Malicious

by Jacob Stone

  Margot said, “Luv, don’t take it personally.”

  “You sandbagged me, sweetie.”

  “Just a teensy bit. Besides, all’s fair where ratings are involved!”

  Morris waved to her as he walked off the set. Parker grabbed what was left of the bone with his mouth, and trudged along after him.

  Chapter 45

  The killer had taken off his sneakers so he could sneak more quietly, and he didn’t make a sound as he crept over the hardwood floor in Stonehedge’s bedroom. While his eyes had acclimated as much as they could to the dark, it was still pitch black in the room. He felt around the wall until he found the controls for one of the window blinds. He cracked the blind open, letting in enough ambient light from the moon so he could see Stonehedge and Brie Evans lying on the bed. The actor was curled up on his side in a fetal position, his back to his girlfriend, while Evans lay on her stomach. The top sheet and blanket had been kicked off so that the killer could see that the lovebirds had gone to bed au naturel.

  The killer made his way to Brie Evans’s side of the bed and stood enjoying her nakedness. She was going to be the shapeliest and loveliest of his dominos. The killer had watched Brick earlier that night on TV, and while Brick had continued to make outlandish lies about the killer engaging in necrophilia, he was right about him never having had a girlfriend. But that didn’t mean the killer was a virgin, only that he never wanted anything more than hookups, and the reason he didn’t enjoy the other actresses he took was because he’d been too busy with his plans. As he studied Brie Evans’s curves and the delightful shape of her ass, he decided this time would be different. Since everything would soon be coming to an end, he was going to enjoy her body before he transformed her into his final domino.

  But enough of that.

  The killer had brought a dishcloth from Stonehedge’s kitchen, and he balled it up in his right hand and then injected Evans in the shoulder with a healthy (or really unhealthy!) dose of pentobarbital. Her eyes cracked open. For a moment, she was too groggy to understand what had happened. But as she realized that there was someone else in the room with her and Stonehedge and made sense of the sharp pain that had bit into her shoulder, her eyes opened wide. Before she could scream, the killer sat on her and took hold of the back of her head while at the same time pushing the dishrag against her mouth. A soft, muffled sound came out, but not enough to wake Stonehedge. Still, she tried to fight him, but the barbiturate was already working and robbing her of her strength, and within minutes she was out cold.

  The killer’s original plan had been to take her and leave Stonehedge unharmed, but that was before he watched Brick on TV. The lies Brick told were bad enough, but to call his plans today imbecilic was more than the killer could bear. He had researched Brick for months, and he knew Stonehedge and Brick were friends. That wasn’t why he needed to use Evans as a domino—that was just a lucky coincidence—but because of what Brick had the audacity to say on TV, he was going to do whatever he could to hurt that smug bastard ex-cop. Which meant his plan had changed, and he was no longer going to leave Stonehedge alive. The next message the killer left Brick was going to be painted in blood on Stonehedge’s bedroom wall.

  The killer removed a hunting knife from its sheath and tiptoed to the other side of the bed. He positioned himself so he could slice open the actor’s throat once he pushed him onto his back, but as he was reaching for Stonehedge’s shoulder, the actor rolled over onto his other side.

  Fine, the killer thought, you just made it easier for me. He reached across Stonehedge’s body so he could put the edge of the blade against the actor’s throat, but a hand wrapped itself around the killer’s wrist.

  The killer tried to pull his hand free, but he was positioned awkwardly and had no leverage. Stonehedge’s grip felt like a vise as it tightened.

  “Your breath woke me,” Stonehedge murmured as if he was still struggling to fully wake up. “It smells awful. Like cheap cat food.”

  The actor was twisting the killer’s wrist as he rolled himself onto his back. The killer thought his wrist was going to break, and he had to clamp his mouth shut to keep from screaming in pain. He didn’t want Stonehedge picking up the knife, so instead of dropping it, he flung it as far as he could and heard it clattering on the wood floor.

  The actor was now raising himself as he continued to twist the killer’s wrist. Their eyes locked. “You sick freak,” Stonehedge swore. With his free hand, he punched the killer in the nose. The killer’s eyes began watering, and he tasted his own blood as it streamed out of his nostrils and dripped down his face. When Stonehedge reached back to punch him again, the killer poked him in the eye. The actor released his wrist, and the killer fled from the room.

  His wrist felt like it had been broken, and things had not gone as planned, putting it lightly. Surprisingly he had remained calm throughout the ordeal. It was meant for him to take Brie Evans, and because of that he knew he would prevail as long as he didn’t panic. But he now needed to lure Stonehedge out of the bedroom and toward the kitchen. When the killer had been there earlier, he saw plenty of sharp knives he could use, and as he heard the actor’s footsteps racing behind him, he couldn’t help grinning.

  That’s right, the killer thought, you’re too angry right now to think clearly. Good. In another few seconds, I’ll be grabbing a butcher’s knife and cutting your heart out.

  A loud explosion made the killer nearly tumble to the floor. Less than a heartbeat later he felt something hot and deadly whizzing by his ear. Stonehedge had a gun and was shooting at him.

