Not Famous in Hollywood (Not in Hollywood Book 1) (8 page)

Ramos left the room and the door closed
quietly.

“
What’
s your real problem with
doing this?” he asked perfectly calmly as if destroying my life was
nothing to him.

“
My real
problem” I hissed. I couldn’t believe he was being so obtuse. “You
know perfectly well I was only trying to break them up before
someone got hurt. I didn’t even know you were behind me. I got
grabbed and I reacted. Now because of that you are threatening to
destroy my life. I thought cops were supposed to be the good guys.”
I could feel the tears pricking my eyes and I blinked furiously to
stop them.

He put his hand over mine gently. “We are the
good guys, I just need a way in.”

I snatched my
hand away from him. “Don’t touch me” I said with as much venom as I
could muster. “I’ll do this but only because I don’t have a choice.
I don’t want you touching me at all. You can tell yourself that
you’re doing the right thing all you want but underneath it all,
you and I both know that the way you are doing this is completely
wrong. Once this case is finished how do I know that you won’t
still press charges?”

“
I give you
my word that I won’t press charges” Griffin said.

“Strangely enough your honor is not something
I am particularly inclined to trust at the moment” I said
derisively.

Griffin flinched and it felt good to have got
at least one point on him. “Look” he said angrily. “Ryan Hendricks
died of a cardiac arrest.”

“If he died of a heart attack, why the hell
do you need me?” I asked.

“
A week ago
Ryan Hendricks had a full medical exam for insurance for a movie
he’s doing. At that time his heart was perfectly healthy. It
doesn’t add up. Something happened in the last week that killed
him. I need to find out what that was. There’s a possibility that
there is a new drug on the street that we can’t detect. We are
getting stonewalled from every side. No one is talking and we don’t
have enough to force them to talk. This is the only way we have any
chance of finding out what happened.”

“You could have asked me before threatening
to destroy my life” I said.

“Would you have done it?” he asked.

“
We
won’
t know now will we?” I
said.

“
I’m not the
bad guy here” Griffin said angrily.

“Sitting on this side of the desk” I said,
“yes you are.”

Ramos poked her head in. “Her attorney is
here” she said quietly.

“
That’
s okay” said Griffin. “She’s
free to go.” Ramos handed over my bag.

“
I’ve
programmed my number into your cell” Griffin said. “You need to let
me know when the next event is.”

As I walked past him he grabbed my arm. “Do
you understand what I am telling you?” he said.

“Yes” I replied dully, pulled my arm away and
walked towards Reggie.

Seeing my face Reggie knew not to say
anything. Gently he led me out to his car, settled me in the
passenger seat and then turned to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I turned to him. “I’m fine” I said and in one
of my not proud moments I burst into tears.

Dear, sweet
Reggie didn’t ask anything else, he just wrapped his arms around me
and let me sob on his shirt. I was scared and overwhelmed and right
in that moment I just needed someone else to take care of me. In
between hiccupping sobs, I told Reggie what had
happened.

“I’m taking you to Monique” said Reggie.

“My car is still at Eleanor’s” I said.

“
Give me the
keys and I’ll get someone to pick it up and deliver it to your
home” he said. “I think the three of us need to sit down and work
out what we're going to do.”

“I have a deal with the detective” I said.
“There’s nothing I can do.”

“
Then we work
our way around
that. Don’t worry Trudie”
Reggie said with his trademark confident grin. “We won’t let
anything happen to you.”

Sitting around Monique’s desk having an
impromptu picnic I started to feel better.

“So how do we get out of this?” I asked
helping myself to some Thai food.

Luckily for me Monique believes in feeding
her people something other than salad. She thinks we need the
strength.

“
On the
surface of it, there is nothing we can do” said Reggie. “According
to the letter of the law you struck a police officer. He now has a
black eye so technically he is within his rights to press charges.
I’ve seen cops do it for less. You pull out of this deal and he
could just charge you. If you get convicted you lose your visa and
you have a felony conviction on your record. I would of course
defend you and I am good.” No false modesty there. “But I can’t
give you a complete guarantee that you would get off. Sometimes
things don’t go the way they are supposed to.”

So, just like I thought. I was screwed.

“
Cops use
this kind of leverage all the time. They’ll give you a lesser
charge if you give them information. This is a little bit unusual
but it’s the same concept.”

“
My problem”
I said, “is that at this stage they have nothing to say that Ryan
Hendricks died of anything other than a heart attack. If that’s
true they could be chasing this for ages. How long am I going to be
stuck pretending this guy is my boyfriend?”

“
That’
s where I come in” said
Reggie. “We’ll go back to the station and organize for this deal to
be put in writing with full immunity for you if you cooperate. We
will put a time limit on it of a few weeks or as little time as we
can get.”

Looking at
Monique all I felt was guilt. This was her business and I was
royally messing it up.

“
I am so
sorry Monique” I said with my eyes lowered. “As soon as this is
done I will quit and you won’t be hassled by my problems
again.”

“
Shh
, ma petite” she said, her
hand cupping my jaw as she raised my eyes to look at hers. “You
think this is the worst situation that any of my people have got
themselves into. We work in an industry of temptation. Believe me,
you are exactly the kind of person I want to keep. In an
environment where anything goes you have remained true to yourself.
You are exactly the person that I saw that first day. A sea of calm
in the middle of chaos, doing the right thing. You are still doing
the right thing. You are just in a bad situation at the
moment.”

“
Thanks
Monique” I said, tears in my eyes again. “I won’t let you down, and
the second this causes you any problems I’ll quit and deal with the
consequences myself.”

