Fatal Game

by Linda Ladd

“Ain’t that the truth? Ziva was badass, too. Man, could she take down guys, or what?” Bud happened to be a TV aficionado. In fact, he knew every single program and every single character on every single channel and who they were dating or cheating on. His recall was amazing. Claire only liked programs like Supernatural and Arrow because they were both pretty much about teams of badass fighters out for justice. Like she and Bud. Bad thing, though, probably, since she was a cop and those characters were pretty much vigilantes. The mention of the NCIS characters, however, seemed to warm up Mrs. Sherman toward Bud. They were smiling at each other now like they were good old TV friends. Bud did have a knack for connecting with people, and he was especially good with women. Any woman. Any age. Always had been. But alas, his amorous endeavors had dropped a couple of degrees since he’d hooked up with his beautiful and leggy model, Brianna.

  While they smiled at each other, still in the throes of NCIS nostalgia, Claire assumed, she took over the interview. “Did you notice anything unusual outside the house when you drove up today? Anything out of the ordinary? A repairman, maybe? Somebody walking a dog? Shoveling snow? Tire tracks? Anything like that?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. This entire property is surrounded by all those big trees. You know, it’s so extremely isolated up here, even from the neighbors on the next property over. But I never would have expected that it would become a place where a young girl could be murdered. It’s just so frightening to comprehend. But I guess you’ve seen a lot of horrible things in your line of work.”

  Now that was the understatement of the century, Claire thought. Oh yeah, she’d seen plenty of things every bit as horrible as that dead angel inside that house, even things that were a hundred times worse. Yep, she and Bud had pretty much looked the devil in the face, more often than not, and both on and off the job. “Okay. We understand that the singer Jonesy Jax owns this house. Can you tell us if that might be true or just a rumor?” Please God, let it be some hellish rumor.

  Barbara Sherman nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard all about that. I believe he just bought this place recently. He’s that famous heavy metal rocker, I guess you know of him. The nasty one with white hair, the one who looks so dirty and disheveled all the time.”

  Talk about hitting the nail on the head. “We just need for you to verify that he is the actual owner of this property.”

  “Well, I’m not able to verify it, per se. All I can tell you is that the Christmas tour contact, you know, the realtor, told me he owned this place. Mary Lynn McPhee is her name. She said she got permission directly from him to decorate this house, but he wanted to wait until the tours were over before he moved in. She said he was willing to wait until Christmas Eve. He didn’t want his fame to overshadow the tour by being here on the property himself. That was rather kind of him, I suppose.”

  “Has he arrived here at the lake?” Claire asked with severe and unsettling dread.

  Mrs. Sherman shrugged. “I don’t know. Mary Lynn sounded as if he was still out in California when she talked to him. Or maybe, come to think of it, she said he was on a tour stop in Chicago. Yes, I believe that’s what she said. That he had a big show up there, right before Christmas. I can’t really remember where he was.”

  “Did she tell you anything else about him?”

  “Well, she did say that he was extremely polite during their video conference. She said he was nothing like the despicable person he is on stage.”

  Well, that was a load of bull. Claire had been up close and way too personal with the lecher. Give him time and a bottle of whiskey and he’d be breaking his guitar over some lake-dweller’s head before you could say “drunken jerk.” “Did she say anything else about him?”

  “Apparently, he visited here once before, for some reason or another. Or maybe he was born around here. I declare, I just can’t recall details anymore. He did say he liked it out here in the sticks. I do remember Mary Lynn saying that. Something about needing a quiet place to come to when he needed to get his head on straight.”

  And that would be all the time, Claire thought.

  “He’s the one who insisted they put up all these Christmas lights. He said he wanted both the exterior and the interior to be lit up so much that the astronauts could see it from orbit. Said it would be his Christmas present to them.”

  Yeah, that’s the way certified morons thought about things, too. Just the idea of trying to deal with Jonesy Jax was beginning to ruin her fabulous, happiest-ever Christmas. “So, ma’am, do you happen to have a phone number for him?”

