He made a few uneventful passes of the immediate vicinity, then widened his search to include another quarter mile east on Sunset Boulevard. He stopped at a red light and eyed a nondescript two-story building that looked vaguely familiar. He drove on when the traffic signals changed.
He had to stop again for a red light near the Hollywood freeway overpass. He watched a homeless man huddled beneath a frayed plaid blanket, muttering to himself and rocking back and forth. Suddenly the guy raised his head and through Simpson’s windshield the two men locked gazes. Simpson broke the stare, vaguely disturbed. The light turned green and he put his foot to the gas.
And then it hit him, why he remembered that two-story building.
It was the Crimewatch studio. Simpson had been there a few times. He’d met Reid Gardner for lunch there; he’d been interviewed on one of the studio’s stage sets.
A few beats later he decided to retrace the route to Annette Rowell’s abandoned rental car.
It wasn’t all that far from the Crimewatch studio to her vehicle. Simpson did the trek again, this time measuring the distance. Six-tenths of a mile.
Simpson pulled over to the curb and let traffic flow past him, trying to settle the thoughts cascading through his head. Was this why Rowell had abandoned her car in LA? Specifically in this part of Hollywood? Was it so she could connect with Reid Gardner, who from the first had exhibited uncharacteristic partiality toward this particular fugitive?
One thing seemed undeniably true. Given Gardner’s recent behavior, it certainly was possible that he was aiding and abetting Annette Rowell.
The agent shook his head, both stunned and not in the least surprised. If someone had told him a month ago that Reid Gardner would throw his good sense out the window for a nice piece of ass, Simpson would never have believed it. But there you go. Women could have that effect on men. It was what made the world go round and what occasionally made law enforcement tricky.
He pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed the private line of the deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. After the requisite pleasantries and dispensing of key information, Simpson detailed what he wanted. For starters.
“I want the area combed, a mile radius in each direction. I want every fleabag motel from Fairfax to Virgil avenues checked out. I also want a certain party to be put under surveillance.” At that last, Simpson sensed surprise in his fellow officer of the law. He plowed forward. “Name’s Reid Gardner. The host of Crimewatch.”
*
Reid sat on his living room couch, watching the Lakers game without seeing it, drinking a beer without tasting it, waiting for a knock on his door or a call on his cell to put him out of his misery. Neither came.
He leaped up and paced the room. Where the hell was that woman? Had she gotten lost? Had she been assaulted at the overlook or on the walk to the motel? Had she freaked out and boarded a bus? Had she been arrested and the media simply hadn’t been notified yet?
He had numerous friends at the LAPD of whom he could ask that last question. But he didn’t want to make the call. How odd would it look, how suspicious, that he’d picked this night, this hour to think she might have been apprehended? And if she had been, what could he do about it anyway?
He pulled the key to Sheila’s cabin out of his jeans pocket and fingered it as if it were a talisman. It was a ticket out, a ticket to safety for her, at least for a time. But it was useless until he saw her again.
It surprised him how bereft he felt, how hollow, beneath the worry. In the event that Simpson linked her to him, Reid had taken pains to erase all evidence of her from his home. He’d collected every stray brunette hair, he’d dusted and scrubbed and vacuumed, he’d aired out the master bedroom and bath to dispel any last trace of her scent. And when he was done he carried the trash to a distant Dumpster, the better to sever any physical link between her and him.
But housecleaning could not make him forget her. Her laughter tinkled in his ears; he could picture every detail of her face in his mind’s eye. The memory of her was everywhere, darting, prancing, teasing, just out of reach and yet always, always there, like a phantom that vanished when he tried to grab hold.
He glanced at his watch. 9:22. Five hours she’d been out there alone. She might be anywhere.
