How to Host a Killer Party (10 page)

Good question.

And why was someone trying to make me look guilty of two murders?—because that’s sure how it seemed. Someone who had overheard me joking about killing Ikea? Someone who knew my address was in Andi’s BlackBerry? Someone who just didn’t like me—a former student, aka undiagnosed sociopath?

I needed a new category: WTF?

As I merged into the far left lane of the bridge, slaloming through darting cars, someone honked.

I swerved.

Having ADHD, I was usually good at multitasking, but apparently writing notes under the influence of driving a motor vehicle while listening to Amy Winehouse on my iPhone was beyond me. Even my bright red MINI Cooper didn’t seem to help my visibility in the light mist.

I honked back, cursed the driver via my rearview mirror, then switched off the iTunes. Perhaps if I tried to limit my attention to two tasks—driving and deducing what the hell was going on—I’d make it off this bridge.

Alive.

Unlike Andi.

Another question occurred to me and I jotted it down. Why was Andi on her way to Treasure—

Another honk!

I checked my mirror. A white SUV—the same one that had honked at me a few minutes ago?—was riding my tail.

Go around, you idiot
!

What was his problem? I wasn’t about to change lanes with my tricky off-ramp coming up. Someone needed to give him a ticket for stupidity. Where was a cop when you needed one?

That thought reminded me of my interrogation with Detective Melvin, who was no doubt filling out a warrant for my arrest at this very—

Another honk!

What the
hell
?

I strained to see the driver’s face in the mirror but the windshield was too high for my short car. I tapped the brakes a couple of times to signal for him to back off, but he clung to my bumper.

“Go around me, you stupid jerk!” I shouted at the mirror. It didn’t take a
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(Fourth Edition) to spot road rage in the lunatic behind me. I slowed down to force him to go around but he stuck to me like frosting on a cake.

I glared at him in my rearview mirror, hoping that in spite of the angle, he might see the signs of “posttraumatic police interrogation disorder” in my face and realize I shouldn’t be antagonized.

Switching my focus to the road ahead, I suddenly slammed on my brakes—this time to keep from hitting a Hummer that had cut me off.

I swerved, knocking the plastic sword off the seat. The tip hit one of the balloons and popped it, causing me to jump and nearly hit an orange traffic cone. When I tried to step on the brake again, I found the sword had slid underneath the brake pedal.

Shit! I leaned down and tried to dislodge the sword, while trying to keep an eye on the road and a hand on the wheel. Finally I pulled it loose, dislodging my shoe in the process.

My exit jumped out of the mist. Jerking the wheel, I oversteered as I took the Yerba Buena/Treasure Island off-ramp and skidded with a screech onto the narrow lane.

I stole a glance in my mirror, hoping I wouldn’t be hit from behind.

The white SUV was right behind me!

Seconds later it shot past me on the narrow, one-lane road. It disappeared around a sharp curve.

Still skidding, I slammed on the brakes in an attempt to gain control of my car, but the wheels slid into the hairpin turn, tires squealing like angry seals. The MINI Cooper continued its course, slipping onto the shoulder of the precarious road, out of control.

I was headed right toward a sheer cliff that would plummet me straight down and into the bay.

The MINI choked, spasmed, and died at the edge of the cliff overlooking jagged rocks and swirling water. Adrenaline racing, I jerked the parking brake and rested my head on the steering wheel.

Asshole. Idiot. Lunatic. Shithead!

Not very professional terms for an ab-psych instructor to call an obvious sociopath, but sometimes layman’s terms were more satisfying.

Releasing my death grip on the wheel, I took stock. My heart raced under my T-shirt. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of a shaking hand. I was lucky I hadn’t peed my pants. They were my only clean pair.

I sat back, took in a lungful of salty air, and peered at the water a hundred feet below the jagged escarpment. Normally the postcard panorama—the whitecapped bay, colorful sailboats, San Francisco skyline, landmark Golden Gate Bridge—calmed me, but at the moment, the view did nothing for my jangled nerves.

I glanced over at Alcatraz Island in the distance. Last night it had been lit up like a birthday cake. Today, standing alone, stark and severe, it looked like dried-up, crumbling leftovers.

A fish out of water.

Sort of how I was beginning to feel.

How had I ended up here . . . with a deadly cliff in front of me, a determined cop at my back, and a deranged driver on my ass?

One thing was clear. That white SUV had nearly run me off the cliff.

Deliberately? Or was the driver just crazy?

As I turned the ignition, my cell phone blasted an electronic version of “Beauty and the Beast”—Delicia’s personalized ring. I punched the phone icon.

“Presley? Pres? You there?” Her high-pitched voice sounded frantic.

“Delicia?”

“Where are you?” she hissed, her voice changing to a whisper.

“I’m . . . I’m on my way back to the office. What’s up?” I found myself whispering back.

“There’s someone . . . here . . . in the building . . . hurry. . . .”

Delicia had a penchant for drama. That’s probably why she was such a good actress, albeit mostly unemployed. The trouble was, she tended to create problems when there weren’t any. I took her theatrics with a cup of salt.

“I’m on my way, Dee. Did you call Raj?”

The image of the white SUV barreling down the road toward the island flashed through my mind. What if the driver actually
had been
after me? Would he—or she—be waiting at my office on the off chance I survived the trip?

