Popped

by Carol Higgins Clark

  Kitty sighed. She hated to exercise, but she knew Roscoe wanted her with him. She was happy about his devotion but sometimes wondered if the joys of constant companionship weren’t highly overrated. Especially lately when he was distracted by these new shows. They were together, but Roscoe wasn’t really paying attention to her.

  Kitty and Roscoe left the studio through the back door that was Roscoe’s private entrance. The sun was bright and all was quiet. They walked to Roscoe’s gleaming silver Jaguar arm in arm. Roscoe had a state-of-the-art gym set up in the mansion that he was renting near the studios. The mansion’s previous owner had been a well-polished fraud who bilked unassuming investors out of millions. Before him, a drug dealer had called the fifteen rooms home. Now the joint belonged to the bank. Most sane people wouldn’t sleep there alone if their life depended on it. Who knew who might return in the middle of the night to seek revenge, unaware that ownership had changed hands?

  Roscoe pointed his key chain at the Jaguar and unlocked the doors. Behind him he heard a car pulling into the complex. He turned and saw Danny Madley steering his Volkswagen into a nearby parking space. Danny got out of the car accompanied by an attractive young woman.

  “Danny!” Roscoe called. “Come over and say hello.”

  “Sure, boss.”

  Roscoe reached out to shake Danny’s hand and turned his attention to the young woman. “And who do we have here?” Roscoe asked.

  “This is my friend Regan Reilly. Regan, this is Roscoe Parker.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Roscoe pointed his thumb behind him. “And this is my girlfriend Kitty.”

  Kitty gave a little wave.

  “Hello,” Regan called over.

  “You live here in town?” Roscoe asked.

  “No. Los Angeles,” Regan replied.

  “What brings you here?” Roscoe asked quickly.

  “I am interested in reality shows,” Regan answered honestly.

  “She’s thinking of producing one,” Danny jumped in, a little too quickly. “We’re old friends, and I told her she could come and help me on Love Above Sea Level. Get a feeling for it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Roscoe didn’t sound convinced. “How are things going?”

  “Terrific,” Danny practically croaked. “By Friday we’re going to have one great show.”

  “I hope so,” Roscoe grunted as he turned around, opened his car door, and slid into the driver’s seat. “I certainly hope so.” He backed the Jag out of his VIP space.

  Kitty filed the nail on one of her pinkies. “She has no more interest in producing a reality show than I do.”

  “I know it,” Roscoe agreed. “We’ll have to find out exactly who she is.”

  10

  “I don’t think he believed us,” Regan said under her breath as they waved good-bye to Kitty and Roscoe.

  “I just want to keep him happy,” Danny answered. “He gave me the money to produce a good show. It’s up to me to deliver one.”

  Regan took a breath and looked around the complex. “Looks like a nice setup.”

  Danny shrugged. “Come on. Our studio is around the back.”

  They walked around the main building. Regan followed Danny to the back studio. A sign, LOVE ABOVE SEA LEVEL, was posted on the front door. Inside there was a tiny reception area on the left and a hallway straight ahead with a glass wall at one end. Regan could see a control room at the far end of the corridor.

  “The studio itself is around the corner,” Danny explained. “The contestants are right here.” He led her into a small waiting room off the hall. A table was filled with an assortment of snacks and drinks that would keep a sugar freak happy for weeks. A large screened television was tuned to the Balloon Channel where an on-air team was demonstrating how to inflate a hot air balloon.

  There was an immediate chorus of “How’s Barney?”

  “He’s fine,” Danny answered quickly. “Just a sprain. I want to introduce you to my friend Regan Reilly.”

  Regan said hello to the four people in the room.

  “These are our two other couples,” Danny said. “Chip and Vicky, and Bill and Suzette.”

  There was a general nodding in Regan’s direction.

