She’d removed her makeup and was wearing flannel pajama pants and a cotton sleeveless top, no bra. Comfort clothing. The kind of clothes you put on when you were in for the night. In bed, maybe, watching a movie with a glass of wine before going to sleep. The kind of clothing you put on when the only guest you were expecting was another woman coming over to talk. I saw a pair of wire-framed glasses on the floor nearby, smashed. She’d taken her contact lenses out. Gotten comfortable. Waiting for me.
Because I had said I’d help her.
There was a vivid red-yellow bruise on her left shoulder. I bent close. The bruising was worse on the back deltoid. Her left forearm was bent at an unnatural crook. Probably broken.
Imagining what had happened was easy.
I could already tell that not imagining it was going to be much harder, for a long time.
Whoever had come to the cabin hadn’t wasted time talking. Hadn’t bothered to pretend everything would be okay. She must have come to the door, maybe hearing a knock. Expecting me. Maybe wondering why I was early. Maybe relieved.
And then seen whoever was at the door and known, more or less, what was about to happen.
She’d gotten away from the front door without having the chance to lock it. Maybe a foot had been pushed in the frame or a shoulder set against the door so she couldn’t get it shut. Fled into the bedroom because there was nowhere else to go. Locked that door and then frantically tried to get through the window.
Knowing it was her only chance.
I looked at her hands. Her right hand was badly cut around the knuckles. A shard of glass embedded in the palm. I closed my eyes for a moment. Pictured her expression as she’d punched through the windowpane, too rushed, too panicked to bother trying to open it. Probably barely aware of the glass that had splintered into her hand. There was something on the floor by her left hand. A small glossy square, maybe two by three inches, creased and crumpled as though it had been squeezed. It was a grainy photograph of a young Chinese couple, posing formally for the camera. The woman bore an unmistakable resemblance to Karen Li and held a little girl of about six or seven. A family photograph. Whoever had been inside the cabin couldn’t have missed it, had clearly deemed it unimportant. I looked around the cabin again. Envisioning Karen fleeing to the bedroom. Maybe she’d been holding the picture, looking at it, when she’d answered the door.
Not fast enough.
Meanwhile, the bedroom door kicked in. A flimsy door. Light wood, basic brass knob. It had probably lasted one good kick, two at most.
The window was a small one but Karen Li hadn’t been a big person. She probably could have hauled herself up through it. Gotten outside to safety or at least the chance of escape. She could have gained the two most precious commodities in that situation: space, and time.
The first blow must have caught her on the shoulder as she was trying to get through the window. The impact had probably knocked her down. Off her feet. Pain would have disoriented her. Maybe she’d tried to regain her feet. Maybe, by that point, she was begging.
The rest was clear enough.
I opened my eyes, then closed them again. Seeing, and not wanting to see. Her attacker had swung again. This time, she’d been facing him. She’d seen it coming. Had raised her arms instinctively. That second blow had broken her arm. And then the third, the one she hadn’t been able to stop. Maybe she had closed her eyes and waited for it. The impact had knocked her over, pulped her face, splattered blood. A vicious blow. Delivered by a person—almost definitely a man—of unusual physical strength.
I was picturing the burly guy who had grabbed her by the ocean that afternoon.
I opened my eyes again. Not wanting to see any more.
A pretty, defenseless woman, crying in pain, pleading for mercy. Not an easy psychological target. A lot of people could throw a punch or swing a bat in fear, or self-defense, or anger. If provoked, people could do all kinds of things they’d never imagine. But to murder with physical force in cold blood? That took a different type. A type that was either pretty far gone mentally, or had done plenty of similar things already.
Maybe both.
A bad way to go. The final seconds full of pain and terror and suffering. Knowing what was happening. What was about to happen. With any luck, she hadn’t felt the final, killing blow. Had slipped into unconsciousness or shock. I hoped so. I doubted I would ever know.
I spent five careful minutes going around the cabin, wiping prints off anything I’d touched. There wasn’t anything worth taking. Her purse was gone. Only a small open overnight bag with some clothes and shoes, her toiletries in the bathroom. I saw her black umbrella, placed neatly by the door to dry.
Whatever you’ve guessed, it’s much worse.
She had been right. As for me?
I hadn’t protected her. I hadn’t saved her.
I had let her die.
I took a last look at the dark-haired woman slumped against the wall. Silently apologizing for leaving her like this. And making her a promise. Then I was outside. Down the fog-choked driveway, on the motorcycle. I didn’t know much about the two men from the afternoon, but I knew their faces and was pretty sure I knew who they worked for. That would have to be enough.
I had failed Karen Li. I had let her go to a very bad death when she needed me most. I couldn’t change that. But when I found the people who had done this, I intended to do everything I could to minimize their remaining time in this world. I’d make sure they knew why. The road unwound. The cold wind rushed against me. The big motorcycle roared as I hurtled along, headlight slashing through the heavy mist.
I was half an hour south of Mendocino before I realized what I’d forgotten.
