Chapter 33
After drinks with Courtney, Mia arranged for an Uber back to her dad’s home in Brentwood. She wasn’t sure when she’d feel comfortable going back to her West Hollywood condo, but she knew she was going to need more time. Venting that night had helped, especially with the bartender. A cool chick. If she wasn’t ten years older than Mia and her friends, she would’ve invited her to Malibu.
As with the other night, she could only sleep in fitful starts and stops. No matter how much she tried to focus on other things, her thoughts drifted to Kyle (or Chuck or whatever he wanted to call himself) and how he had used her. Before this, she would’ve never thought herself capable of violence, but if she had the chance, she would slice his face open with one of the samurai swords her dad collected. The only time she felt herself at peace that night was when she imagined herself doing that.
She forced herself out of bed early Saturday morning, and even though she felt sluggish and exhausted, she went on a five-mile run through Brentwood. It didn’t help her mood at all. When she returned, her dad was up and they had breakfast together. Seeing the worry in her dad’s eyes made her feel better in a selfish sort of way. Not much, but a little.
Later, while he was having coffee and she was having a mocha cappuccino (her favorite), he told her the Malibu property would be ready by two.
“I have a crew there now getting the pool, Jacuzzi, sauna, tennis courts, and the rest of the property ready for you and your friends.”
Later that afternoon, Mia arrived at the Malibu address with her three friends and she had to admit: The place was spectacular. She, Courtney, Hallie, and Kaylee had been besties since middle school, and hanging with them helped. For the first few hours they sat by the pool, which her dad had stocked with bottled water and soft drinks (Hello? They were all twenty-two. No booze?) and as they laid around tanning, they talked about only inconsequential stuff, mostly gossip about other friends from high school. That evening they had pizza delivered, and after that Courtney brought up how Philip Stonehedge lived a mile down the road (Mia, in a moment of weakness when they were drinking at Divine’s, had divulged that information, and as an even bigger mistake, had given her Stonehedge’s address!)
“We have to try to see him!” Kaylee insisted, her face flushing with excitement.
“How do we do that?” Hallie asked. “Just ring the bell?”
“For starters. We offer him a fivesome. That will get him answering the door!”
“That’s disgusting,” Mia said.
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be up for it!”
Mia blushed, because she’d had the biggest crush on Stonehedge ever since she was thirteen and saw him in his first film, Little Crimes. If there was anyone she’d be willing to have a fivesome with it would be him, but she’d die of embarrassment if any of her friends actually offered him that!
Even though Mia tried arguing that he probably wasn’t home, she was outvoted three to one, and they drove over to his property. Kaylee buzzed the intercom by the gate, and when a voice that had to be Philip Stonehedge answered, all four of them broke out in nervous giggling.
“What can I do for you lovely ladies?”
That caused more giggling. “How do you know we’re lovely?” Kaylee asked.
“Video surveillance.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” Kaylee said, exaggerating her pout. “You seeing us while we can’t see you.”
“Very true. Let me rectify that.”
The gate buzzed open, and Mia pulled the car onto the private drive and continued on for an eighth of a mile until she reached the house. Philip Stonehedge was waiting for them, but he wasn’t alone. He had his arm around the waist of a stunning blonde who Mia quickly recognized was the actress Brie Evans.
Stonehedge winked at them, flashing them a brilliant smile. “How about some drinks on the veranda?” he asked.
Mia and her three friends were too startled to do any giggling or tittering, and they followed Stonehedge and Brie Evans to the veranda, where he served them freshly made strawberry mojitos and offered them the most delicious fish tacos Mia had ever tasted. It quickly became obvious that Stonehedge was simply a nice guy whose only motive for inviting them onto his property was to spend time hosting four of his fans who had the chutzpah to ring his buzzer. There certainly wasn’t any chance of having a fivesome (or a sixsome, if Brie Evans were to join in,) and Mia found herself liking him even more. A charming, generous man, and just so decent. Brie was also very sweet.
For several hours, Stonehedge and Brie talked with them in such a down-to-earth manner and not as if they were big Hollywood stars, mostly asking Mia and her friends about their lives. At one point, Mia noticed Courtney began acting antsy, but when she asked her friend in a hushed whisper what was wrong, Courtney shook her head and simply murmured back, “nothing,” which all but confirmed that something was wrong. This was further proven by the way Courtney kept checking her watch, and how she had gotten so sullen. Whatever it was, Mia couldn’t figure it out.
Shortly after eleven, Stonehedge announced he was calling it a night. “You girls okay getting home, or should I call for a taxi?”
“We’ll be okay,” Mia said. “We’re only a mile down the road.”
Stonehedge nodded as he gave Mia a cautious look. She’d only had three mojitos over the two and a half hours she’d been there. Still, Stonehedge and Brie accompanied them to the car, probably to make sure she wasn’t wobbling as she walked.
“That was unbelievable!” Kaylee exclaimed as they drove up Stonehedge’s private drive. “Even if we didn’t get our fivesome!”
“Those two were so nice,” Hallie gushed.
“What’s up with you, Court?” Mia asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Courtney said, making no attempt to hide her sullen mood.
Mia gave her a quick glance, but whatever was bothering Courtney, she had no clue. When they got back to the house, Mia noticed Courtney looking especially anxious, as if she were expecting someone. Whatever. Kaylee took a vaporizer out of her pocketbook and told the group she’d brought some exceptionally excellent weed. The vaporizer made it three times around the group before Kaylee jumped to her feet and started shedding her clothes.
