Authors: Allison Brennan
She asked the clerk, “Did you see a girl about nineteen or twenty with long, straight blond hair and brown eyes?”
He stared at her blankly. “We get a lot of people in here, ma’am.”
“She would have been here not more than twenty minutes ago.”
He shrugged.
Without looking up from the machine, the barista asked, “What was her name?”
“Dru.”
The woman nodded. “Iced white mocha with caramel. First drink I made after my break.”
“Did you see her leave?”
“No, sorry.”
“Thank you.” Max put a five-dollar bill in the tip jar, collected her drink, and sat down at one of the tables where she could watch the door.
A text message from David popped up.
to the pool house where Lindyering a wEvergreen was on the verge of bankruptcy before Jasper Pierce put together the deal with Archer Sterling and Cho Architectural. There was no bidding process—seems odd.
Definitely worth noting. And based on what Uncle Archer said tonight, the whole idea was Jasper Pierce’s. Archer was just the money guy. She needed to talk to Pierce—there might not be anything to the story, or there might be a secret worth killing to keep. She’d seen it far too many times to make the motive original.
She sent David a note about what Dru had told her over the phone and that she was meeting her at Starbucks.
She tried Dru’s cell phone. It rang five times, then voice mail picked up. Max didn’t leave a message.
Her phone rang almost immediately. She thought it was Dru; caller ID told her it was David.
“Hello, dear,” she teased.
“I looked into the Parker girl, too, after you sent me her last name. Parents divorced. One older sister named Gina who lives in L.A. She lives with two other college girls, all working part time and going to school part time. I’ll send you her address and the names of her roommates.”
“Thanks.”
“One interesting thing I learned—her car is registered to a business, DL Environmental.”
“Never heard of them.”
“They have a Web site. Not much on it. Pictures of college-aged kids protesting this and that.” She could practically hear the eye roll in his voice.
“If you have time tonight, see if you can dig into them a little deeper.” She stepped outside of the coffee house and looked around the parking lot. She didn’t see Dru’s bright yellow VW parked anywhere. Damn, had she really left to stay with her mother? Was she now avoiding Max’s calls because she changed her mind?
She asked, “Anything about Roger Lawrence?”
“He’s been with Evergreen for over fifteen years. Married twenty years. Two kids, both in high school. Nothing that seems out of place. Doesn’t live above his means.”
“Hmm.”
“You’re skeptical?”
“Curious.” Max saw a sign that indicated there was underground parking. “Okay, you’re officially off duty, Kane. If I hear from you again, you’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me.”
“I can make your life a living hell.”
He laughed, then said, “Watch your back with Parker.”
“Yes, sir.”
Max hung up and tossed her empty cup in a nearby trash can as she approached the parking lot stairwell. It was well lit and there were security cameras on the door. She went down the stairs. The lot, primarily for Caltrains parking, was built under a discount drugstore. She immediately spotted Dru’s car next to the stairwell, where most of the cars were clustered.
Dru wasn’t in it.
Inside the car was a half-empty Starbucks cup, the ice still solid.
Dru had ordered her drink then what—gone to her car to wait? Why park down here? Max could think of one good reason—if Dru really was scared of someone, her car stood out. Parking down here would minimize being seen.
Caltrains parking. Dammit, she must have left didn’t say anythinge3 on a train. Max pulled out her phone to find the train schedule. She hadn’t heard one since she pulled into the parking lot twelve minutes ago.
There was no train scheduled until after nine that evening; it was eight thirty now. Max walked around Dru’s car and looked in the back. There was a suitcase on the backseat.
The hair on her arms rose. Car, suitcase, melting drink—no girl. She dialed Dru’s cell phone again.
She heard a musical chime three cars over.
Max took out the stun gun she had carried with her since college. Not the exact same Taser, she’d upgraded, but it was the only weapon she’d ever felt comfortable carrying. She’d only used it once before, but she wouldn’t hesitate if she had cause.
She saw the blood before she saw Dru’s body, lying between two parked cars. Before she could check her pulse, headlights flashed bright and tires squealed from a car parked directly opposite her.