The GPS tracker still on her car. Directly linking me to a murder. It was too late to go back. Couldn’t take the chance that police might find me there. Would they find the tracker? Maybe not. It was easy to miss. An unpleasant thought settled into my mind just the same. If they did find the little device, it had my fingerprints on it and, worse, electronic records that would lead directly to me. Which meant that if the tracker was discovered I would almost definitely find myself a murder suspect. One with no alibi, at that. Surely people had seen me with Karen Li in town. As we ordered our coffee and tea inside. As we sat talking on the hotel porch. Then, later, I’d been at the scene of the murder, near the time of her death. I had come into town for no apparent reason. Alone.
Which all added up to one thing.
If I didn’t find the men who had killed her, it was entirely possible that I could be charged with the crime myself.
25
I reached the Care4 headquarters the next morning after dropping the Harley back at Buster’s. I hadn’t slept much. That was okay. A couple of shots of scotch in the first of three morning coffees had left me more or less where I wanted to be. A little reckless, a little hot, and all about getting things done.
In the lobby, huge screens on the walls played silent looping videos, endless smiling parents and gurgling babies, all happily connected by technology. More screens showing impoverished villages, dirt streets and huts, panning images of hospitals and grateful patients. Images and captions touting the nonprofit money the company was generous enough to contribute to the world. Two glowing, backlit words were engraved into the wall. WE CARE. A security guard in a black suit jacket sat behind the desk. I didn’t slow down as I walked past him toward the elevators, my boots clicking on polished marble.
“Miss, hold on! You need to check in.” The guard saw I wasn’t stopping. He got up fast and headed to intercept me. A tall, goateed man with sloping shoulders and a bald, shiny head.
“I have an appointment with your CEO.” I pushed the elevator button but nothing happened. It was equipped with an electronic security reader, I realized.
“Did you hear me? I said you need to check in.”
“Call your boss if you want. But I’m in a hurry. I’m going up.”
His hand was on my arm. Squeezing. “
You’re not hearing me. You need to check in.”
I’d never much liked having my arm squeezed. “You’re not hearing me. I’m going up. And you should take your hand off me.”
His grip tightened to the point of pain. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Maybe the scotch was making me impatient. Maybe it was the squeezing. Maybe I was getting sick of being nice. “Fine. Have it your way.” I took a step away from the elevator and felt his hand relax. Then I brought my boot down hard onto his right ankle and gave him a rough shove sideways. He yelped in pain as he fell. I leaned down and snatched the security badge off his belt. Waved it at the electronic reader. There was a beep and I was in the elevator. I pushed the button for the top floor.
When the doors opened again I was on the executive level. I walked through a set of frosted glass doors into a reception area that felt different from the public lobby. No screens showing babies or hospitals up here. No warmth. The furnishings were expensive and minimalist, monochrome colors. Water ran down a wall of black marble.
I walked right up to the surprised receptionist. “I’m here for Gregg Gunn. Urgent.”
She looked at me suspiciously. “Mr. Gunn is in an executive meeting. Whoever you are, you’re not on his calendar for this morning.”
“Where is he?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Then I go knocking on every door in this place until I find him.”
She reached for a phone. “I’ll call security.”
I waved the badge. “Who do you think I am?”
She bit her lip. “He’s in the Meadows Conference Room.”
I walked past her down the hallway. Some of the doors were marked by surnames, some by words. The conference rooms. I passed a Forest, Grove, and Copse.
Meadows was the fourth.
I let myself in.
* * *
Inside, three people were seated around a long table. Sun feebly scratched at tinted windows. Gregg Gunn sat at the far side. Down a little to his left was a tall, red-haired woman, and across from her a big, beefy guy in a royal blue polo shirt who looked like he’d played as a D3 tackle in college. The three of them stared at me. The faces of the two strangers expressed curiosity and hostility. Gunn’s face was just confused.
“Nikki?” he sputtered. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“Can it wait?” He turned several papers over, absently rearranging them into a new pile.
“If it could wait,” I said, “I would have called your secretary and asked to be scheduled in for sometime next week.”
He caught my tone. “Fine. Wait in the lobby. When I’m through here, we can talk about whatever is so pressing.”
I sat down in the chair closest to me and kicked a muddy boot up on the varnished table. “I don’t usually ask for much from people,” I said. “Never been the needy type. I don’t even want flowers on my damn birthday. But right now we need to talk, and until we do, I’m not going anywhere.”
“How the hell did she get past security?” This was from the beefy guy. His face was red and angry, big biceps flexed under tight sleeves. He looked like he was about ready to throw me out himself. I wondered if he’d try.
Gunn’s eyes hadn’t left me. “Talk about what?”
Before I could answer, the conference room door burst open. The security guard. Limping, his face red. And holding a gun.
This made things more interesting.
“She snuck past me,” he said.
I tossed his badge to him. “You dropped this.”
He gave me a look of hatred and pointed the gun at me using two hands, arms braced in a classic triangle stance. Maybe he was an ex-cop or ex-military. Maybe just a guy who spent nights alone on the couch watching too many YouTube videos, hoping his big hero moment would one day come along. I gave the gun a closer look. A Glock 17. People who didn’t know guns bought the Glock 17 the way people who didn’t know vodka bought Grey Goose. The whole brand-name thing. A good brand, without a doubt, even if not the single best. Nothing was the single best. But people wanted to think there was, and so they bought Glocks, and so here we were. The only thing that made the Glocks different from most other nine-millimeter semiautomatics was that they didn’t have a push-button safety. Instead the safety was built into the trigger. Which basically made it easier to shoot someone, whether you intended to or not.
