Hollywood Notorious: A Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series (A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Book 14) (19 page)

I spent the rest of the drive to Pasadena mulling over what Joe had said. The more I wrestled with what he’d suggested, the more it seemed like a real possibility. I remembered Lindsay turning and locking eyes with me before she’d boarded a helicopter and headed away with her captors. Had that been a silent message to me about her real intentions?

And, despite being held prisoner by the group, I knew that Lindsay wasn’t someone who easily gave up her beliefs or her sense of right and wrong. If she had gone underground with The Swarm to save my life, it only deepened my resolve to find a way to help her.

As I thought about trying to find justice for both my sister and my love-dad, I wondered how Noah would react to both of those commitments. It seemed likely that he would take issue with my determination to help them by putting my own life at risk. That possibility again made me question whether or not we were a good fit.

I knew from what I’d read on my iPhone that Berkshire State Hospital was a five hundred bed, Spanish-style facility built in the late 1930s. It housed individuals who were considered to be a danger to themselves and others due to mental illness, those who were considered mentally disordered offenders, and subjects who were deemed incompetent to stand trial. Because the facility was considered to be a hospital, guards were not allowed to be stationed in the wards, but rather were called in if there was a disturbance.

That fact had been blamed as part of the reason a psychiatric technician had recently been murdered on the hospital grounds. The state was in the process of building more secure enhanced treatment facilities, but, due to costs, that hadn’t yet transpired. I’d known individuals who had worked in similar settings. It often fostered an us-versus-them mentality, and it made me wonder if Joshua Brown had used his position to abuse those under his control. I also wondered if he and Quinton Macy had crossed paths while in the hospital.

When we arrived at Berkshire, a sense of foreboding immediately overwhelmed me as we parked, met up with Leo, and walked with Bernie toward the administration wing. An involuntary shiver moved through me when I thought about the inmates that had been housed here over the years, and the likely horrors they’d endured during a period when patients had few rights.

“I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time here,” Leo said, echoing my thoughts as we made our way up the Spanish pavers to the entrance.

“It’s pretty intimidating,” I agreed, noticing the rows of buildings that were adjacent to the main structure that I knew must be the patient housing units.

Joe, never one to hold back, gave us his opinion. “I think we just landed smack in the middle of the cuckoo’s nest, kids.”

Things only got worse when Joe announced ourselves to the front desk staff and, in general terms, explained why we were there.

“I’ll have to find an administrator, so have a seat,” the clerk said. She picked up a telephone that was ringing. “How does that saying go? Good things come to those who wait.”

Joe reached over the counter and snatched the phone away from her. He then took the opportunity to demonstrate he had zero patience for bureaucrats. “Listen to me, sweetheart. I’m a federal agent. I don’t have time to wait around while you dispense your idiotic folk wisdom, answer phones, and locate some schmuck in a cheap suit. Get the hospital administrator out here now or I’ll go find him myself.”

The woman blanched and took the phone back as Joe handed it to her. After making a call, she swallowed and said, “Someone is on their way out.”

A couple of minutes later, a door closed down the long hallway and an older man began walking toward us.

“Looks like the wizard has come out from behind his curtain,” Joe said.

The administrator, who was indeed dressed in a cheap suit, finally reached us and introduced himself. “I’m Dr. Marlow. How may I help you?”

Joe took a moment, giving him some basic information about our need to talk to Joshua Brown, without going into all the details. “Where can we find him?”

“I happen to know for a fact that he’s not here today,” Marlow said.

Joe glanced at me, back at the administrator. “Where the hell is he?”

“He took a patient to Los Angeles recently, but hasn’t returned.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not sure.”

Dawson took a step closer to Marlow and lowered his already baritone voice. “Tell us what the hell’s going on.”

Marlow huffed out a breath and turned red. “Mr. Brown assisted one of our staff transporting a patient to a clinical drug trial. I’m afraid none of them have been heard from in the past twenty-four hours.”

“What’s the name of this patient?” I demanded.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss patient records. It’s privileged in…”

Joe brought out his badge and held it up to Marlow. “Listen to me. We have reason to believe Brown, and maybe your patient, are behind some recent killings. Unless you cooperate, I’ll have you placed into custody for failing to cooperate with a federal investigation.”

It was a complete bluff, but it had its intended effect. Dr. Marlow took a breath and mopped his forehead. “The patient is Quinton Macy.”

