The Forbidden

by Heather Graham

  Kevin picked up the thread, and said flatly, “He said that if you idiots haven’t come up with something by now, you’re not going to. I think Kenneth wanted you at dinner—he wanted to make you give him his island back.”

  “And, of course,” Leo added, “Cara also talked about the movie—getting the island going so that Boris could finish the movie.”

  “She had wanted to be an extra in the last scene that needed to be shot, but Brad, Terry and I have figured out how to edit the thing so that we have all the footage that we need,” Boris told him.

  “Did you tell her that?” Fin asked.

  “I... No. We all said that we just had to wait to see what the future held,” Boris said. “We didn’t know if you wanted them to think we were going back, or what?”

  “You didn’t really think that any of them would just admit to killing Cindy, did you?” Lauren asked, wide-eyed.

  Fin shook his head, smiling. “No, but you never know when someone might give away something about themselves, where they’ve been, how they feel...what makes them tick. I’m sorry for the way it turned out and I thank you all sincerely for your help.”

  It was late. And he wanted to head out to Houma early and leave them plenty of time to get to the police dock and get a ride out to Christy Island by midafternoon. He stood up. “Thank you again.”

  “We want it solved, too,” Boris assured him, standing.

  The others stood as well.

  Fin looked over at Avalon. She gave him a forced smile.

  “Eight a.m.?”

  She nodded.

  Boris walked him to the gate.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll lock and bolt it the minute you’re out. And, yes, there’s a nice high wall around the courtyard here, but people can crawl walls. I’ll also make sure that the doors to the house are securely locked.”

  “Thanks,” Fin said.

  “You really think this is a serial killer?” Boris asked.

  “The scariest kind. Someone who stalks prey, who knows patience, who has studied forensics. Yeah, I think there’s a serial killer at work.”

  Boris nodded and lifted a hand in farewell. Fin headed out down the street to his car.

  He paused, looking at the house. He hated leaving. He realized that he didn’t want to believe that anyone in the movie cast and crew was involved.

  But they just might be.

  And they were living together.

  He pulled out his phone as he reached his car, putting through a call to Angela to tell her about Samara Stella and the doll.

  Angela was assuring him that she’d hunt down the origins of the doll when a loud scream echoed down the street. He turned and ran.

  Right as he reached the rental house, Boris was swinging the front door open for him, clearly having intuited that Fin would be rushing back, and wanting his help with whatever had caused that scream.

  Kevin, Brad and Lauren were standing helplessly in the courtyard.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know—that was Avalon.”

  He flew up the stairs and burst into her room.

  She had a tablet that was lying on the ground, the screen bright...but empty. She had her hands pressed to her temples. She looked at him in horror and seemed almost unaware that she had screamed.

  “Avalon?”

  ‘He was on it again, but this time... Fin! It wasn’t just words... They filmed it! They filmed the murder of that poor girl, Ellen Frampton. Oh, God, Fin, if it wasn’t her, just how many people have they killed?”

  Ten

  Avalon still couldn’t believe what she had seen.

  She didn’t want to believe what she had seen.

  But it had appeared real. Just seconds of film...

  A knife going into a woman’s chest, coming out, going in again...

  Blood spattering the camera...

  And then gone.

  Her scream had drawn everyone in the house.

  Along with Fin, the rest of the group crowded into the hallway, and partially into her room.

  It was chaos. She had frightened everyone, and standing there, she knew that she hadn’t realized what the scene had done to her, just how loud and terrified her scream had been. But it had been horrible.

  “Who does that? Who kills someone brutally and films it? These are monsters—”

  “Wait, wait,” Boris said. “Avalon! You’re in film. You know that something like that can be faked—what you saw had to have been faked.”

  Lauren was looking at her with sheer terror in her eyes.

  Boris was skeptical. It seemed that Brad and Terry were equally doubtful, too, while Leo and Kevin looked more worried.

  “Can you play it again?” Brad asked her. “If Boris and Terry and I look at it, maybe we’ll be able to figure out if it was something faked. I mean, who would put that on the internet? The cops would be all over them.”

  “People record almost everything these days,” Lauren said.

  They all looked at Fin.

  “It depends on your definition of a snuff film. Are they made and distributed by anyone legitimate? No. But rumors do exist claiming that some serial killers have filmed their victims.” He was quiet a minute and then said, “What Avalon saw, I don’t know.” He was looking at her worriedly.

  She’d been so angry when she thought about what had been done. Lives so brutally stolen. Beauty, youth and promise—taken. She’d been determined that she wasn’t going to be afraid.

  She’d just turned on the tablet—thinking she might stumble upon another thread where someone had written about his longing for murder—and navigated to the same website she’d found before.

  She hadn’t really expected to find anything. She wasn’t ready for what she saw.

  Fin picked up the tablet off the floor and looked at it, but didn’t touch it.

  “We’ll give this to Jodi,” he told her.

