I broke into a jog. The woman’s long legs had already taken her across the street and I had to dash to beat the line of traffic accelerating from the stoplight.
She was the right height for Trudy, judging by the photograph of her and Barrett Yorke. Five foot ten to Barrett’s five-four. The brown hair could be a match.
I didn’t want to just run up on her. That might have the same outcome as surprising her in her studio. I kept jogging after her on the opposite side of the street, dodging pedestrians. At least I was dressed for it.
A quick glance sideways as I ran past didn’t tell me if the woman was Trudy. That knit cap and a scarf and pair of sunglasses hid her face very effectively. I ran on for another block. Crossed the street to her side and stopped. I put my leg up on a hydrant to stretch my hamstring. And starting huffing and puffing like I’d just sprinted a mile.
As she strode toward me, I wavered and fell awkwardly on my ass, blocking her path.
She stopped. “Are you okay?”
I waved a hand vaguely, breathing so hard I couldn’t get words out.
She took off her sunglasses to take a better look at the guy having a coronary.
Pointy chin. Snub nose. Not Trudy.
Shit.
“Sorry,” I said, keeping up the heaving. “M’okay. Outta shape.” I stood up.
“Take it slow, all right?” she said.
“Yeah, thanks. Jus’ one more mile.” I started running back toward Studio Oceania. I hoped I hadn’t missed the real Ms. Dobbs.
The entrance to the building was held open by a leisurely stream of the lodge members trickling out onto the sidewalk.
Behind them, a tall brunette walked out of the building and got into a Volkswagen Jetta idling at the loading zone.
Damn it. Two possibles in as many minutes. I half-expected a bus full of lanky brunettes to pull up next. I cut through the street, running flat out. Maybe I could catch the Jetta at the first red light, and see if Trudy was inside.
An old Ford sedan lurched out of its parking space in front of me. I smacked against its front fender, my momentum almost hurling me right over the hood. I rolled off and loped unsteadily forward, eyes still on the retreating Jetta.
The Ford’s driver yelled at me. A woman’s voice. I glanced at her through the windshield as I crossed front of the car. An angry redhead, yelling an obscenity.
I stopped, one hand on the cold metal of the car’s hood, almost suspended in flight.
Her face twisted from anger into something like terror. A face with high Slavic cheekbones, framing big jade-colored eyes. A face I’d known for years.
I was looking at a dead woman.
I was looking at Elana.
AGE SEVENTEEN
The footsteps stopped right outside the Gallison storage room. Two shadowy spots broke the long line of yellow fluorescent light shining under the door. That light was the only bit of extra color in the indigo dark of the room. Even the cutting rod had cooled enough that it no longer glowed.
Had someone spotted the carrying cases on their rope, as I’d lowered them down the side of the building? No. No, if we had been made, they would have gone after Dono first.
The rope suddenly jerked in my hand, five feet of it whipping silently off the coil and out of the window. Frayed threads floated into the air as it whispered over the edge of the cut glass.
Whoever was outside wasn’t coming in. A guard? An employee? He was just standing outside the door. Maybe listening. Behind me, the night breeze moaned across the open hole in the window. Could he hear it? What the fuck was he doing?
I heard the squawk of a walkie-talkie again, muffled through the door. Then a man’s voice, slightly more audible.
“—you call them? I don’t have it.” A pause, and another receiver squelch. “No, fourth floor. Just call the number on the damn sheet.”
The code. He didn’t have the entry code for the room. But he would get it. They’d call the designated contact for Gallison, probably a company exec, and that person would know.
He wasn’t speaking quietly. Maybe they thought their burglar had already left. Checking the room just in case anything was missing. That was in my favor. I peered into the blue shadows. No way I could hide anywhere among the shelves. Yank the door open and run for it? That might be my only chance. Maybe I could even knock the guard on his ass, and give myself a head start.
The rope jerked and a few more feet played out the window. Dono. I could signal him and maybe he could get the guards to come down to the lobby. Somehow.
