Diagnosis Murder 3 - The Shooting Script (30 page)

She'd never felt so good, so in control.

When Lacey and Moira returned to the main house, Lacey's private line was ringing. Lacey answered the phone and heard a voice from the dead.

"I've got leverage against her she doesn't know I have. I can bring her into line without putting her in a hospital bed."

It was Cleve. She recognized his voice immediately and it terrified her. It was a toss-up, though, what scared her more: his voice or what he was saying.

Cleve never got around to threatening her before she killed him, so this was the first she'd heard that he had any kind of "leverage" against her. But she knew what it must be. What it had to be.

Moira saw the fear on Lacey's face and, without hearing a word, knew what this call had to be about. There was only one thing that could frighten Lacey, and that would be the prospect of losing what she'd fought so hard for—what she'd killed to protect.

"Who is it?" Moira whispered.

Lacey shook her head, unable to answer the question, just as another voice spoke into her ear, this one only vaguely familiar.

"I've got his leverage now," the man said. "And it will cost you $600,000 to buy it from me."

Now Lacey recognized the caller. It was Nick Stryker, the inept PI that Cleve hired, the jerk she'd manipulated so masterfully to her benefit.

"You tried this once before," Lacey said. "And look what happened. I'd have thought you would have learned some thing from the experience."

"I have. That's why the price is double," Stryker said. "I don't appreciate getting screwed. You cost me my PI ticket, honey."

"Boo-hoo," she said.

"This is a one-time offer," he said. "Or I sell the video to the highest bidder."

"You don't have anything I want." She started to hang up, when she heard him say something she couldn't ignore.

"Just a little girl-on-girl action," he said.

She brought the receiver back to her ear and met Moira's gaze, telegraphing her fear.

"What did you say?" Lacey asked.

"It's a lesbo porn movie I secretly shot for Cleve in Topanga Canyon not so long ago," Stryker said. "The stars are you and Moira Cole, frolicking at her place. Cleve kept the tape as kind of an insurance policy, only now it looks like I'm gonna be the beneficiary."

"Nice try, but that never happened," she said. "You'll have to do better than that."

Stryker laughed. "Okay, fine with me. You're so hot right now, I'm sure I can find plenty of people willing to buy it from me, and for a lot more than $600,000. Look for it on the Internet real soon."

He hung up before she could say another word.

She stared at the phone for a long moment, glanced at Moira, then picked up the receiver and punched in a phone number.

Stryker answered on the fourth ring, making her sweat.

"Where and when do you want to meet?" she asked.

Jesse dozed only for a few moments on the flight back from Toronto, tortured by memories, by regrets, and by the ugliness of what he had to do. It couldn't wait, not even for a night's sleep, a shower, or a fresh set of clothes. He went directly from Los Angeles International Airport to Community General Hospital to get it over with.

Noah Dent was sitting at his desk, studying a spreadsheet, when Jesse barged in unannounced and set the prom photo down in front of him, still in its original silver frame. Dent couldn't have been more startled if the picture had materialized on his desk by magic.

Once the shock passed, Dent realized the lengths Jesse must have gone to discover his secret and retrieve the picture.

"I knew Tanya," Jesse said. "I used to look forward to her paramedic unit coming in, even if it was just to catch a glance at her rushing past, wheeling a patient down the hall to one of the trauma rooms. I had a crush on her."

Noah nodded, looking up from the photograph. "She was hard not to love."

"What happened to her was a horrible tragedy," Jesse said gently.

"Then how can you stand to be near Mark Sloan after what he did to her?" Noah asked.

"She forced him to make a choice nobody should have to make," Jesse said. "In the end, he had to do what was morally right."

"That's just it: he didn't," Noah said.

"She murdered a man," Jesse said.

"He wasn't a man. He wasn't even human. He was a monster," Noah said, and he could tell from the look on Jesse's face that the doctor knew it, too.

"That doesn't change what she did," Jesse said.

"Tanya was walking alone to the dorms after studying late at the library. He was waiting in the darkness. He raped her, beat her, and left her for dead. Just like he did to half a dozen other women. And he got away with it. He was never caught."

