Kiss of death

CHAPTER THIRTY

“H EY, CUTIE.” The dachshund scurried up to Whitney, tail wagging. “Grey, right?” She dropped to her knees and held out her arms. The little dog leaped up and licked her chin.

She stood, Grey in her arms, and flipped on a few lights. “Let’s see if you had an accident that I need to clean up.”

“Good boy,” she told the dog after she’d inspected the small, neat condo. “No accidents. Let’s take you for a walk.”

The dachshund lived in an upscale condominium complex not far from Scripps. If Whitney recalled correctly, Betty Spirin worked at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Whitney walked down a path illuminated only by low-voltage lights scattered among the plants bordering the walkway. Hadn’t the moon been shining when they left the restaurant? She was positive it had, but in early summer a layer of marine clouds inched in at night, lingered, then became the morning fog that beachgoers called “June gloom.”

The note she had on her BlackBerry said “back,” which meant the best place to walk Grey was in the back of the complex. She headed in that direction, deciding there must be a common area behind the warren of condos. As soon as they were off the walkway Grey lifted his leg on a low-hanging bush.

“You really had to go, didn’t you,” she said, careful to keep her voice low. Very few lights were on in the complex at this late hour, and she didn’t want to disturb the residents.

Grey finished and scratched the grass. Whitney led the dachshund toward the rear of the condominiums. The dog probably would do something more serious. She’d left her purse in the condo, so she double-checked the pockets in her shorts to make sure she had a plastic bag for a pickup.

Whitney slowed as she approached the rear of the complex. Security lights illuminated the building but five feet beyond was cloaked in deep shadows. She looked up again. Nothing but a black anvil of a sky.

Grey trotted forward. Obviously the dog had been here many times and knew his way. A sense of foreboding prickled at Whitney. Mercy, was she jumpy. She’d been nothing but raw nerves since the fire.

When she’d left the house, she’d checked for the car Adam had seen minutes earlier, but it had vanished. For some reason that bothered her when it shouldn’t have. People came and went all the time. On the way over, she’d kept checking her rearview mirror. She’d spotted several cars but none of them appeared to be following her.

Near-death experiences caused anxiety, she decided. Adam had retreated into a shell after nearly being killed. He was just now emerging. It was no wonder she was upset. Someone wanted Miranda dead and that person was still out there.

“Grey, how are you, boy?” A tall man appeared out of the darkness.

Whitney nearly jumped, then managed to steady herself. It was only an elderly man walking his dog.

“Where’s Betty?” he asked.

The neighbor had a Golden retriever that some people might have mistaken for Lexi. But this dog wasn’t very well groomed. Tufts of fur grew out from between the toes of her paws. A definite no-no with Golden owners. The unwanted fur collected dirt that could be tracked into the house.

“Betty will be back soon,” Whitney told him, even though she had no clue when the woman planned to return. Miranda had cautioned her not to give out information. Pet owners didn’t like anyone to know they were gone. Crime in the area wasn’t a problem, but it paid to be careful.

“Good.” He squinted at her. “You’re not Miranda. For a moment, I thought you were.”

“I’m her cousin, Whitney Marshall. I’ve taken over Miranda’s clients.”

“Really? I saw her just a week or so ago. We always talked. She didn’t mention leaving.”

You don’t know the half of it, she wanted to scream. “It was sudden.”

“Well, be careful back there.” He pointed to the dark area that stretched behind them. “They’re retiling the pool. Some workman accidentally severed the electric line. Can’t see a dang-blamed thing.”

“Thanks. I have my flashlight.” Whitney pulled it from her pocket. “Good night.”

He told her good-night and walked at a leisurely pace in the opposite direction, the Golden at his side. Whitney switched on her flashlight. It cast a narrow tunnel of light on the ground nearby. A row of parking places marked Guests was along the back of the building. She’d parked on the street but made note of it for future visits. She swung the flashlight around and spotted the fenced swimming pool and adjacent greenbelt.

Grey tugged on the leash. Obviously the animal had been here often enough to know where he wanted to go. The dachshund led Whitney down the asphalt drive toward the greenbelt.

