Chapter 12 The Other Hollywood Detective #2
Bex reached for her bag. Vic’s shoulders were slumped. Sam didn’t look at Ashleigh. She was too angry. They still had no idea where Ramona was. Bex took Sam’s hand, and they walked out the door to stand on the sidewalk beneath a flickering safety light.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t handle that right,” Sam said with a sigh.
“I do want confirmation that Chad hired her. I want to know if she’s learned anything we haven’t and what Chad will do with this information about Ramona.
But I’ve met enough people like Ashleigh Chambers in this town to know she won’t tell us anything except what’s sufficient to get what she wants. It’s not worth it.”
“I know.” Bex squeezed Sam’s hand. “You did just fine.” Her phone rang inside of her bag. She reflexively reached for it, looked at the screen, and silenced it.
An impulse rose up in Sam that she knew she ought to ignore.
She would have if she had eaten more. Slept more.
If she weren’t hyperaware of her sweat-damp underarms and the greasy residue on her skin of a day spent in and out of the sun.
But she had no resources left to tamp down her bad impulses.
“Whose calls have you been ignoring?” she asked.
“You never ignore calls. Ever. You once closed a deal on a supersecret project with Pixar while you were in a checkout line paying for a literal case of organic tampons.”
Bex held her phone to her chest. “People are always trying to get ahold of me. I’m not ignoring anything.”
“She’s lying.” Vic’s voice was sullen. “Look how her lower lip got tight when she said that.”
“Vic!” Bex barked.
“Sorry. I forgot how annoying it is for you to spend this much time with me.” Her neck was getting red.
“I can’t do this,” Bex said. “Not here. Not now.”
Vic threw her hands up in the air. “Whatever.”
“Whatever?” Bex asked. “Neither of you knows what you’re talking about! I’m simply doing exactly what I want, what needs to be done, for Ramona, and I don’t want to be bothered by show business! What’s given either of you the impression that I am anywhere I don’t want to be?”
“Maybe your phone,” Sam shot back, viciously suppressing an intrusive thought about Telluride and the zero amount Bex knew about it.
Bex waved her phone in the air. “You want to know what’s going on with my phone?
I’ll tell you. Nothing, because I’m being offered Sally in Follies at the Evermore in New York, and I don’t want it, because I want to be with you!
” Bex dropped her phone. It landed on the sidewalk like a digital brick.
For a moment, Sam couldn’t take it in. She was simply elated for Bex. Sally in Follies was the role of a lifetime. It was a part Bex would slay in, one she’d dreamed of playing one far-off someday at the pinnacle of her career.
But then the rest of what Bex had said began to sink in, and Sam’s delight drained away. She’d said she didn’t want the role. Because of Sam.
Because of what she thought Sam wanted.
The trouble with being at this particular crossroads in her life, Sam suddenly understood, was that she wasn’t here alone.
She’d been behaving as if the decisions in front of her involved only her and the people who worked for her, but that wasn’t true.
Not anymore. If she played her cards right, it would never be true again.
“So yeah, whatever.” Bex’s voice was rough with tears, though she wasn’t crying. “I’m not going to go live in New York for three months, maybe longer. Although I’m not sure why I’m hesitating, since you’re going to take off anytime now. Maybe I should’ve picked up the call.”
Sam’s stomach sank. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that fat blue envelope from your agency that you’ve got stuffed in your purse. I know what those are. I’ve watched you open them. It’s an itinerary, the kind they give you right before you get on a plane and go far, far away. I guess we’re even.”
“Bex. Don’t,” Vic whispered.
Sam swallowed over an enormous lump of regret to say, bitterly, “I don’t even know if I’m going.”
“Oh, okay. Sorry I presumed, based on all the information I don’t have.”
It was right on the edge of her teeth to fire back. She knew how. She had four brothers.
But then Sam remembered what had happened the last time she’d reacted to what Bex said when she was surprised and upset.
At the end of Craven’s Daughter, Bex hadn’t responded to Sam’s declaration of love with instant commitment.
Sam’s response was to walk away from Bex for more than five years and to miss her every single day.
This might be a good time for Sam to learn the fucking lesson.
“That’s not true,” she said. “I do know. I feel like I know.” She took in a breath, but when she tried to find words for the next thing she wanted to say, everything was blank inside of her mind.
Bex’s jaw clenched. “Where are you going, Samantha?”
“Colorado. To read with Bradley Wilhite and join talks for a Theomina series. To work out how to fit it in around the Marvel shoot schedule and the time-slip sci-fi thing in Australia. But I didn’t know about Follies, Bex. Why didn’t you tell me? Why—”
“Ladies.” Ashleigh had just flung open the office door behind them. “Please come back in. Give me the opportunity to plead my case. I’m not quite the bottom-feeder you think I am.”
