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  SIX PASSENGERS

  FIVE PARACHUTES

  IAN BULL

  Story Merchant Books · Los Angeles · 2017

  Six Passengers, Five Parachutes

  Copyright © 2017 by Ian Bull. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.

  www.IanBullAuthor.com

  www.CaliforniaBull.com

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  Story Merchant Books

  400 S. Burnside Ave. #11B

  Los Angeles, CA 90036

  www.storymerchantbooks.com

  Editor: Lisa Cerasoli

  Interior Design: Danielle Canfield

  Cover Design: Derek Murphy

  The Picture Kills and Six Passengers, Five Parachutes are the first two books in The Quintana Adventures. Danger Room is coming in 2018.

  Ian Bull is also the author of the romantic thriller Liars in Love, set in San Francisco in the 1980s, and he writes the weekly blog California Bull.

  If you want more of Ian Bull’s writing, visit the link below for choices for a free download, or email him at: [email protected].

  www.IanBullAuthor.com

  To Robin, my wife, my muse, and my love. You are the flower that can push through the crack in any sidewalk.

  SIX PASSENGERS

  FIVE PARACHUTES

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  Steven Quintana

  Day 1: Saturday Night

  Los Angeles, California

  “Hold up your Oscars!” shouts the Academy publicist. Everyone who just won an Academy Award for Science and Technology lifts their gold statuettes, grinning and blinking into a lightning shower of camera flashes. Only their host, actress Julia Travers, holds her gaze into the camera lens. She knows how to work it, of course. Her thick, blonde, flowing hair, and designer dress makes her look like a shimmering red ribbon against a black and white checkerboard of mostly men in tuxedos.

  A week from tomorrow, she will walk out on stage at the main Oscar broadcast and announce the winners from tonight with a billion people watching. There’s no denying it. Julia Travers, a woman from a small city in Canada, has overcome obstacles that would have killed most men…and she is now a movie star.

  Julia has been famous for a while. First, she was famous for being a beautiful ingénue. Then she became infamous for having a “bad attitude” in public, a persona that I inflated when I worked as a paparazzo, selling her photos to the tabloids. Then she became even more famous for surviving a kidnapping and a murder attempt, which I survived as well. Now she is famous for the right reasons: for her talent and her hard work.

  I’m not famous at all. I’m still just Steven Quintana, ex-Army Ranger, ex-tabloid paparazzo, ex-boyfriend to Julia, current nobody. I’m dressed in this monkey suit because Julia asked me to come. We’re still close, despite our love affair imploding. I wished her luck in her dressing room before the show, then watched the ceremony from the farthest table back in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. She’s been getting more crazy fan threats, which is the real reason she wants me here. There’s plenty of security, but she feels safer when I’m close by. Saving someone’s life does that to a person.

  David, an actor friend and her official “date” tonight, talks to a bigwig in the corner. We make eye contact. He nods. He’s the only one who recognizes me. Eighteen months ago, the gossip about Julia and me was so big it was in the tabloids and on the cover of People. But the buzz has faded since we broke up. Now, she grows more famous while I grow more anonymous.

  Julia spots me from the stage and smiles. Smiling back, I realize that I love her…but ruined everything. “I’m an idiot,” I say out loud.

  “I won’t fight you on that.” It’s Rikki Lassen, Julia’s powerhouse manager. She’s short, round, and dressed in a purple business suit that makes her look like a grape. “You’re riding with me. I don’t want photographers seeing you. Once Julia leaves with David, I’ll call for my car.”

  I wish Julia’s best friend Trishelle was still her manager, but she’s living in Canada now with problems of her own. Still, Rikki is damn good at her job.

  “Where are they going?” I ask.

  “That’s not your concern. Just stay out of sight,” she says.

  Julia hired Rikki a year ago to revamp her image, and it worked. Rikki got Julia this gig tonight, and Julia’s coming off one hit movie and starts work on another next week. Rikki’s right—I’m bad press and don’t help Julia’s image. But I can still make sure Julia is safe.

