by M. Z. Kelly
HOLLYWOOD PRISONER
MZ Kelly
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-FOUR
FIFTY-FIVE
FIFTY-SIX
FIFTY-SEVEN
FIFTY-EIGHT
FIFTY-NINE
SIXTY
SIXTY-ONE
SIXTY-TWO
SIXTY-THREE
SIXTY-FOUR
SIXTY-FIVE
SIXTY-SIX
SIXTY-SEVEN
SIXTY-EIGHT
SIXTY-NINE
SEVENTY
SEVENTY-ONE
SEVENTY-TWO
SEVENTY-THREE
SEVENTY-FOUR
SEVENTY-FIVE
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COMING SOON
ONE
“I’m falling…”
The radio fell out of my hands as I slipped down an embankment, tumbled head over heels in the darkness, and landed in some bushes.
“Damn it,” I groaned.
Bernie had followed me down the hill. My dog stuck his big wet nose in my face, his way of asking if I was okay.
I ran a hand through his fur, stood, and tried to get my bearings. Other than a few cuts and scrapes, I appeared to be okay.
I heard my partner, Leo Kingsley, somewhere above me on the radio, asking if I was okay. I used my flashlight and found my way a few yards up the hill, where I retrieved the rover. After telling Leo what happened, I said, “I’m in a ravine off the main path. Bernie’s with me, so we’ll need to work our way back up the hill. I’ll contact you when we’re back on the trail.”
“Do you need assistance?”
“Negative. Give me a call back in ten if you don’t hear from me.”
I should probably take a moment, give you some background, and explain how my dog and I ended up at the bottom of a cliff in the middle of the night. My name is Kate Sexton. I’m a detective assigned to Section One, LAPD’s elite Robbery-Homicide squad. My canine partner, Bernie, and I work out of Hollywood Station. Bernie’s about a hundred and twenty pounds of fur and muscle; part German Shepherd mixed with some unknown breed that has a propensity for trouble and sexual wanderlust.
We were in a rugged area of Runyon Canyon, searching for a killer the press had dubbed “The Slayer”. He had murdered three women that we knew about, but there were likely more. We’d found his most recent intended victim in the trunk of a stolen car about an hour earlier. She’d survived, but was so traumatized by her abduction that she couldn’t give us any details about our suspect. We reasoned that the Slayer knew we were on his trail and had gone to ground during our search.
The going up the darkened hillside was slow. Bernie and I paralleled the main trail that was at the top of the ravine, finding our way with my flashlight. We slowly worked our way out of the underbrush. Overhead, I saw the bright light from one of LAPD’s airships as it searched the area for our suspect. Leo and I were part of a taskforce that included Darby Hall and his new partner Barbara Slauson. We expected additional officers would arrive to assist as the search continued.
Bernie and I were a few yards from the main path when I heard something up ahead. I stopped, snapped off my flashlight, and held my breath, listening. There were footsteps somewhere in the darkness, the sound of someone moving below us where the canyon dipped down again and evened out. Bernie whined softly, but I gave him the settle command and he became silent.
I crouched down, turning my head slightly, and picking up the sound of footsteps. This wasn’t the sound of someone running or moving away. While I still couldn’t see anything because of the darkness and heavy brush, I had the impression that someone beneath us was engaged in a purposeful activity.
I tugged on Bernie’s leash. We took a few steps down the hill again and toward the sound. The brush was less dense here. Above me, the helicopter had moved off. I saw the stars and a gibbous moon. I stopped and turned my head, listening. Something in my peripheral vision caught my attention. I instinctively drew in a breath, startled by the image, but recognizing what I was seeing.
There was a butterfly here, rhythmically opening and closing its beautiful red and yellow wings. It seemed so out of place in the middle of the night that it took me a moment to process what I was seeing. I had seen the same beautiful creature a month earlier when I’d gone to the Police Administration Building in Los Angeles to turn in my badge and quit my job. The butterfly had landed on my deceased father’s memorial plaque. That memory was forever etched in my brain for one particular reason.
It was the last image I saw before I died.
TWO
My death had been painful and unexpected…
“There’s no pulse,” a detective said as he worked over my dead body.
A uniformed officer joined him at the base of the memorial wall on the grounds of the Police Administration Building where I’d fallen. “Whoever stabbed her is down from a gunshot wound. No sign of the shooter.”
“Did you call it in?”
“The complex is on lockdown…. there’s a RA in route….” He began chest compressions as the first officer breathed for me, then said, “I doubt that we’ll need the ambulance. I think we’ve lost her.”
