One Hot Target

by Diane Pershing

  “Tell you what,” Mac said. “Florez owes me a favor or two. I’ll give him Carmen’s description, see if he and a couple of his buddies can canvas all the Kurtz nurseries, see where she’s been and where she hasn’t been yet.”

  “She may be in disguise, remember? And I have no idea what the disguise is.”

  “Oh, yeah. We’ll do the best we can.”

  “You seem to have a lot of people who owe you favors.” JR, slightly out of breath from walking so fast, nodded to the attendant in charge of putting passengers in taxis.

  Mac chuckled. “Thirty years on the job, the favors add up, both ways.”

  “I’m heading over to Hausner’s office.”

  “My take? You’re better off heading over to the old man’s place.”

  “To see if Carmen’s there or she’s been there. Of course. Good thinking,” he said, climbing into the backseat of a cab. “I’m on my way.”

  As she watched the taxi drive off, Carmen wondered if she should have let it go. She was alone on a deserted road. No one had followed her here—she’d been checking pretty thoroughly. Or if they had followed her, they’d stopped doing so when the taxi turned onto Halley Drive. She hadn’t seen another car for the past five minutes. Which only meant that if Hausner had sent someone to follow her, there had been no need to make that last turn. Halley Drive was where her grandfather lived.

  So now the lawyer knew where she was. Big deal. She was allowed to go wherever she wanted to.

  She gazed up at the huge iron gates that kept visitors away from the Kurtz home. Home? Estate was a better description. Through the gates she could see a long and winding tree-lined road. So long and so winding, the house itself wasn’t visible. There was a buzzer she could push, off to the side. Should she? How would she announce herself? The old “confidential matters to discuss” thing? If she said she was Phoebe’s daughter, would they believe her? Laugh at her? Call the police?

  She was chewing her lip, trying to decide, when she heard the sound of a motor in the distance. Quickly, she darted behind one of the tall Italian cypresses that had been sculpted into a hedgerow on either side of the gate. A UPS truck came over the rise, slowed down and pulled up to the gate. The driver pushed the button and spoke into the talk box. Soon, the huge iron gate swung open and the truck barreled through. Without thinking, Carmen stepped from behind the hedge and went through also, immediately ducking behind a tree, so as not to be observed.

  Was she crazy? What was she doing?

  Just looking around, she told herself. Just looking at where her grandfather lived. Was this where her mother had been raised? Had her childhood been one of privilege? Why had she been estranged from her family? Carmen wanted to know, had to know. At this moment, finding out about her biological mother was the most important thing in the world.

  She would march up this driveway, she decided, and knock on the door. She really didn’t have to worry about her grandfather answering the door and giving him a huge shock, because this was the kind of place where the people who lived here didn’t answer the door themselves. There would be a maid or a butler. Carmen would ask to speak to some person in charge, explain quietly and calmly who she was, and ask if it was possible to see her grandfather.

  She came out from her hiding place and began to make her way up the driveway. There were trees everywhere, she noted with appreciation, and it reminded her of a school trip she’d made once to California’s state capital. In the park that surrounded Sacramento’s government buildings were trees from every one of the fifty states. With all the species she was observing today, she wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true on the Kurtz estate.

  The road curved and climbed at the same time, and she had no idea how long she would be walking before she got to the front door, but get there she would.

  The taxi pulled to a halt. “Here we are, mister.”

  JR gazed out the window, saw gates, trees, a winding road. “Push the button. I’ll talk to them.” He hopped out of the taxi and when a muffled voice came over the loudspeaker, saying, “Yes?” he replied, “My name is Stanton Fitzgerald Ewing. I’m a lawyer from Los Angeles, and I need to see Mr. Kurtz on a matter of great urgency.”

  There was a momentary pause, then the disembodied voice said, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have you on the list of expected visitors.”

