Free Undercover in High Heels by Gemma Halliday

bit out of your league?” I asked. “I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that Sasquatch was involved.”
    “Ha, ha. Bloody funny. You ever think of dropping the whole shoe career for the comedy stage?”
    I stuck my tongue out at him. What can I say? Felix brought out the second-grader in me.
    “For your information, ” he continued, “the Informer will pay thousands for a story like this. Not to mention photos.”
    I paused. Thousands? For a half second my bank account warred with my sense of morality. “Thousands? Seriously?” I asked.
    Felix shrugged. “What can I say? Tabloids sell.”
    He lifted his hand, ostensibly to scratch his head, but I noticed his palm was facing toward the trailer. Not only a voice recorder, but he also must have had a camera tucked in there.
    I couldn’t help myself. Curiosity got the better of me.
    “What do you see?” I asked, standing on tiptoe again.
    Felix shrugged. “Not much. They’ve got the trailer sealed off. They haven’t brought her body out yet. A few blokes with black bags have gone in. And there are cops all over.”
    At the mention of the word cops , my mind suddenly went to one cop in particular. Ramirez. I wondered if he was here, and if so, how badly his superiors would rip him a new one this time. He’d been assigned to this “babysitting” job, as he put it, to watch the set. And now look. A dead body. Ironically, he was back in the middle of a homicide investigation, but I wasn’t altogether sure his superiors would see this as a good thing. Homicide detectives usually came on the case after the body was dead, not before.
    As if he could read my mind, Felix said, “I saw your boyfriend go in a few minutes go. He didn’t look too happy.”
    “Yeah, well, most people aren’t happy when some-one’s murdered. Unlike tabloid reporters.”
    “What? I’m sorry the poor girl died, ” he responded. He grinned, showing off a row of slightly crooked teeth and dimples in both cheeks. It was, as I was learning, his charming look, à la Hugh Grant. Luckily I knew him well enough not to be deceived by a little thing like charm.
    “Uh-huh. That’s why you’re grinning like the Cheshire cat, Tabloid Boy.”
    “What can I say? I guess I’m just a happy-go-lucky kind of fellow.” And with that he did a mock stretch and yawn, pointing his palm toward the trailer for a few more clicks.
    “So, what happened here?” I asked.
    Felix shot me a sidelong glance.
    “Come on, I know you’ve got all the dirt.”
    He grinned again. “And suddenly Tabloid Boy has his uses.”
    I rolled my eyes. “You going to share or not?”
    Lucky for me, Tabloid Boy couldn’t sit on a juicy story. “All right, since you asked so nicely. It appears the wardrobe girl—”
    “Dusty, ” I supplied.
    Felix raised one eyebrow, making a mental note. “You know the bird?”
    “Met her yesterday. Go on.”
    “Okay, well, it seems Dusty found her this morning around six-fifteen. She was in Mia’s trailer, dead. Strangled with—you’re going to love this part—a pair of panty hose.”
    I always knew those things were evil. I grimaced as Felix continued.
    “So far, the speculation is that she died sometime between midnight and three A.M. They’re questioning everyone with access to the lot. But what Veronika was doing in Mia’s trailer, no one’s sure of yet.”
    “And Mia?” I asked. “Where’s she?”
    Felix shrugged. “Probably surrounded by body-guards at this point. I’ll tell you one thing she’s not doing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Talking to the press. Don’t suppose you could convince her, eh?”
    I shot him a look.
    He shrugged. “Oh well, was worth a try, right, love?” Felix stretched and shot a few more frames of the crime scene.
    The idea of someone on the set leaving threatening letters in Mia’a trailer was disconcerting. The idea that one of the people milling around the scene at this very moment might be a murderer was downright