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  Just left the rock star, going to Jeb’s.

  She made a fast left turn onto Alta Drive and her Toyota squealed in protest.

  TWOT.

  Total. Waste. Of. Time.

  Let Christina think Nikki’s excursion into Beverly Hills to meet with Jeb on a script he’d written and so far failed to set up was a complete waste. Every ounce of Nikki’s trailer-trash Tennessee blood was determined to make Boundless Bound and to make the film without a whit of help from her famous aunt.

  Unlike Christina, cannibalizing nepotistic relationships to gain success wasn’t the road Nikki wanted to travel. Upon graduation from Oxford three years before, Christina had fallen into a job as executive VP of development at Albright Productions, run by Christina’s billion-dollar-in-ticket-sales-producer stepmom Lydia Albright. Lydia just happened to be married to Zymar, the world-famous director who was Christina’s dad.

  Nikki glanced from her iPhone to the street. She squished her lips together and twitched them from side to side. The handout from family seemed to work for Christina, but a handout from Celeste “Cici” Solange wouldn’t work for Nikki. More than a flicker of resentment burned an ever-increasing hole in Nikki’s heart. The original tear was a mere rip in the family fabric of Nikki’s childhood. For Nikki and Nikki’s mother, Lacey Solange, there’d been food stamps, days with no electricity, aggrieved landlords, and herds of bad boyfriends milling around Lacey Solange while Nikki grew to womanhood. Meanwhile, Aunt Cici reigned supreme at the box office, pulled down eight figures a film, and luxuriated in Beverly Hills. Whether the years of Cici’s disregard for Lacey and Nikki were willful or neglectful, Nikki wasn’t yet sure. Aunt and niece had stitched an ill-fitting patch over the familial rip at the burial of Nikki’s mother, but threads continued to tatter and fray.

  Even with their tenuous family ties, with one phone call and a “please” Nikki could have a job similar to Christina’s. Hell, Aunt Cici would give her the job without the please. Nikki would be ensconced as VP of Development in Cici’s production company. She would read scripts all day. Fabulous scripts by well-established, fabulous writers, sent by fabulous agents to what would be Nikki’s fabulous office. She would use her swank expense account and ride in her swank convertible to and from the Worldwide Studio lot. Nikki had the actress aunt, the movie-mogul stepuncle, the connections that people in the Industry worked a lifetime to develop, so why… why… Aunt Cici often asked, was Nikki slumming with an unsigned carousing guitar player and driving a twelve-year-old Toyota to meet with a has-been star to discuss an unfinanced film?

  Righteousness pulsed in Nikki’s chest. Because Nikki’d gotten all the way to twenty-two, all the way from Tennessee, and all the way through college without help from Aunt Cici. Nikki wouldn’t ask for help now.

  Nikki’s mama had never asked for a handout from Aunt Cici. Even when there’d been nothing but a piece of moldy Tillamook cheese and a near-empty bottle of Heinz in the fridge. Lacey had never begged from Aunt Cici and Nikki wouldn’t begin to beg now.

  She was determined to make Boundless Bound without Aunt Cici’s help, without Aunt Cici’s connections. She’d push the boulder of an indie film uphill like a tortured Sisyphus with size double-D breasts.

  Nikki peered out the open window of her car and searched for 729 Alta.

  “Hmmm… 722, 726,” Nikki murmured under her breath as she crept down the street. “And… 727. Wow, 727 is awesome.” Nikki slid by a remodeled manse with lighting straight out of Architectural Digest. “Wait… 731, 733… what the hell?”

  Nikki slammed the brake. Where was 729? She’d gone too far. She jammed the stick into Reverse with a loud grind (her clutch was nearly dead) and pressed hard on the accelerator. The backward momentum of the car sounded like she was winding up a toy train.

  There it was. Jeb Schmaltzer’s castle. A brown palazzo knockoff with a turret and red roof tiles. The wrought-iron gate, adorned with curlicues and guarding the circle driveway, was already open and Nikki pulled her Toyota onto the flagstone pavers. She parked, turned off her car, and checked herself in the mirror. She was here meeting with Jeb Schmaltzer (whom Aunt Cici called fuckface) because Nikki wanted her own success. A success unburdened by favors from Aunt Cici or from Aunt Cici’s famous, well-connected friends.

