Hollywood Forbidden: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller

by M. Z. Kelly

  “There’s always that Roth fellow,” Mo said, pointing out the attorney who was chatting with Morty. “He might be a vampire and put undies on the dead, but he is kinda cute.”

  Roth came over with Morty, apparently overhearing their conversation. “Kinda cute?” He said with a smile to Mo before turning to Natalie. “I’ve got a couple of tickets to a play tomorrow night if you’re free.”

  “Sorry, I think I’m gonna be busy.” Natalie looked at Mo and me. “I ran into a bloke on the beach yesterday. He’s on vacation here but is some kinda real estate big shot in Hollywood. Thought I might give him a call, considering our circumstances.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean?” I said.

  Mo looked at Natalie. “Guess we need to break the news to her.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nana called a little while ago. She’s moving to Vegas. Elvis got himself a permanent gig at the Wormwood Hotel.”

  “The place doesn’t sound very upscale,” Natalie said.

  Mo nodded. “Heard it’s one of them joints where the guys are looking for some action, and it sure as hell ain’t from the king of rock.”

  “What does that mean for us, our living arrangements?” I asked.

  “Nana’s rented out the house,” Mo said. “We got less than a week to find new digs.”

  “Are you kidding me? I stifled a wave of depression, thinking about the possibility of having to move in with my mother. “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m gonna talk to Jerry, he’s the real estate guru that I met. Maybe he can help us out.”

  I shook my head and sighed. I had to be back at work tomorrow and having to move on top of returning to my duties was the last thing I needed.

  “You can always stay at my place,” Roth said to us. “I’ve got a couple of spare beds.”

  “Yeah, I seen your beds,” Mo said. “They all come with a lid on ‘em.”

  “So what brings you back to the Stardust?” I asked Roth, trying to put our living situation out of my mind.

  Morty removed his cigar, blew out invisible smoke, and answered for the attorney who was still ogling Natalie. “Maximus fell on his head instead of his gluteus this morning.” His gaze drifted up to the dead actor’s empty balcony apartment. “There’s finally a little peace and quiet around here.”

  “He bought the Belvedere,” Roth said, smiling at us. “Nothing but the best for the emperor of Rome.”

  In the corner of my eye, I saw that Sammy was getting lots of attention from his aunt and the other residents. I was about to mention it to Natalie and Mo when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and looked into the red rimmed, tarantula enhanced eyes of Loretta Swanson.

  “You’ll never take him away from me,” Loretta growled. “I don’t care if you are ten or fifteen years younger than me.”

  I’d had a long day and wasn’t in the mood. “Try fifty years.” I saw that Morty was scrambling for the elevator, trying to get away from her.

  The elderly actress went on, “You need to understand something.”

  I sighed. “What’s that, Loretta?”

  “My heart belongs to Morty.” Loretta then turned away from me, farted, and ran after her beloved.

  I turned to my friends and said, “It looks like Morty’s getting a lot more of Loretta’s ancient anatomy than just her heart.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  After leaving the Stardust, Buck drove me and Bernie back to the police station to get my car. When we got to the parking lot he said, “Oh, no.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  He motioned to his truck. “Flat tire.” He turned to me and sighed. “And no spare.”

  “I can give you a lift home.”

  He argued and talked about calling a garage, but since it was late in the day he finally relented. As we drove along the seashore and Bernie lapped up the cool island air from the backseat, we talked about Rosie, the injured horse he’d rescued.

  “I think she’s gonna make it,” Buck said. “Starting to put on a little weight. I’ve got a guy coming up from the McCalister Ranch next week and I think he’s gonna take her.”

  “That’s good news.” I released a slow breath, realizing that this might be the last time I ever saw Buck McCade. I was scheduled to be back at work in Hollywood in the morning.

  As I turned onto the dirt road to his mobile home I remembered the conversation I’d overheard outside of Carly Lucia’s condo complex, him talking to someone on the phone who I thought was a woman. It again occurred to me that maybe there was someone in his life that I knew nothing about.

  We were just a few yards from his driveway and I knew this was a turning point. My mouth was suddenly dry, my heart thumping hard in my chest. If I was ever going to see Buck again I had to come up with a plan and fast.

  I stopped and he got out of the car. He closed the door and bent down to the open window. I had the sense that maybe he was going to ask me something but I’d already opened my own mouth, my words spilling out in a fit of nervous energy.

  “I have to be back in Hollywood tomorrow…I was wondering…if you’re free…if you’d like to…get to…together one…”

  I realized that I was stammering like a school girl, unable to express what I was thinking. My gaze then drifted away from him and I realized there was someone standing on his porch. It was a woman and she was waving to him. He must have seen my gaze move off and turned to her, waving back.

