She grunted. “The next morning. Mike had this viewer to look at them.”
The next morning. Penelope had sauntered away from Colin’s apartment, absolutely sure she was large and in charge, and the next morning discovered she’d been played. When it was too late for Penelope to do anything about it.
She hadn’t murdered Colin.
“Now you got it,” Behar said. “I’m not going to let you hurt her.”
“No, he’s not,” Penelope said.
“Shut up,” he said.
Penelope looked up at him, sharply. Perhaps that was her first clue that Behar wasn’t here to protect her. She thought he was on her side, but he wasn’t. When he said, “I’m not going to let you hurt her,” there was only one person he could mean. Of course.
“Kristin,” I said.
“Who’s Kristin?” Penelope asked.
“The person who murdered Colin,” I said.
“Where are the goddamned photos?” His voice was gravelly and his hand shook, just a little. I was right with my guess. Kristin had murdered Colin, and Behar had helped in whatever capacity he could.
A shaky gun hand is a scary sight. A guy who’s already party to one murder and might have nothing to lose is a scarier one.
A ball of energy swirled in my solar plexus. Nervous energy. Anticipation. And fear. Most of it was fear that something would go wrong and I was about to get hurt. I don’t enjoy pain, not even a little bit. Fear that I would get myself killed and leave Stevie alone. Fear that I would blow my one shot at getting out of this hellish mess. Fear that more than one of the three of us here needed to die. “They’re not here.”
Penelope shrieked with frustration. Should I tell her that we had much, much bigger problems on our hands? No. Let her find out the hard way.
“I’m deeply moved that you’re so chivalrous. Who knew down deep Vin Behar was such a romantic?”
“Shut up and give ’em,” he said.
His trigger finger was getting itchy.
So was mine.
Ten years ago, after we’d been in hiding for a year, I made Stevie a promise. Three promises, to be exact. Three things I would never do.
One: despite how badly we needed money, I would never get involved in illegal operations, like selling drugs.
Two: despite my penchant for using men to find places to live when we first moved anywhere, I wouldn’t turn pro at it.
And three: I would never ever kill someone again. No matter what the circumstances.
“There is always a better way,” she had said to me. “Look at what it’s done to you.”
But promises were made to be broken, and ten years of keeping my promises to her was not too shabby. That was ten years longer than I’d kept a promise to anyone else.
Right now, I could not hesitate. I could not bargain. It was going to be him or me, and right now my only goal was to be the one to walk away.
I shook my head slowly. “I won’t tell you where they are if you shoot me.”
“Yeah? Well, I can shoot her.” He swung the gun toward Penelope.
Which is when I grabbed the small fire pit shovel and hurled a scoopful of coals toward him.
He ducked and pointed the gun downward, which was all I could have hoped for with that maneuver. I leapt up before he could right himself, and I slammed my foot into the side of his knee at the same time I struck the underside of his nose. He grabbed me as he fell, pulling me after him. We seemed to fall in slow motion. Everything goes a lot slower when you’re in the middle of things. Even with Penelope screaming in the background.
“Stupid bitch!” he yelled.
I landed on top of him and took advantage of the moment to drive my elbow into his throat. I then took the fire pit shovel and jammed it into the wrist of the hand holding the gun, hard. Not hard enough, dammit: I didn’t cut the skin. But he let go of the gun.
The second I reared back, preparing to drive the shovel where it would do the most harm—his face—Behar roared up, pushing me off and to the side. He socked me pretty good in the stomach, which felt like a boulder smashed into me and got worse from there, spreading a flood of fire. Holy Olympus, that hurt. I spit up bile as he pulled me behind him and reached for the gun. I’d failed. I’d had my shot. And he was going to get his.
“Bitch,” he said.
The command “Freeze” from somewhere near the door into the house was quite easy to notice, despite the blood rushing through my ears. I froze.
Behar seemed not to hear it. He kept moving.
“Hey, idiot,” Detective Gruen said. “Freeze.”
Only then did Vin Behar look up.
I dropped the fire pit shovel and stayed mostly frozen, moving only enough to look back at the detective. Penelope was cowering behind him, safe from the Big Bad World.
As Gruen cuffed Behar, I sat up. The detective didn’t seem to be swinging two pairs of handcuffs, so maybe I was safe for now.
Penelope was standing off to the side, her jaw opening and closing, but no sounds came out. She had managed to scoop up the photographs and stick them back into the envelope, though. She was definitely focused on her number-one priority.
Four uniformed police officers ran into the yard. Gruen waved at Behar, telling them to take out the trash. Then Gruen looked at me. “You got anything you want to say?”
I shook my head. “My lawyer should be here soon. You’ll want to have a chat with Kristin Blake, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“She murdered Colin. She worked with us in Las Vegas. This bloke was helping her.”
The French door opened and Nathaniel walked out. “I made it here ahead of about four thousand cop cars. What the hell happened? Are you okay?”
“Mr. Behar and I had a disagreement as to whether I should be alive or not.” I looked up at the detective. “How did you get here so fast?”
