Not Suspicious in Hollywood: Not in Hollywood Book 5 (16 page)

Looks like I was going to go with Plan C, as
in fighting with everything I had. I had no illusions about my chances of
fighting Fletchall off. He was a big man and looked like he had gone a few
rounds with criminals of every persuasion. I was a personal assistant who
preferred my violence in an action film, on a movie screen. I couldn’t watch a
lot of the newer television shows because I found them too violent and gory.
But I had a choice to make. If he did manage to kill me than I wanted so much
DNA under my fingernails that they would come looking for him the second they
managed to analyze it. I also had a bit more faith in Pickett than Fletchall
obviously had.

Fletchall took a step towards me and I took
a step back. The fact that I had obviously made the decision to fight him didn’t
seem to be relaying to the rest of my body. My fight or flight response had
obviously come down firmly in the flight camp. I didn’t think that was going to
help me either. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of gray and white. I
froze on the spot and my mouth dropped open when I saw Fletchall get knocked
off his feet by the same goat that I had been roundly cursing for the past
several days. Fletchall fell into the lake and Buddy bleated at him
triumphantly.

“You stupid son of a…” Fletchall growled as
he pulled his gun.

“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,”
said Detective Pickett as he walked out into the open with his gun pointed
directly at the soaked detective.

I really hoped that this meant that I was
safe, although considering how my morning had been going, I wasn’t confident of
it.

“Are you okay, Miss Eyre?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Am I okay?”

Pickett threw a glance in my direction. “As
long as you didn’t have anything to do with the murder of Jolena Aaron, you are
completely safe from me.”

I was grateful for the reassurance.

“Toss the gun, Fletchall,” Pickett returned
his attention to the real threat of the day.

Fletchall looked down at the gun in his
hand. I held my breath.

“Don’t be more of an idiot than you already
have been.”

I could see that negotiating was not part
of Pickett’s skill set.

Fletchall cursed again and threw the gun to
the side. At some point, someone was going to need to go swimming to get that
gun back, as well as my purse.

“Now walk out of the water with your hands
up. Do not make any sudden moves or I will shoot you.”

I believed every word that he said. I
stepped back to get as far away from Fletchall as I possibly could and bumped
into Buddy. He bleated at me indignantly and for the first time I didn’t mind.
I knelt down and put my arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“You know I actually had a part in saving
you,” Pickett said as he put handcuffs on Fletchall.

“Not until after Buddy saved me,” I said as
I was stroking Buddy’s head.

“How’s the drummer?” Pickett asked as he
pushed Fletchall to sit on the ground with his hands behind his back.

I reached over and put my hand on Vale’s
chest. His heart was beating strongly.

“How long does it take Rohypnol to wear
off?” I asked.

“Usually a few hours. I’ll get an
ambulance.”

Pickett pulled out a phone and, while
keeping an eye on Fletchall, started making calls. When he finished he looked
over at me.

“Seriously, are you okay? Did he hurt you
in any way?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be having nightmares
for a very long time but he didn’t technically hurt me. Not that I’m not
completely grateful, because I am, but what are you doing here?”

“I’m Internal Affairs. I’ve been
investigating Detective Fletchall here.”

I didn’t know who was more surprised to
hear that, me or Fletchall.”

“You knew he was a killer?” I asked
incredulously.

“No,” Pickett admitted. “We’ve been
investigating him for some inconsistencies in cases throughout his career. His
old partner on the Vice squad got pulled in for illegal behavior and he’s been
implicating Fletchall in some of his less than savory activities. I was sent in
undercover to see what I could find out.”

“So you had no idea he was a killer?”

Pickett shook his head. “No, but the
thought that a corrupt cop took that final step to the dark side isn’t really a
big jump. His behavior during this investigation has been a bit off and even a
moron like me was able to pick up on it.”

He had obviously been around long enough to
hear Fletchall’s assessment of his detective abilities, which brought me to the
next question. “How long have you been here?”

“I saw him assisting Vale out of the
station and decided to follow.”

“So you’ve been here the entire time. You
knew that he was going to kill me and you let this situation keep going. Do you
know how scared I was? Why didn’t you arrest him earlier?”

Pickett indicated the body camera on his
jacket. “I needed him to implicate himself. The evidence against him for
Jolena’s murder is pretty much non-existent. Without that confession to you, I
had nothing. The more he talked, the tighter the case became. Do you really
want him walking around the streets again?”

