From the radio came the voice of Johnny Rivers. Slow Dancing .
“I’ve never danced with a woman,” Karin said.
“Oh, come on, even straight women have danced together,” said Rita.
Karin reached for Rita’s hand. Rita led. She could feel the heat in her face as Karin followed. Rita sensed that familiar lump in her throat, the rise of memory and loss. Karin’s hair smelled like ripe apples. Rita swallowed hard. She would not let emotion win.
Rita moved her partner around the room. Deftly she danced past the cocktail table, the edge of the hearth, the sleeping cat—and Karin moved with her.
When the song ended, they were standing in front of the wood stove. Their faces illuminated by the rosy light of the fire.
“Are you crying?” Karin said as she leaned back a little from Rita.
“I never cry.” Rita’s face was inches from Karin’s. She searched in her eyes.
Karin did not look away.
Rita leaned forward. For an instant, she hesitated and then touched her lips at the corner of Karin’s mouth.
Cigarette smoke, she swore she smelled cigarette smoke, and she was afraid.
Chapter 36
One minute Rita was staring into Karin’s eyes. The next the house went black.
Karin jumped. “What is it?”
“We’re at the end of the transmission lines out here. Electric goes off all the time.” Rita squeezed her arm for reassurance. “Do you smell cigarettes?”
“No, why?”
The dancing light from the wood stove grill cast devilish shadows around the room. Rita started for the phone.
“Wait,” Karin whispered after her and grabbed at her sleeve.
“I’m just going to report this to the electric company.”
“We’re the only ones.” Karin pulled Rita back. “Look.”
The lone streetlight at the end of the drive still shone. Rita went to the side window. Loretta’s nightlight glimmered in her bedroom window. The mercury light on the barn was gone.
A rattle at the back of the house.
“Stay with me,” Rita whispered in Karin’s ear. She led her by the hand as they made their way to the stairs.
The front door knob ticked a turn as Karin and Rita passed.
“Shit.”
“He’s here.” Panic quavered in Karin’s voice.
“My cell phone is upstairs—with my car keys and my gun.” Rita hoped she sounded more composed than she felt. Her heart was pounding against her chest and her mouth went dry.
Karin dug her nails into Rita’s hand. “My phone’s in the car.”
Rita whispered again. “Stay close to me. If anything happens, run outside and get to Loretta’s house.”
“What about you?”
“Just do what I say. Got it?”
Karin nodded.
They began their stealth ascent on the stairs. At the top, Rita felt sweat beading around her hairline and on her lip. Her hands were shaky, but she gripped Karin’s to keep herself steady.
Upstairs there was no fire to cast even a dim light. The two women halted on the top step. Rita put a finger over Karin’s lips. She nodded to let Rita know that she understood not to cry out.
The Glock 19 was in its holster slung from a coat rack peg on the front of the closet door. The car keys and cell phone lay on the dresser top. Rita reached for her gun.
Her eyes were getting accustomed to the dark, and she knew the house well. It wasn’t bumping into furniture that worried her.
From downstairs came the creak of the back door hinges. Rita froze. Karin jumped behind her. Rita put her finger over her lips again. She could feel the tears on Karin’s face.
Rita gave her a quick hug and then reached for her weapon. She felt for the magazine; the clip was in. She flicked the safety off and took a deep breath. Then she listened. Her every nerve fiber tensed, ready to catch a creak, a cough, a scrape. Nothing.
The gun in her hand calmed her. Her hands steadied. She and Karin inched toward the dresser. Rita groped the top. She found the keys, but the cell phone was missing.
“Shit,” she mouthed to herself. Where had she left it?
She touched Karin’s arms with both hands as if to set her in place. She then walked carefully to the bedroom door, shut and locked it.
“It’ll buy us a few minutes,” she whispered to Karin when she returned. “We’re going out the window.”
“He might be out there.” Karin pulled back.
“And he might be in here and he might be setting the house on fire. Who knows,” Rita whispered, “but we have a better shot at escape out there. In here we’re cooked.”
Rita motioned for Karin to stand on one side of the window, away from the glass. She stood on the other and turned the sash lock without a sound. Each woman put a hand on the window to push slowly and quietly up. Rita rested the gun on the sill and slid the screen open as well.
Outside a dense cold settled on the night. A fine mist of snow still fell from the sky. The flat porch roof extended just outside.
“I’m afraid of heights,” Karin said.
“Good, that would be two of us,” said Rita. “Just don’t look down.”
“How are we going to get off the roof?”
“Just get on it first, please,” Rita whispered back.
With the first step Karin’s foot slipped and she grabbed in panic at the windowsill.
“Don’t try to stand. Stay on your hands and knees,” Rita advised.
