Hollywood Intrigue: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller

by M. Z. Kelly

  We were above the reservoir, a couple of hundred yards from where we’d been dropped off when Dawson pointed to a cluster of large rusted pipes. “It looks like they’re a few decades old, probably the original drainage system for the area. Let’s take a closer look.”

  Ten minutes later, we were less than twenty yards into an abandoned drainage canal. Dawson was shining his light into the cave when all hell broke loose.

  Someone was shooting at us.

  THIRTY EIGHT

  Dawson and I dove, taking cover behind some rocks as I pulled Bernie down with me. The hail of gunfire went on for several minutes, the firing so intense that we were pinned down and unable to see our assailant. I tried my cell phone and managed to get Ted on the line, telling him what was happening as the bullets continued to fly. I got a promise that he would send reinforcements before ending the call.

  Dawson turned to me and said, “We’re gonna have to split up, see if we can get an angle on him.”

  He motioned to an area where the piping had partially collapsed and there was a dirt berm. When the shots finally stopped, he scrambled away from me and took cover there. He then called out, announcing us and telling the shooter to surrender. His words only served to escalate things, as the firing resumed, this time in the direction of where Dawson had called out.

  I took the opportunity to raise my head and glance into the tunnel. Except for the muzzle flashes and hail of bullets streaming out of the darkness, I couldn’t make out anything.

  I did some calculations and made my best guess as to where I thought the shooter might be located. I rose up and fired a half-dozen shots in that direction, praying that if Riley Miller was in the tunnel I wouldn’t shoot her.

  When I slumped back down again and took cover, the shooting abruptly stopped. It was replaced by the sound of someone screaming. I realized that the shooter was down, probably badly wounded.

  Bernie led the way as we were joined by Dawson and moved from cover to cover, going deeper into the tunnel. When we finally reached our assailant, I saw that we were too late. Tyler Linden’s nude body was on the ground. It looked like I’d hit an artery and he’d bled out quickly.

  I heard a whimpering sound as Dawson’s flashlight illuminated the back of the cave. I saw that a girl was lying on a raised platform. As the light washed over Riley Miller’s naked body, she rose up, and cried out, “Please help me.”

  THIRTY NINE

  I got home around six after spending the day processing the scene where Riley Miller was held captive and Tyler Linden had been killed. Thankfully, the teenager had not been harmed. Riley had told us that she’d been drugged and remembered very little after her initial abduction. When we asked her about Linden’s relationship to the man known as The Prophet we got nothing but blank stares.

  Joe Dawson and I thought it was likely there would be another abduction soon, given that The Prophet’s plans had been thwarted. John Greer had said that he planned to call a meeting of the taskforce in the morning. All things considered, while we’d saved the girl, it felt like we were no closer to stopping The Prophet than when we initially began working the case.

  Natalie and Mo saw me walking Bernie around the grounds of the apartment and followed us home. I was exhausted, but knew they wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I invited them in.

  “The press has been all over what happened up in the hills today,” Mo said. “That reporter, Haley Tristan, even had an interview with one of the FBI Agents on her TV show, Hollywood Confidential.”

  “Allison Schwab?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s her name.” Mo collapsed into a chair and moved green wig hair out of her eyes like she was pulling back a curtain. “I only heard part of it but she told the reporter that she wanted The Prophet to contact her.”

  I kept quiet, not wanting to say anything about what the taskforce had set in place.

  “Me and Mo think we’ve figured out a motive for the crimes, if you wanna hear it,” Natalie said. My beautiful friend had mud on her face, as in an expensive facial treatment that she’d earlier mentioned was designed to prevent liver spots.

  I was thinking that Natalie was about fifty years away from having to worry about liver spots, as I said, “I can use the help. What’s your theory?”

  Natalie’s hazel eyes widened and she lowered her voice. “Terror. The Prophet wants to scare the living bajeezus out of everybody.”

  “And he’s doing a pretty damn good job of it,” Mo agreed.

