Hollywood Murder

by M. Z. Kelly

  Henry ended the call and tossed the phone back in his desk drawer. He took a breath and leaned back in his chair, anticipating how things would go down. He was no longer a young man, and he knew the asshole who had his daughter and grandkids would probably run him ragged before the ransom drop was made. Once everything was over and he had both his family and his money back, he was sure of one thing. He would make good on his commitment to kill the kidnapper, even if the bastard was in prison.

  A message would be sent that nobody messed with Henry Montreal or his family.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Let’s go over things one more time,” Frank Dyer said to Sasha. “I want to make sure this operation runs like clockwork.”

  The duo was sitting on a bench in Beverly Glen Park, about three miles from the Montreals’ estate. They had left Allison and her children locked in the basement of the mountain cabin when they left.

  Sasha methodically went over their plans in detail until Dyer was satisfied they had everything in place. He then voiced his concerns, “We know the cops are already involved. Despite the warnings, we need to expect they’ll be following Montreal. The key to making this work is losing them. Once we’re sure moneybags is clear, we send him to the final location for the drop.”

  “The cops have limited resources,” Sasha said, discounting his worries. She brushed a hand through her shoulder length brown hair and smiled. “The thin blue line gets spread out until it disappears. Then it’s just you, me, and the money.” She smiled. “Why don’t we go to dinner tonight and celebrate after everything’s over?”

  Frank shook his head. “You’re forgetting, we have something to dispose of back at the cabin before that’s going to happen.”

  “Maybe we should just let them go after we have the money.”

  Frank drew in a breath and released it slowly. While he was attracted to Sasha, sometimes her naiveté annoyed him. “You’ve seen too many movies. I don’t want anything left behind that can remotely tie us to them.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “There’s a place, high up in the mountains that I’ve already picked out. Once they’re buried, no one will ever find them.”

  Sasha leaned in closer to him, brushing a hand through Dyer’s hair. “Tomorrow night, then. When it’s over, we can go to dinner, and then…” She brushed her pouty lips against his and giggled. “You’ll see. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  THIRTY

  “Mommy, I’m hungry.”

  Allison Marsh looked over at Bobby and Jenna. Their hair was matted and their faces were a mess from crying. They looked like a couple of homeless street urchins.

  She handed the children the last sandwich the kidnappers had left them. “Each of you gets half. Eat slowly, so it will last.”

  “When can we go home?” Bobby asked. He was crying again.

  Allison released a breath and, for what seemed like the hundredth time, said, “Soon. We’ll all be home soon, and I’ll fix you both a big bowl of ice cream.”

  “I want chocolate,” Bobby said. He looked at Jenna, but, as always, his sister said nothing.

  Bobby went on, telling her about his favorite ice cream. Allison did her best to tune him out, instead concentrating on what was happening. She’d heard Frank and Sasha leave the cabin several hours ago. That must mean they’re trying to arrange a ransom. Her thoughts again went to her father. Would the tightwad really pay for their release? She had no way of knowing.

  Allison’s throbbing hand caused her thoughts to surface. She’d mustered the courage to look at her hand a couple of hours ago. She was horrified. The bastard had left her deformed. If she ever got out of here alive, she would find a way to kill him. The thought of escaping crossed her mind again, but the basement room where they were being held was sealed tight, without any windows. She also knew from when they’d been brought here that it was in the middle of nowhere. Even if they screamed, no one would hear them.

  Allison lay back down in the pile of blankets, doing her best to ignore Bobby’s chatter. As her mind sifted through the events of the past few months, one word summed it all up.

  Betrayal.

  Her cheating, lying husband had betrayed her too many times to count, and then the final indignity: he’d arranged for her and the children to be kidnapped and held for ransom. Even though he was dead, Allison imagined confronting him about what he’d done and ending his life.

  She closed her eyes, doing her best to let go of the images. Soon, she prayed, this would all be over, and she’d have her life back. And she knew one thing for certain. It would be a much better life than the one she’d left behind.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The wild ride we’d been anticipating began three hours later when another call came in. Montreal picked up his cell phone and we heard the altered voice again. “Do you have the money?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Montreal answered.

  The financier had made a call right after the drone had landed and arranged for a business associate to bring the money to the house. A large satchel was on the kitchen counter in front of him, holding the five million the kidnapper had demanded. Earlier, Nadine McKee had placed a miniature tracking device into the seam of the bag.

  “Take Highland to the 101 Freeway,” the modulated voice said. “Go north. Wait for further directions.”

  “What about my daughter and the kids? I don’t leave the money without getting them back.”

  “This is an exchange, the money for your family, providing you do as you’re instructed.” The line clicked dead.

  Montreal took the satchel from the counter, turned to me, and said, “See you on the road.”

  “Whatever you do,” I said, calling after him, “make sure you don’t lose us. You’ve got one of our cell phones if there’s any problem.”

  Montreal turned and looked at me. He grunted and headed for the door. His wife came downstairs before he left. Georgette was crying and said, “Be careful, Henry.”

