by Lisa Jackson
“It could be. Even so, do you think it was a coincidence that whoever was driving it, took off after we showed up?”
“Perhaps.”
“And perhaps not,” Nick said, all trace of his earlier humor evaporating as the first clouds began to roll in from the Pacific. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Neither do I,” she admitted. “But why would anyone take off? Why not stay hidden?”
“Maybe he thought we’d come looking for him. Or had a key or would break the damned door down. Who knows?” Nick strode to the truck and flung open the passenger door. “Come on, let’s go.”
She didn’t argue. Didn’t like the cold feeling that crept up her spine.
Once inside the truck, Nick headed south. He didn’t say much, his eyes narrowing on the traffic ahead, his brow furrowed, his fingers clamped around the steering wheel.
“You have an appointment with Paterno, right?”
“Yeah. I’ve got the address of the station in here.” She opened her purse, withdrew the detective’s business card from the empty bag. “You know, no one has found the purse I had with me on the night of the accident and so I don’t have anything to prove I’m who I say I am. No ID, no money, nothing. I assume I had a driver’s license, a social security card, credit cards and probably a set of keys and a garage door opener.”
“Your purse wasn’t with you?” He guided the truck into the narrow lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge and Marla stared west to the calming waters of the Pacific where fishing trawlers and tankers were visible on the horizon. The sky, once brilliant, had turned a darker hue as heavy clouds rolled steadily inland.
“That’s what the police say, but I haven’t found it in the house, either.” She shoved her fingers through the short strands of her hair in frustration. “But the ring my father gave me, I found. In a jewelry box I’m sure I searched a dozen times before. It’s almost as if someone planted it there.”
“Who knew it was missing?”
“Just about everyone.”
“Alex?”
“Yes. Why? Do you think he would take it?” Marla asked, though she’d considered the possibility herself. Her husband was so secretive, so overly protective, acted as if he were afraid of God-only-knew-what.
“I don’t know,” Nick admitted shifting down, “but he did leave in the middle of the night last night and he might have gone to see Conrad without telling anyone.”
“Not that it’s a sin to visit your ailing father-in-law,” she reminded him.
“But it’s secretive. He’s always been that way, even as a kid. Right now, he’s worse than ever.” Nick stood on the brakes to avoid rear-ending a minivan that had stopped suddenly. “I wonder what the hell he’s mixed up in.” The traffic cleared and he stepped on the throttle. They drove through the Presidio and Nick turned south. “Before we meet the police, let’s see your brother.”
“Yes. I would like that,” Marla said, though she steeled herself for another rejection. She didn’t expect Rory to take to her any more kindly than her father had.
It was worse than she imagined. The building was old but had been renovated, the gold brick face clean and neat, the interior bright. “I’m sorry,” she was told by the nurse at the reception desk after explaining her plight. “No one but family is allowed in. If you don’t have any proof that you’re Marla Cahill, then I can’t allow you to pass.”
“What about me? I’m Marla’s brother-in-law.” Nick whipped out his wallet and flashed his Oregon driver’s license.
“Sorry.” She shook her head, then she smiled benignly at Marla. “When you have some identification, you can visit your brother.”
“But—”
“Hospital rules.”
They got no further with an administrator and Marla left the brick building feeling discouraged. “So far we’ve been on a wild goose chase,” she grumbled, pulling the collar of her coat closer to her neck as they walked along the sidewalk.
“Maybe things will improve.” But Nick’s voice didn’t hold a lot of conviction.
They piled into the truck and Nick drove toward the police station. Skyscrapers cast shadows over the city streets and pedestrians clogged the sidewalks. Rickshaws and bicyclists vied with cars, trucks and vans. Somewhere a few streets over a siren screamed.
“Did Alex tell you where he went last night?” Nick asked.
“I haven’t seen him today. I’m not even sure that he came back to the house,” she admitted. “Carmen told me he had early meetings this morning.”
“It’s not the first time he left.” Nick eyed the street signs, then turned left. “The other night, after he brought you back from your appointment with Dr. Robertson, he took off again. He didn’t tell you about it?”
“No,” she admitted, her fingers trailing on the armrest of the truck and a bad feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. “What my husband does is a mystery to me.” She tried to find an excuse for Alex’s actions and failed. “I know he’s been in some big negotiations with some Japanese businessmen, investors, I think, but other than that I don’t have a clue as to what it is he does.”
“Don’t you think that’s odd?”
She chuckled humorlessly as he braked for a taxi that nosed into his lane. “I think my whole life is odd, Nick,” she admitted. “A husband who doesn’t confide in me, a daughter who rejects me, a mother-in-law who acts like I need a keeper, a baby whom I just remembered, a father who despises me and thinks I’m an imposter, and a brother-in-law who . . . who . . .”
“Who what?”
She couldn’t admit it. Couldn’t say the damning words—that she was attracted to him, that at his touch her knees went weak and her blood ran hot. “Who . . . bothers me,” she said and his lips twisted at her understatement. “Anyway you cut it, it’s not exactly Ozzie and Harriet or the all-American family and yeah, Nick, I do think it’s all strange. Real strange. I just hope that I can figure it out soon before I go out of my mind.”