I stuck my head out of the hole, the whap of the night wind in my ears not quite loud enough to cover the sound of the little truck’s engine starting, four floors below. As I watched, it pulled away from the building, quickly picking up speed.
Oh, shit. I hadn’t replied to Dono’s questions over the microphone. He’d loaded the last of the lenses. He probably thought I was on my way out of the building.
“’Bout damn time.” The guard outside.
“Hang on, this guy’s got me on hold.” A second voice. And more shadows under the door.
Two of them now. Shit shit shit. No way I could just dash right past and hope that they were slow on the draw. Draw. Dammit, did they have guns? I’d seen them in the lobby. Why didn’t I remember that?
Okay. Calm down. You have to get out of here.
As if in answer, the night wind chilled my spine.
No time to think hard about it. The rope was there and I could fit through the hole. I tied the fastest bowline in the world around the nearest anchored shelf leg. Yanked it tight. Lay down on my stomach and shimmied my legs out of the window. I had a death grip on the quarter-inch cotton rope. It would hold. It had to.
My chest was against the edge of the hole, and the cut glass edge was slicing my T-shirt. I squirmed an inch farther before it slashed my skin. Another inch. Just my arms and head inside now, the rest of me dangling. The wind lapped eagerly at my clothes. As I cleared the window, I thought I heard the guards fiddling with the punch code.
Three stories up. The rope swayed, thumping me against the building like it had the cases. I couldn’t feel my fingers. Climbing down hand over hand wasn’t going to work. The rope was too slim to let either hand go for even an instant. I frantically found the dangling length with my foot, and wrapped my leg around it. There. I couldn’t scramble down fast, but at least I could keep the rope from tearing all the skin of my palms.
I started down. Move the leg, then each hand. A couple of feet at a time. What if the guards found the hole, and looked out and saw me? What if they shot me?
Climb, dammit. Two stories up now. Maybe thirty feet to go.
And then I fell.
There was no feeling of descent, it was so fast. Just a leap in my gut and a crushing blow on my entire right side that brought blackness with it. The last feeling, far away, was of the long stretch of rope draping itself over my body, like a snake coming to rest.
I inhaled water and coughed. My face was on grass, and the grass was wet. I knew where I was instantly. Lying on the manicured yard of lawn between the office building and its parking lot.
They would be coming. I wasn’t quite conscious of who they were, but I knew I had to get away. I pushed up, sat up, stood up. Just that fast. And fell down again.
Dammit. I crawled a few feet, just to feel the ground, then tried standing again. Better. Still in one piece, as Dono would say.
Walking now, lurching farther from the building and toward the street. Real thoughts eased slowly back into my brain.
Lucky. I’d been very lucky. Another foot and I’d have splattered my head on the parking lot curb. Were the guards after me? Had they finally gotten into the room? And why had I fallen? I hadn’t lost my grip. The edge of the hole I’d cut in the window had been sharp. Maybe sharp enough to slice the rope until it snapped. One foot in front of the other. That was a song, right? From TV. Couldn’t remember how it went.
Then I realized I was stand
ing in the road. In the middle of the road, having walked to the dashed white line in the center. I looked back. The office building was three hundred yards behind me. And I’d even gone in the right direction, for our backup meeting place. Dono always set one, in case of emergencies. This qualified. The designated spot was a twenty-four-hour convenience store one mile east and one block north. Three hundred yards down, thirteen hundred to go. I limped to the side of the road and kept walking.
We’d made it. Dono had the lenses, and I had escaped. I’d be happy if I never cut it that close again. But there was—Crap, I was still wearing the surgical gloves. I stripped them off and stuffed them down the next sewer grate I passed.
Another hundred yards, and I was walking past a strip mall. I kept pace by marking the shops. Nail salon, hair salon, baby furniture, café. Everything closed and dark. There was a car coming around the corner one block up, turning toward me. A cop car. Sultan County Sheriff.
