Authors: Iris Johansen
Quick.
She reached it an instant later. Not a trick of light. She picked up the large plastic bag, which was closed by a drawstring. There was lettering on the side that bore the logo of a downtown dry cleaner.
She
had
it.
Whatever the hell it was.
“Hey!”
She’d been spotted. Both flashlight beams swung in her direction!
She jumped to her feet and started running. The bag unbalanced her, and she fell to her knees.
“Get her. She’s down!”
She knew that voice.
Stokes.
Dammit, it had been the San Diego PD following them.
Stokes and … She couldn’t clearly make out the other officer on the slope, but she thought it might be Ketchum.
And there was no way she wanted them to confiscate this bag until she could look through it. She jumped to her feet and started running.
Slipped again.
Tumbled twenty feet. Hit hard.
Cactus. Stinging her face and neck.
But Stokes had slipped, too. He was struggling to get to his feet some distance away from her.
She got up and bolted back the way she and Beth had come.
Keep running. Keep ahead of him.
Screech. Crack.
The sound came from up above, on the road, in a groan of metal against rock. Before Kendra could look up, she was aware of the car’s headlight beams suddenly angled downward. She saw Stokes’s startled face caught in that beam as he stared up at the road.
Bam.
“No!” Stokes shouted, and started running up the hill as the Caprice rolled off the road.
Kendra stared at it in shock as she watched the car hurtling toward the desert floor.
What had happened?
They won’t follow us.
Beth.
Stokes’s and Ketchum’s shouts and curses were almost as loud as the sounds of their car being pulverized by every stone and tree branch on its journey down. It finally flipped over, smashing whatever metal and glass hadn’t already been destroyed.
Run.
Run while the men were still in shock.
Kendra clutched the bag closer to her and darted back toward their car. This time she wasn’t nearly as successful at dodging the tree limbs and cactus petals, as the brush tore into her flesh.
It didn’t matter. Just keep running.
Almost there.
She climbed the hill and threw herself over the chain-link fence.
“Get in!”
Kendra turned around to see her car waiting there for her, engine running and passenger door open. Beth was behind the wheel. She repeated, “Get in!”
Kendra jumped into the car. Before she could even pull the door shut, Beth peeled out of the lot.
Kendra took a moment to catch her breath. “You do know you totally destroyed their car?”
“Yep, crash, boom, bang. I did good, didn’t I? Couldn’t have them coming after us, could we? And it serves them right, for walking away with the engine running. For bad guys, they’re not very efficient.”
“For cops you could say they weren’t either.”
“Cops?”
“Stokes and Ketchum.”
“Oops. Well, how could we know? We were only defending ourselves from unknown attackers.”
“I’m sure Stokes will appreciate that defense.”
“We’ll worry about that later. At least, they won’t be on our trail for a little while.” She glanced down at the plastic bag in Kendra’s lap. “Is that it?”
Kendra patted the bag. “Yes. Let’s go back to my place. We’ll take a look at it there.”
* * *
“THAT’S A NASTY BRUISE, KENDRA,”
Beth said, as they entered the condo over an hour later. “I don’t look near as bad as you do. Sit down, and I’ll clean it up and find some salve to—”
“I’m fine,” Kendra said. “I’ll clean up later. I don’t know how long it will be before Stokes decides it’s worth their while to come and harass me about what happened tonight.”
“What can they do? All they saw was the bag; they don’t know what’s in it.”
“And neither do we. There have to be some items that the police will consider evidence for this case. Not to speak of one destroyed car. Okay, so they never identified themselves before they tailed us or went on the hunt down that hill. But put the car and that bag together, and it will give them their chance to take me in and question me again. That’s why we have to hurry.” She looked down at her scratched and dirty hands. “On second thought, I’ll go and wash up a little before I touch anything. You take everything out of the bag and set them up on the coffee table. Be sure you put on a pair of those evidence gloves in the cabinet before you do it.” She headed for the bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”
Beth was right, she thought as she glanced at herself in the bathroom mirror. Tousled hair, bruised face, and her hands looked as if she’d been plucking briars. She quickly splashed water on her face and hands and ran her fingers through her hair.
