Curse of the Kissing Cousins

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  “You hired a bodyguard?” Javier said.

  Nick put his arm around Tilda possessively. “No, this is personal.”

  “Ah. Then I’ll just get to work.” He scurried toward Tilda’s bedroom.

  Once he was out of earshot, Tilda said, “I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t lift your leg to mark me as part of your territory.”

  “Sorry,” Nick said sheepishly. “I just thought it would be easier on you if I drew the lines right away. Was I too heavy-handed?”

  “I’ll let it pass this time, as long as you keep an eye on Javier while he’s in my bedroom. I found him rummaging through my underwear once.”

  Nick saluted sharply. “Shall I mark your underwear drawer, ma’am?”

  “Don’t make me get out my toenail clippers!”

  Despite Nick watching his every move, or perhaps because of it, Javier worked quickly. Though he mumbled to himself the whole time, since he was mumbling in a mishmash of Spanish, English, and computerese, Tilda had no idea what was going on until he hit the return key particularly firmly and leaned back in the chair.

  “Okay, I’ve got good news and bad news,” he announced. “The good news is that your system is secure. It’s free of viruses and spyware too.”

  Tilda let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding in. She did everything on her computer: work, personal letters, bills. Not to mention the fact that there were a few Web page bookmarks she’d rather nobody else knew about. “What’s the bad news?”

  “Somebody has definitely been messing with your computer.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Does it ever take you more than five times to remember your password?”

  “Never. Not even early in the morning.”

  “Then somebody else was making a stab at it.” He gave her a stern look. “You don’t use your birthday, your name, or the word ‘password,’ do you? Or any of those backward?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good—you’d be surprised how many people pick one of those. It looks like your guy wasn’t savvy enough to actually get past the security program, so he tried the obvious passwords first, and then started guessing. Of course, he wouldn’t have known that security won’t allow more than six tries in a two-hour period until he tried the seventh time. By the way, what is your password?”

  “It’s—” She stopped. “I’m not telling you.”

  “Good girl. Tell no one.” He looked over his shoulder at Nick. “No one! It’s a good idea to change it frequently too.” He pushed back from the desk. “What’s for dinner?”

  Though Tilda asked him a few more questions, Javier said there was nothing else he could tell her. The intruder hadn’t been able to get into her system to read it, and he hadn’t damaged anything either.

  Deciding neutral territory would be more comfortable for all concerned, Tilda suggested eating at Pearl Street Station, the restaurant across the street, and they walked over and got a table. Normally she took the role of hostess seriously, but this time she was too distracted to take much of a part in the conversation. Fortunately the two men turned out to have a lot to talk about. Not sports, for which Tilda was grateful, but security. They had similar outlooks—Nick was just as paranoid in the real world as Javier was on the computer.

  Only neither of them sounded as paranoid as she would have thought twenty-four hours earlier. Now she knew that somebody had been in her apartment. Not a burglar—nothing had been taken. He’d been looking for something, and his attempts on her computer made her think that it was information he was after. Theoretically it could have just been a psycho or an enterprising identity thief—Tilda would almost have preferred that—but she was sure that whoever it was had been there because of her work on the Kissing Cousins article.

  None of her other projects would have sparked that kind of intrusion, unless it was the makeup artist mafia or the gospel singer goon squad. Moreover, she’d written articles about Kissing Cousins before. The big difference with this one was her focus on finding Mercy. Was it too outrageous to think that somebody was interested in that search? Even if it hadn’t been Have_Mercy, somebody was damned interested in finding out what she knew.

  So who cared that much? Rival reporter Lawrence or rival-in-general Nicole came to mind—either one would probably enjoy beating her to the punch. Was Mercy herself trying to stop her? Or was the Kissing Cousins killer hoping to get to Mercy before she did? Who’d have thought that there would come a time when Nicole breaking into her apartment would be the best-case scenario?

  By continuing to nod in the appropriate places, she managed to make it through dinner. Then Javier left, and Nick escorted Tilda home, alert for anybody suspicious. He even examined the door to make sure no fresh scratches had appeared and checked the entire apartment to make sure nobody was lurking.

  Since Heather was home by that point, he went into her bedroom, and Tilda could tell by the way her roommate eyed him that he could have spent all night there if he’d so much as crooked his finger at her. Under normal circumstances, Tilda’s ego would have been purring in satisfaction when Nick made it plain that the only bedroom he was interested in inhabiting was hers, but this time, she just had the creeps. So when he gently hinted, she gently put him off. He was too polite to push, though clearly he thought having a bodyguard around could only make her sleep better. After extracting her promise to get a better lock installed, he left. Heather looked at her as if she were crazy for letting him go, and retreated into her room.

