by Lee Hollis
Poppy took a deep breath. “Timothy, what are you doing with a gun? Why would you—?”
“Stop! Just stop!” he barked. “My mother called me from her car and told me all about the wild rumors you were spreading about me. She warned me to steer clear of you, but I knew I had to deal with you myself, once and for all.”
“Then it was you, you smothered Danika with that pillow.”
“She trusted me. I offered to run lines with her and she let me in her trailer when no one else was around. It was so easy.”
“Why? Why did you do it?” Poppy cried, her eyes fixed on the pistol aimed straight at her face.
Timothy’s eyes seemed to glaze over as his mind wandered back to another time. “When I was a kid, I always felt so lost and alone, my mother did her best to raise me, but she was always working and didn’t have much time for me, and not knowing who my father was consumed me. Every time I watched a TV show or the news and saw some random guy I’d think, is that my father? Could that be him? Whenever I’d ask my mother, she’d brush it off. Finally she told me my father was dead just to get me to shut up, but deep down I knew she was lying.”
“When did you find out about Hal Greenwood?” Poppy asked gently, not wanting to rile him up any more than he already was.
“About five years ago. Can you imagine my surprise? My mother’s boss? He’d been in my life the whole time and she kept it hidden from me, I was completely in the dark! She didn’t even list his name on my birth certificate, she just said ‘father unknown.’ But my grandmother knew the truth, and on her deathbed, she couldn’t stand to see how tortured I was about not knowing who my father was, and so she confessed everything. I was so angry. It took me a long time to forgive my mother.”
“So you reached out to Hal and he rejected you?” Poppy asked. It was a guess. But an educated one knowing the kind of man Hal Greenwood was.
“He adamantly denied it. I told him I wasn’t trying to get any money or anything like that, but he didn’t care. He just kicked me out of his office and threatened that if I ever brought it up again, he’d fire my mother. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to know more about him. I became obsessed, I did a deep dive into his past, where he came from, how he became the success he is today . . . and along the way I stumbled across the Pillow Talk murders back in the nineteen eighties, and suddenly everything came into focus. . . .”
Poppy stared at him, confused. “How?”
“My whole childhood, especially when I was a teenager, I had these violent thoughts, these urges to kill in order to release all the anger pent up inside me. Whenever these thoughts crept into my mind, I’d try to suppress them, but the older I got, the more frequently they came, and it was like I was at war with myself on the inside. When I found a link between Hal and the Pillow Talk murders, it was like a eureka moment.”
“You finally found a connection with your father,” Poppy said solemnly.
“What is it they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? I was ecstatic, I finally had an explanation for what was going on with me, it was simple genetics.”
“That is an extreme oversimplification,” Poppy snapped, shaking her head. “Just because you share DNA with someone who has committed murder, that doesn’t give you an excuse to do the same!”
Timothy thrust the gun out, inflamed. “You don’t know anything! Don’t you see? We’re now bonded, inextricably linked, forever! Father and son!”
“You’re deluded if you believe that he will somehow be proud of you for this! Hal Greenwood is a raging, immoral narcissist! He won’t care that you were trying to impress him by following in his footsteps! He only cares about himself, and right now he’s not thinking about you, he’s only thinking about how he’s going to get out of spending the rest of his life in prison for those ghastly murders he committed forty years ago!”
“You’re wrong!” Timothy shouted.
“And your mother? Did she know what you did to Danika?”
“Of course not. She would have been horrified. It was best to keep her in the dark, like she kept me in the dark all those years.”
“Why Danika? What did she ever do to you?”
“She was the exact same type of victim as the ones my father went after. She fit the profile. Simple as that. Anyone on the set could see how attracted he was to her. I knew if he had been younger like me, Danika would have been his perfect victim so I chose her. I wanted to feel what he felt all those years ago, the adrenaline, the thrill. . . .”
His cold assessment sent chills through Poppy.
