1 A High-End Finish (21 page)

I had been enemies with Whitney most of my life. But if I died, who would fix her water leaks? Who would she call to unclog her toilets? No, I couldn’t believe Whitney would bother trying to kill me. But Jennifer? Definitely.

My head was spinning painfully with clues and possibilities and too many dead ends. As my father drove his unwieldy monstrosity slowly toward town, I finally slipped back into blessed unconsciousness.

“I can’t believe you betrayed me like this,” I muttered when I woke up and found myself laid out on a gurney. I was surrounded by a flimsy curtain in some cubicle at the urgent-care center.

“You were hit hard, honey,” Dad said, clutching my hand. “There was a lot of blood. You needed a doctor to check you out, make sure everything’s okay.”

I hadn’t seen him look this pale and anxious in years, and that frightened me almost as much as being hit in the head had.

“Okay, I get it,” I whispered, squeezing his hand as I closed my eyes. “Thanks, Dad. You’re right.”

“You know how much I love to hear those words,” he said, chuckling softly.

I smiled weakly. I hadn’t mentioned that I still felt dizzy in both my head and stomach and my eyesight was a touch blurry. So, yeah, probably a good thing he’d brought me here.

I raised my hand to my head, but I couldn’t feel a thing. “What did they do to me?”

Dad pulled my hand away gently. “They wrapped your head in a bandage. I think they gave you a shot of something, too.”

“Ah.” I sighed, then slipped under. I must’ve dozed off for a few minutes, because when I opened my eyes again, my father was gone and the person holding my hand was Police Chief Eric Jensen.

“Oh. Hi.” I slipped my hand away.

“Hi,” he said.

“Is my dad gone?”

“No, he’s waiting outside with your uncle. I wanted to try to catch you when you woke up. Do you think you can talk for a minute?”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice a little croaky. “I’m sorry I didn’t see who did it. I heard something like a branch snap or a leaf crackle behind me. That was my only warning that someone else was there. And then he hit me and I blacked out.”

“Okay.” He pulled a chair over to the gurney and sat so that his blue eyes were focused right on me. He reached for my hand again and I didn’t protest because his hand was big and warm and callused enough to feel safe and real.

“Let me try to jog your memory a little,” he said. “And if your head starts to hurt or you feel sick or anything, I’ll stop. Deal?”

“Yeah.”

“When did it happen?”

“Not sure of the exact time, but the sun was setting. I watched it disappear behind the ocean.”

“That’s a nice time of evening,” he said. “So it was dusk, not quite dark yet.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t hear anything but the sound of a branch snapping or a leaf crackling. Did you smell anything? Was there a scent in the air?”

“Someone in the neighborhood was burning leaves. It smelled like fall.”

He smiled. “That’s a good one.”

“I thought so, too.”

“A few seconds ago, you said, ‘Then he hit me.’ So you think it was a man who did this to you?”

I thought for a moment. “I have no idea. I said that because . . . I don’t know. It had to be someone strong. I just assumed it was a man.”

“Did you hear him take a breath?” He shifted forward in his chair. “You know how sometimes if you’re about to hit something, like a baseball, you take a quick breath before you swing the bat? Did you hear anything like that? A gasp or an intake of breath?”

I tried to remember. “No. Sorry. Whoever it was was very quiet.”

“Did you smell anything else besides the burning leaves?”

“Like what?”

“Like perfume,” he said. “Or cigarettes. Coffee. Sweat. People sometimes smell like their work. Sawdust. Gasoline. Anything.”

I closed my eyes and put myself back at the spot. I breathed in and out, then opened my eyes and stared into his. “Not anything related to another person. I smelled the salt air, of course. And there was a slight whiff of paint remover, but that probably came from the equipment in my truck.”

He nodded reflectively. “Your father said that when he was driving to your job site, he passed what he thought was a sporty black car. It was going pretty fast in the opposite direction. It’s a sketchy clue, but I’m willing to check it out. Do you know anyone who drives a car like that?”

“Whitney Gallagher drives a black Jaguar,” I said a little too quickly.

“Tommy’s wife?”

“Yes. You know her.”

“Sure. Nice lady.”

It figured she would be nice to Tommy’s boss. And Eric was such a handsome guy, what woman wouldn’t play nice around him?

“Anyone else?” he asked.

