So About the Money (42 page)

The SUV’s black-and-chrome grill loomed large in her mirror. Her Beemer jumped as the larger vehicle jammed her bumper. Her head snapped through a whiplash crack.

“What the hell?” She slapped both hands onto the wheel, ignoring the spike of pain from her injured palm. The BMW fishtailed, then straightened.

With a quick location check on the SUV—still behind her—she released the wheel long enough to tap the Bluetooth. “Emergency.”

Silence.
 

“Dammit!” She’d never programmed the emergency operator into her voice contact list.
 

No way could she take her hands off the wheel to punch in the emergency code.
 

She floored the accelerator, begging every horse under the BMW’s hood to run like hellhounds were after them. She’d kiss any highway patrolman who stopped her for speeding. “Go, car!”

Her gaze darted between the road and the mirror. The exit for the Port of Benton was just ahead. Other than the closed Desert Wind tasting room, there was no obvious sanctuary near the off-ramp. If she could make it to Gibbons, the busy truck stop there offered people and buildings.
 

The front end of the Beemer shimmed. She eased up on the accelerator and fought for control.
 

Where was the SUV?
 

She checked the mirrors.
 

There.
 

Gaining on her.
 

Beside her.
 

Another neck-cracking, heart-stopping, slam.
 

The BMW jumped sideways. She torqued the wheel, turned into the spin, and resisted the urge to stomp her brakes.
 

The front end shook, the damaged tire unforgiving. The car straightened, then slid in the opposite direction.

Time slowed. Discrete images appeared in her window. A road sign flashed past. A car horn blared.
 

Frightened faces at a window.
 

Squeal of brakes. Rocks. Sagebrush.
 

Snapshots of disaster.
 

The car spun across the median and into oncoming traffic.
 

An air horn blasted.
 

Holly closed her eyes, braced for a losing battle with the oncoming 18-wheeler.
 

Chapter Forty

Holly opened her eyes, intensely aware of the quiet.
 

She stared straight ahead, afraid to move. Barren brown hills, wrinkled by erosion, filled the visible horizon. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned heaven.
 

Small noises intruded. Creak and tick of metal. Traffic that sounded far, far away. She squinted against the afternoon light. Her sunglasses were gone and her nose throbbed. The Beemer’s air bags dangled from the doorframe and flopped across her steering wheel like a spent condom. Tiny squares of blue-tinted safety glass littered her lap.

“Holly.”

She turned her head and recoiled. Frank Phalen stood beside her door. It wasn’t heaven, it was hell.
 

He reached through the empty window frame. “You’re bleeding.”
 

She screamed and jerked away. “Don’t touch me.” She fumbled with her seatbelt, dislodging glass and airbag powder.
 

She scrambled across the console to the passenger seat. ”Get away. You tried to kill me.”

“I didn’t try…I’d never hurt you.”
 

Since when? Her panicked brain ping-ponged between options. Stay? Run? Safer in the car?
 

“I’m trying to protect you—don’t go to that house again.”

“What? You’re following me?” How long has
that
been going on? “You can’t do that.”

His hand slashed sideways, impatient. “You can’t get involved with that guy.”

“Which guy?”
 

“The one with the place in Yakima. I’ve seen you with him in the parking lot at your office. He’s scum. He’s married.”

“I’m not involved with Tim.”
 

“Marcy was. Women make stupid choices.”

 
“And you know that how?” Ignoring the stupid comment—who cared what he thought?—the only way he’d know about Marcy, Tim, and the Yakima office would be if he’d followed Marcy. “Holy crap. You killed Marcy?” She fumbled with the door handle. Farther away from him sounded like a great idea. Several cars had stopped on the highway, trapped behind the wrecked 18-wheeler. There’d be people… He wouldn’t kill her in front of witnesses.

“Of course I didn’t kill her.” Frank looked back at the highway, worry wrinkling his forehead. “I thought maybe Marcy and I could start something, but then I found out about Stevens. When you came looking for me at the casino, I knew she’d just been a distraction.”

Stupid door—it wouldn’t open. She jerked the handle and shoved with her shoulder. “I didn’t look for you.”
 

If she’d had any idea he worked at the Tom Tom she’d have forced Rick to take over the project.
 

He cocked his head, listening. Sirens sounded in the distance.
 

Thank you, God.

“I can’t be here when Patrol arrives.” He shoved a paper through the window opening.

“What—?”

“Black vehicle.” He dropped the note onto the driver’s seat, turned and sprinted toward a black Jeep parked on the shoulder. He roared away as a highway patrol cruiser slewed to a stop.

Mouth open, Holly looked from the disappearing Jeep to the officer who was talking on his radio and finally at the paper. A series of letters and numbers were scrawled across it. Like she needed another mystery.

A moment later, the driver’s door wrenched open. “Are you all right?”

