Tell No Lies (12 page)

“Okay. Let’s not get angry
now.
”

She touched his face again. “Take me upstairs.”

He tossed down the paperwork and stood, hoisting her over his shoulder.

“Stop it! Your back! I’m too heavy. And those creepy Shea kids—Grayson and Chase—will see through the window.”

He dumped her on the couch, laughing. “
Jayden
and
Lucas.
”

She was cracking up now, tugging at his shirt, trying to pull him down on top of her. “Hamilton and Greydon. And their sister, Baba Ghanoush.”

Still chuckling, he fell, bracing himself against the arm of the couch. Through the rain-streaked window, a figure in the street caught his eye, the sight freezing the grin on his face.

A feminine form in a bright yellow rain slicker, hood pulled up over her head, standing in the precise middle of the street. But it wasn’t just her reckless position that stopped him cold. It was that she remained perfectly still, like one of Castanis’s corporate goddesses. Her face was cast in shadow, but the tilt and focus of the dark oval beneath the hood made clear: She was staring directly up at him.

Then she did something that turned the blood in Daniel’s veins to frost.

She lifted an arm, dripping with rainwater, and pointed at him.

A car skidded past her on the slippery asphalt, horn blaring, throwing a sheet of water against her yellow slicker, but she didn’t so much as flinch. A stone statue pointing, it seemed, in accusation. Accusing him of
what
?

Cris had slid up on the couch to peer over the leather arm. He heard a breath catch in her throat.

The drops running down the pane and the ongoing deluge turned the woman into a blurry outline. Daniel couldn’t exhale, couldn’t move. It seemed she had frozen him there by some curse.

A fierce rattle beside them broke the spell. He jerked violently, and Cris fell back on the cushions, grabbing her chest.

It was just his cell phone, vibrating against the glass table.

Keeping his eyes glued on the woman, he reached behind him and fumbled for the phone. Finally he glanced down.

A text from
UNKNOWN CALLER
. Dooley? Thank God.

He tapped the screen, and a photo came up.

Recognition dawned in degrees. First that the startled face, bleached fish white by the camera flash, belonged to him. Second, that his alarmed posture—recoiled against a wall beside a narrow doorway, brandishing a butcher knife—conveyed nothing so much as terror. Third, that the feathering of blood that marked the kitchen tile beyond Daniel’s frozen image was Marisol Vargas’s last breath, sprayed through the slit in her neck.

When he finally came back into his body and tore his gaze from the phone, the woman in the street had vanished.

Chapter 16

He heard Cristina’s worried queries as if he were underwater, the edges of her words blunted and warbling. When he handed her the phone, it trembled in his grasp. The double shock had taken the air right out of his lungs, and he lowered himself to the couch and calmly caught his breath while Cris sprang into action, calling Dooley, forwarding the text message, and firing off a reply text to the picture’s sender, only to be answered by a red error exclamation point.

“He has,” Cristina said breathlessly, “your number now.”

“They know where I live.”

“So you think that woman is working
with
the killer?”

“It has to be related. Doesn’t it? The timing, my phone going off just then—”

“They found you.” Her voice, low with dread. “This quickly.”

He thought of his goddamned picture tacked up on that glass-encased staff bulletin board on the third floor of Metro South. How easy it must have been for someone who frequented the building to connect the dots.

Cris had asked something. She repeated the question: “Why was she pointing at you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe just to show that they know who I am.”

“But she seemed to be, I don’t know…”

“I have
no idea.
”

The text alert on his phone chimed again. The picture, re-sent.

Then again. Again. Again. Populating the screen before his and Cristina’s horrified eyes with image after image of that snapshot. A relentless barrage.

“Turn it off,” Daniel said.

Cris remained motionless, so he grabbed for the phone and powered it down.

They sat side by side on the couch, breathing. Then Cris rose and began to clear the plates. He followed suit. They washed and loaded the dishwasher and ran the trash compactor, and then Cris turned into him suddenly and they hugged each other tightly there before the sink.