I kept walking. The cruiser closed the distance between us. It slowed and stopped. A muscled blond cop looked at me from the driver’s window.
“Evening,” he said. Expressionless.
“Hey,” I said, smiling. Keep walking, or stop? A citizen would stop. I stopped.
“You all right?” he said. The cop’s partner leaned forward to get a better look at me. Another youngish guy, Chicano instead of Nordic, with a buzz cut and glasses.
“Yeah, yeah. Just twisted my ankle in”—what month was it?—“football practice.”
“Where are you going?”
I couldn’t say home. He’d ask where it was, and I didn’t have a good answer. “Bus station.”
He stared. Pointed. “It’s that way.”
Shit. “Sorry. I lost my wallet. No money for a cab.”
“You been drinking?”
“No. Not at all.” Maybe if I passed a Breathalyzer, he’d let me go.
The cop looked up the road. Toward the Gallison building. “You came from that way?”
His partner said something quiet to him before I could answer. They both turned and looked at the readout on the onboard computer.
The driver stepped out of the car. Both of the cops had their eyes on me now.
“No ID, huh?” he said. “Hands on your head, please.” He stepped around behind me. “Legs apart.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Hands.”
The Chicano cop had gotten out and was coming around to us. The blond patted me down. My pockets were completely empty, I knew. I’d even lost the cell phone in the fall.
The blond cop finished, gave a nod to his partner. The partner opened the back door. “Inside,” he said.
“Am I under arrest?” I tried to sound a little panicked, like a regular kid would be. Since I was pretty freaked out already, it wasn’t hard.
“Call it a ride home. Get in.”
I got in. The cop did the thing of making sure I didn’t bang my head on the roof, accidentally or otherwise. He closed the door. The backseat was cramped. It felt like a dog kennel, with the bars on the windows and the mesh separating the front seat.
“What’s the number?” the blond said to his partner after they’d climbed back in.
“Three-oh-four,” said the Chicano, reading from the computer screen. He gave me a sideways glance over his glasses. The cruiser pulled forward, slowly, as the cops scanned the buildings for addresses. Or maybe for other suspects like me.
I tried to remember what I knew about Ford Taurus police cars. Nothing that could work any magic on the handleless doors of my cage.
What would Dono say? He’d tell me to stay put, play dumb, and wait for the lawyer. But I wasn’t handcuffed. If I could peel back the door’s interior shell somehow, and get to the lock mechanism . . .
A woman screamed. The scream was long, loud, and full of terror. It came from somewhere out behind the strip mall.
“Jesus,” said the blond cop, as he hit the brakes hard. They were already opening their doors. The woman shrieked again, in pain maybe.
“Unit Ten, responding to distress, corner of Wilton—” the Chicano cop hollered into his shoulder mike. They ran across the street and toward the sound.
What could I use to pry at the door? I didn’t even have a belt buckle.
Then, like I had willed it, the door swung open.
Dono was crouched at the rear fender. “Move your ass,” he said.
I scrambled out and ran after him, limp and all. The nearest business was an outlet store for cheap leather goods—HALF OFF ALL DAY EVERY DAY—and I followed Dono’s big silhouette around its corner and through the alley between it and a boarded-up travel store. We stopped in a trash-strewn lot behind the travel agent.
“That woman—” I said.
“Shut up.” He was listening. I didn’t hear anything, not even the sound of the cop car’s engine. But I spotted our white pickup truck parked at the curb half a block away.
Dono was furious. Not just your everyday pissed off. That was common enough. I could gauge his black moods like a barometer, and right now the needle was pegged all the way to the left.
Shit, it wasn’t my fault the guards had showed up at Gallison. If he hadn’t have taken off so quick, maybe he could have helped.
“Come on,” he said, and we jogged to the truck.
Instead of driving directly away from the cops, Dono turned and headed east, on a parallel street to the one on which I’d been walking. He drove very slowly. I almost asked why, but it was pretty damn clear he wasn’t handing out answers tonight.
