by Greg Dinallo
“Maybe we can get them off before they dry,” Lilah offered, reaching for the jersey.
“Wait,” Jason protested, backing away. This wasn’t an autograph, or a puck that had sailed into the crowd; nor was it something that could be purchased; no, this was a priceless souvenir. “Dad! The Enforcer’s blood!” Jason exclaimed in a tone that meant this jersey would never be washed again.
When play resumed, a series of blinding fast passes had the Kings swarming around the Ducks goal. Players poked and slapped at the puck as it ricocheted off skates and sticks until it finally streaked over the goaltender’s glove, tying the score.
The crowd went wild; the sound and light show erupted; and once again Lilah’s eyes locked on to the strobing red flasher that sent the wave of images rolling toward her. Once again she steeled herself against it; but this time it crested and broke over her, unleashing a deluge of flashbacks. As always, she was on her cellphone when she came out of it. By the time Merrick noticed, she had already called her mother, checked the messages at her condo, and was about to dial another number.
“What’re you doing, Doc?” he chided. “Take the night off, will you? Have some fun!”
“I am having fun,” she replied, concealing the episode’s aftermath. For the next hour or so she got caught up in the fast-paced action and was cheering and pumping her fist with the others.
The Kings had a man advantage and were mounting an attack when Merrick’s cellphone twittered. “Merrick . . . Don’t do this to me, Gonzo. The score’s tied, we’re on a power play, and . . . Yeah, yeah, I know I’m on call. Can’t you get somebody to cover me? I mean—”
“No can do,” Gonzalez interrupted. “We’re already handling a warehouse downtown and a nasty wildfire in Laguna Canyon. I sent my last crew up there a couple of hours ago. I’m fresh out of A.I.’s. This baby’s yours.”
Merrick arranged for Logan to take Jason home after the game, then turned toward Lilah. “Doc? Doc?” he called out over the crowd. “Sorry, I’ve got to split.”
“Another fire?”
Merrick nodded glumly.
“Guess I’m being relegated to the back burner again,” Lilah quipped. “Can’t someone else cover it?”
“Naw, I’m it. Besides, I’m on call.”
“Oh, we doctors know all about that. Well, thanks again for the invite.”
“Anytime,” Merrick grunted, turning to leave.
“Hey there?” she called after him. “It was really . . . fantastic.” She thought it was corny the instant she said it, and was relieved to see him smiling as he hurried off.
About a half hour later the Kings scored the winning goal with seconds to play. Jason, Logan, and T.J. were ecstatic as they headed for the exit.
Lilah remained and asked an usher for directions to the Kings clubhouse. He swept his eyes over her appreciatively, assumed she had an invitation from one of the players, and led the way to the entrance, where an odor reminiscent of Vacaville State Prison greeted her. She presented her UCLA identification to the security guard and explained she was there to see the team doctor. A clubhouse attendant directed her to one of the training rooms, where a natty man in shirt, tie, and suspenders stood at an examining table. He was working on a player who had a towel around his waist and sat with his back to the door.
“Dr. Spicer?” Lilah asked.
“You’re off-limits,” he replied sharply. “The media room is down the corridor to the right.”
“I’m not a reporter. I’m a doctor. Lilah Graham? UCLA Department of Human Genetics?” she prompted expectantly.
“Oh? Oh, of course,” Spicer said, waving her in. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. They’re always in here looking for an angle.”
“I should have called,” Lilah said, surprised to find herself face-to-face with the Enforcer, who grinned as Spicer took another suture in the gash above his eyebrow. “But I had a last minute invitation to the game and thought I’d introduce myself.”
“Good idea,” Spicer said brightly. “Your assistant, Dr. Chen—very sharp, by the way—she brought me up to speed on your study. Sounds intriguing. I brought it up at the players’ meeting yesterday.”
“And they’ve agreed to cooperate?”
“A majority of them,” Spicer replied. “I still have to run it past the front office. Maybe even the league. That’s where it could get dicey.”
The Enforcer eyed her knowingly. “So, like you’re the one who wants to tap our veins, huh?” he said, still sounding like the sophomore from North Dakota State who turned pro barely a year ago.
