Hollywood Blood: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Read online

  “We’ll never live this down,” Charlie said.

  “Maybe they’ll let us keep the costumes so we can wear them on Halloween,” I said, trying to make light of a bad situation. Our outfits consisted of a strap-on dog nose and a pointy hat with floppy ears attached that hung down to our shoulders.

  Charlie dealt with the humiliation by fixing himself a Johnny Long Dog with all the trimmings, devouring it before going back for some fries. Nothing like a few hundred calories to drown your sorrows.

  As I served up dogs to whiny kids and even whinier parents, I occasionally looked up and took in the surveillance teams milling around on the pier. A few of the officers were dressed as maintenance workers, including Pearl, who worked a broom and dustpan along the pier railing. There were also ticket-takers, Ferris wheel attendants, and some tourists, all undercover cops.

  I noticed that some of the feds had also begun to trickle in, interspersed with the other cops. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to spot them, with their special agent haircuts and arrogant smirks.

  Skully, Kennedy, and Baker had scored prime spots working in an outdoor souvenir booth, dressed in civilian clothing. I occasionally saw them look in our direction, their shit-eating grins almost wide enough to pop down a Johnny Long Dog sideways.

  Just before noon, we got the signal over our earpieces. It was from one of the undercover officers stationed in the parking lot, using the code name we’d decided on for Chloe.

  “Dorothy is in the parking lot.”

  When I heard the call I knew one thing for certain. Chloe Bryant sure as hell wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Myra is a mile away when she spots Chloe moving through the parking lot. She’s been watching the officers since dawn from a hillside home as they set up their operations, put on their undercover clothes, and fanned out through the parking lot and pier. It’s all been so predictable.

  She anticipated that if the cops learned about Chloe’s plan to meet the PI on the pier some of them would be dressed as maintenance workers. Last night she used her persuasive powers to meet one of the pier’s workers. She had a drink with the man and invited him back to the abandoned house where she slit his throat and took his uniform.

  Myra removes the jewelry from her piercings, scrubs her face, and pushes her hair up under a cap. She then takes stock of herself in a bedroom mirror, adding a fake moustache, and using her cosmetic skills to make it look like she hasn’t shaved in a few days.

  On her way to the pier Myra practices the walk of an elderly maintenance worker. She shuffles through the pier’s parking lot, using a litter tool to pick up trash.

  After reaching the pier, Myra sees that Chloe is sitting on a bench, scanning her surroundings. The traitorous young woman looks frightened. Myra has the sense that she could bolt and run, given the slightest provocation.

  As she works, picking up trash near a souvenir booth, Myra occasionally looks up and scans the harbor. Five minutes before noon, she slowly works her way over to Chloe. She keeps her head down as she walks past the girl. Myra nears the bench where Chloe sits. She reaches down with her litter tool picking up a Styrofoam cup tossed near a railing.

  In the distance the sound of a boat engine in the harbor roars to life. It’s a signal. Myra uses the voice that had once whispered, “I love you,” to Chloe—the voice that had also ordered her to kill.

  “Your mother, we have her, Chloe. She dies unless you run to the end of the pier now and jump.”

  Chloe’s terrified eyes come up to her. Myra can see that she’s torn between doing as she’s been told and running in the opposite direction. “Your mother. Do this for your mother. Only you can save her. Run and jump now or she’s dead.”

  Myra turns and walks away as the young woman sprints past her, heading for the railing. Just before Chloe jumps, the killer begins leaving the pier, walking toward the parking lot as the officers run past her in the opposite direction.

  A smile creases Myra’s lips. She knows that Chloe will be dead before the cops reach her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Charlie, she’s running to the end of the pier,” I yelled.

  We scrambled out of the booth, tossing off our ridiculous outfits, and sprinting after Chloe Bryant. Just before she jumped, Chloe looked back in our direction. Then she was gone.

  When I reached the railing, I jumped up, and grabbed ahold, but took a moment to glance back in the direction Chloe had come from. I saw a maintenance worker, moving a little too quickly away from us. Something about the way he walked didn’t seem to fit. Then I realized, only a woman would walk like that.

  “The worker, go after him,” I screamed as I went over, losing my balance and tumbling down toward the frothy water.

  I hit the frigid water and went down before clawing my way back to the surface, gasping for air. That’s when I understood what was happening, why Chloe had jumped.

  A boat, nothing fancy, just an older fishing boat with an outboard motor raced toward the pier right where Chloe had landed. I saw there were two women in the boat, the water churning as the engine revved louder and they accelerated toward us.

  Chloe treaded water, screaming for help. I swam to her side, grabbing her by the collar.

  We looked up and saw the boat a few yards ahead of us. Then we saw the gun. A homely young woman pointed the weapon in our direction.

  An instant later, a bullet sliced into the water right beside us. I heard the engine revving again and more shots. I looked up in time to make eye contact with the woman holding the gun—just before her head snapped back. I knew one of the cops on the pier had shot her.

  Then the world went silent.