  I sighed. “I think you’re probably right.”

  What I didn’t say was that the stakes were probably higher now that I’d been involved in stopping his apprentice. I didn’t know what that meant for me personally, but I did know that I would have to be extra cautious until the killing spree ended.

  Mo lowered her husky voice and went on, “Since that girl got away today, baby sis and me think The Prophet’s gonna strike again soon.”

  “You could be right.” I yawned. “We’ll just have to see how things go.”

  Natalie went on for a minute, telling us through her mud mask what she’d personally do to The Prophet if she got ahold of him. She then changed the subject. “Don’t forget about our party. All the stars from Hollywood Girlz are gonna be here.”

  “Here?”

  “The party’s going to be right here in the courtyard by the pool,” Mo said. “Me and baby sis are bringing our guys. We thought you might wanna bring that teacher you’ve been seeing.”

  “Maybe he’ll even keep you after school,” Natalie said with a wink.

  I shook my head as my phone chirped. “I’ll come to the party but I’m not bringing anyone.” I checked my phone and saw that I had a text from Lexi. “Damn.” I stood up and sighed. “I forgot, I’m supposed to take Lexi to the rehearsal for her play tonight.”

  “We can keep an eye on Bernie, if you want,” Mo said, trying to rise from her chair. She collapsed back down. Natalie went over to help her up.

  “I’d appreciate that,” I said, grabbing my keys off the counter. “I shouldn’t be too late.”

  “Unless she runs into the teacher,” Natalie said to Mo. “Then it could be Kate will get herself a spanking ‘cause she forgot about the rehearsal.”

  ***

  The traffic was surprisingly light and I was only running a couple of minutes late for the rehearsal after picking up Lexi. On the way to her school, Lexi said that she was so nervous she couldn’t eat dinner. I tried to calm her nerves by telling her about being interviewed on television.

  “It was for a case I worked a few months back,” I said. “It was one of those nighttime TV crime shows and the interviewer was really intense.”

  Lexi was wringing her hands in her lap. “How did you get through it?”

  “I just imagined that the host was nude.” I chuckled. “It worked. The only problem was that I wanted to laugh every time I thought about him sitting there naked.”

  Lexi laughed but I could tell she was still worried. I reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart. All the other kids will be nervous, too. And, I’ll be rooting for you every step of the way.”

  She thanked me, but then sighed. “I saw you on TV again…where that girl was found.”

  “I’m just glad we were able to help her.” I glanced over, noticing that her eyes seemed to turn inward.

  “Do you think he’ll do it again—take another girl?”

  I shook my head. “Not if I can help it.” I pulled into a parking space near the school’s gymnasium and added, “Let’s forget about it for a couple of hours and go have a good time.”

  I spent a couple of hours watching Lexi rehearse. Most of the time was spent with her drama teacher assigning roles and talking about the play and its symbolism. He made a point of saying that the play’s theme had to do with the transience of human life and the importance of companionship. I was thinking about the significance of that as it related to The Prophet when I saw Dillon Walker enter the gymn
asium.

  The handsome teacher waved to the drama instructor and then came over to me for a minute. “I see Lexi has her rooting section,” he said. His green eyes surveyed the bleachers. “No Bernie tonight?”

  “Home, resting up.”

  He complimented my hairy partner and then said, “I saw that you had a busy day—lots of stuff on television.”

  “It ended well.”

  He glanced over at the students on the gymnasium floor before finding my eyes again. “I’d better see what I can do to help.” A half-smile curved his lips. “I was thinking maybe we could have dinner at Shintaro’s on Highland tomorrow night. I could pick you up at eight, if that works.”

  I realized that Natalie and Mo’s party was tomorrow night. I decided that I had nothing to lose by asking him to stop by before going out. “How would you feel about hanging out with a few zombies before dinner?” I then took a moment and explained about the party.

  He laughed. “You should see some of the people I work with. The zombies have nothing on them. I’ll come by your place around seven. We can go to dinner afterward.”

