The Forbidden

by Heather Graham

  “I can go with you.”

  He shook his head. “Not for this. There’s—there’s no reason, Avalon. I don’t think there’s any reason at all that you need to see this.”

  “And you know that I’m okay because Ryder is here.”

  He nodded. “Avalon...”

  “Right,” she said.

  “Help Ryder, if you can.”

  “But I was never at the Speakeasy. And I didn’t even realize that Julian Bennett was in the video as an extra.”

  He paused. “What about Lauren?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what about Lauren’?”

  “She did the makeup for the shoot.”

  “I doubt that they did makeup for extras in a concert scene.”

  “Right. Sorry. I don’t know... I mean, just see what you all can think of, okay? Draw out Boris and Terry.”

  “Fine.”

  He took her by the shoulders, looking down into her eyes. “Avalon, this guy scares me. Scares the hell out of me. These guys, I should say. Yes, I desperately want this solved. And, I’ve told you—no, I don’t think that Boris is really a maniacal killer. But any little thing—any little thing can help.”

  “You’re afraid for me,” she said softly.

  She was surprised that she wasn’t more afraid. But then, she was usually with him.

  His eyes as he looked at her now were the deepest forest-green. She felt a trembling within her, just from the way he looked at her. And she was glad—there was so much passion in him, and determination. She slept so easily, so deeply next to him, entwined with him. She had never been with anyone like him.

  She had never felt anything so intimate, in the most sensual of situations, or just when they lay curled together.

  She didn’t want it to end.

  But right now, nothing could just be good, nothing could just be real. Not while this murder case was like a darkness that encompassed everyone involved.

  She nodded, gave him a quick kiss on the lips and told him, “Go. I will do my best to dig deeply into the minds of my crew!”

  He smiled. “Avalon, I just want to keep you safe,” he said.

  “You know, I have had some martial-arts training, and I’ve even worked with a sword. Okay, a dulled sword, but we get that stuff as theater majors, if we choose, you know.”

  “Gotcha. I don’t have a sword handy, so stick with Ryder.”

  She grinned. He kissed her lightly again, drawing away quickly as if he was afraid not to.

  Then he headed out the door and she hurried downstairs to join the others out in the courtyard.

  “Well, there’s one absent chef,” Kevin said, giving her a fierce frown. “First FBI guy runs out, and then you leave me a frying pan filled with half-done omelets.”

  “Oh, Kevin, I’m sorry—”

  “Just remember, I was the final creator in all this,” he said.

  “Where did Wonder Boy go?” Leo asked.

  “I don’t know—maybe his office called,” Avalon said.

  “But,” Lauren protested, “you just went up there after him.”

  “And that’s what he said, something about the fact that he had to run out, he’d gotten a call.” Avalon smiled sweetly. “Maybe Ryder knows.”

  “I’m NOPD,” Ryder told them. “But he knows I’m here.”

  There was confusion for a few minutes as platters with eggs and toast and waffles were passed around, along with bowls of grits, boxes of cereal, milk, coffee and orange juice.

  Ryder wanted to know about the video, from beginning to end.

  Boris explained the concept, and then how they used the house for the dream sequence, and then brought in extras when they were headed out to the battlefield area.

  “So how long were you in Houma, and how many times did you go out to the Speakeasy?” Ryder asked.

  Boris didn’t get a chance to answer; there was a knock at the courtyard gate.

  “I’ll get it,” Avalon told them.

  She hesitated at the gate, surprised that she was suddenly afraid to open it.

  She was with Ryder and her entire group, and she had determined that she wasn’t going to be a coward. It was stupid to be afraid to open a gate.

  She was startled to see that it was Samara Stella.

  “Hey!” she said.

  “Hey,” Samara said.

  Avalon didn’t realize that she was just standing there, staring at the woman, until Samara asked quietly, “Do you—do you mind if come in? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to intrude. I guess I was hoping that you’d be here. I—I didn’t want to be alone.”

  “Of course, come in. I’m sorry. You just took me by surprise.”

  “I’ve been nervous since that—that doll made to look like me was found knifed in my theater.”

  “Well, you’re safe here. Detective Ryder Stapleton is here.”

  Ryder, like the others at the table, had grown silent as Avalon had gone to the gate. She turned quickly; they’d been talking about Houma. Maybe Ryder wouldn’t be happy about the fact that Samara was here. But what could she do?

  The woman was frightened and asking for help.

  “Miss Stella,” Ryder said, rising to welcome her.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your breakfast,” Samara said.

  Avalon had seen photos of the woman in all her splendor—leather, chains and more. But when she was out, it seemed, she had her hair up in a messy bun and wore jeans and knit shirts.

  “Miss, please,” Terry said, leaping up to give her his chair.

  Avalon thought that her whole group hadn’t yet met Samara, so she introduced them all quickly. Then she realized that she hadn’t locked the gate. She turned and nearly screamed; there was a man standing there.

  It was Kenneth Richard.

  “Uh, hi,” she said.

  Ryder was suddenly standing behind her; he must have seen her initial reaction.

