Illusion of Luck Read online

  The back of her head flew toward his nose. Just in time, he turned slightly—only to feel the crunch of her skull hitting his cheekbone.

  For a moment, he lost the will to fight.

  Candy sensed it and tried to jump up.

  But he grabbed the belt with both hands and gave it a violent yank.

  She collapsed to the floor next to him.

  He checked her pulse.

  Nothing.

  Finally, he thought. Her neck was probably broken.

  He surveyed the room. What a mess he had made. He gathered the four used condoms, and put them in one of his jacket pockets. Then he used soap and hot water and a hand towel to clean her up.

  He put her on the bed and stared at her naked body. She had been a lot of fun. But she had to die. He couldn’t afford to have her talking to the police.

  He had concocted a perfect plan to murder Erin and get away with it. And he could not allow this woman to ruin his plans—no matter how sexy and likeable she was.

  Yes, Lucky Larry was lucky indeed—as always. He got to have the best sex of his life. Then he got to do another murder. He wasn’t sure which he enjoyed more—committingmurder or writing about it afterwards. His readers were going to love this chapter, he thought.

  He knew he would be leaving traces of his DNA in the room. But he doubted that police would make much of an effort to find the killer. Just another dead hooker. So, what did it matter?

  He started to leave.

  “Wow, that was close. Almost forgot,” he whispered to himself.

  He unlatched the top of her purse and flipped it open. Then he dumped the contents on the dresser and began to search.

  “There you are.” He smiled. It was the card with his license plate number on it. He had seen her writing it down when he was parking the car at the convenience store.

  He flipped the card over and read it.

  Melanie Maylin – Attorney at Law

  Yeah, he wasn’t surprised a hooker would have an attorney to bail her out of jail whenever necessary.

  The card was all he needed. But he was curious. He opened her wallet and looked at her driver’s license.

  “No! It can’t be.”

  He felt ill. Candy looked different in her driver’s license photo. Her hair was brown instead of black. And, of course, she was wearing more clothes.

  And her name was not Candy.

  It was Melanie Maylin – Attorney at Law!

  Chapter7

  “That’ll be $9.87.”

  Rebecca Ranghorn flipped up the top of the box, pulled out a glazed donut, and took bite.

  The young secretary behind her looked on in disbelief. She was soready for the weekend. But first she had to get to the office and put in her lousy eight hours. Why couldn’t this woman just pay and get out of the way?

  Rebecca tossed the box at the clerk. A couple of donuts flew out and fell on the floor behind the counter.

  “Those are yesterday’s donuts. I told you to give me the fresh ones.”

  “But, ma’am, these arethe fresh—.” The look in her eyes stopped him cold. He dumped the box in the trash and picked out a fresher dozen.

  “Now, that’ll be $9.87, please.”

  “Keep your drawers on, Jack.” She sampled the new batch. “That’s more like it.” She threw a ten dollar bill on the counter and walked out with her donuts and large bottle of orange juice.

  Her enormous black 1979 Lincoln Continental Town Car was four feet longer and twice the weight of the young secretary’s Toyota Corolla parked next to it. It was costing her a fortune to drive her dad’s old car. But it made her feel close to him—even though he had been dead for eleven years. She rarely had an occasion to drive out of town—and it was not a big town. Sherman, Texas has about 36,000 residents.

  She pulled into the old strip mall parking lot. Most of the stores and other businesses were barely hanging on. The place hadn’t seen decent shopping traffic since the 1980s. But it was the perfect location for Rebecca and her partner. They didn’t need shoppers. All they needed was cheap office space. Theirs was narrow, but deep, with a reception area, two offices and a bathroom.

  Wendy saw her coming with the donuts and orange juice. So, she got up and unlocked the glass door and let her in. The 19 year-old worked her butt off for the ten bucks an hour they were paying her. She wished she made more, but right now she was just happy to have a steady job so she could support her baby, and help her mom with the bills.

  “Have some breakfast.” Rebecca put the donuts and orange juice on Wendy’s desk, and headed for the coffee pot. “Any messages?”

  “Not for you. But Mrs. Davis called for Melanie. She had an appointment this morning at 10:00, and wanted to know whether she could reschedule for 9:00. I checked Melanie’s calendar and told her that would be fine.”

  “Good.” Rebecca picked up a donut, took a huge bite and gulped it down.

  “But the problem is: I can’t get Melanie on the phone and it’s 8:40.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Yeah—because she always answers unless she’s in court.”

  Rebecca took a sip from her coffee cup. “Better call Mrs. Davis back and cancel.”

  “What do you think happened to Melanie?”

  “Uh…maybe her phone died.”

  Rebecca went to Melanie’s office. She was afraid she knew exactlywhat had happened to her partner. She hoped she was wrong.

  She found an extra memory card in Melanie’s desk and put it in her pocket. Then she walked back into the reception area and refilled her cup. “Wendy, cancel my appointments for this morning.” She was out the door before Wendy could ask her where she was going and when to expect her back.

  Rebecca drove to the motel Melanie had told her about. As she walked into the office, she smelled forty years’ worth of stink, oozing from a dozen layers of tobacco-stained wall paint.

