The Girl Next Door (25 page)

“Oh, I’ve just seen them together a couple of times and I was just … curious.”

Nikki shrugged and smiled sweetly. Then she asked me a question no guy could resist coming from an attractive woman: “So, you want to get out of here, grab a drink or something?”

And I know that I should have been like those boys at Buckingham. I know it was entirely possible that she wasn’t as innocent as she appeared. I know she might well have been an enemy agent sent to seduce me, pry information out of me, and then kill me with some exotic, undetectable poison, like a girl in a Bond flick.

But perfume has a way of clouding my judgment. Besides, doesn’t the enemy agent end up falling in love with Bond despite herself?

“I don’t know, Nikki,” I teased. “What would Gus think about me having a drink with his little girl?”

She grinned. “I don’t think Gus is allowed to have an opinion on the matter.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

*   *   *

Soon, we were riding in my babe-magnet Malibu on our way to a trendy bar in Montclair, the kind of place with low couches and lower lighting where we could spend a little time getting acquainted. We swapped our stories—you reach a point in singlehood when you’ve got your standard first-date material pretty well down—and the hour grew late. We drank but not excessively. Just enough to have a nice little buzz. It was all quite enchanting.

I found it pleasant talking to Nikki, who laughed easily and told fun stories. She had wanted to be an actress and did the New York audition thing for a while until she concluded they didn’t want someone who looked, as one casting director put it, “so ethnic.” After that, she returned to school and studied restaurant management and was being groomed to take over the family business.

We were from somewhat different sides of the track—me with my Wonder bread background, she with her pitas—but that didn’t seem to matter. I found her refreshingly uncomplicated as compared to game-playing Tina. And maybe Nikki was just a rebound from Tina. But even if that was the case, any basketball coach could tell you rebounds have helped with a lot of ball games. And it was becoming obvious where the evening was heading.

It started with a little hand-patting, which turned into hand-holding. Then I might have started idly stroking her forearm, which she must not have minded because she suddenly scooted quite close to me on the couch we were sharing. She got up at one point to visit the ladies’ room, and when she returned, she gave me a kiss on the lips—no tongue, but it was still meaningful—then snuggled herself against me. The smell of her was at least as intoxicating as the drinks we were having.

One thing I enjoy about being a grown-up is that, at a certain point in time, you stop needing quite so much pretense with the opposite sex. When you were in high school, you had to lure a girl out to the park with the ploy that it was the best place to see shooting stars. When you were in college, she came back to your dorm room because you wanted to show her your fish tank. But then sometime in your twenties, all that subterfuge—which never really fooled anyone anyway—becomes unnecessary. So when last call went out sometime short of midnight, I suggested we head back to my place, and she accepted. Just like that.

Before long, we were back in Bloomfield. I turned the Malibu into my driveway. My garage is detached—in the way all garages used to be—and it has become something of a repository for things better left unseen by hot dates. Plus, it’s a bit of a tight squeeze. I didn’t want her having to crawl past my lawnmower and my Weedwacker on her way out.

I pulled up short of the garage, hopped out of the car, and hurried around to open Nikki’s door for her. Then I took her hand and escorted her down the driveway, rounding the corner of the house toward the small set of brick steps that led to my front door. We were walking single file—the path wasn’t wide enough to go side by side—and I was in the lead.

It was only later, when I replayed everything in my mind, that I realized this was about the time I heard a car engine coming to life. At the time, with my mind clearly on other things, I can’t say I really paid much attention. There had to be at least fifty houses on my block. One person starting their car—even at a late hour like this—was not unusual.

But yes, a car had started somewhere. And I became aware it was traveling rather speedily, but, again, that didn’t concern me. Everyone drives too fast in Jersey. Even if I had thought about it, and I’m quite sure I didn’t, I would have assumed it was some kid heading home from his girlfriend’s house, fired up by a success or dejected by a failure.

The first thing that I noticed for sure was the headlights. They were big and bright and closer to eye level than headlights should be.

The second thing I noticed was that those headlights were coming right at us. Nikki was saying something about how she liked my little house when the SUV veered off the street, using the neighbor’s driveway like it was a highway entrance ramp and hurtling across my front yard. I felt my eyes squinting involuntarily as those big headlights suddenly bore down on us.

Then instinct took over. I released Nikki’s hand, pivoted, and plowed myself into her, shoving us over the foundation shrubbery next to the front steps. There was no real time to make it gentle or pretty. I just tackled her as hard as I could, hoping I had enough momentum to get us both out of harm’s way. We crashed through the shrubs, and most of my weight landed on her. The scream that was starting to escape from her mouth turned into a grunt as I knocked all the wind from her lungs.

I felt the rush of air and exhaust as the vehicle missed us by a few feet. I heard the roar of its engine and the small shriek of its tires as it jumped back over the curb and onto the asphalt. But I didn’t see anything. My head was down.

By the time I looked up, the SUV was gone.

He arrived at Carter Ross’s house at a quarter to six in the evening, just to have a look around. He was ready with a cover story in case Ross saw him, but that proved unnecessary. The reporter wasn’t at home.

So he treated himself to a quick but full surveillance of Ross’s domain. He eyeballed angles and imprinted the layout of the property in his head as best he could. He noted the detached garage. He studied means of access and egress—a front door and a back door, nothing on the sides. He looked for signs that might tell him what Ross’s patterns were.

He was searching for vulnerabilities, of course, for potential ways Ross might be attacked. He quickly concluded Ross entered and exited exclusively through the front door. The back door, which opened onto a small deck, simply wasn’t as convenient to the garage. And it didn’t seem to be used frequently—the grass in the backyard appeared undisturbed, as if no one had walked on it in several days.