I had to admit I didn’t. That still didn’t
stop me from disliking Detective Pickett a great deal.

I
raised my head as I heard sirens blaring
in the distance. An ambulance and police cars were heading our way. I looked
down at Buddy and I didn’t know whether it was the life and death situation we
had found ourselves in but we had bonded. It was through that bond I could tell
he had had enough and wanted to go somewhere safe.

“Can I put Buddy back in his pen?” I asked.
“I think all these people are going to freak him out.”

Pickett looked surprised. “You’ve been held
by a murderer, threatened with a horrifying death, one of your clients is currently
unconscious on the ground and you are worried about the psychological trauma
that a goat is going through?”

“That goat saved my life while you hid
behind a tree with an ulterior motive. Frankly, until ten minutes ago I hated
this goat, but now, I like him more than I like you.”

Pickett shrugged. “Take the goat to his pen
but you need to come right back here because you and I are going to be having a
talk down at the station.”

Of course we were, because everything in my
life ended up with me sitting in an interrogation room.

After I’d finished making Buddy as
comfortable as a hero could be, I returned to the lake to find that Vale had
found his way to consciousness and was lying on a gurney about to be loaded
into an ambulance. He stopped the paramedics and waved me over. As I reached
him, he gripped my hand.

“The cop told me what happened. Are you
okay?”

I nodded. “How about you?”

Vale gave me a crooked smile. “As well as I
can be considering I had my drink spiked by the cop who was trying to frame me
for murder.”

“Yeah, it’s been quite the morning,” I
said.

Vale squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry I’ve made
your life uncomfortable. I knew you had a boyfriend but I kind of liked you.
I’m so used to getting what I wanted these days that I figured I could have you
too. I shouldn’t have done that. If I had just left you alone you would never
have been pulled into this mess.”

He looked so downcast that I felt sorry for
him. “I’m fine. Everything worked out in the end and the important thing is
that Jolena is going to get justice. Thanks to this morning’s effort, Fletchall
will be going away for a very long time.”

The paramedic stepped up. “I’m sorry Ma’am
but we’re going to need to get the patient to hospital.”

I nodded, squeezed Vale’s hand and stepped
back.

As I watched the ambulance drive off I felt
Detective Pickett step up behind me. “I need you to come with me to the
station,” he said. “Griffin’s been notified and he’s going to meet us there.
Seems he was already on his way.”

Seems like Plan B would have worked as well
if I’d just been able to keep Fletchall talking for long enough.

As soon as we arrived at the station
Pickett deposited me in the interview room. For the first time I only waited a
few minutes before the door opened again and Pickett walked in. He put a cup of
coffee in front of me and I don’t think I hid my expression of distaste very
well.

“Just coffee, nothing else,” he murmured.

“I think I’m going to have a little problem
with anything a police officer gives me at the moment. Might take me a little
while to get over it.” I pushed the cup away. “Is this going to take long? I
have a wedding to go to.”

“That will be a change of pace for the
day.”

“Yes. A couple of hours ago a wedding was
the absolute last thing that I felt like doing. Now, I’m kind of grateful that
I’m going to get the chance to go.”

“I can imagine. Detective Griffin told me
that you saw Fletchall following you last night.”

“It might not have been me, it could have
been Ramos,” I pointed out.

“It could have been. Fletchall’s not
talking at all so there is a chance we may never know. It does look like he
stole Ramos’s phone at one of those two venues. He used that to lure Griffin
away so that you would be alone when you got to the mansion.”

“Worked a treat, didn’t it?” I said.

Pickett inclined his head. “The case we’re
putting together looks like classic stalker material. Rationality left the
building long ago but he’s still a cop. He was using those skills to build the
best case possible against Vale. Might have worked too if the goat hadn’t got
involved.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I said
sarcastically. “I’m sure you would have come out and arrested him at some
point. I like to believe that it would be before I was killed.”

Pickett looked at me sourly. “Of course I
would have.”

I wasn’t so convinced. It could just have
been the trauma but I was not so sure Detective Pickett would have risked his
investigation just to save little old me.

“Why did you go down to the lake this
morning?” Picket asked.