  It was nine-thirty by the time Lexi finished with rehearsals. As we walked to the car, she told me that she’d finally relaxed and remembered most of her lines. “I think I’m going to like being Emily in the play. She’s…” Lexi looked at me. “She’s a lot like you.”

  I chuckled. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “She’s smart and wise and…” She looked away before her gaze came back to me. “…and she really cares about people.”

  “You just made my day,” I said. “And, I’ve got a feeling you’ll know your lines forward and backward before the play is over.”

  She brushed her brown hair from her eyes. “I hope so.” Her gaze drifted off again as we pulled out of the parking lot. When we were on the street she looked back at me. “I saw you were with Mr. Walker.”

  I cut my eyes to her. “He seems like a nice guy.”

  A smile played on her lips. “I heard a rumor about him, that maybe you two are…dating.”

  I glanced at her, then back at the highway. “We’re just friends.” I felt her eyes on me and looked back at her. “Okay, so we’re going to have something to eat tomorrow night. It’s no big deal.”

  Her smile was still there as she looked away. “I hope I can find someone like him…” She found my eyes again. “Only maybe a little younger.”

  I reached over and squeezed her hand. “You will, sweetheart.” I laughed and added, “And then, believe me, life will never be the same.”

  FORTY

  I planned to go into work late the next morning and check on Brie after her surgery at UCLA Medical Center. I had a restless night and then fell back asleep after hitting the snooze button on my alarm. I didn’t wake up until almost nine.

  I was still angry with myself and running late when I ran into an on-duty nurse at the hospital named Katy Redding. I knew Katy from having interviewed a victim on a past case.

  Katy said that she was familiar with Brie’s case and then took me aside.

  “The surgery went fine…” She lowered her voice and her tired eyes held on me. “Based on what they found, they went ahead and did a radical mastectomy.” My heart sank as she went on. “They also did something called a SLNB. It’s basically a biopsy of the sentinel lymph nodes. It’s a procedure to determine if the cancer has spread.”

  I held my breath. “Don’t tell me.”

  “I’m sorry. It was positive.” She touched my hand as my gaze fell away. After a moment, I found her eyes again as she added, “Your friend is going to need chemo and further treatment. She’s also going to need all the support she can get.”

  My shoulders slumped but I tried to steady myself. “Can I see her?”

  Katy shook her head. “She’ll be in recovery for a while, pretty much out of it. Why don’t you try and stop by later this afternoon?”

  I made arrangements to see Brie later and then left the hospital. I’d barely made it to my car when my eyes filled. Bernie whined as I put him in the backseat and a waterfall of tears flooded down my face.

  “Why Brie?” I heard myself saying. “It’s not fair.”

  As I sat in my car, sobs racking my body, I remembered Lexi asking me about the victim in my case a few days earlier. I’d told her that sometimes bad things happen and no one knows why. While my words had been true, they were of no solace, not for what had happened to Jenna Collins, Lori March, and now Brie Henner.

  It took me almost a half hour to regain control of my emotions. When I was pulling out of the hospital parking lot I got a call from Joe Dawson. What he said brought back all the questions and doubt that had been consuming me a moment earlier about life being unfair.

  “Allison Schwab is dead,” Dawson said. “It looks like the work of The Prophet.”

  ***

  I met Dawson at Agent Schwab’s house in Hawthorne, about an hour south of Hollywood. Bernie and I found the big FBI agent talking to a couple of uniformed cops on the sidewalk in front of the house. We went over and joined them.

  “The body’s in the bedroom,” a middle-aged cop told Dawson. “She was stabbed but not before…”

  “What?” Dawson barked.

  “There was some torture,” the younger of the two cops said. “There’s a lot of blood.”

  “Anybody in the house?”

  “Just one of ours. He’s standing guard at the bedroom.”

