by M. Z. Kelly
I groaned. “Darby planted a seed, and it must have sprouted.”
She smiled. “I would have asked you to do it, even without the seed.”
“Because I have a way with women?”
“Because you’re professional.”
I sipped my wine. “Thanks, I think.”
A couple minutes later, the server brought Bernie back over to us. After the young man left and my dog settled at my feet, Olivia mentioned that the waiter was handsome. “Maybe it’s the wine working in my system, but if I was fifteen years younger and unattached, I might ask him to walk my dog.”
I chuckled. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”
She smiled before tipping up her glass. After finishing her drink, she said, “I don’t, and the truth is, I’m not exactly unattached either.”
“You’re seeing someone?”
“Martin and I are...just friends. So far.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s an ER doctor, UCLA. We met on a prior case. He called me over the weekend, and we got together for drinks.”
“It sounds promising.”
“I’m not sure.” Her gaze found me. “What about you? How are things with...is it Ross?”
I nodded. “I’m not really sure how things are going after my public display of nudity.”
“What?”
I took a moment and reminded her of my dinner, and Tex’s virtual reality goggles, something that I’d previously mentioned. “The damn things were so real it was like we were all really sitting around in the nude. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
As Olivia had listened to my story, she broke into fits of laughter. It ended with us ordering another glass of wine, along with dinner. After the server was gone, my boss continued to chuckle and, referencing Ross, said, “Maybe having a preview of coming attractions is a good thing.”
I was also feeling my wine and giggled. “Maybe.” I took a breath and a moment to control my giddiness. I burst into laughter again and said, “If what I saw with my goggles is any indication, it’s a very good thing.”
We both laughed until a couple patrons turned in our direction. Even so, it took us a couple minutes more to regain control. After the server came over with rolls and more wine, the conversation became more serious.
“Have you had a chance to talk to your mother since your meeting with Harlee?” Olivia asked.
“To tell the truth, I’ve been avoiding her. My mom has kept a lot from me over the years. I’m not sure I can believe anything she tells me.”
“Do you think she knew Harlee was in her house?”
“I doubt it, but...” I took a breath. “As you know, my mother never told me I was adopted until recently. She also wasn’t forthcoming about my adoptive dad possibly being involved in the drug trade with Ryland and the others. And, my mother is the same woman who had an affair with my adoptive dad’s killer, after she and dad had separated and before Ryan Cooper murdered him. Like I said, I’m not sure anything she says is believable.”
Olivia said she understood, before sipping her wine.
I went on. “I’m also still having trouble accepting that my biological father is a terrorist.”
“I’d wait on drawing any final conclusions until you have all the facts.” She set her glass down. “I’ve also got a lot of parental baggage, if you’re interested.”
“Of course.”
“Earlier today I told you that I hated lawyers and politicians, and that my father was a lawyer. I was telling the truth.”
I saw that her eyes had misted over as I waited for her to continue.
“My father was a sadistic monster who abused me for years. My mother watched it happening and never intervened.”
“I’m so sorry.” I sighed. “Do you...are you still in contact with him?”
“The last time I saw him was on my sixteenth birthday. He beat me after I came home a few minutes late from a date. I found his gun in the closet and came close to killing him. We haven’t spoken since I dropped the gun and left home—for good.”
“And your mother?”
Olivia’s dark, wet eyes fixed on me as she shook her head. “We have no relationship. I can’t forgive her for...for letting my father hurt me.”
I reached over and touched her hand. “I understand.” Maybe it was the talk of family, but my half-sister came to mind. I told Olivia that I’d never known Lindsay existed until a few months back. “My sister saved my life by killing her own father. Now she’s in a witness protection program for trying to take down the Swarm.” I brushed a tear. “Lindsay’s a hero, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever see her again.”
It was Olivia’s turn to offer me some emotional support. “I have a feeling you’ll see her again someday. I wish I could say the same thing about my sister.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s dead. I think my father murdered her, but I can’t prove it.”
“Oh, God. That’s horrible.”
Her smile was wistful, her eyes full of tears. “It’s a strange thing about sisters. Even if they’re gone, there’s one thing that never goes away. It’s called love.”
THIRTEEN
“I’d better be going now,” Haley said, getting her purse off the counter. “I shouldn’t be too late.”
“You’re not going to tell me where you’re going, are you?”
Haley met her sister’s eyes in the mirror and shook her head. “It’s better that you don’t know until...until everything’s over.”
The drive into the Hollywood Hills to the house on Wonderland Drive took Haley less than twenty minutes. She pulled to the curb, studying the residence. As children, she and Lizzy had thought of the rambling two story house as the castle on the hill. She laughed, remembering that as girls they had pretended they were princesses, waiting for their princes to come through the front door.
As they’d grown older, just before the transformation, because the house overlooked Hollywood, Haley had thought of the place as being like the set of a film, waiting for someone to call action. She imagined that she and Lizzy were actresses about to play a part in some grand movie.
