“I just have one question,” Chase said as they wound through Hollywood Hills and turned onto one of the steepest and curviest sections of Laurel Canyon Boulevard. “When you were dating this guy, did his ex-fiancée make any appearances in your mind?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Didn’t you think that was odd?”
“Well, I didn’t always wear the ring with him. And sometimes people who have passed don’t communicate with loved ones left behind. If they do, it’s usually because there’s unfinished business.”
“You don’t think there’s unfinished business when someone’s murdered, or even dies in a horrible car accident?”
It was a fair question, and she couldn’t answer it. “I don’t know,” she said, watching for the high brick wall that surrounded Brian’s property. “I was always relieved she never had a message to get to him. It’s right around the next corner. There’s the gate. Oh . . .” Arianna leaned forward as they pulled up to the wrought-iron opening tucked between thick foliage and the wall. “The gate’s open.”
Just as they pulled up, a huge SUV rumbled out of the driveway, so close that Arianna gasped as Chase swerved to avoid it.
“Was that Brian?” Chase asked, looking in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t think so,” Arianna said, turning to look. “Brian wouldn’t drive away without stopping.”
Chase zipped into the driveway that rounded to the front of the house. “Would he leave the gate and front door open?”
“Never.” Arianna was pulling at her door handle before he stopped. Chase parked and came around the car, meeting her at the steps, his gun drawn.
“Wait.” He stepped into the two-story foyer, looking from side to side. “Brian?”
Arianna entered in behind him, peering into the formal dining room on the right, and the living room across from it. And then she saw him. Sprawled on the floor, faceup. Covered in blood.
“Brian! Oh, my God!”
She dove toward him, but Chase grabbed her arm and held her back, bounding to the body in two steps to feel for a pulse. “He’s alive. Barely.”
Shaking, she started to reach for her bag, but Chase already had his cell out and was dialing. She dropped to her knees by his head, smelling the blood oozing from his stomach. She’d seen only one other gunshot wound in her life—in the same place, on her mother.
She automatically reached for him, but Chase stopped her, so she braced her hands on either side of Brian’s head, leaning closer. “Brian, it’s me, Ari.”
His lids moved, almost opening, his eyes rolling back a little. “Go.” The word was little more than air.
Go? He wanted her to leave?
“Get.”
She stroked his hair. “Shhh. We’re getting help.”
“Your . . . ring.”
She jerked at the words. Her ring?
“Go,” he growled, using every ounce of life on the one syllable. “Must have it . . . for . . . the truth . . .”
She pushed her hair back, looking up at Chase. “Chase, whoever just left shot Brian. You have to go find him.”
“No.”
Oh, God. Protection 101. He wouldn’t leave her. “Please!” she begged, her voice cracking. “He can’t have gotten far; there’s no turn for a mile. Please, go.” She half stood, “Chase, please. Otherwise we’ll never know who shot him.”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “I’m not leaving you alone for a ring, Arianna.”
“I don’t care about the ring, Chase,” she pleaded. “I want to get whoever shot him before they escape.”
He spoke into the phone, giving an address. Then he gave the phone to Arianna. “Keep them on the line.”
When he left, she transferred every ounce of concentration to Brian. “Who did this?” she asked softly, brushing his wavy hair off his forehead. “Who shot you?”
His eyes opened again, unfocused under hooded lashes. “Katie.” The word was no more than a tortured breath.
Katie. “Whoever did this killed Katie, didn’t they?”
He took a slow, labored breath, which pushed more blood out of his wound. From the cell phone on the floor, a woman repeatedly said, “Stay on the line,” but Arianna ignored her, sending all her power to Brian, willing him to stay alive. “Who shot you?”
“Katie.” This time the word was urgent, harsh. Demanding.
She stifled a frustrated moan.
“He’s trying to tell you, Ari.” Behind her, a gun cocked, clear and deadly, as a vaguely familiar woman’s voice said, “I shot him.”
Katie?
