Hollywood Blood: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Page 22

  Her father nods, reaches over and brushes the tear away. “That’s my girl.”

  They enter the house without knocking. Lenore has the feeling that her father has been here before.

  A light is burning somewhere below as they open a door and move down the stairs into the basement. Her father is behind her, urging her forward; the stairs creaking with each footfall.

  At the bottom of the stairs she hears voices. The room has the same sour smell that’s sometimes on her father’s breath when he comes into her room late at night.

  “Well, look at you,” one of the men says, stepping out of the shadows.

  Lenore sees that the man has no hair on the top of his head. His face is round and fleshy. His bulging eyes sweep over her, moving from her head down to her toes, but don’t find her eyes. She doesn’t look at the other men behind him, but senses them doing the same. Four, she thinks. There are four men here.

  “One thousand,” her father says to the man with no hair.

  Lenore watches as the bills are counted out, placed into her father’s outstretched hand. When he has stuffed them into his pocket, he turns to her and bends down.

  Her father’s voice is softer than before. “Remember Lenore, don’t run like the kitten. Be very brave no matter what happens. I will be back for you in the morning.”

  Her father turns and begins walking up the stairs. Behind her, Lenore hears some words being exchanged between the men, something about choosing who’s first, but she tries to keep the voices away, not letting them register.

  Suddenly, Lenore understands about the wild animals. They are not in the darkness of the forest. They are right here in the room with her!

  She calls out to her father before he’s gone, her voice pleading and desperate. “Please take me with you, Father.”

  The man pauses and smiles, but remains silent. He turns, moves up the stars, and is gone.

  The man with no hair comes over, takes her by the arm and moves her to the shadows of the room. She sees there’s a bed here with a teddy bear sitting on a pillow.

  “It’s very late,” he says. “It’s time for you to get into bed. Let’s take off your shoes and then your dress so I can tuck you in.”

  She hears the laughter, sees the leering eyes of the men in the shadows.

  After Lenore removes her shoes, the bald man’s rough hands brush against her as he lifts her dress. He touches her small breasts as he pulls the garment over her shoulders.

  The room is quieter now. The air is hot and stale. Despite this, Lenore feels a shiver run down her spine. Her arms and legs tremble.

  “Now your panties,” the man says.

  She looks up, meeting his dark, empty eyes for the first time. Lenore shakes her head.

  The man bends down to her. She smells his rank breath. “Do what you are told or I will hurt you. The pain will be so bad you’ll wish you were dead.”

  Lenore reaches down, her fingers touching the elastic waistband of her underwear. Her arms come up in a sudden movement, striking the man in that place where her father likes her to touch him. She hears the scream, the yelling as she scrambles away, avoiding one of the men reaching out to her. She dashes up the stairs and bursts through the front door into the cold night air.

  Lenore scrambles down the driveway in her bare feet. She pauses where the concrete ends, peering into the forest. Behind her, just a few yards away, the men come through the doorway, screaming obscenities. She remembers her father’s words. It’s just like in the story from her childhood, Little Red Riding Hood.

  There are wild animals here, Lenore. They will eat you all up.

  She again understands about the animals. They aren’t in the woods. They are the men coming after her like hungry wolves.

  Lenore runs into the woods, the branches of the trees hitting her face. There’s a sudden pain. Her feet are on fire. She realizes it’s pucker bush. Their barbs, like fishhooks, have cut into her flesh. She stops, reaches down, and tries to pull out the barbs.

  She hears footsteps. The angry men are closing in. She manages to stay low, scrambling behind some bushes. A moment later she looks up and sees that the men are everywhere now, wild and crazed with anger. They are wolves, their yellow eyes shining in the darkness, their teeth large and sharp.

  Lenore closes her eyes and prays. “Dear God, please protect…”

  A hand reaches down, pulling her up by the arm. It’s the man with no hair. He’s dragging her out from behind the bushes. She cries as she’s carried away.

  The world begins to blur, lights flicker, and images come and go, caught in a splash of light. Then she sees the bald man. He reaches out to her, his features dark with rage. The fleshy man’s hands are folding around her neck. Lenore looks up at him. The man has changed. His eyes are yellow. In the dim, gray light, she can see that his teeth are long and sharp. This is the face of a wolf!

  “You should have listened to me,” the wolf screams.

  The images grow darker, the laughter of the other men fading, as the hands tighten around her neck. She fights for her breath but it’s useless. Darkness envelops her. She feels herself floating away into the night, untethered. She is nothing but air and ash and…

  Light!

  Lenore feels her body growing dense again. The light is now everywhere. It is so bright that it fills up the world. There is nothing here but a glowing bright light and…

  ***

  “Barbara, are you okay?” Karma asks.

  Myra lifts her head as the long ago images recede and the world of Azazel and revenge and death returns.

  “Just a bad headache,” she manages to say in the voice of Barbara Collins.

  Karma smiles. “Let’s go into the pool house. I’ve got something that should help.”

  As they walk, the embers burning deep inside Myra begin to flare up, glow hotter. Her sister, the bitch that’s led a perfect life while she had to suffer, is here. She will pay. It will be her final revenge. It is the will of Azazel.

