Box Office Poison (Linnet Ellery)

by Bornikova, Phillipa

  He jerked me up and dragged me back to Vento’s stall. Dirt and sawdust from the breezeway filled my shoes, and my skirt was rucked up around my waist. He grabbed my left hand in a crushing grip, forcing the gun into my hand, and my forefinger through the trigger. His thick finger pressed mine painfully against the metal of the trigger. With his free hand he gripped my chin, keeping my head still. I fought him, but I was no match for his bulk or his strength. The barrel of the gun approached my temple. At least he had picked my left hand, I thought in what were my final seconds. John would have known instantly that it was murder since I was right-handed. Maybe someone else would make the connection. David?

  I closed my eyes and felt the cold kiss of metal on my temple.

  21

  A whuff of warm air across that top of my head ruffled my hair. Vento telling me good-bye. I choked on a sob. From overhead there came the sharp tink of metal breaking under enormous pressure. My eyes flew open just as the stall door went sliding to the right. Without that support against my back I toppled backward into the stall with a strangled, startled cry. Charles struggled to hang onto me, but his weight also pushed me back.

  There was the glitter of light on steel shoes as Vento’s hooves struck out over my face. One hoof took Charles in the head, the other hit him hard in the chest. He gave a high-pitched scream as the gash across his forehead gushed blood, blinding him. He lost his grip on the pistol and went scrabbling away on all fours, trying to elude the maddened horse. Vento went sailing over my head in pursuit of my would-be killer, his belly a flash of white.

  The man was yelling, but it was hard to hear beneath the fierce scream of an outraged stallion. Other horses, terrified by the noise, the smell of blood, and the rampaging stallion, began to spin in their stalls and whinny. I managed to sit up in time to see Charles clamber to his feet and stagger toward the door. But Vento wasn’t going to let that happen. He pushed the man hard in the back with his head and sent the thug sprawling. What the fuck, I thought? The only other time I’d seen anything like this was on a vacation out west when I’d watched a mare crush a rattlesnake that had entered her pen. Not that Charles wasn’t as dangerous as that rattler, but how could a horse know that? Vento reared, a terrifying sight, and came down onto the man’s back with both front hooves. There was an audible crack. The stallion continued to strike out, battering the limp form beneath his feet.

  I tore the gag away, ripped off the belt that secured my legs, and struggled to my feet. I ran to the horse, arms outstretched. “Whoa, whoa, boy. Easy.” I kept my voice low and soothing. “What a good boy. Easy now.” The long head swung back to look at me, and the wild light faded from the deep brown eyes.

  The horse turned away from the limp form and minced gingerly over to me. His front hooves were stained with blood. I swallowed hard. I threw my arms around the powerful neck, and hung on for dear life. Vento turned his head so he had me wrapped in the curve of his neck, his version of a hug. His nostrils flared, blowing warm breath across my back as his sides heaved with his frantic breaths. He was wet with sweat, his skin was hot, and I pressed closer because I was suddenly shivering. A sob burst from my chest. Over the chorus of frightened whinnies I heard the sound of car engines, one very close and one more distant.

  A dark figure loomed in the door of the barn and ran toward me. “David!” I ran toward him and collapsed, sobbing, against his chest. His arms closed around me, pulling me close. He pressed his lips against my temple. He was cold, but the embrace was comforting in ways I couldn’t explain.

  “Linnet. Dear God.” He looked over at the still form lying in the breezeway. “What happened here?”

  I gestured at Charles. “He was going to kill me. He and Qwendar. Make it look like suicide.” I wiped an arm across my streaming eyes and my running nose. “But Vento saved me.”

  David’s expression was a study in confusion. “Wait. I’m lost. That’s not Qwendar.”

  “No, that’s Charles, a guy he hired.”

  “How do you know his name?”

  “Qwendar used it. Why are you asking me that?”

  He pressed a hand against his forehead. “You’re right, that was stupid. I’m just so…” He shook his head like a boxer shaking off a hard uppercut. “Why don’t you put the horse away. Let me take a look at this fellow.”