  “That’s because I wasn’t expected. But this is urgent, please believe me.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “All right,” he interrupted, aware that his tension was showing and trying to rein it in. “Just answer a question for me, please. Have you had a visitor in the past couple of hours or so? A young, blond woman? About five foot eight? Her name is Goldie Coyle, but she goes by the name of Carmen.”

  “No, there’s been no one here by that name today.”

  “Oh.” The wind went out of his sails. Where the hell was she? “I would still like to see Mr. Kurtz.”

  “I’m sorry. Mr. Kurtz isn’t well, and he’s resting. Good day.” And with that, the person disconnected.

  JR muttered a curse. The taxi driver leaned an elbow on the open window. “What do you want to do, sir?”

  “I supposed I ought to—” He didn’t finish the sentence because his cell phone rang. He looked at the readout, then flipped it open. “Carmen? Where are you?”

  “JR. Listen.” She was whispering. “I’m at my grandfather’s. I know I shouldn’t have done this, but—”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I just asked them if you were there, and you’re not.”

  “I’m not where?”

  “At your grandfather’s.”

  “I’m confused,” Carmen said, still whispering. Why was she whispering?

  “That makes two of us.” JR told himself to calm down. Carmen was all right. Nothing bad had happened to her. Yet. “Okay, let’s start over. Where are you?”

  “I just told you.” She sounded impatient. “Outside my grandfather’s house.”

  He looked around. “No, I am.”

  “You are what?”

  “Outside your grandfather’s house.”

  “Really?”

  This was a nightmare, he thought wildly, of the Abbott and Costello “Who’s On First” variety. “I mean I’m here at the Kurtz estate, outside the gate.”

  “Oh! Well, I’m on the other side of the gate, leaning up against a tree, talking to you. But, JR, why are you here?”

  “I came after you. I was worried.”

  “You’re doing it again,” she said, her tone of voice no longer conversational but displeased. “Taking care of me. JR, you have to stop this.”

  “But, Carmen, listen—”

  “No, you listen. I was calling to let you know what I’m doing because you were so upset with me earlier. And now I find out you’re shadowing me. You don’t trust me at all, do you? This just isn’t okay, JR. Really, it isn’t.” With that, she hung up.

  He pressed Callback. The phone rang three times, and then, once again, he was switched over to voice mail. She was ignoring him or she had the ringer off. And this time, uttering a string of curses, he did throw the phone, against the gate. The movement made his injured shoulder ache, and he muttered another curse.

  The taxi driver, who had been watching JR conduct his conversation with studied indifference, said, again, “What do you want to do, sir?”

  JR took out some bills and thrust them at him. “Thanks.”

  “You don’t want a ride? To somewhere else?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  The driver lifted his shoulders in a whatever-you-say shrug, backed up and drove off.

  JR retrieved his cell phone, which, thank God, still worked, and called Mac.

  “Marshall here.”

  “Oh, good. Listen. I found Carmen. She’s okay. So far. She’s about to knock on Kurtz’s front door.” As he spoke he surveyed the wall of ten-foot-high, smooth iron spikes. No footholds, not
hing to grab on to. “I’m going to try to stop her. Or go in with her.”

  “Good move.”

  “Anything new with Hausner?”

  “Working on it.”

  “Fine. Talk to you soon.”

  He hung up, then gazed up and down the long expanse of railing. Several yards to his left was a stand of tall trees, their branches drooping onto both sides of the fence.

  Many years ago, Carmen had been the one to show a skinny, secretly asthmatic kid with thick glasses how to climb trees. In the years that followed, he’d become rather good at it, even if he did say so himself. One of his arms was nearly useless, of course, but he still had one good one and two strong legs.

  He’d never broken into and entered private property before, but there was always a first time.

  “First he tells me to grow up and take responsibility,” Carmen muttered to herself, “then he tails me like I’m some kind of runaway teenager.”

  The UPS truck passed her going the other way as she continued marching up the winding path.

  Shannon was right. It took two. If Carmen had leaned too much on JR all these years, he’d welcomed it—some part of him got off on her needing him so much. JR was a real caretaker type, just like Shannon said.