I continued to watch them from somewhere above my body until my attention drifted off. A few yards away, I saw Noah Fraser’s dead body. My former boyfriend had tried to kill me for investigating the death of my adoptive father, John Sexton. My father had been murdered by a man named Ryan Cooper when I was four years old. He’d taken me to some pony rides at a park and I’d witnessed him being shot. In recent years, I’d learned that both Cooper and Fraser had been wo
rking for Collin Russell and Harlan Ryland, the men who I believed had ordered the killing of my father. His death and the attempt on my life had been part of a conspiracy to cover up their history of violence and embezzlement, which also included the murder of a Hollywood actress named Jean Winslow.
I looked back at my body, but had trouble seeing it now or the men who were trying to save me. A mist had arisen from somewhere below me. The world I had come from was shrouded now; an ethereal cloud-hidden dimension that was fading away. The air around me began to stir. It was soothing and peaceful here, like a soft breeze in summer. I felt sleep tug at my eyelids. They closed in that half-aware feeling you get when the conscious world begins to fade into that place where dreams are born. Somewhere far away I heard the breaking of waves; a slow rhythmic pulse like a heartbeat. My body seemed to instinctively become aware of the rhythm of life that was born and returned to this sacred place.
I felt sleep drawing me deeper into this realm. I was so at peace here that I never wanted to leave. Then I heard a whisper, a voice that was barely audible.
“Who are you?”
“What?” My eyes came open and I looked around, not seeing anyone or anything. The world here was shrouded in fog.
The disembodied voice returned. It was vaguely reminiscent of a child. “Who are you?”
“I’m Kate,” I said. Even as I answered, I realized there was a much deeper meaning to what was being asked. I instinctively knew this was a question about what my life had meant, what I had accomplished in the three-plus decades I’d been alive.
Tears were in my eyes as I said, “I’m not sure how to answer.”
Despite my distress, there was something peaceful and reassuring about the voice that returned. “A choice awaits.”
I tried to control my emotions. “What do you mean?”
“You must decide between love and fear. It is the only real choice.”
I remembered my former partner, Ted Grady, telling me something similar several months earlier. He’d said when we chose love, we released the fear that controls our lives.
I now asked the same question that had been asked of me. “Who…who are you?”
The voice came back, this time softer than before. Even as I heard it, I knew it was the last time it would speak to me. “You will know soon enough.”
The mist around me began to clear, and I saw the men working over my dead body again as my chest convulsed. A different sound now found me, pushing the calm I’d felt a moment earlier into an abyss and breaking the perfect cadence of this place that brought forth both life and death.
It was the sound of me gasping for air.
THREE
I watched as the butterfly’s wings fluttered. It rose and flew away. I decided I must be having some sort of traumatic flashback. I did my best to dismiss everything that had happened a month ago and concentrate on the task at hand. My attention went back to the sounds in the clearing at the bottom of the hillside. The movement seemed more intense now, like someone was in a hurry, maybe leaving.
I tugged on Bernie’s leash. We took a few steps down the hill, moving toward the sounds. My radio suddenly crackled to life, and I heard Leo’s voice. “Checking in, Kate. Are you still moving in my direction?”
I stopped and tried to keep my voice low, even though the radio call had probably alerted whoever was moving around. “There’s someone or something here, in the ravine below me. Bernie and I are going to check it out.”
“I’ll alert the airship to your location and head down the hill.”
I thought about telling him to wait, but decided better of it. The radio call had ended any element of surprise I had, and the movement below us had now stopped. Seconds later it was replaced by another noise—the roar of the LAPD airship overhead. The searchlight swept over us and down into the gorge.
Bernie and I stumbled down the hillside into the clearing. The noise from the engine and rotor blades was intense. The spotlight was like a small sun, illuminating everything around us. My attention was drawn to something that looked like raised planting beds, near the forest, where the brush had been cleared. Maybe we’d surprised someone growing marijuana in the rugged terrain? Then my light illuminated one of the boxes. I gasped in horror and took a step back.
The stench of rotting flesh was overpowering as I pulled out my radio and called Leo. “There are bodies here in the clearing. They’re…” I was at a loss for words to explain what I was seeing. I finally said, “I think it’s some kind of ritualistic display.”
“On the way,” Leo said. “I’ll call for assistance.”
His voice was replaced by that of the chopper pilot as he hovered above me. “We’ve got two suspects moving away from your area, Detective—a man and a woman. They’re running through the brush to the southeast.”
I pushed down the revulsion of what I’d seen and concentrated on the heavily forested area now illuminated by the airship. Bernie and I began moving in that direction.
