by Mallory Kane
“Great. I’m ready for all this to be over.”
Dawson glanced at her. Her chin had that little pugnacious lift to it that told him she’d made up her mind about something.
“Take me to my apartment,” she said.
“No, you—”
“Dawson, I need clothes. I need to get my mail, and I want my car.”
“What about your shoulder?” he asked, knowing he was going to lose this fight.
“It’s fine. The worst of the soreness is gone. I probably could have been driving all along.”
Dawson racked his brain for a reason to refuse. He didn’t want her driving. She’d go running off again and get into trouble or get herself killed. A sinking feeling hit his gut at that thought.
But if he objected, that chin would go even higher. He sighed. “I will if you’ll promise me that you won’t go running off without me.”
She glanced sidelong at him, a veiled look that he couldn’t interpret. “Why would I do that?” she asked. “We’re working together, right?”
A sense of foreboding settled on Dawson’s chest. He wanted to lock her away like Rapunzel or another of those fairy-tale princesses. But the princesses always managed to get into trouble anyway, and he was sure Jules would, too. “Right,” he said wryly.
Chapter Eleven
Juliana drove to Dawson’s condo after taking care of some chores and washing some clothes. She parked on the street and knocked on the front door.
When he opened it, he was talking on the phone.
“Right,” he said as she walked past him. “I’ll have to go to the office and check the files. I’ll call you from there.”
She waited until he hung up, then said, “I still don’t see why I can’t stay at my own place.”
Dawson pocketed his phone and checked his watch before he raised his gaze to hers.
“After two attacks, you’re not convinced you’re in danger? I’d think you’d be glad I’m keeping an eye on you. I just don’t want to be responsible for scraping you up off the floor.”
“First, thanks for that image. Second, nobody asked you to be responsible for me. And third, now that Maynard guy is locked up, how am I still in danger?” She walked into the living room while she was talking. The folders on the coffee table were still stacked neatly with the top one slightly crooked, just like she’d left them.
She grimaced to herself. Somehow she had to work up the courage to share her meager information with Dawson. If he took it and ran, wasn’t she still better off than if she hadn’t confided in him at all? He’d helped her get her dad’s things from the casino. He’d saved her life.
“Damn it, Jules. If you’re going to be a private eye—hell, if you’re going to survive—you’re going to have to stop being so stubborn and start using your brain for something more than getting the last word.” He blew out a breath in frustration. “Why don’t you think about it for a few seconds and tell me how you can still be in danger.”
Juliana spoke through gritted teeth. “Okay, okay. I know. Because Maynard may be in custody, but whoever hired him is still out there.”
“And…”
She frowned. “And…”
“Maynard will make bail before morning.”
“They’ll give him bail—after he attacked me?”
Dawson sighed. “Don’t you watch any of the cop shows on TV?”
“Stop it. You don’t have to be so sarcastic all the time.” She tossed her purse down on the couch and looked at the folders again, taking a deep breath. “Dawson—”
“Don’t worry, Jules, I haven’t touched them.”
She turned. “I know. I—” She swallowed. Why was this so hard? “If you want, we could look at them together.”
Dawson’s brows shot up and an unreadable expression crossed his face. He stared at her for an instant, then turned and picked up his keys off the table by the door.
“Maybe later,” he said. “Right now there’s something I’ve got to do.”
“About the casino? Can I go with you?”
“No. Believe it or not, I have other cases. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“You said you’re going to your office. I want to see a real private investigations office.”
“It’s a security agency, and no.” He pointed at her with the hand that held the keys. “Don’t leave.”
“And keep the door locked,” she said mockingly.
That earned her a fierce scowl. His laser-blue eyes nearly scorched her. “If I had half a brain I’d get Brian to put you in jail for your own safety,” he growled, then stalked up the hall to the kitchen and out the door to the garage.
Juliana let out a quiet, frustrated scream and stomped her foot. He made her so mad! She balled her fists and punched the air in front of her.
Then she stomped into the guest bedroom and jerked the band out of her hair and pushed her fingers through it. Meeting her own gaze in the mirror over the dresser, she shook her head until her hair stood out like Medusa’s snakes. She grabbed a comb and worked out her anger and frustration while she worked the snarls out of her hair.
By the time her hair was smooth, she’d stopped fuming and was thinking relatively rationally.
Before Dawson had driven all reason out of her head last night, before Detective Hardy had called her in to identify Maynard, she’d thought of something she’d wanted to do. What was it?
She walked up the hall to the kitchen to get some water. She brought the glass into the living room and set it on the coffee table next to the stack of folders.
Looking at them stoked her anger again. She’d made what she considered a huge concession, offering to let Dawson look at her stack of research, which contained every bit of information she’d managed to gather about everyone connected with the Sky Walk. But after all his curiosity, all his staring at them, he’d brushed off her offer as if it was nothing. He didn’t have time. He had something he had to do. Another matter.
Juliana flopped down on the couch. She drank the cool water and tried to clear her brain.
