Catch Her If You Can (10 page)

We got the flames out before the fire department responded, but when I surveyed all those waterlogged computers, I had to forcibly restrain myself from doing something very un-officerish. Like indulging in a healthy bout of hysterics. Or slinking out the back door. Or deflecting the evil looks aimed at me by the other occupants of the building by reminding them that the wiring had probably come in with Prohibition.

That’s the thing about being in charge, though. No hysteria or slinking or finger-pointing allowed. You have to suck it up and take full responsibility for the actions of your people. Or in this case, your ex-husband.

Thank God I’d followed proper procedures and checked Charlie in at the security checkpoint.
And
had one of the team members escort him in and out of our area.
And
made sure he hadn’t had access to sensitive information. The Farmer Farnsworths of the world generally use off-the-shelf components to create their masterpieces, but how they assemble the components is proprietary information. Even with those safeguards, I cringed at the thought of explaining Charlie to the deputy post commander. And—big gulp!—Dr. J.

I cringed even more when I remembered the excruciating process I went through after the fire out at the test site some months ago. I’d had to complete reams of reports detailing the loss and damage to government property. Headquarters even sent a senior officer out to Texas to conduct an official inquiry. This was worse, though. Much worse. Since this was an Army-maintained facility, I would have
two
sets of regulations to slog through.

“Okay, folks,” I said when the fire response team finally departed. “Let’s clean up this mess and assess the damage.”

We got to it, wielding mops and roll after roll of paper towels as we worked our way methodically down our end of the hall. To my infinite relief, the gizmos and gadgets entrusted to my sacred care seemed to have survived intact. Snoopy SNFIR was safe and dry in his packing crate. Big whew there. Last thing I needed was for an irate Farmer F. to call another news conference and rake us over the coals again. And Charlie had managed to keep the shape-shifting cube from getting doused by the sprinklers.

As mentioned, our computers took severe hits. So did a good many personal items like framed photos, books, several cell phones, and the iPods everyone seemed to have in their purse or pocket. Each loss gave rise to mutters or groans. The worst came from Dennis O’Reilly when he spotted the now-indecipherable signature on his autographed poster of chess great Garry Kasparov.

“Oh, no!”

We gathered around, trying to comfort him as his eyes blurred with tears behind his thick lenses.

“I’ll brew you some tea,” Pen said consolingly. “My peppermint, lemon balm, and goji berry blend is specially designed to lift spirits.”

Our coffeepot had shorted out, as had the vending machine that provided my usual noontime sustenance. But to Pen’s delight and the collective dismay of the rest of us, airtight glass canisters had protected her assortment of herbal teas. She hurried off to secure hot water from the undamaged break room at the other end of the hall and missed Dennis’s agonized look.

“What’s a goji berry?”

None of the rest of us had a clue but were all secretly relieved he would to be the one to find out and not us.

I had formulated a preliminary estimate of the damage when we finally shut down for the day. It was well past seven by then. Rush-hour traffic had dwindled to a trickle. A double-edged sword, in my opinion. Without the mass exodus to constrain me I had even more trouble than usual sticking to the post’s absurd twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit. My left foot thumped the floor mat impatiently. My right hit the brake, the accelerator, the brake again.

Charlie was too chagrined by his part in the drama—or too used to my predilection for speed—to comment until we’d cleared the gate. Then his gaze strayed to the fast-food joints whizzing past the windows and he cleared his throat.

“It’s been a while since lunch.”

“Hey, you ate at Papa Leone’s. I grabbed a Coke and peanut butter crackers from the vending machines. Before you killed them,” I added nastily.

He ignored the snide reminder. “Then you need a good dinner. How does Mexican sound?”

“Are you treating?”

“You know I’m short on funds.” He actually managed to look hurt. “And I still have to get my truck out of hock tomorrow.”

“I hope to God it’s ready tomorrow! Did you call to check the status?” I groaned at his sheepish expression. “Charlieeeee.”

“Sorry, babe. All that excitement at your office . . . I forgot to call.”

“Try now. Maybe the service department stays open past seven.”

