Free Honeymoon in High Heels by Gemma Halliday Page B

fame.”
    “I’ve heard enough,” the judge said, holding up his hands.
    The entire courtroom, myself included, went silent, holding our collective breath as the judge chewed the inside of his cheek, his gaze going from one attorney to the other.  No doubt wondering just how this would play out in the press.
    Finally he seemed to come to some conclusion.     
    “Mr. Pines, if you think celebrity is an excuse for immoral behavior, you’ll be sorely disappointed in my courtroom.  Bail is set at ten million dollars.”
    I let out a low whistle as the judge banged his gavel.  The D.A. gave a triumphant lift of his chin, almost exactly proportionate to the slump in Pines’s shoulders as the bailiff accompanied him out of the room. 
    I slipped my recorder back in my pocket.  An interesting development indeed.  Whether Pines actually had ten mil in change for bail or not, I had no idea.  But a Hollywood director stuck in jail for days?  This was almost as good as Paris Watch ’08.  What do you want to bet he’d be claiming mental anguish in under a week? 
    I mentally rubbed my hands together with glee as I slipped back out the door to find Cam waiting for me. After all, one pedophile director’s mental anguish meant front-page coverage for yours truly. 
    God, I loved Hollywood.    
                 

 
     
     
     
     
    C HAPTER TWO
     
    After the arraignment, Cam and I hit the Del Taco on Santa Monica.  I got my steaming hot burrito, ordering a second to go just in case, and Cam did a taco salad before we parted ways - her to camp out on Sunset for the evening club crowd and me to home.
    Which, for me, was South Pasadena, a sleepy little suburb wedged between Glendale and the San Gabriel Valley.  Wide streets, palms on every corner, and strip malls with Trader Joe’s and Pier One at all the intersections.  Pretty typical American every-suburb, except for the fact that Nicole Richie lived just over the freeway.
    I pulled my Rebel off the 2, roaring to a stop at the front entrance to the Palm Grove community, and cut the motor.  I hopped off the bike, walking it silently through the wrought-iron gates into the complex.  The residents didn’t exactly appreciate the sound of my twin engines as much as I did.  Mostly because they were all eighty.  Yep, I lived in a retirement community. 
    When my Great Uncle Sal finally cashed in his chips, my Aunt Sue traded in her four-bedroom in Long Beach for a cute little condo in Palm Grove.  Lucky for me, that was right about the time the lease had expired on my apartment across town, and I’d needed a place to hang my hat for a few weeks. 
    That was three years ago. 
    Turns out Aunt Sue isn’t as sharp as she used to be.  And having a person who doesn’t forget to turn off the oven and knows that socks don’t go in the freezer has come in handy.  Which suits me fine.  You can’t beat the fixed-income rent on the place, my neighbors are always quiet, and I have the entire pool to myself as soon as Jeopardy! comes on. 
    I wheeled my bike down Sanctuary Drive to Paradise Lane before turning onto my street, Oasis Terrace.  I know, someone was a creative genius when it came to street names in this development.  Aunt Sue and I lived in a little two-bedroom number, third on the left.  White siding, blue shutters, low-maintenance square of lawn.  Exactly like the other 32 units in the complex, except that ours had a pink flamingo out front. 
    “That you, Tina?”  A woman in a pink housecoat and fuzzy slippers shuffled onto the porch of the house next door, fifty years of a pack-a-day habit grinding her voice into a gravelly baritone. 
    “’Evening, Mrs. Carmichael,” I said, waving.
    She put her hands on her bony hips and narrowed a pair of eyes beneath her cap of white curls.  Though her eyes were always kind of narrow.  Mrs. Carmichael had had one too many facelifts in her fifties, and her seventies weren’t being kind to her.