Not Suspicious in Hollywood: Not in Hollywood Book 5 (5 page)

“Wake
up, sweetheart. You need to get ready
for work.”

I opened my eyes slowly and found Griffin,
fully dressed, with his hand on my shoulder.

“Not going to work today. Monique told me
they didn’t want me.”

I turned over and pulled the covers over my
head. Griffin pulled them away and I grumbled in his general direction.

“What’s going on? Have you been fired?”

I really didn’t appreciate the hopeful
quality in his voice.

“No, I haven’t been fired. I’m just not
going to work today. The band is in crisis talks with their management over
what happened with Jolena. My input is not considered necessary in those
circumstances.”

Griffin’s face tightened. “So, they’re
circling the wagons, are they?”

I nodded. “Probably. Once management,
public relations and lawyers get involved, that’s what they seem to do.”

“And our chances of finding out the truth
get more and more unlikely.”

Griffin sounded bitter and I didn’t blame
him. It was bad enough when he was investigating a normal case, let alone one
where he had an emotional stake in it.

“Are Detectives Fletchall and Pickett any
good?” I asked.

Griffin shrugged. “I don’t know Pickett at
all. He’s new to the precinct. Fletchall has been there forever and he’s a
pretty good detective. Doesn’t always get along with everybody but then who
really does?”

I sat up in bed and rubbed a hand over my
face.

“Have they told you anything about Jolena
yet? Do they know what happened?”

Griffin smiled ruefully. “They’re not going
to tell me a thing about this case. The victim being Ramos’s girlfriend means
that the two of us are now kept on a strictly need to know basis. I’ll probably
be spoken to at some point but they are going to keep me as far away from this
case as it is possible to get.”

“Enjoy the interrogation. I have to say
that the one I had yesterday was the most pleasant that I ever had.”

Griffin quirked an eyebrow. “Really?”

I nodded enthusiastically. “Detective
Fletchall brought me coffee and he was nice to me. You might want to take
notes.”

“Are you complaining about my technique?”

“When it comes to the interrogation room,
yes I am.”

Griffin smiled and brushed his lips over
mine. “I’ll see you when I get home.”

I smiled back at him. “See you then.”

When I heard the door close I fell back
onto the bed, pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes.

I heard a key in the door.

“Did you forget something?” I called out,
although it was slightly muffled by the covers.

I didn’t hear a reply and I turned my head
slightly.

“Griffin?”

I screamed when a figure jumped on top of
me.

“Don’t panic, it’s just me.”

I ripped the covers down. “Crystal, what
the hell are you doing? You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Crystal smiled unrepentantly.

“Okay, that does it. I want my emergency
key back now.” I glared at her.

Crystal sat up on the bed.

“Fine, here it is,” she said, dropping the
key on my bedside table.

I could feel my eyes narrowing. That had
been too easy.

“You’ve made a copy, haven’t you?”

“Several,” Crystal grinned.

I dropped my head back on the pillow.
“You’ve got to stop doing that,” I growled. “Griffin’s pretty much living here
these days. He’s generally armed and when it comes to my protection he’s on a
bit of a hair trigger. You come into this apartment when he’s not expecting it
and I can’t be held accountable for what happens next.”

Crystal dismissed my worries with a wave of
her hand. “I have complete faith in Griffin’s reflexes. Anyway, how else am I
going to be able to get an eyeful of him as he walks out of the shower?”

I shook my head. Crystal is deliriously
happily married to my friend, Edwin. Despite that inescapable fact, she has got
the strangest bucket list which includes getting a glimpse of Griffin when he
walks out of the shower. Edwin can’t really say much because his bucket list
includes watching me utilize skills that I had learned at a previous job at a
strip club. I hadn’t thought my pitiful attempts at using a stripping pole for
fitness would interest anyone, not even my boyfriend. But Edwin was insistent
that he and Crystal should get a show. I think it had more to do with the
comedic value of seeing the lack of coordination that I bring to dancing, and
elevating it to swinging around a pole. I was beginning to think that our friendship
had wandered into a weird territory.

