DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (51 page)

With the bound script, The Body finally possessed an outline of every step that needed taking to rob Karl of his precious life. No longer would The Body have to wait for the scene handed out daily. Now all the details for destruction were collected in one spot, in one metallic green folder. The Body could choose to skip scenes. Could choose to hurry Karl LaRosa to his demise, if that was called for.

The prospect was thrilling enough to make the exit from Cam's house as happy as a lighthearted dance through the air.

It was beautiful when a plan came together like a dream.

40

"A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it."

Bertrand Russell, Logic and Knowledge

Now tired and drained after the excitement of finding the script, The Body's mood spiraled into depression. While looking through the script in the nursery, bad memories crept into the forefront of the mind and demanded attention. The Body tried not to give in, but could think of nothing to replace or dispel the gloom. Gloom was not a state of mind, but a presence with shape and form. It seemed to come from the corners of the room, sliding from the shadows, insinuating itself through the very pores of the human body slumped in the chair at the child's desk.

Too hard to fight a phantom. Then let it come. Let the past swamp the present and take it away. When you couldn't fight, there was no alternative but to give in.

The Body glanced around the room from lowered lids, sneaking quick looks. Staring straight on might call attention to the self. Hallucinations always lay in wait, waking dreams that were more real than life. Most often they came when cocooned in the leather chair in the deprivation room, but sometimes the hallucinations pounced during normal time, time that The Body used to live life the way other people lived it.

From the wall at the head of the crib, the ghost of a child formed, rising from within the flat, white plaster. It was Michelle.

The Body whispered her name.

"Michelle. My belle."

The words from the old Beatles' song.

She floated from above the crib, settling down just on the floor in front of it. "This room is pretty," she said in her little girl's piping voice. "Can I stay here?"

She could not stay. If she stayed, at least for very long, The Body would die.

"You don't belong here. This isn't our old home. Go away, Michelle. Go away."

"But it's pretty here," she repeated. "I don't like it where I am. It's cold."

She was wet, her hair dark strings hanging about her face. She was bloated. She carried the sharp scent of chlorine and underneath that odor a sweetish, cloying smell of decay. She was dead. For many years she had been dead. Poor little sister.

Of course she was cold. Dead and alone, drowned on that sunny Hollywood day.

"I can't help you. Please go away."

Tears fell down The Body's face onto the open script. This is why there was no name. When alone and in the mind, the identity was The Body. Not twin or sibling, simply nameless. Just one aching shell of a body that had lost its soul the day Michelle died. Heartbreak all over again. It did not matter thirty-two years had passed. The pain was as great today as it was when it happened. A three-year-old never forgot, never let go. The wound remained raw and open, no way to heal.

"I'll just sit here," Michelle said, squatting and then sitting down on the floor. "I won't bother you." She rested her head on her little fists, staring at The Body.

On the day of her death thirty-two years ago, she had been arguing with her twin over possession of a big red plastic ball. She wanted to throw it in the pool. Both of them had been strongly admonished never to go near the pool without adult supervision. They did not know how to swim. They hardly ever had mommy or daddy around to teach them how. Mommy and daddy were movie stars. The parents were famous and busy, meaning the twins' care fell on the shoulders of live-in help. Nannies and housekeepers. No one wanted to play in the pool with the children, no one had time, "Too much to do, children, too much to do."

Time, it seemed, was too precious and too scarce for any of it to be shared with toddlers.

"I told you to put the ball back," The Body said now, weeping openly at the memory of that terrible day. "If you'd only let me have it."

"I just wanted to see it float in the pool," Michelle said. "Pretty ball. Pretty ball on top of the blue water."

She had the big ball in her chubby baby arms. She couldn't see where she was going or what was before her, how close she might be to the pool edge. Her twin came from the side and tugged to free the ball. "You can't go near the swimming pool. We'll get in trouble. Gimme it."