Moments later, we stopped dead in our tracks when I heard a woman’s voice.
“Help me.”
My light swept in the direction of the voice. There was a woman here, or maybe I should say what was once a woman. An emaciated figure was being held prisoner in a wooden framework erected on a post. There were holes for securing her head and hands, like one of those pillories that I’d once seen in a movie about feudal times.
Bernie and I went over to her, my flashlight illuminating the pathetic spectacle. After a moment, I realized there were two bolts at the top of the device that held it in place. I removed the bolts and lifted up the wooden column. Her body immediately collapsed onto the ground.
I bent over her, realizing that she was barely alive. “Help is on the way, sweetheart. Who did this to you?”
She tried to respond, but her words were unintelligible. Her eyes closed, and I realized she was near death. I brushed the hair off her face and suddenly became aware of something else.
The woman I was looking at was me.
FOUR
I began choking as the officers forced air into my lungs…
“I’ve got a pulse,” the detective said. “It’s weak, but it’s there.”
“She’s breathing,” the uniformed officer said, turning me on my side to help clear my airway.
I was in and out of consciousness after that, not waking up until three days later, when I saw the smiling face of Leo hovering above my hospital bed. My partner was African-American, in his mid-fifties; a big man with a shaved head.
“Welcome back to the living,” Leo said.
I tried to respond, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried again, but only made a gurgling sound.
He touched my shoulder. “Don’t push yourself. The doctors say it could take a few days before you regain your strength.” He must have seen my questioning look. His gaze moved off for a moment. “It was Noah who attacked you. According to a witness, he was shot and killed by someone in the shadows. No real description.”
“P…pp…rl…”
He nodded. “Maybe it was Pearl. We don’t know for sure.”
“Whhy…”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Kate. Whoever it was must have been following you, trying to offer protection. All I know is that he saved your life.”
A few weeks earlier I’d learned that Pearl Kramer, a retired detective, might be my biological father. My bio-mom was a former actress named Judie Crawford, a fact that my adoptive mother had kept from me until recently. She’d hidden the truth from me because she was afraid of Ryan Cooper, the man who had murdered my adoptive father. He had threatened her, and, at the time, she believed that my father’s death was payback for his prior involvement with Judie. Cooper had gone on to marry my bio-mom and eventually had beaten her to death.
For some reason that I still didn’t fully understand, my bio-mom had never told anyone the identity of my biological father. A few weeks back, Pearl’s name was the last word uttered by my dying lieu
tenant, Ozzie Powell, who had suffered a heart attack. Pearl and my adoptive father had been officers on the force thirty years earlier, making me think he could be my father. If he was my bio-dad, I had no idea why he’d kept the truth from me all these years.
I felt a tear on my cheek. Leo’s big hand came over and brushed it away. “The good news is the surgeons repaired your severed artery. There was no permanent damage.”
Leo spent the next couple hours with me, offering water and words of encouragement. I finally managed to regain enough strength to form sentences. “Whhat hh…happened to me…is the department gg...going to…investigate?”
He nodded. “Chief Dunbar authorized an investigation into both the attack on you and your father’s murder. Everything’s back on the table.”
I was grateful that the investigation into my father’s death was finally being reopened, even though it took me almost being killed to make it happen. “Who…who c...caught the case?”
“Horton and Braden.”
Woody Horton and Harry Braden were a couple of detectives also assigned to Section One. Leo and I only occasionally crossed their paths because we worked different cases.
Horton was in his early thirties, with an easygoing, unpretentious manner. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and looked like he belonged on a surfboard rather than in a cop shop.
Braden was older, pushing into his forties. He was married, with a couple kids, a good guy who had worked his way up through the ranks. I knew that he and Woody were exceptional detectives who left nothing on the table when it came to giving their all to the job.
Leo studied me for a moment. “You’re not thinking about…”
I nodded. “I’m coming bb...back to work.”
“You know you can’t be involved in either investigation.”
“I know. It’s just…” I took a breath, searching for the words to explain my decision. “I can’t just w...walk away after…” I shifted my body, feeling the pain from my injuries. “…after everything that happened.”
“Dunbar was expecting your resignation.”
A month earlier, my pursuit of my adoptive father’s killers and the death of Buck McCade, a detective I’d once been in love with, had left me emotionally drained. I’d intended to quit police work and begin a new life. Noah’s attack had changed all that, along with the voice I’d heard during my near-death experience. I was determined to put my fear aside and bring the men behind my father’s murder to justice.