  It made sense. I took Vento’s halter off the hook by his stall, slipped it over his head, and started to lead him back to his stall. But the sight of the blood on his hooves was too disturbing. I took him into the wash rack, thinking I would clean his feet.

  David knelt next to Charles and pressed the tips of his fingers against the man’s throat feeling for a pulse. He looked up at me and shook his head.

  “He’s dead.” I shivered, turned on the hose. “Don’t!” David snapped. “We have to call the police and we have to preserve the evidence.” I hesitated but turned off the water.

  “You won’t let them hurt Vento, will you? He saved my life.”

  At that moment a man dressed in jeans and a pajama top, his bare feet thrust into tennis shoes, came running into the barn. “Jesus Christ!” he swore when he spotted the body.

  David stepped forward, all competence and control. “Are you the manager of this facility?”

  “Yeah. My house is on the other side of the property. I heard the horses going crazy and drove over. Who are you? And who’s he?” he gestured at the body. “And who’s she?”

  “We need to call the police,” David said.

  “Yeah, I guess we do.” The barn manager pulled out a cell phone and dialed 911. I led Vento back to his stall. David joined me. We slid the stall door closed together. I automatically went to clip it shut, but couldn’t find the clip. David bent and picked it up out of the dirt and sawdust. It was a metal clip, and the metal was twisted and broken at the hasp.

  “It’s like the horse twisted it until the metal fatigued and broke,” the vampire mused.

  “And then he pulled open the door,” I said. “That’s what saved me. That guy was about to pull the trigger when I fell backward.”

  David looked around and spotted the pistol, half obscured by sawdust. He put an arm around my shoulders, led me over to a tack trunk, and sat down with me beside him.

  “I don’t know a lot about horses, and no disrespect to this one, but doesn’t that rather make him the Einstein of horses?”

  “I don’t know … yes. I think he just sensed that I was terrified.”

  “Before the police arrive, start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”

  “When I got off the plane there was a man—him,” I pointed at the dead man. “Waiting at the baggage claim with my name on a card.”

  “And you just went with him?” David exploded. “A total stranger, and you—”

  It was irrational and unfair, and I snapped, “Hey! When we arrived last month you just got in a car with Kobe, a total stranger. People do it all the time. And I thought you might have sent a car for me. Stupid to have expected that, I know.”

  He was offended. “I was coming to pick you up!”

  “You were? Oh. Sorry. How did we miss each other?”

  “The airline overestimated how late the plane would be. You were gone by the time I got there. But go on with your story.”

  So I did. When I got to the part about Qwendar trying to force me to write a suicide note using his magic, I stuttered and became reticent. I wanted time to process what Qwendar had said before I shared it with anyone else. Qwendar had only remarked on my seemingly miraculous escape from Jondin’s bullet fest, but he hadn’t known my entire history. He didn’t know about my equally improbable escapes from maddened werewolves. Escapes that had three different policemen in three different venues shaking their heads over my incredible “luck.” Now I had to wonder if it was luck, or if there was something about me?

  I cleared my throat and said, “He … he tried to get me to write a suicide note, but I refused. They would have had to hurt me to make me c
omply, and Qwendar wanted it to look like a suicide. That’s when he ordered the thug to stick the gun in my hand, and shoot me in the head. Then Vento happened, and then you arrived.” I ended with a vague gesture.

  After I finished David sat silent for a few minutes. “Clever. Devilishly clever,” he said finally. “Qwendar comes to me and tells me how he’s worried about you after the meeting with John, thus setting the stage for your suicide.” He made air quotes around the last word.

  “Would you have believed him?” I demanded. The idea that I could be seen as crazy and obsessed didn’t sit well.

  David gave an emphatic head shake. “No. Not a chance. You are sometimes—oftentimes—irritating as hell, Linnet, but you are indomitable. Nothing knocks you down for long. You’re like one of those damn punching clowns. The harder you hit them, the faster they bounce back up.”

  “I guess that’s a compliment,” I said.

