Short Story:
THE HORROR NOVELIST’S DAUGHTER
by Todd Cameron
"Tell me again, about the kidnapping," the Seattle detective asked for the fifth time.
I knew it was standard procedure because I had been a police officer for six years back in Manila, asking drivers and bodyguards those same questions over and over again, to see if they would slip up, or if the story was repeated without any variation because it was nothing more than a memorized alibi.
I was guilty of aiding and abetting the kidnapping of Moira Graves, but I was not going to fall into any of the interrogator's traps; not only because I was smart enough to fool them, but also because my conscience was clear. I did the right thing and would not profit from it in anyway. The so-called victim was not in any danger at all; in fact she would soon be free for the first time in her life, because I agreed to the favor she asked of me.
Moira, the fifteen year old daughter of best-selling horror novelist Steven Graves, had a bodyguard accompany her whenever she left the writer's walled estate because her mother was a control freak fully submerged in a fantasy world bought and paid for by her husband's fortune. Officially I was supposed to be protecting Moira from the constant threat of a kidnapping to extort millions from her father, but it did not take me long to figure out I was really there to make sure the girl did not runaway.
I was hired by the Graves two years ago, my first job in the private sector, after putting in time with the Manila Police Force, the Philippine Army, and the United States Military, including anti-terrorist duty in both the lush jungles of my homeland and in the dry concrete ones of Los Angeles. A former commanding officer of mine had gone to the private security sector instead of signing on with the military again, and he was the one who convinced me to do the same.
Higher pay, lower risk. I had four lovely children and a beautiful wife; I did not want to get my head blown off by Muslim insurgents in Mindanao or Iraq, I wanted to live to see my grandchildren. So I accompanied Mr. Graves on promotional tours, escorted his wife when she went shopping, and chaperoned whenever Moira left the estate. For the first year I was the strong and silent sphinx, keeping my mouth shut and ignoring Moira's complaints, but she eventually got through to me. I had daughters of my own, and the way her parents treated her appalled me.
She was like a doll for them to dress up and play with. Play house in a theme park devoted to her father's gothic fantasies. Steven Graves and his wife loved the damp, dark, rainy gloom of Seattle because it provided the ideal atmosphere for their house and grounds. Wrought iron in spider web patterns, funeral parlor Victoriana, morbid curios from around the world, twisted garden mazes, grotesque statuary, and a high wall surrounding it all, studded with sensors and surveillance cameras.
Moira was home-schooled by a witch who gained national notoriety for a couple of weeks, ten years ago, with a discrimination suit she lost against the school board she was dismissed from. Steven Graves' daughter only left the estate in the company of her bodyguard. I was under strict orders not to deviate from the itinerary, which was always set by her mother, itemized down to the last minute. Of course they figured it had to be an inside job, and I was a prime suspect.
Moira administered the injection that knocked me out, pushing the needle in from behind me, in a spot and at an angle that would have been impossible for me to do myself. That did not preclude my willing participation and an accomplice, but I could have also been the victim of an unknown assailant. I started to tell the story one more time, careful not to repeat it in the same words twice.
"Like I told you before, I was standing outside of the Ladies Room on the fifth floor, waiting for Moira, after her doctor's appointment…"
"You'd gone in before Moira to make sure it was empty?"
"Mrs. Graves is very particular about the level of precaution exercised when Moira is away from the estate. Before she can use a public washroom I always knock first to determine if anyone is using the facility, if so - wait till they leave, then check to make sure no one is lurking inside."
"Do you leave her outside while you do this inspection?"
"No, I go in first but she follows close by. Leaving her out in the hall, while I'm inside, might provide an opportunity to snatch her."
"And you're certain there was no one in the washroom?"
"Yes, I am."
He made a show of shuffling back two pages, rereading his notes.
"You checked inside every stall?"
"Yes, I did."
"And no one else was in the corridor?"
"Except the old Chinese woman who showed up a few minutes later."
"Right, and where did she come from?"
"I'm not sure. I did hear the elevator open, but it was around the corner, so she might have got off the elevator, but she could have also stepped out of one of the offices not visible to me."
"Did you hear any other voices or footsteps?"
"No."
"Then who got off the elevator, if it wasn't her?"
"I don't know."
"Is that because you weren't paying attention?"
I made like I was biting my tongue, holding back what I really wanted to say to him, because he was badgering me. Guilty people could give themselves away by remaining too calm under that sort of pressure, more concerned with not taking any bait than reacting naturally to deliberate provocation.
