Crash and Burn (22 page)

“Uh, Lily’s not here.”

She met his gaze. He already looked baked.

“Lilian missed a court appointment today. I need to find her so she doesn’t get arrested.”

His shoulders tensed. He glanced at Krista’s purse, but she’d put her creds away, and she could tell he was wishing he’d paid closer attention.

“I haven’t seen her in, like, months. She doesn’t live here.”

Krista darted her gaze down the hallway, but the doors were closed. “Mind if I use the facilities?”

“The what?”

“Your bathroom.”

“Sure, whatever.”

Krista ducked into a bathroom the size of a broom closet. No one hiding in the shower. No bras dangling from the towel rack. No cosmetics or pink razors on the sink. When she emerged a minute later, Travis and his friend were hissing back and forth.

Travis puffed out his chest. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave now.”

Krista took her time sauntering to the door. Before stepping outside, she stopped to listen, but a nearby lawn mower drowned out any sounds that might have been coming from the back of the apartment. She handed over a business card.

“You want to help Lily, you need to get in touch with her and tell her to call me.”

“I told you I haven’t seen her.”

“Right.”

Krista walked down the stairs and waited for the door to thud shut. She strolled down the driveway, then cut around the side of the house and crept through the side yard. No other cars in the drive, so Krista assumed whoever lived in the house wasn’t around. She peered through a few windows. One bedroom was a child’s nursery. The living room was littered with toys. Krista skirted around the tricycle parked on the back patio. A stack of long cardboard boxes leaned against the side of the garage, and Krista read the labels. Sun Valley Lighting Company. She wiped the grime from one of the garage windows and peered inside. Her gaze penetrated the gloom and landed on a red Kia Rio.

Krista took the stairs two-at-a-time. She pounded on the door.

“Open up!”

Sloan answered this time, and the bong in his hand had been replaced with an iPhone. “What do you want? I told you she’s not here.” He tried to shut the door on her, but she jammed her leg in the opening and gave a hard shove. He stumbled back and she stepped inside.

“You’re trespassing! I’m calling the cops.”

“Go ahead,” she said. “We’ll tell them about your little farming operation. Want to call your landlord, too, and tell her you’re using her water to irrigate your weed?”

He scowled, and Krista whisked past him. She opened the first door in the hallway. Closet. The next door. Bedroom. A futon was shoved against the wall and the rest of the room was occupied by rows of marijuana plants basking under florescent lights. Krista checked the closet. She checked the dresser for any sign of Lily’s clothes.

“She’s not here. I
told
you.”

“Her car’s here. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

Krista leaned against the bedroom door. “Cut the crap, Travis. I know someone’s threatening her. I know she’s hiding.”

His shoulders slumped. Worry flickered into his bloodshot eyes. “How’d you know about the threats?”

Damn, confirmation. Part of her had still been hoping Lily was hiding out from a drug dealer.

“I work for the defense attorney handling the trial,” she said. “He hired me to locate Lily. She was supposed to take the stand today.”

His raked a hand through his hair.

“I’m one of the good guys, okay?” She stepped closer. “But she’s got other people looking for her. You’d better hope I find her before they do.”

He shook his head. “Shit, what if they’ve already found her?”

Krista’s blood ran cold. The dazed look was gone from his face now, and he looked genuinely concerned.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

He glanced back at his friend.

“Tell me.”

“It’s been a week,” he said. “We’d been seeing each other on and off, and I knew something was wrong. She was acting weird. And then the other night she came by here all freaked out and shit. She was hysterical.”

“Why?”

“Someone was following her. He tried to grab her when she was leaving the gym and she flipped out.”

“She know who it was?”

“If she did, she didn’t tell me.” He combed his hand through his hair again. “She didn’t tell me anything, really. Just that someone wanted to hurt her and she thought it was because of the trial and she needed money to get away.”

“You give her any?”

“I didn’t have any.”

Yeah, right. Krista gritted her teeth. Lily’s chances of survival depended on money. Without it, it was only a matter of time before someone found her.