  The killer’s grin froze on his face, becoming something sickly. In a split second, he knew everything had been turned around. He was no longer the predator but the prey. He let out a yelp and dove to the floor, somersaulting forward as another explosion rocked him. Something primal deep inside him told him that he would’ve been shot dead if he hadn’t done that. Momentum sent him rolling back onto his feet, and he was then racing to the front door. He reached it without being shot, and seconds later he was fleeing from the house, his heart thumping wildly in his chest.

  He knew Stonehedge wasn’t giving up. He could hear the actor behind him. It would be a long run down the private drive to the security gate, and the killer knew if he tried going that way he wouldn’t make it. Instead he turned to race around the house. When he felt another bullet whizz by, it only made him run faster.

  The killer made it to the back of Stonehedge’s property. He heard waves up ahead breaking violently against the beach, and the moon provided enough light for him to see that he was racing toward the ocean. He couldn’t see much else, and he had no idea that there was a thirty-five-foot drop to the beach below, at least not until he ran off the cliff.

  * * * *

  Philip Stonehedge had slowed down to a walk when he saw the freak was going to trap himself at the cliff’s edge. While he had raised his gun, he had decided he would give the freak one chance to surrender before shooting him dead. The last thing he expected was for the freak to run off the cliff.

  He stood stunned as the freak appeared suspended in midair. Then Stonehedge remembered the gun and got off a shot. He was a good thirty yards away, and in the dark he couldn’t tell whether he had hit him. If he hadn’t, the drop to the beach below was thirty-five feet, and that might do the job. Or at least break one of the sonofabitch’s legs.

  The actor jogged to the cliff’s edge, being careful not to tumble over himself. It was too dark for Stonehedge to see if the freak was lying sprawled out on the sand below.

  Stonehedge had no way of getting down to the beach, other than jumping like the freak had. He needed to call the police. He remembered then that he was naked, that he didn’t have his house keys or cell phone, and that when he left through the front door, he had closed it behind him so that it would lock and the freak wouldn’t be able to double back and get to Brie.

  Shit.
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br />   But he still had his gun. He walked to the glass patio doors with the thought of shooting one of them and shattering the glass. He needed to call the police about the freak, but he was also worried about Brie and getting an ambulance for her. Before he had chased after the killer, he had checked on her. She was breathing, but she was out cold, and he knew the freak must’ve drugged her with something.

  He aimed his gun and shot into one of the glass patio doors. It didn’t shatter. All he did was put a small bullet hole through it.

  Shit.

  He had no choice about what he had to do next. The shrubs and trees and other natural fencing between his property and his neighbor’s was too dense for him to cut through, even if it was daylight and he was wearing clothes. He’d have to run barefoot and naked an eighth of a mile over the loose gravel surface of his tree-lined private road and hope that the power had been cut off only to his house and not the security gate also. He knew that the freak had cut off the house’s power when he had tried turning on lights and nothing happened. If the security gate was still functional, he would be able to alert the police from there. Otherwise, he’d have to hike a half mile to one of his two neighbors, and then knock on their door in his current state of undress.

  Shit.

  He sprinted off in the direction of the security gate, and tried to ignore the stitch that had developed in his side and the loose gravel biting into the bottom of his feet.

  Chapter 46

  Morris made it a habit to turn his cell phone off before he went to bed. That night he not only kept his phone on, but he kept it next to his pillow like he had read many teens were doing these days. He didn’t expect to have to instantly respond to a text message like these teens did, at least according to the article he had read, but he wanted to know if anything broke with the investigation. It wasn’t just MBI and the LAPD working on it anymore. Because of the stolen M60s showing up in those vans, and the threat that the killer also had a crate of hand grenades and six hundred pounds of C-4, teams from the ATF, FBI, and Homeland Security were involved. Morris had also learned that in addition to the FBI hitting a dead end with the Kansas armory theft, their two top suspects had been found dead five days afterward in a Wichita motel room.

  Since he’d been expecting a call, he never fell into a deep sleep, and was in a restless state when the phone rang. He was awake instantly although his eyes weren’t focusing well enough yet for him to read the caller ID or see what time it was. He answered the phone before it rang a second time, and asked the caller in a raspy whisper to give him a minute. From the light breathing noise Nat made, he knew she was asleep, and he didn’t want to disturb her, so he pushed himself out of bed and headed for the hallway, his legs stiff. Once he had the bedroom door closed behind him, he squinted again at the phone and could see that it was Annie calling, and that it was three forty-seven. He felt his pulse quicken. Something had broken. Annie wouldn’t be calling at this hour otherwise.

  He headed down the stairs so he could start brewing some coffee. He needed his fix of caffeine before heading out. “I’m all ears,” he said.

  Usually that got a laugh out of her because one of the ways Morris resembled his dog was that he had big ears that also stuck out. Not this time, though.

  “The killer broke into Stonehedge’s Malibu residence and attacked Stonehedge and his girlfriend, Brie Evans.”

  Morris had reached the bottom step, but he stopped as a coolness flooded his head. “Are they okay?” he asked, his voice not quite right.

