Bed of Bones (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Five)

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Melody reached into her blazer pocket, her fingers fumbling around for her glasses. They weren’t there. She cleared her throat and held the mike in front of her. “It’s an honor to be here today with all of you. Many years ago, I contemplated giving up filmmaking forever. Then someone gave me a piece of advice that stayed with me to this day, and I learned it’s never too late to achieve your dreams. To the film students in the audience…no matter how many times you fail in this business, keep trying. Never lose your passion—it’s the driving force that makes life worth living.”

  A generous applause sounded from all sides of the room. Not the thunderous roar an actor hears when their name is read for an Academy Award, but to Melody, it was no different. She paused, wishing she could hone in on the red-haired skeptic for the final words of her speech.

  “The film you are about to see is based on a true story, as most of you already know from reading the introduction in your programs. But what most of you don’t know is how true to life it really is. Many of you are used to fiction being weaved in with fact, lines being blurred, with no way of knowing the truth when you see it. You won’t find that here. Not today. And so I implore you. After the film ends, and the lights come up, and you’re wondering if what you’ve just witnessed really did happen the way it was portrayed in the movie…go home, get on your computer, and do some research of your own. Or come up and ask me yourself at the director’s table. Either way, discover the truth for yourselves, and let the truth set you free. I want to thank everyone for coming out today. Enjoy the movie.”

  It was just how she’d rehearsed it, exactly how she’d planned. She flicked the microphone off, set it on the podium, and exited stage right. The lights dimmed, and the movie began. When Melody reached the other side of the corridor, her assistant was waiting. “Great job out there.”

  Melody smiled. “You should be inside, watching the movie.”

  “I wanted to be the first to congratulate you.”

  Melody placed a hand on her arm. “It means a lot, Brynn. Thank you. Now get in there. I don’t want you to miss it!”

  “What about you? Aren’t you coming?”

  “In a minute. I can’t find my glasses. I thought they were in my pocket. They’re not. I must have left them in the car.”

  “I’ll get them for you,” Brynn said. “You’ll miss the beginning.”

  Melody shook her head. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  The chill of night nipped at Melody’s face when she pushed open the theater door, causing a numbing sensation to come over her. She wrapped her sweater tightly around her and increased her pace, thankful her car was parked nearby. An overhead light streamed through the front windshield. The glasses were not on the dash. She opened the car door and paused.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  The familiar noise was close. One thing was certain—it was the same sound she’d heard inside. A watch perhaps? No, too loud. She considered reversing back into her car and locking herself in, but there was no time. She didn’t know how she knew. She just did. She inhaled a crisp breath of air and turned around.

  Not more than two feet in front of her was a person she assumed to be a man. He wore a ski mask. It was black, frayed at the edges. It looked like it had been sliced with a knife to make it shorter, but it still got the job done. But what was the job? Was he braving the elements, or did he pose some kind of threat?

  When the giant rubber boots he was wearing stepped forward, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, or both. She’d heard of people getting mugged or worse in big cities, but here? She never thought it was possible. She scanned the parking lot. Not a soul was in sight. Everyone was inside. She glanced at the theater door. Brynn wasn’t there. No one was. She was alone.

  “I—I don’t have any money. My purse is inside.”

  He grunted. “Don’t want your money.”

  “Are you here for the movie? I have an extra ticket.”

  An extra ticket? Of course he wasn’t blocking her for an extra ticket. She had no idea what to say, and somehow she persuaded herself if she kept talking, she’d talk her way out of whatever this was. Talking had gotten her out of plenty sticky situations in the past.

  “I…ahh…need to get back inside,” she stuttered.

  “Why? What’s the rush?” His voice was low and controlled. His movements slow and confident.

  “People are waiting for me.”

  “Why?”

  “This is my movie. I directed it. And if I don’t get back inside, they’ll come out here looking for—”

  “That so?” A lump of black liquid shot through the mouth opening of the mask. Tobacco juice drizzled onto her shoe. “Don’t see anyone coming for you now.”

  “If you don’t get out of my way, I’ll…I’ll…scream.”

  He shrugged. “What’s stopping you?”

  She clenched her jaw. Whatever you do, don’t panic. Don’t let him see your fear. But her usual charm wasn’t working, and she was out of things to say. Aside from his crude demeanor, he hadn’t touched her and he hadn’t threatened her. She took it as a good sign. “Are you here for the movie? I can get you in.”

  He cocked his head to the side and let it hang there. “All I care about is the ending.”

  “What ending?”

  “Yours.”

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  And then…ding.

  The man opened his hand. Crushed inside were her glasses. He curved his hand sideways, letting them fall, smiling as he caught the stunned reaction on her face. Then he dug into his pocket, pulled out a small, square box. It appeared to be made of plastic. He pressed a grey button in the center. And the theater exploded.