She was desperate to cry out or try to knock the gun out of his hand and make a run for it, but she knew that was a risky proposition, especially since Timothy was now a self-confessed killer. She was trapped, unsure how she was going to get out of this predicament. She needed to keep Timothy talking until she could figure out a plan to escape.
“And then you targeted Fabian Granger because he somehow found out about you?”
“Yeah, I felt bad about that, but I had no choice. He had been poking around the set, asking questions, and somehow he discovered my true identity, that I was Hal Greenwood’s bastard son. What a scoop, right? Well, I couldn’t let that get out into the public, because it might raise suspicions about Hal and me and the Pillow Talk Killer, and so I needed to silence him. Permanently.”
“How did you get past the hotel’s security cameras?”
“That was a breeze. I pilfered a waiter uniform from a supply closet and grabbed a room service cart so nobody would question seeing me roaming the halls. I told a chambermaid that Mr. Granger had told me to let myself in with his dinner but I had forgotten my master card key, and so she was kind enough to let me in. I found him in the bathtub. He had his eyes closed, listening to a podcast, and so he never saw it coming.”
The real waiter arrived with his dinner later, after Poppy had arrived and discovered the body.
Suddenly the door to the trailer flew open, and an unsuspecting Matt bounded inside. His eyes fell upon the gun in Timothy’s hand and he stopped short. Timothy quickly pressed the gun to his temple.
“Come inside and shut the door,” Timothy ordered.
Matt did as instructed. He looked at Poppy. “Are you all right?”
Poppy nodded, although it was impossible to conceal her cold-sweat terror.
Timothy had come prepared. He had some rope and zip ties in a plastic bag and ordered Poppy at gunpoint to bind Matt. Once she was finished and Matt was secured, Timothy went to work tying up Poppy, forcing them both back down on the couch side by side, his Glock pistol still trained on them.
“How about we go sightseeing in Joshua Tree Park? The views are so stark and dramatic, and there are so many hidden places where no one would ever find a body . . . or two,” he said with a smug smile and a curt laugh.
Poppy and Matt exchanged tense looks as Timothy took the wheel of the mobile trailer and drove them away from base camp and into the vast, empty, foreboding desert.
Chapter 50
As the mobile home trailer barreled deeper into the heart of Joshua Tree National Park, Timothy swerved off the paved road and headed straight into the harsh, unforgiving hot desert farther and farther away from any signs of civilization. Poppy had no illusions as to what his plan was. He was going to take them as far out as possible, shoot them dead, then hide their bodies where they would probably never be found by anyone except a few wild animals that would hungrily feast upon their carcasses. It was a chilling fate, and Poppy was silently kicking herself for allowing herself and Matt to get caught up in this horrifying situation.
As Poppy and Matt sat side by side on the couch, hands and feet bound, shoulders bumping into each other from the sharp hairpin turns of the mobile trailer as it sped along, Poppy leaned in and whispered to Matt, “I’m so sorry about all this, Matt.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Sorry for what?”
“I feel like this is all my fault. You just wanted to be an actor and I
forced you into this pretend role of a detective, and now it’s going to end up getting you killed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Matt scoffed. “I knew what I was signing up for.”
“No matter what happens, Matt, I want you to know how much I care for you, how much you’ve changed my life for the better. . . .”
“You’re not saying that just because you think we’re going to die today, are you?” Matt cracked.
“Of course not,” Poppy said.
“Good, because I’m going to remind you of those words when we get out of this,” Matt said, peering up front where Timothy was in the front cab driving the trailer, eyes glued to the desert in front of him.
Matt began twisting his wrists in a circular motion.
“What are you doing? The zip ties are too tight. You’ll never wriggle free,” Poppy sighed.
“There’s a trick to zip ties,” he said in a hushed tone. “When he had you tie me up, I knew there was a way to clench my fists with my palms facing down, which makes my wrists bigger and creates a little room to slip out. Since we’ve been talking, I unclenched my wrists so they faced inward and started to work my way out, thumbs first.”
