by Lois Greiman
“Don’t—”
“Get out of my yard!”
“I’ll—” I began, but just then the sound of breaking glass crackled through the neighborhood. I swore as I watched shards spray down from a third-floor window. After one more frantic glance at the aggravated car-sitter, I dropped my robe to the cracked asphalt and kicked off my flip-flops. The homeless guy emerged from the Geo to stare at me like I was the second coming, but I was already running, hotfooting it down the shattered sidewalk toward the apartment building, counting in my head, trying to guess how long it would take for Jackson to realize Laney had broken the window. How long before he could believe she had jumped through the shattered glass and landed safely on the weedy dirt below. How long before he would careen into the hall to chase her. I had no way of knowing. Adrenaline was pumping through me like hot tequila by the time I reached the building.
It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d been followed by the old guy from the Geo.
“Whatcha doin’?” he rasped, but at that second I heard someone hiss an expletive from above. I glanced up, saw a dark form leaning from the window, and knew my plan was working. Elaine had broken the window and subsequently hidden.
I bolted toward Thirty-seventh.
“Hey! Come back!” screamed Geo.
I stumbled on the curb, almost fell, and glanced back. Half-dressed and lean as a greyhound, Geo was catching up. I shrieked as his fingers brushed my back, hacked up a burst of speed, and cut an angle between two houses. Marigold lay dead ahead. I hit the asphalt just as a car turned from my left and screeched to a halt ten feet from me. I froze in the headlights.
The driver’s door opened. “LAPD! Put your hands where I can see them.”
“Not me!” I was panting like a field hound. My pursuer seemed to be long gone. I made a frantic motion toward Thirty-seventh Street. “The apartments.”
“Just relax now.”
Another cop stepped from the passenger side. “What’s going on, ma’am?”
“Kidnapped! Apartments! Third floor! Elaine!”
“Take a deep breath.”
“Patricia Ruocco is up there!” I shrieked. “Naked.”
They looked at each other, then launched themselves in their squad car and squealed off down the street. Alone and abandoned, I ran after them. By the time I had panted up to the third floor, Laney was standing in the hallway, wearing Solberg’s T-shirt.
Jackson was lying on the floor, cradling his ribs and gritting his teeth. The two officers I’d met moments before stood over him, guns drawn. A cracked bat lay in the corner. Aalia was nowhere to be seen.
Elaine’s gaze met mine. Her eyes were wide, her face pale, but she was well. Safe. Whole. “Emma wasn’t naked,” she said.
I bent double, trying to breathe as I slanted a look at her.
“In that episode of Starsky and Hutch. Everyone was fully clothed,” she said.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think Jackson would believe you’d somehow obtained a pair of jeans on your jump to freedom.”
“Or you just really like running around East L.A. naked.”
“Yeah.” I dug the heel of my hand into my side to relieve the pain. “That’s probably it.”
“You okay?” Laney asked. Her voice had gone soft.
“A little out of shape,” I said, still trying to breathe. “But other than that I’m fantastic.”
“You really are,” she said, and smiled through her silent tears.
34
Any couple that begins a marriage by inviting both of their families to the same ceremony clearly deserves whatever they get.
—Dr. Henri Farthing,
marriage counselor
The wedding took place at the top of Yosemite Falls. The bride wore hiking boots and a fine sheen of perspiration. I was sweating like a paratrooper from the climb. Beside me, Rivera barely looked winded.
Mist had enveloped the lower regions, wreathing the valley in silvery spray, leaving just glimpses of paradise below.
A handful of guests had been airlifted in. I have no idea how Solberg had managed it, but as the newlyweds kissed, a golden eagle swooped down from a craggy outcropping of red rock. For a moment it was perfectly backdropped against the bubbling perfection of a blue-velvet cloud and a fit violinist’s poignant rendition of classical music.
I felt my throat tighten with tears.
“How you holding up?” Rivera asked. We hadn’t had much time to discuss things.
I turned to find him watching me and shrugged. “This is the first time my bridesmaid’s dress didn’t have an ass bow the size of the Mojave and I don’t get to wear it.”
His gaze never left mine. “She looks happy.”
I glanced at her. “She had a near-death experience. She’s not thinking clearly.”
“How’d you know she’d break the window, then hide in the closet?”
I took a seat on a nearby rock and watched the ridiculously happy couple. Maybe if I was lucky Solberg would die of ecstasy. Although, I had to admit, he had really come through in the clinch. Jackson’s medical report said he had sustained three broken ribs and a cracked humerus. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer abusive millionaire junky.