While Karin cautiously made her way onto the roof, Rita tiptoed to the bedroom door to listen. Nothing.
Doubts crept in. Where the hell was the intruder? What if it was just some freak wiring problem? No, she said to herself. Better to take the chance and look like a fool.
She smiled to herself at the news story: Woman falls to death after crawling onto snow-covered roof. Police suspect idiocy. Film at eleven.
“I’m freezing,” Karin said when Rita came to the window to follow her on the roof.
Rita reached in and grabbed a sweatshirt lying across a handy chair. Karin pulled it on.
“And now that we’re here, how are we going to get down?” Karin asked.
“We’re taking the air stairs.” Rita crawled to the edge of the roof and peered through the darkness. The snow gave some semblance of light to the landscape, but out here in the heart of the country, night was very deep.
“What are the air—oh, no. No,” Karin hissed at Rita. “I am not jumping off this roof. It must be a twenty-foot drop.”
“Twelve. It’s a twelve-foot drop.” Rita said.
“Oh, great.”
“You’re not going to jump. I’m going to lower you down. I’m the one who’s going to jump.”
“I’m afraid,” Karin said.
“Get as close to the edge as you can. I’ll hold your arms. You’ll be ok.”
“I can’t,” Karin said.
“You will,” Rita commanded.
Karin inched to the roof edge. Rita surveyed the snowy crust on the lawn far below. No footprints. If she could only get Karin down without a sound.
“Now listen,” Rita whispered in Karin’s ear. “After I lower you as far as I can, you’ll drop to the ground. Run immediately to Loretta’s house. Do not stop. Got it?”
“I need to wait for you.”
“No, no matter what happens, you’ll do what I say.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” Karin said.
“We don’t have time to play this game.”
Karin nodded.
Slowly, Rita helped Karin make her way over the edge of the porch roof. Rita’s arms ached with the effort. She peered over the side; Karin was looking up into her face, awaiting the signal. Rita nodded as Karin braced herself. She dropped with a soft thud on the frozen grass below.
Karin looked back. Rita made a shooing motion with one hand and Karin dashed across the lawn and driveway. She disappeared in the shadow of the oaks that separated Loretta’s p
roperty from hers.
Rita’s toes were numb now and her fingers stung from the chill. A noise behind her—had someone opened the bedroom door? Rita stuffed the Glock into the back of her waistband and gripped the edge of the roof. The guttering was going to slice her hands to ribbons.
The bedroom door scraped open. Its ancient hinges strained against the dresser.
“Damn.”
She could take a leap or she could attempt to maneuver the porch posts. A drop from this height could leave her unable to run.
She stooped to grasp the edge of the roof.
“You’re not planning to fly away, are you, Ms. Mars?”
Still on her knees, Rita turned to face Douglas Sevier who stood at the window, a Sig Sauer in his black-gloved hand. A demonic mist swirled from his mouth as he spoke.
Rita snapped her arm behind her back and snatched the Glock from her jeans.
“Any minute the police are going to be here.” Rita, still on her knees, aimed the gun barrel up at Sevier’s chest.
“The telepathy police?” Sevier smiled as he stepped through the window and out onto the roof. He took a step toward her.
Rita shrunk back and thrust the Glock forward. “I’m warning you.” For a moment, she thought of just throwing herself off the roof, but he’d have her for sure if she snapped her leg. If only she was confident enough to try and stand.
Sevier edged forward and leaned down into Rita’s face. “You can’t do it.”
Before she could react, Sevier punched her gun hand with the Sig’s barrel. He whacked her squarely on the knuckles. Pain shot up her arm as her Glock slid along the snow coated shingles and came to rest in the gutter.
“When I finish with you, I’m going to saunter next door and dispose of potential witnesses.” Sevier leaned so close to Rita’s face that she could smell the peppermint.
She heard speaking but not the words. Her mind spun like a tire in mud. There was no chance of kicking at Sevier and knocking him off the roof. The Glock was gone. To lunge at him was certain disaster.
She was going to die.
Rita looked up. All she could see was the glint in Sevier’s eye and his white teeth. He pushed the gun against her throat. She swallowed hard as the cold metal pressed on her jugular.
She sensed a presence then. There was movement and the cutting swoosh of mass and velocity splitting the night air. Rita heard a soft thud with the crunch of bone.
Like a great crow, Sevier flew over the edge of the roof to the frozen lawn below. A muscular figure in black towered over her.
“Goddam, girl. I told you. I told you, you couldn’t pull that trigger.” Bev dropped to her knees in front of Rita. “And now, here you scare me like you’re going to be killed. Jesus.” Bev hugged her tight and they rocked back and forth on the snowy shingles.
Rita closed her eyes and let the tears fall, let herself collapse into Bev’s arms, let herself come back to the land of the living.