There was also comfort in the old house. She remembered sitting on one of the outdoor verandas with Lizzy, imagining they were in some exotic faraway place where danger lurked just outside. She credited her father with that feeling of being safe from the forces of the outside world.
Haley remembered that her father sometimes played scratchy old jazz records in the living room. She recalled there was somebody named Thelonious Monk who he liked. She laughed, thinking at the time that the name meant he was some kind of religious figure. When she told Father, he’d explained that the musician was one of the jazz greats of all time.
That summer, her father had died, and everything changed. The next year, their mother had taken them to what she called “her summer place on the ocean”. Every night was like a pageant or a parade as different men came to the house to see Mother, each of them roiling with heat and lust. Haley remembered them calling her “baby”. It sickened her to even think about it. The only good thing was that it gave her and Lizzy time to be on their own—maybe too much time, as it had turned out.
“STOP.”
The door to the past slammed shut. Haley forced herself to focus on the task at hand. She had posted her picture on a website called Partygirls. The man, the one she was seeing tonight, had called a couple hours later. It would be her first date as a working girl, also the first time she would be with a man since that night she’d been with Donny.
“I want you to meet me at my house,” Haley had told the man when he’d called. “It’s on Wonderland Drive, overlooking the city.”
“Your house. Are you sure?”
She gave him the address, adding, “I promise it will be special, and we won’t be interrupted.”
Before making the date, Haley had driven by her childhood home, realizing it was vacant. She knew then it would be the perfect place to
avenge Lizzy’s murder.
Haley went around to the rear of the house and used a brick to break a window. When she was inside, she realized the home was still furnished. She went upstairs to her parents’ former bedroom and decided it was the perfect place to meet her date.
When the man arrived, he called himself “Doug”. She knew that wasn’t his real name, but it didn’t matter. He was a big man, probably in his thirties, with oily brown hair and a bad complexion.
“Tell me what you like,” she said to him, remembering she’d heard a prostitute saying the phrase on some TV show.
After some small talk about things that disgusted her, Doug went to his car. When he came back, Haley saw that he had one of those masks like she’d seen at a Mardi Gras celebration on TV. Then she saw he also had some chains.
“I want to use these,” Doug told her.
She had no idea what he meant. “For what?”
He laughed, showing off his crooked teeth. “I like the way you play. Let’s go to the bedroom, and I’ll show you.”
When they were in the upstairs bedroom, Haley realized what he wanted. She was supposed to let him affix the chains to her wrists and ankles and then tie her to the bed.
“No,” she told him. “I can’t...”
His hand came down, slapping her across the face. “You do as I say, or else.”
“Okay...” She managed to catch her breath and move away from him. “First, I need to change.”
He moved toward her again, running his hands roughly over her body. “You look fine to me.”
She forced herself to smile. “I think you’ll like what I have in mind.”
He released her and studied her for a moment. “Make it quick. I have big plans for you.”
She moved into the bathroom and found the duffle bag she’d brought. She quickly slipped out of her dress, so that she was wearing nothing but her stockings, bra, and heels. She then took a moment, finding a shirt to cover her chest.
“You can’t do this.”
Haley turned, seeing her sister’s reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was the first time she’d seen Lizzy outside of her house. “Why are you here?” she demanded.
“Because you don’t understand. The transformation, it was...”
Haley covered her ears. “Stop. I won’t listen to another word. He will pay for what he did to you!”
There was a sudden pounding on the door.
“Come out, or I’m coming in for you!” Doug yelled.
Haley turned back to the mirror. “I have to go.”
Even as her sister begged her to leave the house, Haley ignored her and moved back into the bedroom. She saw that Doug was nude and had a partial erection. It disgusted her.
Doug was watching her, backing away, maybe in admiration at what she was wearing. Then she saw his gaze move to her chest as he said, “I’ve got to admit this was worth waiting for, but why the shirt?”
She forced a smile. “It’s something for you to remove.”
He tossed the chains on the bed, then reached over and pulled off her shirt. Haley saw his eyes fix on the oozing, bloody wounds on her chest. “What the fuck?”
A smile found her lips. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like what you see?”
“What the hell happened to you?”
“The same thing that’s going to happen to you, only worse.”
She moved quickly, pulling a scalpel from behind her back and raking the blade against his neck. As the blood spurted across the room and the man screamed, Haley laughed.
“That’s for Lizzy!” she yelled. “Now her transformation is complete.”
FOURTEEN
I turned into the Starlight Mobile Home Park a little after seven, still thinking about Olivia telling me that her sister had been murdered by her father. She’d told me that Amy was found strangled in an alleyway a block from their home almost twenty years ago. Her fourteen-year-old sister and father had argued a couple hours before her body was found. Olivia said there were no other suspects, and, while nothing was ever proved, she had no doubt that the monster who was her father had killed her only sibling.
In a short period of time, Olivia and I had become good friends, sharing some of the most intimate details of our lives. I realized that we had a special bond, one that in some ways had been forged long before we met, over the losses we’d suffered as children. My thoughts surfaced when I turned onto my street and saw Natalie piling boxes into a car in front of her mobile home.
