Hollywood Sinners (38 page)

CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

L
ester kicked the door shut behind him. He was trembling, every inch of his body alight again after all these years. He had touched her. He had touched her beautiful, perfect, murderer’s face.

Lana was whimpering. ‘You’re not real,’ she gasped. ‘You’re not real. You can’t be. You’re not real.’

He drew the gun from his pocket and waved it in her face. ‘This real enough for you?’

Lana let out a horrified sob, kicking her legs out, trying to crawl away from him.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he snarled, reaching down and grabbing her arm. He shook her like a doll.

She began to cry so he slapped her. He slapped her again and again. Fucking women, all they did was cry and bitch.

‘Not much of a welcome home for your brother, is it?’ he sneered.

She howled, thrashing to break free. ‘You’re
dead
!’ she cried. ‘You’re
dead
!’

In a rage he spat on her. The white discharge landed on the neck of her gown, clinging there like foam. She let out a sob, a strangled, savage sound.

‘Is that right?’ he taunted, leaning in close to her face. She recoiled, refusing to see him. Darting like a snake he went for her, licking her pink cheek, his tongue flat and wet on her skin. She tasted good—just like he remembered.

‘That feels very fucking alive to me.’ He grimaced. ‘Looks like you forgot to finish me off,
Lana
.’

She shook her head uselessly. ‘It’s not possible. You’re not real. Please—’

‘What the fuck are you crying at?’ he demanded, shaking her again, with more force this time. ‘Huh? What the fuck are you crying at?’ Her eyes bugged wild with fear. He could smell the fear on her and it was sweet.

‘You’re dead,’ she said again, quieter this time.

‘
Dead?
’ he barked, tightening his grip and leaning in close. ‘That’s how you wanted me, isn’t it, you murdering whore? Left me for dead and took everything I had, burned it right to the ground—but you didn’t take me, Laura; you didn’t take me!’

He leered at her, forcing her to see what he had become. When he smacked her again, it was with the butt of his gun. She was thrown back, her head taking the force of the impact.

Excitement threatened to ruin everything—he had to keep himself in check. Things were moving fast. There was plenty more he wanted to do with her yet.

Weakly she turned to look at him, her face covered in blood. Shit, he’d split her eye.

She seemed to gather strength from somewhere. ‘You’re not him,’ she said coldly. ‘I know you’re not. Tell me who you are.’

‘You really want to know?’ he rasped.

She screamed it this time. ‘
Tell me who you are!
’

Suddenly his hand was on her mouth, its sour taste gagging her; the other pressed the gun against her temple.

‘If you make another noise like that I will put a bullet in your brain,’ he told her. ‘I will kill you and I won’t think twice about it. Do you understand?’

Mutely she nodded, the whites of her eyes rolling. He kept the clamp in place, just in case.

‘Now listen carefully,’ he hissed, ‘because I’m going to tell you a story.’ He came closer; she could smell his rotten breath. ‘When I was a boy, both my parents died. I don’t need to tell you what that feels like, right?’ he jeered. ‘No, didn’t think so.’

The gun was cold against her temple; death was a heartbeat away and for a second she prayed it would come.

‘After that I got sick,’ he went on. ‘I couldn’t live a normal life. But instead of helping me, they sent me to a facility. A place for the mentally disturbed. I got tied down and I couldn’t break free. I went hungry. I got pumped full of drugs. I got put in a room by myself and I didn’t speak to another human being for days. And do you think that helped me?’ His voice soared as he jammed the gun against her. ‘
Do you think that helped me, huh, Laura?
’

She shook her head, blinking up at him, refusing to believe what her eyes told her to be true.

‘But I pretended it did. Oh, yes, I played by their rules. And when I turned eighteen I got my baby sister to come live with me. I gave her everything...’ His voice broke. ‘Everything I had. And did she thank me?’ He laughed manically. ‘Like hell she did! She was too busy sucking off all the boys at school to care about her own damn
brother
.’

He tightened his grip round her mouth until his thumb and pinkie were touching her ears. He could feel her teeth and the contours of her skull.

‘And then she got close to one of those filthy boys. Real close. So close, in fact, that when they were done fucking they tried to kill me. That’s right: on her sixteenth birthday my baby sister tried to
kill
me.’ He grimaced. ‘And that’s not all. She torched my home. They both did—her and that sonofabitch kid. Tell me, Laura, how
is
your boyfriend these days?’

She shook her head wildly. It was no good—he was too strong.

