The Monet Murders (21 page)

“Excellent.” How did this damn door lock work? “Save them for the jury.”

She grasped my arm with a slender hand, her cerise-tipped nails digging into my flesh. “Morgan, he kill. I never harm nobody. I can prove.”

The deadbolt shot back. I twisted the knob and flung the door so hard it sent a giant crack spider-webbing across the foyer’s lacquered wall. So much for a great paint job. Heavy footsteps sounded on the marble stairs. I sent a harried glance over my shoulder. Limping along the stairway, Morgan was moving as fast as he could.

“Hold her, Ilona,” he yelled. “Don’t let her go.”

“I no can,” Ilona cried, as I pried off her hand and raced away.

Once outside, I gulped a lungful of air before stooping to yank off my shoes. I’d run faster in bare feet. The spike heels I’d use as weapons if need be.

Above all, I couldn’t let Morgan reach me. Pulse pounding, heart going like a mariachi band, I raced down the stone steps and along the drive. No way would Ilona catch up to me in backless slides and skintight capris. All my years of jogging were about to pay off. Shoulders back, fists at chest level, the stilettos facing out like daggers, I soon broke into a sweat in the hot, hazy atmosphere. Too bad the houses were so spread out, each one nestled like a huge jewel in its own acre or so of lush gardens. My best bet would be to pound on the first door I came to. Or flag down a passing motorist.

A car.
I glanced back. A blue Maserati was careening along the quiet road, aiming its long, sleek nose directly at me.
Morgan.
And gaining fast.

Chapter Twenty-Six

To my right, a For Sale sign sprouted on a parcel of land filled with subtropical growth. No Maserati could traverse that. Without hesitation, I plunged into the tangle of untamed jungle, shuddering as my bare feet sank into wet leaves, fallen palm fronds and God knows what else. Scorpions. Snakes. Iguanas.

A branch snagged my shirt. I ripped it loose and ducked behind a sabal palm to catch my breath and listen. The Maserati’s elegant purr had been replaced by a noisy slapping of tropical foliage.
Morgan.

So he had recovered from my assault then. Too bad. In pants and sturdy shoes, he had an advantage over my miniskirt and bare feet.

Something crawled over my toes. Stifling a scream, I glanced down. Fire ants! They’d be all over me in no time. I leaped to the other side of the palm, my fast move rustling the fronds. Morgan must have heard. Only the chirping of the birds broke the silence now. He had to be listening for the slightest move. As was I.

I stood frozen, an ice sculpture in nearly ninety-degree heat. And then I saw it. Only a foot or so away, a black snake coiled in a patch of sunlight. I’d heard pythons were breeding in the Everglades. But that wasn’t a python. Nor was this the Everglades. Black snakes were harmless, weren’t they? Even to bare feet?

Blood pressure in the stratosphere, I stepped gingerly away from the tree and inched past the snake, my footsteps silent on the mucky bottom. Overhead, a blue jay flitted from branch to branch, cawing at my every move as though I were a vaudeville act cavorting across a stage. All Morgan had to do was follow the bird’s lead, and he’d have me. A persistent little devil, the jay perched on a nearby scrub pine and screeched his head off. I had to get out of his line of vision.

Up ahead, I spotted a dense clump of low-lying shrubbery. No telling what might be lurking in there. Well, only one way to find out. I crept over to the shrubs, parted the branches and stooped underneath them. A mosquito dive-bombed my head. I swatted it away, relieved no bigger critters were in there with me. Praying the bird would lose interest, I crouched motionless, listening to the heartbeat of the land, the tiny skitterings of unseen creatures, the hum of insects, the brushing of leaf upon leaf. And the loud crackle of branches thrust aside with an impatient hand.

Should I leap up and make a dash for it? No, too late. Morgan’s labored breathing sounded frighteningly near. I let go of the stilettos and hugged my knees, making myself as invisible as possible.

From under lowered lids, I saw the tips of two brown brogans. If Morgan reached out a hand he’d have me. But he didn’t. He stumbled on, noisily whacking branches as he went. The jay must have spotted him. Its raucous cawing started up again.

My throat dry, I swallowed and tried not to breathe deeply of the rotting vegetation. Unless Morgan had kept the gun he used on his victims, I doubted he had a weapon. I inhaled a breath of the heavy air and let it out slowly. He didn’t need a weapon. His hands alone were enough.

If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have pitied the guy. A gifted surgeon, stalking a woman through jungle growth to keep her from telling the truth—he had murdered three people, including his best friend. For a Hungarian blonde whose favorite word was
nem.

The poor guy. Yeah, right. A poor sociopath with a tendency to sadism was more like it. A surgeon who earned his bread cutting into human flesh, separating tissue with his fingertips, removing pulsing organs… I shook my head, disgusted at where my thoughts were taking me. Those same hands could heal. Had healed. So what had gone horribly wrong in Morgan’s life? When had his obsessive need to possess works of art morphed into the need to possess Ilona? The perfect woman, a work of art in her own right. At least on the surface.