“Dooley got the forwarded text,” Cris said into his chest. “She’ll pull our phone records and try to trace it. I told her I’d sign off on all that.”

He nodded. Clutched the fragile stalk of her neck. “How about the woman?”

“She didn’t know
what
to say about that but thought the phone route was the strongest play for her to jump on now. Keep the doors locked, alarm on. Duh.”

They listened to the rain beating against the walls, thrumming off the roof.

“How do you think he got your phone number?” she asked. “Our address?”

Daniel reached over and dropped the Pacífico bottle into the slide-out recycling bin. “Records at work.”

“Those are supposed to be private.”

“It’s not exactly Fort Knox. And the building’s rife with fucking bottom feeders.”

The words flew out, hard-edged, followed by a wash of regret.

Cris just looked at him.

“Come on,” he said. “
What?
I’m angry right now, Cris. Do I have to watch my phrasing in my own house?”

“No. You shouldn’t ever have to
watch
your phrasing.”

“So what’s that? I say something when I’m being
threatened
and that means it’s my secret truth coming out?”

“Of course not.” She started walking upstairs to the bedroom.

“What then?”

She turned, gripping the railing. “When I was a baby, my mom smuggled me into this country on the birth certificate of my cousin who died at three months. I wasn’t even
legal
until I graduated high school. And no matter what my last name is now, I will always be that.”

“What are you saying? You’re worried you can’t get past your background?”

“No. I’m worried you can’t get past
yours.
”

Anything he was going to say next, he knew he’d regret, so he kept his mouth shut.

“There is a killer who has your cell-phone number,” Cris said, her voice cracking. “
Your
number. That bastard has slaughtered two people already. Believe me—I get the stakes here. But it still throws me to hear you … I don’t know, channeling Evelyn.”

He took a few breaths, tried to untense his shoulders. “All right,” he said. “But we also can’t start dragging our histories into this.”

“If you’re allowed to say stupid shit when you’re mad, then I’m allowed to say stupid shit when I’m terrified.” She blinked, and tears fell. “Okay? We both need to reserve our right to say stupid shit sometimes.”

She stepped down into his embrace, squeeze-hugging him around the neck hard enough to choke off his air. “I want to get someone to guard you,” she said. “All the time.”

He tugged at her arm a little, and she loosened her grip. She was one stair higher than him, the perfect relative height, her cheek warm against his. At the end of the day, only the faintest traces of her shampoo and lotion lingered, orange blossom and vanilla blending with the delightful, intangible smell of her.

“Let’s talk about it,” he said.

“What’s to talk about? Think what this guy did to that woman’s face. And to Jack Holley. He promised he was gonna kill them, and then he just …
did.
”

“No one’s promised to kill me yet.”

“He saw you. And then he took your picture. And then he sent it to you on your own cell phone. And probably sent someone to our house. Whatever he’s doing, it’s escalating.”

The doorbell rang.

Chapter 17

The alarm was on, knob locked, deadbolt thrown, security chain hooked. Daniel and Cristina stood on the bottom stair, confronting the front door across the foyer.

Daniel stepped down, crossed the tile, and pressed his eye to the peephole, making out a distorted bulge of a masculine face. He barely recognized the menacing rumble of his own voice. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Leo.” A clipped, hard-to-place accent. “I—”

“Step back from the door,” Daniel said. “To the edge of the porch.”

The man complied, coming into better focus through the peephole. Bald, short, and stocky—a bowling pin of a man. His nose seemed smashed against his face, pounded flat from multiple breaks. Rain caught him there at the porch’s lip, but he barely seemed to notice.

“What do you want?”

“Mrs. Evelyn Brasher sent me.”

Cristina made wary eye contact, her hands up, confused.

“Are you a bodyguard?” Daniel called through the door.

“Not specifically, no.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’ve dealt with situations like this. On a lot of continents.”

“Like what?”

“Like this.” The man clasped his hands at his belt line, motionless save for a slight shift of the knee that betrayed his impatience. “How can I put this? I’m overqualified for this particular job.”

“You still haven’t answered why you’re here.”

