Read Online No Such Thing as a Secret: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As...A Brandy Alexander Mystery) by Shelly Fredman - Free Book Online

and headed back towards the Marina. Traffic was backed up for about half a block. I stuck my head out the window to try to see what was tying things up.
    As I inched my way closer a police car roared past me. “Must have been an accident,” I thought. “Wow, must have been a big accident.” Police cars littered the parking lot. A roadblock stretched across the entrance, and a dozen cops milled around, securing the area. Oddly, there was no sign of damaged vehicles.
    I sat there in the all-consuming traffic, staring out toward the ocean, my eyes drawn to a strange light in the water. Holy shit. My stomach lurched at the sight before me. A few miles out, a boat, or what was left of it was completely engulfed in flames. Several rescue boats had encircled it, but their efforts were in vain.
    My hands began to shake, and I could barely keep control of the wheel. I pulled to the curb, parked in a red zone and turned off the engine. “Johnny will be so pissed if his car gets towed,” I thought idly before bursting into tears. For in that moment I knew without a doubt whose boat had just been blown to bits. I flung open the car door and threw up.
    Officer Luke Taylor wrapped a steadying arm around me, as I sobbed into his handkerchief. He was about sixty years old, with steel gray hair and a chin like Tom Selleck. Handsome and dignified, but I bet he could really kick ass if the occasion called for it. He waited patiently while my tears subsided and then he nodded to the rookie cop who stood beside him.
    “Ma’am,” coaxed the younger officer, “you say there were two men on the boat?”
    “Yes,” I whispered, not trusting my voice. “John Marchiano and Joel Mishkin. The boat belonged— belongs to John. How could this happen? How?” I began to cry again, in earnest.
    “I wish we had the answers for you,” Tom Selleck said. “We won’t know anything until there’s an investigation. My guess is a faulty fuel tank”. He shifted me to his other arm. “Is there anyone I can call for you?” he asked, kindly.
    I had been answering questions for the past half hour. What was my relation to the people on the boat? Where do they live? Do they have any next of kin? I had questions of my own. Why are you standing here like a yutz asking me questions, when you should be out there, rescuing my friend? I slumped against the car in a fit of exhaustion. “I need to call my brother.”
    “Paul’s voice, fuzzy and distant warmed me through my cell phone. I knew I’d woken him up, but he greeted me with his familiar comforting words.
    “Yo, Brandy, what’s up, kiddo?”
    Battling a new round of hysteria, I filled my lungs with air and forced the words out of my mouth. “There’s been an accident.” I could hear Paul suck in his breath as he fought to remain calm.
    “Are you alright?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Wh-what about J-John?”
    “I don’t know about John,” I wailed, totally losing it. “Nobody will give me any answers. I dropped John off at the Marina, and he and his friend went out on the boat. When I went back to pick him up, the boat was on fire. It exploded and, and—”
    Officer Taylor took the phone from my ear and spoke quietly into the phone. “Your sister needs you. How soon can you be here?”
    Officer Taylor stayed with me until Paul arrived. He had sent “the baby” as I came to think of the young cop, out for coffee and doughnuts, and we sat in the parking lot munching on Krispy Kremes. He kept my back to the ocean so that I couldn’t see the police activity, and he kept me talking. About Los Angeles, what it was like living in a “world of glamour,” a million questions I’m sure he had absolutely no interest in knowing the answers to. But he was determined to keep my mind occupied while we waited for the Calvary to arrive.
    When we had exhausted the subject of Hollywood Lives, he brought out pictures of his sons, twin boys. They were handsome, like their father, around thirty years old.