Michelle squealed and jerked away, refusing. She had always been the stubborn one. She stumbled, turned around trying to get her balance and still keep possession of the red ball. Her twin saw her falling. Reached out one hand to grab her, but it was too late. Her arms flew out to each side and the ball lifted into the air like a balloon.

Michelle hit the water first, falling backward, going under and sinking to the bottom. The ball bounced almost exactly on the spot where she hit. Her twin went to the pool's edge.

There was a screaming that went on and on. MOM . . . MOM . . . MOMMOMMOM!

Michelle was in the deep end, down under, her long hair swirling in the blue water like seaweed. She stared up through the water, eyes bulbous in shock, her mouth open in her own terrified scream. Her little arms made slow motion circles in the water as she kicked to reach the surface and air.

Her twin raised eyes to heaven, screaming, screaming, screaming for help.

Help came. But only after Michelle had swallowed water and lost air in her lungs. She bobbed face down in the still waters of the blue pool by the time anyone showed at its side. Not far away the big red ball rolled lazily over the wind-ruffled wavelets.

And still her twin screamed, unable to stop.

A gardener tried to revive her. Then the paramedics arrived and they tried, laboring in the heat, bent over her and sweating. Her twin stood by, going unnoticed, crying and whispering, "Save her, save her, save her." It was useless. Little Michelle was gone.

"Please go away," The Body cried. "Go away, go away, go away. I can't save you." It seemed no one could.

Michelle took pity after watching her twin cry and beg. She stood and floated toward the ceiling. She touched the top bar of the empty crib on her way. She moved toward the blank white wall, turned and waved, and disappeared through it into the beyond.

The Body had let the script fall to the floor. Had slipped from the chair to kneel and to keen in misery. Gloom had won. It had found its victim.

Michelle's twin called for help, screaming.

In the midst of the wail of despair, The Body shouted a name, cursing it.

Catherine shouldn't have killed the babies. Unlike the accident that took Michelle, the little twins in Catherine's body made no mistakes, presented no stubbornness that shoved them toward the brink of death. They were blameless. Murdered. For no reason. If Karl died because of those deaths so that Catherine would be convicted, then that is what it would take to clear the slate. She must pay for her terrible sin. It was not true the pregnancy was her concern only. It was not true that a fetus was a blob of cell structures and blood. Even in the first weeks a fetus already had a head, arms, legs, a body. A fetus was a human being dependent on its host for protection, for life.

How could she have had them aborted, those tiny twins? How could she have killed them in such a wanton, thoughtless way?

  41

"Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!"

George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy

Karl LaRosa was left alone for a week. He received no phone calls or notes from his tormentor, suffered no attempts on his life. There were no more bomb devices attached to the underside of the rental car.

It took that much time for The Body to search through the script and decide what scene to implement. During those days' filming on the set and location there was quite a hullabaloo about the missing actress, Marilyn Lori-Street. A police detective from missing persons was contacted by her friends. A few people from the film, including Cambridge Hill, were questioned about the last time she was seen. The detective seemed to be a tired, bored man going through the motions. He took a few notes, asked some desultory questions, and left.

Cam rewrote the scenes that included her, effectively writing her out of the movie by having Olivia's stalker character turn on her best friend and murder her. They used a stand-in actress wearing a wig. They never showed her face.

People on the film still discussed Marilyn and worried over her, but, as a topic of conversation, speculation on her whereabouts was beginning to lag. They were all too busy to give it the attention perhaps it deserved. Films couldn't just halt because one of the actors disappeared. It wasn't as if it hadn't happened before. The schedule went ahead at an inflexible pace.

After the week of planning, which gave Karl time enough to get back his Jaguar from the body shop, everything was set into motion again. After a lull in the eye of the hurricane the storm is greatest, The Body recalled. Karl might die from this attempt on his life. Once he was dead, the authorities would come looking for his killer.

And they would find Catherine Rivers. All the clues, for any halfway decent investigator, pointed to her involvement. She'd be arrested. She would pay for all her crimes. They might even suspect her of Marilyn's murder.

