Chapter 12 The Other Hollywood Detective
The Other Hollywood Detective
Sam stood with her her hackles up in a private detective’s office housed in a Van Nuys strip mall.
The not-white-not-yellow walls were covered with wood planks bearing inspirational phrases like don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.
Everything else was a stack. Stack of folders.
Stack of papers. Stack of binders. Stack of filing cabinets.
“You have a lot of art.” Vic picked a chair and sat down.
Bex was already seated, her hands folded in her lap with prim reserve.
Ashleigh had gotten them here by telling them she could help “the other Hollywood detectives” with their case.
They didn’t want to be in this office, but they hadn’t been able to dismiss the possibility that the PI knew something potentially useful to their search.
Ashleigh grinned as she dropped into the chair behind her enormous L-shaped desk. “Thank you!” she told Vic. “I do those myself at this place I am addicted to called Board and Brighten on Ventura. When I sit and paint, everything just floats away.”
Sam watched Bex subtly master her expression.
It was impressive, considering how long the day had been.
Fergus had volunteered to grab everyone tacos at a nearby taqueria.
He’d also exaggeratedly turned up his volume to the loudest setting possible and suggested, out loud, that Bex and Sam predial emergency services on their own phones. All while looking Ashleigh in the eyes.
Sam wasn’t worried about their physical safety.
The strip mall was busy, with plenty of people visible through the office’s plate-glass front windows.
Ashleigh had shown them her credentials.
More to the point, they’d learned on the drive over here that Vic knew Ashleigh, or at least knew of her as “that PI in Van Nuys everybody hires when they need to prove they’re getting cheated on.
” By “everybody,” Vic meant celebrities, Hollywood VIPs, network executives and their young wives and angry daughters, and nepo babies.
This information was enough to convince Sam that Ashleigh was legit. It did not reassure her about Ashleigh’s character, however. “Since it’s so late,” she said, “could we get right to it and talk about why you’ve been tailing us?”
Ashleigh’s expression went from welcoming to professionally blank in the blink of an eye. “The short answer is no. We can’t.”
“We’re going to have to.” Sam marshaled the remaining crumbs of her self-control. “Unless you’re interested in talking to the police. What you’ve been doing all day is a crime.”
Ashleigh held up a finger, her shiny, gold-on-burgundy acrylics catching the light. “You are welcome to initiate a cease-and-desist with me and my legal associates, which I will share with my client.”
“And who is that?” Sam dropped into the last available chair. It looked like it had seen some things. She crossed her arms, trying to affect the full power of her celebrity. It was difficult. She felt rumpled, gritty with sand, slightly windburned, and so hungry that her eyes were crossing.
This time, Ashleigh’s smile was a sharky one. “No.”
It was a complete sentence.
Sam regrouped. If what Vic had said about Ashleigh’s reputation was true—mainly that Ashleigh always delivered for her clients because she knew everyone and everything—then Sam could reasonably assume the PI was aware of their interest in Ramona.
Moreover, since Ashleigh had said she had a client, they could assume Ashleigh’s client also knew they had a connection to Ramona and her disappearance.
Sam did not like that.
She liked even less that Ashleigh, an investigator in the know about Ramona, seemed willing to make decisions that didn’t prioritize Ramona’s well-being. As far as Sam was concerned, it meant that this PI worked for the other side.
Bex straightened and scooted forward in her seat.
The shift in position allowed her to plant her feet on the floor.
“I’m stuck on figuring out a puzzle. Why would a PI who has a reputation for being the best of the best at surveillance make herself so obviously known to us?
” She pointed her chin at Ashleigh. “Sam has spotted you repeatedly since this morning. I have to ask myself, Did Ashleigh Chambers, perhaps, want to be seen?”
Bex somewhat lost control of her volume with this final question, such that Vic had to use her index fingers to protect her ears.
Sam leaned back and crossed her legs, letting Bex’s angry shout ring into the corners of the tatty office while she worked through the implications of Bex’s astute observation.
Ashleigh had not been subtle. Not at all.
“You wanted us to know you were there,” Sam guessed.
“You wanted to get us alone here, after you’d gathered as much information as you could by dogging our heels all day.
But that’s over now.” She sounded satisfyingly like FBI Agent Henri Shannon.
Agent Shannon remained Sam’s most useful character to summon in everyday life.
