“Could well be. But obviously, if you see her, if she contacts you—”
Reid cut him off. “Absolutely.” Had he promised anything? No. Only by implication. His integrity, he told himself, was intact.
Simpson paused, then, “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear, Reid.”
“It’s a little pat, don’t you think? Isn’t there another—”
This time Simpson cut him off. “I don’t think so. Believe me, I’ve gone over it time and again. I’m sorry.”
Funny. Reid didn’t think he was the person Simpson should be apologizing to. It was Annie who deserved the fair hearing. But apparently it was past the point where she was going to get one. At least from the FBI.
“You’ll do a segment on your next show?” Simpson asked.
That was unavoidable. Sheila would be all over it. And Reid had a pretty good idea that Simpson would like her spin.
Reid ended the call with assurances that Crimewatch would do its part to aid in the fugitive’s apprehension. Then he went in search of Sheila, who, true to form, had already assigned a crew to Corona del Mar. He wasn’t thrilled to hear they were in the subterranean garage loading gear into the van.
“I’m going to have to meet you at the location,” he told her. To avoid any argument he immediately turned away and strode toward the elevator bank.
“You can’t come with us?” she called after him, surprise clear in her voice. He kept walking but held his cell phone in the air as if to prove he’d be reachable. “I’ll call you when I’m on the road,” he shouted back to her without turning around. “There’s something I’ve got to take care of first.”
The woman of the hour, stained with blood and dirt, was still in his footwell when he unlocked his truck and climbed inside. She was smart enough, he noticed, to remain silent as he turned on the engine and inserted his cell phone’s ear bud as if he were about to place a call. Once they exited the garage, and he was protected by the appearance that he was in conversation, he issued one simple directive.
“Start talking.”
CHAPTER TEN
She talked. Her mouth was dry when she started and tasted like a desert floor when she was through, but she talked.
And she watched Reid, scouting for clues. He wore his usual jeans and leather jacket ensemble but he seemed a different man. His jaw was clenched and his muscles taut. He looked like a spring wire. Did he believe a word she was telling him? Or was he humoring her while he drove to the nearest police station to turn her in? Was a Crimewatch van behind them to cover REID GARDNER’S AMAZING TAKEDOWN! on videotape? And why did he seem so angry now, so much more than before?
“Don’t even think about getting out of the footwell.” His voice was curt and his eyes stayed on the road. “If I’m not under surveillance now, I will be soon. And I don’t want to take any chances.” He laughed shortly. “Yeah, right, like I’m not already. Keep talking.”
As she resumed her tale, she noted another oddity: he never looked at her. Not a glance. She understood why but there seemed more to it than caution in case they were being watched. It was as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her.
Eventually she ran out of story to tell and he ran out of questions to ask. They lapsed into an uneasy silence. She craned her neck to peer out the passenger window. From the perspective of the footwell, LA seemed like nothing more than a giant network of overhead wires with an occasional palm tree thrown in for variety. It was a dizzying ride even without the unpredictability of Reid’s driving. He favored quick turns and sudden braking, both of which sent her ricocheting around the footwell like a pinball.
After a stint on the freeway and a few more minutes of a nauseating city-street tour, he barked at her again. “We’re almost there.”
She was almost afraid to ask. “Where?”
It wasn’t reassuring that he didn’t bother to respond. Seconds later he made a sharp left and braked to a stop. Outside her window she saw the top of a neatly clipped hedge and in the distance she could hear children playing. Apparently they were in a residential neighborhood. The idea that he’d brought her to his house was buttressed when he reached for something above her head on the dashboard and she heard a garage door spring into action.
“Don’t move until I tell you,” he ordered, then advanced the truck into a garage and closed the door behind them. Relieved, she began to stretch out of the footwell. “Didn’t you frigging hear me?” he hissed and pushed her backward. Taken by surprise, she conked the back of her head, hard, on the dash. “Not … yet,” he snarled.
