Laurette grabbed the neck of her Cosmopolitan glass and lifted it unsteadily to her lips, splashing the drink over the sides and onto the floor. She took a small sip, and put it down again. "Juan Carlos ditched me."

"What do you mean ditched you? Did he ask for a divorce?"

"No, nothing like that. We were walking along Ocean Avenue, and we were right in the middle of a serious discussion about our marriage, and how trust is important to me, when suddenly he spotted these two men following us. He got really nervous and ducked inside a sidewalk bar to go to the bathroom, but he never came out. I went inside and looked everywhere. He was gone. I was so upset. And so were the two men who had been following us."

"What did they look like?"

Laurette shrugged. "I don't know. Big guys. One white. One Hispanic."

Javier Martinez's goons. No doubt about it. "Did they follow Juan Carlos inside?"

"No, they hung around out by the street, a few feet away from me. I guess they thought he wouldn't just leave me standing there like a fool. Their mistake."

"Laurette, I can't stress enough the kind of danger Juan Carlos is in. Those men work for Javier Martinez, and he could do some serious damage to both him and you."

"Please, I've dealt with bigger sharks in Hollywood," she said, staring straight ahead toward the entrance to the hotel bar.

"I'm afraid he may already have gotten to Juan Carlos," I said.

"Omigod."

"What?"

"Over there," Laurette said. "The two guys who were following us. They're here."

I whooshed around and saw the two giants, wearing a couple of print silk shirts, white slacks, and sandals, amble in and survey the room. Satisfied, they turned and signaled behind them. Javier Martinez, in a light beige linen suit, swept in with a gorgeous woman in her forties on his arm. She was poured into a tight yellow dress, and boasted a fortune of sparkling Harry Winston jewelry on her neck and wrists. I immediately recognized her as Juan Carlos's paramour and costar, Viveca.

A host, also covered in white, scurried up to them and said in the most pleasant voice he could muster, "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Martinez, I have a private table waiting for you in the back."

I was floored. Viveca was Javier's wife. No wonder Juan Carlos was in such big trouble. He was sleeping with almost the entire Martinez family. Viveca. Dominique. David. Forget Bob Dole. Juan Carlos was the perfect spokesman for Viagra.

"What a slut. She's already married and she's fooling around with my husband. I'll scratch her eyes out," Laurette said, making a halfhearted move to stand up, but one little tug on her sleeve from me, and she was firmly planted back on the bar stool, swaying a bit, but settled.

"As much as I'm a fan of Dynasty-style catfights, I'm not sure confronting a mobster's wife is such a good idea."

Laurette's eyes began to well up with tears. "I've been so stupid, Jarrod. So stupid." She laid her head on my shoulder, and I wrapped my arms tightly around her.

"You can't help who you fall in love with," I said. I thought about Charlie. And where he could be.

Laurette opened her purse and pulled out some Kleenex. She blew hard and then wiped some tears away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Javier and Viveca disappear around a corner to a private space in the back of the bar.

"That bitch shouldn't have even been in the movie. But her husband was financing the picture, and he only agreed to cough up the money if they gave his wife a big part," she said.

It hit me that Viveca and Dominique were using different last names to conceal both their mother-daughter relationship and their connection to Javier Martinez.

"Javier financed the movie starring a man who was sleeping with his wife and daughter and son? Oh boy. No wonder Martinez hates him so much."

"That dirty cheating louse!" Laurette sobbed. "How could he do this to me? I gave him the best weeks of my life!"

Laurette's cell phone chirped from inside her purse. She pulled it out and snapped it open. Sniffling, she said, "Hello?" After a moment, her face darkened and she turned to me. "Bad news," she said. "He's still alive."

"Where is he?" I said.

Laurette listened and nodded and then hung up the phone. She downed the last of her Cosmopolitan, and slid off the stool. "Come on. We're going to meet him."

"You want me to come with you?"

"Yes. I want you there to make sure I don't kill the bastard."

Juan Carlos had told Laurette to meet him at his former place of employment, the Nexxt Cafe, a trendy hotspot for the locals located squarely in the middle of upscale Lincoln Road. It was a short ten-minute walk from the Delano, and when we arrived, the outdoor tables were nearly filled to capacity.

"He said he was at a table off to the side," she said as we both scanned the crowd of diners. I spotted him first. He sat alone at a marble table wearing a blond wig, dark glasses, and a heavy brown overcoat. Given the sweltering eighty-degree weather, the sloppy disguise made him stand out like a Hassidic rabbi in an Easter parade.

"There he is," I said, guiding Laurette's gaze with my finger. "I recognize the wig and coat from the movie's wardrobe department."

Laurette gripped my hand as we maneuvered through the myriad of tables to get to Juan Carlos. I whispered into her ear, "Now just stay calm. Let's hear what he has to say. Don't freak him out by laying into him too quick."

"You're right," she said. "We'll just let him talk."

As we circled in front of Juan Carlos and sat down in the pair of empty seats at the table, Juan Carlos didn't move. He just stared straight ahead, his eyes hidden behind the dark glasses.

