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 | Suzanne Forster, Lori Foster, Kimberly Randell, Maggie Shayne |
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Excerpt Chapter 1 "Diana? Can you hear me? The doc says he got the bullet out." Diana squinted at the wavering white blob that was floating above her. Bradley Jeffers, her partner in G&J Investigations. She was the "G"—Diana Gordon. The black splotch in the middle of the white blob was Brad’s Pancho Villa mustache. Apparently her brain was functioning. It had been AWOL for a while. "Tha’ss nice," she managed. Lucky for you, babe, the bullet barely nicked your left lung, but it did some nerve and muscle damage. The doc says he did some himself getting the bullet out. Had to go in from behind and resect a rib." "Don’t call me babe," she muttered. "Whatever you say, babe." He laughed. "Must be feeling better. Sounding like the old Diana we all know and fear." He paused. "The good news is your head wound is negligible. As they say in those police show reruns you’re forever watching, the bullet barely creased your scalp. Doc Wilson had to cut some hair to clean the wound out, but it’ll grow back." Diana’s eyes shot open. Pushing up with her elbows, she flopped back when a scalding pain slashed a groove down her back, "He cut my hair? Who gave him permission to do that? Did you tell him he could do that? You know how long it took me to grow that damn ponytail? You know how slowly hair grows? A half inch a month if the ends don’t break off, which mine do. Three years it took me to grow that ponytail—and you let him cut it off while I was unconscious—helpless. I’ll sue his damn butt off! Yours too!" Brad was laughing. Laughing! Hey, the blob had turned into a face! And the rest of him had shown up. "Diana, your ponytail is as unraveled as you are, but intact. The doc just clipped a little clump of hair close to the scalp wound. It won’t even show. And there’s nothing to worry about with that scalp wound, he says—it just looks worse than it is. He’s coming in to talk to you soon as he gets through with his rounds. When a bullet grazes the scalp, way he tells it, a furrow of scraped tissue that looks like shark teeth tears along the edges of the gash. But it will heal fairly quickly. You also have an interesting scar down your back from the surgery—your bikini days may be over." "Teach me to turn my back on a crook. What the hell happened?" She frowned. Bad move. Colored lights zig- zagged in front of her eyes. "Last I saw, Stockman was about to hop on a cable car." Evidently, the images had burned themselves into her memory. The tall burly black man, getting into his car outside his apartment complex, struggling with his crutches, easing them over the back of the seat into the one seat behind. Diana and Brad had followed him to Chinatown, where he’d parked the car, climbed out and glanced all around, then locked the car and walked away. Without the crutches. Diana had felt jubilant yet disappointed. She’d liked Stockman, had hoped he was genuine, even while she was pretty sure he wasn’t. But there he was, walking the walk, then running as the cable car passed him, hopping on it at the stop, turning on the step at the last minute, in time to see her photographing him, she guessed. She’d turned away as the cable car clattered onward, and then, suddenly, pain beyond imagining had exploded inside her. Her mind had retained one last image—something had glinted in Stockman’s right hand. "I don’t want you worrying about what happens when you get out of here," Brad said. "Yvonne used to be a nurse, remember? She’s all set to take care of you at our house as soon as you are released." She felt Brad’s big hand close over her clenched fist. That felt good—safe. She allowed herself to drift back to wherever she had come from. * * * "When the hell are they going to let me out of here?" she grumbled a few days later. Brad had visited every day and she’d asked him the same question each time. Brad answered as patiently as he had before. "It’s going to take time for you to heal." He paused as though waiting for a comment. She couldn’t think of a whole lot to say. "Somebody broke into your apartment last night," he said into the silence. "Stockman’s out on bail already? It had to be him, trying to find the pictures. I got several of him running for that cable car. Where’s my camera?" "I have it. You dropped it. I burned a CD for the police, Printed out copies for Hedrick Insurance." She gave a satisfied grunt. "I’m sorry I didn’t see it coming, babe. Stockman started to get on that cable car, I saw he had something in his hand but I didn’t realize it was a gun. I looked to see if you were still getting pictures, you were turning away. You were crowing about catching him running when he was supposed to be unable to walk. I was looking at you, not him. You went down about the same time I realized I’d heard shots." "What an idiot," she said, adding when he drew in a breath..."Not you—Stockman. ‘Stead of the fraud charge he’s going to be up for attempted murder. This is