The Broken Trail: A Chilling Serial Killer Thriller (Harriet Harper Thriller Book 3)

by Dominika Best

  She decided to wait for some partygoers to come to the gate. Once the gate opened, she’d slip inside behind them. She found a good lookout area not too far away from the gate, turned off the engine and the lights, and made herself comfortable as she waited for her opportunity.

  To her relief, she only had to wait about twenty minutes before a group of five men came walked by her, the smell of marijuana trailing behind them. They clicked the button on the security panel at the gate and she overheard one of them say “Sunset Boulevard.”

  The gate swung open.

  Harri waited until the group was halfway up the driveway before locked the car and sprinted through the narrow gap between the gate and the wall. She’d almost missed her chance. She assumed there was a camera trained on the gate but hoped whoever was watching would mistake her as a party goer.

  While she’d been waiting, she’d pulled her hair from the loose bun and mussed it up. She’d found an old red lipstick in the bottom of her purse and put that on. She’d taken off her white button-down shirt and wore only the white tank top underneath. With her black jeans, she looked almost like a woman going to a party.

  She didn’t look young, but she hoped Lydia was right about her good looks. Her heartbeat with excitement when she heard the group of men ahead use the password again. Could this be one of those secret Hollywood parties? And if so, why was one of Bryan Mortimer’s victims listing it as her personal address.

  Or had Lydia snuck in the address of the compound where she’d been held? Why wouldn’t she have given the address outright? She hadn’t held anything back. Thoughts cascaded in Harri’s mind like a waterfall as she climbed the steep drive.

  Once she reached level ground, she whistled under her breath. This estate was a compound. From her vantage point, she counted six buildings circling a kidney shaped pool. Tall fir trees surrounded the property for what she assumed would be privacy. It was the only property on this hill. The pool and outdoor spaces were filled with people, laughing and drinking.

  The landscape was artfully lit up showcasing different garden spaces. Some featured huge cacti and succulents, others featured roses and hedges. Twinkle lights were strung up between the buildings and some strands lit up the thicket of woods behind the buildings. The compound had a surreal quality about it: a mix of Salvador Dali and Dr. Seuss.

  The partygoers seemed to be a mix of young women and older men. Nothing else. The young women were gorgeous. Perfect bodies, beautiful faces. The men, on the other hand, tended towards older, balding, with guts sticking out from their expensive suits. The median age of the men was fifty, Harri guessed. Harri could see some attractive men in their twenties scattered about. She assumed they must be actors or maybe some kind of crew.

  The scene was like what Roxanne had described and Lydia alluded to. Harri smiled and shook her head. Lydia. What are you up to? No way Harri had simply stumbled into one of Bryan Mortimer’s secret parties.

  She chose one of the largest buildings to her right to go into. Harri knew what both Debi and Addy looked like. Would they be out and about? Required to service these men?

  She walked into the largest building and saw it was equipped with a kitchen and a huge lofted living room with beams spanning the entire length. It had to be one of those heritage sites because the structure looked old and immaculately preserved. The furniture looked like curated antiques, and the paintings and art pieces were likely original.

  Who was Jennifer Randall and did she really live here? Harri was beginning to think Lydia had landed her right into the middle of where she needed to be.

  “Hey gorgeous,” a voice came from behind her.

  Harri turned to see a man in his fifties, with silver at his temples, wearing a buttoned-down shirt with his tie loosened, holding a whiskey in his hand.

  “Hey baby. Pretty great party,” Harri said in a light voice as she tossed her hair.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asked.

  Harri assumed anything she touched would be tainted with drugs.

  “I’m looking for the little girl’s room,” she said.

  “I can take you there,” he whispered in her ear. Harri fought the urge to punch him in the throat and instead shrank away from him and his whisky breath.

  She dropped the sing-song voice. “I really need to use the bathroom. Do you know where it is?” she demanded in her best cop voice.

  The man didn’t like that. “Upstairs. The first door on the left.”

  She’d broken the spell and he turned away from her, muttering foul names at her under his breath.

  She took the stairs two at a time to the second level. Wow. Climbing Jake’s stairs were staring to pay off. She came to a hallway with four doors. Harri looked down at the living area and saw the man had found another woman to bother.

  She opened the first door. It was indeed a bathroom. When she opened the second door, she saw two naked bodies in the middle of a bed having sex. Neither looked like Debi or Addison. She closed it again. Harri had no idea whether the sex was consensual or not.

  Harri kept going. She opened a third door and found a pile of bodies engaged in various sex acts. Debi had copper hair and Addison had shoulder-length, light brown curls. Harri scanned for any signs of women resembling them and didn’t find a redhead or curls among them.

  She closed the door again. Harri was at the right place. Now, she just needed to find those girls before someone figured out she didn’t belong there.

  33

  Day 4 – Evening

  Debi must have passed out again because when she woke up it was dark in the room. She’d dressed in the clothes left for her and then waited. She’d sat on the bed and fought the increasing dizziness and strange euphoria that threatened to scatter her senses.

