Robyn took a deep breath and caught the faint whiff of garbage. If he was downwind of that, she didn't blame him for perking up. Probably glad he'd finished eating first.
The young man's lips curved, not in a moue of distaste, but what looked like a smile.
He started to rise, stopped midway and glanced in her direction. For a moment, she swore he was looking straight at her as she pretended to read a real estate flyer. Her heart thudded. Hope had been right. He had known -
His gaze swung away and he pushed up from the umbrella table. One last look in her direction, then he set out at a quick stride, heading around the ice cream stand.
He'd known she'd been following him. But how?
The answer was there, a few feet away, her dim reflection in a store window. At some point on the way there, he'd glanced at a window or shiny surface and seen her behind him.
See, Bobby, a true detective doesn't need to look over his shoulder.
That's what Hope had meant, that if he was a professional, he wouldn't be gawking back to check for a tail. At least Robyn could save some face now by not doing something truly stupid, like following to see what had caught his attention.
Ah, you're catching on.
It had been a clever move, pretending he'd seen or heard something, piquing her interest, then hurrying away from the populated area.
Since she was sure he'd made her, there was no reason to hide in the shadows. She folded the flyer under her arm, walked to the ice cream stand, ordered a small vanilla shake, then found a table near where he'd been sitting.
She imagined his surprise when he came back and found his target sitting right out in the open. Then what would he do?
Well, for starters, he could call the police and report seeing a wanted fugitive enjoying a milkshake.
The first sip blasted her stomach and she shivered. In the excitement of playing PI, she'd forgotten her own predicament.
Maybe that's where he was right now - making that call. She was scrambling up when she heard, "There you are."
Hope was weaving through the tables, curls escaping her ponytail, breathing hard, as if she'd run from wherever they'd parked. Robyn glanced past her.
"Where's Karl?"
"He took off after the guy. That was him, right? Red ball cap? Leather jacket?"
"Karl's going after him? I - I don't think it's the kid you guys saw yesterday. After he left, I started wondering if it could have been Judd's killer. That was a young man about his size. You should call Karl. Warn him."
"Karl's careful. He used to do security, remember?"
Robyn had a hard time picturing Karl in a rent-a-cop uniform. No, not a hard time - an impossible one. Either he'd done it a very long time ago, or Hope meant a different kind of security, like designing or managing systems. Neither was going to help him in a face-off with a killer.
Maybe Robyn wasn't the only one enjoying this too much, getting overconfident, taking risks...
"We'll wait here and let Karl handle it." Hope started moving toward the ice cream stand. "If he needs me, he'll call." She reversed direction, backtracking to the table and setting down her notebook, cell phone on it. "Can I get you anything else?"
Robyn said no. While Hope got in line Robyn glanced at the notepad. She'd love to see what was inside. Maybe if she nudged that phone off, the breeze would blow it open...
She shook her head. Like she could read Hope's notes anyway.
"So did you find anything?" she asked when Hope returned with a Coke.
"We're making progress."
"Do I get a hint?"
Hope laughed. "Sorry. I don't mean to keep it a secret. It's just that we're pursuing all these bits here and there, trying to make sense of it all, not knowing what's important. Right now we're still working on identifying the couple in the photo. We've got the man figured out. The girl is tougher."
"Who's the guy?"
"He's - " Hope's head jerked up. Her face went taut. Robyn looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
"What's wrong?"
"It's Karl. He - You were right. I shouldn't have let him go after that guy." She was already getting to her feet. "Wait here. I'm going to - "
"Go after him?" Robyn rose. "Hope, you can't - "
"I'll be right back. I just need to make sure he's okay." She stepped away from the table, her gaze glued to some distant spot to the east.
"Um, Hope? Cell phone?"
"Oh, right." She snatched her phone and notepad from the table and started jogging away.
"I didn't mean - "
Hope was already out of earshot.
"I meant, why not use your cell phone," Robyn muttered. "To call him."
