SANTA MONICA
THURSDAY EVENING
Gloria Swanson knew if she ever got famous enough to write a memoir, this day would rank right up there with winning her first Oscar.
She’d been called back that morning for a second audition for the role of Detective Belle DeWitt in Hard Line, a new HBO cop series, slated for release in January. It was the part she’d been waiting for since she’d moved to L.A. two years ago, and she knew she’d nailed it. She kept staring at her cell phone, willing it to ring. Euphoria didn’t come close to how she felt, until she took that call from Detective Arturo Loomis of the Santa Monica police warning her she was on a list and could be the Starlet Slasher’s next victim. He told her the smart thing to do was to leave town for a while. Like that would ever happen, not when the gold ring was nearly on her finger. Besides, she wasn’t the kind to run away.
She cursed herself for not getting a gun when she’d first arrived in L.A., but thanks to Detective Loomis, she’d get one now. She drove her Toyota to East L.A. and bought a .22 revolver from a street kid who’d knocked a hundred bucks off the price for the butt-ugly little gun because she was so beautiful.
One of her long-ago boyfriends in Toledo, a bad boy her parents knew nothing about, had taught her how to ride a hog, roll a joint, and how to aim and shoot a pistol. No way was she going to be number seven on that madman’s hit list.
She’d known Deborah Connelly, sure, she lived only two streets away, but not much more than to say hello. She hadn’t particularly liked Deborah, a holier-than-thou sort of girl, playing the good girl in a town where it paid to know when to accept an offer and to know who was doing the offering. She had to admit she’d been surprised when Deborah got her role in The Crown Prince. Well, she hadn’t finished it, had she? Gloria felt a stab of guilt and said a prayer for Deborah. It was too bad no one had warned her.
Her cell played the theme from Happy Days. It was her agent, Austin DeLone. Casting had called to offer her the part. He was as euphoric as she was, as her parents would be when she called them with the news. She bought a bottle of good champagne, opened it in her living room, drank deeply, and let emotion wash over her. She turned on some music and drank as she danced, right out of the bottle.
Finally, she was on her way to being a star. The part of Detective Belle DeWitt was perfect for her. She was hot and smart and street savvy. So what if Gloria was sleeping with the producer? He was easy enough to please, the old horndog. And he hadn’t been toying with her, he’d gotten her the audition, probably thrown in a good word for her. It was the way of the show-business world, something her parents couldn’t begin to understand or accept. Her agent hadn’t believed they’d even let her in the door, but they’d ushered her in, openly admired what they saw—a caramel-skinned, six-foot gorgeous Amazon with perfect white teeth, thanks to her dentist mom.
It was her first big break. Sure, she’d scored some small roles, mainly because she was so striking, but nothing that put her in the lights. She got a waitressing job at Burgundy’s, the current “in” café in Beverly Hills, fully aware that every important producer dropped in for lunch at one time or another. She was careful about who she went out with, who she slept with. She was sure the men realized she was using them as much as they were using her. It didn’t matter, everyone was happy, especially Gloria, especially now. She was about to be Detective Belle DeWitt, a badass cop in Baltimore. Was Belle short for something else? She’d have to ask.
Would Detective Belle DeWitt be her breakout role? They’d even asked her if she liked her character’s name when she’d done her second audition, and that had made her glow.
An old geezer on the showrunner’s team, a genius with a camera, she’d been told, claimed he’d filmed the original Gloria Swanson when she’d roared through Hollywood back in the day. He asked if she was related, since she looked so much like her, and he’d laughed and laughed at his own joke.
She drank more champagne from the bottle, rubbed her mouth. She wasn’t hungry, her stomach was too jumpy.
She thought again of Deborah and wondered if she should make an appearance at her funeral. It meant she’d have to be nice to Doc, that boring stick-in-the-mud doctor Deborah had been practically engaged to, who’d hated that Deborah was an actress. If he had such a burr up his butt about it, why had he wanted to marry her? Yes, she’d go. She owed Deborah that.
She was pretty buzzed when she started her nightly ritual. She closed all the draperies, checked every window, dead-bolted the door, and set the burglar alarm, installed thanks to her parents.
