“Dark,” she finished, and he nodded, his body silhouetted by the light behind him.
“Yeah. Too dark back there.”
“And I left my Mace in the car, dammit. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the light’s out. Do you think?”
“Could be. Well, we can either go back inside for a security cop, or keep going. What do you want to do?”
“The security guard is drunk and dancing alone. I’m not sure he’d be much help.” She thought a moment. “You may be right. After all, who’d be dumb enough to jump us?”
“The same guy who was dumb enough to sit on a van full of people and knife a guy in the back, I presume.”
“Oh. That guy.” She shivered despite the muggy heat. “Twice, if my suspicions are right.”
“Okay, we’re going to the car.” Tootsie sounded determined. “This is ridiculous. Here we are cowering in the parking lot because a vapor light is out. I refuse to let my imagination rule my intellect. The probability of someone waiting in the dark to jump us is much less than the probability of faulty lighting. Come on.”
“Right behind you, my fearless leader. This is really dumb, but you sound so brave I’m not scared anymore.”
That wasn’t quite true. She grabbed his arm and kept in step with him, not behind and not ahead, so that they had the ungainly gait of contestants in a three-legged sack race. “You’re hurting my arm,” Tootsie said after a yard or two.
“Sorry. Is that my car just ahead? It’s so dark back here. The only light is from that damn vest you’re wearing.”
“Then it’s come in handy, hasn’t it. I think that’s your car. Home free, baby.”
Harley breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, a little terror is good to get the blood running, but I feel kinda stupid now.”
“Me, too. These murders hitting so close to home make me realize how you must have felt a few months ago. I take back what I was thinking about you. Or some of it, anyway.”
“I can’t believe you were disloyal.”
“Not disloyal.” He stopped behind her car as Harley fished in her jeans pocket for her car keys. “Just uninformed.”
“And now you’re well-informed?”
“Better informed, anyway. What are you doing?”
“Looking for my keys. I thought I put them in my right pocket.”
“Maybe they’re in your purse?”
“You know I don’t carry a purse. My backpack is much more efficient. Ah. Here they are. I put them in the other pocket. Hold my pen and notepad, will you?”
As she transferred the legal pad and her pen to Tootsie, she dropped her keys. Bending to pick them up, she heard Tootsie shout and jerked to the side just as something hard struck her in the left shoulder. Reaction set in and she dropped to the asphalt and rolled to the right. Footsteps sounded loud on the rough pavement, and she couldn’t see anything but a vague blur over her, so she lashed out as hard as she could with both feet. She connected with something. A grunt and curse was followed by a high-pitched yell that sounded like Tootsie, but the language was unknown.
More grunts and thuds mixed with scraping footsteps, but by the time she got to her feet, the assailant was running away.
A little dazed, she looked toward Tootsie.
“Are you okay?” they both asked at the same time, and then both answered, “Yeah.”
Harley inhaled a deep breath and tried to get her hands to stop shaking. “I don’t suppose you got a good look at him?”
“No. Tonight Elvis wore black, including a mask. You sure you’re all right?”
“Just all shook up.” She laughed without real humor at her own joke. “Except my left shoulder hurts. What’d he hit me with, anyway?”
“He had a knife. Omigod, you’re bleeding. We need to get you to the emergency room. Do you have anything to put over the wound?
“A knife?” Lightheaded, Harley pointed to the trunk of her car, and Tootsie pulled out a couple of rags she kept in there for emergencies. He tucked one inside her shirt against the cut, and gave her the other to apply pressure.
Despite the pain in her shoulder, a cold chill went down Harley’s spine. The sparkling stones and glitter on Tootsie’s vest blended together in a colorful blur, a dull light in the darkness around them. She put out a hand to grab Tootsie’s arm. “But if it’s the same Elvis who’s been killing the others, why did he attack me?”
“Can we worry about that later? Get in the car. I’ll drive, as soon as I find your keys.”
