Hollywood Enemy: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Read online

  The van seen in the TV footage had been rented under a false name and paid for in cash by a woman who matched the description of Loretta Martin. The SID unit had gone through it, finding some plastic wrap and duct tape, no doubt left over from Sarah Meyer’s abduction, but there were no fingerprints linking it directly to Martin.

  Other than the van, there was no sign of our suspects or our victim. The entire manhunt had been covered by the press, their helicopters hovering overhead as they trained cameras on the teams that had gone street to street in the downtown area.

  While Bernie sniffed some flowers along the sidewalk, I turned to Dawson feeling exhausted, depressed, and frustrated. “If our suspects were anywhere around here they’re probably long gone thanks to that.” I pointed at one of the choppers still circling above the downtown skyline.

  “They could be in the next state by now,” Dawson agreed as my phone chirped.

  I answered it and heard Natalie’s voice. “We’ve been watching the search on the telly. Dudley thinks he knows where the dirty lumpfish is hiding.”

  “Sorry, Nat, I don’t have time…”

  I heard Dudley Wainwright’s voice come on the line. He was animated, maybe a little breathless. “I’m familiar with the area you’re searching because of a television special we ran a few years back.”

  “I don’t have time for theories right now.”

  “Please, just give me a minute.” I took a breath as he went on. “There’s a complex of tunnels that run directly under the city where you’ve been searching that hardly anyone knows about. They’ve been there for almost a century, directly under the government buildings, including the criminal justice center and the hall of records.”

  “Wait…hold on.” I waved for Dawson to come over. I then put Wainwright on speaker. He repeated what he’d just told me adding, “Several decades ago the tunnels were used to transport the mobster Mickey Cohen, the Onion Field cop killers, and even millions of dollars from the city vaults.”

  “Where exactly do these tunnels run?” I asked.

  “All the way from Spring to Temple, directly under downtown.”

  “How do we get in?” Dawson asked.

  “There are several entrances but most of them are sealed off. I remember for the TV shoot we got access from an elevator that was still operational. It’s directly behind the Hall of Records building, but it’s set off by itself. Unless you knew it was there you probably wouldn’t even notice it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  “The artist is a conduit to the soul,” Ellian says, watching as Loretta works on the girl. “Each brush stroke brings us closer to that which is eternal, the one true reality. It also honors the sacrifice and talent of all those who have suffered in the name of art. That’s what de Gaul understood.”

  Loretta glances over at him but then turns away, continuing to work on Sarah. He’d spent hours painting his own body from head to toe before working on the girl. Now, the canvass is nearly complete if…if Ellian is satisfied.

  “It’s like poetry,” Ellian continues. His dark eyes turn inward for a moment, his fleshy pale face becoming pensive. “Paint is the poetry of the soul. It breathes life into that which is lifeless, dull, devoid of reality.” He motions to the girl. “Only in the case of the maidens, I’m afraid it’s a reality of sorrow.”

  Loretta takes another furtive look at Ellian, seeing that he appears to be lost in thought. He makes a few final brush strokes, satisfied with the creation. When Sarah is complete, he moves away and cleans his hands, waiting for Ellian’s approval.

  After several minutes Ellian’s mind surfaces from whatever dark place it’s been hidden. He walks over, studying the girl. His eyes travel the length of her naked body, taking in each brush stroke. He then turns to Loretta. “Do you call this art?”

  Loretta turns away, not looking at him. “I did the best…”

  “YOUR BEST IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.” The screaming continues, growing louder until Loretta falls to the floor, covering his ears.

  Ellian comes over, pulling him up and pushing him toward the sleeping girl. “You will make her perfect. She cannot be imperfect. Only you are imperfect, vile, disgusting.”

  Loretta takes the palette of paints, comes back over to the girl. His hand trembles as he dips the brush into the paint.

  After a few moments Ellian walks back into the shadows of the room. He finds a chair and watches while Loretta continues working. “Jason.” The name is spat into the room like the taste of something rotten.

