by Lisa Jackson
Not tonight, not tonight. He’d make damned sure of it.
He let out his breath, tried to calm himself as he bled all over the interior of his vehicle. The lights of Oakland appeared, shining upward, obliterating the stars, and he reminded himself that he was a survivor. He’d get through this and finish the job. He just had to center himself.
Despite the late hour, more cars were on the road, taillights glowing red. He kept his speed steady, couldn’t risk being pulled over by a cop, not now. He had an emergency first-aid kit with him, and he’d use it as best he could in the dingy little motel. He could feel the blood flow slowing, and that was good. Damned good. No artery nicked by those needle-nosed cutters. Good thing. Otherwise, he’d be in far worse trouble than he already was; he’d be forced to go to an ER, and then he’d be exposed.
He took the exit for his motel, and when he finally turned into the bumpy, worn asphalt lot of the Baysider, the reception area was still lit brightly, and the kid behind the counter was alone, playing on his cell phone, not paying the least bit of attention to who was coming or going. Good.
After parking in his usual spot, he grabbed the soft-sided pack that held all the essentials for treating wounds, burns, bug bites, and the like. He found his room key, hurried inside, and tried his best not to track in any blood. Once in the doorway, he hit the lock button on his key fob. Yeah, there were some red spots on the dusty cement, but he’d be gone before daylight and would disappear into the city.
Inside the bathroom of the locked room, he stripped off his pants and saw the ugly gash in his leg. It was deep, still bleeding slightly, and would probably need stitches. Several. But not tonight.
That ass-wipe Crenshaw!
It’s your own stupid fault. Why did you have to get close and taunt the bastard? He was down. You were lucky to have run out of the stable and set up quickly behind the tree, so you were able to nail the wife. Crenshaw would have bled out, or you could have taken another shot from behind the eucalyptus. But you had to get cocky, try to rub it in.
He’d hoped to catch them in the stable, but somehow he’d given himself away.
That damned dog.
Barking his fool head off.
You should have shot the yapping mutt up. That was your first mistake. One of many. You had to get close, didn’t you, like before, with the kid in the desert. Couldn’t be satisfied to shoot from a distance. What’s wrong with you?
“Nothing!” he said, louder than he’d expected, then clamped his teeth shut and decided not to listen to the nagging voice in his head or the ghost of Granny or any other unwanted recriminations. He had work to do. With the barest of supplies.
Inside the zippered pack, he found a packet of antiseptic wipes and another of antibiotic cream, some large sterile gauze patches, gauze roller strips, and tape. Not the quality of a hospital ER, but good enough. For tonight.
He washed his hands under hot water, using soap from a dispenser, then tore open the sterile paper envelopes so he could extract the gauze the second he needed it. After cleaning the raw flesh with hot water and the antiseptic wipes, he was able to view how deep the snippers had cut. All the way through muscle to the bone—his damned femur. “Bastard,” he muttered again with another dark thought for Crenshaw; then he focused on adding antiseptic and antibiotic ointment before binding the wound with a compress and two of the largest sterile pads. He hoped to hell he didn’t bleed through. As soon as he was finished, he tested the leg.
It worked. He could walk and bend, without too much trouble. And if the pain was great enough, he had pills he could use, but those painkillers were trouble; they dulled him, and he still needed that razor-sharp edge. Nor did he take the aspirin in the kit. He needed his blood to clot, couldn’t risk thinning it.
He tested himself again, stepping on the leg and walking. It hurt like hell, but he’d suffered through worse. For now, it would hold up if he didn’t strain it too much.
How the hell was he going to accomplish that?
Somehow, he’d have to figure it out.
He had more work to do. First his chest. He tore off his shirt and saw four large, evenly spaced scrapes running across his chest, higher and deeper on his left side; the merciless tines had cut through hair, skin, and muscle and driven down toward his gut. At least the wounds were no longer bleeding. He cleaned them as best he could, bandaged where he needed to; then he looked at his face in the mirror.
Ugly gashes.
Bruising and deep scrapes.
One nostril in tatters, the eye above swollen. He hoped that wound was superficial, but he couldn’t be certain as he couldn’t see out of it.
The bastard had nailed him, but good. Going out during the day would be a problem. He couldn’t cover the damage. From this point forward, he’d have to go out only at night, then come up with some logical accident to explain what had happened when he finally had to face people again.
But the current job was far from finished.
There was still Remmi Storm to deal with.
He felt a slow, cold smile crawl across his face as he realized that finally he would get some revenge.
Some of his own back.
He couldn’t wait to kill Remmi.
CHAPTER 25
Trudie was dead. Dead!
And Ned . . . he probably wouldn’t make it, either.
Remmi was sick as she and Noah drove away from the hospital where her ex-stepfather was clinging to life by a dwindling thread. At least that’s the feeling she’d gotten from the staff who had surrounded him. They hadn’t been allowed to visit him, of course. He’d already had emergency surgery, was slated for more, and would end up in the ICU, possibly under police guard.
