Marcello frowned. “What did you touch? Anything besides the door handle?”
“No, but—”
“Good.” Marcello used the tail of his shirt to wipe the truck door handle free of fingerprints. “You can report the crime anonymously from a pay phone.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?”
“Do you wish to sell the mansion or not?”
“You know I do.”
“I tell you, if you involve yourself in a grisly murder investigation, you will be inviting unwelcome media attention.”
Including the tabloid reporters who’d had such a field day when he’d had his accident. “Luck of the Grangers—It’s All Bad.” “Race-car Driver Sidelined by Ancient Gypsy Curse.” “Trick’ed by Fate.”
“Why add to the notoriety?” Marcello demanded. “Why diminish your chances for making a sale?”
Trick had to admit what Marcello said made sense.
But it still felt wrong.
The car doors opened and Nevada’s heart threatened to punch its way past her breastbone.
“You made the report,” Marcello said. “What more could you do?”
Granger groaned. “Damn it, no one deserves to die like that, not even some sleaze who tried to coerce a girl into going down on him.”
What did he mean? Was he talking about the truck driver?
“You fully intended to beat him up yourself.”
“Knock him around, yes. Rip his throat out, no.”
Rip his throat out? A shudder ran down Nevada’s spine. Rip his throat out?
Marcello started the engine and the Jeep began to move.
Shuddering uncontrollably now, Nevada tried to think. Had the men who were following her killed the truck driver? She knew that the two were capable of violence, but ripping someone’s throat out? Why go to such extremes?
“What if the girl’s in danger, too?” Granger asked.
“Why would she be?” Marcello asked.
“Maybe,” Granger suggested, “whoever killed the truck driver was trying to get information about Nevada White.”
“How could the murderer know there was a connection between the girl and the driver?” Marcello demanded.
Granger didn’t answer.
“The answer is,” Marcello continued, “he could not. Therefore, Nevada White is in no danger. Quit worrying.”
“I can’t help it,” Granger said.
Marcello muttered something in Italian. Then both men lapsed into silence.
“I do not wish to alarm you,” Marcello said quietly a minute or two later, “but I think we are being followed.”
By the men who’d been chasing her ever since she left Boston, Nevada thought with a chilling certainty.
“What the hell…” Granger said.
“Two men,” Marcello told him.
“Cops, you think? Could someone have seen us hanging around the logging truck and reported it?”
“There are no lights mounted on the roof of the car,” Marcello said.
“Looks like a Crown Vic, though.” Granger sounded worried. “Cops are big on Crown Vics.”
Her pursuers drove a black Crown Victoria. Nevada curled herself into a tight little ball and concentrated on breathing.
“Lose them,” Granger ordered.
“But would that not make us appear as if we had something to hide?” Marcello objected.
“Maybe so, but what if the men in the Crown Vic are responsible for the truck driver’s death?”
“Most unlikely,” Marcello said. “His throat was savaged. No human was responsible for that.”
“They could have a trained attack dog.”
“I do not see a dog in the car. Just the two men.” Marcello must have flipped on a turn signal because Nevada heard a clicking sound, followed by a sharp left turn onto a bumpy surface.
Marcello swore softly. “They just pulled into the drive behind us.” The car rolled to a stop, and Marcello turned off the engine.
“Stay cool,” Granger said. “Maybe they’re only looking for directions.”
Someone knocked on a window. “Excuse me, gentlemen, I’m Detective Branson, and this is Sergeant Collier.”
It could have been one of her pursuers. Nevada wasn’t sure. She wasn’t familiar enough with their voices to make a positive ID.
A window rolled down, and the same voice continued, sounding much louder Kng >
A photograph of her?
“Do you recognize the woman?” A different voice this time. “We have reason to believe she hitched a ride this evening with a truck driver.”
Definitely her.
“I do,” Granger said. “We gave her a lift into town earlier after she was thrown from the truck driving ahead of us on the road from Tahoe.” He paused. “Criminally insane, you say?”
“Murdered her own father,” the first voice said.
Not true. Oh, please God, not true. She couldn’t have done something like that.
“Didn’t seem crazy,” Granger said. “Or dangerous, either.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” the man said. “Where is she now?”
“She was pretty bruised and battered,” Granger said. “I tried to talk her into getting checked out at the ER.”
“But she refused,” Marcello said.
“Then you won’t object if we search your vehicle.”
Nevada’s blood ran cold.
“Knock yourself out, detective,” Granger said. “We’ve got nothing to hide. The girl asked us to drop her at the truck stop on the edge of town, and that’s what we did. I assume she planned to hitch a ride from there. For some reason, she seemed pretty anxious to get to Sacramento.”
“Sacramento?” the first man asked sharply.
“Is there a problem, detective?” Marcello asked.
“No problem. None at all. You’ve been very helpful.”
“You’re not going to search?” Granger asked, sounding surprised.
“No, we have all we need.”
A few seconds later, a car engine started up. Her pursuers were leaving.
“Sacramento?” Marcello asked.
“First thing that came into my mind,” Granger said.