It didn’t. Resigned, I steered through the early evening traffic. The spectacular view of the Franklin Mountains bathed in shades of pink and orange usually lifted my spirits. Not tonight. All I could think of were the regulations and reports I would have to slog through tomorrow.

“There’s a good Mexican restaurant close to my place. It’s border cuisine,” I warned. “Might be spicier than you’re used to.”

Actually, Dos Lobos offered patrons a choice between green and red sauce. One was supposed to be milder than the other depending on that year’s chili crop, but both broke me out in a sweat.

“No problem,” Charlie boasted. “I can handle anything they throw at me.”

After that bit of braggadocio I could hardly wait for his reaction when he scooped a tortilla chip into the salsa. It wasn’t long in coming. One crunch had his eyes bugging almost out of his head.

“Omigod!”

Frantically fanning his mouth, he snatched up his glass. When he chugged all of his water and half of mine, I smiled for the first time that day.

“I thought you could handle it, tough guy?”

Sweat beaded on his forehead. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. “I thought I could, too,” he croaked.

For reasons I’ve yet to understand, Charlie’s acute agony erased much of the animosity I’d felt for him since his sudden reappearance in my life. I was almost sorry for the guy as he slumped against the back of the booth.

“Jesus, Sam. You eat here often?”

“Often enough. Mitch likes their sour cream enchiladas.”

He scrubbed his eyes with his napkin and gave me a watery look over the bunched paper. “So what’s the story with you and Mitch? You two serious?”

“We haven’t stopped to analyze things,” I replied with a shrug. “I like him. He likes me. That’s enough for both of us right now.”

And the sex was really, really good. I nibbled on a chip, hoping the referee thing went well so Mitch could jump on a plane soon. First, though, I had to get rid of Charlie.

 

I was thinking metaphorically at that moment. Honestly!

I had no idea a shadowy figure was going to lunge out of the darkness when we got back to my apartment and almost do the job for me.

Charlie saw him first. Startled, he stumbled back. “What the . . . ?”

He didn’t stumble far or fast enough. Something long and straight swung in a vicious arc and slammed into his gut. He doubled over, grunting in pain, and dropped to his knees.

The unexpected assault had shocked me into immobility for several critical seconds. Just long enough for Charlie’s attacker to swing in my direction. Hefting what I now saw was a length of pipe, he snarled at me.

“Get in the car!”

Mitch’s advice for any woman caught in this kind of nightmare slashed through my stunned surprise.
Scream your head off, and for God’s sake, don’t get into an attacker’s vehicle if you can help it.
So I screamed my head off.

“Help! Somebody! Anybody!”

Still bellowing, I dodged around the Sebring’s rear end. The pipe-wielding bastard followed. His weapon sliced through the air. He missed me by inches and crunched the Sebring’s fender instead. The taillights shattered on his next swing.

For God’s sake! Where were all the pool paddlers and beer guzzlers when you needed them? I looked around frantically for something to use as a weapon or a shield to blunt the force of that lethal pipe. I’d just about given up hope when the front door of the apartment across from mine flew open.

“Samantha? That you?”

Almost sobbing with relief, I spied my neighbor. Tony’s day job was as an instructor at the Patriot missile school on post. Nights he moonlighted as a bouncer at a local strip joint.

“Tony! Help!”

He charged down the sidewalk. My attacker swung around, got a good look at the muscled-up new threat, and dropped the pipe. It was still clanging against the asphalt when the bastard leaped into a car parked two slots away.

He’d keyed the ignition and had shoved his vehicle into reverse before I could scoop up his weapon. I managed to get in one good lick, though. I slammed the pipe into the driver’s side door and heard the satisfying crunch of metal on metal before he tore off, tires squealing.

“My car keys are in the house!” Tony shouted as he sprinted into the parking lot. “Toss me yours and I’ll follow this joker.”

I’d dropped the key ring in my purse. By the time I rooted through the jumble and fished it out, our attacker was long gone, so I tossed him my cell phone instead.

“Call nine-one-one.”

While Tony stabbed at the buttons, I knelt beside my ex. Charlie was on all fours, clutching his middle and wheezing like an asthmatic moose.

