by Leslie Caine
We ducked down to avoid being seen in his headlights. Steve started the engine but left his own headlights off. This was such a small subdivision and seldom-traveled road that the trick would be to follow Holland’s car from enough of a distance that he didn’t realize he was being tailed, all the while not losing track of his car’s taillights in the darkness. Once traffic picked up farther in town, we’d probably have to change strategies.
It was too dark to drive for long with no lights, though, and Sullivan soon relented and turned them on. Breaking the silence, I said quietly, “You’re right. Everything did work out best for the three of us. You and I are like oil and water.”
“Like cats and dogs.”
“Exactly.” Sullivan was a dog, all right.
We merged into the winding road that led to the canyon into downtown Crestview, just one car back from Dave Holland’s. At length, Steve said, “As long as he stays on these two-lane roads, we won’t have any trouble tailing him.”
“Yeah. We’ll be fine, as long as he doesn’t get on the turnpike to Denver.”
Minutes later, I groaned. The black coupe had turned onto the turnpike. We were doing our best to keep track of him, but despite the hour, there were dozens of cars on this section of the road. We soon lost track of which taillights were his when we got caught in a clot of traffic. Sullivan resorted to muttering four-letter words as we wove our way through the cars, failing to find Dave Holland’s.
At the next exit, I spotted him passing under a streetlamp and pointed out his car by shouting, “There!”
Sullivan hit the brakes and made an abrupt exit, tailgating a truck, which blocked our vision of the road ahead. We’d lost Dave once again. Sullivan cursed and pounded the steering wheel. Just as we passed an intersection, I spotted Dave’s car pulling away from a traffic light.
“That’s him! He’s going north. Turn around.”
A couple of cars had boxed us in, and we had no choice but to continue to the next intersection.
“I know where he’s going!” Sullivan cried as he finally managed to swing the car around. “He’s heading toward the rental warehouse . . . U-Store. I’ll bet that’s where Laura’s stashed the antiques.”
He smacked the steering wheel again. “I should have realized this is where she’d keep the stuff! She knows all about U-Store. She always pumped me for information about my job. To think, I used to flatter myself into thinking she was interested in learning about my work.”
“I’ve got a unit rented there right now.” One of us should indeed have thought of the possibility that Laura had rented space at U-Store. Many, if not all, of the designers in Crestview used this facility. For large-scale jobs, a storage rental was a great convenience, well worth the expenditure. We could store the furniture as pieces were being shipped from different factories, allowing an entire project to be installed at the same time. U-Store gave us excellent discounts, and it was convenient, located partway to Denver, which was a hub for suppliers.
To our mutual horror, the gate was wide open at U-Store when we arrived. We drove inside. The place was a maze of buildings that were staggered to discourage speedsters. It also made it difficult to spot a particular parked car. We wove our way through the place, eating up precious time. It felt as though it had been at least twenty minutes since we’d lost track of Dave. All the while, I was horridly on edge, my intuition and sensibilities on red alert. At night, this place felt like a prison compound. I had an irrational fear that Dave’s car had been a mirage to lure us here, where we’d be trapped forever.
Finally, our headlights glinted across the sleek silver surface of Laura’s BMW. “There’s her car!” I said, pointing.
“Nice. And she owes me a car,” Steve grumbled.
We parked next to the BMW and got out. It was cold, quiet, and spooky, the ugly dark shapes of the cubical buildings looming all around us in this artless void. Although the complex was illuminated with overhead flood lamps, they were distantly spaced, and a couple of the bulbs were either burned out or broken. Sullivan mumbled that he needed to grab a flashlight, and he opened the car door and retrieved a small light from the backseat.
My heart raced. I shivered more from fear than from the cold. We were so isolated in this immense compound that we might as well have been in some deep, medieval forest. To quiet my nerves, I felt the need to talk and said, “I wonder how Dave got the gate open. And why security isn’t already crawling all over the place.”
No answer.
