“Christ,” Felix swore, running a hand through his unruly mop of hair. “No one tells me anything anymore.”

“There’s really nothing to tell,” I protested. “I mean, they hardly even touched anything.”

“That true?” Felix asked over my shoulder.

Again Cal’s eyes bopped between Felix and me. Only this time he shook his head in the negative.

Great. Thanks a lot.

“Alright, I want all the details.” Felix crossed his arms over his chest. “What happened, Bender?”

So, I told him. Which wasn’t much. The door had been forced. Nothing taken, that I could tell, everything trashed.

“It was just a warning,” I said, repeating what Cal had said the night before. “I’m fine.”

Felix didn’t answer, just stared, that vein pulsing double-time.

“But you can see how I’ve been a little preoccupied this morning.”

“Which is exactly why you should hand this whole thing over to the cops and do your job.”

I bit my lip. “I have two more days.”

“Right. Two days, in which Allie will be running with the Pines headline.”

“But—”

“Unless you’ve got another lead…?”

I bit my lip, watching my career flash before my eyes in one blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Barbie blur. “Murder!” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

This time three heads whipped my direction, all with matching eyebrows-to-the-ceiling expressions.

“Murder?” Cam asked.

I nodded vigorously. “Max said one of the kid’s costars on the film died last month. Jake Mullins.”

“Jake Mullins.” Felix mulled over the name. “I thought he died of an overdose.”

“Sleeping pills,” I conceded. “But what if it wasn’t an accident? What if it was murder? What if it has to do with Pines and the kid? Maybe Mullins saw something inappropriate, and Pines silenced him?” Talk about reaching. Even I was aware that was a whole lot of “if”s. But at the moment, I was ready to invent any story to save my front-page slot.

Felix gave me a long, hard look. Then finally, “Run with it.”

I felt a grin break out across my face.

“On it, chief!” I said with a mock salute. I turned to go.

“And, Bender,” Felix called.

I turned around.

“Swear Pig. That was at least fifty cents.”

As soon as I got back to my desk, I divested my purse of the quarters and popped them in the ceramic pig. Then put in a call to a source at the morgue. Just because the official word was “accident,” that didn’t mean foul play couldn’t have been involved. If there was even the slightest chance Mullins had been killed on purpose, I needed to know. I left a message with my favorite former reality show contestant turned morgue technician, then pulled open a search engine, ready to track down my next lead.

“He’s right, you know.”

I turned to find Cal hovering just over my shoulder.

“Right about what?”

“The police.”

I sighed. Et tu, Cal?