Drool Baby (A Dog Park Mystery) (Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries) (26 page)

By now it was 2:00 a.m. and his back was screaming. His intuition was nagging him, but surely it was too late to call anyone tonight. He'd call Jim tomorrow
on the burner phone. A few hours wouldn't make any difference. He stepped out on the porch and started to pace out the pain.

Lia crouched in the darkness under the desk. In the tomb-like silence, she heard keys rattle in an exterior lock, then the door squealed open. It shut with
a bang. Keys in the lock again. Bucky was taking no chances. She had relocked the door. No chance to make a run for it.

Lia became aware that she was holding her breath and forced herself to breathe naturally. There was a scuffing of shoes on concrete steps, then quick steps
across the floor in the large room, then silence as those shoes met the ancient shag carpeting.

Lia froze as the glow of a flashlight spread across the carpet, lapping at the legs of her hiding place. She kept her eyes away from the light, not wanting
to lose her night vision. The circle of light moved on, crawled up the wall and fell into the next room. Lia tensed as the dark smudge that was Bucky
passed by and into the next room.

"Dammit to Hell!" An ugly voice exploded from the next room.

Lia yanked the phone wire, pulling it tight across the doorway. It was tied to the door hinge and wrapped around a desk leg. She wrapped the tail of the
wire three times around one hand, placed her other hand on top and braced her feet against the wall for impact.

Bucky flew across the trip-wire, landing face first on the carpet, her flashlight on the floor in front of her, illuminating a gun. Lia burst out from
under the desk, grabbed up her two by four and ran for the gun. Before she could kick it away, Anna, quick as a snake, snatched the gun up and pointed it
towards Lia. Lia nearly stumbled from the shock.

She threw the two by four at Anna and ran, ducking down at the door long enough to snatch up the small box of hardware. A shot bit into the wall over her
back. She dashed up the stairs, scattering handfuls of nuts and bolts behind her.

She heard Anna shriek as she slipped on the trail of hardware. "Don't you think you're smart! It doesn't matter what you do, you can't get out, and I've got
the gun."

Lia dashed for the elevator, jumped up on the chair and lifted her arms through the hatch. Adrenaline gave her the boost she needed to pull herself up on
top of the elevator. On her way up, she kicked over the chair, hoping that Anna wouldn't see it and realize where she was. She closed the hatch carefully,
making no sound.

She knelt there, shaking, as she heard Anna calling. "I don't want to do this, but you've given me no choice. You might as well come out now. Prolonging
this isn't going to make any difference."

She waited until her heart slowed, till the sound of Anna's voice grew faint, then quietly as she could, she stepped onto the ladder that ran up the shaft.
She climbed up to the room on the roof that contained the elevator mechanism. This door had a slide bolt instead of a key lock. The door creaked as she
opened it. She hoped the sound wouldn't carry, or if it did, that Anna wouldn't be able to identify the direction from which it came.

She sat down, leaning against the door of the little room and considered her situation. She wished she'd thought to put a board up here that she could jam
under the doorknob. She didn't think Anna could pull herself up through the hatch, but this was not her kind, mothering friend. She didn't know what this
person was capable of doing.

If Anna did come up to the roof, she didn't have a weapon except the tiny pocket knife. Anna had a gun. If Anna didn't find her, she could wait on the roof
until she heard a car. Then she could go to the edge of the roof and start screaming. She stared out into the darkness, wondering how many hours she had
until dawn.

Peter tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. He decided to call Jim.

"Yes, I'm awake. No, she hasn't moved." Jim said.

"Nothing's happening here, either."

"How long do we keep this up? It's after two."

"Murphy's law says the minute we leave, she'll act, whichever one she is. So we stay. I figure the next four hours are critical."

What makes you say that?"

"It's the dead of the night. Nobody to see her coming or going. Past history says Bucky works at night."

"You sure it's one of them? All we've seen them do is watch television, take the dogs out for their last pee, and go to bed."

