Keeper of the Shadows (The Keepers: L.A.)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  Barrie was truly impressed, even moved, by his insight. “You know a lot about him.” She felt like a total slacker herself; she couldn’t believe how much information he’d come up with. But it wasn’t information, really, it was a sense Mick seemed to have about Johnny, an empathy, as if he understood him.

  Mick shrugged. “I’ve been interviewing everyone I could find who would talk. It’s not easy. A lot of people claimed to know him and really had no clue. But that’s all part of the legend, too, letting everyone think what they want to think of you—or sometimes, with actors, actually being what people want.”

  She said what she had been thinking earlier. “Acting is a lot like shifting, I guess.”

  “Exactly,” he said bleakly.

  Barrie pushed her martini away and got out her notepad. In a homicide investigation, reconstructing the victim’s last day was key. But that was exactly what was maddening about the whole case. “We’ve got two big problems. One, this all happened fifteen years ago. Two, all the witnesses are celebrities. Hard to get to. I mean, listen, this is the witness—and suspect—list.” She read from her notes. “Travis Branson, DJ, Robbie Anderson—if anyone could ever find him. The director of photography is dead, heart attack five years ago....” She went on through her list, naming several other big-name actors who had played roles in the film.

  “Darius Simonides,” Mick added.

  “Darius?” Barrie looked at him in surprise. Darius was a senior agent for the huge Global Artists Agency, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

  “He repped all three of the Pack,” he said. “He still reps DJ.”

  “Darius I can get to,” she said with a rush of excitement. “He’s my cousin Sailor’s godfather.” It was exactly what Alessande had counseled her to do: find people who were actually there, who could tell the real story.

  Mick was silent for a moment. “You know, it’s like you just said—all those guys on that list are hard to get to. Maybe we should start with someone who would know everything but would be more willing to talk to us.”

  Barrie felt a stirring of significance. “Like who?”

  “The opposite end of the totem pole. Below the line. An assistant, a gaffer, or best boy or production assistant. Someone who would really be in the know, but not obvious.”

  Barrie stared at him, realizing. “You already found someone, didn’t you.”

  “Well...”

  She gritted her teeth. “Just tell me,” she said.

  He gave her an apologetic smile. “I was lucky on my source. I figured—like you said—none of the above-the-line people would want to talk to a lowly journalist, so I started at the bottom.”

  She stared at him. “That’s a great idea,” she said reluctantly, kicking herself that she hadn’t thought of it herself.

  He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Production assistants, especially—they’re treated so badly, most of the time. They like to be asked.”

  She frowned at him. “How do you know so much about the business?”

  He hesitated. “Don’t tell anyone, but I worked my way up on the entertainment beat.”

  She burst out laughing. “Oh, no, you were a Harvey?”

  He mock-grimaced. “If you tell anyone, you’re dead.”

  She put a hand to her mouth to stop giggling. “Your secret’s safe with me—if you behave yourself,” she teased, but instantly got serious again. “So, who are we going out there to talk to?”

  Barrie wasn’t sure he even realized he was doing it, but he leaned forward and kept his voice low, so he couldn’t be overheard. “This PA told me about an actor who lives on the island. Not a pro, but a local fisherman who showed up for a casting call for islanders as extras, and he ended up with a role because he had such a great look.”

  Barrie remembered the fisherman from the movie; he’d played the small but pivotal role of a ship’s captain who helped the Pack by hiding them from their human pursuers.

  “He was good,” she said. “And what about him?”

  “I’m not sure, but he was in some of the last scenes of the movie with Johnny. The PA said we should talk to him.”

  * * *

  The boat was nearing the dock, and the two of them went up on deck with quite a few of the rest of the passengers to watch the approach into the crescent-shaped harbor. The lights of the town sparkled in uneven rows leading up the hill, and the boats in the harbor were lit up as well, with brilliant strings of lights, a fairy-tale picture. Barrie was glad to have Mick’s coat, a soft, dark cashmere thing that swallowed her up and smelled deliciously of some faint cologne—and even more deliciously of Mick.

  She gazed out over the water at the circular white facade of the Avalon Ballroom, a former casino, now ballroom and movie palace. It looked like a giant wedding cake towering over the water, and she was acutely aware of how fabulously elegant it was inside; she’d actually been there for ballroom dance events, but never with someone who would make the romance complete....

  And those are thoughts that are only going to get you in trouble, she warned herself. This is work. That’s all.

  She forced herself toward thoughts of the case, the film, the mystery of Johnny Love.

  As she and Mick debarked along the long diagonal slant of the ramp with the other passengers, it did feel exactly as if they were descending into the film. Catalina was an Otherworld of its own, a setting out of time.

  The feeling continued as she walked beside Mick along the main street of town, with its old-fashioned streetlamps and upscale boutiques and open-air bars and restaurants, where couples sat at candlelit tables, sipping wine and gazing into each other’s eyes.

