by Linda Howard
Chapter
Eighteen
Wyatt!
His name flashed in my brain and I paused in my woman-hunt to fish in the tote for my cell phone. This time, damn it, I did nick my finger on the knife. Snarling, I stood the knife, blade down, in one of the inside pockets—why hadn’t I thought to do that before? Oh, yeah, preoccupied with trying to escape a burning building—and stuck my finger in my mouth. When I pulled my finger out to examine the damage, there was nothing but a thin hairline of red on the pad of my finger, so no great harm done.
I found the cell phone, and when I flipped it open the little window lit up and told me I’d missed four incoming calls. They were probably all from Wyatt, because someone would either have recognized the address and called him, or he’d been sleeping with the police radio beside him. I dialed his cell.
“Blair!” he yelled furiously as a greeting. “Why haven’t you been answering your fucking phone?”
“I didn’t hear it ring!” I yelled back. My voice was so hoarse I didn’t recognize myself. “A house fire and all the alarms make a lot of noise, you know! Besides, I was busy climbing out the upstairs window.”
“God almighty,” he said, sounding shaken. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m all right. My condo’s a goner, though.” I looked across the street at the scene of destruction and a horrible realization sank in. “Oh, no! Your truck!”
“Never mind the truck, I’m insured. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m sure.” I understood why he was double-checking. With my recent history, he was no doubt expecting me to be in critical condition. “Other than cutting my finger on the knife in my purse, I don’t think I have any injuries at all.”
“Find a police officer and stick to him like glue,” he ordered. “I’m almost there, another five minutes at the most. I’m betting this isn’t an accident, and the stalker may be right behind you.”
Startled, I spun around and stared right into the face of an elderly gentleman who had been standing behind me, watching the fire with wide-eyed interest and horror. He jumped back in surprise.
“That’s why I have the knife,” I said, fury roaring through me again. “When I find that bitch—” The old man’s eyes got even bigger and he began backing away.
“Blair, put the knife away and do only what I told you to do,” he barked. “That’s an order.”
“You weren’t in that fire,” I began in hot defense of myself, but the sound of dead air told me he’d disconnected.
Phooey on him; I wanted some face-to-face time with her. I closed my phone, dropped it in the tote, and resumed my weaving pattern through the crowd of onlookers, staring at their clothes instead of their faces. Men were automatically not in the running. She might not be here. She might have left immediately after throwing her firebomb or whatever through the window, but I’d read that killers and arsonists often hung around afterward, mingling with the crowd of onlookers, so they could enjoy the uproar they’d caused.
Someone touched my arm and I whirled. Officer DeMarius Washington stood there. We’d gone to school together, so we knew each other from way back.
“Blair, are you all right?” he asked, his dark face tense under his baseball cap.
“I’m fine,” I said for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, though my voice was becoming more raspy by the second.
“Come with me,” he said, taking me by the arm, his head swiveling as he constantly looked around. Wyatt must have radioed in, told them I was in danger. With a sigh, I gave in. I couldn’t very well hunt for a psycho with DeMarius at my side, because he was sure to prevent me from gutting her. Cops are weird that way.
He led me away from the crowd, toward a patrol car. I tried to be careful where I stepped, because there was so much debris on the ground and I was barefoot, but with him pulling on my arm I didn’t always have a choice. My left foot came down on something sharp and I yelped with pain; DeMarius whirled, his hand moving toward his service weapon as his gaze darted around, looking for the threat.
“What happened?” He had to half yell, because of the din.
“I stepped on something.”
He looked down and for the first time noticed my bare feet. He said, “Oh, hell,” which wasn’t very professional of him, but like I said we’ve known each other forever—since we were six, in fact. I took another step and yelped again as soon as my left foot touched down. Held upright by his grip, I sort of hopped around as I lifted my foot to peer at it. All I could tell was that the bottom of my foot was dark; God only knew what I’d stepped in.