  Loretta turns to Ellian. “What about him?”

  Ellian laughs. “You thought he loved you.”

  “He does love me.”

  The laughter becomes a scream. “HE DIDN’T LOVE YOU…he couldn’t love you…no one could ever love you…except me.”

  Loretta begins to cry, the tears coming fast and hard. “He loves me.”

  “How could he love something like you? Look at yourself. You’re not even…I’m not sure what you are.” Ellian hesitates. Finally he says, “I know what you are. You are my puppet. You do everything I say, exactly when I say it.” He pauses, waiting until Loretta’s eyes find him. “Just like when you killed Jason.”

  Loretta turns away from him, the tears coming harder. His hands shake and he realizes his tears are falling on the girl. “Jason is …”

  “DEAD,” Ellian screams. “I MADE YOU KILL HIM.”

  Loretta’s entire body trembles. He must control the tears or…

  Ellian comes over to the girl’s side, pointing to where Loretta’s tears have fallen, marring the paint. “Look at what you’ve done.” His voice rises, becoming a scream again. “SHE IS RUINED. SHE IS FLAWED, JUST LIKE YOU.”

  Loretta draws in a heavy breath and turns, meeting Ellian’s dark eyes. He raises his fists. They rain down on Ellian’s face, a lifetime of fury exploding from the center of his being. “STOP,” he screams. “YOU HAVE TO STOP.”

  Ellian laughs. “I will stop when I’m ready to stop. YOU DEFORMED UG…” His voice has pitched higher but suddenly stops. His hands come up to his own throat.

  Loretta had moved quickly, finding the knife he’d used when he took the girl. He now sees what Ellian has seen. BLOOD. There is blood everywhere. A smile forms on his lips. He watches as Ellian’s eyes shift, his gaze coming over to him and taking in the knife that he holds. There’s a gurgling death cry as his tormentor crumbles to the floor.

  Loretta bends down to him. His voice is soft, full of mirth. “How does it feel?” He sees Ellian’s eyes, the desperate attempt to understand what’s happening. “I’ve brought you closer to eternity. That’s what an artist does. I’ve unleashed your soul…” His voice pitches higher until it becomes a scream. “…SO THAT IT CAN BURN IN HELL!”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  We found the elevator to the underground tunnels and went down in teams. I waited with Dawson and Bernie until the other members of the taskforce were assembled in the subterranean corridor. The tunnel was larger than I’d expected, almost big enough to drive a car through if you had one. But it was also dark, our flashlights illuminating passageways that receded into the blackness. It was eerily reminiscent of the salt mines beneath the McCray ranch where The Artist had worked on his victims.

  “Sexton, me, and the dog are going north,” Dawson announced. He motioned to Charlie, Pearl, and Murphy. “You three head in the opposite direction but keep the communication channels open.” He then turned to Romero and Knutson, the two profilers. “I want you two love birds to stay here. Call me right away if you see someone with a little dick carrying a paint brush.”

  “You simply refuse to take us seriously,” Carl Romero complained.

  “I take you seriously,” Dawson barked. “I seriously don’t want to see your faces until I catch the killer.”

  We moved off, our flashlights cutting through the darkness. “It’s hard to believe a city of almost four million people is right above us,” I said. “Wainwright said something about the
se tunnels going on for miles. This could take some time.”

  Dawson didn’t answer me. After a moment I asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Tunnels. Not my favorite place.”

  His face had taken on a sheen. I thought maybe he was even a little panicked. He hadn’t mentioned a problem with tunnels when we were in the salt mines under the McCray ranch, but these tunnels seemed darker, maybe in some ways even more forbidding. “Some kind of trauma?” I asked.

  He glanced at me. “Maybe you shoulda stayed back with Romeo and Juliet.” The tunnel turned and after a few moments he explained, “My daughter got lost in the woods when she was just a kid. Finally found her in a tunnel after several hours but it was a long night—the scariest night of my life. I’ll never forget it.”

