Stalking Death (31 page)

"Watch out!" I shoved Shondra backward, pushing her between my car and the next, her eyes widening in surprise and indignation as she found herself falling. I was in mid-jump myself when the gray car caught my foot, propelling me onto my trunk and slamming me hard against the rear window. The glass disintegrated under my head.

There was a loud thud and the crunch of metal on metal. The car beneath me shuddered as the gray car reversed in a clash of metal and falling glass and raced off.

I lay there amidst the chunks of glass on the window ledge, waiting for my head to clear, unhappily aware that I hurt in a lot of places. Dizzily, I lifted my head and squinted at the gathering crowd. "Could someone call 911?"

They all stared without speaking, which unnerved me. I was afraid when I moved I'd discover a missing limb, or that I'd somehow become disrobed. Cautiously, I checked my arms and legs. Aside from a rucked up skirt, revealing sprawled limbs decently covered by black tights, I was intact and dressed. It was simply crowd mentality, the bovine group thing that makes people stupid.

It was Shondra who took charge. She barked at the crowd to back up, give us space, and call the cops, then leaned in to tug down my skirt. I was grateful. I could have called, but my swimming head wanted to rest there quietly among the shattered glass a little longer.

Swimming head or no swimming head, I wanted those bastards caught, so I sifted through those last moments, piecing together what I knew about the gray car and who had been in it. At least two men. Young. The driver blond and the other dark. Despite the gray day, the driver had worn sunglasses. His companion had worn a baseball cap. They had both been above medium height, given the proximity of their heads to the ceiling. They had both been smiling. The car had been a Honda.

Bastards.

It's a game Andre and I play. Walking down the street. Driving. Sitting in restaurants. Take a quick look, look away, and describe what you've seen—clothes, hair, gait, age, distinctive characteristics. At first I was awful at it. I got things so wrong. I wasn't so much observing as inventing. But under his tutelage, I've gotten pretty good.

"Mrs. Kozak. Mrs. Kozak?" Shondra sounded scared.

Time to stop wallowing in self-pity and act grown-up. Wasn't that the job I'd signed up for? I opened my eyes again. Oh, man, did I hurt. I never wanted to move again, even though the prospect of lying here forever wasn't pleasant. I pictured them towing the car away with me still sprawled on the back like a fresh-killed deer.

"Are you okay?" I felt her breath on my cheek as she leaned over me.

"Nothing a week at a spa won't cure."

Carefully, I raised my head. The clatter of dropping glass sounded like my skull was coming apart. I knew glass would be caught in my hair. I probably looked like a rhinestone Medusa. Auto glass is designed to shatter in chunks rather than spears, but it's still glass. I felt the sting of small cuts on my cheek and neck. Touched them and my hand came away bloody. Another good reason for wearing dark clothes. To my list of designer clothes for the adventurous businesswoman I add the hard hat cloche.

"You're bleeding," she said accusingly.

"Are you all right?"

"Thanks to you."

Now that it was clear I wasn't dead, people were hurling questions at me like reporters at a press conference. "You want to shut them up, please?" Shondra barked again and they quieted down. Sometimes there are real advantages to being 6' 3" and trained to be aggressive.

But she was a scared kid and someone had just tried to kill her, or at least scare her in a way that said they didn't care if she was hurt in the process. I've met my share of people indifferent to their fellow humans, but they still astonish me. My little sister, Carrie, used to plant her hands on her hips and swish her tiny butt and declare, "You aren't the boss of me." That image appears when I encounter people who are so sure they're the boss and have the right to make life and death decisions about others. Like Carrie, I get mad.

In a way, I was here today because of Carrie, my little sister who was murdered. That was what set me on this path. Not the path of being a consultant, the path of being willing to go into hard situations and look for the truth. Of being someone who doesn't back down when the going gets tough, who feels the need to protect the vulnerable.

If I'd backed down, Carrie's killer would have gotten away with murder. I wasn't letting that happen. Not to Carrie, not to Andre. Not even to people I didn't like that much, like my client Martina Pullman, strangled with a stocking and left grotesquely dead. Whether she liked it or not, I wasn't sitting around like everyone else playing 'see no evil' while something bad happened to Shondra Jones.

Chapter 24

The first person to arrive was Frank Woodson, which surprised me. It ought to have been Bobby. As Woodson stopped with a jerk and hurried up to us, I heard the distant sound of sirens, and my phone rang. All the bells and whistles to go with the ringing in my head. I raised the receiver cautiously to my face, not wanting to hurt any tender places. "Hello?"

"Thea, I'm sorry." It was Bobby. "I couldn't get away before. I'm just heading down to the car now."

"It's all right," I said. "Frank Woodson's here. We can hitch a ride back with him. I can't leave yet anyway. It's not just a flat tire anymore. Someone just deliberately slammed into my car."

"I told you we should leave," he said. "Are you okay? You sound a little shaky?"

"I am shaky, Bobby. I got knocked through the rear window and my car is a wreck."

"Do you want me to call your husband?" Bobby knows my habit of pretending I'm fine when I'm one of the walking wounded.

"Don't you dare, Bobby. It's just a few scratches. I don't want him worried."

"Maybe someone should worry about you. You don't take care of yourself."

"Bobby, you know I love you dearly, but I do not need another mother."

"Friend," he said. "Everyone needs friends."