Good enough.
“Lots of stuff,” Beth said, looking up as Kendra came back into the living room. “Some cheap, some expensive, some kind of weird.” She pointed to the corner of the coffee table. “There are all of Schultz’s toiletries. I separated them out from the other things. The rest are mostly her figurines, there’s a hair barrette and a necklace.” She frowned. “I wouldn’t have thought Sheila was the type to wear a hair barrette.”
“Neither would I. She was far too sleek and sophisticated.” She looked down at the amber-and-silver barrette. “Sentimental value?”
“She didn’t impress me as being overly sentimental.”
“You can never tell about people.” Kendra pulled on her gloves and sat down on the couch to survey the array on the coffee table. “And what’s weird?”
“Just some keepsakes.” She pushed a small, cellophane-wrapped object toward Kendra.
It was a ring wrapped in a red shoestring from a child’s tennis shoe.
“Now that is weird. But it looks—” Kendra froze. “My God.”
“Kendra?”
She paid no attention. Her hands were moving quickly, frantically over the objects on the coffee table, putting some in front, discarding others.
“Kendra, what are you…”
“I have to go.” She jumped to her feet. She ran to the closet and grabbed a gray-and-white plastic bag, darted back to the coffee table, and placed the items she’d separated at the front into the bag. “I have to see Griffin.”
“At this hour? It’s almost midnight.”
“Too bad. I have to see him.” She grabbed her phone and dialed. “Griffin, Kendra Michaels. I have to see you. Meet me at your office in thirty minutes.”
“And why should I do that?” Griffin asked sourly.
This wasn’t going to be easy to say. It would be difficult for her to speak these words to anyone. To Griffin, it was excruciatingly difficult. “Because I need you.”
Silence. “Amazing.”
“Be there.” She hung up and headed for the door. “I’ll call you, Beth.”
“For heaven’s sake, tell me what’s happening,” Beth said. “You’re not being fair. Don’t leave me like this.”
“Sorry.” The door was closing behind her. She repeated, “I’ll call you.”
* * *
“GOOD GOD.” GRIFFIN’S GAZE TRAVELED
over Kendra from her head to her feet. “You look like you fell off a cliff.”
“Close. Very close.” She dropped down in the visitor’s chair. “I’m sure you would have been devastated if that had happened. Again, how would I have ever been able to pay off that favor I owe you?”
“True.” He sat back down at his desk. “If you only wish to look at my callous side. Pity. When I have such a complex and interesting personality.”
“Too complex for me. I’ve never been able to see beyond the barriers you made me jump over.” She placed the gray plastic bag on the desk. “I even hesitated to bring these to you. But I decided that your professionalism would keep you from letting anything else stand in the way.”
“Really?” His gaze was on the bag. “And what do you have for me, Kendra? I’m beginning to be intrigued.”
She pulled a pair of evidence gloves from her jacket pocket and tossed them across the desk. “Put these on first.”
He smiled and reached for the gloves. “Okay, you definitely have my attention now.”
Once he had pulled on the gloves, she placed the bag in front of him. “See for yourself. And think Colby.”
She sat back and watched him take the objects out of the bag and set them out in a horizontal row on the desk one by one. Casually at first, then with growing tension, then with scarcely concealed excitement. “Damn,” he said softly. “This has got to be what I think it is.” His gaze flew up to meet hers. “Tell me it is.”
“You know it is.” She indicated the first object. A gold compact with a turquoise lotus in the center.
“This belonged to Tiffany Demarco, Colby’s third victim. She inherited it from her grandmother. It was the only thing missing from her purse the night her body was found.”
Kendra opened the cover on her tablet computer and showed Griffin a grainy, yellowed photograph of the compact. “This was the picture her family gave us. An exact match.”
Griffin picked up a hair clip with a blue hummingbird design. “This belonged to the girl in Chula Vista…”
Kendra nodded. “Donna Robles. She was wearing two in her hair when she left home on the morning of her nineteenth birthday. Six days later, when her severed head was discovered with the others at the abandoned shoe factory in Carlsbad, she was only wearing one. This is the other.”
