“You’d think she’d have been a bit more clever,” Sharon said. “Come up with alibis for him that couldn’t be so easily disputed.” ,-
c
“Yeah, that does bother me a bit,” Nat admitted.
Sharon shrugged. “I bet Ross Varda would say in typical shrink fashion that on some level Carol wanted Harrison’s alibis to be challenged. Wanted him to be suspected. To suffer. After all, if he hadn’t cheated on her, she wouldn’t have been driven to take such violent action.”
Nat nodded, but something still wasn’t sitting right. She just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
“So,” Sharon said, “will you come?”
“What?”
“To the show?”
“I’d like to, but really, I’ve got to catch up on all this.” Nat reached for her briefcase and started stuffing in reports. “I should just camp here for the night and get through the whole lot, but I’ve got to go home and feed Hannah and give my starved-for-attention pup some quality time. I’m sure she’s feeling abandoned.”
And Nat knew just how she felt.
“Hannah? Here, girl.”
A disquieting sensation of deja vu hit Nat when her dog didn’t make an appearance. Had Rachel had another falling-out with Gary? Had she shown up here again and decided to take Hannah out for a walk?
It seemed highly unlikely, but Nat wanted to believe in this scenario. Because any other scenario was too upsetting to contemplate.
Nat pulled open the drawer of the entry table where she kept Hannah’s retractable leash. The leash was gone. She didn’t exactly feel relieved, but the missing leash supported her hypothesis.
She walked down the hall to the kitchen, went straight to the phone, and dialed Rachel’s number.
It was picked up on the third ring. Nat was heartsick when she heard Rachel’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Rachel, it’s Nat. You haven’t by any chance got Hannah over there?” Nat could hear the edge of panic in her voice.
“Of course not. Why would I—?”
“She’s gone.” Nat’s panic was starting to bubble over.
“Where would she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Leo? Maybe Leo came by—”
“Right,” Nat cut her sister off, feeling a surge of optimism. “Leo. Thanks, Rach. I’ll talk to you later.” She was already seeing it in her mind’s eye: Leo coming over to her place because he knew how upset she must be after once again witnessing him embrace Suzanne. Not finding her home yet, he took Hannah out. It not only made complete sense, it buoyed her spirits about their faltering relationship. Maybe there was some hope for it yet.
She dialed Leo’s cell-phone number, picturing him reaching for it while he was holding on to Hannah’s leash with his other hand.
When he picked up, she heard mostly static. Where the hell was he walking Hannah?
“Leo, where are you?”
“This moment? Going through an overpass on the Mass Pike. In about ten minutes I’ll be in Newton.”
She made out every other word or so through the static. “You’re in your car?”
“What’s the matter?”
“You don’t have Hannah with you, do you?” Her optimism was fading fast.
“What?”
“Hannah,” she practically screamed into the mouthpiece.
“No. What—?”
His voice broke up completely. Nat hung up, feeling close to having an emotional breakdown.
She rushed back to the front door, inspecting both the doorjamb and the lock. Only Rachel and Leo had keys to the apartment. Anyone else would have had to break in. But there was no sign of any forced entry. She ran around the house, checking the windows. All locked. She’d been extra vigilant since getting that drawing. How had the cfognapper gotten in here?
The phone rang. She snatched it up on the first ring.
It was Leo calling back. The line now was, thankfully, static-free.
“What’s happened to Hannah?” he asked immediately.
“She took him. Or he did. I don’t know how the fuck either of them got in here but it’s got to be one of them. If they harm so much as a hair on Hannah’s head, I swear I’ll fucking kill them.”
“Calm down. You’re talking about the Bells, right?”
“They must realize I’m on to them. I was warned, and now they’re letting me know I’m going to pay the price.”
“Look, Oats and I are going to be at the Bells in a few minutes. If they’ve got Hannah over there—”
“What do you expect? That Hannah’ll come loping down the stairs and greet you at the door?”
“Hannah sheds like nobody’s business, Natalie. If the dog’s been in that compulsively spotless house, we’ll see hairs. Sit tight. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”
“Leo?”
“Yeah?”
“I love—”
“I know, Natalie. Me too.”
