Drop Dead Gorgeous (31 page)

Wyatt stayed behind me all the way to the police department, not that there was much chance I'd be followed anywhere from his house. No one had followed us there after we'd left the fire scene and he wasn't listed in the telephone directory, so locating him wouldn't be as easy as locating me had been. I've never had an unlisted number, never tried to hide from anyone. Of course, if someone knows where you work, he or she always knows where and when to find you.

Which made me wonder if all of this was somehow connected to Great
Bods
.
The woman I'd seen in the crowd was someone I'd seen before. She wasn't a total stranger; she had a connection to me. I just couldn't place her face, couldn't put a name to her. I don't personally know all the members of Great
Bods
but I do recognize their faces, which, when I thought about it, eliminated Great
Bods
as the connection. When you see someone who looks familiar but you don't know where you know them from, it's because they aren't in their accustomed place. When I put that face at Great
Bods
, there still wasn't any ah-ha moment of recognition, which meant that wherever I'd seen her, it wasn't at work.

Which meant she likely worked at one of my other regular points of contact: the grocery store, the mall, the post office, the bank, maybe even UPS or FedEx.
Try as I might, though, I couldn't place her.

When we exited the elevators into the busy, noisy squad room, heads turned our way and wide grins bloomed on most of the faces. Well, the people who were handcuffed to the chairs didn't grin, and neither did the people who were there filing complaints and whatnot, but the cops grinned.

I was a little hurt. What was so funny about my condo being toast?

I glanced up at Wyatt, to see if he'd noticed all the grins. His gaze was focused on his office door, which bore a sign. He didn't pause until we got close enough to read it: WYATT IS A JACKASS AND THE WEDDING IS
OFF
! It wasn't one of my notes, but it definitely incorporated elements from two of them.

Wheeling, I glared at the room at large. Some of the cops were almost choking as they tried to stifle their laughter. They were making fun of my notes. "Not
one
of you," I announced loudly, "let me out of that car,
either.'"
Or rather, I tried to announce it, because I'd forgotten I couldn't talk. Not a single sound came out of my mouth. Standing there with my mouth open was humiliating.

But I intended to make up a shit list, and put all of them on it.

Wyatt reached out and calmly removed the sign. "The wedding is back on," he said, and there was a smattering of applause because, being mostly men, they assumed he'd sexed me out of my temper. I glared up at him, but he just smiled as he opened the door and ushered me through it.

"I need that scene tape," he said over his shoulder before closing the door.

His office wasn't very big, and was cluttered with filing cabinets and paperwork. The sight of that paperwork perked me up a little. If he'd just leave me alone in here, I could catch up on my clandestine reading.

Sulkily I took one of his visitor chairs while he settled in the big leather chair behind his desk. "Amazing," he said, a quirk to his lips as if he wanted to grin.

I raised both hands in an impatient "what is?" gesture.

"I'll tell you later," he said, tossing the sign on his desk. "We have a lot of work to do right now."

He wasn't kidding about that. First I had to give a statement about what had happened last night, or rather, early this morning. Wyatt didn't take the statement, Detective Forester did, and to be accurate I didn't
give
the statement, of course, I wrote it out.

The detective had been busy, but the fire marshal had immediately ruled the fire
an arson
; evidently there hadn't been any attempt to disguise it. The fire dog had alerted to gasoline all around the front and right side of my condo. When the fire had been ignited, the flames had immediately blocked my exit from both of those doors. There were still the double French doors in the dining alcove, but by throwing the gasoline bomb through the living room window and spreading the fire all over the living room, my route from upstairs had been blocked. As further insurance, the fence gate had been blocked. If by chance I'd made it out to the backyard, the arsonist had intended for me to be trapped there. As rapidly as the fire had spread to the Bradford pear trees in the tiny yard, if I hadn't been able to climb the fence I'd have died there.

Very likely, though, she hadn't thought I'd be able to escape from upstairs. Smoke rises, and you really have very little time to get out of a burning building before the smoke gets you. I know because I watched a documentary about house fires and how fast they spread. By covering my mouth and nose with the wet towel, I'd bought myself a couple of precious minutes. The other wet towel over my head and shoulders had likely kept me from being burned by the sparks and hot ashes. The rest of it, getting out the second-story bedroom window and climbing the fence, had a lot to do with being angry and desperate, plus having good upper-body strength.

You never know when being a former cheerleader will come in handy.

To get a timeline, they coordinated my statement with my call to 911, of which they had a copy—thus every cop in the building got to listen to me tell the 911 operator that the fire department could tell which condo was mine because it was the one with flames coming out the windows. For some reason they all had to hear it more than once, too.

Then I had to watch the video of the crowd at the scene.