“I
didn’t
,” he insisted.

“If you didn’t give her money, why’d she leave her car here?”

“She said they’d recognize it.”

“They?”

“Yeah, it was more than one.”

Krista glanced around, but the messy apartment failed to offer any more clues. “So what’s she driving now?” she asked.

“How should I know?”

She glanced at his buddy.

“I didn’t see her, man.”

She returned her gaze to Sloan. “Can you get in touch with her? Phone? Email? Facebook?”

“She’s not answering anything.” He shook his head. “It’s like she dropped off the grid.”

“You better hope she dropped off the grid. The alternative isn’t good.”

Krista intended to scare him, and the look on his face told her she’d succeeded. With any luck, Lily would contact him at some point and maybe he’d talk her into reaching out for help.

Krista returned to her car and got on the phone again. No leads from Mac. Or LAPD. Or any of the other lines Krista had in the water. She felt stuck. She’d made a ton of progress on the case today, but everything pointed to the same chilling scenario: someone was trying to off this witness.

Krista pulled into traffic and headed toward the coast, following the endless river of taillights. She rolled her windows down, hoping maybe the air and noise would help her think. It didn’t. She went back over her day, reviewing the people she’d interviewed and what they’d revealed.

Lily felt threatened, and she believed it had to do with the trial. In Krista’s experience, victims of violence tended to have good instincts when it came to threats. They picked up on cues, both consciously and subconsciously. They knew who wanted to hurt them, even if they didn’t fully understand why.

Lily believed testifying put her in danger, so she’d decided to skip court. She’d decided to go underground. She’d ditched her car. She needed money.

She was desperate for cash. Desperate enough to hit up her agent and her ex-boyfriend, maybe even steal from a former roommate.

A thought sparked to life in Krista’s mind. She let it flicker for a few minutes as she inched along in traffic. Then she pulled a U-turn and headed back to Westminster. By the time she made it through all the stoplights and congestion, dusk was falling fast. She parked in front of the pawnshop where she’d been staked out earlier and tried the door. Locked. She peered through the burglar bars and spied a light on in the back. A woman eyed her from a doorway.

“We’re closed,” she shouted, her voice muffled behind the glass.

Krista flashed her P.I.’s license. It wouldn’t get her far with a pawnshop owner, but it might at least get her in the door.

A burly man walked out from a back office and approached the door. He had a gun on his hip, and his gaze immediately went to Krista’s side. Her holster was at the small of her back, but anyone who carried recognized the tell-tale jacket in eighty-degree weather.

She flashed her creds again, and he opened the door.

“We’re closed.”

“I know, and this will only take a minute.”

“What do you need?”

She smiled and stepped past him. “I’m looking for a ring.”

Chapter Five

The pawnshop resulted in lots of news—most of it bad.

A young woman had stopped in four days ago to off-load an antique pearl-and-diamond ring. Bad news bit number one: she’d gotten two-hundred bucks for it, which wouldn’t get her far in southern California. Bad news bit two: she’d asked the shop owner about the handguns he kept in a case by the register. All of them were out of her price range. News bit number three: the woman’s name was Lindsey, supposedly, and the shop owner described her as a brunette.

After confirming through a photo that “Lindsey” was actually Lily with a bad dye job, Krista had asked the shop owner if he’d seen a vehicle. No news there, good or bad. She’d waltzed in off the street and he hadn’t noticed a car.

Krista decided to try Lily’s house again. She parked in the same driveway as before and walked past the house with the dog, but it was quiet tonight. She let herself into Lily’s backyard and made a beeline for the door.

It wasn’t locked.

She pulled out her flashlight as she stepped into the kitchen. The air smelled sour.

Crunch.

She aimed the light down. Froot Loops.

The floor was blanketed with food and trash and broken dishes. Cabinet doors hung open. Drawers had been yanked out and dumped. Krista glanced around the room, taking in the destruction as her heart thrummed in her chest.

