by Amy Vansant
“If you’re going to be chauffeuring me, we’re going to have to find another car.”
“I don’t know, man.”
“That was ungraceful and unacceptable.”
“I make it look cool.”
“Hm.” Rune sucked his tooth with his tongue. “What’s your name?”
“Joseph.”
“You know where Luther lives?”
“I do.”
“Okay, Joseph. Let’s go.”
Chapter Twelve
Catriona illuminated her phone’s flashlight so they could continue to mull their next steps around the body of the pretend commando. The glow in the darkened hallway made her feel as if they were a coven of witches gathered over a human sacrifice.
I’ll be happy when this freaky night is over.
Broch’s expression remained grim as he stared into the darkness. Somewhere in the maze-like warehouse a killer was on the loose, and they needed to find him before he claimed another victim. There was no real way to keep track of everyone at the party without throwing them all into a panic.
Mason had closed the door but remained inside with them, his haunted eyes still trained on the hand of the fallen fake intruder.
Catriona turned her attention to Konrad, whose fake invasion stunt she felt sure had added ten years of therapy to poor Mason’s future. “Tell me everything you know.”
Konrad sighed, looking glum. “Like I said, this guy was supposed to pull Jessica and a random guest in here, and then Jessica would lead the guest through the maze. He’d stay here and look threatening, until Jessica returned to take another guest. You get the idea.”
“So once someone talked to Jessica, they’d know it was a stunt.”
“Right.”
“What about the forty-odd people out there who didn’t see Jessica. Who only knew there were armed men at the door?”
Konrad’s jaw worked but nothing intelligible emitted. “Wha…well, they, uh...”
Catriona held up a hand to silence him. “Let me help you with this one. They’d be in a blind state of panic.”
“It was supposed to be thrilling.”
“There’s a difference between thrilling and terrifying.”
Konrad shrugged. “Not always. Especially now when people are so desensitized—”
“Please, spare me the commentary. We’ve got a room full of guests and a killer on the loose. I’ll read your dissertation later.”
Her face hot with anger, Catriona was about to launch into her own diatribe about how Konrad’s tendencies toward irresponsible party games were why Parasol Pictures had sent her and Broch in the first place, but she managed to stop herself. She needed to stick to the crisis at hand. Two women were god-knows-where having who-knew-what done to them. They had to move.
“Okay. Think. Jessica would have gone through here, right?” She hooked a thumb toward the dark hall behind her.
Konrad nodded.
Catriona took a step farther into the hall and tapped a wire spiraling down the wall. Feeling a prick, she gasped, whirling to face Konrad.
“You hired men with fake guns to force your half-drunk party guests through a maze covered in razor wire?”
Upper lip lifting with what looked like genuine horror and surprise, Konrad stepped over the dead man’s feet to tap the point of one of the barbs. His jaw dropped open.
“These were fake.”
Mason leaned forward to feel the wire, his expression resembling Konrad’s surprise. “It was fake. All through shooting. It was never real.”
“Is it mibbee yer faither is alive?” asked Broch.
Catriona looked at him. That’s it. The odd tickle in the back of her brain. Broch had put it into words.
Could Pinky still be alive?
Mason shook his head. “No. That’s impossible. Soto shot him dead. They took him away.” Mason’s voice fell to a whisper. “I had him cremated to be sure.”
Konrad put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Mason. This is just some copycat sicko.”
Catriona glanced at her phone. “I’ve got no reception. Does anyone?”
Konrad shook his head. “It’s not just this hallway. It’s the whole place. There’s no reception on the lot.”
“Is there a landline?”
“Outside in my trailer, I have a sat phone.”
Catriona’s eyes fell to the body at her feet.
“Did you get any threats during production? Any crazy letters?”
Konrad barked a laugh. “I could paper the walls of the grand hall with the insane stuff that showed up during production. Pinky had quite the following.”
“Great. What about the guests? Who are they? Anyone we should suspect?”
Konrad shrugged. “The cast, some press, some industry people I wanted to impress—”
Broch leaned down to whisper in Catriona’s ear. “We need tae git the fowk oot.”
Catriona snorted a laugh. “No kidding. I’d like to get the f—”
“Fowk.” He repeated. “We need tae get the people oot o’ ’ere.”
“Oh, folk. You’re right. Yes. First things first.” Catriona clapped her hands together. “Konrad, you and Mason get everyone out of here in a calm and orderly fashion. Use your sat phone to call the police. Call Sean too—the studio’s going to want to stay ahead of this publicity disaster.”
“Um...” By the glow of the phone, Catriona watched Konrad squint one eye as if he’d just suffered a gas pain. By now, she knew that meant he’d done something else stupid, yet to be revealed.
“What now?”
“They chained the front doors. It was part of the storyline.”
“What?”
“This guy...” He motioned to the man on the floor. “He locked the door behind the other two and then came through the maze backwards to get here.”
Catriona gaped. “Did it not occur to you at any point what a terrible idea that was? The fire hazard alone—”
Konrad pouted. “In hindsight...”
