CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

"I will miss being next door to you," Eva said

It was a nice sentiment, but Allison thought it wasn’t completely truthful. Things hadn't been the same between them in the past few weeks. The casual camaraderie and the shared meals in the kitchen had turned stilted and uncomfortable, then come to an end. Allison couldn't shake the feeling that Eva kept waiting for the moment when someone else would break into the apartment with a gun.

"Me, too," Allison said. "Without you right next door, I'm going to have to learn how to cook."

"No," Eva said. "You will have a fine cook. Perhaps you will learn something."

"And you'll still have Hector to mooch meals off of you. I'm glad he's going to live here. I'll miss the place, and it feels better knowing someone I like is moving in."

Hector had tried moving back home after the oldest living Cesare brother had gotten out of jail. He'd thought that Juan the Rattlesnake would be able to handle their drunken, abusive stepfather. As it turned out, Juan had handled him so thoroughly that the stepfather was dead. Juan was back in jail, having done one of the quickest turnarounds in parole history.

"Thank you for talking Teddi into it," Eva said. "And for helping him get the job at the bowling alley."

"That was Uncle Bob more than me. Uncle Bob's got connections." Allison looked around the room. It had a vacant, cavernous feel although she had left most of the furniture for Hector. Without her books, trinket boxes, clothes and other assorted personal effects, the place no longer felt homey or familiar.

She and Eva hugged, though it was the stiff and awkward hug of distant relations or old friends who had subsequently fallen far out of touch.

Allison picked up her trusty old duffel bag in one hand and her skateboard in the other. She headed out of the Dunley Apartments and onto the street.

Outside, the day was hot and sunny and the Dog Haus was giving off fragrant clouds of barbecue-smelling goodness. She saw Martha coming back from another successful Dumpster dive behind the craft store, Jake Oberdorfer and his friends throwing a football in the street, the Beekers on their way to the diner, Tina Wendmeyer headed for work up at the 7-Eleven. All well and good and as it should be.

No one even looked at her like she was the neighborhood pariah. Though Jon Wharton had eventually caved in under pressure from his mother and the detectives, the story he had spun was so bizarre that no one had given it any credence. They all thought that he was trying to muddy the waters, cover his tracks, pick-your-metaphor.

Allison hopped onto her board. She wasn't wearing the baggy jeans, the hat, and the windbreaker. She sped down 6th Street in white denim cut-offs and a snug cotton-candy-pink tee shirt, ponytail flying.

Her bruises had faded, her voice was back to normal, and she felt wonderfully alive and free. No more purses since Jade's, and no urge for them either. As for Jade, she was evidently keeping her end of the bargain.

She jumped off the curb, veered across the street, and flipped the board up into her hand as she made a running stop in front of the Greenview Apartments.

Jamie Tremayne, in his chair, met her at the door. She leaned down and kissed him, not caring that the people on the sidewalks had stopped to grin bemusedly at them.

"This is it, then?" he asked when she straightened up.

"This is it. I'm officially moved out. Too late to change your mind."

"Wasn't planning on it." He gave her a once-over as he backed into the apartment. "I like the new look."

"New look?"

"Without the disguise."

"Ah. Yep, I'm off the hook," Allison said. "I don't have to be Scoot anymore."

"That's kind of a shame. You were pretty cute dressed as a boy."

"Is there something you're not telling me? You prefer boys, is that it?"

"I prefer girls, thank you very much. Didn't I just tell you that I liked the new look?"

"You keep saying that, but I'm not seeing the proof."

"And what would you consider adequate proof?" he asked.

"Come here and I'll show you," she said, yanking the rubber band out of her hair and letting it spill over her shoulders.

**

THE END

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

A different crowd from the business-suited lunch-lemmings filled the Stag and Hound on Friday nights. Younger. Louder. Boisterous. Music thumped and throbbed from the speakers. In a vague attempt at keeping with the ersatz Olde English pub atmosphere, the songs were all by British artists. The waitresses wove their way among packed tables, carrying trays laden down with pint mugs of a dozen kinds of beer, and more baskets of the fish and chips.

In the same corner booth under the same print of riders in a foggy meadow, Jeanette sat drinking amber ale and munching on pretzels. She, however, was not quite the same.

Even if the place had been filled with the exact same people who'd been here that afternoon a week ago, they wouldn't have recognized her. The platinum pixie-cut bob was gone, replaced by a shorter, sassier strawberry blonde hairdo. Large gold spiral earrings hung from her lobes, and she wore a knee-length black skirt with a sexy slit up the side, a silky black off-the-shoulder blouse, smoke-colored nylons and strappy black high heels. The gold chain with the jade dragon pendant had been replaced by a choker of onyx beads.

"I like the new look," said a voice like rough velvet.

She arched an eyebrow at Rayburn. "Likewise."

He came to the table, scruffy with a week's worth of unshaven beard and a shorter haircut that really showed the silver … more George Clooney than Pierce Brosnan. A plain white shirt open at the throat showed a hint of chest hair, and he was wearing snug, faded jeans and a well-scuffed leather jacket.

"What are you going by these days?" he asked, sitting opposite her and signaling for a waitress. One appeared with such alacrity that she might have been a genie summoned from a lamp. He ordered his usual Guinness.

"Jade will still be fine," she said when they were alone again.

"No tape recorder?" He indicated her purse, a black faux-snakeskin number on a long gold chain-strap, too small to hold more than a wallet, keys and the barest essentials.

"Didn't think I'd need one." Jeanette passed him a thick envelope she'd been carrying folded inside a newspaper. "Here."

"So you're sure? You're turning down the offer?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Only that the job is still open, if you want it."

"I thought my run of bad luck put an end to that particular assignment. Are you telling me the Company is willing to give me a second chance after all?"

"Well …" He shot her a roguish smile that could have – and probably had – melted the resolve of sterner women than she. "Maybe they don't know about that."

"What are you saying, Rayburn?"

"Do you want complete honesty?"

"In our line of work?"

He turned serious. "My employers aren't involved this time."

"What?"

"Well, Jeanette … can I call you Jeanette?"

"Why?" She tried not to show the effect it had, hearing him purr her own given name in that smoky voice. It was almost enough to make her slither under the table in a boneless puddle.

"This is personal."

"Rayburn, you'd better start making sense pretty soon here."

"Michael."

"What?"

"My name. It's Michael."

"This is getting too strange even for me," she said. An uneasy feeling was creeping over her. This was not the way their game was supposed to be played. This was not in the rules. She didn't know how to react.

"My employers didn't arrange that last job. They never even knew about it. I hired you."

"You?"

"Just me," he said. "I'll understand if you're angry with me."

She was too stunned to be angry, at least not yet. "Let me make sure I've got this straight … you approached me just like always, through the usual channels you've used all those times before. But you were acting on your own this time?"

"That's right."

"Why?"

"I told you it was personal."

"Yes …?" She lifted her voice at the end, querying.

"I put it all together just like any of the other assignments we've given you, but the money was mine and the target was of my choosing. I hired you. Fletcher, Christopher, the others … none of them knew. Which means they don't know it went wrong."

Now she did feel a twinge of anger. "You set me up."

"No. No, nothing like that."

"If Fletcher had found out I was working independently for you …"

"But he didn't. They don't know. They never will. This was, and is, between the two of us. Just you and me, Jeanette."

Jeanette rubbed her temples with her thumbs. "God, Rayburn! What were you thinking?"

"Michael."

"Whatever! But what were you thinking?"

"I wanted him out of the way." He folded his hands on the table and sighed, looking down at them. "It was the only thing I could think of to do. I never dreamed it'd turn out like this. I know I shouldn't have involved you, but you are the best. I didn't trust anyone else to get it done."

"Maybe you should have," she said. The anger was rising now. Duped by a skateboard kid, and now to find out she'd been tricked by Rayburn right from the very outset? "Or maybe it's just as well that I failed. This is not the way I work. I never should have accepted it in the first place. I don't take personal cases. How many times have I said that? Now I find out that you were using me?"

"You are angry."

"Damned right I'm angry. I came closer than I ever have to being caught, and I didn't even get paid. Double my usual fee, my foot … you were going to cheat me, too, weren't you?"

He pushed the envelope back toward her. "Keep it. I'll see that you get the rest."

