DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (45 page)

"I was just wondering."

"But why?" Catherine frowned.

Cam moved off from them, involved in technical aspects he had to attend to. Catherine knew she'd just have to wait until he was ready for the actors. Then he'd come back to her and together they'd set it up.

"You haven't talked to him then, not at all?" Robyn asked.

"No. What's going on, Robyn? Why are you bringing up personal matters like this on the set?"

Robyn shrugged and looked off at the stunt drivers getting out of the cars, taking off their helmets and wriggling out of their fireproof suits. "It's nothing," she said. "Karl's had a stretch of trouble . . ." She looked straight at Catherine again. . . "And you haven't heard about it, huh?"

Catherine shook her head.

"Never mind, then. I just thought since you two were together a while, he might have called you."

"Well, now you've got me worried about him. What kind of trouble has he had?"

"Never mind, I said. If Karl wants you to know, he'll get in touch with you."

"Yeah, right." Catherine tried not to let the sarcasm creep into her tone, but Robyn had a bossy, icy quality about her that often caused Catherine to act distant and sulky herself.

Robyn walked off without a by-your-leave. Catherine stood holding the clipboard and a pen, watching the other woman's sexy walk. How she could look like someone who stepped out of a Playboy centerfold shoot while being on location in this early morning heat, Catherine couldn't understand. There were packets of sweat under her own arms and her hair had frizzed in the morning damp into tight little wiry balls. She knew she must look like an unkempt poodle.

Jesus, nobody ever looked that good off camera. And Robyn wasn't even an actress. It was a crying shame she didn't wear jeans and running shoes like the rest of the folks on the set and at location shoots. It had to be absolute murder staying cool in silk slacks.

Catherine chewed on the top of her ballpoint pen while she waited for Cam to return. She bit down hard on the plastic cap, thinking over what Robyn had said about Karl. Maybe she should call him. See how he was holding up. He probably had a new girlfriend who was putting him through the wringer.

He always had a new girlfriend.

27

"Death is a shadow that always follows the body."

English Proverb

Karl spent two more days away from the office trying to oversee the repairs to his home and the installation of new furniture. He spent half of one day consulting with a different home security company who guaranteed no one would be able to disable the new system. "For this kind of dough," Karl said, "my house better be impregnable."

After he wrote out all the checks and sent home the workmen and delivery people, he sat down on the new, dark, paisley-printed sofa, put his feet up on the new coffee table, and smiled at the makeover. Hell, it had been a few years since he'd refurbished the house anyway. It was due for an overhaul. Not that he could forgive the woman who cost him so much anguish and money. But there were upsides to everything, even vandalism. You just had to look at it properly, he told himself.

Now it was early morning, close to seven AM and he had to get back to his office in Burbank to see how many more clients had walked out on him. His secretary Lois was getting worried. His assistant showed signs of deep stress. The mood at the office was downbeat and spiraling toward sullen. He'd stop off at a florist on the way in and buy huge sprays of fresh flowers. Lois could place them all over the office and maybe that would cheer everyone up a little. And he'd order in lunch from the Italian spaghetti place he liked. A treat for everyone—deep-dish pizza or maybe the delicious spinach lasagna. He had to let his people know things were going to be all right.

And they were. He'd make it all right. He'd go back through all his old affairs again and speak to the women. He'd ferret out which one had gone off the deep end and see that she stopped this harassment. Surely he would be able to tell from looking in a woman's eyes how mad she was. Anyone capable of the damage his house had sustained had to be walking the razor's edge.

He was on the freeway, traffic beginning to thicken the closer he got to the Burbank exit. He hadn't been watching his rearview mirror when the jolt came. The Jaguar lurched forward a car length and the steering wheel literally flew out of his hands. His head was whipped back. He let out a gasp. He grabbed the wheel just before ramming the lane separator wall.