“So many.” I rattled off names. “Jennifer Bailey drives a black BMW. Emily Rose drives a black Mini Cooper. Liz Logan drives a black SUV. So does Mac Sullivan, but neither of those are small or sporty. Oh. Buddy Capello. Do you know him?”

“Capello. Yeah, we talked to him a week or so ago.”

“He drives a navy blue Porsche. He’s Luisa Capello’s brother.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I don’t know what kind of car Luisa drives. Or her brother Marco, either.”

“I can get that information,” he said.

“Of course.” I’d never been so happy to be driving a gunmetal gray truck. Nothing about it was small and it wasn’t black, either. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t a suspect anymore.
Unless, of course,
I thought wryly,
the police decided that I’d bonked myself in the head to clear suspicion.
Oh, that was depressing.

“That’s it?”

“I almost forgot Penny. She drives a dark-colored Miata. And Jane Hennessey has a dark gray Lexus.”

“Is there anyone whose car you don’t know?”

“It’s my town,” I muttered, and closed my eyes.

A few seconds later I felt Eric let go of my hand and I opened my eyes. “Are you leaving?”

“I’ve worn you out,” he said, standing. “Besides, I want to check in with a couple of officers who are combing the area around your truck for any evidence. They’ll be talking to the neighbors, too, in case anyone saw anything. The black car is a long shot, but we’ll make sure we check every one we can find.”

“Can I ask you something?” I rubbed at the wide strip of gauze that was wrapped around my head to hold the thick bandage in place over my ear. “What did they hit me with?”

He paused. Taking hold of my hand again, he said, “They used a hammer.”

I shuddered. A hammer? Damn, I really was lucky to be alive. And then it hit me, so to speak. “How clever of them.”

He scowled. “I figured they saved that one just for you.”

Because my name was Hammer, of course. It would’ve been silly if it weren’t so frightening. “You found it?”

“They dropped it right next to your truck.”

“Was it . . . ?”

His jaw tightened visibly. “Yeah, it was pink.”

I groaned softly. My missing hammer. The killer had taken it from the same toolbox from which he stole the wrench and screwdriver used to murder Jerry Saxton and Wendell Jarvick.

The only good thing about being attacked with the pink ball-peen hammer was that it was lightweight, not big at all. Still, it could’ve killed me for sure if my assailant had hit me in the right spot.

Damn, I was glad he hadn’t taken my sledgehammer or my heavy-duty framing hammer. Those would’ve caused me a lot more damage and I probably wouldn’t be here to whine about it.

I watched Chief Jensen’s teeth clench, felt his grip tighten around my hand. His reaction made me uneasy. “You look angry.”

“Of course I’m angry. I’m furious.” He pulled his hand away, paced a few feet back and forth. “I’m determined to catch this son of bitch, Shannon.”

“I appreciate it,” I whispered.

“I’m also determined to keep you alive.”

“That would be nice.” I was starting to fade a little and wondered if anyone would notice if I just drifted off to sleep.

He stopped pacing and stared down at me. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened at the gym the other night?”

I was puzzled and had to think for a minute, which made my head start pounding. “You mean with the bench press? How did you find out about it?”

“From Jane. She called me a while ago to make sure I knew.”

“That was just an accident.”

He sat down again and grabbed my hand in such a natural move that I wondered if he was trying to comfort me or himself. “Shannon, I can buy that the bench-press mishap and even your bicycle brake line might have been accidents. But tonight someone smashed your head with a hammer and knocked you out. My guess is that he was trying to kill you. That was no accident.”

I was shivering now. “Nope.”

“Right. So now I’ve got to go back over all these little coincidences and determine if they’re all connected or not.”

“Okay.” It should’ve been obvious to me that he would have to go back over everything that had happened to find a pattern or a time line that fit a particular suspect, but I hadn’t been thinking too clearly. I had to pause and breathe for a moment to help myself think. “While I was working out on the bench press, Penny was spotting me and Jennifer Bailey came over. She was holding on to the rack and sort of swinging back and forth. It bugged me. It was rude, you know? Penny was trying to help me and Jennifer was a distraction.”

“Penelope Wells, from the bank,” he said.

“Right. We saw you later at the pub.”

“Yes.” He smiled.

My eyelids drooped until they closed completely. I was losing steam, but I had one more thing to tell him. “I was going to ask you to sit with us that night, but Penny didn’t want to. She’s afraid of cops ever since one of them shot a bank teller where she used to work.”