  Nikki glanced through her dusty windshield. Jeb’s garage door hung at an angle on its hinges. His house was a little too old, a little too unkempt, and a little too… has-been. Pride burst a shatterbox of fragments in her chest like slivers of glass. She recognized an overgrown lawn and a home in need of repair. Nikki pursed her lips together. She would get through the hell of breaking into Hollywood on her own.

  Nikki tossed her iPhone in her purse. She was an hour late. She’d texted Jeb after her f&ff with Adam and blamed traffic for her tardy arrival, but she’d gotten no response. Nikki slammed shut the Toyota door. She hoped Jeb wasn’t pissed.

  *

  Jeb Schmaltzer wasn’t pissed, Jeb Schmaltzer was dead.

  The gaping hole in Jeb’s chest was testament to his death while the rust-colored water in the pool was evidence in opposition to the claim made by many (including Cici Solange, Nikki’s aunt) that Jeb Schmaltzer was full of shit. The deep red, cloud-like billows that floated through the incandescent pool proved otherwise.

  Her heart hammered at a near one-hundred-yard-dash rate. Sadness and shock fought irritation in her chest cavity. Irritation was the immediate winner, if only for self-preservation. Nikki pulled her iPhone from her purse and paused—should she call 911 or her aunt?

  Her aunt.

  She pressed the speed-dial for Cici. Two rings later—

  “Nikki? Where are you? Aren’t you supposed to be having drinks with that fuckface Jeb Schmaltzer?”

  Nikki’s gaze rested on the back of Mr. Fuckface’s head—he floated dead-man style in the pool—oh, the irony.

  “I was. I am. I…” Like an elbow to the chin, reality hit Nikki. Jeb was… Jeb was… Jeb was dead! The nuanced bravado, the abject ennui, all that Nikki had worked on for the past four months since moving to LA to achieve, in an attempt to cover or kill the deep-seated DNA of sincerity and kindness, was slipping… slipping… slipping, like Lindsay Lohan two days out of rehab.

  The horror of what floated in the pool hit Nikki full force in the chest. Her throat choked tight and her gut soured. She fought her gag reflex. A few feet away with water lapping at the edge of the pool, inches from her freshly pedicured toes, floated gallons of blood. Along with a dead man.

  Dead!

  “He’s dead,” Nikki whispered.

  “What!” Cici screeched into the phone. “I told you when you moved to LA you couldn’t shoot anyone else!”

  Nicki snapped out of her hypnotic trance which had been caused by watching the blood-clouds in the pool float toward each other and then merge until there were no clouds, only blood—gallons and gallons of blood. A pool full of the red stuff.

  “I didn’t shoot him!” Nikki wailed. “I found him.”

  “Where are you?” Cici barked. The rustle of sheets and covers in the background was accompanied by Ted’s baritone voice, most likely asking what kind of trouble Cici’s wayward niece had managed to get into this night.

  “His house.”

  “Of course you are,” Cici said. “Did you call the police?”

  “No,” Nikki said. “I called you first. I wasn’t sure, so I called you. I can call the cops now—”

  “Don’t!” Cici blurted. “I’ll call Howard and have him deal with the police. Better to have an attorney call them.”

  The garage door on the other end of the line rattled to life.

  “Wait,” Cici said, breathless. “You found him? You’re at his house? Are you—safe?” Cici whispered the last word as if any homicidal intruder might overhear her side of the conversation through Nikki’s iPhone.

  With her aunt’s question, Nikki’s eyes darted from shadow to shadow and palm tree to bird of paradise in Jeb’s g
argantuan backyard. A shiver shimmied down her spine and her stomach tightened into a harder knot.

  Was she safe?

  Jeb had a security system, as did everyone in Beverly Hills, but it was unarmed—the door unlocked and ajar. The very openness that now caused fear to slither through Nikki’s belly was how Nikki had gotten into the house. After knocking and waiting and texting I’m here, she’d pushed open the ten-foot wooden door and walked through the two-story atrium, the formal dining room, the kitchen, and out the back sliders to the fireplace, past the candles and the wine, and finally to the pool.

  She looked over her shoulder toward the dimly lit house. Was she safe? Nikki didn’t know. But then again, she’d never felt safe in any Hollywood home.