"No. I don't want it, and if you think I'm still going to take this assignment, you're out of your mind."

"Then keep the twenty-five. For your trouble. It's the least I can do."

"The least you can do is tell me exactly why you jeopardized everything like this. You owe me that much at least. Who is he? What's he to you?"

He bowed his head for a moment, then looked up at her with those striking cobalt eyes. They were darker somehow, darkened by pain, to the indigo of midnight sapphires. "I knew his reputation. A stud. A playboy. One girl after another, and when he was done he'd throw them aside like yesterday's news. I didn't want to see her hurt."

"Who?"

"Sophia."

An image of the gorgeous brunette in the red dress came to her … the brunette with the deep blue eyes …

"Oh, my God," she said. "I thought there was something about her, something that looked familiar. She's your daughter."

Rayburn nodded.

"And she's dating Westbrook."

"I've tried to talk her out of it. Tried to talk sense to her. But she wouldn't listen to me. She thinks it'll be different with her. She thinks that he'll treat her right, and won't abandon her like he has all the others. Jeanette, she's my little girl. She's all I have left. What kind of father would I be if I didn't try to do something?"

"So you decided to have him ‘dealt with’?" She made little finger-quotes as she said the last two words. "Jesus, Rayburn … you've been in this field for too long when that becomes your first solution to every problem!"

"What else could I do?"

"Talk to her!"

"I tried –"

"Talk to him!"

"And tell him what? That he'd better not hurt my baby?"

"It could work. And really, didn't you think it would hurt her to have him end up dead? Murdered? Shot by his own gun?"

"Better that than have him ruin her!" he said with a sudden fierce passion that rocked Jeanette back in her seat.

"You idiot," she said. "My God."

"Am I an idiot for wanting to protect my child?"

"What if they suspected her?" she shot back. "Did you even consider that? What if they decided she did it, and put her away? Is that your idea of protecting her? Sending her to jail for murder?"

He blinked several times, mouth unhinged. "I …"

"You didn't consider it, did you? Or what about the possibility she could have been hurt? What if she'd been with him when I made my move? I didn't know who she was. She might have ended up collateral damage."

"No," he said firmly. "No, I know you. You're precise. Like a surgical laser."

"Accidents happen."

Groaning, he propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. "I only want what's best for her. My Sophia. I never want her to go through what I did."

"You told me you were a widower," Jeanette said.

"I am."

"Then how in the hell would killing Westbrook keep your daughter from going through what you did? It sounds to me like you'd be putting her through the exact same thing!"

"Angela had an affair," he said. "It was brief. It ended. She came back to me repentant, remorseful, swearing that it had been a one-time fling, a momentary aberration. I should have known better, but I loved her so much … needed her so much. Sophia was still a child then, and needed her mother. So, God help me, I took Angela back."

Jeanette had a chill, knowing what was coming next.

"For a while, it was all right," Rayburn said. He spoke like someone finally unburdening something that had been weighing on him for years, which it probably had been. "Better than ever. But then, a few years later, she met someone else. It wasn't just a fling that time. She wanted a divorce so that she could marry him. She wanted to take Sophia away from me, too. I couldn't let that happen."

"Does Sophia know that you had her mother killed?"

"To this day she thinks it was an accident. She grieved. But she never had to know that her own mother would have abandoned her. I protected her from that, and I'll protect her from Westbrook the same way. I'll do it myself, if I have to."

"You can't protect her from ever being hurt by anything or anyone in her entire life," Jeanette said. "Rayburn, you can't. It's impossible. She's a person, not an exhibit you can keep under glass."

Even as she spoke, she caught herself wondering what it would have been like to have a father – or a lover, or anyone – willing to go to such lengths for her. Willing to kill for her. Not for profit, not for gain, but solely because it was personal.

"I can't sit back and do nothing."

"You can. You will. You have to."

"What you're saying is that you won't take the job. All right. I'll find another way."

"What I'm saying is that you aren't going to do this, Michael."

He raised his head, startled by her use of the name.

"You're going to leave him alone," she said.

"But Sophia –"

"Needs to handle this on her own. You have to let her lead her own life. That's all any of us want." She wasn't about to tell him that she'd just learned that herself, and from a damned skateboard kid, no less.

A terrible wrenching spasm of grief twisted his expression. Somehow, it didn't make him any less handsome. "She's all I have left."

"Does she know you love her, and that you're there for her no matter what?"

"Always."

"Then she'll be fine. Better than the rest of us." She rose smoothly from her seat, shaking her sassy new hairdo around her face.

"I don't blame you," he said. "Not many women would accept a dinner invitation from a man who'd just confessed to murder."

"Well," Jeanette said, sliding into the booth beside him, "luckily for you, I'm not like many women."

**

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

"She was here? Right here?"

Eva Cesare was pale and shaking. Hector was shaking, too, but his face was flushed dark with anger. They had just finished telling Allison about their sudden visitor.

"Did you call the police?" Jamie asked.

Allison felt like she was hooked to a helium balloon, drifting up away from the earth, away from conventional reality. This all kept getting weirder and weirder. It was like she had stumbled into someone else's life.

"No," Hector said. "I wanted to, but Eva told me not to call."

"Why?" Jamie asked her, incredulous. "Why not, Eva?"

"I did not think it would be a good idea," Eva said. "What would we tell them? Why would they believe us? It is crazy … this woman going around threatening people. Who is she? What does she want? Allison, what is all of this?"

"It's my fault," Allison said.

She looked around her single room, feeling violated and heartsick all over again. Her gaze fell on the magazine basket, and she caught her breath. She dashed to it and pulled out magazines in clumps. People with Jude Law on the cover. Entertainment Weekly with the cast of Big Bang Theory. People with the Kardashians. Entertainment Weekly with a montage of characters from upcoming children's movies. Cosmopolitan with a model in a slinky dress and "Ten Tips To Drive Him Wild In Bed." People with Will Smith, cute-as-a-bug.

No folder.

"It's gone!"

"What's gone?" Jamie wheeled closer.

"The folder. The one with the pictures."

"Allison, what is all of this?" repeated Eva. "What was in that envelope you had me hold for you? Who is that woman? You have to tell me!"

"God, she was here!" Allison wrapped her arms around herself.

"It's almost seven," Jamie said. "If we're going to call the police, we'd better hurry."

"What envelope?" Hector asked.

"I don't know what to do," Allison said.

"Please, tell me what is going on," Eva said.

"Everyone, be quiet," Jamie said.

For a moment, they were, and they could all clearly hear Mr. Kaminski's television through the back wall. It was tuned to Wheel of Fortune … whirr-clicky-click and the dismal down-spiraling noise of someone landing on Bankrupt. That sound summed up Allison's mood.

"I can't do this," Allison said, looking helplessly at Jamie.

"You know you can," he said. "You're tough."

"I'm not. I'm a wimp."

"I could never love a wimp."

Flustered as much by what he'd said as by the matter-of-fact tone in which he'd said it, she dropped magazines all over the place. Love? Had he really dropped the L-bomb on her? Just like that, out of the blue and in front of Eva and Hector and God and everybody?

She stared at him, momentarily robbed of the power of speech. His eyes were dark and deep and full of trust. That warm curve of patented Jamie Tremayne smile melted her like so much gooey chocolate on a summer day.

"Okay," she said. She went to the phone.

She would call the police. She would dump all of this on them and deal with the consequences as best she could. Then, maybe, if she got through it in one piece, she could see if there was still a chance for something to develop between the two of them.

Before she could pick it up and dial, another phone rang. This one was in her pocket, the chirping ring of the pre-paid cell phone. Her sunburst clock pointed to a minute past seven.

"It's her!" she said in a foolish stage whisper.

Jamie swore silently, looking grim. "You'd better answer, Allison, and see what she has to say."

"What is –" Eva began, but stopped at a stern gesture from Jamie.

The cell phone chirped again. Allison answered. "Hello."

"Hello, Allison."

"Look, I know you wanted to talk to Scoot –"

"Oh, enough of that," snapped Jade. "Did you think I wouldn't figure it out? Did you think you'd fooled me?"

"Um …"

"Now, Scoot, or Allison, or whatever you're going by, we have a problem here. Don't you agree?"

"What do you want?"

"I want this never to have happened, but unless you can turn back time, we'll have to make do somehow. We'll have to improvise. Where's my money?"

