I’d never been out there at night, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Because it was definitely night now, and the mountains blended in with the sky, so it looked like a black hole in the distance. It had gotten chillier, and I wished I’d thought to bring my jacket with me, but when I started out for Godiva, I had no idea where the journey would take me.
I shivered as I watched Jeff’s turn signal flash red.
We pulled into a condo complex that didn’t even attempt to look any different than any of the other condo complexes out here. In the dark I couldn’t tell whether the buildings were brown or beige, but I was willing to bet they were one or the other. The plantings were nicely done, adding to the desert theme of the complex. No fountains that I could see, which made me happy. At least they weren’t wasting water.
Jeff eased the Pontiac in front of one of the town houses. All the lights were on inside. Every room. Okay, so there was no water waste, but what about electricity? I parked the Chevy behind Jeff.
“Where were you?” he asked as I approached, my bag and Sylvia’s bag in hand.
Bernie grabbed Sylvia’s bag. “I’ll take that,” he said. As if he wanted to be the one to hand her the bag, since it had been his mission to go get it. I had no problem with that, even though I doubted it would make any difference to Sylvia.
Bernie led the way into the foyer, which was painted gray with a mauve trim. A wreath of dried flowers hung on the wall over a white table with three fat candles of varying heights that smelled like vanilla. A little precious for my taste.
“Where have you been?” Sylvia stepped out of the kitchen on our left, a dish towel wrapped around her waist, doubling as an apron. She wielded a wooden spoon.
I smelled it then, the distinct scent of tomato sauce. Homemade tomato sauce, not that stuff you get in a jar. My stomach growled. Loudly.
Jeff laughed. Sylvia merely patted my arm, then pulled me into the kitchen with her, the spoon leading the way.
“I’ve got a nice pot of sauce going. You make a salad.”
It was an order. But I wasn’t going to argue. I opened the refrigerator and started taking out lettuce, cucumbers, and carrots.
Sylvia had already put a bowl on the granite-top island for me. I dumped the salad makings next to it and began washing the lettuce while she stirred the sauce. I glanced around at the country kitchen, with its white French cabinets and sleek stainless steel appliances. Lou Marino must have done pretty well as an impersonator, or else Rosalie was making more money than I thought over at the university.
“So where did you find Bernie?” Sylvia asked as she produced a can of chickpeas and handed it to me.
I glanced around but didn’t see Bernie or Jeff. Or Rosalie, either.
“He was at Murder Ink,” I said.
“Why on earth was he over there?”
She had her back to me, so I couldn’t see her face.
“He went to pick up your bag for you.”
Sylvia didn’t say anything for a second, then, “Oh, oh, that’s right.”
Something was off. Either she really didn’t know why Bernie was at Murder Ink or she was having one of her all-too-frequent senior moments. I couldn’t tell.
Sylvia came over next to me, wiping her hands on a towel, and peered into the bowl, where I’d already assembled a pretty decent looking salad.
“You’ll find, dear, that men sometimes do the damndest things.” And then she was back to the stove, emptying a box of spaghetti into a pot of boiling water.
I rinsed the chickpeas in the sink before putting them in the salad. Sylvia was nodding, watching me.
I couldn’t help myself. No one else was in here with us, so it seemed as good a time as any.
“Do you know that Ray left a duffel bag with ten thousand dollars in his locker at That’s Amore?” I asked as casually as I could.
“Where did he get that kind of money?” she asked.
I studied her face for any sign of recognition that she knew about the money, but nothing. I took a stab in the dark.
“You didn’t give it to him, did you?”
Sylvia chuckled. “Do you think I did?”
“You withdrew ten grand from your bank account the day before your wedding,” I said. “I saw the receipt.”
No flicker in her eyes, no twitch of her cheek. She continued to smile at me.
“I think that’s my business, don’t you, dear?” And Sylvia went out into the living room to tell everyone dinner was on.
I nearly bumped into Bernie as I brought plates to the dining room.