Walking shoulder to shoulder and concentrating on the small beam from Sullivan’s flashlight against the asphalt, we crept farther from the main entrance and between the corrugated steel buildings.
“Someone’s probably on the take,” he finally replied. He cursed again. “Come to think of it, she probably didn’t park all that close to her unit, in case someone figured out to look for her here. We’d have been better off continuing to hunt for Dave’s car.”
“True. He would know the exact unit number by now and would pull up right in front. Still, though, it can’t be all that far away.”
He snorted. “She’s probably planning on holing herself up here overnight, living in the warehouse with the furniture till she can figure out where to go next. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when we find her.”
His words suddenly made me realize just how out-of-control this course of action really was. I grabbed his sleeve. “This is too risky, Sullivan. We should call Officer Delgardio before we look any further.”
“No way! The police will insist that we clear out immediately. They might even threaten to arrest us for trespassing if we’re still here by the time they arrive. I need to be the one to let Laura know that this time I was too quick for her. That I outsmarted her and caught her before she could bail.”
“But what if Dave is in on this, too? He’s got to be with her right now. They could be armed. Or she could have some other gun-toting partner. Like Mr. Dreadlocks. We could be waltzing into a trap.”
“I’m not waltzing. I’m—”
Just then, tires squealed as a car sped around a corner and straight toward us. Its headlights were off.
I screamed, and Sullivan dived, tackling me, sending us both flying. The car zoomed past us as Sullivan and I crashed to the blacktop.
Stunned, embarrassed, and hurting, I cried out, “Jesus Christ! That car almost hit us!” Sullivan rolled off me, and I sprang to my feet, despite a searing pain that shot up my left leg.
More slowly, Sullivan rose, as well. “Are you all right?”
The heels of both hands hurt like mad, as did my left knee, which had slammed into the pavement. In short, I felt like I’d just been hit by a flying armoire.
“Yeah, sure. For the most part. Considering that we were playing tackle football on asphalt.”
Sullivan retrieved the flashlight. Its narrow beam now felt like a target signal to allow the bad guys to locate us.
“Let’s go back and get the car,” I suggested. “We can see if Laura’s car’s still here, and, if it is, drive around till we find Dave’s.” I paused. “On second thought, we’d have heard the engine start behind us if Laura’s car weren’t still here. And the car that nearly ran us down was dark, like Dave’s. The passenger seat was empty, but I didn’t get a look at the driver at all.”
“I could see it was a guy behind the wheel.” Sullivan sighed. “You were right, Erin. Let’s just go call the police right now.”
I turned and started to limp back to the car. Sullivan promptly put his arm around me, helping me forward. If we lived through this night, I was going to soak in a hot bath for a week.
We rounded the corner. As I continued to walk, the pain in my leg eased, but I didn’t mind Steve’s arm around me and chose not to mention that I could walk fine on my own now. Just as we reached the car, he froze. “Wait. I smell smoke.”
The scent had reached my nostrils, as well. “Smells like burning wood.” I grabbed a handful of Steve’s jacket to st
eady myself, my heart once again pounding. “Oh, dear God. Dave could have come here and set fire to his furniture.”
“But why would he—”
“To spite Laura. She left him and stole the furniture, so he’s making sure she can’t turn a profit. Even though he’ll be cutting off his own nose to spite his face.”
“There was only one person in Dave’s car. Laura must still be . . .” Steve’s voice faded, and I felt the chill of fear at the implications. He thrust the car keys into my aching hands. “Get a cell phone. Call nine-one-one.”
I threw open my door and snatched my cell phone from the compartment in my purse.
He was making his way toward the smoke. “Stay here,” Steve yelled.
“No way! I’m coming with you!”
I raced after him as best I could, dialing the three digits as I did so. The dispatcher answered, and I reported the fire.