“Hold on,” said DeMarius, and he half carried, half hustled me to the patrol car. Opening one of the rear doors, he set me down sideways on the seat, with my legs and feet on the outside, and took his flashlight from his belt as he hunkered down.
The flashlight revealed that the bottom of my foot was red, and wet. A sliver of glass protruded from just behind the ball. “I’ll get the first-aid kit,” he said. “Sit tight.”
He returned with both a first-aid kit and a blanket, which he draped around my shoulders. I hadn’t been aware of being cold; there’s something about fighting for your life that throws you into high gear. Now the early-morning chill was sinking in as my adrenaline level dropped, and for the first time I was aware of my bare arms and shoulders. All I was wearing was my usual tank top—no bra, of course—and thin drawstring pajama pants that hung low on my hips and showed my belly button. Not what I would have chosen to escape a burning building in, but I hadn’t had time to change clothes; I’d barely managed to rescue my wedding shoes.
Those were now the only shoes I owned.
I pulled the blanket tight around me while I twisted to stare at my burning home. The urgency of escaping had taken priority over everything else, but now I realized that I had lost everything: all my clothing, all my furniture, my dishes, my cookware, my stuff.
DeMarius whistled sharply, and I looked up to see him waving a medic over. I said, “It’s just a little sliver of glass, I can probably pull it out with my fingernails.”
“Sit tight,” he said again.
So the medic came over, and DeMarius held the flashlight while the guy—he was neither Dwayne nor Dwight—poured antiseptic over my foot, then extracted the sliver using a pair of tweezers. He slapped a gauze pad over the puncture wound, wound some of the crinkly stuff that sticks to itself around my foot, and said, “You’re good to go.”
“Thanks,” said DeMarius, leaning down to scoop my feet and legs into the car; then he closed the door.
For a minute I just sat there, suddenly so exhausted all I could do was slump against the seat, glad to be out of the cool air, not able yet to absorb the complete enormity of the fire and everything it meant.
I watched a small black car approach the entrance to the condos, roll to a stop as a patrolman held up a hand to stop, then a familiar face appear in the window as it slid down. The patrolman stepped back and waved him forward, and Wyatt zipped my sharp little convertible past him, parking it on the grass a safe distance from the fire. As he unfolded his long legs and got out, I reached for the door handle so I could get out and go meet him. Suddenly I wanted nothing in this world so much as I wanted his arms around me.
My searching fingers found only smoothness. No door handle, no window control, nothing.
Well, duh. This was a patrol car. The whole idea was that whoever was put back here wouldn’t be able to get out.
I knocked on the window. DeMarius turned and looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “Let me out,” I mouthed, and pointed toward Wyatt. He turned and looked, and I swear an expression of relief crossed his face. He signaled Wyatt, Wyatt saw him—and me—and my dearly beloved gave a single sharp nod of his head before turning away.
Realization left me speechless. Wyatt had radioed in and told them to put me in a squad car and hold me there. That sneak. That complete and utter sneak! How dare he? Okay, so I’d been stomping around barefoot, ar
med with a chef’s knife, searching for the sow who tried to turn me into a crispy critter; that’s an understandable reaction, right? Turning the other cheek is one thing, but when someone burns down your house, what are you supposed to do? Turn the other house? I don’t think so.
I tapped on the window again, harder. DeMarius didn’t look around. “DeMarius Washington!” I said as sharply as possible, given my throat felt like sandpaper. If he heard me, he made no sign, but he took a few steps away from the squad car and turned his back.
Thwarted and furious, I flung myself back in the seat and grumpily pulled the blanket tight around me again. I thought about calling Wyatt with my cell phone and giving him what-for, but that would mean speaking to him, and right now I wasn’t. I might not speak to him for the next week.
I couldn’t believe he’d had them lock me in a squad car. Talk about misuse of power! Wasn’t this illegal, or something? Unlawful detainment? Only criminals were supposed to be closed up in the back of one of these things, which, come to think of it, did smell sort of criminally.