"Yes, he was," Jesse said. "Tanya caught him, years later, when she was a paramedic, when she responded to a bus accident and recognized him as one of the injured riders. But instead of treating him, instead of pointing him out to the police, she killed him and tried to make it look like he died in the accident."

"He deserved to die for what he did to her," Dent said. "No one would mourn for him. Mark Sloan had to know that."

"Mark knew it," Jesse said.

"So what if she killed that bastard? It was justice," Noah said. "Sloan could have kept it to himself. Instead, for the pleasure of the hunt, he turned her in. Sloan didn't care about her, about the horror the monster she killed put her and all those other women through."

"Tanya murdered a man and Mark knew it," Jesse said.

"He made a moral decision. He decided that he couldn't abide murder, no matter what the circumstances."

Noah gently stroked the picture frame as if it were a woman's cheek. "I've visited her in prison. Her soul is dead, trapped inside her body. It's like looking at a terminally ill patient being kept alive by machines. Is that what she deserves for killing a serial rapist? Is that morally right?"

Jesse took a deep breath, hating himself for what he was about to do, what he had to do.

"You're going to reinstate Mark and Amanda to their positions, apologize for firing them, and recommend that the adjunct county medical examiner's office be reopened," Jesse said. "You'll also rehire all the nurses you let go and reimburse them for lost pay."

"The hell I will," Dent said.

"If you don't, I'll go to the board and tell them how you abused your position to seek revenge," Jesse said. "Your career will be destroyed."

"My career doesn't matter," Dent said. "It was all for Tanya."

"I'll also go to the press. All the lurid details of what happened to Tanya will come out," Jesse said. "Her deepest, most intimate secrets will become public. It will all be twisted to make the best headline, the most shocking sound bite. Her family's privacy, and your own, will be invaded. Think what this will do to her chances for parole, if she has any left at all."

Dent looked at Jesse with revulsion. "You'd do that to her—rape her again in the media—after everything else she's been through?"

"I'd do that for my family," Jesse said. "Mark Sloan, Amanda Bentley and Susan Hilliard are my family. That's the moral choice I'm making. Now it's your turn to make one."

Jesse walked out of Dent's office without waiting for a reply and without looking back. He knew Dent had no choice, not really—not if he still cared about Tanya. That certainty, and the way he used it, sent Jesse rushing to the nearest men's room. He barely made it to the toilet before he started throwing up.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Vasquez Rocks is a boulder-strewn landscape of jagged formations that look as if they exploded out of the earth's core, mainly because they did. But this dry corner of the high desert, sparsely covered with yucca and scrub oak, wasn't named for the fault line that created its stunning outcrop pings, or the Indian tribes who lived there for centuries. It was named for Tiburcio Vasquez, a violent but charming sociopath who, in the mid-1800s, liked to hide out there with his gang between bloody robberies and senseless killings.

In daylight, Vasquez Rocks looks like the surface of Mars because, for as long as there have been movies, it has been Mars. It has also been prehistoric Earth, the Vulcan home world, and the
Planet of the Apes
, among others. But at night, it becomes 800 acres of pitch-black desolation and a fine place for a wide variety of criminal pursuits including, but not limited to, ransom drops, body dumping, drug trans actions and, on this occasion, a blackmail payoff.

Moira Cole drove her rented Ford Explorer down a long, bumpy dirt road, deep into the desert. Lacey sat beside her in the passenger seat, calling out the directions that Stryker had given them. The meeting place, agreed upon after some tense negotiation on the phone, satisfied the needs of both Nick Stryker and Lacey McClure. He didn't want to be lured into another police ambush and she didn't want there to be any chance of them being seen together. The location also had the benefit of being familiar to Lacey. She'd shot two of her movies out there.

The ride would have been a lot smoother in Lacey's Hummer, but the movie star didn't want anything tying her to the place. The Explorer was rented using a stolen credit card, just like the Taurus that Moira had driven to the Slumberland Motel the day of the murders.