“You okay?” Noah asked as they’d walked out of the brightly lit hospital and into the parking lot to the Subaru.
“No,” she said. She never would be. Seeing Ned and Trudie, two people close to her mother long ago, shot, covered in blood on the lawn of their own home—Trudie shot in the back, gunned down; Ned, battered and beaten, his eyes never opening. Was Remmi okay? No way. She hadn’t been “okay” before, and she certainly wasn’t now.
She stared through the windshield and felt cold to the marrow of her bones, despite the heater blasting warm air from the vents. Noah was driving. She hadn’t put up much of a fight after the interviews at the station. They’d been kept apart, been driven in separate vehicles from the ranch to the Sheriff’s Department, where they’d been questioned more intently, each in a private room with detectives from Sacramento and San Francisco. The ordeal had taken hours before they were taken, together this time, back to the Crenshaw ranch to pick up Remmi’s car; crime-scene techs were still working there, and a deputy was guarding the scene, while two news crew vans circled the end of the drive. A reporter and cameraman had been poised to talk to them as they left, trying to flag down the car, but they hadn’t stopped. Noah, who had snagged the keys from her, had shaken his head at the dogged blond reporter and sped onto the main road. Remmi had been thankful for his sudden lead foot. No way had she wanted to discuss anything with the press.
However, she had insisted on visiting the hospital, and Noah had agreed. Then, after they’d been denied access and any real information on Ned, they’d left, and Noah had swung the Subaru into an InN-Out Burger, where they’d picked up hamburgers and fries before the place shut down at one in the morning.
So now he was at the wheel, and they were driving across the dark waters of the bay, the lights of San Francisco glittering like jewels on the hilly peninsula.
They’d tried to talk, to discuss what had happened, but after spending hours being grilled, they hadn’t spoken much since leaving the hospital, each engrossed in their own unsettling thoughts, left to wonder why this had happened.
Tired as she was, the questions kept running through Remmi’s head: Why were Ned and Trudie killed? Was it because of the book? Had to be, right? The timing couldn’t be ignored. And what about that book? Why had Trudie d
ecided to write it, or at least publish it, now? It would have taken a year or more to put together probably. Who had helped her? And what about Ned and Trudie—her mother’s first husband and once best friend? How had they gotten together? And Noah, why in the world had he turned up now, in the middle of all of this?
She glanced at him again. He looked serious, his profile thrown in relief when cars driving in the opposite direction passed, the beams of their headlights flashing over the interior. For a second, she closed her eyes and thought how her life had changed in the few, short days since Karen Upgarde had taken that fateful leap.
From then on, her life had been turned upside down.
Oh, who was she kidding? Her life had always been in some kind of turmoil.
They reached the house, and Noah parked the car in her usual spot. Out of habit, she checked the street. No unfamiliar SUV. Noah’s Silverado hadn’t moved. Nor were there any Christmas lights blazing from the rooftop. Greta was sure to be in a state about that, as one of the neighbor’s eaves was aglow with a string of lights, and Greta liked to be the first to welcome the season.
With Remmi leading the way, they climbed the exterior staircase, walking up the steps where they’d met less than eight hours before.
Had it only been that long? It felt like a lifetime. Then, she hadn’t been certain she should allow Noah into the house, had suspected him to be an intruder, but now it felt natural that he was with her.
Did she trust him?
Not completely, of course. She still barely knew him, but at least most of the story he’d told her he’d reconfirmed with the police, and it had seemed to be the truth.
Funny how time changed everything.
Inside, Noah unwrapped the burgers and fries and packs of condiments, then spread them onto the coffee table. Remmi found the bottle of wine she’d been working on and, without asking, poured the remains of the chardonnay into two glasses. “You game?” she asked, offering him one.
His smile didn’t quite touch his eyes, but he tried to joke, “I prefer a merlot with my Animal-Style Double-Double, but this’ll do in a pinch.”
She tried and failed to grin just as Romeo strolled in. “Not yours,” she said to the cat as they dug in. Romeo took his usual spot on the back of the couch, switching his tail.
Food helped. Though she’d been dead tired and depressed, she felt a little more energy as she finished her burger and sipped the wine.
“You’re wrong,” she said.
“About what?”
Holding up her glass, she said, “I think this is the perfect pairing. If you don’t believe me, Google it.”
He laughed for the first time since they’d reconnected, and the sound touched her, almost brought tears to her eyes, as she considered the terrible ridiculousness of the situation.
“God, what’s happening?” she asked, suddenly struck anew by the spiraling events that had led them to this point.
“We’ll find out.”
“You sure? After all this time? When some kind of madman is on the loose mowing down people with a rifle?”
“A madman connected to Didi. Yeah, we’ll find him.” He took a bite of his burger and chewed.
“How can you be so confident?”
“He’ll show his hand. They always do.”
“Do they?” she countered. “Then how come it’s been twenty years?”
“We haven’t been looking.”
“The police have.”
