Campbell

by C. S. Starr

  “Okay,” Bull nodded, picking up the rifle he’d lent him. “I have your number.”

  “The phones won’t work, but I’ll be here,” Tal said decisively. “Go.”

  ***

  The studio was larger than Lucy had imagined. Leah grabbed her hand and squeezed it as she waved to two armed guards at the front gate from her Jaguar.

  “Connor sent me to pick up some stuff and check in on things,” she said brightly.

  “Who’s she? She kind of looks like—”

  “She’s in the space movie.”

  “There’s a problem with the phones. We’re working to have it resolved,” one of the guards said. “Power’s still up though, so no problems with shooting. What’s your name?”

  “Laura Black,” Lucy said, without missing a beat and smiling as the guard wrote her name in a book. “I’m from—”

  “She’s from Seattle,” Leah interjected. “She’s got the same measurements as the girl—”

  “The one with the lion?” The second guard winced. “You’re still doing that scene?”

  “We’ve got it figured out now. It won’t happen again.” Leah winked. “Come on now, don’t scare her!”

  The three of them chuckled. “How’s Bauman?”

  “Home, snoring away,” Leah said with a sigh, as she pulled away from the gate. “This war….”

  “I hear we’re winning!”

  “Of course we are!” she shouted back. “Back in a bit.”

  “What do you do here?” Lucy asked curiously as she rolled up the windows.

  “Everything lately. When politics became more important than movies, I got the toy that none of the boys wanted anymore.” She reached into the backseat and handed Lucy a beret. “Keep your face off the security cameras. I don’t know who’s watching. There’s been so much bullshit flying lately that I’m surprised they let me in.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Leah pulled into a parking spot with her name on it. “I’d like to sleep at night.”

  Their first stop was a third-floor office with Leah’s name on the door, full of movie memorabilia and electronics, the newest Lucy had seen in years. She stood in the doorway, tense as Tal’s cousin rifled through her desk.

  She was fairly sure she could handle herself with Leah, as long as it was a fair fight. She hadn’t expected her to pull a gun.

  “I’m not going to shoot you, you ass,” Leah muttered, laying the gun on her desk as she passed her an envelope. “Here. I had them developed. I wasn’t supposed to look, but I confronted Connor about it.”

  They were the same pictures Lucy had been sent. She looked quickly then dropped the envelope on her desk. “What…” Lucy stammered, her mind racking

  “Connor told me a lovely story about how Campbell had abducted my cousin and he’d managed to grab Lucy Campbell’s twin so we could negotiate and get him back. Imagine my shock when Tal called and said he was with you, and he was fine. He should have called earlier.”

  Lucy had asked him not to call earlier. Her heart thudded in her chest.

  “Why? What would have—”

  “Because I wouldn’t have helped Connor kill him if I’d know,” she said simply. “I would have stopped it, however I had to. Your brother was a nice guy. A bit misguided, but a nice guy.”

  Lucy lunged over the desk and grabbed the girl, pinning her to the floor. “You fucking bitch,” she hissed, her hands around Leah’s throat. “Fucking idiotic—”

  “If you kill me, you’re never getting out of here alive,” she gasped, fumbling for the gun. “And even if you did, Tal would never forgive you, and this will never end.”

  Lucy released her throat , but remained on top of her. “Do you have any idea the problems you’ve—”

  “Yes,” she wheezed. “I know exactly the problems I’ve caused, and I’m trying to make them as right as I can. See that over there?” She nodded at a simple cardboard box. “His things are in there, if you want them. I saved them.”

  Lucy grabbed the gun off the desk and stood, cautiously aiming at Leah. The girl was physically weak, but Lucy had gained new respect for her. She knew that, for Tal, Leah would have done exactly what Lucy had to get Cole back.

  The box had her twin’s old hoodie, boots and jeans in it; his wallet with some tattered Canadian money, and her mother’s wedding band, which he’d always worn around his neck on a chain. Even from a distance they smelled like him, and Lucy was overcome with emotion.