“Don’t harass her,” he said softly.
“I’m not,” I assured him, although I really wanted to press the issue. I’d have to find another way around it.
Rosalie came to the table, her black eye now faded to yellow. Soon it would be gone, like the man who’d given it to her. She was laughing at something Jeff said, her mannerisms less stiff and awkward than they’d been the other couple of times I’d seen her. Jeff was right: She was better off without Lou.
I started to say something about Dan Franklin, but Jeff kicked me under the table. I glared at him, but he was shaking his head and frowning. This wasn’t the time.
I caught Rosalie looking at me thoughtfully a couple of times, and then she’d quickly look over at Jeff. I didn’t want to know what she was thinking.
Bernie patted his daughter’s hand all through dinner. Jeff caught my eye a couple of times and winked as his mother told stories about the old people on the bus to Sedona. It was a family dinner that seemed perfectly normal. Except for the fact that two people were dead.
I didn’t want coffee. It would keep me up. It had been a long day, and after we’d cleaned up I asked Jeff whether he could take me home.
Sylvia offered her cheek, and I gave her a kiss.
“Don’t worry about anything,” she whispered as she kissed me back.
I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but she’d already moved on to Jeff and was saying good-bye to him now.
Bernie had already taken Rosalie back into the living room, and Jeff and I stepped out into the night. It had grown cold, and I shivered in my T-shirt.
“You okay?” he asked as he opened the car door for me.
“Just turn the heat on,” I said, settling back and closing my eyes.
He didn’t say anything else as he climbed in his seat and turned over the engine. I felt the car moving, and it lulled me into one of those half-awake, half-asleep states.
I was so out of it that I thought the sound was in a dream. I opened my eyes and saw the bright lights straight ahead. They blinded me, and suddenly my body was jerked back against the seat as Jeff spun the wheel, the car skidding sideways across the pavement.
But he hadn’t been fast enough. The impact of the crash caused the air bag to explode, and it slammed into my face so hard I thought my nose was broken.
Chapter 52
S
uddenly it was quiet. Too quiet.
A streetlight a few feet away cast a dim yellow beam across the road, but everything around it was black. Like being inside with the lights on and not being able to see anything but your own reflection in the windows.
Then I heard something—couldn’t put my finger on it—but the air bag began to slowly deflate.
“You okay, Kavanaugh?” Jeff’s voice pierced the silence.
I turned my head slowly—everything hurt—and saw a glint of something in Jeff’s hand. A pocket knife.
“What happened?” I asked, surprised that my voice sounded normal, even though it was too loud in my ears.
“Car was coming straight at us. I swerved right into a pole or something. That’s why the air bags inflated.”
But that wasn’t what I’d meant.
A rustling outside the car caused me to tense up, pain tearing through my muscles. My eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, but I still couldn’t see anything outside the car.
“What is it?” I whispered.
Jeff put a finger to his lips, the streetlight illuminating his silhouette. He shifted down in his seat and indicated I should do the same. Pain shot through my back and up to my neck, but I moved past it as I heard more rustling. It sounded as if someone or something was walking through the shrubs along the side of the road, just beyond the car.
We were facing the desert. I glanced in the side-view mirror. Behind us, on the other side of the street, town houses stood in line like toy soldiers, but it was a development that was only half finished. No lights in any windows.
No cars on the road, either.
Nothing except that blasted streetlight, which was more of a hindrance than a help. I saw now that the pole we crashed into was another streetlight, but it wasn’t working.
Jeff put his fingers to his ear, pantomiming a phone. I wondered where his was as I stretched my arm to reach my bag on the floor. As my fingers touched the fabric, an explosion rocked the air.
I yanked my hand back, my whole body shaking.
It wasn’t an explosion. It was a gunshot.
Who was out there?
Jeff’s hand encircled mine, and he squeezed tight, as if to say it would be okay.