It took him only a moment to find the keys where she’d dropped them and he unlocked the passenger side door for her. “Why me?” she asked again, dropping awkwardly to the seat.
As Tootsie lifted her suddenly heavy legs into the car, he said, “Sugar, he has to know you and Lydia can identify him. I’d say he’s eliminating witnesses.”
Oh God. She leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Her arm and shoulder began to throb painfully. As Tootsie started the car and shifted gears, she opened her eyes and said, “Someone needs to warn Lydia.”
Seven
Fortunately, Harley only had a flesh wound. If she hadn’t bent for her keys, it might be a very different matter. Tootsie took her home from the emergency room, doped up and bandaged, and helped her into her apartment.
“You should have let me take you to your parents,” he grumbled. But even as drugged as she was Harley knew better.
“No way. Diva would cleanse my aura and do all this mantric stuff, and Yogi would get a tire iron and go looking for the guy. I don’t need a review of the seven chakras or a hernia getting the tire iron away from Yogi.”
“You’re probably right. Want me to put you to bed?”
Harley shook her head. “Please. I know you’re just one of the girls, but I’m not an invalid. Not yet, anyway.”
Sam had perched atop the back of her cushioned chair. As Tootsie lowered Harley gently into it, careful not to touch her shoulder, the cat let out a shriek and leaped down.
“Jesus,” Tootsie gasped with a hand pressed to his chest, “that scared me almost as much as the Elvis.”
“Now you’re scared? Why didn’t you ever tell me about this Rambo part of your personality? Not that I’m complaining. It definitely came in handy. What was that foreign language you were speaking?”
“A little self-defense class I took a while back. You’re supposed to do these yells with it. You know, to unnerve your opponent.”
“It unnerved me. So . . . it’s karate or something?” Her tongue felt thick and her voice came out all strange, slow and slurred.
Tootsie’s hazy face hovered above her, but she thought he was smiling. “Or something. Stay here. I’m going back to the car to get your takeout, and Steve is coming by to pick me up in a little while.”
Maybe she nodded her head. She wasn’t sure. Her eyelids felt so heavy that she had a hard time holding them up. Waving the hand on her good arm, Harley got out, “Taco Bell. Food of . . . the . . . gods.”
As if through a fog, she heard Tootsie say, “This is your brain on drugs. Close your eyes and give your brain cells a chance. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Lovely, lovely clouds wrapped around her, taking away the pain in her shoulder. Nice. If she stayed real still and didn’t breathe too hard, maybe she’d float away on them. Why not? She was already light as a feather, drifting along, drugs relaxing her muscles, taking away pain . . . wait. She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t lift her arms, could barely wiggle her fingers. Oh yeah. Now she remembered. She didn’t like drugs. Anything that took away self-control and left her helpless as a slug was a bad thing. No . . . she had to get up, not let freewill be sucked away. That’s what she had to do. Was going to do. In just a minute . . .
She must have dozed off, because when she woke up, she was alone an
d Sam was curled in her lap. Groggy, mouth dry as the desert and probably smelling like a litter box, she sat up gingerly. It was dark outside, and cool and quiet inside, with a single lamp lit. Tiffany-style, it glowed on an end table in warm colors of ruby, emerald, brilliant blue, and amber. It was on low and didn’t put out much light. Squinting, it took her a minute to find the note propped up on the table beside her. She had to blink a few times, careful not to do it too fast or her head might fall off, and peered at it.
Didn’t want to wake you, you looked so peaceful. Your grease is in the fridge, the phone is next to you, and your cell phone is charging. Keep your door locked and don’t take candy from strangers. By the way, your hair could use a trim. Call me if you need me. Tootsie.
Harley lay back on the cushions and smiled. Good girlfriends were nice to have.
After a few minutes of testing her extremities one by one to see what worked and what didn’t, she abandoned the chair and cat and made her way to the kitchen. She’d just opened the refrigerator door when a sudden loud whirring close by made her jump, banging her bandaged arm and shoulder against the open door.
