Next To Die

by Marliss Melton

  “I’m moving back into my apartment,” her sister happily announced. “Jenny and John have found a place of their own.” She tossed Penny a grin as she sauntered into the laundry room. “So, I’ll finally be out of your hair,” she called. “Besides, three’s a crowd, don’t you think?”

  Penny squelched the blush heating her cheeks. She trailed Ophelia into the garage to note that her sister had already filled the trunk of her car to capacity.

  “And,” Lia added, slamming it shut, “Vinny’s going to be home eventually. When that happens, you’ll be glad I’m gone.” The smile she sent her sister struck Penny as forced. Waiting and not knowing was taking a toll on Lia.

  “I don’t think it’s a good time to move out,” Penny argued. “Hannah says the FBI’s been swarmed with calls since you aired the ricin story. Can’t you wait until the murderer is caught?”

  “That could take months,” Lia pointed out. “I’m paying rent on an empty apartment.”

  “So sublet it again.”

  “I can’t. The management is furious with me for subletting in the first place. Besides, I miss my things, Pen. I need wind chimes and suncatchers and the flowing water. I need good chi.”

  Penny rolled her eyes at the impractical but impassioned argument. “You need to be careful,” she advised her sister. “You’ve got no one to watch over you at your apartment.”

  “Are you kidding? No one could get by Mrs. Vatter.”

  “The woman across the courtyard?”

  “Exactly.”

  Penny sighed. “I want you to get a cell phone,” she insisted, “and carry it with you at all times, and put that number the state police gave us on speed dial.”

  “I will, Mother, I promise,” said Ophelia, giving her sister’s cheek a peck. “Thanks for putting up with me,” she added, her voice growing husky, “and not just for these past few weeks, either. I know I’ve taken you for granted all these years. I never realized how much you did for me. It seems so lame just to say thank you.”

  Lia’s words summoned a rush of tenderness. “Oh, honey,” Penny cried, giving her sister a fierce hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “It’s not like I’m moving to Timbuktu,” Lia protested. “I’ll just be ten miles down the road. You won’t even know I’m gone.”

  That, Penny thought, was the understatement of the year.

  Buzz Ritter glared at the intruder through his night vision goggles. Who the hell is that?

  Wedged between a hedge of boxwoods and a cinder-block foundation, Buzz had waited hours for the right moment to slip unseen into Ophelia Price’s apartment. At ten minutes to midnight, the complex stood quiet. He was just about to squeeze out of the bushes when a stranger drifted from the shadows.

  Buzz squinted through his NVGs, astonished to discover that the third party not only wore camouflage, he was armed with a blade and a pistol. The young man knocked on Ophelia Price’s door and waited. He knocked again. When it still didn’t open, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a key. Or maybe it was a pick, since it took him a while to work the lock open. He let himself in.

  Buzz grumbled with contempt. Obviously, this was a horny boyfriend, dropping in for a quick one. There went his plans to abduct Ophelia tonight, to question her and—he rolled his eyes at the stupidity of his boss—to let her go.

  But then the crack of a gunshot split the quiet. It’d come from inside the apartment. “What the fuck!” Buzz breathed, utterly perplexed.

  He waited for someone to retreat, but then the door closest to his head opened, and a middle-aged woman poked her head out. “Ophelia!” the woman cried, covering her mouth with a hand.

  A dry leaf crinkled under Buzz’s elbow, and the woman whipped her head around. “Who’s there?”

  When he didn’t answer, she pulled back, slamming her door shut. He heard her running through the apartment, no doubt headed straight for a phone.

  Damnation, Buzz seethed, scuttling out of his hiding place. He would not be grabbing Ophelia Price now. And it was risking too much to stick around in hopes of grabbing her later tonight.

  There was more than one way to skin a cat, he comforted himself. The other Price girl was just as likely to have answers. As long as he got his money, what did it matter where he got his information?