  “It was.” An ironic smile twisted David’s mouth. “Not a very good one, I’ll admit.”

  I was back to thinking about Qwendar, John, and David. “So if Qwendar was using the meeting with John to set up the cause for my suicide, that means he’d been planning this for a while. Maybe he was controlling John and that’s why he said all those terrible things to me,” I added with a flare of hope.

  “I wouldn’t pin too much hope on that,” came the depressing answer. “The Álfar are notoriously inconstant.”

  “Look, I’m not in love with John or anything like that. I just feel responsible because he gave up his freedom for me and Destiny and Chastity…” I realized I was sounding defensive and I shut up and returned to a more pressing issue. “But how did you know something was wrong and how did you know to come here?”

  “One of your clients called me. Jolyon Bryce.”

  It was as if a line of ice water had run down my spine. I slowly turned my head and studied the horse that stood with his head hanging over the stall door. “He owns Vento,” I said softly.

  “He said his phone rang. It was your cell number and he could hear voices but couldn’t make out the words. There was something about the tone of the voices that alarmed him, and he heard horses in the background. He called the firm’s answering service, they called me, and I called him back. He caught me just as I was getting back to the hotel. Which put me close to the freeway, and at this time of night…” He checked his watch. “Morning. It didn’t take long to get here.”

  I stood up, went over to my purse, took out my phone, and studied it. “That doesn’t make any sense.” I checked the called numbers. The last call it registered was the one I’d made to David back in New York. “The phone doesn’t show a call to Jolyon.”

  “So maybe if it’s an accidental thing it doesn’t register it?”

  I shook my head. “They don’t work that way. If it had purse-dialed Jolyon it would have registered.”

  “I would say that’s the smallest mystery we have to solve tonight. However it happened it got me here,” David said.

  “I know, and I’m glad you came. I just don’t understand.” Vento nickered softly to me. I walked over and stroked his muzzle, and he pressed his head against my chest.

  Then the police arrived and things got interesting.

  * * *

  Detective Turnbow of the Burbank Police was not as sympathetic as Detective Rodriquez had been. He was a sallow-faced, narrow-chested man who moved like he was on stilts. He listened to my story with a sour expression, and when I finished he said, “So you were rescued by your horsey?”

  At this point it was five thirty in the morning. Adrenaline had given way to bone-crushing exhaustion, and diplomacy was just right out. David stirred in his chair, but I got there first.

  “Look, I’ve been kidnapped, nearly killed, and before all that I flew across the whole damn country. I’m the victim here. Yeah, and my horse saved me. He’s at least as smart as you and maybe even—”

  David laid a hand on my arm as Turnbow’s chest started to puff out and his face turned a blotchy red. “Are you trying to imply that Ms. Ellery was somehow complicit in this man’s death? There is blood on the horse’s hooves; it’s clear what happened.”

  “Well, let’s talk about this mysterious second kidnapper, this Álfar guy.”

  “Yes, he was the mastermind. He hired the driver,” I said.

  “Yeah, and he was at a pre-Oscar party in Bel Air. Which is miles away from the Equestrian Center. People saw him there.”

  “How many people were attending?” David asked.

  “Hundreds.”

  David’s lip curled with derision. “So, a mill-and-swill. People moving from room to room, even outside. Easy enough to establish you were there and then slip away.”

  “The people on the door checking invites said he never left, and the valet guys say he asked for his car at two thirty a.m.,” Turnbow said triumphantly.

  I jumped back in. “Are you just being deliberately obtuse or are you really this stupid?” I practically snarled. “Everyone knows that Álfar can move through Fey. In that crowd no one would have noticed him leave, and Fey doesn’t have traffic jams, and he probably had someone waiting to take him to the airport. He went back to the party the same way.” Putting it into words answered another question that had been nagging me about Jondin, but for once I didn’t confuse the issue by blurting out what I was thinking.

  “And your proof?”

  “I saw him appear out of Fey, and he said to the driver he had been establishing his alibi,” I said.

  “And the only person who could corroborate that is dead,” Turnbow said.