“Damn!” she yelped, clutching at her arm while her heart pounded and Sam’s four paws thudded across the wood floors as he dashed for safety under her bed. For a moment she stood there. Then she recognized the whirr of the self-cleaning litter box in the little alcove off the kitchen. She put her good hand against her forehead and stood there letting the cool air of the refrigerator chill her feet. “I’ve got to get hold of myself, ”she muttered. “Next thing, I’ll be hiding under the bed with the cat.”
She grabbed a two-liter bottle of Coke and swigged from it, relishing the sharp bite of the carbonation that went a long way toward waking her up. Then she burped, a long, satisfying sound, ignoring Grandmother Eaton’s frequent admonitions that ladies did not make unpleasant bodily noises. She’d often wondered just what ladies did. Keep it all inside until they swelled up like hot air balloons? But of course, she’d never said that to Grandmother Eaton. She recognized that her grandmother’s efforts were to make up for fourteen years of lost time learning table manners, social graces, and all the things that Diva, her eldest daughter, had left behind. Maybe her grandmother thought she could correct with Harley everything she’d not managed to perfect with Diva. But then, Diva was doing quite well without social graces and knowing which fork was the shrimp fork and which knife was the fish knife. And she was very happy, something Grandmother Eaton had finally begun to recognize.
Who’d have thought it would turn out that way? Certainly not the Eatons. They’d been horrified and disapproving when Diva—still called Deirdre by her mother—ran off with a totally unsuitable young man by the name of John Davidson. It’d been a family scandal at the time, but since Diva and Yogi were in California by the time it got around to all the relatives, they’d never been concerned with disapproval. They just went on being happy and living in vans, moving from one place to the other, mostly staying in California. That had been during the heyday of the early seventies, when women burned bras, free love was everywhere, and staying in one place was “a drag, man.”
If Yogi’s parents hadn’t died and left him the house he’d grown up in, Harley would still be in California, though probably not living in a van. Somehow, she was more like Grandmother Eaton in many ways—not exactly insistent upon appearances, but not really crazy about living like a nomad, either. It’d been a relief to move to Memphis and go to a real school, one that taught English, math, and spelling, not herbal remedies and the importance of the fourth chakra. Not that love, compassion, and acceptance weren’t important, of course.
Harley took the Taco Bell sack out of the refrigerator, hoping she’d ordered her usual. It heated better later. Ah. Bean burritos and nachos. Tootsie may try to convert her, but at least he knew her favorites.
By the time she’d reheated her bean burrito, Sam had emerged from hiding. He expressed his disgust with her choice of meal by throwing up a hairball on the kitchen floor. She cleaned up after him and took her food back to the chair. Her head was clearer now, and she set her plate on the glass-top coffee table. The thick bandage and sling on her left arm made it a little awkward. At least it wasn’t hurting badly, just a dull throb. Bearable, if not desirable.
Eating a bean burrito with one hand wasn’t all that easy, she discovered when the hot filling oozed out the end of the flour tortilla and onto her lap, so she loosened the straps holding the sling. Much better. Maybe she should learn some of that stuff Tootsie had done, the “Hi-ya!” yell and upward kicks. It’d been almost too fast to catch, especially in the dark, but his vest had been a rapid blink of color as he turned and whirled like a ballet dancer. Graceful, if lethal.
She shuddered at the thought of what could have happened if he hadn’t been there. Maybe Morgan was right. There was always someone close by to rescue her. One of these days, her luck was bound to run out, despite the spirit guides Diva said were with her—unless Tootsie qualified.