"You imbecilic asshole!" Laurette screamed. "How dare you drag me into this mess! What kind of stupid moron are you, seducing the whole family of a sadistic mafia killer? Do you have some kind of death wish?"

So much for letting him talk.

"Don't just sit there, you lying piece of shit! Answer me! Do you hear me? Answer me!" she said, grabbing a fistful of his overcoat and shaking him. He teetered a bit, and then dropped face first into his plastic black bowl of Chinese chicken salad. Juan Carlos Barranco was dead.

Chapter 28.

Laurette screamed, panicking the other diners and alerting the wait staff that something was seriously wrong. The wide-eyed hostess picked up the phone and dialed 911 when she spied us hovering around a slumped-over body in a bulky overcoat and a blond wig askew, revealing wavy jet-black hair underneath.

I grabbed Laurette and hugged her tightly as curious patrons craned their necks, most probably wondering if it was the food he was eating that did him in. With one arm draped around Laurette's back comforting her, I reached down with my other and casually lifted Juan Carlos's wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He was definitely history. I wished I could muster up some kind of emotion, maybe a passing sadness, but what I wound up doing was suppressing elation. Every instinct was telling me Laurette was much better off without him.

"I can't believe he's gone," she cried, the words barely audible between sobs. I was not about to point out that three minutes ago she was ready to poison him herself for his multiple infidelities.

Even with a restaurant full of witnesses, I was not about to leave Juan Carlos's corpse alone for even a second. I had learned my lesson after witnessing the brutal slaying of Rudy Pearson, and with his body still missing, it allowed Wendell Butterworth to roam around free to stalk and murder me at his convenience.

The police arrived within minutes, followed by paramedics in an ambulance. The hostess with the big wide eyes pointed at Laurette and me accusingly, as if she had seen us do away with him ourselves, and the cops descended upon us to ask a barrage of questions. Charlie always told me to tell the cops everything during an interrogation. Don't leave anything out. You don't want something coming back to haunt you later. So Laurette and I spilled it all. The murder in San Simeon. Juan Carlos's extramarital activities. And most importantly, his making an enemy of Javier Martinez. The cops froze. They didn't like hearing that name. The last thing they seemed to want to do was rattle Martinez's cage. No telling what kind of trouble a man with his connections could stir up. Did Martinez own these guys? After I mentioned the Martinez name, the cop asking the questions briskly changed the subject.

"Any other enemies he had you can think of?" the cop asked Laurette.

"He was an actor with the lead in a feature film," she sniffed. "Half of SAG would like to see him dead."

The CSI investigator arrived to examine Juan Carlos's body. He was a hefty bald man in a blue windbreaker with a distracting mole on his left cheek. He wore plastic gloves and ate walnuts from a zip-lock bag as he scanned the corpse for any clues. He'd touch the head looking for bruises and then pop another nut in his mouth. Then he'd check the cold, dead arm, and follow it with another nut. I was completely grossed out. He caught me watching him and snickered.

"Doing the Atkins Diet. These walnuts are very low in carbs."

"That's a terrible diet," Laurette managed to get out between sobs. "In fact, the doctor who came up with it died of a heart attack."

"No, he didn't," I corrected her. "He fell on the ice and went into a coma."

"Please," she said. "That's what they wanted you to believe. Weight Watchers is the way to go." Even a grieving widow can be allowed a quick evaluation of the best weight loss programs.

The CSI investigator crumpled up his empty zip-lock bag and stuffed it into his coat pocket. "No outward signs of foul play. Could be a heart attack, or stroke, something like that."

"He wasn't even thirty!" Laurette said.

"I'm just speculating here. I need to conduct an autopsy for any definitive answers. Then we'll see if there are any traces of poison in the bloodstream."

Poison? Monkshead? That raised an interesting question. What if Juan Carlos had been taken out with a hit of monkshead? There were certainly enough people who wanted to see him dead. Javier Martinez. Viveca. Dominique. Maybe even David. Not to mention half the cast and crew of Creeps. The only one I could safely rule out at this point was Rudy Pearson. I saw him murdered with my own eyes. Unless his ghost did it. But Rudy could have been in cahoots with any one of the other suspects. He at least knew one person here in Miami. I heard him or her taking a shower when I cased Pearson's room. And he could have easily shared the poison with his accomplice before Wendell fatally stabbed him. I had to find out who that person was.

With the cops ignoring my bombshell about Javier Martinez's hatred of the deceased, I didn't trust them anymore so I decided to modify Charlie's helpful advice when interrogated. I neglected to mention the Rudy Pearson murder and the whacked-out psychosis of Wendell Butterworth. It would only incriminate me. If any one of them had a pipeline to the Coral Gables Police Department, they would find out my habit of showing up at a crime scene and start to suspect me of being some kind of serial killer who calls the cops for kicks after committing a murder.

Although Laurette did admit she wanted to hang her husband up by the balls after discovering his multiple infidelities, the cops had no concrete proof tying either of us to Juan Carlos's death. The CSI guy wasn't even prepared to list the death as a homicide at this point. So after a two-hour marathon of questioning, we were told we could leave, but that it would be wise of us not to leave the Miami area.