"It was around the corner. Could've been a skinny person in soft-soled shoes, all by themselves, on their way to a doctor's appointment on that floor. I can't say for certain, I don't have sonar."
"But when the old woman came round the corner, was that consistent with the timing of the elevator? Could she have been the person getting off?"
"Didn't I just say that?"
He ignored the question, frowning as he wrote something down.
"You tried to stop her from entering the washroom?"
"Right, but she did not speak English, and was very determined to get in. I remember her pushing past me, and I was surprised by her strength; looking back at it now, I'm convinced it was one of the kidnappers in a disguise meant to catch me off my guard."
"You remember nothing after that, until you woke up groggy, in the hospital?"
"That's right."
"This is the woman?"
He held up the sketch done by the police artist from the description I made up.
"As near as I remember. She took me by surprise, and whatever she injected me with packed a real wallop. I still feel hung over, it's hard to focus."
"That's all for now. You're free to go, but don't leave town, we may have further questions for you."
I expected to be under close surveillance because that only made sense. Was I going to lead them to Moira? Not if I could help it. They were no doubt examining all my family and personal relationships for possible accomplices, combing through my phone records and e-mail, but I was confident they would find no dots to connect. Months of planning were involved. Initial contact with the people I needed help from happened in person, through mail or by courier, with fake return addresses and instructions to burn the contents after reading them. Arrangements were made for further contact at public phones using calling cards, or face to face under circumstances that would not be unusual.
The plan was to smuggle Moira across the Canadian border. Forged documents had already been arranged for pick up in Vancouver, where she would arrive at the airport as part of a church group of teens on an exchange program bound for the Philippines. An old friend of mine would be waiting when she landed. His family was going to take her in.
All Moira asked, was for me to let her escape. She would make her own way in the world; presumably hitchhike out into the American Dream, and find it waiting for her by the roadside somewhere. No way was I going to leave a fifteen year old unsupervised and uncared for. If I was going to let her escape, I had to be sure of who would be looking after her; I needed to know them personally, and have faith her best interests would be served.
I was going to drive straight home to be with my wife and family, because that made sense, if I was innocent. My wife was going to order pizza for dinner at my suggestion, never suspecting that the delivery driver would also be slipping me a message from the man who would be getting Moira across the Canadian border. I had never met him personally, but my cousin Ray vouched for him.
By now I imagined Moira's long black hair had already been cut short and bleached blond. Contact lenses tinted blue concealed her brown eyes. She would be wearing a starched white blouse and plaid skirt by the time she reached the airport in Vancouver, arriving with eleven other girls on their way to the Philippines for an exchange visit arranged by a Canadian church group. All of the girls would be meeting for the first time.
I turned on the radio in my car as soon as I pulled out of the underground parking into the rain. The kidnapping had already hit the news, but there was one detail way out of place – they were talking about a ransom demand received by the family. That had never been part of the plan, and there were very good reasons why. I was not doing it for personal gain, and I made it clear to Moira that if she really wanted to escape her life here then she would also have to forsake any money or privilege coming from her parents.
The absence of a ransom demand was supposed to take the heat off of me, because it removed profit from the equation, so the investigation would have to consider more sinister motives. Perhaps a deranged fan obsessed with the idea of holding Graves' daughter as their personal plaything, or a psychopath perversely inspired by themes in Graves' horror novels.
I had to admit feeling a certain sense of poetic justice in picturing the father tortured by the vividness of his own imagination, wondering if his daughter was doomed to meet the sort of gruesome ending he routinely devised for characters in his books. For him I believed there might yet come a revelation out of this, spurring him on to be a better man; in the case of the wife, I expected her to pursue denial in the form of psychiatry and pharmaceuticals.
I wanted them to know the pain of loss and wrestle with their guilt, but not at Moira's expense. She was the innocent who needed rescuing. If my plans had somehow put her into real danger, then I was responsible for making her safe again. I would have to figure out a way to do that while under close surveillance, even if it made me look guilty. So much for well laid plans.
The voice of Steven Graves came over the radio, making a statement prepared for the media, his words trembling with emotion, "We want the kidnappers to know that we are taking their threats seriously and will be following all instructions to the letter. We will not be involving the police; all requests for cooperation have been turned down.
"I am pleading with the authorities not to take matters into their own hands, by launching an investigation into the abduction or interfering with delivery of the ransom. All my wife and I want is to have our daughter back. As is, no questions asked, you've made your point. We know you mean business."