  Lia slept with earplugs. Not even the gurgle of her wall fountain made enough white noise to disguise the shouts and thuds that went with living in an apartment complex. She’d forgotten how bad it was. Sleeping at Penny’s had spoiled her.

  The drawback of wearing earplugs was—ironically—that she couldn’t hear anything, and that made her nervous with Eric’s killer on the loose. A working woman had to get her beauty sleep, though, so she’d bought a handgun at a pawnshop, trusting her accuracy with a gun over a 911 call any day.

  Tonight, something roused Lia from a deep sleep. What had wakened her? she wondered, lifting her head from the pillow to crack a bleary eye.

  With an impatient mutter, she pulled the wax plug from one ear and listened.

  There it was. A strange sound within her apartment!

  With a stab of fear, she slid a hand beneath the adjacent pillow and grasped the Colt Commander she’d taken costly lessons to learn how to shoot. As she swung the barrel toward the door, she pushed up higher on the pillow, suddenly wide awake, her heart thumping earnestly.

  The dying flame of a fragrance candle cast eerie shadows on the four walls of her room. The sound didn’t come again, but Lia’s instincts told her that someone was approaching her cracked door. With a tremor in her fingers, she disengaged the gun’s safety.

  Maybe she should have stayed with Penny, after all.

  The slow opening of her door caused a sudden rash of goose bumps to spike up on her skin. The door yawned open, revealing the silhouette of a man—dark hair, broad shoulders.

  Lia squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

  Bang!

  “Holy shit!” the stranger yelped as he dove for cover.

  For a shocked moment, she refused to believe that she’d fired a gun at the man she loved.

  “Vinny!” she screamed, tossing the Colt aside to throw herself at the foot of her bed. She found him face down on the floor with his hands over his head. At the sound of his name, he peered up at her. Even in the darkness, she could see the disbelief in his eyes.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” he yelled.

  She cringed at the fury in his voice. “I thought you were someone else. Did I hit you?”

  “No.” He surged to his knees and crawled for the bed. Lia scuttled backward. “It went whistling past my ear,” he snarled, climbing over the footboard. “Why didn’t you answer when I knocked on your door? I was afraid I was going to find you dead. Jesus! You tried to kill me!”

  She lay flat on her back with him looming over her, rigid and outraged. “You’re the last person in the world I would want to kill,” she protested. “I wear earplugs. I didn’t hear you knocking.”

  “So you’re deaf and you own a handgun!”

  “Look, you don’t know what’s going on—”

  “Actually, I do,” he corrected her. “I just came from your sister’s house, where we had a nice long chat. What the hell are you trying to prove by living all alone—that you can wind up dead like any other helpless woman?”

  “I am not helpless!” She took immediate affront. “I’ve been taking shooting lessons.”

  “Prove it,” he said, grabbing her wrists and pulling them over her head. At the same time, he pinned her legs beneath her. Lia squirmed, unable to escape. “Where’s your gun now?” he taunted.

  “On the floor.” She struggled more earnestly, and he responded by increasing the pressure in her wrists. Tears stung Lia’s eyes. “Stop,” she pleaded. “Why are you so angry?”

  The pressure eased immediately. “Fuck.” Vinny expelled a sharp breath and released her. He sat back, straddling her hips, sitting on his heels. “Why didn’t you tell me that those
cops were for your protection?” he demanded, still irate.

  “Because I trusted you to protect me.”

  “Bullshit. You didn’t want me in your life, remember?”

  “That’s not true. I mean, it was true then, but it’s not now.”

  His sudden silence demanded answers. It was time to be honest with him, honest with herself.

  “I was so afraid of falling in love with you,” Lia admitted, holding nothing back. “I still am. Things happen, Vinny. People outgrow each other. People die, like my father died. I’m so afraid of the kind of pain that comes with that.”

  She broke off as he caught her face between his hands, his touch now infinitely gentle. “Listen, Lia,” he demanded, “I know you’re afraid. I am, too—not because I’m younger and I might outgrow you. I’m afraid of losing you to some psycho. I’m freaked out by the way you put yourself on television like a soldier putting himself on the front lines. Jesus!”