“I can’t hold that against her,” he said easily. “A lot of people are afraid of cops.”

“I’m going to sleep now.”

“You do that,” he whispered.

•   •   •

The doctors moved me to a hospital room and forced me to spend the night. Nurses kept coming in and waking me up every two hours to make sure I wasn’t dead, I guess. When I got cranky and whined about it, the nurse in charge said, “You have a concussion.”

“I know.”

“In other words,” she continued, “you were hit hard enough that it injured your brain. We know this because you complained of dizziness and blurred vision. You’re having a hard time thinking and making decisions. So, now it’s our job to make sure you don’t stroke out while you’re on our watch.”

“Okay, thanks.” I sighed. “That’s a really good explanation.”

“That’s how we roll.”

“I appreciate it. No more whining.”

I made it through to the next morning and then called my dad to have him come and get me.

That night, Jane insisted on sleeping over, even though my father planned to spend the night in the guest bedroom right down the hall from mine.

“I’m glad he’s home,” Jane said, “but I’m staying right here in your room with you. I’m not letting you out of my sight until I’m sure you’re fully recovered.”

She showed me pages of information she’d printed out, every little fact about concussions that she could find on the Internet. And she followed to the minutest detail the care they suggested.

She fed me a light dinner, refused to pour me any wine, woke me up every few hours to ask me my name and to check if I was slurring my words.

She checked for fever and interrogated me on my every ache and pain, and wrote it all down on the calendar in my kitchen office.

The next day was Friday and I moved myself downstairs to the living room couch, where at least I had a view of the outside world through the big picture window. Jane stacked a few books and magazines on the coffee table to keep me occupied for a while. I wasn’t about to mention that I couldn’t read anything. My vision was still too blurry.

“I appreciate your diligence,” I said, when Jane handed me a glass of diluted apple juice instead of soda or chocolate milk. “You’ll make a really mean mom someday.”

She laughed. “My pleasure. You’ve still got a headache, don’t you?”

It wasn’t a question. She could tell by the way I groaned at the least little noise and squinted at the light coming from the lamp on the side table. The woman was watching me like a mama hawk. She clicked off the lamp and lowered the other lights in the room, too.

“Thanks,” I said, although I hated that my eyes were still so sensitive to the light.

“You’re welcome. What else can I do?”

“I’m sorry I’m so miserable,” I said. “I should feel better tomorrow.”

“You will. I guarantee it, because if you’re feeling better, I’ll make you chocolate-cheesecake crepes from a new recipe I found.”

“I love you the best,” I said. “And it has nothing to do with your fantastic cooking skills.”

She smiled. “I’m staying tonight and tomorrow morning, and then I’ve got to go home to get ready for that conference I’m going to. So Lizzie will be coming by to stay with you.”

“Wait,” I said, struggling to sit up straighter. “I would love to have her here, but it really isn’t necessary. Dad plans to be here for as long as I need him.”

She just gazed at me. “Your father is a wonderful man, Shannon, but . . .”

My shoulders slumped. “You’re right. I can wrap him around my finger and get him to do whatever I want.”

“Exactly. Lizzie won’t put up with your crap for one minute.”

“Remind me again why I’m friends with you people.”

“Because we love you.” She patted my shoulder lightly and walked back to the kitchen.

As soon as she left the room, my mind drifted back to trying to solve the mystery of the person who had assaulted me. More and more, I was wondering if Jennifer Bailey could be that person. That would mean, of course, that she had also killed Jerry Saxton and Wendell Jarvick. I knew she was capable of horrible acts, so I wouldn’t put it past her. But one question remained:
Why?
Did she really hate me enough to try to implicate me in the murder of Jerry and Wendell? And then once she’d killed them, why did she decide to come after me, too? Had I made her so angry when I told Whitney that I saw her hugging Penny?

Ridiculous. So I had to go back to the question,
Why?

And if not Jennifer, then who?

I finally pulled a lined notepad and pen out from the drawer in the side table. I forced myself to go step by step through each attack and incident from the very beginning. My penmanship wasn’t the best because I couldn’t always focus on the words I was writing.

I had gone out with Jerry on a Thursday night three weeks ago. We had a nice dinner and then went walking on the beach. He attacked me, ripped my clothes, and I kicked him in the general vicinity of his family jewels to make him stop.