“Delicia?”

Static.

“Delicia? Are you there?”

I thought I heard whispering but it could have been interference.

Checking my rearview mirror for other speeding white vans, I shoved the gearshift into reverse and backed up slowly until I reached the road. Turning the car around, I stepped on the gas and continued down the hill toward the main gate, once manned by the navy. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I redialed Delicia.

The call went to her perky voice mail.

Something was up.

 

MINI Coopers, although too small to hold all my junk, are built for curves. I put mine to the test by pressing a Mary Jane to the metal. The car hugged the turns like a racer as I sped down the winding road that led to the flatland. In a matter of moments, I’d arrived on the flat, man-made island.

Thanks to Delicia’s call, my near-death experience was almost forgotten. I usually enjoy cruising the ghostly remnants of the island’s lost eras. In spite of the contaminated waste, a high crime rate, and spirits of the past, TI retains a mystique, popular with tourists, windsurfers, picnickers, brides, and GPS treasure hunters searching for hidden caches—not bodies.

Cursing cell phones, I jammed mine in my bag and tried to focus on reaching the barracks office in record time. I whizzed past the dangling NO ENTRY sign and onetime armed guardhouse turned Snack Shack, the Art Deco administration building and the World’s Fair Exposition Hall that now housed various government agencies, and finally the Pan Am Clipper hangar where CeeGee Studio filmed special effects for such movies as
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
. I felt a little like Indy, but a tingling at the back of my neck reminded me this wasn’t fiction. In spite of her histrionic history, this time Delicia had sounded seriously scared.

I flashed on the recent break-ins we’d been experiencing on the island. The place had become host to a variety of taggers, vandals, and burglars. Some of the “perps,” as Raj called them, were transients currently housed in a section of military barracks at the north end. While the island is regularly patrolled by our two-officer police squad and security guards like Raj, there are still ongoing problems with bored teenagers and the unemployed.

Most of the rental barracks had been broken into, but as far as I knew, Barracks 2, my co-op office building, hadn’t been hit yet. The five of us renters were extra cautious about locking up at night, and I’d felt safe there, until recently.

Was someone actually trying to break in—in broad daylight?

And was Delicia alone?

Another chill grabbed the back of my neck.

I jerked the wheel right and sped into the barracks’ gravel lot. The bark of the harbor seals basking on the rocks nearby welcomed me—warned me?—as I shut off the engine.

Next to my MINI sat a white SUV.

I glanced at the barracks building. The front door of the blue-trimmed, white clapboard building stood ajar.

We never left the door unlocked, let alone open.

I hopped out of my car, tiptoed up the rickety steps, and peered inside. The reception area stood empty, the lone desk deserted. Delicia was nowhere in sight.

“Delicia?” I called quietly. I wanted to let her know I was here, without alerting the—what? Robber? Killer? Crazy driver?

The hairs on my neck stood on end. Maybe it was going to be a new—and permanent—look for me.

I thought for a moment. If she really was in trouble, I couldn’t go in unarmed. I hated when those fictional heroines went down into the dark basement to check out a noise. Without a flashlight. In their skimpy underwear.

I dashed back to my car to get my cell to call Raj, but when I’d thrown the phone down, it had slipped between the seats. It would take too long to retrieve it. Instead I did a quick search for some sort of weapon—a tire iron (didn’t have one), my mini-laptop (too expensive), the cigarette lighter (broken). . . .

Glancing at the floor, I grabbed the medieval sword and two inflated balloons, and rushed back to the open barracks door.

Holding my plastic sword in one hand like a crazed pirate and the two balloons in the other like Mary Poppins, I slipped inside the reception room, straining to hear Delicia’s high, nasal voice. The only light came from the small windows flanking the building.

The smell hit me like a slap on the face.

I scrunched my nose. What reeked? Decaying fish? Decomposing fungus? Dead feet?

Or someone?

I fanned the smell away with my sword and tiptoed past the phony receptionist’s desk. No one in the co-op could afford a real receptionist, so we took turns manning the spot when we needed to look professional. But the scarred beige walls probably didn’t help our image.

I moved through the open reception doors that led to a hallway. Offices lined both sides. Each door featured a glass window, allowing anyone to peek inside. There were windows inside each office as well, offering an instant view of everyone inside, from the waist up. Great if you happened to be nosy or bored, but distracting if you had ADHD. Each room was furnished with a mishmash of garage-sale desks and purloined chairs, and decorated with personalized posters, cartoons, and boredom-busting office toys.

Moving slowly, I tiptoed onto the distressed hardwood floor of the hallway, looking for movement, listening for sound, all the while trying not to inhale the rancid smell that seemed to be coming from the kitchen at the back of the building.

The place looked deserted.

“Delicia?” I whispered.

Cautiously, I started toward the first set of offices—mine on the right and the unoccupied office across from mine on the left. I peered into the windows. Empty.

I moved on to the next set—Delicia’s adjacent to mine, and Berkeley’s on the opposite side. No sign of her.

And then I spotted her grande soy chai sitting on her desk among the clutter of film scripts, acting manuals, and glam photos of herself. Her computer screensaver, a picture of Edward the Vampire, looked at me lustfully.

I stepped inside and reached for her desk phone to call security, then froze.

A muffled voice.

As in gagged.

Coming from behind the closed door to the kitchen.