  Chapter 4

  A Rush in the Night

  Rush Nelson was a shadow in the darkness. His black hair, onyx eyes, and dark-almond skin spoke of a southern-European ancestry, though it was a seed planted so long ago that Rush was an American mongrel. He stood stiff limbed. Well-muscled yet lithe, his body was a high-performance machine that he kept well-tuned to carry out his business. His face was as unmoving as tiger stone, the thoughts behind his eyes unreadable. Once you realized you were in need of Rush Nelson’s services, you were in dire need. Rush was silence. Rush was darkness. Rush could even be death.

  Ted Robinoff, Rush’s sole employer for the last three years, paced before him. Ted’s trim gray hair was the color of a storm cloud. Ted shoved his hands into the pockets of his red-striped robe. His chin tilted toward the ground, and his eyes marked off each step he took across the Persian rug in his home office. Distinction hovered about Ted Robinoff like a bee buzzed about a flower.

  Rush understood Ted. Ted Robinoff didn’t fuck around. Not when it came to his famous wife. Not when it came to his wife’s safety. Not even when it came to the safety of his wife’s fucked-up family. Ted decided and struck fast. Rush respected this. You didn’t become one of the world’s most powerful men without understanding risk and how to eliminate threats.

  “Cici’s niece, Nikki, is a fuckup,” Ted said. He continued to pace, but Ted’s eyes glanced up toward Rush. “A good kid, but a fuckup.”

  Rush had helped save Ms. Celeste “Cici” Solange from herself and her debauched Hollywood past once before—sex tapes that predated her and Ted’s relationship. When Nikki Solange, Cici’s niece, had arrived in LA four months before, Rush knew she was a shit-storm waiting to happen. Rush had waited. Certain that once the wind howled, Ted would turn to him.

  “I need you to eliminate the risk.”

  “The girl?”

  Ted paused—in that split second a dark, hard, cold part of Ted understood that to eliminate all risk to his beloved wife, he needed to eliminate the girl. The warm, loving, human part of Ted—a piece kept alive by Cici—realized that Nikki as a casualty would create more pain than necessary. Ted shook his head no.

  Ted stopped in front of Rush. He squared his shoulders. “Jeb Schmaltzer is dead.” A hard look flexed in Ted’s eye, unbreakable with the somber knowledge that with a megastar wife and a naïve niece, Jeb Schmaltzer, dead D-lister, would lie down on Ted’s proverbial front door. “Shot once in the chest in his own backyard.”

  Not a muscle in Rush’s face moved, but his chin angled down as an indicator that he heard Ted.

  “Nikki was working with Jeb on a project called Boundless Bound. What the hell?” Ted pulled one hand out of his pocket and waved his palm upward as though seeking a more-than-obvious answer to a frustrating question. “The kid wants to make movies, she could work at my studio. Why muck around in the shit?” He walked to the window behind his desk and peered into the dark night on the other side of the glass.

  “This kid.” Ted shook his head. “Nikki thinks it’s so easy. Turns her back on the help we offer.” Ted swiveled his head toward Rush. “Until tonight. Gets her ass in a real mess and then she calls.” Ted stepped away from the glass and toward his desk. His eyes swept the room and landed on the wedding photo of him and Cici, taken on their private island in the Pacific.

  “Here’s the thing.” Ted placed his palm on the desk’s mahogany surface. “Nikki has no idea of the human excrement floating around Hollywood. Nor does she understand the inherent value of her last name. That”—Ted tapped the second knuckle of his pointer finger onto the wooden desktop—“is what worries me.”

  It worried Rush too. Nikki Solange was a priceless Ming vase sitting atop the trash heap of Hollywood.

  “She’s been rolling around in some wannabe rock star’s bed for a month. Some little shit out of Wyoming or South Dakota who can’t keep his dick in his drawers—”

  “Adam McWiggin,” Rush said.

  An oily feeling slid into Rush’s gut with the mention of Nikki’s fuck buddy’s name. Rush’s jaw locked tighter. Adam McWiggin was a solid musician but a complete douchebag where women were concerned. Not a guy that Nikki should be involved with. “Security started a file.”

  “I need you to find the risks, assess the risks, and eliminate the risks.” Ted’s voice traveled through the shadows in the room, soft and low. “Cici and Nikki aren’t to get hurt.”

  “Understood,” Rush said.