  “Yes, she gave it to me since I was the guide for his house. But he’s never answered when I’ve called. I tried again while I was waiting out here with the other officers.”

  “Okay. Give us his number and I’ll keep trying to contact him,” Bud said.

  “I did find out that it’s not his cell, but the phone number for his Malibu beach house.”

  “Bet the neighbors just love him living close by. Probably like holes in their heads,” Claire said. “But I suppose it’s close enough to L.A. that just about anything goes. Even crazy loons are loved and paid big bucks for their unlawful antics.”

  “Well, he is allowing us to use his house for our charity,” Mrs. Sherman said with a bit of a huff. No doubt thinking: How dare that damn detective show contempt for a man gracious enough to lend his house to our tour. Apparently, it didn’t matter how addled in the brain the guy was. Then again, Mrs. Sherman hadn’t met the guy in person.

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s a prince, all right.”

  Mrs. Sherman gazed back at her, not sure if Claire was being snarky, or not. It was snark, all right. Up front and meant as disdain.

  Bud looked at Claire’s expression and decided it was time to take over. “After you called 911, did you or anyone else go back inside where the body was?”

  “Oh my Lord, no. Once I saw that poor girl, I knew that she was dead. I wouldn’t have gone back inside that room for any amount of money.”

  “Okay. Anything else you can tell us? Anybody make threats about this house or any other house on the tour? This year or in past years?”

  “No, sir, we really hadn’t even named the houses to be included in our tour until a couple of days before we started. Members of the garden club were the only ones allowed inside, and that was only for decorating purposes. They bought all the supplies and took care of everything. I just happened to be here today. I never could’ve imagined anything like this could ever happen. Not here. Not on our lovely little Christmas tour.”

  Claire listened politely. The woman was handling it better than most witnesses would after happening upon a brutal, bloody crime scene. Claire wondered why. Maybe they should look into this sweet little lady. “And Jonesy Jax was never here at this house? You’re certain about that?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. She said he gave his permission and then left the room before they finished their video conference. His agent inked the contract and took care of all that.”

  “Did he charge you for using the house?”

  “Oh, no. The contract was mainly about his privacy; we were to make sure his groupies and fans weren’t allowed inside. He didn’t want anybody to know he was settling here in Missouri, or that he had bought this house.”

  “And his agent’s name?”

  “Candi Kisses.”

  “Nuh-uh,” said Bud. “No way.”

  “I know. I admit I rolled my eyes to high heaven when I heard that. He said she made it up so she would be remembered.”

  Remembered as an imbecile, Claire thought.

  “Maybe he was just messin’ with you,” Bud suggested. “You know, everybody knows he likes to joke around.”

  “Mary Lynn said Ms. Kisses was right there sitting beside him at the table and was introduced as Candi Kisses. Nobody seemed to think it was unusual.”

  Claire felt like she was going t
o gag. This case was going to turn into a nightmare of enormous proportions. She just knew it in her gut. This murder was a harbinger of bad things now galloping down the road to run her over, and she was pretty damn sure she would soon get flattened like Wile E. Coyote. Most movie types she’d met had the IQ and personal habits of alley cats, save for a few nice guys, and most of their temperaments were not conducive to normal human interactions. Arrogance was a necessary state of being famous in Tinsel Town, she’d found. Well, maybe not all actors were monsters, but, say, 99.9 percent were. Jonesy Jax would be the president of the Actor-Singer Cray-Cray Club.

  Claire leaned forward. “Okay, thank you very much, Mrs. Sherman. I guess that’s all the questions we have for you right now.”

  “Would it be all right if we called you again, if we have more questions?” Bud asked.

  “Of course. I’ll be glad to help you in any way that I can.”

  “Would you mind to write Jax’s Malibu number on the back of my card?”

