Explosive Eighteen

FOURTEEN

I DROPPED LULA at the office and swung around into town. It was midday and the roads were clogged with cars. Lots were filled, street parking was nonexistent, and after ten minutes of circling several blocks, I gave up and drove into the FBI building’s underground garage. It was public parking, but there was a designated FBI area.

I took the elevator to the sixth floor and went directly to the conference room. Berger, Gooley, and the artist were already there.

“We thought maybe it was the last artist who was thinking about Tom Cruise,” Berger said. “So we’re starting over with Fred.”

I took a seat and nodded at Fred. “Good luck.”

Fred managed a tight smile that was a shade away from being a grimace. An hour later, we had a new sketch.

“How do you feel about this?” Berger asked me. “Is this the guy?”

I did palms up. I didn’t know. “Maybe,” I said.

“At least it’s not Tom Cruise,” Berger said.

Gooley studied it. “It’s Ashton Kutcher.”

We crowded in to see the sketch.

“Shit! He’s right,” Berger said. “It’s freaking Ashton Kutcher.”

I took another look at it, and I had to admit it did look a lot like Ashton Kutcher.

“Well, they both have brown hair, so we can be pretty sure he has brown hair,” I said. “Do you guys validate parking?”

“Not anymore,” Berger said. “Budget cuts.”

I took the elevator to the second parking level and walked to my truck. It seemed to me Ashton Kutcher and Tom Cruise weren’t so far apart. Brown hair, nice-looking, angular face, potential for Top Gun attitude. Maybe it was the attitude that was the common denominator. A quality in their faces that projected a boyishly endearing wiseass personality.

I pressed the unlock button on my car key, reached for the door handle, and got yanked off my feet from behind. In a matter of seconds, I was dragged across the garage and slammed against a panel van. I was so caught by surprise that I barely reacted, ineffectively flailing my arms and yelling, the yelling getting lost in the cavernous garage.

I caught a flash of light from a knife blade and felt the tip of the knife bite into my neck. I went dead still, and Raz’s face swam into focus inches from mine.

“You will be stopping moving,” he said. “You are understanding?”

I nodded.

“Into the van,” he said. “Facedown, or I kill you good. I carve you into pieces and eat you for snack.”

I was too scared to totally focus, but I knew getting into the van wasn’t a step in the right direction. I pulled back, opened my mouth to scream, and he hit me in the face with the butt end of the knife. I tasted blood, a switch got flipped on in my brain, and I went into killer survival mode, kicking, screaming, scratching, gouging. The knife got knocked out of his hand, we scrambled for it, and I got there first. I lunged at him, catching him in the thigh, digging the blade in deep, opening a long gash that gushed blood. He shrieked and grabbed his leg. It was a panicky blur after that. I kicked at him, and he tried to roll away. He was bleeding and cursing, and I kept kicking. I slipped on the blood-slick garage floor, and he took the opportunity to dive into the van and ram the door closed. The motor caught, and his wheels spun and screeched on the cement as he sped away.

I bent at the waist and sucked in air. I looked down at the ground and realized I was dripping blood. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I walked on wobbly legs to the elevator and pushed the sixth-floor button. The doors opened, and I stepped out and stood still for a beat, not sure what to do because I was tracking blood on the tile floor.

Several people rushed over to me. One of them was Berger.

“Jeez, I’m sorry about the blood,” I said.

I saw his eyes go to my right hand, and I realized I was still holding the bloody knife. I dropped the knife and went down to one knee.

“I don’t feel good,” I said. And it was lights out.

I had a paramedic bending over me when I opened my eyes.

“Am I dead?” I asked him.

“Nope.”

“Will I be dead anytime soon?”

“Not from these injuries, but the consensus is you’re a train wreck.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“I bet. You have a cut lip. I don’t think it needs stitches. I put a butterfly bandage on it. I’m going to get you up and give you an ice pack. You might also have a slightly broken nose. I’m giving you an ice pack for that, too. The nose looks okay, but you should see a doctor. You were gushing blood out of it.”

“Anything else?”

“Some superficial cuts on your arms and legs. And you’ll probably have some monster bruises on your face. Do you think you can sit?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Get me up.”

He helped me up, and I sat until my head cleared and my lips weren’t numb. I got to my feet and did some deep breathing, trying to calm myself. My clothes were soaked in blood, and there was blood all over the floor.

“Is this all from me?” I asked.

“The stuff on the floor is from you,” Berger said. “I imagine some of the blood you’re wearing is from the other guy, since you were the one who ended up with the knife.”

“Razzle Dazzle,” I said.

“I have someone down in the garage securing the scene,” Berger said. “If you parked in the FBI area, we’ll have the attack recorded.”

“He came out of nowhere,” I told him. “I was unlocking my car, and he was on me, trying to get me into a van.”

