by Jessica King
She grimaced. What type of person felt happiness at the thought of a new string of deaths caused by the same killer who took her mother? The hair on her arms prickled. and a chill slithered up her spine.
“I’m not insane,” she muttered under her breath to the tiny solar-powered flowerpot that had started to wave its leaves to greet the rising sun. The toy had been a trinket she’d moved from her mother’s desk to the department that waved to her every day.
“Okay there, crazy,” Vince said, taking another obnoxiously loud chip-crunch, and Ivy cut him a look. Vince just pointed to her printer, where a series of phone numbers was printing. “Handler, head of security, media manager—didn’t know they had those—and a friend I have over at Beverly Hills PD in case we need him.”
“Thanks,” Ivy said, plucking the paper from her printer.
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Sunday, February 12, 2017, 1:37 p.m.
Aline Rousseau’s home, nestled nicely within Los Angeles’s Platinum Triangle, far exceeded anything Ivy had expected. Though she was not one for grandiose decoration herself—her apartment was a ramshackle collection of furniture from Goodwill with every finish of wood imaginable, a display that had hardly grown at all since her college days—she had to hand it to the actress. White marble floors, weaving metal embellishments, and mirrored spiraling staircases…the place looked like it’d been pulled straight out of a Bond movie. Against the wall, a massive structure of tubes and tiny ladders made for hamsters was the only thing that could be considered tacky. Ivy saw one quick blur of fur disappear into an enclosed area of the structure.
“Detective…” Aline said, pushing past her security and a variety of other people Ivy couldn’t identify strictly from their attire. She held out a hand, and Ivy placed her calloused palm into Aline’s tiny—and somehow perfumed—hand.
“Hart,” Ivy said.
“Detective Hart,” she said. Her voice had a ghost of a French accent, catching Ivy off guard. Of course, she knew the actress had been born in France. But with her flawless American accent on film, she’d nearly forgotten.
“Vincent Benton,” Vince said, shoving past Ivy to capture the hand of the woman in front of them. He nearly bowed as he took it, and for a horrifying moment, Ivy thought he might kiss her hand and embarrass the entirety of the Los Angeles Police Force. He didn’t, but he still smiled a bit more than what would be considered a professional greeting. Aline’s fingers fluttered back to her side, playing with the folds of a kimono that hung off her petite frame. She was shorter than she appeared in her films and somehow more lovely in person. What was the word her mother had used to use for people like this? Aura. She had a nice aura about her.
“Vincent?” Ivy said in a breath as he passed her again, and Vince gave her a curt nod.
“My partner,” Ivy confirmed to the young woman, whose eyes were clearly looking for Vince’s badge.
She nodded, smiling politely. It was the exact same smile that she wore in a painting above the nearby fireplace. It didn’t quite look like the type of painting a rich villain in old movies would have perched above their own mantles, but it was close. Ivy didn’t think people invested in those types of things in real life.
“Emily Pearson,” a woman said, interjecting herself, her tone far deeper than Ivy would have expected after hearing Aline. Emily shook their hands, and it was nothing like the feather-light touch of the actress. “I’m Aline’s manager. I think we spoke on the phone?” The phone in question beeped twice before ringing, and Emily silenced it. “Sorry.” Her red-blond hair nearly covered her face as she looked down to silence the device.
“Yes,” Ivy said. “We have reason to believe that someone is after Aline.”
“After as in a death threat?” Emily said, narrowing her eyes.
Ivy nodded grimly. “Do you know anyone who might specifically wish her ill?”
“Not to sound too conceited,” Aline said, allowing herself a giggle that Vince echoed from behind Ivy. “But I do receive those often enough that I don’t take them so, ah, seriously?” She pointed to two rather haphazard mountains of mail stacked on top of the piano and against the wall beside the instrument. It might have been the only place in the whole house that wasn’t sparkling clean. “I try to answer as much as I can, but some of it isn’t exactly fan mail. People threaten to kill me for dying my hair two shades too light, so it’s fairly normal.”