  “I’m going to make another loop and check security, if you don’t mind,” I say.

  “Chill, soldier. Sarah Hammond’s security team doesn’t need your help.” She jabs her finger into my stiff tuxedo shirt before walking away.

  As I head into the main lobby, all the guards touch their ears and speak into their lapels. They’re tired of me checking on them. There aren’t many limos and cars in the hotel turnaround yet, but ticket stubs are coming out of jacket pockets and valets are grabbing them and dashing off to the parking structure.

  I sense someone behind me. It’s Sarah Hammond herself, the boss of Hammond Security.

  “Hello, Steven. I haven’t seen you in months,” Sarah says.

  “I’ve been out of town.”

  “Sorry I quit on you like that,” I say.

  “You were great for the six months you worked for me, so I can’t complain.”

  She hires a lot of guys with Spanish surnames. Some are ex-military, some ex-sheriff’s deputies, and some are ex-gang members who found religion. I thought the work might suit me, so I asked her for a job. The guys called me Güero, which means “white-washed,” because I pass for Anglo. But people would recognize me, so I had to quit.

  “You and Julia still having paparazzi problems?” she asks.

  “Not since we broke up. But Julia has the jitters. She’s been getting threats again.”

  “Stay safe, Steven,” she says. While she’s close, she pushes on my left armpit.

  “Are you checking to see if I’m packing a gun?” I ask, knowing that trick.

  “Yes, and you’re wearing a kevlar vest. Why? Are you expecting trouble?”

  “I haven’t been in public in a while. PTSD residue is all.”

  “Just let us handle things,” Sarah says, narrowing her eyes and backing away.

  I exit the hotel and stand behind the valet stand. A line of Lincoln Town Cars for the studio executives and sedans for the nominees inch forward to pick up their passengers. Burning gasoline hangs in a pungent cloud. The sound of vibrating engines mixes with the sound of doors shutting, and shouts goodbye. Ten paparazzi stand outside the drive around, just off hotel property. They’ll snap photos with their long lenses as David and Julia come out, then surround her car as it leaves. But once in traffic, she’ll be safe and I can go home.

  A black Audi makes my antennae perk up. Two big guys are inside, and neither of them is in a suit. All the windows are tinted except the front windshield, which isn’t right. I stare at one of Sarah Hammond’s security guys, willing him to look at me. He scans the crowd, then we lock eyes. I nod at the black Audi. He looks over, touches his lapel, and starts speaking.

  A shout goes up as David and Julia exit the hotel. Julia spots me and smiles. I just made her feel better, which is why I’m here. A driver stands ready to open the door of a black Porsche Cayenne. David and Julia pose in front of the car for a last set of photos. The paparazzi
snap their pictures and move into the circular garden in the middle of the drive around. They’re now on hotel property, and Sarah’s guys motion for them to step back.

  “That’s it, people, they’re leaving,” Rikki says, voice booming from her small purple body. David and Julia and the driver get in. The doors close, but their car can’t move because there’s a line of cars in front of it. The paparazzi move toward the trapped Cayenne, like Komodo dragons descending upon a staked goat. Rikki looks worried, but Sarah’s team is already working on it. Three of her guys block the paparazzi, while another three clear the traffic in front of Julia’s car.

  Except no one is paying attention to the black Audi now. It inches forward, sneaks past one car, and is now driving right up against the Cayenne’s bumper.

  Coming from behind the valet, I step off the curb into the car’s path. The Audi lurches forward, but I hold my ground, hoping it will stop...but it doesn’t. I dive forward and tuck into a roll. My left shoulder hits the hood first. There’s a thump as I dent the metal and a screech of brakes as the car stops. I roll onto the pavement feet first. No windshield in the face, thank God.