She crouched down and touched the jug of milk that lay on the floor. Room temperature.

Something brushed her ankle and she jumped, startled, as an orange cat hurdled the puddle and scampered into the living room.

Krista waved the light around again and spotted the portable phone on the counter. She wanted to scroll through the call history, but didn’t want to leave fingerprints. There was a notepad and pencil sitting beside the phone. She tore off the top sheet of paper and tucked it into her purse, then went to check out the rest of the house.

More destruction in the living room—bookshelves dumped, sofa cushions tossed about. She bypassed the bathroom and went straight for the bedroom where the pigsty now looked like a disaster zone. The mattress had been hauled off the box springs. Someone had yanked the sheets off and slashed the pillows. Clothes were everywhere. Drawers overturned. The closet door stood open. Krista stepped in felt something cool brush her cheek. She yanked the metal chain and a light bulb switched on, illuminating a messy closet with a file box dumped out all over the floor.

Krista crouched down and studied the paperwork. These files were the reason she’d come. She saw an array of bills—cable, cell phone, credit card. She located the one she was after and used her cell phone to take a picture of the upper left corner, which showed the account number.

“At it again?”

She whirled to see R.J. standing in the doorway.

“Did you do this?” She stood up and tucked her phone into her purse.

“Hell no.” He propped a shoulder against the doorframe and looked her up and down as she swept her flashlight around the bedroom.

“Someone’s looking for something,” he said.

“Ya think?”

“Doesn’t look like they found it.”

“How do you know?”

He stepped into the room, glancing around. “They did the whole house without stopping. Turned it inside-out. Whatever they wanted isn’t here.”

“Or they didn’t find it.”

“Either way.”

“We should call this in.”

He moved around her and switched off the closet light, plunging the room into darkness. “We?”

“Yes,
we.
This is a crime scene.”

He eased closer, close enough for her to smell the faint scent of leather and aftershave. He wore a jacket, like she did and for the very same reason.

“We’re trespassing,” he said. “
You’re
breaking and entering.”

Krista didn’t respond.

“Don’t know about you,” he added, “but I wasn’t planning on getting my license yanked this week.”

He moved closer, crowding her as he leaned a palm against the wall above her head. “So, Hart.” His voice was low now, and her pulse sped up. “When are you going to go out with me?”

“I don’t date actors.”

He eased her back against the wall and his breath tickled her temple. “I’m not an actor.”

“Former actor. Close enough.”

He smiled down at her and heat pooled in her stomach. Those blue eyes held hers, and she felt temptation nipping at her. It had been way too long since she’d been this close to a man, especially one as attractive as R.J. But she couldn’t let this happen. He was her competition and she should stay far away from him.

A flash of light brightened the wall, making her jump. R.J. crossed the room and peered through the mini-blinds as a car pulled into the drive.

“Is it her?” She joined him at the window.

“Red Honda. Amber Sandusky.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“I’m out,” he said, striding across the room.

“You’re
leaving?
”

“You got a better idea?”

“But you can’t just—” She rushed for the hall and he was already slipping through the front door, total stealth.

She glanced out the kitchen window as a shadowy figure stepped onto the back stoop. Krista recognized the beehive hairdo as Amber pounded on the door.

“Lily!”

Krista ducked into the shadows and glanced around. If she made a dash for the front door, Amber would see her through the gap in the curtains. She hung back and waited.

“I know you’re home. I saw your cat in the window.”

More pounding. Curses. Finally she left the back and strode down the driveway.

Krista stood still in the shadows. The house was silent. In the distance, she heard the low hum of R.J.’s Porsche as it glided down the street.

She had to get out of here. If Amber went around front and peeked through the blinds, she’d see the mess and probably call the police. Krista darted for the back door. She’d have to cut through the side yard, which might alert the yap dog. She opened the door quietly and stepped into the cool night air.

Thud.

She turned toward the sound and stopped to listen. Muffled voices. Shuffling. A soft yelp.

A hollow sucking noise sent an icy spear through her heart.