"I …"

"And don't lie to me, Scoot. Don't think you can get away from me. Even if you could, other people would pay."

"How can you –"

"Like your boyfriend in the wheelchair. Or those neighbors of yours, who seem like such decent people." Jade paused, while icy worms of horror burrowed into Allison's stomach. "Or your uncle … or even little Missy, your precious baby sister who writes you such adorable letters."

"No!" The word, blurted louder than she intended, drove a sharp jab of pain into her throat.

"The money?"

"I have it. I have it right here."

"And what were you going to do? Keep it? Turn it over to the police?"

"I hadn't decided," Allison said, then went ahead and admitted the truth. What did she have to lose at this point? "But I was leaning toward keeping it."

She had turned away from the open gawking curiosity of Hector and Eva, away from Jamie's steady and encouraging eyes. She saw the letter from Missy, the envelope with her family's address on it. Of course, she'd known from Jade's tone that it hadn't been a bluff. This was only conformation. The icy worms slithered and knotted.

"At least you're a criminal too," Jade said. "There's that we have in common. You know that if you go to the police, they'll have some very serious questions about your own habits and activities. Right, Scoot?"

"Right," she said, downcast, head hanging. She wanted to protest that she was nothing like Jade, nothing at all, but didn't want to anger the woman on the other end. "I have the tape, too."

"The tape." Jade let out a breath that sounded strained between clenched teeth. "I can't take your word for it that you haven't copied it, and there'd be no way I could know."

"I haven't!"

"I'd like to believe you, but like I said, I can't. And it doesn't matter, really."

"I just want this to be over," Allison said.

"There's another thing we have in common. You've caused me a lot of trouble."

"I'll give back the money."

"You certainly will. But what else am I going to do about you?"

"Oh, stop it! Don't play with me!" Allison surprised herself by raising her voice. It was coarse as a file scraped over metal. "If you're going to kill me, just go ahead and say so and quit dicking around!"

There was a long, thoughtful silence after this outburst. A long, thoughtful silence in which Allison could see her life slipping away like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass running empty.

"I'd really prefer not to have to do that," Jade said at last. "Despite what you might think, I am not some murderous maniac. It's all business, Scoot. Always business. What would I gain from killing you? I admit, you've been a pain in the butt and I've had my moments of revenge fantasies, but I can't afford to risk indulging them. Nobody would pay me for getting rid of you. There's no profit in it, even if it would be a measurable public service. So I'm prepared to leave you alone."

Her words hung in an expectant way.

"If …?" Allison prompted, not really wanting to hear the rest but knowing that she had to.

"If it goes both ways. If you're prepared to leave me alone."

"What's that mean?"

"That means, I get my money back, and you destroy that tape, and you don't go to the police. You forget that this ever happened."

"Boy, would I love that," Allison said, and she meant every word.

"Wouldn't we both," remarked Jade dryly. "That's my deal. You keep your end, and convince your neighbors to do the same. I'll keep mine. We'll never have to deal with each other again."

"What if I can't convince them?"

"Try," Jade said. "Try really hard."

"But what if I can't?"

"Like I said, if I'm unable to get at you, I'll start with your friends and your family. I won't enjoy it, I won't profit from it, but business is business and I'll do what I have to in order to keep my career afloat. You got that?"

A tear trickled down Allison's face and she wiped it away, thinking of Missy, and Jamie, and Uncle Bob, and everyone else whose lives were hanging on a thread thanks to her. "All right. But there's one other thing I want."

"Oh, and you're the one calling the shots?" Jade asked with bitter humor.

"Don't do it," Allison pleaded. "The guy … the guy with the sailboat … leave him alone, too."

"What's he to you?"

"Nobody. I just can't stand to see anyone else hurt."

"How many times do I have to say it? It's business."

"Please!"

Through the phone, she heard muffled traffic and street noises. She heard a gusty sound that might have been a sigh, and might have been Jade snorting in disgust at this display of soft-heartedness.

"Jade?" Allison ventured. "Are you still there?"

"I'm here."

"Can't you let this one go?"

"It's a moot point, you know," Jade said. "By now, the police will have tracked him down as the owner of that gun. It's evidence, so they might not give it back to him right away, but they'll have informed him where it came from and he will be suspicious. What did you tell them about where you got it? Not the truth, I know."

"No," Allison admitted. "I told them I bought it from a street vendor."

Jade laughed. "Clever. Lying to the police to save your own skin. Good job."

She said nothing, writhing inwardly with shame.

"But anyway, it is a moot point," Jade went on. "I couldn't get at him now. He'll be alert. The police might even be watching him, thinking that he had something to do with all of this. If we're lucky, maybe they'll even find a way to pin Weasel on him."

The admission, made so casually, sent a shudder twisting through Allison.

"So, I'll agree," Jade went on. "I won't kill him. I'll just have to repay my up-front fee and deal with some disappointed clients. This has put a serious blot on my record."

"You'll really leave him alone?"

"Yes."

"And me? And my friends, my family, my neighbors?"

"Yes to all of the above."

"So I just give the money back, and destroy the tape, and it's done?"

"It's done. Not that I expect you to trust my word, unless there is honor amongst thieves. Which is what we both are when you scrape away the veneer. You steal purses, I steal lives. Well? What do you say? Is it a deal?"

"It's a deal," Allison said. She didn't dare look at Jamie, Eva, or Hector, sure that they would be staring at her in contempt, not understanding that she was only trying to look out for and protect the people she cared about. "When and where do you want me to bring the envelope?"

Again, Jade laughed, and this time it was mirthless. "So that you can set a trap, and have the police there to catch me?"

"No!" Allison hadn't thought that far ahead, and once more felt hopelessly out of her depth.

"Let's not even give you the chance," Jade said. "Step outside on your balcony, why don't you?"

The slithering icy worms inside her froze into a solid tangled mass, which then plummeted as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. Her throat contracted into a pinhole again, and fine hairs stood up all along her arms and the nape of her neck.

She could easily picture herself drawing back the draperies and finding Jade there on the balcony. Phone in one hand, gun in the other. The last sight she'd see would be Jade's green eyes and cruel smile, and maybe a muzzle flash.

"Are you going to shoot me?"

"We've been through this already," Jade said impatiently. "If I'm going to shoot you, wouldn't you rather get it over with?"

Strangely, that relaxed her. She covered the mouthpiece while she dug around in her duffel bag for the envelope. "You guys go into Eva's apartment, okay? Stay there until I come back, no matter what."

"Allison –"

"Please, Jamie. Don't argue."

"You are making a deal with the devil," Eva said, shaking her head.

"I know, but I have to. Go on. I'll be right there."

"I don't want to leave you," Jamie said.

"Trust me," Allison said. "I know I don't deserve anybody's trust, but … please. This once."

"I do trust you," he said. "I'll go, but, Allison, I don't like it."

They went into the next apartment. Jamie looked back at her like she was on her way to the gallows or the guillotine. Maybe she was. If so, the last thing she wanted was for any of them to be hurt as well.

"You're too good for me, Jamie," she said.

Once the kitchen door was shut, Allison bolted it from her side. She went to the drapes. Steeling herself, she pulled them back.

The balcony was empty. Allison slid the glass door open and stepped out. She looked over the rail. There, in the alley where she'd been only a few hours ago, was Jade. She was wearing different clothes, but it was her, all right. Phone in one hand … gun in the other. But the gun was held low against her leg, not pointing up at Allison.

"Toss it down," Jade said.

"You promised, remember."

"I know."

Allison held the fat envelope of cash over the rail. Twenty-five thousand dollars. Enough money to help a lot of people. She found that her fingers didn't want to let go. She forced them to open.

The envelope fell straight down and slapped into the alley. Jade, still keeping an eye on her, bent and picked it up. She tore away the tape, riffled the bills, nodded. "It's all here?"

"Yes."

"And the tape?"

She tossed it down. The tiny cassette did not crack when it hit the ground.

Jade picked it up, examined it, and pocketed it. "Good. One more thing."

Somehow, Allison managed not to flinch. This was when it would come, the sudden raising of the gun, the whipcrack of the report, the flash, the impact.

But the shot didn't come. Instead, Jade cocked her head and surveyed her like she was a germ under a microscope.

