by Greg Herren
There were plenty of write-ups about Amanda’s arrest and my shooting, the discovery of the baseball bats in the back of her car, her past issues with mental illness—but there wasn’t any mention of the girl she’d killed in high school; what was her name again? Oh, yes, Deborah Holt.
I did a search on her name, not expecting much to come up—after all, she’d died in the early days of the internet; the best I could hope for was maybe some archived things—and sure enough, her funeral announcement popped up as the first thing on the list. I clicked on it. It was from the Times-Picayune, complete with what had to be her junior class photograph.
It was odd, but…she looked familiar.
She’d been about Rain’s age, but I don’t think she’d been friends with my sister. I remembered most of Rain’s friends from high school, and almost all of them went to McGehee with her. I would have remembered if she’d had any friends from Newman High School. I read the obituary quickly: grandparents and parents, a younger sister, Ilana.
I did a quick search on her parents—both were dead; one in the late 90s, the other in 2003.
Of Ilana Holt, there was nothing other than that funeral notice, and those of her parents.
How weird was that?
I got up and made another cup of coffee, dumping the grounds out of the reusable pod and refilling it.
Something just wasn’t sitting right with me about any of this.
Sure, Amanda had confessed, but why would she have killed Eric? And why kill Megan? Megan was happily married, not involved with Billy Barron at all; and why would Amanda want to kill Megan now, after all these years, if the motive was to make sure no one was around who knew she’d killed Deborah? Megan and Fidelis had been around for years, so why now?
Amanda got in touch with me, wanted to see if I wanted to do the show. I wasn’t sure why she thought of me, but I wasn’t interested. I told her to get in touch with Rebecca.
That was what Jane Barron had said, wasn’t it?
Even if Amanda was involved in the casting, why would she kill Eric?
It didn’t make sense.
I’m sure the district attorney, the network, and the cops were thrilled to have the case solved and wrapped up in a nice little bow, with Amanda as the fall girl.
That didn’t mean she’d done it.
I signed into Traceanyone.com. It’s a website mostly for private eyes—you have to scan your license and submit it with your application to join, and it’s like a hundred dollars a year—but it comes in handy when you’re trying to trace someone. It follows Social Security numbers and tax returns around the country, so no matter whatever your name is, if you file your income taxes and pay bills from an address linked to your social, it’s listed.
I typed in Ilana Holt, New Orleans and did some quick math to figure out year of birth.
Ilana had left New Orleans for New York, had had several addresses over the years in the city, varying from Manhattan to Queens to Brooklyn and back to Queens again.
But there was an asterisk next to her second New York address. An asterisk usually meant something like a name change, and if you clicked on it, it would take you to another page about the name change. Usually, it meant the person had gotten married.
I clicked.
I rolled backward in my chair.
September 14, 2004. Name legally changed from Ilana Holt to Sloane Gaylord.
Sloane Gaylord.
Sloane Gaylord.
Chapter Twenty-five
The Tower
Selfish ambition about to come to naught
Sloane Gaylord was behind everything.
My hands shaking slightly, I reached for my cell phone and scrolled through my past calls until I found Brandon’s phone number.
But this time, he answered.
“Scotty?” He sounded pleased. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you back. You can’t imagine how insane things have been since Friday night.”
Oh, I can imagine quite easily, actually. “Well, I’m glad you answered this time.”
“I’m so happy you called. I wanted to call you once I heard about…what happened yesterday at Margery’s, but I wasn’t sure…I wasn’t sure if I should.” He swallowed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay, doing better today.” I shifted a bit in my chair and winced as pain from my side knifed through me. Maybe I should take a pill.
Deal with it, Scotty. That’s how addictions get started. It’s just a little throb. Tough it out.
“I’m so sorry, I mean, I’ve never known anyone who’s been shot before, you know?” He hesitated. “I mean, I really liked you when we met and thought we’d made a connection—”
A connection? Are you fucking kidding me?
I lifted my sweatshirt and looked at the bandage. It was dry, so the wound hadn’t opened. Another pain shot through me, so intense I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming.
“And maybe when you’re better we could have dinner or something?” He sounded breathless. “I mean, since it looks like the show is getting picked up for another season, and I’ll be taking over for Eric.” He sounded triumphant. “I just got the call from the network. It’s temporary, of course, they have to do a search for a replacement, but if I’m already doing the job…and let’s face it, I was already doing the job…” He continued babbling on in the background as another intense throb radiated out from the wound. I gripped the desk edge with both hands, breaking out into a cold sweat.
And it faded away like it never happened.
See, you didn’t need a pill.
But what if it comes back? It’s getting worse.
Take a pill, a voice whispered in the back of my brain.
“Well, congratulations.” I said, breathing a little harder than I should have been. “We definitely should celebrate when I’m better.”
He clicked his tongue. “That Amanda Lautenschlaeger, right? I knew there was something off about that woman. And to think, she killed Eric and three cast members! You wouldn’t believe how crazy things have been with the network since Saturday…social media is exploding! It could be our highest rated franchise ever, but we’ve got to figure out now how to do a reunion and what the best way to recast for the second season would be and…”
I closed my eyes as he kept rambling on about the network and the decisions that would have to be made about the show, and when he finally paused to take a breath, I said, “How well do you know Sloane Gaylord? How long has she worked for Eric’s production company?”
