Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 02 - Brilliant Actors Read Free Page A

led the guests toward the search and analysis area.
    Our neighbor, a famous rock band singer, inquired, “I wonder if we’re allowed to smoke in here?”  
    We shrugged and agreed aloud: “Could it get much worse?”  
    The singer offered Rip and me a cigarette. We declined, and he tried to light it with a Zippo that turned out to be empty.  
    “You got a light for me?”
    Rip held up his hands to indicate his non-smoker status.  
    I said, “I think I have an emergency matchbook somewhere, just a second,” and opened my small Vinci purse.
    And. Time. Stood. Still.
    Just like in a cartoon movie, I did a totally illogical and completely useless reality check loop. I closed and opened the purse once more in order to verify the visual outcome. Same as before. Outcome verified. Panic rising.
    Rip noticed my hesitation and blood-drained face and took a peek into the purse, too. Then my face grew beet red, my ears filled with blood-pressure-induced white noise, and my throat became dry and scratchy. Rip whistled nearly inaudibly, looked at me with a shocked expression, and then glanced around for the nearest policeman.
    In my purse lay Pretty McAllister’s million-dollar Van Winkel necklace.

CHAPTER FOUR

    Roars

    For the next half hour, nothing happened, except for some more media people arriving. Each newly arriving crew tried their luck with the police guards. Spotlights went up, interviews were attempted and met with utter silence from the cops. Then the spotlights went out, the crew moved back behind the line and set up their spotlights and reflectors to record a piece for the morning shows.
    But of course, something was up.  
    The secret was out after the first guests emerged from the estate and had to make their way past the reporters and cameras toward the valet service on the opposite side of the street. Most of Hollywood’s celebrities showed up in the steady trickle of people.  
    Peter Jamison had switched on the car radio and fiddled with the controls—and, of course, one of the local stations was covering the event live: a drug bust ongoing on at Swan Collins’ Academy Awards after-show party!  
    Finally Peter couldn’t hold back. “Aren’t we here for the jewels? Hollywood parties have lots of jewelry, you know. What are we doing at a celebrity drug bust?”
    Fowler at first gave no indication that he had heard the question, but after about ten seconds simply shrugged.  
    And then, as if on cue, one of the guests interviewed talked about Pretty McAllister’s missing necklace worth ten million dollars.
    Peter simply stared at Fowler. “Ten million dollars for a necklace?”  
    Fowler sighted. “One million. But that’s probably not enough for a good Hollywood story.”
    “But how did you know?”
    “Cats are pests,” Fowler muttered.

CHAPTER FIVE

    An Unexpected Customer

    Basically it all began with a good unexpected sale one week earlier. I was crafting away in my little workshop in the back of my shop, the Moonstone, and could tell immediately that something was wrong in the front store. Usually, after the soothing bling-blings of the door wind chimes announced a new customer, my useless but charming New Wave shop assistant Mrs. Otis started yapping away with her typical mixture of sales pitch and customer ignorance. But not this time. The chimes tinkled, and a hushed silence drifted over to my workbench.  
    I looked around the corner and saw the reason for the non-commotion. Mrs. Otis was sitting timidly on the bar chair behind the counter, staring transfixed at the beautiful woman that was browsing the displays together with a bored man and a handbag-fitting white dog that was prone to develop rat-envy. The woman was actress Nicole Berg, the man at her side star photographer Allan Sturgis, and the dog was Brutus; it always paid to read People magazine. Nicole Berg came over to Mrs. Otis, studied her for a second to see whether she was for real, and asked her if she could try out a