  She had just seen the movie, and it was an odd thing, traveling along the same streets that the young actors had strolled in the film. It was a feeling you often got, living in L.A.—so often there was a sense of déjà vu from coming across a location that was familiar from a favorite movie. It added to the fantasy world aspect of Hollywood; much more than merely romantic, it was hallucinatory, intoxicating.

  And to be walking along these romantic streets with someone who was gorgeous enough to be in a movie himself...it was all very unsettling.

  Mick glanced at her as if he knew what she was thinking and said, “It would be nice to come here not for work.”

  She cleared her throat. “Where does this captain live?”

  He gave her a smile that was not quite a smile and gestured to a path leading down to a smaller harbor.

  The fisherman lived on his own trawler, exactly as he had for the movie, although she was pretty sure the boat in the movie had been a newer, cleaned-up version. The captain was waiting for them on the well-worn deck, smoking a pipe and looking out over the shimmering water. Just as it was startling to walk onto a street you knew from a movie, it was always startling to meet someone who you knew from on-screen. The fisherman looked not that much older than he had in Otherworld, really, and he had the same authentic salt-of-the-earth energy that he’d brought to the role; she understood perfectly why he’d been cast.

  Mick introduced the fisherman as Captain Livingston, and said Barrie was a colleague.

  “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she told him honestly. “My cousins and I loved you in the movie.”

  Captain Livingston nodded thanks without speaking, and glanced at Mick.

  “We appreciate you seeing us on such short notice,” Mick said.

  “Come downstairs and we’ll talk,” the captain said curtly, and turned to go through a door. Mick and Barrie followed him downstairs into the main cabin, a comfortable, masculine room with carefully stored nautical equipment and carved built-in furniture pieces, and a small galley separated from the rest of the room by a storage counter. Outside the wide windows other boats bobbed gently in the rippling current, and the moon stippled the dark water with blue light.

  “I can offer you tea, or there’s whiskey,” the captain said in his brusque way.

  “Tea would be w
onderful, but I can get it for all of us,” she offered. The captain looked her over, and nodded shortly.

  She stepped into the galley. There were already mugs set out on the counter, and a kettle was on the burner. She poured tea as out in the main room Mick told the captain, “Steve Price said you might talk to us about the last few days on Otherworld.”

  The old fisherman puffed on his pipe. “Depends on what you want to know.”

  “We think that a false story was put out about Johnny Love’s death,” Mick said, getting right to the point. “You were on set those last few days before Johnny died. Your scenes with him were some of the last shots of the movie. So, we thought you might know, or have some idea, anyway.”

  The old man took his time answering. She brought out the mugs of tea and a plastic bear filled with honey, and handed them around, and it was still some time before the captain actually spoke.

  “Most of what they all said about that Johnny Love was false,” he finally said.

  Barrie was about to jump in and ask him why, but Mick touched her leg and shook his head very slightly, and she kept silent. The old man sat in his chair, and she felt her body subtly swaying in the softly creaking boat, until finally he spoke again.

  “Everyone called those three boys spoiled and arrogant, but it wasn’t so. Not Johnny, anyway. I didn’t know beans about acting, but he was always willing to help me out, explain what the bigger fish were saying. He went over all my scenes with me, practiced with me, talked over what everything meant. And as an actor he was up there with the greats. It’s a crime what happened to him.”

  The way he said it, Barrie had to ask, “What did happen to him?”

  The old man looked at her with eyes as dark as the water outside them. “I don’t rightly know, but it’s not what they say. Johnny Love died before they ever finished that movie,” the old fisherman said flatly.

  Barrie gasped. She looked to Mick, who looked grim—but not exactly surprised, she noted.

  He knew, she thought.

  She forced herself to focus on the old man. “Please. Please tell us.”

  The captain gazed into space, and the very air seemed to change around them as he remembered. “We were down to the last few days of filming. Then one morning Johnny never showed up for a call. It was our last scene together. No one knew what the problem was, but all the bigwigs were in an uproar. Everyone was scrambling. And finally toward the end of the day they had me shoot my scenes with someone else standing in. When you look at that last scene, you can see we were never shot together. Well, it’s because Johnny wasn’t there at all.”

  Barrie was feeling distinctly disoriented. She’d just seen the movie. “But Johnny is in those scenes...” she said weakly.

  “They did it with computers,” the fisherman said flatly. “And then they filmed the last scenes on a closed set, with only the director, cameraman and the actors.”

  Barrie was aware it could be done; it had been done in other movies where a lead actor had died before the end of principal photography. Editing techniques and digital animation and special effects being what they were, there was very little that couldn’t be fixed in film. But the very thought of it, of what it meant...

  She stammered, “You never said anything, all these years....”

  “Didn’t want anything more to do with it—ever.” The captain’s face was dark. “Those movie people are always playing a big game on everyone else. Thinking they’re putting something over on us by mocking something that’s real. But I’m not blind. I know what’s out there in the night. I know some people aren’t what they seem.”

  Barrie felt a chill. She also understood why the old man had been cast: he had a power that just resonated, in person and on-screen. Mick was being very silent beside her, and she glanced over to him—and was unnerved by the look she saw on his face. Either angry or disturbed or both, she couldn’t tell, but something had come over him.