Matt checked on Timothy again, whose back was still to them, and then triumphantly held up the warped zip ties that had been locked around his hands. “Voilà.”
“How did you learn that?”
“I used to watch a lot of YouTube videos in between acting auditions. And I do mean a lot.”
Matt got to work freeing Poppy, and within seconds, she was free and rubbing the red marks on her own wrists. Matt put a finger to his lips, signaling her to keep quiet, and then he noiselessly crouched down, and slowly made his way up to the cab in the front of the mobile home. Poppy nervously watched him as he crawled up behind the driver’s seat, steeled himself, then popped up and lunged at Timothy, wrapping an arm around his throat. Timothy croaked in surprise, his foot slamming down on the gas pedal, the mobile home lurching forward, sending Poppy slamming to the floor of the trailer.
Matt struggled with Timothy, choking him, as Timothy’s arms flailed as he released his grip on the steering wheel. The trailer swung from side to side, out of control. Poppy grabbed ahold of the table leg which was bolted into the floor and held on with all her might as Matt and Timothy battled up front.
Then, suddenly she felt the entire vehicle flip up and over, and Poppy closed her eyes as cupboards flew open and dishes and glassware came flying out. She held on to the table leg for dear life as the upended trailer finally skidded to a stop.
There was utter silence for about a minute as Poppy slowly opened her eyes to survey the damage. The whole trailer was on its side. She heard Matt groaning but could not immediately see him.
“Matt! Matt!” Poppy cried. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’ll live,” he moaned. “I think.”
Poppy clambered to her hands and knees and made her way up to find Matt attending to Timothy, who was sprawled out across the front seats, unconscious, a deep gash in his forehead.
“He cracked his head against the windshield when we flipped over. He’s out cold,” Matt said.
“This is the third vehicle in a week you’ve destroyed,” Poppy playfully admonished. “But thank God, this time it was to save our lives.”
Matt grinned, then climbed over Timothy’s body and kicked open the passenger’s-side door, which was facing up, allowing Poppy to crawl out. Matt followed behind her, and once they were outside the air-conditioned mobile home, it quickly became apparent they were in the middle of nowhere, a blinding, unrelenting sun beating down on them with stifling temperatures well above a hundred degrees and still rising.
“My bag is in the trailer with my phone,” Poppy said.
Matt pulled his own phone out of his pocket. The screen was smashed but it appeared to still be working. He held the phone up in the air. “Nope. No service.”
“Then we’re stuck here,” Poppy said, suddenly worried. “With no one around for miles.”
Matt turned around and climbed back inside the trailer. Poppy could hear him rummaging around.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer at first, but emerged a few seconds later. “I was hoping to find some bottled water in the minifridge, but no such luck.”
“They probably didn’t bother restocking since we wrapped shooting in the desert and were doing a company move back to the resort,” Poppy sighed.
“What do we do now?” Matt asked, blocking out the sun with his hand as he scanned the vast, endless desert.
Poppy walked around to the back of the trailer. “We can follow the tire tracks back to the main road.”
“That has to be at least a ten-mile walk. In this heat, with no water, we’ll never make it,” Matt said solemnly.
Poppy didn’t respond.
She knew they had no other choice.
When the same thought finally hit Matt, they grabbed each other’s hands and began the long, brutal trek back to where they had come from under the scorching sun and nothing around for miles.
Chapter 51
Poppy followed behind Matt as they staggered through the endless sand past rock formations and cacti, the wind, which had started to pick up, whistling and gusting. Poppy had brought along a neck scarf which she used to mask her face from the grit and dust. Her mouth was dry, she felt light-headed, no doubt from dehydration, and as far as the eye could see, there was nothing ahead of them but cracked land, crumbling rock, and mountains in the far distance that never seemed to get any closer. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on, and began contemplating a scenario where she would find some cover behind a rock where she could find respite from the harsh sunlight and rest awhile, allowing Matt to continue on ahead to seek help unencumbered by her. She had not reached that desperate point yet, but she was getting awfully close.