  “Did you see me?” she asked, pleased to discover that he hadn’t missed her first report.

  “You were awesome. Whose fuckin’ idea was it to have you give that report anyway?”

  “The FBI’s,” she admitted quietly.

  “Why, because your dad was a victim?”

  “Because my sister and I gave them information that got the ball rolling in the first place. Did you realize Danny Price was my father?” she added. “Or did Penny tell you?”

  “I figured it out. You look just like him.”

  The observation made her eyes sting. “I loved him so much,” she admitted, her voice breaking. “When he died, I wanted to die, too. It messed me up so bad. But now we have the chance to catch the bastard who killed him,” she added fiercely. “And I’ll do anything to make that happen.”

  Vinny closed his eyes. “Oh, God. Okay,” he said, opening them again. “I can understand that. When my mom got cancer, I worked my ass off to take care of her and my sister. So I get how you feel. But it’s not your job to catch your father’s killer. How do you know he won’t come after you for tryin’ to expose him? You lock your door and you get a gun and you think you’re safe. It’s not that simple, cara mia. You could be dead right now.”

  She had to admit he had a point. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.

  He slipped his fingers through her hair, combing out the silky tangles. “You’re so beautiful in the candlelight. I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you.”

  Lia hummed at the compliment, tipped her head back, and shrugged the spaghetti strap of her nightie off one shoulder. “Show me,” she whispered.

  Vinny groaned. He stroked his thumbs over the twin points pushing out the fabric.

  “When did you get back?” she asked, reaching for the buttons on his jacket. They melted apart beneath her quick fingers.

  “Tonight. I came straight from the landing field.” He shook off the jacket and yanked his T-shirt off.

  Passion rose like a storm surge, sweeping them both up in its relentless path. They lunged for each other, mouths locking together, making further speech impossible.

  Stay with me, Lia thought. Always and forever, stay with me.

  Vinny tore his mouth from hers to taste the column of her neck, her earlobe, her collarbone. “You smell so fucking good, I could eat you up.”

  “Do it,” she commanded, spreading her limbs in symbolic surrender and ultimate trust.

  He growled low in his throat, tickling her bare flesh with the rasp of his five-o’clock shadow. “The whole time I was gone,” he said, his words broken by kisses as he roamed her body, bunching the silk of her gown, “I thought about you and . . . what I wanted to do with you. It’s gonna . . . take years an’ years . . . to get it all done.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” she said, breathless, quivering with anticipation.

  “Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he laughed.

  She cried out her gratification when he placed his open mouth against her thigh. This was Vinny. He could make her come in under ten seconds.

  As if to prove just that, he dove straight for home base.

  The rumble of his laughter as she climaxed added a whole new dimension to her pleasure.

  “I thought you weren’t in a hurry,” he mocked as she fluttered down from heaven.

  “I’m not the one who’s fast,” she insisted. “You’re like a vibrator on high speed.”

  “Go ahead and blame me,” he said. “I don’t mind.” Somehow, his pants were still on but he was wearing a condom and pushing inside of her.

  Lia gasped her amazement. She locked her legs around him, loving the feel of his desperate bid to get closer, deeper. Yet no matter how earnestly they strained, it was never enough. “More!” she cried, lifting herself to him.

  Within minutes, they collapsed, overcome by the devastating proportions of the storm that ripped through them both.

  A pounding at the door startled them from their lassitude. “Police!” shouted a voice. The blue light of a squad car flickered on the walls of her living room, visible through the half-open door. “Is anyone home?”

  Vinny grinned as Lia gasped her consternation. “Did you think you could shoot me and get away with it?” he asked her, rolling to his feet. “Cover yourself, and I’ll answer it.”

  As he headed for the door, discarding the condom and buttoning up his pants, it occurred to Lia that he’d figured the law would descend any minute. No wonder he’d made love to her at the speed of light. That struck her as hilarious.

