by CC Dragon
Ricky laughed. “You’re entertaining enough in reality.”
“I don’t know what’s so entertaining about it. My life is anything but glamorous.”
“You standing on the backseat of a Mustang working over the car dealership owner? That’s awesome.” He tried to cheer me up.
“When did that one post? I was just test driving.” Such a lie!
“Sure. It didn’t say anything bad, just Wild Hel strikes again. I’m shocked the guy didn’t give you one just to get rid of you.”
“I wish.” I paced a little more in the sunny backyard. “I wonder what happened to Fluffy.”
He shook his head. “My guess is nothing—they took the dog to send a message. They killed Danny because they wanted him gone. Serial killers go after animals because they thrive on any death. This is different, it isn’t random. It’s personal. If they wanted to hurt Danny and Sonia, taking Fluffy is a start. I think they just moved up the plan.”
“They were desperate, enraged over Danny. Maybe they let Fluffy go? She’s chipped. Sonia had Lupe put flyers up all over town.”
“Danny was stabbed over thirty times—that was deep personal rage or a professional staged it. If they’d hurt Fluffy they’d have displayed the body for us already.”
“You’re right, maybe Fluffy is okay. But not Danny. They got him in the back, nothing in the chest. They never wanted to be facing him. They didn’t want to look him in the eye.” I had to agree. Personal.
Ricky nodded. “For a normal person that’d indicate they knew each other personally and the killer couldn’t face it. But Danny was on TV for years. Every day he came into people’s homes—one delusional fan and the MO is the same. Fans feel a personal connection having never met them.”
“I know you’re right but we’ve got to start somewhere.”
“You think they’ll come after Sonia now?” he asked.
“They took her dog, killed her husband. Assuming it’s the same person I think they’ll make a move on her. If they’re two different people then I say the stalker might be scared off and the killer might be from Danny’s past.”
“Are his parents coming in?”
“Tonight, but they’re not staying here. They really don’t like that Sonia is insisting on making all the arrangements,” I said.
“They weren’t divorced yet so she’s next of kin by law. She’s been crying enough for me to say they should’ve been working it out.” Ricky shook his head at the sad reality.
“She’s stubborn.”
He smiled. “Stubborn runs in your family.”
“Danny was stubborn too and he didn’t want to be alone but he wouldn’t give up Faith. There are no sure things out there.”
“I’ll talk to his family but I don’t think having you there will help,” Ricky said.
“You’re right, you handle it. I really doubt it’s someone from back in Boston with a grudge. Of course he might’ve told them something he never told Sonia or Faith.” So far I’d only called Ricky when it was needed but he’d helped me. As good as I was at getting to the truth Danny’s parents probably didn’t want to see much of my family if they could help it.
“That’s what I’m hoping—a fan sending him hate mail for leaving Sonia or cheating on her. His fan mail was being held by the show, both paper and email, but no one was going through it. We’ll go through it now and Sonia’s. It’ll take time.”
I’d planned to do that before but when it seemed like it was Danny or the co-star, I’d let the time consuming fan angle slide because I couldn’t do it all alone. “Thanks.”
“You get through the funeral first, let the police do our thing.”
I tensed. “I’ve got to find out.”
“I’m good at this, Hel. You’ve got to trust people,” he said.
“It’s my family,” I nodded. I trusted Ricky but I trusted myself more. I wanted Todd around but not enough to make the call.
He looked to the kitchen where the family was assembling for a late lunch of sandwiches. Mom apparently had evicted Lupe from the kitchen.
“I better get in there.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
After lunch a uniformed officer took Lou over to Danny’s house to get his best suits. Mom and Sonia were trying to decide what to serve for the funeral luncheon and rewriting drafts of his obituary. They were on the couch huddled over the coffee table, looking over options.
I hung back in the kitchen but I had the door open. I could see if anything happened all the way to the front door. Bless the architect who designed open concept homes. I had no idea how old this mansion was but my sister did so much redecorating and remodeling that the inside felt brand new.
