Living with the Dead (12 page)

Finn lifted the pot and swirled the contents.

"Please tell me you aren't going to drink that," Damon said.

Finn sniffed the opening, judging the degree of burning by both the smell and the quantity of floating flakes. He filled his cup halfway.

"Oh, man. Please. There's got to be a coffee shop around."

"Block away. Two bucks a cup." He added creamer. Sniffed. Added more. "Got two hits for Peltier's friend."

Damon stopped eyeing the coffee cup and went very still.

"The one she was at Bane with Thursday night," Finn continued. "I called a buddy at the
Times
. He came up with two journalists matching the description." Finn picked up his pages and showed the top one to Damon. "One's a photojournalist with the
Times
. The other's a copyeditor at
La Opinión
."

Finn waited. It took almost a minute.

"Neither of those is the woman you're looking for," Damon said finally. "Her name is Hope Adams. She's a reporter with
True News
."

ROBYN

Like any couple, Damon and Robyn each had interests the other hadn't shared. Damon loved detective shows; Robyn couldn't see the attraction, but had watched them with him anyway. If someone had asked her whether she'd learned anything from them, she would have laughed and said she barely paid any attention, usually using the time to mentally plan her week's schedule. In the last couple of days, though, she discovered that even if she hadn't been actively watching, obviously she'd learned something.

Today's lesson? Stalking 101.

For three blocks she'd been following the man who'd stopped at her motel door and she'd come to a matching number of conclusions.

One, he wasn't red haired. What she'd seen through the distorted image in the peephole had been a dark red baseball cap.

Two, he wasn't from around here. The fact that he'd walked four blocks in car-obsessed L.A. suggested it. His constant stopping and looking around, as if getting his bearings, confirmed it.

Three, if he was a private investigator, he wasn't very good at his job. Despite all his looking around, he never once glanced backward to see whether anyone was following him. He just strolled along, confident and unhurried.

Robyn
did
look over her shoulder. Repeatedly. She could be following the guy who'd killed Judd and planned to do the same to her. Shut her up permanently.

She bit back a giggle. There was a classic bad movie line. As silly as it sounded, though, to dismiss the idea would be sillier still. She'd seen two people die and even if common sense told her this was more likely a private investigator than an assassin, she wasn't taking any chances.

So she wasn't doing anything as stupid as following this guy down an alley. But there weren't any alleys here. The motel was in some part of L.A.'s endless suburban sprawl. Which part, she didn't know, and blasted herself for not paying better attention yesterday when Karl had driven her in. Around here, though, it was difficult to be on the edge of anything for long and, as Karl had said, it had taken only a short walk before she found herself in a warren of strip malls, three-story walkups and offices. A neighborhood in serious need of a planner.

As a place to follow someone, though, it was perfect. She could dart from hiding place to hiding place, keeping her target in sight while never leaving populated areas. It got even easier when the young man bought himself a snack at an ice cream stand and settled in at one of the umbrella tables out front.

He didn't seem to be in any rush to report that he'd found her. She hadn't even seen him pull out a cell phone. Did that mean he wasn't working for anyone else? Or that he wasn't looking for her at all? Maybe he'd been meeting someone at the motel, arrived early and headed out to pass the time.

That was one problem with having watched all those mysteries: she saw too many possibilities. One thing was for certain. The guy looked like he'd be here awhile, having bought a massive banana split and soda. That meant, as much fun as she was having playing detective, it was time to notify Hope and Karl.

As she headed for a pay phone across the lot, she passed a convenience store advertising prepaid cells. Robyn fingered the emergency money Hope had brought from her apartment. Over two hundred. Should she pick up one of those for later? A cheap, untraceable phone?

Untraceable phone? For what? Her new career as a PI?

But as she continued on, watching her target through dark sunglasses, safely disguised in her oversized sweats and baseball cap, she couldn't deny her pulse was pounding, and that her quickening breath didn't come from walking faster.

Maybe it was exhilaration. Maybe it was plain old fear. But she felt something, and that was more than she'd done in months. She imagined what Damon would say.

See, Bobby, that's all you needed – to become a fugitive, a murder suspect and a possible assassination target.

A snorted laugh made an elderly woman warily glance her way.

