A is for Actress (Malibu Mystery Book 1)

by Rebecca Cantrell

  When the person on the other end of the line picked up, they heard Bobby say “Yeah, it’s me. They know… What do you mean who? Who do you think? … That’s what I’m telling you. They know. Their boss is talking to the cops right now, and I ain’t hanging around to see if they believe him or not. You do what you gotta do, but I’m outta here.”

  Aidan shook his head as they listened to the last part.

  “Bad move telling them that,” Aidan said, keeping his voice down in the echo chamber of the stairwell.

  Aidan reached over and plucked the earbud from Sofia’s ear. They walked down the stairs together. At the bottom, they pushed through the door and into the underground parking garage. They ducked into an alcove next to the entrance to the stairwell. From here they had a clear view of the elevator, and of the spot where Bobby’s white BMW was sitting. He’d backed into the spot so that the car was facing nose out, ready for a quick exit.

  The plan was for Sofia to act as lookout, while Aidan planted a small tracking device inside the alloy wheel rim of the BMW. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about Bobby Rogers spotting them while they tailed him in the Shit-Mobile. Chances are he would head for LAX, but wherever he went, Aidan would call it in to Brendan. It would easy enough for Brendan to make a call and have him detained.

  But they couldn’t plant the tracking device until the garage was empty. A Honda sedan with tinted windows had just rolled in. Sofia watched as the Honda cruised slowly down the line of spaces. She nudged Aidan but he was already watching it.

  A resident driving into the garage would have headed straight for their slot. They were all pre-assigned. There was a visitors’ parking section where drivers could grab the first available spot, but that was at the end of the parking garage and was clearly signed. This car was acting weird.

  The Honda kept cruising slowly down the line of resident spaces. The car slowed almost to a complete stop, rear brake lights flaring red, as they reached the white BMW. The Honda driver backed into an empty parking slot about three cars down from Bobby’s.

  The Honda’s engine switched off. None of the doors opened. No one left the vehicle. Seconds passed. Then a minute. Out of the corner of her eye, Sofia saw Aidan pocket the black tracking device and reach into his jacket for his gun. Aidan was obviously thinking the same thing she was. That they weren’t the only ones waiting to see if Bobby Rogers was about to skip town.

  Sofia nudged Aidan in the ribs.

  “Should we call the cops?” she whispered as softly as she could.

  Aidan shook his head. He dug out his cell phone and pulled up a notepad application. Setting his phone on silent, he tapped out a reply and held the screen up for Sofia to read the message.

  “Too loud. Text Brendan with an update,” the message read. “He’ll call them. Better to look stupid than dead.”

  Sofia pulled out her own cell, checked that it was also set to silent, and tapped out a quick text to Brendan. She angled the screen so Aidan could read it. He nodded. She hit send.

  No one had moved from the Honda. It was starting to look more than a little suspicious. Even if someone was gathering up bags from the back seat, they would have been able to do it by now. It just looked like they were waiting. Or maybe it was a young couple making out. Yeah, that didn’t seem likely.

  Sofia started as the elevator next to them shuddered into life and began to ascend. Next to her, Aidan tensed. He spent so much of his life in smart ass mode, or hunched over his computer, that it was easy to forget that he had been a cop.

  The Honda was still parked. The doors still closed. The occupant or occupants were still inside. Sofia tried to crane her neck a little farther. Aidan reached out, put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back in as the elevator descended. He shook his head, indicating with his hand that she was to stay down.

  Sofia held her breath as the elevator slowly descended. Nothing and no one inside the garage moved. There was a chime as the elevator reached the garage, and the doors began to open.

  49

  Bobby Rogers stepped out of the elevator. He was pulling the two suitcases that had been sitting in the hallway of his apartment. He took a quick look around and stopped, no doubt checking that the coast was clear.

  The Honda still hadn’t moved from its spot near Bobby’s car. If there was someone inside the Honda waiting for Bobby, all they had to do was wait for him to pop the trunk of his car and start loading his luggage. They wouldn’t even have to step out of their car to have a clear shot. All it would take was lowering their window.

