Free Undercover in High Heels by Gemma Halliday Page A

chilling. I shivered despite the sunshine pelting down on us and wrapped my arms around myself.
    I hung around for a few minutes more, but there honestly wasn’t much to see. Instead, I walked back through the lot to my Jeep and dialed Dana’s number on my cell.
    “Yello!” she answered in a way-too-perky voice.
    I jumped, pulling the receiver back from my ear. “Wow, what are you on this morning?”
    “Sorry, ” she shouted. “I’m doing the treadmill thing. It’s noisy.”
    Dana lived in a duplex in Studio City with a seemingly never-ending stream of other actors. Her various roommates had included No-neck Guy (with whom she’d had a brief thing until she’d caught him ogling another woman’s “pecs” at the gym), Stick-figure Girl (who’d checked herself into an eating-disorder clinic last summer), and, my all-time favorite, Asian Guy Who Always Smelled Like Peanuts. Yick. Currently Dana was living with Daisy Duke, thus named for her endless supply of short shorts. Daisy had just landed a recurring role in a string of Budweiser commercials, so instead of taking on a third roommate this month, she and Dana had turned the extra bedroom into a home gym. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, considering that Dana worked at an actual gym, but to each her own. Me, I’d have turned it into one big shoe closet.
    “So, what’s up?” Dana asked, breathing heavily.
    “Seen the news this morning?”
    “You know I never watch that stuff. Too depressing.” She paused. “Why? What happened?”
    I gave her the quickie version of the morning’s discovery, amidst her cries of, “No way!” and, “Ohmigod!” When I was finished, she was panting like a Doberman, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was the treadmill.
    “Ohmigod, a real, live Hollywood murder! I can’t believe it! The one day I’m not on the set. So unfair.”
    “Um, I guess.” Only I had to admit this whole Hollywood-glamour thing had worn off the second the words dead body had entered the picture. It was one thing to gawk at stars going down the red carpet, but when said stars were strangled with support hose, it was a whole different ball game. “Listen, the set’s closed today. You want to meet me for coffee?”
    “Sure. I’ve got one more mile to do, and then I’ll be right over, ” Dana said, panting.
    “One more mile? Don’t you have, like, a gazillion aerobics classes to teach today?” I asked.
    “Yeah, ” she panted back, “but not until noon. I need to keep busy until then. Therapist Max says I have to find positive new outlets for my sexual frustrations. It was either running or macramé. And I’ve already got all the plant hangers I need.”
    Twenty minutes later Dana and I were sipping lattes at a corner table at the Starbucks on Ventura and Alcove. I was going over what little I knew about Veronika’s tragic demise one more time, while Dana tried to keep her eyes on me and not the college kid in tight jeans serving biscotti behind the counter.
    “Felix said they found her strangled with a pair of panty hose. How cruel is that?”
    “Totally sucks.” Dana sipped at her latte (low-fat, decaf, soy milk).
    I nodded, taking a big gulp of my mocha (full-fat, double shot, with extra cocoa powder). What can I say? Dead bodies made me seek comfort food.
    “So, let me get this straight, ” Dana said, “Veronika looked just like Mia?”
    “They could be twins.”
    “She usually wore the same clothes as Mia?”
    “That’s the whole point of the stand-in.”
    “And she’s found in Mia’s trailer.”
    I nodded again. “Yep.”
    “So, maybe Mia was the target.”
    I took another warm sip of my drink, inhaling the coffee aroma. “That’s what I was thinking. I mean, it would be a bit of a coincidence, the letters and now this, right?”
    “So, the stalker was going after Mia and got Veronika by mistake?”
    “It makes sense. It was late at night, dark. Chances are, the guy probably came at her from behind. I