As we drove to the address Dr. Marlow had given us for Quinton Macy’s psychiatrist, I told Joe what I knew about Macy. “As you already know, he came up in our original NCIC search. He’s been in Berkshire for about a decade. The crime that resulted in his commitment to the hospital was similar to our first victim, but was less sophisticated.”

“He was learning his craft,” Joe said. “I’ll bet he’s been working behind the scenes with Brown all these years.”

“And they’re probably working together again,” I agreed.

A half hour later, Leo and I were standing on Dr. Ellen Moore’s porch with Bernie, as Joe rang the bell several times. Nobody answered. The sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows across the house, which was set back from the street in a rural area.

“According to what Marlow said, Dr. Moore is married, with two kids,” I said, keeping a tight rein on Bernie’s leash. “I’ve tried her cell number, and she isn’t picking up. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“No lights on in the house,” Leo said, after looking through a window.

“Let’s check around back,” Joe said.

We went into the back yard and knocked on the French doors. The house was dark and looked deserted.

I pulled out my iPhone. “Let me try her number again.”

As I dialed, I looked over and saw that Joe had a rock in his hand. I knew from working with him in the past that he wasn’t big on either patience or search warrants. “No time for chit chat, Buttercup.”

The rock smashed through one of the glass inserts and we called out, announcing ourselves. When there was no response, we went inside with our guns drawn.

We were in the process of clearing the house, when we heard Leo calling out to us from the master bedroom. His voice was higher than usual, telling me he was under some kind of distress. “In here. I think this must be her husband.”

Leo had found a light switch and illuminated the bedroom as I came through the door with Bernie on alert. The scene was so ghastly and bizarre that it stopped me in my tracks. “What the hell…”

Joe was behind me, looking over my shoulder. “God damn it.”

A man’s mutilated body was lying on the bed. His head had been severed, along with his arms and legs, leaving only the torso in one piece. A large carving knife, probably taken from the kitchen of the home, was embedded in his chest. There was blood everywhere.

While Leo made calls to the local authorities, Joe and I left the bedroom. I gave Bernie the settle command, then turned to Joe, a single word escaping my throat. “Why?”

“Dead men tell no tales,” Joe said, taking a breath. “And they made sure Moore’s husband wouldn’t be talking.

He regarded me. “You okay?”

I tried to breathe evenly. “Yeah, I just wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

His pale eyes swept over the Moores’ living room. “We better be prepared for the worst. Brown and Macy have the shrink, and, based on what happened to her husband, there’s no telling what they have planned for her.”

THE VISITOR

It’s morning now. At least, it’s
my
morning. I didn’t sleep very well last night. I was thinking about Nancy for a long time. Maybe I thought so hard about her being real that I made her mad and she doesn’t want to find me. If that’s the way she feels, it’s okay. I understand, because I like to be left alone too, sometimes.

There are some girls in my class that don’t understand that. I was in the restroom once and they came in. Debbie’s the leader of their group and said I was ugly and I’d better not hang around her or her friends. I don’t think I’m beautiful, but I know I’m not ugly. People tell me that I look a lot like my mama, and I know that she’s pretty.

I told Mama about what happened at school the next day. She said the girls were probably just jealous. I’m not sure that’s true because there isn’t a lot for them to be jealous about. We don’t have very much money and my clothes are…

I hear something! It’s coming from outside. I’ve never heard anything from outside since I’ve been down here. It sounds like maybe someone is above me, above the room that I’m in. I’m not sure what to do. If I call out and it’s the man who is coming to kill me, it might make him mad. Maybe, if I’m very quiet, he will keep going and won’t find me.

I’m going to turn off the light and sit in the dark. Even if he comes down the stairway, it will be so dark that maybe he won’t see me. I’m going to be very quiet now. I still hear someone moving around up there, and it’s scary.

A long time has passed and I’ve been quiet, sitting in the dark. I don’t hear the sounds above me anymore. If it was the man, I think he’s gone away. I didn’t call out because I was scared. I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I was afraid. Mama says it’s okay to be afraid because it’s the way your body protects you.

I’m going to turn on the light again. I don’t like the darkness.

It took me a moment, but I found my way over to the lamp. The light is back on now. It seems brighter than before. It’s hard to see because…

“Hello.”

“Who are…”

My heart is suddenly beating fast and I’m having trouble catching my breath. There’s a girl here! She’s standing over by the stairway. She has dark hair, like mine, and we’re about the same age.  I think I know who she is.