From what sounded like a few hundred yards in the distance, I could hear him swashbuckle his way through the undergrowth. No finesse there. No careful stitching around a damaged heart. He was out for blood. Mine. And didn’t care if I heard him coming. What was he doing? Trying to flush out his game?

I wrapped my arms around my body to still the trembling. If only I had my phone, I could call for help. If only I had sensible shoes, I could run. If only pigs could fly, they’d be airplanes.

I needed a plan…okay…five minutes without Morgan thrashing about and I’d make a dash for it. But in which direction? Of the four points on the compass, three would lead me out of here, one would not. If I walked in as straight a line as possible, I had a seventy-five percent chance of hitting a house sooner or later, or getting back to the road. But in darting from tree to tree, I’d lost my bearings. Behind the acre-wide strip of developed lawns and gardens edging the road, the land gave way to subtropical jungle…like this untamed parcel. If I set off in the wrong direction, I could wander deep into the wild and be lost with no one the wiser. The thought made me shudder.

I squelched the rising fear and told myself to think. The Gulf lay to the west. The direction that led out of the woods. West, then. But where the hell was west? I should have listened to my father years ago and joined the Girl Scouts. Too late for that, but like every school kid, I knew the sun set in the west. So…I’d step out from this undergrowth, look at the sky and follow the direction of the sun.

Right.

I peered at my watch. Three more minutes.

The rain began as quiet as a whisper. If every pore in my body hadn’t been on sonar alert, I wouldn’t have heard a thing. Then the whispering picked up.
Plink. Plink.

Boom!
A streak of lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a clap of thunder that practically split my eardrums. A second later, the sky pulled out all its stops, unleashing everything it had.

I crouched in a tight ball, sheltered from the worst of the deluge but still, in no time, rain soaked my hair to the scalp and my wet clothes clung like a Hooters outfit.

I didn’t even care. Where the hell was west, anyway?

My five-minute plan turned into a half hour. Decision time. Stay here and be mosquito food or make a break for it. Even in bare feet, I could move fast. I was younger than Morgan. Fleeter. And judging from his harsh breathing of a while ago, I had more stamina than he. So if I could keep him at arm’s length, I had a chance—if I turned in any direction but east. A big if.

Problem was, I had no idea where Morgan might be. Lost, too? Or close by, waiting to pounce the moment he spotted me? Could be, but I’d have to risk it. If I stayed huddled here much longer, I wouldn’t be able to move.

I picked up the stilettos, and brushing the scruffy fronds aside, I stood, exposing myself to view. Nearby, a squirrel, as agile as Tarzan, leaped from branch to branch, soaring from one tree to another. Way to go! If only I could do the same, instead of standing on bug-bitten legs clutching a shoe in each fist.

An eerie quiet had replaced the angry slapping of palm fronds. Even the jay had shut up. Maybe Morgan had fled. No, I immediately dismissed that idea. Not a chance he’d leave before he caught me or until I escaped, whichever came first. He was hiding like I was, waiting for me to make the first move.

That he would kill me if he could I had not the slightest doubt. But if given the chance, would I kill him?

Not if I could. If I had to.

Yeah, if I had to.

Arms raised overhead, I arched my back then stretched my hamstrings. No more hiding. No more crouching. But which way to run? I picked a card.
That way.
Whether it was the fatal east or not, I couldn’t tell with the sky so overcast. I’d just have to chance it.

From behind me, a hiss as subtle as a snake’s glide.

I gasped and whirled about, stiletto heels forward in each fist.

“Hello, Deva.”

A shiver of panic swept through me. Did he have a gun? No, his hands were empty, but they were weapons enough.

Before he could lunge for me, I spun away from him and ran, snapping branches in my haste, shoving palm fronds out of the way, feet stinging, heart pumping.

Over my noisy retreat, I could hear him staying the course. Fear shot hot blood through me as I raced, not sparing so much as a second to look back. Soon, though, the sounds of pursuit became fainter and farther away. I must be outdistancing him.

Something sharp pierced my foot. I yelped in pain and kept on. The pain meant I was alive. I’d outrun him yet. He had twenty years on me, a man who spent most of his days in a fluorescent-lit operating room. When had he jogged the beach last? Probably never.

I leaped over a fallen log, then another. I hit the third log with the ball of my foot. The pain shot up to my teeth, the shoes flew out of my hands, and I fell, face-first, into a shallow ditch.

Stunned by the impact, I lay there for precious seconds. Morgan came pounding through the undergrowth and careened to a stop at the edge of the ditch.