  “All right, of course. But I really need to be getting home now. My husband will worry about me. I usually get home before he does. I took an anxiety pill while I was sitting out here a while ago, and I think I need to lie down and rest. All of this has really been quite upsetting.”

  It didn’t seem to have gotten to her all that much, not under Claire’s observation. “Of course, ma’am. Again, thank you for waiting out here so long, Mrs. Sherman.”

  Claire took the card after Mrs. Sherman scribbled the number on it, and Bud walked around the car and opened the door for the woman, because he really was as polite as hell where ladies were concerned. Mrs. Sherman hurried across the snowy drive to her late-model gray Mercedes and took off down the road. Everybody else had already gone. Bud and Claire stood in front of the truck for a moment, looking up at the sparkling lights. Maybe the astronauts really could see it. Maybe they were enjoying it more than she was. But that wouldn’t take much.

  The air was really frigid now. Claire hoped Black had all the fireplaces in the penthouse built up high and blazing like crazy. Or, better yet, maybe he’d be ready to warm her up in the special way only he could. That sounded even better to her. Or both him and the fire, maybe.

  Bud blew his breath into his palms. Yes, he was getting his warm clothes before Christmas. “Okay, we’ll have to get a bead on Jax’s location first thing in the morning. Maybe he’ll know who this kid is. Otherwise, we’ve got exactly nothing.”

  “That’s for damn sure.”

  “Let’s take another quick look around inside for ourselves,” Claire said, “just in case Corrigan and his jerk partner missed something. I want to see the master bedroom where she might’ve been staying.”

  So that’s what they did for the next hour, but with no luck whatsoever. The interior of the house was beautiful, fully decorated by some Beverly Hills whiz kid, all right. At least that’s what the card on the kitchen island read. But the place was definitely brand new, all the wood ceilings giving off that rustic, raw wood and varnish smell. At the end of the search, Claire was pretty sure that the drunken rock star had never stepped foot inside that house, and maybe never would. Hell, he had probably bought the place while in a particularly mind-blowing pipe dream.

  If he had been inside, he hadn’t brought along any clothes or shoes or coats. No nothing, in fact. No food in the fridge, no supplies in the kitchen cabinets. It was pristine, like a model house in a new subdivision, but one built on a budget fifty times bigger. Top of the line in every way. She wondered if Jonesy Jax really would show up. He probably just bought houses here and there for the hell of it. Of course, Black had a habit of doing that, too, but at least he spent time in them once in a while and considered them investments.

  The only room in the house that looked lived in was the master bedroom. It had a suitcase in the closet with a minimal amount of clothes on the hangers, but they were clothes that would fit their victim. She had been staying there, but it didn’t look like she’d been there long, like the officers had said. Nothing much to see inside that bedroom except for a few bathroom toiletries and dirty clothes strewn about. It was strange, and hard to figure exactly what she was doing there. Maybe she had been a squatter or a druggie who had broken in and made herself at home. But how would she have even found the place, way out here in the sticks? Someone who’d been on the tour, maybe?

  Claire sighed, feeling weary all of a sudden. “Okay, let’s just go home, get some sleep, and start again in the morning.”

  “You got that right, partner. Music to my ears.” Bud smiled mischievously in a way she knew very well, and she braced herself for whatever was incoming. “I need to read that article about Black and admire you in that bikini before I go to bed. I just can’t get enough of you famous celebrities. Know what they’re calling you two on TMZ? Blair. Get it? Black and Claire combined. Only the biggest celebrity couples get a tag name like that. You’ve made it to the top, darlin’.”

  “Shut up, Bud. I mean it. Enough, already. That’s just stupid. Blair. How stupid. Are they really calling us that?”

  “Yep.” Bud laughed at her and headed around to the driver’s side of his truck. Claire smiled a little, too, and pulled open her door. She had missed the heck out of being around Bud. On the other hand, she was eager to get back home, because she missed Black and Rico and all their ridiculously overdone excitement about Christmas. She wasn’t used to being away from them for so long, not anymore. Her work hours had become irregular again fast, and the crime scene had taken longer than she’d figured. It was a school night for Rico. Unfortunately, they’d probably have to wait on decorating the tree until tomorrow. Probably a good thing, because after seeing that young girl’s body, lit up and perched at the top of that tree, Christmas tree decorating had lost its appeal. Imagine that.

