Killing America's Sweetheart: A Natalie Miller Mystery (19 page)

Just as she disappeared Simon entered the room and
flipped on the light switch. His face, while trying to adjust to the brightness, looked concerned.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone. Are you okay?” he asked
as he took a seat on the edge of the bed.

Hannah’s presence hadn’t been frightening, it was just tiresome. It seemed like today presented one too many revelations and it was quickly catching up to me. However, there was something so calming and soothing abou
t Simon.

“Who we
re you talking to?” he murmured.

Damn, he heard me talking to Hannah.
Should I tell him? Would he think I was a freak?

“Uh, I was talking to Hannah,” I said
sounding a little too uncomfortable.

His cocked an eyebrow
.

“You were talking to…Hannah?” he questioned.

“Yeah.”

He was silent for a few moments and then said, “I didn’t know you could do that. You know, talk to the dead.”

“I didn’t either. This is the first time I have been able to do so,” I admitted.

“You’ve never seen ghosts before?”

              “No, not really. I can feel and sense them, but I’ve never been able to see, or let alone talk to them. For some reason, I can with Hannah,” I said quietly.

             
Simon didn’t say anything for a while. I figured he was caught up in his thoughts. I felt uneasy, as if maybe I had overshared, but then he asked, “Is she okay? Does she know what happened to her?”

             
“She’s as good as can be expected, but a bit unhappy about being murdered. She doesn’t remember who killed her, but she wants me find out who did it.”

             
“And I will help. I owe that to her,” he replied with conviction.

             
We didn’t discuss the issue anymore after that. I reassured him that I was okay, and he left me to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

             
There was something that continued to bug me about Hannah and her relationship with Damien. It was obvious they had a rocky romance and while it did seem as if there was some bad blood between them, Damien killing Hannah didn’t seem to fit. By all accounts he was a drug user and hardcore partier, but a cold blooded killer? I wasn’t sure of that.

             
To satisfy my curiosity I called Karen early that morning and told her to pick me up at my place at 9am. I had left Simon’s earlier and made my way home to shower and change before Karen arrived.

             
As Karen and I drove in her little bat mobile Prius, I filled her in on our reason for returning to the scene of our earlier disaster.

             
“Oh, no! There’s no way I’m going back to that place! What if those guys are still around and they remember us?” Karen exclaimed loudly.

             
“Seriously? It’s 9am. Those guys don’t strike me as the early rising type. Hell, they probably just went to bed.”

             
Karen didn’t reply, but if her white knuckles were any indication, I’d have to guess she didn’t believe me.

             
The Bombay Inn looked very different in the daylight. In fact, it sort of resembled an old ghost town, meaning; deserted and empty. I gestured for Karen to park and we sat surveying our surroundings.

             
“It’s kind of spooky, even during the day,” Karen said with wide eyes, searching and scanning in all directions.

             
I looked around and decided the best way to go would be a surprise attack. Afraid Damien might give us the slip again, I relayed my plan of action to Karen. She nodded but didn’t comment. Instead we exited the car and I followed her to the back of the Prius.

             
“What are you doing?” I asked.

             
I watched as she opened the hatchback, removed the carpet cover and displayed the spare tire, along with a few questionable items.

             
Part of me wanted to groan, but realistically I knew that it was just what we needed. Karen shot me a look and I shrugged. What the hell? I was getting tired of dead ends and wanted some answers.

             
“Good cop or bad cop?” I asked.

             
“Oooh! Bad cop,” she exclaimed happily, removing any apprehension she may have had.

             
We gathered the items from the car and walked over to Damien’s room. Holding the front, with Karen bringing up the rear, we swung the battering ram at the door and busted it open on the first try.

             
A scantily clad woman jumped off the bed and barreled out the door. We dropped the ram on the floor and made our way to the bed with our very intimidating Glock 9mm’s, where a very hung-over Damien was just coming to.

             
“Oh, shit! It’s fucking SWAT!” he cried, rubbing his eyes with his hands and crawling off the bed, just to crash on the floor.

             
“Don’t move motherfucker!” I yelled stepping over him and placing my foot on his back with my gun aimed and ready for good measure.

             
“Keep your head down!” Karen added.

             
“Man, don’t hurt me. I haven’t done anything, I swear!” Damien cried.

             
“Bullshit,” I said. “I know what you did to Hannah Gold. You sick freak!”

             
He tried to lift his head, but Karen yelled at him, “Keep your fucking head down!” she said as she cocked the gun.

             
I looked over at her and motioned for her to dial it down a bit. We wanted to catch him off guard, not scare him to death.

             
I felt Damien’s body shake slightly and that’s when the smell of urine hit me.

             
“Shit, did you just piss yourself?” I asked.

             
Damien nodded his head, and I could hear tiny sobs, escape from his mouth.

             
“Oh, hell,” I muttered.

             
I took my foot off his back and stepped away. I told Karen, “Put the gun down.”