She looked into the concerned eyes of a state patrolman. “No, I’m not all right. He tried to kill me!”
 

“Who?” The officer’s hand dropped to his pistol. He spun, apparently checking for threats.

“Frank Phalen.”
 

The officer turned back to her. “There’s no one here.”

“Frank was right here.” She pointed at the spot the cop now occupied. She wasn’t delusional.

He studied her bandaged face and blood-smeared nose. “Did you hit your head?”

“The air bag punched me, but I know what I saw.”

 
She looked past the officer to the collection of cars, trucks, and vans stacked up behind the jackknifed 18-wheeler. “Didn’t you see him leave? The black Jeep?”
 

“Why don’t you tell me what you think you saw?” the officer began,
 

Holly sighed. Some things never changed. Policemen always answered a question with a question. “Frank gave me that paper.”

The officer studied the page. “What is this?”

Like she knew? “He said, ‘black vehicle.’ I don’t know if he meant his black Jeep or another car or something else entirely, like his contact information, or God knows what.” She edged back over the console, ready to climb from the car. Tiny demons jumped up and down, jabbing their pitchforks into her neck and shoulders. She winced.
 

The officer stopped her. “Wait here for the EMTs. Go ahead with your story.”

She sank into the driver’s seat. “One minute, everything was fine. The next, a black SUV, at least I think it was an SUV”—
Could it have been a Jeep?
—“was right on top of me. It hit my car, twice. The last thing I remember was the front end of a big truck coming at me.”

She swallowed and considered the possible outcomes of a truck versus BMW encounter. She glanced again at the highway and grimaced at the twinge in her neck. Most likely the truck jackknifed when the driver tried to avoid her spinning car. “Is the trucker okay?”

“He’s fine. Now about this SUV. Did you get the license plate? Can you describe the driver?”

Like she’d had a chance to see any of that?

~$~

A tow truck had hauled her battered car back to the highway and the worst of the traffic had cleared by the time the officers were satisfied with her statement. After a quick but thorough exam in the Beemer’s front seat, the EMT deposited Holly on the back step of the medical van. He’d finished his examination and was suggesting follow-up care when the state patrolman, the one named Nunez, returned. “I have a call for you.”

“For me?” She’d have scrunched her forehead if it didn’t hurt so much.

She trailed the officer to his cruiser.
 

“Go ahead, put him through,” Nunez said into the car’s radio. He handed the microphone to her and showed her how to toggle the switch to talk.
 

“Hello?” she asked, feeling rather foolish.

There was a burst of static. “Are you okay?” Concern colored JC’s tone a warm shade.

She nearly dropped the microphone.
 

Wondering if every policeman on duty could hear them, she said, “I’ve been better.”
 

“What happened this time?”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“What happened?” Exaggerated patience from JC.

“A car hit me. And Frank was here.”

“You told me on Thursday you thought you saw him.”

“No, I mean now.”

“Is he the one who hit you?” JC’s tone sharpened.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Go straight home and stay there. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Prickles rose all over her. The guy was a tyrant, but she was not going to argue with him over a police radio. “Call first, Julius Caesar Dimitrak.”

She dropped the microphone on the driver’s seat. The other cops didn’t know his name wasn’t Julius Caesar.
 

He could have fun living that one down.

Chapter Forty-one

Holly slapped the paint roller against the living room wall and concentrated on covering another section. At least she’d finished the tedious part—cutting in the trim—yesterday. Rolling the walls was mindless, which was about all she could handle at the moment. Ibuprofen had blunted the headache and sore muscles. And if her hot water heater cooperated, she could take a long hot bath when she finished.
 

She was at home because she wanted to be—because she had to finish painting the frickin’ wall before the carpet guy showed up—
not
because JC had told her to be there.
 

She wasn’t stupid. Two unprovoked, potentially fatal car incidents in three days defied all possible coincidences. But the SUV ramming her on the way home from Yakima didn’t make sense. With all the stops she’d made on the way to the Stevens Ventures satellite office, no one could’ve followed her without her noticing, and she hadn’t been challenged at the Yakima site.
 

She smoothed the blotch of paint, considering possibilities. Frank had known about the Yakima office.

So did Tim.

And Alex.

For all she knew, Lee Alders had found out about the place too.

Any one of them could’ve seen her car parked in front of it.

On autopilot, she rolled paint over the wall. Did Marcy’s murderer think she knew his identity? Sure, she had bits and pieces, but nothing that added up to a cohesive whole. She couldn’t expose the killer.
 

So use your intellect and analytical skills
.
 

Who might come after her? Tim? She wasn’t sure where he stood on the Who Killed Marcy list, but was he the one creating all the “accidents” she’d had that week?
 

She’d worried from the beginning about Marcy and Tim. The jerk was cheating on his wife. Thinking about leaving Nicole when she might be pregnant. And stealing from banks. Why was money so damned important to him in the first place?