Tara Holloway 03 - Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray (37 page)

Viola appeared in my doorway Friday, just before noon. She gestured for me to follow her. “There’s breaking news about Noah Fischer on TV.”

Nick looked up from his desk across the hall and leaped to his feet, too.

This was the moment we’d been waiting for.

We grabbed Josh as we passed him at the copier and dragged him along with us.

Minutes later, everyone on our floor was gathered around the television in the break room. Nick had his stress ball in his hand, squeezing the heck out of it in anticipation.

According to the anchorman’s introductory sound bite, Amber Hansen had contacted the media outlets, identifying herself as Fischer’s long-term mistress after receiving incriminating photographs of Noah Fischer from “an anonymous source.”

Eddie eyed me, Nick, and Josh, a brow cocked in question. “You three wouldn’t happen to know anything about this ‘anonymous source,’ would you?”

Nick diverted his eyes to the ceiling, innocently whistling “This Little Light of Mine.” Josh and I followed suit.

The anchorman noted that Trish LeGrande had been dispatched to interview the iconic pastor’s jilted lover and had negotiated an exclusive. Okay, so I had to admit Trish wasn’t as dumb as she looked. And it would be nice to have the persistent bitch on our side for a change. If anyone could dig up the dirt on Fischer, it was Trish.

The image on the screen changed, now showing the two women seated in armchairs angled slightly toward each other. Both women wore suits, Trish in lavender and Amber in white, microphones clipped to their lapels. Trish’s hair was pulled into a professional yet feminine upsweep. She sat primly on the edge of her seat, her head cocked at an attentive angle as she launched into the interview questions.

“Miss Hansen, when did you begin your relationship with Pastor Noah Fischer?”

“Four years ago,” Amber replied. “My husband was deployed overseas for several months and I became very lonely.”

“Oh, boo-hoo,” I said to the television screen. “You could’ve gotten a cat.” It’s what I’d done when I was lonely.

Amber continued her story. “I had car trouble after choir practice one evening. Noah came out to the parking lot to help me. One thing led to another and, well, that’s how we became involved.”

Trish nodded. “It’s my understanding that you and Pastor Fischer share a child?”

“A son,” Amber said. “He’ll be two years old soon.”

Trish steered the conversation to more recent events, including the revelation that Fischer had been dallying with a stripper.

“When I received the photos,” Amber said, “I confronted Noah.” The pastor claimed to have been ministering to the woman. But, much like items in a clearance bin, Amber didn’t buy his crap. She went on to say that Fischer offered to buy her silence for a half-million-dollar bribe, funded, no doubt, by the Ark’s contributors. To her credit, she hadn’t accepted the hush money. The poor girl had actually been in love with the fraud. Although she’d refused the bribe, she planned to pursue child support. “It’s the right thing to do for my child.”

Trish leaned toward Amber, her voice soft and sympathetic. “How did learning about Noah’s relationship with Leah Dodd make you feel?”

Amber stiffened. Her feelings were written all over her face, from her narrowed eyes, to her rage-flushed cheeks, to her tightly pursed lips. Although she’d been perfectly happy to serve as Noah Fischer’s mistress, she was none too happy to learn she wasn’t the only cookie Fischer’d been nibbling on the side. “I was disgusted,” she spat. “I felt totally betrayed.”

There’s some irony for ya.

When the interview concluded, Viola shooed everyone back to their offices. “One tax cheat down, thousands to go.”

So much for savoring our victory.

*   *   *

As I lay in bed that night, I was awakened by a loud and unmistakable creak. My third stair.

I sat bolt upright. Was someone in my house?

Henry trotted into my room and hopped up onto the bed, his tail whisking back and forth as if annoyed. I exhaled in relief. It had only been my cat.

Henry glanced back at the doorway.

That creak had only been my cat, right?

I glanced at my digital alarm clock to check the time. Silly, I know. It’s not like there’s a rule that burglaries only happen between midnight and five
A.M.

The clock was dark. I glanced into the bathroom where I normally left a night-light on. It was dark, too. The electricity was off. Odd, since there wasn’t a storm.

Uh-oh.