“Actually, I thought she’d hide under the bed,” I said.
“I’m told there wasn’t a bed. Just a mattress.”
“On Starsky and Hutch, Emma hid under the bed.”
Rivera gazed out over the silvery, mist-shrouded valley. “Who pretended to be Emma? Starsky or Hutch?”
“It was Emma’s sister. Hutch’s love interest. Almost broke my heart. I had a huge crush on him. Had his poster on my wall for most of a decade.”
Rivera shook his head.
“What? You didn’t think he was good-looking?”
“I think you’re a nut job,” he said. “But I’m kind of glad you’re alive.”
I stared at him a moment, then glanced away. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you right away. Jackson said there would be retribution if the cops got involved.” I could feel the tears welling up again. But at least it was just a remnant of fear now and not some stupid-ass emotion brought on by the flight of an oversized raptor soaring on the haunting strains of “Für Elise.”
“Is that the term he used? ‘Retribution’?”
I nodded. “In Glendale the night he was shot, and on the phone.”
“So that’s how you knew it was him.”
“That and my twenty-one-second conversation with Laney.”
“I never thought that Texas Ranger show would be worth all the daylight it took to film it.”
“Are you kidding? Do you know why Chuck Norris doesn’t wear condoms?”
“Please. Not Chuck Norris jokes.”
“Because there is no protection from Chuck Norris.”
“Oh God.”
“The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.”
He groaned.
I smiled and watched the flight of a distant bird. “So it wasn’t Nadine who broke into my house at all.”
“She did send the letters. But Lavonn was responsible for the B and E. Nadine just saw the opportunity for some airtime when the cops showed up at her door.”
I scowled. “Any publicity is good publicity?”
“I guess that was her line of reasoning, but you’d think that would exclude incarceration,” he said.
“She’s trying to start her own business.”
“Just like Jackson.”
I gave that a moment’s thought. “So he was the original producer of Intensity?”
“Looks like it. Nothing’s sure yet, but he seems to have the necessary knowledge. He owns a fair amount of real estate, some of it under other names. We’re searching for labs.”
“With all that money you wouldn’t think the packet Lavonn shoved in my pocket would be particularly significant.”
“I suppose he didn’t want you finding it and putting two and two together. Besides, it was a hefty amount. I’m surprised yo
u didn’t notice it in your jacket pocket.”
“I had a few other things on my mind. I wish I had made the connection earlier, though. Before Lavonn vandalized my poor house.”
“She said she was scared what Jackson would do if he got out of the hospital and found out she’d lost a quarter kilo of his shit. I guess it seemed more logical to rip your house apart than to leave the bastard.”
“She may not have been thinking really clearly. I mean … she took the rosewood recipe box instead of Laney’s jewelry.”
He shrugged. “Girl’s got a thing for rosewood. And drugs haven’t been known to make people any smarter.”
“So in the end she panicked and grabbed Laney’s jacket hoping it was mine.”
“Then Jackson comes home, learns he’s out a small fortune in drugs, and decides to recoup his losses.”
“Lavonn’s conviction should help Micky’s cause,” I said, then shuddered despite the sunlight. “Do you think Jaskson was watching my house when Laney left that morning?”
“Better that than hiding in your backseat.”
“Are you still on a backseat kick?”
He watched me. “I can’t believe Aalia got you back there before I did.”
“You snooze, you lose.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up a quarter of an inch. “Have you heard from her?”
“No. Ramla’s worried sick, but I think Aalia just needs …” I shrugged, scanning the silvery beauty below me. “Freedom.”
“That what you need?”
I brought my attention back to his dark-coffee eyes. “What are you asking, Rivera?”
Our gazes melded for several moments before he shifted his to Laney and Solberg. They looked happy enough to fly, laughing and holding hands as they conversed with their well-wishers.
“You drive me crazy,” Rivera said.
He shifted his gaze back to me. A muscle bunched and loosened in his jaw.
“Stop,” I said, voice dry against the happy couple’s gaiety. “You’re making me giddy.”
“You take too many chances, my old man has the hots for you, and sometimes you act like you don’t have a brain in your head.” His scowl had darkened toward midnight. He drew in a long-suffering breath. “But I think I love you, too,” he said, and pulling me into his arms, he kissed me.
Not One Clue is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Dell Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2010 by Lois Greiman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Dell, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DELL is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33922-9
www.bantamdell.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Copyright