going to ruin his musical career—he’ll have to play his guitar gratis to the prison inmates. The police did get him?" "They picked him up that very day, real easy." "Good." There was a heavy silence, then Brad said, "He didn’t have a gun on him, babe. It wasn’t found in the immediate area. Or in his car or apartment. No record of him ever owning one. And apparently nobody saw him shooting you. At least nobody’s come forward. And there’s no gun showing in the photos. No residue on his hands. Of course he’d had time to scrub up before the cops arrived. They had to let him go." "Shit." "You made the newspapers. Not as big as you might have done—another one of those trucks carrying immigrants stalled in the Arizona desert, abandoned. Everybody dead. Kids too. Mexican strike force cracking down, but so far they haven’t come up with any leaders of whichever smuggling organization was involved." Diana closed her eyes. She hated those stories. People wanting desperately to make a new and better life for themselves and their families, taken advantage of by lowlifes, callously left to die. Made her own situation seem puny. At least she was alive. They were both silent again for a while, then Brad said, Doc says you’ll need some physical therapy for your back. He’s going to refer you to a therapist in Oakland, once you get healed." "Not Oakland," she said firmly. Brad’s dark eyebrows rose. "What’s wrong with Oakland? You were shot in San Francisco, not Oakland." She had to think about it. Her response had surprised her as much as him. It took a minute to recognize the reaction as the flight or fight syndrome. She wasn’t in much condition to fight, so flight must be uppermost. Flight. She was afraid. She should be angry. Anger was good, clean, sharp, hot. Fear was shadowy, dark, cold, shameful. "Mene, mene tekel upharsin," she intoned, trying to make a joke of her fear. "Say again?" "The Writing on the Wall. My parents used to quote stuff like that at me all the time. Bible. Book of Daniel? Means something about being weighed in the balance, but that’s not what...shit!" The pain had returned. Brad indicated the IV setup. "You’re supposed to press this button if you need a shot of morphine. The nurse said not to worry, you can’t overdose, do it when you need it." She did as directed. "What I mean is, I have seen the writing on the wall." Her tongue seemed too large for her mouth. "I need a drink." "Scotch and soda? Vodka Martini?" He was smiling, but there was tension around his eyes. In spite of the jokes, he’d been worried about her. Good. "Cissy drinks, gimme some straight rye," she said. A nurse who had previously been invisible produced a glass with a bent straw. Diana sipped gratefully. Apple juice. Nectar of the gods. "I’m leaving," she explained to Brad’s face. The nurse materialized next to Brad. "You’ll have to stay in the hospital until Doctor says you are ready to leave," she said firmly before disappearing again. Brad nodded. "You’re not going to be in shape to go chasing after crooks for a while, babe." "Don’t call me babe." Her eyelids were closing. She forced them open. "That’s the whole point. I don’t want to chase after any more crooks. I didn’t mean I was leaving the hospital. I’m leaving San Francisco. Soon as I can get around. Quitting. Retiring. You don’t even have to buy me out. The business is all yours. Get another partner. Work solo. I don’t care. Tell Yvonne and the kids good bye for me. Give my regards to the Golden Gate. I don’t wanna play PI anymore. People killing people, stealing stuff, wanting me to follow their wives or husbands around to see if they’re getting it on with someone else, people like Sam Stockman pretending he can’t walk since he fell off that stage, cheating an insurance company just because it’s there, trying to kill me and getting away with it. I’ve been beat up too many times—last time those thugs were no more than sixteen, remember? You might also remember I broke my left arm jumping over a hedge last year, getting away from that aggressive Doberman with the hundred and fifty teeth. Fell in a ditch in January. Now this. How much damage can one person survive? If I was a cat, I’d have used up all my chances. I’m thirty-four years old. Not as eager to confront dirtbags as I was at twenty-four. Wanna nice peaceful rest of my life." "You don’t mean it babe—Di—soon as you’re out and about you’ll..." She started to shake her head against the pillow, gave that up in a hurry. "You can’t talk me out of it, Brad. You’ll find someone else to take my place. Someone doesn’t know any better. Me, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going away. Somewhere with water. Been marinated in salt air all my life. Can’t live without it. But somewhere else...somewhere quiet... small, peaceful...I remember a place like that...Port Something. I went there with Larry once. My last husband. Port Findlay. Somewhere near the Canadian border. Somewhere..." Distantly, she could hear Judy Garland singing "Somewhere over the rainbow..." |
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