It took a moment or two to register in Nick Carter’s mind the next morning as he was ripped out of a heavy sleep by the shrill ringing of his cell phone that someone was indeed in fact trying to call him, and that he wasn’t just dreaming about a constantly ringing phone like he had first thought. Groaning, he rolled over to look at his alarm clock and realized that it was only a little after eight. Who the fuck is trying to call me so early? he wondered. By now Colleen was at her photo shoot, so it couldn’t be her, and he really wasn’t sure who else would be brave enough to try to call him so early in the morning. Maybe if I just ignore it, whoever it is on the other end will just give up?
But the phone kept ringing. It would stop for a moment or two before starting another round of incessant torture. Losing his patience, Nick finally grabbed the phone from the nightstand and frowned once he noticed the unfamiliar number flash across the screen. If it’s a fan that somehow got this number, I may just have to go off on them, he decided before flipping it open. “Hello?” he groggily replied.
“Oh, Nick! Thank God you picked up!” an unfamiliar female voice at the other end sounded relieved.
“Uhm… Who is this?” he uncertainly asked.
The caller on the end sounded a bit embarrassed once she realized she’d forgotten to give her name. “It’s Jana… Colleen’s personal assistant.”
“Oh, hey Jana. What’s up?” His mind was already confused as to why Colleen’s assistant would be calling him? He doubted he’d ever even met the woman, never mind spoken to her before.
“I was just wondering. Is Colleen with you?”
A look of worry creased across Nick’s brow. “No… Last time I saw her was last night. She was supposed to stay here, but she insisted that she had to get back to her place because she had an early photo shoot or something. Why do you ask?”
There was brief silence on the other end of the line as if Jana were thinking carefully of how exactly to break the news. “Well… She’s sort of missing right now.”
“Missing?! What the fuck do you mean she’s ‘missing?’” Nick exploded.
He could hear Jana swallowing hard. “She never showed up this morning for the shoot. I’ve spent my entire morning trying to pacify the photographers for Victoria’s Secret that she will indeed be here and there’s probably some sort of logical excuse for her being late. Do you realize how bad this looks on her? This is a brand new contract she just signed and she blows off the very first shoot! You know that’s not like her, Nick. She’s never missed a shoot before! Even when she’s had a fever and had to be modeling bikinis in the middle of the beach in January, she’s been there. I’m worried about her.”
Nick sighed, trying his hardest to remain calm since it seemed as if Jana was already pretty frazzled. She was right. This wasn’t like Colleen at all. Colleen took her modeling career extremely seriously, so for her to miss a shoot, especially one as big as this one, something had to be wrong. “Did you try calling her?”
“Of course! I’ve tried both her cell and her home number thinking maybe she just overslept or something. She’s not picking up either one.”
“Did anyone try stopping by her house to see if she was there? Maybe she did oversleep and didn’t hear the phone? Or maybe she lost power or something?”
“Not yet… I figured that I’d give you a call first. I thought that maybe she spent the night with you and lost track of time.”
Nick was already up out of bed and throwing on whatever clothes happened to be nearest to him on the floor. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll run over to her place and see what’s going on. You keep calling her and if you get in touch with her please call me and let me know that she’s okay. I’ll give you a call back if I find anything out. Sound good?”
“Uh huh. Thank you so much Nick. I really hope that she’s okay.”
“Yea me too.” Without even saying a proper goodbye, he hung up the phone, and slipped his feet into a pair of flip flops. He then rushed down the stairs to retrieve his keys, without even stopping to brush his teeth or comb his hair, which he imagined must be sticking up in a million different directions. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. This definitely was not like Colleen at all and as he jumped into his Escalade and tore out of the driveway, he silently prayed that she had just overslept and he’d go over to wake her up and they’d have a good laugh about it.
He replayed the last few minutes they had spent together, mentally in his head. The words echoed back at him almost eerily. Come on Nick, let go. You’re acting as if you’re never going to see me again or something. His hands clenched around the steering wheel so tightly that they were beginning to turn white. Then there had been his own creepy warning that had almost seemed to be a hint of some sorts. Be careful driving home. It’s late and there could be a lot of nuts out on the road.
No sooner had the thought flashed across his mind when up ahead on the road he saw a sight that made his heart leap up to his throat. “No…” he whispered to himself, already slamming on his brakes in the middle of the road. Not caring if there were other cars coming down the road, he flipped on his hazards and leapt out of his vehicle.
Sandwiched against the guardrail at the side of the road was a red Mercedes convertible… Identical to the one that Colleen owned.
And as Nick approached the car, he realized that its occupant was missing. Feeling as if he was going to be sick, he immediately recognized Colleen’s oversized, brown and gold Louis Vuitton purse, but still a voice in his head refused to believe what was right in front of him. This is LA. Almost every woman owns a purse exactly like this. It doesn’t mean its Colleen’s.