He picked up the remote and jabbed the power button, no longer able to stomach the roar of a crowd obsessed with something so meaningless as a basketball score. He strode to the tall bureau in his bedroom, where he’d left his cell and the keys to his truck. What he wanted to do was go back to Hollywood and look for Annie. Maybe check out the overlook. She could have been mugged, she could be hurt, she could be in all sorts of trouble. He had to do something. He couldn’t sit still; he couldn’t stay here.
He glanced at his watch. 9:24. She could show up any moment. Give her a little more time. He shook his head, irritated with himself. He was never this indecisive, or impatient. Give her a little more time, the voice repeated.
He dumped the keys back on the bureau. He’d give her till 10. Then he was out of here.
*
Annie scrambled to her feet in Frankie’s grassy backyard, pitch black beneath a low overhang of clouds. Pain shot up her legs from the shock of her jump to the hard ground. From about six feet away, Luto watched her, head cocked to one side as if he understood this was odd behavior but wasn’t sure it was threatening. She held her hand out toward him, palm up.
“Say hi, Luto,” she whispered, and he loped closer to sniff her. A second later he wagged his tail. “Good doggie,” she said again, really meaning it, and scratched his head behind his big perky ears. He wagged his tail with more vigor and Annie let out a relieved breath. His master might be a killer, but Luto sure wasn’t.
Still petting the dog, she surveyed the rear of the house. Her eyes widened. There it was, her way in. A doggie door. And since Luto was a German Shepherd and not a Maltese, the door was plenty big enough for her.
She stared at it, her mind working. If Frankie was allowing Luto to go in and out of the house at will, he couldn’t have armed a motion detector. Meaning she, too, could move about the interior freely.
Presuming Frankie wasn’t home.
She raised her head toward the windows that dotted the house’s salmon-colored stucco. They stared back at her darkly. Yet any one of them might be hiding Frankie, two hundred eighty pounds of ponytailed Frankie, six feet four inches of a man who might be a serial killer.
She squared her shoulders. Her fictional heroes wouldn’t quake at a moment like this. And neither would she.
“Come on,” she told Luto, then approached the doggie door. “You first,” she added but the dog merely cocked his head again as if this game he didn’t understand. “Okay, me first,” she amended, then dropped to her knees, turned sideways to get her shoulders through, and pushed past the rubbery flap to shimmy into Frankie’s kitchen.
Luto followed her inside, giving no indication he was upset that she’d entered his lair. She looked around, amazed she’d gotten into the house so easily. Was fate giving her yet another sign that she was doing the right thing? Or were the gods laughing, preparing to smite her when they would find it most amusing?
She stilled, trying to hear beyond the rapid thumping of her heart. It was much more nerve-wracking inside Frankie’s house than it had been outside. No lights were on and it was church quiet save for the ticking of a round white-faced clock over the kitchen nook pine table. A car whooshed down June Street and a distant siren wailed but she could hear nothing in the house itself. Frankie definitely wasn’t home. The man was a steamroller. If he was in that house, she’d hear him.
But if he’s the killer, he knows how to be quiet. You didn’t hear anyone when Michael was murdered, did you?
That realization caused her to swallow and lick her dry lips. True. She should inspect the house to make certain he wasn’t there, then proceed with her search. She crept forward, alert to any movement not her own. The house was designer from floo
r to ceiling, as unlike its owner as a house could possibly be. Everything was stylish and just so, as if it had been staged for potential buyers. It was impersonal, really, but that had to be an improvement over Frankie’s taste, which ran the gamut from tacky to tackier.
She edged into the dining room, which boasted a table that could seat sixteen with no addition of leaves, and continued into the massive living room at the front of the house. A silver glow from the curbside streetlights poured through the windows’ diamond-shaped paned glass. The room was gorgeous, with whitewashed walls and roughhewn ceiling beams and a dramatic iron chandelier. Across a wide foyer, with a black-and-white tiled floor, was a study, into which she poked her head. Her eyes roamed a masculine-looking desk with papers strewn across its surface; a yawning fireplace, dark from the smoke of countless fires; and crammed walnut book cases.
Still no Frankie.
On to the second floor.