“Or before you get killed,” he said solemnly.
“Killed?” she repeated, rolling her eyes. She wasn’t going to be caught up in some melodramatic paranoia. She’d considered the fact that someone might be trying to murder her, but she’d always tossed off the idea, condemned it as her own brand of fear. To hear it from someone else made it so much more real. But she still wasn’t buying it.
“Think about it,” Nick insisted. “The night of the accident you saw someone on the road and he did something to flash a light into your eyes, right?”
“Well, maybe.”
“It could have been planned.” Nick cranked the wheel sharply for a corner.
“Now, wait a minute. That’s a pretty big leap. How would he know where I was, that I was driving Pam’s car at that particular time?”
“I have no idea, but it is possible. Then you thought you were threatened at your bedside, the next thing you know you’re throwing up and nearly dying. Someone could have given you an injection or put something in your food.”
She wanted to argue, but couldn’t. He was only voicing her own fears, the ones that had been nagging at her, the ones she’d steadfastly pushed aside. “Who would want to kill me?”
“I thought you might know.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest. “I don’t even know who I am, much less who’s at the top of my personal enemies list.” Her jaw was beginning to ache again, a dull throb starting to pound. “Why go to all this trouble? Why not make it easy and just shoot me?”
“Because they’re trying to make it look like an accident.”
“They. Now it’s more than one.” She sighed and shook her head as she stared at the tall buildings stretching skyward. “No way. This is too far-fetched. I was in an accident. Period. I threw up because of a jittery stomach and a bad case of nerves. That’s all. There wasn’t anything sinister about it,” she said, trying to convince herself. No one was really trying to kill her.
Or were they?<
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Nick found a high-rise parking lot and turned in. He plucked the ticket from an automatic machine and drove up the ramp, his eyes scouring the parked cars as he searched for a spot.
“Why would someone want me dead?” she asked.
“Because someone’s afraid of you, of what you’ll remember.”
A chill as cold as the Pacific ran through her blood.
“Is that why you moved back to the house?” she asked with sudden insight. “To protect me?”
“One reason,” he admitted easing the truck into a space between a BMW and a Honda on the third tier. Cutting the engine, he said, “Tough as you think you are, Marla, you need someone to watch your back.”
“And you’ve volunteered for the job?”
He didn’t crack a smile as he stripped his keys from the ignition. “You have someone else in mind?”
“I’d like to think I can take care of myself.”
“You don’t even remember who you are.” He leaned closer to her and the smell of musk and leather reached her nostrils, the tip of his nose nearly touching hers. Taking her hand in his, he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “Don’t you think, given our history, that I would be the last person on earth to appoint himself your personal bodyguard?” His eyes were dark with the coming night, his fingers warm.
“I . . . I suppose,” she said, trying hard not to look at the blade-thin line of his lips, nor feel the heat of his body, a heat so intense it fogged the windows. “But I do have a husband—”
“Whom you don’t sleep with, who is always out of the house, who leaves in the middle of the night,” he reminded her. “Whom you don’t trust.”
Marla swallowed hard as his gaze drifted to her throat. She reached for the handle of the door with her free hand, her fingers surrounding the cool metal. “Are you trying to tell me that I’m not safe anywhere, not even in my own home?”
His eyes were dead serious. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“But this is all conjecture, just some crazy idea of yours.”
“I hope so. God, I hope so,” he said fervently. His breath was warm, his gaze seductive and deep inside Marla felt the first stirrings of desire heat her blood. Oh, she couldn’t do this. Not again.
She pulled the handle and the door swung open. “Let’s go see the detective.”
“You blew it again! Jesus Christ, what kind of moron are you?” The voice on the other end of the wire was angry as hell. “How hard can it be to kill someone?”
He wanted to tell the bastard to go fuck himself. Standing in the phone booth, night starting to close around him, he wanted to reach through the damned wires and choke the fucker. “Listen, if you want Marla dead so bad, then just do it yourself,” he growled, knowing the prick was too chicken to get blood on his lily-white hands. A coward of the lowest order.
“We have a deal.”
“I know.” He calmed a little, his eyes narrowing on the traffic light at the corner where a couple of teenagers were straining against the leash of a big dog who seemed determined to bound into traffic. “I’ll take care of it.”
“No. Not now. It’s too risky. She’s starting to remember. And we’re running out of opportunities. Pretty soon everyone including the police will get suspicious.”
“I’ll do it tonight,” he promised, smiling at the note of panic in the other man’s voice. “I’ll take care of it tonight.”
“No . . . not at the house. Everyone’s on edge as it is. I’ll come up with a plan. We have to wait.”
“You’re the one who’s in the big hurry to have her dead.”
“And you’re not?”
His fingers sweated around the receiver. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to take my time. Stretch it out. Make her beg for mercy.”
“Shit. You’re sicker than I thought. But lay off for now. Until I work this out. We might have to wait until the old man kicks off. Then you can kill her. And I want you to make it neat. Don’t . . . don’t torture her.”
