I followed Hollyridge Drive all the way up, winding my way carefully through the small streets and parked cars. I stopped in front of 2430 Hollyridge Drive and then decided to pull up a bit so I was a couple of houses up from her place.

I could see she had a high wood fence around her property. It was probably a security thing; I guessed her business managers and agents told her it would be dangerous for someone of her star-on-the-rise stature to be left exposed to the street.

I walked past the garage that housed the cherry red Mercedes and pressed the intercom buzzer. I waited.

“Hallo?” It was her.

“Hallo,” I mimicked back. “Um, delivery from Flesh and Bone.”

“Oh, okay . . .” She buzzed the door open and I quickly pushed through it, letting it close softly behind me.

A small courtyard led up to her front door. I could see the lights were on throughout her place. She must be tired, I thought; it had been a long week and she had worked really hard on the show.

Chloe opened the front door, expecting me to be the usual delivery person with new pages and script changes for the next week. But I knew there were no pages coming tonight. Steve was meeting with our director, Mick, right now, going over the rest of the schedule and seeing if anything additional needed to be written. Any new pages weren’t going to be delivered until Sunday afternoon.

“Hi, Chloe.” My greeting was friendly, nonthreatening.

“Who is it there?” she called out. She seemed a little taken aback that I was not a messenger.

“It’s Dani, Dani Hale from the show.”

“Ohhh, Dani . . .” she trailed off. I could tell she was confused and racking her brain as to why I was standing in her courtyard, inside her security fence. “Do you want to come in?” she asked, trying to be polite. She was wearing just her robe and slippers.

“Sure.”

She opened the door wide for me to enter. I stepped into her house and surveyed the living room. An antiquey-looking umbrella stand (memories of Merry Old England). Overstuffed slipcovered so-fas in some sort of floral fabric. The tabletops were filled with framed photos. I could make out one of Chloe in a bikini with a good-looking guy and older-looking photos of a smiling redheaded girl dressed in her Sunday best.

Behind the far sofa sat a baby grand piano. It figured that she would play. I’m sure she’d had a private tutor come to the house when she was a kid. I bet Chloe had had a piano recital that her loving parents attended, clapping proudly from the back of the room. My family couldn’t afford a piano. I’d played the clarinet, and it had gone back to the instrument rental place after three months.