Had someone cut my electric lines? Without electricity, my security system wouldn’t sound the alarm.

Surely I was just being paranoid, right? The power could have gone off for any number of reasons. Maybe a transformer had blown. Or maybe a drunk driver had taken down a pole nearby. It had been known to happen.

Another sound came from the stairs, another creak. Whoever had stepped onto my third stair had just stepped off it.

Oh, God! OhGodOhGodOhGod!

What if it was one of those crazy Lone Star Nation kooks? They’d had plenty of time to replace the weapons we’d seized from them. And they knew where I lived. Heck, they’d tried to sell this place out from under me! Maybe one of them had come to kidnap me, to drag me back to Buchmeyer’s place and collect the bounty on my head.

I slid out from under my covers, unsure what to do. There was only one way out of the room. Down the stairs. And I couldn’t go there. That’s where the intruder was.

The window wasn’t an option. It was a fifteen-foot, ankle-shattering drop to my concrete patio. Plus, the window always stuck. There wasn’t time to wrangle it open. Stupid shifting foundation.

Blind terror seized me and I began to hyperventilate, the fireflies flitting in and out of my vision once again.

Then my special agent training kicked in, giving me a sense of calm and direction.

Step one—prepare to defend yourself.

With what? I had my Glock on my night table and a virtual arsenal of guns in my closet, but I was entirely out of ammunition. That’s what I got for showing off for Nick at the gun range this afternoon. Ammo was on my shopping list, between entries for cat treats and tampons, but I hadn’t had time to run by the store.

So much for step one.

Step two—call for backup.

How? I’d had my landline disconnected after the Ark members left all those nasty messages on my machine. Without a landline, no break-in signal had been transmitted to the security company, either. My cell phone was in my purse downstairs. Argh!

Step two was a bust also.

Step three—be prepared to launch an offensive if necessary.

With what? My bare hands? Unless the intruder was ticklish, my hands wouldn’t be much help. I wasn’t exactly a black belt at karate.

I quickly glanced around, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. Henry stood on my bed, his tail still twitching. I supposed I could have launched the furry beast at the burglar, but that just didn’t seem right. Even if he was an ungrateful, spoiled brat, I still loved the darn cat. I wouldn’t want him getting hurt.

A lamp? No. The cheap lamps I’d bought were lightweight and not likely to do much harm.

And then I spotted it, the metal gleaming like a beacon in the dark.

Sitting there on my bathroom countertop was the can of Lu’s extra-hold hairspray.

The spray wouldn’t stop the intruder in his tracks, but it could blind him momentarily, allowing me the chance to escape.

I scurried into the bathroom, snatching the can off the countertop. Instinct told me to grab the lighter I used for my scented candles, too.

I climbed into the tub and cowered behind the shower curtain. With any luck, the guy would just take my laptop and television and leave. But I had a hunch that whoever was in my house wasn’t here to rob me. I had little worth stealing.

No, whoever was in my house was there
for me
.

In the bedroom, Henry let loose with a short, insistent hiss and jumped to the floor with a thump. I hoped he’d run under the bed with Annie to hide.

I peeked around the edge of the shower curtain. I could see the dark silhouette of a person stepping into the bathroom, a gun in his hand, the unusually long barrel indicating he’d attached a silencer.

No sense waiting for the inevitable, right? The element of surprise had worked once. It could work again.

In a continuum of motion, I swept the curtain aside, flicked the lighter into a flame, and hit the nozzle on Lu’s noxious hairspray, creating my own personal flamethrower. There was a crackling sound and the room exploded in brightness.

Tara said “Let there be light.” And there was light.

The stream of flame reflected in the mirror as it snaked through the air and ignited the front of the intruder’s black hoodie.

“Welcome to hell!” I shrieked.

The man screamed and reflexively jerked back, his gun discharging with a muffled bang and a flash before clattering to the tile. Fortunately, the bullet missed me, lodging instead in the floor. He turned and ran into my dark bedroom, his movements serving only to fan the flames. Blinded, he ran into my dresser, then a wall, the flames beginning to engulf his sleeves now.

