Love is Murder Story 01 - Grave Danger

gut-stabbed that he nearly bent double.
    Ali.
    A killer called the Slasher was loose in the area, and Ali was in that building. Working with Victor Brill, whose ID had been found on the corpse.
    He left Engel standing there openmouthed, raced to the brick wall, and leaped over it. Going through the cemetery was the fastest way to reach Ali. He vaulted over the fence and landed hard in the grass. It would only take a minute to dial his cell. Noticing the tremor in his hands, he grabbed a nearby vault to steady himself. Yet as he did so, he felt a hand on his back, steadying him. There was no one there.
    In large, embossed letters on the iron grating of the tomb were two words, one name.
    Blake Richards.
    Greg stared at the tomb. “She’s got to be all right!” he whispered.
    The cell phone was ringing.
    “Answer, Ali, answer!” he prayed aloud.

    Dolls.
    Ali suddenly felt as if she’d been pitched into a remake of Indiana Jones, except that she was the explorer, and the bane of her life was dolls, not snakes. Fantasmic Effects created amazing dolls. Dolls as real as life, large or small. Sexy Suzie, the doll that had come alive in the thriller Real Doll was standing in front of Bobo, the mock-up for Emil Lasher, the actor in Death by Clown .
    She heard the noise again. She almost laughed aloud. The soundwas coming from Bobo’s feet; his motor was on, and he was trying to move, but he was blocked in by Suzie and another doll, one that was covered by a large sheet. She started to reach around Bobo to find the machination cord, but before she could do so, her phone rang. She hit the reply key. “Hello?”
    “Ali?”
    It was Greg’s voice. She knew it, of course, the moment she heard it. Her blood seemed to run instantly like molten lava and her knees felt weak. Had she willed him to call her? she wondered. No, such things didn’t happen.
    “Ali, its Greg.”
    “I know. Hey, nice to hear from you.” Casual, she warned herself. Don’t tell the guy you’ve been eating your heart out for him since you packed up and left.
    “Get out of there,” Greg said.
    “What?”
    “Get the hell out of there,” he told her.
    “Greg, I’m working. I’m at the studio.”
    “Yes, get the hell out.”
    She’d started to jerk the sheet off the life-size doll next to Bobo. It fell away as she frowned, thinking that Greg had to be far away, that something had happened near her apartment in Burbank. “Ali!”
    She didn’t answer him. At first, she stared in surprise. The doll next to Bobo seemed to be that of a Mexican Day of the Dead skeleton. Then she realized that it was clad in black, with the skeleton painted on the fabric. She couldn’t remember a film in which they’d used such a doll, but….
    “I’m here, Greg,” she said, puzzling over the doll.
    And then it moved. It didn’t click, whine, or whirr. It moved, raising its arm and its hand, and in the hand was a knife, blood dripping from it….
    The arm lashed out suddenly, sending the phone flying from her hand.
    “Victor, stop it!” Ali cried out angrily. “You’re not going to scare me off this job!”
    “No?” he asked, cocking his black-and-skull-clad head to an angle. “Then I’ll just kill you,” he said cheerfully.

    Greg told himself he was a rational man, a trained cop. He had a gun; he knew what he was doing. He’d call for backup, but first, he’d get to the studios. He was already at the brick wall that lined the back parking lot. He set his arms on the ledge of the wall and hiked himself up; his arms were shaking and he fell back. Cursing, he hiked up again.
    And as he struggled to get a solid grasp, he felt something again. Something. As if someone were there, pushing him up the wall.
    Tony. Tony had gotten it together and followed.
    “Thanks!” he said huskily, and looked back as he gained the top of the brick. But no one was there. No one. No one had touched him.
    He was cracking under the strain.
    His feet hit the asphalt of the parking lot and he ran to the rear door of the effects studio. It was locked. He stood back, pulled his gun and shot out the lock. He burst through into the shadowed realm of zombies, bugs, gnomes and superheroes.

    Ali ran back through the prop storage, knocking down a wall of helmets and a carton of costume-grade vampire teeth. As she neared the werewolf, she let out a terrified scream; a massive spiderweb—actually, excellent nylon webbing that she’d designed herself—fell upon her.