Or die trying.
Something clinked in the darkness and he jerked around. “Shit!” he whispered. He’d been dreaming on the job.
“What did you say? What’d you say to me, boy?”
Without a word, he hung up the phone—then slunk toward Lia’s kitchen door.
Chapter 12
From where she crouched, Raine couldn’t make out the words but she was fairly certain it was a man speaking; the timbre was baritone.
And who’s he talking to? Occasional pauses suggested a conversation, yet strain as she would, she could hear only one voice.
After a while it hit her—she laughed under her breath. A clock radio on a timer, what do you bet? It must be back in one of the bedrooms. Well, if that’s all it is… She caught the window frame and leaned into the dark—yet something made her hesitate. Her nerves were jumping. Then she sucked in a breath as she realized: The fire escape was vibrating beneath her!
Yikes! She rose, glanced downward, saw shadowy motion a couple of floors below. Outa here, now! She glided toward the open stairway leading up to the next floor, padded up it. Who the hell is this?
If she fled to the roof she’d be safe—but she’d never know. Trey had warned her more than once that curiosity would be the death of her, but still…Sinking to her knees on the seventh-floor landing, Raine stretched out flat on her face, to peer between the iron bars. If whoever-it-was looked up, then she was simply a ratty old rug that 7A had spread out on his landing to please his cat. Projecting rug thoughts on all wavelengths, she slowed her breathing and widened her eyes.
Given the gloom of the alley and her foreshortened angle, there wasn’t much to see. Her fellow prowler was a man, dark haired, or wearing a dark watch cap. Kincade? she asked herself, then decided not. The shoulders weren’t broad enough. He seemed altogether smaller, maybe medium height.
He squatted by the window—and something tinkled. He’d bumped the crate of bottles. He paused for a full minute, then spread his hands on the sill. His head and shoulders ducked carefully below the raised sash—
A startled shriek ended in a meaty WHACK!
“Wh-what? No, wait! Don’t!” the prowler cried in a lilting accent that Raine recognized. His body was jerked forward, then—
Whang! Th-THUNK!
Heart hammering, Raine flew down the steps as the sound came again.
Thunk!
Somebody was banging Ravi’s head in the sink! Bashing his brains out, it sounded like! She lunged across the landing, then froze as the sounds died away. Ravi lay limp and unmoving. Jeez, he’s dead! Is he dead?
“Ohhh-ah-h,” Ravi groaned, starting to stir.
“Huh,” someone grunted within the kitchen, on a low note of amusement.
Something about that sound—her hair stood on end.
Big hands reached out from the dark, clamped on Ravi’s upper arms—and pulled. Moaning and resisting feebly, he slid a foot into the darkness.
Oh, no. Absolutely NOT! Raine straddled Ravi’s body, grabbed his belt—and tugged. “Ooof!” He was heavier than he looked; still she dragged him a foot back toward safety.
“Huh?” The hands shot out, fumbling for a better grasp on the victim. She caught a glimpse of black sleeves up to the elbow. He grunted—and Ravi was drawn inward a foot, like a mouse down the jaws of a snake.
“Let him go, Kincade!” she snarled, almost sitting as she hauled back on Ravi’s dead weight. Had to be Kincade, who else could it be?
“Whuh?” The exclamation ended in a coarse guffaw.
Oh, what, now you know it’s a woman, you think it’ll be easy? And damned if he didn’t grab hold of Ravi again! “I said let him go!” Hanging on to Ravi’s belt with one hand, Raine groped desperately with the other, found a flowerpot—she lobbed it into the dark. Heard it thump home.
With a wordless roar, he wrenched Ravi inward, sending her staggering.
Stubborn bastard, would you give it a rest? Raine threw the bicycle parts, box and all—and was rewarded with a yell as they whacked into his skull, then clattered into the sink. She seized the moment to regain a foot on the prize, who was squeaking and wriggling, not helping her at all.
The hands shot out, hooked over Ravi’s belt—and pulled.