Everyone connected with the Sky Walk. Something—some name—was bothering her. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. She picked up her folders and looked at the tabs. Delancey. Knoblock. Vega. Kaplan.
A thought tickled the back of her brain, teasing her. Looking at the four names didn’t help. Everybody knew the name Delancey. The Delancey family had been prominent in Louisiana politics for years. For that matter, Vega was a well-known name along the coast. The other names weren’t familiar.
She stared at the names, trying to make one of them fit her recollection. She couldn’t. What name was it that was bothering her? Someone her dad had mentioned? No. The sense she had was of an old memory—school maybe? But when? Where? College? High school? Grade school?
Her suitcase was still standing just inside the door. She opened it and dug out her mini-notebook computer. Back on the couch, she looked up her high school. There was no list of alumni on the site. She tried some social networking sites, but although she found several people she knew, not one of their names scratched the itch in the back of her brain.
Nor did she find a complete list of the members of her graduating class anywhere.
She turned off the computer and stood. There was a better way. She grabbed her car keys, then realized she didn’t have a key to Dawson’s condo. After looking in a few obvious places and coming up empty, she left him a note telling him she had to run out and she’d be at her apartment—because you didn’t leave me a key, she wrote. She jotted down her cell phone number, then signed it Juliana and underlined her name three times.
It took her about ten minutes to drive to her dad’s house in Bay St. Louis. Turning into the driveway sent nostalgia rippling through her and caused tears to sting her eyes. Even after she’d moved into her own apartment, she’d visited him a couple of times a week.
Leaves crunched under her feet as she walked up to the porch and unlocked the door. She’d in
tended to get someone to clean up the yard. She made a mental note to get that done as soon as possible.
Stepping inside, she was overwhelmed by a rush of conflicting feelings. The smell of the house was familiar—she’d lived here all her life. It smelled like wood smoke and dust and the Old Spice aftershave her dad had always used.
Every time she came here, she argued with herself about what she should do about the house. It was paid for, but she couldn’t decide whether to sell it or live here. Either way, she’d be set for life.
She wiped her face, trying at the same time to wipe those thoughts from her head. They were for another day. She was here for a specific reason—to find the name that was hovering just out of reach of her conscious mind.
She went directly to her bedroom, where all her yearbooks were stored on a shelf in her closet. She pulled a chair over to the closet and got down an armful of books, tossed them on her bed, then took her boots off and sat against the pillows to page through them.
An hour and a half later, she’d gone through all four years of high school and her freshman year of college. She’d found a Knoblock among the freshmen at the University of Southern Mississippi, but his photo didn’t look familiar at all. During her sophomore year in high school, a girl named Sandra Kaplan had joined her class. She’d set the book aside to take with her, but from what she remembered, the girl’s father was a pharmacist, not an architect.
She straightened and arched her back, groaning at the stiffness. She was thirsty and beginning to get hungry. She looked up at the closet shelf and grimaced. There were eight years of grade school that she needed to go through before she gave up. Twice as many as she’d already done.
But where to start? Might as well start at the beginning. She pulled down the yearbooks for her first four grades of school. She started with grade one.
And hit the jackpot. The last name listed in the first grade was Anthony Vega. He was a dark-haired boy with a cute grin. She frowned, studying the tiny photo. She’d have never remembered him by his picture. But looking at the printed name below the photo sent a profound relief through her and quieted the bothersome tickle at the back of her brain.
What were the chances he was related to Tito Vega? Not very good, she thought. Why would someone like Vega send his kid to public school?
That thought triggered another. How long had Anthony Vega stayed in her class? He hadn’t been in any of the high school photos.
Quickly, she paged through her fourth-grade yearbook and there he was. So she climbed back onto the chair and grabbed her eighth-grade book. No Anthony Vega. So he’d left Bay High School after the fourth grade and before the eighth grade. Staying on the chair, she pulled the seventh-grade yearbook out from the stack. No Anthony Vega.
Sixth grade told a different story. His sixth-grade picture was sullen and seemed vaguely familiar. Maybe he’d been surly more often than cheerful.
In all her research, she hadn’t found any information about Tito Vega’s family, except for the occasional mention of his wife when they attended a party or a fundraiser. But now she had a connection between herself and Tito Vega. If Anthony Vega was Tito Vega’s son.
She put her shoes back on, grabbed up the first-, sixth- and seventh-grade books and headed toward the front door, but then she remembered there was one more thing she needed to do.
When she’d pulled the legal papers—deeds, insurance, will—from the safe in his den, she’d noticed a portfolio with the Golden Galaxy logo on it. But she’d forgotten about it.
She went into the den at the front of the house and turned on the lights. The safe was behind her senior portrait, which hung opposite her dad’s office chair. She quickly dialed in the combination—her birthday—opened the door and pulled out the black leather portfolio, leaving the safe empty.
She looked at the clock sitting on his desk. It was after six o’clock and dark outside, and she was hungry and anxious to get back to Dawson’s condo.