  “You asked why I’m doing this. You brought Tal back.” Leah said, sitting up and rubbing her neck. “We’re as even as—”

  “As we could ever be,” Lucy replied, sliding her mother’s band in her pocket. “Where did he…?“

  Leah nodded and stood, accepting the ruler of Campbell’s hand to steady herself. “I’ll take you there.”

  The two girls walked silently over to a small prop shed about ten minutes from the main building in a bit of lawn, and Leah removed a key from on top of the doorframe and opened the door.

  The smell of blood and death was overpowering. They both gagged.

  “I thought someone would have cleaned this up by now,” Leah whispered, pulling a string and lighting up a bare bulb to reveal a great deal of blood splattered against the wall. “Connor was supposed to—”

  “Where is my brother?” Lucy asked, her fingers tracing the blood on the wall as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I…I need to take him home.”

  “I don’t know.” Leah took a step outside the door to get some air. “Connor knows. I didn’t ask. I didn’t…” Her face screwed up as tears streamed down her face. “I never wanted to be a part of any of these games. I just wanted to make movies, and live my life without any more death, and now, it’s just…” She wiped her eyes. “It doesn’t stop. It’ll never stop.”

  Lucy took a step outside and drew a deep breath. “He’s gone…he’s really….”

  The last person she expected to find comfort in was Leah Schmidt. Leah wasn’t naturally warm, and it was a challenge for them both, figuring out how to properly react. She held Lucy though, stroked her terrible haircut, and did her best to calm the gut wrenching sobs the girl was emitting.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” she whispered. “We can’t do this here though. Not with you looking like him, and whatever is happening with Connor and Tal. We’ve got to get out of here. Tal, he’ll be wondering.”

  “He was here when Cole was here,” Lucy choked.

  “He didn’t know, Lucy. He didn’t. None of this would have happened if he’d know. This,” she nodded at the shed. “It’s nothing to do with Tal.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Do you really think—”

  “He should have paid more attention.”

  “I think we’re all guilty of that.” Leah reached for her hand. “We have to get out of here.”

  Lucy lingered, and peering into the shed once more, the walls familiar from the pictures she’d been sent. This was it. Closure. As good as it got.

  “We should go,” she mumbled, clutching her mother’s ring in her pocket. “My people are probably waiting.”

  Leah nodded. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  “We’re never going to be friends,” Lucy said quietly, as they sped out of the studio lot. “I know you have ulterior motives.”

  “Of course I have ulterior motives,” Leah huffed. “No one sticks their neck out if they don’t. Tal doesn’t know about what I just showed you, and—”

  Lucy nodded in agreement. “Today isn’t the day. You’ll tell him when—”

  “Connor will tell him when we’re pulling out his fingernails. He’ll implicate me, and you’ll already know that, but you’ll keep your mouth shut,” Leah said.

  “You won’t tell him why we were here?”

  Shaking her head, she put her blinker on. “I didn’t do it to win brownie points with him. He can figure it out on his own.”

  Lucy watched Leah out of the
corner of her eye for the rest of the drive, as she tried to decipher Tal’s cousin furrowed expression while they drove road after unfamiliar road, seemingly in circles at times.

  “Can you see that black Range Rover anywhere?” Leah finally asked. “It’s been following us.”

  Lucy glanced back in the rearview mirror. “No. There’s nothing behind us.”

  “We can’t go home now. Not any normal way,” she muttered. “They’re trying to grab me and probably you for collateral, and I’m sure they’ve got the roads blocked up.”

  “For someone that doesn’t like politics, you sure know your strategy.” Lucy looked in the rearview and flinched when the black SUV pulled back in behind them. “So what do we do?”

  “I’ve got a full tank of gas and I know this city better than anyone. How are you with a gun?”

  “Good,” Lucy nodded confidently. She’d always shot tin cans better than any boy.

  “We shoot out the tires on that one then and try to get as close to the house as possible. I know a way.”