“Seemed to mean something to them.” Marcello hesitated a second, then asked, “Why did you lie? If the girl really is criminally insane—”
“She’s not.”
“You cannot know that for certain.”
“The hell I can’t! That was not the face of a murderer.”
“But—”
“Look, those two only followed us in the first place because they knew we’d picked her up.”
“But how could they&md K coheyash;”
“Exactly. How could they? The only possibility that makes sense is that the truck driver told them,” Granger said, “sometime before they ripped his throat out.”
Nevada waited until she was sure Granger and Marcello were gone before crawling from the relative safety of her hiding place. She closed the Jeep’s door quietly, then moved quickly into the shadows under the pines that edged the rutted gravel drive.
The night was cold enough for her to see her breath. She shivered in her sweatshirt, wondering what to do next, where to go. She glanced wistfully toward the lights of the mansion, a large Victorian, elegant despite its shabbiness. She was sorely tempted to knock on the door and ask for a bed for the night…or what was left of it, an idea she rejected almost as soon as it occurred to her.
She could curl up in the backseat of the Jeep, wrapped in the same fleece blanket she’d used earlier for camouflage. Only what if her pursuers came back?
She shuddered at the thought.
She should leave, walk until she came to a highway and hitch a ride in the first car that stopped. Only again, what if the first car belonged to the men who were chasing her?
The Jeep was parked in front of a square outbuilding with a trio of dormer windows sprouting from the attic roof. Garage? Former stables? As possib
le refuges went, it didn’t look especially promising, but maybe if she borrowed the blanket from the Wrangler, she could hole up inside and stay warm. And safe.
She had just opened the Jeep’s passenger side door and started to reach for the blanket when someone grabbed her arm.
Instinctively, she fought to free herself, but her captor was strong, much stronger than she was.
“What are you doing here?” he asked suspiciously, his thick Italian accent betraying his identity. “Trying to steal the Jeep?”
“No!”
“Not that it would be a great loss, you understand, but still…”
“I wasn’t stealing the Jeep. I wasn’t stealing anything. I was…borrowing…the blanket. I was planning to sleep in the stables.”
“The building is locked,” Marcello informed her. “How were you planning to get in? Break a window perhaps? That is vandalism, you know. I told Trick we should have turned you over to the authorities. But no, he would not hear of it. We shall see what he has to say now that I have caught you red-handed.”
“I didn’t do anything illegal. I’m not a criminal.”
“That is not what those detectives said.”
“They weren’t detectives. Not police detectives at any rate.”
“How do you know?” he challenged.
“I just do,” she said, admittedly not the most convincing of arguments.
Marcello dragged her toward the back door of the house, Kof of moving so quickly it was all she could do to maintain her balance. He wrenched open the door and shoved her inside ahead of him. “Trick!” he yelled as he manhandled her through the back entry into an enormous old-fashioned kitchen. “Come see who I found riffling through the Jeep.” He gave her one last shove that sent her staggering into the middle of the room.
“I wasn’t riffling through anything,” she protested, rubbing her arm where Marcello had clamped down so hard, he’d nearly stopped her circulation.
“Sit down,” Marcello said in a voice that brooked no disobedience, “and hold your tongue.”
Nevada sat on a spindle-backed oak chair, one of eight that surrounded a large oval table.
“What’s all the yelling about?” Trick Granger appeared in the doorway, balancing on his cane, carrying an aspirin bottle and a whiskey decanter in his free hand. When he noticed her sitting at the table, his face went totally blank for a second. “Where did you come from?” He frowned. “Or am I dreaming again?”
“She was trying to steal the Jeep.”
She scowled at Marcello. “You keep saying that, but it’s not true.”
“I saw the overhead light go on when I was upstairs,” Marcello told Trick. “When I went down to investigate, I caught her.”
“I wasn’t stealing anything,” she told Trick, then turned to Marcello. “As I told you once already, I was borrowing a blanket from the back end. That’s all. I was going to use it, not keep it.”
Trick set the whiskey bottle down on the counter-top, shook a handful of aspirin into his palm, downed them in a single gulp, then followed the pills with a chug from the whiskey bottle. “But how did you get here?” he asked. “We left you at the Stop ’N Go.”
Nevada felt her cheeks grow warm. “No,” she said. “Actually, you didn’t. The minute I went inside the restaurant, I spotted the two men, and—”
“Who?” Trick asked, taking another long swallow from the whiskey bottle.
“The two men,” she said. “The two men who’re following me.”
“The detective and the sergeant,” Marcello translated.
“They aren’t cops,” she protested. “I don’t know who they are or who they’re working for, but one thing I’m certain of—they’re not cops. I saw the one who calls himself Sergeant Collier hit an elderly woman on the El in Chicago. A cop wouldn’t do that.”
Trick seemed to consider that for a second. “Probably not,” he agreed. “But then again, how do we know you’re telling the truth? According to ‘them,’ you’re criminally insane, recently escaped from a mental institution.”
“I was institutionalized,” she admitted, “but it wasn’t a mental hospital or a prison, either. I’m not a criminal, and I’m not insane. I’m…”
“What?” Trick demanded. “You’re what?”
