Read Nothing to Fear But Ferrets for Free Online

was I to judge?
    My den, the room harboring that hole, had been sealed off with yellow tape that resembled the kind cops used at a crime scene. I knew that from experience. But this tape instead said simply, NO ENTRY. It was the big sign on the door, though, that would keep everyone out. UGLY ACCIDENT SCENE, it proclaimed. ANYONE WHO ENTERS HERE WILL BE INSTANTLY STRUCK UGLY.
    With this chic crowd, that was a definite deterrent.
    Were the ferrets again in that room? If so, since Charlotte was entertaining, they were hopefully confined. But had they been struck ugly? Though I’d dickered with Darryl about them, they’d struck me as fairly cute, even if their presence was anathema in this state.
    On Tilla’s other side, Lyle Urquard sat speaking with someone else, his back toward us. I hardly recognized my athletic neighbor without his bicycle and helmet. Or his usual Spandex, for tonight he wore an ordinary white shirt and gray slacks that bulged in front where his belly lay beneath. His sandy brown hair didn’t look the least bit sweaty, either.
    Ike Janus wasn’t there or I’d have told my take-charge bakery-owner neighbor that I hadn’t heard from his insurance adjuster that day.
    As I sipped Chablis, I held the plastic glass with my left hand. Tilla had control of my right arm, screeching softly into my ear with pleasure each time someone connected with Charlotte’s show sashayed in.
    “Oh, heavens, that’s Philipe Pellera,” Tilla shrilled as a tall, slender guy with dark hair and darker features shimmied into the room, his shiny black trousers tighter than his neon red shirt. I recognized him myself from my occasional forays into music video TV stations. His singing voice was sensational, his gyrations the stuff of sensual legends. He was the latest Latin singing sensation, and with the way he humped his hips, his music videos should have been rated NC-17. Those bumps and grinds were dangerous.
    I also remembered having seen a box of client files with Pellera’s name on them in Jeff Hubbard’s house, at a time I felt ethically encumbered from sneaking a peek. Now, seeing that sex symbol in piquant person, my curiosity was piqued even more—why had he needed an expert P.I.’s services?
    Pellera took a seat on the couch, surrounded by sycophants who made room for him.
    Before I’d recovered from my vision of Latin sensuality, Tilla gushed again. “That’s Sven Broman.” She pointed to a tall blond Viking in a tan sportcoat. “He was the next-to-last guy, the one Charlotte dumped for Chad Chatsworth. Chad was the winner, if you could call him that, since at the end of the final show, Charlotte took the money and gave Chad the boot.”
    Oh, really? Was that the Chad I’d met?
    Earlier, most others who lived on our street had rolled their eyes as Tilla gossiped away, except for Lyle, and even he stayed occupied elsewhere. I’d gathered from some of their comments that they’d attended previous parties of Charlotte’s where Tilla had identified reality show celebrities to the oblivious and uncaring, ad nauseum. None wanted to hear it anymore, even Tilla’s husband, Hal. Especially Tilla’s husband, Hal, who stood in a corner speaking with Phil Ashler.
    Having assiduously avoided Charlotte’s soirees before, I was a new body for Tilla to bombard with info I found less than fascinating. I’d been considering a courteous way to slip out of her grasp. Till now. Tilla had just hit on some stuff that snagged my interest. “How much money did she get?” I asked.
    “A million,” she replied, eyes huge in her drink-pinkened pudgy face. “And that’s not all. Part of the prize was that she’d help with the producer’s next reality show. Brainstorm it, pick candidates, even get paid for it. I mean, what woman could resist that?”
    “Right,” I agreed. Okay, she’d succeeded in snaring my attention. For one thing, I now knew which kind of reality show Charlotte had been on.
    Tilla pushed her big