Hot Secret (22 page)

She hurried her own steps, but the person was clearly gaining on her. She could practically hear whoever it was hitting three steps to every one of her own. The sound reverberated off the walls. She had only one more floor to go when a hand closed over her shoulder, scant inches from her neck where her pulse skittered wildly. A scream began deep inside but choked in her throat.

“Just listen to me, Molly,” Laura said in a low voice. “If you do exactly as I say, you’ll be just fine. My car is half a block down, right at the end of the alley. We’re going to get in it. Understand?”

Since Molly figured Laura’s gun was probably aimed about level with her heart, she had no delusions about disagreeing with the producer’s plan.
The only thing she could do was stall for time, then pray that the side street was still so crowded with passersby that Laura would be able to do nothing if she made a break for it.

“Why, Laura? Why did you kill Greg?”

“I didn’t,” she said so convincingly that Molly stopped in her tracks.

She whirled around to stare at the producer. “You didn’t?” she repeated, unable to keep the astonishment and disbelief out of her voice.

“No, you little fool. But I know who did. I’m trying to save your neck. Now will you hurry up and move before we both get our heads blown off.”

This was probably no time for indulging in idle curiosity, but Molly couldn’t help herself. “If you didn’t do it, who did?”

“Three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

Suddenly Molly realized that only one person could have sent Laura plunging down this staircase after her. “Hank?” she breathed softly. “When did you know?”

Just then a door somewhere above them opened. “Laura?” Hank called. The plaintive tone of his voice sent a chill down Molly’s spine.

Laura motioned toward the door and this time Molly didn’t hesitate before racing down the remaining steps. She hit the bar across the door at full force, but it didn’t budge.

“What’s wrong?” Laura demanded, her gaze directed up the stairwell.

“It’s jammed or locked.”

“It can’t be locked. It’s a fire exit. Hit it harder.”

Molly threw her full weight against the door just as Hank rounded the final turn in the stairwell. The door burst open just as he aimed his gun at the pair of them.

“I think we’ll all leave together,” he said softly, gesturing for them to precede him.

Molly was certain her legs would never move again. She froze where she was at the sight of the gun aimed directly at her.

“Move it,” Hank said, nudging her with the gun. The cold press of metal sent acid pitching in her stomach.

“Why, Hank?” she said quietly. “Why did you kill him?”

He didn’t answer. The only indication she had that he’d even heard her was the increased pressure of that gun against her ribs. He urged them relentlessly down that dark alley. There were no windows looking out on the alley at ground level, so it was unlikely anyone would see them from inside the hotel. Nor were there any cans or bottles she or Laura could kick, creating enough noise to draw attention. Their only chance would come when they reached the street. She tried to concentrate all of her attention on planning for that.

Perspiration beaded on her forehead and the nape of her neck. It ran in icy rivulets down her spine. Hank’s silence was the worst of it, worse even than the terrifying press of the gun. If he would just talk to her, she could better sense his mood, better guess the exact moment she ought to run for it. She glanced at Laura and saw that she looked more resigned and weary than terrified.

When had her instincts deserted her? Until tonight she would have bet her life that Hank Murdock was incapable of murder. Now there was every indication that he had killed not only once, but intended to again. What could have driven this quiet, dedicated man to murder?

If he was involved with ‘Laura, would he have been so incensed by Greg’s moves on her that he finally shot him in a jealous rage? But why wait until almost the end of the picture? Could the timing have been a last desperate attempt to gain recognition as a director by completing the film in Greg’s stead? The motives raced through her mind like film on fast forward, leaving impressions but no conclusions. Obviously Laura possessed some incriminating piece of information that she hadn’t shared with anyone else. Did it have to do with those messages?

“Did you hate Greg?” she asked. “I thought the two of you were best of friends.”

“We were,” he said softly, an unexpected catch in his voice.

Molly seized on that faint hint of emotion. “Then he must have done something to make you very angry that night. What did he do?”