A thin rope of smoke was rising from the open door of a storage unit ahead. I gave the dispatcher the exact building and unit number, then hung up, unwilling to stay on the line. I slipped my phone into my pocket. Steve had already entered the building, holding the front of his jacket over the lower half of his face.
“Steve!” I cried from the doorway. “What the hell are you doing? Just wait for the fire department!”
“I’ve got to make sure Laura isn’t in here.”
With visions of having to drag him out of a burning warehouse, I followed him inside. It was a miniature trip into hell. Dozens of small fires rose from waddedup newspaper scattered throughout, underneath, and alongside irreplaceable pieces of handcrafted wood items that had been lovingly preserved for generations. A makeshift pillow and a sleeping bag on top of a mattress had been stashed against the front wall. The mattress was now one of the smoldering objects but had not fully caught fire.
The room rapidly filled with choking smoke that took a stranglehold on my senses. I coughed, already barely able to get any air. Tears ran down my cheeks. It felt as though Tabasco sauce had been poured into my eyes. “Steve. We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Jesus,” I heard him moan.
Oh, God. Was he hurt? Or had he found Laura? “Steve! What’s wrong?”
No answer.
“Steve? Are you coming out?”
Silence. I couldn’t see. The flames and furniture had made a deadly obstacle course. But Steve wasn’t heading toward me and the exit. I had no choice but to go to him.
Blindly, I crept farther into the hellhole. “Steve?”
“Here.”
I tried to follow his voice, but the smoke and heat had me disoriented.
I groped my way around a stacked wall of furniture. “Is it Laura?”
“I’ve got to get her out of here.”
I spotted him. He was kneeling beside Laura, who lay in a pool of blood. Even with just the solitary beam of the flashlight on her, I could see the bloody stab wounds in her chest.
“She’s dead,” Steve said in a choked voice.
Chapter 7
Steve lifted Laura’s body from the ash-and-debris-laden floor. Coughing, blinded, I groped for the exit. “This way,” I yelled. Oily smoke was filling our already dark surroundings, making it impossible to see and difficult to breathe. I had to feel my way around—a macabre version of Blind Man’s Bluff.
“Follow my voice,” I instructed, and I called directions to Steve as I progressed.
The biting cold air was a welcome relief when we finally emerged. Still leading the way, I stopped at a safe distance from the burning building, but Steve carried Laura past me, then knelt and gently eased her body down near the base of a streetlamp.
Feeling helpless, I followed him. I glanced at Laura’s body and hastily looked away. But the hideous image was already burned into my brain. Her clothes were drenched scarlet from the wounds in her chest. Her face was frozen in horror. Her omnipresent silk scarf was gone and her scar gleamed on the pale skin of her neck.
His voice thick with emotion, Steve said, “I can’t stand to see her like this.” He yanked off his jacket and draped it over her face. Tears were dampening Steve’s cheeks— from the smoke or from his emotions, I didn’t know.
I couldn’t stand to see him like this. The flesh wounds on my hands stung and my left knee ached. My physical pain now felt like a betrayal, proof of my weak spirit that I continued to hurt from such superficial injuries in the face of Laura’s mortal wounds.
A cloud of smoke wafting in our direction distracted me. Laura was beyond help, whereas the fire continued to burn. A short distance away, some of the most exquisite antiques I’d ever seen, utterly irreplaceable, were being destroyed.
Steve slumped to the ground near Laura’s body. “I could have prevented this. If I’d just gotten in my van and driven straight up there again.”
My heart ached for him. I said firmly, “She’d have seen you following her in your big van, while she was driving her sports car. Sooner or later, she’d have given you the slip.”
He said nothing, his jaw and fists clenched. He was probably too upset right now for my words to have any impact. I was the one who’d prevented him from calling the police immediately; Laura’s death was more my fault than his. Even so, for every second we spent here, pointlessly assessing blame and wallowing in guilt, the fire did even more damage.
I thrust my cell phone at him. “Steve. You need to call nine-one-one again to tell them about Laura. Till the fire engines arrive, I want to keep the fire from spreading. Maybe I can save some of the furniture.”
