Sole Witness

by Jenn Black

  Anytime was a good time for nicotine, yes, but because she hadn’t had the foresight to bring a Zippo to toss at the stilts, she’d have to throw a cigarette.

  She sucked in a deep hit of smoke and flicked the slender cigarette toward the stilts.

  Missed. Damn.

  Nineteen cigarettes left, but the way this wind kicked up, not a one of them would hit the mark. She needed something bigger.

  The book.

  Amber snatched the novel up from the grass.

  She flicked her Bic and the flame instantly went out. Tucking the book under her armpit, Amber tried again, this time cupping her hand around the lighter to block the breeze. Bingo.

  Eagerly, she brought the flame to the book and waited. Within seconds, the cover caught fire. Amber hurled the burning pages at the closest stilt pole.

  Flames shot up the gasoline-soaked shaft, catching the entire wooden frame on fire.

  Amber ducked behind the opposite side of her car and plugged her ears.

  Wait for it…

  With a deafening boom, the entire house exploded at once, sending flaming planks and burning debris in every direction.

  Amber grinned.

  Fireworks were killer.

  * * *

  Davis sped down the highway, glancing at the dashboard clock every ten or twelve seconds.

  He flipped open his cell phone and dialed home.

  One ring. Two. Three. Four. No answer. Not even his machine.

  Next he tried Lori’s cell phone number, for maybe the hundredth time. Straight to voice mail again. Her sunny greeting, wishing him a great day.

  As if.

  He tossed the phone into the cup holder between the seats.

  “Settle down,” Carver said in her best let’s-be-calm tone. “We gotta get there in one piece if we’re gonna do any good.”

  “I know.” He eased off the accelerator and then sped back up.

  Carver continued to grip the door handle above the passenger window as if neither he nor his driving were to be trusted.

  His cell phone shrilled into the silence. Davis snatched it from the cup holder and pressed it to his ear.

  “Lori?” he demanded.

  “Uh, no. This is Officer Bock, sir.”

  “Bock.” Davis set his jaw. He didn’t have time for newbie questions. “What’s up?”

  “Are you still on your way over there?”

  Where? Oh, gas station. Right. “No. Sorry. I changed my mind.”

  “Good. I’m not there anymore either. Hey, you’re not alone, are you?”

  Davis grit his teeth. “No, I’m with Carver. What’s this all about? You act like I need backup or something.”

  Bock gave a high-pitched little laugh. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” Davis growled.

  “Then, yes. You need backup. But don’t worry, it’s on the way.”

  Ice slithered down Davis’s back, sending frozen tendrils of fear into his stomach.

  “Why? Is something wrong at my place?”

  Bock coughed. “Um, you could say so. I mean, it is on fire.”

  “What?” Davis shouted. His alleged safe house was on fire? With Lori ensconced inside?

  “Yes, sir. It seems to have, um, exploded. Not even a minute ago. Neighbors dialed 911 right away.”

  Davis gulped down air. “How long until the cavalry arrives?”

  “Not long, sir. Five, maybe ten minutes? Fifteen, tops? Spring Break, you know. Eighty-five degrees and sunny. Lots of traffic.”

  “I don’t need a weather report, Bock, I need information. Was anybody hurt? Are the neighbors out front of my house keeping watch?”

  “Uh, negatory. They’re staying inside their houses for safety. They haven’t stepped outside since the gunshots. Ten or twelve rounds. I couldn’t really get a consensus on that.”

  Holy crap. He’d abandoned her and now she was dead. It was all his fault.

  “Multiple shots fired?” he managed to choke out.

  “Yes, sir. Right before the explosion. Are you almost there now?”

  “I’ll be there in five,” Davis answered and snapped the cell phone shut.

  Five minutes.

  Would he be too late?

  * * *

  For a brief second, while she plunged through the air, Lori actually thought her plan was working.

  She changed her mind when she hit the ground toes first, arms windmilling.