They were almost to the street. She could hear the laughter of a passing couple, the grinding start of a motorcycle. But there was still no response from Hank. The barrel of the gun seemed to tremble against her back. Because he was losing his nerve? Because something she’d said had reminded him that the man who’d died was, in fact, his best friend?

“Did I ever tell you how often Greg spoke of
you when we were making plans for this production?” she said. “He respected your work. Maybe even more than you did, he said. He was anxious to see that you got the break you deserved.”

“Bullshit,” he said succinctly. “He was going to force me out.”

“Force you out,” Molly repeated slowly. “Could he do that?”

“Yes,” Laura said with a sigh. “He had the power to do it. You might as well tell her everything, Hank.”

“A few years ago I had some heavy gambling debts,” he said, reminding Molly of his claim that he hadn’t been in the poker game that night because he no longer gambled.

“Greg loaned me the money to pay them off with my share of the company as collateral.”

“But why would he force you out now?”

It was Laura who answered. “The studio had been on him for weeks about cutting overhead. With the picture close to done, they wanted Hank off the payroll. They waved a deal for additional films under his nose if he could streamline the company. That reporter had gotten wind of the studio’s offer. He called Greg.”

“And me,” Hank added. “The son of a bitch called me. That’s how I heard about it. Not from Greg. From some stupid reporter.”

“You confronted him and he confirmed it,” Molly said.

She dared to turn her head to catch a glimpse of him. His face was an expressionless mask, but his eyes were filled with some dark agony. As if he’d
guessed what she could read in his eyes, he looked away. At the same time, they reached the street.

Molly used the tiny fraction of a second while Hank’s attention was diverted to wrench free from his grasp and run. She lurched, nearly stumbled, then raced toward Ocean Drive, where she knew there would be more people and safety.

At the corner she ran headlong into Michael. His arms came around her, steel bands of comfort and courage. His gaze locked on hers. “You’re okay?”

“Yes,” she said shakily. “Go or Hank will get away. Laura’s car is at the end of the alley. She’s still with him.”

Instead, he pulled her tight against him, so she could feel the thundering beat of his heart. “So help me God, if you ever, ever do anything that stupid again, I will break every single bone in your body myself,” he swore fervently, adding an empassioned speech in Spanish that she suspected was better left untranslated.

“I’m okay. I swear it. Please, go after Hank.”

“He’s not going anywhere. He’s waiting with Laura right by his car.”

Molly’s head snapped up. She glanced down the block and saw Hank leaning against the front fender, his shoulders slumped. Laura was holding the gun as if it were something distasteful.

“He’s giving up?” she said incredulously.

Michael nodded. “Looks that way,” he said as two other officers went down the block to take Hank into custody. As they passed by on their way back to
the police cruisers on Ocean Drive, Molly stopped Laura. “Thank you for coming after me.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Laura said bluntly. “I couldn’t let Hank get in any more trouble than he’s already in. It was partly my fault in the first place. If only I’d told him what I suspected, he might have been prepared. I might have been able to make him see that it was purely a business decision, that it had nothing to do with his worth as a director. Instead, when that reporter hit him with it, he felt betrayed, by Greg, by me. Add to that the rumors he had to contend with all the time about Greg and me …” She shrugged. “It’s no wonder he snapped.”

“But the gun,” Molly said. “Where did he get the gun?”

“I had it. Since I had to deal with large amounts of money occasionally, I got it for protection. He knew where I kept it.”

“But you didn’t know he’d taken it?”

“No. Not until tonight when everything started to add up.” She glanced at Michael. “You knew, didn’t you?”

At Michael’s nod, Molly regarded them both with surprise. “When?” she said to Michael.

“Otis Jenkins had a talk with the studio. They told him about cutting Hank loose. He also found out that Laura had a permit for the gun. I tried to call you in the suite twice to warn you to be careful if he was around.”

“I only heard the phone ring once,” Molly said.

“Hank took the second call,” Laura said. “I heard enough to guess what was happening. That’s when I came after you.”

“Thank you again.”

“Can I go to the police station with Hank?” Laura asked Michael.

