Authors: Antonio Pagliarulo
Stop being so stupid. There's nothing to be afraid of.
The voice resounded in her head, but she didn't quite believe it.
Julia wasn't afraid of her dead boss. She was afraid of the person who had killed her.
The person who had found out Zahara Bell's secret plan to scandalize and ruin lives.
The person who was still out there, waiting to make another vicious move.
A chill snaked up her spine. She knew what she had to do, and she had to do it quickly.
She turned the knob and threw open the door. She flicked on the light and took in the spacious corner office with its piles of paper and magazines, overflowing out-baskets, and swatches of colorful fabric. There were files on the floor, pens and paper
clips scattered across the desktop, drawers left open. The cops had scoured the office thoroughly, looking for clues. In truth, the mess was reminiscent of Zahara Bell, who had not been a slave to organization. She had left those mundane tasks to Julia, along with fetching coffee and managing an active social calendar. But in the past few months, Zahara had let Julia in on a number of highly classified projects aimed at taking
Catwalk
magazine to a whole new level of distribution. Magazine publishing was a competitive market, and readers wanted more than just articles about clothes, hair, and makeup. They wanted gossip. Hell, they wanted
dirt.
Julia remembered clearly the day she had stumbled across Zahara's notes; the pages comprised several paragraphs of shocking claims and allegations about celebrities and CEOs, actors and rock stars, socialites and celebutantes. In certain places, Zahara had scrawled cryptic messages and codes illegible to the untrained eye. Julia had panicked and opened her mouth.
Are you crazy, Zahara? This is dangerous stuff. You can't publish this.
Of course I can. I worked damn hard to dig up that junk.
So then …it's all true?
Of course it's true! Airtight sources. It's exactly what the magazine needs—a nice helping of salacious truths.
I'm trusting you to keep quiet about this, Julia. Play your cards right and you could be promoted to executive editor within the year.
And so Julia became Zahara's unwilling—but nonetheless curious—confidante. Julia had watched Zahara take the hush-hush phone calls, watched her scribble more dirt onto those crinkled sheets of paper. On and on it went. The list of famous names kept growing. The scandalous secrets got downright filthy. There were times when Julia had literally feared the publication of that first column, imagining a day filled with gun-wielding celebrities eager to open fire right here in the office.
Now she shuddered. The fact of Zahara's murder hadn't hit her yet. She kept thinking it was a mistake, or a joke, or some idiot's way of trying to create media waves. But the news teams hadn't been wrong. Julia had watched the story unfold from her own television, and she'd known instantly why Zahara had fallen prey to a killer.
The list. The column. Too many dangerous secrets revealed.
She walked over to the desk and kneeled down behind it. Carefully, quietly, she opened the thin uppermost drawer that held pens, Post-its, paper clips, and rubber bands. She slid it out as far as possible. When it caught and froze, she wrapped her fingers around the edges and gave it a hard tug. It popped out,
nearly emptying itself over Julia's chest. At the very back of the drawer was a small manila envelope that almost blended into the brownish color of the wood. Julia snatched it off and held it. Then she cautiously maneuvered the drawer back into place.
Rising to her feet, she opened the envelope and pulled out the folded sheets of paper. She flipped the edges up, instantly recognizing the scrawl, the odd little symbols, the unmistakable codes beside the names of celebrities and their soon-to-be-printed secrets. The pages were carbon copies. Julia didn't know where the originals were. She had gone looking for them last night, neatly ransacking Zahara's town house. She'd managed to find a few of the proofs, but nothing substantial. She had spent almost an hour going through the big spacious rooms. Leaving the town house with an armful of papers and photocopies had been a risk. Thankfully, she hadn't been caught.
Now she glanced down at the pages in her hands. She skimmed the first few paragraphs, fully aware that they contained the contents of the inaugural gossip column, which would have been published in next month's issue of
Catwalk.
The targeted names made her stomach shake.
Madison, Park, and Lexington Hamilton.
Actors Jeremy Bleu, Rebecca Lintz, and Sharon Donavitch.
Theo West and the West family.
Dangerous dirt.