  CHAPTER 2

  TWO HOURS LATER

  I could count on one hand the number of times Park City Police Chief Wade Sheppard had dialed my number over the last year, so when his name flashed across my cell phone screen in bright, white letters, I paused, then glanced at the time. It was just after two a.m.

  “Sloane?” he croaked, when I answered. His voice was shaky, unstable. Very unlike him. “I apologize for calling so late. How’s Vegas?”

  “Vegas is fine. What’s wrong?”

  “I need to ask you about Giovanni,” he said. “When’s the last time you talked to him?”

  Giovanni Luciana, with whom I’d recently presumed not only shared a bed with me, but also the mafia, had been my on-again, off-again boyfriend for more than a year. At present, we were off-again. Sort of. It was complicated.

  “I talked to him a few days ago,” I said. “Why?”

  “On the phone or in person?”

  “On the phone. Why?”

  “And when did you see him last?” he prodded.

  “A couple weeks, maybe more. Why?”

  “Are you two still together?”

  The late-night interrogation session grated on me. I imagined Giovanni lying dead in the street, a single gunshot wound to the head, fired from a fancy shotgun equipped with silencer. I knew it was wrong to go there, but I couldn’t help it. In my dreams, his life always ended the same way—with him brutally murdered. Dreams had a way of messing with a person’s mind, projecting every day fears into some sort of twisted reality. At least all of mine did.

  The chief had gone quiet, probably a result of my failure to answer his last question.

  “Are you still there?” I asked.

  He coughed like he had something lodged in his throat. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never been at a loss for words before.

  “Look, we’re not seeing other people,” I said, “but we’re not seeing a lot of each other right now either. It’s hard to explain.” Only, it wasn’t. The chief knew it and I knew it, and I’d long speculated the chief was aware of Giovanni’s extracurricular activities too. He’d never said a word—not to me or Giovanni. But whenever he got the chance, he pressed me about our relationship. And he wa
sn’t asking for nothing.

  “Are you with Madison right now?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Maddie’s sitting right here.”

  To my right, Maddie sat, legs crossed, donning a coral satin spaghetti-strapped top and matching shorts. She’d given her long, blond hair a reprieve for the night, taking it out of its usual pigtails, allowing her shoulder-length bangs to fall over her eyes. She took a sip of red wine, uncrossed her legs, and swapped the glass for an open bottle of glittery, pink nail polish on the nightstand. We made eye contact, and she mouthed something to me that at first sounded like, “Hut’s going long.” I deciphered it to mean, “What’s going on?” Since no actual words came out of her mouth, I couldn’t be sure, but there weren’t any huts in Las Vegas to my knowledge, and neither of us was going long tonight. When I mouthed back that the chief was on the phone, she set the polish down and reached her hand out, taking the phone from me.

  “Babe, what’s happening?” she said into the phone.

  This was followed by dead silence. “Babe” talked and Maddie listened, her face morphing into a series of different looks ranging from concerned to something she rarely expressed: genuine fear. Every few seconds, she’d glance my way and fake a smile, trying to convince me everything was okay. It didn’t work. It never worked. We’d been friends for over twenty years. At this point, I didn’t miss much. One more quick glance my way and Maddie said, “I understand.” Then she ended the call.

  “What did you hang up?” I asked. “We weren’t finished talking.”

  She reached over, placing a hand on top of mine. I yanked it back.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  “We need to go home.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “We just got here,” I said. “What’s happened?”

  She paused, her eyes shifting to the ceiling fan swirling above us.

  “Not you too, Maddie. I expect the silent treatment from him, but not from you.”

  “There’s been an accident.”

  “Where?”

  “At home—at the film festival.”

  Ever since the chief had started dating Maddie, he had, in my opinion, tried to make her services exclusive to the Summit County Police Department any time a coroner was required. Problem was, she was the favorite ME of many departments in the surrounding counties. This gave her more work than she could handle, and little free time. “There are other MEs he can call besides you. We’re on vacation.”

  She tossed the phone back to me. “It’s not what you think.”

  With my hands on my hips, I said, “It isn’t? He called my phone intentionally, and now I know why. He planned to sweet talk me into cutting this trip short, but when I answered, he felt guilty. And when he didn’t know what to say, he asked all these random questions about Giovanni. Am I right? Because if I am, he can—”

  “Sloane,” she said, her voice raised. “Listen to me. There was an explosion at one of the theaters tonight.” She glanced at the time. “Well, last night. Two or three hours ago.”

  “Which theater?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “By explosion you mean…”

  “They think someone planted a bomb or multiple bombs. Wade doesn’t have a lot of information yet. He said he’d call again when he knows more. We need to go home.”

  I stood up and pressed my hands together, slowly raising them to my scorching-hot face. “Of course.” A bomb. In Park City. During the biggest event of the year. I didn’t want to believe it was true. “Why was he asking about Giovanni? Does he think Giovanni can help in some way? Even if we haven’t spoken much lately, I can still give him a call.”

