14 - J. T. Ellison [54]
As she neared the CJC, the traffic got heavier. Taylor felt it, palpable in the air. Something was happening. She crawled along, finally turning the corner onto third. News vans lined the street. Satellites were set up, there were people milling about, walking through the street blocking the entrance to the CJC parking lot.
Taylor resisted the urge to take out her weapon and shoot it into the air to clear a path. Instead, she took a flasher from beneath her seat, put down the window of the unmarked and held it out in her hand. She flipped the switch and hit her horn. The noise and the glowing red globe got their attention. The sea parted and she pulled into the parking lot of the CJC, double-parking alongside the Channel 4 news van. She should have them ticketed for blocking the entrance.
Her phone rang and she saw Sam’s number. Flipping it open, she walked briskly across the parking lot, shouts ringing in her ears, her hand up in the universal “no comment” posture. Sam was talking loudly enough that Taylor heard her clearly over the din.
“Remy fucking St. Claire is in my lobby, about to hold a press conference,” Sam growled.
Taylor threw a glance back over her shoulder. “But all the news trucks are here.”
“Oh, trust me, no they aren’t. I’ve got patrol officers trying to keep the entrance to Gass Street clear. I assume she’s heading your way after she finishes here. If you hurry, you can get your TV on, see her in all her bony glory. She looks like hell.”
“Well, her daughter just died.”
“Aren’t you the gracious one. Call me later, okay? I need to get this under control. And stay off camera. Man, this hacks me off. Why that anemic bitch decided to have her press conference at my office is beyond me.”
Sam was gone, and Taylor shut her phone. To say Sam and Remy had never gotten along would be an understatement.
As she neared the door, the shouts of the media began to fade away. Each step up the back stairs dumped a load on her heart. This ruckus wasn’t for the poor, innocent girl they’d just pulled out of the bushes in Edwin Warner, nor for Giselle St. Claire or Jane Macias. It wasn’t about any of the victims.
No, this was for something much worse. A false prophet.
Inside the door, Taylor could hear the commotion before she saw it. The homicide team was crowded around the television set, watching. Taylor took up a position with them.
Remy St. Claire had been pretty when she left Nashville to strike it big in Hollywood. An elfin face, pale blond hair, long legs, a breathy, little-girl voice reminiscent of a packaged young Norma Jean. Hollywood made her gorgeous. They took her under their wing, brought her into the fold, and made Remy St. Claire a star. A shooting star.
The lip injections, cheekbone implants, breast implants, ear tuck, liposuction, rib removal, all of that was de rigueur. Standard operating procedure. Her voice coach had annihilated all traces of Tennessee from her vocal cords, eliciting a low, smoky Mae West tone from deep within Remy’s artificial chest. Her long, blond locks were color-treated now, four individual shades of honey blond, highlights so subtle, so perfectly uniform that it took four hours once a week to keep them maintained.
Her figure was emaciated to the point of starvation under a veneer of muscle obtained through stringent daily meetings with trainers—strength, Pilates and yoga. Only her breasts stood out tall; the rest of her body seemed to shrink in on itself, as if the internal organs were so starved that they took the skin for nutrition.
She was linked to a new, younger partner on the cover of the gossip rags at least once a month. For an actress who’d been the toast of Hollywood fourteen years ago, that was pretty damn good. The scandalmongers and cable shows would feast on this news item for days. Remy’s precious daughter, dead at the hands of a serial killer. Oh, the horror, the horror.
Somewhere along the way,