Deadly Deceptions (22 page)

“Google,” he said.

At last I was able to meet his eyes. He was smiling, but he looked concerned. “Do you check Google for all your clients?” I asked.

“Only the pretty ones,” he replied. “If ever anybody had a good reason to learn to shoot, Ms. Sheepshanks, it's you.”

I didn't know what to say to that. I was glad Max was there in my hour of need, but I still would have preferred Tucker. My shoulders sagged, and I came this close to bursting into noisy tears. It was the stress over Gillian, I told myself, exacerbated by my worry about Greer, and the all-nighter in her kitchen, Detective Crowley strafing me with questions the whole time.

Or
the macabre apparition of Jack Pennington, rushing at me inside the shooting range. I was already trying to pretend the astral-travel thing hadn't happened at all.

Max patted my back. “You're not going to give up, are you?” he asked.

I shook my head. I wasn't going to give up on anything; I didn't know how. He meant the shooting, of course. I meant Tucker, and finding Greer, and helping Gillian, and making it as a private detective.

“Good,” he said. His eyes twinkled. He had thick lashes, dark like his hair. “Say something, so I'll know you haven't been struck dumb.”

“I'm involved with a guy named Tucker,” I said. And I immediately felt stupid, because Max hadn't inquired about my dating status. There
was
an attraction, though it was probably all on my side, and I certainly didn't intend to pursue it.

“Damn,” he replied. “I was afraid of that. Is it serious?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I think it is.”

I
CALLED
Beverly Pennington on my cell phone once I'd left the shooting range and returned to my car. It wasn't a noble gesture; I wanted to get it over with, so I could get on with my nervous breakdown. Once I'd spoken to her, I planned to go back to the guesthouse for my toothbrush and the few articles of clothing I kept there. Home again, I'd fill a plastic storage bag with ice, lie down on my own bed with the bag on my head, and deal with that morning's quota of paranormal experiences. Sure, I was still a little nervous about the apartment, but after what had happened at Casa Pennington, I would have been even less comfortable there.

Beverly answered on the second ring, and she sounded remarkably composed for someone so recently bereaved. On top of that, I would have sworn she was sober. I recalled something Greer had said, about Alex footing the bill for his ex-wife to visit some pricey rehab center, but after my postmortem conversation with the doc, I couldn't imagine him being that noble.

“I hope you're not calling to cancel,” she said after I'd introduced myself.

I was stunned; for a moment I even wondered if the news about Jack had reached her yet. “Well, I assumed—”

“First rule of dealing with me, Ms. Sheepshanks,” Beverly broke in briskly. “Never assume
anything.
”

I stared through the windshield, almost expecting Jack's specter to rise from the hood and press itself in a bloody, grinning smear against the glass, which might just prompt me to spurt out of the old body again, like toothpaste from a tube. A shudder went through me. “It's just…” I faltered, started again. “It's just that your son—”

“Jack and I were not close,” Beverly said, cutting me off. “I'll expect you at two o'clock, as planned.”

“But don't you—I mean—”

“Be here at two,” Beverly reiterated. “By then I'll have made the funeral arrangements.” A pause followed. “Do you believe death comes in threes, Ms. Sheepshanks?” she asked.

I decided even a specter on the hood of my car would have been preferable to this ludicrous conversation. “Yes,” I heard myself say, and it shook me, because I'd had every intention of saying no instead.

“Then we'd all better watch ourselves, hadn't we?” Beverly said. “Two down, one to go.” This was followed by a goodbye, and the call was over.

It was a warm Arizona day, but I felt chilled sitting there in my car.
Two down, one to go.
Would the third death be Greer's? Or perhaps my own?

Or did poor little Gillian figure into the trio somewhere?

Methodically I put the cell phone away. But I was still hearing Beverly Pennington's voice in my head. And in the back of my mind I was seeing the spiral on that computer screen, in the dark room. The recollection made me nauseous—I wanted more than ever to hide out under the covers on my bed, but now that I knew the Pennington interview was still on, I'd have to delay hibernation.

Then we'd all better watch ourselves, hadn't we?

