Murder among the Stars by Adam Shankman & Laura L. Sullivan

Author:Adam Shankman & Laura L. Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Fourteen

Knock it off, van der Waals. This means nothing. Just keep your head down and walk. One foot, then the other. But if I see that lousy thug touch her one more . . . No, focus on the crime. What is it Mugsy used to say? Keep your head in the game, not on the dame? This is just a moment. One extremely aggravating moment. I’ll be fine. She loves me. Doesn’t she? But what if she’s just playing me? I told you! Knock it off! Nothing happened. Nothing except that lowlife criminal pulled my girl out of the jaws of death and I wasn’t there to do a thing about it. But that’s the past. Just keep walking. You have a job to do.

Freddie grimaced numbly as he strode away from the woman he loved, forcing himself with every fiber of his being to not offer her anything resembling a backward glance. When there was any question of a moral right or wrong, he always knew the answer. What’s more, he was always able to do the right thing, no matter how difficult it was. Where honor was concerned, there was never any disconnect between what he should do and what he did.

That wasn’t the case now. He knew in his heart that he was being petty, unreasonable, and small. He knew he should turn right around, take Lulu in his arms, and apologize for being such an ass. Why did he want to beat Sal to a pulp, then throw Lulu over his shoulder and carry her away? This was all pure ego and irrational foolishness. This insane jealousy had to stop. This was not a self he recognized, or could take any pride in.

But somehow he couldn’t help himself. Even while he yearned to go back to her and make things right, he found he couldn’t. It was some sickening remnant of the rich man he’d once been, the man who was so far above everything. Like a child throwing a tantrum, he knew he was doing the wrong thing, hurting Lulu and himself with his petty childishness, but he felt that if he ever saw Lulu in Sal’s arms again, plain and simple, he would kill him. That was too much emotion for Freddie, so he needed to just keep walking. For now he needed to focus on his job.

Waters and Hearst need me, he repeated to himself over and over again.

Only, that brought him around to Lulu again. He’d come looking for her to talk through his new suspicions about the blackmail. It was a disturbing notion, but he couldn’t quite shake it, and he’d wanted to get Lulu’s opinion before he broached the idea with his boss. He didn’t relish the thought of telling Hearst that the most logical prime suspect was, in fact, Marion Davies herself.

Marion had access to all of Hearst’s secrets and was the only person with unhindered entrée to Hearst’s private office at all hours, and to everywhere else in the castle.

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