“Or before you get killed,” he said solemnly.
“Killed?” she repeated, rolling her eyes. She wasn't going to be caught up in some melodramatic paranoia. She'd considered the fact that someone might be trying to murder her, but she'd always tossed off the idea, condemned it as her own brand of fear. To hear it from someone else made it so much more real. But she still wasn't buying it.
“Think about it,” Nick insisted. “The night of the accident you saw someone on the road and he did something to flash a light into your eyes, right?”
“Well, maybe.”
“It could have been planned.” Nick cranked the wheel sharply for a corner.
“Now, wait a minute. That's a pretty big leap. How would he know where I was, that I was driving
Pam's
car at that particular time?”
“I have no idea, but it is possible. Then you thought you were threatened at your bedside, the next thing you know you're throwing up and nearly dying. Someone could have given you an injection or put something in your food.”
She wanted to argue, but couldn't. He was only voicing her own fears, the ones that had been nagging at her, the ones she'd steadfastly pushed aside. “Who would want to kill me?”
“I thought you might know.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest. “I don't even know who I am, much less who's at the top of my personal enemies list.” Her jaw was beginning to ache again, a dull throb starting to pound. “Why go to all this trouble? Why not make it easy and just shoot me?”
“Because they're trying to make it look like an accident.”
“They. Now it's more than one.” She sighed and shook her head as she stared at the tall buildings stretching skyward. “No way. This is too far-fetched. I was in an accident. Period. I threw up because of a jittery stomach and a bad case of nerves. That's all. There wasn't anything sinister about it,” she said, trying to convince herself. No one was really trying to kill her.
Or were they?
Nick found a high-rise parking lot and turned in. He plucked the ticket from an automatic machine and drove up the ramp, his eyes scouring the parked cars as he searched for a spot.
“Why would someone want me dead?” she asked.
“Because someone's afraid of you, of what you'll remember.”
A chill as cold as the Pacific ran through her blood.
“Is that why you moved back to the house?” she asked with sudden insight. “To protect me?”
“One reason,” he admitted easing the truck into a space between a BMW and a Honda on the third tier. Cutting the engine, he said, “Tough as you think you are, Marla, you need someone to watch your back.”
“And you've volunteered for the job?”
He didn't crack a smile as he stripped his keys from the ignition. “You have someone else in mind?”
“I'd like to think I can take care of myself.”
“You don't even remember who you are.” He leaned closer to her and the smell of musk and leather reached her nostrils, the tip of his nose nearly touching hers. Taking her hand in his, he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “Don't you think, given our history, that I would be the last person on earth to appoint himself your personal bodyguard?” His eyes were dark with the coming night, his fingers warm.
“I . . . I suppose,” she said, trying hard not to look at the blade-thin line of his lips, nor feel the heat of his body, a heat so intense it fogged the windows. “But I do have a husbandâ”
“Whom you don't sleep with, who is always out of the house, who leaves in the middle of the night,” he reminded her. “Whom you don't trust.”
Marla swallowed hard as his gaze drifted to her throat. She reached for the handle of the door with her free hand, her fingers surrounding the cool metal. “Are you trying to tell me that I'm not safe anywhere, not even in my own home?”
His eyes were dead serious. “That's exactly what I'm saying.”
“But this is all conjecture, just some crazy idea of yours.”
“I hope so. God, I hope so,” he said fervently. His breath was warm, his gaze seductive and deep inside Marla felt the first stirrings of desire heat her blood. Oh, she couldn't do this. Not again.
She pulled the handle and the door swung open. “Let's go see the detective.”
“You blew it again! Jesus Christ, what kind of moron are you?” The voice on the other end of the wire was angry as hell. “How hard can it be to kill someone?”
He wanted to tell the bastard to go fuck himself. Standing in the phone booth, night starting to close around him, he wanted to reach through the damned wires and choke the fucker. “Listen, if you want Marla dead so bad, then just do it yourself,” he growled, knowing the prick was too chicken to get blood on his lily-white hands. A coward of the lowest order.
“We have a deal.”
“I know.” He calmed a little, his eyes narrowing on the traffic light at the corner where a couple of teenagers were straining against the leash of a big dog who seemed determined to bound into traffic. “I'll take care of it.”
“No. Not now. It's too risky. She's starting to remember. And we're running out of opportunities. Pretty soon everyone including the police will get suspicious.”
“I'll do it tonight,” he promised, smiling at the note of panic in the other man's voice. “I'll take care of it tonight.”
“No . . . not at the house. Everyone's on edge as it is. I'll come up with a plan. We have to wait.”
“You're the one who's in the big hurry to have her dead.”
“And you're not?”