Thinking of Tootsie reminded her again how close she’d come to disaster. Maybe their attacker was just a mugger. Or maybe he’d just been ticked off because they’d gotten his parking space. But if it had been the killer, why would he think only she and Lydia could identify him when there had been two busloads of tourists along for the rides? That didn’t make sense. There were dozens of other witnesses, but the killer focused on her, and perhaps Lydia. Because they knew him? Was he a former employee? Parking lot attendant? Delivery guy? Damn, there was any number of choices to track down. She really wished she could find out what the police knew.
First, Lydia should be warned to be careful. Since it had to be done delicately instead of bluntly—not Harley’s specialty— she hoped Tootsie had already taken care of that. Dealing with a hysterical Lydia would make her forget the fourth chakra.
With that unappealing thought in mind, she took the remnants of her Taco Bell meal to the kitchen. Instead of putting it in the fridge she threw it away. Morgan was right. Warmed- over burritos weren’t very tasty. The microwave did something nasty to the sour cream.
Sam curled around her ankles, looking up at her with slitted blue eyes and purring, his tail straight up like a flagpole. He wanted something, of course.
“Just like a man,” she said to him, and he purred even louder, “always wanting something else and never happy with what you’ve got. All right, you little fur ball, how about a kitty treat? The pet store clerk said cats love them, so I’m sure you won’t.”
Harley was right. Sam sniffed it a few times, and then walked away with the equivalent of a cat shrug. Really, that was one of her favorite things about him, his individuality and sense of independence. Not at all like King, slavering drool all over her shoes and wiggling ecstatically just for a word or two. They didn’t even have to be kind words.
Cami said there were cat people and dog people. She must be a cat person. She’d never say it to Cami, but she’d gotten really attached to Sam. If she let Cami know that, she’d end up with a dozen cats running around her apartment, so it would be a well-kept secret.
After pulling the curtains over the French doors to her small balcony, she checked the lock on the front door and turned out the lights. A couple of nightlights shed a small glow so she could find her way in the dark for midnight raids on the fridge, and so Sam could find his litter box for a night deposit. She’d bought one of those expensive electric ones that automatically scooped after him and saved her the necessity of continuous scooping. Other than a little bit of scattered litter and the whir it made while cleaning, it worked out fine for all concerned.
As she turned toward her bedroom, she heard her front door knob rattle, and froze. Didn’t most visitors have the decency to knock? Heart hammering, she fumbled one-handed on the counter that divided her kitchen from her living area, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. At least the front door was locked,
so the intruder would have to break in and that would be noisy enough to alert her neighbors—just as her fingers found a small, hard object, the front door swung slowly open.
A dark shape silhouetted against the hallway light stood there a moment, and Harley flung the object in her hand at the head. Not waiting to see if it hit the target she grabbed for something else to use, hampered by throbbing pain in her left shoulder.
“Oww, dammit, Harley!”
She paused with her hand on a heavy candle and solid brass holder. “Morgan?”
He said something under his breath, and then said aloud, “I see that you’re not at death’s door like I was told.”
Harley flipped on the lights. Mike stood rubbing his cheek.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, not sure if she was glad to see him or not. He had a big red spot on his left cheek and didn’t look at all happy as he rubbed at it. He worked his jaw from side to side, apparently testing it for fractures, then blew out a heavy breath.
“Tootsie called. He said you’d been stabbed, so I came to check on you. What’d you hit me with this time?”
“I don’t know—oh dammit! My cell phone.” It lay in several pieces on the gleaming oak floor, and looked beyond repair. Again. “You could have called first, y’know,” she said crossly.
“He said he’d left you sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb you. I should have remembered to wear a helmet and faceguard.”
“So what were you going to do, sneak in and watch me sleep?”
He shrugged. “Something like that, I guess. Just wanted to see for myself that you’re all right.”
“Obviously, the wound isn’t fatal.”
“Obviously.”
He stood there with the door still open, looking so good in his usual black jeans, tee shirt, and SWAT boots that she had a hard time not saying something stupid. Like Come lie down for a while, or Stay with me. That would never do. He’d wanted a break, so she’d give him one.
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