“No, but I’ll give you a lift over there. I have to get over to headquarters and wrap this up. Just give me a couple of minutes with Molly.”

Laura nodded and walked away.

“Can you get home okay?” he said, his fingers splayed against her cheek.

“Sure,” she said. She’d finally stopped shaking at least five minutes back. “There’s one more thing I don’t understand.”

“What’s that?”

“On the night Jeffrey pushed Veronica, was there really a shot?”

“Yes. Hank thought she’d seen him coming out of Greg’s trailer that night.”

“But when the first shot missed, he never tried to kill her again.”

“Probably because he knew by then that Veronica hadn’t seen him.”

“I wonder how she’s doing?”

“Why don’t you go up and see her? She’d probably be glad to have a friend around, now that her son’s killer has been caught.”

Molly touched his cheek. “That’s what I love about you. For a tough cop, you’re a real softie.”

He grinned. “Don’t let it get around. It’ll ruin me on the streets.”

She had started into the hotel, when he said, “Molly.”

She turned back.

“I’ll give you a call about Sunday.”

When Molly regarded him blankly, he said, “The dinner at Tio Pedro’s. You aren’t going to chicken out on me, are you?”

“Not a chance,” she said bravely. After tonight meeting Michael’s family would have to be a piece of cake.

Be sure to catch Sherryl Woods’s
next exciting mystery,
HOT MONEY

CHAPTER
ONE

As Molly DeWitt listened to two elegantly clad women scheme to take a Miami philanthropist to the monetary cleaners, she tried to recall exactly how her neighbor and best friend, Liza Hastings, had managed to talk her into showing up for this black tie charity affair. The last thing she remembered clearly was saying an emphatic no.

That had been a month ago. The next day the fancy, embossed invitation had appeared in her mailbox. A week after that, Liza had begun dropping pointed hints about her failure to reply, especially when the cause was so worthwhile—saving the spotted owls in Washington among other endangered creatures.

“I replied. I said
no,”
Molly recalled saying quite clearly.

The ensuing discussion about the responsibilities of friendship had lasted no more than one or
two weighty moments. Then Liza had left her to wage a battle with her conscience.

It wasn’t that Molly had no conscience. It was simply that she’d grown up attending lavish affairs like this and had sworn on the date of her debut that she never would again. It had always seemed to her that if the women in the room had donated an amount equivalent to the cost of their gowns, there would have been no need for a fund-raiser at all. She could recall mentioning that to Liza on a number of occasions. Liza, unfortunately, had very selective hearing and a skill at arm-twisting unrivaled on the professional wrestling circuit.

The clincher, of course, had been Liza’s persuasive appeal to Michael O’Hara. For a hard-nosed, macho homicide detective, the man had the resistance of mush when it came to saying no to a woman as committed to a cause as Liza was.

“What are we doing here?” he asked now as he nabbed another glass of champagne from a passing waiter.

Molly thought he sounded rather plaintive. She scowled at him. “We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t succumbed to Liza’s pressure. You had your checkbook out and those tickets in your hands before she even finished saying
please.”

“You could have stopped me.”

“How was I to know you intended to drag me along with you? For all I knew you planned to ask that charming go-go dancer who was all over you at Tio Pedro’s a few weeks ago.”

He grinned. “Go-go dancer? Your claws are
showing, Molly. Marielena is in the chorus of a Tony-Award-winning musical on Broadway.”

“Whatever.”

“Besides, I was hardly likely to ask her when this is your friend’s event. I’m almost certain Liza indicated this was a package deal—you and the tickets, all for a paltry five hundred dollar contribution.” He groaned. “Do you know how many tickets to Miami Heat games I could buy with that?”

“Don’t tell me. Tell Liza. I’m wearing a dress that cost nearly double that.”

“I thought a former debutante would have an entire collection of ball gowns.”

“I do. In size four. I’m an eight now and if you make one single snide remark about how I could have starved myself back into those fours, I will personally dump the next tray of champagne I see over your head.”

He regarded her curiously. “Are you always this charming at galas?”