  David stood up. “We’re done here. Unless you are charging Ms. Ellery with something, I am going to take her home.”

  “I guess you can take her. But don’t leave the state.”

  David took my arm and swept me out of the interrogation room. I stumbled and he transferred his grip to my waist. The pressure hurt and I sucked in a breath.

  “What?”

  “I think I cracked a rib.” He removed his hand. I also felt that burning, hollow feeling that absolute terror bestows on your gut. “Is he going to charge me with killing that guy?” I asked.

  “No!” A single word and quite explosive. “No matter how improbable, it’s clear what happened, and I’m confident that Charles will be found to have a rap sheet as long as my leg.”

  “What about Qwendar?” I asked as we stepped outside. It was a relief to escape the odor of stale coffee, microwave burritos, and the inchoate smell of sweat and desperation. In the east a pale line of gray and pink road appeared, outriders for the coming sun.

  “You know the answer to that,” David said.

  “They can’t touch him,” I said leadenly. “But he can still reach out and touch me.”

  “I don’t think he’ll dare. If something untoward happened to you now, people would remember your accusations. And he would have me to contend with.” I looked up. There was something grim in his brown eyes, and his jaw was set in a tight line. “Let’s get in the car before the sun comes up. I forgot my umbrella,” he snapped.

  I scrambled into the car. It was a short drive to the Oakwood. As we headed down Riverside David suddenly said, “Are you hungry? You always seem to get hungry after one of these episodes.”

  “I could eat, but I don’t want to sit in a restaurant. I can’t face noise or people right now. There’s a donut shop on Pass Avenue,” I offered.

  David turned left at Pass and pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall that contained a bank, a grocery store, a tiny Japanese restaurant, a French bakery, and the donut shop. He parked in front of the donut shop, which was doing a rousing business. He nosed the Sebring in between a pickup truck festooned with a ladder and paint cans and a truck sporting lawn mowers, rakes, and leaf blowers.

  “What do you want?”

  “Why don’t you let me go in? The sun’s almost up.”

  “If you hurry and tell me I can make it.”

  “Glazed ra
ised, chocolate raised.”

  “Ah, comfort food,” he said, and throwing open the door he sprinted into the shop.

  He came back out a few minutes later clutching a paper sack that was already starting to show grease stains from the decadent, sinful goodness inside. By the time we reached the Oakwood the sun was up.

  “Wait here. I have an umbrella in the apartment,” I ordered.

  I took the donuts with me and trudged up the stairs and through the door into the hall, then unlocked the door of my apartment. I then headed back down with the large umbrella. Climbing hurt my ribs, and I noticed that my legs felt rubbery by the time I reached the parking lot. I opened the umbrella and held it for David as he got out of the car. It seemed that California was, at last, going to live up to its reputation as sunny.

  We got inside and I set the coffee maker to work. David pulled the blinds across the windows and sat on the sofa. As the coffee brewed he gave a deep, lung-filling sniff. “It’s the one thing I really miss. I loved coffee, and the smell is so powerful and unforgettable that I can almost remember how it tasted.”

  I arranged my donuts on a plate. The coffee machine finished its job with a hiss, a sigh, and a gurgle. I poured out a cup and settled in the armchair. The taste and texture of donut was pure bliss. And then I started shaking so hard I shook coffee over my hand. I quickly set down the cup and the plate and clasped my hands tightly in my lap. David stared at me with concern.

  “I just realized how close I came to dying last night. So everything seems extra special, from this donut to the coffee to sitting in a chair.” I sat silent for a moment. “I know it’s happened to me before, but those other times I was in the middle of a situation, I could run, I could try to do something. This one was worse because I was utterly helpless.” I gave myself a shake and picked up my breakfast, then set it down again. “And it goes deeper than that. I’m scared, David. I’m not even twenty-eight. If things like this keep happening, will I live to see thirty? What is going on?”

  He crossed to me, knelt at the side of my chair, and laid a cold hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know, Linnet, but if I can help, you know I will.”