“I told you why I’m here.” A pause. Then, “Mrs. Brasher has a lot of money.”

“And you want to … what? Follow us around everywhere?”

“No. My job is to protect you here. At home. While you sleep. Think of me as a very expensive guard dog.”

“You plan on sleeping here?”

“Not
sleeping,
no. But staying through the night.”

“No thanks,” Daniel said.

He turned from the peephole, but Cristina put her hand up on the door, her arm blocking him. She drew close and whispered, “Marisol’s killer has your picture. He has your phone number. He knows who you are. And where we live. You’re
my
husband, which means I get a vote.”

“I am not taking anything from my mom,” Daniel said, doing his best to keep his voice low.

“Your
life
is at stake here,” Cris said.

“We can get our own bodyguard.” His teeth were clenched. “Through our own contacts.”

“That’ll take time. We have a problem
tonight.
”

Cris, stiff as a plank, up on her tiptoes, their faces close enough to kiss. Trying to have a whispered argument behind the proverbial closed door. A bead of sweat slid down Daniel’s side, tickling his ribs.

The gravelly voice came from outside. “You really want to risk getting dead because of some stupid pride bullshit with your mother?”

Releasing a breath, Daniel looked into the patterned whorls of the miniature Zen garden on the table. Cris read the answer in his body language, and the tension eased out of her. She kissed him on the cheek, turned off the alarm, undid the locks, and twisted the knob, but then Daniel put his palm on the door and banged it shut again, hard.

“How do we
know
my mother sent you?” he called out.

The man cleared his throat and said, flatly, “‘And
do
try to avoid tangling with Catalina, that angsty wife of his.’”

Daniel lifted his hand from the door in surrender, and Cris, biting back a smile, swung it open.

Chapter 18

The following evening, before parking and unpacking himself from the smart car, Daniel circled the entire garage level of Metro South to check the shadows, as he’d been instructed by Leo Rizk, the man sent by Evelyn. After they’d let him in from the rain last night, the man had proved highly focused and capable. Leo claimed they should now consider their house a fortress, and Daniel had to admit that he felt no small measure of comfort with the guy there. This morning when he’d headed down for his run, he’d found Leo sitting on the stairs with ramrod-straight posture and his handgun resting on his thigh. He’d turned his alert stare on Daniel and said, “No iPod, right? We need you alert and aware out there,” and Daniel had lowered his hood to show him that he wasn’t wearing headphones. Leo had snapped off a nod and scooted over to let him pass.

The jog had been an exercise in paranoia, Daniel spinning around at the sound of any footfall behind him, his heart rate revving up with the engine of each passing car. It hadn’t helped that Dooley had traced the text message to a number assigned to a disposable phone. A masked killer and the faceless woman from the rain—unknown somewhere out in the city, biding their time.

Sitting in his car now with the doors locked, he dialed Cristina. “You’re home safe?”

“You called the house line. So that would be yes.”

“Oh. Right. Anything weird at work?”

“It
is
the projects. But nothing unusually unusual.”

“Leo’s there?”

“Indeed. I’m making him tamales.”

“Jealous.”

“He has a gun. He’s guarding our home. He gets tamales.”

Daniel signed off, climbed out of the car, and hurried across the garage, braced for an ambush. Not until he’d reached the far side of the metal detector in the lobby did he fully exhale. The walk down the dark rear corridor proved to be another trial of sorts. The motion-sensor lights arranged at intervals clicked on only as he entered the edge of shadow, illuminating the next cube of hallway. So he progressed cautiously toward the mail room, tensed for a hideous revelation. An imagined horror waited in every block of darkness ahead. Marisol Vargas with bloody tears streaming down her cheeks. That smooth, featureless mask of the killer. A woman in an oversize yellow slicker, her face lost to blackness, her arm raised to point in silent condemnation.

By the time he reached the mail room, his shirt clung to him. He approached his cubbyhole tentatively but found only a few flyers. The outgoing mail, empty. He released his breath, a hiss through his teeth. A glance at the clock curtailed any relief.