  “Regan’s an old friend who’s interested in producing a reality show, so she’ll be with us this week to learn the ropes. I’ve also asked her to act as our trouble shooter. Feel free to talk to her if you need anything. Regan’s a great listener. But first we need to talk to you about something that has come to our attention.”

  They all waited.

  “We were told that there’s an Internet site that is encouraging people to dish the dirt on you people.”

  A collective gasp went up in the room.

  “The dirt?” Suzette whined. She was middle-aged with a broad face, blond hair in a flip held off her face by a plaid headband, and a sturdy look about her. She blinked her eyes several times. Her husband, Bill, was a tall, skinny redhead with freckles and a permanently befuddled look. Regan quickly realized that Suzette was the boss in that relationship.

  “I value my privacy,” Suzette cried indignantly.

  And you’re on a reality show? Regan thought. I wonder if she and Bill are the unmarried ones.

  The other couple, Chip and Vicky, were both extremely tall with dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. He was about six feet seven, and she had to be six feet two. They looked as if they could be brother and sister, except Chip’s eyes were beady and Vicky’s were huge almond-shaped saucers. They both stared quietly at Regan, and she assumed they were shy. Of course, she was about to be proven wrong.

  “We’re back!”

  Everyone turned to see Barney and Elsa in the doorway. Barney had an Ace bandage around his arm and was smiling courageously. Aunt Agony, Uncle Heartburn, and Victor were right behind them.

  “Come in, please,” Danny urged them. “Take a seat.” Regan stood beside him.

  “For those of you who just joined us, I was telling the others that it has come to our attention that there is an Internet website that is looking into all your backgrounds.”

  “Digging up the dirt!” Suzette said emphatically.

  Barney looked at her, and his eyes started to fill with tears. Elsa pulled on his arm. “Get a grip,” she whispered.

  “We all want to be on the air Friday night,” Danny continued. “And we wouldn’t want anything that people say about you to ruin our show. We all have a stake in this. Although only one couple will renew their vows, the exposure this show gets could open up lots of opportunities for the rest of you.”

  Aunt Agony jumped up. “And best of all you will have rediscovered your love for each other!”

  Oh, sure, Regan thought. Something told her that the two couples who lost would be running in opposite directions from each other the minute the winning couple was announced.

  “Did you ever find out who stole the camera?” Chip asked suddenly, staring intently at Danny.

  “No,” Danny replied.

  Chip doesn’t look as if he says much, but he gets right to the point, Regan thought. To her he seemed a little sinister. His beady eyes didn’t have much expression.

  “We should consider ourselves a unit,” Danny urged. “Now Regan wants to say a few words to you.”

  Regan looked at him, surprised. They’d talked in the car about how to handle this but hadn’t really reached a conclusion. She cleared her throat. “As Danny has stated, we all want the show to proceed without delay. We do have to address the Internet rumors. Now, uh, I know that you all consider yourselves married, but is it at all possible that a couple here has not formally gotten married?”

  Chip laughed, two short staccato noises emanating from his throat. Vicky looked annoyed, but then the rest of the group seemed to find the concept of being single funny as well.

  Bill shook his head and pointed at Suzette. “We met in high school when I played basketball and she was a cheerleader. She still practices her cheers. Especially when she’s doing hou
sework. ‘Go team go!’ It drives me nuts, but”—he turned to Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn—“I’m working on it. Miss Reilly, I can assure you that without a doubt we’ve been married for twenty years. I’m married to a forty-two-year-old cheerleader.”

  “Excuse me,” Suzette interrupted. “But did you notice he said ‘when she’s doing housework’? Maybe if he helped out once in a while and picked his socks up off the floor, I wouldn’t have to cheerlead so much. For me it’s a release. Some people go to the gym, I do my cheers around the house. It makes my work a little bit of fun.”

  “Did you need to do a cartwheel and knock over the lamp my mother gave us for our wedding?” Bill demanded. “Mom got really upset that you broke it.” He turned to Regan. “Every other day there’s something new that she breaks. I come home to find a million pieces of glass and ceramic on the floor. It’s been years since I dared to walk barefoot in our house.”

  Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn were scribbling furiously in their notebooks.

  “I can promise you we’re married,” Elsa chimed in. “We’ve been together so long, Barney has cried a river in front of me. The Mississippi River. I loved it when we were first dating. He cried at sad movies. He cried when he first told me he loved me. He cried when we got engaged. I thought I had finally found a sensitive man. But as the saying goes, be careful what you pray for…”

  I was just thinking that this morning, Regan mused.

  Tears rolled down Barney’s cheeks.

  “But Barney is doing his best to gain some control over his runaway emotions, and I am striving to be more understanding. The last time I cried was six months ago when I stubbed my toe. Boy, did that hurt. Now that was a good reason to cry,” Elsa declared, pointing her stubby finger with deliberation.

  This is unbelievable, Regan thought. This has got to beat the sitcom. Now what proof does couple number three, Chip and Vicky, have that they’ve been torturing each other for years? she wondered. She looked at them hopefully, as if to egg them on to confess something, even though that was probably Aunt Agony’s job.

  “He never wants to eat at the table!” Vicky blurted, as if on cue.

  “We never did before we were married,” Chip reminded her.

  “Oh, sure. All he liked to do was take me on picnics. It seemed so romantic. Picnics on the beach, in the forest, in the car, in the living room. Did I know we’d never sit down to the table like normal human beings? I’ve barely used any of the good dishes we got as wedding presents. He insists on eating off paper plates on the floor in front of the television. He says it’s an adventure. Our rug is thread-bare from the number of times I’ve had to vacuum over the years.”

  “I wanted to buy a dog,” Chip continued. “But noooooo.”

  “What do you do when you go out to dinner?” Regan inquired.

  “Drive-thru. He only likes drive-thru.”

  “That’s not true,” Chip disagreed. “I’ve taken you to plenty of nice restaurants.”

  “With peanut shells all over the floor. Or sawdust. They’re the only places we can go where he doesn’t have the urge to sit on the ground.”

  “But we’re working on it,” they said in unison.

  “It’s hard when you’re so tall,” Chip said beseechingly. “I like to be able to stretch out my legs. I’m an outdoorsman. A hunter. A gatherer. The cavemen didn’t have furniture. Why should we? It’s unnatural.”

  “I bought him a La-Z-Boy recliner for his birthday,” Vicky said sadly, “but he still prefers the floor.”

  “I’m trying to get used to it,” Chip said. “But my feet hang over the edge.”

  Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn looked on approvingly.

  “You all sound as though you’ve been married for a long time,” Regan acknowledged. “Now if there’s anything embarrassing that might show up on the website that you don’t want to talk about in front of the group, please see me privately. That way we can head off any little problems before they become big problems.”

  They all nodded in agreement.

  Fat chance any of them would admit anything, Regan thought. None of them want to be disqualified, and they all want to win the money. “Good. Now I think Danny wants to say a few words.”

  “If any of you have any wedding photos that your family can forward to us, they would be great to use at the beginning of the show.”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Our house is all locked up,” Elsa explained. “I wouldn’t give anybody a spare key—not even my mother. You never know what can happen.”

  “We don’t live near any family,” Chip said.

  “Our wedding pictures were destroyed in a fire,” Bill lamented.

  “Okay, then.” Danny tried to laugh. “No problem. Why don’t you have something cold to drink and relax? In five minutes we’ll be heading into the studio for an Agony and Heartburn session.”

  What would you call what we just had? Regan wondered. “Excuse me,” she said to Danny. “I’ll be right back.” She really wanted to call Jack. She just needed to hear his comforting, sane voice.

  11

  “D o I like to eat on the floor?” Jack repeated. “Regan, what are you talking about?”

  Regan laughed. She was standing outside the studio with her cell phone and started to walk toward the open field. It felt good to be outside. It felt great to hear Jack’s voice. “Jack, you wouldn’t believe these people.”