Sam and Bex just looked at each other. Sam knew that Bex’s expression of despair-filled fatigue likely mirrored her own. She wished she’d held it together. “The elevator version,” she grumbled. “And we’re not coming back inside.”
Ashleigh leaned her shoulder against the doorframe. “Ramona Watts is gone. You’re limited as far as what kind of effective move you can make next, but I’m not. I have sources in places you can’t imagine. Hire me.”
“Hire you?” Sam felt like she was floating somewhere above her body. “Why would I hire someone who’s in Chad’s pocket?”
“Allegedly.” Ashleigh held up her finger. “I could be convinced to help your cause and drop my other client. Including a clause that anything I learn related to Ramona Watts stays with the two of you alone.”
“You could be convinced? With what argument?” Bex’s tone was beyond incredulity.
“Money,” Vic said. “She means money again.”
Ashleigh laughed. “Yes. But it might surprise you that I want something more than money. I’m proposing we work together.
Nothing formal—none of us want a paper trail—but I think if you two are going to keep taking cases, you need someone with experience in the seedier side of this business.
We can write a little bit of history together.
The kind that’s whispered about until we’re ancient and telling our stories to a famous biographer.
I like The Hollywood Detectives for a title, but I’m open. ”
“I literally have no words.” Bex closed her eyes.
Then, she shuffled sideways and leaned her head against Sam’s shoulder.
When Bex opened her eyes, she was looking up at Sam. Only at Sam. “I am good at making plans,” she said. “And I am equally good at making plans with someone else, if that someone decided—if they knew—it was important to … collaborate.”
Sam had to clear her throat before she could speak. “You do always make the best plans.” Her voice was barely audible.
“You know,” Ashleigh interrupted again, “if Ramona is in danger, it’s been four days. Rescue is beginning to look unlikely. You’re heading into much darker territory. I could help. Whatever you think of me, surely that puts us on the same side.”
Sam slid her arm around Bex, looking into her serious brown eyes. If there were sides, she was on Bex’s. Exclusively. She wanted to make sure Bex knew that as soon as possible.
But first they needed to wrap up this conversation with the other Hollywood detective. If Ashleigh wanted to work with them, as preposterous as the idea sounded, it meant they had a little bit of leverage. And that meant Sam might be able to get something out of Ashleigh after all.
Sam’s distaste for Hollywood games hadn’t prevented her from learning to play them.
“How do we know you can actually help?” she asked Ashleigh. “The fact that you’re notorious doesn’t mean you’re good at what you do.”
The PI’s eyes brightened, and a wordless acknowledgment passed between them. Ashleigh understood that Sam wanted proof she could be useful. A boon in the form of information.
“The Star Spy piece on Ramona was planted,” Ashleigh said.
“I don’t know by whom, but a source told me that it was called in.
That’s not necessarily interesting. What’s interesting to me is that Ramona Watts signing autographs for fans on a pretty day in May is not interesting.
It’s the kind of celebrity sighting Star Spy would rightfully ignore as boring.
No one’s canoodling. No one’s fighting. No one’s making a brand-new relationship Hollywood official. ” Ashleigh waggled her eyebrows.
“Okay?” Bex huffed out a sigh. “So what’s interesting to you about Star Spy running a piece that’s not interesting?”
“The man who called it in paid not a small amount of money to make sure that blind item ran.”
Sam’s stomach yo-yoed in shock. They had guessed the Star Spy item was fake, but if someone from outside the newsroom had paid for it to be released, then that person needed people to believe Ramona was where Star Spy said she was.
Sam was thinking about her next move when they were caught in a flood of headlights.
Fergus climbed out of his truck carrying two huge bags.
“That took forever, but good news! I come bearing tacos and soda.” He surveyed the women on the sidewalk.
“For now, I will chalk this very complex vibe up to hunger.”
Sam wished Ashleigh had led with the tip she just gave them. Hearing it so late in the game just made Sam leerier of the PI. And what Ashleigh had said about the “darker territory” they were heading into, with Ramona gone four days, was high on Sam’s list of worries.
She didn’t want to be too late.
“For now, you’ve told us enough,” Sam said to Ashleigh.
“If we have questions that we think you can answer, we’ll call you.
If you’re willing to directly tell us information that helps us find a woman safe, call us.
In the meantime, you might consider thinking about what kind of mark you actually want to make in Hollywood. ”
Ashleigh nodded, her expression serious for once, and she disappeared into her office, leaving them on the sidewalk in the flickering light.
Whether the PI’s information proved useful or not, this was real. Ramona was gone. Chad was involved somehow, if only to serve himself. Someone was using fake blind items and maybe even strange social media posts to try to keep anyone from looking closer.
And time was running out to find Ramona alive.