My nose wrinkled, and automatically I lifted my feet from the floorboard, holding them in the air. God only knows what kind of germs were back there. People puked in the back of squad cars, didn’t they? I was pretty certain I also smelled urine. And feces. He knew what sort of things went on in the back of squad cars, and still he’d had me put in one. The callousness appalled me. I was thinking of marrying this man, a man who would jeopardize the health of his future wife for a power play?
My God, the things I could put on his list of transgressions.
Because I’d been so worried about the list, the thought of its revival almost cheered me up. Almost. This was so bad not even the list could make up for it.
I beat on the window with the side of my fist. “DeMarius!” I yelled—or rather, croaked. My voice was getting so bad I sounded awful. “DeMarius! I’ll make you a Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding if you’ll let me out of here.”
From the way his shoulders stiffened, I knew he heard me.
“Just for you,” I promised as loudly as I could.
He barely turned his head, but I saw the agonized look he rolled my way.
“I’ll give you your pick of rum glaze, buttermilk glaze, or creamed cheese icing.”
He stood frozen for a few seconds, then heaved a big sigh and came over to the door. Yes! Happily I began preparing to leave my stinky prison.
DeMarius bent down to the window and looked in, his dark eyes mournful. “Blair,” he said loudly enough for me to hear, “as much as I love your doughnut bread pudding, I don’t love it enough to cross the lieutenant and get demoted.” Then he turned his back and returned to his previous position.
Well, damn. Bribery had been worth a try, but I couldn’t blame DeMarius for not falling for it.
With nothing else to distract me from what I’d been trying not to think about, I arranged the blanket beneath me, got on my knees in the seat, and turned to look out the back window at my home. The firemen were putting up a valiant effort to prevent the fire from spreading to the next apartment, but I knew my neighbors would have massive smoke and water damage at the least. Wyatt’s truck and the car next to it were both scorched, the heat had been so intense. As I watched, the front wall collapsed with a roar, sending sparks cascading up and out like the fireworks at Disney World.
The sudden flare of light illuminated a face—a woman’s face, in the midst of the crowd. She wore a hoodie, her hands tucked in the pockets and the hood pulled loosely around her head. I noticed the paleness of her blond hair first, then I looked at her face. A twinge of uneasiness snaked up my spine. There was something vaguely familiar about her, as if I’d seen her somewhere else but just couldn’t place her.
She wasn’t staring at the spectacle of fire, though. She was staring straight at the patrol car, and at me, and for a split second there was nothing but triumph in her face.
It was her.
Chapter
Nineteen
I began beating on the window again, as hard as I could, screaming, “DeMarius! DeMarius! There she is! Tell Wyatt! Do something, damn it, stop her!” That is, I was trying to scream.
His back remained stubbornly turned, and though he could hear my fist thumping against the window he very likely couldn’t hear anything I said because my voice was almost gone. My throat caught and I began coughing violently, the force of the spasms doubling me up and making my eyes water.
The rasping in my throat hurt; I felt as if I were raw on the inside, from the back of my nose all the way down into my lungs. Even breathing hurt. I must have inhaled more smoke than I’d thought, even with the wet towel over my face. Screaming hadn’t helped any, either—as well as accomplishing exactly nothing.
When I could sit up straight again, I looked for her, for the bitch who had burned down my home, but she was gone. Of course she was; she’d wanted to admire her handiwork, gloat a little bit, but she wasn’t going to stick around.
Tears of fury and pain began to drip down my face. Furiously I wiped them away. I would not let that bitch make me cry. I wouldn’t let any of this make me cry.
I dug my cell phone out and called Wyatt.
I half expected him not to answer, which would have made me so much angrier at him I’m not certain I’d have been over it by the time I filed for Social Security. Going to my knees again, I looked for him while I listened to the ringing. Then I saw him, taller than most of the other men, his head bent a little as he listened to the fire chief yelling something over the noise, and I saw him reach for his cell. He must have had the phone set to vibrate, which was smart considering the noise level. He said something to the fire chief, checked to see who was calling, then flipped open the phone and held it to one ear while he pressed a finger to his other ear.
