B is for Bad Girls (Malibu Mystery Book 2)

by Rebecca Cantrell

  She could see why her mother had always tried to talk her out of buying a motorcycle—they were dangerous, especially on the crowded freeways around Los Angeles. But today she had to ride one. It was the only way to get away from the paparazzi. It was the safest choice. She heard herself explaining that to Janet, and she heard the beginning of her mother’s lecture. Maybe her conscience wasn’t as clear as she pretended.

  She swung one leg across the bike and started it up. The roar of its engine drowned out her mother’s voice and her worries. This engine wanted to run. Apologizing in her head to her neighbors, she drove the noisy beast out of the parking lot and up the road to the PCH.

  Brandi, if she’d followed instructions, had gone south. That left Sofia free to go north to Monaco’s, driving fast along the ocean, on a nice flat road that was as empty as it ever got. She wove between the sparse cars and held tight to the handlebars, entranced by the dark scenery blowing by. She rolled past indigo waves with curls of white on top, drove between brown peaks that smelled of eucalyptus and oak, and finally reached paved city streets lit by streetlamps and red and green stoplights. In spite of her worries about Monaco and the leaked video, she was exhilarated by the ride. She didn’t want to give the bike back. Maybe she could sell her Tesla and buy one of these.

  All too soon, she had to slow to search for the address in the winding streets of the Hollywood Hills. As promised, Brandi’s helmet had a voice-activated GPS. Sofia fired it up and gave it the address. The chirpy voice in her ear seemed confident, which was lucky because Sofia’s confidence was waning.

  She hadn’t really thought this through, just let Brandi’s enthusiasm drive her out of the house and onto the road. But now that she thought about it, she would be knocking on a stranger’s door in the middle of the night. Polly probably hated her. Sofia barely knew Monaco. Gus was downright dangerous. Maybe she should wait until Monaco came out of the apartment in the morning, intercept her, and talk to her about the danger she was in.

  She laughed at the cautious thought. It wasn’t as if she could stake out the house from a giant flashy motorcycle. Somebody would probably call the cops right away. A Harley was not designed to blend in.

  “Destination on right,” the cheery GPS woman told her, and Sofia rolled to a stop next to a cracked sidewalk. A ramshackle wooden house with its windows ablaze looked back at her. The whole structure seemed ready to collapse at any second—brown paint peeled off weathered gray boards, plants overflowed from sagging gutters, a window had been broken and boarded up, and dirty white curtains covered the windows. A droopy oak stood in the front yard, casting a shadow against the side of the house, and a for sale sign tilted at a crazy angle. A rusted Impala with no license plate was parked on the street. Easy to see why no one wanted to buy the place. It was the house in every haunted-house movie she’d ever seen.

  Sofia double checked the address Brandi had given her against the mailbox. They matched. Maybe Brandi was messing with her. No way would someone like Monaco be caught dead at this address. Monaco did not slum.

  She should take the Harley to her mother’s house, borrow her car, and come back later in the day with Aidan, just in case there was something to see. The last thing she should do was go to a haunted house, knock on the door, and explain what she was doing there to a complete stranger.

  She told herself to pull it together. This wasn’t a Scooby Doo episode. She was on a street in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world. She could probably throw a stone through any window and the cops would be there in a minute, sirens blazing. It was a miracle that the neighbors hadn’t bought the old shack and torn it down.

  A ghost-like white figure scuttled across the sidewalk toward her, and she jumped. It was probably just a plastic bag being blown by the wind. It drifted over to her boot. She climbed off the bike and pulled off her helmet to get a better look. It wasn’t a ghost. It was a little dog.

  She held her hand down for the dog to sniff. It wagged its little tail. In the light spilling from the front windows the fur was dirty gray, the ears darker.

  “Can I pick you up, little fellow?” she whispered.

  The dog’s tail wagged faster, and she took that as a yes.

  She scooped up the little bundle. It didn’t have a collar. Its once white fur was matted, an oak leaf was stuck in the fur on its belly. “Been living rough for a while?”

