Running Scared (29 page)

Sedona

November 4

Evening

F
rom the air,
Sedona looked like a jeweled spiderweb flung across the black velvet land. The small airport was on top of a mesa, connected to the town by a steep, zigzagging road. While Shane discovered the limits of the local cellular connections, Risa drove the rental car—truck, actually—down the narrow road to the main highway.

“Right,” Shane said into his cell phone/computer. “We’re on our way to Camp Verde. No lights followed us down from the airport.”

“Keep looking, boyo,” Niall said. “I don’t want a second dead body to turn up with your name on it.”

“I’m touched. Is Ian checking out the Oasis address?”

“Been there. Done that. Nobody home. He vetted the place from stem to stern. Nothing except signs that she left in a big hurry.”

“Anything else?”

“Cesar Firenze Marquez, aka Socks, is the lead on everyone’s news show. The TV folks are especially proud of their footage.”

“Why do you think I had the copies made?” Shane asked. “TV news would lead with a dead cow rotting if they had film of it.”

Niall laughed. “The cops are getting calls right and left from people claiming they saw Socks. If our boy is still in town, he’ll be walking real small to avoid attention.”

“What’s the official police take on Cline’s death?”

“Officially they’re exploring all leads with great diligence.”

“Unofficially?”

“They wouldn’t give a shit if a TV crew hadn’t been there to record the body,” Niall said. “Cline wasn’t on the cops’ Ten Most Loved list.”

“Do you want me to send the plane back to Vegas?”

“No. Dana said to pull out all the stops on this one. Having a pilot and plane at your beck and call is just one of the stops.”

Shane grunted. “Good thing I can afford it.”

Niall’s laughter was clear in his voice, “We’re keeping that in mind.”

With a flick of his thumb, Shane disconnected. Another flick shifted his unit to computer function. He pulled a slender stylus from a clip on the side of the unit and went to work on the information that Rarities, via Factoid, was funneling into his computer as fast as they uncovered new data.

“I didn’t know you were allergic to goldenrod,” Shane said after a moment.

Risa gave him a slanting sideways look that told him to go to hell.

He grinned. “And scallops.”

She stomped down on the accelerator to pass a polished new SUV whose driver still hadn’t figured out where the metal monster began and ended.

“You’re behind on your lockjaw vaccination,” he continued, scrolling through whatever forbidden records Factoid had found.

“If you access my yearly gyn exams, you’re limping back to the plane alone.”

Laughing, Shane ran his fingertips over Risa’s cheek and brushed the corner of her mouth. “Your teeth are in fine order, too.”

She showed him a double row of perfection as she nipped at a fingertip that kept trying to burrow into her smile. He threaded his fingers through her short hair, safely out of reach of her teeth.

“You’re distracting the driver,” she said.

He caressed her ear, felt her shiver.

“
Really
distracting,” she added.

Reluctantly he shifted his attention back to the computer. In silence he read computer files while the town’s colored lights slid over the windshield and left bright reflections on the computer’s small screen. He sensed the darting glances Risa gave him, but she didn’t disturb his concentration by asking questions before he had a chance to discover the answers.

The colored lights ended when the highway wound through a stretch of national forest. A faded ribbon of red hung just above the rugged western horizon, silent testament to the sun’s dying power. The waning moon was a radiant white force against the blue-black sky. Stars shimmered, but only where night lay thickly beyond the reach of sun or moon.

The village of Oak Creek slid by on either side of the car in a flurry of lights clustered along the highway. Beyond the lights, night waited darkly, patient as night is always patient. Soon darkness ruled but for the sword beams of cars whipping over black pavement.

Risa followed the sign for getting on the interstate and romped down on the gas pedal to match the ambient speed of the Arizona freeways—eighty miles per hour in the slow lane. When she cracked the window a bit, air as cold and perfect as a high mountain stream rushed around her. She drank it in, better than water, more vivid.

“Want me to drive?” Shane asked without looking up from the screen.

“I’m fine. I just wanted to find out if the air was as clean as it looked. It is.”

“Yeah, I keep forgetting how beautiful the red-rock and cedar desert can be.”

“I’ve never been here before tonight, so I have nothing to remember or forget.”

He looked up from the computer. In the light reflected from the dashboard, her eyes were gleaming, mysterious, beautiful enough to squeeze his heart. “You don’t get out often enough.”

“I work for a slave driver.”

“Remind me to thump on him for you.”

“How about I thump on him instead?”

Shane grinned. “You must have mistaken me for my stupid twin.”

“No way I’d ever suspect you of being stupid, despite your million-dollar looks,” she said.

“Darling, I’m worth more than a million.”

His expectant expression said that he was waiting for her to cut him off at the knees. She opened her mouth to oblige, only to be distracted by someone who was passing her as though she had her foot on the brake.

“Idiot,” she muttered. “What does he think that piece of crap is, a fighter jet?”