  “You have a daughter?” I said, finding it hard to believe. “I had no idea. I’m beginning to think maybe you have a secret life.”

  “You have no idea, Buttercup.” We walked on, Bernie pushing out ahead of me. After a couple of minutes Dawson said, “What about you? What’s your biggest fear?”

  I glanced over at his big features, illuminated in the darkness by the splash of artificial light that we carried. My words came from somewhere deep inside me, maybe brought about by what I’d seen over the past few weeks or the loss of both my father and my mother. “I think I’m like everyone else. I’m afraid of being alone in the world.”

  Our tunnel turned several more times until we got to an area that was blocked off by a rusted metal gate. I pushed against the covering. It swung open. I glanced over at Dawson, my flashlight spilling light that made his damp features look even larger. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “What other choice do we got?”

  As we pushed on, I called over the radio to Charlie. “Anything happening in your area?”

  “All quiet over here,” Charlie said, at the same time I saw a sudden movement to my right. Bernie let out a deep, menacing growl. I had my gun out and moved my flashlight over that way, my heart thundering against my rib cage. “What in the hell…”

  “Rats,” Dawson said, his light catching sight of them as they scurried off.

  As we walked on, deeper into the tunnel, I took a moment to catch my breath, then said, “I’ve been giving some more thought to my theory of there being a dominant and a submissive in Lofton’s relationship with James or Loretta Martin. Maybe there’s another aspect to what happened.”

  “I’m listening, Dr. Phil.”

  I ignored the sarcasm. “What if we have an old fashioned love triangle gone wrong? We know from the photographs we found in the closet that Lofton or Hurst was in love with Loretta when they were younger. Maybe Jason McCray came along and also fell for her.”

  “A three-way with three guys. Sounds like a major shit storm to me.”

  “And maybe Lofton killed Jason out of jealousy.”

  “You could be onto something. Love, lust, and revenge. It’s what makes the world go around and...”

  We both stopped, shinning our flashlights ahead of us as we heard the sound. It came out of the darkness from somewhere in the distance.

  Someone was screaming.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  The body of Ellian is covered with blood. There’s only a bloody stump where there was once a head. Loretta Martin, his body now transformed by paint into the monster called The Artist, carries the severed trophy over to a table where the light can illuminate it.

  He bends down, staring into Ellian’s lifeless eyes. “YOU ARE DEFORMED, VILE, UGLY.” A brittle laugh, bordering on a scream, follows. “You are also dead.” He spits on the severed head. Behind him there’s a moan. He turns, seeing that the girl is regaining consciousness.

  Even as he knows that Sarah Meyer is awakening, what Ellian had said before he died continues to crash through Loretta’s mind.

  Jason is dead.

  Loretta sinks down to his knees, the reality of everything flooding back to him. Even though he’s suppressed what happened for weeks it all now comes tumbling back. He remembers that in a fit of rage Ellian had screamed at him for hours, urging him to kill Jason until he could stand it no longer. Hours later, emotionally spent and broken from the torment, he’d turned on Jason, plunging the syringe into his body over and over. He’d used an extra strong dosage of the drug that he uses on the girls. Jason was dead almost before he hit the ground.

  Jason is gone.

  The reality of what he’s done overwhelms him. Jason had come to love him when no one else had, even after Ellian had rejected and despised him. He knows the real reason Ellian wanted Jason dead was jealousy. Jason had accepted him when Ellian could not.

  Loretta gets to his feet, walks over, and studies himself in the mirror. His eyes lower to that place he never touches, the ugly, deformed mound of flesh that is neither man nor woman. His mind reels, the memories of when he was young and in love with Ellian come flooding back to him, the long ago nightmare surfacing.

  ***

  “The wig now!” a youthful Ellian says. “You must be complete.”

