A First Date with Death (5 page)

I laughed. “Yeah, right. Did she put you up to the kiss?”

“Who?”

“The producer. I saw you two whispering.”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who’d kiss someone if I didn’t want to?” he asked.

“You look like the kind of guy who wants—”

Paul stepped between us. “Hey, Georgia, can I get a moment?”

Scott turned to me. “I’ll catch you later. We’ll drink some champagne.” He winked at me and walked off.

Paul lowered his voice. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“This way.” I guided him down the corridor toward my dressing room. “What are you doing here, Paul?”

“You know that I’m on task force 35.”

I eyed him. “So, you’ve been assigned? Is Aaron dead?”

“Not dead. Coma.”

“But it’s an open investigation?”

“You don’t think it was an accident, do you? Guy’s equipment malfunctioning like that.”

Nerves overtook my stomach and I struggled to identify whether it was because Paul was standing so close to me or because of what he was saying. “You think it was a setup?”

“Yes,” Paul said.

My breath caught in my throat. I thought about Teresa Valens. “Do you think it was intended for me?”

Paul looked surprised. “For you? Why?”

I shrugged nervously. “I think Teresa Valens is one of the makeup ladies.”

He stared at me. “That’s impossible. She’s incarcerated.”

“Can you see if she walked, got parole, appealed, something? I’m sure it’s her.”

He cleared his throat. “I’ll look into it. In the meantime, I need you to keep the guys who were on the first date around. Get rid of the surfer tonight.”

Anger burned the back of my throat even though I had a feeling that Nathan was in it for the money. “Why do I have to do that? I don’t have to follow your orders anymore.” Paul had always been domineering and expected me to follow lockstep. Well not any longer!

Paul’s face reddened. “I don’t know why you’re on this stupid show, Georgia.” He looked at his feet. “I’m just here . . . I’m here to make sure you don’t ruin your life.”

“You ruined my life when you left me standing me at the altar.”

Before he could respond, I pushed open the door to my dressing room. A piercing scream that I barely recognized as my own sprang from my body.

Inside the room, dangling from the ceiling fan with a noose around his neck, was Pietro.

“S
top screaming. Calm down,” Paul said.

The room seemed to do a strange imitation of a Tilt-A-Whirl ride and I felt like I was being shoved off. I grabbed at the chair nearest me but before I could cling to it for support, Paul took hold of me and ushered me out of the dressing room.

“Don’t touch anything. Out, out.”

“I . . . oh, my God . . . poor Pietro,” I cried.

As we emerged into the hall, Scott and Edward tore down the passageway toward us. “What’s happened?” they yelled.

“What’s going on?” Becca shouted. She was directly behind them, her sneakers with the green soles glowing in the darkened hallway. Behind Becca I could see a cowboy hat flapping in the air, and soon Ty had joined us in the hallway, too.

“What’s go on?” Ty asked.

Paul held up his hands. “Hold up, gang. We got a situation on our hands here. Becca, call police dispatch, tell them we got a 10-55.”

Scott and Edward both frowned at Paul and I realized his cover as an insurance guy was probably in jeopardy.

Becca’s eyes went wide. “What’s a 10-55?” she screeched.

“Never mind. Give me your phone,” Paul said.

Becca made a face. I knew she wasn’t supposed to let the contestants use any phones, but she didn’t seem to want to tangle with Paul. She unclipped her phone off her jeans and handed it to him with a grim face.

“Get Georgia out of here,” Paul said. He gestured toward Scott, Edward, and Ty. “And them, too.”

“I’m a doctor,” Edward said. “Is there something I can do?”

“This one’s too late for you, Doc.”

I whipped around, suddenly regaining myself. “Are you sure? We didn’t get him down. We just . . . no. Not we, you!
You
just closed the door on him!” My voice sounded too shrill in my ears. I reached for the door, some strange impulse in me demanding to know what Pietro had wanted to tell me, as if my reentering the room would magically make things different and he’d be alive again.

Paul stepped in my way before I could reach the doorknob. “Come on, G. You’re getting hysterical. You know the drill. Stay outta my crime scene.”