“Be patient a little while longer!” he yelled into the phone.
I opened my mouth to blast him, to screech at him that he was letting her get away—and not one sound would come out. Not even a squeak.
I tried again. Nothing. I had completely lost my voice. Frantically I pecked on the microphone with my fingernail, trying to get him to at least look at me. Damn it, there was no way he could hear that little bitty noise. Both frustrated and inspired, I began banging the phone itself against the window.
Note to self: Cell phones are not sturdy.
The damn thing came apart in my hand, the battery cover coming off, the front piece flying into the floorboard—where it could stay, as far as I was concerned, because no way was I rooting around in that particular floorboard to look for it. Some other electronic little doohickey went askew. All in all, it was a futile effort.
Aaargh! I watched Wyatt close his phone and hook it back on his belt. Not once did he glance in my direction, the jackass.
What else did I have in my tote? The knife, of course, but slicing up the upholstery wouldn’t gain me anything and would cost me big-time, because I’m fairly certain the city takes a dim view of having its squad cars sliced and diced. The knife wouldn’t help me. My wallet was in there, my checkbook, lipstick, tissues, pens, my appointment book—all right! Now we were cooking. I tore a page out of the back of my appointment book, got a pen, and in the otherworldly, flickering, uncertain light wrote: TELL WYATT THE STALKER IS HERE I SAW HER IN THE CROWD.
I plastered the note to the window, then frantically began knocking on the glass again. I knocked and knocked and knocked, and DeMarius, damn his stubborn hide, refused to turn around and look.
My hand began to hurt. If I hadn’t been afraid of giving myself another concussion, I’d have beat my head against the window; I already felt as if I were beating it against a wall. If I’d had on shoes, I’d have started kicking the window. There were a lot of ifs, and all of them worked against me.
I put the note down and tugged on the metal cage thingie that separated the backseat from the front and protected the officers. They weren’t meant to be budged; if they had been, I’m sure ther
e are a lot of people stronger than I am who would already have budged them. So much for that effort.
There was nothing I could do. I pressed the note against the window again, rested my head against the paper to hold it in place, closed my eyes, and waited. Eventually, someone would let me out, and then they’d all know what stupid assholes they were.
For all the attention anyone was paying me, the psycho stalker bitch could walk up to the car from the other side and shoot through the window. As soon as the thought popped into my head I sat up and took a panicked look around, but no psychos were in sight. Well, that particular one wasn’t, anyway.
I remembered putting some of that clean-your-breath gum in the tote. I felt around in the tote until I found it, punched out a piece, and began chewing. While I chewed I tore another page out of my appointment book and wrote: FORGET JAZZ AND SALLY THE WEDDING IS OFF!!!! When the chewing gum was thoroughly chewed I took it out of my mouth, pinched it in half, and used one half to stick the Stalker note to the window, and the other half held the Jazz and Sally note right below it.
Then I punched out more gum, and tore another sheet out of the appointment book.
Because the back window sloped, I needed both halves of that piece of gum to do the job. That note said: ASSHOLE MEN.
The pack of gum held ten pieces. I used all of them.
By the time anyone noticed, I pretty well had the back window and both side windows plastered with notes.
Through one of the bare places—not that there were many—I saw a patrolman glance over, do a kind of “What the hell?” look, then nudge someone else and point. A couple of others noticed the pointing, and they looked, too. DeMarius noticed that, even though he’d ignored my beating and yelling—when I could still yell, that is—and he turned around to look. He grinned and shook his head, pulling out his flashlight as he approached.
I turned my back on him and crossed my arms. Damned if I’d beg to be let out now, when it wouldn’t do any good.
He shined his flashlight on my notes, or at least on the two in the side window. A second later, I heard him yell. He jerked the door open, yanked the stalker note free of the gum, and slammed the door closed again. Even if I could have said a word of protest he wouldn’t have heard it, because he was sprinting toward Wyatt.