Gooley elbowed his way through the crowd around me. “They have the tape up in the conference room,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to preview it.”

I thanked the paramedic, took my ice packs and towels, and followed Gooley and Berger down the hall to the conference room. We sat around the table, and Gooley pulled the tape up on the flat screen at the end of the room.

“Are you sure you want to watch this?” Berger asked me.

“Absolutely.” Mostly because I couldn’t remember anything. It was a total blur after Razzle said he was going to cut me up and eat me.

The image was grainy black-and-white.

“Not in color?” I asked.

“Budget cuts,” Berger said. “We got discontinued stock from Radio Shack.”

For thirty seconds, there was only the still image of the parking area. My truck could be seen at the edge of the picture. Finally I appeared and walked across the traffic lane. I approached my truck, pressed the remote, and a man rushed in behind me. He was wearing jeans and a windbreaker. He had a knife that looked like something out of Arabian Nights. It had a big curved blade and a thick handle. He grabbed me by my ponytail and yanked me back, pulling me across the garage to a van. He held the knife to my neck, and got up into my face.

“What is he saying?” Berger asked.

“He said he was going to kill me good. And then he was going to cut me up in little pieces and eat me.”

“Sick,” Gooley said. “I like it.”

The tape continued, and I watched myself try to pull away from Raz, watched Raz hit me in the face with the butt of the knife, snapping my head back.

The three of us sucked in air when I got hit. There was a moment of suspended animation where Raz stepped back and I gathered myself together. What followed was pure instinct on my part. I brought my heel down on his instep as hard as I could, catching him by surprise. He bent slightly to look at his foot, and I kicked him in the face.

“Whoa!” Gooley said. “Ow.”

Raz tackled me at knee level, we went down, and it turned into a catfight. He was trying to punch me, and I was scratching and biting. I grabbed his hair and kneed him in the nuts.

“Cripes,” Berger said. “That had to hurt.”

I saw myself reach for the knife, wrap my hand around it, and slash at Raz, catching him in the leg, opening a twelve-inch gash in his thigh.

“Holy shit,” Berger and Gooley said in unison.

Raz reached for his injured leg, and I scrambled to my feet. He was in a semi-fetal position, trying to protect his nuts and the knife wound, and I kicked him as hard as I could in the kidneys a bunch of times.

Gooley and Berger leaned forward, eyes wide.

“Fuck,” Gooley said.

Raz rolled away, managed to get to his feet, catapulted himself into the van, and slammed the door shut. I was waving the knife and yelling when he drove away.

“I need to go home and change out of these clothes,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

“I’m good,” Berger said.

“Yeah, me, too,” Gooley said. “I got nothing. I might need some air. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my lunch when you kicked him that last time.”

“I felt threatened,” I said by way of explanation.

There were no scary cars in my parking lot. No black Town Car, no van, no Scion. I limped into my building and let myself into my apartment. I stood in the kitchen, stripped down naked, stuffed all my clothes into a big plastic garbage bag, and set the bag by the door. The clothes were beyond washing. They were going down the trash chute.

I limped into my bathroom and stood under a hot shower until all the blood was washed away and I stopped sobbing. I had no idea why I was crying. I mean, it wasn’t like I lost the fight, right? I shampooed my hair and lathered up one last time. I got out of the shower, avoided looking at myself in the mirror, and wrapped myself in a towel.

I stepped into my bedroom and came face-to-face with Ranger.

He did a slow, full-body scan. “Babe.”

“Do not tell me I’m a train wreck.”

“Have you seen yourself?”

“No.”

He handed me a fresh ice pack. “You need to keep this on your face. Has a doctor looked at your nose?”

“No. Do you think I should get it X-rayed or something?”

“Can you breathe?” Ranger asked. “Are you in pain?”

“Yes, I can breathe. And it hurts about as much as the rest of me.”

“You have some minor swelling. Other than that, it looks okay. If things change, you should get it checked out.”

“How did you know I was attacked?”

“We have a friend on the sixth floor.”

Ranger wasn’t a man who showed much emotion, but I could swear I detected some steam curling off the roots of his hair. “Are you angry about something?” I asked him.

“Anger isn’t a productive emotion. Let’s just say I’m not happy.”

“Should I ask why?”

“I expect you already know. You’re caught up in the middle of something bad, and you’re not being careful. Get dressed and come out to the dining room. I have a show-and-tell for you.”

Oh boy. Ranger didn’t stay to watch me get dressed. He didn’t rip the towel off me. He didn’t get naked. I must really look bad. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. EEK! This was worse than I thought. Huge black bruise developing and swelling under my right eye. Still small amount of blood seeping from my nose. Swollen lip with ugly cut and huge bruise. Then there was the rest of me, with assorted bruises and scrapes. Not exactly a sex goddess.