Robyn reached the phone, put in her money, dialed the number and pulled the cord as far as it would reach, so she could keep an eye on her target without looking too suspicious.

Robyn Peltier, supersleuth. All she needed was the decoder ring.

Hope's phone rang twice before she answered with a tentative hello.

"It's Robyn."

A relieved laugh. "Thank God. I saw a pay phone number and thought the local cranks with alien abduction stories had tracked me down already. It usually takes them – " She stopped. "Why are you calling from a pay phone? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Well, nothing I can't handle." Oh yeah, one hour on the job and she was bragging already. "There was a guy hanging around our motel room – "

"What?" The alarm in Hope's voice rose. "Did he knock? Try to break in?"

"No, no, he just skulked around." Skulked? She was picking up a new vocabulary, too. "At first I thought it might be the kid you saw last night." Smooth. She thought it was a harmless kid, no need to mention Judd's killer... "So I wanted to see where he went."

"You followed him?"

"Carefully."

Ooh, you sound ticked off, Bobby. How dare she question your skulking competence.

She shushed Damon's voice and hurried on assuring Hope that she'd been very careful, staying in public, populated areas.

"Don't worry," she said. "I remember my stranger danger classes." There was a lightness in her voice she hadn't felt in a long time.

As if surprised by Robyn's tone, Hope gave a soft laugh. "Okay, then. Remember, though, just because he hasn't given any sign that he knows you're following him doesn't mean he doesn't."

"I doubt this guy is that good. He keeps looking around, but hasn't so much as glanced over his shoulder."

A pause. "Not once?"

"Never. I bet it hasn't even occurred to him that I could be following. A total amateur. But I promise if he decides to stroll into any abandoned warehouses, I won't follow."

Another small laugh, but this one tight. "This guy, can you describe him?"

"Well, let me tell you, he looks like one dangerous dude." Had she really said dude? "He's maybe five nine, early twenties, skinny, though he's not going to stay that way if he keeps scarfing down mega banana splits."

"What?"

"Banana split. That's what he's eating right now. A totally dangerous guy. He broke off pacing outside my door to go grab some ice cream."

A moment of silence. "Did you notice whether he drove to the motel?"

"I didn't see him until he got to the door. But I doubt it. He just walked four blocks for this ice cream. Maybe we have a PI who lost his driver's license."

Hope didn't answer. Karl said something in the background, too low for Robyn to hear.

"I know," Hope said, voice distant, as if she'd pulled the phone from her mouth. She came back to Robyn. "Stay there, okay?"

"That's what I planned. Like I said, no long walks into abandoned buildings."

"No, seriously. Stay right where you are. If he leaves, abandoned building or not, don't follow him. Don't go back to the motel. Stay put. Do you have an address?"

She gave Hope the name of the nearest store and the street number.

"We'll find it. Now, stay right there."

"In this phone booth?" Robyn tried to sound light, but could hear the edge in her voice.

"No, find..."

A murmur from Karl.

"Are you sure?" Hope's voice was muffled, as if covering the receiver. Karl said something else. Then Hope returned. "Karl says if you're comfortable watching him, keep doing that. Just don't – "

"Follow him anywhere. Got it."

"We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

ROBYN

Maybe it was the ice-water splash of Hope's concern, making Robyn feel foolish for her PI fantasies, but the stakeout quickly lost its appeal. She watched the young man eat and drink and eat and drink...

Every now and then he'd break the routine to lift his head, not looking around, just tilting his face up, as if checking the weather. Then, while he was scraping the bottom of the banana boat, he stopped, spoon raised. He scanned one way, then the other, chin lifted. It looked like he was... sniffing. As if he'd picked up a strange smell and was trying to locate the source.

Robyn took a deep breath and caught the faint whiff of garbage. If he was downwind of that, she didn't blame him for perking up. Probably glad he'd finished eating first.

The young man's lips curved, not in a moue of distaste, but what looked like a smile.

He started to rise, stopped midway and glanced in her direction. For a moment, she swore he was looking straight at her as she pretended to read a real estate flyer. Her heart thudded. Hope had been right. He
had
known –

His gaze swung away and he pushed up from the umbrella table. One last look in her direction, then he set out at a quick stride, heading around the ice cream stand.