  Play Time

  For the next few months, Junior and Lucky were extra careful about not being seen together. They met up a lot in secret, however, always in small, out-of-the-way restaurants and malls, usually down in Oceanside or out in Santa Clarita. Sometimes they hooked up in luxury hotels in downtown L.A., usually reserving a large suite under an assumed name, playing video games all night and ordering pizza and beer and women and anything else they wanted. Lucky was turning out to be a great guy, a really good friend, even if he had screwed Junior’s mother in Junior’s house. That fact was sickening to think about, and sometimes Junior did dwell on it. But he decided to let it be.

  Truthfully, however, Junior liked Lucky even more than he wanted to admit. They thought alike. They both had dark, creepy thoughts that they wanted to pursue for real. They had killed together for the first time, had done it well and gotten away with it. As time went on, they craved doing it again. They wanted that lovely adrenaline rush and final burst of pure ecstasy when their target finally bit it. Both of them were interested in having beautiful women around, too, but neither had a real girlfriend. Girls liked to talk too much. Girls loved to gossip with other girls and share all their secrets, and that could be a dangerous proposition so soon after their first kill. Not a good idea. Girls got jealous and caused trouble and made scenes. Girls listened to them when they got drunk, and they might slip and mention the murder. Besides, there were prostitutes galore in L.A., good-looking ones for when they wanted sex, call girls, and they liked to use them together. It was all great fun and they were so happy to be alive and such good friends.

  After his mom had been rotting in her grave for six months, they started hanging out in public together. They’d already graduated from high school and didn’t have to go to class anymore or worry about graduation. At first they went out to trendy clubs together, a one-toe-in-the-water kind of thing, after all his mother’s phony, slutty friends had stopped checking on Junior and bringing all those disgusting casseroles made by their cooks and left by their butlers outside his front door. They finally lost interest and returned to their shallow, self-involved lives a
nd forgot all about poor young Junior who no longer had his plastic-coated mom around. He had told everyone he was thinking about going to St. Andrew’s College in Edinburgh because that’s where Prince William had gone. They all believed that ridiculous lie, too. They believed all his lies. He had turned out to be an exceptional liar, and that was a good thing. But he’d always been, really. He was getting even better at it as time went by.

  The more he hung around with Lucky, the better he liked him. He especially loved the fact that Lucky liked to play board games. The basement game room was a veritable arcade, with just about every video game and board game and pinball machine known to man. They spent hours down there together, trying their level best to beat each other at everything. They found out that they were both highly competitive in their own ways and neither took prisoners because winning was the most important thing. Both of them loved to best the other more than anything else in the world, and neither of them lost graciously. In fact, they often came to physical blows over close scores and accused each other of cheating, but that usually happened when they were halfway drunk. Especially Lucky, and he got drunk a lot. That’s when they pretty much attacked each other and wrestled on the floor, scratching and punching and ending up all bruised up with black eyes and bloody noses. But they didn’t care. They always got up and shook hands afterward, and then had a beer as their red fits of anger dwindled and their hazes of rage slowly faded away.

  Junior was finding out that Lucky was a lot smarter than he had first thought. Not brilliant like Junior, of course―nobody could be as smart as he was. But Lucky had proven to be very bright and often came up with great ideas. Even though Lucky had concentrated on sports in school, he knew lots of other interesting things about different subjects and areas, but that only meant that they could teach each other new stuff. They just clicked. They snapped into place like Lego blocks, as if they should have been born twins. It was so great to have another guy that Junior could trust. Somebody like a real brother, like family. Somebody who truly liked him and treated him with respect. This was the best time in Junior’s life, bar none.