  “Nikki doesn’t want security. She’s a pain in my ass, like her aunt. Stubborn. Impossible.” A huff of breath came from Ted. He gazed past Rush and a memory played through Ted’s mind. The left side of his mouth curled into a smile. “But I love Cici.” His eyes reconnected with Rush, “And dammit, that means I love her family too.” Those words were all the reason Ted needed to let Cici Solange and her niece drive him to the hard edge of insanity.

  “Follow Nikki, protect her, find out what the hell is going on without her knowing.”

  Rush had been assigned tougher jobs than watching Nikki Solange. Before his discharge, one job had involved sitting on an ice-capped mountain with a rock piercing his thigh for thirty-eight hours, looking through a scope and trying to find a piece of Afghani scalp. Working for Ted was a luxury, as was following Nikki Solange, getting close, protecting her—an easy gig that included a fast car, swank expense account, and some serious threads.

  “My intention is to play this close,” Rush said. “Without her awareness.”

  Ted nodded. He eyed Rush from top to toe. “Do it.”

  Rush turned on his heel. He was on the hunt for one very young, very pretty, very stupid girl.

  Chapter 5

  Floating in the Deep End

  “For fuck sake, isn’t anyone going to take him out of the water?” Cici’s voice cut through the heavy silence of the night.

  Nikki’s insides crumpled. Her aunt’s voice pierced her like an arrow. Nikki sat on the chaise lounge and pressed her fingernails into her palms. The pain in the soft flesh of her hand centered her and drew her attention away from Jeb’s body which floated in the pool behind her. A burst of evening breeze flickered the flame of the candle on the table in front of her. She should have stayed at Adam’s place. She should have stayed home. Maybe she should have stayed in Tennessee. Nikki closed her eyes. She should have never moved to LA.

  “Cici, please.” Howard Abromowitz, round and doughy with wire-rim glasses too small for his pallid face, placed his arm around Cici’s shoulder. “The officers must take every precaution to secure evidence.” Twin chicken legs, fish-belly white, stuck out from Howard’s running shorts, and a faded USC Law sweatshirt covered his watermelon-shaped belly.

  Nikki pulled her gaze from the flickering candle flame. Detective Weitz sat opposite her. His hair was short and reddish with waves across the top. His face was full of pudge, but his body was lean. He wore khaki pants, a blue button-down shirt, and a windbreaker. A black notepad was open and lay on his knee. The other detective crouched beside the pool. Nikki glanced over her shoulder as he pulled himself upward from the pool deck. His hair was black, his eyes liquid blue, and he had a sharp-angled jaw beneath full lips. He was thicker, muscled, and he moved like there was strength beneath his clothes. He
walked from the pool toward Nikki. His eyes roamed up from her high heels, over her legs and skirt, to her face where their gaze met. His gaze bounced from Nikki to Aunt Cici. Everyone looked at Nikki’s Aunt Cici. The weight of her aunt’s arm dropped onto her shoulder. Tears rolled down Nikki’s face, and she pressed her fingertips into her eyes.

  “We have to get her out of here.” Cici’s tone was that of a woman used to being obeyed. She looked from one detective to the other.

  “We don’t want the press to realize—”

  “The press is already here,” the dark-haired detective said.

  Not many people interrupted Cici.

  “This is Detective Dragatsis,” Detective Weitz said and nodded his head toward the detective with the ice-blue eyes, the detective who didn’t smile or nod but had the courage to interrupt one of the world’s biggest stars.

  “Dragatsis, Dragatsis,” Cici mumbled under her breath and crinkled her brows. “Do you have a brother? An agent at CTA?”

  A muscle twitched in Detective Dragatsis’s jaw. “I do.”

  The sharpness in Aunt Cici’s eyes grew softer. Nikki had witnessed this same phenomena when introduced to actors and directors and writers and producers and studio executives—anyone in entertainment. Having a family member in the Business gave you a pass. Aunt Cici relaxed, hopeful that Detective Dragatsis was versed in the rules of the Hollywood Club.

  Detective Dragatsis directed his gaze away from Aunt Cici, away from Howard, and toward Nikki with her arms wrapped tightly around her chest.

  “Miss Solange—”

  “Nikki,” she whispered. “Please… just call me Nikki. It’s easier—people get confused and absolutely weird when you use the name Solange.”

  “Nikki,” Detective Weitz said, “found Mr. Schmaltzer.”