Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  They stepped out of the trailer, Gil suddenly discovering chivalry and holding the door open for her. Which was really less chivalrous than it seemed at first glance.

  The problem with production trailers — besides the fact that they were narrow and crowded and noisy and always had multicolored M&M's ground into the carpet even if everyone inside was on a low-carb diet — was that the only way to climb in and out of one was by a barely foot-wide metallic ladder, each step the dimension and sturdiness of your average kid's ruler. Going up wasn't so bad because you could hold on to the sides and sort of vault yourself, leaping over several wobbly steps as you went. The biggest danger to going up was that someone would open the door from the inside and wallop you sprawling to the ground again. But the risk there was low, because people did tend to at least look through the window before swinging the door open. (The old showbiz adage, "Be nice to the people you meet on the way up because you'll see them again on the way down," was reimagined for life in a production trailer as, "Be careful going out, because someday you might be the one coming in.”)

  Going down, on the other hand, was a different story. Trying to skip all the stairs entirely by jumping seemed tempting — until the first time you landed from a height of two feet on concrete while wearing high heels, or even any sort of street shoes. And while, by taking it easy, it was possible to ease your way down the swaying contraption while clinging to both guardrails, it was almost impossible to do so comfortably when someone else was behind you, stepping on your heels every inch of the way and shaking the steps even more with his own weight.

  By acting chivalrous and offering Bex an "After you," Gil had ensured that he'd be the second person on the steps rather than the first.

  And he didn't even wait for Bex to maneuver her way down to the bottom before he launched in with, "This isn't public knowledge yet — we're planning to make the announcement after he wins the National title again — but Coop Devaney is going to do a reality show for us."

  "A what?" As soon as Bex reached terra firma, she spun around, facing Gil. He was so shocked by her abruptness that he actually stumbled on the final step and had to grab Bex's shoulder for support.

  "A reality show. You know, they're all the rage now. Turns out viewers can't get enough of sticking their noses in other people's private business. Singers, celebrities, lousy parents, desperate single people, ugly chicks, dirty islanders — I thought, why not a skater? Well, actually, the mother, What's-her-name Devaney, first pitched me the idea. But I saw its potential right away, which is what matters in the end. And Coop is perfect. He's good-looking, he's built, he's got that All-American boy thing happening, and best of all, he's no fag. We'll get teenage girls watching by the millions. Do you know what kinds of rates advertisers pay for the teenage girl demo? The 24/7 brass has been on me for the last year, bitching that our audience is mostly old guys. Bring us some girls, they keep telling me. Well, Coop Devaney is going to bring us a shitload of girls."

  "But not if he's in jail for killing his Baby Mama." Once again, Bex had no trouble comprehending the obvious. "That wouldn't be quite as hot and hunky."

  "This show only works if Cooper Devaney is every twelve-year-old's pinup. We need that boy's face on teeny-bopper centerfolds and magazines, not wanted posters. You make sure Coop comes off looking good."

  "And if he's the killer?"

  "Oh, he's not the killer." Gil waved dismissively. "Are you kidding me? Cooper Devaney may have pecs coming out of his ass, but he's a mama's boy if I ever saw one. She makes the decisions, he nods and shuffles his feet. Not to mention, this Adler girl just dumps him without a word, pops out his kid, and he's standing around playing with himself, no idea what's going on. Guys like that don't kill, Bex. Give me some credit. You think it's by accident that I'm marketing him to the ten-fourteen demo? No. I'm selling him to the precious tween market, because any high school girl can see there's no real there, there. He's a wuss, Bex, a weenie. For the ten-fourteen, that translates as being safe and unthreatening. The perfect dream boy without any of that icky adult sexuality. Now you make sure he comes off that way on camera during this sting of yours. You make certain he comes off so squeaky clean no one can even imagine him being Allison's killer."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  With such concrete marching orders, Bex felt ready to go forth and ensure Cooper Devaney came off as a lovable and harmless imp, whether or not he happened to have choked a young woman to death a few hours earlier. Sounded simple.

  But there was one other issue she needed to take care of first

  "Gil?"