When she was finally in bed, the AC set on high and her new .22 beside her on the bedside table, she settled in and picked up the latest copy of Vanity Fair and tried to concentrate, but all she could see was a future photo of herself, proudly holding up her Baltimore PD badge. Looking hot, of course.
It was a quarter to one in the morning when she finally closed her eyes.
WAKE UP, GLORIA.
Her eyes flew open and she was fully alert. Her heart was pounding, the covers tangled around her legs. That voice, it was loud and clear. It was Deborah’s voice shouting at her to wake up, but Gloria knew that wasn’t possible. She shook her head. A dream? Sure, she’d been thinking about Deborah and she’d dreamed about her, that made sense, but she was wide-awake now, her champagne buzz gone, and she was scared. She looked at her bedside clock. 1:59.
She grabbed her .22 off the bedside table, felt the cold steel against her fingers, her palm. And waited, listening for all she was worth. She heard something. No, her brain was playing tricks on her because she was scared. She hadn’t heard anything, it wasn’t possible. But she clutched the gun to her chest, not moving. You have a gun; he can’t kill you. Don’t make a sound, just breathe, listen, focus.
And then she heard it, the sound of the window slowly sliding up in her second bedroom, nearly noiseless, but she knew the sound. Why hadn’t her state-of-the-art alarm gone off?
She hadn’t actually believed the serial killer would come, even after Detective Loomis’s call. How many hundreds of wannabe young actresses were there in L.A.? And how could she have gotten on that madman’s hit parade? At least she wasn’t asleep, and she had a gun. No way was he going to slash her throat, no way was she going to be his seventh victim.
Gloria slipped out of bed, molded her pillows into her shape and covered them with lots of blankets, and that made sense since the room was cold from the full blast of the air-conditioning. She backed away and slipped down to her knees behind her ancient red velvet chair, a present her grandmother had given her for luck in LaLa Land. She concentrated on stilling her breathing, slowing the wild pounding of her heart. She was used to doing that each time she performed, but this was real and it wasn’t the same. She realized she’d forgotten her cell and ran on bare feet to the bedside table, pulled her cell out of its charger, fell to her knees and crawled back behind the big chair. She fumbled, finally managed to press 911. She heard the operator’s calm voice asking what was her emergency and she whispered, “The Starlet Slasher is in my house. Hurry, please hurry.” She punched off, not wanting him to hear her, knowing her address would show up on the operator’s screen.
Would the cops get there before he walked into her bedroom? Her heart was still beating so loud she wondered if he’d hear it as he came closer. She heard a board creak. He was in the hallway, outside the bathroom. Would he hear her breathing? Would he smell her fear and know she was awake? He could have a gun as well as a knife. Would the lump in her bed fool him at all or would he start shooting?
He was outside her bedroom door. She heard his breathing, slow and easy, as he pushed on the partly opened door. She felt the air change as the door swung inward, though she hardly saw it because it was very dark. She knew he was looking into her bedroom, toward her bed. He stepped into the room. She saw the brief flicker of a small flashlight, aimed directly at her bed, at the lump beneath the covers, then it was dark again. He didn’t want to take the chance of waking her up.
Gloria kept swallowing bile she was so scared. She could barely see him in the narrow shaft of moonlight coming in through the small opening in the drapes. He was tall and thin, but that was all she could see. He was wearing a cap pulled down low and something covered his face. Goggles? To hide his face? That wasn’t in any of the news reports. And then she realized it was to keep from being blinded by blood. Her blood.
He walked very quietly toward the bed. If she’d been asleep, she’d never have heard him. When he stood beside the bed, he bent forward, reached out his left hand toward the pillow where her head would be, and he raised his knife, ready to slice it across her throat.
Sirens shrieked in the distance. Her breath whooshed out. She jumped to her feet and fired, and she kept firing, staring right at him, focused, as she’d been taught, pulling the trigger slowly, steadily, though she was nearly blind now with fear and shaking form the adrenaline pumping through her. She fired until the revolver was empty, and she kept firing, and the small .22 clicked and clicked.