No, the little voice in her head reminded her. We’re not going to his condo. We’re going back to our apartment. It dismayed her that suddenly she didn’t want to be alone. She’d always prided herself on her independence. She’d never been afraid to be out at night.
But then she’d never been attacked before.
Suppressing a shiver, she picked up the yearbooks, set the portfolio on top and started toward the front door.
She felt her phone vibrating before it rang. It was probably Dawson. Her heart fluttered as she dug into the side pocket of her purse. “Hello?” she said.
“This is just a taste of what will happen if you don’t stop nosing around,” a gruff voice said.
Shock burned Juliana’s scalp and raised hairs on the back of her neck. “What? Who is this?”
But the phone went dead.
Juliana stared at the number on her phone’s screen, trying to make sense of what the man had said.
Suddenly, all she could see was the tiny screen. She looked up. The lights had gone out. Her heart jumped into her throat and her muscles tensed. She clutched the books tightly and turned toward the study door.
She was ready to run—but where? She set the books down on the edge of the desk and pulled her gun from her purse, thumbing the safety off. Then she eased toward the door. Her throat was clogged with panic and her shoulders and neck ached from tension.
This is just a taste, the voice had said. This wasn’t just a phone call and lights going out. Something was about to happen.
She put her back against the wall to the left of the door frame and listened. She couldn’t hear anything.
Carefully, she rose to the balls of her feet, holding her gun in her right hand and steadying it with her left. She blinked, wishing her night vision would hurry up and kick in. She took a deep breath, then another, and angled around the door and pressed her back against the wall, her weapon leading the way. She whirled left, then right. The hallway was empty.
She stopped again to listen. Everything was quiet—too quiet. It was that odd time after rush hour when most people were home, getting dinner ready or preparing to go out for the evening. There didn’t seem to be any traffic. Maybe the voice had just been trying to scare her.
This is just a taste. Then the rumble of a car’s engine broke the silence outside. It sounded close, as if it were right in front of her house. But to see out, she’d have to go into the living room.
She held her breath, trying to listen past the engine’s rumble. If someone was preparing to break into the house, or was already inside, they might use the noise of the car to mask their movements. Then the engine’s noise grew fainter. They were leaving.
A crash hit her ears—breaking glass. Shock paralyzed her for an instant. She almost dropped her gun.
The crash came from the living room. Someone had broken in the big picture window. She held her breath, listening. Were they inside? Every muscle in her body shrieked with tension as she fought the urge to run.
Don’t panic. Think.
Then light flickered red and yellow, sending writhing shadows chasing around the walls and floor and she smelled smoke.
Fire. Whatever they’d thrown through the window was burning. She had to get out. She glanced toward the front door. It was about fifteen feet away.
But what if that was their plan? For her to run out the front door right into their clutches.
She slid sideways along the wall toward the kitchen. She could fortify herself there. She’d be ready for anyone who came in through the front and she could guard the back door at the same time.
Halfway up the hall, she froze. She’d left her yearbooks and her dad’s portfolio on the desk in the den. But she couldn’t go back. It was too dangerous.
She’d have to get them later, if they survived the fire.
The fire’s light and shadow beat her to the kitchen. And so had the smoke. And now she recognized the unmistakable smell of gasoline. Molotov cocktail probably. She didn’t have much time. The smoke was already
burning her throat.
She grabbed her phone from her purse and dialed 9-1-1. Then she called Dawson. By the time his phone rang once, she heard the faint sound of sirens. A second later, the car engine roared and tires screeched.
“Jules?” Dawson’s voice in her ear sent relief gushing through her. “Damn it! Where the hell are you? I told you to—”
“I’m at my dad’s. It’s on fire!” she gasped out as smoke burned her throat.
“Call 9-1-1! Then get out! Stay low and get out! I’m coming!”
“I just— I am! I will.” Suddenly, she felt heat buffet her like a giant’s breath. “Dawson, hurry!”
She dropped her phone into her purse and ran to the back door. Her eyes were burning as much as her throat, and the air was thick with smoke.
She grabbed the knob and jerked. Then she remembered. Dead bolts. She’d installed them after her dad died to keep out burglars and vandals. She dug down into her purse with her left hand, but she couldn’t find the keys. Had she left them in the front door? In her room? In the den?
The roar of the fire battled with the sirens, which were getting louder and louder. The noise was making her dizzy. She closed her eyes and leaned her shoulder against the wall by the door, still rummaging in her purse for her keys.
She took a deep breath and smoke seared her throat, triggering a coughing fit that left her completely out of breath. Gasping, she felt panic clawing its way up her throat. She heard Dawson’s voice in her head.
Get out! Stay low!
She crouched down, breathing cautiously. The air near the floor was less thick with smoke, but she was still coughing every breath, and her eyes were pouring tears.
Feeling for the doorknob with her left hand, she pulled herself to her feet, holding her breath. Then she swung the gun’s barrel at the panes of glass in the door.
Glass shattered. She swung again—once, twice, three times. Cold, sweet air hit her face. At the same time, a searing wind hit her from behind, nearly throwing her into the door.