“Unbelievable.”
“It’s also a match. As much as I didn’t want to pull up that photo, I checked.”
He picked up a red shoestring, from which dangled a round gold earring. “What’s this?”
“It’s a twofer. The earring belonged to Lanie Riedinger, victim number six. She was wearing the other when we found her corpse. The shoelace came from little Stevie Wallach, who had just turned twelve when Colby killed him. His left sneaker was still tied, but the lace had been removed from his right one. A red shoelace.”
She sat back in her chair. “There are three others there, but I won’t go in depth into those victims. You’ll probably connect them yourself if you study the objects.”
“Yes.” Griffin leaned on his elbows, staring down at the line of trinkets. “I’m sure I will.”
“Trophies, Griffin. Trophies we never found when Colby was caught and sent to prison.”
“Where did you get them?”
“Sheila Hunter’s houseboat. Colby set them around the place to give me a shock and put a signature to Sheila Hunter’s killing.”
He frowned. “I didn’t see them.”
“Because her lover got nervous and scooped up everything in sight and made off with it. I just retrieved it.”
He looked at the bruises on her face. “At some cost.”
“Yes. It could have been worse.” She smiled faintly. “I had a fall, but I survived it.”
His gaze went back to the objects before him. “Authentic?”
“We’ll have to verify with the families, but I don’t believe that Colby is playing games with his toys. I think that he wants me to know that there’s no doubt that he’s alive and controlling the situation.”
“But he’s done everything so far to make certain that no one did know that. Hence the fact that you’re being thought of as a nutcase. Why now?”
“Maybe he thinks it’s time. He’s a complete egomaniac, and he’s not afraid of anything. He’s been hiding out, making his plans. Now, perhaps, he’s ready to show everyone how clever he is. This reveal may just be the tip of the iceberg.”
“But a fairly powerful revelation.”
“That may not be accepted until Colby comes out with even more irrefutable evidence.” She grimaced. “Who’s going to believe that these trophies are the real thing? The first question you asked was if they were authentic. It will take some time to verify, and even then, there will be doubters.”
“No, the first question was where you got them. I was betting that they were the real McCoy.”
“Because you worked those cases. You knew them intimately. That’s why I brought them to you.”
“And what do you want me to do with them?”
“What’s right to do. Verify, then help me to convince San Quentin to admit that there is a possibility that Colby is still alive and a threat.”
“Another favor, Kendra?”
“No. A duty, Griffin.”
“Ah, such a boring mandate.”
“The people Colby has on his kill list aren’t going to find it boring.”
“And you’re first on that list. If it takes as long as you believe to convince everyone he’s back, we may not be in time for you.”
“I’ll take care of myself. That’s not why I came to you.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’ve always appreciated that courage, Kendra. Many of your traits annoy the hell out of me, but that’s one I admire.”
“I don’t want your admiration. I want you to help me. Will you do it?”
“You do know that I won’t publicly acknowledge that Colby may be alive until you can bring me stronger evidence than this. I’ll have to have public backing before I take that risk.”
“I don’t care if you’re protecting your ass. Just help me get public support.”
“That might be possible.” He looked back down at the trophies, and said brusquely, “San Diego PD is going to want to get their hands on some of these items. Particularly since they were taken from another one of their crime scenes. I’ll have difficulty maintaining control.”
“Not true. You always manage to get your own way eventually.” She got to her feet. “I brought these to you because I needed you to fast-track the verification and any clues they might yield. Don’t you dare give them up to the police. You know how they feel about me. I don’t want them buried in their file thirteen. Stall until you get my answers.”
He shrugged. “I’ll do my best. But it might help if you can schmooze that detective, Stokes, whose iron grip I managed to pluck you from.”
“Schmooze? Me? No one would believe it.”
He chuckled. “Too true. But you might try explanation and courtesy.” His smile faded. “Up to you. It could buy me time.”
And so she would do it. Though he didn’t realize how difficult those explanations were going to be after that chase through the hills. She wasn’t the only one who had bruises.
She turned toward the door. “Then get to work, Griffin. I don’t want the humble pie I’m going to eat to be for nothing.”