“Furniture?” he said accusingly, although he accepted the phone and started to dial.
His retort stung, but I trotted toward the fire nevertheless. Both of us couldn’t desert her body, but I would have expected Steve Sullivan, of all people, to understand that one of us had to put some effort into firefighting.
Desperate to find the nearest container, I grabbed a drawer from a bureau just inside the door of Laura’s rented space. I vaguely recalled seeing an outdoor spigot near my rental unit, which was only three units away, and soon located it.
I fought to douse the flames. It was painful and largely futile. One drawer full of water at a time, I limped back and forth between the tap and the storage unit. My efforts felt like a sick joke told by an idiot. It was as if I’d somehow become mired within a sadistic computer-animation game.
After what felt like an eternity, the firemen arrived. I gladly got out of their way and returned to Steve’s side. He was slumped on the pavement, staring straight ahead, his face pale and his eyes black holes.
“Where the hell are the security people?” I cried out of sheer frustration. “The gate’s supposed to be locked tight at night!”
“I have to contact Laura’s parents. They moved from Indiana. I’m not sure how to reach them anymore.”
“The police will locate them.”
He rose but said nothing.
Thinking aloud, I said, “Dave must have started the fire. There’s no other reasonable explanation. The fire hadn’t been burning all that long before we arrived.”
Steve remained silent.
“Maybe Dave started the fire from the back of the place and only discovered her body on his way out. Or do you think he killed her, then started the fire?”
Steve grumbled, “I don’t want to talk.”
“Fine. I won’t say another word.” Inwardly, though, my thoughts were a torrent of self-recriminations and defensive rebuttals. Maybe if I’d been smarter about Laura, had paid more attention, I could have recognized earlier that she wasn’t playing straight with me. Should I have known she was a con artist? Insisted on swearing out some sort of complaint against her right away?
Who could have known that she was here, at an obscure storage facility in Northridge late at night, other than Dave? A partner in crime, maybe?
She’d been blessed with so much beauty, which our society holds so dear and rewards so greatly. Why had she opted to live her life by cheating the people
who tried to get close to her? Had one of them killed her?
The police arrived shortly after the firefighters, and eventually Sullivan and I were driven by a patrol officer to the Northridge police station. Sullivan was taken to one room and I to another, where a female officer helped bandage my wounds, then interviewed me for what seemed like hours. At one point, when I’d been left alone briefly with the door open, I heard one officer mutter to another, “Sounds like a case of domestic violence.” They obviously suspected Dave Holland of Laura’s murder.
I answered the officers’ questions, but my brain was feeling the effects of the late hour and the horror of finding the body of a woman I had believed was my friend. I went over my story a couple of times for two different officers. As time went on, my words seemed to be slurring of their own accord.
My third interviewer was a paunchy, middle-aged detective. He asked me, “You’re sure it was Mr. Holland driving the car as you left Crestview?”
I hesitated. “I know that it was Dave Holland’s car. . . . I saw him pull into his driveway in full daylight just this afternoon. And I could see that the driver was a man, and that his silhouette looked very much like Dave’s . . . his basic size and shape, I mean. But it was too dark for me to know for certain that it was Dave.”
“You didn’t see the driver’s face at all when the car nearly ran you down?”
“No. I was too busy trying to get out of the way.”
He nodded and made a notation on his pad.
“Has anyone talked to Dave Holland yet?” I asked.
“I’m sure someone’s working on that,” the detective replied without looking up from his note-taking. When he’d finished, he met my eyes and gave me a pinched smile. “You and Mr. Sullivan were together tonight from eight P.M. on, right?”
“No, it was closer to nine. I met with Officer Delgardio at eight, while Sullivan was already keeping an eye on the house.”
“I could have sworn you said . . .” He furrowed his brow and flipped back through his notes. “Huh. Mr. Sullivan’s the one who said it was eight.”
