Kill Shot (30 page)

Or she could just get out of town.

Oz would never expect that. Micki didn’t think the check would take her as far as she wanted to go, but it would take her somewhere.

She lit a ginger and almond scented candle and filled the claw-foot bathtub with bubbles. As she slipped into the water she heard her phone ring three times before the answering machine kicked in.

“Micki, if you’re there, please pick up.” Oz said it several times before sighing heavily and hanging up.

Micki lay in the water until it started to cool and then rinsed with the hand held shower head. She wrapped her terry robe around her and sat on her reupholstered sofa in the dark, watching the play of lights from the street dance across her drapes.

In the morning, Micki awoke feeling confused. She was alone. Oz wasn’t wrapped around her. Opening her eyes, she looked around her bedroom, and the flood of pain washed over her like a tsunami. Micki rolled onto her side and wrapped her arms around herself, as though to protect her vital organs from the stabbing pain.

Oz had lied to her. He’d cheated on her with the stripper. That knowledge fueled her with seething anger. If he wanted someone else, he could have told her. She would have walked away with a little of her pride left, but not like this.

Micki got out of bed and rummaged in her closet until she found her rolling suitcase. She opened it on her bed and began packing. She took enough clothes that she could stay a week or so, and if she decided to stay longer, she’d go to a Laundromat. Micki packed the Leica in the new, slightly battered aluminum case and left the building. She pulled her suitcase behind her for a couple of blocks and stowed it in the trunk of her rented Avalon.

Micki deposited the insurance check and filled the gas tank, feeling free for the first time in her life. It was as though something that had been tying her down had suddenly come loose.

#

Oz was off on Saturday, but he hadn’t slept well. His head throbbed like he was hung over. He tried calling Micki’s apartment and her cell, but both phones went to message. He hoped she was holed up in her apartment and not planning a rendezvous with an assassin.

“Micki, I’ve got to talk to you,” he said. “Please call me and don’t do something stupid.” He hung up feeling a sense of helplessness that wasn’t new where Micki was concerned. He’d thought this time was forever, but he couldn’t blame Micki this time. It was his fault for lying about his meeting with Fawn.

But why did she have Luka’s card if she was so blameless? She had admitted that Luka kissed her when he was at the apartment, but had that been all?

He took a shower and got dressed in jeans and a tee, tossing a jacket on to hide his holster and badge. He was officially off duty, but Micki was still a witness and protecting her had always been his number one assignment.

When he drove by her apartment, the Avalon was missing. She was on the move.

He called Aida on her cell and she agreed to go in to the station to meet him on her weekend off. “You owe me big time, Oz man,” she said.

Oz didn’t comment when Aida walked into the lab wearing a green knit hoodie and crop pants with hot pink rubber flip-flops smacking her heels as she walked.

Aida shook her head and made clicking noises with her tongue. “Oz man, you don’t want to screw up with this girl. Whatever you did, say you’re sorry. Fix it.”

“Listen up, Oz,” she said. “I will follow her movements for one hour and one hour only. After that you’re on your own and I’m back to my uninterrupted Saturday with my cat.”

Micki hadn’t visited her father’s grave since the funeral. She’d brought flowers, a mixed bunch she’d grabbed from a flower vendor.

She thought she’d feel some sense of connection just by coming here, but she didn’t. She squatted down and placed the flowers near his headstone.

“Hi, Dad,” she said tentatively. “I, uh...Mom said it was you who wanted to send me away, so I stopped blaming her. I’m still a little pissed at you, though. . . I thought I’d done something wrong and nobody was talking to me.” Micki sat down in the grass and plucked a small weed growing nearby.

“I just wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to know that your getting sick wasn’t my fault.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Most of all, I wanted to know that you still loved me.”

Micki sat in the grass for a while and regained a small sense of peace. Returning to the car, she drove away, feeling even freer since she’d abandoned her anger toward her parents.

She headed east and soon crossed the Connecticut state line. With no destination in mind she kept close to the coast, enjoying the scenery and the beautiful spring day. This must be how someone feels when they get out of prison, she thought. She was leaving everything behind and, at that moment, thought she might not be going back for it.

#

Oz turned into the cemetery where Micki’s father was buried. He remembered the general location of his grave and found it without too much doubling back.

It was too much to hope that he’d connect with Micki there, out in the open where she couldn’t lock herself away from him. He stood looking down at the simple bouquet of flowers she’d placed across her father’s grave. There was something so poignant about the gesture, that Oz felt the sting of tears behind his eyes.