She gaped at him, wondered if she was seeing the reemergence of the former cop she’d almost forgotten was there. The badge seemed to reappear in the demand for submission, the set of the jaw, the gunmetal gray that replaced the blue in his eyes. She nodded mutely. Then he got out of the truck and left her there.
In a few minutes he came back. This time he opened the passenger-side door and motioned for her to get out. Her muscles felt ill-prepared for standing and she got a head rush the moment she reached her full height. No sleep and no food were taking their toll. She swayed and he grabbed her by the arm to steady her.
But there was no gentleness in his touch. No Are you all right? escaped his lips. Instead he manhandled her up a few stairs and into the house via the garage’s interior door. She got a brief impression of a smallish kitchen with nineties-era cabinets and counters before he propelled her down a short carpeted hallway into a dimly-lit bedroom, shades drawn against the sun. The room was dominated by an unmade queen-sized bed and a few pock-marked oak bureaus that dated from some style-challenged period. A selection of barbells hunkered on the blue carpet, along with an abandoned basketball and a pair of running shoes she wouldn’t want to give the sniff test. In another corner was a pile of yellowing newspapers and news magazines. The only thing that distinguished the bedroom from any other messy bachelor’s lair were the three Emmys atop one of the bureaus. She recognized the gold statuettes from awards shows but had never actually seen one before. Automatically she moved toward them.
Again he grabbed her arm. “Not near the windows.”
She winced at the pressure of his grip and shook him off. “You’re hurting me. Besides, the shades are down.”
“You like taking risks?” He lurched close to her face. “Not in this house.”
She rubbed her arm. “Is there a reason you’re so angry?”
But again he disappeared without answering, this time into the master-suite bathroom. He emerged a few seconds later and tossed a folded towel in her direction. “I’ll wait here while you shower,” he told her.
“You’ll wait here?”
“I live alone, remember?” His voice assumed a patient tone, as if he were talking to an imbecile. “If I’m showering, I can’t be somewhere else in the house.”
“You really think somebody is watching?”
He stared at her, the imbecile judgment seeming to take firmer root in his mind. “You want to risk it? Fine.” He moved toward the door, waving an arm in a gesture of dismissal. “I’m sure the SWAT team would love moving in on you while you’re in the shower. It’ll give the boys a good story for the bar tonight, not to mention an eyeful.”
“All right, all right.”
“And be quick about it.” He spoke to her from the bed. He’d taken off his leather jacket and sat down to wait. “I’ve gotta get down to Corona del Mar.”
She spun to stare at him, the towel clutched to her chest. “You’re going down there?” Understanding dawned. “So it’s out? People know?” She dropped the towel as her hands rose to her face. “Michael’s been found?”
He chose this as another occasion not to respond but she didn’t need his confirmation. A sob rose to her throat. She gave in to it, not that she had much choice. Her grief was too raw to be reined in.
Despite all the horrible ramifications for her, in a way she was relieved. She had felt so guilty about abandoning Michael. But this meant that he was no lo
nger alone in his house, his face contorted in that gruesome death mask, his lifeblood drained onto the hardwood floor. Someone was taking care of him, laying him carefully to rest, with the respect and dignity he deserved.
Oh God, somebody was calling his daughters …
She forgot about Reid until he spoke up. “Get your ass in the shower. I told you, I’m in a hurry.”
“I don’t get it.” She swiped at her nose. She could only imagine the picture she made, snot mixing with blood and tears on her face. “You told me over and over that you thought I was innocent of these murders, you told me you understood what it was like to be falsely accused. ‘You can trust me,’ you said. ‘Let me help.’ Now I’m asking you to. What, you suddenly think I’m guilty?”
“I don’t know.” His gaze was steady. “Are you?”
“If you thought I was, you’d never have brought me to your own home.”
He nodded slowly. “So why did you come to me anyway? Why did you choose me out of everybody you know?”