Ashleigh’s expression remained bemused. “Is it? I would say we’re at a stalemate.”
Maybe they were. She and Bex needed to figure out who had hired Ashleigh to follow them. Who else knew Ramona was missing and would hire Ashleigh?
Sam was hit with the visceral memory of Chad leaning into her driver’s side window. His false nonchalance. All the time between takes on Theomina that he’d spent chasing down who said what to whom about whatever he was worked up about that day. His much-too-frequent threats to call his “team.”
His part on The Howling had wrapped on Friday, before Ramona disappeared.
Sam couldn’t be sure if Chad found out that Ramona was MIA on Monday morning, when he was filming reshoots for Theomina with Sam.
But if Chad had hired Ashleigh to follow Sam, he certainly knew now what Sam and Bex were up to.
“I don’t have any illusions that playing a detective means I am one,” Sam said. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve worked out who your client is.”
Ashleigh tipped her head but said nothing.
“It’s Chad Bevington.” Sam narrowed her eyes at Ashleigh.
“You’re well-known, which means you’re busy, which means the only way you’re working this case today is if someone important gave it to you yesterday.
It would have to be a person with connections, and likely somebody who’s worked with you before.
Chad’s suspicious, anxious, and controlling as a baseline, plus litigious as fuck.
I’ve got no problem believing he’s deranged enough to have you in his back pocket. I think he asked you to follow me.”
“Why would he do that?” The softness in Ashleigh’s question made Sam hear the anger in her own tone.
“You tell me.”
Ashleigh folded her hands on her desk and gazed at the three of them for a long moment. “You’re looking for Ramona Watts.”
Bex opened her mouth to say something—to deny Ashleigh’s statement, confirm it, or change the subject, Sam wasn’t sure—but Sam beat her to it. “Tell us what Chad wants.”
Ashleigh responded with another mild smile, this one aimed in Bex’s direction.
“You shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve done nothing to conceal your purpose.
I figured out Macie had gone to you and Sam for help when I saw them show up at Sam’s house.
After drawing a little map of your Hollywood tour today, I also figured out they must have come to you for help to find Ramona. ”
“Shit,” Vic said. “The sedan Macie worried was following them last night? That was Ashleigh.”
Bex sat up straight so fast, her hair tumbled from its haphazard bun. “You were at my house last night?”
Sam had gone cold. Ashleigh wasn’t confirming or denying Chad’s involvement. If Sam’s hunch proved correct, Chad must have hired Ashleigh within the hour after talking to Sam at the studio lot.
Why? Was he only trying to make sure Sam didn’t spill about his guest spot on The Howling, like he’d said? Or was there something else he was trying to control—possibly something involving Ramona?
“I was asked to surveil Sam, so I did,” Ashleigh said.
“I surveilled her to Bex’s doorstep, where I noted Macie Finn’s arrival.
Macie’s connection to Ramona Watts is well-known to me.
Macie has no known connection to you, Sam, or to you, Bex, and so it was reasonable to suppose that they went to the two of you for help with something.
I, like everyone else, followed the Craven’s Daughter reunion and your debut as sleuths.
I got all the confirmation I needed when you drove to Ramona’s home address and spoke with Colin Worth.
And yes, Bexley, I did, in fact, make certain Sam clocked me at Urth.
I often do that when the person I’m tailing may need to be put on a leash. ”
“Oh, fuck you,” Sam said. This woman made her want to grind her teeth.
“We get it. You’ve found out a lot today about what we’re doing for Macie, and you’ve made a big effort to tell us about it instead of simply telling Chad.
Your client. In fact, you revealed yourself to your client’s target.
What are you loyal to? Chad’s money or our mission? ”
Ashleigh fluffed her hair. “I’m always loyal to my client first. No one in this town forgets that—it’s why they hire me.
But sometimes, in the course of an investigation, I’m willing to market my services to someone I think may have a much more interesting case, especially if I know something they don’t. Something they might pay for.”
The woman was a double agent for sale to the highest bidder.
Even if they paid her for what she knew, she would sell anything she learned from them to someone else.
They might get ahead temporarily, but sooner or later this kind of shady business would drag them down.
It made Sam feel dirty just thinking about it.
“We’re done here.” She stood up and held her hand out to Bex. “Ready?”