  “It looks like you’ve got other plans,” I said.

  He was about to say something when I rolled up the window and hit the gas, my tires kicking up rocks as I sped away. I watched him in the rearview mirror as he removed his Stetson and held his hands out to his side.

  I was back on the main road when my tears started to come. I cried for several minutes, deciding that I’d probably fantasized about being in a relationship with a man who was already involved with someone else. After I finally regained some control I turned to Bernie and said, “I’m such an idiot.”

  My big dog did one of those licks in the air, which probably meant that he completely agreed with me.

  I was halfway to Avalon when something else occurred to me. I’d once thought that Jack was cheating on me and I’d been wrong. It had affected our relationship for weeks and I’d later regretted not talking to him. Maybe I’d just done the same thing with Buck. I hadn’t even given him a chance to explain about the woman.

  I pulled over to the side of the road, looked at Bernie, and said, “What do you think? Should we go back?”

  THE END

  Thanks for reading, Hollywood Forbidden

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  More by this author:

  The Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series, with Detective Kate Sexton and her canine partner, Bernie:

  •Hollywood Assassin

  •Hollywood Blood

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  •Hollywood Enemy

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  Now an excerpt from:

  HOLLYWOOD GAMES

  BY

  MZ KELLY

  CHAPTER ONE

  The nights on Catalina Island were often cool and foggy, the damp air drifting in like a thick blanket of smoke covering the hills and valleys. But not tonight. The weather had changed. An offshore breeze had pushed the fog away and turned the night clear and warm. The sky was a dome of endless starlight that drifted overhead, made even brighter by the lack of artificial light.

  I stopped in the field letting the smell of salt and sage fill up my senses. And then I moved on, stumbling past the house and farther into the meadow, tears spilling from my eyes.

  “She’s my niece.” The voice had come out of the darkness from somewhere behind me.

  I stopped and turned, seeing that Buck McCade had followed me, his arms splayed in a gesture of explanation.

  His voice came softer now, pleading for me to understand. “She and her husband are having problems. I offered to let her stay for a few days, sort through a few things.”

  “Oh.” I sighed, my head slumping down as I tried to catch my breath. Maybe there was a hole somewhere in this field of flowers and grass where I could hide; a place meant for the world’s biggest idiot.

  He took a step forward, touched my chin, and lifted my head up until I was looking into those endless blue eyes; eyes that crinkled up at the corners; eyes that made me think of those blue holes I’d seen somewhere in the Caribbean; eyes bottomless and endlessly seductive.

  My breath caught in my throat as he moved closer, drawing me against him. The kiss was perfect and I felt like we were meant to be in this place full of starlight and moonlight and fields of clover.

  My hands came up, finding his muscled arms and thick shoulders, before moving higher where my fingers combed through his short brown hair, at the same time knocking the Stetson off his head.

  We kissed again before he pulled back, this time longer and more urgently. When we finally parted he picked up his hat and said, “Can I show you something?”

  I smiled as he’d asked the question, a suggestive grin playing on my lips. “Sure. Anything you’d like.”

  He pulled me by the arm, moving me across the field. I recovered enough to see that Bernie was beside me, my canine partner having followed me from the car. I should probably explain how I ended up with Bernie and a man named Buck in an empty field on an island off the coast of Southern California.

  My name is Kate Sexton. I’m a LAPD cop assigned to the Robbery Homicide Division, or RHD, in Hollywood. My canine partner, whose genetic heritage had produced something reminiscent of a sexually aggressive four-legged Wookiee, was also assigned to RHD.

  Bernie and I had spent the last three months on Catalina where I’d taken a leave of absence to recover from the last case I worked and some personal losses. As my vacation was about to end I’d assisted Buck McCade, a Catalina detective who’d made his way to the island via Laredo, Texas, on a case that involved the kidnapping of my friend, Mo’s, niece.

  Tonight, my last night on the island, I’d given Buck a ride home and found a woman standing on his front porch. While Buck and I weren’t in a relationship, we’d grown close and I have to admit that I’d had explicit fantasizes about him. I’d left in a huff but then thought better of it and came back to his ranch. That’s when I’d knocked on his door, looked through the window, and found him holding the woman in his arms. I’d left again, not realizing it was his niece, this time running through the field with my emotions on overload.

  “It’s an old fort,” Buck said. He stopped, removed his hat, and motioned to the structure that looked to be a good twenty feet off the ground. We were probably a couple of hundred yards from his house and barn. “My guess is that some kids’ parents built it a few years ago.” He moved closer to the play structure but saw that I wasn’t following. He waved to me. “Come on. There’s a ladder.”