She turned and flashed her light in the direction of the razor-wire-covered hall. It continued for as far as the beam could travel.
“You’re telling me through here is the only way out?”
Konrad nodded. “The place is like a fortress. The real building only had two doors and we wanted to keep it that way for security.”
Security. That’s rich coming from you.
Catriona put her hand over her mouth, thinking. She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly.
This is bad. At least one of them would have to go through the maze and open the doors from the outside, while the rest of them kept the guests from wandering or, heaven forbid, trying the doors. If someone tried to leave and discovered they were locked in, the whole place would erupt in panic.
“We’ve got a real dead guy and real razor wire. Two women are missing. What other things might have become real in the belly of this mess?”
Konrad scratched his head as if it helped him think. “Not much. I mean, the real Minotaur in this maze was Pinky.”
Broch motioned to the man on the floor. “Someone is deid. Thare micht aye be a Minotaur.”
Catriona looked to Mason for input.
“Dad didn’t build a bunch of elaborate traps. There were some false doors, a couple access hatches like the one he used to cut Soto, but nothing super sneaky.”
Dad. Catriona sniffed at the use of such an endearing term to describe a notorious serial killer. Dad, who happily mutilated women the way other Dads played golf.
And Pinky loved golf, too.
It was all too weird.
She pointed to the door. “Konrad, Mason, you two go out there. Calm everyone down. Tell them everything up to this point has been part of your moronic vision. Give them food. Tell them stories. Do whatever you have to do. We can’t let the guests panic and storm the exits. If there’s someone in here pretending to be Pinky, we can’t let him pick off the party guests one by one as they make their way th
rough the maze.”
Konrad frowned. “I can’t feed them.”
“Why?”
“The food was coming from the trailers outside.”
Catriona felt a blip of hope. “Any chance the caterers will figure out something is wrong and call the police?”
“No caterers. I just bought a bunch of food. I was going to send my assistant out to get it.”
“And your assistant is where? Outside?”
Konrad shook his head. “He’s in the party somewhere serving drinks.”
Catriona frowned. “Just out of curiosity, what did you do with all the money the studio gave you to cater this thing?”
Konrad glanced down at the body. “I hired the actors.”
At a loss for words, Catriona lifted her hands in the air and dropped them to her sides. “Give them booze then. Just keep the guests calm. Get your actors with the fake guns to stand in front of the doors. Don’t let anyone near either exit.”
Konrad and Mason nodded.
Catriona pointed her phone’s flashlight down the hall. “We’ll find the missing girls, get out and unchain the hall door from the outside. Mason, is there a trick to this maze? A path we should take?”
He shook his head. “It isn’t a true maze. It’s just a path in and out. Do you want me to lead you?”
“No. Can’t risk a studio asset. You guys go. But Mason, I do have one favor to ask.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let Konrad do anything else stupid.”
Mason looked at Konrad sheepishly.
Konrad stretched a hand toward the door and then paused. “Cat, I was thinking maybe we don’t have to tell Sean—”
Catriona closed her eyes and shook her head. “No. You know the studio’s going to have to fire you for this nightmare, right?”
Konrad pressed his lips together. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sean raced his Jaguar down the desert road toward Los Angeles. Something wasn’t right, not even counting the bullet-sized hole in his hood, left by Rune during his attempt to kill him. He hadn’t died, but it had taken weeks to return the Jag back in working order. Poor old girl still looked terrible.
Bastard. Just because I lopped off his arm…
His near-death experience, compliments of Rune, had sent Sean spinning into the past. Luther had brought him home. Luther, his best friend, who’d never mentioned anything about an ability to time travel, showed up in eighteenth-century Scotland as if they’d bumped into each other at the supermarket.
Not that he wasn’t grateful. The past held nothing for him anymore. Now his life was here in twenty-first century L.A., where he could protect his son and adopted daughter.
But Luther could have said something over the decades they’d been working together.
I should have known.
Luther had seemed unfazed when Sean admitted he remembered living in ancient Scotland. The big man didn’t blink when Rune came after them and then disappeared into thin air after Sean separated his arm from his shoulder with a sword.
Why did I think Luther was just really laid back? How stupid am I?
It didn’t matter anymore. Now, he could get some answers. Clearly, Luther was the only person who knew anything about Sean’s family’s strange relationship with time and space.
The dinner was supposed to clarify everything.
But Luther didn’t show up.
Luther would never blow off a dinner invite without good reason. And with Rune possibly on the loose, Sean couldn’t sit at home hoping for the best. Catriona and Broch were safe playing bodyguards at Konrad’s party, so when his tenth phone call to Luther went unanswered, he hopped in the Jag.
Forty minutes later, he pulled to a stop in front of Luther’s modest bungalow not far from the Parasol Pictures studio. No lights shone inside. Sean glanced at his watch. It was a little after nine. It seemed early for his big friend to be in bed, but he himself seemed to go to bed a little earlier every year, and Luther was even older. Maybe a lot older. Who really knew how old his time-traveling friend might be?