“I don’t know about you girls, but I’m taking a dip in the ocean!”
Hallie followed suit, then Courtney, whose mood seemed to have picked up, and finally Mia decided what the heck, and got out of her clothes too. Soon all four of them were racing naked out of the house, the full moon brightly overhead as they ran laughing down the steps that led to their private beach, and then into the ocean. The waves had a savageness to them that was both frightening and exhilarating. After several waves crashed over them, knocking them onto their bare asses, Hallie questioned whether there could be sharks in the water.
“Do you think they might come out more at night?” she asked.
That got them all out of the water and heading back to the house, but they were giggling and laughing as they did so. It was as if they were teenagers again instead of more jaded twenty-two-year-olds, who’d all had at least one major life disappointment so far. All four of them were near tears laughing when they made their way through the glass sliding doors that led into the house’s massive great room. It was only after Hallie slid the door closed that they noticed the stranger wearing the Frankenstein-monster mask.
Kaylee opened her mouth wide to scream. The man raised a big, scary gun at her. Mia noticed then that he was wearing latex gloves.
“If you make any noise I’m going to shoot you in the mouth,” he warned, his voice muffled by the mask. “Then I’ll shoot each of your friends. But if you behave yourselves and do as I ask, nobody will get hurt. I’m here only to rob the house, nothing else.” Addressing Kaylee, he asked, “Do you understand?”
Kaylee was at first too frightened to respond, but when he made like he was pulling back the trigger, she nodded furiously as tears leaked out of her eyes. The man in the Frankenstein-monster mask pointed his gun at each of them in turn, making them promise to be compliant, each of them struggling to keep from bursting out crying as they did so.
“You three,” he said, waving the gun at Kaylee, Hallie, and Courtney, “lie facedown on the floor.”
The three of them did as they were ordered. Mia had been in too much shock until then to remember that she was naked. She brought up her arm to cover her breasts and tried to shield her pubic area with her other hand.
The man shook his head at her. “Too late to be modest,” he said in an icy voice his mask did little to filter. “Use these on their wrists. Make them tight.”
He tossed a bunch of plastic ties in her direction. They landed on the floor by her feet. She picked up one of them and stared at it with bewilderment.
“Genius, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to bind someone’s wrists with that,” he admonished. “I’ll give you ten seconds to figure it out before I make this easy for myself and just shoot each of you.”
Mia broke out sobbing, but she had Kaylee put her arms behind her back, securing her wrists with the plastic tie. After that she did the same to Hallie, then to Courtney, and during it all she kept telling herself that if he was going to kill them he wouldn’t be wearing that mask. Maybe he planned to rape them, and maybe he’d do other horrible things to them, but as long as he wore that mask he was planning to let them live.
“Your turn now,” he told Mia. “On your stomach.”
She did as he ordered, and she cried out as he violently jerked her arms back, and then again as the plastic tie bit painfully into the flesh around her thin wrists. After that, he taped her ankles together and she heard each of her friends cry out in turn, probably as he did the same to them. He then dragged her by her feet across the floor before flipping her over so that she was lying on her back. He had moved her deeper into the great room so that her head rested a foot from a wall, and above her rose a thirty-six-foot cathedral ceiling. She tilted her head up as much as she could, and watched as he dragged over her friends, lining them up so they were in a row.
He disappeared for several minutes after that. When she could see him next, he had his back turned to them, but her blood chilled as she saw that he had taken off not only all of his black-as-night clothing, but his mask also. The only thing he didn’t take off were his latex gloves. He left them again, and she saw that he’d been setting up a video recorder. She wanted to scream, but her throat had become too constricted by fear.
He returned carrying a large canvas bag, which he placed on the floor. He bent over the bag and dug inside of it, taking out a hammer, what Mia guessed was a box of nails, a soup spoon, and one of those sharp pen-shaped knives similar to what her dad used when he made detailed miniature models of the structures he built, all of which he lay carefully on the floor in front of the bag. The last thing he took out was a hunting knife, the blade of which looked razor sharp. Mia stared mesmerized as he ran his thumb along the edge of the blade, and then playfully shook his hand as if he had accidentally sliced his thumb open.
“Goddamn, that’s sharp,” he said.
He looked up then so that Mia and her friends could see not only his face, but that he was grinning. Even though her throat felt like it had closed up, she started screaming, the sound coming out of her not much different than what a strangled cat might make. She couldn’t help herself after seeing what was in his eyes. Even with her lizard brain taking over completely, she found herself wondering why Courtney was yelling no over and over again.
The killer told them to scream as much as they wanted. That had to be what he was. A killer.
“This house is too well constructed and too far away from any neighbors. Nobody is going to hear you. But please do keep on screaming. It’s my favorite kind of music. I like it even more than heavy metal. Even more than Metallica.”
Mia twisted her head enough to see the killer kneel next to Courtney. He told her that he wasn’t happy about being stood up.
“Think of how upsetting it was driving all the way to Malibu, arriving here precisely at ten as you asked, only to find the house empty,” the killer said. “Because of your rudeness, you’ll be first. Oh yeah, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I lied before about not hurting any of you. There will be so much hurting.”
Mia thought of how they’d left the veranda door unlocked when they made their naked run to the ocean. He must’ve been hiding in the shadows and used the opportunity to gain access to the house.
When she saw what he started to do to Courtney with the hunting knife, she squeezed her eyes shut.