They topped a rise and saw Stryker's Escalade parked below them in a bowl of rock, awash in an otherworldly blue glow from the TV screens imbedded in the rear of his head- rests and on his dash. As Moira drove up closer, they could see he was watching an
Everybody Loves Raymond
rerun while waiting for them to show up.

Moira parked beside the Escalade and the two of them got out, Lacey carrying a bulging gym bag. Lacey got into the front passenger seat and sat down beside Stryker. Moira went around to the driver's side and slipped into the back seat, directly behind him, just in time to catch Ray Romano on the headrest TV, getting squirted with mustard by his wife.

Stryker switched off the TV and twisted in his seat to get a look over his shoulder at Moira.

"I see you brought the missus," he said. "I don't recall sending her an invitation to this party."

"This involves both of us," Lacey said.

"It certainly does," Stryker said with a leer. "So that sex tape of you and Cleve, that was all just a scam you came up with to make a buck and fool anybody who might think you're gay, right?"

"You're sharp, Nick," Lacey smiled.

"I've been playing this game for a while, Lacey," he said.

"As uncomfortable as this situation is, I appreciate that you came to me first with what you have rather than taking it to auction on the open market," Lacey said. "So, let's be honest with each other, okay?"

"Works for me," Stryker said.

"You're gonna give me a copy of the tape of Moira and me tonight and walk away with $600,000," Lacey said. "But the fact is, this is just the beginning of our relationship. You've got the original tape hidden away, and you're going to keep coming back to me for money as long as I live."

Stryker shrugged. "Here's how I look at it, Lacey. I know I'm taking advantage of you, but no more so than the managers, publicists, agents, trainers, stylists, and everybody the hell else you have on your payroll. I want to keep this friendly and professional. I'm never going to ask you for more than a couple hundred grand a year. You spend more than that annually on lunches. Think of me as just another business expense, part of your entourage. You can even call me for security advice, free of charge."

"Are you bugging this conversation, Nick?" Lacey asked.

"Nope."

"I thought we were going to be honest with each other and already you're lying to me," Lacey said. "With all the high-tech stuff you've got in this car, you've got to be recording this."

"What good would a tape of this conversation be to me?" Stryker said. "I'd only be implicating myself as a blackmailer."

"I can't take that chance, Nick," Lacey said. "I'm going to have to set this car on fire."

That's when Moira looped a piece of rope around his neck from behind and pulled him back against the headrest, strangling him. As he struggled, Lacey casually leaned down and unzipped her bag, to reveal a gasoline canister, some rags, and a box of matches.

"I'm going to take your advice and treat you as part of the cost of doing business," Lacey said, "just like I did with Titus. I can't afford to let anybody have anything on me."

Stryker gurgled and flailed desperately in his seat, his legs kicking, his eyes bulging in terror.

"You may have the tape, but I'm willing to bet you've hidden it so well, it's going to stay hidden once you're dead," Lacey said. "But we'll firebomb your office too, just in case. It will look like the work of an angry client. You must have plenty of those."

Stryker's foot connected with the dash. Suddenly the headrest monitor flashed on in front of Moira's face and she saw a high-angle, fish-eye view of the interior of the Escalade on one half the screen and Dr. Mark Sloan on the other, sitting on the set of the KCBS "Action news."

"Let him go, Moira," Mark said, "unless you want to go to prison for murder, too."

Mark's face was directly in front of her, creating the startling illusion that they were actually confronting each other directly, that he was looking right into her eyes from the intimate proximity of a lover. The angle on Mark widened to include KCBS anchorman Chet Whittaker, who was sitting beside him.

"I'm not sure she can hear you," Chet said in his deep, sonorous voice.

"She can hear me," Mark said. "I can see it on her face."

Lacey stared in shock at the dashboard TV screen and at the two words emblazoned under Mark Sloan's face: LIVE BROADCAST.

"Think about it, Moira," Mark said. "There's no point in killing him now—not with a few million witnesses watching. It's over."

Moira let go of the rope and fell back in her seat, closing her eyes in defeat. Stryker clutched his throat and sucked air in deep, wheezing gasps.

"Wise choice, Moira," Mark said.