  They stop in the dim light over the door to the pool house. Somewhere in the distance, Myra hears shouting.

  “I wonder what’s happening?” Karma says, her eyes coming over to the woman she knows as Barbara Collins.

  Myra reaches into her purse, her fingers gripping a knife. She then pushes her sister into the pool house.

  “Death,” Myra says. “Death is happening.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chaos swirled around the dead body of Karma’s FFF. The partygoers began screaming when they saw what happened and the police tried to usher them away from the scene. Chief Reed was demanding to know Karma’s location when my phone rang. It was Bob Woodley.

  “I don’t have time to talk right now, Bob,” I said. “I’ll get back to you later.”

  I started to end the call when I heard the SDI supervisor say, “It’s Chandra Martin, Kate. She’s back on duty and there are some things happening here that you need to know about.”

  It was unlike Woodley to be so forceful. I felt compelled to wait as he handed the phone to his employee.

  Before Chandra Martin came on the line, I heard Chief Reed say that we were moving out to the pool area where he’d been advised Karma had been spotted. As we moved across the grounds of the estate, Chandra came on the line. She was out of breath and sounded nervous.

  “I’m at a crime scene, Detective Sexton,” Chandra said. “The murder of a maid, who was found by her sister in her employer’s home. Apparently they share housekeeping duties at the residence.”

  None of this seemed relevant to the current investigation. I was about to tell Chandra I would call her later when she went on.

  “The victim’s sister doesn’t speak English very well. They had me talk to her since I speak Spanish. Her employer is a limo driver who works for a VIP.”

  We were picking up our pace now, as one of the officers said there was some kind of commotion near the pool.

  “According to the maid,” Chandra continued, “
the limo driver had a confidentiality agreement not to disclose the name of his employer to anyone because she didn’t want the press knowing who he worked for.” Chandra’s voice became tight. “The limo driver is a man named, Bobby…Bobby Collins. He works for Karma.”

  As we approached the pool, I heard Chief Reed advising Charlie and Pearl that Karma was last seen near the pool house but was missing.

  “Can we talk about this later?” I asked Chandra.

  The line was silent for a moment. I sensed she was trying to gather her emotions.

  “There’s something else you need to know,” Chandra said. “There’s a photograph of the family on a nightstand in the bedroom. I can’t be absolutely sure, but the blonde woman in the photograph, Bobby Collins’ wife, I think she might be who you’re looking for.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Chandra Martin barely choked out a response. “I think Bobby Collins’ wife is Myra.”

  There was a sudden rush of bodies toward the pool. As I came through the gate with Mack and the others, Chief Reed said, “Someone saw Karma going into the pool house with a blond woman. She had a knife to Karma’s throat.”

  “The woman’s name is Barbara Collins,” I said. “She’s Myra.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  “I’m your sister,” Myra says to Karma when they’re in the pool house, her voice shrill and angry with rage. The inferno in her head explodes. “It’s time for you to die, bitch.”

  She grabs Karma by her hair and brings the knife up to the superstar’s neck. As she draws the knife along her sister’s skin, blood spurts, and Myra feels Karma’s body slacken.

  From somewhere outside the pool house, she hears a commotion. She glances out the window and sees that men are moving toward them with their guns drawn, closing rapidly on their location.

  She lets Karma’s body fall away from her and slips out the backdoor into the shadows of night. Myra begins running across the grounds of the estate.

  When she reaches a grove of palm trees, she stops and slides to the ground. The fire in her head lessens, the flames of rage simmering just below the surface again as her eyes close. Myra feels herself being pulled back to the woods, into that dark long ago place where the wolves are waiting for her.

  ***

  Lenore again sees the wolfish man, his hands tightening around her neck. She tries to find her breath, fights against the monster that is squeezing the life out of her. It is useless.

  She feels her body growing weaker. The world becomes gray and black and empty as she floats away. She is high above everything, far away from the animals that have come for her. Her body drifts, alone in the darkness.

  And then suddenly she sees the light again!

  The light is everywhere, so bright that she is blinded by the illumination. She wills herself to go forward, her body moving toward the light until she feels like she is a part of it. She reaches out. Her eyes adjust to the brightness and she realizes that her hand is glowing. Her entire being is now infused by the light that surrounds everything.

  Lenore feels a sudden tension…a tugging…a pulling at her consciousness. Panic overwhelms her. Her muscles contract, something catches in her throat. She falls back, her body convulsing, gasping for air. She wills herself to be calm as the breath of life finally comes back to her.

  She then hears the sounds. Explosions cut through the darkness. Lenore realizes she’s back in the woods, back in the world of the living. There’s another flash of light, followed by several others. Gunfire! The expositions are gunfire!

  Lenore looks over and sees the body of the man who tried to kill her. His face is nearly gone. Then she realizes they are all dead. All the men who attacked her have been killed.

  She turns. Her eyes drift slowly up toward the light again. She sees the silhouette of a man standing in front of her. He’s glowing, illuminated by the radiant disk of light. His shoes are black and shiny. Then she sees that his pants and shirt are also black. He’s wearing some kind of belt. Her gaze continues to travel up. There’s something pointed and shiny on his shirt. It’s a badge.