  Leah swerved onto the highway and eased her car into the far lane. Traffic was light and she took advantage of that, getting far enough ahead that it was just themselves and the black Range Rover.

  “Do you think you can make the shot from here?”

  “You’ll have to slow down if I’ve got a chance.” Lucy twisted around in the seat and Leah pushed the sunroof open. “If I can’t get the tires?”

  “Aim for the windshield. Shoot the driver if you have to. Just stop them.” She sped up and then put the brakes on, putting the SUV as close to them as she could.

  Two shots later, the SUV’s occupants were sitting ducks on the freeway.

  “Whooo!” Leah shouted, speeding up again as Lucy sat down again and buckled up her seatbelt. “We’re not done yet, but that was fucking awesome!”

  It took a minute for Lucy to get control of her breathing, the rush of what she’d done lingering in her throat. “Did I kill the driver? I think I killed—”

  “I don’t know. You shattered the shit out of his windshield.” She beat on her steering wheel enthusiastically. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Driveways were ducked into and they drove in so many circles around the hills that Lucy thought she was going to be sick. She’d never seen so many houses on such small pieces of land. Finally, they came to a small house with a drive-in garage, which opened automatically when Leah pulled up to it.

  “I lived here for about a year when I was seventeen,” she said quietly. “When Tal and I went our separate ways for a while.”

  “It’s a cute place.”

  “I get lonely easily,” she admitted. “It’s like everything’s worse when you’re alone—”

  “I’m the same.” Lucy unlocked the car and found her legs like jelly and her shoulder aching from shooting the gun. She turned around in the small garage and followed Leah out the back door, and looked straight up the side of a hill. “So I’m guessing it’s up.”

  “Up it is,” Leah nodded. “It’s about twenty minutes and then we should end up in our backyard.”

  The two women started up the hill, pushing through the vines and greenery in silence. Leah lead the way, moving things aside for Lucy as they trudged onward.

  “I want to ask you,” Lucy gasped on the steep incline, “about when he was…but—”

  “What good would that do?” Leah said, glancing back at her wistfully. “You know it wasn’t nice, and there’s nothing you can do to change it.”

  She was right, Lucy knew. She also knew anything Leah told her would just make her angrier, and she was angry enough, at Connor and Leah, but also at the universe for putting her in her present situation.

  “His death won’t be for nothing. I can do something about that,” Lucy grunted as her foot slipped and she nearly twisted her ankle.

  “I can see why he likes you. He’s a sucker for a bleeding heart.” Leah pushed some tree branches aside.

  Lucy decided that Leah was as kind as her cousin, but she didn’t give her the satisfaction of admitting it out loud.

  When they finally cleared the fence at their house, Leah and Lucy were immediately met with a huge dead kid, half in the pool, tinting the swimming pool red. She pulled Lucy behind the pump house and the two of them slumped down.

  “Good news is that’s not Tal. Is that any of your people?”

  Lucy shook her head. “No. My people are a girl about your size and a guy about that height but not so…fat.”

  They both listened for a minute and heard nothing.

  “Do we check the house?”

  Lucy shook her head. “It could be a trap.”

  “We can’t stay out here forever. You got that gun still?”

  Lucy pulled it out of her back pocket. “It’s got what? Four bullets?”

  “There’s more in the house, if we can get there. Just…” she nodded towards the screen door. “We’ll go slow.”

  The patio door was open, as was the front door. Leah pulled both shut quietly and locked them. “Guns are in Tal’s office behind the bookcase,” she whispered. “Grab as many as you can.”

  The guns weren’t the only thing she found in the gun room. Lucy gasped as she opened the door to find Zoey and Rika’s two little girls stuffed in the tiny room.

  She muffled Zoey’s sobs into her shoulder as she embraced her so hard she thought she might break them both.

  “They came, and they took them, and there were shots,” she sobbed. “And I thought you—”

  “I’m okay,” Lucy promised. “Oh, Zoey,” she squeaked, kissing her, her hands on her face. “You’re okay.”