“Because on top of the fact that you keep telling me you believe I’m innocent of these crimes, I got the crazy idea that you care about capturing dangerous criminals. You can take it from me, there’s one out there. If I was wrong and you want no part of this, now would be a good time to tell me.”
He broke her stare, then rose and began to pace his bedroom. Back and forth. One second followed on another, linked in a chain that made her think he was about to say the last thing she wanted to hear. Yes, you were wrong, Annette Rowell. You’re on your own.
Suddenly he stopped and spoke again, jabbing his finger toward her face. “Let me make sure I got this right.” He narrowed his eyes as if trying to think back. Then he snapped his fingers. “That’s it. ‘I have no reason to trust you.’ That came out of your mouth, too, if I recall. Am I right?”
“At the time, I was—”
“The time you’re referring to was just the other week, lady. And the only thing that’s changed between then and now is that the shit you’re standing in has gotten even deeper.”
“No, one other thing has changed. Michael got butchered. Forgive me if I thought that would matter to you.”
“It does. But I still think it’s pretty damn convenient that now you do a one-eighty and decide that I’m the one and only person on this planet who can pull you out of this quagmire you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“I haven’t gotten myself into anything. Some maniac is out there killing people. Four so far, one of them my friend. And he’s setting me up to take the fall.” She pushed her hands into his chest so hard she forced him back a step. “And while we’re at it, let me tell you what else I thought about you, Gardner.” She felt her tongue loosen and knew she was about to say a few things she shouldn’t. But by now she was angry herself, and sick and tired of being blamed for a situation she hadn’t created. “I thought you were in cahoots with Simpson. I thought you were only pretending to be interested in me to soften me up so I’d cough up details about the murders. And I thought you lied about being accused of your fiancée’s murder. To gain my sympathy.”
*
The house was dead silent. Reid counted to ten, then twenty.
He kept his voice low. “Don’t you ever talk to me about Donna again.”
“That was her name? Donna?”
“Did you not hear me? Are we having trouble communicating here?”
Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have accused you of lying about her.”
She looked afraid and genuinely regretful. But it wasn’t enough for him. The rage still twisted in his belly, the rage that any less than reverential mention of Donna invariably conjured. “Do you still think I made it up? That she was murdered and that I was accused of the crime?”
“No. Michael told me it was true.”
“Ah. And him you believe.”
“Of course I do. We’ve been friends for years.” She looked away. He could see her modify her words into the past tense. We were friends.
“You’re wanted in his murder, by the way.” Reid knew he was being cruel telling her this way, but right now he was letting the niceties go by the wayside. He was riding a Donna-is-dead-and-her-killer-is-loose wave of hate which made everything he did A-OK. “Warrant for your arrest, APB, the whole nine yards.”
He watched Annie swallow. “I figured as much.”
“Simpson called me this morning looking for you.”
Her green eyes widened. “While I was in the truck? What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. Not a damn thing.”
She let out a small breath. Beneath her blood-encrusted tee shirt, he watched her chest rise and fall as she processed how close she’d come to getting arrested for murder. And how thanks to him, she had not.
He kept talking. “But you want more than that from me, don’t you?” Why did he want to hear her say it? He knew what she wanted. If he was honest with himself, he wanted the same thing. The killer caught; the innocents spared; justice done. Maybe this time he could make all that happen.
“If I’m going to clear my name,” she said, “I’ve got to find the real killer.”
“And that’s where I come in, I take it. I should just forget that I’ve spent the last five years making Crimewatch a fugitive-hunting machine. I should just throw all that down a rat hole for a woman I’ve known a matter of weeks. A woman who right now is probably the number one most wanted fugitive in the nation.”
“I’m wrongly accused. But I can’t prove that on my own. I can’t do any of this on my own.”
“Somehow, lady, that sounds like a real admission coming from you.”
She didn’t deny it. She simply gazed into his eyes as if looking for proof that he’d stay the course, continue lying for her. In fact, do much more than lie: deep-six his life’s work and harbor a wanted fugitive.