“Get up,” he told me. “Slowly.”
I looked back at him. Boot still up on the table. “No.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“You’re mistaken if you think that.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“So go find a judge.”
I saw his hands tighten on the black pistol. “If you don’t get up right now, I’ll shoot you. You’re trespassing on private property.”
That made me laugh. “If you want to shoot an unarmed woman in your CEO’s executive boardroom you go right ahead. That’s a great headline.”
“David,” said Gunn. His fingers drumming on the table. “You’re being melodramatic. Put the gun away.”
The guard half lowered the pistol. “You’re sure, sir?”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be doing you or anyone else much good, now, does it?” Gunn exclaimed. He looked around the room. “This meeting is adjourned.”
The other two got up to leave. The big guy looked like he still wanted to tackle me. I hoped he wouldn’t. Things were settling down a bit. The security guard stood in the doorway. “Do you need me?”
Gunn looked at him. “I think, David, that if I had needed you, it was about five minutes ago, when she was in the lobby. I don’t need you anymore.”
The guard didn’t look happy. There were a few ways to take that last bit. He walked out of the room and the two of us were left alone together.
“Nikki,” Gunn said. His voice was cold. A different man than the bubbly, energetic guy who had walked into my bookstore like he was delivering a million-dollar pitch. “Do you always burst in on your employers like this? I can’t say it’s an endearing habit.”
I shrugged as I took my boot off the table and sat up. The boot left a muddy streak against the smooth wood. “You’ve been to my office. Figured it was about time I stopped by yours.”
“Except that I hired you. You work for me.”
“That’s the thing.” I poured myself a glass of ice water from a pitcher and took a swallow. “I did work for you. But not anymore. I came by to submit my resignation.”
That surprised him. “What? I paid you a considerable sum of money, in case you forgot.”
“That’s true. You did.” I took the same manila envelope from my purse and slid it across to him. “Twenty thousand dollars. Fully refunded. Every penny. Not even billing you for expenses.”
He looked at the envelope but didn’t touch it. “You came here to quit. Why?”
“You hired me to follow a woman. Karen Li.”
“Yes. So?”
“Karen Li is dead.”
He reared back in his seat. “Dead? What are you talking about?”
I was watching Gunn closely. If he had known, he was doing a good job of hiding it. There was a pretty healthy mix of shock and disbelief on his face.
“Last night. She had her head knocked in.”
“Someone killed her? What are you talking about?”
“You hired me to tail a woman. That woman was murdered. I don’t much like the idea of blood money, and I sure won’t be following her anymore. I quit.”
“She’s dead?” He looked distressed. “You’re sure? How do you know?”
“I know,” I said, standing. “And now you do. That’s what I came here to tell you.”
His gaze wandered around the room and then found its way back to me. “Next time, an e-mail will do.”
I paused at the door. “One last thing, Mr. Gunn.”
“Yes?”
“Karen Li. I didn’t know her well, but
she didn’t deserve what she got. She got a pretty lousy ending, you know. Not really the storybook type.”
Gunn sat completely still for the first time since I’d met him. “What’s your point?”
“She didn’t deserve what she got. But the people who gave it to her—they deserve what they’ll get. Do you follow?”
“No.” His voice was soft. “I don’t follow you, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. Not yet, anyway. But a woman is dead.”
“I agree,” Gunn said. “Whatever problems she was causing, you’re crazy if you think I wanted something like this to happen to her.”
“I don’t know much about you, your company, or what you want. But if you know something about how Karen died, you should tell me now.”
“Nikki,” he said. His brown eyes were flat and hard. “You look exhausted. Like you haven’t slept. Maybe you should head home, take a nap. Take a vacation, even. Hawaii’s nice this time of the year. No tourists clogging the beaches. I’ll pay, even—spend a couple of weeks snorkeling and kicking sand, send me the bill. I’m happy to pick it up; you did good work.” He leaned forward. “But you should think about these crazy accusations you’re making. Think about that nondisclosure you signed and what you’re insinuating, before you go running around acting out some misguided revenge fantasy.”
“Hawaii,” I said. “One day. In the meantime, though, I think I’ll stick to California. Plenty of sand to kick here, without getting on a damn plane.”
Gunn pushed his chair back and shrugged. “You take care, Nikki.”
“I’ll let myself out.”
I walked out, thinking about the paper I had glimpsed in the conference room before Gunn turned it. Bullet points, the date “NOVEMBER 1” just visible at the top, like they had been going through a checklist item by item. I would have given a lot for a few more seconds with that piece of paper. I didn’t see anyone else as I took the elevator back down to the lobby. As though everyone in the building was so busy they were nailed to their desks. Or had been told to keep away from me. For the hundredth time that day, I felt a rush of stomach-turning self-hatred for allowing Karen Li out of my sight in Mendocino.
Save Me from Dangerous Men--A Novel Page 14