“I knew Griffin was gone. I watched him
leave,” Crystal said airily.

“Because that doesn’t sound creepy at all,”
I said. “Now that we’ve established that we really need to discuss our
relationship boundaries, what are you doing here?”

“My mom came to dinner last night.”

Oh, right. I’d forgotten about that.

“Let me get up and I’ll make you a cup of
coffee.”

“And pancakes?” Crystal asked hopefully.

“And pancakes,” I agreed, wondering how a
break-in had ended up with me catering for the perpetrator. “Just let me get
dressed first.”

I struggled to get out from underneath the
covers and landed awkwardly on the floor. Crystal looked at me appraisingly.

“That’s what you wear to bed?” she queried.

I looked down at myself. My pajamas looked
fine to me and, more importantly, they were comfortable.

“Yes, what’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing,” Crystal said hurriedly. “I’m
just now beginning to appreciate that love is truly blind and how much Griffin
must really love you.”

“I’d be a lot nicer to me if you want those
pancakes,” I grumbled.

“If you add some ice cream to them I’ll say
whatever you want,” Crystal called out after me.

In no time at all I was scooping ice cream
onto Crystal’s pancakes.

“So,” I said with some trepidation, “how
did last night go?”

“She didn’t even try to come on to Edwin,”
Crystal said morosely.

I paused with the spoon going to my mouth.
“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Yes, but it isn’t the way we do things. My
mom comes into town, tries to seduce any guy I’m with, destroys my life, gets
her money, and then leaves. She does not try to be nice and then announce she
is marrying her soul mate who is a plumber.”

“What’s wrong with a plumber?” I asked,
curious to see her answer.

“There is nothing wrong with a plumber but
my mother does not marry plumbers. She marries investment bankers, mob guys,
rich men. She does not marry a plumber. She does not ask me to be her
bridesmaid at the wedding and she does not tell me that she loves me.”

“So, you’re upset because your mother is
acting like a mother,” I said slowly.

I understood where she was coming from.
After all I had heard about Crystal’s mother, these actions were not what I was
expecting.

“Exactly,” said Crystal.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “She said she
loved you?”

Crystal nodded. “Well, it was more of a
‘love ya, babe,’ at the end of the night so I’m not entirely sure about the
feeling behind it but the words were definitely there.”

“Is she dying?”

“That was my first thought as well,”
Crystal exclaimed. “Edwin said I was just being morbid.”

“Religious conversion?”

“My mom getting religion?” Crystal chewed
her pancakes thoughtfully. “I don’t really see that happening.”

“Then what do you think it is?”

Crystal shrugged. “I don’t know and it’s
that not knowing that is freaking me out. I keep thinking that the other shoe
is going to drop and I’m worried that I’ll be taken by surprise. I don’t deal
well with being taken by surprise, Trudie.”

“So, what are you going to do?” I asked.

“I want you to come with me when we go
dress shopping.”

Not what I was expecting but I could be
flexible.

“When did you want to go?”

Crystal looked at her watch. “Pretty much
now.”

“Now?” I asked.

“The wedding is in two days,” Crystal said
as she shoveled the last of the pancakes into her mouth.

“Two days?”

“Why do you keep repeating everything I’m
saying? The wedding is in two days. I’m a bridesmaid and I need a dress. My mom
is waiting for me to go shopping with her this morning. I figured that since
you haven’t left for work already that you’ve probably got the day off.”

I was impressed with her deductive
reasoning.

“I need you to act as a human shield if
this gets too weird with my mom.”

“Exactly how am I supposed to act as a
human shield?”

“I don’t know. Do whatever it is you do at
work. For goodness sake, you work with high maintenance people all the time. Do
what you do there. Distract, deflect, stop me from killing her.”

It was good to know my skills had practical
applications that could be used in my personal life as well as my professional
one.