I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and half dried my hair. I plastered the ice pack to my face and went out to see Ranger.

“Here’s your Smith and Wesson,” he said. “I took it out of the cookie jar. From what I can see, you haven’t any ammo. I took the stun gun out of your bag. It’s dead. Needs recharging. And it looks to me like you’re out of pepper spray and using hair spray.”

I adjusted the ice pack. “Hair spray works surprisingly well.”

“Don’t push it,” Ranger said. “I’m not in a good place.” He took a gun off the table and handed it to me. “This is a semiautomatic baby Glock. It’s smaller and lighter than the one I carry. It’s ready to go. Do you know how to use it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to load it?”

“Yes.”

“The only time I want to see the clip empty is immediately after you’ve dumped every round into a warm body.”

“Jeez,” I said.

“Humor me. Next up is the stun gun. This is larger than the one you’re currently carrying. It’ll drop a 1,500-pound cow. If you don’t keep it charged, it won’t drop anything.”

I nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Is that snark?” he asked.

“It might be.”

Ranger almost smiled.

“The truth is, I’m kind of proud of the way I’ve defended myself so far. I’m still alive, and I only cried once. And as bad as I look, I’m in a lot better shape than the other guy.”

“You work well with panic and rage,” Ranger said.

I looked down at the table. “What’s with the watch?”

“It works as a watch, but it’s also a tracking system. As long as it’s on your wrist, I can find you. There are three little buttons on the side. If you push the red button, we come get you.”

“What’s the blue button?”

“It sets the time.”

Duh.

I removed the watch I was wearing and strapped the new watch to my wrist. “It should have diamonds,” I said to Ranger.

“Maybe if you’re a very good girl.”

“How good would I have to be?” I asked him.

“You have a black eye, a cut lip, a broken nose, and you’re flirting with me?”

“That’s not the worst of it,” I told him. “I’ve decided I’m off men.”

“All things considered, that’s not a bad plan,” Ranger said. “I have to go. Call if you need help, or anything else.”

“Now you’re flirting,” I told him.

“That wasn’t flirting,” Ranger said. “That was an open invitation.”

I locked the door when he left. I slid the chain into place and flipped the dead bolt. None of those locks ever prevented Ranger from entering, and I’d long ago stopped wondering how he did it.

I made myself a sandwich and took it to the dining room table. Chewing was painful, but I managed to get the whole thing down. I pulled up a search program on my computer and started working my way through Brenda’s husbands.

Brenda married Herbert Luckert right out of high school. The marriage lasted ten years and ended in divorce. A year later, she married Harry Zimmer. That marriage lasted seven months and ended in divorce. She was unmarried for nine years after that, eventually marrying Bernard Schwartz. The Schwartz marriage ended after three years when Schwartz emptied his medicine chest into the blender along with half a pint of vodka and drank himself into a blissful final slumber.

When Brenda married Schwartz, he owned thirty-five car washes spread throughout the state. When he killed himself, he owned four, and they were in foreclosure. He’d lost his house a couple months before. I had no idea if or how this related to the photograph, but it seemed like something to file away.

I got out of the search program and checked my email. Mostly spam. I gingerly touched my lip and my nose. Tender. I went to the bathroom and took another look. Not good, but at least I didn’t have a foot-long, inch-deep gash in my thigh. I hoped Razzle Dazzle was in a lot of pain. And I really wouldn’t mind if the cut got infected and his leg fell off.

My cell phone rang, and I was hoping for Joyce so I could tell her I had the key, but it was my parents’ number that came up on the display.

“The Korda viewing is at seven o’clock tonight,” Grandma said. “I figure you want to go and snoop around, and I was hoping I could have a ride.”

“Sure.”

“Are you coming for dinner? Your mother’s making chicken and rice.”

My mother would have a coronary incident if she saw my face. “I’m going to skip dinner,” I said.

“Okay, but make sure you’re not late. There’s gonna be a crowd tonight, and I don’t want to get muscled to the back of the room. All the action’s gonna be up by the casket.”

I said good-bye to Grandma, and I went to get ice. Lots of ice, I thought. The more the better.

By six-thirty, it was clear there was only so much improvement I could expect from ice. I got dressed in a black pencil skirt, black heels, a cream sweater with a low scoop neck and matching cardigan. I wore my hair down and fluffed out, hoping it would distract from my monster bruise and cut lip. I smeared on a lot of concealer, tried to balance out the black eye with extra blush, and I was wearing my push-up bra for maximum cleavage. I took one last look in the mirror and thought this was as good as it was going to get.

I dropped my new Glock into my purse, along with the stun gun on steroids. I was wearing the GPS watch, pearl earrings, a Band-Aid where the knife had knicked my neck, and a huge Band-Aid on my skinned knee. I was the All-American Girl.