"Why, Allison? Why do you live in a dump like this? Your family's got more money than I'll ever make and you threw all that away to live like … like these people. Why?"

The questions hit her almost as hard as bullets. "What does that have to do with anything? You got what you wanted. Now go!"

"Call me crazy, but I'm interested," Jade said. Her tone was grudgingly admiring. "You've caused me no end of trouble, dressing as a boy, riding around on that damned skateboard … you've got guts, I'll say that much. You're quick, too. The way you lied on the phone when you must've realized it was me … that whole 'Steffi' thing … pretty slick."

"Not so slick." Allison didn't know what to say. She didn't feel like she had guts … she felt like her guts running down her legs into her shoes. And she did not want this woman, of all people, to admire her.

"Maybe we're not so different after all," Jade said. "Maybe that's why I don't really want to kill you. Inside, we're the same. So, answer my question. Why?"

"If I stayed with them I'd never have my own life," she was astonished to hear herself say. "That's all I want. My own life."

"Yeah," Jade said. She put her gun away. "Me, too. Goodbye, Scoot. Steer clear of Century Plaza from now on."

"Count on it."

Jade headed for the mouth of the alley. At the end, she paused and looked back. "I'd tell you to stay out of trouble," she said. "But I don't think it would do any good."

**

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Jeanette saw her leave the apartment building, striding down the sidewalk at a brisk pace that only the person who had frightened her would recognize as a near-run. To anyone else, the girl named Allison could have just been late for an appointment or worried she'd miss a bus.

A heavy duffel bag swung at her side, and this disturbed Jade. Was Allison, or Steffi, or whatever she wanted to call herself, splitting altogether? Leaving town? Was she worried she'd miss a bus? A Greyhound to another state?

But Allison didn't matter. Scoot was what mattered.

By five o'clock, evening was descending over the city like a flight of dusky moths. Most of the shops in the neighborhood were closing. Jade returned to her car, waited until the bulk of the street and sidewalk traffic had eased, and then calmly set about breaking into the thrift store.

She wasn't concerned about setting off an alarm, and didn't need to be. The back door, which was marked 'Emergency Exit Only' and opened onto an alley, had a cheap lock that broke after only two hard strikes with a hammer from the toolkit in the trunk of her car. No braying sirens split the air, no lights flashed. Who would bother installing an expensive system to protect a bunch of donated junk?

The store had been closed all day and there was the slim chance that it was because the proprietor was doing inventory. However, once Jeanette was inside, she found the place utterly deserted.

The scent of it brought back her childhood again, that unwelcome rush of memories. Musty upholstery. Harsh, cheap detergent. The poor-sweat of customers who'd handled the items on display. Rust. Mildew. She could almost see herself here, that younger Jeanette, pushing the cart for her mother while Mitchell kicked and squalled in the seat and Carrie and Deena pleaded for naked Barbie dolls in plastic bags, or threadbare stuffed animals. Their mother would be loading the cart with school clothes for them … mostly with the knees out or the cuffs frayed or splotched with bleach stains or missing buttons.

Shuddering, she forced those thoughts out of her mind and set about a purposeful search. The overhead fixtures were out, but enough light came in through the wide front windows to allow her to make her way through the store easily enough. Her petite stature made it easy to duck down unseen behind the stacks of cookie tins, wicker baskets, board games and holiday decorations on the shelves that topped the racks, if any pedestrians should happen by.

In the ladies' wear section, she selected the best outfit that she could assemble from the choices. The idea of putting on the clothes turned her stomach, but she had been seen by too many people in the black track suit, and it wasn't right for what she needed now.

She started with dark grey slacks, in the middle ground between dressy and casual. They were too long, but she found a pair of nearly-new black suede slouch boots to tuck them into. A plain white blouse with fake pearl buttons went under a vee-necked sweater in a green, white and grey diamond-shaped pattern, one sleeve bearing a cigarette burn on the inside of the elbow.

In all her younger years she had never once gotten lice or ringworm from thrift-store clothes, the thought of such vermin nagged persistently as she dressed in the plywood stall of the changing room. She stuck the track suit and hooded warm-up jacket on a spare hanger and jammed them onto a rack. The sneakers, she shelved with the other shoes. Everything that had been in her pockets went into a black purse with a strap she wore crossing her body from shoulder to hip. She suspected that she would carry her purses like that from now on.

By the time she was done changing, no police cars had been summoned by any silent alarm or keen-eyed passerby, so Jeanette let herself out the same way she had come in. Instead of returning to the car, she walked down the alley toward Dunley, behind the ugly backsides of the 6th Street businesses.

She saw two stray cats and a homeless woman, and then she was back on Dunley across the street from the used bookstore. She had watched Allison long enough to see the girl enter the bookstore, and remembered how the wheelchair-bound clerk had sounded so protective and fond of her.

Strange. He had struck Jeanette as an intelligent, literate guy. Not the sort who would run with a brain-dead slut like Steffi. Nor had Allison seemed much like Steffi in person. So what was she doing with Bigfoot? Or had it all been some sort of weird mix-up that Jeanette couldn't yet fit together?

The bookstore was dark, the 'Closed' sign in the door. Jeanette headed for the apartment building, moving like she knew where she was going and belonged here as much as anyone.

Getting in wouldn't be a problem … an elderly man with his pants hiked up to his armpits had propped the front door open with a rolled newspaper as he exerted himself into a stroke lugging groceries from a beat-to-shit old station wagon illegally parked at the curb.

Jeanette stood back out of his way as he went past, arms trembling to support a box full of canned goods – creamed corn, stew, soup, tuna. "It's … for … my … sister," he said. "Food … bank. She's … a shut … in. Fourth … floor."

"Let me get the elevator for you," she said, darting around him to thumb the button. In the wall, gears groaned and cables creaked, and before the doors even slid open, Jeanette knew that she wouldn't get in that thing if her life depended on it. The prospect of plunging down the shaft wasn't nearly as daunting as that of being trapped in the claustrophobic little cage, unable to get out, having to wait for rescue.

"Thanks!" wheezed the old man. "Going … up?"

"I'll take the stairs," she said, smiling and giving him a cheerful little wave.

Allison's apartment was on the second floor. Jeanette got out, nose wrinkling at old, familiar smells not much better than those of the thrift store. A cat box, diapers, the yellowed-newspaper stink of old people, stale cigarette smoke, frying onions.

The only person in the hall was a little boy, sitting on the carpet playing with a toy garage and a bunch of Matchbox cars. The door behind him was open, and the source of the frying-onion smell as well as the sound of a Seinfeld rerun on the television.

"Hello," the little boy said.

"Hi."

She didn't linger, kept on going. When she glanced back, the kid had lost interest in her and gone back to his cars.

The row of intercom buttons out front had shown an 'Arnold Kaminski' in 211 and an 'A. Montgomery' in 206, and no other A-names. 206 lined up with Jeanette's orientation of where she remembered the balcony being, and moments later she was at the door.

Now she had to move fast. The kid wasn't much of a witness, only two or three years old and paying more attention to his cars, but even he was bound to remember if the nice blonde lady took too long getting through the door, or had to do something as dramatic as kicking it down.

This lock, though, opened readily enough after a few pokes with a slim strip of metal that Jeanette kept with her for just such an occasion. She let herself in, glanced back again, saw the kid trying to drive his cars up the wall, and shut the door.

Allison's apartment was dark and quiet, and the smell of carpet shampoo hung in the air. Jeanette drew the drapes across the window that gave onto the balcony, then switched on the lamp.

She saw what was missing first. No television. And an odd sense of absence to the furniture, as if some large piece should have been present but wasn't. A sunburst clock hung askew on the wall, the hands pointing almost straight up and down as it ticked its way toward six.

Bigfoot had been here. Had been shot here. That was why the place smelled of wet carpets and shampoo. That was why some of the furniture was missing, either broken in the struggle or hauled away later with bloodstains. Jeanette had seen plenty of gunshot wounds and knew all too well how they bled. There was a lot of what Rayburn liked to call 'the claret' in a person.

But what, what had Bigfoot been doing here in the first place? What did Allison have to do with Steffi have to do with Scoot?

She was missing something. Overlooking some vital part of all this. And it was driving her crazy.

The tape cassette was not in the recorder. Scoot had listened to it, she was sure. And the fact that he'd taken it out suggested that he had either given it to the police, or hidden it for his own reasons. Had he hidden it here?

