Hollywood Intrigue: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller

by M. Z. Kelly

  As he spoke, I realized that Nana was tugging on my sleeve. “Do you think there’s a part for me on the show? I could play a young Betty White.”

  Mo overheard her and leaned over. “If we ever got us a part for the wife of a vamp, we’ll keep you in mind. Otherwise, it ain’t gonna happen, Nana.”

  Nana put her hands on her hips, the pitch in her grating voice rising even higher than usual. “I’ve got some major acting chops. Why not give me an audition?”

  Natalie was whispering something about having Nana and Claude on their Halloween show when the outtakes began. What followed was a series of scenes where the actors forgot their lines and occasionally made inappropriate comments. One scene showed Natalie and Mo falling over one another into a vat of something that looked like chocolate syrup.

  “We got us jobs at a candy factory,” Natalie told me, explaining about the outtakes from one of the shows they’d filmed. “I lost me balance.”

  The roar of laughter grew louder as I looked back at the TV monitors. Before I knew what was happening, Nana said, “You look like a crazed homicide cop who finally had enough and let some scumbag have it.”

  I stared at the monitors in horror as I saw there were several outtakes of me bashing in the head of a zombie. The camera had been set up in a way that clearly showed my face as I lowered a club on the monster and then laughed after his head exploded. So much for me wanting to remain anonymous.

  “You’re gonna be famous,” Mo said.

  “The outtakes are supposed to be shown on all the major channels tonight, advertising the show,” Natalie added. “You’re gonna be a star. Maybe you’ll even win an award.”

  I felt drained and shook my head. “Why me?” I then lowered my head and began to saunter off, heading for my apartment with Bernie in tow and Dillon following.

  “Where are you going?” Nana called out. “This is your moment to shine. You’re a star.”

  I turned back to her and the others. “Please accept the award on my behalf. Tell the audience that I’m home suffering from a terminal case of embarrassment.”

  FORTY FIVE

  Ted drove me to my meeting with Lucas Caufield the following evening. After my public zombie humiliation, my night had gotten somewhat better. Dillon and I had a nice dinner at Shintaro’s restaurant. We’d laughed and bonded over my friend’s TV show and my outtakes. I’d found Lexi’s teacher to be understanding and kind, even when it came to my friends. Even though we’d gotten along well, I’d decided that the jury was still out regarding another date.

  I’d spent most of the day going over our case with the taskforce, at the same time wishing that Joe Dawson was still working with us. We knew that another girl was about to be taken but we felt powerless to stop it. If Dawson had still been working the case, at the very least, I knew he’d be motivating the others by stirring things up. Instead, it felt like the taskforce was waiting for The Prophet to make good on the promise his apostle had made.

  “Some of the local TV stations are breaking away from their regular programing to talk about our case,” Ted said as we got off the freeway in Encino. “I can’t remember a time when the public was this stirred up about a case. There’s even some talk about the Beast’s job being in jeopardy.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a shame.” The Beast was the nickname we’d given to our chief of police, Bradley East. In a short period of time, he’d succeeded in alienating a lot of the line staff, including me. I added, “He’s not my favorite guy.”

  Ted cocked his head toward me but didn’t respond. Something about his stoic nature reminded me of his theory about the world being divided between fear and love. “How are you doing with finding compassion while working homicide these days?”

  He exhaled. “Some days are easier than others.” He found my eyes. “What about you?”

  “I’ve been better.” I thought about the murdered girls. “I’m just trying to keep in mind that the love part of your equation is finding justice for the victims.”

  A wistful smile found his lips. “There are some days when that’s the best we can do.”

  Ted took Bernie for a walk while I knocked on Karen Taft’s door. Caufield’s aunt let me inside without saying a word. I had the impression that she was, at the least, annoyed with my visits, and, at the worst, resentful of the continued intrusions into her life. I thought it was doubtful that she realized her nephew was being manipulated by a serial killer.

  I found Lucas Caufield in the darkened bedroom just like before. His eyes shifted, finding me as I walked over to his wheelchair. The room again had a medicinal smell and the atmosphere was stifling.

  As per my earlier discussion with Agent Hall, I covertly reached into my pocket and turned on my phone so that he could monitor our conversation.

  “I’m here because I received a call from a man who calls himself an apostle to The Prophet,” I said. “He told me that another girl will be taken soon. What can you tell me about that?” He just stared at me, not responding. While his hand was on the communication device, his fingers didn’t move. “Please. I need your help.”

  His fingers finally worked the device and I heard, “Touch me.”

  My eyes narrowed on him. “Not again.” I reached over to touch his cheek but heard his voice say. “Not there.”

  I pulled my hand back. I saw his eyes shift before the electronic voice said, “Lower…I want you…to pleasure me.”

  I folded my arms. “You must be kidding.” My eyes bore into him. “If you’re not willing to help, I’ll leave.” I turned away.

  “Wait.”

  I turned back to him but didn’t respond. I waited, finally hearing him say, “Do you touch…my brother?”

  I sighed, realizing that he must have always known I was working with Dawson. I shook my head. “No. We just worked together. It’s nothing more than that.” I walked back over to the bed. What he’d said again made me wonder about his relationship with his brother. “You and Joe used to work together. What happened?”