  "What?" He'd been ready to spring up the steps, and her query stopped him with one leg awkwardly in the air.

  "You know that other murder-based piece we were planning to run? Rachel Rose, Robby Sharpton, Jeremy Hunt that whole scandal?"

  "Oh, that piece."

  Only this morning at their production meeting, Gil had been raving about how awesome the story was and how they were going to whip the competition with it when it aired during the Men's Long Program on Friday night.

  Now it was, "Oh, that piece." In Gil's world the motto was, "Who have you killed for me lately?”

  "Jeremy Hunt's dad, Craig, asked if I could interview Jeremy instead of Mollie doing it. Jeremy knows me, and his dad thinks he might be more comfortable."

  Gil just stared at Bex blankly.

  And so Bex reacted the way she always did when stared upon blankly. She began to talk faster. Bex didn't know why this happened every time, and she didn't know why, knowing that this happened every time, she had yet to think of something to do about it. All she knew was, when Bex couldn't assess what another person was thinking by either their words or body language, her own verbal language went into overdrive. She guessed that it might be in the hope that if she kept talking quickly she would sooner rather than later stumble upon a topic that would prompt the person to respond, which would, in turn, put her out of her misery and give her something to base her subsequent babbling on. But all Bex knew for sure was that it was an annoying habit, for both her and the listener.

  Not that the knowledge kept her from rambling. She blathered. "Look, Gil, I — I know I'm not a real producer and I've never actually produced a piece before. But I did research this story and I shot some of the footage and Mollie was going to work off my notes anyway, and she's still the one putting it together in the edit room, so it probably doesn't matter who does the actual sit-down, right?"

  Gil continued staring blankly.

  Bex had run out of things to say.

  Finally he shrugged and told her, "Yeah, sure, fine, whatever. It's not like it's an important piece. I'm running it during the Dance Event. No one watches that, anyway."

  Bex decided not to tell the Hunts that they'd been demoted from the Men's Long Program broadcast to the Ice Dance Final. Even if they didn't realize it was a demotion. After all, officially, the 24/7 network swore that they covered each of the events equally, with no favoritism. There was another reason — one that nobody could quite think of at the moment — for why the Ladies had their short and long programs broadcast in their entirety, the Men and Pairs got complete long program and short program highlights, and the dancers were a ten-minute-long, "And among the other events taking place here this weekend..." wherein the top three couples were melded together into a pastiche of ruffles, lip gloss, and cha-cha.

  Besides, Bex got the feeling that neither Craig nor Jeremy cared particularly about the fame that could or could not be garnered from appearing in a four-minute segment on 24/7. She believed Craig when he professed that he was allowing Jeremy to participate and Rachel's story to be told in the hope that it might help other skaters trapped in an abusive situation. She also believed her gut feeling that said Craig would never pimp Jeremy out to a reality show.

  Craig and Jeremy arrived on time in the room Bex had set aside for their interview. At every venue, 24/7 was perennially challenged with the task of finding a room that was both aesthe
tically pleasing and soundproof enough to serve as a backdrop for their up-close-and-personal feature. Most of the time their choices fell between either a gray, windowless, barracks-like office deep in the bowels of the arena, or a garishly decorated hotel room right next door to (a) the ice machine, (b) a filled-to-capacity banquet hall, or (c) the restaurant kitchen. Once, Bex had the pleasure of conducting an interview just as, on the other side of the flimsy wall between them, the master of ceremonies began handing out trophies for a very happy and very rowdy high school football team. With the camera set on "record," Bex would ask the skater in question about the crippling year she'd spent battling depression. The skater would be just at the part where she'd sit for hours in the bathroom, staring at razor blades and trying to think of one reason not to slit her wrists, when a round of applause accompanied by "Woof, woof, woof” would make it impossible to hear anything, and they'd have to start all over again.