She shook her head. Anyone else and she'd have wondered what the hell had just happened, but Hope... Hope was different. She hesitated to say that Hope lived in her own world, because that would make her problems sound worse than they were.
She hesitated even saying problems. Robyn thought of Hope's... issues more as eccentricities, like people who talked to themselves. The only lingering aftereffect of that teen breakdown was that every now and then, Robyn had the feeling Hope wasn't really there, that she'd slipped off someplace else. Her gaze would empty and she wouldn't hear what anyone said. Or, like now, she'd leap from "Oh, Karl can take care of himself" to "Oh, my God, I have to help him!"
But Robyn wasn't going to sit back and let her friend tear after a potential killer.
As she stood, she noticed a piece of paper on the ground. She picked it up. A printout of the photo Portia had taken. She pocketed it and took off.
Robyn was not an athlete. Had she dared take a fitness test, she suspected she'd score below average for her age, which was as good a reason as any never to subject herself to one.
When the wives of Damon's friends had urged her to join their softball team, she'd demurred until she felt like a snob and a poor sport. So she'd gone out for three games... and they'd discovered what a poor sport she really was, and quickly found a replacement.
"Oh, I'm sure you'd be good," they'd said before seeing her play. "Look how skinny you are."
She was not skinny, as she'd pointed out to Damon that night. She was average size. He'd pointed out that, in comparison to some of the other women on the team, she was indeed skinny, but that was beside the point. Just because she wasn't overweight didn't mean she was in good shape, a truth brought home once again as she huffed and puffed running after Hope.
By the time Robyn had made it around the ice cream stand, Hope was disappearing behind a strip mall. Then she'd zipped into an adjoining three-story walk-up lot, then behind that building...
Robyn slowed to catch her breath as she watched Hope's ponytail bob in the distance.
How the hell did Hope know where she was going? She hadn't stopped once to look around.
Robyn groaned and kicked it into high gear before she lost her friend completely. She made it around the next building as Hope was cutting through yet another parking lot.
Between the two parcels of land was a chain-link fence. Robyn ran toward it, expecting to see an opening when she drew closer. There wasn't one. The only way around was where the fence ended over a hundred feet away. Hope couldn't possibly have run that far so quickly.
The only option was... Robyn looked up at the six-foot fence.
No way.
Exactly how much of this sort of thing did a tabloid reporter do? Obviously Hope led a lot more adventurous life than Robyn had imagined. She felt a pang of something like envy.
As she jogged to the fence, she thought of how much Damon would have enjoyed this. But surprisingly, how Damon would have reacted hadn't been the first thing that popped into her head but, rather, that jab of envy, the fleeting thought that she wouldn't mind leading a more adventurous life.
Was that progress?
She paused at the foot of the fence, looking down to the distant end, then up. Hope was long gone. Time for Robyn to take a chance. Do something unexpect
ed.
She grabbed the fence and started to climb.
Soon she was praying that the office behind her was empty and no one was watching her. At one point she was sure going around - even walking - would have been faster, but it was too late, and when she finally did touch down, the surge of adrenaline gave her a much-needed energy boost and she raced off in the direction she'd last seen Hope.
That surge didn't take her far. It couldn't. She ran around the next building and saw an empty parking lot. Beside it was an industrial complex, an interconnected maze of offices, quiet and vacant.
As she walked to the curb, a security car rolled past. The driver looked at her, but only nodded. Apparently, even in sweats, a ball cap and shades, she still didn't fit anyone's image of a thief, much less a fugitive.
Robyn headed into the complex, walking purposefully, a solitary worker putting in weekend hours. The lanes ahead snaked around the buildings and she followed them, looking and listening as she walked. Finally she heard the murmur of a man's voice. She darted to the nearest cover - a shadowy overhang. With her back to the wall, she crept along it until she reached the end and peered around.
Hope and Karl stood twenty feet away on a strip of grass between two buildings. The other man was nowhere to be seen. Hope had her back to Robyn, Karl gripping her upper arms, leaning over her. His voice was a soothing murmur, as if trying to calm her.