"God almighty," he said beneath his breath. He looked in the rearview and side mirrors. Behind him, perhaps three car lengths away, was a white Ford, older model, large, maybe a Continental. It was gaining again. He tried to see the driver, but the sunlight sheeted the windshield of the other car with opaque gold. Hell, it might be a demon or a gargoyle driving instead of a woman, for all he knew.

He stomped the gas pedal and began looking in the lanes to his right for space to move over. He'd get off the freeway at the next exit. He'd call the cops at the first service station he found.

The Ford rammed him again, but this time Karl was ready for it. His hands gripped the laced leather covering on the Jaguar's steering wheel so hard they felt glued down. He had tried to hit a burst of speed in order to avoid the collision from behind, but it was too late.

Suddenly he was slammed forward again, his head banging the headrest with a popping sound. His vision went all out of focus and he couldn't tell if he was in his lane or not. When he could see straight again, he realized he was swerving into the lane next to him and the car there taking up the space screeched its brakes trying to avoid being hit.

Now Karl screamed out, believing he was about to die in a fiery crash. He swung the wheel hard left, avoiding the other car by millimeters.

He looked in the rearview. The white Ford was gaining for the third time. The front end of the car was smashed up pretty good, which made Karl realize his own car must look like a crushed tin can in the rear.

Upping his speed to over a hundred miles an hour, Karl passed the car in the right lane, the one he'd almost hit, and swerved in front of it. He saw the next two lanes over to the right were pretty busy—cars, pickup trucks, a semi. He couldn't get over yet. He pressed the accelerator and the speedometer inched up to one hundred twenty. He had passed the wolf pack of vehicles and found a little area of empty lanes.

Sweat rolled down his face. He could feel his heart rocketing around like a loose pinball. He passed over into the next lane right. He saw the Ford, two, four, then five cars behind, doing the same. Shifting lanes. Relentless.

"Oh god," Karl whispered, so scared he thought he might black out. "Get me out of this," he prayed. "Ohgodgetmeoutofthis."

He had one more lane to cross over so he could reach an exit and a feeder lane. There was a farm truck with an old tin camper on the back in his way. If he sped up to pass it, he'd be blocked by another wolf pack.

He dropped back, hoping to scoot over behind the farm truck. Then the white Ford was behind him. He still couldn't see the driver. They were headed east, the sun square in front of them, lancing off the other car's windshield, making the driver invisible.

Opening! Karl quickly changed lanes, saw an exit up ahead. It didn't look more than a quarter mile distant. If only he could . . . The Ford rammed him and the wheel again flew from his fingers like a startled bird winging away to freedom. The Jaguar angled to the left into the left lane's traffic just coming up on him. Cars hit their brakes, swerved and hit other cars in lanes next to them. Before Karl could straighten out the Jag, he heard metal bending and the sound of explosions as half a dozen cars and trucks slammed into one another.

Now the Ford was in the lane left of Karl. He looked over, waiting for the front end of the Ford to clear his midsection, trying to see the driver. Before the big front grill came even with his door, Karl saw it shift like a gear clicking into place. It was going to sideswipe him.

Karl didn't know what to do, step on the gas or the brake. He didn't have time to do anything. The Jag flew from the lane onto the emergency stopping pavement, hit the gravel lining, and went airborne over a short ditch. It landed hard on the incline, the tires digging in, and spun onto the feeder road that was mercifully empty. Karl hit the brakes so hard his foot slammed into the carpet. The Jag burned rubber on the feeder, the back end whipping around until the car had done a full circle and shuddered to a stop. The engine stalled.

Karl hung over the wheel, breathless. "Goddamn," he muttered. "Oh shit."

He craned his head to look for the white Ford but it had vanished. The driver must have gone on down the freeway. It was already out of sight. Karl hadn't even had a chance to watch for the license plate.

Cars had slowed and stopped behind Karl on the feeder. They took turns honking their horns at him. Karl reached with trembling fingers to the key in the ignition and started the car.

He didn't realize his head had bumped the front windshield and that he was bleeding from the front of his scalp.