  “Sorry, I guess I’m bored silly. I figured I’d come by and see if you all were just hanging around,” Kenneth said. He looked around. “Oh, sorry. I’m disturbing you—”

  He broke off. He was looking at Samara Stella.

  “Samara?” he asked.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  “You two know each other?” Boris asked. “Small world.”

  “I’ve been to one of Samara’s shows,” Kenneth said, smiling. “The one in which Anne Boleyn knocks the shit out of Henry the Eighth. Oh, sorry... I mean, you know, the one in which the beheaded queen doesn’t get beheaded but gets the guy instead.”

  “Well, thank you for being in the audience,” Samara said.

  “I’ll—I’ll get more plates,” Boris offered.

  “No, no, I’m sorry—” Kenneth began.

  “No problem,” Lauren said. “I mean, I don’t think there’s a problem,” she said, looking at Ryder.

  “The more the merrier,” Ryder said.

  But, as more plates were retrieved from the kitchen, chairs taken from inside to provide for their number and general chaos, Avalon noted that Ryder was texting.

  She figured that he was writing Fin.

  “You haven’t seen my cousins, have you?” Kenneth asked.

  “Not this morning,” Leo said. “But—”

  “I have a feeling they might come by, too,” Ryder said. “Nothing like the gang all being here.”

  * * *

  Fin was torn. It was important to see the shack.

  But Ryder had texted him.

  He’d barely been gone an hour when not just the entire Christy clan had shown up, but Samara Stella, too.

  Captain Tremont’s people had found the shack, and he had said that the place resembled a bloodbath.

  Fin found himself thinking about the woman in the photo with th
e man with the baseball bat standing behind her. She’d had long dark hair.

  That could be Avalon, yet.

  Or Samara Stella. Had she possibly been involved with Nolan Christy at some time?

  Nolan Christy had only been dead a few months.

  But he had been alive when both Ellen Frampton and Jane Doe had been murdered.

  However, he couldn’t have killed Cindy West.

  The drive seemed to take forever; however, he managed to arrive at the road leading down through a trail to the old shack in good time, not an hour and a half after he’d left the French Quarter.

  Captain Tremont was waiting for him himself, leaning against a parish car, sipping coffee.

  “How the hell did you know about this?” he asked Fin. “I’ve got a forensic crew ready to go in, and I haven’t let anyone trample the place. Strange thing, the flies and smell led us to it—we’re just so far off the beaten path. Anyway...well, you’ll see.”

  Officers and members of the forensic team were at the shack, all nodding in grim acknowledgment as Fin arrived. He returned their nods, then walked up to the shack and opened the door. One officer brought a flashlight with a powerful beam to light up the place.

  There was a cot with a rotting mattress against the far wall, which was splintering and all but caving in. There was also a large, claw-foot porcelain tub in the room and the floor was pooled with dried blood. Stains covered the ripped and torn mattress.

  The walls, too, looked as if they had been sprayed with blood, or as if an errant child had used blood for a frenzy of finger-painting.

  “I’m assuming this is where our Jane Doe met her demise,” Tremont said.

  Fin explained to him about finding Nolan Christy’s stash of pornographic pictures, featuring just about every sexual deviation there was.

  “I sent you the picture,” Fin reminded him.

  Tremont shook his head. “Drugs, domestics, greed, jealousy... I’ve seen bad stuff. We’re not big-city, but we’re not illiterate innocents out here, either, and I did a stint in NOLA myself before I came out here,” he said. “But this...”

  “None of us is accustomed to anything like this,” Fin assured him.

  He stepped back.

  “But how—?” Tremont began.

  “The victims were all bled out, Captain,” Fin said. “I figured that the people doing it had to have a place to kill...and a place to clean and dress their victims. We’re close enough to the water—seawater and fresh water—for them to have gotten a supply for that bathtub. As to the weapons used and everything else... Well, they’re in the muck and the dirt, sunk in the water, or...the killers took them with them. For this, they’d have been covered in blood themselves, but we passed what looked like a fresh-water stream coming down here, so they cleaned up themselves after they finished creating their doll...or dolls.”

  “You think the woman in the photo was a victim?”

  “We need a lot of analysis. Maybe, just maybe, the killers nicked themselves, or left something behind,” Fin said. “In fact, I’d say there had to have been something, but this old place has now seen so much time go by.”

  “Everything is going to be degraded,” a member of the forensic team, standing nearby, noted. “But we’ll do our best.”

  “I’d bet there is at least one more of these shacks somewhere,” Fin said, looking around, listening to the buzz of the insects that had found good homes in the decay. “This wasn’t used recently. There’s nothing on Christy Island. It’s been gone over, and over. Cindy West was killed, bled out, bathed and dressed somewhere before she was brought out to Christy Island. I believe that the Biloxi people will find something similar, and there will be one more.”

  “We’ve got people on it,” Captain Tremont assured Fin.

  He nodded.

  “We’ll try. God knows, there could be something in here, the way the blood dried. We’ll do our best to find prints,” Tremont said, nodding toward his team.

  “Thank you for getting right on this,” Fin said.

  “You bet. Hey...we found Jane Doe,” Tremont said. “It would be damned good to find justice for that girl. Sex worker, runaway, whatever she might have been—poor girl can’t be helped in life, but we’d sure like to see justice for her in death.”