I think it’s Nancy. I made her real!

We spent the rest of the day processing the scene at the Moores’ residence, along with Lieutenant Oz, Darby, and Buck. We found a phone number for Ellen Moore’s parents and learned they had been watching the children while their mother was away. We also confirmed with the hospital that Moore was still missing, along with Joshua Brown. We were now fairly certain that Macy and Brown had kidnapped her.

We had also learned from Halgen that Quinton Macy had received one transfusion of their so called miracle drug. I had no idea what Neustasis was supposed to do. All I did know was that, based on what had transpired, the drug was a complete failure.

The crime scene was under the jurisdiction of Pasadena PD, but, as a courtesy, Chief East was able to get an agreement that Cathy Maitland and her SID staff could work the crime. I’d also asked Rose Castillo to respond to the residence, to give us her expert analysis of what happened. After the two women had done a preliminary examination of the bedroom and learned the details of the crime, they met with us in the living room.

“I’m sure you already know,” Maitland said, “Mr. Moore suffered multiple traumatic injuries. There were numerous cuts to the body that look like they were pre-mortem, so the attack probably went on for some time before he was killed. There were multiple prints taken from the scene, all of them coming back to his wife, Joshua Brown, and Quinton Macy.”

“Do you think his wife was present during the attack?” Oz asked.

“We have no way of knowing for sure, but it’s likely, given that this was a crime involving fear and intimidation, not to mention mutilation.”

“Somebody really cut his dick off?” Darby asked. He was stating something that we’d already determined based upon a closer examination of the body.

“Yes, along with the other injuries,” Maitland confirmed. “It was about as gruesome an attack as I’ve ever seen.”

“Any thoughts on why they did this?” I asked, turning to Rose.

“I think the killers were sending a message that Dr. Moore’s husband wouldn’t be talking about anything that happened to her. I also talked to Ms. Rogers, your crime analyst, earlier today. She’s been in contact with Dr. Moore’s sister, for some background information on the family. She said the couple was having some marital difficulties. The husband had apparently been cheating on her.”

“Maybe our killer twins did her a favor,” Darby said. “Cut it off as a payback.”

As usual, what Darby had said irritated the hell out of me. Joe seemed equally annoyed with him.

“It looks like you were right about Brown having a partner,” Joe said to Rose. “Any other thoughts on this?”

“The fact that they probably took Dr. Moore with them, rather than kill her, tells me they’re planning to use her in whatever they have planned next.”

“Which one of our two killers do you think is calling the shots on what’s been happening?” Leo asked her.

“Ms. Rogers was also able to obtain the hospital records on Mr. Macy. He’s a brilliant and deranged psychopath, someone who apparently doesn’t fit the usual diagnostic criteria. I believe Macy has been working with Brown for years, even while he’s been in the hospital, using him as a surrogate to kill. They likely devised the plan for Brown to come to work at the hospital to assist Macy in his escape. It’s just a guess at this point, but I think he could be the dominant, with Brown carrying out his orders.”

Oz spoke up. “I don’t understand how these two bonded. Isn’t there some kind of separation protocols between the patient and staff at the hospital?”

Rose nodded. “There’s supposed to be, but, frankly, the state hospitals are notorious for having lots of problems, including inappropriate staff-patient relationships. Once Macy was accepted into the clinical trial, he probably seized the opening. He worked with Brown, planning the escape together, and likely used Dr. Moore in their scheme.”

“But what’s in this for Brown?” I asked. “He’s operated on his own for years.”

“As I said, Brown has probably been acting as Macy’s killing surrogate for years. Macy likely manipulated him, convincing him that if he would help him escape, there would be many more opportunities for him to satisfy his killing needs once he was freed.”

“Maybe Moore was also in on it,” Darby suggested. “It could be that we’ve got a three-way.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, unable to keep my anger with him at bay any longer.

“Call it what you want, but there was a nurse back east who helped a couple of inmates escape from a prison. She was screwing them both, and helped them get out through a tunnel.”

After Dr. Castillo also discounted what he’d said, Buck told us, “I was talking to one of the responding officers a little while ago. The press is aware of what happened. They also know that Brown and Macy are working together.”

“Damn,” I said, turning to Joe. “How does the press already know?”

“Not sure, but, if I were a betting man, I’d bet that my boss already knows about this shit storm. Don’t be surprised if he wants to take over your investigation first thing tomorrow.”