  The man is a policeman! He has come out of the light to save her!

  A hand reaches down to her. She takes it, feeling the same warmth and reverence washing through her as before. The man pulls her up to him.

  “What’s your name?” the policeman asks as she looks up into his face.

  “My name is Lenore. Who are you?”

  “The one who has chosen you,” the policeman says.

  ***

  A light washes over Myra as the policeman and the long ago images retreat. Her mind surfaces again. She realizes she’s at Karma’s estate and hears the sound of someone moving toward her. She looks up, seeing there are officers moving in her direction.

  The gun! She reaches behind her and pulls out the gun hidden in her waistband. Myra brings the weapon up, at the same time recognizing the female cop, the one who saved Chloe.

  It’s time for her to die.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “Somebody call an ambulance,” Charlie yelled.

  When I pushed through the crowd into the pool house I saw my partner on his knees, working over the fallen superstar. Mack then made his way through the ring of officers, carrying towels.

  “Let me try to stop the bleeding,” Mack said. He bent down to Karma, feverishly attending to her for a moment before turning to me. “Her breath is shallow but she’s still alive.”

  As they continued to work on Karma, I noticed the blood trail. The red droplets had fallen onto the carpet and led into a bathroom. There was a door there and when I pushed it open I saw that the blood trailed out into the grass. There wasn’t a lot of blood but it looked like enough to follow.

  “Let’s check out the grounds,” I said to Pearl who had followed me. I pointed out the blood trail. Then, remembering what Chandra Martin had said, I told him about Myra being married to Karma’s driver. “She’s Barbara Collins, the pretty blonde woman we met a few days ago. She looks nothing like the woman we’ve been pursuing.”

  Pearl had a flashlight that he shined across the rolling lawn of the estate. After a few steps, the blood trail ended. I looked up and saw there were some trees along the perimeter of Karma’s estate.

  “Over there,” Pearl said, his flashlight sweeping across something under one of the palm trees. “She’s on the ground.”

  As we came closer I saw her. Myra, as Barbara Collins, was dressed as a nurse. She was crouched low to the ground. My eyes grew wider and my heart hammered against my ribcage as she brought a gun up and pointed it at me.

  Then she fired.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The shot rings out, missing the female cop. Myra aims the gun again, but her finger only tenses on the trigger. Her gaze slides away from the detective, taking in the officers running in her direction, closing in. She searches the faces. Then she sees him coming toward her.

  Azazel.

  He is here. He’s coming to save her!

  A smile finds Myra’s lips at the same time her eyes glitter with tears. She calls out to him, “My beloved.”

  Myra’s heart soars as the man comes closer. Her devoted eyes fix on him. Then she sees that he’s holding something. He has a gun! He’s pointing the weapon at her.

  What’s happening?

  She turns away for an instant, looking back at the female cop. A thought surfaces. Maybe she should fire again. But it’s too late.

  A violent explosion splits the air. The jolt of lead crashes through Myra’s head, snapping it back.

  As her consciousness begins to fade a final thought forms in Myra’s mind. Azazel, her beloved, the one who gave her life, has now taken that life away. A tears slips down her cheek, his final betrayal becoming clear to her, before the world fades into the eternal darkness of night.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Several hours after we’d finished processing the crime scene at Karma’s estate, the taskforce assembled outside an
interview room at HSS in Los Angeles. Myra was dead, killed by a member of the taskforce who’d seen what was happening and gotten off a shot before either Pearl or I could return fire.

  Her sister was luckier. Karma had survived her injuries and, the last we’d heard, she was in surgery at UCLA Medical Center. Mack’s emergency medical treatment had probably made the difference in keeping the superstar alive. Before leaving the estate, I told Mack that I would call him after we’d finished our interrogation of Azazel.

  Dr. Adam Shaw had been caught trying to leave the grounds after Myra’s death. Even though he was in costume, dressed as a cop, he was stopped by an alert young officer working crowd control in the chaos that followed the shooting. After checking his identification, Shaw had been arrested, handcuffed, and brought to HSS for interview.

  Thanks to Chief Reed’s intervention, that included pulling jurisdictional rank on Byron Ellington, Charlie, Pearl, and I had been given the honor of interrogating the suspect over Skully’s noisy protest.

  As we entered the interview room, I tried my best, but I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Skully was standing next to the dynamic duo of Baker and Kennedy. For some reason, an image of the three stooges came to mind. I looked at them and said, “We might be in there for a while. I could really use a white mocha Frappuccino, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Bite me,” Baker said, no doubt offering up the trio’s shared sentiment.

  I shook my head. “Heard there’s not enough down there to bother with.”

  I ignored Skully’s whispered comments, but thought I heard a reference to the sexual activities of a female dog as I closed the door.

  Charlie turned on the camera as I found a chair at the table next to Pearl. I’d already filled them both in on what Mack and I had learned about Myra, her childhood, and her conviction in Texas for killing her mother. I read Dr. Adam Shaw his rights, expecting that he’d lawyer up.