“What?” I could hear him inhale. “Why? What does Sloane have to do with anything?”
“Sloane Gaylord isn’t really Sloane Gaylord,” I said, my side starting to throb again. My racing heartbeat was probably making the wound hurt, so I needed to calm down. I took some deep cleansing breaths, focused on slowing my heart rate.
Focus, Scotty. This is important.
“What do you mean she isn’t Sloane Gaylord? Look, don’t you live in the lower Quarter?” he asked. “Why don’t I stop by and we can talk?”
“I—” I almost screamed as the pain came back again. I tilted the phone away from my mouth and began breathing rapidly, little bursts of air to control the pain. I needed to just relax and breathe, not give into the temptation to take a pill. “Okay.” I gave him the address. “Text me when you get here and I’ll buzz you in.”
I didn’t want the buzzer to wake Frank.
“On my way!” Brandon hung up.
The pain was getting incredibly intense. I had to stop several times as I hobbled down the hallway to the bedroom, catching my breath, trying to take deep breaths, trying to focus on something, anything, other than the pain and the dull ache and the throbbing, but it wasn’t helping, nothing was helping. I needed another pill. It seemed to take me forever, but I finally made it to the bedroom and there it was, sitting on my nightstand on my side of the bed, that magic brown bottle with the label on the side and I resisted the urge to get over there as fast as I could with
out reopening the wound and instead shuffled slowly. I opened the bottle, shook out one of the little white pills, and held it in my hand for a moment, looking at it.
Trying to decide whether I should take it or deal with the pain instead. Opioids were highly addictive, after all, and once the pills were gone…
There was a bottle of water on the nightstand. I washed the pill down with it and waited for the pain to go away.
Frank was still snoring, so I shut the door behind me while I waited for Brandon to show up. The entire time my mind was racing from thought to thought.
It couldn’t be a coincidence all these years later that Deborah Holt’s younger sister was involved in production of the show, and three people who’d been peripherally involved in Deborah’s death had been murdered. I didn’t have any evidence, but I knew I was right—call it intuition, my gift, whatever—I was positive Sloane was behind everything. Maybe she hadn’t swung the baseball bats herself, but there was no doubt in my mind that Amanda had been manipulated by Sloane into killing the other women.
It all made sense. Sloane was involved with casting, worked with Eric, saw her chance to get even with everyone. Sloane must have been the one who approached Amanda, tried to get her on the show, get her help with casting. Amanda, of course, would have wanted her old friends from high school on the show, and hey, why not Billy’s stepmother?
And his current mistress?
Sloane could have whispered poison into Amanda’s ear, knowing she was mentally unstable. And if Amanda hadn’t taken her bait, there was no reason why Sloane couldn’t have done the murders herself and framed Amanda. Amanda would go to jail, and the people involved with the cover-up of Deborah Holt’s death would all be dead.
But where did Eric fit into this? Had he figured it out, somehow?
Sloane certainly would have had a key card to Eric’s room.
But could Sloane really be a criminal mastermind? A master manipulator? She was so bland and colorless, barely saying a word unless addressed directly.
It could have all been an act, of course.
No, it couldn’t be. It had to be a crazy coincidence. If she wanted revenge on all these people because they’d killed her sister all those years ago, or helped cover it all up, what a weird plan to come up with: cast a reality show in New Orleans, get everyone involved in the murder all those years ago cast on the show, and then start killing them all.
And where did Eric’s murder fit into all of this, if it fit at all?
But…if you took Eric’s murder away from the equation, it all could fit together.
Eric’s murder was the outlier.
Maybe…maybe Eric’s murder wasn’t connected? We all assumed it was because all the victims were connected through the show.
Or maybe I just wanted to believe they were connected because that moved any suspicion away from Taylor.
I felt a little nauseated. Wasn’t that what they call confirmation bias? I so desperately wanted to believe Taylor hadn’t killed Eric that I was making connections that weren’t necessarily there…oh Goddess. That couldn’t be the case, could it?
Didn’t you overlook all the evidence pointing at Colin when it was patently obvious to everyone else he’d murdered my uncles?
“But he wasn’t the killer,” I whispered. Sure, years later, Colin had been cleared of any responsibility in those murders…but this might not be the first time I’d refused to see something that was right in front of my face.
I heard movement upstairs and glanced at the ceiling.
You’re being completely ridiculous. And even if Taylor DID kill Eric, it was justifiable. The guy drugged him and was going to RAPE him.
The pain pill is fucking with your mind.
I walked over to one of the windows and pushed it open, unlatching the shutters and looking out.
It was gray outside, but it was also definitely snowing. Big, fat, wet flakes, like in every Christmas movie I’d ever seen.
Shivering, I pulled the shutters closed and slid the window back down. I just had time to make it back to the kitchen when my phone buzzed.
I’m downstairs.
I hit the intercom button. “Brandon?”
“Hey, Scotty, yeah, it’s me.”
