sorts of things that these days end up on peopleâs phones and photo sharing accounts, but the last one I looked at was the one that made me drop all the others.
My mouth fell open as I stared at it.
It wasnât simply that Luisa Sandoval was posing naked in bed.
It wasnât simply that Luisa Sandoval looked pretty incredible naked.
It wasnât simply that another naked figure was cuddled next to her.
It was that the naked person cuddling Louie was Regina Fontaine.
CHAPTER NINE
I put the photos back in the drawer while swallowing my heart and forcing it back into my chest.
It wasnât like I had any claim on Louie, or even any real reason to hope that a relationship might result. It was merely an uncomfortable reminder of my college days when the girl I was most stuck on in my sophomore year and I turned out to have a lot in common: the same taste in women.
Beyond that it was the strong suggestion, if not outright verification, that Louieâs disappearance and Reginaâs death were somehow intrinsically linked.
Upon grim reflection, it made sense: how else woulda journalist be able to infiltrate the corporation she was investigating without the help of someone inside?
Maybe Regina had been Louieâs first contact, the one who informed her that there was something unsavory being added to the burger meat. That would mean that Reginaâs denial of any knowledge about Luisa Sandoval had been nothing more than a ruse, which in turn explained why she had appeared so nervous.
Maybe she thought I had been hired by Burger Heaven to find out what she was passing on to a reporter.
That was a lot of maybes, but in my experience maybes tend to count for quite a bit in lieu of actual facts.
But it wasnât a smoking gun.
I went back into the front room where Louie had her desk and began a more thorough search. There were lots of papers, quite a few notebooks, filled with illegible scrawl, and post-it notes plastered here and there as reminders of things that bore no significance, so far as I could see.
But there was no flash drive.
Something I found in the bottom drawer of her desk that did surprise me was a brochure for the Temple of Theotologics.
Known around town simply as âThe Temple,â it was a Hollywood-based pseudo-religion that had been started in the mid 1950s by a former B movie actor named Palmer Hanley.
Sixty years later, what had apparently been started as a self-help system had grown into a major corporation, operating out of a modern-day castle built in the wacky twenties up in the Hollywood hills. The Temple might actually have a basis in religious belief or it may simply have pulled enough legal strings to maintain a tax-exempt status, but regardless of whatever existed at its core, it made money.
Lots and lots of money. Stories abounded that it was nothing more than a cash-cow cult, preying on the weak who had day jobs and could pay for the Templeâs classes, stories that were invariably disputed and discredited by the Temple hierarchy and the handful of Hollywood stars who were adherents, such as Vince Cranna, the action film hero.
But what was Louie Sandovalâs connection with the Temple? Maybe it was research material for a future story. I hoped that was all, anyway.
But what about the other doll ? Bogie asked me. The dancer. Maybe she was a member.
Now that made more sense. It even explained the panic that Regina Fontaine had shown when I saw her smoking.
One of the primary boasts made by the Temple is that their process of âAdjustingâ (insert registered trademark symbol here), or getting rid of all the bad stuff in oneâs life, can cure any kind of addiction, problem or obsession. Charges by former members of the Temple that their rehab programs were based on a regimen of mental and physical abuse continued to dog the operation.
If those charges were true, and Regina had indeed been a member of the Temple and was using their program
My mouth fell open as I stared at it.
It wasnât simply that Luisa Sandoval was posing naked in bed.
It wasnât simply that Luisa Sandoval looked pretty incredible naked.
It wasnât simply that another naked figure was cuddled next to her.
It was that the naked person cuddling Louie was Regina Fontaine.
CHAPTER NINE
I put the photos back in the drawer while swallowing my heart and forcing it back into my chest.
It wasnât like I had any claim on Louie, or even any real reason to hope that a relationship might result. It was merely an uncomfortable reminder of my college days when the girl I was most stuck on in my sophomore year and I turned out to have a lot in common: the same taste in women.
Beyond that it was the strong suggestion, if not outright verification, that Louieâs disappearance and Reginaâs death were somehow intrinsically linked.
Upon grim reflection, it made sense: how else woulda journalist be able to infiltrate the corporation she was investigating without the help of someone inside?
Maybe Regina had been Louieâs first contact, the one who informed her that there was something unsavory being added to the burger meat. That would mean that Reginaâs denial of any knowledge about Luisa Sandoval had been nothing more than a ruse, which in turn explained why she had appeared so nervous.
Maybe she thought I had been hired by Burger Heaven to find out what she was passing on to a reporter.
That was a lot of maybes, but in my experience maybes tend to count for quite a bit in lieu of actual facts.
But it wasnât a smoking gun.
I went back into the front room where Louie had her desk and began a more thorough search. There were lots of papers, quite a few notebooks, filled with illegible scrawl, and post-it notes plastered here and there as reminders of things that bore no significance, so far as I could see.
But there was no flash drive.
Something I found in the bottom drawer of her desk that did surprise me was a brochure for the Temple of Theotologics.
Known around town simply as âThe Temple,â it was a Hollywood-based pseudo-religion that had been started in the mid 1950s by a former B movie actor named Palmer Hanley.
Sixty years later, what had apparently been started as a self-help system had grown into a major corporation, operating out of a modern-day castle built in the wacky twenties up in the Hollywood hills. The Temple might actually have a basis in religious belief or it may simply have pulled enough legal strings to maintain a tax-exempt status, but regardless of whatever existed at its core, it made money.
Lots and lots of money. Stories abounded that it was nothing more than a cash-cow cult, preying on the weak who had day jobs and could pay for the Templeâs classes, stories that were invariably disputed and discredited by the Temple hierarchy and the handful of Hollywood stars who were adherents, such as Vince Cranna, the action film hero.
But what was Louie Sandovalâs connection with the Temple? Maybe it was research material for a future story. I hoped that was all, anyway.
But what about the other doll ? Bogie asked me. The dancer. Maybe she was a member.
Now that made more sense. It even explained the panic that Regina Fontaine had shown when I saw her smoking.
One of the primary boasts made by the Temple is that their process of âAdjustingâ (insert registered trademark symbol here), or getting rid of all the bad stuff in oneâs life, can cure any kind of addiction, problem or obsession. Charges by former members of the Temple that their rehab programs were based on a regimen of mental and physical abuse continued to dog the operation.
If those charges were true, and Regina had indeed been a member of the Temple and was using their program
Similar Books