The newscaster cut back in, telling me to stay tuned for the weather report after the commercial break, but I could already see for myself it was raining, with no hope of letting up for days. The windshield wipers beat out a steady rhythm as I reassessed the situation. The most obvious explanation was that Foster hijacked the escape plan, turning it into a real kidnapping.
Moira was supposed to be with him, and a ransom demand was pointless without a captive to barter for. That reference to taking her back "as is", and telling the kidnappers that they had made their point really bothered me; if Foster had cut off a finger, or even so much as hair off her head, I was going to make him regret it.
Tracking down Foster was not going to be easy, since I made a point of never meeting him face to face, and did not even know what he looked like, never mind where he lived or what circles he moved in. I was going to have to drag Ray into this, but I was hoping to do it without putting him at too much risk.
All sorts of crazy ideas passed through my head, like going home as planned but getting my daughter Isabel to drive me back out of there in the trunk of her car. I felt ashamed for even thinking of involving her, my wife, or any of the other kids. That was so wrong. I had to lose any tails right now, and drop off their radar, no matter how suspicious it looked. I needed to buy time to sort this out, and if the sun rose tomorrow and the only worry I had was trying to explain how I went missing for awhile, then I'd consider myself lucky.
I took the evasive action necessary, no longer worrying if it might look deliberate, only concerned with cutting loose from any surveillance so I could get to work. I called Ray from a payphone, using a fake name and disguised voice, telling him through prearranged code words to call me back from another payphone. I had to wait fifteen minutes. As soon as it rang I snatched up the receiver.
"I need to find Foster."
"I don't know where he took her, you told me the less I knew about it the better, so I didn't ask."
I cursed under my breath and gripped the phone tighter.
"Give me his cell number then."
"He doesn't have one, he thinks they cause cancer."
"How do you reach him?"
"Thursday evenings he usually shoots pool at this joint called the Black Cat."
"Where does he live?"
"You won't find him there. He only does business out of motel rooms, in case the cops ever show up at his front door with a search warrant."
"Jesus, Ray, she's only fifteen years old, what kind of a low life did you hire to sneak her across the border?"
"Relax. He may be a drug smuggler, but he's a real gentleman. Besides, he's strictly into that femdom scene; there's this chick downtown he goes to see, she dresses up in these leather cat suits and uses a riding crop…"
"I don't want to hear about it."
"I'm just saying, the Catholic schoolgirl outfit isn't going to do it for him. She's safe with Foster, as far as that goes. Guy's a real gentleman, provided you're not trying to rip him off."
"Yeah, well he's ripping me off. The money I paid him isn't enough, he wants to collect a ransom too."
"What?"
"The family has received a ransom demand. You know that's bad because it turns up the heat on me, and we have no way of knowing what else has changed. That's why I need to rein this guy in. He's out of control."
"Are you sure it's him? I'm asking because I just talked to him on the phone about an hour ago, and everything was cool."
"That's it, Ray. The number, give me the number he called from. Check your call display."
"Hang on, it was to my clone phone; let me get it from the car."
I wrote the number down and asked Ray what sort of vehicle Foster drove, praying he called from the motel room, not a payphone. If he was paying for the room with a bogus credit card, he might not have worried about making a call on that tab, especially not to a clone phone. I found an Internet café close by, did the reverse look up on the Web, and got lucky. The motel was only a few blocks away. There was a black Lincoln Navigator parked in front of unit eleven, around the back.
I had my right hand on the gun in my shoulder holster as I tried the door handle with my left, checking if it was locked. The door swung open; so I ducked and rolled inside, gun at the ready. No shots were fired at where my head would have been if I'd walked right in. No shots were fired, but it sure looked like all hell broke loose in there, not so long ago.
A weapon with a cutting edge was used, possibly more than one; it was hard to tell at first glance if this was the work of one person, or if there were accomplices. There was lots of blood everywhere, not just the usual spatter patterns on the wall and floor; whoever's blood this was got deliberately smeared into satanic symbols and slogans throughout the room. I felt like I'd stepped into a scene from one of Grave's novels.
My wife loved his books, like millions of other readers around the globe; for a devout Catholic like her the stories were consistent with a larger view of the world, where the Devil had to be kept at bay every day. In the course of my career I had seen all sorts of atrocities committed by men against men, but this was the first time I ever felt it might actually be the Devil's work.
There was no sign of Moira, but I found the body of a man I presumed to be Foster, dead on the bathroom floor. The body had been stabbed repeatedly, as if in a frenzy of blood lust, and the eyes were missing from their sockets.