  He didn’t seem inclined to speak, either, so she swallowed and turned back to the captain. She spoke carefully. “Do you think someone...hurt Johnny?”

  “Hurt him?” The old man looked at her directly.

  “Killed him,” she whispered.

  The captain’s eyes turned bleak. “I couldn’t say. But someone was up to no good, and they ruined that kid.” He looked defensive and defiant, and his voice trembled as he spoke. “He was just a kid, and he was a good kid, no matter what anyone says.”

  Barrie leaned forward and put her hands on his. “I believe you.”

  * * *

  Barrie and Mick left the boat in silence, with Barrie tendering their thanks and appreciation to the captain. Mick was still in that strange silence, brooding, sunk into himself.

  “You knew.” She confronted him once they reached the boardwalk, out of earshot of the boat. He looked for a moment caught.

  “I didn’t know,” he countered. “I’d heard something—”

  “From one of your sources,” she said in total disbelief. Does he ever tell the truth? Ever? She felt faint, even sick.

  “I’d heard about the closed set. There could have been any number of reasons why Mayo and Branson closed off the set for the last scenes. The captain isn’t an Other, so of course he didn’t know everything that was going on. There was a whole other level of reality that was being kept from him.”

  “They didn’t keep it from him very well.” She recalled the old man’s eyes as he’d stated, I know some people aren’t what they seem. She was fairly certain that he knew there were more things in heaven and earth than most people dreamed of.

  Mick was silent, maybe knowing there was nothing he could say to her right then that would calm her. The water rippled behind them, a lulling and yet somehow ominous sound.

  “Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” she demanded.

  Mick looked at her but didn’t speak.

  He knows too much, she thought. He wants too much. I don’t know why he cares about this...the way he does.

  She was suddenly acutely aware that they were completely alone on the pier. There might have been any number of people out on the boats tied up in their slips all around them, but no one was visible. She was out on an island in the middle of the night with a shifter, one of the least reliable beings on the planet, and suddenly she doubted every single thing he’d ever said to her. More than that, she was afraid. And she didn’t like that feeling at all.

  “All right,” she said, and managed to keep her voice from shaking. “I’m going home now.”

  As she turned on her heel he caught her wrist, and she gasped. She swiveled around to face him, her heart in her throat, and he looked at her. “I wish you wouldn’t,” he said, barely audible.

  And then he was pulling her forward and his mouth was on hers, and she felt herself turn to liquid at the touch of his lips, melting and burning and freezing all at once as she kissed him back, and felt the warmth of him and the smell of him enfold her....

  She pulled back with a gasp, staring at him.

  “Barrie,” he said, his voice thick, and she knew in the core of her that whether she trusted him or not, whether he was telling the truth or not, if she let him pull her forward, she would be lost for all time. Then she jerked her arms away from him and fled, running all the way back to the ferry dock, not turning around until the boat back to the mainland was in sight. She paused, panting, staring back into the dark....

  He hadn’t followed her.

  And despite everything, she wished he had.

  Chapter 8

  From the ferry landing in Marina del Rey she took a cab back to the Snake Pit for her car. Once again, it was well after 3:00 a.m. when she finally arrived back at home.

  Her cousins’ houses were both dark as she drove through the main gate and up to Gwydion’s Cave.

  I’m bringing new meaning to the idea of the night shift, she thought.

  Her own kitchen light was the only one burning besides the outside lights of the estate; with h
er odd hours, she’d learned to leave a light on for herself. She was relieved and grateful that no one was waiting up for her; she couldn’t possibly have explained where she had been or what she had been doing, or especially what she felt, since she didn’t know that herself. But the feeling of Mick’s kiss, of his arms pulling her against him, of the urgent fire of her own response, was making her dazed and light-headed.

  She opened the front door and threw her keys in the bowl on the side table. Oddly, Sophie didn’t come padding out to greet her as she almost always did. Barrie moved down toward the bedroom, frowning.

  And then she heard a scuffling noise in the kitchen and froze.

  Someone’s here.

  She took two noiseless steps forward to the panic button the Keepers had installed in every room in the house and hit the silent alarm to wake her cousins. Then she grabbed an umbrella from the coat stand to arm herself.

  She crept toward the front door, holding her breath as she approached the archway into the living room. Two shadows loomed up in the darkness...and she came face-to-face with her cousins. All three of them screamed.

  Barrie dropped the umbrella, going limp with relief. “You guys! You scared me half to death!”

  “You’re the one coming home at three in the morning!” Rhiannon accused.

  “We were worried!” Sailor said on top of her. “You send us some text about going off to Catalina in the middle of the night.”

  “With some guy.”

  “In the middle of a murder investigation.”

  “What were we supposed to think?” Rhiannon finished.

  Barrie looked at both of them, a little overwhelmed. Then again, maybe she hadn’t been clear enough. “Well, he’s not just some guy, he’s on the Courier.”