  I waited almost a full minute before he responded. “He took something…that cannot be forgiven.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He didn’t respond to my question. When I heard his voice again, I realized he was talking about The Prophet. “The change is happening…as we speak.”

  “What kind of change?”

  “The one…The Apostle told you about…is not what you think.”

  I had no idea what he meant but decided to concentrate on The Prophet’s partner. “Who is The Apostle?”

  His gaze drifted off. After some tapping on the hand-held device, I heard the electronic voice say, “He is closer…than you realize.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  His eyes found me again. “Do you understand…the properties of water?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. “Water? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The Apostle…the one who works…for The Prophet. He is like water…that flows and retreats…existing in two different states…both life affirming and taking.” There was a pause before I heard, “You must ultimately choose…which property will prevail. That is the game.”

  “A game? You mean this is all some kind of game?”

  “A game of…life and death.” His gaze drifted off as I continued to ask him to explain what he meant. A couple of minutes passed until he looked back at me. “Do you…believe in God?”

  I stood there, taking a breath and thinking about his question. Despite everything that had happened and all the losses I’d suffered in my life, I still believed there was a higher power, something or someone who rose above the losses and misery in this life.

  “Yes,” I finally said. “I believe in God.”

  His fingers tapped the device. Moments later I heard, “The Prophet…is forming a chrysalis….becoming immortal by rebirth.”

  “Rebirth into what?”

  After a long wait, I heard the electronic voice say, “That which…is
not God.”

  FORTY SIX

  I spent another twenty minutes with Lucas Caufield, but he shut down, refusing to say anything more. I still had no idea what his cryptic message about a coming change meant or what he was trying to say when he’d told me that The Apostle was like water.

  As I left his house, I turned his words over in my mind, including his question about God and his statement that The Prophet was becoming immortal by rebirth. I had the sense that he was talking about evil being born into the world, but it all seemed like the musings of a crazy person.

  I briefly went over my conversation with Ted when I got to the car, and then said, “I don’t think anything he said brings us closer to stopping either The Apostle or The Prophet.”

  Ted’s phone rang and he answered it through the car’s Bluetooth system.

  “Agent Hall got a hit through the Stingray,” we heard John Greer say. “It looks like Caufield also had a phone on during the conversation. He was in communication with a burner phone that we got a ping off from a nearby cell tower.”

  “I’m listening in,” I told Greer. “Did we get a location for the caller?”

  “It was coming from an address on Lomita Street over in the Silver Lake District. It’s a residential area. We’re sending people there now.”

  My heart was nearly beating out of my chest, my voice rising with dread as I turned to Ted. “That’s the same street where my friend Lexi lives.”

  Ted threw the car into gear and hit the gas, saying what had already made my blood run cold. “He must be planning on taking the girl.”

  Twenty minutes later, after breaking every speed limit in the county, we pulled up in front of Lexi’s house. I saw there were already a couple of marked patrol cars in the street, as well as an unmarked bureau car used by the feds.

  I ran into the yard where I found Lavern Wallace with Lexi’s grandparents. “Is she okay?” I asked, hearing the terror in my voice as I asked the question.

  The big FBI agent shook his head as his gaze swung over to my youthful friend’s grandparents.

  “We just checked her bedroom,” Lexi’s grandmother said, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “She’s gone.”

  FORTY SEVEN

  “I should have seen it coming,” I said to Ted, tearing up as we drove to FBI headquarters later that night. “Lexi even fit the profile of the other girls—young, innocent, and vulnerable.” I brushed the water from my eyes, my body starting to convulse with sobs.

  “We all knew he was making this personal with you,” Ted said. “But the girl was just a small part of your life. We didn’t…”

  “I didn’t see what was right in front of me,” I spat. I clenched my fists and pounded the dashboard. “God-damn it.”

  As Ted went on with his pep talk, I flashed back on the last time I’d been with Lexi, her excitement over her rehearsal for the school play. I realized that we’d forgotten our usual way of saying goodbye. We hadn’t said the name of a flower. I felt drained, at the same time thinking it was somehow prophetic.

  I thought about the losses I’d suffered in my life, how everyone seemed to go away, beginning with my father and ending with the death of Jack Bautista, a man I’d loved. Recently, I’d even managed to alienate Buck McCade, deciding that the detective, who I’d dated for several months, wasn’t the right person for me. Maybe it would always be like this—anyone who I got close to simply went away.

  Ted had given me some time and space to wrestle with my emotions. As we were pulling into the parking garage at FBI headquarters, he said, “Let’s take this one step at a time, Kate. We work the case, just like we do with any other victim.” He found my eyes. “Lexi deserves that we both raise the level of our game and we can’t do that out of emotion.”

  I decided that I was feeling sorry for myself and brushed away my tears. I took several deep breaths, knowing that what he’d said was true. In that moment, I made a silent promise to myself. Whatever happened, Lexi would get everything I had left.

  “I’m ready to work the case,” I told Ted, meeting his eyes. “Let’s give it everything.”