“I’m the one,” Lilah replied as Spicer tied off the last suture. “Nice work.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
“That’s why we nicknamed him the Zipper,” the Enforcer joked, referring to the scar left by the sutures.
A trainer leaned into the room. “Doc? Doc, we need you next door ASAP.”
“Won’t be a minute,” he replied, taking a large adhesive bandage from his suture kit.
“Save you the time?” Lilah offered.
“Thanks.” Spicer handed it to her and packed up his gear. “I’ll be in touch.”
Lilah removed the wrapper and went about applying the bandage. “The Zipper, the Enforcer . . . you have nicknames for everyone around here,” she observed, trailing a finger across his cheek when she finished. “No doubt you’ll come up with one for me too.”
The Enforcer’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Let’s see, what if we called you the . . . the Blood Sucker?”
Lilah broke into a suggestive giggle.
The Enforcer grinned and slid off the table. He was standing right next to her now, his baby face inches from hers, his gentle eyes blinking vulnerably in contrast to his macho swagger, his bow-shaped mouth trembling in anticipation as Lilah’s fingertip traced over his lips. “So, like, maybe we could get into this study right now.”
“Crossed my mind,” Lilah replied in a sassy whisper, burying her hands in his hair and pulling his mouth to hers. He shuddered and soared with passion as she worked around to his ear. “But I don’t think the front office would approve of this phase, do you?”
“Who cares?” he moaned, losing control.
“I do,” Lilah replied, holding him off. “We can be at my place in twenty minutes.”
A short time later they were heading north in the Jaguar. The erotic nibble had given the Enforcer an insatiable hunger for more, and he was all over Lilah with childish impatience as she drove, nuzzling her neck, working his hand beneath her skirt, causing her to squeal and squirm like a hormone-charged teenager.
The freeway was moving at this hour, and the Jaguar was soon snaking through Westwood’s streets. It was on the hill that led to the Spanish-style condominiums when his finger found its mark. Lilah was biting a lip in an effort to maintain her concentration, making the turn into her street at the same time. She saw something out of the corner of her eye, slammed on the brakes, and brought the car to a stop inches from a barricade adorned with emergency flashers that proclaimed: POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.
The Enforcer bolted upright and blinked in confusion at the scene. Lilah clung to the wheel, stunned by the fire trucks angling this way and that in the street, the rainbow of lights raking the putty-colored facades, the smoke curling into the darkness, the firemen dashing in every direction, the TV reporters and camera crews doing their live-at-eleven reports.
Moments later she was backing into a parking space when a familiar voice called out. “Doc? Hey, Doc!” Lilah turned to see Merrick lumbering toward her. He looked weary. Sweat rolled down his face and ringed his armpits. Smudges of ash and soot darkened his hands, face, and clothing.
She shuddered in disbelief. Hadn’t the odds been tilted in her favor? Hadn’t all her mail been X-rayed? Hadn’t the pyro become Merrick’s problem, not hers? She left the Enforcer in the car and ran toward Merrick hoping he had an explanation, any explanation, other than the one that had sprung to mind, but his s
omber eyes left no doubt what had happened. Her worst fear had come true—whoever had targeted her for a fiery death had struck again. She ran into his arms, nestling her head in the curve of his neck. “I’m scared, Merrick,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “Hold me. I’m really scared.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The receiving room at the condo complex was awash with burned parcels. The flames had been knocked down, but firefighters still had several hoses going, and rivers of water gushed from within, carrying a flotsam of charred debris along with it.
Lilah was sitting on a courtyard wall, smoking a cigarette and staring blankly at the bank of mailboxes. The yellow message slip taped to hers was fluttering noisily in the searing winds that made her skin glisten with perspiration.
Merrick was pacing nearby, talking animatedly on his cellphone. “I thought you guys were supposed to X-ray everything?”
“We did,” T.J. fired back. The postal inspector’s home was almost an hour’s drive from the Forum, and he had barely gotten in the door. “I personally checked off on every package, every letter and piece of—”
“You saying the pyro used another shipper?”