  Hoping to avoid a rerun of that experience, Bex went with the ugly but quiet cave of a room, intending to dress it up for the camera. She'd managed to borrow a bolt of shimmering, silvery cloth from the costume area — now that she thought about it, Bex bet the forensics team would find her fingerprints among the others at the scene of the crime; a kind of creepy notion — and with the cameraman and soundman's help managed to hang it from the ceiling. Now it no longer looked like she was interviewing Jeremy in a bunker. It looked like she was interviewing him in a disco.

  Bex told herself the shimmering silver was a metaphor for the ice. And that it was the only material she'd been able to score.

  While her technical crew set up their equipment, Bex popped over to the arena's bar and, using her natural charm, wit, and a folded ten-dollar bill, convinced the manager to let her take one of the hand-carved wooden stools into the interview room for Jeremy to sit on, and several of his different-colored, empty liquor bottles so they could reflect light against the back of the silver cloth. The rainbow, dancing images would lighten up their fundamentally static shot of a talking head.

  Although, Bex had to admit, there was nothing static about Jeremy. He bounded into the room, several feet ahead of Craig, so full of energy Bex thought she could see the equipment start to quiver with it. He walked over to introduce himself to the tech crew, then proceeded to question them about every piece of hardware, from the camera to the microphone to the sandbags used to weigh them down.

  Meeting Craig's eyes, Bex noted, "Shy and retiring fellow, isn't he?"

  "Oh, yeah." Craig smiled. "We're thinking of getting him some therapy."

  Craig looked good. Was there another, less forthright way to put it? A softening adjective, maybe? Sure. Craig looked damn good.

  Craig had replaced the suede jacket he'd worn that morning at the arena with a rich, green V-neck sweater that emphasized his tan. He'd casually pushed his sleeves up nearly to the elbow and, for reasons that would only be known to her therapist — if Bex ever obeyed frequently given advice and got one — she found herself mesmerized by his bare forearms.

  Objectively speaking, they were rather ordinary forearms. Okay, a little browner than those of the average rink dweller, and with a fine down of ebony hair tapering off just above the wrists. But nothing to write the Forearm Hall of Fame about

  Nevertheless, as he wrapped one arm playfully around Jeremy's neck and circled the other to clutch his own opposite elbow, jokingly pinning the boy and bending over to whisper, "Give 'em a rest, Jer, they've got work to do. You can ask your questions after they're done," Bex found she couldn't look away. There was just such a combination of strength and gentleness in his arms. Such a sense of both power and kindness. For a split second she was reminded of the way Idan Ben-Golan had cradled Allison's son. Another example of liquid force.

  "All right, dude, you're on." Craig released Jeremy from his mock hold and gave him an encouraging smack on the back as the boy headed for his allotted interview chair. Bex took a seat across from him, her eyes level with the camera's so that when Jeremy was answering her questions it would look like he was addressing the viewer at home.

  Craig looked for a spot where he could be out of the way, and finally settled for sitting right on the floor, his back against the wall, knees up, elbows resting on his thighs, fingers linked in front of him, wrists bobbing gently up and down. He'd made a logical choice. From their vantage points, neither the camera nor Jeremy could see him. There was no likelihood of him accidentally ending up in the shot or of Jeremy being distracted by the sight of his dad and either clamming up or sneaking furtive glances, looking for his approval. Because the only person whose field of vision Craig sat in was Bex.

  And there was no danger of Bex being distracted.

  Because she was a professional.

  Bex peered down at the clipboard on her lap where, on a yellow notepad, she'd neatly written all her questions for Jeremy. She reviewed them one final time before getting started. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Craig's forearms again. They were bobbing in the absent-minded manner of a bored fellow killing time. But for Bex, Craig may as well have been waving frantically, as if trying to get her attention from across the street or flagging down a departing bus.

  It was a good thing Bex was a professional.

  And it was a good thing she'd at least written down Jeremy's questions. Because even as Bex was shaking both Hunts's hands and thanking them for coming to do the interview, she realized that she couldn't recall a single answer the boy had given.

  "We'll see you around, Bex," Craig said.

  "Yeah..." was all she managed in reply.

  Craig and Jeremy departed, Bex took her time returning the cloth and the stool and the bottles to their respective home bases. She wanted a quiet moment to think over what just happened. Alas, her only thought proved, What the hell just happened?