He stopped. Turned off the lights. We sat. Five silent and excruciatingly slow minutes passed.
Elana Coll, dressed all in black, dashed from around the corner of a consignment store and up to our truck.
“Scoot over,” she said, pulling open the passenger door. I shifted sideways and Elana squeezed in next to me. Her dark hair was in one long braid, and it flapped against me as she yanked hard on the door to close it. Dono hit the gas and we were suddenly flying toward the freeway entrance.
Elana bounced around to face us. “Man, you owe me big,” she said to me. “I saved your whole life.”
Dono said nothing. Even his big hands on the wheel were relaxed. But I could feel the fury vibrating off of him. The remainder of my whole life might not be worth saving.
Elana caught the mood in the air and settled back in her seat. But pressed up against each other, I could feel each sidelong glance she sent my way. When I finally shifted my eyes to look, she gave me a grin that could have melted that window’s glass all by itself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHE WAS ALIVE. The shock of it froze me in place.
Elana reacted first, stomping the gas. The Ford pitched forward, suspension squealing with the abrupt turn.
I shouted “Wait!” and chased her. She kept her foot on the pedal. An oncoming car braked so hard it skidded, fender missing both of us by inches. It honked wrathfully, but Elana was already half a block away and accelerating.
I was left standing in the street, staring at the Ford until it vanished.
One of the Brothers of Scandinavia hollered to ask if I was all right, and another mentioned it might be a good idea to get my butt off the road. The driver who had just missed us roared past.
She was alive.
So who was dead?
My phone browser was still on Trudy Dobb’s Facebook account, with Trudy’s shyly smiling headshot pulled up. I’d been looking for pictures of her face before. Not her body.
One of her online photos albums was named Trip to Baja. Lots of pictures on various beaches. The fifth picture in the album showed Trudy, almost in the background, turned toward a flight of blindingly white stone steps while the couple at the center smiled for the camera. She was caught in motion, her left foot up on the high step, weight forward and ready to push off, her leg extended behind.
Her right leg, with its tattoo of tumbling roses in faded red and black. The same tattoo I’d seen in the Jeffer
son County morgue.
Trudy Dobbs had died at the cabin, with Kend. Two bullets to the face. It had been her black wings of blood I’d been dreaming of, not Elana’s. Elana had used her best friend’s identity to hide.
But why? Had she been responsible for the murders at the cabin? The Elana I knew was gorgeous, and knew it. Used it. She would hustle or steal. But kill?
Willard. He had realized Elana wasn’t the dead girl at the cabin, the moment he had seen that ink. He’d lied to the cops. To me.
Did he know if his niece had murdered her friends?
Christ, had Willard been in on their murders from the start?
It was noon. If Willard had held one of his traveling casinos last night, he was probably dismantling it somewhere right now. I wanted to see him in person, and watch his eyes as I asked him about his dear, sweet niece.
I called him. No answer. I looked up another number. It was a public business, technically, but nobody off the street just wandered into the North Asian Association for Trade. Their version of commerce benefited a narrow group.
One Russian family, specifically.
I let it ring. I was reasonably sure that someone would be at the NAAT offices around the clock, but less positive that the phones were working.
“Yes?” a voice answered after a dozen rings.
“Van Shaw. I want to talk to Reuben.”
“No Reuben here.”
“Take a message.” I gave him my name again, and my cell number. “He wants to talk to me.”
“Yeah.” Unconvinced. He hung up.
Reuben K liked the card games. Liked the action, liked the girls. Mostly he liked feeling like a big shot. If there had been a game around Seattle last night, he would have been there, representing, letting Willard manage the tables while he preened for the players.
Elana had fled at the sight of me. Had she known who I was? It had been a lot of years, and God knew a good chunk of my face had been scrambled and pieced back together in that time.
But from my stunned expression, Elana would have known that I had recognized her. And that fact had been enough to spook her. If she wasn’t afraid of me specifically, she was sure as hell afraid of someone.
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