No clue. The voice was so distorted I couldn’t even be sure it was male. It was deep, but that could easily have been manipulated by whatever machine he/she had used to make it sound like I was getting a threat from Stephen Hawking.

While the Informer had an entire file of nasty reader letters to the editor, some that even bordered on terrorist manifestoes, this was the first time I had personally received anything this weird. Granted, every now and then I got an irate call from someone’s publicist, but generally Hollywood operated on the theory that there was no such thing as bad publicity. Celebs usually started worrying when they stopped showing up in our paper.

As soon as the message ended, I hit the save button and crossed the newsroom to Felix’s office. I knocked softly on the door before pushing it open.

Felix looked up from the blonde, his gaze slowly shifting from her “girls” to me.

“Tina?” he asked.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I started. Then took my first real look at the new interviewee. She was just as much the sorority girl up close as she was from across the room. Big blue eyes, gooey pink lip gloss, mouth in a permanent sexy pout. And a shirt that was at least a size too small. She looked like she was smuggling cantaloupes under her top.

And, I noticed as I gave her the up and down, she did the same thing back to me.

“Did you need something, Tina?” Felix asked.

“Uh, I need to speak with you.”

“About?”

“Something’s come up.”

“What kind of something?” Felix prompted.

“A phone call,” I hedged, not sure how much I wanted to say in front of Barbie.

“From?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What did they say?”

I glanced at the blonde again. “Um…any chance we could discuss this in private?”

Felix shook his head. “Sorry, where are my manners? Allie, this is Tina Bender, our gossip columnist. Tina, Allie Quick. Our newest reporter.”

I raised an eyebrow his way. Seriously? He’d hired the pair of tits?

“Nice to meet you,” Allie said, extending a hand.

Reluctantly, I shook it. Her grip was firm, though my hand came away smelling like some sort of peachy lotion.

“Allie will be taking over as field reporter,” Felix went on. “Covering my old beat.”

“Fabulous.” I swear I really tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I gave Barbie a week before she realized this job involved actual work, not just cozying up to Christian Bale.

“What was this call you got?” Felix asked.