“Buddy was missing again. The last time he
got out of his pen he ended up at the lake…” My voice tapered off. “I told
Fletchall that at the first interview. That’s the exact same thing that
happened the morning I found Jolena’s body.”

“Probably where he got the idea to lure you
down there. He let the goat out of the pen and human nature would dictate that
you would go looking for the goat at the place you found him the last time he
went missing.”

“It was a great plan, wasn’t it?”

“Nobody said Fletchall was dumb. The man is
pretty intelligent, if you don’t take into account his willingness to coldly
kill a woman to frame someone else for the murder he had previously committed.”

My stomach was not reacting well to this
information.

“Can we finish up soon? I’m starting to
feel a bit ill.”

For the first time, Pickett looked
sympathetic. “Sure.”

He led me out of the interview room and I
was faced with Griffin who was standing as close to the doorway as he possibly
could without blocking it. He pulled me into his arms and the knot in my
stomach started to calm down.

“Tell me you’re okay,” he whispered into my
hair. “I just need to know that you’re okay.”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine. I just need you to
hold me for a little bit longer.”

“I can do that,” he said.

“Trudie can go home,” Pickett said from
somewhere behind me.

Griffin didn’t say anything. He just
gathered me close and led me out to the car. I didn’t say a word as we drove
home but I could feel Griffin glancing at me with a worried expression on his
face.

As he closed the door to my apartment I
turned to him, buried my head in his chest and started crying.

“Oh, honey,” he soothed as he stroked a
hand gently up and down my back.

“I just need a moment,” I said between
sobs. “I just need to let this out.”

“It’s okay, take as long as you like.”

Griffin picked me up as though I weighed
nothing and took me over to the couch. He sat down with me still in his arms
and muttered nonsensical things to me as I calmed down.

“You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you.”

“I know, I’ve just never been that scared
in my life. I’ve been in some bad situations but that was terrifying. I
honestly thought he was going to kill me in a horrible, horrible way and there
was nothing I could do.”

“I wish I’d been there. I wish I could have
stopped it.”

Griffin’s eyes were tortured and I knew for
a man like him this would have been seen as a failure.

“None of us knew. For goodness sake, I
invited the man in for a coffee. I thought he was nice.”

I really needed to work on my instincts
because if this situation had proved anything it was that they were absolutely
useless.

I used the palms of my hands to wipe my
eyes and took in a deep breath. “Okay, I’m fine and we have a wedding to go
to.”

Griffin looked stunned. “You can’t be
serious. We are not still going to that wedding, are we?”

“Absolutely,” I said with a watery smile.
“If there was ever a wedding that was going to self-destruct, this is it. I
wouldn’t put it past John’s daughters to stage an intervention to stop this
thing. Crystal may need back up and if things go really bad we may need your
badge.”

“Fine, but the second it starts looking
like it’s too much, I am taking you out of there.”

“Deal,” I said. “As long as we wait until
after the vows have been said.”

I spent extra time getting myself ready for
the wedding and by the time I finished I had convinced myself that I had
managed to hide the damage from my meltdown.

“You ready?” Griffin called from the living
room.

“Uh huh,” I called back as I grabbed my
clutch, although I no longer had a purse or phone as it was now being examined
by forensics thanks to Fletchall kicking it into the water. I wasn’t really
sure what my waterlogged possessions were going to add to the case against him
but Pickett had insisted.

“Wow,” whistled Griffin. “You look
gorgeous.”

I smiled shyly. “You look pretty good
yourself.”

He did. I always thought that Griffin in
jeans looked amazing but when he wore a suit, he took my breath away.

A serious look came over Griffin’s face.
“Trudie…”

We were interrupted by Griffin’s phone
ringing, as so often happened in our relationship.

“Timing,” he muttered as he looked down at
the screen. “It’s the lieutenant. I’ll be just a second.”

He walked into the bedroom. I could hear
his voice rising and when he hung up I heard words that I usually didn’t hear
coming from Griffin.

“They want you to go in, don’t they?” I
said when he joined me in the living room.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m quite happy to
tell them where to stick it this time. But they want to talk to me about
Fletchall. I don’t want to risk someone dropping the ball and him not getting
everything that he deserves.”

I shook my head. “No, of course not.”

“I will be as quick as I possibly can and
I’ll join you at the wedding,” he promised. He bent his head and gave me a
quick kiss before heading out the door.