"That's what the pattern of lights going on and off has suggested. For all we know Bucky's really looking up remote places for a body dump on Google
Earth."

They pondered this in silence, unwilling to say out loud what that would mean.

"You think Lia's in one of these houses, in the basement?"

"No, I don't. Neither one has made a move for the basement since we've been watching, and both of them were comfortable with us in the house. No scrambling
when we knocked on the door. That suggests there was nothing to find.

"I think it's time to stir the pot. I'm going to give them a call, see what they say, how they act."

Peter found Anna's number, hit send.

"Hello?" She sounded groggy.

"Anna, it's Peter."

"What time is it?"

"It's after two. I'm sorry to wake you. I was wondering if you ever heard from Lia."

"She's not back yet? I haven't heard from her."

"I was hoping she called you and made you promise not to tell me."

"No, I'm sorry."

"Do you have any idea where she might be?"

"The only place I can think of is her studio. Unless, maybe . . .oh, probably not."

"What is it?"

"You don't suppose she's at Renee's, do you?"

"I called there. I called everywhere."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Not right now. I'll let you know when I think of something."

"Call me the minute you do."

"Thanks, Anna. I'll let you get back to sleep."

Peter clicked off the phone. He repeated the process with Marie, with the same results. This time he was able to see her bedroom light switch on when the
phone rang. He called Jim back. "It appears I woke both of them up. Whichever one is Bucky, the butter still hasn't melted in her mouth. What's that mean,
anyway?"

"You don't know what that means?" Jim asked.

"My mama used to say it, but it never made any sense to me. What does butter have to do with anything?"

"It means being good at acting innocent. They're so cool, butter wouldn't melt in their mouth."

"So it's cold-blooded."

"I guess so," Jim said.

"Like a snake."

They ended the call. Thirty minutes later, Jim called Peter.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"What's to stop Bucky from leaving out the back door?"

"She's gotta use her car."

"How do you figure that?"

"She's got Lia stashed somewhere. This had to be an impulse. No way is Bucky stupid enough to be seen with Lia right before she disappears. So something
happened today, that made Bucky break pattern. There were only a few hours when she could have acted.

"Bucky's a planner, and Bucky didn't have time to plan anything. So she stashed Lia, and now she has to go back and get her. Wherever she put Lia, it's
temporary. I have to believe that."

"Where do you think she stashed Lia?"

"You tell me. You've known them longer than anyone. Wherever it is, it can't be out of the city. She'd have been caught in rush hour traffic, and she would
not have been home when I called her. I'm thinking she took Lia's car to her little hidey-hole, dumped it in Clifton, then took a bus back up to Northside.
The seventeen passes right through.

"Wherever she went, it can't be more than thirty minutes away. Where do you think she could have gone?"

"You mean like a storage space?" Jim asked

"Like that, though I hope not. There's thousands of those in the city."

"Anna's got keys to the Lieberman Foundation. That's downtown."

"They have staff on weekends?"

"There's a security guard at a desk in the lobby."

"That's out."

They lapsed into silence again. A car engine started in the distance.

"Anywhere else Anna or Marie might have keys? She have any friends out of town right now?"

"Last friend we had that went away was Roger."

"Shit," Peter said.

"I have a question."

"What is it?"

"I've been waiting for Anna to pull out of that garage for what, seven hours now?"

"And?"

"How do we know the car is in the garage?"

"Dammit, you'd think a highly decorated police detective would think of that. Will you stay on the phone and go look?"

Peter heard Jim exiting the car, winced at the slamming of the car door. Amateurs. As he waited, he tapped nervously on the steering wheel and silently
castigated himself for making a rookie mistake. Not a rookie mistake. An amateur mistake. A mistake a ten year-old would make.

"I've got to go around to the side. No windows in the garage door . . . Hoo boy. Nothing in here but bare concrete and a lawn mower.

"Damn," Peter said. "I'm hanging up. I'm going to call Anna again.