  Her hunger was intense, and she’d taken a chance at nibbling on a piece of cake that came in plastic packaging with the rest of the food and the water left at the door. They must have laced the cake with the drugs too because she was feeling the effects without having tried anything else.

  They weren’t taking any chances, apparently, and had drugged every bit of food and water they had left her. The door finally opened to reveal a man standing in silhouette against the purplish light coming from the hallway. He looked familiar to Debi. Not someone she knew personally, but someone she’d seen somewhere. Someone she’d seen a lot.

  Her vision was fuzzy, and she swiped at her eyes to make them less blurry.

  “Hey girl,” he crooned. “It’s time to play.”

  Debi choked back a sob remembering that if she was able to get out of this room, she had a chance of escaping this horrible place.

  She tried to stand on unsteady legs. The man came to her and put his arms around her waist to help her walk.

  “You smell so good. I’m so glad you got cleaned up,” he whispered in her ear.

  Debi felt like a rag doll with her arms and legs flopping around as he pulled her out of her prison. How did any man find the shape she was in alluring?

  “I have some friends I’d like you to meet,” he said.

  His words made her skin crawl.

  “Friends?” she mumbled.

  What were they planning to do to her?

  As they made their way down the hall, she talked to herself.

  Stay alert.

  Keep yourself calm.

  Keep walking so the movement will help your body digest the drugs quicker. He didn’t know she hadn’t eaten the food. She’d only pretended and hidden it in her robe, flushing each piece of chicken down the toilet.

  She hoped her ruse worked.

  Debi needed to fight through the grogginess and move her body. She relaxed into his grasp and let the man think she was more out of it than she really was. They expected her to be doped up, so she’d play the part.

  When they finally got into more light, she looked at him and stifled a gasp.

  She knew exactly who her captor was.

  34

  Day 4 – Eveni
ng

  Harri Harper rushed down the stairs scanning faces of the young women that were still around the large living room chatting with men. When she didn't recognize any of the girls, she walked outside.

  She had four more buildings to search, as well as the pool. Harri pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Tom the address of the secret sex party she’d stumbled across, and that she was searching for Debi and Addison.

  If you don’t hear from me, send backup, she’d managed to write and send off as someone tapped her shoulder from behind.

  Harri spun around, putting her phone into her back pocket to face a security guard.

  “Stop right there.” The man's voice was gruff and harsh.

  “May I help you?” she asked in a calm and collected voice.

  The man was wearing a wired headphone around his ear and was dressed all in black. He had the ripped look of a guy who worked out way too much and enjoyed the fear his body instilled in other people.

  “Cell phones aren't allowed at this party,” he said.

  “Oh, I must've missed where we were supposed to leave them,” she said.

  “Who invited you?” he demanded.

  Harri paused and took a good look at the security guard as if to say, ‘how dare you’. “I'm a production executive at one of the biggest studios in town. Bryan Mortimer invited me to come here tonight. You want to go and ask him about that?” she asked in a haughty tone, praying the use of Mortimer's name would make the guy back off.

  The namedropping had the desired effect and the guy retreated, putting his hands up. “You know the security at these things then,” he said.

  Harri nodded.

  “I still need your phone, though. I have a couple of bracelets on me to scan it in. On your way out, just go by the gatehouse and let them scan the bracelet and they'll give you back your phone,” he said and held out his hand.

  Harri didn’t want to give him her phone but did it anyway. What choice did she have? Her gut told her Debi was here, maybe even Addison. She hoped Tom got her messages. She would be on her own until he did.

  She pulled her cell phone out and turned it off before handing it to the security guard. He put a barcode sticker on the back and pulled out a barcode reader to scan a bracelet. He handed the small silver bracelet to her.

  “I hope you enjoy yourself, ma'am,” he said with a smirk and strolled away.

  Harri hadn't realized she was holding her breath until he was a good twenty feet in the opposite direction of her.

  Harri surveyed the grounds to decide where she should search next. Several smaller outbuildings were nestled amongst the thicker grove of trees behind the two bigger buildings. They looked like bungalows, or guest houses to her.

  The pool was emptying out as the night grew cooler and couples paired off. The bartenders kept the alcohol flowing freely from small stations dotted around the grounds.

  Harri observed that all the men had similar bracelets to the one she had on, but only some women did. The younger looking women, girls really, didn’t have them. Did that mean they never turned in their cell phones?

  She highly doubted that. What women came to a party without one? These girls were the ones being trafficked, she realized.

  Harri swore at herself for not asking Tom for backup immediately. Without her phone though, that ship had sailed. She could only hope he’d come sooner rather than later.

  Harri focused back on her search for Debi and Addison, scanning every face she could see for any resemblance to the two missing teenagers. When she’d checked all the faces of the women on the patio, she decided to systematically search every building, going from left to right. She kept her cool demeanor the entire time, making it seem like she was just looking for someone she hadn’t yet found yet, which was kind of true.