At this point in the script the fictional stalker had lost all patience. There was no longer any pretense that the man would find a way to love the rejected woman again. She meant to kill him, to even things.

Just as The Body meant to do.

If it didn't work, there were one or two more scenes upcoming that could be tried. Soon now, Karl LaRosa would be on the way to the cemetery. He might not know it, but he already had one foot in the grave and the other planted on flimsy ground.

~ * ~

Karl was thrilled to have his Jag back from the shop. It looked beautiful again. The detailed workmanship of the repair made the car look new once more. They had had to replace parts and repaint the car. The paint shone like liquid silver.

"Great work," Jimmy Watz said, sliding into the passenger seat. He had had a little time off and accompanied Karl to pick up the car. "These guys are worth the money."

"It's true, they are. I'm beginning to have some money problems lately, though, so this bill hurt more than it should have."

Jimmy listened while Karl explained the latest mishaps in his financial affairs.

"Okay," Jimmy said, "who do you know can use a computer and a modem like that? Got any old girlfriends who are techies?"

Karl shook his head. "That's what gets me. I mean, almost everyone I know owns a computer, but not many of us in the business spend our free time at home hacking around on them. I don't remember any woman I ever dated mentioning a real interest in computers or programming."

"Well, someone knows how to go about it, that's for sure. Isn't there anything you can do about it? Can't you turn your suspicions to someone?"

"I could if I could prove it. I don't know how to find that proof."

"You need some help, Karl. If someone can ruin your credit, get into the IRS database and show you owing back taxes, then you need some kind of electronic snooper who can follow the trail and find out who's doing it."

"Great. You know anyone like that?"

Karl drove them toward Malibu, handling the Jag casually, more at home behind the wheel than he had been in ages.

"Let me check around with some of my friends," Jimmy said. "I'll find you someone. This shit's got to stop.”

“Ain't that the truth."

The conversation continued during the trip home and into Karl's house where he put some steaks under the oven's broiler and tore some lettuce in a big bowl for salad. Jimmy hung over the counter, drinking beer and just watching the meal preparations. He liked those times he and Karl batched it with no women around.

After dinner, with twilight settled all around the house, and the lights twinkling from beyond the repaired sliding glass doors to the patio area, Jimmy went to the refrigerator and found they were out of beer.

"I'll go to the store and get us one more six-pack. Hell, it's Saturday night Karl. I ought to be out laying some chick, the least I can do is hoist a few beers in consolation that I'm stuck with you tonight." He grinned and Karl laughed.

"Here." Karl threw Jimmy the keys to the Jag. "Take silver babe out there. Maybe one day when you're a big movie star you too can own a Jaguar."

Jimmy caught the keys and started for the garage. "If I do, it won't be an old one like yours, buddy boy. I'll have myself something just a little bit newer so the girls will go wild and all my nights will be jam-packed full with dates."

"That's a damn pitiful attitude to take toward women." Jimmy gave him the finger and lumbered out the kitchen door.

~ * ~

Jimmy thought the brakes on the Jag were a little loose when he came to the first stop sign after leaving Karl's house. He shrugged, thinking Karl ought to get it back to the shop, see if they needed checking out. They'd had to change out all the tires so maybe the brakes were new and not set in yet. New brake pads sometimes made an awful racket until they were seated.

By the time Jimmy hit Highway One along the ocean, heading for the big all-night grocery about two miles distant, he had forgotten about the squeaky brakes. He thought he'd get two six-packs, not one, and some chips and dip. What the hell. Maybe they could turn on the tube and catch a ballgame.

He speeded up on the highway, feeling the breeze spinning through the windows. The crisp night air helped to sober him. He could smell the ocean, salty on his tongue and dry in his nostrils. He knew he was grinning like a monkey because the beer had made him feel good, feel easy for a change. He had been worried over Karl for too long. They both deserved one night of drinking and joking around and just relaxing.