  It was approaching midnight as we settled into a conference room with the other taskforce members. The usual players were in the room, with the exception of Christine Belmont and Alex Hardy who hadn’t responded to Oz’s message about the meeting.

  John Greer projected the two line message The Prophet, or maybe The Apostle, had left behind on a desk in Lexi’s bedroom. My eyes scanned the words and I realized that we were looking at the last two lines of The Prophet’s poem.

  I told the others as much and said to Greer, “Can you project the other lines, from the past…” I started to tear up, but forced myself to concentrate on the task at hand and controlled my emotions. “…the past abductions so that we can see the entire poem?”

  In a moment Greer had the poem on the overhead screen. I sucked in a breath, steadied myself, and read it aloud for everyone’s benefit.

  “What do we have,” the girl asked The Prophet,

  “Is life of value or merely for profit?”

  “The answer, my child, is in the design.

  Look around you and here’s what you find.

  A spider and a wasp, go out to play

  At the hour of death, what can we say?”

  The Prophet smiled, as wings fluttered high,

  “This is only a dream, and now you must die.”

  “Anybody got any bright ideas about what this means?” Greer asked, the frustration in his tone evident.

  Jeremy Spender raised his hand like a schoolboy waiting to be called on.

  “Go ahead.”

  “As we know, the spider is the girl. She’s food for the wasp. He’s planning to consume her essence. It fits with what Caufield told Detective Sexton. I also believe that we’re dealing with a sexual sadist, someone who feeds as much on the fear and pain he causes as he does on the physical act of killing.”

  What he said fit with the previous profiles but it was nothing new.

  “What about The Apostle?” Ted asked him.

  “As I mentioned before, The Apostle has been radicalized,” Spender said. “He is The Prophet’s submissive. He may be the one who actually took the girl, but The Prophet…” He motioned to the lines on the overhead projector. “They key word in the poem is design. The Prophet is the wasp, the one who has been designed by his creator to do the killings.”

  “His creator,” I said, wondering what in the hell that meant. I then said, “That doesn’t bring us any closer to finding him.” I brushed a hand across my damp forehead, hearing the frustration in my voice as I added, “And the fucking clock is ticking.”

  “Didn’t you tell us that Lucas Caufield said something about this being a game?” Janice Taylor asked me.

  I nodded. “It’s the first time he used the phrase. I’m not sure what it means, other than him also saying it’s a game of life and death.”

  Taylor brushed the hair from her eyes. “I think The Prophet is engaging you, testing to see if you can save the girl in time. It’s his way of showing superiority.”

  I sighed, thinking about Lexi and feeling defeated. “I’m not sure I’m up to this.”

  Oz must have heard the frustration in my voice. “We’ll find her, Kate.”

  Selfie then spoke up. “I wonder how The Prophet or his apostle knew about Lexi.” She found my eyes. “Maybe they’ve been following you.”

  I took a shallow breath, feeling drained by what was happening. “It could be. But, I’ve only been with Lexi a couple of times since we began working the case.”

  “But you’ve known the girl for weeks,” Ted said. “It could be that he’s been tracking you for some time and is aware that you’ve been helping Lexi. He knows that you’re vulnerable when it comes to the girl.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ve been to Lexi’s school and…” I stopped in mid-sentence as something struck me. Even as I considered the possibility, I didn’t want to believe it.
>
  “What is it?” Ted asked.

  My pulse quickened. “I’ve been…” I breathed, trying to focus my thoughts. “I took Lexi to school a couple of times. I met one of her teachers. His name is Dillon Walker. We…” I was reluctant to say aloud what I was thinking.

  “Go on,” Greer said.

  “We became friends and went out for a drink and then dinner.” I brushed the hair off my damp forehead. “He seems like an average guy…but with everything that’s been happening, I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Dillon Alexander Walker,” Selfie said, after making a few keystrokes on her laptop. “He’s a teacher at Springville Middle School in Silver Lake.”

  “That’s him,” I said, coming over to her side and seeing that she had his picture on the monitor, along with a brief bio from the school’s website.

  “It says here that he’s been an English teacher at the school for the past two years. He attended UCLA.” Selfie’s diaphanous eyes found me. “And he grew up in Tampa, Florida.”

  “Not too far from where our second victim was found,” Jeremy Spender said, the pitch in his tone lifting.

  “Can you run him through DMV and NCIC?” John Greer asked, the urgency in his voice apparent.

  “Already done,” Selfie announced, scrolling through the records she now had up on her screen. “There’s no criminal record, but I’ve got a home address for him in Burbank.”

  I stood up, thinking that Dillon Walker just might be The Prophet’s apostle. “Let’s go pay him a visit.”

  FORTY EIGHT

  We took three cars and stopped down the street from Walker’s house, an older one-story on the outskirts of Burbank, not too far from Studio City. It was after two in the morning. The neighborhood was quiet and the house looked deserted.

  My emotions were still on overload. I felt like I was operating on a combination of adrenaline and terror over what had happened to Lexi. It still seemed impossible to believe that she’d been taken, and I was angry with myself that I hadn’t seen it coming. I pushed the thought away and looked up the street, trying to clear my mind and focus on the task ahead.