I parked and went over to her with Bernie. “What’s going on?”
“Thanks to Krump, we gotta be outta here in less than forty-eight hours,” Natalie said. “Mo got the okay for us to move into the Craven House this weekend, so we decided to use Mo’s Caddie as a moving van. Tex has got some room in his hearse if you wanna throw in a few boxes.”
Tex’s car, a one-time hearse still emblazoned with the caption Muldoon’s Mortuary, was parked across the way. “I don’t know. I’m tired and have an early day tomorrow.”
Mo was on the porch and overheard our conversation. She came over and said, “You don’t got a choice, Kate. Krump’s gonna dump you and Bernie’s stuff at the curb the day after tomorrow if you don’t get with the program.”
I sighed. “I’ve only got a few boxes packed, so give me a couple minutes.”
After stacking a half dozen boxes in Tex’s hearse, he followed us as we began making our way toward the Mount Olympus neighborhood above Hollywood in Mo’s Caddie.
As she drove, Mo mentioned the Peters case. “I heard through the grapevine you guys are lookin’ at Mel’s hookups for the crime.”
“Maybe Mel had an issue with the equipment one of them gigolos she was seein’ brought to the party,” Natalie suggested as she swiveled toward the back seat and began running a hand through Bernie’s fur. “It could be she wanted her money back and things turned ugly.”
“We’re still looking at everything,” I said, trying to be noncommittal.
Mo’s dark eyes found me in the rearview mirror. “Just so you know, I heard there was somethin’ else going on.”
“What’s that?”
“Not sure, but from what I heard, Mel was involved with more than just a herd of gigolos.”
“Do ya call ‘em a herd or a gaggle?” Natalie asked her. “Seems to me you’d call ‘em a gaggle of gigolos.”
“I’m not sure,” Mo said. She looked at me again. “I think you gotta expand your horizons.”
“Any idea who we’re talking about?” I asked.
She shook her head. “All I know is that you’re lookin’ for more than one person, and...” She looked at Natalie. “It’s a bad gaggle.”
My friends went on for a minute, speculating that Mel’s killer was everyone from the Swarm to a group of drug dealers. When we got close to the Mount Olympus neighborhood, the conversation turned to the weekend’s upcoming move.
“Tex and Howie are gonna help us move stuff,” Natalie said. “Since they get easily distracted, it will probably slow things down a bit.”
“With them two involved, it’ll probably take all day,” Mo said. She glanced at me. “Maybe you should see if Ross can help us out.”
I hadn’t talked to Ross in a few days and wasn’t sure if I wanted him helping us move, given my recent virtual nudity escapade. “I’ll see, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Mo’s plumber’s also gonna stop by,” Natalie said. She looked at Mo. “Maybe you two wanna make dibs on the decapitation room.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her.
“The master bedroom. It’s where Bobby Craven sliced off his parents’ heads, before goin’ downstairs and takin’ care of the rest of the family.”
“I heard that bedroom is haunted,” Mo said. She looked at me in the mirror again. “I think you should take it.”
“That’s a great idea,” Natalie said. “Maybe Kate can make friends with Maurice and Lola.”
“Who?”
&nbs
p; “Bobby’s dead parents. From what I heard, they’re ghosts and are crazy and scary as hell.”
I sighed. “I can’t believe I agreed...” I stopped talking in mid-sentence, my eyes growing wider as I saw a dilapidated house looming up the street. “Don’t tell me, that’s it?” I said as Mo began slowing down.
“It just needs some paint and yard work,” Natalie said. “Hey, maybe we can do one of them makeover programs and spruce it up, call the show Fix It or Fuck It.”
“Or maybe just get a bulldozer,” I said.
As we stood on the sidewalk, I took a moment to try and wrap my head around the house that would soon be our new home.
The Craven House was a two-story colonial residence, with a porch that ran the entire length of the front façade, and a brick turret on one side. Dead vines had grown up along the porch and up the turret, giving the impression that several long black snakes were slithering their way up the dwelling. The shutters were loose, several windows were broken, and gray paint was peeling off the exterior siding. If all that wasn’t bad enough, the property was complemented by dead shrubbery and grass. It gave me the impression of a bombed-out dwelling like you might see in a war zone. If a character from a Steven King novel lived in Hollywood, this would be his house.
“Let’s give Kate the grand tour before we unpack,” Natalie said after we got out of the car.
Mo agreed. “Yeah, maybe she can perform an exorcism before we move in.”
“Hey, that’s a great idea.” She looked at Mo. “Remember that woman who did a house cleansin’ for Nana a while back? Maybe we can get her to come over.”
As we made our way up the steps and Mo unlocked the front door, she said, “I think what we need here is a helluva lot more than a cleansing.” She looked at me. “Especially if Kate ends up being possessed.”
“I doubt that’s going to happen,” I said as the door swung open.