“Psychic,” she said.
Both men stared at her.
“Meaning what?” Trick asked. “You read minds?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “It doesn’t work like that…at least not for me. My gift is unpredictable, totally random. Sometimes, often when I least expect it, I’ll catch a glimpse of someone’s reflection and—”
“The guy in the back of the squad car,” Trick said suddenly. “That’s why you said he beat his wife.”
“Not the man in custody,” she said. “The cop. I saw his reflection for a second in the side mirror of the squad car, and I just knew. I blurted it out before I could stop myself. Unfortunately, that’s usually the way it works. I don’t have much control over my so-called gift. People tend to think I’m crazy.”
“Crazy gets my vote,” Marcello said.
Trick frowned at him, then turned to her. “When did you last eat?” he asked in a seeming non sequitur.
She tried to remember. She didn’t feel hungry. She didn’t feel much of anything aside from scared out of her mind. If they turned her over to the police, she’d end up back at the Appleton Institute for sure. And if they turned her over to her pursuers, she’d end up dead. Neither prospect held much appeal. “I’m not sure,” she said finally. “I remember grabbing a cheeseburger at a fast-food place, though I couldn’t tell you when or where.”
“Heat up some of that minestrone you made yesterday,” Trick said to his assistant.
Marcello’s nostrils flared. “She tries to steal your car, so now you are going to feed her?”
“She’ll need her strength if she’s going to clean this filthy house.” He turned to Nevada. “You are going to clean this filthy house, aren’t you? You’ll take the job?”
“But—” Marcello sputtered.
“Yes,” she said. With her pursuers halfway to Sacramento, Midas Lake was as safe a place to hide for a while as anywhere else.
Upon Trick’s orders, Marcello had given Nevada White a stack of clean linens and escorted her over to the former caretaker’s quarters above the stables, but he was not happy about the situation. Yes, they needed someone to give the place a thorough cleaning, but in Marcello’s opinion, Nevada White was less a solution than a potential problem. She had made a good case proving her allegation that the two men following her were not police, but she had not explained what they really were or why they were after her. She could be criminally insane as they claimed. She could be a murderer, a thief, a terrorist. All right, probably not a terrorist, but…He slammed in through the back door, muttering under his breath.
“What’s the problem, my friend?” Trick said softly. He sat at the kitchen tab Khe >
“You are eating,” Marcello said in surprise.
“I was hungry.” Trick spooned up another mouthful of soup.
When was the last time Trick had eaten anything without being coaxed? Lately all he seemed to want to do was drown his sorrows, food be damned.
Marcello took a seat across from Trick. “How is your headache?”
“Better,” Trick said, “thanks to some aspirin plus a little hair of the dog.”
“You ate dog hair?” Marcello asked, certain he must have misunderstood.
Trick grinned.
Marcello tried to remember the last time he had seen Trick grin. Not since before the accident.
“It’s an expression,” Trick explained. “To take a hair of the dog that bit you means if you’re suffering the effects of a hangover, you should knock back a medicinal shot of whatever it was you got drunk on in the first place.”
“Hair of the dog. Dust bunnies. English is a most illogical language.”
Trick grinned again. “I’m sure Mr.
Spock would agree with you.”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” Trick said. “Did you get our new housekeeper settled in?”
“Yes,” Marcello said. “That is what I wanted to speak to you about.”
“I suspected as much,” Trick said. “Quite the little enigma, isn’t she? Her eyes are green. Did you notice that? They’re so dark, I thought they must be brown, but when I saw her in the light, I realized my mistake. Her eyes are green, a deep, secretive forest green.”
“I did not pay attention. What concerns me is—”
“I wonder who the two thugs are working for. You don’t think she’s a runaway, do you? A victim of abuse? Maybe a Mafia wife?”
“I had not considered the matter. I simply assumed the two men who were tracking her told the truth.”
“Really?” Trick glanced up in surprise. “Why would you assume that? They were responsible for that truck driver’s death. They must have been. Who else could have told them we picked up the girl?”
“I could not say.”
“And since when”—Trick emphasized his point by poking the air with his soup spoon—“can you believe anything a murderer tells you?”
“I suppose you cannot,” Marcello admitted, “but still, we know next to nothing about this Nevada White. We do not even know if that is her real name. She could be anyone, anything. A psychopath, a murderer.”
“She’s neither,” Trick said flatly. “Trust me.”
“You, I trust. She is the one I have concerns abou K cost t.”
“Our running into Nevada White was fate, my friend. The moment I saw her, I knew it was no chance meeting.”
“You had a great deal to drink tonight—” Marcello started, but Trick cut him off.
“She looks like Blanche.”
“The Granger ghost?”
“Not exactly, of course, but the resemblance is undeniable.”
“A coincidence surely.”
And again Trick’s mouth curved in a grin. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“But you do believe in ghosts,” Marcello said dryly.
“Not until I moved into this mansion. Look, you may not have seen Blanche or heard her sobs the way I have, but admit it, you’ve felt her presence.”
Wicked is the night Page 3