MISSY DEVEREAUX’S COTTAGE
MALIBU
TUESDAY NIGHT
Cam showered in Missy’s second bathroom, pulled on boxers and a T-shirt and snuggled down on the soft mattress Missy had replaced when she moved in, along with the old green wall-to-wall carpet. “I love my shiny new oak floor,” she’d said to Cam as she’d showed her around. “A new kitchen when I snag a good role. The fifty-year-old fridge and the green kitchen cabinets will be the first to go.”
It was a nice house, cozy, comfortable, and the mattress was heaven. Cam was tired and hyped up at the same time, but the beer and soaping up in a shower old enough to be on an I Love Lucy episode mellowed her enough to nod off.
She came awake at 7:00 a.m. at the loud horse-racing bugle ringtone of her cell. For a second, she didn’t know where she was, then remembered. “Wittier here.”
It was Supervisor David Elman, LAPD.
“Our Serial struck again, call came in twenty minutes ago, in Santa Monica. Another actress, Deborah Connelly, aged twenty-six. Fits the profile exactly. She was killed in her bed last night, her laptop and cell phone missing, according to her boyfriend, who found her.”
Cam closed her eyes, let it sink in. Another murder, and on her watch. It was a punch to the gut.
“Thank you for calling me so fast. I’ll be there in thirty-five minutes. Don’t let them touch anything, okay? We need a pristine crime scene.”
He was huffy about that, for good reason, but Cam didn’t care. She called Daniel, got an out-of-breath voice. “Yeah?”
“Cam here. Another murder.” And she gave him the address in Santa Monica. “I’ll see you there. Fast as you can, Daniel.”
She parked her rented Toyota at the sidewalk at Deborah Connelly’s condo thirty-one minutes later, Daniel pulling in right behind her. There were two patrol cars and two Crown Vics crowded in the driveway and at the curb.
When he joined her, Cam asked, “You were out of breath when I called. What were you doing?”
“I’d just come in from my morning run.”
He didn’t look like he was hungover from too much beer, and he’d gotten up early to run? He looked sharp in gray chinos, a blue blazer, and white shirt, boots on his big feet. She wanted to slug him.
“Do you know any of the people in the Santa Monica station?”
“Arturo Loomis, on the force for twelve years and counting, so lots of experience, and pretty smart. Your only problem with him is that he was married to a DEA agent who screwed him over big-time in their divorce. Maybe you’ll luck out and someone else took the call.”
She didn’t luck out.