Keeper of the Shadows. Alexandra Sokoloff
Sailor gasped. “That’s huge.”
“I know,” Barrie said, feeling a flush of anger. “And I’m not going to let whoever did it get away with it.”
“What do you need?” Rhiannon asked.
Barrie felt another rush of warmth, this time affection. The cousins were new to Keeperdom. But in a matter of just months, Rhiannon, as Canyon Vampire Keeper, had captured a murderous vampire, and Sailor, Elven Keeper, had tracked down the source of a rare blood disease fatal to Elven, and their successes were largely because of the cousins’ pledge of loyalty to each other before any other Keeper alliances.
“Well, here’s the thing,” Barrie told them. “I think you can help.”
She filled Sailor and Rhiannon in on everything she had learned last night, leaving out all encounters with Mick Townsend, because, of course, none of that ever happened.
She was gratified by the gasps from her cousins when she told them about Tiger’s special ability to portray dead Hollywood stars and the bellhop’s statement that Mayo had checked into the Chateau with a young man who looked like Johnny Love. She left out the whole sneaking-into-the-bungalow-where-Mayo-died incident, and especially the almost-sex-in-the-closet-with-Mick-Townsend incident, and ended with, “I searched Johnny Love and Mayo on Google, and Mayo produced Otherworld, Johnny’s last movie.”
“Otherworld!” both cousins exclaimed in unison.
Of course they knew the movie. They all knew the movie. It had come out just as the cousins were going boy crazy, and the movie had been cast with the most gorgeous of all up-and-coming stars. The three leads in particular were a collection of teenage heartthrobs who positively burned up the screen.
And it had been scandalous in the community, because all three were actual Others playing Others. It walked a very dangerous line, which added to the controversy.
“We were thirteen,” Sailor remembered.
“And we had to beg our parents for weeks to let us see it,” Rhiannon added wryly.
“Too gory!” Sailor exclaimed in mock parental shock.
“Too sexy!” Barrie gasped, and put her hand to her head as if she were about to faint.
“You’re too young!” Rhiannon scolded. The three of them giggled like thirteen-year-olds.
“But we wore them down,” Sailor said with satisfaction.
“We were nothing short of insufferable,” Rhiannon agreed.
“And then we went back…how many times?” Barrie wondered.
“Dozens, I’m sure,” Rhiannon said.
The film had exceeded all teenage expectations and parental fears: bloody, gory, sexy and so controversial. At the time the filmmakers, a collection of Others with a few key humans like Mayo who were in the know, were pushing the envelope, portraying Others so authentically. It was always dangerous to flirt with that boundary between the worlds, and danger was seductive.
“Never has such a bounty of male lusciousness been assembled all in one place,” Sailor said.
“I remember that every week you had a different favorite,” Barrie teased her. “Oh, Johnny. Oh, Robbie. Oh, DJ…” She pretended to swoon over each young actor in turn.
“I remember you didn’t eat for weeks, you were so gone on Robbie Anderson,” Sailor retorted.
Despite herself, Barrie felt a blush rising in her chest and cheeks. It was true. She’d had a painful crush on the young shifter. She had written him dozens of letters that she’d never sent, pouring her heart out, telling him why they were meant for each other. She was destined to be a shifter Keeper, after all… .
“He was the first shifter you wanted to Keep—for yourself,” Sailor crowed, voicing Barrie’s own thoughts.
“Oh, Lord, the pain of it,” Rhiannon sighed. “I wouldn’t be a tween again for all the money in the world.”
Truthfully Barrie was shocked at how strongly the memories of that crush were hitting her; it was as if she’d never grown out of it.
Or maybe you just have sex on the brain. Damn Mick Townsend.
Rhiannon was looking at her probingly. “What’s the matter?”
Barrie shook off the feeling and focused on the present.
“I keep going back to the fact that Mayo checked into the Chateau last night with a young man who was a dead ringer for Johnny Love. And that Tiger’s specialty was shifting as dead movie stars. And that Johnny Love died at the Chateau. And I found out from Tony Brandt that they both died of overdoses of a drug cocktail that sounds really Other: heavy on the belladonna.”
“But what does all this have to do with Otherworld?” Rhiannon asked practically.
“I don’t know yet, but I’m thinking the movie has to have something to do with my cases.”
“But only Tiger is your case,” Sailor worried. “Mayo wasn’t an Other.”
Barrie felt her defenses going up. “No, he wasn’t, but his death is related. I can’t investigate Tiger’s death without investigating Mayo’s.”
Now both her cousins looked concerned. “You need to be really careful about this, hon,” Rhiannon said. “There’s going to be a lot of heat on the Mayo investigation.”
“But no one else knows the two are related, and I’m going to keep it that way,” Barrie answered stubbornly. “And don’t worry,” she said before Rhiannon could object. “I’ll talk to Brodie first thing.”
Rhiannon’s fiancé wasn’t only a homicide detective with the elite LAPD Robbery Homicide division, he was an Elven.
Like Brandt and the other Others who worked in law enforcement and criminal justice, Brodie subtly used his position to get assigned to Other-related cases, to ensure that the existence of the Others was kept secret. And now Barrie had a feeling her soon-to-be familial connection to Brodie was going to come in very handy.
Rhiannon looked somewhat mollified. “Well…as long as you’re careful.”
“What’s up next?” Sailor asked.
“I’m going to find out everything I can about Johnny Love and Mayo and the movie.”
And she knew exactly who she needed to see to get the inside scoop.
Chapter 5
Barrie showered and dressed and fed the cat, then headed down the canyon to the flatlands, the Fairfax District where NBS, one of the major television networks, had its soundstages.
On the way she listened to the news on the radio to see how Mayo’s death was being reported. The mainstream media was being incredibly tactful, as they always were with celebrity deaths, not speculating on the manner of death; the official word was that he had “col-lapsed” in his bungalow at the Chateau. She would have to check the Net for the more fringe theories.
As usual the NBS parking lot was jammed with busloads of tourists there to see the tapings of various television shows. Barrie had never seen the appeal of tapings, she found them incredibly boring herself, but she knew NBS’s most popular reality show, That’s Dancing! was filming today, and that would be where she could find Harvey Hodge.
Harvey was NBS’s self-proclaimed “Entertainment Connection,” the on-camera entertainment reporter for NBS News. H.H., as he was known, was a shifter who always had all the best Hollywood gossip because he could literally be a fly on the wall and pick up any dirt that was to be had on anyone.
And Barrie knew that Harvey never missed a taping of That’s Dancing!
Harvey