• • •
Chase had gone a half mile when he saw the SUV hidden in a grove of trees in front of the next house. Swearing, he pulled up next to it, jumped out, and tried to open the locked door.
Could the shooter have parked it and walked back to the house? He ran back to the Porsche, squealed into reverse, threw it into a three-point turn and slammed on the accelerator. The engine screamed around the last hairpin turn as Chase threw it into a lower gear and headed for the driveway.
He flatfooted the brake pedal and fishtailed just in time not to hit the iron gate that was closed and locked, separating him from Arianna.
“Son of a bitch!” Stupid, stupid! But how had someone got past him? He’d been on the only road.
He vaulted from the car and threw himself against the fence, which was at least twelve feet tall and well designed to stop intruders, with no horizontal bars to scale.
Sweat rolled down his back and his heart hammered. Whoever got in there to lock him out hadn’t run back up Laurel Canyon on foot. There had to be a back way.
He ran along the wall that rimmed the property, looking for any little chunk of brick that would give him a foothold. He’d get over that wall or die trying.
When he heard a gunshot, he didn’t wait for a foothold. Raw adrenaline and determination pushed him up and over the wall. He had to get to her before it was too late.
At the sound of the second shot, fear choked in his throat. Then he heard a third, a fourth, a fifth—and he knew for certain that someone in that house was dead.
If it was Arianna, there’d never be closure. There’d be hell to pay.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
CARLA LYNCH LOOKED NOTHING like Katie Childress, yet she claimed to be her. When Arianna accused her of lying she fired her gun in anger, just to make her point, and Arianna knew she’d better pretend to believe her. Otherwise she’d be lying next to Brian, long before Chase got back or the ambulance arrived. Someone would come. Chase would not let her die.
Some things, she just . . . hoped were true.
“I thought Katie was dead,” she said simply.
“But you love to chat with dead people.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the ring. “When you’ve got this.” The Australian accent was gone.
“It’s not a trick, Carla.”
“The name’s Katie.” She threw the ring on the floor, where it bounced a few feet from where Brian was bleeding to death. “Katherine Childress.”
“I read your obituary.” Arianna kept her gaze on the deranged woman while flipping through every option of how to escape without getting shot. She came up with none.
“The obit.” Carla gave a dry laugh. “My dad covered every frickin’ base, didn’t he?”
“Your dad?” The plastic surgeon. She remembered that tidbit from the police report. “How? Why?”
“How? With power, money, and influence—the coin of the realm in this town. Why?” She shrugged. “Daddy’s little girl was in trouble, and he understood I had to kill or be killed.”
“Who did you kill?”
Carla drew back, looking a little bemused. “If you don’t know, then I’ve been losing sleep for no damn reason. I thought she was whispering in your ear, all these months.”
The vision. The Jaguar. The cliff.
Carla waved the gun toward a chair. “Go over there. I want this to look
like a murder-suicide. That’ll be good for Closure ratings, don’t you think?”
“That’s what this is all about?” Arianna kept her voice, and her shock, well modulated, moving slowly to the chair. “Ratings?” Could Carla be that ambitious? Did she want Arianna’s job? “Is that why you paid Eric Scheff to send me e-mails and steal my ring?”
“Hey, you handed him to me. Somebody had to go trace your nasty notes from whacko fans and even more whacko enemies. When I read them, it was too easy to track him down and set him up. Plus I figured if I had to get rid of you, I could direct the police to him. And no, this is not about ratings.”
“Then why? Why did you shoot Brian? Why did you . . . why did Katie die?”
“Katie died because I was stupid enough to let myself get blackmailed by an underbelly of this city you probably don’t even know exists. I had information and access at my internship at a studio. But they kept wanting more, and then . . . I got in that inevitable place you get with those people. I just beat them to the job and made it look like an accident.”
So Katie wasn’t in the Jaguar when it went over the cliff. She’d faked her own death. “But who died?”
