by Lou Harper
“Chester’s stash? The stuff he blackmails people with?” Kat spoke slowly, like someone talking to an imbecile.
Olly was eager to prove he wasn’t one. “Oh. Jimmy must’ve taken it.” It seemed so obvious now. Why didn’t he think of this before?
Kat didn’t seem impressed. “Of course, but where?”
The memory of him and Rich—delicious ginger cupcake Rich—spying on Jimmy Boy floated back to Olly on pink clouds. “His mother’s house? I don’t think Jimmy’s very smart.”
A not so pretty sneer twisted her pretty face. “Well, something we agree on. Do you have an address?”
Olly racked his brain, and the address slowly came back to him. Kat jotted it down and patted his cheek. “Good boy,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere.” She tittered, and Olly realized it must’ve been a joke, since his limbs didn’t work too well.
Kat left the room, and Olly just sat there like a big melon-headed thing. He remembered how his roommate Dylan cut a hole into a melon once and poured half a bottle of vodka into it. A few hours later, they cut the watermelon up and ate it. It was cold and melon-y, and they got totally wasted. His head felt just like that. Olly’s pocket buzzed, and it took him several seconds to puzzle out that it was because of his phone. With great effort, he fished the thing out and stared at the screen: a missed call from Rich, and a text too. His fingers fumbled, and he managed to open the text window, but his eyes wouldn’t quite focus. He tried to send a reply, to tell Rich about his head being full of vodka.
The phone flew out of Olly’s hand and way across the room. He stared after it dumbly before even registering Kat looming over him. She wasn’t happy. Quite the opposite. “None of that shit!” she yelled at him. She had something in her hand. Something dark and decidedly unfriendly—a gun. “Get up. We’re going for a little ride.”
Olly didn’t want to. “I don’t wanna.”
She didn’t seem to care. “Well, you have to. See, I lost my temper a little when your friend came by unannounced. Such rude behavior, don’t you think? So now he’s at the bottom of a ravine, where he belongs, but unfortunately, my car got dinged up. I could report it stolen, of course, but it would be a little suspicious. But here you are to help me out of this jam.”
“Huh?” None of her babbling made any sense to Olly.
She sighed. “It’s so simple—you stole my car and drove your buddy off the road, and then crashed yourself. Everything’s wrapped up nicely, see?”
Her story made no sense to Olly. “But I haven’t—”
“Not yet.” She grabbed Olly and yanked him to his feet. “C’mon, I have a nice spot for you just down the road.” She jammed the gun into his ribs. “Move before I change my mind and just shoot you.”
Olly tried to explain his legs were made of rubber, but she wouldn’t listen. Instead, she clasped the back of his T-shirt and shoved him toward the door. They barely made it to the car when his knees gave out. To keep him from crumbling to the ground, she shoved him against the car and held him there one-handed. That was when Olly noticed a figure dressed in black climbing over the gate. A figure with bright red hair. Olly’s chest swelled with an emotion so powerful he thought his ribs would crack. Rich was here to save him, and Olly had a deep suspicion he was in need of saving.
Unfortunately, Kat noticed Rich too. There was an explosion of sound and a metallic clang as the bullet hit the gate. Rich dropped to the ground and rolled into the shrubbery.
“How fucking many of you are there?” she growled, and then raised her voice in Rich’s direction. “Stand up, or I’ll shoot this one!” She pointed the gun at Olly. Rich emerged from the bushes. “Hands in the air! Come closer.”
As Olly stared at her face, he saw the laser focus of her eyes, and he had a moment of clarity: Kat was going to turn the gun and shoot Rich as soon as Rich got close enough. She’d kill Rich and cover it up God knows how. Sharp pain bit into Olly’s chest as he watched Rich inching forward with hands held up, eyes skipping around as if searching for options.
As the pain drilled harder into his sternum, Olly realized it was not just fear but also the coyote-fang charm pressing against bone where Kat’s hand held him against the car. His mind lurched into action, spinning words: fang, tooth, sharp… Yes, he knew what to do. He mustered enough strength to grab Kat’s hand, yank it off his chest and bite down on her wrist as hard as he could.