As we hiked back to the Ritz Plaza, Laurette stared straight ahead, as if in a trance. The shock of all the revelations she had encountered since arriving in Florida were starting to have an effect on her, and I felt she was close to a complete breakdown. I lured her up to my shabby room with the promise of a couple of stiff drinks from room service. When we walked into the room, we found Charlie on the bed, reading the paper.

"I'm glad you're back," I said. "You're not going to believe what we've just been through."

He lowered the paper, and glared at me. The vision of me hugging Bowie was apparently still fresh in his mind. There was a palpable tension lingering in the air. Laurette wasn't about to indulge us because she was having the worst day of all. She recounted everything to Charlie, whose anger subsided as she related all the dramatic details. He was mesmerized. And when she'd finished, he stood up, crossed over to her, and grabbed her in a warm hug.

"Honey, I'm sorry you've had to go through this," he said as she laid her head on his big shoulder.

"Somebody up there doesn't want me to be happy," she said, sniffling.

Charlie lifted her chin up with his thumb and forefinger until she was looking directly into his eyes. "Juan Carlos never would have made you happy. I'm sorry he died, but in time you'll see you deserve so much better."

He had her attention. And mine.

"He lied to you. He cheated on you. And he would've drained you financially and emotionally. Laurette, you're a beautiful, vibrant woman, and I know there's a man out there who is looking for you, and will appreciate you, and love you for who you are, not what you can do for him."

He squeezed her tighter, resting his chin on the top of her head, and said, "You and Juan Carlos, it never felt right. There wasn't a lot of trust there. And trust is the foundation of every relationship. Trust and communication."

He was looking at me when he said this. His piercing eyes were like a sword through the heart. But now was not the time to worry about us. Laurette was hurting too much.

"You're too good to me," Laurette cried as she pulled away from Charlie and held out a hand to me. "Both of you. I'd be lost without you."

I smiled, took her hand, and we hugged. The phone rang. Charlie slowly backed away to give us our best friend moment, and answered the call.

"Hello?" he said. I saw his face get hot and red, but his voice remained steady. "He's a little busy right now." Bowie. It had to be Bowie. God, this was getting more out of hand by the minute.

Charlie sighed and scribbled something on the pad of paper on the nightstand.

"All right, I'll tell him," he said and then slammed down the phone.

"Who was it?" Laurette asked.

"It was for Jarrod," he said as he tore the piece of paper off the pad and handed it to me. "Bowie wants you to meet him at this address."

"Did he say what it was about?" I asked meekly.

"No," Charlie said.

"I'm one of his clients now. Maybe he has some information about Wendell Butterworth's whereabouts or maybe he found Rudy Pearson's body . . ." I said.

"Look," Charlie said, walking back over to Laurette and putting a strong, muscled arm around her shoulders. "I don't feel right about you running all over Miami while Butterworth is on the loose, but I certainly can't stop you from doing what you're going to do. So go."

"You can come with me if you want," I said meekly.

"I think one of us should stay here and be with Laurette, don't you?" he said.

He was right. I wanted more than anything to stay and patch things up with my boyfriend and be a supportive shoulder for my best friend to cry on. But if I didn't find Butterworth and prove he was a homicidal maniac, then I would never be able to sleep at night ever again.

"I'm sorry," I said, and then I quietly turned and slipped out the door.

Chapter 29.

When I arrived at the QE3 houseboat, it was already dark. The moon illuminated a shimmering carpet across the bay, and for a city the size of South Beach, it was unsettlingly quiet.

I tapped on the door of the boat and waited. I wished Charlie had come with me. That would have been one way to allay his fears that I was having some kind of secret affair with Bowie. On the other hand, he was right. Laurette was upset and fragile, and it was best that one of us stay with her tonight.

Bowie opened the door, and motioned for me to come in. He was sweating, his face was tight, and his eyes betrayed a distinct uneasiness.

"What's going on? Did you find Wendell?" I said as I followed him inside. I jumped with a start when I saw my stalker, Wendell Butterworth, tied to a chair in the middle of the room, a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

"Omigod!" I said, spinning around to Bowie, who quickly shut the door to shield the scene from any passersby. "What happened? How did he get here?"

"I've been quietly tailing you since you asked me to help," he said as he circled around me and headed straight for the wet bar. "Since he kept popping up to scare you, I figured he'd turn up again eventually. And he did. I caught him loitering outside your hotel."

Wendell was slumped over in the chair, his eyes shut tight. I cautiously moved toward him to see if he was breathing.

"He's alive. Don't worry. He's just pretending to be asleep so I don't harass him with any more questions," Bowie said as he poured himself a generous glass of scotch and downed it one gulp.

Now I was sweating. "I don't understand. Why are you holding him prisoner? I didn't ask you to-"

"Look, I approached him outside the Ritz Plaza. When I got too close, he pulled a knife on me. Luckily during my military training they taught me how to kill a guy with a quarter, so he wasn't too hard to take down," Bowie said.