  Well, she didn’t need taking care of. Didn’t need a keeper.

  It must have been at least a mile, but finally she rounded a bend and saw it. A huge stone house. She stopped and stared, her mouth open. Wow. It was like some member of the British royalty’s alternate palace. Three stories high, with turrets and chimneys and all kinds of wood-framed windows. Not new, either. Not one of those pompous McMansions causing gentrification meltdown all over L.A. No, this house was classic and classy, truly awe-inspiring.

  Her appreciation was interrupted by a faint droning sound from behind her, and at first she thought it was some kind of insect. As the noise grew louder she glanced back over her shoulder to see a large black car barreling up the road. Whoever was driving sure seemed to be in a hurry. She stepped to the side of the road to let them pass, but the strangest thing happened. As the car—a Mercedes, she could see now—drew nearer, it swerved sharply to the right, seemingly headed right at her.

  For a moment, she stood right where she was, frozen in shock. The car was closing in, but she finally woke up, turned around and began to run. She’d waited just a little too long, though. The car was right there, practically on top of her. Suddenly something, someone, tackled her, pushing her over to the side, temporarily out of harm’s way.

  It was a déjà vu kind of thing, just like what had happened at the beach on Friday. As he had then, it was JR who was doing the tackling, the rolling her over and over, away from the road, deeper into the woods.

  But today, when they stopped rolling, she heard a loud “Oof!” in her ear. She disentangled herself from JR and looked at him as he lay there, on the ground, clutching his shoulder in agony.

  “Oh, no!” Her first instinct was to tend to him, but the sound of a slamming car door brought her right back to the immediate danger at hand. She looked up to see Peter Hausner coming around the rear of the car, apparently not sure whether he’d hit his target.

  Her.

  As soon as his gaze locked on hers, his eyes widened. Then he sprinted back toward the driver’s door. That was Carmen’s cue. Enraged, she leaped up and ran toward the black automobile, making it to the passenger side door and yanking it open just as Hausner took off again. Grabbing the headrest for support, she scrambled onto the seat.

  As he realized she was now in the car, Hausner—who was bent over the steering wheel like a mad scientist, a fierce, crazed look on his face—let out a cry of rage and aimed the car for the area where JR lay.

  Carmen screamed back and launched herself at him, grabbing the steering wheel and yanking it to the left, away from JR. As they fought over the wheel, the car kept bucking and inching forward, first to the right, then to the left.

  The lawyer was older and fatter than Carmen, and she was in pretty good shape, so she figured she had the advantage. She also had nails. When he managed to pry her fingers off the steering wheel, she went for his eyes, scratching him for all she was worth. He howled in protest, releasing the steering wheel to fend her off. Still using her left hand to push at and damage his face as much as she could, Carmen managed to use her right to pull up the emergency parking brake. The car shuddered to a screeching halt. She leaned an elbow on the horn, keeping it there, trying to signal anyone within hearing distance.

  Hausner fought her, hard. But now that she knew he had to be the monster behind all the recent events, she had raw, hot fury on her side. Rage for poor Peg Davis, rage at having been the target of an assassin, rage for JR’s wounded shoulder, rage at being nearly run over. She got onto her knees, screamed epithets at him, raked her fingernails over his face, kneed him in the abdomen, would have kneed him in the groin if the angle had been right.

  Finally he gave up fighting. He reached behind him for the door handle, got it open and tumbled out of the car. He scrambled to his feet and took off, heading toward the side of the house. Carmen slid into the driver’s seat, released the brake and tried to restart the engine, fully intending to run him down. The car refused to start—too many mixed messages in the past few moments, probably, but, whatever, it was dead.

  Leaning on the horn again, she watched Hausner disappear around the side of the house and head for the woods beyond.

  Then she remembered. JR! She leaped out of the car and ran over to where he lay, clutching his shoulder, obviously in pain but gritting his teeth against it. As she knelt beside him, she heard the sound of sirens in the distance. Whew!