  Fin thanked him again and asked to be informed if they found anything, no matter how minute.

  Captain Tremont solemnly promised.

  Fin walked slowly back to the road, trying to feel the air around him, hoping...

  But whoever had been murdered in the shack was gone. Long gone. And he was grateful; no soul should have to linger where something so horrible had taken place.

  He walked slowly, then moved on, leaving the overgrown trail behind, and reached his car.

  There, he texted Ryder, not wanting him to have to speak in front of others, but anxious to know that everything was going well.

  That he was still with Avalon.

  He was.

  Fin drove back, wanting to be part of the conversation going on at the house.

  Because the gang was all there.

  He only rued the fact that he now smelled revoltingly of blood and decay himself; he would have to shower again before joining anyone.

  Or would he?

  Maybe his best appearance would be for him to join all the others...

  Just as he was.

  Smelling of rot, and decomposition, and blood.

  * * *

  They had talked all afternoon.

  They had talked about the video several of them had worked on for Pauly’s Pariah.

  Boris and Julian had talked about the fact that they’d known one another, but until Boris had seen the article on Nolan Christy’s death and read that Julian Bennett was one of the heirs, neither of them had ever thought to bring up Christy Island.

  Cara Holstein was disappointed that they weren’t finishing the movie—she’d hoped to be an extra in one of the scenes that was now being scrapped.

  Kevin had talked about Broadway; Brad had talked about filmmaking, and he and Samara seemed to hit it off, though Terry seemed to enjoy talking to her just as much.

  Every now and then, Avalon glanced over at Ryder. He would just give her a nod, and she assumed it was to assure her that everything was okay.

  Breakfast was cleared up by lunchtime. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon before Leo mentioned that they hadn’t eaten in a long time.

  Cara yawned and said, “Maybe we should just head home tonight, or our home away from home, guys,” she said to her cousins.

  Julian asked her, “Why?”

  “Because we’re imposing on these people.”

  “You’re not imposing. We’re all sitting here...waiting.”

  “They will clear the island for use again. Probably tomorrow,” Ryder assured them.

  “So you could film again?” Cara said hopefully.

  Boris shrugged. “We’re broken down. We’ve figured out a way to edit the movie together without shooting the remaining scenes. And I thought you wanted to go ahead and sell the island.”

  “A sale will take time,” Gary said, glancing at the others and lifting his hands. “Hey, I’m just Cara’s husband, not an heir. But I’m just saying.”

  “I don’t know,” Boris said. “Maybe my heart’s not in it.”

  “Well, I’m hungry. Should we order something, or go out?” Lauren asked.

  She didn’t get an answer. There was a knock at the gate.

  “It’s going to be Fin,” Ryder told them.

  “I’ll get it,” Boris said, walking over to unlock the gate.

  Fin walked in.

  “Hey, everyone is still here,” he said. “Thanks, Boris. I’m beat. It’s good to be back.”

  He walked over to the table. He hadn’t come very c
lose before Avalon noted the smell.

  It was awful.

  Apparently, he didn’t know. He saw an empty chair and pulled it back, falling into it as Boris returned to the table.

  Fin leaned back, closing his eyes, then opened them to look around. He offered the group a weak smile. “Hey, anyone else hungry? I’m starving.”

  A little sound escaped Lauren. “I was hungry,” she said.

  Fin frowned. They were all still looking at him. “Oh... I’m sorry. Am I offensive? I should have realized that I’d be...” He looked at Ryder and shook his head and then told them all, “The Terrebonne Parish police found a shack. They were hoping that it could give us some clues to Cindy, but...well, it was last used a long time ago. Probably when their Jane Doe was murdered.”

  “Oh, God!” Lauren said. She stood and walked away from the table.

  “I wish so badly I could remember something that would help,” Julian said.

  “We all do,” Boris said. “We’ve been trying to remember if we saw anything strange at the Speakeasy. But when you’re out for a fun night, you’re not paying attention to that kind of thing.”

  “I never saw anyone being...obnoxious there,” Julian said. “It was a fun place to go. Sure, women flirted, men tried some bad pick-up lines...”

  “I wish I could help,” Cara said. “I—”

  “You were there, with me once,” Julian told her.

  “You tell me that, but I don’t remember. I’m married. You’re the one who goes to bars,” she said lightly. “Well, alone. Gary and I both love music.” She laughed. “I’m sorry, Julian, I just don’t remember. I’m not sure why I would want to be at a place like that with you, where men were picking up women and women were watching men, trying to find the studliest or whatever!”

  “I know of the place,” Gary said.

  “The thing of it is,” Kenneth said, “no killer is going to walk into the place with a sign on that says, ‘Hey! I’m a charming, good-looking dude, but I’m also a serial killer!’”

  Cara went on, “And how the hell would you know if someone was acting strangely, watching a woman in a bar? Stalking her. Correct me if I’m wrong—I know people go out in groups. But women—just like me—like to take a good gander at a member of the opposite sex without looking like they’re taking a long gander at the opposite sex. Men look at women. Women look at men.”