Once the decision had been made as to what we
were doing next I felt better. I held onto that little piece of
happiness when Reggie and I were back in the interrogation room
sitting across from Griffin and Ramos. Ramos looked interested in
the conversation but I could tell that Griffin was furious. Reggie
outlined that I would not be doing anything without an iron clad
guarantee that provided me with immunity from the assault charges
against me.

“
I already
told her that I wouldn’t press charges if she helped us” Griffin
ground out.

“
Yes I know
you did” said Reggie. “Unfortunately my client’s belief in the
justice system in this country has taken quite the knock today. She
wants to have this agreement signed off by someone other than the
man blackmailing her.”

Ouch
, I thought. That’s got to
have hurt and I could see from the way Griffin’s face tightened
that he wasn’t too impressed with that comment. I was kind of
hoping that Reggie’s need to needle Griffin about his tactics
weren’t going to get me into more trouble.

“
I spoke to
the District Attorney when you called and we have an agreement”
Ramos said.

“
Detective
Griffin will take you into another room to finalize negotiations Mr
Goodman. I will stay in here with Miss Eyre until you’re ready to
sign it.”

Reggie got up and followed Griffin out of the
room leaving me sitting there with Detective Ramos.

“
You know,
he’
s not happy about having to do this
with you” she said.

“He seems fine with it to me” I replied, not
feeling very sympathetic at the moment.

“
He’
s a good guy but we’re
fighting a losing war at the moment. Between budget cuts and
attorneys getting in the way of absolutely everything. In this town
money and prestige talk a lot of the time. We haven’t been able to
get near Eleanor Channing and Emily Saunders. How the hell are we
supposed to do our job?” She sounded frustrated.

“
So
victimizing the one person in this picture who is completely
innocent but just hasn’t a way to fight back is the way to go.
You’re going to try to convince me that that is the right thing to
do?” I asked.

“
No I’m not”
she sighed. “All I’m saying is give him a chance. He doesn’t
deserve to have you hate him.”

“I have no reason not to hate him at the
moment” I replied.

“Did you know we have cameras in the parking
area?” she said softly. “We saw you lose it in the car with your
lawyer.”

Great, just another humiliation to add to my
already lousy day. I sat there stony faced unwilling to answer.

“
I know him
and I know it hurt him to see you like that. He’s a good man, we’re
just in an untenable position right now. I’m kind of hoping that
you are strong enough to deal with it.”

The door
opened as Reggie and Griffin walked back in. I searched Griffin’s
face for any hint of the softness that Ramos was talking about. No,
nothing there. When he looked at me all I saw was a granite hard
jaw and ice in those green eyes. No nice guy there at all. A piece
of paper was placed in front of me. I looked expectantly at Reggie.
He didn’t seem as happy as I had hoped he would be.

“Trudie, this agreement provides you with
immunity from the police assault charge if you agree to provide
Detective Jake Griffin with the cover as your boyfriend for a
period of three months” Reggie said.

“Months” I spluttered, “but I thought it was
only supposed to be a few weeks.”

“The charge is a serious one” Griffin
interrupted. “It was felt this was a more equitable
arrangement.”

Definitely no nice guy there. I signed the
paperwork reluctantly but I knew I had no options. Once signed I
figured Griffin would at least show some sign of his victory but
his face gave no indication that he was feeling anything.

As Reggie and I got up to leave Griffin
turned to me. “I want to be invited to everything that you have a
plus one invite to” he said.

“
I’
ll call when they happen but it
is generally last minute” I said.

“
Doesn’t
matter, this case is a priority now. I’ll look forward to your call
sweetheart.” He winked at me and sauntered away.

Reggie didn’t
even look at me once as we made our way to the car. I didn’t say a
word until we were well clear of the station.

“He called me sweetheart Reggie” I said
through gritted teeth.

“Yes he did” Reggie replied.

“Are you trying not to smile?” I asked,
noting that he seemed to be fighting the curl on the corner of his
lips.

“
A little”
said Reggie. “I know you’re not happy about this situation but why
don’t we chalk it up to a character building exercise.”

“You think I need to work on my character?” I
asked.

“I’m not going to win, regardless of what I
say today am I?” asked Reggie.

“
No
you’
re not” I said. “I am in a truly
annoyed mood and I don’t need reasonable discussion. I need you to
say, ‘you are right Trudie, he’s an evil lowlife Trudie, you are by
far the better person Trudie’. If at any time you wish to veer from
that script you should just remain silent” I said feeling a little
bit resentful.

“Silence it is then” said Reggie, and so it
was all the way back home.

I
hadn’
t even made it through my front door
when my cell started ringing. It was Eleanor’s management again
demanding to know where I was. Once again I had to explain that due
to the actions of their client, I had spent most of the day as a
guest of LA’s finest.

“Never mind that” he interrupted. “We need
you to go back to Bliss and find out what was in the products they
used for Eleanor today.”

“Why do we need to know that?” I asked.

“
Eleanor’s
had a slight reaction to something that was used today. She’s still
at the hospital but they don't know what it is.”

“
What kind of
reaction?” I asked hoping my voice showed an appropriate level of
interest and concern.

“
At this
stage it just looks like a mild skin irritation, but if she’s
allergic to something we need to know what it is. We can’t risk her
having reactions when she’s working.”

“
It’s too
late to go tonight” I said knowing that he expected me to go back
to the spa after hours to demand answers from an empty building.
“I’ll go first thing in the morning.”

Dropping my bag on my couch I walked straight
into the shower to wash away what had turned out to be a completely
lousy day.