  “The woman’s dead,” Dawson growled. “She doesn’t need a fucking bodyguard.” He took a step closer to the two cops, then apparently thought better of whatever he had in mind. “I’ll send the bodyguard back out.” He motioned for me to follow him inside.

  I had one of the uniforms take Bernie and trailed after him. We found an even bigger cop than the one on the street at the bedroom door.

  “Back on the street, Bubba,” Dawson said to the beefy cop, “Or I’ll have you arrested for aggravated ignorance.”

  The cop folded his arms across his chest, stood his ground. I moved around Dawson, showed him my credentials, and said. “I suggest you do what he said. You don’t want to see him mad.”

  The cop unfolded and left. As he opened the door, Dawson said to me, “There’s something about wearing a uniform that sometimes can lower your IQ by about twenty points.”

  We found Allison Schwab on her bed. She was nude and had several lacerations to her face and upper torso, no doubt made by the knife that was embedded in her chest. There was blood everywhere.

  “He must have spent a lot of time with her,” I said.

  I turned and saw that Dawson had gone over to a desk in the corner of the room. I went over and realized there was a note there with The Prophet’s now familiar handwriting.

  I read it aloud, at the same time realizing it was different from the poetry we had come to expect. “What is faith The Prophet said, but an empty promise to the dead.” I looked at Dawson, raising a brow. “I don’t think this is a continuation of his earlier poems. This is about what he did to Allison.”

  “Maybe,” the big FBI agent said, his gaze moving around the room. “But don’t ask me. I’m a cop, not a profiler.”

  “But you used to be.”

  “I used to be a skinny kid with acne and now I’m handsome as hell.” He looked at me. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

  I just shook my head and walked away.

  We spent another hour, going over the crime scene before the SID staff arrived. When Dawson and I got back on the street, I headed for my car.

  “Where are you going?” Dawson asked.

  “To see your brother.”

  FORTY ONE

  On my way to see Lucas Caufield the lieutenant called and gave me a direct order, something that surprised me given that Oz had been around long enough to know when to back off and let his detectives work a case.

  “You are not,” the lieutenant said, “I repeat, you are not to talk to Caufield unless you have permission f
rom John Greer. We’re meeting at FBI headquarters at three this afternoon and everything will be explained.”

  I had no idea what Greer had in mind but I told Oz that I would follow orders.

  Since I was already headed south on the freeway and had a couple of hours to kill before the meeting, I decided to go by UCLA Medical Center and see Brie. Along the way, I could see the Capitol Records Building from the freeway. The circular structure with a long spike on top, gave the impression of a stack of records on a turntable. I’d heard that everyone from Sinatra to The Beatles had recorded at their studios.

  A half an hour later, I arrived at the hospital and located Katy Redding. Katy volunteered to walk Bernie for a couple of minutes while I visited with Brie. I found my friend in recovery with her ex-husband.

  “I’m sorry to butt in,” I said, poking my head into the room. “But I wanted to check on things.” I put the flowers I’d bought at the hospital gift shop on a table.

  Brie held out a hand and I went over and took it. Her ex excused himself and left the room. I had the impression that he needed a break.

  “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” I asked.

  Brie groaned. It was obvious that she was heavily medicated. “Like a truck ran over me and took my breasts.”

  I brushed a tear, unsure how to respond. She pulled me closer and I bent down to her. “It’s bad, Kate. The cancer has metastasized.”

  I blinked back more tears. “We’ll deal with it together. For now, you just need to concentrate on getting your strength back.”

  She swallowed and cleared her throat, maybe trying to push down her emotions. “Thank you for being my friend.”

  I fell apart, weeping in her arms. When I recovered, I held onto her hand again and whispered the only thing that I could think of under the circumstances, “I love you.”

  I stayed with Brie for the better part of an hour before she drifted off to sleep. I needed some time to process my feelings, so I drove with Bernie to a nearby park. After we left the car, I let my big dog pull me down a walkway, at least I think it was a walkway. I couldn’t be sure because of the cascade of tears in my eyes.