“What crime scene?” Scott asked. “Who’s in there? What’s going on?”

Paul ignored the battery of questions and dialed Becca’s phone. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand as if he was done with us and we were dismissed.

He mumbled something into the phone as I turned to the group. “It’s Pietro. He wanted to tell me something in private and now he’s dead, hanging by a noose from the ceiling fan.”

Becca gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth in shock.

Paul let out a roar so fierce, one would have thought I’d stabbed him. “Christ! Georgia!”

Scott stepped between Paul and me. “Hey, man. What’s going on? Why are you going all postal on her? She’s a former cop. She knows—”

At the word
former
Paul looked like he would come out of his skin and I knew it was all he could do to contain himself and not pounce on Scott.

“I thought you were an insurance guy,” Edward said. “Why are you acting so strange? Let us in the room, maybe I can help!”

“Back off now!” Paul said, enunciating every word. “No one leaves the building.” He glared at Becca. “Got that? Secure the premises. LAPD is on its way.”

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •

I
n the break room it was as if someone had silently drawn battle lines. The contestants—Scott, Edward, Ty, and I—were in one corner, while the crew and producers were in another. While Scott, Edward, and Ty chatted among themselves, I took silent stock of the others.

Cheryl looked annoyed, acting like someone dying on her set was personally offensive.

Becca seemed rattled sitting next to the dragon lady and kept looking over at me and the cast. I knew in her heart she’d rather have been in our gang than in hers.

Kyle, the makeup artist, picked at his nails as he listened to Cheryl complain. He tsked in all the right places and looked completely sympathetic to her plight.

“Behind schedule again,” she shrieked.

The two cameramen, one a man on the larger side and the other on the smaller side, were fidgeting with their coffees and seemed generally impatient. Then there was the sound engineer, who had a Zen quality about him. His eyes were closed and he repeatedly stroked his black beard as if meditating.

At another table were a few interns and runners, all of whom looked like wet pups. They seemed to be listening attentively to one of the runners, a blond girl with multiple piercings in her eyebrow and tattoos down each arm, recant tales about her latest trip to Vegas.

Basically we were all hostage while waiting for LAPD to come and question us.

I wondered about access to the building. Could someone have slipped in and out without our knowledge?

“Where’s the other guy?” Ty asked. “What’s going on with him?”

He meant Paul, of course, but I ignored his question. If Paul had blown his cover it would be up to him to regain it. I didn’t need to be involved.

Edward’s hand brushed mine and we made eye contact. “Are you okay?” he mouthed.

How could I be okay with two accidents in the span of a few days, especially when I had the sickening sensation that they could be related to me? Was the woman I’d put behind bars, Teresa/Florencia, husband-killer, responsible?

Becca stood to refill her coffee cup. The counter was a good distance away from the group. Out of earshot, if we were careful. I sidled up next to her.

“I’m freaking out,” I whispered.

She grabbed my wrists. “I know!” she whispered back.

“What’s access to the building like?”

She frowned. “What do you mean? We all have key cards.”

“Who’s we?”

“Everyone who works for the studio.”

“You mean, beyond everyone that’s here?” I asked.

She nodded. “Oh, yeah, there’s probably about fifty of us or more.”

“Do you have to use your key card when you go from one section of the building to the other?”

Becca shook her head, her auburn curls bouncing around like crazy. “No, only to come into the main building. This is a newish studio. They should have the dressing rooms and greenroom secured, but they were having problems with the wiring and stuff, so they made it general access.”

“Well, it’s something. LAPD will be able to pull the access records, see who all was in the building. Does Florencia have access to the building?”

“Sure. I looked her up last night, though.” Becca glanced at Cheryl to make sure we weren’t being monitored and then lowered her voice a notch. “I asked her hiring manager for a favor and she pulled her personnel file, said everything looked fine.”

I nodded. “Thank you. I’ll let Paul know. He can run a background check.”

At the mention of his name, Paul strode through the break room doors accompanied by two uniformed cops. The dragon lady jumped out of her chair as soon as she saw them.

“Well, it’s about time. You’ve had us all waiting forever! What is going on?” Cheryl demanded.