The shower curtain was still damp. Presumably the assailants took the time to clean themselves up before bringing Moira out of the motel room, rather than attract unwanted attention by walking out spattered in blood. I sniffed close by the drain to check if bleach had been used to destroy any DNA evidence, and found no telltale smell, so there was some hope there. The murder weapon was nowhere in sight.
How did they know where to find Foster and Moira? Maybe Foster couldn't keep his mouth shut about this job and word got around? Were the symbols and slogans the real deal, or just window dressing to send the initial investigation off in the wrong direction? I looked over at the phone, wondering if the person who set Foster up might have called first, to set up a meeting.
I hit star 69, wrote the number down, then I called. I recognized the voice on the other end right away, so I hung up without saying a word, certain she would know mine. There was no mistaking the distinctive melodrama in Selena Morrow's way of talking, or her Carolina drawl. That was Moira's teacher, Selena the Witch. Had Moira broken her promise to me to tell no one, making a fatal mistake by confiding in her tutor?
Moira was too naïve to realize that with her gone there would be no reason for her parents to keep Selena on the payroll. How much did Moira tell her? All of it, making the set-up easy, or did Selena have to watch and wait like a spider on the web it's woven? If she could collect the ransom without getting arrested, Selena would be set for the rest of her life.
I went over the room again, worried that Selena may have planted evidence here to implicate me. I found nothing, but that did little to ease my rising paranoia, because the betrayal could take many forms. Had Selena murdered and mutilated Foster with her own hands, or had she contracted out the killing? The eyes were gouged out. That was gruesome, and whoever did the deed, Moira would have been a witness to it.
So her chances of being returned alive were pretty slim. The plug would get pulled on Moira as soon as they got away with the money. If I'd just stuck to doing my job, this would never have happened. My plan went wrong, putting her in danger, so it was up to me to save her. There were no ifs, ands, or buts, about it.
I had to find the witch. If I could get her alone somewhere, I'd make Selena see the error of her ways. I'd give her the option of making it easy by admitting defeat, or she could brace herself for the sort of interrogation techniques I learned under fire, when all that mattered was results.
I wiped off the phone and anything else I could remember touching. Before I left I peered out between the closed curtains to make sure the coast was clear. My optimism had made me careless. I should have taken the precaution of parking at least a block away and made sure I arrived unseen, but I was hoping to get the drop on Foster and end this quickly. The last thing I expected was to walk into that bloodbath.
If any eyewitnesses put me at the scene it would be highly prejudicial evidence, no matter what my explanation might be, especially considering I was leaving without calling it in to the police. Bad luck if it happened, but worrying about getting out of any holes I might be digging for myself was going to have to wait till Moira was safe. She was only a few months older than my daughter Angela; I could not imagine the living hell I would have had to endure if she was in the same trouble.
I called Vivian, one of the housekeeping staff at Grave's, to see if I could get a lead on where Selena was; I knew I would not be welcome at the estate, so there was no point in going there. Guilty or innocent, whether I was in on it or had just let this happen through my own incompetence, either way I was to blame in the eyes of Steven and Alice Graves. Thankfully Vivian was more open minded, and willing to answer questions.
"Miss Morrow left about half an hour ago."
I knew the witch did not drive.
"Was someone there to pick her up, or did she take a taxi?"
"I don't know, but I can try to find out."
I hung out close by the payphone, trying not to look suspicious while I anxiously waited for her call. I snatched up the receiver as soon as it rang.
"Hi, Vivian?"
"She took a taxi."
Vivian was able to tell me which cab company it was, so I could call up a guy I knew who moonlighted driving taxi there; he bribed dispatch for me with the promise of a couple bottles of rum. The taxi dropped Selena off at the Seattle House of Horrors, a wax museum in the Pioneer Square district of downtown, a place I was only familiar with from escorting Selena and Moira on a field trip.
That was the witch's idea of an educational field trip, a wax museum devoted to recreating scenes from American Horror Fiction, everything from Edgar Allan Poe right up to Steven Graves' latest masterpiece of terror. I thought the displays were far too graphic and life-like for an impressionable fifteen year old to be exposed to, but her mother and father approved. I was only the bodyguard; I went where I was told.
Was it a pick up point, a drop off, or a meet? I jumped back into my car, determined to find out. By ignoring several potential traffic violations, ten minutes of deft driving got me there. The street in front of the museum was full of police cars parked at crazy angles, their red and blue lights flashing. Traffic was just beginning to back up. I got out of my car, started walking towards the commotion; just as I spotted Selena in the back of one of the police cruisers my cell phone rang. It was Moira.
"Hi, Tony, what are you doing here, trying to get arrested?"