  Loretta Martin glances at the young man in the mirror, the one who paints him. It’s not the first time that Ellian has used his skills to transform him. It began in the summer, after their trip to Europe. Jason and Ellian had told his brother about Joanne Vreeland, how he’d lost control of himself one night.

  “She’s going to tell her parents that I raped her,” Jason had said the night they came home from the trip when he was with him and the other boys.

  After they all heard what had happened, they pledged to help, Ellian taking the lead. “We’ll take care of the girl for you, but I want it to be special. Let me tell you about an artist that I learned about on the trip…”

  Joanne had been the first. After that, Ellian said he wanted more, enlisting both him and Jason in the killings. While the murders continued Loretta remembers how he became Ellian’s work of art at the same time he explained about the maidens.

  “The girls must be very special. I want them to by young and innocent, but also have an interest in the arts or music.”

  Soon, Loretta came to understand that the girls were special for another reason. “They’re everything you’re not,” Ellian had said one day, looking at him like he’d tasted something rotten. “They are virtuous, beautiful, and perfect.”

  Despite the disapproval his love for Ellian had grown. At first, before each of the killings he had been transformed, just like the girls. Ellian had made him perfect, even choosing the name Loretta. After each maiden was taken they would spend hours together making love. But in time, Loretta came to understand that he was not enough, he could never satisfy Ellian in the way that he wanted.

  Loretta remembers the last time Ellian had made him beautiful. He’d spent hours carefully applying the layers of paint until he had been transformed. As he placed the blond wig on his head, Ellian had turned him in the chair, showing him the transformation.

  “I’m…I’m so beautiful,” he had said, turning and seeing Ellian in the mirror as his eyes had misted over. “It’s so amazing.”

  Ellian’s eyes had narrowed on him, a rage exploding. “DO NOT CRY.”

  “I’m s…sorry.”

  “Look at yourself,” Ellian demanded. “Look at your body.”

  He did as instructed, his gaze lowering as he examined the naked body. It took all his willpower not to cry again.

  “Do you see what you are?”

  Loretta gulped in a breath, his voice surfacing as a painful cry. “Yes. I’m…”

  “You are not complete. You are flawed.”

  He nodded, his eyes finding him in the mirror again. “I don’t deserve to live.”

  Ellian’s gaze slid over him examining his naked body in disgust. He finally met his eyes again. “There is another possibility.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  Ellian left the room but came back in a few minutes. Loretta saw his reflection in the makeup mirror. He had something in his hand
, the lights from the mirror illuminating it. Then he understood.

  A scalpel…Ellian has a scalpel!

  “I can make you complete,” Ellian said.

  His voice was a soft cry again, “No…not that way.”

  “Then, I’m afraid you’re right. You don’t deserve to live.” Ellian brought the scalpel down, holding it against his neck. “It’s your choice. You make the decision.”

  Loretta was unable to control the flood of tears that streamed from his eyes, smearing his painted face.

  “Look at what you’ve done,” Ellian screamed, pressing the scalpel harder against his skin. “You are…”

  “I want…I want to live,” he choked. “I want you to complete me.”

  Ellian met his eyes in the mirror for an instant before turning away. Loretta remembers closing his eyes as Ellian swept him up into his arms and carried him into the bedroom. A few minutes later he was tied, his legs spread apart. Before Ellian had brought the scalpel down he remembered opening his eyes for an instant. The terror of what was happening overwhelmed him, screams filling the air. The last thing he’d seen was the blood spurting up, covering Ellian’s face. Then the world had faded to black in a single moment of eternal sorrow.

  ***

  The long ago image of Ellian covered with blood and taking away that part of him that he despised fades. After that night, when the surgery had gone horribly wrong, he knew that he was even more imperfect than before. Even though Jason had still accepted him, Ellian had continued to remind him, “You will never be complete until the work is finished. When all the maidens are transformed, then we will see about making you whole again. We will see about making you the woman that you have always dreamt about.”