Kat screamed and jumped, letting go of Olly. Unsupported, Olly started to slip. Rich leapt forward, but Kat swung her gun hand around and fired in Rich’s general direction. Olly couldn’t tell if he was hit but heard a grunt as Rich jumped and rolled behind a tree.
“Police! Drop the gun!” The shout came from the gate, where a familiar figure stood with his gun drawn and pointed at Kat. Detective Cooper. How Detective Cooper got there, Olly couldn’t fathom. He must be hallucinating, he decided as his ass hit the ground.
Kat must’ve hallucinated the same thing, because she stared toward the gate with an expression of pure hate. She turned the gun in that direction and squeezed the trigger. Two deafening bangs sounded almost at once. Detective Cooper remained standing. Kat too, but only briefly. She stared in disapproval at the red stain spreading across the front of her blue dress before toppling over.
In the distance, Detective Cooper was scaling the fence, but right up close, Rich filled Olly’s view. “Are you hurt?” he asked. His eyes were huge, his face etched with worry.
“You came,” Olly mumbled and threw a hand over Rich’s shoulder. “My hero.”
“Idiot,” Rich grumbled back, still patting Olly for nonexistent bullet holes. “Why the hell did you come here? And what the fuck happened?”
Olly wanted to tell Rich everything, but his thoughts lay in a messy, wriggling heap. “My head is a melon, and she poured vodka into it. No, tea. There were drugs in it.” He knew he was telling it wrong. He tried to focus on the important things. “She killed Jimmy, I think, but she didn’t know who Chester was.”
“Drugged you with what? How long ago? Olly?” Rich’s voice seemed to come from farther and farther away.
The world was slipping away as Olly’s vision blurred, and soon all he could make out was Rich’s hair glowing like fire in the sun. And he knew. “You’re it. You’re the flame,” he said and passed out.
Chapter Twelve
The shootout was just the beginning of all hell breaking loose. The fire department’s EMS truck arrived within minutes, as if they were already in the neighborhood. Good thing too, because Rich was teetering on the edge of a meltdown. Olly refused to wake up, and Rich didn’t like the way he was breathing either.
Observing the paramedics’ swift competence gave Rich a measure of relief, though dread kept gnawing at his insides. He wanted to go with them and Olly, but he was rebuffed. At least they told him to which hospital they were going. By the time they left, the place was swarming with cops and emergency vehicles of all sorts.
Rich was stuffed into the back of a police cruiser, where he had too much time to dwell on worst-case scenarios. He had no idea why the crazy bitch drugged Olly and tried to shoot him, but shuddered at imagining what could’ve happened if he—but mostly Detective Cooper—had arrived a few minutes later. Since he wasn’t handcuffed and nobody took his phone away, Rich called his sister. To her credit, Sandy didn’t waste time on scolding Rich—for the time being—and instead promised to rush to the hospital to be with Olly and keep him posted. Knowing she’d be there helped Rich to keep his shit together.
At long fucking last, Detective Cooper came around to take his statement. This time Rich told the detective everything that had happened since he and Olly met. He swore he was going to turn himself in—not that the cop had to believe a word—but went for a ride first to clear his head, and then had the overwhelming urge to see Olly again.
“What is the nature of your relationship?” the detective asked.
“We’re lovers.” Rich clenched his jaw, and his fight-or-flight instin
ct swung toward fight. At the same time, he felt himself turning red.
Detective Cooper nodded and took a note. He was more interested in the photograph of Willard Keats and the other guy—the one Rich found in Kane’s house.
Rich handed the photo over but said nothing about the copy he’d put on his phone after promising Olly to turn himself in.
The dull pain Rich felt since landing on his shoulder from the gate had grown and was now throbbing. He pressed a hand at the spot and felt something sticky. Taking his hand away, he saw the blood. There was a rip on his sleeve too.
“Fuck, one of her bullets must’ve hit you,” Cooper said.
Rich shrugged his jacket off to discover the cop was right. The graze was deep enough to leave a scar, but far from life threatening. He was made to sit in the back of an ambulance while the young paramedic cleaned and bandaged the wound. The guy gave Rich the royal treatment, but even so, there was only so much one could do to a glorified scratch. Rich was supposed to stay put, but he had other ideas. “Just gonna stretch my legs,” he said and slipped out of the vehicle.