  If Bobby was killed, Melissa’s best chance of beating a first-degree murder rap would die with him. Sofia couldn’t stand by and watch it happen. No matter how much of an asshole the guy was.

  As Bobby wheeled his cases forward a few steps and the elevator doors closed, Sofia stepped out of the alcove. Aidan went to grab her, but she ducked out of his reach.

  “Not going to say good-bye?” she said to Bobby.

  Her voice bounced off the walls. Bobby startled. He slowly turned round to face her. He was smiling.

  “What? You gonna arrest me?” Bobby said.

  Sofia looked over Bobby’s shoulder to the Honda. It must have been sitting there for over five minutes by this point. What could anyone inside be doing? Apart from waiting for Bobby.

  “Don’t have that power,” Sofia said.

  “Well then,” said Bobby. “Adios.”

  Aidan had stayed where he was in the narrow alcove. Sofia couldn’t tell if Bobby had seen him or not.

  “Before you go,” Sofia said. “That Honda down there. The one that’s three spaces down from your car? Does that belong to one of your neighbors?”

  Bobby’s gaze slowly tracked down the line of cars to the Honda. The color drained from his face.

  “It pulled into that spot five minutes ago, and no one’s gotten out of it yet,” Sofia continued.

  Bobby was staring at the Honda as if it had some sort of malevolent power. His hands lifted from the handle of the suitcases he’d been wheeling.

  The Honda’s engine roared into life. It edged forward. Rather than turning left and heading back toward the garage entrance, the driver turned right. The nose of the Honda aimed at them.

  Bobby Rogers took a backward step. One of the suitcases fell forward. He didn’t reach down to pick it up. Instead, he seemed to freeze, not sure whether to turn and run or stand his ground as the Honda crawled toward them.

  Through the front windshield of the Honda, Sofia saw two men in the front seats. They were big guys, wide with muscle, and wearing suits. One of them, the one sitting in the passenger seat, had his left arm strapped across his chest in a sling and wore wraparound sunglasses. Sofia was pretty sure he was the guy whose car had been totaled on the freeway as he’d tried to run her off the road. At least he’d hurt his arm in the crash.

  The Honda passenger’s right arm came up as the Honda picked up speed. In his hand was a black handgun. The Honda shifted direction, crossing the center line and making straight for them.

  Sofia moved first, grabbing Bobby’s sleeve and pulling him back. He turned around, and together, they ran for the elevator. All Sofia heard was the roar of the Honda’s engine as it bore down on them.

  With her hand still grasping Bobby’s sleeve, she pulled him to the side, between the two cars parked closest to the elevator. He lost his footing and stumbled, balance thrown off by the sudden change of direction.

  The Honda was almost on top of them. The gap between the cars was less than three feet. But they weren’t going to make it.

  Sofia glanced over her shoulder at the squeal of brakes. The Honda slowed and turned. The front passenger window was gliding down. The guy with his arm in the sling raised a gun with his uninjured hand, his index finger moving down onto the trigger.

  There was the deafening sound of a single gunshot. Sofia’s ears popped. She dove toward the gap between the cars, pulling Bobby with her. Her ears rang. Out of the corner of he
r eye, she saw a muzzle flash as Aidan stepped from his hiding place. His gun punched out, he fired a second shot at the Honda. The round clipped the edge of the windshield, shattering it into a spider web pattern.

  The gunman in the passenger seat swung his arm round and squeezed off a shot at Aidan. Sofia scuttled forward on her hands and knees toward the gap between the cars. Bobby was ahead of her, crawling for cover.

  The taillight of one of the parked cars shattered as a bullet slammed into it. A car alarm wailed.

  Bobby made it between the cars first. He turned around and reached a hand out to Sofia. She grasped his hand, and he pulled her to him. Her knees scraped painfully against the concrete. Behind them, Aidan fired again. She couldn’t see him, but at least it meant he was still standing.