How could I argue with that? I gave up. My head was woozy, Woodson was staring, and the cops had arrived. "You're right. Look, I've got to deal with the cops. I'll call you when I'm done, okay? And don't worry. It really is just cuts and bruises." He didn't need to know that I wanted to walk away from this chaos, fold up in a little ball, and weep. Neither did Shondra. I was supposed to be in charge. "You know Suzanne's coming?"

"I know." Somehow, he got understanding and sympathy into those two words.

Two local cops were striding toward me. Woodson was beside me, about to say something. Shondra had backed away, watching all of us nervously. An old man in a flannel shirt and baggy jeans held up with suspenders hovered nearby, waiting for a chance to speak. Then everyone began talking.

As if there weren't enough people at the party, a state police cruiser flew into the parking lot and jolted to a stop beside us. Lt. Bushnell leaned out, looking so disagreeable you'd have thought I'd staged all this just to avoid him. "Ms. Kozak," he began.

My knees buckled. I grabbed Woodson's arm and closed my eyes, leaning heavily against him. "I have to sit down."

He was steering me toward his car when one of the local cops interrupted. "Excuse me, ma'am. Is it your car that was just run into?"

"Yes."

"Then we need to speak with you."

"She's dizzy," Woodson said. "She needs to sit down."

"Ma'am? Should we call an ambulance?"

I thought they ought to call out the militia, declare martial law, and take over the St. Matthews campus. I thought Shondra and I should retreat to Rapunzel's tower and refuse to let down our hair. I shared neither of these thoughts with him.

"No ambulance, please, Officer. I'm just a little shaken. The car that hit mine... deliberately hit mine... caught my foot and knocked me through the rear window." If they'd only leave me alone, I could get my thoughts together.

"If it will help, I saw it." It was a gruff country voice. The old man with suspenders. "And I've got the license number of that car right here."

Such an unlikely hero. If I hadn't been so dizzy I might have hugged him. "Did you see the accident?" the local cop asked.

"Worn't no accident," the old man said.

The cop looked at his partner. "You want to take him, I'll take the vic?"

That was me. I had a hard time being a victim. Right now, I was having a hard time standing up. "You can pick your spot, Officer," I said, "but it has to be somewhere I can sit."

"You and Shondra come with me," Woodson said. "When we're done, I can drive you back to school." He took a firmer grip on my arm.

"My car's right here," the cop said.

"We'll put her in my car," Bushnell said firmly. He gestured toward Shondra, who was staring daggers at him. I figured that meant he'd visited her in the hospital and been his usual charming self. "Better get Ms. Jones, too, before she takes off again. She's a hard young woman to pin down." He took a firm grip on my other arm.

It was all I could do to keep from waving a vague hand in the air and saying in mock-southern, "All of you boys arguin' over little ole me." It would have puzzled the local cop and really pissed off Bushnell, which would have been my purpose. But all this wrangling made my head spin.

We ended up one big, happy family, squeezed into Bushnell's Crown Vic, Woodson and I and the local officer in back, Bushnell and Shondra in the front. Woodson looked unhappy, but whether it was dislike of the state cop, losing the battle for control of Shondra and me, or something else, I couldn't tell.

Shondra, bless her heart, had brought my briefcase and my purse. I searched my purse without success for a tissue before remembering I'd given them to Shondra in the car. It was Woodson who finally realized what I was doing and handed me a handkerchief. I dabbed cautiously at the stinging spots on my cheek. The local cop, sandy haired, sandy mustached and beefy, sat poised on the edge of the seat, one thick thigh in the car, the other out the door. He identified himself as Lehane, dug out a notebook and began to collect my story.

It was simple and straightforward, if having someone drive a car straight at you can ever be called simple. Simple act, I supposed, powerful reaction. Before I'd finished, Shondra, who'd been a rock while it was happening, was in tears again, and I was experiencing the limp aftermath of an adrenaline rush. He wrote it all down, asked some questions, reminded me to call my insurance company, and climbed out of the car. "I'll just get some pictures."

His partner, who'd been talking with the older man and some other people who said they'd witnessed the incident, strolled up and divulged, in a confidential tone I heard clearly, that the car involved in the incident belonged to a local kid who'd taken off on Friday. That didn't square with what I suspected, which was that Alasdair's numbskulls were somehow involved, but maybe the kid was a day student at St. Matts or his car had been borrowed or stolen.

When Lehane finished, I was ready to crawl off to The Swan and climb into a nice hot bath. There were a few problems. I wasn't finished with Shondra. I wanted to see those nanny cam pictures and get her settled. I felt maternal enough to want to see that her room had a bed and furniture, and I wanted to hand her over to someone who would pay attention, like Coach Adams. My more immediate problem was transportation. I needed to rent a car.

Whatever my agenda was, it didn't look like it would mesh well with those of the other occupants of this car. Woodson's expectant look reminded me that he was still looking for a report of last night's assault, and Bushnell was giving Shondra the same look. If these guys got their way, Shondra and I would be split up and interrogated and who knew what would happen then.

"Look," I said, "I know you guys have questions for us, but neither of us are up to it right now. I'm pretty shaken up and Shondra's just out of the hospital."

Sometimes talking to cops is like talking to my foot. Same level of response, same amount of interest. Actually, my foot is friendlier. It responds when I ask it to. Woodson and Bushnell both shook their heads in such a synchronized fashion it looked rehearsed and came out with similar versions of "I don't think so."

"Tell you what," Bushnell said. "Why doesn't Frank take Ms. Kozak over to his car for their little chat, and Ms. Jones can stay here with me."

"Not so fast," Woodson said. "I should get them both back."