  She nodded, resting her head on Lucy’s shoulder. “I’m just…I’m not cut out for any of this. I want to go home and make you dinner and do the laundry—”

  “Two more dead on the front lawn,” Leah announced, blinking at Lucy and Zoey. “Oh. Hello.”

  Lucy didn’t let her go. “This…she’s Zoey. One of mine. The kids are—”

  “Rika’s.” Leah nodded, kneeling down to see the littlest one. “Where are Tal and your mom?”

  “Someone came and took them,” the littlest girl squeaked.

  “Any idea where or who?”

  “Mommy said to tell you to hurry,” the older girl piped up. “And that my uncles were going to get Connor on his plane.”

  “They went to meet him at the airport?”

  She nodded. “Before.”

  Lucy and Leah exchanged a look. “So if they have them, they probably don’t give a shit about us,” Leah said with a shrug. “So now what?”

  “Where would whoever took them take them?” Lucy wondered out loud. “Any guesses?”

  “Just one,” Leah replied, her face clouding over with rage. “Strap as many weapons on as you can. We’re going back down the hill.”

  Chapter 24

  April 2003

  Campbell

  “Stay out of my head!” Lucy screamed at Bull in her dream. “Can’t I even have a minute of privacy without you barging in?”

  “I can’t exactly decide when I barge in,” he chuckled, looking at his friend, who he’d found in a very compromising position. “She’s hot. You have good taste.”

  Lucy’s dream girl evaporated into thin air. “I can’t believe you.”

  “You’re stuck with me,” he said. “And it’s not like the situation hasn’t been reversed. You know we don’t get to decide when this happens.”

  “I didn’t stand there and watch though.”

  “You hid in the closet and watched.” He crossed his arms. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

  “You were doing it with me!” She squawked, before cracking up. “Are we dream fighting?”

  “You’re the one doing the fighting.” Bull sat down on the bed and looked around. “Is this what you’re into? Flowers and quilts?”

  Lucy patted the bed, deciding to ignore his obvious insinuation. “It’s nice.”

  His eyes c
hallenged her to come out with it. Lucy hadn’t told him she had been thinking a lot about girls lately, but he barged into her dreams at the wrong moments. “It’s boring.”

  “Maybe I’m boring.”

  He shook his head. “You’re just afraid to look a little deeper.”

  “What’s deeper, it’s not good.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen it. It’s not so bad.”

  “When are you coming down again?” She imagined a robe and pulled it around her. “I got a goat.”

  “You got a goat?”

  She nodded. “For milk. Lola.”

  “Lola the goat.” He smiled. “I’ll come in a couple of weeks. I think Cara’s going to take Chloe for me.”

  “For how long?”

  “For good. Or until she’s old enough to fend for herself.”

  Lucy smiled, pleased that her friend had finally reached the conclusion she had months ago. “I think that’s a very grown-up decision.”

  “I want to keep her, but I’m not…I can’t do it. I can’t be her dad right now, and I shouldn’t be, you know? She’s just a tiny person, and I’m not…” Bull swallowed hard. “No matter how much I want to be. She deserves better. I don’t want her to grow up all fucked up like my mom was, and I know hanging around a bunch of assholes like me, she’s not going to have a shot in hell of being as awesome as she deserves.”

  Her hand wrapped around his and she nodded. “It’s got to get easier, the older we get, right?”

  Bull sighed and shook his head. “Fuck, I hope so, Goose. I hope so.”

  November 2012

  Los Angeles, West

  Tal looked over the side of the Colorado Street Bridge with disgust, both at the thought that he’d come here once before and the idea that Connor had the poor taste to return him here for some sort of final justice.

  “Why the fuck did they bring us here?” Rika whispered.

  “I tried to off myself here when I was twelve,” Tal whispered back, wriggling his hands in the rope they’d bound him with. “When my little cousin got shot. Connor talked me out of it.”

  “He thinks he’s clever, doesn’t he?” She raised her eyebrows dryly. “Well, boys, where is he?”