  I pulled Chloe down with me, frantically churning deeper into the water. I knew there was another woman on the boat, no doubt armed, ready to kill us if we didn’t find deep water. I pulled Chloe by the hand, moving down and away from the surface, feeling the pressure as we went deeper.

  When my lungs were ready to explode, Chloe broke away from me. I surfaced and saw the boat moving off at high speed, heading for open water.

  “You’ve got to help me,” Chloe screamed when she broke through the water, gasping for air. “They’ve got my mother. They’re going to kill her.”

  I looked into the frightened blue eyes of the breathless young woman, but didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. “Let’s get you to dry land, then we can talk about your mom.”

  When we were finally hoisted back onto the pier by a maintenance crane, I stumbled onto the decking, cold and dripping wet. One of the officers brought a blanket over to Chloe. I then saw Charlie and Pearl coming toward me.

  “Myra, did you catch her?” I managed to stammer, my teeth chattering.

  Charlie shook his head. “We’ve locked down the area and we’re searching. So far, no luck.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After retrieving a pair of sweatpants, a tee shirt, and jacket that I keep in Olive for emergencies, I changed in one of the restrooms near the pier, pulled a brush through something that looked more like seaweed than hair, and rode with Chloe in Charlie’s car to HSS.

  Myra’s intended victim had also been allowed to change into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that one of the other female officers provided. Chloe didn’t say much on the way to the station, except that she was sorry.

  “What are you sorry about, Chloe?” I asked.

  “Everything. I wish I could go back a year and change everything that’s happened.”

  It went on like that, fits of crying, remorse, and asking if she could see her mother. Chloe told us that Myra had been dressed as a maintenance worker and threatened to kill her mother if she didn’t jump from the pier.

  I carefully avoided an answer to the questions about her mom, telling her that we needed to talk before we dealt with anything else.

  When we arrived at HSS, I learned that Myra had still not been apprehended. The coast guard found the boat the women had used a
drift in the harbor. The body of the woman who’d been shot and killed was onboard.

  Chloe told us the deceased woman’s name was Henna, but she didn’t know her last name. The other woman, who she knew only as Rose, had not been found.

  Once we got to the station, Kennedy and Baker pulled rank and took Chloe into one of the interview rooms. I watched with Charlie and Pearl from behind glass as they offered her water and candy bars before they turned on the camera and began the questioning.

  “We need to talk to you about Myra,” Kennedy said, trying to soften a voice full of sandpaper. “Do you know where she is?”

  Chloe’s blue eyes came up to him and narrowed. “I want to talk to the other officer. The one who saved me.”

  “Sorry, she’s unavailable,” Baker offered. “Tell you what, you answer our questions, and we’ll arrange for her to come by and see you when we’re finished.”

  Chloe’s gaze drifted away from the younger detective. “No. I’ll wait until she can talk to me.”

  Kennedy and Baker never once glanced at the two-way mirror, but I saw the frustration building as they continued trying to manipulate Chloe into talking to them. After a few minutes, their irritation became obvious.

  The grit came back into Kennedy’s voice. “You either talk to us or you’ll sit in a cell all night.”

  Chloe looked over at the big detective. “That’s okay. I’ll sit and wait.”

  “It won’t be pleasant,” Baker warned. “There are lots of bad people in there, Chloe. They won’t make it easy on you.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  Kennedy finally lost all patience. “Listen to me. You haven’t been charged with a criminal offense yet. You either talk to us about what you know or I’ll go to the district attorney and see to it that you’re charged with being an accomplice to murder before the day is over.”

  Chloe slid down into her chair, drew her arms around herself. “I’m not talking to you.”

  I realized Skully was next to me, watching the proceedings. I glanced at him, but kept my big mouth shut. As I turned back toward the interview room, out the corner of my eye, I saw a slight nod.

  “I’ll get them out,” the captain growled. “She’s yours, Sexton.”

  Skully cut me a break? I decided I must look more pathetic than I’d imagined. I resisted the urge to glance in a mirror and fix myself up, deciding not to hedge my bets. I wanted my crack at Chloe Bryant.

  Kennedy and Baker came out of the booth without looking at me.

  I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t resist letting them have it.

  “I just got a call,” I said to the two detectives. “They need you both back on the pier immediately.”

  “What for?” Kennedy barked.

  “They’re looking for a couple of guys that look like a boxer and a beagle to finish the Clowndog shift.”

  I heard a chorus of chuckles behind me, and thought maybe even Skully had laughed. I closed the interview room door, drowning out a litany of obscenities from the two detectives.

  I set my briefcase and laptop on a counter, turned on the camera, and walked over to Chloe. She still looked much like the girl in the high school picture her mother had shown me. Rail-thin. Brown hair, that was long and stringy. A crooked smile. A pale acne-scarred complexion.

  I sat down, lowered my voice, and asked, “How are you doing, Chloe?”

  Blue eyes, tinged with red, came up to me. “I just want to go home and see my mom.” She began to cry again.

  I gave her a tissue. “First, we need to talk. I know that a lot’s happened to you over the past few months.” I gave her a couple of beats to blow her nose, compose herself. “But I want you to know one thing before we begin, something that you have my word on. You’re safe now. Myra can’t touch you.”