Were they both talking about Hannah?
As the minutes passed, Nat became jittery with apprehension. She started pacing the apartment. Every time she passed a phone she willed it to ring. The silence was intolerable. A piercing reminder of Hannah’s absence. She tried to tell herself it was out-of-hand, this intense attachment she’d formed to a dog. It was one thing if it had been a child—her child. God knew, she’d ached for a child for a long time. She would have happily become pregnant soon after she was married. But Ethan kept saying he wasn’t ready for the responsibility of parenthood. Even when he begrudgingly gave in, he seemed relieved each time she got her period. Nat still found it ironic that he’d left her for another woman whom he’d gotten pregnant.
It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes when her phone did ring.
“Leo?”
“You’ll find your dog in the trunk of your car.” The voice was a husky whisper. Nat couldn’t even distinguish if it was male or female. It was certainly in no way familiar. “She’s still alive. But you’d better hurry.”
Before Nat could respond, the line went dead.
She didn’t wait for the elevator. Too slow. She bolted down the stairs, flight after flight, her heart pounding. Breathless and frantic, she threw open the door to the underground garage. The parking space she owned was at the far end of the garage, close to the entrance from the street. She was racing toward her car— she couldn’t have been more than thirty yards from it—when she pulled herself up short.
What the hell was she doing?
Suddenly, her addled mind started to function again. She’d driven into this garage not twenty minutes ago. Whoever had managed to get into her apartment and take Hannah, had to have stuck the dog in the trunk sometime after Nat had parked her car and gone upstairs. Sometime within the last twenty minutes.
Whoever it was, he, or she, could very well still be lurking down there this very minute. Lying in wait for her.
And Nat, like a complete idiot, had blithely obliged.
The shrill sound of a car alarm abruptly going off had her practically jumping out of her skin. A short distance ahead of her, a car’s headlights began flashing on and off, on and off, as the nerve-shattering
beep, beep, beep
of the car alarm echoed through the garage.
One beep sounded sharply louder. Nat wasn’t sure if she realized the alarm blare was synchronized with a gunshot before or after the windshield of the car she was standing closest to shattered upon the bullet’s impact.
Even as she instinctively lurched in the opposite direction, looking for cover, she was thinking that the shooter was clever. Car alarms were heard going off all the time. If the owner of the car wasn’t nearby to shut it off, people ignored the blare, knowing that it would automatically click off within a few minutes. No one would come to investigate. Not that anyone would come running if they heard gunshots, but at least then someone might call the police.
Too far from the exit back into the building, Nat dodged for cover behind a black Jeep. Right now she was damning the enormous number of lights down there that all the condo owners, herself included, had insisted upon having installed in the garage. For safety!
Another shot rang out, again synchronized with another beep of the alarm. The bullet
pinged
into the metal inches from where Nat was squatting. She dove under the car. Curling herself into a fetal position, she was stricken with panic and dread. There was no escape.
Even as she was literally preparing to die, to be shot in cold blood, a car came roaring into the garage and pulled up short in front of the car whose alarm was continuing to blare.
Seconds later, silence. Merciful silence.
And then, after a few more moments, a man’s voice. “Russo calling in. Everything’s A-OK with the Mercedes. No sign of tampering.”
A security patrol. There couldn’t have been more than one car in a hundred that actually had an alarm system hooked up to a security company. Exhaling her first breath in probably a minute, Nat was overcome with relief. She crawled on her belly toward the front of the Jeep.
“Please,” she called out hoarsely, “help me.”
“Here,” Mitchell Oates said gruffly, handing Nat a plate on which were a couple of slices of toast heavily sprinkled with sugar.
“I never figured you for the domestic type.”
Leo’s partner didn’t crack a smile, but Leo grinned. “His wife would second that,” Leo said.
“Eat it,” Oates said gruffly. “You’ll feel better.”
Despite the detective’s surly demeanor Nat detected an actual hint of concern for her. She found this so remarkable—Oates had never impressed her as feeling anything but irritation toward her—that she obediently bit into the sickly sweet concoction. To her surprise, after a few bites, she did start to feel less jittery.
