Shooting for the Stars Read Online Free Page A

‘Oh’ as in, how exactly do you go about telling something like that to the son of a man like Thomas Rizzo.”
    She sighed. “Like I said, Tommy’s a great guy. He’s going to make some woman a great husband someday. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be me. But he’s still very hung up on me. That’s what that was all about between us in here a few minutes ago.”
    She smiled across her desk at me.
    â€œI’m sure you’ve been in messy personal situations like this at some point,” she said.
    â€œNot exactly.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œLook, Abbie, I try not to date the offspring of major crime figures. It’s just a little idiosyncrasy of mine.”
    Abbie flashed me her megawatt smile, the smile that had won her millions of viewers on TV. Then she told me she was just going to freshen up a bit before we talked. I said that was fine. She took off the jacket she was wearing, hung it on the back of her desk chair, and then went into an adjoining room where she closed the door.
    I sat there waiting some more. I was getting used to waiting at The Prime Time Files . It seemed to be the thing to do. At some point, I looked over at the brown jacket hung from her chair. It was a terrific-looking jacket. The only problem was a bulge I noticed in one of the pockets. Hard to look fantastic—even if you are Abbie Kincaid—when you’re carrying around something that big.
    Several minutes passed. I looked at Abbie’s jacket again. The bulge in the pocket was still there. I walked over, leaned down, and stuck my hand in the pocket. There was a gun inside. I didn’t know a lot about guns, but I can tell if one is loaded. This one was loaded. I put it back inside the pocket.
    I wondered if the gun had any connection to all the security I’d noticed on my visit to the place.
    Of course, none of it had anything to do with me.
    The heavy security around her.
    The fact that she was dating a mob boss’s son.
    Or that Abbie Kincaid was packing heat.
    Nope, it was none of my business at all.
    Abbie came out of the bathroom looking more like the woman I knew from television. Her makeup was back in place, her hair was freshly combed.
    â€œWell, I’m sure you didn’t plan on coming here to talk about my love life, did you?” she said.
    â€œNo, that was just a bit of an added attraction.”
    â€œSo let’s talk about Laura Marlowe,” she said.
    â€œThat’s what I’m here for.”
    â€œI understand Gary already told you that I’m about to break a big story about her death on my show this week.”
    â€œHe did.”
    â€œDid he tell you anything about what my exclusive was?”
    â€œGary was a little vague on the details of that.”
    â€œI imagine he was.”
    â€œIt does present me with somewhat of a problem. You want me to write a story about the story you’re going to break. And I can understand why you want to keep the story to yourself. But unless you tell me something about it, I’m not sure what to write. You can see the dilemma I’m in.”
    â€œMaybe I can help you,” she said.
    â€œWith the Laura Marlowe story?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œLet’s go to the movies,” she said.

Chapter 4
    T HE picture was grainy, and at first I assumed it had been done on a home video camera. But it turned out to be a videotape from a TV news show. I remembered that television was a lot different thirty years ago. Videotapes and VCRs were something brand new back then. The text at the bottom of the screen said: Laura Marlowe arriving at the Oscars ceremonies—1984 .
    Even with the not-so-perfect technology, she looked as beautiful as she did on the movie screen. She was wearing a long flowing red dress, her black hair was pinned up fashionably behind her head, and her eyes seemed wide with excitement. She smiled and waved at the crowd and even