One of the officers stepped forward. “Sorry about that, ma’am. We have an unfortunate situation developing. We’ll be needing to speak to each of you individually. If you’d all please have your identification ready—”

“Wait a minute!” Cheryl shrieked. “You can’t come into my studio and start barking out orders—”

“You’ll never work in this town again,” I joked, imitating Cheryl’s voice and manner of speech.

Everyone laughed, except the dragon lady herself. She gave me a look that would freeze hell over.

One of the cops held the proverbial olive branch out to me. “Shall we start with you, miss?”

He may have been trying to save me from the dragon lady, but I felt like I was going straight from the frying pan into the fire.

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •

T
he officer who escorted me down the hall into an empty room was tall and lean, probably in his midforties. He looked haggard and just as bitter as every other officer I’d served with. Paul followed us inside the room and took his usual cop stance, feet hip-width apart and arms folded across his chest.

Part of me wanted to back right out of the room. What? Was I here to answer Paul’s questions?

I was annoyed at how fast he’d become all buddy-buddy with the L.A. cop.

They called it a brotherhood, not a sisterhood, for a reason.

I suddenly missed the protectiveness of Edward; hell, I even missed Scott’s stupid ghoulish and inappropriate behavior.

I patted the pockets of my skin-tight jeans. “I don’t have my ID. I don’t have anything on me—”

Paul waved a hand. “We all know who you are, Thorn.”

I bit my lip. I was no longer Georgia to him, sweetheart, fiancée, whatever. I was back to my cop nickname. Always the surname, and usually a shortened version or derivative of it. Mine was Thorn and, at this moment, Paul had a pained expression on his face as if my presence were literally a thorn in his side.

I took a deep breath. “All right. Well, then, fire away. What can I help with?”

The LAPD officer pulled out a black notebook and asked me a string of predictable questions. When had I last seen Pietro? How well had I known him? Did I know if he was severely depressed or suicidal?

“Is that what you think? He killed himself?” I asked.

The officer said, “We don’t know anything yet. I’m only covering what’s in the realm of possibility. People who go on these reality shows . . . well, no offense, but most of ’em don’t have their head screwed on properly.”

Paul seemed to laugh a little too gregariously at the joke and I felt like I was about to lose what little patience I had left.

“What about the other guy? Aaron. Seems to me maybe Pietro knew something about the bungee-jumping accident and that maybe—”

The officer held up a hand. “Right, right. Everyone’s got theories. We’ll see what the coroner says.”

“Don’t cut me off,” I snapped.

The officer shrugged. “Look, whatever happened in San Francisco could be related, but S.F. isn’t my jurisdiction.” He glanced at Paul, who nodded in agreement. “I’ve got techs in your dressing room right now. What I’d like you to tell me is if anyone else was in there today with you.”

“Kyle, the makeup guy; no one else that I know of.”

The officer made a note while the walkie-talkie on his shoulder beeped. A series of police codes went off from dispatch, which he ignored. Apparently a burglary on the east side of town and a domestic violence call downtown weren’t as exciting to him as the call he was on now.

Paul leveled a look at me. “Georgia, did Scott or Dr. . . . whatever his name is come and see you in your dressing room?”

There was something in his look. Was it jealousy?

Yes!
He is jealous of the others!

My heart did a stupid little fluttery thing.

“No one came to see me,” I said.

The officer and Paul exchanged glances, disbelief wafting off of them.

“Really?” the officer asked, then snickered.

I frowned. It wasn’t fun being on the outside of a joke. What the heck were they snickering about? “You can ask the makeup guy if you don’t believe me. We were alone. Why are you guys pressing me on this?”

“Both of those two were gone from the mansion for a while this morning and, come to think of it, so was the cowboy. But it’s not that—”

“We found something in your dressing room—” The officer stopped himself short and glanced at Paul.

The walkie-talkie chirped again. The officer was needed. Which was a good thing. I wanted to grill Paul in private.

The officer excused himself and walked out of the room.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“A note.”

“A note? From whom? What did it say?”

Paul leaned close to me. “‘Your indifference to me has made all the difference.’”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but you need to watch your back, G.”