Not Famous in Hollywood (Not in Hollywood Book 1) (14 page)

Griffin dropped his gun to his side and
started to holster it. “What the hell are you doing here?” he
snarled.

Assuming that
level of rudeness was directed at me I tried to think of something
to say that he wouldn’t know was a complete lie.

“
I got
nothing” I said looking at Crystal and Edwin. Crystal looked
horrified as if she couldn’t believe that she was friends with
someone so completely useless when it came to lying. Dropping her
head, she took a deep breath.

“
Adam
Hendricks lent me a key as I left something here the last time I
came” she said. “You can call him if you want. You might also want
to explain what you are doing here. My understanding was that all
police were supposed to have been cleared out of here and I’m
guessing you don’t have a warrant.” She smiled sweetly.

See what I mean, lethal. I am so glad she is
on my side, although from the look I got from her earlier I knew
that I was going to get a very long lecture on the fact that I
needed to learn to lie on my feet.

Griffin’s jaw tightened.

“Neighbor saw you in here and gave us a call”
Ramos said. “There were concerns you were robbing the place.”

“
So they sent
Homicide cops to a suspected break in” Crystal said, sarcasm
dripping from every word. “My, if that is all you guys have to do
I’m feeling safer in this city already.”

I looked at Crystal incredulously. I’ve seen
her in action before but sometimes I think she pushes it a bit too
far. Looking at Edwin I knew I couldn’t rely on him to help me with
her. When Crystal went into this mood he reacted like Pavlov’s dog,
drooling and ready to do whatever she wanted him to do. Crystal and
Griffin stared at each other, their mutual loathing pretty much
evident for all to see.

“
I think
we’ve looked everywhere Crystal” I said in a small voice stepping
in front of her to cut the line of animosity between the two of
them. Oh great now they were both mad at me. “I don’t think we’re
going to find it.”

Edwin grabbed Crystal’s arm and with me on
the other side we led her towards the front entrance with Griffin
and Ramos behind us.

Ramos hung up her phone. “Just spoke to Adam
Hendricks, they’ve got permission to be here.”

“Well of course I do” said Crystal with all
the confidence of someone who was always in the right. “Now could
you please leave so I can lock up.”

The two
detectives went through the door with Griffin giving me a hard
look. Oh I could just tell I’d made it back to his people who annoy
him list. That was just wonderful.

“
I need to go
to the bathroom” Crystal said quickly and hurried back into the
house.

Edwin
followed her with a concerned look on his face. I would have gone
too but I was stopped by the hand on my elbow. Looking down at it,
I saw Griffin had a tight grip and wasn’t likely to let me go.
Ramos had headed back to their car and was leaning against it
watching the two of us.

“
Care to tell
me what’s going on?” he asked.

“Not really” I said. “Just spending a day
with friends and we ended up here on an errand. Like Ramos said, we
had keys and we had permission. The cops had got everything they
wanted from the place didn’t they?”

“Just finding it interesting that you turned
up here on the day you ditch me.”

Oh right, I’d forgotten about our little
phone call this morning.

“I’m sorry about the way I acted this
morning” I said. “I didn't have any right to be so rude to
you.”

Griffin
looked surprised. Maybe he didn’t get apologies very often.
Considering the abrasive way he seemed to be with people, I was
pretty sure that most of the time people didn’t feel like he
deserved an apology. I did though. I didn’t feel good about what
I’d said to him on the phone.

“Don’t worry about it” he said gruffly. At
that moment Crystal and Edwin reappeared and I was close to kissing
them.

“Ready to go” she said locking the door.

“Don’t get involved in this” Griffin said to
me.

“Thanks to you, I’m already involved up to my
neck” I said.

“I know” he said awkwardly, “and I’m sorry
about that.”

I thought
about that sentence all the way home. The thing is he really looked
sorry that I was involved. That was strange considering how much of
this was his fault.

“So, what was Detective Hottie talking to you
about? He looked kind of intense” Edwin asked.

“Oh he always looks intense” I said. “I think
it’s his go to face.”

“
Nice to look
at” mused Crystal. “Wonder what he’d be like in the
sack?”

I could feel the blush rising up my face and
I prayed neither of them was looking at me.

“Oh my God” Crystal wrenched her head around
and almost drove us off the road.

“Will you watch the road, please” I cried out
as my hands slammed against the dash.

I’d almost
died in a car crash once and I have had a major fear about cars
ever since. I follow the speed limit and the road rules like they
are the Ten Commandments.

“I’m sorry” Crystal said with chagrin.

She knows what I’m like with driving and the
reason why. She pulled into a shop parking area and turned to me as
I went through my own version of a panic attack.

Edwin rubbed the back of my shoulders while
Crystal kept repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” with a devastated
look on her face.

I know the
way I feel about cars and driving is not anyone’s fault. Except the
jerk who decided getting in a car after binge drinking for four
straight hours was a great way to end the night. Edwin and Crystal
know this and usually when I am in the car they call it their
granny mode. Every road rule is meticulously followed because they
can see my knuckles whiten if they stray anywhere away from those
rules. They are the only ones who know how badly I was
affected.

Between the
two of them I managed to calm down enough to gasp out. “I’m sorry,
I didn’t mean to panic like that.”

“No” Crystal said and I hated that she was so
distraught because of my issues. “I should have been paying more
attention to what I was doing.”

“I’m okay to go on now” I said breathing in
deeply.

“
Hell no”
said Edwin still rubbing my shoulders. “You are going to tell us
why you went bright red when Crystal was talking about Detective
Hottie in bed.”

Right, that was why we were here. I’d kind of
forgotten that part in the middle of my panic mode. Edwin and
Crystal were looking at me expectantly.