She slipped up the stairs, the risers colorfully decorated with Malibu tile. At the landing she faced a long hall with rooms gaping open on both sides. She edged into one unlit room and then the next, scanning them methodically, confirming that all closets and en-suite bathrooms were empty, that Frankie wasn’t lurking, waiting for his moment to pounce. She arrived at the master suite at the end of the hall and hesitated only briefly before forcing herself inside.
Here were signs of recent life. Sheets in a tangle on the king-size bed. Clothes dumped on the hardwood floor. A tumbler holding—she sniffed it—whiskey, as if the master of the house had enjoyed a kip while dressing for the evening. The half-melted remains of ice cubes floated in the amber liquid, evidence that Frankie hadn’t been gone long.
Assailed by another surge of nerves, Annie glanced behind her before she advanced into the enormous walk-in closet. She flipped the switch for the overhead light. One look revealed the meagerness of Frankie’s wardrobe. No way he was hiding in there. She shut off the light and backed out.
She padded into the master bath. Very large, naturally. Double sinks, a Jacuzzi tub, and a slate shower with an elaborate array of jets from ceiling and walls.
Annie eyed herself in Frankie’s humungous mirror, startled anew by her shock of short blond hair, unfamiliar clothes, face full of makeup. It did nothing to relieve her pallor or the panicked look in her eyes.
So here she was. In the bathroom of a man who might be a serial murderer. And who might have framed her for his crimes.
She stiffened. If so, time to make him pay. Time to get proof to nail him to the cross of guilt.
Newly resolved, she began to investigate the drawers beneath the marble counter, trying to keep her mind open to whatever she might see. She stilled as one drawer revealed a straight razor, the kind barbers use, next to a pot of old-style shaving soap and a short, bristly-haired brush.
Could Frankie have used this to kill Michael? A swipe of that six-inch blade could slash a man’s throat. Could Frankie do such a thing, then return the blade to his toiletries drawer to use on himself the next time he lathered up and shaved?
She slid the drawer shut. A killer could. A killer would.
She moved on, finding nothing more of interest in the master suite. She returned to the small laundry room she spied earlier off the second-floor corridor. Indeed there were clothes in the dryer. She turned on the overhead fluorescents and poked through them, finding out more about Frankie than she really wanted to know. But nothing revealed faded, hard-to-get-out blood stains. And whoever had killed Michael would have been drenched in blood. In fact, most likely the killer would have thrown out whatever he’d been wearing. She should examine the garbage bins as well.
She forced herself to move swiftly through the bedrooms, wanting to be thorough yet fast. By this point she’d almost forgotten about Luto. She was startled sometimes to find him watching her from the hallway. Other times he left for a while and meandered downstairs. At length she followed him, dispirited.
Nothing. She had seen nothing to tie Frankie to the murders. She glanced at her watch. 9:41. Frankie being such a party animal, he wasn’t likely to be home for a while. She probably had a fair amount of time to play with. Still, she had the whole first floor to cover. She’d start with the study, she decided, where he kept his desktop computer and his paper files.
She made her way to the built-in walnut book cases. They were beautifully carved. A rolling ladder provided access to the upper shelves. No doubt the decorator would have much preferred elegant leather-bound volumes but Frankie’s taste—and profession—lent themselves more to dogeared mass-market paperbacks. And indeed, right there at eye level, in a neat row, were all five of her published books.
She ran her eyes over the other shelves. She wasn’t the only client—current or former—well-represented in Frankie’s study. There were a bunch of Maggie Boswell’s books, and on the uppermost shelf Michael’s.
Elizabeth Wimble’s, too. And Seamus’s. They had never been Frankie’s clients. They did fit, however, in another category.
That of murder victim.
Did it mean anything? Or was it mere happenstance, evidence of nothing?
She squinted at the top shelf, where Michael’s novels were arranged. One of them was out of line with the other volumes and its spine seemed particularly beaten up, as if it had been read over and over again. It was one of Michael’s last releases, titled The Bethlehem Prophecy.
