by Linda Turner
An image stirred in his head, one of Lily answering her door in her bathrobe. In spite of that, she couldn’t have looked more proper—or showed less skin—and she’d still somehow managed to distract the hell out of him. Was that what had happened? he wondered with a scowl. After he’d left her apartment and stopped by his to pick up the pictures of for Aunt Tootsie, had he just walked out without even checking to make sure he’d shut the door? Because of Lily?
Or did someone break in while he was downstairs working?
No, he thought, immediately rejecting the idea. The neighborhood was safe—he couldn’t remember the last time Angelo or any of his neighbors had had a problem with crime. Still, he couldn’t completely reject the idea, not when his door was standing wide open and he didn’t know how it had gotten that way.
Every nerve ending in his body on alert, he quietly pushed open the door until it came to rest against the wall. Good, he thought in grim satisfaction. There was no one hiding behind it. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be anyone in the rest of the apartment, either.
Quietly stepping across to the kitchen, he repeated the same procedure he’d used in the living room, then did the same in the bedroom and bathroom. Only when he was satisfied that there was no one in the apartment did he finally relax. Then he began to thoroughly search the place to make sure no one had been there.
Fifteen minutes later, he didn’t have any more answers than he had when he’d first noticed his door was open. As far as he could determine, nothing was missing and there was no sign that anyone had been there. Obviously he had left the door open, though he had no memory of doing so.
Shaking his head, too tired to wonder anymore how he could have done such a thing, he checked the door a second time to make sure that it really was locked this time, then flipped off the lights. Exhausted, he stumbled into his bedroom and was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
Sly didn’t sleep much that night. Nothing had turned out the way he’d expected, he fumed, pacing the confines of his apartment like a death-row inmate counting the days. He shouldn’t have had so much trouble finding the bitch’s apartment. How difficult could it be? There were only three apartments in the whole damn building! So what had he done? Stumbled into a cop’s! Son of a bitch! Talk about bad luck. It didn’t get any worse than that.
It wasn’t over, though, he told himself grimly. Miss Candid Camera might have been able to evade him tonight, but her turn was coming. Oh, yeah, he’d get her. He had to—she was the only one who’d seen him running in the park that day, the only one who could place him at the scene of the murder. He wasn’t, however, going to risk getting caught trying to find her apartment again. Not when there was a damn pig in the building who could show up at any moment.
No, there was a better way to take care of her, he decided. The lady was a photographer, and from what he’d seen of her work in the gallery, she didn’t work in a studio. She had to get out in the world, and when she did, he would be waiting for her, watching. Granted, there would be more people around, but she’d be much more accessible on the street. If he was lucky, she’d go back to the park, to the spot where she’d taken that damning picture of him, and then he’d have her…because he knew the park like the back of his hand. He’d been jogging there for years, and he knew all its secrets. There were areas not far from the fountain where he could drag her and no one would ever hear her scream%”>
Packing her bag with backup batteries, film and her camera, Lily couldn’t wait to hit the streets. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and sunny, and fall was definitely in the air. The days were already growing shorter, and the first cold front of the season was only weeks away. Soon the leaves would be changing and summer would just be a memory. Mothers would still take their children to the park, but instead of playing in the fountain, toddlers would chase the falling leaves, and the bigger kids would play football with their friends. With her mind’s eye, she could already see the pictures.
Grinning at the thought—Lord, she loved what she was doing!—she grabbed her purse and the camera bag and rushed out of the apartment. With her bag over her shoulder and a skip in her step, she turned right and headed for the park and never saw the man who quickly stepped out of the building across the street and began to follow her.
Keeping a safe distance, Sly dodged other pedestrians and tried not to look as if he was tailing her, but the bitch didn’t make it easy for him. She moved along at a fast clip, and in order to keep up with her, there were times when he had to practically run—especially when the light changed at the next corner and a stream of moving cars abruptly cut him off from her. Swearing, he prowled back and forth on the curb, not caring that he was jostling people as he watched Lily draw farther and farther away from him.
“Dammit to hell!” he muttered. He was losing her, and thanks to the lights and traffic, there was nothing he could do about it. Every time he even thought about stepping off the curb, the cars racing past blasted him with their horns.
Watching her disappear around the next corner, he swore again. Like last time, he checked the traffic, but this time, he saw a break. Ignoring the Don’t Walk sign, he stepped off the curb and darted across the street. All around him, drivers laid on their horns, but he only made a rude gesture and never even bothered to look at them. His eyes trained on the corner where Lily had turned, he started to run.
Nearly ten minutes later, he spied her entering the gates of the park. She was less than fifty yards ahead of him, and there weren’t nearly as many people in the park as there had been on the street. If Lily had glanced over her shoulder, she would have seen a man walking his dog, an old lady pushing a baby in a stroller and him.
Would she recognize him? he wondered. He looked nothing like he had that day in the park when she’d taken his picture. Instead of a jogging suit, he wore a polo shirt, khakis and loafers, and dark sunglasses hid his eyes. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but he’d been using a self-tanner, so he looked considerably darker than he had when she’d seen him last.