“Already on my way, and I got a call from your sister. You need a doctor?” Gruen asked.
I shook my head. I glanced up at Nathaniel and tilted my head toward Gruen.
“You were already on your way?” Nathaniel asked.
“Yeah, some friends of your client are in town.”
Ed and Fred, the feds. Why hadn’t they come with Gruen? I shook my head. This was a bad night.
“Where can I find Kristin Blake?” Gruen asked.
“I have her number in my phone. She teaches aerobics at the Medallion Health Club and Spa, and at night she dances,” I said.
“Exotic dancing?” Nathaniel said.
I nodded. “It’s amazingly good money. Honestly, if I had the sort of coordination required—”
“Where?” Gruen asked.
I looked at Nathaniel. When he nodded, I said, “The Canyon Jackal.”
After a moment’s pause, the detective said, “What?”
My nerves were shot, my stomach hurt like hell, and now I was drawing a blank on the name of the place. I never draw blanks. “Is that not a place? She said it was very upscale. The Canyon…some kind of animal.”
“The Canyon Coyote?” Nathaniel said.
I snapped my fingers. “That’s it!” I looked at him. “Please tell me you’ve heard of it because you have clients who work there.”
“I take the Fifth,” he said.
“Yeah, I know it,” Gruen said, as he took out his radio. Then he walked away.
“Men,” I muttered. “Are we all done here?”
“We need to talk,” Nathaniel said.
“We will,” I said. “Penelope?”
Penelope Gurevich, looking lost and alone and like a little girl, looked up at me. “What is it?”
I tilted my head off to the side. “I need to talk to you.”
The police officer who’d been standing with her fell into step alongside her.
I held up my hand. “Alone.”
Penelope stumbled, following me down the concrete path toward the pool area.
In the door of the cabana, I turned and looked at h
er. Her face was blue from the reflection of the underwater pool lights. “Don’t do what you’re going to do, Penelope. It’s a bad idea.”
“I deserve to get something for it,” she said.
I reached up to the edge of the overhanging canopy and wedged my fingers into the little slit I’d made in the fabric. My fingers hit the edge of the cellophane envelope and I pulled it out.
“Burn them. You have a good career.”
“What would you do?” she asked.
“Me?” I said. “I’d kill the son of a bitch so he couldn’t hurt anyone else.”
She tucked the package of negatives into her tiny purse. “You have your way, and I have mine.”
As I watched her walk away, I hoped I’d done the right thing. The photos most definitely belonged to her, after all. She’d paid the most heavily for them.
Nathaniel was waiting for me inside Gary’s house. Gary, I noticed, was at the top of the grand staircase, watching the goings-on downstairs.
“I got a call,” Nathaniel said.
“Let me guess from whom.”
“He requests the pleasure of your company at the Peninsula Hotel.”
I nodded. “If what the good detective Gruen just told me is true, then yes, I very definitely agree I should be there.” Ed and Fred might risk going after me there, but Roberto’s guards would run excellent interference. “I need you to take care of Stevie. My New York friend will take her off your hands as soon as he can.”
“Get whatever you need to bring with you, and I’ll take the both of you myself,” Nathaniel said.
I looked up the staircase again, and this time Nathaniel followed my gaze. Stevie was standing there now, too, next to Gary, both of them watching me. I shook my head at her. “She can’t come with me. I can’t explain why.”
“What do you need to bring with you?”
What did I need out of the guesthouse? Nothing. Not one damned thing, really. Well, except for our metal box full of documents. Everything else was replaceable. “My box of documents. Best not left here.”
He nodded and turned to talk to one of the uniformed officers.
I walked across the gardens to the front door of the guesthouse and entered. The first thing I noticed was that the living room was a bloody mess—the pillows were everywhere.
Then I noticed our jackets and sweaters strewn on the ground.
And then I discovered that Vin Behar hadn’t come to visit me by himself.
“Hello, Kristin,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KRISTIN WAS HOLDING a gun. She wasn’t a trained shooter, which meant she was in danger of killing both of us. I had a problem with half of that equation. I held my hands up and started moving, slowly, to my right, through the living room. Into the shadows. A moving target’s a great deal harder to hit.
“Hi Kristin.”
“Shut up.” Her voice was nasally. She’d been crying. Angry, crying, and armed. A fabulous combination.
“Talk to me,” I said softly.
“I hate you,” she said. “I hate you so much. I wish you were dead.”
The gun pointed my direction made that clear. “Everything’s going to be okay, Kristin.” I had to keep her talking. I also had to keep reminding her who she was, make sure she was aware that this was real life. It’s easy to dissociate when things are getting out of hand.
“You’ve ruined everything. Everything.”
“Just relax. Take a deep breath, and relax.”
“Stop!”
I didn’t stop. “Relax, and breathe. Everything will be fine. Just slow down and talk to me.”
“None of this would have happened except for you!”
“I don’t understand what you mean. Can you tell me what you mean, Kristin?”
“I was so thrilled when Vince told me you were at Colin’s apartment that night. Finally we were done with you but no!”
