A Very Woodsy Murder by Ellen Byron

Author:Ellen Byron [Byron, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2024-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Fueled by nervous energy, Dee woke up early. She decided to capitalize on this with a hike on a popular trail in the Studio City hills.

After throwing on workout clothes, Dee left the she shed. On her way to the car, she stopped to peek into her dad’s house. All was still, which she expected. Sam had never been an early riser, as opposed to Sibby, who confounded husband and daughter with her morning zip and boundless cheer.

Dee continued to her Honda. She climbed in, backed out of the driveway onto the street, and started toward the trail. She noticed that the few older homes still standing on the block had a dispirited look to them, as if resigned to their fate as teardowns. There was more activity in the McMansion driveways, where young moms in yoga togs were strapping sleepy children into car seats for the drive to school.

Dee’s hike got off to a bad start with a fifteen-minute wait for a spot in the small lot that offered the trail’s only parking option. Tired of finding used diapers on their lawns and being woken up by fanatical fitness coaches screaming at their boot camp hiker clients, the residents of the celebrity-riddled surrounding neighborhood had instituted permit parking, effectively banning day trippers from the environs.

After she finally scored a spot, Dee began the steep climb that constituted the trail’s initial approach. The first ten minutes were strenuous in the extreme, but then the dirt path leveled out to a more gradual climb. With scrubby vegetation and few trees to provide shade, there was no escaping the Southern California sun beating down on Dee, and she found herself missing the thick woods and deep green of Foundgold.

A few women hiking together outpaced her on the trail. As they disappeared around the bend, she heard one of them say to the other, “A couple million doesn’t cut it anymore.” Dee considered this. The hiker wasn’t wrong, at least when it came to living the good life in Los Angeles. The comment was particularly true of the showrunner circles where Michael Adam Baker aspired to travel. Dee felt surer than ever that the TV writer’s desperate attempt at story theft was financially motivated.

She finished the hike with much huffing and puffing and vows to exercise more, once she returned home. Home, she thought. That’s what Foundgold is to me now. The realization made her happy. She headed back to the she shed, where she showered and changed into an outfit of black leggings, black ankle booties, and a drapey purple tunic top.

Dee got to the coffee shop, where Pria had asked to meet, right on time. She snagged the one table not occupied by people on laptops hogging a spot for the day. A woman in her late twenties entered and glanced around. She was petite, with fine features, and glossy black hair, which hung past her shoulders. Even though Pria was obviously of East Indian descent, she reminded Dee of Liza.

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