“A stiff shot of bourbon would go good with that. Got any around?” Tony Russo asked.
Leo glanced over at the guard from Commonwealth Security whose timely arrival in the parking garage had thankfully scared off the shooter. Although he’d given his statement to the police over twenty minutes ago, the burly thirty-something guard was still hanging around, being very solicitous to Nat.
“In the buffet.” Leo pointed across the room. “Left-side cupboard. Make it scotch.”
Russo arched a brow. “I see you know your way around this place, Detective.”
“Don’t you need to get back on duty?” Leo asked pointedly.
Russo merely grinned. And, to Nat’s amazement, Oates actually cracked a smile. He dropped it when Leo caught his eye.
Russo brought Nat a double shot of scotch, watched her take a sip. “How’s that?” he asked.
“It’s fine,” Leo answered for her.
Oates walked over to Russo, dropped a hand on his shoulder. “You can take off, man. We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions. ”
Russo nodded reluctantly. He slipped on his blue windbreaker with his company’s emblem. Oates accompanied him to the front door. Pausing before he exited, Russo looked back at her.
“You be careful, Nat. And don’t you worry too much about your dog. I just got a gut feeling she’s okay. And that she’ll turn up.”
“I hope so,” she said, fighting to keep the quiver from her voice. To no one’s surprise, least of all Nat’s, Hannah hadn’t been in the trunk of her car. The dog was still missing. And as much as Nat desperately wanted to believe Russo, she was starting to hold out little hope.
Oates opened the front door and started to steer the security officer over the threshold.
“Tony,” Nat called out.
He looked back over his shoulder.
“Thanks. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You saved my life.”
The far-from-unattractive security guard beamed. “Anytime. I mean that now, Nat. You got my card. Home number’s on the back. You need anything, you call. Day or night. I live alone so you don’t have to worry about waking anyone else up.” He winked to make sure she’d got the message.
Oates bit back another smile as Russo exited. Oates followed him out, leaving Leo and Nat alone.
She set her drink on the coffee table. “So, what do you think, Leo?”
“About the shooter? All we know for sure is the two bullets we recovered in the garage are the same caliber as the bullet that was lodged in Claire Fisher’s chest.”
Shivering, she quickly retrieved her drink and took a long swallow.
“And neither Carol nor Harrison Bell were at home when you got there.” She repeated what Leo’d told her earlier.
“Josh said his parents went out for dinner.”
“But he didn’t know what restaurant they went to. Bullshit,” she said. “Parents don’t leave their kids at home without letting them know where they can be reached in an emergency.”
“I made that same point to the kid. He said he could always call his dad on his cell phone.”
“But when you rang his cell-phone number—”
“Yeah, I know. Bell didn’t pick up.”
“He was too busy firing shots at me. Or too anxious waiting outside in his car while his wife was doing the dirty work.”
“Natalie—”
“I know what you’re going to say, Leo. It’s all supposition. Just like it’s ‘supposition’ that they took—” Her voice cracked. “Do you think they killed Hannah?”
“Honestly?” Leo said. “No. There’s nothing to be gained by doing away with Hannah. It’s not like whoever it was wanted you to suffer the loss of your beloved dog. You were meant to die down there in that garage, Natalie.” He winced as he made that statement.
“So where is she, Leo?”
“Maybe Hannah was turned loose on the street. We’ll check with the pound, see if she was brought in. We’ll find her, Natalie.”
But his promise lacked assurance. And brought little comfort. Nat felt she’d lost Hannah forever. Just like she always seemed to lose everyone she loved.
“I can stay—” he started, but Nat shook her head.
“Don’t push me away, Natalie. If nothing else, you need a shoulder to cry on,” he said softly.
“Your shoulder’s already occupied.”
Leo heaved a sigh of frustration. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Natalie.”
“Neither does feeling like a third wheel.”
He looked at her long and hard for several moments. “This is no time to get into this. You’re upset over Hannah. I know how much you love that dog.”
Tears spiked Nat’s eyes.
“I’m gonna find her, Natalie. Just. . . hold on.”
She nodded tremulously, letting Leo fold her in his arms. Letting herself cry on his crowded shoulder after all.