"Moira, are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'd get back in the car and look inconspicuous, if I were you. Seeing you here might give the police the wrong idea, and that would be such a shame, considering how much trouble I've gone to trying to keep you out of this."
"What are you talking about? Have they let you go? Where are you?"
"I'm fine. I gave Foster the slip and arranged the ransom you were so dead against. No hard feelings, it was sweet of you to be so worried about me, but going to the Philippines was never part of my plan."
"Gave Foster the slip?" I stuttered, finding it hard to breathe. "I've been to the motel room, Moira, he's laying there dead, with his eyes gouged out, Satanic symbols scrawled all over the walls with his blood."
"So what. Like you never killed anyone in your life?"
"You admit it then, you killed him?"
"He was a drug smuggler, who cares?"
"You gouged the man's eyes out."
"Sending the ransom demand by courier, with a fresh eyeball in the package, had more impact. Daddy didn't play any games; the ransom got delivered to the museum on time, half in a case brought in by the gardener, the other half by the cook. One case set down in the Saw exhibit when no one was looking, and the other placed next to the wax likeness of Hannibal Lecter.
"I called Selena from the motel room, acted scared and begged her to help me. I asked her to call me back in five minutes, so the police will find calls back and forth, when they check the phone logs and connect the crimes. I told her to come down to the museum at a certain time, and pick up a case for me. She did it because she has no idea how much I hate her, she assumes I love her as much as she loves herself. Vain bitch.
"I timed my anonymous tip to the police so they would be arriving just as Selena was leaving with half of the ransom, as well as the syringe and drugs I used on you, slipped into her purse without her noticing. The blonde goody-two-shoes makeover fooled her completely, she just grunted when I apologized for bumping into her, and walked on. She already looks plenty guilty, but just wait till the police execute a search warrant, and find all the incriminating evidence I planted in her room."
"Don't do it, Moira," I told her, looking all around, trying to spot where she was calling from, because she obviously had me in line of sight. "Please, I'm begging you to put a stop to this now, before it goes any further."
"You really should be thanking me, Tony. By framing her I get you off the hook."
"I can't let you do this. If you won't come forward yourself, then I'll tell the police everything you've told me."
Moira laughed.
"Don't be stupid, Tony. That will just make it look even more like you are in on it with Selena, desperate enough to say anything to save her, even if it implicates you instead. There is no evidence connecting me to any of this. I'm the victim, remember; and as long as I stay missing, there's no reason for anyone to believe otherwise. Think about it, Tony; you'd be asking people to blame all of this on a fifteen-year-old girl, when the police already have a confessed witch and a gun-for-hire in custody."
I did not reply because I just caught sight of her, or thought I had, at least. There was a blonde girl with short hair standing in the phone booth across the street, down at the corner, dressed in a white blouse and plaid skirt. I bolted in that direction, weaving between idling cars, the blood pounding in my temples as I pushed myself to run as fast as possible. I needed to catch Moira before it was too late; I had to shake some sense into her.
Someone shouted, "Stop, police," but I did not think the command was directed at me till the bullet pierced my shoulder five seconds later, spinning me around and sending me over the hood of a taxi cab. I hit the pavement hard and the pain radiating from my shoulder was intense but I'd been injured in combat before, and my military training kicked in, pushing me on to my objective.
Back on my feet, first thing I noticed was the phone booth vacant, the receiver dangling; the second bullet ripped through my knee, knocking my leg out from under me. I went down again, and this time I was not getting up without help. The detective who interrogated me ran up, itching for a reason to squeeze off a third shot.
"You piece of shit," he said, "I knew it was all an act this morning, nothing but lies. You barely leave the building and the first thing you do is shake your tail, ever since we got the tip to come down here I've had my eye out for you.
"Where's the case? We already caught your partner red-handed with the other one. Why not make it easy on yourself? It's not like we won't find where you stashed it, after you saw the place crawling with cops. Did you really think you were going to get away with this?"
No, it did not look like I was going to get away with anything; and I was in a position where telling the truth would only make it worse for me. The detective made a point of pushing my face down hard into the street when he rolled me over to handcuff my hands behind my back. The jury would likely hold me in a similar contempt, with no inkling of what that fifteen-year-old girl was capable of doing. Till five minutes ago, I didn't know either.
About the Author:
Todd Cameron lives in Vancouver, Canada. Where he listens to the rain, reads mystery stories on public transit, makes phone calls from a cubicle, listens to the rain, writes mystery stories, and goes to bed late. He is a cat person, not a dog person, and he is as superstitious as any other supposedly logical person.