Kat Fontaine’s house sat next to a twisty little road halfway up the hillside. The street was barely wide enough to let two cars pass, and the police and emergency vehicles clogged it up completely. Add the media and rubberneckers, and the whole place had turned into a three-ring circus. It wasn’t hard for Rich to slip away unnoticed. He needed to check on his bike—in his rush to find Olly, he’d left it behind Olly’s car, blocking a driveway. With his luck, it would get towed, or worse, stolen in the chaos. To his relief, Shadow was still there, and nobody even had lifted his helmet. On a sudden impulse, Rich got on the bike and rolled down the hill.
Richard’s intention was to go after Olly, but he got lost and found himself in Willard Keats’s neighborhood. The cops would be knocking on the old guy’s door soon, he figured. Maybe warning Willard about the embarrassing photo would be the kind thing to do. The Shadow glided to a stop in front of Willard Keats’s house practically of its own accord.
“You again,” Willard said, opening the door. “Did you need more help?”
“Uh, yeah. May I come in?”
“Be my guest.” Willard waved Rich in.
They took seats in the living room, the same as last time. Rich didn’t know how to approach the subject, so he simply whipped out his phone, pulled up the photo and handed it to Willard.
The old guy took it without surprise. His thumb brushed the screen, and a melancholy cloud passed over his face. But when he looked at Rich, his eyes were clear and sharp. “What do you want? Money? I don’t have much.”
Rich recoiled. “I’m not a blackmailer. Olly thought we should just give you the photo—the original one—but the cops have it now. They’ll probably want to ask questions. I thought you should know.”
“Ah.” Willard handed the phone back. “I’ve been expecting them to show up sooner rather than later,” he said calmly.
It was an odd comment. Olly’s words, “She didn’t know who Chester was,” drifted into Rich’s head. Between getting shot at and worrying about Olly, he’d assumed Kat Fontaine was Kane’s killer, but maybe not. The words spilled out of him: “You killed Kane.”
Willard laced his fingers together in his lap. “I’m afraid so.”
“But why?”
“So many reasons. You see, Chester and I were old…I wouldn’t say friends. Collaborator is a better word. Many years ago, he presented me with those photos—there was a whole set of them—and of course, wanted money. I paid him, naturally, but later offered a different arrangement. Instead of cash, I supplied him with information. Information he could use in lucrative ways. Hollywood is full of dirty secrets. Someone like me hears a lot of whispers, and I’ve been in this business long enough to know where the bodies are buried—figuratively speaking, of course.”
Rich was starting to cotton on. “And people trust you because you have your own skeleton in the closet.”
“Quite so. I must seem like an utter hypocrite to you, and perhaps I am, but I was selective about what to pass on to Chester. Too many people in this business get away with vile things they shouldn’t get away with. Like my darling niece. At least this way, they paid.”
“What about Sandy?” Rich retorted.
“I had nothing to do with that. As Chester got his taste for extortion, he found other sources as well. He must’ve gotten sloppy too, if you found him so easily. I feel responsible—I didn’t exactly create the monster, but I fed it.”
Rich felt like a man who’d gotten lost in the fun house. Nothing was as it seemed. He grasped for something concrete. “Your niece, Katie…Kat, she’s dead.”
“Is she now? How did it happen?” With one brow cocked, Willard displayed a mild case of curiosity but not a trace of shock or grief.
“A shootout with the police.”
Willard tsk-tsked. “She’s always been such a drama queen. A narcissistic, manipulative shrew, like her mother.”
“You were family.” Even as he said it, Rich was aware how naive he sounded.
“Yes, a family of vipers. Don’t waste your compassion on poor little Katie—she’d have none for you.”
Rich still didn’t understand. “But why did you decide to kill Chester now, after all these years?”