“Some prostitute no one will ever miss. And my father ID’d ‘my’ body, after he’d put my ass on a private plane to Australia to have his med school cronies make me into a new person.” She touched her face. “They’re just a little too good down there.”
Arianna heard the crack in her voice, and instantly knew it was also the crack in her hard shell. “Brian didn’t recognize you, did he?”
She paled. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Was he in love with me, or the outside of me? I freaking killed myself getting back here, getting this job, getting in his face. I was sure that he’d fall in love with Carla—because underneath, I’m still the same person.”
Oh, yeah. She was cracking. Now Arianna just had to figure out how to widen the gap until she broke. “He’ll never love anyone but Katie,” Arianna said sadly.
Carla’s laugh was bitter. “I realized that today, when I walked in on him stroking a hard-on while he watched old videos of our engagement party. Funny how a man can be so in love, he can whack off just looking at a picture of a girl—yet when she’s standing right in front of him, he doesn’t even know it’s the same person.” Her voice wavered again, and Arianna grew hopeful. “So I decided I ought to just come over here tonight and tell him how I feel about him.” She looked at him again, her face contorted as she fought pain. “He didn’t take it so well.”
“Why did you want my ring so bad, if you were going to tell Brian?”
Carla looked at Arianna as if she was insane. “I wasn’t planning on telling him the truth! And I sure as hell didn’t want you blurting it out to camera two. You’ve always been the wild card, Ari. Ever since I realized you were the real deal, I’ve been scared. I’ve tried so hard to get rid of you, but I know that ring is the key. I finally lucked out today, when you left it at home. I’ve been in your house so many times looking for it, I feel like I should stock your fridge.”
The thought sickened her. “How did you get in?”
“Brian had your key and alarm code in his desk for months.” She smirked. “You don’t really think your ring was some big secret, do you? It’s so obvious.” She imitated Arianna with an exaggerated motion of playing with her ring.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that gun, and Brian’s terrifyingly still chest. “Why did you shoot him?”
“He wasn’t interested in Carla.”
“So you killed him?”
“No. I told him the truth.” She swallowed. “You’re right. He didn’t care who I am. He blames me for Katie’s death, even though I am Katie.” She laughed, but it was a sob. “He wanted to turn me in. I had to stop him.”
Where is that ambulance? Where is Chase? “You’ll never get away with this,” Arianna said. “I wasn’t alone.”
“I know. I ditched the car, ’cause I figured you’d go after me. Then I sneaked in the back to wipe out my fingerprints, not expecting you to stay behind.”
Her voice hardened. “I locked your bodyguard out. Now, should I shoot your temple to make it look like suicide? Or maybe in the mouth? Something close, ’cause I suck with this thing. I must have missed you by fifteen feet the other night.”
There had to be some way to buy time. She had to have some power over this unstable woman, some way to turn this around. She thought about the tough, ruthless man she’d watched in action that day. What would he do?
Chase had power. He had size. He had a gun. She had . . . nothing. Her gaze slid to the spot on the floor where her mother’s ring lay. She didn’t even have that anymore.
With a shaky hand, Carla lifted her gun.
Suddenly, a forceful ping hit low in Arianna’s spine, and she sat straight in surprise. A swift and familiar chill ran up her body, blossoming into a vision. A face.
A scared young girl with a delicate voice and hollow eyes whispered softly in Arianna’s head. “My name is Taylor.”
This was her power. This was her gift. And this was going to save her life.
Arianna looked over the gun and met Carla’s gaze. “Her name was Taylor.” She paused, listening. “Taylor O’Neill.”
“Stop it,” Carla hissed. “You’re a total fake.”
“She wants you to know she wasn’t really a prostitute.”
“You can’t do this without your ring!”
Evidently, she could. “You offered to help her, Carla. She trusted you.”
She swung the gun to the floor where the ring lay and fired. The ring catapulted in the air, then landed, split and useless on the floor.
“There. Now you have to stop.”
But the image and the power were very much intact. “She was a runaway. Did you know that?”