He'd known she'd been following him. But how?

The answer was there, a few feet away, her dim reflection in a store window. At some point on the way there, he'd glanced at a window or shiny surface and seen her behind him.

See, Bobby, a true detective doesn't need to look over his shoulder.

That's what Hope had meant, that if he was a professional, he wouldn't be gawking back to check for a tail. At least Robyn could save some face now by not doing something truly stupid, like following to see what had caught his attention.

Ah, you're catching on.

It had been a clever move, pretending he'd seen or heard something, piquing her interest, then hurrying away from the populated area.

Since she was sure he'd made her, there was no reason to hide in the shadows. She folded the flyer under her arm, walked to the ice cream stand, ordered a small vanilla shake, then found a table near where he'd been sitting.

She imagined his surprise when he came back and found his target sitting right out in the open. Then what would he do?

Well, for starters, he could call the police and report seeing a wanted fugitive enjoying a milkshake.

The first sip blasted her stomach and she shivered. In the excitement of playing PI, she'd forgotten her own predicament.

Maybe that's where he was right now – making that call. She was scrambling up when she heard, "There you are."

Hope was weaving through the tables, curls escaping her ponytail, breathing hard, as if she'd run from wherever they'd parked. Robyn glanced past her.

"Where's Karl?"

"He took off after the guy. That was him, right? Red ball cap? Leather jacket?"

"Karl's going after him? I – I don't think it's the kid you guys saw yesterday. After he left, I started wondering if it could have been Judd's killer. That was a young man about his size. You should call Karl. Warn him."

"Karl's careful. He used to do security, remember?"

Robyn had a hard time picturing Karl in a rent-a-cop uniform. No, not a
hard
time – an impossible one. Either he'd done it a very long time ago, or Hope meant a different kind of security, like designing or managing systems. Neither was going to help him in a face-off with a killer.

Maybe Robyn wasn't the only one enjoying this too much, getting overconfident, taking risks...

"We'll wait here and let Karl handle it." Hope started moving toward the ice cream stand. "If he needs me, he'll call." She reversed direction, backtracking to the table and setting down her notebook, cell phone on it. "Can I get you anything else?"

Robyn said no. While Hope got in line Robyn glanced at the notepad. She'd love to see what was inside. Maybe if she nudged that phone off, the breeze would blow it open...

She shook her head. Like she could read Hope's notes anyway.

"So did you find anything?" she asked when Hope returned with a Coke.

"We're making progress."

"Do I get a hint?"

Hope laughed. "Sorry. I don't mean to keep it a secret. It's just that we're pursuing all these bits here and there, trying to make sense of it all, not knowing what's important. Right now we're still working on identifying the couple in the photo. We've got the man figured out. The girl is tougher."

"Who's the guy?"

"He's – " Hope's head jerked up. Her face went taut. Robyn looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Karl. He – You were right. I shouldn't have let him go after that guy." She was already getting to her feet. "Wait here. I'm going to – "

"Go after him?" Robyn rose. "Hope, you can't – "

"I'll be right back. I just need to make sure he's okay." She stepped away from the table, her gaze glued to some distant spot to the east.

"Um, Hope? Cell phone?"

"Oh, right." She snatched her phone and notepad from the table and started jogging away.

"I didn't mean – "

Hope was already out of earshot.

"I meant, why not
use
your cell phone," Robyn muttered. "To
call
him."

She shook her head. Anyone else and she'd have wondered what the hell had just happened, but Hope... Hope was different. She hesitated to say that Hope lived in her own world, because that would make her problems sound worse than they were.

She hesitated even saying problems. Robyn thought of Hope's... issues more as eccentricities, like people who talked to themselves. The only lingering aftereffect of that teen breakdown was that every now and then, Robyn had the feeling Hope wasn't really there, that she'd slipped off someplace else. Her gaze would empty and she wouldn't hear what anyone said. Or, like now, she'd leap from "Oh, Karl can take care of himself" to "Oh, my God, I have to help him!"

But Robyn wasn't going to sit back and let her friend tear after a potential killer.

As she stood, she noticed a piece of paper on the ground. She picked it up. A printout of the photo Portia had taken. She pocketed it and took off.