My peripheral vision showed me movement through the living room window. Gruen was walking up to the front door. I kept moving, to turn Kristin’s focus totally away from that area.
“You had the bracelet. He called you and asked you to bring it back.”
“He starts telling me that things have gone wrong with Penelope but oh no, everything is all right, because Drusilla will figure it out!”
She was screeching. She was definitely on the verge of pulling that trigger. And I know from personal experience that if you’ve killed once, the second one gets that much easier.
“Kristin, think about this. There’s no going back after killing someone.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she screamed. “I loved him.”
Gruen opened the front door, quietly, gun drawn. Somewhere to my right, I saw movement in the kitchen. Someone was coming in the back door.
“Yes, you were angry that night. But you don’t have to be angry now.”
“He’d left me.”
He’d left all of us, but this probably wasn’t a good time to recap my darling late husband’s foibles.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why did you kill him?”
Kristin’s mouth trembled. “I didn’t—”
“Kristin, you need to tell someone. Confession really is good for the soul.”
She shook her head.
“The photos? He double-crossed you? He wanted all the money?”
She said nothing as she stared at me, her lips growing whiter and whiter as she clenched her mouth shut.
She was staring at me.
I was her reason?
She’d done it because of me?
“You killed him because of me?” I asked.
“After everything we’d been through,” she yelled, “after everything we’d done and planned, he says he’s in love with you.”
Laughing would be the wrong response. “Kristin—”
But my words couldn’t stop her. She was letting out the rage she’d been holding in. “All the time we’d spent together and worked together and you show up and take everything away from me!”
Gruen rolled his hand in the air. Keep her talking.
“What did I take, Kristin?” I said.
“Shut up!”
“I have a right to know why you want to kill me.”
“You took my job. You took Colin. You took my life! You show up in Las Vegas, and he says we’re done. You show up in Los Angeles, and suddenly now we’re through with Penelope, too. And oh no, no, we weren’t.”
“I didn’t know anything that was going on with Penelope.”
“On top of everything else, right in front of me he tells you he loves you!”
What was she talking about? And then, suddenly, I knew. “You mean, he said it when he was on the phone.”
“Yes.”
“Think, Kristin. Did he say my name?"
“He didn’t have to.”
“He didn’t say my name, because he wasn’t talking to me when he said it.”
I only knew she’d heard me because she blinked and then adjusted her stance.
“It wasn’t over with you because of me. He was on the phone with Annie, Kristin. Anne da Silva.”
Kristin’s face screwed up, as though I’d told her a very funny joke. “Oh fuck off,” she said. “Please. Don’t insult me.”
“You killed him for the wrong girl. Think about that for the rest of your miserable life.”
“Her?”
The way she dismissed Annie made me want to slap her.
“She’s a better person than you are, Kristin. And that’s even before we consider that you’re a stupid, selfish, murdering bitch.”
Gruen grabbed Kristin’s hand. “Put the gun down,” he said.
Kristin shrieked, but she was no match for him. And after a second, he had the gun and she was sobbing against the pile of coats and sweaters.
Gruen’s partner, Detective Vilar, walked in from the kitchen, gun drawn. He pulled a white card out of his pocket. “Kristin Blake?” he asked in a tone so polite I could bare
ly hear him.
#
Everything happened extremely fast after that, or at least it seemed to. Kristin was arrested and taken by somebody. Penelope gave her statement to someone. The police swept through both houses to make sure we didn’t have anyone else lying in wait with heavy artillery.
Gruen wanted a statement and Nathaniel okayed it. So I recapped everything that had happened that night, even the parts he knew. After we were done, I looked at Nathaniel. “Can I have a second with him?” I asked.
Nathaniel didn’t say anything.
“It’s not anything to do with Colin’s murder,” I said.
My lawyer held up a hand: I had five minutes. Then he wandered over to the outdoor living room, where Stevie was pouring glasses of water for the people who were still here.
“You didn’t bring your close personal law enforcement friends with you?”
“They’re waiting for me to give them a call back.”
“They might frown on locals withholding evidence.”
“I called my friend in Washington,” he said. “The one who ran your name for me? I asked him to run these guys.”
“And…they’re not actually FBI,” I guessed.
He nodded. “Something wrong there.”
“If it bothers you, I’m certain they’re legitimate government employees. They’re probably just doing someone a favor.”
“What did you do? Why are they looking for you?”
I smiled. As I’d said to Kristin, confession is good. The human need to confess is strong and universal. Every authoritarian organization has played on this trait for thousands of years. You just don’t feel the need to confess if you honestly believe you did the right thing. And besides which, I’d gotten absolution a thousand times over from the one person who could give it to me, Stevie.
I shook my head. “It’s not your problem.”
“Why are they here?”
“To put a bullet in my frontal lobes.”
He did that squinting thing, as if trying to figure out if I was kidding or not. Then he nodded and reached into his pocket. To get his handcuffs? To get his phone to call Ed and Fred?
Stress was making me a moron, saying something like that to him. So I did my usual flirtatious grin, as if to say, Just kidding. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. What are you going to tell them?”
You Know Who I Am (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries Book 2) Page 22