Still, he wasn’t taking any chances. The damn picture was hanging in a gallery, for God’s sake. She must have looked at it—and his face—a dozen times or more…which was why he wasn’t getting too close to her. If she recognized him, all his plans would be shot to hell.
So he kept his distance, falling farther behind as he casually followed her down the trail. As she walked farther into the park, however, he started to sweat. Where the hell was she going? Had she somehow sensed he was following her? Was she leading him into some kind of trap? It could happen, he reasoned. He didn’t know for certain that she hadn’t figured out that he was the one who’d killed that girl in the park that day. She must have en it on the news by now. What if she’d put two and two together? She didn’t know his name, but she had a picture of him. What if she’d gone to the police with it and her suspicions. For all he knew, a damn posse could be waiting for him around the next curve in the path.
Fear a bitter taste on his tongue, he almost bolted into the trees. But before he could take a single step, Lily stopped to set up her tripod for her camera. It was only then that he noticed that the path she’d taken was a shortcut that led to an area of the park set aside for dog lovers. The street served as a boundary on one side, but the open field for the dogs was set well back from the street.
Setting up her camera about twenty feet from the curb, she immediately changed to a more powerful lens, then went to work taking pictures of several of the dogs and their owners who were playing Frisbee. If she knew he was fifty feet behind her and watching her every move, she gave no sign of it.
The tension draining out of him, Sly almost laughed aloud. He didn’t know why he was so worried about the bitch—killing her was going to be so easy. She was right by the road, for God’s sake. He could take her out in full view of everyone in the park and the passing traffic, and the cops would never be able to trace it to him. But first, he had to leave to make a few arrangements. Luckily, he didn’t
have to worry about her disappearing on him while he was gone. If her previous trips to the park were any indication, there was enough activity in that area of the park for her to be busy for hours.
Hurrying back to his apartment, he couldn’t stop smiling as he planned her murder in his mind. The story would, no doubt, make the front page. After all, a hit-and-run in the park was big news. In fact, he couldn’t remember it ever happening before. People would be outraged. And Lily, poor thing, would never know what hit her. Her killer, of course, would never be found, but hey, those were the breaks. The police couldn’t find a man who didn’t exist.
His eyes glinting with cold, wicked humor, he stood in front of the mirror and adjusted the wig he’d chosen for the occasion. No doubt about it, he thought gleefully, red was definitely his color. Any witnesses who happened to catch sight of him would be so busy looking at the hair, they wouldn’t even be able to tell the police what he looked like.
Removing the wig, he stuffed it, along with several other props, inside the oversize T-shirt he wore, then he hurried back outside. Turning away from the park, he turned down the next side street and began to check the neighborhood for a car. He found it four blocks away, parked in an alley. It couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d wished it into existence.
It was a fifteen-year-old Volkswagen, beat up and far from pretty, with faded red paint and a rear bumper that was hanging onto the vehicle by a thread. It wasn’t the kind of car that was even worth stealing, but as far as Sly was concerned, it had one redeeming quality that made it invaluable…it looked like something a down-on-his-luck pizza-delivery-boy would be driving.
Glancing around cautiously, Sly studied the building the car was parked behind, but there was no sign of life in the building or the alley. Not wasting another second, he slid behind the driver’s seat, quickly hot-wired the car, then donned his red wig and a paper hat from a local pizza parlor. Next he pulled out a 3-D magnetized sign that he’d stolen off the roof of a pizza-delivery car just last night and slapped it o of his new car.
Checking his image in the rearview mirror, he grinned, his eyes glinting with sinister pleasure. Damn, he looked good! His mother wouldn’t have recognized him—not that she’d ever given a damn about him. But that was something he could get drunk over later. For now, he had a murder to commit, he thought in satisfaction as he put the transmission in Drive. A split second later, he headed for the park.
Lily had never had a dog—when she was a child, her father had refused to even consider the idea—and once she moved to D.C. and had a place of her own, she never seemed to have time to devote to a pet. But watching through the viewfinder of her camera as the black-and-white terrier mix caught the Frisbee his owner threw to him again and again, Lily couldn’t help but be envious. They looked as if they were having so much fun.
On the street bordering the park, cars zipped by less than twenty feet away from where she’d set up her tripod, but Lily never looked up. Caught up in the action taking place across the field where the terrier and other dogs played with their owners, she snapped picture after picture and only stopped to change film.
When a horn blared two blocks down, she didn’t even look up…until other drivers joined in, voicing their displeasure. Startled, Lily straightened from her camera and looked down the block, only to gasp in horror as a small car with a pizza sign on its roof careened down the street, wildly changing lanes and scraping against other vehicles. Tires screeched as drivers slammed on their brakes, trying to avoid an accident, but the driver of the pizza-delivery car never even checked its speed.
“My God, he’s a madman!” she cried, and instinctively turned to grab her camera. All around her, people screamed and began to run away from the street, and Lily caught it all on film in a series of lightning-quick shots that she knew in an instant were the best pictures she’d ever taken. She didn’t, however, have time to think about that. She took the last picture on the roll, the film automatically began to rewind, and quickly, she reached for her camera bag without once taking her eyes from the drama unfolding before her.
