Jeopardy in High Heels (High Heels #12) - Gemma Halliday Page 0,19

and like she didn't care much for Dog's music, killing him just to win felt over the top even for a soap star.

But if the lethal poison had been deliberately put into the energy drink Dog had been sipping at the taping, that killer must have had access to the drink. Which meant they must have been on the set that day.

I thought back to the taping. While there'd been tons of crew, I couldn't think of why they'd kill a random contestant. Though, Dog's family had been there—his son and the son's girlfriend. Angela had mentioned Aunty Mae stopping by Dog's dressing room too. There was also the network exec, Rupert Blick, who'd argued with Dog at the taping. Both Angela and I had witnessed it. In fact, Blick had seemed angry at Dog practically from the moment he'd stepped onto the sound stage. At the time I'd assumed it was just a producer frustrated with a loose-cannon of a celebrity. But now…I wondered.

I also wondered how much of all this to share with Tina. So far, everything Ramirez had told me could only serve to confirm her theories—not dispel her idea that a contestant had wanted Dog out of the picture.

I pulled out my phone as I got back into my car and called Dana's number. It rang four times before she finally picked up.

"Hey, Maddie," she said, sounding sort of breathless.

"Hi. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"No. Sorry, I was just waiting for a call from Ricky."

"Is he still in Australia?" Her husband, Ricky Montgomery, was also an actor, and he'd been filming his latest movie in the land down under. Production on Road to Oz, a modern-day Wizard of Oz retelling, had already gone two weeks over, and I knew Dana was desperate to be on the same continent as him again.

"For at least another week," she said. "He got bit by a kangaroo he was working with, and they're trying to find a replacement. For the kangaroo, that is. It's not easy to find trained ones."

"I didn't know you could even train kangaroos."

"Yeah, well, apparently some are more well trained than others. As Ricky found out the hard way."

"Ouch."

"Anyway, what's up?" she asked.

"Are you on set today? On the studio lot?"

"Yeah, but we're wrapping up for the day soon. I'm just shooting our last scene in a couple of minutes. Why?"

"There's someone on the lot I wanted to talk to." I quickly filled her in on Fernando's plight, Marco and me crashing Tina's interview, and my subsequent chat with Ramirez. "It actually sounds like Tina could be right. That Doggy Z was murdered," I finished.

"Whoa," Dana said, appropriately floored by that revelation. "But not by a contestant, right?"

"I doubt it." I shook my head even though she couldn't see me. "Angela and Fernando were the only contestants on the set that day, and I don't see Angela killing Dog just to win. But we did see Dog argue with Rupert Blick just before the taping started."

Dana sucked in a breath. "That's right! Rupert seemed to yell at him at the break too. When Dog threw the buzzer into the audience." She paused. "You think he had something to do with Dog's death?"

"I think I'd like to talk to him before I hand Tina her homicide story. At least it would give her some other avenues for her story that don't lead to Fernando. Any chance we could get in to see him today?"

"Maybe. I think he has an office in the Bob Hope building. I could call a guest pass to the front gate for you if you want to meet me here in, like, an hour?"

"Sounds perfect."

Gunshots fired in the background. "Sorry, I've gotta go," Dana said. "Charlotte Benson's about to take down an entire Mafia group in a shootout."

"They're not actually letting you fire a gun, are they?"

"Just blanks," she said. Then added, "I'm pretty sure."

CHAPTER SIX

An hour later, I'd given my name to the sentry at the front gates to the studio lot and was directed to park in a structure to the right of the sound stages. By the time I walked to the Charlotte's Angels set, I spied Dana in a red latex jumpsuit talking to a couple of guys in pinstriped suits holding fake (one could hope) machine guns. As soon as she spotted me, she waved me over.

"Hey! We just wrapped. Good timing." She waved goodbye to the guys in suits as they headed to the