The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,1
no one inside. She charged the door.
Open! I am Warrior Princess!
Without bothering to close the door, she threw herself in.
Gross stinky place. No window, a gross stinky closet.
One urinal, one stall. Figures.
She yanked on the door of the stall, was already pulling down her pantyhose and her thong when she saw the girl.
Sitting on top of the lid of a closed toilet, her head dropped, dark hair falling to one side like a curtain. Dressed in a tight red dress and gold do-me sandals with heels as long and skinny as a lead pencil. Leanza hadn’t seen her at the ceremony or the dancing, didn’t recognize her, probably someone from Garrett’s side.
Leanza said, “Excuuuse me.”
The girl didn’t answer. Or move. Or do anything.
Stupid bitch. How many No Regrets had she tossed back?
Eff her, this was a toilet not an armchair, do your stoner thing somewhere else.
Leanza took hold of the girl’s bare arm.
Cold skin. Like not…human.
She said, “Hey!” really loud. Repeated it.
No answer.
Cupping the bottom of the girl’s chin—it was even colder than the arm—she lifted the drunk bitch’s face, ready to slap her awake.
Brown eyes as expressionless as plastic buttons stared back at her.
The girl’s face was a weird gray color.
So were her lips, gray with some blue around the edges, hanging loose, you could see some teeth. Dried drool trickled down both sides.
Then Leanza saw it: the circle around the girl’s neck. Like a horrible red choker necklace but this was no jewelry, this cut into the skin, red and gritty around the edges.
Leanza knew she was being stupid but her mouth said, “Hey, c’mon, wake up.”
She knew because she was the one who’d found her grandmother after the heart attack. Ten years old, a Sunday, walking into Grandma’s bedroom wanting to show her a drawing she’d made.
Bottle of ginger beer spilled onto the comforter. The same plastic-button eyes.
The same gray skin.
Gripped by nausea, Leanza backed away from the girl. In the process, she kicked the girl’s leg and the girl slid off the lid and down. Flopping as she continued to slide, her head making a weird thumpy noise as it hit the filthy floor.
Sliding toward Leanza.
Leanza scurried back.
Staring at the dead girl, she said, “Eff it,” and let her bladder do whatever it felt like.
CHAPTER
2
Sometimes Milo briefs me before a crime scene, sometimes he waits until I get there.
This time he sent me an email attachment along with an address on Corner Avenue in West L.A.
This is for context; get here asap if you can.
His call had come in at ten oh five p.m. By ten fifteen, I was dressed and ready to go. Robin was reading in bed. I kissed her, didn’t have to explain. Two minutes later, I was cruising south on Beverly Glen.
I turned west on Sunset, found the boulevard free and clear until a red light stopped me at Veteran near the northwestern edge of the U.’s campus. Activating my phone, I checked out the attachment.
E-vite. Gray lettering over a skin-rash-pink background.
The Thing: Brearely and Garrett are finally doing it!!!!!
Why You: Hey, they want you there!!!!!
The Place: The Aura
The Theme: Saints and Sinners
The Dress: Everyone needs to be hot!
I’d thrown on a navy turtleneck, jeans, and rubber-soled shoes that could tolerate bloodstains, wore my LAPD consultant badge on a chain. Dead bodies and the hubbub they attract call for unobtrusive, not hot.
I took Veteran south, drove through Westwood and into West L.A. Corner’s not far from the West L.A. station, a stubby, easily overlooked street that paper-cuts Pico Boulevard as it hugs the 405 overpass. The address put the scene north of Pico, on a freeway-deafened strip of abused asphalt. Street lighting was irregular, creating leopard-spot shadows.
I passed a scrap yard specializing in English cars, a plumbing supply warehouse, a few auto mechanics, and an unmarked warehouse before reaching the final building, just short of a chain-link dead end.
Two-story stucco rectangle painted dark, maybe black, no windows.
A crudely painted sign topped a slab metal door. Thunderbolts above assertive lettering. Marquee bulbs rimmed the sign. Some were still working.
THE AURA
Alley to the left, parking lot to the right, now yellow-taped. Fifty or so vehicles sat behind the tape. Behind them was a generator-fed trailer that chuffed. Open door, a cook in a white tunic: pop-up kitchen.
Outside the tape was a smaller grouping of wheels: Milo’s unmarked bronze Impala, a white Ford LTD that I recognized as Moe Reed’s current ride, another Ford, maroon, that I couldn’t identify, a gray Chevy.