“Damn right I am. UPS, FedEx? Who knows, maybe he delivered it personally?”
“Come on, these wackos never change their M.O. Ten victims, twenty years, the Unabomber did it by the numbers every single time.”
“He never went after the same target twice, Dan. Maybe this pyro isn’t your normal wacko.”
“Maybe. And maybe he just slipped one past you.”
“I’m telling you he didn‘t, man,” T.J. protested. “Let me get into it, okay?”
“Yeah, keep me posted.” Merrick hung up and went in search of Captain Singer, who was overseeing this operation with characteristic decisiveness.
“Still too hot in there,” the captain said, seeing the question in Merrick’s eyes. He advised that the Arson Squad hold off until morning and ordered the area be secured as a crime scene.
Merrick nodded, then crossed to Lilah and settled on the wall next to her. “How’re you doing, Doc?”
Lilah shrugged and sighed. “You think it’s Fiona?” she asked in a childlike voice.
“Yes—and no,” Merrick replied. “She’s my prime; but it’s all feeling and no fact. She could have a fire bomb factory in her kitchen, still no way I’d get a search warrant. Whoever it is, they’ve swung and missed twice. Chances are they’re feeling real frustrated. I’m thinking maybe you shouldn’t stay here tonight.”
Lilah nodded glumly. “I don’t think I could.”
“Be happy to drop you someplace. There a friend you can stay with? Your folks?”
“That’d be nice,” Lilah replied, clearly relieved. “But maybe I’ll just throw a few things together and check into a hotel.”
They crossed the grounds to her condo. Merrick led the way inside. There was no sign of package or pyro in the entry, nor in the kitchen or main living area, though a blinking light, which turned out to be the answering machine, gave him a moment’s pause. It was well past eleven. Lilah had no intention of returning calls, and headed for the bedroom. Merrick entered first to check it out. The darkness came alive with a flurry of startling, almost heart-stopping images when he turned on the lights. Dozens of Merricks moved in perfect synchronization on every wall, surface, and shelf. The visual effect was mesmerizing, and almost as intriguing as the collection of mirrors that produced it.
Merrick’s eyes darted from one mirror to another and then another, and finally to Lilah. He was about to make a crack about excessive vanity but thought better of it. “Get your stuff, Doc.”
A short time later, overnight bag in hand, Lilah followed him to the Blazer, passing the Jaguar on the way. The Enforcer was long gone. Their encounter in the training room a vague memory, as if days, not hours, had passed. She activated the car’s burglar alarm, which emitted a series of chirps
Merrick whistled softly. “Sure wouldn’t keep that out here if I was making the payments.”
“You would if your garage was busting at the seams like mine.” She got into the Blazer, gazing forlornly at the fire bomb’s aftermath as Merrick drove off.
“So, what’d you think of the game?” he asked, trying to get her mind off it.
“I’d be more interested in what your son thought of it if I were you.”
Merrick groaned. “You sound just like his mother.”
“He mentioned she’s a nurse.”
“Yeah, a real angel of mercy.”
“Something tells me I struck a raw nerve there.”
“Oh?”
“Mm-hmm. I think you just answered my question. She hurt you, didn’t she?”
Merrick responded with a hal:tbearted shrug and headed east on Sunset. He glanced at the rearview mirror and noticed the headlights of a car making the same turn. The driver was the only passenger, and one of the parking lights seemed slightly dimmer than the other. “Yeah, I guess,” he finally conceded, tromping on the gas. The Blazer accelerated, its knobby tires rumbling loudly on the boulevard’s serpentine curves. “The divorce became final a couple of months ago.”
Lilah leaned into the stream of cold air blasting from the dash. “There are a lot of broken marriages in law enforcement, aren’t there?”
“Yeah, most guys blame the job. You know, the wife couldn’t handle the tension, didn’t like being alone at night, wondering if the phone was going to ring with bad news.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have that excuse.”
“You lost me, Lieutenant.”
“She’s living with a cop, Doc,” he replied with an ironic snort. “In my house.”
“Oh boy,” Lilah empathized. “So what happened?”
“Tofu.”
“Tofu?”
