Curse of the Kissing Cousins

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  Tilda made a note to let Jasmine know that Mercy hadn’t forgotten her after all.

  Boardman went on. “Now I feel a bit guilty for the unkind thoughts I’ve had about Miss Ashford over the years. Do you suppose something happened to her?”

  “I have no idea,” Tilda had to admit, “but if I find out, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “That would be most kind. Is there any other way I can help you?”

  She looked over the list of questions she’d come up with earlier. “I don’t think so. Thank you, you’ve been very frank, and I appreciate your taking the time to speak with me.”

  “It was my pleasure. When one retires, time is all one has left to share.”

  Tilda left her contact information with him, just in case he remembered anything, and hung up.

  “Damn it!” Her last lead, and it had led nowhere.

  “Having problems with the story?” Nicole said, almost managing to sound honestly concerned.

  Tilda glared at her.

  “I thought you had hot leads to follow? Did they not go anywhere?”

  Tilda glared at her.

  “If you’re not going to be able to produce, we need to know soonest so there won’t be a hole in the magazine.”

  Tilda glared at her. She might have spent the rest of the afternoon glaring at her if Jillian hadn’t called the woman away. Only when Nicole was out of earshot did Tilda allow herself another, “Damn it!”

  “No luck?” Cooper asked with real concern.

  “Plenty, but it was all bad.” She noticed he’d shut down his computer. “You heading out?”

  “Yeah, Jean-Paul is working a really classy party out in Newton, and I’m going along to keep his admirers at bay. How about you?”

  “Nothing special,” she said. “June wants me to meet some guy she’s dug up.” That was true enough—it was continuously true—though it had nothing to do with her plans for the evening. Or rather, her lack of plans, which she didn’t intend to admit to in Nicole’s hearing.

  She gathered up her own stuff and walked with Cooper down to the lobby and out to the street, which was enough time to fill him in on Lawrence and Nick before they went their separate ways.

  Chapter 15

  Episode 23: Summer Camp (Part 2)

  Sherri finds herself bunking with a crew of jocks while Mercy

  is trapped with a trio of constantly studying drudges. Realizing

  that being bunkmates wasn’t so bad, they request transfers, but

  two other campers have been given their spots. When they

  realize those campers are the ones who encouraged their feud

  in the first place, they team up to get those girls in trouble so

  they can get their places back.

  —FANBOY’S ONLINE KISSING COUSINS EPISODE GUIDE, BY VINCENT PETERS

  TILDA was not exactly jolly on her way home. Not only had Boardman given her nothing, but the lunch with Nick had been a waste of time too. Or rather, it had been personally satisfying, but professionally? Nada. She didn’t need Vincent’s countdown program to remind her that time was ticking away.

  Her mood wasn’t improved by having to negotiate the subway during rush hour, still pulling that damned suitcase behind her. Moreover, it was Friday night, she had no plans, and it was too late to try to set anything up without sounding desperate.

  When she made it home, the stack of mail waiting for her on the kitchen counter was hardly cheering. There were a couple of checks in the midst of the bills and shills, but both were small—her income had definitely not kept up with her outgo for the week.

  After checking to see how much of her food had survived Doug, and being further annoyed to see that a nearly full box of corn flakes had disappeared, she went to her room, only to stop at the doorway. Somebody had been in there.

  It wouldn’t have been screamingly obvious to anybody but Tilda, but she could tell. The drawer on her dresser that stuck was partially open, as was the closet door, though she always closed both of them tightly. Some of the papers next to her desktop computer weren’t where she had left them, and her bed looked rumpled. Damn it, if Heather and Doug had been porking in her bed, Heather was going to be paying for a new set of sheets! Fortunately, Tilda’s careful examination showed no sign of that, for which she was exceedingly grateful.

  Next she looked at the dresser—a previous roommate’s boyfriend had been a foot fetishist—but it looked like all her socks and stockings were present and accounted for and had not been molested in any way. The same was true of the rest of her clothes, both in the drawers and hanging in the closet. Everything was intact, but she was sure somebody had been rummaging. Maybe it was nothing more than Heather looking for clothes to borrow. It would have been yet another violation of their agreement, but she’d rather imagine Heather in her room than Doug.

  The thing was, she was sure somebody had been sitting at her desk, and Heather would have had no reason to fiddle with her computer—she had her own. Tilda booted up the computer and checked the security files. There it was—somebody had tried to log into her system. She smiled in malicious satisfaction. Her system was protected nine ways from Sunday, thanks to Javier—he’d set up security for her after hearing her complain about a roommate who was too cheap to pay for Internet service when she could sneak onto Tilda’s computer instead. Maybe a dedicated hacker could have broken in, but it wouldn’t have been easy, and she didn’t think Doug had the brains to attempt it.

  Tilda heard Heather come in the front door, and went to intercept her. “Heather, we’ve got to talk.”

