“Oh!” she exclaimed, ignoring me as she latched on to my forearm with a death grip. “Guess what Ricky told me last night?”
“Spill it, ” I encouraged as we inched forward in line.
“Well, after I dropped his car off at his place, he gave me a ride home-you know, he’s such a gentleman that he didn’t even make a move on me at all, and I was totally wearing this short little micromini that, well, I have to say, looked pretty damn hot on me.”
I made a circular get-to-the-point motion with my wrist.
“Yeah, okay. Anyway, we got to talking about Mia and Margo and their whole blowup on set the other day. Well, it turns out that Margo was originally cast for the part of Ashley. Mia was supposed to play Nurse Nan, but she convinced the producers that Margo was too old to play opposite Ricky. She got the parts switched.”
“Wow, Mia really knows how to make friends, huh?”
Dana nodded. “Apparently there’s been bad blood between them ever since.”
I didn’t blame Margo. If I’d lost out on the part of Ashley Culver because some diva had called me old, I’d be pretty pissed too. I was beginning to wonder whether maybe the LAPD was right after all. Maybe Mia was the target in all this.
Which made me wonder again just who was DOA in Central Park.
I shoved that fingernail back in my mouth, chewing anxiously, as Dana and I finally made it to the front of the line. After Billy checked our names against the list, I set my bag down on the conveyer belt, took off my shoes, ring, and necklace and, just for good measure, unhooked my bra, slipping it out through my right sleeve and dropping it into the front pocket of my purse. I was taking no chances this time.
Feeling confident (especially since I’d made Dana stash her vibrator in the car), I stepped through the metal detector. Nothing. Nada. Not a beep. I gave Queen Latifah a triumphant smile.
But, honestly, when was my luck ever that good?
“Miss?” Bug-eyed Billy called out, holding open my purse.
“It’s just my bra, ” I explained. “I didn’t want the underwire setting off the metal detectors.” Again.
Billy peered at me through his Coke-bottle lenses, his jaw set in as hard a line as a jowly eighty-year-old’s can get. Then he sent a warning look to Latifah. “It’s a two-fifteen.”
“A what?” I asked.
But apparently Queen Latifah knew exactly what a two-fifteen was, as she sprang into action, pulling her walkie-talkie from her belt and shouting into it: “Code two-fifteen, we’ve got a code two-fifteen at the west entrance. Requesting backup immediately.”
“Whoa-backup?” My gaze whipped between Billy’s hard stare and Latifah’s frenzied shouting. “What’s going on here?”
I blame it on the fact that I’m blonde, have been a little preoccupied with my crappier-than-a-tractor-full-of-fertilizer love life, and was on a set full of whacked-out actors (not to mention dead bodies) that I didn’t catch on sooner. That I didn’t remember the last time I’d seen Felix and the fact that, in my morning-after glow, I’d completely forgotten all about…
Bug-eyed Billy used a Sharpie to hook Felix’s handgun and pull it out of my purse. The grips in line jumped back, one of them actually gasping. Queen Latifah’s hand hovered over her own weapon, and she escalated her shouts into her walki-talkie until she sounded like she’d gone for the triple-shot espresso that morning.
“Ohmigod, Maddie! You have a gun?” Dana shrieked behind me.
“Look, I can explain, ” I said, holding my hands out in front of me. “It’s not loaded.” I think. “And it’s not even mine.”
Bug-eyed Billy narrowed his eyes at me. “Just like the neck massager wasn’t yours?”
“Right!” Only I realized too late that that was Billy’s attempt at sarcasm. “No! I mean, no, not like that. That was a misunderstanding. This is…It’s not mine!” I protested, really starting to worry now.
And then worry turned to downright panic as three more security guards rounded the corner, hands hovering over their weapons.
“Miss, please put your hands in the air.”
“I…I…” I sputtered.
“Just do it, Maddie. They look serious, ” Dana advised, taking a few steps backward.
I lifted my arms above my head, hoping my neckline didn’t shift low enough to give the grips a free show.
“Get down on your knees, ” one of the security guards barked.
“Is this really necessary-”
But Queen Latifah cut me off, tackling me from behind and slamming my body onto the ground beneath hers.
“Unh.” I felt the air rush out of me, my head going fuzzy as she pinned me with her bulk. This chick should seriously think about calling Jenny Craig.
“I got her! I got the two-fifteen!” Latifah called. I watched as three pairs of feet scuffled toward me, one of them pinning my hands behind my back a second before cool metal handcuffs slapped against my wrists.
“No, wait, it’s not like that…Please, you don’t understand…”
But it was useless. Even as I protested my innocence, the three security guards lifted me up by my armpits and were dragging me, still in my bare feet, toward the back of the lot.
“Don’t worry; I’m right behind you, ” Dana called.
I looked over my shoulder. The grips were giving Dana a wide berth, while Bug-eyed Billy meticulously went through her handbag.
Since my watch was in my purse, which had obviously been confiscated, I had no idea how long I sat at the folding table in the four-by-six room at the back of the Sunset Studios security office. But it was long enough that I was starting to fidget beneath the glare of the buzzing fluorescent lights. I nervously twirled one strand of blonde hair between my fingers, wondering what the charge for carrying a weapon onto studio property was. I wondered if it was even registered. Or legal. Maybe I was carrying a hot gun?
That was it: I was so switching back to pepper spray.
I was just wondering if Mrs. Rosenblatt had any more of her secret stash when the door opened and in walked Detective Prune Face, followed closely by Ramirez.
Gone was any trace of the guy who’d brought me coffee in bed this morning. Instead, his eyes were dark and unreadable, his jaw set into those hard lines of granite, his posture stiff and unyielding, as if it took every ounce of strength he had not to reach over the table and strangle the blonde in slutty spandex.
I gulped down a dry lump.
Oh boy.
Prune Face looked at me, recognition dawning. “Wardrobe girl again.” He turned to Ramirez. “You wanna take this one?”
Ramirez’s granite jaw flinched. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
Prune Face hovered at the door a moment, his gaze bouncing between us. Finally he shrugged and backed out of the room. “Good luck.”
I wasn’t sure if that was directed at Ramirez or me. But by the death look in Ramirez’s eyes, it was clear I could use all the luck I could get.
I shifted nervously as Ramirez sat down in the folding chair opposite me and crossed his arms over his chest, silently staring me down.
“Okay, so here’s the thing. The gun-totally not mine. And I didn’t even remember I was carrying it. It just kind of slipped into my purse. Well, I guess technically Felix slipped it in-”
“Felix?” he interrupted.
“The reporter, remember? From the Informer. He’s…uh, a friend.”
Ramirez narrowed his eyes at me. “Friend?”
I bit my lip. “Yeah. Sorta.”
His eyes did that fine-slits thing again. “This the same ’friend’ who got you kidnapped last year?”
“Uh…”
He snorted. “That Felix is some guy.”
“Hey, he was just trying to offer me some protection. He was concerned about me.”
I’m not sure what made me defend Tabloid Boy, but clearly it was the wrong move. Ramirez leaned forward menacingly.