  The mention of her tormentor’s name seemed to light a fuse of anxiety. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, but you also need to help me understand a few things that happened. Will you do that for me?”

  Her tired eyes fixed on me and she nodded.

  Since Kennedy and Baker hadn’t gotten far enough in their interview to even read Chloe her rights, it was up to me. This might kill my chance to interview her without a lawyer, who would no doubt advise her to remain silent, but I had no choice.

  I took a moment, read the Miranda rights to her, and held my breath.

  “I’ll talk to you,” she said.

  “Thank you, Chloe. Let’s begin with something important. Do you have any idea where we can find Myra?”

  She shook her head. “No. She’s probably living on the streets somewhere. Myra doesn’t have a real home.”

  “Can you tell me why you ran away from home and how you met her?”

  Chloe brushed a hand through her damp brown hair and sighed. “I was having a hard time fitting in at school.” She shook her head. “No. The truth is I didn’t fit in at all. I was the girl who sat alone in the cafeteria at lunch. No one wanted to be with me. I was an outcast.”

  She reminded me of my own difficult high school years. “I understand what you’re saying. I had a tough time in high school, too. It’s hard to be alone.”

  “It got so bad that I didn’t want to go to school. I argued with my parents and eventually started cutting classes. When they found out, they went crazy. That’s when I ran away.”

  “And you ended up on the streets?”

  She nodded. “It was hard, at first. I met some people who weren’t very nice. I began drinking and using drugs to try to forget everything. Until one day I met, Rose.”

  Chloe had already told us about both Rose and Henna being on the boat when we were shot at, but couldn’t give us any specific information, even their last names.

  “Tell me about Rose. How did she help you?”

  “She was very pretty and nice to me. She bought me lunch and we went to this park where we spent a lot of time together.” Her gaze drifted away and she took a deep breath. “That’s where I met Myra and Henna.”

  “Henna. She was the one on the boat who was killed?”

  She looked back at me, nodding. “She wasn’t very nice. I think she was jealous of my relationship with Myra.”

  I gave her another moment before I began treading into deep water. “Tell me about Myra. What is she like?”

  She folded her arms, hugging her sides. “Myra’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before. She’s hard to describe.”

  “Just do your best. Tell me about her personality—how she treated you.”

  Chloe seemed lost for a moment before she surfaced from whatever dark world she’d been in. “We were lovers.”

  I nodded. “Tell me how your relationship began.”

  “We spent a lot of time just talking, at first. I told her about my school and my parents, all the problems. She was understanding and helped me deal with everything.”

  Chloe paused, took a breath. A thin smile found her lips. “Eventually, she told me she loved me and that if I trusted her enough, she would tell me secrets that would change my life.”

  “What kind of secrets?”

  Her smile grew wider, but didn’t quite touch her eyes. “The secret about who she really is.”

  “And who is she, Chloe? Tell me who Myra really is?”

  Her brow knitted together. “You mean, you don’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  “Myra is the Chosen One.” She unfolded her arms, pulling up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, exposing a tattoo. “When Myra chose me and the others we became her sisters. We were each given this tattoo.” She brushed her fingers over the strange writing. “It’s Latin. It means, Sisters of the Blood.”

  I felt a chill as I examined the tattoo. I then met Chloe’s eyes again. “I don’t understand something. When you said that Myra was chosen, what exactly did you mean?”

  Even though she was terrified of the woman named Myra, I saw the reverence behind her eyes. Chloe Bryant then told me something I never expected to hear.
r />   “Myra died but was resurrected. She was brought back to life and became the Chosen One.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I sat there stunned for a moment, shocked by Chloe’s statement. When I finally recovered, I asked, “How did Myra die?”

  Chloe seemed eager to tell her story now, her answers coming quickly. “When Myra was a little girl, she was put in a foster home. One night her foster father left her with some bad men. One of them strangled her. He thought she was dead, but she was saved.”

  “I’m not sure I understand. How was she saved?”

  “When Myra was strangled she died and went to a place where she saw a bright light. She was about to go into the light when she met a man. He was her savior, the one who chose her to come back to the world of the living.”

  I nodded, trying to assimilate what she said. Maybe this was part of the brainwashing Myra had used on her. “Why was Myra chosen, why was she saved and sent back to the world of the living?”

  “So that she could take revenge,” Chloe said, lowering her voice. “On all those who harmed her.”

  I took a breath, still struggling to understand what I’d heard. “Just so I’m clear, this person who chose Myra, is he the one commanding her to take revenge?”

  She nodded, raising her eyes. “He anointed her and gives her direction.”

  The lyrics found at the crime scenes came to mind. “This person Myra met, the one who saved her and chose her to take revenge, who is he?”

  She took a breath and said, “He is One of Seven.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Myra’s beloved was the first of seven disciples chosen to walk the earth and seek revenge for those who have suffered wrong. He brings death so that vengeance can rule.”

  “So the person who chose Myra was also chosen?” She nodded, not looking at me. “Who chose him, Chloe?”