Hadn’t he ever heard of “stop, drop, and roll?”

I grabbed his gun from the floor and scampered after him. He’d fallen back onto my bed now, catching the patchwork quilt my grandmother had made me on fire. I grabbed him by the back of his jacket and yanked him to the floor, as much to prevent him from igniting my entire condo as to save his life. Down on the carpet now, he instinctively rolled one way, then another. I grabbed a pillow from my bed and smothered the flames on the mattress. Then I turned to the intruder and whopped him with the pillow in an attempt to put out the flames engulfing him. The guy better hope I’d win this one-person pillow fight.

The fire was finally extinguished, but the man continued to roll side to side on the floor, shrieking in agony.

His gun still in my hand, I ran downstairs and grabbed my cell phone from my purse. Luckily for the charred man upstairs, the phone had a charge. Plugging the damn thing in wouldn’t have done any good with my electricity cut.

I dialed 911, requesting both police and an ambulance.

Henry and Anne had followed me into the kitchen. Before they could protest, I scooped them both into the dark pantry where’d they’d be safe. I felt around in my purse for the furry handcuffs Nick had bought me, grabbed them, and ran back upstairs. The guy was hurt, sure, but adrenaline made people capable of virtually superhuman feats. I wasn’t going to chance him gathering his wits and getting away.

Putting my foot on his ass, I tried to force the screaming man onto his belly, but he fought me, kicking and flailing his arms. I took a hard kick to the shin before I was able to grab one of his wrists and secure it to my brass footboard with the cuffs.
Click-click.
Unless he dragged the entire bed with him, he wasn’t going anywhere. I ran down the stairs, threw open my front door, and dashed into the driveway where I could flag down the cops and EMTs.

My door hung open, the wails of the barbecued burglar drifting out into the night. His sounds were soon joined with the wailing of sirens.

The EMTs arrived first. There were two of them in the ambulance, the driver and an attendant.

“Where’s the injured party?” the driver asked as he hopped down from the vehicle.

“Upstairs,” I told him. “He’s cuffed to my bed.”

The medics exchanged glances.

“Must be one of
those
situations,” the attendant said. He turned to me. “He’s not wearing your panties, is he? ’Cause if he is, I need some warning. I got written up for laughing at the last guy we found chained to a bed wearing women’s underwear.”

“No! It’s not one of
those
situations and he’s not wearing my panties!” I told them the person upstairs had been in my house uninvited and had been armed. “He must’ve cut my wires. My electricity is off.”

Fortunately, a pair of cops arrived and escorted the medics safely upstairs, lighting the way with a pair of heavy-duty flashlights. I remained outside where I wouldn’t get in the way. Besides, the smell of fricasseed flesh in my town house had me feeling nauseated. The air was much fresher outside.

My next-door neighbor emerged from her unit in her pajamas and stepped over to me. “What’s going on?”

“A burglar broke into my place,” I told her.

“You shoot him?”

“No. I’m out of ammo. I set him on fire instead.”

“That works, too.” She raised a hand to another neighbor who’d been roused by the commotion and come outside, too. “You know, when I first heard those shrieks coming through the wall, I figured you were getting some really good sex.”

If only.

“But then they went on and on and on,” she said. “No sex is that good.”

A few minutes later, the medics carried the intruder out of my house. His right arm hung off the side of the stretcher, the furry handcuffs dangling from his wrist. The streetlights provided some illumination, but the man’s face was burned and blistered beyond recognition.

Who was it? And what was he after? Was it a bounty hunter from the Lone Star Nation? Five hundred bucks hardly seemed worth risking a felony kidnapping conviction.

I stood in my driveway as they loaded the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.

The last thing I saw before they shut the door was the man’s shoes.

They looked expensive as hell.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Ashes to Ashes

I stood in my driveway, shivering uncontrollably. The shaking had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the fact that I’d almost bit the dust tonight. If not for my creaky step, I’d be lying dead in my bed right now.

That would have really sucked.

My intruder had no ID on him, but given his pricey shoes I suspected it was Noah Fischer. My suspicions were confirmed when one of the cops found his scraped-up Infiniti parked just around the corner.