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tell me what happened.”
    “I don’t... I can’t... just forget it, I’m hanging up now.”
    Claudia sighed inwardly. Kelly after a few cocktails could do drama better than Meryl Streep. “Don’t hang up, Kel; just tell me what’s wrong; everything’s going to be okay.”
    Famous last words.
    Kelly began weeping convulsively, big, heaving sobs. “I... oh my God. Claudia... I think I killed Lindsey.”

Chapter 7
    Claudia stared at the phone as if it had suddenly taken on a life of its own. “What the hell are you talking about? She committed suicide, remember?”
    “You don’t know what happened. I’m so... so scared.”
    Something in Kelly’s voice warned Claudia not to blow this off as her usual run-of-the-mill theatrics. “Just tell me what happened,” she repeated gently, feeling like a therapist. “Start at the beginning.”
    Through the phone, she could hear glass clinking on glass. Kelly, pouring another martini. Extra dry, two olives.
    Claudia paced the room, pausing at the open door that led out to the deck. Autumn in California was fire season, and smoke from a blaze twenty miles up the coast in Malibu had painted a stunning sunset of feathery pink-and-gold fingers on the evening sky.
    Kelly began to speak in a shaky voice. “It started last month. Remember that guy I was seeing, Sean?”
    It would take a score-card to keep up with Kelly’s dates. Tearing her gaze away from the scenery, Claudia made herself concentrate, replaying conversations they’d had over the past few weeks. Kelly liked them young, she was fond of saying, so she could train them. Was Sean the one who resembled Orlando Bloom, or Jason Patric? “Sean’s the actor, right? He plays a doctor on Tender is the Night? ”
    “Well, yeah,” Kelly said, as if Claudia should have known. “I had to dump him.”
    “And, this is connected to Lindsey’s death how, exactly?”
    “Wait, I’m getting there. The week before Lindsey... died, Sean and I went to Busby’s for drinks. We’re at the bar and lo and behold, she shows up.”
    Claudia knew the club. Popular with the upwardly mobile Westside singles crowd, Busby’s boasted go-go girls, pool tables, and abundant couches on which to snuggle, if that was what you were looking for.
    “So, what happened?”
    “I might as well have been invisible. She was on him like a bitch in heat; kept leering at his crotch.”
    For a millisecond, Claudia had the urge to ask what was so special about Sean’s crotch, but she thought better of it and let Kelly continue her story.
    “She never would have looked at him twice if he hadn’t been with me. Why was she like that, Claud? She could have ten guys crawling all over her, but if she saw me with someone, she’d go after him instead.” The bitterness in Kelly’s voice brought back their conversation at the gravesite. Hatred had sprouted like a prickly shrub and was bursting into full, thorny bloom.
    “Sounds like insecurity to me,” Claudia offered, thinking of Preston Summerfield, and Earl Nelson’s repulsive photo gallery. But Kelly knew nothing of that. “Insecurity my ass. I got her into the ladies room. Told her to keep her goddamn hands off this one. I said, ‘I’ve had enough of you fucking up my life.’”
    Kelly’s anger dissolved into sobs. “Like always, she thought it was a big joke. Then she called him the next day and asked him out, Claud. And he told me about it. He was actually flattered! She told him she’d introduce him to Spielberg. Like that was ever gonna happen.”
    “Creep,” Claudia agreed automatically, wishing Kelly had more discriminating taste in men.
    Look who’s talking. Like you’ve done any better .
    “That bitch had more balls than a two-pecker billy goat. Can you believe she’d go after him like that?”
    “We’re talking about Lindsey, here.”
    “God, I hated her.”
    “I get that, honey, but what makes you think you killed her?”
    “This isn’t easy, Claud. Gimme a minute.”