Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (54 page)

He thrust out his palms, as if he were trying to ward off a punch.

“Okay, okay. It was just an idea. I don’t want to hang around where I’m not wanted—” He caught her look and added hastily, “And I guess you like me around. So’s okay. I’ll pop around once in a while.”

“Damn skippy you will.”

Laura realized she was speaking to air. He’d already skipped out. He liked to do that.

The cool desert wind rattled an ocotillo branch, rippled over the hairs on her arm. She shivered. All that was left was the trace of cigarette smoke.

She heard the sliding glass door and looked toward the dark house. The Love of Her Life—right in the here and now—stepped out onto the terrace. “Hey. You okay?” Matt asked.

Laura never saw herself as one who held on to the past, but it came home to her that that was exactly what she’d been doing. Right now, in this moment, she was looking at Matt, who was her future.

Frank knew. He’d tried, in his clumsy way, to tell her that.

You don’t need me anymore
.

He was right. She didn’t need him. But she wanted him around.

And he’d promised her he’d show up from time to time.

“Lor?”

The breeze blew up between them, shuttling dirt and leaves across the terrace. Matt looked at her quizzically, waiting for an answer. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” Laura said.

“I’m better than ever.”

THE END

#

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About the Author

Hailed by bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker as “a strong new voice in American crime fiction,” J. Carson Black has written fifteen novels. Her thriller, THE SHOP, reached #1 on the Kindle Best Seller list, and her crime thriller series featuring homicide detective Laura Cardinal became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Although Black earned a Master of Music degree in operatic voice, she was inspired to write a horror novel after reading
The Shining
. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.
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Also by
J. Carson Black

The Laura Cardinal Novels

Darkness On The Edge Of Town

Dark Side of the Moon

The Devil’s Hour

The Shop

Icon

The Survivors Club

The Maggie O’Neil Mysteries

Roadside Attraction

Writing as Margaret Falk

Darkscope

Dark Horse

The Desert Waits

Writing as Annie McKnight

The Tombstone Rose

Superstitions

Short Stories

Pony Rides

The BlueLight Special

NIGHT WIDOW

THE NIGHT SERIES

CAROL DAVIS LUCE

Copyright 2011 by Carol Davis Luce

Sudalu Media publication 2011

http://caroldavisluce.com

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CHAPTER ONE

Where Are They Now
? Washed up? Hiding out? Dead?

SYBIL SQUIRE…

Not dead yet. This stunning platinum blonde will be forever ingrained in our hearts for her femme fatale role in the 1950 Oscar win, The Shady Lady. One flash of her pale blue eyes and men were putty. Seems she hasn’t been hiding all these years. She surfaced briefly this year after police and paramedics were called out to her mansion in the Hollywood Hills. A housekeeper found the Golden Age screen idol unconscious at the bottom of her staircase with a blood alcohol level above .10.

Rehab again or the old folk’s home?

—WashedUpStars.com

Piper Lundberg rushed through the ultra-modern house with the last of her personal possessions. No time for sorting and packing, it was grab and dump into whatever was handy. Almost done, she couldn’t get out fast enough. Gordon was supposed to be boarding a plane for Europe at this very moment, but knowing her soon-to-be ex-husband, she wouldn’t be surprised if he canceled his business trip to ambush her in their Santa Monica home.

Through a front window, she saw her best friend across the street stuffing shoeboxes into the back of her SUV. Lee’s Escalade was already stacked to the ceiling with Piper’s clothes, books, CDs and laptop.

Sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip. Her heart raced. It was a race to be free. Rounding the corner with the cumbersome recycled carton, Piper slipped on the polished hardwood. The box caught the edge of the doorway between the living room and dining room, spewing its entire contents across the floor. She groaned in frustration, wiped her sweaty palms on the front of her jeans, and dropped to her knees to retrieve the dozens of old video cassettes, DVDs, and mementos. Of all her possessions, this collection meant the most. As her fingers wrapped around a cassette, a black leather dress shoe pressed down on her hand, pinning it and the cassette case to the floor.

