Unlucky 13

Chapter 18

Cindy paid the cabdriver and stepped unsteadily up the walk to her front door. She fiddled with the key, went inside her dark apartment, and locked the door behind her. She bounced off the hallway walls a couple of times on her way to the bedroom, where she undressed, dropping her clothes on the floor.

Images of Rich and Tina flooded her, and she had no defense. They looked good together. They were having fun. It was pretty clear from the way they danced, and from the fact that Tina was Richie’s plus-one at Yuki’s wedding, that this date wasn’t their first or their last.

Lindsay was right when she assumed that watching Rich and Tina dancing together was agony for her. And Lindsay didn’t know the rest of it. She didn’t know about her trip to Wisconsin.

Cindy turned on the shower, sat down in the corner of the tub under the hot spray, and sobbed over what a total loser she was. She’d blown the best relationship she’d ever had, and she’d gone to Henry Tyler and basically told him she was teeing up her Pulitzer Prize. Now what was she going to tell him?

Henry, Morales wasn’t there.

When she was all cried out, Cindy dressed in striped-pink flannel, top and bottom, no T-shirt with SFPD slogans or attached memories of her Richie.

She wanted another drink, but she made coffee, turned on the gooseneck lamp in her home office, and booted up her Mac. After her mailbox loaded, she opened an e-mail from her new friend Captain Patrick Lawrence of the Cleveland, Wisconsin, PD.

Hey, Cindy,

Just to let you know, the FBI bomb squad defused the explosives in case some knucklehead campers come up from the lake and break in. There were three trigger points. Good thing Morrison saw a wire. The milk in the fridge had a sell-by date of two weeks ago. That’s all I know. The Feds are keeping sharp eyes on the place and we can always hope Morales drops by. Thanks again and take care.

Pat.

Cindy leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. She was going to have to tell Henry Tyler what happened to her glorious mission and she would have to come up with another plan. Somehow, she didn’t know how, she was going to have to “git ’er done” or die trying.

Cindy wrote back to Captain Lawrence and then got to work researching every place Morales had been in her entire twenty-six years on earth. Morales was no Randolph Fish. She was no genius, just a merciless killer bitch.

Where could that bitch have gone?