Free Death in Daytime by Eileen Davidson

thinking. It gives them comfort and makes them feel safe to put people and things in slots, whether they're the right ones or not. It's just easier for them to think it's you."
    "Thanks, Mom," I said, squeezing her hand. "You always say the right thing. Well, almost always." She made a face at me and I made one back, and we laughed. Chicks rule.
    That night, after my mother left and I finally got Sarah to bed, I turned on my laptop and checked my e-mails. Sure enough, there were two from Will. I opened the first and it was a long note. Alexis,
    I did a background check on Marcy Blanchard and found that she married a man named Henry Roswell twenty years ago, in New York. They had a daughter two years later. Then, when they got divorced two years ago, the husband got custody of the daughter. They all still live in California. The husband is in Malibu. His address and some personal history are at- tached. I also have some personal stuff about the daughter, which I'll send in a second e-mail. I hope all of this helps.
    Your friend,
    Will
    The "your friend" at the end endeared the kid even more to me.
    I managed to open the attached file without too much trouble. Sure enough, Henry Roswell's Malibu address was there, as well as some background on him. I fired up my printer and printed out the three pages.
    Then I opened the second e-mail. The daughter's name was Julia Roswell. She was seventeen and, apparently, wanted to be an actress. There were some stills online, and Will had copied them for me. I wondered if Marcy had been planning on doing anything to help her daughter break into the business. I printed out the file on the daughter. Since my printer didn't do color, the photos came out black-andwhite, but I knew from the ones on the screen that she was a blonde, and very pretty. She looked a little bit like her mother, who hadn't exactly been ugly. There were no photos of her father in the e-mail, but I imagined he was handsome and had passed those genes along to the girl.
    I took the printed pages and a cup of tea with me to my bedroom. I put them on the night table, then got myself ready for bed.
    Even as I slid between the sheets I could feel my eyes starting to close. I tried to drink the tea and read the pages, but damned if I didn't drift off to sleep without finishing either of them.

Chapter 16
    The next day, as I told my mother, I had two scenes with Sammy directing. I decided to put his words behind me and get on with the job so I could start being what I've always wanted to be--an amateur detective. I stuffed the pages Will had sent me into my bag, hoping to read them later. I decided to have my makeup done that morning by Linda; that way I'd have her cornered.
    "I don't get to work on you very much, Alex," she commented.
    "I'm lazy today, Linda. Besides, I'm supposed to look a little haggard--you know, dark circles under my eyes--and I can't quite muster up the courage to do that to myself."
    "Great," she said, "I have to make you look less than beautiful. I get all the hard jobs."
    "You're sweet," I said. "So, what have you heard about me killing Marcy?"
    She almost poked me in the eye with a mascara brush.
    "Alex!"
    "Oh, don't play coy with me, Linda. I've been hearing all the rumors." I'd already decided that my best course of action would be a straightforward one. Best offense, and all that.
    "First, I think it's horrible that she was killed,"
    Linda said. "Second, I don't believe for a minute that you did it."
    "Well, thank you very much for that vote of confidence," I said. "And third?" Isn't there always a third?
    "Third . . . I'm not sad that she's dead, and I guess that makes me a horrible person."
    "If you are, then you're a member of a big club," I said. "I guess no one liked poor Marcy."
    "That's because poor Marcy was a goddamned bitch," Linda said.
    So far I'd heard her called a bitch, and a "royal,"
    "true" and "goddamned" bitch. Everybody seemed to share the same basic opinion of her.
    "Wow!" I