No way could she match the strength in those big bony wrists. “Shit, shit, oh, shit!” And Raine remembered her knife. Yanking it out, she slashed it across the black sleeves. A thick sweater of some sort, the fabric dragging at her blade.
“BITCH!” The hands whipped out of sight.
“You better believe it!” Finding the pot she wanted, she fed him the cactus—rammed it straight where his face must be.
“Yiiiii! Shit!”
While he juggled with that, she used all her strength to hoist Ravi backward. Got him all out—leaned over him to slam the sash down. “Come on, move! Help me!”
He moaned and crabbed backward toward the stairs.
Raine grabbed the crate of bottles, swung it over her head. Leaning against the bricks beside the window, she waited, panting. Come on, come on! You want some more?
“Is he…is he still there?” Ravi asked behind her after a minute.
“I dunno,” she muttered. “Why don’t you go on down?”
“And leave you? Don’t be absurd!”
He sounded so offended, she found she was weakly laughing, her arms shaking so hard the bottles tinkled like sleigh bells. “Why not? Whole night’s been nothing but absurd.” And where the hell is he? She shuddered at the thought of him, waiting in the darkness just the other side of the wall, like a trap-spider. Like a troll. What had he meant to do with Ravi anyway, eat him?
Kincade, is that really you? Somehow Raine couldn’t fit her sense of that man—with…this. He might be a killer, but he wasn’t…creepy. At least, she hadn’t thought so. Her whole body jerked at the sound of a distant thud.
“That was…I do believe that was the front door. He’s left my apartment,” Ravi said, hauling himself to his feet.
“Or he wants us to think he has.” No way was she checking it out.
Suddenly Raine pictured the alley below, with all its shadows and crannies between the Dumpster and the lighted street. But they had to go down. Ravi was too wobbly to boost him up her rope to the roof; he might even be concussed. How long will it take the troll to go out the back way, then around to the alley? Whoever he was, he wasn’t a quitter.
“Let’s go,” she said crisply. “If somebody heard all the racket out here and called the cops, there’s one right around the corner.”
“Ah, yes.” Ravi explored his nose and cheekbones with the fingertips of both hands. “That would be wise.” He leaned closer, squinting at her face through swollen eyes. “It is Ms. Ashaway that I have to thank, is it not?”
“It is.” She caught his elbow and urged him toward the stairs. “But don’t thank me yet.”
They didn’t stop moving till they reached the nearest subway and caught an uptown train. As they rumbled into the tunnel, Raine swung around to peer back at the dusky platform. Ever since they’d crept out of the alley, the back of her neck had been prickling. Probably nothing but adrenaline aftershocks. If somebody had followed them through the late-night streets, he was good. She’d never caught a glimpse.
“You see someone?” asked Ravi nervously. “Once or twice I thought I heard…something behind us.”
“A couple of guys got on farther down the train. I didn’t get a clear look.” Though neither had moved with Kincade’s feral grace. “I think we’re okay.” She glanced at him critically. “But you…I’m afraid your nose might be broken.” His face was a mess, masked in a V-shaped swath of dried blood from the bridge of his nose to his chin. And there was no place to clean him up this time of night. “Maybe you should go to an emergency room?”
He smiled and shook his head. “I’ll see you home, then I go to friends.”
Just who was rescuing whom here? “You didn’t kill her, did you?”
His j
olt of laughter said the question was ridiculous; the sound wavered along a sob. “She was a beautiful, greedy child and I would have married her in, how do you say it? In a heartbeat.”
Which didn’t quite answer the question.
“My parents would never have forgiven me,” Ravi mused, barely audible above the screech and roar of the wheels. “At least, not my mother. But, ohhh, I would have married Lia.”
You didn’t do it, Raine concluded, as a wave of weary anger washed through her. That left only one viable suspect—Kincade.
“But who could that have been, back there?” Ravi worried while the tunnel lights flickered past. “A burglar who knew our apartment was empty?”
A burglar might savage a witness who cornered him while trespassing, Raine supposed. But given a clear route of escape, the average break and enter man wasn’t likely to drag a witness in to keep him company on his rounds. She shrugged. “What were you after?”
