“How about just the number? Can you at least give me that? Please, Jeff. Little Bobby deserves a real family.” Even if my story was utter crap, the desperation in my voice was real. This was the best lead—scratch that, only lead—I had on Mystery Caller’s identity.

I think maybe it was the “real family” bit that got him, as his voice dropped to just above a whisper, and he said, “When did the call take place?”

I did a mental “squeee!” and said, “Last night. Eleven thirty p.m. to this number.”

I heard the sound of a keyboard clacking in the background. “I’m really not supposed to be doing this,” Jeff repeated.

“You are doing me such a favor. In fact, I’m thinking Jeffery would make a fine middle name for Bobby, huh?”

“Okay, I’ve got one call logged, coming in at eleven thirty-two.”

“That’s it! And the number?”

Jeff took a deep breath, and I could almost feel him looking over both shoulders for hovering supervisors before he rattled off the digits.

“You are the best, Jeff!” I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote the number down. An L.A. area code, I noticed. When he was finished, I promised him that he’d be mentioned at little Bobby’s bris and hung up the phone.

Immediately, I dialed the number. It rang on the other end. And again. Fifteen rings into it, I gave up.

Instead, I pulled up a reverse lookup directory on my computer and typed the number in.

Bingo.

The number came back as being owned by PW Enterprises.

I pulled up a Google screen and typed in the name. Not surprising, about a million hits came up, ranging from mortgage brokers to used car dealers. I bit my lip, narrowing the search to L.A. County. What do you know, only half a million hits this time. I mentally cracked my knuckles, going in deep for a serious webcrawling session.

Two hours and several dozen webpages later, I was bug-eyed, brain-dead, and no closer to identifying what PW was, let alone who there might not be my number one fan.

“You get the tip on Blain Hall?”

I looked up to find Cam hovering over my desk.

“The drugs in rehab?” I asked, struggling to focus as my eyes adjusted from squinting at the computer monitor.

She nodded. “Felix is sending me over to snap a few pics of Blain through the rehab windows to run next to your story. Got a headline yet?”

“DIRTY DOG TAKES REHAB AS SERIOUSLY AS CRITICS TAKE HIS SAPPY BALLADS.”