He didn't know he'd even been hurt until one side of his face felt wet and he reached up to wipe off what he thought was sweat and brought his fingers away blood red.

28

"The insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Body made it to the studio gate just fifteen minutes late. Cam was going to throttle him, but no matter what degree of rant he got into—and he could get into some good ones—he'd get over it.

The effort on the freeway from Malibu to Burbank had taken time, it was so out of the way. Waiting not far from Karl's house, The Body had followed him from his block right onto the entrance ramp. This meant the day started before dawn. A full day's excitement and work and danger had been used up in mere hours.

Then after the rear bumper ramming and the last slam into the side of the Jag, The Body had to drop off the smoking, wrecked Ford in an alley in Hollywood where the other car was parked.

It all took time. It took finesse. It took such careful planning and a cunning performance.

And it involved courage. The Body might have been hurt trying to ram the Jag at those speeds. Or another car might have gone out of control and totaled out the Ford.

The Body quaked at the thought. It was as if a chill crept up the spine, ending with an electric shock at the base of the neck.

Working on the set after the long, hard hours of setting up Karl on the freeway was child's play, but it did demand attention. First to deal with Cam for being late, then with the other crew members who didn't seem quite with-it for some reason. Everything had to be shot over several times. A boom mike didn't work, one of the cameramen was off with a rampaging case of the flu, no one hit their marks, the lighting director argued with the prop people.

The day wore on endlessly, winding down finally like a battery-operated toy going on the blink. The Body said goodbye to everyone and left the studio lot as fast as possible.

Once safe at home, The Body went directly to the sensory deprivation room and locked the door. Felt in the dark for the leather chair. Sat and reclined with feet raised.

Breathed deeply of sin and covetousness and retribution. Luxuriated in replaying the early morning chase step-by-step, scene-by-scene. It was almost the way it had been filmed the day before. Very few differences, save for the lack of cameras, pacing vehicles, and little or no chance of harm.

Had Karl been hurt when he went hurtling down the embankment to the feeder lane? Had someone crashed into him or had the Jag landed on another car that happened to be passing by?

The Body hadn't been able to slow down enough to get a glimpse of the aftermath. Maybe The Body should have turned on the car radio on the way home to check for news of Karl LaRosa's death. If he'd died, they would have surely reported it. Karl was a man of power behind the scenes; he was a puppet master. He had groomed enough stars over the past ten years to make him newsworthy.

Well, The Body didn't turn on the radio, therefore there was no way to know if Karl were alive or dead or hospitalized. It was too early for him to be dead, but The Body had to take into consideration that any action mimicking the script of Pure and Uncut could result in murder. At any time. Things could always go wrong. They weren't being as carefully choreographed as they were on soundstages and location shootings. It was all up to chance whether Karl survived to the end of the script or not.

It would be a pity if he succumbed too soon, but it was his demise The Body meant to achieve, early in the game or late. It really didn't matter all that much.

The effect of the silence and impenetrable dark served to ease The Body from a frenzied state to one resembling peace. The face relaxed once the mask was tossed aside. The limbs fell loose. The eyes rolled back in the head, and visions of blood and destruction were let from out of the cage in the back hallway of the brain to go dancing down the synapses and neuron networks.

For another hour, until the timer signaled The Body must leave the deprivation room, madness reigned, gleeful and faceless as a mime on a street corner.

29

"Scratch a lover, and find a foe."

Dorothy Parker, Ballade of a Great Weariness

When Catherine Rivers called Karl's house after work on the set was finished for the night, Jimmy Watz answered the phone. "Can I speak to Karl, Jimmy?"

"Who is this? Catherine?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Karl's having to stay overnight in the hospital. He was in a wreck and wound up with some stitches in his head."

"He was in a wreck?"

"Right. He said some joker ran him off the freeway this morning going in to work. He went down an embankment and onto a feeder lane. Luckily the feeder was empty at the spot where he ended up or he'd probably be dead."