I ripped lettuce for a salad at dinner while Lupe was out shopping for a roast and potatoes on my mother’s insistence. My sister didn’t complain when Mom wanted red meat or carbs; of course she’d been stress eating too. My thoughts went back to skinny Bernadette, but she had no reason to hate Danny and she had an alibi. She’d been on the set with me so unless the killer had been hired...
Which was why my sister was definitely still a suspect. I’d been cleared; I didn’t have the money to hire someone and while I might have the connections in Vegas, my motive failed the sniff test. I wouldn’t kill to save Sonia a little money. My sister, however, did have the money to hire someone and enough emotional trauma to give doubt. If she weren’t my sister I’d consider her suspect number one even with an alibi. But there was no proof she didn’t leave the set during that time either.
Faith didn’t have the funds to hire anyone and Danny was still dating her at the time. She had motive to go after Sonia but it made no sense for her to kill Danny. Plus she had an alibi checked out by the cops.
As I ripped I checked my notes on all the people I’d had Todd run already. My mother and sister were debating a kelly green tie or an emerald green one. To avoid being dragged in for an opinion and to get a friendly voice, I called Todd.
“Hey you,” he answered. “Sonia doing okay?”
“Hi. She’s okay. How’s the list?” I asked.
Of course he’d heard; it was all over the entertainment and tabloid news and with the stalker situation he’d be keeping one eye on E!. I’d emailed a list of all the soap opera staff. Every grip, extra, all the way up to the executive producer. Sonia’s stalker and Danny’s murder were connected and the soap opera was their main connection.
“We’re still working on it, Hel. I’ll call you when I get something interesting or I’m through them all. How are you?” he pressed.
Todd, a true guy, kept his emotions strictly detached from his work. However, he took things very personally when they actually were personal. He and I were nothing alike but chemistry was a funny thing and we’d had it.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to push. You’ve got your own cases, I know—I just needed a friendly voice. I’m fine but the pressure is suffocating.” I eyed the wet bar and thought a rum and Diet Coke would be nice but didn’t want my reactions dulled at any point.
“Mom and Lou are in?” Todd’s voice seemed to relax now that I didn’t have him under the gun.
“Yep. Funeral planning.”
“I can come in, be there,” he offered.
“No, I’m okay. Don’t turn this into a big thing.” I wanted him to come but things would get so confusing I’d regret it. This was not the time to lose focus.
“So I’m good enough to help save your sister but not to help you out? Explain this logic to me.”
I grinned. “You can help me more working. I’m serious.”
“You say the word and I’m there. You need some support too when they’ll all lean on you.”
“Danny and I weren’t that close—I’m here for my sister. Mom is running the show. Do me a favor and listen to me for a change,” I demanded.
He surrendered. “Fine, but you need backup. They are a handful.”
Part of me wanted to say yes. A big part, actually, but after all th
e changes and all the challenges it’d be too easy to give in. Control freak, yes, but I had to deal with this myself. I didn’t mind using my ex for information and professional help but using him personally—-that I’d regret.
“I’m fine. I’ve got Ricky on the LAPD. Remember the guy who left Quantico? Don’t know if I ever mentioned him but he’s really helping coordinate things and keep Sonia safe.”
“Okay.” Todd’s voice was flat.
I’d have sworn I heard him write down the name and he’d be searching the files in no time. Men were unbelievably competitive creatures. I grinned but felt a little foolish. Ricky and I had zero chemistry now; he was a friend I could count on but Todd was my ex. He’d need to know who was around me. Men!
“We’re still on for your trip back, right? Going to stop by and say hi to an old friend?” He made it sound casual.
Nothing with us was ever casual. “Sure, if I can ever get out of here. I shouldn’t say that but it’s just not a simple case, all these suspects, secrets, and drama. It’s crazy.”