Willard unlaced his fingers. “I didn’t decide. It was a crime of opportunity. I arrived at his house in the afternoon, through the alley, as always, and found Chester in a fit. He was ranting about a thug having threatened him with physical harm. I take it he meant you. We went to his office, and I noticed the safe open. And there it was…” Willard spread his hands. “My chance for freedom from this repulsive lowlife. As he turned to close the safe, I grabbed that stupid fake Oscar statue from his desk—best photographer, my ass—and hit him over the head with it. He went down, and I hit him a few more times for good measure. In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“And you took the blackmail materials out of the safe,” Rich added as the scene played out in his head.
“Correct. I took my pictures and left the rest on the desk. I must have dropped the photo you found on my way out. I assume you went back later.”
Rich nodded but didn’t offer details. “But, what now?”
“A very good question, one I’ve been pondering since your last visit. I suspected then, when you asked about Chester, that discovery of my crime was only a matter of time. I considered my options. Suicide or—even better—an accidental death would be the most discreet solutions, but you know, I’m fed up with being discreet. Where has it ever gotten me? I’ll always be that guy whose name nobody can remember. But this…this is my last big chance for fame. Not the way I once envisioned it, but one has to adapt. Just imagine, the trial, the reporters. My face on the front page.” Willard pulled himself up straighter, and his eyes sparkled with excitement and anticipation.
“And you don’t mind your…uhm…predilection becoming common knowledge?” Rich asked.
“That I’m a homosexual? It’s time. I’ve been hiding too long. For fame and success and acceptance. What rubbish. I envy your generation—you have choices I didn’t.”
“Hm.” Rich had no idea how to respond. This whole exchange had knocked him sideways, and he’d already been off-kilter with worry for Olly. He needed to make it to the hospital. Unfortunately, no sooner had he stood than a loud banging came from the front door.
Willard pushed himself up from his chair. “Ah, it must be the police. Now excuse me. It’s time for my close-up.” The corners of his lips curled in a smile of self-mockery.
Chapter Thirteen
Olly woke up in a hospital room; that much was clear. Hospital rooms were immediately recognizable, not one of those places many people would ask where am I? It was a combination of the pastel walls, fluorescent lighting, smell of disinfectants, needle in your arm and tube stuck into your privates. You were either in a low-budget horror movie or a hospital. Olly picked the latter. A familiar face emerged
and loomed over him. “Hey, Nick,” Olly said as cheerily as he could lying flat.
Nick stared back reproachfully. “How are you feeling?”
Olly did a quick self-check. He could wiggle his toes, his fingers, and could feel his head. “My head hurts, and I’m thirsty.”
Nick helped to get the bed into a sitting position, and a woman Olly noticed for the first time pushed a cold sippy cup into his hand. She wasn’t a nurse—didn’t wear scrubs, for starts, and had the same eyes as Nick. Not the same color, but the same kind of sharpness. She introduced herself as Detective Stone.
“What happened to Detective Cooper?” Olly asked.
“He’s a little busy right now. I’d like to ask you a few questions if you’re up to it. Detective Davies assured me I’d have your full cooperation,” she added, inclining her head in Nick’s direction. She pulled out a notepad and pen.
Olly nodded eagerly but stopped at the first painful protest of his brain. “Yes, ma’am.”
Detective Stone had more than a few questions, but Olly answered them all to the best of his knowledge. He had to pretty much recount everything since the morning he pulled the first blackmail letter out of Sandy’s mailbox. The last thing he remembered clearly was being invited in by Kat Fontaine and given something to drink. After that, everything had gone fuzzy. “It was peach ice tea,” he said triumphantly after a bout of concentration.
“Anything else you recall?” Detective Stone prodded.
Olly shook his head gingerly. “There are vague images in my head. People shooting guns, maybe? Nah, I must’ve dreamt it.”
She shut her notepad. “Well. I have everything I need for now. But you’ll have to come into the station and sign a formal statement as soon as you’re able.”
“I’ll make sure he does,” said Nick, who’d been sitting back silently during the whole interview. Maybe he’d been sleeping. He looked like shit. As Detective Stone left, Nick moved and took the chair she’d vacated. He pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it onto Olly’s chest. “The nurses think you might want this back.” It was the coyote-fang charm. “They took it off when you were admitted.”