They stared at each other. Moments passed. He realized she must be able to read him like a book when she spoke again. “Thank you.”
He held up his hands to forestall her. “I haven’t agreed to anything.”
She ignored that. “I know I’m putting you in a terrible position. I know you’re supposed to turn me in. I know I’m asking a lot.”
“You’re asking the impossible. I’m supposed to shelter you and defy the entire law-enforcement establishment to find a serial killer.”
“Catch him, too.” She smiled. “But don’t worry. I’ll help.”
Damn. She’d found it in herself to smile, after the night she’d had, the hell she’d been through, with the long road ahead of her that could easily end behind bars. Hell, it could end in an executioner’s chair. Still she smiled. And the anger leeched out of him like pus from a wound.
He bent to retrieve the towel she’d dropped on the floor. “Why don’t you go shower. When you’re done I’ll make you a sandwich.”
“Make it a big one.” She turned toward the bathroom. “I’m starved.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was Thursday evening, getting on to dusk, two days after Reid had brought Annie into his home. She sat cross-legged on his bed, tortoiseshell eyeglasses perched on her nose and a legal pad on her lap. Its yellow pages were filled with scrawled blue ink, the painstaking grunt work of trying to brainstorm the identity of a killer. Some of the pages had been torn out and crumpled into balls, and tossed not only on the bed but in all four corners of the room, Annie’s carpeted suburban prison.
This was her hideout at least until the next night. Reid taped Crimewatch on Fridays and he had to go to work every day as usual, as if nothing in his life had changed, as if no brunette fugitives were skulking around his bedroom. Annie spent the long hours alone wracking her brain, so far to no avail.
Their plan was to move her over the weekend; it wasn’t clear where. She would continue to lie low while Reid kept tabs on the FBI investigation. She desperately hoped, for both her sake and Reid’s, that either her brainstorming or Crimewatch’s tip line wo
uld yield a breakthrough before Simpson pinpointed her location.
Annie raised her head when she heard the sound she hated to admit she waited for: the garage door opening. Reid was home from work.
She threw her glasses aside and attempted to plump the pillow that for hours had been supporting her back. She barely had time to get to her feet and set the bedspread to rights before Reid loomed in the doorway, leather jacket off and legs striding toward the tallest bureau, where she knew from two nights’ experience that he’d toss his keys and empty his right jeans pocket of change.
“How was your day?” she asked.
“Not bad.” He switched on the lamp—which she wasn’t allowed to turn on prior to his return as it would signal that somebody was in the house—and cocked his chin toward the legal pad abandoned on the rumpled bed. “Come up with anything?”
“A bunch of names, a bunch of theories, but nothing that gets me anywhere.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure out who’s behind all this.”
His eyes drifted down her body and back again. She stilled. As had become her habit in the last 48 hours, given how little clothing she had at her disposal, she was wearing one of Reid’s shirts. Plaid and flannel and size extra large, the shirt billowed around her body and hung nearly to her knees. Yet it left her feeling strangely exposed. Particularly under his perusal.
A couple of dogs yelped in the yard next door, shattering the moment. Reid raked a hand through his closely cropped blond hair and snapped back into businesslike mode. “Okay. So. What do you want to eat tonight? Chinese? Thai?”
“Thai sounds fabulous.”
“I’ll go get the takeout menu.” He walked out, taking her dirty breakfast bowl and lunch plate with him. Every morning, before leaving for work, he made her meals and left them with her. She ate at her leisure, which she had way too much of.
It was the craziest thing. Bizarre as the situation was, bored as she got during the daytime hours, their makeshift arrangement was oddly comfortable. It was as if they were playing house, weird wacky house where Wifey never left the master suite because if anybody spied her through a window, they’d recognize her from the Most Wanted List and call 911. So these four walls—eight if you counted the master bathroom—had become her world.
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