  It wasn't very productive.

  She was, ironically enough, in the costume room, looking for signs that the police had been through while rotating the borrowed silver cloth this way and that to convince the seamstress that no damage had been done — "Scout's honor!" — when Bex heard the beep of her cell phone.

  By the time she was able to neatly roll up the unwieldy bolt and finally answer, there was nothing but a message.

  Tess Devaney, Cooper Devaney's mother, needed to see Bex right away.

  They were at the hotel. They'd be expecting her.

  From a distance, Coop Devaney's mother could pass for his sister. Or his girlfriend.

  A research binder tucked under one arm, hat off, parka unzipped and thinking subzero thoughts to combat the fact that Bex had dressed for an ice rink but was now dealing with L.A. weather, she crossed the parking lot that separated arena from hotel. In the distance, reclining at one of the outdoor tables set up by the hotel's cafe, Bex spotted two figures, both lean and long-limbed, both sandy-haired, both wearing blue jeans, T-shirts, and flip-flops. Facing each other, their profiles matched up so perfectly, they might have been two halves of the same face. Only the shoulder-length hair versus a tidy trim suggested that one visage was male and the other female. Brother and sister — that would be the logical assumption. Except that the absolute way they were focused on each other, unaware of and uninterested in anyone else, the way their eyes locked and held, and the way Tess was clutching Coop's hand, her palm curling his cramped fingers and pinning his thumb down with her own, bespoke an intimacy beyond the simple, sibling bond.

  They were so engrossed in each other, Bex felt awkward interrupting. But then she recalled that they'd called this meeting, not her. She used the memory to beat down her concerns and walk right up to their table.

  "Ms. Devaney?" she said. "You wanted to meet with me?"

  Considering that Bex was dressed like an Eskimo who'd accidentally stepped into a black hole and come out on the wrong end of the equator, complete with three layers of winter wear, Bex couldn't imagine that anyone's peripheral vision might have missed her waddling by. Yet Tess, when she managed to tear herself away fr
om the instructions she seemed to be grinding into her son's conscience both verbally and telepathically, appeared stunned to see her there. She blinked several times, as if at a bright light, until Coop stood — ever the gentleman — and exclaimed, "Bex!" Tess didn't seem to recognize who Bex was, even thought they'd interacted several times previously.

  "Bex," she repeated slowly, visibly shifting gears from the conversation she'd been having to the one she intended to have. Bex could see her mentally tucking one file into a virtual filing cabinet and efficiently searching the drawer until she found the next one on her agenda. The process took only a second, but in that second, Tess managed to let go of Coop's hand, turn her back to him, and, with a tight smile, indicate the remaining free chair by their table.

  "Have a seat, Bex. Thank you for coming." She reached into the bag by her side for a notepad. "We have a lot to discuss. Let's get started."

  Bex sat down. She took off her coat. Then she peeled off the sweater she'd been wearing underneath and tugged on her turtleneck, holding it as far away from her skin as possible, desperate for a whiff of cool air. Her fake-fur-lined boots slowly baked her feet like a pair of similarly shaped crullers, but she doubted that yanking them off to air out her socks would be perceived as particularly professional. Oh, well. She'd had her feet held to the fire before, in the metaphorical sense. Might as well experience the literal.

  Tess looked up from a sheet of notes that she pointedly tilted away from Bex's view and observed, "Gil Cahill tells me you'll be supervising coverage of the Allison Adler tragedy."

  Gil did, did he? How interesting that he should mention this to Tess and not actually to Bex herself. But also, how terribly Gil. He would never, in a million years, allow Bex to believe she might actually be granted some responsibility or an assignment beyond typing up and alphabetizing the biographical questionnaires they sent out to the athletes at the beginning of every season. Because that would require Gil admitting that a researcher was actually a valuable part of their team, rather than just a pest the 24/7 crew dragged around the world out of the goodness of their hearts. On the other hand, he had no problem telling outsiders that someone else was in charge, because it kept him from having to deal with the problem.