“Are you okay?”

His lips curled back in a snarl. “Do I . . . look . . . okay?”

“Don’t move. You might have a cracked rib.”

“Feels more . . . like three.”

Oh, no! The horrific vision of my former spouse with his midsection taped and camped out for the foreseeable future on my sofa leaped into my head. It leaped out again when we heard another squeal of tires. All three of us froze as headlights speared through the parking area.

For a terrifying moment I thought our attacker had returned. With the headlights blinding me, I couldn’t see the interior of the vehicle that screeched to a halt just yards away. But I saw Tony scoop up the pipe and race toward the car to give as good as Charlie had gotten. My heart in my throat, I watched him yank open the driver’s door. Then a shrill and very feminine shriek split the night air.

“Don’t hurt me! We’ll pay it back! I swear!”

Charlie jerked upright. Relief and delight poured out of him in palpable waves. “Brenda?”

A head topped by piles of bottle-blond hair poked out of the car. A disgustingly svelte size six followed.

“Snoogs?”

I sank back on my heels. Could this day
get
any more bizarre?

“Oh, Snoogs!” Elbowing me aside, my former neighbor and one-time best friend dropped to her knees and cradled Charlie in her arms. “What did Richie’s goon do to you?”

“Was . . . that who . . . it was?”

She nodded, her eyes swimming with tears and a half a pound of mascara. “Richie came to the Four Queens.”

Guess I should mention here that Brenda also works in a casino. She’s a blackjack dealer. No short skirts or ruffled panties for her. Just black slacks and a neat white blouse with garters on the sleeves. But all the woman had to do was lean over the table to totally distract the players. The male players, anyway. I couldn’t help wondering what casino management thought of her newly redefined silhouette as she sobbed to Charlie.

“I wasn’t at work when he asked about you. Harry told him you’d driven over to El Paso. The idiot let drop that your ex had hit it big.”

Yeah, I thought sardonically. And what idiot told Harry?

“He said you were going to borrow the fifteen grand from Sam,” Brenda got out through her watery sniffles. “I guess . . . I guess Richie figured he’d better make sure you didn’t take off without paying.”

She lifted her tear- and mascara-streaked face and glared at me.

“This is all your fault, Sam.”

“I wouldn’t have had surgery if Charlie hadn’t joked about how I made, like, three of you.”

My ex/her current tried desperately to extricate himself from the quagmire. “I’ve told you a hundred times! I meant that as compliment, Bren.”

Clearly unconvinced, she sniffed. I sniffed, too. I can’t claim anything close to Brenda’s former proportions, but I’m not totally deficient in the cup-size department.

I could have saved my breath. My huff got lost amid Charlie’s grunts of pain as he staggered to his feet.

“Sam doesn’t . . . have the money, Bren.”

“But the news reports? They all said she could claim the reward.”

“She hasn’t . . . squared that away . . . yet.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I threw everything I could in the car.” Brenda hunched a shoulder under Charlie’s armpit. “We’d better go hang out at Aunt Em’s for a while.”

“Wait a sec!” I protested. “You can’t just disappear into the night. Tony’s called the police. We have to report this assault.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do! I need a police report to put in a claim for the damage to my car.”

I tried not to think of the hike in insurance rate I would get after a second claim in less than six months.

“You need medical attention, Charlie. And what about your truck?”

Teeth clenched against the pain, he eased into the passenger seat of Brenda’s car. “Get the truck for me, will you, Sam? I’ll . . .” He stopped, grunted, and started again. “I’ll call the service department and let ’em know you’ll pick it up.”

“Oh, sure. Stick me for the repair bill, why don’t you?”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“Uh-huh. Like you paid this Richie guy back?”

Since both he and Brenda had slammed their doors, the question was pretty much rhetorical. I stood there, thoroughly disgusted, while they drove off.

A black-and-white appeared about three minutes later. I provided what details I could. A medium-build guy I’d never seen before sprang out of the dark, went after my now-departed ex and me with a length of pipe, jumped in his car, and disappeared. Tony added that he was driving a light blue or gray, late-model Malibu with California plates.