“A long time ago. As I said, he’ll show his hand. Maybe tonight was it.” Another bite and a swallow of wine. “Pretty bold move, killing the author of the book and trying to take out her husband, who happens to be Didi’s first husband.” He frowned a little. “But unless there’s something we don’t know about the Crenshaws—like they owe money to the mob, or whatever—it sure looks like the hit was connected to the publication of the book.”
“Or Karen Upgarde’s death.”
He nodded. “Probably both.”
“So how do you think they’re connected to Karen Upgarde?”
“Million-dollar question. What we have to figure out. That techie I told you about is already on it. I texted her before we left the hospital.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“She doesn’t exactly keep regular, nine-to-five hours.”
“Handy.”
“Very.” He was finishing off his fries.
“So she can get into bank records and phone records and e-mail? That kind of thing, like hackers do on TV?”
A slow grin slid across his face. “Why, Ms. Storm, are you suggesting I’ve asked her to do something illegal?”
“Never.” They both knew that was a bald-faced lie. She was desperate to get at the truth, to learn the fate of her mother and the twins, to put the whole mystery of her past behind her. “I just want to find out what happened to Didi. And what happened after she left. Was the dead guy in the car that burned really the twins’ father, and who was he?” She could feel her long-simmering anger burn brighter.
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to Ariel? I saw my mother hand my sister over to the man she swore was the twins’ father, Noah, but the police insist they didn’t find any evidence of a baby in the burned-out car. So, is she alive? Where? How’d she survive?” Remmi couldn’t stop the dozens of unanswered questions that had piled up in her mind from rushing out, faster and faster. “And what the hell happened to Seneca and Adam, huh? Why did she take him away? To be with Didi?” She tossed back the last of her wine and set her glass down on the coffee table. “It just seems the more we learn, the less we know.”
“Sometimes that’s the way it works,” he admitted. “A case seems to get murkier before it finally clears.”
“It’s been two damned decades. How much murkier can it get? I’m tired of living my life not knowing, maybe never knowing. And now . . . and now all that’s happening: the book, the suicide, the murder . . . there’s a reason, Noah. And the way we were going to find out was by talking to Ned and Trudie.”
“Maybe,” he interjected.
“Not maybe. She was Maryanne Osgoode.”
“You don’t know that she was killed because she wrote the book.”
“It’s a good bet. And they took her out before anyone had a chance to talk to her.”
“To shut her up,” he said.
“Yes!”
“But the book is already out there, the damage done.”
“Maybe they had something in their notes, something they didn’t realize was dangerous or whatever. Or they were going to write a sequel, or promote the book and then it might come out. I don’t know.” She let out her breath and stood, unable to sit a second longer. “Then there’s the money. What about the payment she got for the book? There has to be some money involved. If Trudie as Maryanne Osgoode is the author of the book, then she gets paid for it, right?”
He nodded. “But how much are we talking about? It couldn’t be a lot. A small Oregon press that no one’s really heard of?”
“But the book is taking off. There’s a buzz around it. All weird, I know, but some people are into that true mystery thing, possible crime, a little glitz thrown in. I don’t know. There’s money there.”
He nodded again, thinking over her words.
“But what about after she dies, like now?” Remmi pressed. “Who gets the money that the book earns?”
“Ned, probably.”
“And if he dies?”
“Her heirs, I suppose. Or whatever the agreement, the contract with her publisher, says.”
Remmi was pacing, walking from one end of the living room to the other. From the windows and bookcase to the archway leading to the interior stairs. “As near as I can tell, she doesn’t have any heirs, if Ned doesn’t survive. She didn’t have kids, I don’t think, but I suppose there could be a sister or brother, maybe even parents still alive.”
“You’re saying you think the killer’s after the book’s royalties
.”
“Yes, I . . . I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just thinking aloud.”
“Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” he said, as he crumpled the wrappings and stuffed them into the white In-N-Out sack. “Tell me what you know about Ned and Trudie’s relationship.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said, stopping her pacing near the bookcase. “I never thought either one of them was interested in each other or . . . you know, making a buck off of my mother.” She just couldn’t see it.
“Seems like they did.”
“I know, but why? From the looks of things, it seemed like they were doing okay.” The ranch house had been clean before the police started going through it, the furniture up-to-date in that retro mid-century modern style that had made a comeback. They had acreage and horses, two older vehicles, and in the garage, she’d learned, a Porsche, only a few years old and in great condition.
“Appearances can be deceiving. You know the old saying, ‘Big hat, no cattle.’”
“Except they had cattle,” she reminded him.
“I know. Maybe a hat or two, as well.” He smiled again, and it touched her deep inside, caused her heart to do a traitorous little flip, and reminded her again of how infatuated she’d been with him. But that had been eons ago, she told herself. He was different now. A man. Battle-scarred from life. Yet she still found him innately sensual, probably because he seemed so unaware of his own sexuality. Was that even possible? She considered the beard shadow darkening his strong jaw, the creases near deep-set eyes that sparked with intelligence, the way he could stare into the distance thoughtfully.
“You think Trudie or Ned or the two of them together were working with Didi?” he asked, bringing her back to the present.