  “I don’t know how else to say this so I’m just going to say it,” she said. “He was in the theater when the explosion happened.”

  “Who was?”

  “Giovanni.”

  I shook my head. “Impossible. Giovanni’s in New York. He doesn’t come back until—”

  She rested a hand on my shoulder. “No, Sloane. He’s not.”

  “I don’t believe it. He would have called me when he got back into town. We were supposed to talk.”

  “It’s him. Wade verified he was at the theater.”

  “With who?”

  She frowned, then shrugged.

  I attempted to lift my suitcase off the ground and rest it on the edge of the bed. It was empty, but felt like it had been weighted down with a ton of bricks.

  “Here, let me help you,” Maddie said.

  “How bad was the explosion? Any fatalities?”

  “Two so far.”

  I sat back down, my head swirling in sync with the ceiling fan above me. “Is he…umm…I mean…did the chief say whether Giovanni is…umm…”

  Maddie sat next to me, slinging an arm around my neck. “I don’t know, sweetie. Let’s hope not.”

  CHAPTER 3

  My mind was wandering again. With Maddie behind the wheel, it wasn’t hard to drift off. She’d said little since we’d left Las Vegas, and usually I couldn’t get her to stop talking. The last time I’d seen Giovanni, we argued, something I regretted now. The two of us had been out to dinner together, and I had prodded him, in a gentle way, for information about his sister. He’d remained tight-lipped, and did what he always did when I said something he didn’t like—he changed the subject. I’d let it slide in the past, but not this time.

  Giovanni’s sister, Daniela, had been kidnapped a few months earlier, and yet somehow, he’d managed to find, rescue, and return her home within a week—without involving the police. As a private investigator, I knew damn well the average person never had much success finding a missing person on his own—that’s why they came to me, or the police, or in some cases, both. But Giovanni wasn’t anything like the average person.

  At the time of Daniela’s kidnapping, a handful of Giovanni’s men went on the rescue mission, but not all of them came back. Yet another topic he wouldn’t discuss. And I’d grown tired of all the secrecy.

  I’d gotten up and tossed my napkin on the table, attempting to storm out in true diva fashion. I thought I would make it to the door unscathed, my point proven, but it was always moments like this when I made the stupidest mistake of all. As I sauntered away from him, nose held high, the heel of my strappy, black shoe caught in between two tiles on the floor where the grout had chipped away, and my heel broke off in the crack. This only furthered my embarrassment. Not only was he looking at me, everyone else was too. One less-than-gracious woman even giggled behind a napkin she’d masked in front of the lower half of her face. I ditched the heel and did exactly what my anxiety suggested: I kicked the other heel off my foot, grabbed the remaining three quarters of my other shoe, and ran, leaving the heel behind. I wasn’t proud of myself for putting on such a ridiculous charade, but I couldn’t keep giving up so much of myself and getting so little in return, no matter how wonderful he treated me.

  For us to work, I needed him to let me in, and even if by some miracle he did, could I really look the other way while he lived a shady lifestyle just because he was good to me? I’d looked the other way when I suspected him of murdering his sister’s former lover. I’d looked the other way when he shot two bullets into Sam Reids’ skull while I was in the next room. In both cases, I allowed myself to believe the deaths were justified. Daniela’s lover had beaten her on more than one occasion and threatened her life. Serial killer Sam Reids had kidnapped and murdered a handful of women, my sister included.

  They both got what they deserved in the end.

  Hadn’t they?

  Maddie looked at me and winked. “I was going to say ‘penny for your thoughts,’” she said. “But for yours, I’d offer at least a quarter. Maybe even two.”

  “Trust me; you’re better off not knowing.”

  “Do you want to make a quick pit stop? Use the ladies room or grab a donut…use the ladies room and grab a donut?”

  I glanc
ed at her.

  “Didn’t think so,” she said. “It’s not much longer anyway.”

  Since we left, I’d tried calling Giovanni’s right-hand man, Lucio, every fifteen minutes. Four hours and sixteen calls later, he still hadn’t answered, and my OCD had officially gone into overdrive.

  I pulled the visor down and flipped open the mirror. Strands of my long, usually lustrous, straight, black hair, were stuck to the side of my face, like they’d been hair sprayed in place. I picked them off, using my fingers to comb them to the side. My mascara was gone, but even without it I could always count on my sparkly, brown eyes to brighten things up, especially when the rest of me was falling apart. “What reason would a person have to bomb a theater in Park City?”

  Maddie looked over. “You know as well as I do this type of thing can happen anywhere at any time. There are a lot of crazy people out there.”

  “Yeah, but Park City seems so low risk.”

  “Think about it. Columbine, Oklahoma City, Newtown. Most of these places never make national news otherwise.”

  “I was just thinking…”

  “That’s your first mistake.”

  “What—trying to figure things out?” I asked.

  “I was leaning toward your lack of patience. There’s nothing to figure out. We don’t have all the details yet.”