             
Karen complied, and shook her head, shooting a look of disgust toward Damien.

             
“Sit up,” I commanded.

             
Slowly rising and crawling to the wall, Damien sat up bringing his knees into him.

             
“We know you killed Hannah,” Karen said walking bit closer to him.

             
Obviously, we were pretty sure he hadn’t killed her, but we wanted to rile him up.

             
He shook his head quickly, “No! I swear I didn’t do anything to her!”

             
“That’s not what we heard,” I said calmly. “We heard that you were blackmailing her.”

             
“Y-yeah. I did. But, I didn’t kill her.”

             
“You’d better not be fucking with us,” Karen growled pointing the gun at him again.

             
“I swear to God, I’m telling you the truth!”

             
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Lower your gun, Lacey.”

             
Karen looked at me confused, as I referenced the 80’s female cop drama, Cagney and Lacey.

             
“Listen Damien, I’m sorry about my partner. She’s a little hard to control. She gets pissed over the smallest things, so my suggestion to you is to tell us everything you can regarding your involvement with Hannah, okay?”

             
He eagerly nodded in agreement and said, “Hannah had a bit of a drug problem and if that information got out, it would have tainted her career. Everyone thinks of her as this perfect, wholesome all-American girl, but not many knew about her addiction to coke. It was pretty bad when we were together, but she hid it well from Simon.”

             
“What do you mean ‘when we were together’? Were you still seeing her?” I asked.

             
“Our relationship was complicated. We were so bad for each other, we were good. She loved being seen with Simon and the boost it gave her profile, but she’d always come back to me.”

             
“So, if you felt so confident about your relationship with her, why’d you blackmail her?” Karen asked.

             
Damien shrugged and said, “Look, I haven’t worked in over two years. I’m lucky if I get an audition for a commercial these days. I don’t have the kind of money I used to, but I still have needs,” he said gesturing to his nose. He paused and continued, “She used to give me money for day to day items, but I needed more. She got this crazy idea in her head that she didn’t need me anymore. So, she started sending me less money and finally nothing at all. That’s when I threaten to go to the tabloids with what I knew.”

             
“Which was?” I questioned.

             
“Her drug use, the affair and abortion,” he said. “She made the mistake of confiding to me about being pregnant and going down to L.A. to terminate it. She was afraid of what would happen to her image if she got pregnant by someone other than Simon. She knew he would have left her and she was also feeling insecure because he started withdrawing from her.”

             
“How much money did you demand?” I asked.

Damien took a deep breath and said, “At first I wanted a couple million up front, but she said there was no way she could get her hands on that much cash. So, we went to the bank over here and they said they could get a
hundred thousand, but it would take a few days. What could I do, but wait?”

             
“And then what happened?” Karen pushed.

             
“Nothing. She never came back. She was supposed to bring the money to me, but she never showed. Next thing I know, I’m watching TV and everyone is reporting that she’s been murdered.”

             
“Is there anything else you’re not telling us?” I asked with suspicion. I knew there was one additional piece of information that he had yet to confirm.

             
“Well, I did send her a text kind of telling her she’d better show up, or else…” he said trailing off.

             
Bingo. That matched up with what I saw in my dream.

             
“What else?” I asked.

             
“I paid off the desk clerk to be quiet to the cops, but that’s it.”

             
Damien sat and relaxed, and then began eyeing us. I noticed he was looking at my pink converse and said, “Hey, wait a minute! What kind of cops are you?” he yelled trying to get to his feet.

             
Instinctively, both Karen and I raised our guns and Damien slid back down to the floor.

             
“Alright! Alright!” he said holding his hands up, palms facing us.

             
“All you need to know is that we’re looking into the murder. Now, since you obviously didn’t have the balls to kill her, do you have any idea who might have wanted Hannah dead?” I asked.

             
“I don’t know,” he said genuinely.

             
“What about enemies?” Karen chimed in.

             
He laughed slightly and said, “Lady, she was an A-list Hollywood actress, who wasn’t an enemy?”             

             
“That bad, really?” Karen asked.

             
“It’s dog eat dog. Once you get to the top, there are hundreds of people who try to take you down.”

             
I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he understood he was no better by blackmailing her.

Gilles suddenly interrupted by thoughts and kept repeating,
‘stalker’
over and over again.

“Stalker?” I said out loud.

              “Yeah, she had a few. But Hannah’s were tame compared to his,” he replied.

“Compared to
whom?” Karen asked.

That’s when it hit me, “Simon,” I said.

“Yeah, he had some diehard fans. More than her, but one in particular was really bad. Hannah said he took out a restraining order on that one, but it didn’t stop the madness. The stalker broke into Simon’s house and that’s when the cops threw him in jail”

“Him? Simon’s stalker was a guy
?” Karen asked with surprise.

“
Yeah, so what? It’s all fucked up in the end.  I’m not sure if he was in love with him, or what, but he scared the shit out of both Simon and Hannah.”