Julia extricated the first page from the others and held it in her hand. Then she returned the other pages to the envelope and slipped it into the pocket of her blazer. She wondered who among those names had found out about Zahara's plans to run the column. It was hard to imagine any of them resorting to murder, but that was what had happened. Julia knew it. There was simply no other motive.
She took a deep breath. Her job—for now, at least—was done. She had succeeded in getting Zahara's information before the police, and she was sure the police would show up here and ransack the office again tomorrow. Julia couldn't let them have the list. Not yet. It was the equivalent of several million dollars, and it belonged to
Catwalk
magazine. One day soon, when she was promoted to editor, Julia would carry out the column on her own. And, just like Zahara Bell, she would know power and fame.
She flicked the light off and made her way quietly down the corridor. As she rounded the corner, she heard the
ding
of the elevator and froze. The doors opened, and several men exited. One was tall and older, the other three were in uniform. Cops.
Shit,
Julia thought.
Am I busted? What should I tell them?
The older man smirked and took two steps toward her. “Ms. Gantz, I presume? The security guards at
the front desk said I might find you here.” He opened his wallet and flashed his shield. “Detective Charlie Mullen, NYPD.”
Julia nodded. Her heart was pounding. “Yes. Hello. I came back to the office because I forgot some work here. I usually never work on Saturday nights,” she said, hoping her reply sounded authentic.
“Technically, it's Sunday morning,” Mullen told her. “Almost one a. m. We left you two messages—one late Friday night and one this morning. We even came looking for you at your apartment.”
“Yes, I apologize.” Julia fought to keep her tone steady. “I was running around a lot today.”
Detective Mullen smirked at her again. “Uh-huh. What have you got there in your hand?”
“Nothing,” Julia replied, but her voice sounded strained.
Don't give in. Don't drop the bomb. There's too much info you can still use.
Detective Mullen nodded perceptively. “Come with me, Ms. Gantz. Let's have us a little chat.”
“Jeremy!”
In the wee hours of the morning, he was released from police custody. It felt like an eternity since he'd inhaled fresh air, since he'd felt the spring breeze on his face. He could barely keep his focus steady. As the door to the precinct opened and he stepped outside, cameras flashed wildly.
“Mr. Bleu! Did you kill Zahara Bell?”
“Did you kill Chicky Marsala?”
“Jeremy!”
He didn't know what to say or how to react. Exhaustion seeped into his blood like anesthesia. If it hadn't been for the woman beside him, her arms linked firmly inside his, he would have likely passed out right here on the pavement.
“Are you and Park Hamilton a couple? Why were you at the Hamilton building?”
“Jeremy!”
“Jeremy!”
He blinked as the white light from six different cameras assaulted him. The reporters were an aggressive little bunch, crowding the sidewalk like rabid fans. He saw everything in quick spurts: microphones shaking, hands reaching out to him, lips moving as they formed new questions. It took loads of willpower not to lash out and slug every last person there. But that, of course, was what they wanted, and Jeremy wasn't about to create more negative publicity for himself. He had enough sense to at least keep his cool.
Now he leaned into the woman whose strong hands were holding him up. As usual, she was navigating the crowd with expert ease.
Felicia Rafferty was slim and elegant, her face pulled tighter than a trampoline. She had been Jeremy's publicist for two years, although his name was only one of a dozen on her client list of Hollywood superstars. Felicia liked to call herself a
“mistress of media mayhem.” All the important high-powered people knew her. More significant, however, was the fact that she knew a whole lot about those high-powered people's messy private lives, which worked beautifully when a little professional blackmail was needed. She had one of those scalpelhappy West Coast faces that looked forty and sixty in the same glance.
“
Out
of the way, please!” she shouted. As they neared the waiting limousine, her right hand flew up and landed directly on a paparazzo's wide-angle lens.
Jeremy kept his expression stony as Felicia popped the back door of the limo and ushered him inside. As his butt hit plush leather, the noise finally dissipated. For the first time in several hours, he let his whole body go loose. A strangled sigh escaped him.
Please,
he prayed,
let this nightmare be over.
Felicia jumped inside and slammed the door closed. She was dressed in a tight black suit that showed none of the wear and tear of a red-eye flight. She had flown in from L. A. upon learning of Jeremy's alleged involvement in the murders of Zahara Bell and Chicky Marsala.
