Hollywood Prisoner: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Read Online Free

victims behind.”
    “Accordin’ to the news, he takes the girls prisoner and starves ‘em to death,” Natalie said.
    I saw no reason not to confirm what she’d heard. “It’s pretty gruesome stuff.” I looked at Mo, who had been a pimp at one time, trying to get girls off the stroll. She still had lots of street contacts. “If you hear any scuttlebutt, I’d appreciate you letting me know.”
    Mo regarded me, turning her head and levelling one eye on me, in that way she had. She looked at Natalie, asked for another drink, then stared at me again. “You got something on your mind that you’re not tellin’ us, don’t you?”
    I sighed. “You must be a mind reader.”
    “Give it up,” Natalie said. “If it helps, you can think of Mo and me as your underpaid therapists.”
    I sipped my drink and took a moment, thinking about the flashbacks I’d had in Runyon Canyon. “Something happened to me last night. I remembered what it’s like to be dead.”
    Mo’s heavy forehead became pinched. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Natalie, then back at me. “What you talkin’ ‘bout?”
    “I saw myself after…after Noah stabbed me. I know it sounds crazy, but I was floating above my body.”
    Natalie’s hazel eyes widened. “Maybe you’re a ghost.” She looked at Mo. “It could be that Kate’s deader than an eighty-year-old pecker on its way to a Viagra convention, and she just doesn’t know it.”
    Mo grimaced. “If that’s the case, it means we’re also dead or part of her crazy-ass hallucination.”
    “I’m not dead or a ghost, and I wasn’t hallucinating,” I said. “I think I had one of those near-death experiences that you read about. It could be that I was so traumatized by my injuries that I didn’t remember everything until last night.”
    Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought Mo moved her chair back a couple inches and she leaned away from me. “What the hell happened when you was…on the other side?”
    I took a breath, wondering if they thought I’d lost my mind. “Like I said, I saw my body and the men who saved me. I then saw Noah’s body.”
    “What about Pearl?” Natalie said. “Did you see your daddy shootin’ your boyfriend?”
    I shook my head, slightly annoyed with her lack of tact. “I don’t know that Pearl shot him or that he is my daddy, and I didn’t see him there.”
    “Maybe somebody else shot Noah,” Mo suggested. “What happened next?”
    “I was in a beautiful, peaceful place, floating somewhere above the world, when I heard a voice.”
    “A voice?” Mo looked at Natalie again, then met my eyes. “This is creepy as hell.”
    I was now also frustrated with Mo. “It wasn’t creepy. It was…I know this sounds unbelievable, but I think the voice was someone from the other side.”
    “Are you talkin’ ‘bout the big guy upstairs?” Natalie asked. “‘Cause I’ve always wanted to have a conversation with Him, ask Him why there’s stuff like pimples.”
    “Pimples?” Mo and I said at the same time. I then added, “Is that the most important question you can come up with?”
    “Seems pretty important to me,” Natalie said, looking at my nose, “especially when you got a giant one on the end of your schnoz.”
    I’d had a large pimple on my nose a few weeks back that apparently had left a big impression on my friend.
    “Forget about zits,” Mo said. “What happened next?”
    “The spirit, or whoever or whatever it was, told me that I had a choice to make.”
    Mo’s forehead scrunched up again. “What kind of choice?”
    “It said that I have to choose between love and fear.”
    My friends regarded one another. Natalie said, “I don’t get it.”
    “It’s similar to what Ted Grady once told me,” I explained. “Life is about choosing love over fear. I think the message makes a lot of sense. I’ve decided that, from now on, I need to choose love.”
    “It sounds like you’re ready for a new relationship,” Natalie said.