Sex, Murder And A Double Latte. Kyra Davis

      “Here’s my cell phone.” He pulled his Nokia out of his jacket pocket. “Call the police and tell them we’re coming over.”

      I pulled my hair back with enough force to damage some of the weaker strands. The guy was asking to be smacked. “I’m going to say this one last time—”

      “Why don’t you call them as you walk down there? I’ll meet you with the car after I’m done with the pictures.”

      Okay, there was something appealing about that. At least I wouldn’t have to get in the car. Of course the plan did have a few flaws. “That means I’d have to trust you with the keys to my car.”

      Anatoly grinned. “And I’ll have to trust you with my cell. Considering the condition of your car, I think I’m taking the greater risk.”

      No arguing with that one. “Okay, here’s the key. I’ll meet you at the station. Do you know where it is?”

      “I’ve passed it a few times. This will be good. Our first stop on my tour of San Francisco.”

      I shook my head and started downhill toward my destination. Having my car vandalized was a lot more than a minor annoyance, but my insurance would take care of it. What was really bothering me had little to do with my actual vehicle.

      What was really bothering me was that for the second time in three days I was reliving a scene from one of my books.

      The cop let out a low whistle as he considered the car. Anatoly, who had magically found a parking spot on the same block as the police station, was now standing aside as the officer, a big burly guy with a furry mustache going by the name of Gorman, studied the slash in the spare tire. He looked up from the damage and his eyes bore into me. “Do you have any history of drug use or dealing?”

      “No!” I tried to ignore Anatoly’s laughter.

      “Well, they were looking for something,” Officer Gorman stated as he slammed the trunk closed.

      “Yeah, we’ve established that. I don’t own anything that would be worth hiding in my upholstery.”

      “Uh-huh,” Gorman said. He looked me over, then turned back to the car. “Anyone who might be after you?”

      Anatoly took a step closer to me. How much should I say? After all, most of my fears were based on nothing more than an overactive imagination, right? My fingers automatically began to fiddle with my necklace. “I can’t think of anyone offhand.”

      “Uh-huh.” Gorman eyed Anatoly. “Who are you again?”

      “I’m just a friend of Sophie’s.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      I bit my lip. If only the cop could say something useful. Hell, I’d settle for a completed sentence.

      “Come inside, we’ll finish the report.”

      That was probably as close as I was going to get. “Anatoly, will you wait out here for me?” I asked. “Make sure nobody else messes with it?”

      “There’s not much left to mess with.”

      “Just stay with the car, okay?”

      I followed Gorman inside to his desk. This was embarrassing enough without Anatoly standing over my shoulder. Gorman gestured for me to take a chair. I remained standing. “I thought we were done with the report.”

      “Just a couple more questions.”

      I hesitated for a moment before sitting across from him. I wasn’t relishing the idea of being interrogated in a police station, even if I didn’t have anything to hide.

      “Sure you’re not hiding anything?”

      Oh my God. I was being interrogated by the police department’s resident psychic. Maybe I could just visualize the events of the last week and I wouldn’t have to say anything at all.

      “Miss Katz, did you hear me?”

      Okay, so he wasn’t a very good psychic. “A little over five weeks ago I got a typed note in the mail. No return address. It just said, ‘You reap what you sow.’”

      “‘You reap what you sow’? Anything else?”

      “Nope, that was it.”

      “Know who might have sent it?”

      “No, like I said, no return address.”

      “Uh-huh.” Gorman made a note at the bottom of his report. “Do you still have the note?”

      “Well, here’s the thing. I wanted to have a fire that night and I didn’t really like the note, sooo…I burned it.”

      “You…you burned it?” Gorman shook his head. “Smart.”

      “Well, I didn’t know I would be needing it.” I scooted my chair forward. Gorman may not be Mr. Personality but maybe he could help me make sense of some things. All I had to lose was my dignity, and that was going pretty cheap these days. “I’m a writer. I write murder mysteries.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “This last Thursday, the same day that woman Susan Lee was killed, I received five prank phone calls. The caller didn’t say anything—there was just silence and a click.”

      “Any calls since Thursday?”

      “No.”

      “Uh-huh.” I noticed that this time Gorman didn’t write anything down. He probably found my account so riveting that he knew he’d never forget it.

      “So, that same night I came home from an art opening at Sussman Gallery and I found a broken glass.”

      “A broken glass?”

      “Yes, a broken glass on my kitchen floor.”

      “Any idea how it broke?”

      “Well…I do have a cat.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “But the thing is, the glass was in the middle of the floor. I don’t have a big kitchen, but it would be hard for Mr. Katz to knock a glass that far off the kitchen counter.”

      “Mr. Katz?”

      “My cat.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Okay, so here comes the really weird part. In my second novel, Sex, Drugs and Murder, my protagonist, Alicia Bright, well, she sometimes gets prank phone calls and in one scene she comes home and finds…a broken glass!” I sat back in my chair and waited for Officer Gorman to react.

      “Uh-huh.”

      Not the reaction I was looking for. “Okay, I know, glasses break all the time, right? That’s why I decided not to call the police.”

      “Good decision.”

      “But now there’s the car thing. In my book, Alicia Bright’s roommate’s car is vandalized in almost exactly the same way mine was. You see, the bad guy, Jeremy Spaulding, knows that Alicia’s roommate, Kittie, has a cassette tape that could prove that his father was involved in a political scandal. Kittie’s father produced X-rated films, so she had all these contacts to the pornography underworld.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Okay, that’s probably not all that relevant. Besides, you could always read the book, right?”

      Officer Gorman just stared at me. Apparently that one wasn’t even worth an “uh-huh.”

      “The point is…” The point. What was my point again? “Oh, yes. The point is that things are happening to me that happened in my book. I am living Sex, Drugs and Murder!”

      This time it was Officer Gorman’s turn to sit back in his chair. He put his fingers together