Even from where Robyn stood, she could tell Hope was shaking. Karl's grasp seemed to be the only thing keeping her from collapsing. After a moment, he straightened, eyes narrowing as he looked around. His lips parted, then a flash of annoyance as he swiped at his lip. Droplets of red splattered on white siding. Her gaze slid along the wall, seeing more crimson spots. Blood.
Karl shifted position into the light more. Blood oozed from his lip, more smeared across his face. His white shirt was dappled red.
Robyn looked from Hope, shaking with fear, to Karl, covered in blood.
Oh God, what had she done? She should never have let them get involved. It didn't matter that they hadn't asked permission. She let them get involved.
She squared her shoulders, ready to march over there and say "no more." She was going to the police. They couldn't stop her.
She lifted one foot, replayed her speech and realized how it would sound - as if she wanted them to stop her. And when they did, she could tell herself she'd tried - if not very hard - to do the right thing.
Doing the right thing meant doing it, not talking about it.
Robyn backed away from the corner.
* * *
HOPE
Karl rubbed Hope's forearms as she shivered, caught up in the chaos still swirling around her brain.
"Ride it out," he said. "Stop fighting it."
"I have to get back to Robyn."
"You can't let her see you like this."
"I know," she said through gritted teeth. "That's why I'm trying - "
" - to fight it. And that's why I'm telling you not to. Robyn's in a public place, surrounded by people. Look after yourself first." He bent to her ear. "Enjoy it."
He was right, but that didn't make the advice any easier to take. She wanted to be able to say "sorry, bad timing," and move on.
Karl straightened, still rubbing her forearms as he looked around.
"Any sign of him?"
He opened his mouth to answer, then scowled and swiped at the blood dripping from his lip, drops spattering the wall beside them. The blow that split his lip was what had brought Hope running. She'd been talking to Robyn and seen the younger werewolf's fist connecting with Karl's jaw, blood spraying, Karl reeling back.
The vision came without any spark of pleasure, more like the blast of a warning alarm, shutting down common sense and sending her flying to his rescue even when she knew he didn't need it. She could only imagine what Robyn thought. Probably still sitting there, shaking her head.
Hope had followed that chaos burst to find Karl alone on this strip of land where he'd fought the werewolf, cursing as he'd tried to clean his bloodied face with a scrap of tissue, his fury and frustration like a beacon guiding her in.
Earlier, as they'd driven past the ice cream stand, it had taken him only one whiff to confirm his fear - that the werewolf he'd smelled earlier had tracked him back to the motel room. Karl had set out in pursuit while Hope went to watch over Robyn. He'd caught up with the other man - Grant Gilchrist, a younger werewolf he'd bumped into a few years before.
The blow to Karl's mouth had knocked him off balance just long enough for Gilchrist to take off. Karl had been about to follow when a security car had turned the corner. By the time Karl could cross, Gilchrist was running through a busy supermarket parking lot where, with his white shirt covered in blood, Karl couldn't follow. The last thing he'd seen was Gilchrist getting into a cab.
So Karl had retreated to clean up. The blood on his shirt and the wall came from Gilchrist. Karl's only injury was the split lip, which bothered him no more than a broken nail. Still, Hope pulled out napkins from the ice cream stand and wiped his injury for a better look, which he withstood with an exaggerated patience that said he really didn't mind being fussed over.
"That's the best I can do." She balled up the napkin. "And it's still not good enough for you to walk around in public. I'll run back to Robyn, make sure she's okay, then grab a shirt at one of the stores. It won't be up to your standards..."
"I'll make an exception."
She nodded and jogged off. She didn't look back, but knew he was there, watching over her for as long as he could.
* * *
ADELE
Adele stood in the empty motel room and eyed Robyn's laptop as if it was a coiled snake ready to strike.
"What were you doing?" she whispered. "Checking your e-mail? Your stock portfolio? Your horoscope? Or something I should know about?"
