: This eBook collection contains Zapped, Cursed, and Wrecked. Page 27