  “Are you all right?” she asked JR, barely able to get the words out, she was panting so hard with exertion.

  He, too, was having trouble catching his breath. “Damn shoulder. I think the stitches tore open. You okay, Carm?”

  “I’m great.” Even though her chest was heaving and she was having trouble catching her breath. And her face hurt from where Hausner had scratched and punched her.

  “Where is he? Hausner?”

  “He took off into the woods.” She really couldn’t sit up anymore, so she plopped down on her back next to JR. Overhead, a huge, spreading black oak tree blocked out whatever was left of daylight.

  “The cops are on the way,” Carmen managed between gasps. “I think. There are sirens.”

  “Mac’s friend must’ve called them. He’s been on it.”

  “Good ol’ Mac.”

  JR’s shoulder felt as though someone had set fire to it. But he could deal with that later, he figured. Carmen was safe, help was on the way. That was all that mattered. The sirens grew louder, his breathing got easier.

  He turned his head to the side. She lay there, chest heaving, eyes closed, scratches all over her, a bad bruise on her cheek. “Carm. You saved my life,” he said, his voice cracking with dryness…not to mention emotion.

  “And you saved mine,” she replied. “Twice, actually. But who’s counting?” She turned her head, locked gazes with him and grinned.

  He smiled back. “I wasn’t following you, Carm. Well, I was, but I was trying to warn you. Hausner was behind the whole thing.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that.”

  “When?”

  “Just now, when he tried to run me down.”

  He chuckled, then had to stifle it. Any movement set off major shoulder pain. “How did you get him to take off like that?”

  “Sheer fury. I’ve never felt like that before, JR,” she said with wonder. “I would have killed him if I could.”

  “Wow.” He took in another couple of breaths before saying, “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  “Consider yourself warned.”

  After that, all hell broke loose.

  Later, after several patrol cars had screamed up the driveway, and a team of police officers had taken off after Hausner; after medical technicians had tended to both Carmen and JR; after Hau
sner had been hunted down, trying to scale an iron fence that couldn’t be scaled without mountain-climbing equipment; after the lawyer had been handcuffed and taken away while Carmen and JR’s statements were being taken by Mac’s friend, Detective Florez; after JR and Carmen had been told to sit on a stone bench under one of the many trees surrounding the house and wait for Florez to finish up talking to whomever he’d contacted inside…

  After all that, the front door of the Kurtz home opened. Through it came a frail old man in a wheelchair being pushed by a woman in late middle age with short, stylish blond hair. The two of them stood on the massive porch and peered into the distance.

  “Excuse me,” Carmen said to JR. “I…need to say hello.”

  She stood, nervously brushing off her skirt before walking slowly toward the house. When she was a few feet from the porch she stopped, as though waiting for instructions on what to do next.

  The old man peered into the distance and when he set eyes on her, said, in a quivering voice, “Phoebe?”

  The woman behind him put a hand to her mouth, then shook her head. “No, Dad,” she said, loud enough for JR to hear her from his bench. “It’s not Phoebe,” the woman went on, the volume of her voice higher than normal, the way one spoke to the hard of hearing. “I’m pretty sure it’s her daughter.”

  After patting the old man on the shoulder, the woman walked out from behind the wheelchair, came down the steps of the porch, and headed for Carmen, her hands outstretched.

  “I’m your Aunt Barbara,” she said. “And I’m so glad you’ve come.”

  Chapter 12

  Carmen came breezing into the waiting room of the Scottsdale police station, where she and JR had agreed to meet after her initial visit with the Kurtzes and his to the emergency room to repair his stitches. When she saw him, she grinned and walked over to him. “Hey, JR. How’s the shoulder?”

  Still a little woozy from another dose of pain meds, he looked for signs of strain or sadness on her face but, despite a couple of Band-Aids and that bruise on her cheek, she seemed to glow. “Okay. How did everything go?”