  “He tried to cut Stonehedge’s throat, but the bastard lost the fight, and your buddy escaped mostly intact with only significant injuries to his dignity. The jury’s still out on Evans. He drugged her with something. She was unconscious when the paramedics arrived, and has been taken to Encino Medical Center.”

  Morris concentrated to recall the drugs the killer had used on his other victims. “I’m betting he drugged her with either pentobarbital or Rohypnol,” he said.

  “I already called the hospital and mentioned that to her doctor.”

  “Okay. What about the killer?”

  “Stonehedge punched him in the nose and bloodied him up pretty good, leaving us plenty of DNA. He also took several shots at him, but apparently missed. The bastard escaped when he jumped off the cliff in back of Stonehedge’s property.”

  Morris was moving again, and at that moment stepped into the kitchen. He grabbed the coffee pot and brought it to the sink. “That’s quite a drop,” he noted.

  “Thirty-five feet.”

  “You said he escaped. So the fall didn’t kill him?”

  “Unfortunately, no. If it injured him, it didn’t injure him enough. By the time officers arrived at the scene, he was gone. Tracks led a mile down the beach, and it looks like he then cut through private property to get back to the road. We’ve got calls to all the emergency rooms in the area to be on the lookout for him.”

  Morris couldn’t help feeling disappointed. If only the sonofabitch had fractured his spine or broken a leg.

  “What was that about Philip and his dignity?” he asked.

  “When he chased the killer out of the house, he did so sans clothing. He also locked himself out.”

  “And of course he didn’t have his cell phone.”

  “Nope. No pockets to put it in.”

  “His security gate has a police alert code. So he had to hike out to the road.”

  “Except the killer had cut power to the property, which also disabled the security gate. This left him having to take a stroll along the East Coast Pacific Highway and buzzing one of his neighbors. Except the neighbor didn’t answer the buzzer, and with Stonehedge now panicking about Brie Evans, he jumped the gate and ended up pounding on the neighbor’s front door.”

  “Without any clothes.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I get the picture. Where are you now?”

  “I’m at Stonehedge’s residence with the crime scene team.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “How about you going first to the Encino Medical Center? That’s where Stonehedge is. You can interview him more thoroughly.”

  Morris had started the coffee, and when it was done brewing he’d fill up a thermos and take it with him. He kept a change of clothing downstairs just for this contingency.

  “I’ll be leaving in five,” he told Walsh.

  “I’ll let you get dressed and do whatever else you need to do, and will fill you in more when you’re on your way.”

  Chapter 47

  “They weren’t answering their buzzer, so I hopped the gate and miraculously didn’t damage any of my privates dangling free. When I get to their house I’m freaking out, and not only because that psycho’s on the loose, but I’m worried sick about Brie. At least I had the presence of mind to drop the gun before I start pounding on their front door. But you still have to picture it. I’m in the buff, soles of my feet bleeding from running on all that gravel, and wild-eyed with worry. When my neighbor answers the door—a seventy-year-old tigress by the name of Lucinda who’s been flirting with me ever since I moved in—I try telling her it’s an emergency. She’s been eyeing me up and down, and she cuts me off, saying she can see that, but now’s not a good time. That her husband’s asleep in their bed, and she wouldn’t be able to relax knowing he might wake up and catch us, so it would be better for me to come back the next day when he’s golfing.”

  Stonehedge broke out laughing then. He was in much better spirits since Brie’s doctor told him they were able to identify that she’d been drugged with pentobarbital, and that they now had her on fluids. While she was groggy and would need to be under observation for the next twelve hours, she was no longer in any danger.

  His laughter was short-lived, however, and he shook his head as if he were amazed by the memory. He continued telling Morris what happened.


  “I’m in no mood to try to explain to her that I’d been attacked by the psychotic murderous freak who’s been terrorizing LA or that Brie could be dying from whatever he injected into her, so I push past her, and head to the kitchen where I find a phone. She follows me and is staring at me as if she’s not sure whether she should scream, grab a knife so she can defend herself, or rip off her clothes for me. I guess she realized what was happening when she heard my end of the 9-1-1 call. So after I get off the phone, I ask if she can please bring me something to cover myself with. And she asks, ‘Do I have to?’”

  “Quite a story,” Morris said. If he found the story at all amusing he wasn’t showing it. Instead, he was looking somewhat melancholy. “I can’t help thinking this was my fault.”

  “How’s that?”

  “That I egged him on with my appearance last night with Margot Denoir.”

  “Why would that matter?”

  “This guy researches everything. He knows we’re friends, and he wanted to do something to hurt me.”

  Stonehedge made a motion with his hand brushing away Morris’s concerns. “A psycho’s going to do what a psycho’s going to do. Not your fault, Morris. This freak knew what he was doing. This wasn’t something spur of the moment. He must’ve scoped out my house and been planning this for some time. Besides, you warned me that he was targeting actresses who looked like Brie. If you hadn’t I wouldn’t have been sleeping with a gun under my pillow. I can’t believe I missed him all four times I shot at him.”

  “It’s harder than it looks in the movies to hit a moving target, especially in the dark and when you’re running also.”

  Stonehedge started to make a face as if he were disgusted with himself, but ended up grinning. “That’s right, blame us actors. How come you didn’t bring the little guy?”