  She pushed herself into a crouching position. She hunkered down next to a car with Bobby. He lifted his head to take a peek. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him down as a bullet flew over their heads through the windows of the car. It pinged against the concrete wall behind them.

  She swallowed hard, trying to clear the buzzing in her ears. Somewhere off in the distance she thought she heard sirens.

  At least she hoped she did.

  She looked back at Aidan. He wasn’t where he had been standing. She looked around frantically. The Honda driver put the car into reverse and backed up at speed.

  Sofia still couldn’t see Aidan. Maybe he’d been hit and had crawled back into the alcove. Her heart leapt into her mouth at the thought of him bleeding out alone on the concrete floor. She had to get to him, to make sure he was okay.

  The Honda turned around and sped off, tires squealing as it accelerated toward the exit. Sofia ran from the gap between the cars toward where she had last seen Aidan, staying low.

  The sound of police sirens grew louder.

  She reached the alcove. Aidan was sitting down, his back to the wall, his gun still in his hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, out of breath. When he didn’t answer, she grabbed his shoulders and started running her hands up and down his body, looking for a wound.

  Aidan caught her wrist. His hands shook, probably from the adrenalin, but other than that he looked fine. “I’m fine. Thankfully that guy was about as crappy a shot as he was a driver. He’s zero for two. Where’s Bobby?”

  “Back there,” Sofia told him.

  “You sure about that?” Aidan asked.

  She looked around to see Bobby back by the elevator lifting his suitcases. He grabbed the handles and wheeled them toward his car. Sofia took off running after him.

  He glanced round, saw her coming up fast behind him, and quickened his pace. But with two heavy cases, even on wheels, he couldn’t move fast enough. She caught up as he closed in on his car.

  A sheriff’s department police car raced down into the parking garage. Bobby popped the trunk and started lifting the first overstuffed case into the back. Sofia clamped a hand down on his shoulder. He turned to look at her, an apologetic grin on his face.

  “We just saved your ass,” Sofia said. “Time you did the right thing.”

  Aidan caught up with them and pointed at the police cars blocking the exit.

  “Not like you have any other choice,” Aidan said.

  50

  Like any good criminal, the first thing Bobby Rogers did when he was arrested was request an attorney. According to Brendan’s sources within law enforcement two days of bargaining between Bobby’s attorney, the LA sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office had followed. Once a deal was reached, Bobby talked. The only problem they faced at that point was getting him to stop talking.

  He gave the cops and the DA everything, and then some. Luckily for Melissa what he had to give them cleared her of any wrongdoing. It also, somehow, managed to cast Bobby in a not altogether unflattering light.

  The story that Bobby told the cops and the district attorney was a simple one. It was one that had left pretty much everyone, Sofia included, feeling both satisfied and stupid at the same time.

  Yes, he admitted, he’d had an affair with Melissa after he’d met her at the spa. As Sofia had suspected, he’d had liaisons with more than one married client, though the one with Melissa had been a little more serious than the others. But none of that was how Nigel ended up shot and floating face down in the ocean. In fact, Nigel had never suspected his wife was having an affair.

  Or maybe he had, but if he had, he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, never mind confronting either Melissa or Bobby. Before his death, it turned out that Nigel had other, more pressing, matters on his mind. Like how he was going to avoid complete financial ruin.

  As Aidan had discovered, Nigel had big financial problems. Financial problems that Nigel thought he could solve with a short-term injection of cash. Except he had already tapped out all his credit cards, taken out several loans with the Brentwood house as security, as well as taking out a second mortgage on a vacation property they had in Lake Tahoe, and borrowing money from any family and friends who’d lend it.

  He had gone to the regular channels such as his bank, but they’d taken one look and politely declined the opportunity to lend him any more money. Then he had bumped into Moonbow. Nigel had been so consumed by his own financial worries that he hadn’t been troubled by the fact that his wife’s chakra therapist was hanging out at their home. Or maybe he didn’t care as long as Melissa was happy and didn’t ask him any awkward questions about why he’d cut up her store cards the previous week, and why their mail was suddenly being redirected to his office.