  She nodded.

  “Really. You should stay off the computer,” Lauren said firmly. “Off a tablet. You shouldn’t even look at your phone, except to answer it if it’s ringing.”

  “She’s right,” Kevin said, looking at her with concern.

  “It’s hard to do a website if you don’t get on a computer,” Avalon said.

  “Then give it a few days. Samara isn’t going to be concerned about refreshing her website right now,” Boris said.

  “I promise you, she’s not,” Leo said.

  “All of you—I’m sorry. Go to bed, please!” Avalon said. “It is late. This was crazy. I was trying to distract myself. Trying to be useful. I... Go to bed!”

  She looked at Fin.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “There’s a sofa downstairs,” he said. “I’ll be on it.”

  “What?” she asked. “No, we can’t have you do that—”

  “I’ve slept on many a sofa.”

  “I like the idea of you sleeping downstairs on a sofa,” Kevin told him. “It makes me feel safer—not that this person has been attacking men, but you never know. And there are people who don’t like that I’m gay. Just as they don’t like women like Samara who don’t hide their own sexuality.”

  “Works for me,” Lauren said.

  “I guess your acting, lighting, tech friends aren’t the most macho,” Brad said sadly.

  “Has nothing to do with macho,” Fin assured him. “I’ve just had a lot more practice and, most importantly, I carry a weapon that I’m licensed to carry and trained to use.”

  “Works for me,” Boris said.

  “I can sleep on the couch and you can have my room,” Kevin offered.

  “I’m able to sleep anywhere, Kevin. Thanks for the offer,” Fin said. “I will accept a pillow and a blanket, though—thanks.”

  Avalon had
already gone for one of the big, puffy pillows on her bed and tossed it over to him. She headed to the closet for a blanket.

  “All right. I may sleep tonight,” Lauren said.

  She went over to Fin and gave him a kiss on the cheek, turned to grin at Avalon and hurried out.

  “All right then. Maybe we’ll all sleep better tonight,” Boris said.

  He saluted and headed down the hall. Bit by bit, they all went, until Fin was left there, and he looked at Avalon as she looked at him.

  “We still have to drive out early, right?” she asked.

  “We do.”

  “But what about your clothing, changing, a shower—”

  “I’ll head out at seven and be back by seven thirty,” he assured her. “I’m not staying far from here. We’ll be fine. Just...go to bed.”

  She nodded. She felt as if her face was filling with color, and she wasn’t sure why, other than that she’d had that temptation to throw herself at him again. He was there. At the door to her room. It was late; it had been a long and shocking day, and she shouldn’t have been thinking about him as a man at all, just as an agent, and she wasn’t sure that she didn’t still mistrust him. Was he worried about her after the scream, or was he here because he didn’t entirely trust the cast and crew?

  Did any of that matter?

  He was going to be sleeping right downstairs.

  “Lock your door,” he told her. “I’ve got the tablet—not sure it will help any, but I’m going to have an officer pick it up. Want to give me the alarm code so I can lock up after?”

  “Today it’s...um, two-eight-seven-nine. It changes all the time.”

  “Lock your door when I go, anyway.”

  She nodded. “Right. Sure. Okay. I will. I promise.”

  He stood outside of the room...and waited.

  She walked over, then closed and bolted the door. Only then did she hear his footsteps recede down the hallway and thump as he headed down the stairs.

  She had to get some sleep; she knew that. But images kept rolling in her mind. She couldn’t forget being at the Grimsby house, meeting Alana and her father and husband, thinking that they had been such fine people, lost too early in life. Now, they wanted to help find justice for another young woman—also lost way too early in life.

  The doll at Samara’s place had a knife through the heart.

  Ellen Frampton had been killed...with a knife through the heart.

  And, for a moment, she had seen images that had seemed damned real of a knife being thrust into a woman’s heart.

  Samara had been afraid of being watched. Or that Avalon was being watched.

  Maybe none of it was related. Maybe all of it was related.

  She lay down, thinking she’d fall asleep maybe, and just shower in the morning.

  It all kept going through her head.

  Shower now.

  She showered, keeping the water nice and hot, and then slipped into soft flannel pants and a big cotton T-shirt; it wasn’t cold at all, but the air-conditioning in the house was set cool, and she was more accustomed to keeping a place a bit warmer.

  She cuddled her remaining pillow, and still lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She concentrated on it being a white blank and...

  It didn’t work at all. She thought about the events, about herself, about the future, and then again, she came back to screaming when she’d seen the images—when she’d sworn to herself that she wasn’t going to be a coward. She wasn’t. She was going to do anything she could to help with the investigation.

  Even knowing that meant a return to Christy Island.

  And still, the moving image she had seen so briefly played through her mind, along with sorrow for the young woman she hadn’t known, Ellen Frampton, and a deeper sense of loss for the woman she had known, Cindy West.