Max had little time to react. She could see nothing, blinded by the high beams, but while she jumped between the two cars where Dru’s body lay dying, she tried to picture the car. Dark. Tinted windows. Four-door sedan.
The sedan turned rapidly to avoid a collision, but fishtailed and the rear driver’s side hit the back of one of the parked cars. Max ducked, in case the driver had a gun. She peered carefully over the trunk of the vehicle, blinking rapidly to get rid of the flashes of light the high beams left in her eyes. She couldn’t make out more than a B and 8 or 3 in the license plate, and even then she wasn’t 100 percent certain she read it right. The attacker drove rapidly out of the parking garage.
Heart pounding heavily in her chest, Max leaned over Dru and felt for a pulse. She had one. Max pulled out her cell phone to call 911, then put the phone on speaker. Carefully, she turned Dru from her side to her back to find out where all this blood was coming from. The girl moaned, but didn’t regain consciousness. Blood had soaked her T-shirt, but it seemed to be coming from her lower abdomen. Max took off her scarf, wadded it up, and applied pressure on Dru’s stomach while talking to the dispatcher, identifying herself and telling her to send an ambulance and the police.
“Dammit, Dru, why’d you park down here? What were you thinking?” Max muttered.
“Ms. Revere? I missed that.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Max told the dispatcher.
“Can you apply pressure to the wound?”
“I’m doing that.”
“Is the victim conscious?”
“No.”
“Does she have a pulse?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what type of injury?”
“Someone either shot or stabbed her in her lower abdomen, there’s a lot of blood, she’s going to die if the ambulance doesn’t get here immediately.” The warm blood had seeped through Max’s scarf and coated her hands. She thought the flow had slowed, but she couldn’t be sure.
“An ambulance has been dispatched and is en route.”
“ETA?”
“Three minutes.”
Max didn’t know if Dru had already lost too much blood to survive.
She glanced around, making sure there wasne late on a Saturday night?ro>’t anyone else she had to worry about sneaking up on her. Her Taser was on, but she’d put it on the ground next to her to tend to Dru. Max glanced under all the cars and didn’t see anyone lying in wait. She heard voices coming down the stairwell. Laughter, male and female. When the couple walked by, they jumped at the sight of Max huddled over a bleeding body. The man stepped in front of the woman and said, “Are you okay?”
“Does it look like I’m okay?” Max snapped. She took a deep breath. “Police are on their way.” She was definitely on edge. It didn’t help that she had a throbbing headache and an edge of adrenaline clinging from the near miss with the black sedan and holding Dru’s life in her hands.
Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die, dammit!
Dru was so young, her life just getting started, Max willed her to survive, to be strong.
“If you have a blanket in your car, that would help. And if one of you could run up the ramp and flag down the ambulance so they know exactly where we are, that would be great.
They glanced at each other, then the man said, “Okay.”
Dru moaned again.
“Ms. Revere?” the dispatcher said over the cell phone.
Max could barely hear Dru with the noise coming from her phone, so she cut off the dispatcher and said, “Hey, Dru, it’s Max. Take it easy.”
“S-s-sorry,” Dru breathed.
“Don’t talk, kid. Help’s coming.” Max could hear the sirens in the distance. “Who hurt you?” she asked.
She shook her head, then cried out in pain.
Max wished she could make her comfortable. “Don’t talk, conserve your strength.” Max didn’t know if it was good or bad news that Dru was awake.
“Wore. Mask.”
The man returned with a blanket and Max motioned for him to cover Dru’s body. She didn’t want to let up on the pressure.
“Ask.”
“Shh.”
“J—Jace—the trees. Holes in the trees.”
The sirens were louder, and Max saw the red lights reflecting off the concrete walls of the underground garage before she saw the ambulance turn down the ramp. The woman motioned the emergency vehicle over to the two cars, and the man waved his arms.
“The cavalry has arrived,” Max told Dru, but the girl was unconscious again.
Holes in the trees? What the hell did that mean?
* * *
Max watched as Dru was loaded into the ambulance. The responding officer ran her license through the system. He’d already talked to the couple who had shared the blanket, and taken Max’s statement, but she had to wait for the detective.
She stared at the blood on her hands. Dru was young and strong and healthy, but there had been so much blood.