“This one has a bit more of a solid base,” Ivy said, pulling papers out of her bag and handing them to Aline.
Ivy expected the woman to go cold and still as she viewed the printouts of accusations of her witchcraft and the pictures of Amber Woodward dressed up as her twin. But she didn’t. She simply nodded and pointed at things in the picture to the hulking man at her side when she deemed necessary. The house echoed with silence as they waited. Aline handed each page to Emily, who scrutinized every image with a careful eye.
“Well, she does look quite like me,” was all she said as she continued to sift through the information.
“The killer struck twice last night. Amber Woodward,” Vince said, motioning toward the printouts in Aline’s manicured hands, “and a woman who is referred to as being in a different ‘line’ of witches.” He scoffed after the word “witches,” as though he was trying to play off the taboo of the word. When the hulking man and the shorter bodyguard snuck an amused look at each other, Vince drug his toe across the floor, making a squeaking sound Ivy knew would leave a nasty black mark that would have to be scraped up later. Ivy held in a sigh.
Aline exchanged what was supposed to be a subtle look with Emily, though Ivy caught the extra meaning the look held. Aline moved her socked feet along the glittering white floor in sweeping movements, her toes pointed like a ballerina, perhaps her means of fidgeting.
“I would ask you to be entirely honest with me about your thoughts,” Ivy said, trying not to pry. Despite her training, she was still a bit starstruck if she admitted it to herself.
Aline swallowed loudly before looking up with sparkling emerald eyes. “As it would seem, Detective, I am a witch.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sunday, February 12, 2017, 1:58 p.m.
He knew how celebrities worked—he’d have to find a vulnerable moment despite the fact that Aline Rousseau had a whole team ensuring that she wasn’t vulnerable. Even if he made it into her L.A. home, he’d never make it out. It wasn’t his fault that his target was surrounded by gates, security cameras, actual security guards, and a mote. An actual mote in L.A. that was treated with chemicals so the actress could take an occasional dip if she fancied. The witch had a flair for the dramatic, apparently.
So, dramatics he would provide. She’d be most vulnerable in public, surrounded by chaos. He tapped at the fish tank, the only source of light in the room. It was a waving blue glow that cast steep shadows of his furniture onto the walls. The two lionfish cast him startled glances as though he were somehow distracting them from their world of fake coral and filtered water and nothingness. “You like me more, don’t you?” he said to the cockatoo waspfish, which fluttered along the bottom of the tank, skimming its fins along the pink sand and purple rock combination. He fished out a few of the small species he kept in the feeding tank, dropping them into the larger tank. The three fish attacked—their precision in hunting always a fascinating spectacle.
He sat back in his desk chair, a large forest-green leather chair studded with metal accents. He knocked again at the tank with his fingernails, and one of the stray feeding fish poked its head out from its hiding place among the coral, a mistake. He showed the fish a picture of his next target, wondering if they might try to attack it and bump into the glass. They didn’t, as much as he wished they would.
“You aren’t any fun,” he complained to them, letting the picture fall back to his own desk with the rest of the near-identical images.
A dart gun would be preferable, of course. There was something he really loved about those. Something animalistic and ta
ngible. A clear show of what had happened to the body. But it’d be too difficult, too risky.
He decided on a vintage weapon. Modern enough but fitting for the 1920s theme the Truly Twenties cast would be sporting. His choice in weapon would be a sort of homage to that time period. The decision was fitting, he thought, mentally removing the gun from the antique cabinet in the next room. If the witch dressed anything for the awards like she did back then, she’d be recreating the 1922 image of Ethel Miller that night nearly two hundred years ago. It felt like fate.
Sarah Pepper, he reminded himself. They were all Sarah Pepper.
He’d known about Aline Rousseau before he’d known about Amber Woodward. Amber hadn’t been his kill, but she’d been eliminated a mere few hours before his first kill—Atlas Hale. And he had to admit, he was nervous to kill again. The police had been close on his tail, simply jumping from one crime scene to the next. Even with his escape from the coffee shop going without interruption, he saw reports from the scene within an hour.
