Killer in the Hills by Stephen Carpenter Page A

she is my daughter I will do whatever I have to do to help her. If she isn’t, why should I care about one of the multitude of orphaned, desperate kids loose in the world? If I knew right now she wasn’t my daughter—my own blood—would I just cut her loose? Throw her to the wolves and forget about her? How could I? Why should blood matter so much?
    Finally, I decide to give myself 24 hours before I call Melvin and hand her over. In the meantime I have one card to play—one chance to find some evidence pointing away from the troubled girl sitting beside me who may well be my child.
    I see a pair of headlights approach behind us. A black Mercedes pulls into the driveway that runs alongside the bungalow, toward a detached garage in back.
    “Give me your right hand,” I say.
    “What?” she says.
    I take out the handcuffs from the sex shop and unlock them.
    “Cuff your right hand to the armrest,” I say.
    “Fuck you,” she says. “I’m not doing that.”
    I take out my cell and press a button and Melvin’s FBI number appears on the screen. I hold the phone up for her to see.
    “There’s a warrant for your arrest, for your mother’s murder,” I say. “Your prints were found on the murder weapon.”
    Her eyes dance back and forth as she reads my face and the FBI ID on the phone.
    “I’m committing a felony by harboring you, and another one for a bomb threat at the airport, and another for withholding evidence from the FBI,” I say. “That’s three strikes and that’s as far as I go. Now do what I tell you or I’m turning you in right now.” I hold my finger over the CALL button.
    She stares at me long enough to tell that I’m serious, then she fumbles with the handcuffs and cuffs herself to the armrest, swearing under her breath.
    “I’ll only be gone about ten minutes,” I say. “Don’t yell for help, don’t honk the horn, don’t do anything but sit here and wait.”
    I open my door and get out and see her take out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I lean back into the car and take them away.
    “I can’t smoke?” she says. “Another one of your tightass rules?”
    “If somebody sees the lighter or smells the smoke and sees a young girl handcuffed in a car they might do something about it. Just wait. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” I pull the cigarette lighter out of the dashboard and pocket it and close my door quietly and walk down the sidewalk toward the dirty little bungalow.

CHAPTER TWENTY
     
    Fat Zach Wolorski has lived in the little bungalow between Fountain and Santa Monica for all of his fifty-some years. His mother was a minor B-movie actress—a wasp-waisted vixen who battled giant grasshoppers, ants, and other monsters in drive-in theatres all over America in the late fifties and early sixties. You wouldn’t know her name or her face, but you’ve probably heard her scream if you’ve ever fallen asleep with your TV tuned to a cheap movie channel that comes with any basic cable package.
    Fat Zach lived with his mother in the bungalow until she died and he inherited the house, along with some cachet as the son of a retro scream-queen—the kind of thing that got you a tiny foothold in certain Hollywood circles—enough for Zach to begin his career following famous people around and digging up dirt.
    I first met Zach at his bungalow when he interviewed me for Slaughter on Sorority Row. Zach was still doing small-time stories for horror magazines back then, and I remember how creepy it felt, sitting in his filthy little living room with furnishings that hadn’t been changed since the fifties. As I approach the bungalow, it looks like nothing has changed. The white paint is peeling off of the rotting wood siding of the little house; the roof sags in places and the front gutter is missing.
    I move down the side of the bungalow, watching the red glow from the brake lights of the Mercedes on the cracked, wet concrete driveway. When the brake lights go off, I glance around the