But I wasn’t convinced. Someone was out there. Someone who’d tried to run us down and was now shooting at us.
Well, one shot.
Made me wish Willis hadn’t found that gun I’d had. Not that I knew how to use it, but it was big. Big enough to make a statement, even if I just waved it around.
After a few minutes of silence, I reached down again for my bag.
Another shot rocked the air.
Whoever was out there could see me.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
Jeff was holding on to my hand so tightly that when he squeezed it again, I barely noticed. I moved my head slightly, and he was looking out the front window. I didn’t think he could see any more than I could. Unless his time in the Marines had given him some sort of natural night-vision goggles.
The air bags hung, deflated, in front of us like empty sacks. I was acutely aware that my face felt as though it were on fire. I had turned my face slightly when the bag inflated, and I sensed that my cheek had a huge rug burn. I was afraid to touch my nose, as if any movement would cause whomever was out there to shoot again.
“We can’t just sit here like this,” I whispered.
“Got any ideas?” he whispered back.
“You’re the Marine. What did you do when you got shot at in the desert?”
“I never got shot at in the desert. Except for now.”
His other hand inched toward the door. Great. He was going to try to open it, and we’d both get blown away. But as I contemplated how to stop him, he fingered the knob that maneuvered the side mirror.
It moved a fraction of an inch.
And another gunshot pierced the air and shattered the mirror.
Jeff seemed to have been expecting that because he didn’t move his finger.
“He’s behind us,” he whispered. “I saw the car.”
“Could you see
him
?”
“I saw a shadow. He’s standing right at the trunk, watching us.”
A shiver shimmied across my shoulders and down through my legs. “What does he want?”
“Want to ask him?”
I tried to pull my hand away, but he held it tightly.
“I’ve got a plan,” he said.
“Will it get us killed?”
“Hopefully not. But you have to scooch down further. He can’t have a good visual.”
That didn’t make me feel very confident. But we couldn’t just sit here, held hostage by some unknown guy with a gun.
“I’m going to start the car and back up into him,” Jeff whispered.
“You’re nuts. Can the car even start?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we? Get down.”
I tried to slide down farther, but the seat belt pinned me to the back of the seat. I managed to maneuver under the chest belt so it was behind my head. The lap belt was tight across my abdomen, but I could live with it. The deflated air bag covered my legs, but I pulled them up as far as possible. I didn’t want him to shoot my leg. Because I was certain he would start shooting.
Jeff let go of my hand, and I felt even more exposed. He shimmied down farther, too, but not as far. His seat belt was close to his neck, but still across his shoulder. He didn’t move his legs. His foot was hovering over the accelerator.
“Hold on,” he whispered as his hand moved to the ignition and he turned the key.
The engine roared to life, and he slammed his foot on the accelerator. The car shot backward, and I felt as if I was on a roller coaster, my body slamming back against the seat. I had shifted even lower, the seat belt strap across my neck, but I could still see out the front windshield. One of the headlights was out, but the other one illuminated the desert. It was ugly out here, brown with a few tumbleweeds and scattered yuccas.
The gunshots were steady now.
The car swerved around, and we were facing the road again.
“Down, Brett!” Jeff shouted as he put the car into first and we rocketed forward, shots ringing in my ears, barely discernible above the engine’s roar, so much so that I thought the shots might have been my imagination. But then I saw the hole in the windshield. It had just registered when a body came up over the hood, smashed against the windshield, and then rolled off.
I couldn’t discern the hole anymore, because the entire windshield had shattered into a mosaic with the impact of the body.
The car kept going.
I moved up in my seat and stared out my window, looking back to see who it was.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked. My voice sounded too loud.
“Call 911,” Jeff barked, the car still rocketing down the road.
I leaned down and grabbed my bag. We were getting close to a traffic light, but Jeff wasn’t slowing down. There were a couple cars waiting at the light.
“Aren’t you going to stop?” I asked.
Jeff didn’t answer, spun the Pontiac around the cars.