  Her left foot twisted in the sand, taking her ankle with it. Lori landed hard on one side and tumbled next to the grapefruit tree, smacking her head against the trunk.

  Sharp pain shot up her leg. She couldn’t wiggle her toes. Her ankle throbbed.

  A car door slammed. Gasoline fumes choked her lungs.

  The house exploded above her head.

  Heat and flying debris filled the sky. Lori rolled behind the grapefruit tree, covering her face with her hands.

  Sudden tears rushed to her eyes, as hot and salty as the white sand beneath her body.

  It was over.

  She couldn’t run.

  She couldn’t even stand up.

  * * *

  Crouching, her back still flush against the side of her car, Amber did an ammo check on her Glock.

  Empty. Figured.

  Her refills were in her purse and her purse was in her trunk. Emergency? Not really. It’s not as if anyone could’ve survived an explosion like that.

  Then again, the cops were bound to show up any second, so she might as well reload and get the hell out of Dodge.

  Slowly, Amber struggled to her feet, brushing ash and charred bits of whatever out of her hair. Maybe not the best time to light another cigarette.

  She turned to face the beach house.

  Beautiful.

  It looked like freaking campfire marshmallows. Giant balls of flame atop the remnants of wooden sticks. Even as she watched, the last bits of still-upright house crashed to the ground below, joining the blaze.

  Amber shielded her eyes from the glare and squinted through the flames.

  What was that motion?

  There, behind the fire, back by the tree. Was that just random debris, settling to the ground? No way was it Lori Summers, book-thrower and super slut.

  All the same, no sense taking chances.

  She popped open her trunk. Her purse was in there somewhere. She was going to have to clean all that crap out sometime soon.

  Ah ha. Pay dirt.

  Amber dumped the ammo into her hand and quickly reloaded her gun.

  Time to make sure dead things stayed dead.

  * * *

  Carver’s cell phone was the one ringing this time.

  Davis shot her an expectant look until she finally answered.

  “Hello? Yeah, this is Carver. George Culver? No I… Isla Concha. Okay. When did she come in? I see. And I’m not sure I understand what she… okay. Thank you—we’ll keep in touch.”

  She snapped her phone shut and stared back out the window.

  “You’re not getting off that easy,” Davis said. “If it’s got something to do with this case, you’d better spill.”

  Carver pursed her lips.

  “That was the bank manager of an Isla Concha branch outside of town. He apparently had some kind of relationship with our girl Tompkins. Said she came by yesterday to see him, but sent him off on some errand. When he got back, she was gone. Today he found out she’d been on his computer.”

  Davis frowned. “So?”

  “After seeing her face and Miss Summers’ face plastered all over the news, he figured out why. Turns out Account Managers of banks can hunt up bank accounts.”

  Duh. “Hence the name Account Manager, right?”

  Carver curled her lip. “Hence our killer is a very clever girl, Hamilton. She’s an Account Manager at Isla Concha. Lori Summers banks at Isla Concha. Hell, I bank at Isla Concha. Lori must’ve been using her debit card everywhere she went, just like everyone else on the planet.”

&
nbsp; He blinked. “Holy crap. I knew there wasn’t a department leak. No wonder we couldn’t figure out how Tompkins tracked her.”

  “Yeah.” Carver sighed. “She wasn’t safe anywhere.”

  Davis gripped the wheel even tighter. His voice cracked when he spoke.

  “She isn’t safe now.”

  * * *

  Lori scooted backwards until she leaned against the tree trunk. She could move her toes a little, but her left ankle was already twice the size of the right.

  Clearly, this was why she hadn’t pursued a career as a stunt double.

  A sudden spasm wracked her lungs and she bent forward, coughing. The acrid smoke burned her throat and her eyes.

  Bubbling debris rustled in the cinders of the beach house. Lori rubbed her face with her hands.

  Poor Davis. All his drawings, gone forever.

  A car door slammed. The killer?

  Using the tree trunk as a crutch, Lori hauled herself up and rested her weight on her good ankle. She tested the other and bit back a yelp of pain.