The idiot driver was in the outside lane and would pass right by her, she realized suddenly, startled. Instinctively, she took a step back, her heart in her throat. In the time it took to blink, he was closer. She caught a flash of red hair, but before she could get a good look at his face, the car swerved again. Suddenly, it was racing right toward her.
Her search for film forgotten, she watched in horror as he drew closer and closer. “Turn,” she muttered. “Turn!”
He could have—all it would have taken was a simple turn of the wheel—but he didn’t. Instead, he accelerated and the car jumped forward as if it were shot from a gun.
Horrified, Lily froze. Move! a frantic voice screamed in her head, but her feet felt like they were encased in blocks of concrete. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think of anything except she was about to die and she wasn’t ready. On the edge of her consciousness, she heard a woman scream and only then realized it was herself.
“No!” Another scream ripping from her throat, she almost waited too long. She could feel the heat from the engine when she screamed again and jumped behind a tree. heartbeat later, the car brushed against the tree so hard, it groaned. The driver, however, never slowed down. Bouncing off the tree, tires squealing, he jerked the car back onto the road and raced away. Taking the next corner on two wheels, he disappeared without ever looking back.
Chapter 5
Lily hit the ground, hard, face first. Her forehead hit the ground, and her knee came into sharp contact with an exposed tree root. Grunting in pain, she knew she would have bruises tomorrow, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now. Scrambling to her feet, she squinted after the car that was just disappearing around the corner.
“Focus!” she told herself fiercely. But all she could see were the numbers six and three. Swearing, she impatiently wiped her eyes with the back of her arm, but she might as well have saved herself the trouble. The car was gone, and she’d been so busy trying to get the license number that she couldn’t even say what the make or model was.
A sob rose in her throat. “No!”
The young man who she’d been taking pictures of with his dog suddenly appeared at her side, a worried frown knitting his eyebrows. “Are you all right, ma’am? I thought that jackass had killed you. Here, let met help you. You look like you’re going to pass out.”
“I’m okay,” she said faintly, swaying. “I’m just feeling kind of nauseated.”
“You are looking a little pale. What can I do? Do you need some water? Ice? My mother always wants a cold cloth on her head when she’s not feeling well.”
Feeling as if she was going to toss her cookies any second, Lily shook her head. “No…thank you, but I don’t need anything. Except to lie down.”
“Here?”
She nodded miserably. “Right here, right now, or I’m going to be sick.”
With a soft groan, she sank to her knees, and he was instantly beside her, whipping off his cap so that she could lay her head on it. “I think I should call an ambulance,” he said worriedly, studying her. “You’re limping. And you’ve got a nasty scrape on your forehead. It looks like you took a pretty good hit.”
Suddenly too weak to even open her eyes, Lily gingerly felt the wound on her forehead. “I don’t remember much about what happened after I jumped behind the tree. I must have fallen.”
Beside her, she heard a dog whine. Surprised, she stirred, forcing her eyes open just a crack. At the sign of the terrier she’d taken rolls of pictures of, she smiled faintly. “I hope you don’t mind that I took pictures of you and your dog. You just looked like you were having so much fun.”
“Hey, no problem,” he assured her. “Jack’s a ham—he loves performing for people. I was just about to show you our best trick when I heard the horns blaring. That’s when I saw that jackass heading straight for you.”
She swallowed thiI thought he was going to kill me.
”
“You aren’t the only one. It did look like he was deliberately trying to run you down. I’ll call the police for you, if you like. Somebody needs to turn the idiot in. He could have seriously hurt you.”
She winced at the idea of all the questioning she would be put through for nothing. “But I didn’t even get a license-plate number. What can the police do?”
In the distance, the whine of a siren signaled that someone had already called 911. Still flat on her back on the ground, Lily saw a police car pull up at the curb and closed her eyes with a groan. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Do we need an ambulance?” the officer began as he exited the cruiser, only to swear. “Son of a bitch! Lily? Is that you? Are you all right? What happened?”
Lately, Lily had heard that same voice in her dreams too many times not to recognize it. Her eyes flew open in surprise, and she looked up to find Tony leaning over her, shock clearly visible in his eyes as he frowned down at her in concern. It wasn’t his unexpected appearance, however, that stunned her. It was the policeman’s uniform he was wearing.
Confused, she rubbed at the knot on her forehead. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought—my eyes aren’t working right. You’re not a cop.”
His expression somber, he allowed himself a small smile. “Actually, I am. I just work at my uncle’s part-time. Are you all right? I got a call there was a hit-and-run.”
“He didn’t hit me,” she said huskily. “I jumped out of the way.”
“It was close,” the young man at her side said frankly. Introducing himself, Patrick Barnes added, “I was playing with my dog across the park and saw the whole thing. If she’d waited another second to jump, she probably would have been dead. He was aiming right at her.”
“I’m okay,” Lily insisted. Still ashen, she struggled to sit up. “I just hit my head.”