The ponderous RV wallowed as its owner dragged the vehicle back over into the slow lane.

“Hope the tires are up to the driver’s ambition,” Shane said.

“Whatever. As long as he augers into the landscape well away from me.”

Shane noticed her constant glances into the rear and side mirrors. “Anybody following?”

“If they are, they’re staying far enough back that their lights blend with other traffic.”

The sign for Camp Verde loomed out of the night. Risa didn’t bother with a turn signal. She simply whipped over to the off-ramp, hoping to catch any follower by surprise. Just after the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp, she pulled way to the side of the road, shut off the lights, and watched the mirrors.

Nobody turned off for Camp Verde.

Nobody passed them.

Nobody cared.

“Wanna neck?” Shane said.

“Sure. You strip first.”

He laughed out loud and thought how comfortable he was with her, how right it felt to have her within reach. “You make me wish I was good at the one-on-one thing.”

“Is this where I tell you that you’re better than good at the one-on-one thing?”

“Not sex. Relationships.”

“Oh. That. I haven’t had much luck in that department either. Guys seem to cramp my possibilities rather than expand them.” She looked in the rearview mirror. “I suppose I do the same to them.”

“So far you’ve been running away too hard to cramp anything but my ego.”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “What are you talking about? I tripped you and beat you to the floor.”

“Is that what happened? I thought I cornered you and jumped you.”

She tried not to grin, then gave up and laughed. “It was . . . something. Each time. Every time.”

Shane’s eyelids lowered and his eyes gleamed.

Random sparks of memory sent heat through Risa’s belly. She wanted to crawl into Shane’s lap and start licking just to see if he tasted as good as she remembered. She blew out her breath and started up the truck before temptation got the better of her.

“You sure?” he asked huskily, watching her lush mouth.

She groaned. “Do you harbor a secret desire to be arrested for lewd and dissolute conduct in a public place?”

“Not until I met you.”

“Shane.”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

He was still laughing when she turned onto a surface street.

The Cedars Motel was just off the main street and looked older than the bluffs rising against the stars. A tired neon sign blinked and sputtered, advertising rooms by the night, week, or month. Though the word below said vacancy, the office was closed. It looked like it had been for a long time. A handprinted card stuck inside the window told anyone who really cared about a room to call a local number and inquire about rentals.

There were twelve units and two cars. Each car was parked in the center of its half of the dirt parking lot, as if afraid that the other patron might be contagious. Two units showed a knife edge of light behind tightly drawn curtains.

“Friendly place,” Shane said.

“You sure this is it?”

“The reverse directory pegged Cherelle’s phone to this address. The map I pulled off the Net led us right here.”

“I thought cops and emergency services were the only ones with access to the reverse directory.”

“You thought wrong.”

Risa drummed her fingers lightly on the steering wheel. “Which unit?”

“Lucky number seven.”

She grimaced. If unit number seven represented luck, she would stick with hard work. “No car. No lights.”

“No key.”

“No problem.”

Shane’s eyebrows lifted. “Is my upright, uptight curator suggesting a bit of breaking and entering?”

“No need. Cherelle always stashed keys all around, so when she forgot one—and she always did—she wouldn’t have to break a window to get in.”

“Damn. And here I was going to shock you with my black-bag technique. I get hot when you go all starchy on me.”

She started to ask if he would really have burgled his way in. Then she decided she didn’t want to know.

“Starch does it for you, huh?” she asked instead.

“Every time.”

With a roll of her eyes she got out and started prowling for likely hiding places for a key. It took her about twenty seconds to find the key beneath a broken chunk of concrete on what passed for the walkway from parking lot to the entrance of number seven.

Shane took the key. “I’ll go in first.”

“Why? Do you think she’s—”

He bent and cut off Risa’s words with a quick, hard kiss. “I think I’m bigger than you, that’s all. Wait until I give the all clear, okay?”

“No.” She rubbed her arms against the biting night air. “But I’ll do it. This time.”

The key was gritty with dirt and worked just fine.

Shane stepped into the dark room and drew a cautious breath. Stale smoke. Something bitter. Dust. Unwashed clothes.

Old smells, not new. Not ripe.

Not death.

“Shane?” Risa asked softly.

“So far, so good. Shut the door behind you.”

The first thing they saw was an old wooden box. Shane sat on his heels near it and started memorizing addresses.

Las Vegas

November 4

Evening

C
herelle pumped another
quarter into the slot machine and hit the button. Reels spun, colors flashed, and her quarter disappeared forever.

“Shit.”

“Not your lucky night?”

The man who had asked the question was sitting two slot machines down and would never see the young side of sixty again. While smoke drifted from the cigarette stuck in the corner of his grin, he gave her an allover look that said he could guess her price within a dollar. The whiskey in his voice was like sandpaper on cement.

If you only knew, asshole, just how much the stuff I have is worth,
she thought savagely.

