Wishbones by Carolyn Haines Page B

here. I want all of you out!"
    "I'm calling the security team. I'm having you removed, Estelle. This will be your house one day. Until then, I have a movie to make and I can't afford for you to do harm to yourself or anyone else. Leave now or I'll have you removed."
    "You wouldn't dare."
    Apparently he would dare, and he did. Not a minute later the front door opened and two burly men wearing blue uniforms with "PSA" embroidered on the chest came forward. They each wore a utility belt with what looked like Mace or pepper spray and batons attached.
    I moved down the hall, pausing in the kitchen door, where I could hear the kettle Graf had put on whistling away.
    "You bastard!" Estelle's angry scream came just as Graf lifted the kettle. I heard it clatter to the range top, and he was beside me in an instant.
    "Take your hands off me!" Estelle, in the grip of the two security guards, was being dragged from her father's room and down the hall.
    "You'll pay, Father! You'll pay the ultimate price for this! Mother won't allow it! You and that whore will pay, just like the last one did!"
    "Take her off the property and release her," Federico told the guards. "Estelle, I'm calling Senor Martinez. If you step foot on this property again, you will be arrested and put in jail, where you'll remain until the filming here is complete. Don't make me do this."
    She was escorted out of the house. The door slammed shut, and Federico was left standing alone in the hallway.
    I pushed Graf back into the kitchen. Federico had enough on his plate without knowing that members of his cast had witnessed a terrible fight with his daughter.
    "Holy shit," Graf whispered, "that was intense."
    Graf hadn't heard the entire fight like I had. Several things were troubling me as I sat at the kitchen table. Graf placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of me and then took a chair.
    "You look really worried, Sarah Booth."
    I was. Several times Estelle made reference to her mother as if the woman were still alive. She wasn't--as far as I knew. Carlita Marquez had died of an overdose years back. Or that was the scuttlebutt. "Estelle seems seriously . . . unbalanced." The idea of her walking so quietly into my room was upsetting.
    "She won't get back on the property. I'm glad to see Federico hired security."
    "This was Estelle's mother's home. She knows it inside and out. Do you think Estelle was making reference to the death of Suzy Dutton when she said that about paying like the last one did?"
    "Sarah Booth, don't borrow trouble." He picked up my hand and kissed it. "You're a movie star now. At least for the time being. You've taken down your shingle as a private investigator. If Estelle was involved in Suzy's death, let Sheriff King in California handle it." He kissed my hand again. "Besides, if I'm not mistaken, Estelle was here in Costa Rica. Hard to kill a woman in Malibu when you're a continent away."
    "Good point." And it was. I sipped my coffee. Graf had hitthe nail on the head. I wasn't Sarah Booth Delaney, PI. I was Sarah Booth Delaney, star of
Body Heat.
One bitter lesson I'd learned in the last few years was that a person has to focus on what she wants. I couldn't keep one foot in the world of detecting and another in acting. I had made my choice and I owed it to myself and Graf to give it one hundred percent.
    Estelle was a disturbed young woman. I could pity her, and her father, but it wasn't up to me to solve what had happened to Suzy Dutton.
    "Let's take a walk, Sarah Booth. Then we can go into town and have a nice dinner."
    I looked across at the man who was doing everything in his power to make me happy. I'd waited such a long time for this moment. "Sounds perfect, Graf. I'm ravenous."

CHAPTER SEVEN

    It was a good thing Graf and I took a long walk, because when we got to the small restaurant and the delicious meal was placed in front of me, I ate like a politician at the trough. Graf was even amused. He teased me gently, and then ordered a rich