Annie rolled the ladder beneath the book, grimacing as the wheels rumbled noisily on the hardwood. Then she mounted the ladder and pulled out the book. It was truly dogeared, its binding weak from overhandling. It flipped open to a point midway through. She held it close to her eyes, peering at the print, trying to make sense of the words in the dark. Then she caught her breath.
It’s where the Craig character gets slashed to death. Like Michael was.
The words throbbed before her eyes. She was so lost in a wild rush of thoughts that she didn’t register the front door opening. But she did note the foyer chandelier switching on. And the sound of Luto’s bounding paws clicking across the tiled foyer.
Her head spun in that direction. Her heart took off on a mad rampage. And a cry rose from her belly and stalled in her throat.
For who stood in the doorway but Frankie.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Panic froze Annie on the ladder. She watched Frankie advance a step or two into the foyer, his stringy brown hair pulled back into its usual untidy ponytail, his face flushed an unpleasant shade of red. His eyes bored into hers. Many of the muscles from his Frankie “The Pitchfork” days had gone to fat but he was still a giant of a man. He reached behind him and swatted his huge front door shut. The house shuddered as wood smacked wood.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Who the hell are you? And what the fuck are you doing in my house?”
He doesn’t recognize me. She’d forgotten she was sporting a whole new look. Annie felt a surge of relief that lasted a nanosecond. She’d intruded into Frankie’s home because she suspected him of being a serial killer and now she was frighteningly vulnerable to him. Smaller. Slower. Weaker. And at the moment, pinned on the bookcase ladder as if she were a specimen for inspection. Holding his stare, she forced her trembling legs down one ladder rung and then the next, feeling her way, terrified of falling, and trying hard not to succumb to the fear that gathered in her gut.
Luto bounded toward his master, tail wagging, but backed off when he didn’t get so much as a pat. The dog followed Frankie’s gaze and no doubt sensed the dangerous new vibration in his den. He squared his body against Annie and let loose a low growl.
Frankie made a sudden move in her direction and she lurched away. Michael’s novel slipped from her hand and tumbled across the hardwood. Frankie bent to pick it up, allowing Annie to skitter behind the desk and put something large and immovable between her and him. He straightened as he read the book’s cover. Again he turned his gaze on her. His eyes roamed her face. In moments his expression skidded from bewilderment to recognition
to stunned surprise.
“Annie?” He moved a step closer, then halted as if he thought better of closing the distance between them. “Is that you?” He squinted at her, plainly astonished. “You went blond?”
A surreal question. She didn’t know if it meant disaster or salvation. Her hand flitted nervously over her hair, short and spiky to the touch. “I dyed it.”
“I can see that. Why? Oh—” His Adam’s apple worked. “That’s right.” He backed off a step. Annie had the idea, astonishing as it was, that he was afraid of her. He spoke again. “What’re you doing here? You—” He gave a wild look around. “You broke in?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she struggled to take long deep breaths rather than quick shallow ones, which were doing little to slow her heartbeat or fill her lungs with oxygen. Could she make a break for it? Try a mad dash for the front door, or go through the study windows, which were now at her back. Like some TV detective she could throw her shoulders through the paned glass, then tumble onto the lawn and head for the street …
“You know you hit number one on the Times list?” Frankie shook his head and chuckled. “I couldn’t believe it. I mean …” He looked at her with something akin to admiration. “It’s damn amazing. I think you’ll be there for weeks.”
She stared at him. It was an odd time to be having a conversation about her book sales. “I have to say …” Her voice sounded thin and weak. She tried again. “I have to say, with everything going on, I haven’t really thought about the bestseller lists.”
“I guess not.” He gave her another of those quizzical looks. “So how you doing?”
“I’m surviving.”
“You’ve never been hotter. As an author, I mean.”
“This was one hell of a way to get there.”
Chasing Venus Page 17