“Not as easy as the martial arts game?”
I could hear a smile in his voice. “No, but family stuff never is.”
“I Googled you,” he said.
“What? Are there more reports about the case?” I didn’t need the media trying to crucify my sister.
“No, but I found a lot on you at some gossip websites.”
“Oh hell, who sent you that?” I asked.
“I’m not at liberty to share but you look great! Hollywood Ninja? Or the Hollywood PI? I’ve seen both.”
“That’s just crap. I’ll tell you, this fame thing is wild. Just hanging around my sister got me on there and it’s such a joke. I think they like putting me up because everyone here is a size zero or trying to be, and compared to them I’m massive.”
“You’re not.”
“Reality is reality. It’s like standing with a bunch of skinny models or pool cues. I’m fine with me but I don’t fit in with the group.” I decided to ride him a little for fun. “And you’re Googling me when you should be doing those federal background checks on potential killers?”
“Cracking the whip again, huh?” He sighed. “Okay, I’ll call you when I have something.”
“Thanks.” I disconnected and finished up the salad.
That’s when the voices in the living room grew louder and shriller.
It was either ignore it or walk into the hornet’s nest, but ignoring only worked for so long.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I walked in just as my sister stormed upstairs.
“What’s all that about? Danny’s parents want something? She needs to work with them.” I knew my sister could be stubborn but he was their son.
Mom sat there quiet and poised. “It’s not that.”
I got that look that you get when Mom is not happy. “What’s wrong?”
“What did you tell your sister?” she asked.
Oh, that. Of course Sonia would try to use it as leverage to get my mom to tell all. Dumb girl. Mom was Fort Knox and Area 51 put together. “I needed her to tell me the truth about Danny and her alibi.”
“Alibi? She couldn’t hurt Danny.”
“I know, Mom. But the police are right that she is a prime suspect. He cheated on her, he has a new woman, and he might get money in the divorce. Plenty of reasons to want him dead so she’s still not out of the woods. One theory is the killer was hired.”
She put her hands up to her ears. “I don’t want to hear the gory details. This isn’t about Danny. It’s about you and your sister. How could you tell her that?”
“Sonia isn’t a kid anymore. She’s been harping on the dad thing for years. I needed to tell her the truth so she’d trust me with this situation. She’s a suspect. She either didn’t have an alibi or was embarrassed by it. She doesn’t have a good one.”
“And that was the only way you think to get her to talk? You couldn’t find a better way to get her to tell you the truth?”
That was a low blow. But I was older; I was supposed to protect my sister and have all the answers. Right?
“Mom, Sonia is thirty. She’s not a baby anymore. She’s a huge star and she’s got a dead husband and maybe someone after her. There wasn’t time to coddle the truth out of her.”
“I don’t want her knowing.” Mom’s eyes welled up.
The guilt bomb went nuclear. “I didn’t tell her anything about you and Dad, just me. Only what I experienced personally and I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”
“And that’s not bad enough? She can put that together for what it means to me. She asked me what he did, if he cheated on me.”
“That’s Danny paranoia—he cheated so she wondered if Dad did. She came up with that on her own.” Technically that line of Sonia’s inquiry wasn’t my fault.
“You told her no?”
“Of course I did—she thought you’d be disappointed in her if she took Danny back after he cheated. It seemed like they wanted to get back together but they couldn’t forgive each other. She wouldn’t admit it exactly but she didn’t want to let you down.”
I hated secrets, maybe because I’d been forced to keep them all my life. Maybe because they caused more pain than the truth. I always seemed to be in the middle and no one was happy when information was kept from them.
“Why would Sonia think that? I’d never be disappointed in her.” Mom shook her head and looked at the bar.
“Want a drink?” I changed the subject.
She nodded.
I mixed her a whiskey and soda, not too strong. “Sonia is an adult and I’m not going to lie to her about me. I know you want to protect her but she’s making all this crap up in her head about Dad because she has no facts. I told her to trust me but she wouldn’t.”
