Hollywood Blood: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

mother.
    I found Mom lying in bed with a compress on her forehead. She moaned as I checked on her, obviously still in distress.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    “It’s all my fault.”
    I shook my head. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Mom. You can’t blame yourself.”
    “I saw it coming.”
    “You mean the shooting?”
    “The darkness, the evil. It was in the room.”
    I huff ed out a breath in frustration, not knowing what to make of her statement. Maybe I could ask what her spirit guide knew about the crime. I killed the errant thought, imagining Skully getting wind of me questioning a ghost. My mother, the psychic, was also the same woman who’d recently fantasized about having sex with a dead president. I pulled the cellophane envelope out of an evidence folder.
    “Mom, can you help me with something?” I held up the card. She removed the cloth from her forehead and sat up. “I found this in the street near a car that left in a hurry right after the shooting. Is it possible that you dropped it in the road.”
    She shook her head , her eyes growing larger and her mouth gaping open.
    “What is it? I asked. “What’s the matter?”
    She took the card from me, turning it over in her hands for a moment, before her gray eyes came back up to me.
    “It’s a tarot card, Kate. The death card.”

 
    Chapter Five
     
    The cop stops his car outside the gate to the mansion, gets out, and presses the intercom button. A few yards away, hidden behind a wall, Myra waits, watching with her sisters. There’s no response from the intercom and the cop tries again. After a final try and some cursing, the officer gets back in his car and moves off down the road.
    Myra isn’t surprised that no one answered the intercom. She knows the housekeeper goes to bed early and sleeps with one of those machines that makes it sound like it’s raining when there isn’t a cloud in the sky.
    As for the rapper, he’s probably passed out by now. When you start your day with a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, it’s a matter of time until it takes a toll. Myra knows all this because she’s seen it up close and in person.
    Creepy-crawlies.
    It’s the same technique the Manson family used. Secret missions, crawling through houses while the occupants sleep, before coming back and taking care of business.
    Thank you, Charlie.
    Her creepy-crawly excursions have paid off well, not to mention the excitement of secretly moving through the house of a superstar, watching the parties, the sex games, the drugs.
    Even after she was banned from the estate, Myra’s been in the house practicing with Chloe, secretly putting everything on camera for Azazel and the others. It’s all been part of the entertainment.
    After the c op car disappears down the road the women don their masks again. Myra slips over to the service entrance, using a key to open the door. She waves her sisters inside, seeing that someone has left a light burning in the pantry, its soft white glow spilling onto the polished marble floor of the kitchen.
    Myra moves to the counter, sliding drawers open until she finds what she wants. She turns, seeing Chloe’s eyes through her mask as she pushes the handle of the carving knife into her own pocket. They exchange nods, listening as Rose begins to chant.
    Rose’s sapphire eyes are glazed and distant, her lips moving rhythmically as she repeats the words. Myra knows the prayer well. It’s a plea for protection, asking for His guidance and assistance in what is to follow.
    T hey move up the stairway, but Myra pauses, letting her gaze sweep down over the great room below, noticing the overstuffed sofas and chairs, the polished end tables, and the standing brass lamps. She then takes another step up the stairs, seeing the framed photographs of the two stars.
    Myra studies the photos, her hands trembling. There’s a buzz of electricity behind her eyes. A fire erupts deep inside her, the rage exploding and clouding her mind. The woman she has