Suddenly, high-beam headlights flared on, blinding her. The driver revved the engine and the car shot forward-an explosion of sound in the stillness-hurtling directly at her. Whitney had a split second to act. She lunged to the side, yanking the leash and hauling Grey with her.

Leaping from the pavement onto the soft surface threw her off balance. She skidded on the wet grass, stumbled, lurched sideways, dropped the flashlight, then looked back. There wasn’t enough light to make out more than a vague hulking shape. The car’s tires squealed as the driver veered hard to the left. She heard herself scream as she realized he was changing course to aim directly at her.

If she didn’t run like the wind, the car would mow her over in a heartbeat. Ahead and to her right was the flat greenbelt where she would be completely vulnerable. To her left was the large pool enclosed by a wrought-iron fence.

Blood pounding in her ears, Whitney realized she was as good as road kill. On the verge of utter panic, a galaxy of options swirled through her brain in a nanosecond. There was only one way to save herself. If she could make it to the pool fence before the car hit her-she had a prayer.

Just a prayer.

Dragging the dog, she charged forward, arms pumping, legs moving faster than pistons. Grey’s piercing yelps of pain filled the night air. She tried to drop the leash, assuming the dachshund would be better off on his own, but Whitney had wound the leather strap around her palm and it was taut from pulling the dog.

All she could concentrate on was reaching the fence. Had to get there. Had to. Had to. Had to.

At her heels, she heard the ominous rumble of the car’s engine. Even though she wasn’t close enough to climb the fence, she launched herself at it, realizing this was her only chance. She smashed her knee against one of the fence’s wrought-iron bars. Pain shot down her leg, and she screamed. Grabbing the vertical bars with both hands, she managed to vault several feet off the ground. She hung on, scrambling upward, using her tennis shoes for traction.

She grasped the top rail with both fists even though her arms were ripping out of their sockets. Poor little Grey was dangling from the leash, his weight tearing at Whitney’s arm and wrenching one shoulder downward. The dog’s terrified shrieks assured her that his neck hadn’t snapped. Whitney was alive but in excruciating pain and she couldn’t do a thing to help the little dog. Her heart lashed against her ribs like a caged beast.

Hang on. Hang on.

The car’s lights shone from behind her and illuminated a drained pool with tiles stacked around the sides. Heart pummeling, she wondered how much longer she could hold on to the fence before her muscles gave out. She ventured a glance over her shoulder.

The glaring headlights blinded her, but she could tell the car wasn’t moving. With each gasping breath, energy drained from her body. Already she’d lost the feeling in her fingers. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to have the strength to hang on. She knew what would happen if she fell to the ground.

“What’s going on?” shouted a male voice from a short distance.

“Help!” shrieked Whitney. “Help me!”

The car careened sideways and tore off across the greenbelt with a roar and a plume of exhaust. In the darkness its taillights appeared to be two evil eyes, reminding her of the malevolent eye in Vladimir’s painting. The eyes glowed in the dark and vanished in less than a few seconds.

She released the bars and crashed backward.

ADAM SAW THE FLASH-FLASH-FLASH of the blue-white police car strobe lights as soon as he rounded the corner near the condominiums. He’d just walked in the door and read Whitney’s note when the telephone rang. An older-sounding man told him there had been an accident, but Whitney wasn’t seriously injured. The moment he learned this Adam had forgotten how furious he was with her for leaving the house.

He left his car at the first open spot he found, then stormed up to the cluster of people standing near two police cruisers and a paramedic van. Whitney was sitting on the curb, clutching a dachshund to her stomach as if holding herself together with the dog. An EMT was tending to a cut on her leg that didn’t appear to be serious.

Adam elbowed aside a policeman he didn’t recognize. “What happened?”

Whitney looked up at him, her expression blank, as if he were a total stranger. She finally opened her mouth to respond but no words came out. She averted her eyes. He dropped down onto the curb beside her and gently eased his arm around her shoulders.

“Are you all right?”