His fingers sweated around the receiver. “As a matter of fact, I'd like to take my time. Stretch it out. Make her beg for mercy.”
“Shit. You're sicker than I thought. But lay off for now. Until I work this out. We might have to wait until the old man kicks off. Then you can kill her. And I want you to make it neat. Don't . . . don't torture her.”
“What the hell do you care?” The bastard at the other end of the line was suffering from a twinge of conscience. Didn't that beat all? He laughed and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket for his cigarettes. “And that's why you hired me, isn't it? Because I'm sick? And because I have the goods on you, my friend.”
“Let's get one thing straight, okay? We're not friends. We never have been, we never will be. This is just . . . business.”
He jabbed a filter tip between his lips. “What happened to blood is thicker than water?”
“It's bullshit. You know it and I know it. Now just wait until I contact you, then you can do your job and you'll get paid.”
“I'd better. Because if I don't see the money, if you pull a fast one, I'll give the police and the newspapers the true story. About you and all the sins you try so hard to hide. Everything that you've done is documented,
amigo,
everything. Including all that shit at Cahill House a while back. Your ass is as good as nailed. So don't fuck with me.”
He slammed the receiver down and turned his collar against the wind rushing off the ocean.
Sanctimonious prick.
Just wait. He hiked down the hill a couple of blocks, ducked across the street in front of a cable car and walked along the boardwalk of Fisherman's Wharf, blending in with the tourists who braved the chill of winter. His ankle still hurt on days like this, a painful reminder that he'd failed to kill Marla. He'd rectify that situation and soon.
Crab venders were hawking cold crab and hot chowder. Over the rush of traffic and the noise of tourists an occasional bark of a sea lion cut through the chill winter air.
Smoking, he slowed his steps as he walked behind an older Asian couple huddled against the wind. All the while he thought about Marla. The princess. Beautiful and rich. And the hottest cunt he'd ever had the pleasure to dip into.
He'd once fancied himself in love with her.
But then he'd always been a fool when it came to women. Right now she was spilling her guts to that stupid ass of a detective and she was with the brother. Was he the guy she was with last night? The guy whose face he couldn't see in the darkened window? The guy touching her naked body for Christ's sake? Or had it been her husband?
Either way, it got him horny.
He'd enjoy offing her, but he'd have to come up with another plan to kill her, one that was a little more personal. Yeah, that was it. Something . . . intimate and seductive and deadly. He didn't give a shit what the rich bastard who'd ordered the hit asked for. This was his game and he wanted her to see his face before she diedâlet her know that he'd gotten his revenge. He imagined her eyes rounding in recognition, her lips trembling in fear, the way she would plead for mercy.
One more time baby,
he thought, his cock growing hard at the inward vision of her fear. He flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the gutter and veered into one of the bars advertising cold beer and fish and chips. Settling onto a nicked bar stool, he ordered a draft and as he sized up the tiny waitress with the big tits, he wondered if there was any way he could fuck Marla before he killed her.
Chapter Fifteen
“So you still don't remember why you were with Pamela Delacroix that night?” Paterno asked as he rocked back in his chair in his cramped, messy office. It was tight, stuffy and smelled of stale coffee.
“Not yet.” Marla looked him steadily in the eye. Perched on a chair on the other side of his cluttered desk, she added, “I don't remember much about her, but I think it's only a matter of time before it all comes back to me, and when it does, I'll let you know.” She was trying not to sound irritated but couldn't help herself. They'd been talking for over an hour, she'd signed a statement about the accident and was getting tired. Her mouth hurt like crazy and being grilled by the detective didn't help her mood. Nick had remained silent for most of the interview, sitting next to her in an identical beat-up chair on one side of a messy desk while Anthony Paterno observed them both. Half glasses were propped on the end of his nose and file folders, complete with rings from coffee cups, were stacked haphazardly, a computer was near his right shoulder and a bulletin board behind him was filled with pictures of several different crimes. Snapshots of Pam's wrecked Mercedes, Pam's bloody body, the charred remnants of a huge semi and the gaping hole in the guardrail were in one grouping. Marla had trouble dragging her eyes away from the macabre images of twisted metal and the dead woman. She shivered when she remembered that night and Pam's terrified screams.
“I heard someone at your number called 911 the other night requesting an ambulance, only to turn it away when it arrived.”
“Bad news travels quick,” Nick observed.
“Computers. Everything's linked these days.” Paterno looked from Nick to Marla. “So what happened?”
There wasn't any reason to hide the truth, so Marla told him about getting sick and opting to go to the clinic to meet Phil Robertson. All the while she spoke, Tony Paterno leaned back in his chair, chewed gum as if it were the last piece on earth, and scratched notes to himself on a small yellow pad. When she finished, he looked at her over his glasses. “You were pretty lucky from the sounds of it.”