“Yesterday he was at the wake and he was
trying not to be noticed. He kissed me to hide his face.”

“
Kissed you
to hide his face” Crystal repeated. “He’s a cop and that’s the best
he could come up with.”

I blushed again.

“Was he any good at least? Crystal asked.

At that I
dropped my head as I felt my face get even hotter.

“I think we have our answer” said Edwin
softly.

Crystal
laughed as she started up the car again and we headed home. Once
inside my apartment I grabbed my laptop. Crystal went diving down
the front of her top looking for the flash drive and Edwin sat
back, grabbed a drink and enjoyed the show. Loading up the flash
drive I started clicking open files and found photos of Adam
Hendricks and Emily Saunders doing what I caught them doing last
night.

“
Oh my God.
Did you know about this? Crystal asked, looking at me
accusingly.

I grimaced, “I walked in on them during the
wake last night.”

“Having sex” said Edwin.

“Yes.”

“During a wake” said Crystal.

“Yes.”

Crystal
slapped me on the arm, hard. “And you didn’t tell me straight
away.”

“I didn’t get in until after three” I
complained rubbing my arm. “You know for such a tiny person you hit
really hard.”

She hit me
again. “Any time of the day or night, you have permission to call
me if you have information like that.” I got hit again.

“Stop hitting me” I complained glaring at
her.

Looking to Edwin for support was no good. “I
agree with her, that information is too good to keep from everybody
else” he said.

Rubbing my
sore and I’m sure bruised arm, I kept clicking through the images.
They weren’t the best quality photos but considering the subject
matter I was thinking I should be thankful for small
mercies.

“Do we know who sent them to Ryan?” asked
Edwin.

“It might have been a private investigator he
hired” I guessed.

“
No” said
Crystal, “a private investigator would have better equipment for
getting these shots. These look like a camera phone has been used
to take the shots.”

Flicking
through to the last file I found it was a video and I looked at
Edwin and Crystal.

“Do we really want to see this?” I asked.

It was one thing to see photos of the two of
them in various states of happiness, but after last night I didn’t
think I was ready for a moving visual again.

“Of course” chorused Edwin and Crystal, both
of them grinning. I opened the file and I’ve got to say I was
surprised. The screen filled with the face of a teenage boy. He
looked young and small but he had that cocky arrogance of someone
who is not going to let the world get them down.

“Hello Ryan. My name is Roberto. As you can
see I have some pretty interesting photos that I have been taking
lately. I could make a lot of money from them. Or you and I can sit
down and maybe have a discussion about them. I’ll contact you
again.”

The three of us sat there looking at the
screen.

“
Ryan
Hendricks was being blackmailed” Edwin said.

“
It
doesn’
t make sense” I said. “Wouldn’t it
be better to blackmail Adam or Emily? Adam might not have the money
he wants, but Emily is a trust fund baby. She could pay this kid
off with what she finds in the bottom of her purse.”

“Maybe he wanted something else” ventured
Edwin.

“
I think
I
’ve seen this kid before” I said,
desperately searching my memory.

“Really?” asked Crystal. “Where would you
have seen him?”

“
I
don’
t know.” I couldn’t work it out, the
kid’s face was bugging me. I was sure I had seen it
somewhere.

Long after
Crystal and Edwin left I lay awake in my bed trying to
remember.

For the first
time in months there were no demands on my phone from Eleanor the
next morning. Once I’d had my coffee and a shower, I sat down at my
laptop and had another look at the video, trying desperately to
place the kid. I was sure I had seen him before. I started
searching. For the next several hours I trawled through all the
social media and gossip sites that I knew of. When I finally found
him I couldn’t help but feel a bit smug. I knew I’d seen him
before. He had been hanging around on the outskirts of some of the
paparazzi packs which stalked stars like Eleanor Channing. I saw
them so much they had become like the scenery in the background.
From what I could remember this kid was new. I remember thinking at
the time he was out of his league, but there he was.

Once I worked out where I’d seen him I needed
to find out where he was. Looking at the video, the guy obviously
thought of himself as a bit of an entrepreneur. He had the whole
cocky swagger going. In this day and age every kid was on social
media and if he thought he was going to crack it in the paparazzi
big leagues, he was going to have to get his name out there. I mean
look at the name he gave. Roberto. The kid was skinny with freckles
and red hair. I was pretty sure Roberto wasn’t his real name. In
that case he’d decided to create a brand.

Hollywood is
a town where everything is about your brand. This kid lived here
and I would bet money he was absorbing everything that he could
learn about this place. Part of that would be his brand, so I went
hunting for it. After going through every site I could find, I
finally found him. He’d been sending in photos with the GPS
coordinates on them this morning. Those photos told me that our
mystery photographer was at this very moment looking out over
Venice Beach. I closed the laptop with a satisfying click and
smiled. I needed to have a talk with Roberto and now I knew where
to find him.

Venice Beach was a little quieter than usual.
When I got the chance I enjoyed coming down here. It didn’t take
long for me to find the young boy taking random shots with his
phone. I sat down on the bench beside him.

“Hello Roberto” I said. He looked like he was
about to run.

“I’m not here to hurt you, I just want to
talk” I said.

“What do you want?” the kid asked with the
kind of bravado that only a teenager can muster.

“I want to know about how you know Ryan
Hendricks and why you were blackmailing him.”

“I wasn’t blackmailing him” Roberto said
defensively. “We were just trying to work out what the situation
was and how we could make it work for our mutual benefit. Why lady,
are you looking at getting in on the action too?”

I looked at him and all of a sudden I felt
old.

“Hey kid, when did you eat last?” I
asked.

“I’m fine” he said but his eyes had lit
up.

“
Let’s get
you some food and then maybe we can have a talk” I said.