Adele wasn't a computer whiz. She could use one for e-mail, banking, uploading her photos... A tool limited to what it could do for her, her interest extending no further.
The green light said it was turned on. The screen was dark, though, presumably to save power. Could she turn it back on without a password? If she tried, was there a way for Robyn to know she'd been on her computer?
Adele spent another minute eyeing the beast. There were other things she could search in Robyn's motel room. She hadn't done more than take a cursory look around, her attention snagged by the laptop, its promise making her heart race.
Bold moves, she reminded herself. She had to make the bold moves. Something on this computer had fascinated a fugitive, which was surely more important than anything she'd uncover rifling through drawers.
She touched the keyboard with a gloved finger. The screen lit up, colored lights flashing, and Adele stumbled back. But it wasn't an alarm. Just a Web page advertising computer games.
She stared at it. Computer games? That's what Robyn had been doing?
While Adele could believe Robyn Peltier would calmly play a game, confident that her name would be cleared any moment, she wasn't about to walk away without a more thorough check.
She clicked the browser's back button and was taken to a site about celebrities. This page seemed to be about Portia Kane. She read a few badly spelled messages - she might be homeschooled, but she was a lot better educated than most of these people, she reflected with satisfaction. Most of the messages seemed to be badmouthing Portia, though, so maybe they weren't as dumb as they seemed.
She flipped through more sites Robyn had visited. Some were on Portia, others on Jasmine Wills, and all nothing more than mockery and rumors, people regurgitating and debating what they'd learned from that most unimpeachable news source - the tabloids.
Why was Robyn visiting sites about Portia and Jasmine?
Had she been checking whether there were any final rumors she needed to deal with before moving on to her next PR project? Compiling a final list of news agencies to contact later, and do her final duties, giving the tabloids someth
ing nice to say about the dearly departed, suggesting the best photos to use...
Photos...
Adele minimized the browser and popped open Robyn's e-mail. And there it was, still in her in-box, an e-mail sent from her cell phone to her computer with that damning photo attached.
The message had been read, but didn't look as if it had been forwarded. So Portia had sent the photo to Robyn's cell and Robyn had forwarded it to her e-mail, where she could compile a message for her tabloid contacts. But she'd never gotten that far.
Adele let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief and pressed her hands to her stomach.
We're safe.
Their future wasn't entirely secured yet. There was still a lot to do, including one task regarding the photo: getting it off Robyn's cell phone. There was a good chance she'd already deleted it, and hadn't sent it anywhere except her laptop, but there was still that second picture - the one of Adele in the alley.
She needed that cell phone. Preferably without killing Robyn. Not that she minded the killing, but it complicated things unnecessarily. A simple theft should finish this. And if Robyn had forwarded the second photo, Adele might need her alive to question and figure out what she'd done with it and how to proceed. But she'd worry about that when the time came.
Adele deleted the e-mail.
Would that be enough or should she take the laptop? No. With all that had happened Robyn had probably forgotten the photo. If her laptop vanished, though, she'd know someone had broken in and that something on it had been valuable, probably linked to Portia's death -
A rap at the door.
"Housekeeping!"
Adele shot to her feet. "I'm - "
The rattle of a key in the lock drowned her out. She wheeled toward the bathroom, but the door swung open and an old woman with a nut-brown face and a shock of white hair peered in.
"Is okay? Clean now?"
Adele checked her watch, ready to make some excuse.
"You say after three," the woman said. "Okay now?"
It was 2:45. The woman's timekeeping was as lousy as her English. But the bigger a deal Adele made of it, the more likely the woman was to remember her, maybe report it to her boss.
"Sure," Adele said. "Now's good."
She cast one longing look around the room, wishing she'd searched it before getting sucked in by that damned computer. Other than a trash can overflowing with takeout cartons, the room was as neat as a pin. Even the beds were made. There was no way she could start hunting now and mess things up with the cleaner watching, and the longer she stayed, the more of an impression she'd make.
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