  She was laughing her head off when Vinny answered the door.

  At seven in the evening, Penny slapped shut the file in her hands. She was done reviewing treatment on her longtime patients, including Admiral Jacobs, whose knees were resistant to therapy and would soon require surgery. She put the folder in the surgery tray for Dr. Huxley to look at.

  Snatching up her coat and purse, Penny bade good night to the petty officer at the reception desk and headed for the elevator. The hospital was quiet, with only inpatient and emergency care ongoing past regular hours.

  She was halfway across the flyover that conveyed patrons to the parking garage when the lights in the garage ahead of her suddenly blinked off. Penny slowed to a halt. Thanks to the early dusk, the garage, which was usually well illuminated, was utterly dark. She wasn’t sure if she could even find her car in the shadowy interior.

  But then a figure bearing a flashlight appeared at the threshold ahead of her. “Sorry, ma’am,” he called out. “We’ve got a breaker problem. Can I help you find your car?”

  He wore the uniform of a security officer. Relieved to have his help, Penny hurried toward him. She could make out his broad shoulders and a square face, but that was all, as he kept his flashlight pointed toward the cement floor. “Watch that step, ma’am.”

  “Thank you. I parked along the left, inner wall over there.”

  He struck out with an efficient stride that had her hurrying to keep up. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the quiet space. Penny dug in her purse for her cell phone. Joe would probably work until seven-thirty, as was his custom. She wanted to ask him if he would prefer pork or chicken tonight. Let’s be honest, here, Penny, her conscience scolded. You just want to hear his voice.

  “I’m right over here,” she said to the security guard, catching sight of her Matrix. With the cell phone under one ear, she fished for her keys. “Thank you,” she said, unlocking her door remotely. She turned her back on him.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Something cold and wet hit Penny’s face and clamped down hard over her nose and mouth. The cell phone fell from her shoulder and clattered to the concrete floor. Struggling to remove the hand that impeded her breathing, Penny struck the phone with her heel and sent it sliding under the adjacent car.

  Oh, my God! Confusion congealed into dread. Chloroform scalded her sinus passages and clouded her thoughts, but it could not block out her utter disbelief that this was happening, here, at this high-security hospital.<
br />
  She had to remain conscious.

  But snow drifted in front of her eyes. A noise like the clatter of a train roared through her head. Her knees hit the ground, and she knew she’d lost.

  Joe picked up his ringing office phone. “Commander Montgomery,” he clipped out, preoccupied by the proposal he was wading through. “Hello,” he added, when the caller failed to speak.

  Strange noises arrested Joe from his work. He listened, frowning at what sounded like a scuffle, complete with a woman’s muffled cries.

  What the hell?

  It had to be a prank call. He was about to drop the receiver in its cradle when the sound of heavy breathing reached his ears. “Bitch,” he heard a man mutter. “Where’d you drop the fucking phone?” Many more seconds of heavy breathing followed, and then a swear word. “Damn it.” The line crackled and clicked as if someone had grabbed the phone and dragged it closer. Then the line went dead.

  Joe gently lowered the receiver. His heart beat uncomfortably fast. It was a prank call, had to be. He glanced at the wall clock and uncertainty lanced him. Penny sometimes called around this time, when she was working the late shift.

  He picked up the phone again and tapped out her cell number, telling himself that he was worrying for nothing.

  Her phone rang and rang until her voice mail picked up. He didn’t leave a message. He buzzed his secretary instead.

  “Veronica, get the Physical Therapy Clinic at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center on the line, ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied with a question in her voice.

  He tried to refocus his thoughts on the proposal in front of him while he waited. But worry spun a web that kept his thought suspended.

  “Line three, sir,” said Veronica, letting her efficiency show. That wasn’t all she liked to show around the halls of Spec Ops, but she kept her dealings with Joe strictly professional. “I have Petty Officer Davis for you.”

  “Davis,” said Joe. “Can you tell me if Lieutenant Price has left the hospital yet?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. She left about ten minutes ago.”