  The dog snuffled at the back of her hand, and she wished she had some food. She bet it would like Fred’s bologna. Gently, she worked the leaf free and let it drop to the sidewalk. With one finger she brushed the fur away from those dark brown eyes. In spite of the state of its coat, the dog was bright-eyed and healthy-looking. It shook its head, and the light caught on its ears. They had an undertone of pink.

  “Snow Cone?” she whispered.

  The dog yapped and wagged its tail furiously.

  Craig’s body had been found at an abandoned house in Laurel Canyon, and that was miles away. She could never have walked this far, but maybe Snow Cone wasn’t the only little white dog with pink ears in Los Angeles. She should take the dog to Jenna and have her identify it. She flipped it over. It was a girl, like Snow Cone, but that didn’t prove anything. Still, Sofia knew she was already convinced.

  A distinctive laugh came from the house: a donkey’s bray. Monaco’s. The laugh ended in a whimper.

  Sofia put down the dog and tried to dial Brendan’s number, but she either didn’t have any connectivity up here, or her old phone wasn’t working. Whichever, she couldn’t expect help from that quarter.

  She dialed 911. Sure, she’d look stupid trying to explain why she was calling, but it was better to look stupid than to let something happen to Monaco. Her phone screen went black. She suddenly remembered why she’d bought a new one.

  Every house on the street was dark, which wasn’t surprising at this hour of the morning. No help there. Maybe she should take the dog and drive until she got cellular connectivity and dial 911 from there.

  Something that sounded like a slap came through the window of the haunted house, then a whimper. Someone was hitting Monaco.

  Time for Plan A. Sofia looked across the street to a well-kept ranch house with a sign from an alarm company by the front door. She hoped the sign wasn’t a decoy. Some people put up signs without installing an alarm system. Only one way to find out.

  She stooped down, picked up a stone, and pitched it at the house. The stone clattered against the siding and fell to the ground. She picked up another stone, aimed more carefully, threw it, and was rewarded by the sound of breaking glass. An alarm blared.

  Good enough. In a neighborhood like this, that sound should bring the cops right away.

  “Stay,” she whispered to Snow Cone. The dog sat and looked at her. She should probably sit tight, too, and wait for the police to arrive. But what if the people inside the house heard the alarm, too, and left with Monaco?

  She remembered an old Half Pint Detective plot where she’d marked a car so that it would be easier to follow. She hurried over to the Impala and crouched behind it. Nobody was watching her. With a quick swing, she broke out the right rear taillight with Brandi’s helmet. Red glass fell into the street. She moved closer to the house to listen, and Snow Cone followed her.

  “Hold still,” hissed an unfamiliar voice from inside.

  “I thought we were going to party.” Monaco’s words were slurred and slow. She sounded even more stoned than she had at Waves.

  “Tighten the band,” said the voice. “I need a good vein.”

  He was going to inject Monaco with something, maybe even overdose her as someone had Craig Williams.

  The street was still empty. Nobody was coming to the rescue. At least, not in time.

  She wanted to run in and help Monaco, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t know how many people were in the house, or if they were armed. Fighting wasn’t an option. But she didn’t need to fight them, just stall them until the cops came about the broken windo
w across the street.

  She picked up a stone and tossed it at the living room window of the dilapidated house. The sound of glass shattering told her that she’d broken her third window in the last two days. She’d turned into quite a vandal.

  She backed away from the car toward the drooping oak in the front yard. That ought to give her some cover, although if they looked out of their window, they’d be sure to see the Harley. It couldn’t be overlooked, any more than Brandi could.

  “What the fuck was that?” a man inside yelled.

  She reached the safety of the tree. From this angle, she was invisible to anyone in the house. At least, she hoped she was.

  Then Snow Cone ran up to her, barking.