“Yeah, and alfalfa sprouts and rice cakes. She lowered our cholesterol and killed our marriage.” His eyes darted to the mirror. Despite the Blazer’s speed, the headlights were still there. “Couple of years ago she starts working at Pritikin. Next thing I know, I can’t smoke in the house.” He made a right into Warner, a tree-lined street on the eastern edge of the campus, then glanced at the mirror again. Headlights swept through the turn behind them: single passenger, dim parking light—same car. “That was bad enough, but when she started in on the smell on my clothes from the job—I mean, I’m out there busting my hump . . . ” His voice rose in anger then trailed off.
“I don’t know,” Lilah said with a wistful smile. “I kind of like it.” She exhaled a stream of smoke, reflecting on her childhood, reflecting on how she would spend the time when her father was on duty gripped by an overwhelming fear that something would happen to him, on how she would wait anxiously for him to come home from his three-day shift, and how euphoric feelings of relief would wash over her as she ran into his arms and drank in the pungent scent of fire and smoke that mixed with his own. “Always did,” she concluded. “Ever since I was a kid.”
“Yeah, well she wouldn’t let me in the house till I changed,” Merrick went on, too fixated on the lights in the mirror to pick up on Lilah’s mood. “I’d like to see you come home exhausted at three-in the morning and strip to your Fruit of the Looms in the backyard.”
“So would a lot of guys,” Lilah said with a deadpan delivery.
Merrick burst into laughter, as she’d intended. He angled the Blazer into Hilgard, a winding street that bordered the campus. It was free of traffic at this hour, but the car with the dim parking light was still close behind. “You know, you bounce back pretty good, don’t you?”
“We all have our share of equanimity.”
“Good. It’s going to come in handy. Hang on. We’re being tailed.” Merrick punched the gas, hit the brakes, and spun the wheel simultaneously. The Blazer went into a controlled skid that turned it sideways, blocking the street. Lilah cringed at the screeching of brakes behind them. “Stay here,” Merrick ordered as he popped the door an
d leaped out. The car that had been tailing them stopped about ten feet from the Blazer. Merrick yanked open the door and shoved his badge in the driver’s face. “L.A. County Arson Squad! Out of the car now!”
Lilah’s curiosity quickly got the best of her. She left the four-by and carne around toward the sedan to see Merrick patting down a woman who was spread-eagled across the hood. Lilah squinted into the glare of the sedan’s headlights that obscured the woman’s identity. Who could it be? One of her students? Serena? Fiona Schaefer? Fiona! Of course! She was the one with the motive, with the biochemical engineering background—it had to be her. But she was out of town when the first fire bomb detonated; and the odds were twenty to one the pyro was a man, weren’t they?
Her mind raced in search of other possibilities as she approached, stopping dead in her tracks on glimpsing the woman’s face. “Mom?” she exclaimed incredulously.
“Mom, is that you?”
“Lilah?” Marge Graham cried out in a trembling voice.
“Lilah, you all right?”
“Of course I am. What are you doing here?”
“That’s what he wants to know,” Marge grumbled, craning her neck to glare at Merrick.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Westwood Marquis rose amid stands of tall trees. Its quiet European elegance made Marge Graham uncomfortable as she followed Lilah and Merrick into the lobby, which they’d decided would be a more suitable place to chat than the middle of a darkened street.
“Okay, Mom,” Lilah began as they settled in a distant corner. “You want to tell us what’s going on?”
“Going on? I was worried sick. What else would I be doing out at this hour?” Marge replied defensively in her brisk cadence. “They had something on TV about a fire at your condo complex. Well, after what happened at the lab . . . I called and left several messages. I even tried your other phone.”
“Sorry. I guess the battery must’ve run down.”
Marge harrumphed impatiently. “Anyway, your father was snoring in his chair, so I decided to come over and see what was going on,” she resumed in the blithe tone that made whatever she said sound like idle chatter. “I was looking for a parking spot when I saw you getting into a truck with a man who looked like a—a”—she paused and swept Merrick with disapproving eyes—“a street person. For all I knew, it could’ve been this animal who’s trying to hurt you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”