That was good. He wouldn’t have to use his gun. Ross would be an easy target for the Escalade. He paced off a few distances, counting the seconds it took to walk them, coming up with a likely range of times. It was the same sort of mental preparation he had made for Nancy Marino, and he expected the same results.

Having made the necessary determinations, he didn’t allow himself to linger. He knocked on the front door, making himself seem like just a casual friend who had stopped by for an unannounced visit and, finding the master of the house not at home, left just as quickly. He didn’t think any of the neighbors had taken note of him. The only person he saw was a woman outside watering her lawn, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention.

Then he settled in to wait, parking just down the street. He had a place in his brain where he went at times like this—a small cerebral refuge that allowed him to keep himself physically dormant yet mentally alert. It was the place where he told himself his life story, as if he were dictating a memoir. He loved going there, and he had learned he could stay there, quite contentedly, for hours.

He changed some of the details, of course, especially ones that pertained to his father. Everyone lies in their memoir these days, right?

He had both a quick version and a slow version of the story. And since he knew he might be waiting for a while, he went with the extended edition, pacing himself. He was still only in his late twenties when he saw a car roll down the street and into the appropriate driveway.

Instantly, his body came to life. He looked at the clock, which read 12:17. The car crept past the house, on its way to the detached garage. He began a small countdown, turning his ignition key midway through. The car came alive, illuminating the street in front of him. He had hoped to go dark—all the better to catch his target unawares—but the Escalade was equipped with daytime running lights and he didn’t know how to disable them. So he opted to go for the next best thing: high beams. If he couldn’t sneak up on Ross, at least he’d blind him.

With the countdown complete, he shifted into Drive then hit the gas. The house was on the right side of the street, so he stayed on the left side, giving himself a better angle from which to swoop onto the front yard. He had decided he would enter via the neighbor’s driveway. Going over the curb might slow him down or knock him off track.

Everything was going exactly as he hoped, right until the last moment. The first thing that surprised him was the presence of another person. His assumption had been that Ross, who appeared to live alone, would be coming home alone. Yet there Ross was with a young woman. Did she look familiar? There was no time to even consider it. Not at that speed.

The second thing he hadn’t remembered to factor in was the slight upward slope to the front lawn, which slowed him down at a time when he should have been accelerating. It gave Ross enough time not only to get himself out of the way but to rescue the young woman as well.

He watched in frustration as Ross and the young woman dove toward the house, into the safety of some shrubbery. He yelled as he passed them by—like that would do any good—but didn’t dare to slow until he was out of eyeshot. He just had to trust that his high beams, to say nothing of the element of surprise, had rendered them incapable of seeing anything that would identify him.

But that, he knew, was a poor substitute for his real plan, which was not to leave a witness in the first place.

He drove in circles for a while, aggravated at himself. Eventually, he realized he might as well make the best of a botched situation. After all, if Ross could be dissuaded from continuing to investigate Nancy Marino’s death, it would be as good as having Ross dead.

It just had to be made clear to the reporter what awaited him if he persisted.

CHAPTER 7

For a long moment, I just lay there, panting. I had rolled off Nikki and was pinned between the shrubs and my house’s foundation, with a bug’s-eye view of a few small weeds that had crept up in the bare dirt. I began taking inventory of what might or might not be broken, dismembered, or paralyzed, but quickly determined I still had all my parts and they seemed to be functioning as would be expected. Except for a few scratches and perhaps a bruise or two, I had done nothing more serious than perhaps use up one of my nine lives.

I looked over at Nikki, who was crumpled at an awkward angle, with her head resting against the house, her torso on the ground, and her legs up in the air, supported by the shrubs. Her dress, with its thin fabric, was bunched up around her midsection, exposing her strong, rounded thighs and green, seamless underwear. It struck me she ought to be tugging the dress down. But Nikki wasn’t moving.

“You okay?” I said.

No reply.

“Nikki?”

Nothing.

I scrambled toward her on my hands and knees, then stopped. Even in the shadow of the shrubbery, there was enough light from a nearby street lamp that I could see her hair was wet with blood. There was a red smear mark, vivid on the painted concrete, leading in a short arc from where her head had crashed into the foundation to where it was currently propped.

“Oh, Nikki,” I said. “Nikki, honey, can you hear me?”

It was a stupid question. She couldn’t hear anything. Her eyes were closed, and it was difficult to tell if she was even breathing.

Or alive.

A small jolt of horror surged through me. I wish I could say I was one of those cool, calm, collected types, capable of blocking all but the essential facts, processing them, and acting accordingly. But that’s why newspaper reporters make lousy emergency responders: we’re trained to take in everything, leaving nothing out. So there I was, noting the cut and color of Nikki’s underwear instead of saving her life.

I forced myself to think back to a thousand first-aid classes taken a million years earlier, when I was a Boy Scout and a camp counselor, doing things responsible kids do, getting certified in this or trained in that. You weren’t supposed to move someone with a potential spinal cord injury. That part came back to me quickly. But, then, wasn’t oxygen the first priority? Didn’t I have to make sure she was getting some?

Then a long-ago video appeared in my mind, where some perfectly calm woman came across an inert body, bent down to assess it, then turned to the equally composed person with her and, in a totally inflectionless voice, said, “No breathing, no pulse, call Eee-Emm-Ess.”

I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, brought up the dialing screen, and shakily punched the nine key, followed by the one key twice. Then I hit Send.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?” a voice queried.

“Please,” I moaned into my phone. “Please come quickly. A woman is hurt badly.”

“What is your exact location?”

I faltered—because for a moment I couldn’t remember I was in my front yard—then recovered and gave my home address. The operator started asking me questions about the nature of the woman’s injuries.

“No time. Just come,” I said, and planted the phone back in my pocket, returning my attention to Nikki.