  Shouts go up from the crowd. Sarah’s two biggest guys step in front of the Audi, blocking it from moving. I try to open the driver’s door, but it’s locked, so I peer through the windshield. The driver has straight black hair, light eyes, and bad acne scars, and his passenger has curly brown hair, white skin, and wears sunglasses. Both stare ahead, refusing to look at me.

  Julia’s car gets clear and peels off toward traffic. The meathead driving the Audi hits the gas. His car lurches as he tries to get past the guards, but Sarah’s guys put their hands on the hood and hold their ground.

  Sarah is by the valet on her cellphone. “They’re gone, all clear!” she shouts.

  Her guards step back and the Audi screeches away, zooming up the driveway and into traffic on Wilshire Boulevard. They’ll try to find Julia’s car, but the Cayenne is long gone.

  “Hey! He’s that Steven Quintana guy!” someone shouts. The paparazzi spot me and plow through the garden in the middle of the circular drive, lenses up, shouting my name.

  “Steven! Are you still dating Julia?” one asks.

  “Is it true that she’s supporting you?”

  I’m bathed in a thousand camera flashes. Up on the curb, men in tuxedos and women in dresses hold their cellphones aloft and record my humiliation. The paparazzi push their cameras right into my face, hoping I go off on one of them again. I recognize a few of them, like Simon Le Clerq, a heavyset guy in a USC cap, who I knew when I was working as a paparazzo.

  “You think you’re better than us now, prick?” Le Clerq asks.

  “How does it feel to have a camera in your face now?” asks another one.

  “You gonna swing on us again, Soldier Boy?” asks a third.

  The hotel cops arrive. “You’re on hotel property, please leave!” one shouts, but they won’t push through the Komodo dragons and pull me to safety.

  A lens hits me in the back of my head. When I don’t react, another hits me in the head from the other side. They want me to go off. Another story about me losing it, backed up with some photos of my yelling face, would make another perfect tabloid cover about Julia and me.

  A car screeches behind me, followed by a long honk that doesn’t stop. We all look—it’s Rikki Lassen behind the wheel of her green BMW SUV. She revs her engine and lurches forward, hitting six of the paparazzi below the knees. They all clear away.

  “Hey!” one shouts. “You hit me! I’m going to sue you, bitch!”

  Rikki lowers her window and howls at them. “Tell the cops you got hit by Rikki Lassen, asshole, and see how far it gets you! I will have you tortured and killed!”

  The six wounded paparazzi limp away. They know that she’s the great white shark in their scummy ocean, and she really can hurt them if she wants.

  “Get in the car, you stupid cowboy,” she says as I rush to the other side. As I buckle in, the purple wrecking ball lets me have it. “What the hell? You think you’re Simone Biles now? I told you to stay back and instead you’re flipping over car hoods!”

  “There were bad guys in that black Audi,” I say, but she’s too busy screaming to hear.

  “I said stay away...showoff...ruin my work...can’t get a job...riding her coattails....”

  I lower the car seat and close my eyes. Her screaming has a lilting rhythm to it. If you don’t concentrate on the words, you can actually zone out to it. I actually like Rikki, but I’m not going to tell her that. She tears past the high-rise apartments in the Wilshire Boulevard corridor.

  “Where are we going?” I ask when she finally stops yelling.

  “To my place in Malibu,” she says.

  Rikki’s place is a mile from my tiny bachelor apartment in Tivoli Cove, where I pay rent but haven’t lived in months. Rikki’s beach house is nicer. She and her husband used it as a family getaway for years until they got divorced. She hates the place now, so she leases it to Julia.

  “Just leave me at my place, I don’t want to go there,” I say.

  “Hey, I don’t want you staining my sheets either. Julia wants you there, not me.”

  “Julia and I aren’t together anymore, Rikki.”

  “And I’m praying it stays that way.” We pass under the 405 Freeway, headed into Brentwood. “So what do you do all day now that you’re not mooching off her?” she asks.

  “I’ve been working on my own projects,” I say.