Sean stepped out of the car and eased his door shut so as not to alert anyone lurking inside. He checked the front door and found it locked. Moving around the side, he made his way into the backyard.
The back kitchen door was wide open, motionless in the still night air.
That’s not good.
Sean pulled the gun from the holster he’d thrown on before leaving home and crept toward the entrance. The porch steps creaked beneath his feet. Sticking his head inside, he whispered.
“Luther?”
The house remained silent. He took another step inside.
“Luther?”
Luther’s house was old, built long before open concept living had become the norm. He didn’t see the mess in the living room until he’d cleared the kitchen.
The old oval coffee table had been flipped over. Glass lay shattered on the wide plank hardwood floors. A chair had been spun sideways from its usual position.
There’s been a struggle.
Flipping on the light switch, Sean saw no sign of blood.
That’s good, at least.
He checked the other two bedrooms and the bathroom, finding no sign of further disturbance but no Luther either.
Returning the way he came, Sean stood staring out the kitchen door into the back yard.
Luther and someone had struggled in the living room and then, what? Someone carried him out the back door? That would mean two people… No single man could have moved Luther very far.
Did someone find a way to subdue him without spilling a drop of blood?
Doubtful.
He eyed the open door and noticed the hinges seemed worse for wear, as if someone had nearly jerked them out of the frame.
Maybe it wasn’t a struggle.
Maybe it was a chase.
Sean stood on the small back porch, scanning his surroundings. Luther’s home sat flanked by other, nearly identical homes, all separated by fences of various heights and types.
If someone had been after Luther and he’d chosen to run rather than fight, where would he go?
Sean moved to the fence line and spotted the indentation of a large bare foot in the dirt of Luther’s garden. The enormous print had to belong to Luther. Nearby, he saw another print, this one a shoe, something between a sneaker and a dress shoe. He tried to remember what Rune had worn on his feet the last time he saw him, but came up with nothing.
This is where Catriona’s memory trick would come in handy.
The last time he saw Rune, Sean was trying to run the ghoul down with his Jag as the bastard shot at him. Checking out Rune’s footwear had been low on his priority list.
Tucking his gun back into his holster, Sean mounted the fence and hopped to the other side, the neighbor’s back porch light providing enough illumination for him to see.
He landed and crouched to study the earth. The ground was too dry to find good prints, but he spotted an area that appeared more trampled than the others.
This way.
Sean continued in that direction until he reached the street and then put his hands on his hips.
Cement made tracking considerably harder.
Did Luther cross the street or run down the sidewalk?
He glanced to the right and spotted a large white building several blocks away.
Ah ha.
He knew that building, and Luther did too. Parasol Pictures rented it as a warehouse for storing spare movie set props.
Luther would have run there. He knew the passcode to get in and he knew the layout of the building. It would make a great place to hide.
Sean broke into a jog.
Chapter Fourteen
Alone in the hall, Broch and Catriona stared down at the dead man lying beneath the beam of her phone flashlight. Catriona grumbled about the limited brain power of studio people.
Broch rubbed his head, mussing whatever had re
mained of his slicked-back ‘do.
“The evening’s gaun exactly as ah expected. Ye?”
Catriona chuckled. “We’ve got to get after those girls, but help me check this guy’s pockets. He might have a key for unlocking whatever he’s used to seal the front door.”
They felt through the man’s flak jacket and pants until Broch produced a small silver key.
“Git it.”
“Good.” She replaced her gun in its clandestine holster and tossed her purse on the floor far enough from the body to avoid any blood. “We better start before my phone battery dies.”
Catriona pointed her flashlight down the hall and they left the low din of the party behind, careful to avoid the reaching razor wire.
Twenty feet in, they heard a woman’s muffled scream and both froze, waiting to catch sound of another in the hopes it would give them a direction, but no other calls came.
Catriona started forward again and Broch reached out to grab her arm.
“Mind yerself. Be wise. It cuid be a trap.”
Catriona nodded. Kilty had a good point. Mason didn’t think his father’s place had much in the way of hidden pitfalls, but maybe this new ‘Pinky’ had his own unique vision.
Following a hard right turn, Catriona noticed a break in the razor wire. She ran her flashlight’s beam across the wall and found a round hole where a doorknob might be. She motioned to it.
“It’s some kind of pocket-door, though I don’t know if putting our fingers in the hole to slide it open seems like a great idea.”
“Ah’d keep yer haunds close by,” agreed Broch. “Staun back.”
Catriona stepped back to make way. She didn’t know how easily the door would slide, and Broch had a considerable strength advantage. It would be better to open the door quickly, and not be caught struggling with it.
On a quiet three count, Broch heaved the door to the side and they both spun away from the entrance, so as not to be sitting ducks for whatever lay waiting inside.
All remained quiet.
They craned their necks to peer into the room.
Inside, beneath the eerie dull glow of a red, bare bulb, a woman in a sparkly silver dress lay on a cot against the wall.