‘Except they were too stupid to check I was dead, weren’t they?’ With a sickening switch the safety catch went. ‘This making sense for you yet, you fucking
bitch
?

‘I ran for months. I had to find ways to live, ways to survive; I had to…’ he shuddered ‘...
do
things, things you couldn’t imagine in your film-star fucking happy-ever-after. You left me a dead man walking. You took my life away.’ Without warning he grabbed one of her breasts, pushing her back to the floor. ‘But now I’m back, little Laura, and I’m taking what’s mine.’

She writhed under him, shoving him off. Prising one of his fingers up, she bit it hard.

Lester drew back. A crimson prick of blood flowered on his skin.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he told her gravely, levelling the gun at her head and taking aim. ‘You really shouldn’t have done that.’

* * *

Cole Steel was pissed. Where was Lana, for Christ’s sake? If she dared to make him wait tonight, there’d be hell to pay.

He tapped his foot anxiously on the sidewalk. Cole Steel hanging about in a deserted alley—it beggared belief.

‘I seem to have lost my wife!’ he told the chauffeur. The truth of the statement rang sharp in Cole’s ears. At the driver’s nonplussed expression, he cleared his throat. ‘She’ll be down any second, I’m sure.’

Once again he consulted his watch. OK, so he was a minute ahead of time—but these arrivals were scheduled to the second, they had to be ready or the whole thing came down. Shit! He should never have left her.

The car was purring patiently, but its driver looked agitated. ‘We gotta get moving,’ the guy said. ‘I’d sooner make up time on the other side.’

‘Of course,’ said Cole. If Lana couldn’t come down herself, he’d just have to go and get her. ‘Stay here.’

‘Where the hell else am I gonna go?’ muttered the driver under his breath.

Cole stormed through the private lobby and summoned the elevator. He could hear guests mingling in the adjacent room, circulating on their way through to the screening.

Come on, come on, come on.

Just as the doors opened, he caught sight of Parker Troy. The kid was slipping through the double doors and straight towards Cole, probably making his way through the back way for a cigarette. Bad decision. Very bad decision.

He stepped out in the boy’s path.

‘Hello, Parker,’ he said, with the Cole Steel smile.

* * *

Get up. Get up right now. Get up and fight him.

Lana was cold. The colour of her panic was white. It occurred to her that she was already dead. This was the afterlife and he was a ghost. She had been sent to hell, just as she had always feared. She would live all of eternity with the brother she so loathed.

The gun looked her right in the eye. Lester’s finger hovered on the trigger.

What did it matter, if she was dead anyway? What did any of it matter? She closed her eyes and waited. The strength ebbed in thick, spooling waves from her tired body.

A small voice came to her.

I refuse to die here. I refuse to let my baby die.

She opened her eyes. ‘Listen to me,’ she said, ‘you don’t understand—’

‘
I
don’t understand?’ Lester waved the gun around. ‘Oh, I understand everything. I understand everything
perfectly
.’

‘We can still be a family,’ she said, thinking quickly. ‘You and me. Just like when we were young. We can still be…’ she swallowed her revulsion ‘...together.’

He laughed bitterly. ‘Don’t insult me, Laura.’ He grimaced. ‘You think I’m stupid enough to fall into that old trap?’

‘Anything,’ she implored, holding her hands up for mercy. ‘Just don’t kill me, please. I need to live.’

He came closer, the gun inches from her face. ‘Funny how I never got to put that request in myself.’

‘There’s something you should know,’ she said urgently. ‘It’s important—’

‘Shut your fucking mouth, whore!’ he shouted, the gun shaking. ‘You don’t get to keep shit from me any more, you got that? I know everything about you, just like I said. I’m the one with the facts this time, you got that?
Me
.’

She nodded. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘I got it. Please, Lester, put the gun down.’ A trickle of blood seeped into the corner of her mouth. It tasted of metal and salt. ‘I’ll give you anything you want. You want money? I’ve got plenty of it. Take everything, I don’t care—’

‘Take your clothes off,’ he commanded. ‘Now. And do it slowly.’ Foam spluttered at his mouth.

Lana knew she would not. She could not be that frightened child again.

Suddenly she saw her chance.

His attention wavered for a split second, imagining how he would claim her body. Catching him off guard, she lunged at his knees, bringing him to the floor. The gun spun into the air, knocked into a lamp and landed with a thump beyond both their reaches. He twisted her round, getting her on her back. Grabbing her wrists, he pinned her down. She screamed out and he slapped her hard, once, twice, three times round the face. Greedy hands ran across her chest and down, down to that place she had denied him once, and then he was pushing her legs apart, the terrifying rip of material filling her ears.