  She calculated she’d been here at least an hour and had gone through three of the bungalows and had two more to search. Choosing the smaller of the two, she walked in and found it had a similar layout to the three before. A kitchen was to the right and a large living space took up the left. A small hallway led back into the darkness between the two rooms. This bungalow looked like it was old as well, with dark paneled wood and intricate details above the small windows. She bet this compound was built in the 1920s or 30s.

  Couples spread out everywhere in various stages of undress. No one bothered to look up as she picked her way through the bungalow looking for her two missing girls.

  A blonde woman pulled a man into one of the bedrooms, giving Harri only two doors to open. She used the excuse of looking for the bathroom and found one room empty and the other the actual bathroom.

  She was running out of places to search. If she didn’t find Debi and Addison in the last bungalow where else could she look? In those smaller buildings in the trees? It would be much harder to wander in there looking for a bathroom.

  As she stepped out onto the small porch, a flash of copper red hair drew her attention to one of those smaller buildings in the woods. Harri’s heart soared in excitement. She’d finally found one of her girls.

  35

  Day 4 – Evening

  As soon as Debi felt the cold fresh air on her face, she sucked in as much oxygen as she could. She hadn’t had the easiest time walking the distance Bryan Mortimer forced her to. They’d walked past music, chatting people, clinking glasses. The raucous nature of the party made her head spin again, until she got outside, and cold air hit her face.

  Everything came into sharp relief then.

  She was being held in some sort of colony of bungalows with a pool in the middle. People drank and couples talked around the beautifully lit grounds. She was in the middle of a normal party.

  No, that couldn’t be right. She’d been living in a tiny room for how many days? Debi wasn’t even sure.

  One day? All the while being drugged and raped by a famous film director.

  She shook her head. This wasn’t a dream.

  She was outside of her prison in the middle of a party. With people laughing and drinking just outside of her prison cell.

  None of this made sense to her. Debi had no clue what day it was or what night it was or how long he’d kept her captive. The drugs had made her lose track of time.

  None of that mattered, though.

  Debi was out and she was cognizant of everything around her. Not like the other times he’d taken her out of the room. Where those experiences only came in distant, hazy flashes of horror.

  Debi stumbled to see how tightly he was holding her. Could she make a run for it now? Scream at all these people to help her.

  His strong arms dragged her back up against his body.

  “I wish that I could have you tonight,” he began. “However, I promised you to some dear friends of mine and I can’t go back on my word. A man’s word is everything and I never go back on my word.”

  Debi swallowed down her moan of fear. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how terrified she was. She continued to pretend she was more doped up than she was. If she could keep him in the dark about how lucid she was, she'd find a chance to break away.

  He brought her around the pool toward two twenty-something looking guys. The two were good-looking enough to maybe be actors and not agents or producers.

  They laughed to each other when they saw them, and Debi wondered what they thought was happening. She was barely walking, hardly holding her head up. One arm was around her waist, holding her up while the other held her arm, guiding her. What the hell did they think was happening?

  “Bryan, you sure know how to pick them,” the brown-haired guy said. He had warm brown eyes and a beautiful smile that showed off a dimple.

  Monsters could also appear kind and be good-looking, Debi thought.

  Bryan Mortimer was not a bad looking man and with his power and fame and should have been able to get dozens of girls without having to drug them and keep them captive.

  The drugs had to be wearing off because her thoughts wer
e more lucid. Debi relaxed her body more, slumping harder against Bryan to appear more out-of-it than she was. Bryan pushed her into the brown-haired guy’s arms. He wrapped one arm around her neck and the other around her waist.

  “I can't wait to taste of you,” he whispered and licked her cheek.

  Debi involuntarily whimpered and then inhaled deeply to try to calm the intense fear that was shooting through her body.

  “I call sharesies on this one,” the second guy said and pulled her body between the two of them.

  They touched her like they owned her. One caressed and squeezed her butt while the other one fondled her breasts.

  “I've saved you guys a room in bungalow E. It's right behind there,” Bryan Mortimer said.

  Debi had no idea where ‘there’ was, as she didn’t want to look up. She had to play the drugged-out girl.

  Once Bryan left them, she’d make a run for it. She made her body go super slack and leaned into whoever was on her right. She heard him laugh at that and he pinched her hard on her belly.

  “I like pliable girls,” the guy said.

  Debi squeezed her eyes shut and breathed in and out waiting for her chance.

  36

  Day 4 – Evening

  Harri stepped out of the bungalow and watched a young woman with copper red hair being dragged towards one of the smaller buildings surrounded by the tall firs. The girl’s hair was a similar length and the color was spot on for Debi Mills. The beautiful color glowed in the light from the twinkle lights leading up to the smaller home.

  Harri picked her way toward the trio, hoping to stay out of the way of any other partygoers. Most of the party had dispersed inside the many buildings. She was much more out in the open now and without the cover of the crowd.