  “Yes, I would. It’s a reality show, isn’t it?”

  “I know, but my God!”

  “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “Well, we’re a little worried that the contestants might not be legitimate in one way or another. Like they might not even be married, and the basis of this show is saving married couples from getting a divorce. The goal is to figure out who stands the best chance of sticking it out even though they were all about to call it quits.”

  “See what information you can get on them, and I’ll run some checks. Get their Social Security numbers.”

  “I’ll try. You know I briefly met the guy who is in charge of this whole operation. Roscoe Parker is his name. He’s financing both shows. I’m at his cable station now—the Balloon Channel. He also has a hot air ballooning business. I have a feeling it would be interesting to find out a little about his background.”

  “He should be easier to look into. If he lives in Vegas and has that much money, he must be known. Call me back when you have the other names and numbers, and I’ll do what I can for you.”

  “Thanks, Jack. I’d better get back inside. We’re about to have a session with Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn.”

  “Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn?”

  “They’re advice columnists in this part of the world. Turns out that for the past forty years they’ve had a small cafe on a two-lane road in the desert. Humanity in all its forms would come in there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Agony has such a sweet face that people would end up telling her all their problems—truckers, travelers, businessmen. She’d dole out advice while her husband made his famous four-alarm chili. Sometimes she’d ask him what he thought of a certain problem. One day about five years ago a local newspaper publisher offered them a column. Now they’re trying to break out and go national.”

  “I guess the Heartburn refers to his chili.”

  “You got it. With all the cable stations on the air now, they want to give advice on television. They still work at the cafe. They sort through their letters at a table in the restaurant. Apparently it’s not too far from Las Vegas.”

  “One day we can have a column together answering people’s questions about how to investigate crime,” Jack suggested.

  Regan smiled. “We can call it ‘How to Be a Buttinsky.’ ”

  “That’s it. Okay, call me later.”

  After hanging up, Regan hurried back to the door of the Love Above Sea Level studio, glancing at the parking lot. There are enough cars here, she thought, but everything is so quiet.
Eerily quiet. Where is everybody? she wondered. Danny had filled her in on the layout of the place when they pulled in the driveway. The sitcom was in the studio on the other side of the main building. Each unit seemed to be self-sufficient.

  Regan went back inside and walked down the hall. The greenroom was empty. She followed the hallway around the corner and pulled open the studio door. Spotlights were focused on a raised platform where there were eight seats. The couples were standing around, getting miked. Regan took two steps inside and slipped on the floor. She started to fall but managed to catch herself. Her heart was beating wildly.

  “Are you okay?” the cameramen called out to her. “That’s exactly the spot where Barney slipped!”

  Regan reached down and touched the floor with her finger. Terrific, she thought. There was a thin coat of oil that she was sure had been planted on the floor.

  12

  “D rive faster, Shep,” Mad Madley urged.

  “I’m already over the speed limit.”

  The two of them were on the open road, heading from Scottsdale to Las Vegas. It was a trip they normally enjoyed at a leisurely pace. Three hundred miles of fun, Madeline called it. They’d listen to the radio, books on tape, and stop for a little lunch along the route. If Shep wasn’t in the mood for much conversation, Madeline would check in with friends on her cell phone to see if she’d missed anything yet. She drove Shep crazy by repeating her entire conversation to him, word for word, the second she hung up. He’d already heard half the dialogue and could have guessed the rest.

  “I don’t know who would want to hurt Danny,” Madeline declared. “It’s just downright mean. Why do people have such a need to spread bad things about others?”

  Shep looked away from the road and glanced at Madeline quickly. “I can’t imagine.”

  “I mean, sure, I like to know what’s going on in people’s lives, but that’s just a healthy interest.” She turned around and leaned back into the cooler that had a permanent place in their backseat. “Water, Shep, dear?”