And before either of us had a chance to react, she squeezed the trigger, popping off two shots.
Right at Tina.
“Uhn.” Tina made a gurgling sound in the back of her throat then fell backwards, her head connecting with the hardwood with a dull thud.
“No!” I yelled, immediately inching toward her.
“Don’t move!” Nellie shouted.
The barrel of her gun was suddenly in my face.
I held my breath, frozen like the proverbial deer in the deadlights. Time seemed to stand still, my mind racing.
This was it. I was a goner. I’d never be an L.A. Times reporter. I’d never have a chance to thank Tina for trying to save my life. I’d never see Felix again.
For some reason, that last thought brought tears to my eyes, blurring my vision as Nellie’s finger closed around the trigger. I steeled myself for the sharp sting of a bullet ripping through my body.
But it never came.
Instead, Nellie grunted, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she keeled over forward, slumping into a pile on the floor.
I blinked, my eyes going from her to the guy standing behind her.
All four feet of him.
“Gary,” I breathed out on a sob.
He held a wooden lollipop prop in both bound hands like a baseball bat, glaring at the lump he’d just created on the back of Nellie’s head.
“Never mess with a little person,” he panted, “with anger issues!”
Chapter Twenty
The next few hours were a total blur. Turns out, Nanny McGregor was right about the noise of a gun in the rehearsal room waking everyone up. Don had called the police after the first gunshot, saying there was an intruder in his basement. The authorities arrived only minutes after Gary brained Nellie, bursting into the rehearsal room as both Gary and I frantically did CPR on Tina. Luckily, the responding officer knew CPR a whole lot better than we did (and his hands weren’t bound together), so he managed to get a pulse while he radioed for a paramedic.
I could have cried with relief when they finally arrived, taking Tina’s prone form away on a stretcher as the number of cops in the Davenport house multiplied several times over. I found myself telling the same story to about fifteen different officers, until finally a guy in plainclothes took pity on me and had a uniformed officer drive me home.
As much as I just wanted to collapse onto my bed and sleep for a hundred years, I forced myself to boot up my laptop first, my fingers typing out the story of my life. When it was done I quickly emailed it off, for the first time in my career completely at peace with where it would be published in the morning.
I had just enough energy left afterward to do a quick call in to the hospital to check on Tina’s condition. She was in surgery. I took that as a good sign, noting the visiting hours tomorrow before I crawled into my bed, fully clothed, just as the sun was beginning to peek through my blinds.
* * *
I awoke to the sound of my cell phone ringing instantly from my nightstand.
I rolled over. 8 am. I’d slept a whole two hours. I thought a really bad word as I grabbed my cell and stabbed the on button.
“What?” I croaked.
“May I speak with Allie Quick please?”
I cleared my throat. I swore to God, if this was a telemarketer…
“This is she.”
“Well, good morning, Miss Quick.”
“That remains to be seen,” I mumbled.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind. Listen, is this about some subscription or something? Because I’m really not interested right now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. This is Mr. Callahan. From the L.A. Times?”
I sat up in bed so quickly I felt my neck seize up on me. “Mr. Callahan. Oh, wow, sorry. I didn’t realize. It’s…so nice to hear from you.”
“I apologize for calling so early, but I wanted to be the first to get to you before the other papers get their bids in.”
“Bids?” I asked, my foggy brain trying to process what he was saying. “What bids?”
“For your services.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not following…”
“We’d like to offer you a position on staff.”
I blinked. “Could you repeat that?”
Mr. Callahan chuckled genially on the other end. “I know, I know, I should have done this weeks ago when you first interviewed with us. I apologize, but honestly you just didn’t seem to have the experience then. But with this Barker article I just read, well, clearly you’re a reporter who knows how to get to the heart of a story. And has the guts to do it, too. That’s something we value here, and we’d love it if you reconsidered joining our team.”
“Joining your team as…” I trailed off, remembering the women’s column.
“As an investigative reporter. We’d assign you to the local beat, but I assure you you’d have free rein over what sort of stories you investigated.”
I must still be asleep. This was a dream, right? “You’re serious?” I asked, my voice rising two octaves.
“Absolutely!”
“I…wow…I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, tell you what? Take the morning to think about it then get back to me. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds wonderful!” I said.
I hung up floating somewhere about two feet above my body. The L.A. Times wanted me!
* * *
Since there was no way I was falling back to sleep now, I got up, showered, dressed, added an extra layer of mascara to detract from the dark circles forming under my eyes and drank about a gallon of coffee. Then I hopped into my Bug and headed toward the hospital, stopping only briefly in the gift shop to buy a big purple balloon that said “Get Well Soon” on it before making my way to Tina’s room.
The white-haired aunt and the boyfriend were both there too, Cal holding one of Tina’s pale hands in his, his forehead pinched in a look of concern that said he’d been in that position most of the night. The top part of Tina’s torso was wrapped in a big white bandage, tubes going from her to a machine in the corner that beeped out a steady rhythm. Though I noted her eyes were open, which I took as a positive thing.