This time Anna did not pick up.

Lia was thoroughly chilled by the time she heard a faint scuffling on the other side of the door. The sound sent a jolt of panic through her. She stood up
and stepped back behind the door, the little pen knife in one hand.

The door opened slightly. Lia waited, holding her breath while the opening widened.
When she spotted the tip of one shoe, she rammed into the door with her shoulder, slamming Anna's head against the door frame.

Lia heard Anna scream. She did not hear the clatter of a dropped gun. Anna shoved against the door. Lia rammed it against Anna again. Suddenly, the door
fell shut as Anna apparently gave up struggling against it. Lia leaned against the door, panting. A shot blew through the door, into Lia's thigh. Lia
grunted against the pain and limped around behind the elevator room as the door flew open.

She could hear Anna's ragged breathing.

"How long do you want to do this, Lia?" Anna called out. "I've got all night. And I've got an alibi, since Jim is busy watching my house. Nobody is going
to find us here."

Lia remained silent.

"Dammit, answer me when I talk to you! Why did you have to ruin everything?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lia called back. "What did I ever do to you? I was your friend, and you shot Luthor."

"I did you a favor. All he ever did was suck you dry, and all you ever did was whine about how you wished he would go away. I set you free! Oh, but you
couldn't appreciate that. You had to sit around whining about how he was dead."

"So, what did I ruin, Anna? What did I do that was so bad you had to kill people?"

"I had everything just the way I wanted it. Then you had to introduce Catherine to everybody, and nothing was the same after that. Every freaking morning I
had to listen to her pathetic little rich lady problems and watch while she dragged Jim away from us.

"After that, you brought that whacko, Bailey, to the park. Now it's Renee and her ridiculous Stepford dog. Jim and I weren't enough for you. You had to
drag in the whole freaking world."

"You did all this because I ruined your morning coffee?"

"Oh, don't be so outraged. I just do things other people want to do. You wanted Luthor gone, and I got rid of him for you."

"I wanted him out of my life. I didn't want him dead."

"Why do you even care? You didn't love him. Look at me! My life was perfect. You had to find my computer, and now I have to kill you. Do you think I wanted
this?"

"What computer? What are you talking about?"

"Don't lie to me! I caught you looking behind that painting. I know you saw the netbook I hid back there."

"I wasn't looking behind the painting, and I never found a computer. Are you telling me you're doing all this because you thought I saw something?"

"I don't want to do this to you Lia, but I can't let you live, not now. I've got the gun, and I'm guarding the door. There's no other way off this roof. If
you get back in the building, you're still locked in. I've already shot you once. You might as well give up."

"Why can't I remember anything? How did you get me here?"

Anna's laugh was mean and nasty. "That was easy. I put Rhohypnol in your water. You always hydrate after you're done drinking. I waited by your car and
offered to drive you home because you'd had too much to drink. You were feeling woozy by then. I offered you some mini-cheesecakes so you could get
something on your stomach. They also had Rhohypnol in them and you gobbled them right down. After that, you were a little lamb. I barely managed to get you
here before you passed out."

"I don't get it. Why did you push so hard for me to date Peter? How could you want a cop so close to you?"

"Like you could ever stick with a relationship? Jim and I are the only people you ever kept in your life. Now, let me finish this so I can go back and
offer Jim some coffee, since he's been sitting outside my house all night. Then I can help him look for you."

"You keep talking about you and Jim. I've got news for you. He's been computer-dating. I don't think it's going to be just Jim for much longer. Killing me
is not going to give you your mornings back."

"Killing you will keep me out of jail."

"Peter already suspects you. We knew Bailey was set up. And Jim knows, too."

"They can't prove it. Nobody will find you up here. I'll have plenty of time to get rid of you before they work on this building. I'm going to drop you off
that overlook on Renee's property. That will fix her self-satisfied wagon. Nobody will be able to connect me to anything."

"They'll know. Peter loves me. He won't stop."