“I guess.”
“What made you sick?”
“I don't know.”
Paterno slid a glance at Nick. “Good thing Mr. Cahill here is so handy with wire cutters. Real lucky that he was around.”
“Very,” Marla said lifting her chin a notch. She heard the insinuation in the cop's question, a silent accusation that she'd been with a man other than her husband, but she refused to rise to the bait.
“You've moved back into the house?” Paterno asked Nick, his dark, assessing eyes studying Marla's brother-in-law.
“As of that night, yeah.”
“Why?”
Nick grinned, that wide, don't-try-to-bullshit-me smile that Marla had seen more often than not. “I guess I finally succumbed to family pressure.”
“From whom?”
“My mother. My brother.”
Paterno's eyebrows elevated. “You don't strike me as the kind of guy who lets himself be led around by the nose.”
“Depends on whose doin' the leadin',” Nick drawled, his blue eyes sparkling in challenge and even Paterno's lips twitched. “I figured it was time. The other night convinced me.”
“Because Mrs. Cahill got sick?”
“Because she nearly died.” Nick's grin evaporated. “As you said, it was a good thing I was around.”
Paterno nodded and scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully. “So where was your husband?” he asked Marla.
Good question.
“Out. On business.”
Paterno picked up a report, adjusted his glasses and said, “It says here the 911 call came in at 11:50 p.m.”
“That's about right.” Nick crossed his legs, propping one battered Nike on his other knee.
Paterno wasn't satisfied. “Pretty late for business, don't you think?”
She bristled a little, heat climbing up the back of her neck, though she, too, wondered about her husband's mysterious whereabouts. What was he up to? Why didn't she trust him? And why did she feel she had to defend him to this cop who was just doing his job? “Alex doesn't keep banker's hours.”
“Neither do a lot of us.” Anthony Paterno dropped the page onto his already overburdened desk, then folded his hands over the entire messy pile of papers. “Mrs. Cahill, can you think of any reason why anyone would want you dead?”
“You think someone is trying to kill me?” she asked, her heart pounding. It was the second time within a couple of hours that someone had suggested what she'd tried to shrug off as paranoia.
“If your story is accurate, then someone deliberately got in the path of your car. Now your thinking's still a little fuzzy, so I wouldn't jump to too many conclusions on that alone, but you did nearly die the other night and I was just wondering if anyone could have given you something to make you vomit, knowing you might suffocate?”
“No, I don't think so,” she said. “I ate with my family downstairs. It was the first time I'd come down to take a meal with them and I had to have soup as my mouth was still wired shut. Later I had something to drink. I kept water or tea or juice near the bed and it was usually brought up by someone on the staff. But I wasn't given any different medication or anything.” She decided to be as forthright as possible with the detective. Leaning forward, she placed her elbows on the edge of the desk. “I guess I'd better tell you that I thought there might have been an intruder in my room that night.”
“Hell, yes, you'd better tell me.” Paterno's head snapped up. His gaze narrowed. “Who?”
“I don't know. I was asleep and thought I heard someone, a man, whisper â
Die, bitch!
' as he hovered over my bed, but when I really woke up and turned on the lights, no one was there. I even checked the bedroom floor but the only thing I accomplished was to convince my daughter I'm certifiable and should be locked in some kind of lunatic asylum.” She sighed. “The upshot was that no one was in the house who shouldn't have been.”
“But you â
felt
' that someone was there?”
She shrugged. “I didn't bring it up before because I can't say for certain. I've got a serious memory problem, I've been having crazy, disjointed dreams and I might have imagined the whole thing. Maybe it was part of a nightmare.”
“But you're not sure?”
“No,” she admitted, her blood turning to ice when she thought of the feeling that someone was hovering over her bed. So close. So evil. So intent on doing her harm. “IâI'm not sure about anything. Even today when we visited my father. He was certain I was someone else, someone named Kylie and I . . . I can't remember enough to prove him wrong.”
“He's pretty sick, isn't he?”
“Very,” Nick answered. “The nurse thought it might have been his painkillers talking.”
“But you don't know if he was rambling or there was some truth to his accusation.” Again the hound-dog face was turned toward Marla as Paterno scratched a note to himself. “So, I'm asking again. Who do you think would want to harm you or kill you?”
“I don't know,” she admitted.
Paterno's gaze swung to Nick. “You seem pretty close to all this. Have you got any ideas?”
Nick hesitated. “I haven't been down here long enough to figure it out. I know that my brother has been working odd hours, and he keeps to himself more than I remember in the past.”
“And the corporation's got financial troubles.”
