Dead by Midnight (12 page)

Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Derek jumped in quickly and said, “Can you think of anything that happened during the filming of
Masquerade
that could have created some really bad feelings? You know, jealousy, professional or personal? Any fights? Any problems that resulted in violence, even if only minor altercations?”

Maleah took a deep breath, her heart gradually slowing to a normal rate as the anger boiling inside her subsided. For once, she was thankful to Derek for butting in and stopping her from shooting off her mouth. If she’d said anything whatsoever, the loathing and revulsion she felt for Travis Dillard would have been more than obvious. And antagonizing the depraved old bastard would do nothing to help them solve this case.

“Hell, there was always catfights among the women. That was a given,” Dillard said, a smirking grin on his wrinkled face. “Nothing like a couple of naked broads rolling around on the floor, scratching and pulling hair.”

“Any fights out of the ordinary?” Derek asked.

“I know where this is going. And the answer is no, I don’t recall any incident that would make me suspect someone connected to
Masquerade
has gone on a killing spree ten years after the fact.” Dillard reached out and picked up his whiskey glass, took a swallow, and shuddered. “Sure neither of you want a drink? This is eighteen-year-old Macallan scotch, costs me a hundred and sixty dollars a bottle, but it’s worth every penny.”

“I’m tempted,” Derek said amiably. “But no thanks.”

“Who handled the fan mail for your actors?” Maleah kept her voice calm and even.

“My secretary handled everything that came in for the actors I represented. The others—I have no idea.”

“Were there any threatening letters after the release of
Masquerade
? Or any particular zealous fan who—?”

“There was that one guy.” Dillard grunted. “Damn. Can’t remember his name. Henry? Hewitt? Nah, doesn’t sound right.” He snapped his fingers. “Hines. His name was Hines.”

“What about this guy named Hines?” Derek asked.

“He’s a porno movie aficionado and a huge fan. He tried to get on the set a couple of times. Had to have him escorted off. He wrote to just about every actor in the movie more than once. I thought at the time the guy seemed obsessed with that one movie in particular.”

“Does Mr. Hines have a first name?” Maleah looked Dillard in the eye.

“Yeah, sure, I just can’t put my finger on it, but I can get Louie to call Etta and see if she remembers.”

“Etta?” Derek and Maleah asked simultaneously.

“My old secretary. She’d probably remember the guy’s name. Hell, she might even still have some of the letters he wrote. My actors never answered their own fan mail, you know. That was part of Etta’s job.”

“How can we get in touch with Etta?” Maleah asked.

“I’ll get Louie to call her. We keep in touch. She and her latest girlfriend even come over for dinner occasionally. They live here in Malibu. She rents an apartment on Las Flores Canyon Road. If she’s home, I’ll ask her to come over and you can talk to her this evening.”

“Thank you,” Derek said.

For the life of her, Maleah couldn’t thank this slimy old bastard, not even when he had given them their first real lead in their case.

“I want to know why you’ve got Tyrell following me everywhere I go,” Shontee screamed at Tony. She was angry and hurt because she thought he didn’t trust her. What had she ever done to make him think that she would betray him in any way? “Damn it, tell me why! I have a right to know why you believe you can’t trust me.”

“Stop your bitching, woman.” Tony tried to grab her by the shoulders, but she jerked away from him and planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t act like this.”

Shontee’s bottom lip trembled. Tears pooled in her eyes.

“Baby, I can’t stand seeing you so upset.” He held open his arms. “I trust you. I swear I do. I’ve had Tyrell following you to protect you.”

Shontee swallowed and then swiped the teardrops from her eyelashes. “Protect me from what? From who? Has somebody you do business with threatened you?”

Tony shook his head. “Nobody would dare threaten me.”

“Please, tell me—”

“Just wait here,” he said as he walked across the room to his wall safe hidden behind a sleek platinum-framed mirror.

She waited, nervous and uncertain, as Tony opened the safe, reached inside, and pulled out several plain white envelopes. He closed the safe and turned to her. What was in those envelopes? Photos of her from the past?

When she stared at the envelopes, he held them out to her. “They’re pretty much identical, all four of them. You know my assistant opens all our mail and—”

“I know, I know.” She grabbed the envelopes out of his hand.

“You’ve received a letter each month, starting in late December. The fourth one arrived this past Saturday.”

Her hand trembled. “Why did you keep these from me? Why hide them away in your safe?”

“Read one of them,” Tony told her.

She dropped three of the envelopes down on the armchair near where she stood, then inspected the one she held in her hand. Her name stood out against the stark white background. There was no return address, only a Knoxville, Tennessee, postmark. Slowly, cautiously, she eased the single typed page from the envelope, unfolded it and read the brief note.

“Oh my God!” She released her hold on the letter and let it float down onto the floor. “Tony?”

When he held open his arms this time, she raced into the comforting embrace he offered.