Had she just threatened me? And was she really so cool, calm and collected that she could dismiss her son's death—so soon after her ex-husband's—with what amounted to a breezy “oh, well”?

I put the Volvo in gear and pointed it toward Greer's place.

When I got there—I remembered nothing about the drive—I parked at the base of the driveway and stared up at the mansion.

It was so substantial, all stucco and red tile, its many windows gazing back at me like empty eyes. But it was a house of cards, I decided, already falling in on itself.

I might have gone inside to do more sleuthing, but the front door had been cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape, and frankly I was relieved. After the episodes at the shooting range, I wasn't sure I wouldn't bump into Bloody Jack if I set foot in the entryway, since he'd died there. Or blip myself into some other dark room. I knew if I told Jolie about that, she'd say I hadn't
really
left my body—I'd just disassociated, because I was under so much stress.

I considered buying into that theory myself, since it was a little less creepy than spontaneous astral projection, but I knew it had really happened. I'd
seen
that computer screen, glowing eerily in the gloom. And I'd known there was something important behind the twisting, snakelike spiral. A few taps at the keyboard…

Resolutely I shook off the creepy-crawlies and headed for the back gate, punched in the code on the keypad, and was glad Carmen hadn't changed it. Maybe, I reflected, remembering that the alarm hadn't been blaring when Tucker, Jolie and I arrived the night before to find the police already there, she'd gotten no farther than the main-house locks. Braced for the possibility that the guesthouse might have been taped off, I crossed the lawn.

No tape.

And my key worked.

I stepped inside, and immediately the tiny hairs on my forearms and the back of my neck stood up.

My first instinct was to turn and run, but I couldn't move. I just stood there, on the threshold, listening. Waiting.

I didn't see anyone, and I didn't hear anything.

There was a subtle weight to the air, though, and a negative charge, faint but unmistakable. Someone was there—or had been, very recently.

Nothing was out of place, at least in an obvious way, and yet things
had
been touched, shifted ever so slightly.

The police,
I thought with a sudden surge of relief. Of course they'd searched the guesthouse the night before. That explained it.

What it didn't explain was the feeling that I wasn't alone.

I would have given a lot for that forbidden Glock right about then, though I was still far from an expert markswoman. I managed to communicate an order to my legs, and took a step back over the threshold. A splash of sunlight seared my eyes, temporarily dazzling me. I blinked, heard the sound of running feet—and felt someone bash into me, straight on.

I got the vague impression of a slender shape, dressed in dark clothes like mine, before I went down, conking my head on the door frame and then the high concrete edging of the flower bed.

I wasn't completely out, but everything went dark, and in the moment or two it took me to rally enough to sit up and look around, my assailant had vanished. I hadn't seen a car out front, so I decided he/she must have gone over the high stucco wall enclosing the massive backyard.

I got to my feet, gripped the door frame when darkness threatened again, then sprinted blindly for an antique Spanish bench set against the inside wall. I was pretty fit, but my physical prowess didn't extend to scrambling over eight-foot barriers. I climbed onto the back of the bench, as the intruder had done, given the scuff marks on the white-painted stucco, and vaulted to the other side.

I heard an engine start up—something gutsy, like a four-wheeler or a motorcycle—but I saw nothing but desert and, in the near distance, a side road and the golf course it bordered. Following the roaring sound of the getaway vehicle, whatever it was, I ran, staying close to the wall, ready to dodge one way or the other if it came at me.

Never think of worst-case scenarios. It seems to attract them.

A red four-wheeler zoomed around the curve in the wall, and except for noticing that the driver wore a visored helmet and a close-fitting black jumpsuit, I was too busy getting the hell out of the way to register any more details.

Fear-propelled, I realized that I had nowhere to go but up. I jumped on top of a squat barrel cactus, leaped for the top of the wall, still almost out of reach, and sort of perched there, clinging. The four-wheeler struck the wall with an earsplitting crash, and stucco dust billowed into the air in a cloud.

I don't know what made me do what I did then. It certainly wasn't courage.