Despite the many stories that Crystal had
told me about her mother, I had never had the pleasure of meeting the woman.
Due to my loyalty to Crystal though, I had already prejudged her and my opinion
wasn’t pretty. As we waited outside the dress store I noticed that Crystal was
moving constantly.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m nervous
about the fact that I’m looking for a dress with my mother. How messed up is
that?”

It was messed up, made even more so by the
fact that Crystal is one of the most confident people that I know. I disliked
Crystal’s mother a little bit more in that moment, knowing that her presence
was causing my friend’s anxiety.

I put my hand over hers. “You need me to do
anything, just tell me. If you need to get out of here I can fake a medical
emergency in a heartbeat.”

Crystal laughed. “No you can’t. You’re a
worse actor than Edwin.”

That was harsh. Accurate, but harsh.

“How much acting does it take to fall down
in a faint? I could do that. You could tell your mom that I’ve got some weird
tropical Australian disease. She’ll believe it.”

“Thank you,” Crystal said as she gave me a
hug. “I’m glad you’re here.”

I hugged her back. “So am I.”

“Liar.”

Okay, fine. I was lying. I couldn’t think
of many things worse than shopping for a bridesmaid dress for a wedding for
Crystal’s mom. If there was a potential for a bridezilla moment, this was it.

“There she is.”

I turned around to look in the direction
that Crystal was indicating.

Crystal’s mom didn’t exactly look like I
had pictured her. Admittedly, any time I had imagined Crystal’s mother, the
words Las Vegas showgirl had featured prominently, so I had always pictured her
in costume. That may have been a little inappropriate for the streets of Los
Angeles. She was dressed pretty conservatively in a simple skirt and top,
something you would expect with any bride-to-be. Her blonde hair was perfectly
styled and she walked in that confident way that some women have. Those women
that know that eyes are turning in their direction wherever they are going. She
was taller than I expected. Crystal was tiny. Without high heels she barely
reached five feet. Crystal’s coloring was in marked contrast to her mother. I’d
never really thought before about how much more Crystal looked like her father
than her mother. She stopped in front of us and awkwardly went to kiss Crystal
on the cheek.

“Roxy, this is my friend, Trudie, the one I
told you about. Trudie, this is my mother, Roxy.”

I put my hand out, for no other reason than
to avoid the whole awkward social kissing scene.

Roxy grasped my hand. “It’s so good to meet
you, Trudie. Crystal has told me so much about you. I feel like I know you
already.”

I smiled hesitantly. No way was I going to
bring up how well I knew her based on what Crystal had told me. That was never
going to be a conversation that ended well.

Crystal glanced between the two of us.
“Should we go inside and get started?” she queried.

Roxy smiled. “That would be a great idea.”

I was surprised to find that the shop we
had come to wasn’t as exclusive as I would have expected Crystal’s mother to
have chosen. Maybe things were different this time round.

Crystal turned to her mother. “What did you
want me to wear?”

Roxy smiled. “Just pick something out that
you think you would like. We’re not really going with a theme for the wedding.
We just want everyone to be happy and comfortable.”

Crystal turned around but not before I
noticed her raised eyebrows. I had a feeling that this new version of her
mother was causing her to question everything she knew about the woman. After
browsing through the racks Crystal entered the fitting rooms with her arms
filled with dresses. I kept wandering through the store, not purposely avoiding
Roxy, but just keeping my distance. I was admiring a deep blue dress in a soft
fabric when Roxy came up behind me.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?”

In this moment, I had a choice. I could go
with the socially acceptable fantasy version of my opinion, or I could go with
the truth.

“Not really.”

You would think that after all the time I
worked in Hollywood I would have made a different choice.

Roxy looked surprised. “I wasn’t expecting
you to say that.”

I hadn’t been expecting it either. “Crystal
is a good friend and I adore her. You being here causes problems and I’m naturally
wired to solve problems. I’m not sure how to fix this for her.”

Roxy nodded. “I understand. I haven’t been
the best of mothers. I know that.”