Hastily, she tossed the apartment. She found nothing to suggest that the girl who lived here was involved with any guy, let alone a stoner like Bigfoot. She examined a collection of small trinket boxes, some of which were very nice, expensive and imported. Some of the pieces of jewelry were quite good as well, and that in itself made her wonder all over again what this girl was doing involved with Bigfoot. Why hadn't he yet ripped off her good pieces and hawked them to support his drug habit?

The furnishings, though, could have come right from the thrift store. The clothes likewise, though there were some nicer outfits.

The books were mostly thrillers and mysteries – J.A. Jance, James Patterson, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, Sharyn McCrumb, Janet Evanovich, Tami Hoag, the ubiquitous King and Koontz – with a few fantasy and romance standards by Anne McCaffrey, Robert Jordan, David Eddings and Katherine Kurtz. By the look of them, they had been purchased at the used bookstore.

She found a letter in with a stack of mail, and read the childlike printing with growing curiosity.

Dear Allie, I miss you, when are you coming home? David is going to tennis camp this summer and Steven to music camp so it will be boring here. Mom says it won't because I will have Danny to play with but Danny is a baby and he bites me. I drew you a picture so you remember who I am. Love, Missy.

In with the letter was a fairly skillful drawing showing a large house and a family, and a red-haired girl with sad eyes.

The envelope was embossed, with an ornate calligraphy M and the return address stamped into the upper corner in gold leaf. That was when Jeanette's brow really furrowed. She knew that neighborhood. It made Palmyra Hills look like tract housing and her own gated community look like the ghetto.

What in the world was a daughter of that kind of wealth and privilege doing living in a place like this? How had she gotten hooked up with a loser like Bigfoot?

Most of all, what was she, Jeanette, missing? The more she learned, the less it all added up.

She flipped through a bunch of celebrity gossip magazines in a wicker rack, more in the interest now of trying to get a handle on who Allison really was than for anything else, and froze when she uncovered a manila folder.

Hardly daring to blink for fear it would vanish like a mirage, she snatched it up and opened it.

Benedict Westbrook's bronzed, smiling face looked up at her.

The information! It was here, all of it, the papers that Rayburn had given her, the photographs, the addresses, the times and places!

A wave of dizziness went through her head and she had to brace herself against the wall. She clutched the folder to her chest to assure herself that it was real.

The folder was here. It had not been turned over to the police. The gun was in their hands, yes. After the shooting, it would have been taken. But not the folder. She put it in her new black purse.

The tape was gone … did that mean the police had the tape? Or did that mean the tape had been hidden?

And what about the money? If anything, that was what the shooting had been about. Probably the reason behind the lumpy purple mess of the girl's face, too. No attempted rape, but a disagreement over the cash. Twenty-five thousand would be a tempting pie, with everyone wanting the bigger slice.

Except … damn it, that didn't make sense either, if Allison was a rich girl. Unless she was disowned. Did people still do that? She had no idea.

A sudden voice made her twitch to a state of wary, catlike alertness. It wasn't in the apartment, which was a single room with a puny bathroom, but it was close. A moment later she realized it was coming from the other side of a sliding door, and was accompanied by the sounds of running water and sliding drawers.

"—a mistake to have anything to do with him," the voice said. It was a woman, textured with a slight Spanish accent. She sounded tired and irritated.

Distantly, a male voice responded, but Jeanette couldn't make out the words. She thought one might have been 'brother.'

The woman with the Spanish accent said, "But I am your sister, Hector, doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Hector!

Pots and pans clattered. "I would think after last night you would know better," the woman said. "You could have gone to jail. Why did you have to shoot him? There must have been some other way."

Jeanette drew her gun and held it against her thigh as she approached the door. She saw that it would be easy to open – throw the bolt, slide the door, and she'd be in. She'd get some actual-damn-answers, instead of just more questions.

Cupboards opened and closed. Ice clinked into a glass. There was the unmistakable hiss-pop of a soda can, and a fizzy gurgle. "I just don't know what all that business was that he was saying," the woman said. "Purse-snatchings and women with guns –"

The sound of the pouring soda had covered the metallic rasp of the bolt, and Jeanette flung the door aside at the word "guns."

**

CHAPTER THIRTY

Jamie listened to every word without interrupting, his only response being an intrigued, interested look that grew more pronounced with each revelation.

When she was done, Allison sat back and regarded him with wary expectation. "Well?"

"Wow," he said.

"Wow? Is that all?"

"You've got to give me a minute to let it all sink in."

"Okay." She needed a minute herself, really. She already felt better for having gotten it all out, but at the same time was wondering what she had been thinking to tell him so much. He wouldn't let her walk away now. He'd insist on being with her, on helping. He couldn't leave her to face this alone.

It would, she thought, serve her right if that was exactly what he did. If he gave her a hearty commiserating clap on the back and said, "Gee, Allison, that's a hell of a tale, thanks for sharing, thanks, see ya, bye." It would be just what she deserved.

"So you think this woman – Jade – killed someone this morning," he said after a long, thoughtful pause.

"Yes," Allison said.

"You should call the police."

"But I'd have to tell them how I got myself into this mess."

"Yeah, they'd probably like to know."

"I'd be arrested! I stole her purse –"

"For God's sake, Allison, do you really expect her to press charges?"

"What about all the other purses?"

"Slap on the wrist," Jamie said, and he sounded mildly annoyed with her, as if she was quibbling over petty meaningless details and ignoring the bigger picture. Which, in fact, she was. "If they even care about that at all. You'd be giving them a murderer. A serial killer."

Allison shivered. "A serial killer?"

"Well, maybe not," he amended. "She doesn't sound like a psycho, like the ones you hear about on the news. But a repeat killer, at the very least. A multiple-murderer. An assassin. You can't possibly believe that this is the first time she's done this. From everything you told me about the tape, and your conversations with her, it sounds like she's done this plenty of times before. If you can hand the police a way to tie up who-knows-how-many unsolved murders, the last thing they'll care about is you swiping a few handbags."

"It isn't that easy," she said, though she knew he was right. "I don't really know anything about her. She didn't leave her driver's license in her purse."

"Fingerprints, her voice on tape, and you've seen her. More than once. Are you telling me you couldn't describe her? That'd give them a good place to start."

"What if they don't catch her, though? She knows who I am. She knows where I live. She'll come after me." Allison touched her bruised cheekbone. She already didn't feel safe in her own home, and to have a professional killer mad at her was enough to ensure she might never feel safe again, anywhere.

"We're not going to let that happen," Jamie said. "The police will catch her. They'll protect you. Besides, you have other places you can go."

"I don't want to bring Uncle Bob any more into this than I already have. And my family … I don't want them to know at all."

"There's me."

"You've done too much already."

"Don't push me out of this, Allison. Don't even think that." He squeezed her hand almost hard enough to hurt.

"Jamie …"

"And you have a lot of friends in this neighborhood," Jamie said. "You know how they rally 'round."

"Oh, sure," Allison said. "When it's something like Needles breaking the arms of that pervert, or even the way they supported Hector for shooting Jon … because those were bad guys. Bad guys getting what was coming to them. And when Mrs. Oberdorfer, or Needles and Tisha, or anybody else finds out what I've been doing, they'll think that I'm a bad guy, too. That if some killer shoots me in the head, I'll be getting what's coming to me, too."

"They won't."

"They will! And then I won't have anywhere to go, anyplace I can call home."

"Allison." He took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. "I'm sorry to say it like this, but … this isn't about you."

"What?"

"If you don't go to the police, that woman is going to get away with what she's done. She's going to get away with murder. What if she does come after you, and kill you? Then she'll get away with that, too. And she'll go whack this Westbrook guy and he'll die, and even if she leaves him alone, what about all the other people after him? You think she'd quit? She'd just move on to the next job. And you'll be responsible."

She blinked at him, feeling thunderstruck, and the only thing that came out of her mouth was incredibly childish and inane. "Well, if I'm dead, I won't care, will I?"

"Won't you?" he countered.

"What, is this an afterlife thing? God's going to punish me?"

He shrugged. "Nobody knows for sure."

"I never would have guessed you as the religious type," she said, thinking that if anything, he should have refused to believe in, or outright turned away from, any good Lord so merciful as to stick him in that awful wheelchair.