“Follow the walk to the courtyard, and then come up the back steps to the third floor, and knock,” I replied, pressing the unlock button. I heard it buzzing and kept holding the button down until I heard the big metal door slam back into place.
That was one of the rules Millie and Velma had insisted on—always listen until you hear the door slam shut.
The door was spring-loaded, so it would slam itself shut, but there was still always the possibility that someone could leave it slightly ajar, so the lock wouldn’t catch.
And then anyone could come in.
Ordinarily, I rarely just buzzed someone in. I always went down and made sure it was someone I wanted to let in.
But I didn’t want to wake up Frank, nor did I want to try the stairs with my injury and having just taken a pill that was making me feel a little loopy.
Besides, it was snowing outside. I might not go out of the house again until spring.
I did, however, put on my trench coat and walk back down to the end of the hall. I opened the back door while I waited for him to make it up the stairs. I couldn’t believe what I could see from the doorway. The courtyard was a winter wonderland. The fountain had frozen, and the ice had a coating of snow. It was a big wet heavy snow, too. Usually snow in New Orleans is a very brief phenomenon—and it’s usually just a light dusting that melts once the clouds clear and the sun comes out. The roof of the shed was covered with it, and so was the roof of the parking garage. I heard his footsteps before I saw him, and then he was there, his face red with the cold and his nose running slightly. I opened the door to let him in and he smiled at me as he wiped his nose. “I’d hug you, but I don’t want to hurt you,” he said as we walked down the hallway. He had a cup of steaming coffee in one hand. “I thought it didn’t get cold here?”
“Well, not like up north, no, but it does. This is unusual.” I showed him into the living room “Can I take your coat?”
“I’ll keep it on for the moment, I’m really cold.” He flashed that handsome smile at me again, and I couldn’t help but smile back. He really was ridiculously good looking. “So you were saying something about Sloane?”
I sat down, wincing a little bit. “Sloane…it’s a long story, but her real name is Ilana Holt, and she’s from New Orleans originally.” I rapidly explained how her older sister Deborah had been killed by Amanda for the crime of dating Billy Barron. “Megan and Fidelis helped Amanda get away with it—they were all friends,” I went on. “They helped hush the whole thing up, made it seem like an accident. And now, all this time later, here’s Sloane, working for the show, and the people who killed her sister are getting murdered.”
“But how does Chloe fit in?”
“Chloe was seeing Billy, and Billy said it was getting serious,” I said. “Billy thought she was ready to leave her husband, and he was ready to marry her.”
“But wasn’t he also sleeping with Fidelis?”
I took a deep breath and felt a bit of pain in my side again. “I think Sloane was either manipulating Amanda into killing everyone…” My voice trailed off. What had sounded so good in my head didn’t sound so brilliant now that I was saying it out loud.
Brandon smiled at me. “Or maybe Sloane was killing the people who killed her sister, and Amanda took it upon herself to kill Chloe, since she was her main rival for Billy.”
“But that doesn’t explain—” I stopped, because for the second time in less than twenty-four hours I was looking down the barrel of a gun.
“You really are more than just a pretty face, aren’t you?” Brandon said, shaking his head. He was still wearing his gloves—of course. And he’d left his coat on because the gun was in the pocket and he needed access to it.
Seriously, I can be incredib
ly stupid at times.
“Your nephew, of course, wasn’t the first person Eric drugged.” Brandon rolled his eyes. “You have any idea how humiliating that was for me? ‘We can’t tell anyone we’re a couple because the network will make me fire you, Brandon. We can’t tell, we have to be secret, we have to’…”
Brandon.
And Eric.
I felt sick.
“And the whole time he’s drugging these people, having sex with them, paying them off or getting the network to pay them off. Oh, the bodies I’ve helped buried for that little prick! All the while waiting, waiting, because he promised to make me a producer of the next show. And then it wouldn’t matter and we could be an open couple…and then came New Orleans and, ‘oh, Brandon, we’re not ready for you to produce just yet, the network won’t go for it.’” His eyes narrowed. “Which was bullshit, because I had someone…well, Eric wasn’t the only person who could use his body to get what he wanted.”
“Sloane had nothing to do with any of it,” I said slowly. “You did it all, you killed them all, to cover up that Eric was the real victim.”
“I take it back. You’re not that smart,” Brandon said. “I knew Sloane, she’d worked for us for years. She’s smart. Of course, Eric never took her seriously. She’d been trying to get us to do a New Orleans show for years. And when we did, she took a big part in the casting. It didn’t take long for me to figure out she was up to something.” He laughed. “Also not as smart as she thinks she is. Once I knew she was trying to use this season to get those bitches to admit they killed her sister and covered it up…well, she was like putty in my hands. Why count on them confessing on camera when you can just kill them all?” He waved the gun. “Sorry about your nephew; Eric wasn’t supposed to go out that night. He was supposed to stay in. I was going to kill him that night. Sloane had stolen the bats from Billy’s when we’d filmed there, and I had one of them. Sloane was going to kill Fidelis the next night, and then Megan, and we were going to plant the bats in Amanda’s car.”