had been, too. The fairy tale ended, though, and I was back in real life, but like Alice tumbling down that rabbit hole, the experience changed me, getting a taste of how my life could be.
Zac and I were meeting Russell Bleaker, the producer who had worked on a few movies with Katrina. I hadn’t gotten a chance to look him up, but I was grateful for the touch of excitement at meeting him because, since returning from Antigua, I’d been hard-pressed to even smile.
We met him in Chinatown, which surprised me because he was a Hollywood man, so the Plaza seemed more his thing, but the place he picked made a great General’s chicken. Considering how the man ate, he was trim. Had to be pushing seventy, with a thick head of white hair and startling green eyes. He was handsome, and in his day would have stopped traffic. He’d still cause a few fender benders now.
“This is delicious,” he said, helping himself to more chicken. “You want info on Jason. He was an odd one,” Russell said, pointing his chopstick at me. “I didn’t care for him. The charm was surface deep only. And though I couldn’t prove it, not only was he using, I think he was dealing, too.”
“Wait, what,” I said.
“Yeah, arrogant prick. He held Katrina on a very short leash, while behind her back, he was partying and doing drugs on her dime.”
Zac leaned back in his chair. “Well, shit. And Katrina?”
“She was a beautiful soul who got eaten up by the power and greed around her. It’s sad to say, but she’s in a better place.”
“As a producer, you must have worked with Milton Teller,” Zac questioned.
“No. I knew of him, but I never met him because Jason was so active in Katrina’s career.” Russell put his chopsticks down, leveled us with a hard stare. “Jason Benjamin was a dirt bag. He didn’t just do drugs; he fucked around on her. He was a playboy and got away with it because he could be so damn charming. Katrina worked hard and that fucker enjoyed the fruits of her labor. I never understood why she didn’t shake him off. There were men in the wings just waiting for a chance. It was like she felt beholden to him, and maybe he helped make her who she was, but that shit only has so long a shelf life.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I hate that she took her life, but I’m not surprised that she did.” He reached for his chopsticks again. “The only silver lining to her tragedy was Jason crawling back to whatever hole he came from.” Then he smiled. “As you can tell, I wasn’t a fan.”
Later that day, Zac sat on my desk. “Jason was dealing. Was that the plan from the beginning, to get into the circle of the rich and famous?”
“So how did Jason and Katrina meet?” I asked.
“And why did her parents do nothing? If Russell saw it, and he only worked with Katrina during filming, how did her parents, who still keep a shrine to her, not know her fiancé was doing shady shit, shit that, if caught, would blowback on Katrina?”
I shook my head. “Good question. And how does this play into the murders? If at all?”
Zac blew out a breath. “I have no fucking idea.”
A week after returning from Antigua and I was exhausted. My attempt to work Kade out of my system wasn’t working because every night, when my head hit the pillow, he was there. He was haunting me. As the days past, the stronger the urge was to track him down and knock some sense into him because what had started between us was worth fighting for. If I wasn’t so fucking tired, I might have actually followed through on the conversation I’d repeated countless times in my head.
I hadn’t yet seen him since we’d been home, but I knew that wouldn’t last. Part of me didn’t want to see him because who wanted to confront the one they wanted but couldn’t have, but another part of me sought him out in crowds. It was poetic that when I did see him again, I was on the job, moonlighting with the vice division, staking out a popular spot for some of the city’s biggest crime bosses.
I recognized the car that pulled up to the curb before Levy climbed out. He opened the back door and offered his hand. A long