I stayed silent. There was no way I was
going to contradict her self-assessment now.

“The way John is with his family has made
me have a good hard look at myself. I haven’t been too impressed with what I’ve
seen.”

I quietly listened to her as I put the
dress back on the rack.

“I want to do better with Crystal. I have made
so many wrong decisions in my life and most of them centered around her. I want
a way to fix what I’ve done.”

“Maybe telling her that, rather than me,
would be a good start,” I said.

Roxy smiled ruefully. “You’d think so but I
seem to have trouble saying those words to Crystal. You seem to be easier to
talk to.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s just that you
don’t care whether I like you or not. It seems that despite the way you’ve
treated Crystal all her life, you’ve started to care.”

“I don’t know how to reach her. Maybe too
much has happened for us to ever work things out between us.”

Roxy looked distressed by that thought. That
more than anything else gave me hope that she really meant what she was saying.

“How about laying it out there for her.
After everything that’s happened between you I don’t think that anything less
than complete honesty is going to work.”

Roxy nodded. “I want her to meet John.
Maybe when she sees him, sees the kind of man he is, maybe then she’ll realize
that I’m not the same person I was.”

“That could be a good idea,” I said.

“Trudie, I want to say something to you but
I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” Roxy looked nervous.

That was sweet. I could have told her that,
considering the industry I worked in, she was going to need to come up with
something pretty spectacular to actually manage to hurt my feelings.

“I want you to go away.”

I stopped and stared. Although not
particularly insulting to me, it was actually something I’d heard many times
before, I was a little perplexed.

“I think I need to spend some time alone
with Crystal and I think you being here is going to stop it being as honest as
it needs to be.”

That was pretty blunt.

“I’ll just check with Crystal and see if
she’s okay with that,” I said.

I poked my head into the fitting room. “You
decent?”

“Rarely,” Crystal called out. “Come in
anyway, I could do with some help with this dress.”

I squeezed into the fitting room with her.
“What’s the problem?”

“I can’t quite get this zip to come all the
way up.”

I looked down at the dress. I had a feeling
it wasn’t going to fit well. Crystal has curves and some of the clothes that
were in these stores were not forgiving of even the smallest hint of an
hourglass figure.

“Never mind, I can see from the look on
your face that this one isn’t going to work. Can you just get the zip down for
me?”

I started pulling it down. “As long as you
never mention a word of this to Edwin.”

Crystal smiled. “I promise.” She turned
around and faced me.

“I’ve got to go.”

Crystal’s face fell. “Work call you in?”

I shook my head. “No, your mom wants me to
leave.”

“Excuse me.”

I could see Crystal wasn’t reacting well to
that statement.

“Your mom wants to spend a day with you.
She’s trying to connect with you, Crystal. I know you brought me here to act as
interference but I really think you should at least hear the woman out. If I’m
here it kind of wrecks the mood.”

“And what if this is simply more of the
same garbage that she’s been peddling to me my entire life. People don’t
change.”

“Sometimes they do, Crystal, if they are
motivated enough. I’m not saying you have to believe her. I’m not even saying
that you have to have anything more to do with her after today. All I’m
suggesting is that you listen to what she has to say. Give her today, and
tomorrow morning make a decision as to whether you still want her in your life.
Even if today is a massive disaster and you end up never wanting to see her
again, how is that any different from the way you felt yesterday morning? You
are not going to lose anything. You’ll still have your dad, you’ll still have
Edwin and you’ll still have me. Hell, I’ll even throw in Griffin if it’ll make
you happy.”

“Oh, because that’s just a dream come
true,” Crystal said sarcastically.

“We’re in a highly emotional moment so I’m
going to ignore that comment about the love of my life,” I said wryly.

Crystal giggled. “Okay, you’re right. You
should go. It was probably a bit of a coward move to bring you along.”

“I would never say that.” I pulled her
close to give her a hug.

“You realize we’re hugging and I’m half
naked,” Crystal said.

“We’re not telling Edwin about that
either.”