  She put a finger to her lips to tell the dog to be quiet. Apparently Snow Cone didn’t know sign language because she kept barking. The alarm from the ranch house across the street went silent. They must be up. Hopefully, they’d call the cops about the rock in their living room right away.

  But what if they didn’t?

  CHAPTER 28

  T he front door of the house banged open and she backed further into the shadow of the tree. But she didn’t need to. The man who came out of the house didn’t look in her direction.

  He dragged Monaco along by her hand.

  “Slow down!” Monaco said. “Everything is slow and dreamy. I want to curl up in a soft bed.”

  “Soon,” the man said. It was too dark to see his face so that she could describe him later, but he was taller than Monaco, maybe about five nine, and skeletally thin with dark hair. Either he was ill, or he was an addict, too.

  Whoever he was, he clearly wasn’t Polly or Gus. Maybe Monaco had found her own trouble that had nothing to do with Waves.

  The man dragged Monaco to the Impala and pushed her inside. Sofia worried when he rounded the back of the car, but he didn’t notice the broken taillight or the red shards of plastic on the pavement. He didn’t even notice Brandi’s Harley.

  “Snow Cone,” he called, in a sing-song voice. “Come here, baby!”

  So much for Monaco finding her own trouble.

  The man whistled. Snow Cone gave Sofia one last anxious look, then trotted across the lawn and jumped into the car. They sped off into the night.

  Sofia ran to the Harley, pulled on her helmet, let them get a good head start, and pulled out after them. The Harley was so loud that she hung back to keep them from hearing it.

  While she drove, she figured things out. That guy was going to kill Monaco. He’d killed Craig Williams and stolen his dog. He might not be Polly or Gus, but he was probably someone they’d hired to do their dirty work.

  She opened up more space, letting a car get between her and the Impala. The broken taillight made it easy to spot. Not that she really needed it. The road was pretty empty this late at night.

  The Impala stopped in front of another house with a for sale sign in front of it. This guy must have a list of empty houses where he could do whatever he planned without being disturbed. Maybe he cruised around, hunting for places to kill party girls.

  She tooled by on the Harley because it was too late to stop. The couple in the car didn’t seem to notice her. She rounded a corner, made sure she couldn’t see the house and they couldn’t see her, and stopped.

  “Please,” she whispered, and pulled out her phone. It had rebooted itself, and it had a bar of coverage. She took off her helmet and dialed Aidan’s number.

  “Where are you?” he yelled. “We’re at some abandoned house with a broken window. The alarm-company cops are here, too.”

  “Lock in on my phone signal and send them here,” she said. “He’s got Monaco inside the house. Send the cavalry.”

  “What house? What’s your address?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I followed them here on Brandi’s motorcycle, and I didn’t see.”

  “Stand down,” he said. “Wait for us in a position of safety.”

  That sounded like a great idea, but the guy in there had Monaco, and every second might count.

  “What street are you on? Do you see any street numbers?”

  Her cell phone died again. She missed the new phone, the one that had worked perfectly until it was killed by the Pacific Ocean.

  “Drop the phone and raise your hands!”

  “The phone doesn’t work anyway.” She dropped it, feeling a certain satisfaction when it cracked against the asphalt. She raised her hands.

  “Turn around.”

  She still couldn’t see his face, but his emaciated frame was enough to prove that he was the man who had taken Monaco. Her heart raced, and she could barely breathe.

  “Walk forward,” he said.

  She started walking. She had to pull it together. If this were a movie, what would she do? Whatever was in the script, and she would know in advance whether she was going to live or die. Not good enough.

  She fought against panic. She had to stay calm, or she would die. Maybe if she pretended that this was just a movie, that it wasn’t real, she would find the courage to stall him until Aidan found her, or she could see an opening to save her own life.

  “You want to let me go,” she said.

  “Because you’re famous?” He pointed back around the curve toward the house. “The little half pint is playing a real detective now.”

  “I’m flattered you recognized me.” She walked as slowly as she could. If she stalled him long enough, Aidan might arrive with the cavalry. Or he might not, since her phone had probably died before he could lock in on her signal.