I sat in Wyatt's office with him and Detectives Forester and
Maclnnes
watching the video on a small monitor. Wyatt had made the call to videotape even before talking to me, so I got to see myself, looking as horrible as I remembered, weaving in and out of the picture as the camera had slowly panned from left to right and back again. What I didn't see was the blonde wearing the
hoodie
.

I was so disappointed.
I wrote
, I don't see her.
She isn't there
.

"Keep watching," said Wyatt. "The crowd was filmed more than once."

So we did, frame by frame. Finally the camera caught
part
of her, because her face was turned away—the hood pulled up, a curl of very blond hair escaping from beneath the jacket to lie across her clavicle, maybe half of her right
jawline
. She was mostly behind some guy in a red shirt, so there was no way to enhance the film and get a better picture of her.

Mentally reviewing my memories, I analyzed the moment when I'd realized she was my stalker, when she'd stared at me with such open malice. Yes, this same guy had been standing beside her; I remembered his red shirt. This film must have been made just seconds either before or after, probably after, because her face was turned away as if she was leaving.
Maclnnes
said it was likely she'd spotted the camera.

"That guy in the red shirt is a start," Wyatt said. "He might remember something about her, might even know her."

"We're still canvassing the neighborhood," said Forester. "I'll get this photo out to the guys. Someone will recognize him."

I had been sipping on something hot all morning long, to ease my throat. Wyatt had even scrounged a tea bag from someone and made a cup of hot tea for me; I don't know what the difference is, but tea seems to work better on a sore throat than coffee does. A couple of aspirin also helped the pain, but I still couldn't make a sound. Wyatt mentioned taking me to the ER to get checked out, an idea I vetoed with a NO!
that
took up an entire sheet of paper.

Things seemed to drag on for a while. During a lull, Wyatt talked to both my insurance adjuster and his. He also called Mom, which definitely earned him points in her book, and gave her a report. He talked to his mother, reassured her that I was fine and he was fine.

By lunch, I was very tired of the whole scene. I was tired, period. I needed to go shopping and replenish my wardrobe, but for the first time in my life I couldn't work up any enthusiasm for shopping. I had liked my old clothes; I wanted them back. I wanted my books, my music,
my
dishes. I wanted my
stuff
. It was just now beginning to sink in that my stuff was truly, irrevocably gone.

Jenni
, bless her, had bought me two sets of underwear and two tops; I didn't absolutely
have
to go shopping today; it could wait until tomorrow. Maybe by tomorrow I'd be able to talk again. Today, I just wanted to do normal stuff. I wanted to go to work.

I'd given the police my written statement; I'd watched the video and pointed out the psycho bitch, for all the good it had done. I didn't see any reason why I should hang around any longer.

I wrote Wyatt a note, telling him that I was going to work.

He leaned back in his chair, looking grim and lieutenant-
ish
. "I don't think that's a good idea."

I wrote another note. /
think it's a great idea. She knows she can find me there
.

"
Which is why I'd much rather one of my female officers drives your car around.
"

Then set it up for tomorrow. I'm tired of this. I want my life back. The only normal thing I can do now is go to work, so I'm going to work.

"Blair." He leaned forward, green eyes intent. "She tried to kill you just a few hours ago. What makes you think she won't do the same thing to Great
Bods
?"

Oh, God, I hadn't thought of that. Great
Bods
was at risk, anyway, though it's possible she thought I just worked there, not that I was the owner. I mean, I don't answer the phone with "Hi,

I'm Blair, and I own Great
Bods
."
It's
likely most of the members didn't know I owned the place, because it just isn't info that's advertised all over the place. I could as easily be the manager, which of course was the job I did.

The only thing that set me apart from the other employees was that I drove a Mercedes, but even that wasn't a complete oddity because
Keir
, one of my fitness instructors, drove a Porsche.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, thinking. Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly—gee, wonder why that was— but it seemed to me I couldn't leave Lynn in the lurch again. She had a life outside of Great
Bods
, and though she'd been great about covering for me, I couldn't take advantage of her or I'd end up losing a top-notch assistant.

I wrote all of that down, explaining it to Wyatt as best I could. I was getting tired of all that damn writing.

To my surprise, he read my explanation,
then
simply studied my face for a while. I don't know what he saw there, maybe that I really needed to go to work, or maybe on reflection he agreed with me that the risk to Great
Bods
might not be that high. "All right," he finally said. "But I'm going to put someone with you at all times. Sit
here,
and I'll go clear it with Chief Gray."

He could have pulled a fast one on me, he's done it before, but I sat there. When he came back, he got his suit jacket from the hook on the back of the door and said, "Let's go."

I got my tote and stood, my expression asking the question for me.

"I'm your bodyguard for the rest of the day," he explained.

I was happy enough with that.

Chapter Twenty-three