The corner of Jamie's mouth lifted in a slantwise grin. "It's a miracle I'm even alive, so who am I to doubt? I should have died in that accident."

Her gaze shifted to his legs, which looked so normal. A little thin, maybe, the muscles not as toned as the rest of him. Then, feeling guilty for staring at him like that, she blushed.

"You've never asked how I ended up on wheels."

"I thought it'd be rude and nosy." And, though she couldn't bring herself to say it, she'd always just figured he had been born that way.

He smiled. "You'll steal and paw through some stranger's purse, but it's rude and nosy to ask a friend about himself?"

"Well … I …"

"Remember the other day, you came over and caught me watching adventure racing? I used to do it."

"You did? With the … rock climbing and the kayaking and the freezing your butt off in the remote wilderness?"

"Yeah." Jamie's smile softened into a faraway expression, part nostalgia, part bitterness for what was lost, part exhilaration. "It seems like such a long time ago. I was outdoorsy as a kid. Hiking with my dad, mountain biking, white water rafting. Mom hated it, thought he was going to get both of us killed. She was a city girl. The funny thing was, that was what killed them. The city."

"The city killed them?"

"They were mugged one night coming home from a restaurant. It was their twenty-fifth anniversary. I was in college. The way I heard it was that Dad thought he could take the robber. But as fast as he was, he couldn't beat a bullet."

"Oh, Jamie, I'm so sorry!"

"School seemed meaningless after that," he said. "I wasn't learning anything that I couldn't learn from books. So, with the insurance money and what I got from selling the house, I dropped out of school and became an adventure racer. Bought all the highest-tech gear. Flew all over the world. South America, New Zealand, Russia, everywhere. I was getting pretty good. Good enough to compete. My dream was to get on a team for the Eco-Challenge, the big one by Mark Burnett."

"The Survivor guy, sure," Allison said, recognizing the name.

"Then, my luck ran out," Jamie said.

"You don't have to tell me –"

"I know."

"Okay," she said. "If you're sure."

He got that faraway look again. "It was a biking leg. I was with my girlfriend and her –"

Allison jumped a little, and Jamie laughed. She started to blabber some apology, but he gestured her to silence.

"Yes, I even had a girlfriend," he said. "Kirsten. Another racer. She and her brother Kevin were rising stars on the circuit, and we all sort of fell in together. Kevin was the driving force, though. We all saw what we were doing as a personal challenge, but Kevin really had a conquer-the-world thing. Nothing was ever good enough. He was the one who had to go higher, faster, more extreme. But even when he was being Captain Ahab, he had a way of encouraging us to go to lengths we would have thought were impossible."

"Was she pretty? Kirsten?" She was disgusted with herself to find that as Jamie revealed his tragic past, what most hooked into her like cat claws was jealousy at this mention of a girlfriend.

"Honestly? Not really. Tough, healthy, tanned, strong, fit … but not really pretty. It didn't matter, though. There are so few female racers that any of them are considered a good catch."

"Like in skateboarding," Allison said. "A lot of groupies, not many girls who actually get on a board."

"It was late," he said, and she could tell that he was seeing another place far removed from this musty book-smelling back office. "Sunset. Gorgeous country. We were up in the Canadian Rockies, in a part of the world where you could almost believe you were the first explorers on a new planet. The only signs of civilization we could even see were the contrails from jets. Kevin wanted to make the next marker by dark, and we'd had some delays along the way. A rockslide that we had to get off our bikes and climb over, carrying them. Winds, some snow."

Allison felt awestruck by his simple words, and at the knowledge that Jamie Tremayne, pleasant Jamie from the bookstore, had once led a life far more filled with risks and thrills than her own. She also felt juvenile and stupid. What was Scoot and a skateboard compared with this?

"So we pressed on," Jamie said. "At twilight, at that elevation, everything was unearthly. The snow on the mountains seemed to glow like moonlight, though the moon wasn't up. The first few stars were out, and the last of the sunlight was this clear gold that made all the colors and details leap at you. The air was icy-crisp and sharp as a scalpel. I was bringing up the rear, behind Kirsten. My front tire hit a rock, and when I bounced over it, I came down on a patch of ice. That was it for me."

"What happened?"

"I don't remember," he said hollowly. "I remember everything right up until that point. How the stripes on Kirsten's suit were this iridescent green, almost neon. How my leg muscles ached, but it was a good ache, the kind you get from exercise, the kind full of pride and accomplishment. I remember how hungry I was and how much I was looking forward to stopping for the night. Then there was the rock, and the ice, and darkness."

"What about Kevin and Kirsten?"

"They heard me go over. They told me later that my bike flipped, then slid, and went into a ravine. I hit at least three trees, and the last one kept me from going over a forty-foot drop. The bike did go over. I saw it later and it looked like a metal rag some giant had wrung out."

"Oh, my God," Allison murmured. To think that he could have died … long before she even had the chance to meet him …

"I was in a coma for nineteen days," Jamie said. "Kevin and Kirsten got down to me, called for help, and waited with me. They had me airlifted out by helicopter. I'd broken both legs – the left in two places, the right in four. Crushed three vertebrae. Broken one arm and dislocated the shoulder. Nine ribs, one of which punctured a lung. And to top it all off, I fractured my skull. My helmet was cracked clean in two."

She put her arms around him, and though she knew those injuries had been years ago, and had long since healed as much as they were going to, she did so carefully. As if she would hurt him. Her eyes were wide and her chin was quivering with retroactive fear and shock for what had happened to him.

"The doctors didn't think I would ever come out of the coma, or that if I did, I'd be so brain damaged that I would have been better off dead. They got in touch with my closest relative, an aunt on my father's side, and started sounding her out about organ donation."

"You're kidding!" Allison gasped.

"Hey, they move fast when they've got a live one," Jamie said. "So to speak."

"They would've …"

"Harvested me," he said. "Heart, kidneys, corneas –"

"That's revolting!"

"I was a young guy, prime of health except for being a human jigsaw puzzle. No sense letting all that good material go to waste, if it could have helped some other people live a better life."

"It's so … vulturish. Were they trying to get your aunt to pull the plug?"

He went grim. "Kirsten told me later that they were leaning on her pretty heavily. Poor Aunt Sarah had only met me three times, one of them at my parents' funeral, and she didn't know what I would have wanted. She took so long to make up her mind that I came out of the coma and ruined the harvesting team's hopes."

"Good!" Allison said vehemently.

"I spent another month in the hospital, had a bunch of surgeries. Then eight months of rehab and physical therapy." He spoke lightly, glossing it over, but Allison was sure that those had been months and months of raw torture and sheerest living hell.

"Jamie, I'm so sorry."

"It could have been worse. I lived. I surprised everyone by not being a vegetable, by not showing any lingering signs of brain damage at all. But they told me I'd never walk on my own again. In a way, it would have been better to be brain damaged, because I wouldn't have known what I was losing."

"Don't say that," she said, holding him tighter, as if she could somehow undo his pain with her embrace.

"The kid I was then thought so, anyway," he said. "For that Jamie, it was the end of everything. No more races. Stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. Not even able to stand upright without help. It was worse than being dead. I came pretty close to suicide a few times."

She squeezed her eyes shut, hardly able to bear thinking about it. "And … and Kirsten?"

"Kirsten couldn't handle it," he said, and she heard the buried heartache beneath his mild tone. "She stuck with me until I got out of the hospital, but the more people kept telling her how brave and devoted she was, sticking with me despite the fact that I'd be a cripple for the rest of my life, the more it got to her. So she left me. I hated her for it at the time, but I understand now. If it had been me, the Jamie I was then, if our situations had been reversed, I probably would have done the same thing."

"So she just … just dumped you? What did you do?"

"There wasn't much I could do. I survived. I went through those months of physical therapy. Everyone kept saying how lucky I was to be alive, and eventually I came around to believing them. I thought I'd take the miracle a step further, and prove the doctors wrong by regaining full use of my legs. That didn't work out. I did get back more use than they thought. I'm not totally dead from the waist down, thank God."

"Thank God," she echoed, and blushed again.

He paused and gave her a raised eyebrow and an evaluating look.

"Um. You were saying?" she asked.