  “Glad to see you too,” Heather said in an irritated voice. “I’ll buy you a new box of corn flakes, okay? Doug didn’t like my Weetabix.”

  “Forget the cereal. Somebody’s been in my room.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me!”

  “I didn’t say it was, but somebody was in there. I’ll show you.”

  Tilda led the way back to her bedroom and pointed out all the unmistakable signs.

  “I don’t see anything,” Heather said flatly. “Are you turning into that guy on TV who has to have everything just so?”

  “I am not like Monk,” Tilda said indignantly. “I’m just particular about my things.”

  “More like peculiar, if you ask me,” Heather muttered.

  “Fine, if it makes you feel better, pretend that I’m obsessive-compulsive. But somebody did try to use my computer—I can tell from the security files. If it wasn’t you, it must have been Doug. Unless you had another guest I don’t know about, that is.”

  “What, and violate your precious agreement? No, I haven’t had any other guests. And maybe Doug did come in to check his e-mail. For all I know, the son of a bitch wanted to troll the Web for porn sites.”

  “Trouble in paradise?” Tilda asked.

  “The bastard was supposed to take me to a nice dinner tonight, to pay me back for letting him stay here these past few days, but he called and left a damned voicemail to tell me he’s decided to work things out with his live-in. He swore to me that their relationship was over! Fucking bastard!”

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” Tilda said awkwardly. “It’s his loss, anyway.”

  “Damned straight.” Heather sighed. “Maybe he did come in here. He could have done it when I was in the shower or something. He didn’t take anything, did he?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tilda admitted, “so I guess there’s no harm done.”

  “Well, I’m sorry he violated your personal space.”

  “Forget it,” Tilda said. Maybe she was overly particular about her room—or overly peculiar—but even if she was right, this was hardly the time to rub salt in her roommate’s wound. “Forget him too. Tell you what—since he blew you off, why don’t you and I go out to dinner?”

  “That’s sweet, but I met this guy on the T on the way home, and he asked me out. I’m giving you notice right now that if things work out, he might spend the night.” She glanced at her watch. “S
hit—he’ll be here in fifteen minutes.” And she rushed off to transform herself by means of a cyclone of primping.

  Tilda sighed and wondered if the subway suitor preferred corn flakes or Weetabix.

  Chapter 16

  Q: What’s your favorite day of the week?

  A: Friday! The show almost always wraps early, so I have a

  chance to relax and get ready before I go out. Sometimes it’s

  dinner and dancing or a movie with a date, but most of the time

  it’s just hanging out with friends, listening to music, and eating

  pizza. That’s my idea of a good time.

  —“KISSING COUSINS’ SHERRI ANSWERS TWENTY-FIVE PERSONAL QUESTIONS,” TEEN FAVE

  ONCE Heather was off on her date, Tilda was free to crank up the stereo and call up Town Pizza House to get dinner delivered. Her pepperoni pizza arrived just as she finished attending to the mail, and she was feeling lazy enough that she didn’t pull out a plate, just ate it from the box while watching TV, substituting a beer for her usual Dr Pepper to emphasize what a good time she was having, eating alone in front of the boob tube on a Friday night.

  Once the pizza, the beer, and the beer’s twin brother were gone, she decided she’d had enough of frivolity and went to her room to check e-mail. Vincent had sent a new version of the Mercy murder countdown program, this one with animations, to remind her that less than a week remained until his hypothetical killer was expected to strike, plus more Mercy sightings, again categorized for her convenience. This batch included Mercy teaching drama in Los Angeles while dressed as a man, Mercy married to an Arabian prince and kept in seclusion, and Mercy abandoning Hollywood to embrace the life of a Buddhist nun.

  Tilda even took half an hour to investigate one fan’s claim that Mercy was working in the porn industry. After all, plenty of actresses on their way up or down had been known to detour into that line of work. But when she tracked down photos of the actress the fan insisted “looked just like Mercy,” she found that the woman didn’t in fact resemble the actress in any way and was at least six inches shorter. After watching some film clips on an aficionado’s Web site, Tilda also concluded that she was more agile than most women Mercy’s age would be.

  There were no new posts from Have_Mercy.

  That done, she leaned back in her chair to recap her progress. It didn’t take long—she hadn’t made much.

  That wasn’t completely true. She actually had more than enough information and quotes to write her article. If anything, Mercy’s mysterious disappearance would only add to the woo-woo factor of the Kissing Cousins curse. Jillian would eat it up with a spoon, Nicole would be even more bitchy than usual, and all would be right with the world.

  She didn’t need to find Mercy. She just really wanted to.

  It was intensely aggravating to admit even to herself that she was no further along in finding that actress than she’d been over a week before, when Holly Kendricks was found dead. Even though she knew it was ridiculous, she kept thinking about that damned countdown of Vincent’s marking off the time until Mercy became a target, which was currently at 136 hours, plus or minus 12 hours. It was ridiculous! There was no crazed killer stalking nearly forgotten actors and actresses. The three deaths were purely coincidence. She shouldn’t even be wasting time thinking about it—she should be concentrating on finding Mercy.