  “I saw you slumming in Waves with Miss Monaco Jane.”

  She could see the house now. It wasn’t much nicer than the last one. It was a single-story ranch, dilapidated and ready to fall down. “The last guy who tried to kill me wanted my autograph first.”

  If he gave her a pen, maybe she could attack him with it.

  “I think I’ll pass on that one, thanks.”

  She crossed the yard in a dream, mounted the stairs, and put her foot through the boards of the front porch. She yelped in surprise and pain.

  “Damn it,” he said. “Get out of there.”

  “I’m trying,” she said, but she wasn’t. So long as he wasn’t going to shoot her for not moving, she was going to stay right there where anyone passing on the street might see her. She moved her leg back and forth. “I’m stuck.”

  Snow Cone came out of the open front door and licked her hand.

  “Shut up,” the man ordered.

  She wasn’t sure if he meant her or the dog, but she shut up. So did Snow Cone.

  The light from the streetlamp fell across his face when he moved, and she recognized him. His face was thinner than it had been, his cheekbones sharp against the tight skin of his face. He looked more like a skeleton than a person, but she knew him at once. She’d seen him in the picture in Polly’s office, in the picture in Rocky Hannaford’s living room with his face turned, and in the documentary.

  Oliver.

  She was so surprised that she forgot she was supposed to be pretending to get herself out of the hole. She stood stock still and stared at him.

  Gus must have lied about the identification. She remembered Aidan’s voice telling her that Gus took out one thousand dollars in cash every week, and nobody knew where it went. She knew now. It went to his son.

  The timing of the murders made sense now, too. Gus had stopped paying him when the business started to go under, then Polly had been put into Craig’s will. Craig had died not long after, and money had started to flow to Oliver again. It had stopped once more when Polly invested all her money in the new facility. So, that was why Monaco had to die. Oliver needed more money.

  That was how he’d chosen this house. As a realtor, he knew where the secluded places were, how to find empty houses, and how to get inside.

  Great. Now that she’d put everything together, she was going to die anyway. Even worse, Aidan wouldn’t know that she’d solved the case. He wouldn’t give he
r enough credit. A giggle threatened to spill out of her, but she bit her lip hard to keep it in. This wasn’t the time to get hysterical. This was the time to think.

  “Just pull your damn foot out!” Oliver ordered.

  “I can’t.” In fact, she could. Her thrashing had broken the boards that had originally pinned her foot. If she tried, she could easily pull her foot out, but she felt safer out there on the porch than with him in the house.

  Monaco waved from the couch in the living room. “Sofia! Did you come to party?”

  “We’re in danger, Monaco,” Sofia called. “Come help me.”

  Monaco laughed her donkey laugh and rested her head on the back of a ratty brown sofa. She was going to be about as helpful as she always was.

  “You can’t hurt her,” Sofia said. “Her father will come after you with everything he has. He’ll contest any will. You’ll be tied up in litigation longer than Anna Nicole Smith.”

  “Will I?” Oliver laughed. “How would you know that? You’re not a lawyer. You didn’t even play one on TV.”

  “That’s a good one.” She forced a laugh. Every second she kept him talking gave Aidan time to find her. Or maybe a car would pass by and the driver would see the drama playing out in the front yard. “I know because he told me so today.”

  “You visited my father?” Monaco lifted her head again. “In the big house with the ocean view? Isn’t Bristol adorable?”

  “That guy really knows what he’s doing,” Sofia said.

  “We hired him away from a British noble house,” Monaco said. “He costs a fortune!”

  “Totally worth it,” Sofia said.

  “Stop talking!” Oliver waved the gun at Sofia. “And start moving.”

  “The police will be all over you and your mother,” Sofia said.

  “Like my mother knows anything.” Oliver grimaced. “Pull your foot out.”

  Maybe Polly was innocent. Maybe she did think that Craig had died of an overdose, just like everyone else did.