While the cop was occupied, she called Detective Nick Santini.
“Santini.”
“This is Max Revere. Your witness was just stabbed—Dru Parker.”
“Where?”
She told him. ȁ friendship fd isC;She called to meet with me and I found her unconscious and bleeding in a parking garage. She’s on her way to the hospital.”
“I c1">“Stay put.”
“I don’t think the police are going to let me leave,” she said and hung up.
The officer said suspiciously, “Who were you talking to?”
Max almost made a flip comment about calling the police commissioner, but decided to say, “It’s personal.”
“Detective Gorman is on her way, I need you to wait for a couple more minutes.”
“I’d like to clean up.”
The officer looked skeptical, and Max said, “Really? You want me to stand here covered in that girl’s blood and wait for your detective to get her ass here?”
“I don’t have a female officer to escort you to a restroom,” he said.
“I’m not under arrest. I’ll come right back.”
“I need you to stay. The detective may need your clothes for evidence.”
Max’s adrenaline was fading, leaving only a worse headache. If she was at her prime, she would have walked away and let the cop either arrest her or let her go. She had no tolerance for bullshit. Making her stand here with blood all over her hands, arms, and dress was making her both queasy and ornery. She mentally wrote an article. Asshole cop forces witness who saved victim’s life to sit in blood for nearly an hour.
Her editor would edit out asshole. No matter how accurate the adjective was.
She forced herself to regain her composure. The cop was just doing his job. What she really wanted to know was: Were there security tapes? Had someone witnessed the brutal attack on Dru Parker? And dammit, why? If she’d just gotten here sooner. If she’d told Dru to stay put in Starbucks where there were people and some degree of security. If she’d looked for her immediately rather than waiting upstairs.
She pulled out her phone again and called David. “My witness was attacked,” she said.
“Dead?”
“Not yet. Unconscious, being taken to Sequoia.”
“I’ll get her status.”
“Thanks.”
“I can be there in an hour.”
“No.” She’d have to tell David what happened eventually, but she didn’t need him here now. “This has nothing to do with me.”
She didn’t want him postponing his trip with Emma. Brittany was such a bitch she was practically a nutcase about his visitation rights.
David had been hired as her assistant, but he often acted like a bodyguard. Or, at least, a protector. Max didn’t want a bodyguard, but after a particularly violent trial she covered eighteen months ago that instigated death threats, Ben had hired David. And he’d saved her life in Chicago when a wacko went after her. Now Max depended on him more than anyone else in her life, which made her uncomfortable. Maybe if she’d had sex with him it would be different—she tended to maintain the upper hand once she’d slept with a guy—but David was gay and sex was out of the question. He took both parts of his job—as her assistant and as her bodyguard—seriously friendship fd is. She sometimes missed being completely independent—of the show, of Ben, of an occasionally overprotective assistant.
David said, “Whoever attacked her knew she was meeting with you.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Don’t be dense.”
Max watched an unmarked sedan with government plates drive into the parking garage. A female detective—Gorman—stepped out of the car and talked to the officer who’d irritated Max earlier. They looked over at her. “I’m fine, David. Ben hired you to protect me when I’m working for the show, and this is personal. Really. The cops are here, all is well in the world.” She was being sarcastic, but she was tired and worried. “I was just calling to keep you in the loop and ask you to follow up on Dru’s condition. If something changes, let me know. But you’d damn well better be on that plane to Hawaii tomorrow.”
The detective strode over to where Max had been told to wait.
“If you get yourself in trouble, call,” David said.
“If I get myself into trouble? Ha.” She hung up. David knew her well. She followed trouble because that was her job. But she didn’t want him here. She needed the freedom to do her own thing.
Ben wouldn’t like her working on the Jason Hoffman murder because it would take time—time he wanted on the Bachman trial. Also, the Hoffman case wasn’t “sexy” enough for him. Ben had been trying to get her to write about Lindy’s murder and Kevin’s trial—if he knew that Kevin had contacted her four months ago, they’d have argued every day about whether she should pursue it or not. So she never told him. And she wasn’t going to tell him now—he’d insist she do a show, and she’d have to tell him to go to hell. She didn’t want to quit.