Ravi had returned, hoping to collect his passport, some money and some other personal papers that he kept hidden under a floorboard in his bedroom.
“And what about Lia’s dinosaur tooth, did you mean to take that, as well?” Raine prodded, just to be sure.
He started to frown—then winced and pressed a finger between his eyebrows. “But surely the police would have found that? She kept it in a box, on a shelf above my desk.”
“Her killer took it, I think.”
“Ahhh.” He shot her a glance full of wary intelligence. “And if he did, then what were you doing on my fire escape?”
The overhead speakers made a gargling announcement; the train braked into Grand Central Station. “I have to transfer here,” Raine said as she rose.
When they stepped out onto the platform, she glanced down the tracks. But this midtown stop was much busier, passengers rushing on and off the cars before their doors slid shut. She spotted no one she recognized. As they joined the outgoing flow, Raine said, “I suppose Lia told you that I wanted to buy her fossil? Well, even though her tooth seems to be stolen, I still hope to find the rest of the skeleton it came from. I was looking for anything, letters from her home, maybe the original wrappings her box was mailed in, that would be a clue to where she got it. Could you tell me anything?”
By the time they reached the brownstone that housed the company apartment, he’d recounted what little he knew. As they shook hands at the foot of her stoop, Raine said, “Where will you go now?” She’d learned that Lia had been a freshman at NYU, where Ravi was a grad student, working toward a masters in microbiology. If he fled the country, he could kiss all his hard work, all his dreams of a better life, goodbye.
He sighed. “Truly it’s best that I not tell you.”
“But if something comes up that clears you of suspicion, wouldn’t you want to know? Is there someplace I could leave a message?”
Ravi considered her somberly for a moment, then said, “Professor Sadat in the chemistry department at NYU. He will know how to reach me.”
“All right. Then…good luck.” And be careful! she added as he waited till the inner doors of her foyer had locked safely behind her, before he limped off down the deserted street. They’d both glanced back several times as they walked from the subway. Once or twice Raine had imagined she’d seen a flicker of motion half a block behind, but nothing had ever materialized out of the gloom.
And if it’s Kincade, he wouldn’t need to follow, she reminded herself. He already knows where I live. With a weary shrug, she turned and headed upstairs.
Crouched behind the parked cars that lined the far side of the bitch’s street, Szabo noted her address. Later, babe.
But for now, her friend was still out in the open, heading east. Let him be headed for the park, Szabo prayed, skulking behind. Just let him try to cross Central Park, with all its darkness and bushes, the kind of place where Szabo could find the privacy to get creative. He broke into a lazy lope as his quarry crossed the next intersection, still heading straight on. Oh, yeah, lookin’ good. Lookin’ real promising!
He lurched to a halt as a figure stepped out from the shadows to block his man’s path. Shit, was that a—
Of all the bitchin’ luck, it was! A cop, no doubt wondering what a guy was doing, wandering around this time of night with a busted face.
Spin the nosy bastard a good yarn, he counseled from afar. Tell him your girlfriend clocked you. Instead, the idiot stood tongue-tied for an instant, then spun around to run—and slammed straight into a lamppost.
“Smooth move, pal!” Szabo growled as the cop pounced, then handcuffed the moron. Well, this night was a bust, from first to last.
Or maybe, just maybe…
He prowled back to the bitch’s brownstone and tried its outer double doors. Locked. He went to press his nose to one of the fancy etched-glass panels—and yelped as a cactus spine he’d missed bumped the pane.
He yanked it out with a snarl, then looked again. Along the side wall, he could see two rows of shiny brass mailboxes, with the tenants’ names printed along their bases. And, ding-dong, did that one for the top floor ring a bell?
Ashaway All.
Chapter 13
“You sure you’ve got time to help me?” Raine asked, welcoming Eric through her door.