  He stopped and turned to her. “I’ll handle this. You rest up. You’ll see Allison and the kids soon.”

  A couple of minutes later, Montreal’s Porsche 911 was on the highway, with Leo and me following at a distance. Darby and Mel were behind us, about a block back.

  “We need to be ready for any sudden moves he makes,” I told Leo as he drove. Bernie was in the back seat on alert, sensing this wasn’t just another casual trip down the highway. “He’s going to be told to lose us.”

  “Let’s keep an open line with McKee. Maybe they can get a fix on the cell phone they’re using.”

  I did as he suggested. A few minutes later, Montreal merged onto the freeway and headed south.

  As we were pulling onto the freeway, I got word from McKee that they didn’t have anything more than a general location on the cell phone the kidnapper was using. I told Leo what she’d said and added, “I wonder what’s going through Henry’s mind right about now. This can’t be playing well with him.”

  “Not sure, but I remember a kidnapping case involving a wealthy oil man’s son who was taken overseas several years back. At first his father refused to pay the ransom, but later, after the kid’s ear was cut off and sent to him as proof they meant business, he agreed to the demands.” He glanced at me. “But, even then, he only agreed to an amount that was considered tax deductible.”

  “What a guy.” I smiled. “You think Henry’s cut from the same cloth?”

  Leo raised his silver brows. “Maybe…time will tell.”

  Up ahead, we saw Montreal’s car swerve at the last second and take an off ramp just south of Universal City. We were just a few minutes from Hollywood as we followed the Porsche up into the hills. We kept our distance while the sports car wound its way through the hills for the better part of an hour. Montreal eventually found his way back to the surface streets. During the entire circuitous route, Leo and I never lost sight of the car. We also stayed in touch with Darby an
d Mel who were behind us. Then things got crazy.

  “He’s pulling into the parking garage,” Leo said, the concern in his voice evident.

  The garage was a multi-level structure that was part of Universal CityWalk; a tourist attraction with shopping and restaurants, and was the location of the TV show Extra. We followed, trying to keep our distance, entering the parking structure about a minute later. When we got inside, we realized that Henry’s Porsche was nowhere in sight.

  “Where’d he go?” I said, raising my voice.

  “Don’t know…”

  No sooner had Leo said the words than a sedan came roaring around the corner in the opposite direction from us at a high rate of speed. It exited the garage, crashing through a barrier gate that was meant to keep cars from leaving without paying.

  “He switched cars,” Leo said, slamming on his brakes and making a three-point turn. He blasted past the guard shack and the shattered control arm. By the time we got back on the road, we saw Montreal’s car in the distance, already merging onto the freeway.

  “We’re going to lose him.”

  “Get ahold of McKee. She can relay his location to us from the tracker.”

  I did as he suggested. While I waited for McKee to come back on the line, we got bogged down in heavy traffic on the freeway. The black sedan Montreal had been driving was nowhere to be seen.

  “Damn,” I said. “He could be anywhere.”

  We crawled through traffic for several minutes until I finally heard back from our colleague. “Something strange just happened. It looks like Montreal pulled off the freeway at Van Ness Boulevard and just stopped. Maybe he parked there.”

  “We’re not too far from the off ramp,” I said. “We’ll check it out.”

  Ten minutes later, we found the black sedan Montreal had been driving in the parking lot of a local high school. The wealthy financier was nowhere in sight.

  I heaved out a breath and looked over at Leo. “What do you think?”

  “I think we just lost Henry, five million bucks, and our tracking device.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  After parking at the high school, Henry Montreal removed the tracking device from his duffle bag and tossed it in some bushes, along with the cell phone the cops had given him. He was acting on the demands of the kidnapper, but he would have done the same thing even without being told to do so. He knew Jack Dawes was somewhere behind him, watching things unfold and waiting to intervene.

  Henry picked up another car in the parking lot that he’d been told had been left for him and was headed back toward the freeway when the kidnapper called again. “Take the 101 again. Go north to Aliso and wait for my call.”

  “Just tell me where to drop the goddamned money and be done with it,” Henry growled. “I’ve lost the fucking cops. They’re out of the picture.”

  “They’d better be, for your family’s sake.” The line went dead.

  Henry did as he was instructed, merging into the heavy downtown traffic. It took him forty-five minutes to make the six-mile drive to Aliso. He pulled over on the surface street and waited, at the same time looking in his rearview mirror for the cops or Jack. Nothing looked familiar.

  Five minutes later, his phone rang again. “Go to Union Station. Buy a one-way ticket for the 3:45 train to Anaheim. Take a seat in the last car. Hurry, you don’t have much time.”

  Henry started to protest, but realized the line had gone dead again. “Fuck.” He tossed the phone on the passenger seat and stomped on the accelerator, realizing he had less than ten minutes to get on the train.

  When he arrived at the station, he parked in a tow-away zone and didn’t bother with the ticket booth. He found the train he was after and took a seat as instructed. There were only a few other passengers in the car and he took a moment to catch his breath and gather himself.