She turned my way as I entered the room and managed a feeble smile.
I waved back. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
I cleared my throat. “How you feeling?” I asked, setting the balloon next to her bed.
“Like shit.”
“Figures.” I paused, biting my lip. “You gonna be okay?” I asked, hating how my voice cracked a little on the last word.
Cal piped up. “The doctors said she was lucky. Both shots missed any vital organs. The muscles in her shoulder are pretty torn up, but with some physical therapy they expect her to make a full recovery.”
I let out a sigh, realizing just how relieved I was to hear that. “That’s good. Really good.”
“Not being shot would have been better,” Tina said, rolling her eyes. “But what can you do?”
“About that,” I said, taking a step closer. I took a deep breath. “I, um, wanted to thank you. For saving my life back there. If you hadn’t jumped Nellie when you did, she would have shot me for sure.”
Tina blinked at me a minute, trying to gauge how sincere I was. Finally she must have come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t mess with a woman in her condition, as a small smile curved the corner of her mouth. “Yeah, well, I guess we’re even then. If you hadn’t kicked her off me, she would have strangled me.”
“Occupational hazard, I guess,” I joked.
Tina nodded, though I could see her smile waning. As little sleep as I’d gotten, I could tell she’d had even less.
“So, um, truce?” I asked. I held a tentative hand out toward her.
She looked down at it. Up at me. Then the semi-smile made another brief appearance, and she grabbed it. “Truce.”
Honestly? I didn’t realize until she said it how much that word would mean to m
e.
I left her to rest with a promise to come back later that afternoon with a stack of magazines, a couple books and some decent take-out. Then I pointed my Bug toward Hollywood, steeling myself for one more uncomfortable conversation.
I parked in the Informer’s lot, then forced my feet one in front of the other up the flight of stairs, my bravado wavering as I hit the familiar newsroom. Keyboards clacked and phones rang, the smell of toner and freshly shampooed carpets permeating the air. Cam was in the corner, conversing over an obit picture with Max. And I spied Gary sitting at Tina’s desk, staring at her monitor.
But I didn’t stop to chat with any of them, knowing that if I didn’t do this now, I might never. Instead, I charged right into Felix’s glass walled office, not pausing to knock, and locked the door behind me.
Felix was behind his desk, Bluetooth in one ear, fingers hovering over his keyboard. He looked up, surprise clear on his face.
“Listen, I gotta go,” he told the person on the other end of his Bluetooth. “Something…just came up.”
I waited while he hit the off button, then pulled the device from his ear.
He stared at me.
I stared back.
He cocked his head to the side.
I cleared my throat.
“Hi,” I finally said.
He nodded. “Hi.”
I cleared my throat again. “I, uh, saw Gary out there…” I trailed off. Which wasn’t what I’d come to say, but I was buying time to muster more of that bravado.
Felix nodded. “Tina’s going to need some help for a while. I hired him as her assistant.”
I couldn’t help a grin. Poor Tina.
“So, um, I take it you read my story?” I asked.
He nodded. “It was very good.”
I nodded. “I thought so too.”
“I was surprised when you emailed it to me. I thought you didn’t write for the Informer anymore.”
“I know. But that story belonged here. Tina and I worked together on it.”
“I noticed you put her name on the byline too.”
I nodded. “She deserved it.”
He nodded back. “I agree.” He paused. “So, why are you here, Allie?”
I sucked in a deep breath, swallowing every last ounce of pride I had left. “I’d like my job back,” I said.
Felix raised an eyebrow at me as the words hung awkwardly in the air. “Why? I thought you were waiting for a position at the Times?”
“I was,” I admitted. “They offered me one this morning.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. “And?”
“And I’m turning them down.”
That something flickered again, stronger this time, as Felix took a step toward me. “Why?” he asked quietly.
I licked my lips. “I…I like working here.”
He raised an eyebrow. Took another step closer. “You do?”
I nodded. “Yes. I like digging where no one else dares to dig. I like Cam, and Max, and…I even kinda liked working with Tina,” I admitted.
“And?” Felix asked. He’d edged closer again. So close he was just inches from me.
I licked my lips again. “And…I like working with you.”
“Working with me?”
I nodded.
“That’s all?” he asked, his voice so low it was almost a whisper.
I moved to nod again. But he was so close. Sounded so intimate that I couldn’t lie. Instead, I shook my head slowly from side to side. “No. That’s not all. I like…” I swallowed. “You.”
“Me?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“As in…?”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, I have to spell it out for you? I’m into you. I dig you. I want you, okay? And not just for one night. Only, I know you’re totally into someone else, so I know that night didn’t mean anything…and that other night didn’t mean anything, either. But I’m okay with that. Well, not totally okay, but I can get okay if being not okay means we can’t work together anymore, okay?”
Felix blinked at me. He frowned. “What someone else?”