"The hospital bills ate up most of what I had left from my parents," Jamie said. "Aunt Sarah invited me to come and live with her, but I felt like I'd been too much of a burden on her anyway, and I wasn't up to getting to know a bunch of cousins when I was still so mad at the world. I'd done a lot of reading, and discovered I could escape from things through books. So, with the money I had left, I bought the bookstore. Three years later, I'm still here. And there you have it. The story of Jamie Alan Tremayne, in a nutshell."

"Your middle name's Alan?"

"Yes. What's yours?"

"Danielle. For my father."

"Allison Danielle. That's pretty. Are you all right?"

"Why?"

"You're so pale," he said.

She placed her hands along the sides of his face, brought his head down, and kissed him, a light, brushing kiss that hurt with bittersweet tenderness on her bruised lips.

"I'm glad that you survived," she murmured. "I'm glad you're here."

"And I'm glad you're here," he said. "I'm overdue for some good things in my life."

They kissed again, him being careful and her striving against him, throwing pain to the winds. What was her pain compared to what he'd suffered? She clung to him and turned it into a deep and searching kiss that left them both breathless. When it was done, she leaned her forehead against his and shut her eyes. A familiar sensation of excitement and adrenaline was tingling through her. Here was a risk she hadn't taken in a long time, a thrill that wasn't going to get her killed or land her in jail.

"So," Jamie said, sounding a little unsteady himself. "Now you know all about me."

"Not quite," she said. "You promised …" She reached behind his head and undid the black velvet ribbon.

His hair fell loose, framing his face in honey-gold waves, and the tingle shot through her again – excitement colored with smoking lust. She almost threw herself on top of him. Never mind anything else.

He must have seen it in her eyes, because he drew back from her with what looked like true regret. "As great as this is, Allison, there's still Jade to think about. She's expecting to talk to Scoot when?"

"Seven o'clock tonight."

"And it's after six now."

"Is it?" she asked, shocked. Her gaze followed his to a clock on the wall, and sure enough, the hands stood at ten after six.

"We need to decide what we're going to do."

**

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The cleaners had been and gone, as promised. The recliner was missing, leaving a conspicuously empty place where it had been. The television was gone, too, and the shards of broken screen vacuumed up. The carpet was still damp and smelled faintly of rug shampoo. The scattered books, trinket boxes, and knickknacks had been picked up and put back on the shelf, though of course not arranged the way they had been.

It gave Allison a strange feeling to know that other people, people she'd never met, had been in her apartment going through her stuff. It was for the best of reasons, of course … not with any bad intentions. Still, it creeped her out.

She supposed that it was only poetic justice. Didn't she get her main thrills in life by going through other people's stuff? And with intentions far less benign?

Her throat hurt worse than ever despite another dose of ibuprofen. At lunch, while Uncle Bob and Joe Peters gorged on mushroom-bacon cheeseburgers and endless baskets of seasoned steak fries, she'd supplemented the milkshake with clam chowder to avoid causing herself any more pain. The soup, combined with her lack of sleep and the stress of the trip to the police station, had left her sleepy. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and nap for about five or six hours.

First, though … first she had some calls to make.

She'd promised Jamie Tremayne that she would get in touch when she got home. Normally, especially since their dinner and that kiss, she would have been eager to talk to him. Now, though, she was dreading it. She wanted to see Jamie, wanted to hold him and have him put his arms around her.

But she didn't want him to see her like this. She looked like shit. She should've taken Uncle Bob up on his invitation and stayed hiding out at his house until the bruises faded and she was halfway presentable again.

It wasn't just concern over her looks, either. She hated this sensation of being in way over her head. And of feeling things, sharklike things with lots of teeth, swimming around in the depths.

Bad enough that she'd gotten herself into this situation. Worse to think that she could be endangering the people she knew and cared about. She had already dragged Eva and Hector Cesare into her drama, not to mention Uncle Bob. The last thing she wanted was to get Jamie mixed up in it as well. She was glad she'd chucked the purse. It had been an impulsive move, but at least now it was out of her apartment. Out and gone. When the trash men came on Tuesday, it'd be gone forever. Good riddance.

The rest of it had to go, too. She'd found, to her relief, that the folder with the information on Westbrook was still tucked in among her magazines, looking undisturbed and undiscovered by both the police and the clean-up crew.

"I'm done," Allison said to the quiet apartment. "Quits. Finito. I don't want anything to do with this. He can look out for himself, whoever the heck he is. Screw civic duty. I just want my life back."

So resolved, she would tear up that folder and dispose of it first thing tomorrow. Same with the tape, which she still had in her pocket. She didn't care what might or might not happen to Benedict Westbrook. By now, he would have heard from the police and it was not the problem of Allison Danielle Montgomery. Allison Danielle Montgomery was not going to get involved. She was through. Let the rest of the chips fall where they may, she just didn't give a damn.

All she had to do was convince someone else of that.

Going out on the balcony to get away from the smell of the rug shampoo, she placed her call before her resolve could falter or her bravado could fail.

The phone rang in her ear.

At the same instant, from the alley directly below her, she heard a sudden jingling chime.

She leaned over the rail and looked down.

A pair of disbelieving jade-green eyes looked back up at her.

The phone rang again.

There by the trash cans stood a petite blonde in a black track suit, black running shoes, and warm-up jacket with the hood pushed back. Her platinum hair shone in the sun, the brightest thing in the alley. She was in the chain-link enclosure, the buttercream leather purse dangling from her hand.

Neither of them moved. They stared at each other. Allison felt like she'd been turned to stone, paralyzed by Jade's gaze as surely as if Jade had been a Gorgon straight out of Greek myth.

The phone rang for a third time.

Slowly, Jade's free hand dipped into her pocket. She raised the phone to her ear, thumbing a button. "Hello."

Allison heard it twice, once from the woman and once through the ear-piece, in a curious sort of sound-doubling that only added to her whirling sense of unreality. She couldn't bring herself to speak.

"Your name's not Steffi at all, is it?" Jade asked with bitter chagrin and accusation clawing through her voice.

"I … um …" Her mouth worked, but she could not seem to form words.

"Is it, Allison?"

"Oh, shit," Allison whispered.

"Oh, shit indeed. I think you'd better start talking."

"Um …"

"What really happened here last night?" Each of Jade's words cut like a razor honed from glacial ice. "You were in on it, weren't you? All three of you."

"What?"

"But it went wrong, didn't it?"

"I … I don't know what you're …"

"Spare me the bullshit. You just give a message to Scoot for me."

Allison staggered. For an instant she thought she might drop the phone straight off the balcony and onto Jade's head. She clung to the rail, her knees weak. "A … a message? You …"

Had she heard that correctly? Was she understanding what she thought she was understanding? It couldn't be.

"Tell him," Jade continued relentlessly, enunciating each word with crystal-clear precision, "that I know who he is, and I want what's mine."

"You … you what?"

"I know who he is," she repeated, as if she thought Allison might be thick in the head.

Not that Allison, stammering like a dolt, was giving her any evidence to the contrary. "You … you know who … who Scoot is?"

"That's right. And I don't care what sort of deal you and Jon had with him, or how it went sour. We can put all this behind us, forget the whole thing, as long as he gives me back the rest of my things."

"Which things?"

Jade flapped her hand in irritation. "Don't play games with me. Not the gun; I know the police have that. I want the rest. The money, the tape, the folder."

"Wait a minute," Allison said, still trying without success to make sense of what she was hearing. It was as if Jade were speaking some language tantalizingly familiar to, but not quite exactly, American English. "How do you –?"

"Just tell him, and give him that phone. I'm done dealing with you. I'll talk to Scoot directly."

"But –"

"I'll call him tonight, at seven o'clock."

"I can't do that!" Allison cried.

"You'd better. You must know by now what kind of person I am."

"Yes, but …"

Jade snapped the phone shut, and although they were only a few yards apart, looking right at each other, easily within earshot of ordinary conversation, that decisive snap ended Allison's fumbling attempts to speak.

Those green eyes were still fixed on hers. They were narrowed into deadly, hateful slits. Then Jade turned in a swirl of disheveled platinum-blonde hair. She strode out of the alley.

Allison stared after her. She was on that mental patch of black ice again, wheels spinning without getting any traction.

This was absurd. This was insane!

She went back inside and flopped on the bed.

What had just happened?