  “Projects? Have you gone Hollywood now, too? That’s hilarious.”

  “I’ve been digging into the names on the flash drive from the Bahamas.”

  Rikki yanks the car over three lanes and takes the exit ramp for the Veterans Administration Hospital. She stops the car in the bus zone at the bottom.

  “Want a tour of the VA?” I ask, then point toward a sandstone building that looks like a high school. “That’s where I go for rehab on my shoulder and to talk to my shrink. Past that is Serenity Park, where veterans help abandoned parrots. Julia and I used to volunteer there.”

  “Julia doesn’t care about that,” Rikki says.

  “Julia loves those birds,” I say. “We have a favorite, a little biter named Malo.”

  “I mean the flash drive!” Rikki wags her finger an inch from my face.

  “I was shot and bleeding when I transferred those names and numbers to that flash drive,” I say. “And then I swallowed it and carried it around in my gut for a week.”

  “Yuck. TMI,” she says. “That was almost two years ago. Get over it.”

  “Get over it? Julia and Trishelle would have died in Xander Constantinou’s snuff film if Carl and I hadn’t rescued them. And that file lists all the rich men around the world who invested in that fiasco.”

  “What about earning a living?” she asks.

  “I still have a little money from my paparazzo days. Julia hasn’t given me a dime.”

  We fall into a silent truce as the car flies down San Vicente Boulevard toward Pacific Coast Highway. Then, in the side view mirror, I spot a black Audi following us. Rikki turns right onto 7th Street and goes down into the Santa Monica Canyon. The black Audi does, too.

  “We’re being followed by a black Audi Q5 SUV,” I say.

  “Are you shopping for a car?” she asks.

  “Remember my somersault? That was the car,” I say.

  Rikki looks in her rearview mirror. “What do they want?” she asks.

  They want me, I realize. They used Julia to lure me into the open. I suddenly regret the flash drive “research” I’ve been doing. The Audi is right on our tail now.

  “Run the red light at the bottom of the hill,” I say.

  The Audi pulls into the oncoming lane, then swerves and bumps her on the driver side. Her side airbag deploys and a pillow-size balloon explodes next to her face. She screams.

  “Don’t stop!” I yell, and grab the steering wheel.

  Rikki’s eyes beg me for help
as light glints off the metal of a gun in the Audi’s open passenger window. A white flash fills the car as her window shatters with a sonic boom.

  She hits the brakes. I duck down with my whole body, pushing her legs away so I can hit the accelerator. I’m blind but I can hear the Audi’s engine alongside. I peek up, hoping to steer my way out of trouble—

  —and smash into a light pole. The front airbags inflate, knocking me back.

  An invisible boxer punches me in the body four times as glass explodes around me.

  Chapter 2

  * * *

  Julia Travers

  Day 1: Saturday Night

  Los Angeles, California

  My driver dropped David off in Brentwood, and we’re almost to Pacific Coast Highway when my phone blows up: Are you okay? Reply! It’s on TMZ. They shot Rikki in her car.

  I type OK, but can’t keep up with the texts. Rikki was shot?

  Maybe Rikki cut off some angry LA driver. Her car’s a mess, but she must be okay. After all, Steven’s with her. He’d better be with her; she promised me she’d drive him to Malibu.

  “There’s been an accident in Santa Monica Canyon,” Neil, my driver says. He points at the computer console in the dashboard. “This traffic update says we can’t get down to PCH.”

  “No, make the right at 7th and go down into the canyon,” I say from the backseat.

  “It’ll be blocked off….”

  “Please, Neil, just do it!” I say. What does any of this celebrity stardom matter if your driver won’t listen to you?

  He makes the right at 7th Street and we descend into exclusive Santa Monica Canyon, down the winding road down past thick trees where I smell sweet flowers and salty air. Police cars and ambulances with turning red, blue, and yellow lights appear in the windshield. Neil screeches to a stop behind a Volkswagen convertible with two college girls. A cop yells at them.