Although Eric Bradley had started out as Ashaway All’s official apartment sitter when none of the family was in residence, several years back he’d fallen for James and Otto, and moved down a floor. But in his career as a freelance magazine writer, Eric still used the top apartment as his office. In exchange for its usage, he collected company mail, paid utilities, ran errands as needed.
“All the time in the world, sweetie, especially when it’s to go shopping,” Eric assured her, then stopped short as he cleared the doorway. “Good God, Raine! Please tell me the other guy looks worse!”
“Hey, he looked worse to begin with.” She brushed a knuckle below her shiner, smiled and shrugged. “Anyway, we’re even. I broke his ketchup bottle. Really, stop. I put on sunglasses and it’s gone.”
“Men are such brutes!”
“Yeah, but what’s the alternative? Anyway, here’s my list. I’ve got a million things to do before my flight tomorrow night. I’ll pick up the prescription antibiotics myself, and the reef walkers, and the maps, and my visa at the Indonesian Consulate. But any of these items that you could knock off would be a tremendous help.”
“A dozen secondhand T-shirts?”
“Right. They make perfect tips or trade items. Go to the Salvation Army store and choose whatever you like in hundred percent cotton. Rock bands are best, designer emblems or cartoon characters are good. Medium sizes, I’d say. Trey tells me I’m going to be half a head taller than every guy I meet on Borneo.”
“A blonde on stilts? They’ll just try harder,” Eric predicted. “And what’s this, ten dozen tweezers?”
“For when I reach the rainforest. They’re not much beyond the Stone Age, where I’m going. Metal’s at a premium. But tweezers are light to carry and digging out splinters is a universal problem. And, oh, the needles, Eric? I doubt they have access to real thread, so I suppose they use pig gut or vegetable fiber. So get me big needles, with the largest eyes you can find.”
“But five hundred?”
“Trey says they use blowguns to hunt. I suspect the men will want ’em for darts, as much as their women do for sewing.”
“A blonde on stilts playing Santa Claus!”
“More a trader come to town, than Santa. It’s one of Dad’s basic lessons. If you’re packing in to the back-of-beyond, and you want to travel fast and light, then it’s impossible to carry all the food you’ll need. It’s too bulky and heavy. So aside from two weeks of high-nutrient emergency rations, you bring the lightest, most desirable trade goods you can carry. Then as you travel, you exchange them for whatever the locals are eating. Both sides figure they’ve got the best of the bargain. It’s win-win all the way.”
“As long as you don’t mind snacking on grubs an
d worse things,” Eric agreed with a grimace. “Let’s see—a thousand medium-size fishhooks. Five pounds of glass beads in assorted colors—no, really?”
“Sounds disgustingly Victorian, I know, but Trey’s research says it’s true. I could offer them money and they’d think I was nuts, but beads? The women are mad for ’em. Look at this.” She led him to the desk, where she’d picked apart her opal necklace and arranged her favorite stones in a simpler design, with an irregular, cream-colored piece of sandstone as its central pendant. “I’m restringing my necklace, and to jazz it up, I was thinking of alternating the opals with glass beads, in turquoise and lime-green.”
“And possibly pinky-gold?” Eric suggested, with a critical tilt of his head. He pocketed one of the gems. “I’ll try to match the fire in this one. But why use this?” He nudged the fossil at the center of her design. The impression of a single feather, its pattern was so perfect it might have been imprinted in creamy lake silt an hour ago—not two hundred million years before.
“Trey says the people are animists, where I’m headed.”
“I thought Indonesia was Islamic?”
“Largest Muslim population in the world, with a smattering of Christians and Buddhists,” Raine agreed, “but that’s on the more civilized islands, and along the coasts of the others. In Borneo’s deep dark interior, they don’t believe in one God. They believe that every object, every creature in the forest, contains a hidden power. Good or bad spirits that inhabit the trees and rivers and birds and animals, even the wind. Trey says they’ll find me more simpatica if I have my own totem. A spirit to advise and protect me. I considered inviting Otto along, but for a hike of more than a hundred yards?”
“He’ll feel more spiritual here on the couch.”
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