  “That you, Summers?” called the too-familiar voice from across the burning rubble.

  Cripes.

  She had to move. Now.

  Lori took one tentative step and couldn’t suppress a groan of agony.

  “You little bitch,” came the killer’s amazed voice. “You really do have nine lives. Well, guess what? I’ve got more than nine rounds, and they’ve all got your name on ’em.”

  Great.

  Lori clutched the grapefruit tree and shuddered. She had a little time. Nobody could run in all that black smoke. Even if the killer walked around the burning pile fairly quickly, Lori at least had a few minutes’ head start.

  A shot rang out and grapefruit innards splattered across Lori’s face.

  So much for her head start.

  “Suck it up, Summers,” Lori whispered to herself and wiped her eyes. She squinted toward the beach.

  Ten, maybe eleven yards. She could do it. She had to.

  Lori took a few short steps and screamed into the back of her hand. Heaven help her. Ten yards seemed like ten miles with a foot the size of a watermelon.

  Without the tree to steady her, Lori wobbled on her good ankle and flailed her arms around for balance.

  Nine more yards. Eight.

  She hobbled a little further.

  Seven more yards. Now six.

  Arms outstretched, she hopped forward on one foot for several feet.

  Five yards. Four. Three.

  Another shot rang out and Lori crumpled to the ground.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  By the time Davis hit Gulf Boulevard, roiling plumes of black smoke filled the sky.

  Carver had her phone out in a millisecond. White-knuckled fingers still gripping the handle above her window, she barked orders like a drill sergeant on training day.

  With the last number she dialed, however, Carver listened.

  In Davis’s experience, listening was not a good thing.

  He slanted a sideways glance Carver’s way as the car flew past beach condos and palm trees. Listening meant there was something you needed to hear.

  And when the sky above the last known location of the woman you loved looked like the site of a nuclear warhead testing ground, there weren’t too many good things left to say.

  Which pretty much left bad things.

  Carver snapped her phone closed and turned to Davis. She pursed her lips.

  “Listen.”

  Oh boy. No good conversation ever started with that word.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Davis repositioned his hands at ten and two. He stared through the windshield and tried to pretend everything was going to be all right.

  “That was the Chief.”

  “Yeah?”

  Cracking sounds came from Carver’s open mouth as she bit down hard on one of her infernal lozenges. “I got good news and bad news.”

  “Tell you what,” Davis said as he guided the car onto the drawbridge. Half a mile and he’d be home. “I could use some good news.”

  “Good news is Miss Summers wasn’t in the house when it caught fire. Exactly. Neighbor saw her jump out of a window as the house exploded behind her. Hit her head on some kind of tree in your backyard and seemed to break her ankle when she hit the ground.”

  Yeah, nice. Davis forced a grim smile. “I guess that’s good news.”

  “Of course it’s good news. You kidding me? Nobody wants to be burned alive.”

  True, true. But nobody wanted to break an ankle while cracking her head open on a grapefruit tree, either.

  “The bad news?” he said aloud.

  “Bad news,” Carver answered, turning to face forward. “Is that Amber Tompkins is fine and dandy. No bumps. No bruises. All attitude.”

  Davis swallowed. “Is it too much to hope that she’s fleeing the scene?”

  Carver shook her head and pointed at distant flashing lights.

  “No fleeing. Neighbor saw her reloading the gun.”

  * * *

  With a loud bang, another grapefruit blew up behind her. Lori scrambled to her feet.

  Gritting her teeth against the pain, she hobbled forward one step.

  Two.

  Three.

  Just a couple yards to go. Already the hot sand turned moist and squished between her toes. Broken fragments of white and pink seashells littered the beach and glittered in the sun.

  Lori took a deep breath and lurched closer.

  Spiking agony from her left ankle masked the pain of jagged shells slicing into the bottom of her tender feet.

  When the first ripple of water brushed against her bare toes, Lori launched herself forward, throwing her arms in front of her chest to break the fall.