“Its share.”
“Why would Mrs. Cahill's husband want to kill her?”
“No one said he did,” Marla cut in. “Alex wasn't hovering over my bed that night,” she added indignantly. She would have recognized Alex's voice.
But he wasn't home, was he? He had to be called back to the house. Could he have snarled his threat, dashed out of the room and . . . what? Gotten into his Jag and driven to a late meeting . . .
“It wasn't Alex.”
“Be that as it may, is there any reason he'd want you dead? Have you got a lot of life insurance? Does he have another woman? Does he think you're involved with someone else,” he asked, and his gaze traveled pointedly to Nick again.
“I don't think so.”
The chair creaked as Paterno pushed himself to his feet. “We don't have enough here, no concrete evidence that someone's out to kill you, to warrant police protection.”
“I'm sure I don't need it,” Marla insisted. “The house is a fortress.”
Paterno didn't look convinced. He clicked his pen nervously. “No security system is foolproof. If your intruder was real, that proves it.” Sifting through the pages on his desk, he pulled out a copy of a pencil drawing.
“This is a composite sketch of the man we think killed Charles Biggs. One of the nurses on staff got a look at him and talked to the police artist.” He handed the sketch to Marla but the shaded drawing meant nothing to her, nor to Nick. “Now,” Paterno turned on his computer and typed rapidly, “we took this, did a computer enhancement and came up with this.” An image of a mustached man in squarish glasses and a thrusting jaw came into view. Paterno rotated the screen and Marla gazed at the face of a stranger.
She shook her head.
“How about now?” Paterno clicked on a key and the mustache disappeared.
“No . . .”
“And now?” The glasses came off.
He tried several different combinations, adding beards and changing hairlines and color, but each image was just another stranger to Marla. “You have to remember I don't even know my own family,” she admitted.
“What about you?” Paterno asked Nick.
Leaning forward, Nick studied the images as the detective flipped through them again. “I don't think so,” he finally said and Paterno, a disheartened expression converging on his oversized features, snapped the computer off. “We're looking for Pamela Delacroix's daughter,” he said. “She's married to a guy named Robert Johnson. Haven't found her yet.”
“I'd like to talk to her when you do,” Marla said. “To offer my sympathy, if nothing else.”
“I'll see what I can do,” the detective promised.
They talked for a few more minutes, then Paterno seemed satisfied that the interview was over. “Okay, that about covers it for today, but if anything else happens, I want to hear about it.”
“You will,” Marla agreed as she and Nick stood. “I don't suppose you've located my purse?” She hoisted the shoulder strap of the handbag she'd taken from her closet onto her shoulder. “I should have had it with me that night.”
“It's still missing?” Paterno frowned, chewed, clicked his pen. “I'll have the scene checked again.”
“Thanks.”
The phone on his desk jangled. Detective Paterno snatched up the receiver and wedged it between his shoulder and chin as he answered. “Paterno . . . yeah . . . no, I'm just finishing up here. I'll be down in five.” He hung up and reached for his jacket. “I'm serious about this. If anything happens out of the ordinary, give me a call.”
“You got it,” Nick promised.
By the time they walked out of the station, night was falling over the city. “I'll buy you a cup of coffee,” Nick offered as they waited at the crosswalk and a crowd gathered on the corner. Rush hour traffic clogged the city. The smells of exhaust and rain were heavy in the air.
A chilly blast of air ripped through the streets, catching in the hem of Marla's raincoat and blowing the short strands of her hair from her face. Nick's hand was at her arm, his offer hanging in the wintry air.
“I don't know,” she said, though she longed for more time with him, time alone, time to sort out her feelings.
“It's just coffee.”
The light changed. They hurried across the street in a tide of pedestrians. “I should get back before dinner. I haven't seen Cissy since this morning and I put the baby down around noon.” She smiled up at him wryly. “I am a mother, you know, and therefore have a few motherly duties.”
“Then we'll get a cup to go,” he said as they stepped into an elevator and rode to the third level. They didn't touch on the way to the pickup. Marla's jaw ached and her head pounded with a thousand nagging questions, none of which she could answer. Who was she? Why did her father think she was someone else? Why couldn't she remember? Would anyone really want her dead? Why, when she was married to one man, was she so perilously attracted to another?
She leaned against the seat and closed her eyes. The sounds of the cityâthe rumble of engines, whine of wheels, honk of hornsâfaded as Nick switched on the radio and some country song filled the interior. What was she doing even having coffee with Nick? It was sure to spell disaster. She had only to think about last night and remember how easy it was to fall victim to temptation. Even now, at the thought of his hands bunching in the satin, delving beneath it to skim her skin, her breath caught in the back of her throat.