“You were right,” she whispered to Bev. “I froze. My head took over and I started thinking about having killed someone.”
“It’s ok, baby. It’s ok.” Bev still held her.
Rita stopped after a moment. Bev let her go and helped her to her feet. Both peered over the roof at the broken figure below.
“We need to call the ambulance,” Rita said.
“Just the police,” said Bev. “He was dead before he left the roof.”
Rita hugged her one more time and then they crawled back inside her house.
♏
Hours later, on the dark side of morning, Rita and Bev and Karin sat with Loretta and Leonard Mondieu in their kitchen. Silently they sipped hot chocolate together. The house smelled of evergreens and sugar cookies. There was no death here, no threat or danger. It could have been the night before Christmas and all through the house.
The blue gumball police lights had long since left, along with the ambulance. The statements were in the books; the inquiry to be scheduled. Rita had contacted her attorney who had done such an admirable job of lifting her from general lock-up on her last police adventure.
“Isn’t it a lovely night, dear?” Loretta asked Rita. “I made these cookies myself.”
“They’re delicious,” Rita answered. She turned to Bev. “So how the hell did you know to come?”
“I called on the bat phone, dear. More hot chocolate?” Loretta asked Karin.
“The bat phone?” Rita stared at Bev.
Loretta whipped a flip phone from the pocket of her fleece robe.
“I gave it to her,” Bev said. “It’s programmed to dial one number, mine. I told her if she . . .”
“If I saw the devil again, I was to push the button on the bat phone. And I did.” Loretta swelled with pride.
“You saw him?”
“Dear, I see everything that happens at your house.”
“Everything?”
Loretta smiled and nodded.
♏
In the morning Rita helped Karin pack and followed her to her house in Guilford to help at the other end. When the boxes and suitcases were empty, they sat at Karin’s kitchen table with coffee and cookies.
“I remember this scene,” Rita said. “This is where I came in.”
Karin nodded and smiled.
“I’m sorry the way this ended,” Rita said.
“I think it was inevitable.” Karin touched her hand. “The path Douglas chose—it was a matter of time.”
“I can still be sorry,” Rita said.
“Yes, you can and I thank you for that. And why did you ask me about cigarettes just before the lights went out.”
“I smelled the smoke, strong. I’ve noticed for a long while I seem to catch that whenever something bad is about to happen. Reminds me of my father.”
They sat in silence for a long while.
“So . . .” They spoke at the same time and laughed.
“You first,” Rita said.
“I’m going to sell the house, move to a smaller place. I’ll work on putting my life back together,” Karin said. “And you?”
“More leaping tall buildings, saving the world, that kind of thing.” Rita glanced at her watch. “I’m meeting Smooth downtown in an hour. She’s helping me with a runaway case.”
Rita stood up.
Karin came around the table and held out her arms. “I’m glad I got to spend time with you.”
They held each other close. Rita was the first to release. Karin followed her to the door.
Rita turned as she twisted the handle. “Just one thing.”
“And that is?” Karin asked.
“Don’t die wondering,” Rita said and stepped outside into the sun.
Acknowledgements
I wanted to write and never imagined beyond my word choice and my storytelling all the complexities and decisions and plain grunt work that a published life demanded. For the support of those pivotal people who believed and yet will never see a finished book - I am forever grateful to my grandmother, May Dixon for my love of learning; to Mary Gay Calcott, the woman who taught me how to write, and to my forever friend, Mary Alice Brittingham. This work honors them.
And for enduring the “read this, please and give me honest feedback,” for hours of my unavailability and obsession, I so grateful that you hung in there with me. I owe my partner, Dotty Friedrick, for her encouragement and unfailing support in spite of my changeable moods. I am grateful for the support of Carol Steinitz, who gave good counsel at my lowest moments and always spoke with the calm voice of reason.
I would especially like to thank, Caitlin Berve, a writer whose writing, editing and work ethic I admire and respect. She is responsible for the quality of the editorial work performed on my manuscript. She kept me on track with the task list, reminding me of things I had no idea I needed to do. Left to my own devices, I could not have gotten through the sheer mechanics of publishing.
VALERIE WEBSTER has been a triathlete, a writing instructor, a crime reporter, a me
mber of Sisters in Crime and the mentoring program of Mystery Writers of America. She is the author of DRIVEN: A RITA MARS THRILLER, wherein she incorporates her extensive career in law enforcement technologies. Valerie makes her home near Boulder, Colorado. DRIVEN is her debut thriller.
More Mysteries
Rita Mars will return! To find out when book two is released, go to www.valeriewebster.com .
At www.valeriewebster.com , you will also find a mystery quiz! Discover if you have what it takes to be a private investigator.
DRIVEN: A Rita Mars Thriller Page 28