Piper jerked her head up. Gordon looked down on her. She expected to see that sanctimonious smirk that had, over the years, come to define him. His expression was hard, stony. When she tried to free her hand, he increased the pressure. She should’ve known it wouldn’t be easy. Gordon didn’t play fair.

“In a hurry, are you?”

She yanked her hand out from under his sole.

Gordon kept his foot on the cassette. He turned his head to stare out the window at Lee who was still struggling to load the SUV.

“Brought the dyke for moral support? Or is it the muscle?”

She bit down on her lip. Gordon knew she hated it when he called Lee it. A transsexual, Lee had made the full male-to-female transition several years ago. Lee Sikes, formally Leroy, was Piper’s first husband.

“I don’t want any trouble.” Piper tried to control her anger. “I don’t want anything of yours. I just want to go.”

Gordon pinched the fabric at his knees, lifted his slacks, then squatted down and picked up the cassette case. He’d just had a haircut. She could see the red skin above his collar where the electric shears had chaffed his neckline.

On his haunches, level with her face, he pinned her with his gaze. “You’ll regret this.”

#

Piper and Lee, with the help of Belle Vogt, had unloaded her belongings from the two cars and carried everything upstairs to the Vogt’s guesthouse above the garage. Piper left Belle and Lee in the driveway talking shop and hurried upstairs. She wanted a few moments to herself in her new home. She crossed the room, dropped an armful of clothes on the pulled-down Murphy bed, and glanced around. Assured she was alone, she made a beeline to the northwest corner window.

The late afternoon sky, recently purged by the hot, dry winds of the Santa Anas, was clear of smog. A red-tailed hawk soared high above hills thick with vegetation, casting a sharp eye below to the yucca plants, greasewood and royal palms for signs of prey. The hawk continued upward, growing smaller, following the winding road to the top near Mulholland where Brando once lived. The hawk dove, disappearing into the thick brush.

The hawk held little interest for Piper. What did interest her was the Mediterranean mansion on the huge lot next door. That she would have a birds-eye view was beyond her wildest expectations. Closest to the six-foot property wall was the pool. A small rose garden in full bloom extended off a brick patio at the rear of the stately house. The house belonged to Sybil Squire.

She scanned the grounds, looking for a glimpse of the owner. Someone was in the pool. Piper leaned closer to the glass. The old woman with platinum hair executed a strong, yet graceful, backstroke across the rectangular swimming pool. Except for a pair of black swim goggles, she was as naked as a newborn.

“What’s got your attention there, Piper? As if I didn’t know.”

Piper spun around.

Belle nimbly leapt over a pile of shoeboxes blocking the entrance. With her pale complexion and dark hair cropped close to her head, her root-beer-brown eyes, innocent and childlike, dominated her China-doll face.

“Busted. I was spying on our neighbor.” Piper turned back to the window. “Did you know she swims in the nude?”

“Really? I can’t see the pool from the house.” Despite a quarter century of living in the US, Belle’s British lilt infused her words. “Is she alone?”

“In the pool? Yes.”

Belle wove her way through the boxes and bags to stand alongside Piper.

“Oh, my, not bad for an old babe, eh?” Belle peered down. “But those goggles … what is that? Sort of spoils the au natural effect, don’t you think?”

“Um. Maybe she doesn’t expect an audience?”

“Are you kidding? Everyone in these hills has a telescope, and believe me, they’re not pointed at the stars. At least not the heavenly stars.” Belle chuckled. “Bet you didn’t expect to see her so soon, now did you? Or so much of her.”

“I expected her estate to be a fortress, hidden behind towering walls and gates, like the one in her movie, Black Ribbon.”

Belle bent at the waist and picked through the carton of old video cassettes. “All of her flicks? Impressive. Some of these you can’t even get on digital download.”

“They were my grandmother’s. Instead of the family flatware, I inherited her collection of Sybil’s movies. I’ve had them all converted to DVDs, but I can’t part with these original cassettes.”

“You must have every film our platinum widow made.”

“Not quite. Every one but Judgment Day.”

“That was, what, her last one?”

“Yes. It was pulled right after its release.”

“Maybe out of respect for the loss of husband number three.”

“Four. He was her fourth husband.”