  “Can I help you?”

  The leather-faced old man didn’t look like he had spent even one day indoors his entire life. Maybe this was his first one, she thought. “Yes. I believe my friend is staying here and I wanted to surprise her. It’s her birthday. So, I was hoping you could tell me which room she’s in. Her name is Melanie, but she goes by a different name sometimes. She might have registered as ‘Candy.’”

  “Oh, yeah. Candy.”

  She was glad the man knew her partner, but also a little sickened. She didn’t want to have anyfriends in common with this carnie-looking greaser. “Good. So, can you tell me if she stayed here last night?”

  He flipped through the register and started coughing. Then he stepped back a couple feet, pressed a finger on the side of his nose, and blew a wad of snot into the trash can. “Yeah. Room 97. But I can’t give you a key. Only got one per room.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks.” She bolted out the door.

  She located the room on the back side and knocked.

  No answer.

  The old motel had not upgraded to a key card entry system, so she was about to reach into her purse for her lock picking tool. Then she remembered what her dad had taught her: Always try the easy way first. So, she tried the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked.

  She opened the door and saw Melanie naked on the bed. She stepped in, closed the door and rushed to her friend’s side.

  “Oh, Sweetie, you told me you weren’t going to do this anymore.” It was easy to see that Melanie had been dead for hours.

  She reached into her purse for the latex gloves and put them on. Then she took out her little screwdriver, turned Melanie’s purse on its back to remove the four screws, and detached the bottom section. She removed the memory card from the thin video camera that was mounted inside, and replaced it with the blank card she had taken from Melanie’s desk. She was careful not to exert too much strain on the small wire that ran from the camera to the lens, which was located in the center of the flower on the front of the purse.

  Rebecca reassembled it, picked up t
he used memory card, and studied her friend’s body. So beautiful. Such a sweet girl. She shouldn’t have come here. But she didn’t deserve to die for it.

  “I know—I’m tampering with the crime scene,” she said to her friend. “But I can’t stand the thought of the police seeing this video. They’d be laughing and getting their jollies watching the creep abuse you and murder you. And I’m just not gonna allow that.

  “But don’t you worry about your case falling through the cracks, Honey. ‘Cause I’m all over it. He’s a dead man. I promise you—I don’t care where I have to go, I’m gonna track down the slimy snake and chop his ugly head off.

  “Wait. Correction: I’m gonna chop off bothof his heads. The little one first.”

  She tried to imagine a smile on Melanie’s face.

  **********

  Larry awoke to birds chirping outside his cabin windows. He had slept like a baby after pulling off the perfect murder, followed up by a near-perfectmurder.

  After leaving the motel he had walked to a pay phone and called a taxi. He had told the driver to drop him off at a certain apartment complex in Denison to make it look like he lived there. Then he had walked nearly two miles to his cabin.

  It had taken longer than he thought it would, because he had to hide every time a car drove by. The last thing he wanted was to hitch a ride or to later be remembered as the guy out walking the roads in a trench coat at 12:30 AM.

  Surely he would have some reader feedback by now, he thought. It was 11:30 AM. He had stayed up until 2:30 writing the next chapter.

  He went to his laptop and logged into his author account. Wow! He already had thirteen comments.

  Very exciting—can’t wait for the next chapter.

  Cool, he thought.

  I stayed up late reading this chapter and IT WAS WORTH EVERY MINUTE!

  Yes, it was.

  Your murder scenes are so real and detailed that I nearly vomited.

  Excellent, he thought. After all these years with no recognition of his considerable talent, finally the public had come to its senses. Soon he would be laughing at those idiot agents who had rejected him.

  With his first six books, he couldn’t even givethem away.

  Now, he was writing a masterpiece—a best-seller!

  You’re my new favorite author.

  That’s right—I’m the best.

  Your characters and your scenes sound so real, it made me wonder… Is this fiction, or did some lunatic really kill these women?

  What if somebody in Denison or Sherman were to discover his online book? His story was being inspired by his real crimes. And even though he was using the pseudonym, Barry Undermine, for this book, he knew it could be traced back to him.

  He was living a very dangerous life, especially after killing that lady lawyer. But he could not stop—he had quickly become a fame junkie. The reader raves were his heroin.

  And nothingwould stand between him and his next fix.

  Chapter8

  “Hey, Man, we’d better get going soon. Our reservation is for 7:00,” said Sandy.

  He and Greg had slept late, ordered pizza, and spent the afternoon talking shop and reminiscing about their college days.

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t know if trust yourkind of surprise.”

  Sandy laughed. “What? You’re afraid of having too much fun? It’s your last night of freedom.”

  “But that’s just the point—I don’t wantto be free anymore.”

  “Look—after tomorrow night you’re gonna be wearing the old husband handcuffs. All I’m asking you to do is forget that for a while and just have some fun with the old Sandman.”

  “Okay, I’ll try. As long as you don’t get toocrazy.”

  “Me, get crazy?”

  “Shut up. Just let me check my email real quick.” Greg got up from the couch and walked to his bedroom.