  At length she got out of bed. She was being ridiculous, but ridiculous was okay—she could maybe get a few minutes of sleep.

  Padding lightly on bare feet, she hurried down the stairs.

  Fin was lying on the sofa, his hands folded behind his head on the pillow. He had heard her coming, and sat up as she came down.

  “What happened?” he asked, his tone deep and anxious.

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. I just... Do you mind if I stay down here with you? I won’t say a word, I’m just going to curl into the chair and...”

  She broke off as he stood up, sweeping out a hand to indicate she should take the sofa.

  “No, no, I’m sorry. I just haven’t been able to fall asleep. I won’t bother you—we both need to sleep. I can close my eyes and catch at bit almost anywhere, just—just not alone tonight. I’m sorry—please don’t get up.”

  “I’m sorry, but you have to take the sofa.”

  “But I don’t want—”

  “Make me happy. Take the sofa. Trust me, I lost my mom, but I’m not haunted by her. But if I let you sleep on a chair while I was on the sofa, I swear, I know she’d come back.”

  Avalon smiled.

  “Really—”

  “Really! Please. Loved my mom, but I like to think of her, and my dad, up having a great poker game in the clouds somewhere. They were good people, but serious about manners. Please, take the sofa.”

  Avalon walked over. “Now I feel guilty.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Not to worry. I don’t feel guilty enough to go back up to my own room.”

  She lay down on the sofa with the pillow beneath her head. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them to reach for the blanket.

  He was already drawing it over her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  “I guess I’m starting to think you’re really not so bad at all,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I almost like you. Maybe even a lot,” he told her.

  Eyes still closed, she smiled. This was hardly the heated, sensual exchange she had imagined somewhere in the dark back burners of her mind.

  But then again...

  It was nice.

  “Maybe I could push it a little,” she whispered. “I almost like you, too. Maybe even a lot,” she told him.

  She heard him as he settled into the big upholstered chair. It was good, just to be near him.

  Just to feel sleep taking her...

  Of course, she did have a bed upstairs; they’d both fit in it.

  She decided it was a really good thing that she was deep enough in the falling-to-sleep stage not to have the energy to rise and suggest such a thing.

  Her room was private...

  But she didn’t relish the thought of explanations in the morning.

  Then again, though he might like her, how humiliating would it be if he turned her down?

  It didn’t matter; the sweet release of sleep fell all around her, and she knew nothing again until she opened her eyes, hearing voices in the kitchen, and knowing that it was morning.

  Thursday

  Avalon woke up and glanced quickly to the chair, but Fin was no longer seated in it. Swinging her legs over the side of the sofa, she collected the pillow and blanket that she’d given Fin from her room.

  As she stood up with her bundle of bedding, Kevin came to the parlor communal area.

  “Hey, sleepyhead. I was supposed to wake you in five minutes if you didn’t get up.”

  “I’m up.”

  Kevin was staring at her, grinning.

  “Is something in the air? I don’t want to criticize, but I’d go for something maybe just a wee bit more daring than plaid flannel.”

  “Kevin!” she said.

  “You could do much worse, you know?” he said.

  “Kevin!”

  “Hey, if you’re not going to listen to me, who
will you listen to? He obviously cares about you—”

  “He doesn’t dislike me anymore,” she said.

  “And I see something in your eyes when you’re looking at him. Oh, come on, my delightfully straitlaced friend. Walk on the wild side. Take a few chances with being human.”

  “I am human.”

  Lauren came in and stood next to Kevin, crossing her arms over her chest as Kevin was doing. “Hey there. What, did you have a lot of long, soulful discussions after the rest of us went to bed?” Lauren asked.

  “I told her she could do much worse.”

  “Oh, and she has!” Lauren said. “Remember Rock Bentley?”

  “Back in college,” Kevin said, nodding. “Prettiest boy you’d ever want to see.”

  “Except that you could never appreciate his beauty as much as he did,” Lauren said. “Luckily, she nipped that one in the bud.”

  “Yeah, I think he was ticked off—he wasn’t accustomed to women getting tired of him.”

  “Then there was Dixon a few years ago,” Lauren added, remembering.

  “Now he was a nice enough guy. I think they’re still friends. No chemistry—that’s what she told me,” Kevin said sagely.

  “I’m seeing chemistry all over the place here,” Lauren said. “And if she doesn’t see it soon...well, I’m available!”

  “If he weren’t straight, I’d be available!” Kevin said. “I really like him. Confident enough so that he can be friends with anyone, careful of others...and, I bet, if anyone can solve this thing, it’s him.”

  “And they’re both a little weird, huh?” Lauren said. “Makes them perfect for each other.”

  Avalon stared at the two of them, shaking her head.

  Of course, neither of them knew the half of their “weirdness!”

  “Are you two done?” she asked.

  Boris came on in, grinning at her, too. “You know, you have a perfectly good room upstairs with a perfectly good bed and guess what? A perfectly good door with a lock that locks.”