“Oh . . .” I was a little deflated. I always forgot that I got a little more excited than most people about murdered wives and missing female accountants. “She left work at her usual time, but she never made it home to her apartment in Studio City. That’s less than a ten-minute car ride home. You really wouldn’t think you could get in trouble driving such a short way home.” I tucked the towel tighter around my chest. “I’m always looking to the news for ideas, and this may come in handy this week. We could change this up a little bit and make it part of the B story of an upcoming show.”

“Wow . . . you really are into that stuff. Well, I’m glad that you’re focused and that it seems to be going so great.” He seemed impressed.

“Yeah, thanks.” Ouch, that came off a little more abruptly than I thought it would. I didn’t mean to cut him off.

“Well, besides checking in on your writing, I wanted to know if you were busy later this weekend. It would be great to get dinner again.”

“Yeah . . . it would,” I gulped out. I wondered if the lesbian had canceled and that was why he was calling me, second-position girl.

“So how ’bout tomorrow night? We won’t go to sushi this time, I promise.”

So she did cancel. “You noticed I didn’t eat much?” I teased.

“You hardly touched a thing, and you looked a little sick when you had some of my sashimi. I didn’t want to give you a hard time because I was trying to impress you . . . and it left more food for me.”

There he was, being so cute again. I could hear the smile in my voice when we arranged when and where to meet. I would never give away to him that I was free on a Saturday night that was less than twenty-four hours away, so we made the date for the following Wednesday night at Musso’s. I told him I would meet him there. I didn’t ever let guys come to my place until after a few dates. I knew they could really tell a lot about you from your place and there was plenty I was still trying to hide.

Hanging up, I threw myself naked across my bed and bounced up and down a few times, as if someone had just asked me to the prom. I thought about inventing some sort of sexual disease that was plaguing the lesbian community. I could say I had read about it for the show. Maybe I could bring this up casually over dinner.

Later that night, I was online checking my e-mail and I felt the pull . . . I clicked onto Amazon.com.