Summoning all the strength she had left, she raised her knee and plunged it into his groin. Lester fell backwards, shouting in pain.

She threw herself in the direction of the gun, her fingers outstretched. But he was too quick. Taking care to tread on her hand with his full weight, he bent to retrieve the weapon, handling it tenderly like a pet. She went for his leg and opened her mouth, sinking her teeth into his flesh. He kicked her off, grabbed a handful of her hair and knocking her to the floor.

Get up. Get up. Do something.

She hauled herself to her feet, desperately trying to fill her lungs.

That was when he hit her. A brutal, final blow to the stomach.

Lana bent over, choking on the pain. It was spreading: a terrible, inevitable, unstoppable pain.

And then everything went black.

CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

R
obert grabbed one of the organisers.

‘No sign of Lana and Cole?’

The man shook his head, but looked unconcerned. ‘Due any minute. Kate diLaurentis is arriving about now.’

Sure enough, a sleek black limousine pulled up and out stepped a show-stopping vision in pale pink Versace. Paparazzi swooped in and the crowd went wild.

‘Kate, this way! Kate! Kate, over here!’

Like a pro Kate turned, her smile on full beam, lapping up the attention. Behind her trailed Jimmy Hart, especially drainpipe-ish in a tuxedo, who allowed his wife to be photographed on her own before joining her for the couples shots. Kate looked up at him adoringly and they shared a kiss. They made an odd pair, Robert thought. She so concerned with image, he a gauche Englishman who looked slightly uncomfortable about the whole thing.

As Kate and Jimmy made their way down the line, Robert craned his neck for any approaching cars. The anxious feeling he’d had earlier clung on.

He went back inside.

‘Everythin’ OK?’ asked Bernstein, who had been posing for photographs with Jessica.

‘Fine.’ Robert smiled tightly. Maybe it was only that—things seemed to be going swimmingly; he was just waiting for something to go wrong.

Then, beyond Bernstein, Robert spotted Cole Steel in the private lounge. That was weird—surely the guy was meant to be in a car by now?

He pushed open the doors.

‘Cole, hi, forgive the interruption.’ Cole appeared to be in deep conversation with a young actor whose name he couldn’t quite remember. The boy looked terrified.

‘What is it?’ Cole snapped, whipping round.

‘Is Lana with you?’

Cole shook his head briskly, as if he’d forgotten why he was there or who he was with. It occurred to Robert that he might be losing it.

‘No.’

‘So where is she?’

Cole seemed to snap back to reality. ‘We’d better get moving,’ he said, as though Robert was the one holding things up. ‘Time’s up for…’ he eyeballed the actor ‘...
distractions
.’

The boy retreated. On the way past he gave Robert a grateful look.

‘Remember what we talked about,’ Cole called after him, his face a mask. ‘I will.’

Robert didn’t like this. Where the hell was Lana? And what was Cole doing threatening people when he was meant to be walking the carpet?

Crossing to the elevator, Robert’s radio went.

A crackle, then one of his hotel staff came on the line. ‘Boss, we need you upstairs.’

Robert turned his body away from Cole. He spoke quietly. ‘Not now, Ricky.’

Another crackle. ‘I’m sorry, boss, it’s urgent. I’m afraid we’ve got a situation.’

* * *

Mickey Galetti had been found out back with his wrists bound and his mouth taped up, naked and shivering beneath a heap of stinking trash.

He was in Robert’s office, wrapped in a blanket. A purple swelling bloomed round his left eye and his lip was cracked.

‘It was a man,’ he trembled.

Robert’s expression was dark. ‘Talk to me.’

‘He came from nowhere. I—I was just outside for a smoke, I know I shouldn’t have—’

‘What happened?’

Mickey flinched at the memory. ‘Straight out the shadows, he…he came at me. Before I could get away—’

‘And then?’

‘He took my clothes. Left me my wallet. He just wanted the uniform.’ A shake of the head. ‘I thought that was it for me. It was over. I thought I was going to die.’

‘Where did he go?’ Robert asked, already running through the procedures in his head. He knew the answer, he was just buying time before the nightmare got realised.

‘I didn’t see him go, boss. But it was clear what he wanted.’ Mickey looked up. ‘He wanted to get inside.’