A part of Nick knew what must have happened, but he was in too much of a denial to accept it. He needed proof that this was Colleen’s car and her purse before he could even begin to deal with the emotions that were bottled up inside of him. Without even thinking twice, he picked up the purse, contents spilling out of it onto the seat below. He picked up each item, examining it carefully. There were a few tubes of lip gloss and a compact mirror, a date book, and most incriminating her shiny, silver, cell phone which Nick recognized almost immediately. 20 Missed Calls, flashed in big letters once he flipped it open.
He dropped the phone as if it were on fire, not even caring to see where it landed. Then he looked up and over the guardrail at the ground below, mentally calculating its distance. The realization that somewhere below Colleen’s body (it was very strange to now think of her just a body) must be, hit him like a ton of bricks and next thing he knew, he found himself violently emptying the contents of his stomach on the side of the road.
When he was finally done heaving, he took in a shaky breath and picked up his phone from his pocket. He was trembling as he dialed those three digits.
“911. What’s your emergency?” a perky Southern accent spoke.
“Yes… I’d like to report an accident…”
When LAPD detective Derek James was given the assignment to investigate the scene of a car accident up in Hollywood hills, he at first thought nothing of it. He assumed that as with most accidents it would be an open and shut case, easily solved in one afternoon. He quickly learned that he couldn’t have been more wrong…
From what he had already been told, there seemed as if there was only one car involved, a 2007 Mercedes convertible that had crashed into the guardrail on a very windy road. The driver had probably been going at a high speed and lost control of the vehicle. A sad tragedy, but one that could’ve been prevented. Of course there was the problem that the body was missing from the vehicle. Bloodstains were found inside the car, which could have been a result of the collision. And the vehicle was a convertible with its top down. If the driver hadn’t been wearing its seatbelt, at the right speed, it definitely could’ve been ejected over the hood of the car and onto the beach below at the bottom of the hill. If that was the case, they were definitely looking at a fatality. There was no possible way that anyone could survive a fall like that.
So based upon the facts, Derek arrived at the accident scene confident that this was exactly what had happened. All him and his team needed to do was to locate the body and confirm that the injuries sustained to it were compatible with his theory. He saw no reason whatsoever to view this case as anything else, but routine.
That confidence didn’t last long at all. After a few minutes of talking to another officer who had been one of the first on the scene, made him realize that this was going to be a lot more interesting than he had originally anticipated.
“Do we have a description on the victim?” he asked.
The other officer nodded. “A white female, approximately 5’10, 115 pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes.”
Derek chuckled to himself as he took note of all this. “I think you just described about half the female population of LA right there. Do we have a name?”
“Yes, but…” the other officer hesitated a moment.
“But?”
The officer took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but our victim is kind of a celebrity.”
“A celebrity?” Just great, he thought. They’d barely get to work by the time the media would find out and swamp the area, making their job only ten times more difficult. He sighed. “Who?”
“Colleen Campbell. You know, the supermodel?”
Derek mentally cursed right there. With Colleen’s notoriety the case would be questioned with all kinds of conspiracy theories created by reporters to spice things up. “Yea, I know who she is. She’s the one dating that Backstreet Boy, isn’t she?”
The officer looked surprised at his knowledge. “Yea… You sure know your supermodels.”
He just shrugged. “My girlfriend is obsessed with this kind of stuff.” That reminded him, he’d have to slip away later and give Heather a heads up about what was going on. If this was going to turn into a tabloid frenzy, the least he could do was give his girlfriend a head start. She had been complaining that she was running thin on material for the next issue of her magazine. This should certainly give her something to write about.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his cell phone ringing. “Hello, this is Detective James speaking,” he answered.
“Hey, Derek. It’s me Adam,” the familiar voice of his partner Adam Davis spoke up. The two of them had split up, and Adam had joined the search on the beach below for the missing body, while Derek had continued on up the hill to inspect the vehicle. “We found the body.”
“Nice work. Let’s call the medical examiner and start getting our report together-“
“Uhh… I think you better come down here and take a look at it,” Adam interrupted him.
Derek looked confused. “What do you mean? What’s there to look at? She was going too fast, lost control, slammed into the guardrail, and was ejected from her vehicle. She most likely died from the fall.”
Adam was quiet for a moment on the other end. “I think once you take a look at this, you’ll change your mind about your original theory. I think we have a murder case on our hands.”
Fifteen minutes later, Derek was down on the beach where police had already roped off as a crime scene. He’d barely made it two feet before Adam spotted him and waved him over.
“What is this all about?” he asked as he approached his partner. “I thought that he had an open and shut case here?”
“Yea, I thought so too,” Adam agreed as he led Derek over to what Derek presumed was Colleen’s body with a white sheet already hanging over it. “But after we found her body and gave it a closer examination it appears that she died from more than just a fall.”
Derek must’ve looked completely puzzled because Adam reached down to grab the corner of the sheet. “Here, I’ll show you.”