Her impractical shoes were not designed for desert trekking and her ankles throbbed with pain, but taking them off and walking barefoot was not an option because the dry baked earth would sear the soles of her feet.
The cutting wind suddenly picked up speed, battering them relentlessly. Poppy stumbled and fell to the ground, covered in dust, and licked her cracked lips to try to moisten them, even a little bit. Through the blinding sandstorm, she could see Matt running back to get her, grabbing her hand, hauling her to her feet, then leading her forward until they reached a large rock near what looked like a dry creek, circling around it and ducking down together.
Matt huddled with Poppy, grabbing ahold of her scarf, which looked like it might loosen and fly away from her face, holding it in place to protect her. They crouched next to each other, clinging to each other for what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes until the sandstorm subsided and there was a heavy silence.
“Sit tight, I’ll be right back,” Matt said, standing up and circling back around the rock.
Poppy closed her eyes and her head drooped forward. She pretended she was back in her brand-new house cooking Sam dinner. She was grateful that the shadow of the rock was at least offering some shelter from the unrelenting rays of the sun. She was sitting quietly, meditating, trying hard to focus on the task at hand, surviving this journey, when she heard a strange sound.
A rattling.
Poppy froze, holding her breath.
She opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with a long, thick rattlesnake, only inches from her feet. Its triangular head raised, its catlike pupils locked on Poppy, the brown-, gray-, and rust-colored scales curled up, the end of the tail vibrating with a stark warning. Poppy stifled a scream, trying not to move a muscle, hoping the snake might just slither around her and go on its merry way. But the rattler had already identified Poppy as a threat and was rearing back to strike. She knew if the snake bit her with its poisonous fangs all the way out in the middle of nowhere, she would be a goner.
The snake sprang forward and Poppy cried out in shock, shutting her eyes, feari
ng the worst. But then, in a split second, she heard a loud pop. And all was quiet again. The rattling sound had stopped. She opened her eyes to see the snake’s carcass splayed in front of her, mere inches from her right foot. Matt was a few feet away, gripping Timothy’s Glock pistol.
“When I went back into the trailer to find us some water, I figured it would be a good idea to bring the kid’s gun along just in case,” Matt said.
Poppy could barely speak her mouth was so dry, but she managed to get out a sincere “Thank you.”
“The sandstorm pretty much erased the tire tracks so we no longer know which way is the main road,” Matt said, frowning. “But our best bet is to follow the sun in the west and hope it takes us to some kind of road where we can flag down a car.”
Poppy nodded and climbed to her feet as Matt gently took her by the elbow to steady her, and they continued walking. Another hour passed as they slogged through the dirt and sand. Several times Poppy resisted the urge to ask Matt if they could stop and rest, maybe wait until the sun set and the high temperatures began to drop. But stuck out in the desert in the middle of night with all kinds of wild animals was not exactly a preferred option.
The only choice was to plow ahead.
Poppy’s ears perked up at a faint sound.
Was it another snake?
She scanned the ground around her fearfully, but there was nothing.
“Do you hear that?” Matt asked.
“Yes, what is it?”
Matt shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The sound grew in volume.
It wasn’t a rattling, but more like a chopping.
Whup. Whup. Whup.
Matt pointed at something in the sky.
It was dark and blurry, but Poppy thought it might be a bird of some kind. Or a desert illusion. After all, she was feeling faint from lack of water and might just be hallucinating. But Matt saw it, too, and then he frantically began waving his arms, trying to catch its attention.
Poppy rubbed her eyes and the image finally came into focus. It was a helicopter. For a moment, Poppy thought the chopper was going to fly overhead, oblivious to them, but then after passing them, it descended from the sky and landed on the flat desert surface a few hundred feet away from them.