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Even if he got caught, he’d be doing this world a favor. Perhaps this was Sarah Pepper’s last life. And if it were, he would have completed a holy work, his life’s purpose.
He had every image of the Dolby Theatre he could find scattered across the table, including what his source had claimed was a “reliable depiction” of the theatre’s blueprints that he had paid handsomely for. It was a gorgeous structure with a seemingly simple design on the surface, though it held a certain complexity that he hoped would help him in the end. He grabbed the pen he’d been using to stir his coffee and began.
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Sunday, February 12, 2017, 2:04 p.m.
“You’re kidding,” Ivy said before she could swallow the words.
“I wish,” Emily said through her teeth, though she wasn’t trying to be quiet at all. She pulled out her phone and typed away at the keyboard, her perfectly manicured nails clicking against the screen. The massive amount of light streaming through the walls, which were almost entirely composed of windows, made the woman squint to see her own writing.
“I’m afraid I’m quite serious,” Aline said, laughing in an attempt to sound sheepish, and Ivy got the sense the starlet was not at all embarrassed. “It’s not necessarily something I talk about regularly with my fans, but they have their theories. Have you not seen them online?”
“Theories,” Ivy said, remembering the series of articles. Some had claimed that Aline was in cahoots with devilish forces, possessed by some sort of spirit after a cleansing ritual she’d participated in on vacation to Bali. One notable article claimed the actress had been using witchcraft through the screen on her viewers in her last film to brainwash them politically, despite the actress’s rather definitive silence on American policy. “But …”
“There are supernatural forces all around, detective,” Aline said, an angelic smile lighting her face. She held out her arms as if she might embrace said forces with her birdlike limbs. “They are constantly there, blessing us or cursing us. And we can guide their paths if we know how to do so.” And right when she spoke, a wind blew through the trees outside, making the many wind chimes the actress had outside twinkle in the sunlight and jingle in haunting melodies.
Ivy wished she could glue her teeth together; she was trying so hard not to let her jaw hit the perfectly polished marble floors. Meanwhile, she could see Vince nodding along in agreement at her side.
“Thought you were Catholic,” she said quietly, but her partner ignored her.
“I indulge in a few simple spells and potions,” Aline said. “Nothing major. Nothing I thought I’d be targeted for. It’s not so serious,” she said. “It’s more of a centering for my soul.” Her hand wrapped around what Ivy had originally assumed was a statement necklace: a vial of greenish liquid secured tightly to a feather and seashell. “I’m not affecting anyone else.” Her words firmed with resolve. “Perhaps if I release a statement…”
“Nope!” A young man who had not introduced himself piped up from behind the two security guards. He held two phones in his hand, and a tablet was somehow connected to his belt. “We will not be doing that.”
“I might, Nathan,” Aline said, flashing him a smile as she rolled her eyes. “Nathan doesn’t let me post much of anything.”
Nathan looked like an owl, all big blinking eyes and shocked brows. Nathan also looked like he might die if Aline merely touched either of the two phones, both of which were encased in glittering covers—one sparkling pink and one shining blue. He shoved the pink one into his back pocket so he could pick up the tablet. “Chef wants to know if you want fish or chicken.”
“Le poulet,” Aline said, holding out her hand.
Nathan’s body twisted in a way that said he’d truly fight to the death to keep her away from social media.
“I’m not posting,” she said. “I’m going to tell my mother I’ll call her later.”
Nathan handed over the phone he’d tucked into his pocket, though he eyed the star suspiciously as she started navigating through her cell. He pushed his thick glasses higher on his nose.
“While the population of L.A. might deceive you, Miss Rousseau, most of your fans in this country identify themselves as ‘Christian’ or ‘atheist,’ and with your part in the upcoming Paramount film in the balance—”
“Yes, yes, Nathan, I know,” Aline said, cutting him off with a flip of her hand. She returned her serene gaze to Ivy and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “If I do one thing to offend the gods of any land, I might as well dig my own grave.” She raised her voice back to its normal level and said, “Isn’t that right, Nathan?”
