Found Wanting (19 page)

Emma was the one who persuaded her to get the Nintendo. Dear old Emma, not the least bit tottering despite turning seventy-five only a month before, professed to be hip to what made kids happy these days. "Besides," she'd said in her smooth-as-porcelain voice, "video games build excellent hand-eye coordination."

Jonah had used the same argument, and Alaina grinned as she realized he had, in all his resourcefulness, enlisted Emma's help. He made her proud.

"But don't you think that implant he'd have to get in the back of his head is a bit overboard?" Alaina asked.

Emma's white eyebrows shot up. "Implant?"

Alaina burst out laughing and hugged her friend. "I love you, Em."

But the older woman wasn't impressed. She set Alaina back from her and strode out of the room, calling Jonah's name. "I want to talk to you, young man."

Now, two days later, Alaina hummed as she climbed the steps to the apartment above the bookstore, carrying a bag that held the game, already wrapped in vibrant birthday paper with a big red bow. After the day's classes, she had borrowed Emma's car to drive to Toys R Us before Jonah arrived home from school. She planned to stash the bag in the back of her closet before reporting for work downstairs.

Pushing through the door, she breathed in the scent of fresh-baked bread and garlic. She loved Emma's kitchen, which smelled exactly as Alaina thought a grandmother's kitchen should.

Checking her watch, she saw she had about ten minutes to spare. Plenty of time to dive into the chocolate chip cookies Emma had loaded into the cookie jar just that morning.

"Hello, Alaina."

She stopped dead.

The man leaning casually in the dining room doorway on the other side of the kitchen was a stranger. Serial killer was her first thought. He was unusually pale, with pock-marked cheeks and watery blue eyes, his light brown hair thin and graying. He wore an old maroon Members Only jacket, faded jeans and black Chuck Taylor sneakers.

He'd called her Alaina.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice firm in spite of the fear that threatened to clamp around her throat.

He ambled toward her, hands in his back pockets, his sneakers silent on the tile floor. "Relax," he said softly, smiling. His teeth were surprisingly straight and white, a toothpick clenched between them. "I'm not here to hurt you."

She didn't believe him for an instant, and she ticked off in her head the locations of everyone she cared about. Jonah had at least an hour left of school. And moments before, Emma had been in the bookstore discussing the latest Stephen King novel with a male college student who'd seemed surprised that such a senior citizen was familiar with the horror writer's work. There would be no reason for Emma to leave the store unattended to come upstairs.

"Tell me what you want," Alaina said, infusing her voice with strength.

The intruder continued to smile, the toothpick wiggling as he repositioned it with his tongue. "I got a proposition for you, Ms. Chancellor. You know who I work for?"

"Yes, I've figured that out." She clenched her teeth against the impatience. She was due in the bookstore in a few minutes. If she were late, Emma might come looking for her.

"Mr. Keller wants you bad. You and the kid."

"You said you have a proposition."

His grin broadened, and retrieving the toothpick, he pointed it at her. "Five grand, and I report back to Mr. Keller that I hit another dead end."

Alaina's knees began to tremble. Five thousand dollars? She didn't have even one thousand. How would she get five? "I don't have that kind of money."

"Yeah, but you're smart. I bet you can figure out how to get it."

"I can't."

His gaze hardened. "You're not even going to think about it?"

"I don't have to think about it. I don't have access to that kind of money."

He glanced around the tiny kitchen as if regrouping. Clearly, he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. He hadn't been able to tell by observing her life that excessive cash was not a part of it. His expression brightened. "The old lady downstairs," he said. "What's her name?"

Alaina's muscles tensed so hard they began to ache. "She doesn't know."

"I don't give a shit. This her place?"

"Yes."

"Geezer like her's probably got cash stashed between her mattresses, stuffed in stupid places in the kitchen." He grabbed the cookie jar shaped like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, ripped off the lid and tipped it upside down. Fresh chocolate chip cookies tumbled onto the counter.

Alaina eased away from him, until her back encountered the edge of the doorway. A slight turn to the right, and she could be down the stairs and into the stock room of the bookstore in just a few seconds. But then what? He would chase her right into the store. He might be armed. She looked him up and down, searching for a gun, a knife.

Catching her seeking look, he dropped the cookie jar, which shattered at his feet. The greed in his eyes shifted to something far more terrifying. "Were you just checking me out?"

Her heart seized into a tight fist. "No." The word nearly strangled her.

His grin returned, accompanied by a leer. "Yes, you were. You were checking me out."

She raised her hands, palms out. "Look, I'm sorry. But I don't have any money. I can't pay you."

His tongue flicked out over his bottom lip as his gaze slithered down her body and back up, mentally stripping away her jeans and bulky sweater. Her skin crawled as if he had touched her with a clammy hand.

He swallowed, and his pale cheeks pinkened. "You know what? I'm thinking we can work something out."

She pressed against the doorjamb. A quarter turn. The steps were right there. But that would put Emma and her customers at risk ... Alaina still didn't know if he had a weapon.