  That left Tilda with no better way to spend the rest of the evening than to wander through the apartment, looking for more traces of Have_Mercy’s invasion. She found nothing. Finally, she headed for bed, but left the lights on in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, in flagrant disregard of her written roommate agreement with Heather.

  Chapter 22

  Everybody knows about fan mail, but I was pure out shocked by presents kids would send: beaded bracelets, cookies, hand-drawn pictures, T-shirts. I’ve still got the stuffed bunny a little girl sent when my character’s rabbit died.

  —KATIE LANGEVOORT, QUOTED IN “CURSE OF THE KISSING COUSINS,” ENTERTAIN ME!

  THOUGH she’d slept poorly, Tilda was up early to call the land-lord and demand a new lock. They wrangled a bit, but after Tilda pointed out that she knew people at the Boston Globe who would like nothing better than to write an exposé of shoddy security in area apartment buildings, he got a locksmith out there to fix things up.

  Other than supervising the locksmith, Tilda wasted her day on the Web. She found nothing and received no worthwhile messages. Instead she got hourly updates from Vincent, reminding her that this was the date Mercy was fated to die, which did not improve her mood.

  At four o’clock, one o’clock in LA, Tilda called Noel for their scheduled phone interview. Naturally, he wasn’t ready.

  “Sorry, darling,” he said, “I’ve been learning my lines, and I completely lost track of the time. Damn it, there’s the doorbell. I’m expecting a script from my agent—it’s for a feature—and I’ve got to take a look pronto. Call me back in half an hour, okay? Ciao!”

  Since he’d answered on the first ring, Tilda would have guessed he was blowing her off even if he hadn’t done the same thing every time she’d ever spoken to him. He wasn’t the only celebrity who got off on making people wait. So she hadn’t even bothered to get her notes or list of questions ready. The waiting time was plenty enough to prepare, and she dialed Noel’s number again at four-thirty.

  Again, he answered on the first ring. “Tilda, you doll! How did you know?”

  “You said to call back in half an hour.”

  “Not the time, the Sky Bars!”

  “The what?”

  “The box of Sky Bars. The ones I had went stale.”

  Now Tilda knew what he was talking about, at least partially. “Did somebody else send you some?”

  “Yes, ‘somebody’ did. You did!”

  �
�What?”

  “And I’m eating my second right now—I’m going to be so fat tomorrow.” He sighed much the way Tilda did when thinking about Nick. “They’re wonderful. I was worried they’d be stale. FedEx dented the box and tore the plastic wrapper—you should complain.”

  “But I didn’t send any . . .” Then a possibility clicked in her head, and she snapped, “Noel! Stop eating that stuff! I didn’t send it.”

  “Of course you did—your name is on the label.”

  “No, I didn’t! Stop eating it! Spit it out!”

  “I already swallowed it,” he said in a small voice. “Why would—” Tilda heard a retching noise, like a frat boy after a three-day weekend.

  “Noel!” she yelled.

  The only answer was more retching.

  “Damn it!” she yelled in frustration. Still hanging on to her cell phone, Tilda grabbed the phone for the land line and dialed 9-1-1. It took her what seemed like an eternity to explain to the operator in Massachusetts that the emergency was actually in Burbank. Eventually the woman asked for Noel’s address, promised to get somebody there immediately, and hung up. That left Tilda with nothing better to do than to hold on to her cell phone, alternately screaming at Noel that help was on the way and listening for signs of life. Even more retching would have been welcome. Finally she heard Noel’s doorbell ring repeatedly, and a minute later, there was shattering glass as somebody broke into the house. There was a confusion of voices, sounds of movement, and radio noises. Finally somebody came on the line.

  “This is the police. Is this the woman who called for help?”

  “Yes! Is Noel alive?”

  “Just barely. Do you know what he took?”

  At the time, Tilda thought she was explaining what had happened with amazing lucidity, but afterward, she suspected she’d actually been babbling. Whatever she said, the cop asked only a few questions before telling her which hospital they’d taken Noel to and offering his opinion that he was going to make it. Tilda didn’t know if he meant it or if he was only trying to keep her from hysterics. It worked, at least until she hung up the phone. Then she burst into tears, and she was still crying furiously when Heather got home from work.

  Heather had her deficits as a roommate, but at least she knew enough to know when she was out of her depth. She took Tilda’s cell phone from where Tilda had dropped it on the floor, went through her saved phone numbers until she found June’s number, and called to tell her to come over at once. Then she sat next to Tilda, handing her water to drink and fresh tissues, even bringing a wet washcloth to wipe her face. Only when Tilda’s sister arrived did she make herself scarce.

  By then Tilda had clamed down enough to explain what was going on.

  “Is he going to be okay?” June asked. “I didn’t realize you knew him that well.”