Nathan looked like he needed to visit a restroom, but he simply swallowed audibly, avoiding eye contact with Ivy and Vince.
Emily flashed a screen at Aline, whose eyes brightened. She clapped her hands with one loud slap and pressed her fingers to her lips. She started dancing in place, rising up on her tiptoes.
“Just beautiful,” she said, and Emily released a sigh of relief.
“Thank God, or no god, or the mother witch, I don’t care—” she cut Nathan a sharp look, “—because Julio has no more time for additional changes.” The way Emily said the name “Julio” seemed to indicate that the designer was a person she never wanted to spend any amount of time with.
“I’ll call him personally to thank him,” Aline said, casting Nathan a soft smile, who quickly set an alarm on the other phone.
“At least he likes you,” Emily said, shaking her head.
Aline turned the phone to Ivy and Vince. “The cast of Truly Twenties are all doing a sort of 1920’s look for The Academy Awards this year. It’s a bit tacky for a publicity thing, I think, but I want to look absolutely stunning for them.” She leaned in again, that look of mischief that suggested she trusted these two detectives she had just met above all others in the world returning. “I’m up for best actress this year, and I think I’ve got a good shot.” Ivy wondered if she did this to everyone, if this was why people liked celebrities—that uncanny ability to make an unknown person feel like a Someone. Vince offered his congratulations and compliments.
“Should I offer my blessings to the female goddess onstage if I win, Nathan?” she called over her shoulder to the young man who looked a nervous wreck.
His eye twitched. She flipped her light waves over her shoulder, producing a hairpin with a flower perched on it. She wove it through her hair with ease, pulling the stray strands away from her face in an elegant sweep. She strode over to the grand piano, pushing the mail to the edge before relaxing an arm on it.
“This is today, right?” she asked. “I wore the kimono.” She motioned to the floral silk draping over her dress. Aline pulled out a series of skincare products from a nearby box, placing them beside her on the piano. The design on the kimono matched the bottles, which Aline sniffed in turn, testing their contents on her arm. “Tingly,” she said to Emily, kicking packing peanuts away from herself.
>
“It can be today, yes,” Nathan said, setting the two phones on the armrest of a decadent couch that looked like it might swallow anyone seeking a nap for too long. “I’ll go get the Nikon.” He walked out of the room at such a pace that the slapping of his shoes woke a dog somewhere in the house, who started barking.
“I quite like him,” said Aline, pointing after the retreating assistant, and Emily rolled her eyes but smiled. “He’s fun to torment.”
Ivy couldn’t help liking the young woman and assumed everyone else felt that same draw. “Detectives, forgive me. It’s my day off, and I must have some fun.”
“Please do,” Vince said, his voice taking on a tone that Ivy nearly laughed at. He was trying to sound proper. Not proper, that wasn’t the right word. Prim, maybe. He was trying to sound prim like Aline.
A puppy came skittering across the floor, yapping about Nathan’s disturbance to her sleep schedule. Her ears nearly flopped to the floor, and Aline opened the sliding door, the dog rocketing outside. A whiff of sea breeze drifted into the room, lifting Aline’s hair just so, which Ivy had always believed to be a fake effect, but there it was. With the close of the door, there were two beeps, and Aline pressed a button on a keypad next to the locking mechanism.
“Should we consider bumping up security on this property?” she asked, motioning with an open hand to the two guards who had remained silent and almost entirely still since Ivy and Vince had arrived. They were exact opposites of each other—one short and squat and pale, the other tall and dark and muscled. They both gave Ivy the same close-lipped expression.
“That would be wise,” Ivy said. “Or even if you have another home, you might consider that. Or maybe sleeping in different rooms each night, varying your routine. He’s only killed one victim in their actual home—”