He grimaced a little as the sheet was peeled back to reveal the face of Colleen Campbell. No matter how long he had been working as a police officer and no matter how many dead bodies he’d seen, he never got past that first initial moment that his eyes took in the gruesome sight. Of course, maybe it was made worse in Colleen’s case because he’d known what she had looked like while she was alive. From the looks of it, the fall on her had been pretty traumatic, but even in death there was a certain beauty to her. No one could deny that she had not been beautiful.
“When you first look at her, you think that she was killed from the trauma of the fall, right?” Adam’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Her injuries are consistent with our original theory. There’s obviously damage to her skull as well as multiple broken bones and probably a great deal of internal injuries. But, look at this.” He brushed her hair away from her neck displaying what looked like a large gunshot wound. “She was shot before she died.”
Derek gasped. “Which means that someone probably shot her while she was driving, which caused her to lose control of the car and careen over the guardrail. Whoever who did this wanted it to look like an accident.”
“Precisely. Looks like this case just got a whole lot more interesting.”
“I’ll say…” he sighed as he realized how much of a circus this was going to become. “Call the medical examiner and order a full autopsy done as quickly as possible. Do we know who called it in?”
“The boyfriend. From my understanding he was the last one to see her alive last night.”
“Bring him down to the station to get his statement. I have to make a phone call. I’ll be right back,” he excused himself as he waked away from the scene. As soon as he was confident that he was far enough away not to be overheard he dialed a familiar number.
“So, does anybody have any other ideas for our cover story besides another feature on how the women of young Hollywood are getting too thin?” Heather asked, her eyes traveling around the table where her entire staff sat staring at her blank faced. “I’ll take that as a no. I guess Stars With Eating Disorders it is then!”
She tried to stifle a disgusted sigh as she ran her hands through her hair. She’d hoped that someone would have something halfway significant to contribute.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Glancing up she spotted her secretary, Nancy standing uncomfortably in the doorway. A mousy little thing, straight out of college, Heather got the impression that she intimidated the younger woman. “Yes, Nancy? Can I help you?”
Nancy paused to fix the glasses that were slipping down the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry to interrupt… I know you’re in a meeting and all, but…”
“Spit it out Nancy. Is this important?”
Nancy just nodded. “Derek is on line one for you.”
Heather sighed. “Did you tell him I’m in a very important meeting now and that I’ll have to call him back later?”
Again she nodded. “But he insisted that it was really important and that he needed to speak with you immediately.”
Heather rolled her eyes as she addressed her staff. “I apologize, but I better go see what he wants. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She quickly left the room and headed into her private office, making sure to close the door behind her before picking up the office phone. “Hello, Derek. Can I ask you what is so important that you just had to interrupt my staff meeting?”
“Whoa, calm down there! If you don’t start talking nicer to me I might just decide not to share with you the lead I have for you on a very developing story that is sure to sell you a few million copies of your magazine,” her boyfriend taunted.
Her eyes nearly lit up as soon as she heard the words developing story. Thank you, God; she praised her eyes shining upwards. There were advantages after all to dating an LAPD detective. “What is it?”
“How much do you love me?”
“Very much. Now what the fuck is going on?”
He lowered his voice. “I’m on the scene of an accident involving a very high profile celebrity, which has just been declared a murder scene.”
“Who is it? Tell me it’s Paris? Please tell me it’s Paris?”
Derek laughed on the other end. “It’s not Paris, but its pretty close. Ever hear of a little ole supermodel named Colleen Campbell?”
Heather gasped. “Colleen Campbell?! She’s only like the hottest new supermodel in LA, right now! She just signed a huge contract with Victoria’s Secret. Her name is everywhere right now! She’s dead? As horrible as it sounds this is exactly what we needed! And you say it was murder? Even better! How soon can you get me the details?”
“I just have to tie together a few loose ends here and there. Then we’re getting a statement from her boyfriend-“
“You mean Nick Carter… You’re getting a statement from him? Oh, my God… You don’t think he did it, do you?” Already Heather could see her sales figures skyrocketing.
“It’s too early to say, but he was the last person to see her alive and he was the one who called the police. It makes sense for us to start with him and go from there. It does not mean that he’s being charged with anything,” he stressed.
Yet… Heather mentally added. Everyone knew that when it came to Hollywood murders it was always the boyfriend. “So, do you think maybe we can do lunch after you’re done questioning him?”
“Definitely. I’ll give you a call later, babe. Oh, yea… Be careful with this info. I could get in huge amounts of trouble if it comes out that I leaked it to the press,” he warned.
Even though he couldn’t see her, Heather crossed her heart. “I promise I won’t give you away. Thank you so much baby! I love you.”
Heather then hung up the phone and stood up from her desk with a wide grin on her face. A Hollywood murder? Nothing sold more magazines than that! If there was one thing Americans obsessed about as much as celebrities, it was high profile murders, and when the two merged together it created an insatiable appetite for information.
Heather couldn’t have been more excited to go back into the boardroom and announce to her staff that they’d be pulling the eating disorder story. In its place there’d be a much hotter scandal.
And with Derek keeping her informed, Dirt would have all the exclusive details first before any of her other competitors realized what was even going on.
