While you wait for Book 3 in the Unscripted Detective Mysteries, check out the first book in the series, Curtains for the Condo Casanova.
Kitty let the next two days pass without pushing Marla to join her in more of her current activities, sparing her learning the tango at a ballroom dance class and painting a pitcher in Kitty’s ceramics class. She hadn’t gone far because the community room at Rambling Meadows accommodated a myriad of offerings. Other undertakings like horticulture were offered in the greenhouse and other outbuildings behind the complex owned by the Rambling Family that condo residents were allowed to use.
Marla used Kitty’s absences to settle into her room, order out for her special comfort food - seedless white grapes, chips and French onion dip - and schedule a massage at a nearby spa.
The quiet time was a godsend. Many diverse and difficult thoughts had bombarded her lately. To get past licking her wounds, she needed to sort them out and rid herself of as many nonessentials as she could. In a way, the book club encounter had served as a diversion, which she needed right then. But now she had to focus on where she was headed the rest of her life.
She also checked in with both her manager, Jayne Yarmouth, and her agent, Deidre Mansfield. Jayne was the one who’d counseled her to get away from the LA scene for a while. Deidre, who should’ve been busy finding her new projects the last few months, had conveniently gone AWOL. She probably should be fired, but Marla sensed that’s what Deidre wanted, and she didn’t plan to give in to her. She half suspected Deidre knew about the producers’ plan to replace her long before she knew.
Kitty returned a little after two. “Why are the police here? A van marked Crime Scene Unit, which I saw when I left, is still parked out front. The army of technicians in blue onesies is gone, but they left behind that telltale yellow tape.”
“What? Police were on the premises? I had no idea.” She hadn’t gone near the balcony all day or she might have seen what was happening.
“Sounds like I need to do some reconnaissance around the building,” Kitty said, heading for the door. “I’ll start next door with Tom Casey.”
Her hand barely touched the doorknob when knocking sounded on the other side.
Must be someone who lived in the building; an outsider would’ve had to ring for entrance.
Marla opened the door, and Scottie rushed in. “They think I did it,” she announced dramatically as she flounced around the room. “Me. I’d never hurt a fly.”
“Come sit down and tell us what has you so worked up,” Marla said, gently guiding the woman to the sofa.
Though she sat, Scottie shook her head back and forth as if that action would make whatever had happened go away. “It’s Drake,” she managed to get out, her voice more a cry.
“Drake?” Marla asked, trying to recall if she’d met someone by that name yet.
“Elliot,” Scottie mumbled. “Drake Elliot. He’s dead.”
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