“Now you understand why I’ve had Tyrell keeping a close watch over you whenever I’m not around. Somebody is threatening you, baby, and I haven’t been able to find out who the motherfucker is.”

Etta Muro handed Travis Dillard a large manila envelope, then turned and shook hands with Maleah and Derek. The woman was at least six feet tall, rawboned, darkly tanned, and sported a short, spiked haircut. She wore billowy beige gauze pants and a matching blouse. A large gold and turquoise pendant hung from a leather chain around her neck. Maleah guessed that she was close to sixty and one of the few women in the LA area who hadn’t had cosmetic surgery, although she kept her hair dyed a bright reddish orange.

“We appreciate your meeting with us,” Derek said, offering the woman his charm-the-birds-from-the-trees smile. The only problem was that this particular bird preferred her own sex, so his machismo was totally lost on her.

“Travis told me that this involves a murder investigation, that somebody killed Woody and Hilary and our sweet Charlie.” Etta shook her head. “Now, who’d do something like that?”

“What’s in here?” Travis held up the large overstuffed envelope.

“Fan letters that we received about
Midnight Masquerade
,” she told him. “I’ve got the folder labeled. Put on your glasses so you can read.” She turned her attention back to Derek. “Most of that mail was for Hilary, a few for the other women, and even some for the guys.”

“Mr. Dillard said there was one fan in particular who was obsessed with this movie,” Derek said. “He believes the guy’s last name is Hines.”

“Duane Hines,” Etta stated emphatically. “He wrote a letter to everyone in the movie. He’d written to Hilary before then, and wrote to several of the stars later about other movies they were in. The guy’s a real nut. We had to have him arrested once when he attacked one of our guards who had escorted him off the set.”

“When is the last time Duane Hines contacted anyone involved in
Midnight Masquerade
?” Maleah asked.

“He’s a persistent cuss, I’ll give him that.” Etta grunted. “He sent Hilary another letter sometime last fall. And come to think of it, he sent one to another of the actors from
Masquerade
at the same time. The bosomy redhead.” Etta rubbed her chin. “Nice girl. Not cut out for our business. She used the name Cherry Sweets.” Etta chuckled as she glanced at Travis. “She was one you never did nail, wasn’t she?”

Travis snorted. “It was only a matter of time. If she’d stayed around long enough, she would have spread her legs for me.”

“Lorie Hammonds,” Etta said. “That was her real name. I wonder what ever happened to her.”

The sun heated their naked skin as they played together in the river, the water refreshingly cool in contrast to the hot summer sunshine. Laughing, Lorie lifted a handful of water and threw it into Mike’s face.

“You’ll pay for that,” he warned her.

When he reached for her, she didn’t put up even a token resistance. He yanked her up against him, her breasts, covered only by two strips of cloth and a string tie, pressed into his hard, naked chest. As he cupped her butt with both hands, he lowered his head and claimed her mouth in a hungry kiss. She opened for him, took his tongue inside and closed her lips around him. He groaned deep and low, the sound rumbling from his throat.

Every cell in her body came alive, tingling, igniting with an internal fire that nothing except making love with Mike could extinguish. But only for a little while, only until he touched her again. It had been that way for both of them from the very first time he had kissed her.

With his arm around her waist, he walked her out of the shallow backwaters of the river, their bodies dripping wet as they stepped onto the shore. He slipped his hand inside her bikini bottoms and caressed her buttocks. Her femininity tightened and released. Aroused by his touch, her body instantly prepared for mating. Her nipples hardened. Moisture gathered between her thighs. Her feminine core swelled with anticipation.

Mike led her off into a secluded area in the nearby woods where earlier they had spread a blanket and eaten their picnic lunch. With sunlight dappling through the thicket of decades-old trees, he laid her down on the ratty old quilt he kept in the trunk of his prized Mustang. How many times had they made love on that quilt?

Sighing dreamily as she looked into the face of the man she adored, Lorie reached up for him and drew him down to her. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her neck, and the upper swell of each breast. Then he pushed aside her clinging arms and lifted her just enough to untie the bikini top and whip it off her. Totally exposed from the belly button up, she wriggled with pleasure as his hands explored every inch of her hips and butt while his mouth moved over her breasts and stomach. When he nuzzled the edge of her bikini bottoms, she lifted her hips enough for him to drag them down and off. The minute she was completely naked, he buried his face in the triangle of auburn curls between her thighs. His tongue snaked out, seeking and finding her clitoris.

He licked. She whimpered.

He stroked. She shivered.

He sucked. She cried out his name.

Alternating his moves, he used his mouth and tongue to bring her to the brink while his fingers rose to her breasts to give them equal attention.

Lorie speared her fingers into his thick black hair, encouraging him to give her what she so desperately needed.