“What the hell do you care?” The bastard at the other end of the line was suffering from a twinge of conscience. Didn’t that beat all? He laughed and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket for his cigarettes. “And that’s why you hired me, isn’t it? Because I’m sick? And because I have the goods on you, my friend.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, okay? We’re not friends. We never have been, we never will be. This is just . . . business.”
He jabbed a filter tip between his lips. “What happened to blood is thicker than water?”
“It’s bullshit. You know it and I know it. Now just wait until I contact you, then you can do your job and you’ll get paid.”
“I’d better. Because if I don’t see the money, if you pull a fast one, I’ll give the police and the newspapers the true story. About you and all the sins you try so hard to hide. Everything that you’ve done is documented, amigo, everything. Including all that shit at Cahill House a while back. Your ass is as good as nailed. So don’t fuck with me.”
He slammed the receiver down and turned his collar against the wind rushing off the ocean. Sanctimonious prick. Just wait. He hiked down the hill a couple of blocks, ducked across the street in front of a cable car and walked along the boardwalk of Fisherman’s Wharf, blending in with the tourists who braved the chill of winter. His ankle still hurt on days like this, a painful reminder that he’d failed to kill Marla. He’d rectify that situation and soon.
Crab venders were hawking cold crab and hot chowder. Over the rush of traffic and the noise of tourists an occasional bark of a sea lion cut through the chill winter air.
Smoking, he slowed his steps as he walked behind an older Asian couple huddled against the wind. All the while he thought about Marla. The princess. Beautiful and rich. And the hottest cunt he’d ever had the pleasure to dip into.
He’d once fancied himself in love with her.
But then he’d always been a fool when it came to women. Right now she was spilling her guts to that stupid ass of a detective and she was with the brother. Was he the guy she was with last night? The guy whose face he couldn’t see in the darkened window? The guy touching her naked body for Christ’s sake? Or had it been her husband?
Either way, it got him horny.
He’d enjoy offing her, but he’d have to come up with another plan to kill her, one that was a little more personal. Yeah, that was it. Something . . . intimate and seductive and deadly. He didn’t give a shit what the rich bastard who’d ordered the hit asked for. This was his game and he wanted her to see his face before she died—let her know that he’d gotten his revenge. He imagined her eyes rounding in recognition, her lips trembling in fear, the way she would plead for mercy.
One more time baby, he thought, his cock growing hard at the inward vision of her fear. He flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the gutter and veered into one of the bars advertising cold beer and fish and chips. Settling onto a nicked bar stool, he ordered a draft and as he sized up the tiny waitress with the big tits, he wondered if there was any way he could fuck Marla before he killed her.
Chapter Fifteen
“So you still don’t remember why you were with Pamela Delacroix that night?” Paterno asked as he rocked back in his chair in his cramped, messy office. It was tight, stuffy and smelled of stale coffee.
“Not yet.” Marla looked him steadily in the eye. Perched on a chair on the other side of his cluttered desk, she added, “I don’t remember much about her, but I think it’s only a matter of time before it all comes back to me, and when it does, I’ll let you know.” She was trying not to sound irritated but couldn’t help herself. They’d been talking for over an hour, she’d signed a statement about the accident and was getting tired. Her mouth hurt like crazy and being grilled by the detective didn’t help her mood. Nick had remained silent for most of the interview, sitting next to her in an identical beat-up chair on one side of a messy desk while Anthony Paterno observed them both. Half glasses were
propped on the end of his nose and file folders, complete with rings from coffee cups, were stacked haphazardly, a computer was near his right shoulder and a bulletin board behind him was filled with pictures of several different crimes. Snapshots of Pam’s wrecked Mercedes, Pam’s bloody body, the charred remnants of a huge semi and the gaping hole in the guardrail were in one grouping. Marla had trouble dragging her eyes away from the macabre images of twisted metal and the dead woman. She shivered when she remembered that night and Pam’s terrified screams.
“I heard someone at your number called 911 the other night requesting an ambulance, only to turn it away when it arrived.”
“Bad news travels quick,” Nick observed.
“Computers. Everything’s linked these days.” Paterno looked from Nick to Marla. “So what happened?”
There wasn’t any reason to hide the truth, so Marla told him about getting sick and opting to go to the clinic to meet Phil Robertson. All the while she spoke, Tony Paterno leaned back in his chair, chewed gum as if it were the last piece on earth, and scratched notes to himself on a small yellow pad. When she finished, he looked at her over his glasses. “You were pretty lucky from the sounds of it.”
“I guess.”
“What made you sick?”
“I don’t know.”
Paterno slid a glance at Nick. “Good thing Mr. Cahill here is so handy with wire cutters. Real lucky that he was around.”
“Very,” Marla said lifting her chin a notch. She heard the insinuation in the cop’s question, a silent accusation that she’d been with a man other than her husband, but she refused to rise to the bait.
“You’ve moved back into the house?” Paterno asked Nick, his dark, assessing eyes studying Marla’s brother-in-law.
“As of that night, yeah.”
“Why?”
Nick grinned, that wide, don’t-try-to-bullshit-me smile that Marla had seen more often than not. “I guess I finally succumbed to family pressure.”