But all that gold wouldn’t buy her a place to stay tonight, unless it was a jail cell. She could sleep in her car or she could take the senior citizen up on the business proposition that would likely be the next thing out of his mouth.

Not yet, damn it. Not until I’m dead fucking broke.

She stuck another quarter in, then another. The machine climaxed and gushed a nice pile of quarters. It wasn’t a big ol’ bell-ringer, but it was enough for a safe place to sleep and maybe even a few beers. She scooped the quarters into the plastic coin tub and headed for the cashier without looking back to see if the sandpaper man was disappointed or relieved.

Ten minutes later she had checked in to one of the cheap motels that lined the highway from the interstate to the razzle-dazzle of downtown Vegas. She dragged Risa’s luggage into the room, locked the door, and turned on the TV. The only channel that came in was the all-news station. With a disgusted sound she threw the remote control on the bed and started to unzip her suitcase. She left the TV sound on, because she was tired of being alone. The talking lamp wasn’t much for two-way conversation, but it was smarter than most people she met.

“It’s the second murder of a small-business person in as many days,”
said the earnest female newsreader.
“Police have asked anyone who was in the area and saw something suspicious to call the number at the bottom of your screen.”

“Oh, yeah, that’ll help,” Cherelle said. “Some old granny that can’t find her own skinny ass with a magnifying glass is gonna look out the window and come up with a murderer. Jesus, there really is one born every minute.”

From the corner of her eye she watched the TV. A part of Vegas rolled by on the screen that looked familiar. Frowning, she turned and stared at the TV.

“Hey, that’s close to Tim’s house.”

The news station ran the clip of its reporter interviewing a detective while a gurney rattled by in the background with a body bag strapped down tight. The same clip had run every half hour since yesterday.

Cherelle bit the inside of her mouth. She had a bad feeling that she was watching what was left of Socks’s fence. She turned up the sound. Socks wasn’t mentioned, but the second bloody spot on the floor was.

“Oh, man. Oh, shit. Is that what happened to Tim?”

She listened. All she heard was what the cops didn’t know.

The solemn newsreader picked up as soon as the tape ran out.
“Since then the police have found a bloody trail down the alley and across the street. Then the trail vanished. No knife or gunshot wounds have been reported at local hospitals. None of the people nearby have been able to help the police.”

“Yeah, ain’t it just a bitch how no one wants to help the cops do their job,” Cherelle said.

She flipped back the suitcase top and hesitated. Part of her wanted to unwrap the gold, to be sure it was all there, to hold it and know that her dreams were finally going to come true.

And part of her went clammy at the thought of touching any of the artifacts.

“That gold creeps me out,” she told the TV.

The TV tried to sell her a time-share condo in Hawaii.

Cherelle kept talking. “I’ll be glad to see the last of it, and that’s a fact. All I have to do is figure out how to sell it off without attracting the cops. Or Socks. That ol’ boy has a streak of mean in him that makes a cottonmouth look cuddly.”

“The crime wave in Las Vegas heats up. A gunman ran rampant through the Golden Fleece this morning.”

At the mention of the familiar casino, Cherelle spun to face the TV. Her mouth dropped open as she saw Risa sprinting down rows of gambling machines, her skirt hiked up to her butt, her long legs flashing as she ducked, spun, leaped, and rolled across tables, scattering chips and patrons in all directions.

“Christ Jesus,” Cherelle said. “What—”

Socks came into view, his eyes flat, his hand steady as he tried to bring Risa down. The contrast between his deadly intent and his cheerful Hawaiian shirt was shocking.

“Acting on standing orders from the management, the casino guards didn’t return fire, as that would have endangered innocent bystanders. The gunman fled out the front doors and vanished into the crowd.”

A freeze-frame close-up of Socks filled the screen. His eyes were narrowed, his lips thinned, and his teeth showed in a snarl.

“Oh, yeah, that’s Socks. Whoooo-eee! He’s riding a big ol’ mean.” Cherelle grinned and flexed her right hand like a cat. “Bet his dick still hurts.”

“Anyone having information leading to the arrest and conviction of this man will receive a fifteen-thousand-dollar reward from the Golden Fleece. Call the number at the bottom of your screen if you have information.

“Next up, the Santa Claus bikini contest draws crowds to the Blue Mare. If you know a portly”
—sound of off-screen snickers—
”jolly old gentleman who would like to enter, there’s still time.”

Cherelle barely listened. She was still looking at the number on the bottom of her screen. She couldn’t collect the reward, but she didn’t want to pass up a chance to send some bad luck Socks’s way. As long as he was running around loose, she would be smart to hide. But she didn’t want to hide. She wanted to sell that gold and spend the rest of her life living like the Hollywood star she should have been.

For that she could wait a while, until they nailed Socks.

Smiling, jiggling a handful of quarters, she went out to the pay phone down the hall by the Coke machine. Within minutes she was telling a recorder all about the make, model, and license plate of Socks’s screaming purple baby.

She didn’t leave a callback number.