Somehow, Jade had come here … how? Why? She knew that Allison had been 'Steffi,' but not that Allison was Scoot. She thought that Scoot was someone else. Some guy. But who? How could Jade be so close to the truth and still so wrong?

It was an impossible mess, a quagmire, and Allison didn't know how to get out of it. Give the phone to Scoot by seven o'clock? Scoot had the phone, had it right this minute! But what else was she going to do? Admit to Jade that she, in fact, was Scoot? How well would that go over? Jade wouldn't believe her … and if by some miracle she did, what then?

A woman like that wouldn't appreciate being tricked or fooled any more than she had already been. She'd kill Allison as much out of spite as out of a desire to snip the loose ends.

The only other crazy idea that popped into the whirling confusion in her mind was that she could get someone else to pretend to be Scoot on the phone. But the only one she could trust enough to ask would be Jamie, and that was not something Allison was about to do. Not Jamie.

She could run. Just cut and run. Leave all her stuff here and go. Somewhere. Anywhere. New York. California. Orlando, Florida. Montreal. Mexico. She had a passport and twenty-five thousand dollars of an assassin's money to spend. Paris. Cairo. Tokyo. Maybe the moon or Mars would be far enough to run.

How about home? Home to the big house, to Daniel and Marian, to Missy and the twins and the country club?

A shudder wracked her. Home? That wasn't home. This was home. Dunley and 6th. She didn't want to give it up. This was her real life.

You must know by now what kind of person I am, Jade had said.

Yes. She did. Jade was the kind of person who would murder a man for money. Jade was the kind of person who would rush out after a phone call, expecting to find 'Steffi' wherever Jon parked his bike, and when she didn't find Steffi there, would shoot a guy named Weasel in the head. What would she have done if she'd found the elusive Steffi? Shot her, too, probably.

Scoot would be as good as dead no matter who Scoot turned out to be. But what would Jade do if Allison didn't come through?

"I have to get out of here," she mumbled. "Right now."

Where to go? Not back to Uncle Bob … he had been understanding, but she wasn't about to drag him deeper.

She thought of Officer Flyte, or Detective please-call-me-Tori Bryland, both of whom had been sympathetic and might listen. But they had only been sympathetic when they thought they were talking to a naïve young woman who had been beaten up, who had been ignorant enough of the law to buy an unlicensed, stolen gun. That was forgivable. The real story would not endear her to them.

Definitely not her parents. Not her brothers. Not her ballerina sister. Absolutely not Missy, who should never hear about any of this.

Eva?

Eva was her friend, and already partly involved. She owed Eva a little more honesty.

She got off the bed, went through the kitchen, and knocked on Eva's side. No answer. So much for that.

Except …

On a Sunday afternoon after everyone's sleep had been interrupted, the rest of the building was somnolent. Not even Mr. Kaminski's television was on. Allison tried the door and it slid obligingly open to reveal the tidy, quiet room on the other side. Eva was a kind, trusting person. Eva didn't lock her side of the kitchen.

And Eva had no idea that Allison had given her an envelope containing the price of a new car.

It was sitting in plain sight on top of the dresser, on a crocheted doily. It made an odd addition to an alabaster candle holder, a statuette of Christ with eyes uplifted in prayer, a silver-framed photo of a teenaged Eva in a white dress, a pad of note paper shaped like a dolphin and a red ceramic pot full of pens and pencils.

Allison felt more like a thief than ever as she tip-toed across the room to retrieve the envelope. The masking tape was still stuck shut and it felt as packed with cash as ever – and she got a twinge of shame that she could possibly have suspected Eva of opening it, let alone taking anything from it.

She tore the top sheet from the notepad and scribbled a quick note to Eva. Dear Eva, thanks for hanging onto it for me, I had to go out for a while, see you later and thanks again to you and H. Your friend, A.

Now that confiding in Eva was not feasible, Allison felt better. She hadn't really wanted to tell this sort of thing to Eva anyway.

However, she did have to talk to someone. Not to get help. Just to have a friendly ear, and maybe to get some advice. There was only one other person besides Uncle Bob that she knew she could trust.

Ten minutes later, she was in front of the Readmore Bookstore, with her duffel bag in hand, just like she was on her way to the junkyard to change into Scoot. She entered the musty, papery-smelling dimness and blinked as her eyes adjusted from the glare of the afternoon sun.

"Allison!" Jamie wheeled toward her, then quit pushing and coasted to a stop as he saw her face. His expression flickered through a multitude of emotions.

In the aftermath of her encounter with Jade, she had almost forgotten. She turned her head away and yanked the elastic band out of her hair, letting it fall in concealing waves over her puffed, purple cheekbone.

"No," Jamie said, and reached out a hand that she could barely look at, let alone take. "Don't, Allison. Don't hide from me."

"I warned you I didn't look so hot," she said, her voice made even hoarser by impending tears. It hadn't been the shock and horror he'd shown that had done that … it was the concern … and something else.

The Readmore closed at five o'clock on Sundays. Now, at quarter 'til, it was already empty but for the two of them. Jamie rolled past her, flipped the sign from 'Open' to 'Closed,' locked the door and lowered the blind, and came back.

He stopped in front of her. "Allison …"

"Jamie, I'm in trouble," she said. "I'm in so much trouble."

"What can I do?" He reached out again.

When she still didn't take his hand, he rolled closer and took hers. He had considerable strength in his upper body, which shouldn't have surprised her as much as it did. Hadn't he pulled her right into his lap the other day?

Jamie drew her two faltering steps toward him. She dropped her duffel – it clunked when it hit the floor, weighted down by her skateboard and all her gear – and put her other hand over her battered face. Her breath caught. She sniffled.

God, she was on the verge of tears! She hadn't expected that. Didn't want to break down and cry in front of him.

"Allison," he said in a soft tone.

He thumped first one leg and then the other to the floor. With his left arm, he pushed hard on the armrest of his chair. Shakily, he levered himself upright. At last he was leaning heavily on the counter but standing, standing in front of her.

She gaped at him through a watery veil of tears. "Jamie … but you can't …"

"Come here." He drew her against him.

Allison let him do it. She felt his arms encircle her and it was the last straw. The remnants of her will crumbled. She put her forehead on his shoulder and wept while he stroked the loose spill of her hair.

"I'm so sorry for what happened," he said, tilting his head against hers. "I wish I had been there to help you. I never want to see you hurt, Allison, never."

"It isn't that," she said between sobs. "There's something else … something worse. I don't know what to do."

"Whatever it is, I'm here for you," he said. "No matter what. I promise."

She looked at him – looked up at him, because standing, even leaning in that awkward scarecrow stance, he was taller than she had expected. "I … I didn't know you could …"

"I can. Sort of. Sometimes. I have metal leg braces and crutches that I can use, but most of the time I don't bother. They make me look like a … cyborg or something. Scary. A clanking robot, lurching along. In the chair, I'm just a cripple."

"You're not," she said. "You're a hero."

"Some hero," he said wryly. "Look at me. I'm standing here with my arms around a beautiful girl, and I'm about to collapse."

"My hero, anyway."

"Again, some hero. I wasn't there when you needed me."

"Please, Jamie, sit down. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

"And I don't want you to hide your face from me. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

As he lowered himself into the chair, she bound her hair back in the ponytail again.

"You don't have to do that," he said. "Your hair is pretty. I don't think I've ever seen it loose."

"I've never seen you without your ponytail, either," she said.

"Later, I promise. Here, come in the office. You can tell me what's wrong."

The bookstore's back office was reached via a wide doorway behind the counter. A large desk that looked like a mahogany door with table legs screwed to the corners was stacked high with cardboard boxes, milk crates and shopping bags full of traded-in or donated books. A library-style trolley, half-full of paperbacks, sat at one end. The only available seating was a futon with a denim cover.

A pair of old-fashioned wooden crutches leaned against the wall. Jamie saw her look at them and nodded. "I keep them here in case I need help getting up off the couch," he said. "Have a seat."

She did, and he maneuvered himself from the chair to the futon beside her. His arm went around her again as if it was the easiest and most natural thing in the world.

"You might not want to do that when I tell you what I have to tell you," she said, loathe though she was to give up the welcome, warm comfort.

"I don't think there's anything you could tell me that would make me feel that way."

"We'll see about that," she said, and told him the whole story.

**