Seriously, what more could a girl want?

As it turned out, she wanted a lot.

If she told Richie how she felt, maybe he would change his mind about her. Maybe she’d break his beautiful heart.

When Cindy got to the stop sign at the corner of Divisadero and Vallejo, she glanced at her watch and realized that if she didn’t get a cab, she’d be late to work.

She got out her cell phone, and, as if taking out the phone had caused it, a rush of unmarked police cars and cruisers blew past her and turned onto Vallejo.

She looked down Vallejo at the impressive row of mega-mansions on each side of the magnolia-lined street and saw that the cop cars had stopped a few blocks away, right in front of the infamous Ellsworth compound.

Something had happened at that house. And if there really was a reason for everything, then she’d walked four miles this morning so that she would be the first reporter on the scene.

Cindy broke into a run.

Chapter 4

The Ellsworth Compound was an immense and fanciful brick mansion built in the late 1800s, considered one of the most spectacular homes in Pacific Heights. A vine-covered wall fronted the house, and four attached buildings, built as servants’ quarters, wrapped around the corner of Vallejo and went halfway down Ellsworth Place.

The compound had a colorful history of political intrigue and sex scandals going back over a hundred and twenty years.

But as Cindy ran along Vallejo toward the scrum of squad cars bunched in front of the mansion, she was thinking about the recent history of the house.

Ten years earlier, the Oscar-winning actor and legendary womanizer Harry Chandler had bought the Ellsworth compound and moved in with his glamorous wife, fashion designer to the stars Cecily Broad Chandler.