I leaped up and grabbed the log I had tripped over. Like a mad Musketeer, I brandished it in front of me.

Morgan stood facing me, gasping for air, clenching and unclenching his hands, keeping his weapons warm and agile.

“Why, Morgan?”

He didn’t bother to ask what I meant. He knew. For a moment, poised for a leap at my throat, he looked like he wouldn’t respond, but he surprised me. “You’re too young to understand.”

“Try me,” I said, waving the log like a sword.

Sucking in some deep breaths, he waited, as if mulling over whether or not to reply, but finally he said, “Life was passing me by in slow, agonizing increments.”

“Very poetic. But I nearly flunked English 101.” Actually, I aced the course, but he didn’t have to know that. “So make it easy for me. The bugs are murder. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“I’ve spent years saving lives. Every life but my own.”

Was I imagining it, or had his voice gone shrill?

“I’m fifty years old. If I let the next few years slip by without seizing them—” his fists tightened, “—it will be too late…and now I’ve met her.”

“Ilona?”

He didn’t answer. I didn’t blame him. It was a stupid question.

“Since then, every day has been magic.”

“Yeah,
carpe diem,
Morgan. There’s ancient wisdom in seizing the day.”

“You can scoff. It doesn’t matter. She’s the woman of my dreams.” For some reason, he was whispering, though no one could hear us but the snakes and the bugs.

“Get real, Morgan. She’s turned your life into a nightmare.”

“No, she hasn’t. You have.”

He raised his hands to chest level. Getting ready for his big play, was he?

“Oh, really?” I goaded, letting the sarcasm drip. I’d be damned if I’d cower in front of him. “Was I the one who told you to kill three people?”

“I had no choice. The cook saw me the day—”

“—you cut the Monet out of its frame?”

He nodded, the slight slump of his shoulders the only acknowledgement of defeat. Or was it guilt?

“And Jesus caught you hiding one painting behind the other. And George? Well, George was just too smart. He guessed.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” He sounded calm and conversational now, as if we were having a pleasant chat in somebody’s living room. “The
Sunrise
belongs to Ilona. But she was correct. We need both paintings to live the life we deserve.”

“God, she’s got good ideas. Good breast implants, too.”

“Don’t be crass, Deva. It doesn’t become you.”

Crass?
This from a guy who killed three innocent people in cold blood? A toxic mix of anger and adrenaline seethed in my veins. I raised the club. I’d give him crass. But before I took my place at bat, I had to know something.

“After the robbery, where did you hide the painting?”

He smiled and lowered his hands, ready to chat it up. I guess he figured what the hell, I was never going to escape alive, why not tell me how diabolically clever he had been.

“I rolled the painting in a priority mail box, drove to Tallahassee and sent it to the Naples Community Hospital, care of myself. The mailroom held it till I picked it up.”

“So when Ilona gets her divorce, she walks off with not one Monet but two. And no one the wiser. Very clever.” I swung my club. Practice warm-ups, if you will. “Except your plan didn’t work. I told the homicide detective about the missing painting. The cops know it’s hidden behind
Sunrise at Royan.
So does the FBI.”

He reared back as if I had struck him. Desperate now, I played my strongest card. “If anything happens to me, they’ll nail Ilona, blame her for my death. Her only hope is if you let me go.”

He stood motionless. Would he buy what I was selling? Did he love Ilona enough to sacrifice himself for her? Doubtful. Far more likely he’d kill me and make a run for it. But I pressed on. “Ilona and I are friends. You heard her say so yourself. Those killings have appalled her. What will she think…or do…if you kill again?”

“She’ll think I’m
strooong!
”

Showtime.
Morgan jumped into the ditch beside me. Confident he had me, he didn’t bother to pick up another log so we could duke it out, but lunged straight for my throat. As his arms reached out, I twisted out of the way. He shot past me, whirled around and, with a snarl, came at me again, a beast seeking its prey.

Muscles I didn’t know I had sprang into action. Weaving, parrying, feinting, I circled the ditch, brandishing my log, never turning my back to him. One chance was all I’d get. I couldn’t waste it. My best bet—go for his head, knock him out.

We circled, panting with effort, our harsh breaths mingling in the damp air with a cloud of buzzing gnats.

“You haven’t got a chance,” Morgan gasped. “Give up, Deva. It’ll be swift.”

“Damn right, Morgan.” Who did he think he was? He’d kill me mercifully, would he? Well, screw him. “Come on,” I taunted. “Come on. Come and get me. Let’s see how much of a man you are. Come on.”

He paused, not answering, sucked in a deep breath and rushed forward, arms extended, fingers flexed.

In the last split second before he grabbed me, I raised the log and held it in both hands, straight out like a battering ram. Too late to stop his forward thrust, Morgan crashed into it with his chest, the force of his rush splitting the log and jarring my arms clear up to my shoulders.