  With the cops now out of the picture, it must mean he was getting closer to the location where the money drop would happen. He didn’t like the idea of being on a train. Even if Dawes followed the train, he knew his friend would be held up at intersections and be caught in heavy traffic. If The Enforcer wasn’t around it would put a whole other spin on things. There was no way he would leave the money, even if his daughter and grandkids were in sight. Allison might be his daughter, but they’d had their share of differences over the years, and Henry knew one thing for certain. She and the brats weren’t worth five million bucks.

  The train lurched and began moving. Henry glanced down at the phone, but it didn’t ring. After they picked up speed, a conductor came by and collected the fare to Anaheim.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” the conductor said.

  Henry scowled at him. “Yeah, lovely.”

  The man raised a brow and walked away. It was fine by Henry. He didn’t want anyone around when… His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his phone.

  “What the fuck now?” he demanded.

  He heard an electronically modulated laugh before the man said, “Are we getting a little frustrated?”

  “Damn right. Where’s my daughter?”

  “On the track, right behind you.”

  “What?”

  “She and the kids are in the next train. You’ll see them at the next station, providing you open the window and toss out the money at the next intersection.”

  Henry hesitated, looking out the window. The train was already blowing its whistle as they approached the intersection.

  “Do it now!” the kidnapper demanded. “Or they die.”

  Henry took a breath and spat into the phone, “Go to hell. I’m not giving up the money until I see my family. End of story.”

  There was no response on the line as the train blew through the intersection and Henry sat tight. He finally heard the man’s voice come back on the line again. “You just killed your family, asshole.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “Try the cell phone,” Leo said, referencing the phone we’d given Henry Montreal in case we needed to contact him during the ransom drop. School was out and there were only a handful of cars in the parking lot where we’d stopped.

  We were both feeling frustrated and frantic that we’d lost Montreal as I dialed the number. Somewhere in the distance we heard the faint chirp of a phone. We walked over to a nearby flowerbed and found the phone we’d given Montreal.

  I said to Leo, “I’ll bet the tracking device that we put in the bag of money is also somewhere around here.”

  “Looks like Henry’s running his own game.”

  I called Nadine McKee and filled her in on what happened. I put my phone on speaker as she brought us up to speed. “Our kidnapper is switching phones. We can’t get a fix, but we were able to get a ping off Montreal’s phone. He was near Union Station. About ten minutes later we got a hit on another location near the City of Commerce. I think he got on a train.”

  “Thanks, Nadine. We’ll head in that direction now.”

  “There’s one other thing,” she said. “We’ve alerted our patrol units in the area and air support. We’ve got an airship up, watching the train from a discreet distance.”

  I ended the call and we headed toward the City of Commerce. As Leo drove, I used my cell phone to google the train schedules and told him what I learned. “Amtrak has a train that left Union Station for Anaheim at 3:45.”

  “I’d be willing to bet they have a wealthy passenger on board.”

  “What do you suppose the kidnappers have planned?”

  “Hard to say. Maybe Henry gets off in Anaheim and ends up at Disneyland. He gets lost in the crowd and makes the drop.”

  What he’d said was a possibility, but I told Leo I felt the need to go over what had happened since we left Beverly Hills. “Henry gets the five million and heads for Universal City. He takes us up in the hills for an hour, before eventually losing us in a parking garage. He drives to the high school, where he tosses our phone and the tracker.”

  Leo followed along. “He then drives to Union Station and
gets on a train, probably headed for Anaheim.” He looked at me as we crawled down the freeway in heavy traffic. “Maybe he’s supposed to drop the money at one of the stops before Anaheim.”

  “If that’s the case, the kidnappers might already have the money. If that happens, I just hope they make good on their word and release Allison and her kids.”

  My phone chirped. I saw that it was McKee calling us back. “We just got word from our airship. There’s something happening that you need to know about.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “The media outlets have picked up on the radio traffic between our units and the chopper. There are several TV helicopters in the air, converging on the airspace above the train as we speak.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  As the train rumbled toward the depot in Anaheim, Henry cursed out loud. An elderly woman in the seat across from him said, “Excuse me?”

  “Mind your own business,” he spat at her. The woman shot a death-ray at him, but finally turned away.

  The question haunted him: had he done the right thing by refusing to toss the money out the window? He was having second thoughts now. All he did know for sure was that if he’d given up the money, he had no guarantees of getting his daughter and grandchildren back.

  He picked up the cell phone, hit redial, hoping it wasn’t too late to talk to the kidnapper again. After two tries, without anyone picking up, he gave up. As the conductor made an announcement they were approaching the terminal in Anaheim, Henry had convinced himself that he’d done the right thing. He still had the money. If the kidnappers wanted it, they had to deal with him. End of story.

  The train was pulling into the terminal when the cell phone rang again. Henry picked it up on the first ring. “I’ve had enough of this bullshit.”

  “One last chance,” the man’s electronic voice said. “If you fuck this up, your entire family dies. And, I’ll find a way to kill the bitch you’re married to.”