She slowly nodded and met his eyes. When he’d left Whitney, she’d been vibrant, happy-now she couldn’t utter a coherent sentence.

An older man with a Golden retriever on a leash told Adam, “Someone was trying to scare her. They chased her with a car. A prank.”

Adam’s blood boiled. He wasn’t buying this explanation. He asked the policeman, “What makes you think it was a prank?”

“We’ve had other incidents where cars have driven over our greenbelt,” the older man responded before the cop could. “Ruins the grass. When the pool’s finished, we’re relandscaping and putting in big boulders to keep cars from driving on the grass.”

“This is our second call to this location,” confirmed the uniformed policeman, who was taking notes for a report.

“Did they chase anyone else?” he asked.

“No, but they might not have had the opportunity.” The policeman flipped his notebook shut. “The other incident occurred just before dawn.”

“That time rap music from their car’s radio awakened one of the owners who lives close by,” added the elderly man. “They called the police.”

The EMT stood up. “I don’t think you’re going to need stitches,” he told Whitney. “It’s just a bad scrape. You’ll probably have a doozy of a bruise, though.”

“Th-thanks, th-thanks…so…” Whitney’s voice quivered, then trailed off.

The EMT backed away and joined his partner. The policeman said to Adam, “She’s badly shaken. You’d better get her home.”

“Hot milk or tea might help,” advised the man with the retriever. “Or bourbon.”

“I wish I could say we’re going to catch this jerk,” the policeman told Whitney, “but I doubt it. Without a description of the car or…anything.”

“I’m telling you, it was too dark for anyone to see a blasted thing.” The old man pointed to the dark area behind them. “I’ve still got twenty-twenty and I couldn’t tell you what kind of car it was. I heard screeching tires, then screaming. I came running. I’m not as fast as I used to be. All I saw was the outline of a car.”

“He couldn’t even tell us the color, except that it wasn’t a light color,” added the police officer. “Neither could she.”

Adam bent close to Whitney. “Did you see anything? Was it big like an SUV or was it small?”

Her glassy eyes were wide, the pupils dilated. She hadn’t been crying, but shock and a desperate need to control her emotions showed on her face. “I-It all happened so fast. M-my impression is mid-size. I don’t think it was an SUV but I’m honestly not sure.”

IT HAD SEEMED LIKE THE RIGHT idea at the time. The paramedics didn’t think she needed to go to the emergency room. He’d been anxious to get her out of there, get her home. Now, Whitney was sitting on the edge of his bed, and he wasn’t so sure.

She’d insisted on bringing the dachshund with her, almost as if she was afraid to let the little dog go. She hadn’t said a word on the short drive home. When he’d directed her upstairs, she obeyed in a robotlike way.

Shock.

Adam had seen it often enough in Iraq. He’d dealt with it himself after the suicide bomber killed his friends and almost took his life as well. There wasn’t much he could do for her. Time and sleep helped. He’d learned that much from his own experience.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked. “Is something wrong with your shoulder? You seem to be favoring it.”

She put down the dachshund and scooted between the sheets. Da Vinci and Jasper were already curled up on top of the bed and Grey joined them. Lexi was on the floor looking anxiously up at Whitney, mirroring what Adam was feeling.

Whitney leaned against the pillows he’d arranged for her while she’d been in the bathroom changing into his T-shirt. “I’m fine. My shoulder’s a little sore because Grey was hanging from me.”

“Do you feel up to telling me about it?” He didn’t have any more information than what he’d learned at the scene.

She reached down to the end of the bed and stroked Grey. “You know what’s amazing about dogs?” She didn’t wait for him to respond. “They forgive you for anything.”

Her answer seemed a little spacey and he wondered if she’d hit her head during the so-called prank.

“Even the most abused dog will lick his owner’s hand-first chance the dog gets. You’d think they would bite or run away. They don’t. Dogs are so forgiving.” She petted Grey’s head and the little dog nosed her with his snout. “I nearly killed this dog. He doesn’t even know me, but the second we hit the ground, Grey licked my face to see if I was okay.”