  Sandy yelled from Greg’s comfy recliner. “Why? You think you might have something from your wife-to-be? That’s cheating. You two said you wouldn’t talk or see each other until the wedding. And emails count as talking. And so do text messages and instant messages. You can’t do any of that, Man.”

  Sandy got up and walked into Greg’s bedroom to see for himself.

  “I knew you couldn’t hold out.”

  “No. It’s from one of my students. He’s telling me he might have to miss his piano lesson on Tuesday. Apparently, he didn’t read the email I sent out to everybody announcing that I would be on my honeymoon next week. I even posted it on my web page.”

  “I couldn’t do what you do, Greg.”

  “What?”

  “Your students can cancel their lessons at the last minute. And then you don’t get paid. You have no control over it. Iget paid whether my students show up or not.”

  “That wouldbe nice. But on the other hand, all your students are the same age—late teens to early twenties.”

  “So?”

  “So, isn’t that kinda boring? I mean, you don’t get the joy of teaching piano to a six year-old girl, or the fun of guitar lessons with a 67 year-old man.”

  “Yeah, that must be a hoot. I can’t believe I’m missing out on that.”

  “No, really—it’s pretty cool, actually.”

  “If you say so. Now let’s go eat. I’m starving.”

  **********

  “Thanks again, Sandy. It was delicious,” said Greg.

  They got into Sandy’s car.

  “Okay. Now for your bachelor party.”

  “What do you mean? I thought that wasmy bachelor party.”

  “Oh, no. A steak and a baked potato do not a bachelor party make.”

  “Well, thank you for your words of wisdom, Yoda.”

  Sandy tried talking in Yoda’s voice. “Off to the party now we flee. Cake of your bachelorhood you will see. Beer shall you drink until you pee.”

  Greg laughed. “That’s funny.”

  “Thank you.” Sandy smiled broadly and nodded.

  “But not very good.”

  Sandy pouted.

  “And anyway—I don’t drink.”

  “That’s okay. Believe me—you’ll still have fun.”

  Greg didn’t like the looks of the place—not that he could see it all that well. It was dark outside, and even darkerinside.

  Sandy gave his name and a young woman wearing a bikini led them to a room and showed them to their chairs. Then she walked out.

  “Now what?” Greg had a bad feeling.

  “Sit tight.”

  Another young woman walked in to take their drink orders. Sandy ordered a Bud Light and Greg asked for a Dr. Pepper.

  “I wonder what Cynthia is doing right now?”

  “Hey, you’re not supposed to be thinking about her. Remember?”

  “Okay. I’ll trynot to.”

  After a few minutes, the woman brought their drinks. They had taken a few sips when a huge cardboard cake rolled into the room. Two scantily-clad ladies pushed it into place, right in front of Greg.

  “There’s your cake,” said Sandy. “Make a wish.”

  “I wish we could just get out of here.”

  “Oops, wrong wish.”

  A young woman jumped up from inside the cake and it fell apart. Even in the dim light, Greg could see that her breasts were enormous.

  Before he could react, she sat down in his lap, facing him.

  He couldn’t get up, and didn’t know what to do.

  She reached to the center of her chest and unhooked her spring-loaded bikini top and it flew off and hit Sandy in the face.

  Sandy caught it and held it there for a moment to take a deep whiff. “Yee-ha!”

  Greg’s zipper felt like it was about to rip open.

  The woman felt his excitement and rubbed her crotch against it. Then she grabbed his head in both hands and pulled it in between her huge breasts and held it there.

  For the first time in his life, Greg feared
he had high blood pressure. He would surely die right here in this woman’s arms, he thought. No, no, no!

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away as he stood up.

  She fell on the floor. “Hey—no rough stuff, Dude.”

  “I’m sorry.” Greg helped her to her feet.

  She moved in close and tried to rub up against him again, apparently thinking everything Greg had said and done was just an act.

  “No, thanks.” He held out his hand to stop her and accidentally made contact with a breast. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what my friendwas getting me into. It’s nothing against you. You’re beautiful and sexy, but—I’m sorry.”

  Sandy was laughing his head off.

  **********

  Cynthia had taken her mother out for dinner and a movie.

  “So, what did you think of the movie, Mom?”

  “Things would have gone a lot better for that woman if she had married the right man in the firstplace.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She knew that workaholic businessman didn’t want kids. He told her so. But I guess she figured he’d change his mind.”

  “Yeah. But he didn’t.”

  “What about you and Greg? Are you both sure you really want to have children?”

  “Yes, Mom. We’ve talked about it a lot. And we’re glad that neither of us had any kids already so we can have them together. We’re very excited about it.”

  “Even at your age?”

  “I’m only 30. And Greg’s just 35. That’s not too old. It’s not like when youwere young, Mom. A lot of couples wait longer now.”

  “Okay. Good. Because I really dowant grandkids.”

  “Then why are you trying to talk me out of it, you silly woman?”

  They laughed.

  “I just wanted to know if I could counton it.”

  “You can count on it. Okay?”

  “Great. When?”

  Cynthia shot her an evil eye. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

  When they pulled into the driveway, Cynthia noticed a package sitting at the front door. After she had parked the car and they had gone inside, she went to the front porch, picked up the package, and carried it into the living room.