Then her dangling fingers brushed against smooth, cool wood, and she remembered the baseball bat propped in the corner. She'd fussed at Jonah that morning to put it away, but he had either ignored her or forgotten.

Dropping the shopping bag, she swung the bat up at the same moment that the intruder rushed her. Almost by accident, the bat caught him in the crotch, more of a glancing blow than a dead-on home run. He folded nonetheless, going down on one knee, his hands cupped over his groin. "You bitch," he wheezed. "Fucking bitch."

He was down, but his body blocked her escape route. She pivoted, intending to bolt through the dining room. Despite his pain, he moved like lightning, grabbing the back of her sweater and swinging her into the kitchen counter. The edge caught her hard in the hip, the impact knocking the bat from her fingers. As it clattered to the floor and rolled, she threw a hand out to keep from falling, her fingers crushing through cookies. She hurled crumbs in his face.

He stumbled back, sputtering in surprise, and she tried to dodge by him. But he snatched her around the middle and slammed her back against the refrigerator. Pain zinged down her spine, and her knees almost buckled. Locking them, she aimed for his eyes.

He screamed as her nails scratched his scarred face, and enraged, he jerked her away from the refrigerator by the collar and ruthlessly hammered her back against it. Her legs turned to jelly, and as he backed off and let go, she slid down the fridge, gasping.

He glared down at her, one hand pressed to his bloody cheek. "Now I'm really pissed off." Reaching down, he grasped the collar of her sweater and yanked her to her feet. Levering her against the counter, he snarled, "I'm going to take what I want. Then I'm going to kill you real slow."

She groped behind her for a weapon, a pan to hit him with, a glass, anything.

His breath was hot on her cheeks, his face mottled red with rage. "And when you're good and dead, I'm going to wait for your kid to come home and I'm going to start on him --"

The Chicago Cutlery slipped easily between his ribs, and blood warm and thick gushed over her hand, spilling a sweet, coppery scent into the kitchen.

For a stunned instant, his forehead creased as if he'd felt a pain but didn't know what it was. Then he released her and staggered back, staring down at the handle of the knife sticking out of his gut.

Gagging, Alaina sank to her knees, her vision graying. Perspiration dripped into her eyes, and she fought to keep from blacking out. She had to get out, had to get out.

The intruder wobbled, sweat making his face appear greasy as it faded from red to gray. "Oh, shit," he mumbled as his legs gave out and he pitched forward.

Alaina couldn't move, her breath sawing in and out of her chest.

He was lying face down in front of her, and she concentrated hard on his back. A pool of dark red blood seeped from under him, oozing toward the bloody hand she braced on the tile floor. He wasn't breathing.

She'd killed him. A roar began in her ears, became deafening.

"Anna?"

Alaina raised her spinning head and saw Emma standing in the kitchen doorway. As the older woman digested the scene before her, her stunned disbelief gave way to horror. "Oh my God, Anna!"

Emma lurched forward, reaching toward Alaina, as if to help her up or comfort her. But before she got there, she froze and clutched at her chest. Her soft pink complexion turned white, and she grasped the back of a chair for support. She made a strange sound, a gurgle or maybe it was a gasp, and then she crumpled to the floor, dragging the chair down with her.

Her brilliant blue eyes stared up at the ceiling, unseeing.

* * *

Alaina's eyes snapped open. It took a moment to orient herself. She was in the car with Rachel. It was dark outside. "Where are we?"

"Just crossed the Wisconsin border. You didn't sleep long." Rachel glanced at her in concern. "You okay?"

A fine sheen of perspiration coated her face, and Alaina wiped the back of her hand across her damp forehead. A bump in the road sent a jolt through her shoulder, and she winced. The drugs were wearing off already. Even so, her head was still woozy. But not so woozy that she couldn't curse herself for letting Rachel talk her into this insanity. If Rachel were to get hurt, or worse, Alaina would never forgive herself.

"Alex?"

"I'm fine."

Rachel suppressed a smile. "Of course you are. Like you would admit it if your hair was on fire."

Alaina didn't laugh. "You're checking to make sure we're not being followed?"

"So far, so good. If anyone does start to tail us, this puppy'll outrun them, no problem." She stroked the dash of the Thunderbird.

Before hitting the back roads heading north, Rachel had called on her on-again, off-again relationship for help. Tom Peters, who worked in accounting at the Trib and had been smitten with Rachel for years, met them in a Target parking lot and agreed to trade his late-model red Thunderbird for Rachel's RAV4. Alaina still couldn't believe he had been so agreeable, asking only a few questions that Rachel had deftly deflected, promising to return his car in a few days.

"You really shouldn't be doing this, Ray," Alaina said.

"Just shut up and let me help you. Can you do that?"

"Those men who shot up your house --"

"There was only one, and he got away." Rachel paused, as if letting that sink in. "Which is another reason you couldn't stay in the ER. You were a sitting duck."