Mortal Faults

19

In the adrenaline rush of battle Abby hadn’t had time for emotion. The feeling part of her had been sealed off and shut down, quarantined until the danger was passed. Even after the gunfight she’d felt nothing except a strangely distanced sense of surprise that she was still alive.

Seeing Tess McCallum had been no surprise at all. For some reason it had seemed logical, almost inevitable that Tess would be there. Abby hadn’t questioned it. She’d been uncharacteristically subdued, inclined to accept Tess’s suggestions as if they were orders. Tess’s primary suggestion had been that Abby get out of the house and out of the neighborhood, fast.

“There’ll be police coming,” Tess said, “and the Bureau will be here, too. You don’t want to be involved in that.”

“No,” Abby agreed. “I don’t.”

“So you’d better go. I’ll say Andrea fought them off alone until I showed up. I don’t know how I’ll explain the gun-”

“It’s her gun,” Abby heard herself say. “I just borrowed it.”

“You didn’t fire your own weapon?”

“Never had the chance.”

“That’ll work, then. I’ll wipe the prints off. And I’ll make sure Andrea keeps your name out of it.”

“Okay.”

“They’ll have me tied up in debriefings for a good three hours. I’ll try to get free by nine or nine thirty. We can meet at that place in Santa Monica where we met last time.”

“The Boiler Room.”

Sirens rose in the distance. “You’d better get going,” Tess said. “Not out the back. The crime scene people will be all over that area, and we don’t need any extra shoe prints. There’s a side door that opens into the carport.”

And that was it. Abby carried her gun and her purse through the carport, then walked to her Miata. She pulled away as the sirens were closing in.

No questions asked. No protests registered. She was content to let Tess take charge.

Somewhere during the drive home to Westwood, the shock began to abate. By the time she was showering in her condo, rinsing off the smell of sweat and fear, she was starting to feel some serious rage.

Motherfuckers tried to kill her.

Yeah, and Andrea, too. But Abby wasn’t thinking much about Andrea Lowry-or Bethany Willett, or whatever she ought to be called.

When she toweled off, her hands were shaking. The details of her environment seemed too sharp, the colors too bright. Her head was humming. She wanted to lie down. Couldn’t. Had to keep moving. She had too much energy. She felt supercharged.

She changed into new clothes, choosing the outfit without conscious thought. Her mind was on the guy she’d seen at Andrea’s house, the guy who’d slipped off his singed ski mask.

Blondish hair, pale skin, narrow lips-and on his neck, a purple tattoo.

She grabbed a sheet of paper and sketched the tattoo. It was some kind of insect, probably a scorpion. The long tail with the pointed stinger was the giveaway. She folded up the picture and put it in her purse. She would need it. Later.

Before leaving the condo, she checked herself out in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. Her ensemble was borderline trashy-short skirt, tight blouse, no bra. She wondered what subliminal impulse had made her dress like a hooker. Then she thought about the scorpion tattoo, and she knew.

A man with skin art like that shouldn’t be too hard to find. One thing was for sure-she would know him if she saw him again.

And she intended to see him. She intended to have closure. Exactly what closure meant in this context, she couldn’t say. But she would have it.

Tonight.