  So where the hell was she? What had happened to her? Why couldn’t Tilda find some trace of her?

  Nobody, especially not a TV star, could disappear that thoroughly unless they worked at it. Tilda had told Nick over lunch that the formerly famous always wanted to be found, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe Mercy didn’t want to be found. Maybe the actress had purposely disappeared and was purposely staying hidden. That changed the question from “Where is she?” to “Why did she go away?”

  Tilda thought over Mercy’s last known appearances. There was the cast party at the end of the final season of Kissing Cousins, where she’d promised to keep in touch with the other members of the cast and Jasmine the makeup artist. Each one of those people had sounded surprised when she hadn’t. Even though Hollywood was notorious for broken promises, they were still surprised. So if she assumed that Mercy really had intended to stay friends, something must have changed.

  The next confirmed sighting was on the set of The Raven’s Prey, where something made Mercy give up a starring role in a feature, which some actresses would kill for.

  That reminded her of the money Mercy hadn’t collected over the years. Tilda didn’t know exactly how much it was, but Noel had implied it was well worth the effort of collecting. Why would anybody ignore free money?

  Tilda ran her fingers through her hair. There had to be a logical answer. Or, given the mental state of all too many actors, an illogical one. Okay, Tilda had interviewed dozens of actors who’d left show business for one reason or another. What had happened to them?

  Sometimes they got dumped. Their show got canceled, their movie bombed, whatever. For some reason, the people that mattered stopped calling them and they no longer got the good tables at Spago. But that hadn’t happened to Mercy. She’d quit a job, a good one, apparently without anything else waiting in the wings. That was hardly the act of somebody desperate for work.

  Then there were the actors who’d grown old and wanted to retire. That definitely wasn’t the answer. Mercy was young, and again, wouldn’t she have wanted her money if she were retiring?

  Some actors decide they want to do something else with their lives. It’s not an easy business, after all, and there was even a phrase for it: walking away from it all. That could explain Mercy leaving her movie role, and even abandoning her friends if she didn’t want to be part of that world anymore. But there was that money again! If she were starting a new life, she’d need it more than ever.

  Tilda hesitated over the next possibility, not even wanting to think it. Sometimes actors died. Maybe Mercy was dead. That would explain why she’d never called her friends or collected her money. If she’d been taken ill, that would account for her abandoning the movie too. Except that if she’d been that sick, wouldn’t a doctor or a hospital have been involved? It wasn’t easy for a star to get so much as a hangnail without somebody finding out. Most entertainment magazines—including Entertain Me!—had sources at the major LA hospitals, and that had been just as true back when Mercy disappeared. Even if Mercy had died alone at home, her body would have been found.

  Okay, Tilda thought, suppose Mercy got ill, and that made her decide to leave the movie and her friends. Make it a disfiguring disease, so she wouldn’t want to call them for comfort. An STD would be even better, especially if Have_Mercy was telling the truth. So Mercy went away and died, and didn’t care about the money because she was dying anyway. Of course, when Tilda used that private investigator, he’d checked for death records, and Mercy wasn’t listed. But if she’d run off to die alone, she could have done so under an assumed name and been buried in an anonymous grave somewhere. It fit. It was awful, but it fit.

  There was just one problem. It didn’t match what Tilda knew about Mercy Ashford. An orphan with no money or connections who’d managed to break into Hollywood and who had a promising career ahead of her did not crawl into a hole and die! More importantly, Tilda didn’t want to believe it and she wasn’t going to. Who said that actors were the only ones allowed to be illogical?

  So scratch the mysterious illness. Mercy could still be dead. What about a car accident? There had been cases of cars going into canals or over cliffs and then not being found until years later. There were plenty of places in California where that could have happened.

  Even nastier, Mercy could have been murdered and her body hidden, or mutilated enough that it couldn’t be identified. Then the killer quietly closed up his victim’s house and life, and stole away into the night.

  Either theory could be tweaked to fit the facts, but Tilda shook her head as vigorously as if somebody had been trying to talk her into
it. There was one piece that wouldn’t fit into the jigsaw of facts: the other deaths.

  Damn Vincent for making her think the deaths were connected! Sometime over the past week, the idea had sunk into her brain and she didn’t think she’d ever pry it loose again. Two unusual deaths she could accept. Three deaths—one of them definitely murder—and a bizarre disappearance? Fifteen years of therapy wouldn’t make her come to terms with that!

  All right then, what could make Mercy disappear and motivate the murders of her former costars nearly thirty years later?

  Why were people ever killed? Crimes of passion? Definitely not—maybe Jim’s or Alex’s deaths could have been spur-of-the-moment, but Holly’s had been well planned.

  Revenge? For what? Tilda had never heard of anything nasty going on with the cast back then, and even admitting that she could have missed it, she didn’t think Sophia would have.