He increased the tempo of his strokes until she came, her orgasm rocketing through her, exploding inside her, shaking her from head to toe. Crying out with pleasure, she clung to him while he lifted himself up and shucked out of his wet swim trunks. Fully erect, his penis jutted forward from a bed of black curls. She reached up and touched him. He groaned.

“I love you, Lorie. God in heaven, I love you!”

He thrust into her fully, her slick, wet body more than ready for him. He lifted her hips to bring her closer. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moved sensuously against him.

“I love you,” she whispered as he delved and withdrew, delved and withdrew. “Love you…love you…”

Seconds later he came, grunting and trembling. His release triggered a second climax for her and the moment she came apart beneath him, Mike eased down on top of her, wet with sweat and panting softly.

She kissed him again and again.

He slipped off her and stretched out at her side. They lay there together, sated and happy, young and in love.

“Do you think it will always be like this?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think it will,” he replied. “Even after we’ve been married twenty years and have half a dozen kids.”

She rolled over onto her side and kissed his damp, darkly tanned shoulder. “Giving birth six times will probably ruin my figure. In twenty years, I’ll be fat and flabby and—”

“And still sexy.” He ran his fingertips across her chest, from collarbone to collarbone. “Don’t you know that I’ll always love you and want you, no matter what? Nothing can ever change the way I feel about you.”

She sighed contentedly. “I’ll love you forever, Michael Birkett.”

Forever…forever…forever…

Lorie woke suddenly, the word
forever
on her lips.

She sat straight up in bed, her skin moist with perspiration, her body remembering the orgasm she’d had in her dream. A dream that had seemed so real.

It was real, or at least it had been. Years ago when she and Mike had been together, a couple of kids who’d had no idea what the future held for them.

A soft rap on her bedroom door brought Lorie completely back to the present. She glanced at her bedside clock. 5:45
A.M
. Nearly an hour before her alarm would go off.

“Yes?” Lorie called.

“Are you all right?” Shelley Gilbert, the Powell agent who had replaced Maleah, asked her through the closed door.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“I thought I heard you crying out and I wanted to make sure everything is okay.”

“Come on in,” Lorie said. “See for yourself. I was dreaming and must have been talking in my sleep.”

Shelley eased opened the door and peered into the semidark bedroom. She scanned the entire area and then smiled at Lorie. “If you’re getting up, I’ll go put on a pot of coffee.”

“The coffeemaker is preset for six-thirty, but yes, please reset it to start immediately. I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.”

“Sure thing.”

Shelley had arrived Sunday night and Lorie had liked her immediately. Medium height and solidly built, the thirty-something woman looked the way Lorie thought a female bodyguard should—intelligent, nondescript in appearance, and with a tough glint in her keen blue eyes. Her short, wash-and-go brown hair, a minimum of makeup, sensible, low-heeled black shoes, and all-business attire consisting of tan slacks, white shirt, and a black blazer only added to her overall aura of competence.

Although their conversations hadn’t gotten personal, not beyond the basic facts, Lorie felt comfortable around Shelley. And she felt safe. Shelley seemed more than capable of defending not only herself, but Lorie, too.

Doing her best not to think about the erotic dream that had given her an orgasm, Lorie hurried into the bathroom.

After flushing the commode, she washed her hands, dampened a cloth, and washed her face. Staring at herself in the mirror, she ran her fingers through her disheveled hair.

“It was just a dream,” she told herself.

No, it was more than a dream. It was a memory of a long-ago summer day when Mike had loved her and everything had been good and clean and right in her world.

Duane Hines lived in a little town called Carey, Missouri, seventy-five miles south of St. Louis. He had been easy to locate. The last two letters he had written and sent in care of Dillard’s Starlight Production Company—one letter to the late Hilary Finch Chambless and the other to Lorie Hammonds—had included his return address. If the man was a killer, he was a damn stupid one.

At present, Derek and Maleah Perdue were assigned to locate and speak to potential suspects. The main office in Knoxville had the job of locating all the
Midnight Masquerade
actors. Each actor was being notified about the deaths of their three costars and asked if they had received any threatening letters during the past few months. Only if Nic and Griff believed that there might be a crossover in the potential victims and possible suspects categories would Derek and Perdue personally interview that actor. And the decision would be based on facts unearthed by Powell’s investigation.

Derek preferred to drive, but he hadn’t made an issue of it with Perdue, knowing full well that she was a lady who needed to be in charge. He would bet his last dime on one fact—somewhere in Perdue’s past there was a man who had subjected her to complete and humiliating submission. All the signs were there, even if she wasn’t aware of it.

The more time he spent with Maleah Perdue, the more fascinated he became with her. Despite her bristly attitude toward him, he found himself liking her. He liked that she was smart and spunky and worked diligently at keeping her emotions under control. He figured it really bothered her that he got under her skin.

Was there something about him that reminded her of the man in her past?

