My father’s husky, Jersey-accented voice catapults me back to the moment. “You okay, babycakes?”

I nod though I feel shaken. “Yeah, I was just thinking about that day.”

“It must have been hard on you.”

“Yeah, it was.” He has no idea.

“Do you remember anything unusual about it?”

I shake my head. “It was just like any day. Brandon went for a jog. I was doing errands.”

Pops takes a deep breath. “Can you think of anyone who would want Brandon Taylor dead?”

I rack my brain and shake my head again.

“A crazy fan? An ex-assistant? An employee? Someone who works on the show?”

“No, Pops. To the best of my knowledge, everyone worships him and he’s never been stalked.”

“What’s his manager Scott Turner like?”

“A total slime bucket.”

“A murderer?”

“No, Pops, he’s slimy in that icky slick Hollywood kind of way, but that’s about it. He’s been with Brandon since the beginning of his career. He’s the last person who would want Brandon dead. He’s all about Brandon. And Brandon, in return, treats him well.”

“How much do you think he makes?”

“Not sure, but probably a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. Plus, he gets hefty bonuses. Last Christmas, he bought himself a brand new Corvette thanks to Brandon.”

“What about Brandon’s fiancée, Katrina Moore?”

The mention of her name makes my stomach churn, and once more the repulsive image of her sucking him off flashes in my mind.

“She’s a piece of work, but again no murderer. I mean, she’s marrying a superstar. The sexiest man in the world. Something every woman in the world dreams of. If that was me, I sure wouldn’t want him dead.”

If that was me. I inwardly sigh. I don’t hold a candle to Katrina. She’s Hollywood royalty. Supermodel beautiful. America’s It Girl. She may be a bitch to me, but she’s the perfect woman for Brandon. Second thoughts bombard me—maybe, I should implicate the bitch. Get rid of her!

My father bites into the other half of his sandwich. “Sure you don’t want some?”

It looks so damn delicious. I’m mentally drooling, but I pass once again. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

My father swallows, but not before getting another mustard stain on his light blue shirt. Smiling with amusement, I hand him a paper napkin.

“Thanks, babycakes.” He swipes at the yellow blotch. “Your mother’s gonna kill me.”

I laugh while he asks me another question.

“Do you know Katrina well?”

I tell my dad just well enough to know she’s a bitch. Like Pops, I’m a straight shooter. I tell it like it is. Although I can’t say the same when it comes to my feelings about my boss.

He chuckles. “Was she involved with Brandon for a long time before getting engaged to him?”

“To be honest, I met her only once—shortly before Brandon’s accident—and then again at the hospital. Except for having me make restaurant and hotel room reservations for his hook-ups, he’s never shared his social life with me. I’ve usually found out about whom he’s seeing from the tabloids and online celebrity gossip sites.”

“Was Katrina one of his hook-ups?”

I shrug, gazing longingly at the sandwich. “I don’t know. People Magazine said it was love at first sight and a whirlwind romance.”

Pops takes another messy bite of his thick sandwich. “You know, you can’t always believe what you read.”

Pops is right, especially when it comes to the tabloids, which survive on blowing up celebrities’ lives even if it means feeding the gossip-hungry public utter bullshit. People Magazine is different. You can believe what you read in it, and I defend the periodical’s honor to my dad, the penultimate detective.

Pops chuckles again. “Your mom swears by People.”

I smile. That’s Auntie Jo for you. Like my brother Jeffrey, she’s a total celebrity hound. Brandon is number one on her list. She almost fainted when she saw that he was named People’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”

Pops wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, missing a crumb of bread on his upper lip. I reach across the desk and flick it off with a finger.

“Thanks, babycakes.” He washes the sandwich down with more of the root beer. “Have you ever watched her show?”

Opening my mouth, I point my index finger at it and feign barfing. “Once was enough. Ugh! It almost made me throw up. The only talent she has is being famous for being famous. Her spoiled rich girl antics make Paris Hilton look like Goldilocks.”

Pops picks up a piece of greasy pastrami that’s fallen onto his desk and stuffs it into his mouth. I wish I’d gotten to it first. My stomach rumbles.

“You know she’s not actually rich,” he says matter-of-factly.

My salivating eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

“She’s ten million dollars in debt. Maxed out on all her credit cards.”

“Wow! But aren’t her parents rich?”

“They used to be, but they’ve recently gone through tough times. Her father is serving time in prison for tax evasion and fraud. All his assets were seized by the feds. And his ex-wife Enid recently declared bankruptcy.”

I didn’t know this. “Did you learn anything more about Katrina?”

“Yes. She was sent to a mental institution right after high school.”

I’m surprised and not surprised. She is after all a psycho bitch. “What for?”

The hospital wouldn’t release any information to me. They gave me that damn doctor-patient privilege bullshit.”

“Maybe Chaz can give you some info. He told me Katrina stalked Blake Burns, the television executive, and drugged him.”

My father’s burly brows shoot up. He grabs a pen and writes himself a note on a yellow pad of paper. “I didn’t know that. I’ll definitely talk to him.”

“I’m sorry, Pops. I should have told you this earlier. I just found it out today.”

He scratches his full head of ebony hair. Lucky Pops, with his Irish ancestry, has not a single gray hair among them and he hasn’t lost a single strand. “So maybe she’s crazy enough to murder someone?”

“Honestly, Pops, I kind of hate her, but she’s definitely not a murderer. She’s totally in love with Brandon Taylor.”

“Do they fight?”

“I suppose they fight. All couples fight. And if you read the tabloids, celebrity couples seem to fight more than others.”

“Has she ever assaulted him?”

Other than groping him with her hands or attacking his cock with her mouth? Bile rises to my throat. I swallow it down before I say no.

With a deep breath, I compose myself. I need to end this line of questioning. I don’t want to think or talk about Katrina anymore. She makes me sick.

“Pops, you must know they’re getting married on national TV. On a special edition of her TV show in May. The wedding is going to make her a bigger household name than she already is. Send her ratings through the roof. And probably make her a shitload of money. And even if it doesn’t, why would she want to kill a man who can take care of her financially? Brandon’s loaded. He can wipe out her credit card debts and enable her extravagant lifestyle. I bet she’s already spending gobs of his money. Seriously, Pops, she’s as much a murderer as I am.” (Though truthfully, we’d both love to kill one another.)

Pops polishes off his sandwich and takes another glug of the root beer. “You’re probably right. I’m barking up the wrong tree.”

I smile. “Pops, has it ever crossed your twisted mind it was just someone driving through the neighborhood who accidentally ran Brandon over and then freaked out and took off? There are a lot of crazy drivers in the Hollywood Hills, and that’s not counting the ones who drink and do drugs all day long.”

Pops rakes his stubby fingers—the ones that have fired a gun—through his thick shiny hair. “You’re probably right. It’s just gonna be hard to find that person. Right after the accident, a city street sweeper came by and erased all tire tracks and footprints. We couldn’t even find a single hair to connect us to the suspect. We only have one clue.”