Hit the ground? Where had she been? Adam sat down on the bed beside her. He did his best to keep anger and fear out of his voice. “Tell me what happened.”

He listened carefully as she described the car that appeared suddenly from out of nowhere. He envisioned it deliberately changing course and wheeling to the right and charging directly at her. Imagining her on the fence, the dachshund hanging from her arm, made him smile despite the situation.

“Good thinking,” he told her. “Fast thinking. You might have been killed otherwise.”

“If that’s what was happening.” She edged backward until she was propped up against the pillows again. “Mr. Fisher-he’s the older man with the Golden-thought it was a prank. He may have been right.”

“Why do you say that? It sounds intentional to me. If not, it was dangerous as hell.”

“When I looked back, the car had stopped several feet behind me. It didn’t ram the fence even though it could easily have crushed the back of my legs.”

Adam had to admit that did seem a little odd. “Maybe he didn’t want to damage his car.”

“And maybe I overreacted. Even if it had been a prank, it was dangerous. I could have been accidentally killed. The driver needs to be found and stopped before someone gets hurt.”

Adam wasn’t sure what to think. His training as a detective warned him that two near misses on the same person’s life wasn’t just a random coincidence. “Maybe someone mistook you for Miranda,” he said, thinking out loud.

“I doubt that. There’s been enough publicity about the firebombing for anyone to realize Miranda isn’t around.”

“Criminals often seem clever, but most of them are stupid. I remember a case we had in Robbery-Homicide. There had been a series of bank robberies. The banks started booby-trapping money with vials of indelible ink that exploded when thieves removed the paper banding a stack of bills.

“We were pissed because the media found out about the trick and publicized it. Everyone and his mother knew about it. A few days later, another bank was robbed. We caught the guy because he was covered with ink. He hadn’t seen the news reports.”

“You think someone believes I’m Miranda?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“It’s possible, I guess. Mr. Fisher mistook me for Miranda at first.”

Adam mulled over the facts for a few minutes but couldn’t come up with a better explanation. Mistaken identity, or just a prank? “Listen, I’m going to hop in the shower. Why don’t you get some sleep? We’ll see what the police come up with tomorrow. They’ll make plaster casts of the tire tracks in the lawn. That should tell us what type of car it was. With luck, that will help.”

He leaned over and gently kissed her lips. He wanted to pull her into his arms and squeeze her tight-to reassure himself that she was all right. But she’d been through so much that he didn’t want to risk hurting her.

She pulled the sheet up to her chin, and he turned out the light. He stood in the shower and let the water stream over his body. He felt helpless, the way he’d felt when he’d arrived at his uncle’s villa in Siros. He hated not being in control, not being able to help Whitney.

As soon as Quinten Foley’s men searched the house tomorrow, he was going to Cancún with Whitney. If Miranda wasn’t working in a shop at Corona del Mar, he believed they would find her in Cancún. She had the answer to this-

“Holy shit!” he said out loud. He leaped out of the shower, wound the towel around his waist, left the bathroom and raced through the dark bedroom. He was down the hall and in his uncle’s office before he saw Lexi had followed him.

“Go guard Whitney,” he said, then realized Whitney was with the dog.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her eyes wide.

Adam grabbed the picture of his uncle fishing off the wall. “It just hit me. Something’s written on my uncle’s baseball cap.” He flung open the middle drawer of the desk and found the magnifying glass.

“You think…?”

He examined the script on the cap. “I’ll be damned. Corona del Mar.” He gazed at her, thinking out loud. “How much do you want to bet Uncle Calvin took Miranda to Cancún last December?”

“But her passport-”

“Would have been examined by customs officials but not necessarily stamped. Airports for private planes operate differently.”

“Do you think they were, you know, involved?”

He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Good thing I’m not on the force anymore. They’d bust me down to writing traffic tickets. I should have considered the romance angle before now.”

‘I didn’t think of it, either. The age difference-”

“What? Twenty years-give or take. My uncle was a good-looking guy with a lot of money. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman ignored a few years when a guy was rich.”