From the top of the wall I launched myself at the driver of the four-wheeler and body slammed us both to the ground. The vehicle toppled onto its side while the driver and I struggled. Fear gave me strength, I guess. I managed to get on top, and tore off the helmet, flinging it aside.

Tiffany Oberlin stared up at me.

The woman who'd been with Nick the night of his fatal accident, and had sent me so many hateful e-mails.

Okay, so there was a notchlike scar through her left eyebrow, and her mouth sagged a little at one side, but she didn't look
that
bad.

“You have got to be kidding,” I said, keeping her shoulders pinned with my knees. I was peripherally aware of several golf carts headed our way from the other side of the road.

Tiffany sputtered and tried to sit up.

The four-wheeler's engine sputtered, too, and then died.

“Did I
look
like I was kidding?” Tiffany spat.

“What's going on here?” a golfer asked, his cart being the first to arrive.

“Call the police,” I said. “Now.”

Tiffany struggled, tried to spit on me.

I pressed my knees harder into her shoulders.

“I hate you!” she said.

“No shit,” I replied, gasping for breath.

“Let me
up!
”

“Not a chance,” I answered.

“They'll be here in a few minutes,” the golfer said, snapping his cell phone shut.

“I'd like to borrow that,” I said with surprising moderation, given that I'd just tackled someone on a moving vehicle from the top of a stucco wall.

The golfer tossed me the phone.

I called Tucker.

“Sit tight,” he said when I'd explained.

“Trust me,” I answered, glaring down into Tiffany's flushed, filthy and furious face. “I will.”

“We were arguing about you when the accident happened,” Tiffany informed me.

“And that's my fault?” I asked. “I wasn't even there. Nick and I were divorced.”

“You were all he ever wanted to talk about!”

I felt something squeeze inside my heart.
Nick,
I thought, despairing.

A patrol car zipped onto the road between the golf course and Greer's back wall. Two officers sprinted in our direction.

“This woman attacked me!” Tiffany told them when they each took me by an elbow and hauled me off her.

Fortunately I had a witness. The golfer explained that Tiffany had tried to turn me into a grease spot with her four-wheeler. The evidence—mainly the deep gouge in Greer's wall—supported me.

Tiffany was hoisted to her feet.

“Do you want to press charges?” one of the cops asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But you might want to drop by the nearest psych ward before you throw her in the clink, because she's a few spins short of a jackpot.”

By the time Tucker arrived the police had handcuffed Tiffany and taken her away. I thanked the golfer, gave back his cell phone and noodle-kneed my way around to the gate next to the garage.

Just how much, I wondered foggily, is one woman supposed to put up with in a single day?

Inside the guesthouse I slammed the door, threw the dead bolt and leaned against the panel, trying to catch my breath.

Was I seriously hurt? I didn't know, and the police had been too busy to ask, since Tiffany thought
I
should be the one under arrest, and raised hell before they finally managed to wrestle her into the back of the squad car. Except for a pounding in the side of my head, which I'd struck twice when the attacker knocked me down, I was numb.

I sagged to the floor with my back against the door, and sat there until Tucker arrived, knocking and yelling my name.

I pulled myself up, shakily, and let him in.

Tucker looked me over, then took me by the shoulders and eased me onto the couch.

By then, I was over being shocked by Tiffany's attack—and well into pissed off. I chattered out the story, the words tumbling over each other helterskelter, landing in the wrong parts of sentences.

He sat on the coffee table, facing me, and began checking me out as he listened. I flinched when he touched the side of my head and again when his hand came away bloody.

“You're going to the emergency room,” he said.

“I don't want to,” I protested, but it was already too late, because he was standing and I was being carried in his arms. “I have an appointment with Beverly Pennington at two o'clock and I can't possibly break it.”

Tucker frowned, kicking the door shut behind us. “If they don't admit you, you might still make it,” he said. “And what business do you have with your late brother-in-law's ex-wife?”

“Have you ever sat in a hospital waiting room?” I asked peevishly, ignoring his question, but Tucker didn't even slow down, let alone stop.

“It makes a difference when the cops bring you in,” he told me.