  “What about Bernie?” My big dog was at my side doing the Wookiee tail wag.

  “He can stay here. Just have him settle, stand guard.”

  I gave Bernie a hand signal and he circled a couple of times before lying down. Buck then helped me, placing his hand on the small of my back, as I led the way up the ladder.

  After we were both on the upper platform I took a moment, surveying the view. “This is amazing. You can see the entire island.”

  Overhead, the blanket of starlight seemed even brighter now, a blazing disk of supernatural light scattered from the center of the Milky Way and spilling out across the heavens. Maybe it was being here with Buck, but a line from a poem or a book I’d read somewhere came to mind, something about the stars being love songs written by God. There was also a half-moon, golden and luminous enough to light up the field of flowers and tall grass that gently waved in the warm breeze. Beyond that the ocean was a languid dark river, the foam from the breaking waves catching just enough moonlight to celebrate its glory.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I said, turning back to him.

  “Not as beautiful as you.” We kissed again, me holding his gorgeous body against mine like it was always meant to be this way. When we finally parted I saw the bed for the first time. It was in the middle of the platform.

  “I come up here and sleep now and then,” he said with a grin. “There’s something about the starlight and the wide open space that reminds me of the prairie in Texas where I grew up.”

  There wasn’t a lot of talk after that, not that Buck McCade was big on talk. He was more a man of words that when spoken stood for something, announcing his intentions in an honorable way. But in this moment no words were needed to understand what he intended.

  Buck pulled me over to the bed where he gently brushed my lips with his before his tender offering came again, this time with more fervor. He worked on the buttons of my blouse, slowly twisting each button between his thumb and finger, then pulling it off me. When my bra came off he used his lips and tongue, working his way across my breasts and then lower, much lower. I felt myself glowing from within as though a liquid fire had been ignited and was slowly spreading outward filling me up.

  After that we were gone, drunk with starlight and moonlight, passion and sensation. We kissed some more, our hands and lips probing everywhere, both giving and receiving. When his jeans came off we moved more urgently, our lovemaking creating a lightness that gave me the sensation we were defying gravity. We became one body, one being, and any questions I’d had about moving past the losses I’d suffered were gone. The world burned with starlight until the glorious light itself exploded with ecstasy.

  When we rested we looked up at the stars, each of us trying to catch our breath. Buck turned to me. His words were soft, just above a whisper. “This was my first time.”

  I chuckled and my forehead knitted. “What?”

  “Since…since my marriage ended.” He turned his head, looking back at the stars. “I think in some ways I was waiting for you.”

  I nestled closer to him, my chin finding a concave place against his neck and shoulder. “I’m glad you saved yourself for me. I’m also glad you didn’t forget how to do it.”

  We were both laughing when my phone rang. I ignored it but it rang again. Whoever was calling didn’t want to leave a message and I felt obligated to answer.

  “It’s me, Natalie,” I heard my best friend say in her British accent. Her tone was urgent, maybe a little on the breathless side.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Me and Mo decided to take an early ferry boat home from the island. We got back to Hollywood a couple of hours ago
so we could look at some rentals.”

  Natalie and Mo were my roommates. We’d all been vacationing on Catalina together when we learned that our landlord was renting her house out and we all had to move on short notice. “Can we talk about this in the morning?”

  “We need your help, Kate. Somethin’ bad has happened here.”

  “What?” I sat up on the bed. “Where are you?”

  “We’re in one of those mansions up in the hills overlookin’ the city. That hunky realtor I met was supposed to meet his best friend, Jiggy, up here, and then help us look for a place.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We found the bloke floatin’ face down in his hot tub. He’s deader than a lobster in a pot of hot water.”

  After getting a few more details, sensationalized by Natalie’s use of British colloquialisms, I ended the call. I then called Lieutenant Edna, my boss at Hollywood Station, and filled him in on what I knew. He said that he’d assign my new partner to begin processing the crime scene and wanted me on site as soon as I could get there. After the call ended I explained everything to Buck.

  “I know the island ferry schedules,” he said checking his watch. “The next boat leaves for the mainland in about a half hour.” His grin told me everything. “It’s too bad. I was just getting started.”

  I dropped my cell phone into my purse, leaned over to him, and said, “I think I’m going to miss that boat and catch the next one. Let’s see what your second time is like.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bernie and I took a shuttle service from the ferry terminal in Long Beach and stopped by Hollywood Station to pick up a car. It was after one in the morning by the time we got to the murder scene in the Hollywood Hills. A couple of patrol cars were in the street and crime scene tape was set up at the gate to the sprawling residence.