  Her face submerged in half a foot of water and she came up sputtering.

  Using her hands and arms like massive claws, Lori dug into the sandy ocean floor over and over, hauling herself forward.

  In seconds, she was deep enough that her torso floated and she could barely reach the bottom. Kicking with her good leg, Lori cupped her hands, curved her arms, and propelled herself away from the shore as fast as she could.

  The buoyancy of the water eased the pressure of her ankle and Lori broke into a full-fledged breaststroke until she could tread water without her toes touching the ground.

  She shook wet hair from her eyes and squinted in the blinding sunlight.

  Her teeth ground against tiny grains of sand. Lori opened her mouth to suck in a deep breath and a wave splashed across her face.

  She spit out the salty water, hoping the gritty sand went with it.

  A gunshot blasted through the air.

  Still treading water, Lori turned and caught sight of the killer standing on the shore, feet spread and arms akimbo.

  “Missed me by a mile,” she muttered. “Can’t see me so well with the sun behind me, can you?”

  The killer waved her gun above her head and shouted.

  “Come back here, you freak. I’ll kill you!”

  Yeah, right. As if Lori mistook the gun-waving maniac for the Welcome Wagon.

  She hurled herself toward the horizon, wincing with each stroke and swimming as hard as she could.

  Another shot rang out. The bullet splashed less than a meter from Lori’s face.

  For Pete’s sake.

  The killer had ridiculously good eyesight.

  * * *

  A barrage of choice curse words spewed from Amber’s mouth.

  Screeching tires and flashing lights rolled to a noisy stop in front of the once-standing beach house. Any minute the cops would be right behind her. Already too late to head toward her car.

  Voices rose over the cacophony of screaming sirens.

  There was no way out.

  No escape to Mexico.

  Shit.

  Well, she’d be damned if she was going down without taking Lori Summers with her.

  Amber aimed her gun at the retreating form bobbin
g in the sparkling water. She squeezed off the rest of her rounds in rapid succession and tossed the gun to the sand.

  No sense wiping off her prints at this point. There wasn’t even time for a smoke.

  She crouched down in order to unbuckle her shoes. What a day to pick strappy sandals. What the hell had she been thinking? Precious time was wasting while the Super Slut swam further and further away.

  New rule. From now on, she only killed in flip-flops. And shorts.

  Amber wiggled out of her leather miniskirt and waded into the water. She crossed her arms over her chest and slid her spandex tank top up and off. Flinging the shirt aside, Amber ducked underwater and started swimming.

  Sassypants Summers thought she was the only one with skills in the ocean?

  Please. Amber was born in the water.

  * * *

  Just when Lori thought she might’ve swum a safe enough distance, a loud splash sprayed saltwater across her face and rough fingers twisted the hair at the back of her head.

  “Gotcha, bitch.”

  Cripes. She really did.

  Lori shoved her arms out and jerked her head free. A handful of hair ripped from her scalp in the process.

  She gave the killer a solid kick in the face with her good foot, using the momentum to propel her through the water. She took a deep breath and slipped under the surface.

  Pushing with her arms as hard as she could, Lori swam with all her strength. She came up for air only when her lungs burned like fire.

  Her fingers scraped against something.

  Davis’s sandbar.

  Lori scrambled on top, crawling on her hands and knees. Maybe she could get to the other side before the killer realized what happened. Maybe she could catch her breath, just for a second.

  A viselike grip dug into her swollen ankle and Lori screamed.

  “That hurt, does it?” came the familiar voice.

  Five long fingernails bit into the tender skin, gouging until they drew blood.

  Tears streamed down Lori’s face and her fingers convulsed around handfuls of sand.

  Desperate, she reared back one arm and let loose a volley of sand and broken shells. A strange mix of joy and terror bubbled inside when the debris splattered right in the killer’s smirking face.

  The killer spluttered and slid underwater.

  Lori scrambled across the sandbar. Her wrinkled palms slipped on loose sand. Shells scraped her knees.