“You want me to tell her the truth?” Mom asked.
“It’s your call. I told her my stuff. When she asked about you I told her that’s your stuff to tell. I was just a kid, I don’t know it all. I heard and saw what I heard and saw. It wasn’t pretty, healthy, or safe for either of us.” No way. No way was she putting that decision on me because I knew she’d call out that blame bomb next year.
Mom stared at me hard as she took a sip. “You didn’t tell her?”
Kids kept secrets from parents. Big shock. “I swear on Grandma Rose’s grave I didn’t tell her anything about you. Can she guess he beat you? Probably, but I’ve spent most of my life trying to block all that crap out. His leaving was the best thing that could’ve happened but she won’t believe it.”
“She always wanted to be a daddy’s little girl.” Mom’s lip quivered as she took another sip.
“Don’t blame yourself. She had Lou around by the time she was in high school.”
“Lou isn’t her father so she lives with the question. I just don’t know if I can admit what a bad choice I made for you girls.”
“Stop it, Mom. Men charm to get what they want and he had you fooled. He had Grandma Rose fooled. I heard those fights too. You couldn’t leave him, you had me.” No guilt there. Grandma Rose couldn’t afford to support us all.
“I should’ve moved home and dealt with the judgment of divorcing him the first time he hit you. Worked three jobs if I had to. It’s my fault but I was scared. I thought you’d be better off with a father around. Even him.”
“It was still the seventies and you didn’t have a career or education. You got pregnant young. I don’t blame you. If Sonia knew the truth she wouldn’t either. She just doesn’t know.”
I sure as hell couldn’t blame Mom when the neighbors called the cops and the cops did nothing. Looking the other way back then was common enough. Maybe that was why Mom never warmed to Todd.
“What if she does blame me? You saw it, but what if she doesn’t believe me? Sonia was always so much more emotional than you. She needed the attention and she missed out on a father. What good does it to dredge it up now and relive the pain? Nothing has changed.”
“Re
ality is tough to hide. You can’t erase it. If you don’t tell her she can always just hire a PI. His name is on my birth certificate so it’s not like it’d be hard to track him down.”
The one ace in the hole when dealing with parents was that when the kids grew up the parents were no longer the gatekeepers of power and knowledge. For me that happened at ten when Dad left and so did any fear. Then my job was helping my mom and sister while surviving. My sister wondered why I left Todd. When you can’t trust your parents to keep you safe, who can you trust? Yourself—that’s it.
On many levels I did trust Todd, and on some level I loved him. But I’d asked him every year to settle down, pick any place. I felt powerless depending on his job. I found work but it would be shaken up sooner rather than later. After ten years enough was enough. I wasn’t repeating Mom’s patterns in any way.
My mother had limited my sister’s knowledge for so long it amazed me that Sonia hadn’t hired a PI to find Dad. But Sonia lived in a fantasy world and reality might shatter it too harshly.
Maybe she wanted him to be a millionaire who’d turned his life around now. Maybe she wanted him to be an alcoholic so she could blame a disease instead of his need to control and elicit fear. Dad hadn’t been the head of the house, he had been the king. I also had a need for power in me and I did my best to control it. At minimum I needed to feel equal and respected.
“She wouldn’t hire a PI without telling me. You would. You probably know where he is right now.”
“I don’t want to know but I don’t need a PI.”
“But you could know?” she asked.
“Todd would help me find him and I’d know in a day. Why?” I didn’t want to. She didn’t want to know, did she? “I’m not going to find out.”
“No, I’d never ask you to do that. You don’t want to see him.” Mom shook her head.
“Lou would kill him,” I said.
I liked Lou. He was never a father figure to me since I’d moved out before he started dating Mom but he was a good man. And good men defend the people they love. If Dad came near Mom—Lou’s even temper would go up in flames.