  “I don’t. I don’t even like him that much. I don’t know why I’m crying like this!” The waterworks threatened to break loose again, and June quickly handed her the glass Heather had left. A few swallows of water, and Tilda was ready to speak again. “I’m not upset about him getting hurt or dying—I mean, of course I’m upset, but not like this. It was feeling that helpless that was so awful. June, I could hear him! I could hear him dying. And I couldn’t do anything, not one damned thing!”

  “You did do something,” June pointed out. “If you hadn’t gotten the cops out there, he would have died. Right?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “So you weren’t helpless. You did what you needed to do. I understand why you feel frustrated—”

  “Frustrated! I’m not frustrated. I’m pissed. God, I’ve never been so mad in my life! That bastard put my name on the poison!”

  “The cops don’t think it was you, do they?”

  “What? Oh, I don’t know—I didn’t do it, and they’ll figure that out. Tracking numbers or fingerprints or something. I’m not worried about that.”

  “Then . . . ?” Clearly June was at a loss.

  “That bastard used me! He read my article and found out Noel likes Sky Bars. Then he used my name to send him some, knowing that Noel wouldn’t suspect anything that came from me. That’s probably how he found out where Holly Kendricks lived too. I may as well have given him the fucking gun to shoot her with! June, I’ve never pretended that my work is anything but fluff—”

  “Hey! It’s not fluff!”

  “It’s fluff! People knowing Noel Clark’s favorite candy or Holly Kendricks’s favorite Kissing Cousins episode doesn’t change the world or help people live their lives or do anything important. I know that! But to have somebody use what I’ve written to kill people is a fucking nightmare!”

  “Noel isn’t dead.”

  “Not yet. This son of a bitch won’t give up. He’s going to go after the others, using what I’ve taught him to get at them. If I find Mercy, he’ll go after her too! He’s using my articles to kill people!”

  Tilda waited for her sister to deny it, to talk her out of it.

  Instead June said, “Do you really think he got what he needed from your stories?”

  “He must have. Sure, there have been other articles about Kissing Cousins over the years, and there are fan sites that would have a lot of the same information. But look at the time frame. My article comes out with the name of the town Holly lives in and what Noel’s favorite candy is. Two weeks later, Holly is dead, and two weeks after that, Noel is poisoned. Do you think that could be a coincidence?”

  “I think the idea of it being a coincidence is harder to swallow than my husband’s nuts,” June said. Realizing what she’d said, she put one hand over her mouth, but a self-conscious giggle escaped.

  Tilda snickered.

  June laughed, breaking into the nerdy snort she tried not to use anymore.

  That made Tilda laugh even harder.

  In seconds, the two of them were laughing as hard as Tilda had been crying before. Tilda knew it was as much a stress reaction as the crying had been, but was just as unable to stop.

  At some point, Heather stuck her head into the room, realized they were laughing and not crying, and went away again. Tilda had been trying to pull herself together, but the expression on her roommate’s face set her off again, especially when she heard the click that meant Heather had locked her door.

  Finally the outburst ran its course, and after using more tissues to wipe their streaming eyes, the two of them were ready to start acting like semirational human beings again.

  “Jesus, June, I’m so damned mad. It’s crazy. Here I am writing bits of fluff and somebody is using it to kill people!”

  “Hey!” June said, socking her on the arm. “I’m telling you, it’s not fluff! I’m speaking as a psychologist here, not as your big sister. People need articles like yours. They love those shows, and those characters, and those actors. For you to write about them with respect validates their feelings.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “Of course that’s a good thing. Learning about their idols gives people a sense of being part of an in-group, a sense of belonging.”

  “Also a good thing?”

  “Definitely. It also creates a connection between them and their idols.”

  “A good thing?”

  “Well, it can go too far,” June admitted, “if the fan thinks there’s more of a relationship than there really is, but generally it’s a good thing. It’s empowering to link oneself to a powerful person, even if it’s a tenuous connection. If somebody reads that their childhood idol is now a real estate agent or a mother, just like they are now, that both humanizes the idol and makes the fan feel special. Which is another good thing.”

  “Good.”

  “I could also mention the historical aspects of what you write, which are of interest to aspiring actors and television writers.”

  “You could.”

  “And even if it were purely fluff, with no other redeeming value, so what? We need fluff! It’s impossible to underestimate the importance o
f entertainment in our lives, and if fluff entertains us, then I think we could use a lot more of it.”

  “So what I write isn’t fluff, but even if it were, fluff is a good thing.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. Then this bastard is taking my noble efforts and using them to kill people.”

  “Didn’t two of those murders take place before you published that article? You can hardly take the blame for those.”

  “True. So he’d already targeted Holly and Noel before he read my article. I just made his job easier.” Tilda looked at her sister. “That doesn’t make me feel much better.” She got up and started pacing. “I just wish the cops would find the guy, and—” She stopped.