The limo sped away from the precinct. Jeremy uncapped the bottle of water sitting in the bar before him. He drank in long gulps, letting the drops spill out of the corners of his mouth and dribble along the sides of his neck. At long last, his nerves were
beginning to stabilize. Just sitting close to Felicia made him feel calmer. He was her youngest client and sometimes felt downright unworthy of all the time and effort she invested in his career. His was certainly a household name, but Felicia also dealt with several legendary luminaries: Robert, Al, Tom, Brad, both Jennifers, Halle, and Ms. O. Jeremy knew that without her he'd end up buying a house on Shit-faced Lane.
Now he leaned deeper into the seat and sighed. “Be honest,” he said quietly. “Tell me how bad it is. Am I over? Am I finished?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. She flipped open her cell phone and tapped off a text message to someone. “The good news is that official murder charges weren't filed against you, and that's because the evidence the cops have is all circumstantial.”
It was. Throughout the long hours, Detective Mullen and several other ill-dressed men had pressed Jeremy as he'd sat in that stinky interrogation room, circling him like fat wolves narrowing in for the kill.
Did you pay someone off to get that key to the Hamilton penthouse? Did you break and enter the last time you were in New York?
Jeremy had remained steadfast in his denial. He had answered their questions, but he hadn't volunteered any information. Smart celebrities never did.
“Anyway, that's not our biggest worry right now,” Felicia said. She stared at him intently as the limo hit
a pothole and hung a left down Fifth Avenue. She reached into her large white leather bag, retrieving from it three folded newspapers. She chucked them onto Jeremy's lap. “Copies of today's papers,” she told him. “But they haven't hit the newsstands yet. The
real
scandal is about to bust open.”
Jeremy picked up the
New York Post.
His eyes widening, he glanced at the
Daily News
and the
Times
as well. The front-page headlines were all variants of the first: ZAHARA'S BOMBSHELL; SLAIN EDITOR'S NOTES REVEAL MORE THAN JUST MOTIVE. There were grainy snapshots of Madison, Park, and Lex leaving the Met Friday night, and one small picture of him on the bottom right corner of the
Post
; the shot was an old one, but he looked good in it.
“The police tore up Zahara Bell's apartment on West Fifty-sixth, and the town house in the West Village, and then they ransacked her offices at
Catwalk
magazine looking for information that might shed light on why she was murdered,” Felicia explained. “A few hours ago, they shook down her assistant, Julia Colbert Gantz, and Julia cracked under the pressure and spilled some interesting beans.” Felicia reached into the pocket of her blazer and pulled from it a crinkled sheet of paper. She unfolded it and held it out. “Apparently, Zahara Bell was planning on publishing a new gossip column in her magazine beginning next month. According to what Julia told the cops, it's
supposed to be one of those major scandal-breaker columns about socialites and celebrities that upset a lot of people but also sell a lot of magazines.”
Jeremy held his breath. He knew what was coming.
“In addition to a lot of dirt on the Hamilton triplets and several other celebrities, Zahara Bell came up with some dirt on you, Jeremy. The dirt you and I both wanted to forget.” She shook the sheet of paper at him.
Jeremy felt his stomach flip into his throat. No. Not that. It couldn't be what he was thinking. They had been so
careful
about keeping it concealed.
“Zahara Bell found out about your prior arrest,” Felicia said quietly. “And she figured out that it was the reason you were dropped for the Locasio print campaign.”
Closing his eyes, Jeremy grunted. The very mention of those words—
the Locasio print campaign
—made him physically ill. The Alfredo Locasio menswear line was the hottest thing on the international fashion scene; Locasio, a young designer from Naples, Italy, had already drawn comparisons to Giorgio Armani and the late, great Gianni Versace. At this year's Academy Awards, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and Usher had all worn Locasio. The line of suits and accessories was classic and cool, and last December, the eccentric Alfredo Locasio had handpicked Jeremy to be the line's international poster boy. A three-year,
five-million-dollar contract for standing around in awesome clothes and smiling for the camera. It had been big news.