What other reason could there be for her to dislike him so intensely? It wasn’t that he expected everybody to love him. Hell, even his own mother didn’t love him. But for the most part, people in general liked him. After all, he was a nice guy, wasn’t he?

“Look for number ten,” Perdue told Derek as she turned off the main road and drove into the Poplar Creek Trailer Park.

A couple of minutes later, Derek pointed to a small, rusty trailer anchored beneath a couple of towering poplar trees. “There it is.”

“Lovely place.” She turned up her nose.

“Now, now, don’t be judgmental.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Perdue pulled their rental car up beside an older model Harley-Davidson motorcycle. She got out and marched up the rickety wooden steps in front of the single door. Derek waited a few feet behind her while she knocked several times.

No response.

“He should be home,” she said. “Our report stated that he was laid off from his last job a month ago and is drawing unemployment.”

Perdue knocked again.

The door eased open and a dark-haired man in jeans and a wifebeater undershirt that exposed his hairy chest and arms looked at her and smiled. “Well, hello there.”

“Duane Hines?” she asked.

“Sure am, sweet thing. And just who are you?” His grin widened, revealing uneven, discolored teeth.

Derek wondered in what universe did this skinny, yellow-toothed degenerate think that a woman such as Maleah Perdue would actually give him the time of day.

“I’m Ms. Perdue, with the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency,” she told him. “I’m here to ask you a few questions about your obsession with the movie
Midnight Masquerade
.”

He stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language, then burst into laughter. “You’re kidding, right?” His bloodshot, watery brown eyes narrowed as he ran his gaze over Perdue’s body, pausing at her breasts.

“She’s not kidding.” Derek stepped forward, coming up beside her.

Hines’s smile vanished when he saw Derek. “You a private dick, too?” He inclined his head toward Perdue. “You with her?”

“Yeah, I’m with Ms. Perdue. And we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Maybe I don’t want to talk to you,” Hines said. “Maybe I just want to talk to her.” He grinned lasciviously at Perdue.

“I’m sure that can be arranged, a private talk between the two of you,” Derek said. “But you should know that the lady carries a ten-shot Ruger P93. And I’ve seen her at target practice. She’s good. Damn good. Besides that, I’ve heard that she can disarm an opponent twice her size without breaking a sweat.”

Perdue glanced over her shoulder at Derek and barely restrained the smile twitching the corners of her mouth.

“You’re not cops, just PIs.” Hines frowned. “I don’t have to talk to you.”

“No, you don’t have to talk to us,” Perdue said. “But one call and I can have the Carey PD out here in ten minutes flat. If you’d rather talk to them—”

“Who hired you?” Hines looked from Perdue to Derek. “One of them bitches from that movie? Writing fan letters isn’t against no law. I haven’t done nothing illegal.”

“Would you prefer to have this conversation out here for all your neighbors to see and speculate about, or would you rather invite us in?” Derek asked.

Hines glanced around and saw that several of the trailer park’s occupants were milling around outside their trailers and doing their best not to be conspicuous about their curiosity.

“Come on in.” Hines stepped back inside his trailer and left the door open.

The interior, though shabby and cluttered, looked and smelled fairly clean, which surprised Derek. Hines swiped a stack of magazines off the sofa and copies of
Playboy
,
Penthouse
, and
Hustler
scattered over the floor.

“Take a load off.” Hines pointed to the seen-better-days plaid sofa.

Derek waited for Perdue to sit and then he sat beside her, leaving a couple of feet between them, making sure he didn’t invade her personal space.

“Before I answer your questions, I want you to answer mine—who hired you?”

“Our agency represents the families of two of the
Midnight Masquerade
actors,” Perdue said. “You probably know the actors as Dewey Flowers and Woody Wilson.”

“Dewey Flowers,” Hines sighed. “Now there is one sweet piece of…” He caught himself before finishing the vulgar expression and looked right at Maleah. “I’ve had more than one wet dream
starring
Miss Flowers, believe you me.” His puzzled expression scrunched his face. “Did her family hire you to track me down and warn me to stop writing her? ’Cause that’s all I’ve done—just write her some letters telling her how much I like her.”

“When was the last time you wrote to Ms. Flowers?” Derek asked.

“Hmm…” Hines rubbed his thumb over the beard stubble darkening his chin. “Sometime last year. Never heard back from that one.”

“You didn’t happen to send any letters to her home address this year, did you? Letters telling her that she was going to die?” Perdue focused directly on Hines.

“Hell, no! Is that what’s going on here? Somebody’s written Miss Flowers and threatened her? It wasn’t me. Swear to God, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t harm a hair on that pretty little head of hers. Besides, where would I get her home address?”

Derek’s gut told him Duane Hines was probably telling the truth. No doubt he was a sexual deviant and an altogether reprehensible human being, but those undesirable qualities did not make him a murderer.