“I’m sorry I let you down, Mr. Vermillion,” he said, recalling the promise he’d made to Micki’s father when he learned that he was dying. “I promised I’d take care of her and that I’d never hurt her but,” he swallowed hard. “I didn’t know how tough it would be to keep.”

He realized how lonely she’d felt. Growing up without her dad had to be tough on her. She was one of those people who make the best of things, so she’d hidden her pain and gone on to finish school with honors and then she’d taken up her father’s profession.

Suddenly, he got it. He understood why it was so important for her to make good in the photography business. She was doing it for her father as well as for herself.

Icy cold fingers gripped Oz’ insides as he envisioned Luka’s taunting face. He recalled the security tape showing Luka kissing Micki when Oz had been tasered. Would Micki actually meet this man willingly?

Micki pulled into a rest area where she saw gulls flying. The humid ocean air filled her lungs, its scent both nostalgic and invigorating. She was smiling as she took her camera out of the case and fitted it with the telephoto lens. The wind whipped her hair and she tucked it behind her ears in an attempt to keep the long strands from flying in front of the camera lens. Photographing the beautiful inlet, where clouds banked on the horizon, delineating the boundary between sky and water, she forgot all about everything else and let the joy of capturing the images fill her heart. Close to shore, reeds and grasses limned the high water line and provided nesting for shore birds.

Micki watched incoming waves crest and roll toward the bank of sand. The ocean frothed at the shore with each wave that washed in. It reminded her of a lace ruffle edging the water’s flirting skirt.

After a while, she packed her camera back in the case and took one last look around the scenic cove before returning to the highway and continuing her eastward trek.

As she put some distance between herself and the city, she felt less encumbered with every mile. Maybe she’d drive to some town she’d never heard of and relocate her business there. Every town had roughly the same events occurring. She could photograph weddings and christenings and bar mitzvahs in any location where there were people to photograph.

She had no idea where she would end up, but that was part of the adventure. Maybe she’d spend a few days on the road and return to her apartment in the city, but then again, maybe she wouldn’t.

#

“Okay, Oz man, you’re on your own,” Aida said. She had stayed in contact with Oz beyond the one hour limit she’d set until he had made visual contact with Micki. Now he was tailing her car at a respectful distance.

Oz turned in behind her, but stopped to allow sufficient time for her to reach her destination. He sat in his idling car and tried to ignore the grinding sensation in the pit of his stomach. What if Luka was waiting for her at the end of this road? What if this was the rendezvous they’d arranged?

After five minutes, Oz put the car in gear and inched his way down the road. He checked to make sure that his gun was fully loaded and that he had a spare clip.

Micki’s rental car was parked in a roughly delineated area paved with crushed shell. Oz’ tires made an unnaturally loud crunching noise as he slowly eased his car into place beside the Avalon.

She stood under a circular gazebo out on the end of the pier, her attention fixed on something she’d sighted through her camera lens. The offshore wind and crashing Atlantic waves kept her from hearing his approach as he crept down the wooden pier leading to the covered oversight area. Luka was nowhere in sight.

Only Micki wearing his ring.

He tried to ignore the clutching at his heart as he gazed at her. Her hair was blowing in the wind and her lips parted in a smile. She clicked off a few shots and set the camera on the wide railing before turning toward him, a look of surprise on her face. Her eyes narrowed and a muscle in her jaw twitched. This was definitely not going down easy.

“Micki Vermillion,” Oz said. “You are under arrest.”

#

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

“What?” Micki stared at Oz in disbelief.

He stood in front of her, his hands resting at the waist of his jeans with his gun and badge clipped to his belt.

An unaccustomed rage filled her chest. She drew back her hand and landed an open palm against the side of Oz’ face. Pain reverberated from the sting in her hand, echoed to her wrist and down her arm. She hoped Oz’ face felt the same way, but he hadn’t even flinched.

“You can’t be serious.” Micki swung at him again, but he ducked, catching her around the waist as she turned. He pinned her hands under his arm and pulled her back against his chest.

“Not yet,” he said. “I have to make sure you don’t have any weapons concealed on your person. This is standard procedure, you understand.”

Oz squatted in front of her and felt around her ankles before running his hands up the inside and outside of each leg of her jeans.

“Don’t!” she shrieked as his hand neared her crotch.

He had the audacity to grin at her discomfort, but she was damned if she was going to allow him to grope her into submission. Not this time.

His fingers grazed her skin as he reached her waist and stroked the flesh under her shirt, raising gooseflesh in his wake.