Read All or Nothing Online

Authors: Elizabeth Adler

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Women Lawyers, #Contemporary, #Legal, #Fiction, #Romance, #Suspense, #Women Sleuths, #Crime Fiction, #Missing Persons, #Mystery and detective stories, #Romantic suspense novels

All or Nothing (23 page)

BOOK: All or Nothing
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There was a small silence, then she said, “Meet me tonight, eight o’clock, in Vons parking lot on North Shore Drive.” She gave him directions to the supermarket, then asked, “What are you driving?”

“A vintage Winnebago,” he said. “You can’t miss it, it has an orange stripe down the side.”

She hadn’t missed it. It sat like an eyesore in the middle of the smart suburban Mercedes and Fords. Rage simmered in her breast as she strode toward it.

“You’ve improved, Bonnie,” Jimmy said, opening the door to let her in. “Being a blonde suits you.”

“Cut the crap, Jimmy, what d’you want?” Her voice had an ugly edge; she knew what was coming and she had the Smith & Wesson .40 handgun in her purse. She wanted to kill him now, be done with him . . . but she couldn’t. But she didn’t know what Jimmy might try and she needed to be prepared.

“What d’ya think I want? From the woman who tried to
murder
me? The woman who killed her lover instead? Then buried him––
in my grave
?”

His voice had a steely edge that she recognized. She knew what he wanted and had already thought about what to say. “How much?”

“What say we start with fifty thou?” He smiled at her.

“Fifty? Are you crazy? Where d’ya think I can get that kinda money?”

“You wanna play hardball? Okay. A hundred, then.” He grinned maliciously at her again. “That’s my last offer. Take it or leave it.”

He didn’t need to say what would happen if she “left it.” Fury was a tight knot in her stomach now. “You always were a bastard, Jimmy,” she said, forcing herself to speak calmly. “I can’t lay my hands on that much money right away, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll get what I can, and give it to you tomorrow. Think of it as a first payment. I’ll have to sell off some things, stocks, jewelry, to raise the rest. It will leave me broke,” she warned, “so don’t even think about coming back for more.”

He laughed as she said it. Blackmail was an ever–open door and they both knew it.

She climbed out of the RV. “Meet me tomorrow, four o’clock, at 1203 Cielo Drive in Laguna. You’ll find it on the street map. I’ll be waiting for you.”

And waiting she was, with a gun in her hand. She had left exactly an hour and a half to take care of Jimmy and get out of there before Steve showed up. She had set Steve up perfectly. The police would believe he had abducted her. She would have to change her name and her identity once again and she resented it like hell, hated losing her condo, her savings. But she knew that at some point, maybe months, maybe years from now, Jimmy’s body would be found and identified through DNA, and the trail would start to unravel and end up at her. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

So she shot Jimmy in the backseat of the Lexus when he was counting the fifty thousand she had always kept hidden in the frozen lasagnas. He just kind of looked down, surprised, at the blood spurting from his chest, then at her.
“Bitch!”
he spat as the blood gurgled from his mouth.

She put the money back in her purse along with the Smith & Wesson, wrapped his body in a blanket and pushed him out of sight onto the floor of the car. Then she hitched the Lexus to the RV and drove it to the remote canyon.

It was hell getting rid of the body.

First, she changed into a black sweatsuit and hiking boots. Then she wrapped a rope around the body and dragged it to the edge of the ravine. She couldn’t be sure it would go far enough down if she just pushed it over the edge, so she started on the long haul down, pulling it, dragging it, pushing it over rocks, stumbling, cursing, until she finally came to an escarpment with a sheer drop.

She waited a minute until she caught her breath, then heaved the body upright and gave it a shove.

Jimmy Victor barreled down that steep slope, bouncing from every rock until he disappeared into a gully. Finally, she was free of him.