Robyn was not an athlete. Had she dared take a fitness test, she suspected she'd score below average for her age, which was as good a reason as any never to subject herself to one.

When the wives of Damon's friends had urged her to join their softball team, she'd demurred until she felt like a snob and a poor sport. So she'd gone out for three games... and they'd discovered what a poor sport she really was, and quickly found a replacement.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd be good," they'd said before seeing her play. "Look how skinny you are."

She was not skinny, as she'd pointed out to Damon that night. She was average size.
He'd
pointed out that, in comparison to some of the other women on the team, she was indeed skinny, but that was beside the point. Just because she wasn't overweight didn't mean she was in good shape, a truth brought home once again as she huffed and puffed running after Hope.

By the time Robyn had made it around the ice cream stand, Hope was disappearing behind a strip mall. Then she'd zipped into an adjoining three-story walk-up lot, then behind that building...

Robyn slowed to catch her breath as she watched Hope's ponytail bob in the distance.

How the hell did Hope know where she was going? She hadn't stopped once to look around.

Robyn groaned and kicked it into high gear before she lost her friend completely. She made it around the next building as Hope was cutting through yet another parking lot.

Between the two parcels of land was a chain-link fence. Robyn ran toward it, expecting to see an opening when she drew closer. There wasn't one. The only way around was where the fence ended over a hundred feet away. Hope couldn't possibly have run that far so quickly.

The only option was... Robyn looked up at the six-foot fence.

No way.

Exactly how much of this sort of thing did a tabloid reporter do? Obviously Hope led a lot more adventurous life than Robyn had imagined. She felt a pang of something like envy.

As she jogged to the fence, she thought of how much Damon would have enjoyed this. But surprisingly, how Damon would have reacted hadn't been the first thing that popped into her head but, rather, that jab of envy, the fleeting thought that
she
wouldn't mind leading a more adventurous life.

Was that progress?

She paused at the foot of the fence, looking down to the distant end, then up. Hope was long gone. Time for Robyn to take a chance. Do something unexpected.

She grabbed the fence and started to climb.

Soon she was praying that the office behind her was empty and no one was watching her. At one point she was sure going around – even walking – would have been faster, but it was too late, and when she finally did touch down, the surge of adrenaline gave her a much-needed energy boost and she raced off in the direction she'd last seen Hope.

That surge didn't take her far. It couldn't. She ran around the next building and saw an empty parking lot. Beside it was an industrial complex, an interconnected maze of offices, quiet and vacant.

As she walked to the curb, a security car rolled past. The driver looked at her, but only nodded. Apparently, even in sweats, a ball cap and shades, she still didn't fit anyone's image of a thief, much less a fugitive.

Robyn headed into the complex, walking purposefully, a solitary worker putting in weekend hours. The lanes ahead snaked around the buildings and she followed them, looking and listening as she walked. Finally she heard the murmur of a man's voice. She darted to the nearest cover – a shadowy overhang. With her back to the wall, she crept along it until she reached the end and peered around.

Hope and Karl stood twenty feet away on a strip of grass between two buildings. The other man was nowhere to be seen. Hope had her back to Robyn, Karl gripping her upper arms, leaning over her. His voice was a soothing murmur, as if trying to calm her.

Even from where Robyn stood, she could tell Hope was shaking. Karl's grasp seemed to be the only thing keeping her from collapsing. After a moment, he straightened, eyes narrowing as he looked around. His lips parted, then a flash of annoyance as he swiped at his lip. Droplets of red splattered on white siding. Her gaze slid along the wall, seeing more crimson spots. Blood.

Karl shifted position into the light more. Blood oozed from his lip, more smeared across his face. His white shirt was dappled red.

Robyn looked from Hope, shaking with fear, to Karl, covered in blood.

Oh God, what had she done? She should never have let them get involved. It didn't matter that they hadn't asked permission. She let them get involved.

She squared her shoulders, ready to march over there and say "no more." She was going to the police. They couldn't stop her.

She lifted one foot, replayed her speech and realized how it would sound – as if she
wanted
them to stop her. And when they did, she could tell herself she'd tried – if not very hard – to do the right thing.

Doing the right thing meant
doing
it, not talking about it.

Robyn backed away from the corner.