“Maddie. I saw you with her. After the night we… Well, I saw her in your office. It’s obvious you’re still in love with her. Which, like I said, I can be okay with, I mean I’ll get over—”
“I’m not in love with Maddie,” he cut me off.
“Oh, please, Felix. You call her up ‘out of the blue,’” I said, doing air quotes, “take her out to a romantic restaurant. She’s glowing like a teenager and not, I might add, wearing a wedding ring anymore. Felix, I’m not stupid. It’s obvious you still have feelings for her.”
Felix stared at me. Then a slow grin spread across his face.
I bit my lip. “What? What’s with the grin?”
The grin turned into a chuckle, then he said, “If that’s the kind of investigating you do, I’m not sure I want you on staff at my paper.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I called Maddie to ask her to dinner because she’d sent me three emails in the last week saying she had news to tell me. I felt guilty I hadn’t had time to return any, so, when I got a reservation to Mangia I figure I would make it up to her.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he didn’t let me, instead continuing.
“And the news, in case you’re wondering, is that Maddie’s pregnant.”
I shut my mouth with a click. “Pregnant.”
“Yes. She’s not wearing her wedding ring because her fingers have swollen.”
I swallowed hard. “So she’s not getting a divorce?”
Felix grinned bigger, shook his head. “No. She and her husband are deliriously happy together, and they’re expecting a baby boy next year. In the spring. Anything else you’d like to know? Because I have the name of her midwife if you’d like to confirm.”
I shook my head, feeling my cheeks turned bright crimson. “No, I’m good.”
Felix took a step toward me. “You know,” he said, the grin widening even further, “you’re adorable when you’re all jealous like that.”
“I was not jealous!”
Felix raised an eyebrow at me.
“Okay, fine. I was a little jealous. Just,” I held up my thumb and index finger, “maybe this much.”
The grin returned, all teeth.
I cleared my throat. “So…do I get my job back or not?”
Felix gave me a long look. Some of the teasing went out of his eyes for a moment, genuine emotion shining as he scrutinized me. “I’ll make you a deal,” he finally said.
“A deal?”
He nodded, his lips just inches from mine now. “I’ll give you your job back,” he said, “if…”
“If?” I breathed.
“If Mr. Fluffykins sleeps in the living room again tonight.”
I felt a big goofy smile snake across my face as Felix leaned in, his lips hovering over mine.
Now that was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tina did, I’m happy to report, make a full recovery. The truce, however, lasted all of two days after she got back to the office, suffering a quick death when Felix gave me the story about the break-ins at several prominent Hollywood nightclubs and gave Tina the story about Pippi Mississippi’s new boyfriend. She tried to say it was because I was sleeping with Felix, even though it was honestly more due to the fact that Tina’s arm was still in a sling and she had to take public transportation everywhere (not that I was denying the sleeping with Felix). But even though our healthy rivalry was alive and well again, I noticed she had stopped calling me New Girl. Which I took as a sign that deep down, a part of our resident Bad Girl really did love me. Just maybe very deep down.
Surprisingly, Gary proved himself to be a useful asset to the Informer. It’s amazing how many places a “child” can gain access that a tabloid reporter can’t. So even after Tina recovered, Felix agreed to keep him on as a junior reporter.
&n
bsp; One of Gary’s first solo assignments had been to cover the trial of Nellie MacGregor, who ended up taking a plea bargain that would put her behind bars until every one of the diva dozen was out of high school. Both Don and Deb had been appropriately appalled with the thought that they’d hired a killer to watch their children. It had been a sort of wake-up call, and rumor had it they’d both cleared their schedules to spend more time at home with their kids, even canceling their appearances at all the Gold Coast pageants for the summer.
Lowell Simonson had pleaded no contest to stabbing Barker and got off with a hundred hours of community service. Cam had run photos of him just last week fulfilling some of those hours by teaching the tango to seniors at the Pasadena Community Center.
As for Alec, I never talked to him again. He called me a couple of times after I left him in the restaurant, but I honestly didn’t know what to say back, so I never returned his messages. But he was handsome, charming, and a top Hollywood producer, so I was pretty sure he was going to do all right in the romance department.
Real Life Productions, on the other hand, did not do all right. Three months after Barker’s death they closed their doors, marking the end of all the shows Barker had created. On the one hand, I was kinda sad to see it go, as Stayin’ Alive really had become an American staple. On the other, Barker’s legacy had already spurred on a whole new generation of reality TV. Just last month Tandy, Mandy and Candy from Little Love had all signed on to do a show for FOX where they would compete to win plastic surgery procedures, called Little People, Big Boobs. Gary, of course, already had a running list of ways to sneak onto the set.
“Hey, Quick.” Felix called me from his office, diverting my attention from the article I was typing up on the latest nightclub break-in.
I popped up from my chair, sticking my head in his office a second later. “Yeah, boss?”
Hollywood Confessions Page 21