  Moonbow and Nigel had begun talking in the kitchen. Nigel hadn’t exactly spilled his guts. Not even close. But Melissa’s pillow talk had ensured that Moonbow had an idea that her husband had financial worries, even if she hadn’t recognized them. And while Moonbow may have been good at reading auras, Bobby Rogers, with all his experience in cons and fraud, was an expert in reading people.

  It had taken another couple of ‘accidental’ encounters where Moonbow happened to run into Nigel before Nigel had really begun to open up. He needed money. Fast. Moonbow had told Nigel that he might know people who could help him out. Nigel was eager to hear more. That was when Moonbow had told him to forget that he’d ever said anything. It was a bad idea. They could help Nigel, but they weren’t like a bank. You’d be paying a lot more. They’d didn’t talk about interest rates so much as ‘the vig’.

  Despite Moonbow’s backtracking, Nigel was already on the hook. All he needed was a short-term cash injection. Once he had cash flow, everything else would work itself out. He had two shows about to be recommissioned. All he needed to do was keep his head above water for another month or two. When the deals cleared, he’d be able to start paying everyone back. Like a drowning man, Nigel Fairbroad had grabbed for a rope, not realizing that on the other end was an anchor and the end he’d wrapped both hands around was now glued to his skin.

  In the end, Nigel had talked Moonbow into hooking him up. Moonbow had made the introductions, and claimed a finder’s fee from his buddies, though it was probably closer to a ‘mark’s fee.’ As Bobby had explained it, he had expected Nigel to take the money and pay it back, along with a hefty chunk of interest. He certainly hadn’t anticipated that anyone could be as naive as taking mob money, which was what it was, if there was any chance they couldn’t make a repayment.

  Nigel had stumbled into a world he not only had never encountered before, but one he didn’t understand. To him the mob was an abstract concept. He was using to dealing with companies and organizations who destroyed your credit record, or at worst, repossessed things and sued you if you didn’t pay them what you owed. He didn’t grasp that the people he’d taken a bunch of money from had more permanent methods of debt collection.

  Again, according to Bobby Rogers, by the time he’d realized that Nigel wasn’t going to be able to make payments, it was already too late. His new deals had fallen through. He didn’t have a way of paying the mob their money. Bobby had (
according to him) done his best to mediate. But finally, Nigel had been given an ultimatum. Payment was demanded and two guys from Philly were dispatched to Los Angeles to collect. When Nigel didn’t have the money, they killed him.

  That only left the question of how Melissa had been framed for it. Here Bobby had been less forthcoming, at least until he had his plea bargain and an offer of a new identity in place. As Sofia and Aidan had suspected, he’d helped to frame Melissa, though he claimed his own life was under threat if he hadn’t.

  It helped that the FBI were also running a much wider investigation into the Philly mob. In fact, that probably saved Bobby Roger’s ass when the FBI got wind of the Philly connection to the LA homicide investigation. Shortly after giving his statement, Bobby Rogers was disappeared and the LA district attorney’s office made a call to John Stark. They would drop the charges against Melissa with immediate effect if she didn’t make too much of a fuss.

  A deal was reached.

  The only loose end was the two guys from Philly who had tried to kill Sofia not once but twice. They had slipped the cops somewhere near Venice Beach, a short distance from Marina Del Rey, and gone to ground. No one had seen or heard from them since. It was assumed they had either headed back to their home turf or made for the Mexican border.

  51

  Two weeks later

  A catering company truck was parked outside Melissa Fairbroad’s Brentwood home as Sofia drove her red Tesla Roadster down the long sweeping driveway. She was so glad to have her own car back. Sofia parked and got out as white-aproned staff busied themselves carrying supplies from the truck into the kitchen.

  After some legal wrangling, Nigel Fairbroad’s life insurance policy had been scheduled for payout, and Melissa was planning a less-than-understated party to celebrate her financial redemption. If it seemed kind of tasteless, that was probably because it was. But, as Sofia reminded herself, this was LA where taste was in the eye of the beholder.