Carla paled and her arms trembled, shaking the gun she held with both hands. “What I know is that you can’t do this without that ring on!”
“She was a runaway from . . .” Arianna closed her eyes and listened. “Seattle.”
“Stop it!” Carla’s voice cracked. “Stop it!” She fired directly at the ring, leaving another black hole in the smooth oak floor. “I don’t care about her!” she screamed.
One more time—if she could just get her to turn to that ring one more time . . .
“Listen, Carla. She wants to tell you something. She says that—”
Carla fired at the ring three times in rapid succession, loud enough that she didn’t hear the chair scrape as Arianna leaped up and jumped her. She knocked the gun to the ground and pushed Carla off balance, but she threw her weight forward on top of Arianna. Immediately, Carla started to crawl them both closer to the weapon.
Grunting, Arianna tried to stop her, to claw her eyes, to bite her shoulder—but Carla was much stronger and pulled them both within range of the gun. Arianna yanked on a handful of black hair and Carla thrust her knee into Arianna’s stomach, the blinding pain taking her breath away.
Carla pinned her with her chest and legs, reaching with a loud grunt toward the gun. Arianna thrust her arm out to her side, patting frantically on the floor, knowing it was there . . . it was right . . . there!
The jagged edge of the ring scraped her fingertips. Closing her fist over the metal, she whipped her arm back, scraping a long, vicious swipe on Carla’s cheek, making her howl. The unexpected attack gave Arianna the advantage, and she flipped Carla off her and scrambled toward the gun.
Just as she seized the weapon a blast rocked the room, silencing Carla’s cries. Arianna spun around, the gun in one hand, her ring in the other.
Chase held his weapon over Carla’s body, his shirt torn, his face filthy, his hands bleeding, his chest heaving.
Arianna dropped the gun, and the ring. Silently, she stepped into his strong, protective arms, with no intention of leaving for the rest of her life.
EPILOGUE
* * *
THE HOUSE SAT HIGH ON a hill, a spectacular
castle of blue-gray fieldstone and leaded glass, at least six chimneys jutting toward a cloudless sky, surrounded by an endless valley of spring-green trees curling toward the waters of the Hudson River.
“Welcome to Lucy’s lair,” Chase said, throwing the Viper into a lower gear to climb the mile-long drive that led to the house. “Also known as the headquarters of the Bullet Catchers.”
“Great place for staff meetings,” Arianna said, lowering her sunglasses to drink in the magnificent estate. “Or job interviews.”
“You’ve got the job, sweetheart,” Chase assured her. “This is just a formality. You’re not nervous, are you?”
She felt the hammered metal that hung around her neck. She didn’t need the ring anymore, or even the remnants of it, but every once in a while she liked to touch the symbol of her power. Just like she occasionally brushed her fingers over the butt of the baby Glock at her hip—another symbol of power.
“Not nervous about seeing Lucy, but meeting all these other legendary Bullet Catchers.”
“No legends allowed,” Chase said with a smile. “Well, Romero thinks he’s a legend, but he’s off in the rain forest on an assignment with Jazz, his wife. And you met Max Roper out in San Francisco, and he’s a pussycat.”
“He’s a grizzly bear.”
“That’s an act. Ask Cori, his better half. And today you’ll meet Sage Valentine, since she’ll officially be your boss.”
“Has she worked for Lucy a long time?”
“She used to be an investigative reporter in Boston, but gave it up to move here and learn the business as Lucy’s right hand. She lives with Johnny Christiano, who, if we’re really lucky, is in the kitchen cooking. Although he might be on an assignment; I’m not sure.”
He curled around the last big bend to the circle in front of the mansion. It was even more impressive up close, a stunning blend of old-world Tudor and sleek, modern design.
“Dan’s here,” Chase said, indicating a late-model sedan as he parked close to the house. “That’s no surprise; he’s the closest thing Lucy has to a partner, although she’d never admit it.”
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