The climb back up had taxed her strength, and because she didn’t want to leave the car with the body, she’d had to drive, several miles along the winding canyon roads, then struggle to unhitch her Lexus from the RV. She was sweating by the time she’d arranged the Lexus to her liking, doors gaping wide, keys in the ignition. She’d wiped up the blood as best she could but there were still stains and that bothered her. She hoped the police would assume it was hers, though with all this new scientific stuff she wasn’t sure.

Then she drove the RV back onto the freeway and headed for San Francisco. Later, she dumped it on a street in a bad area with the keys still in it. She knew it would soon be stolen.

37

Then Laurie Martin was back in the cheap motels again. She had almost forgotten what they felt like, the way they smelled of air freshener and stale sweat and old Chinese takeout. She had forgotten the thin mattresses and the slippery polyester sheets and the unsalubrious dark little bathrooms, and she hated Jimmy even more for bringing her down to this.

She dyed her hair black, and stood in front of the chipped bathroom mirror, hacking it off with a pair of nail scissors. Tears ran down her face, as salty as her bitterness.

“Just look what I’ve come to,” she whispered, regarding her new, ugly self in that cruel mirror. “And I used to be so beautiful, so successful. I almost had it all.”

The wait for Steve Mallard to be arrested had seemed interminable and she wondered what was wrong. She worried endlessly about it, and she began to lose weight. She just couldn’t face real food somehow, her stomach was too fluttery, but a bottle of tequila slid down well, accompanied by potato chips and pretzels while she scoured the TV news programs, just the way Vickie Mallard did, for progress reports.

Al Giraud and his glamorous sidekick were investigating the case. She saw them on TV, read about them in the tabloids. Giraud was too clever, she was getting nervous. The confidence that she was always right, always stronger, was taking a beating. That’s when she came up with the plan to kill Vickie Mallard and frame Steve. Then the police would be forced to arrest him for homicide and then she felt sure they would assume he had also killed Laurie Martin. She was desperate, it looked like her last chance.

She made her plans carefully, including obtaining a phony driver’s license, which was so easy it made her wonder why many of the populace bothered to get real ones. Then she had bought a fourth–hand 1989 Acura and driven to Arrowhead. Disguised as a hiker, she waited on the trail near the Mallards’ cabin until she saw Steve depart, driving a Ford Taurus in the direction of the village.

He hadn’t even bothered to lock the door, many people didn’t up here in the boondocks, and it was a breeze to find a suitable kitchen knife, short and sharp–bladed, in the wooden stand on the kitchen counter.

She must have been halfway back to L.A. before Steve returned. She timed that journey carefully so she would know exactly the right moment to call him, disguising her voice as a man’s, so he would come running home and find his wife dead. And then right after, the cops would show up––she would make sure of that.

Vickie had been easy. In fact, she had enjoyed it––enjoyed the stark terror in Vickie’s eyes, the gurgling sounds she made as Laurie’s hands pressured the life out of her, the smell of her blood.

Then Marla had shown up just when she was in the middle of it and it was like being interrupted in the middle of great sex. Even now she could remember how furious she had been, that overwhelming anger that made her crazy. And how the bitch had fought her, until she had––she thought––finally finished her with the wine bottle.

And then she had heard the front door opening––and she was out of there in a flash, hidden by the darkness, driving out of the cul–de–sac, heading north on the 101, careful not to go too fast and get stopped.

That lost confidence came right back afterward when she saw the TV news report of Steve Mallard’s arrest on attempted homicide of his wife, and that he was also a suspect in the homicide of Laurie Martin.
She had won again.

38

Al and Marla were sitting in a window booth at James Beach, a restaurant in Venice––California, that is, not Italy––though Marla thought wistfully she would have liked that. It would have gotten her away from the endless conundrum that was Laurie Martin. She waved hello to the bartender, John Henry, and he sent her her usual vodka martini without having to ask. She was a regular here and they knew her well.

“Am I such a creature of habit?” she asked A1 suddenly. “I used to be this free person, the first to catch on to something before it even became a trend. Now look at me. They know what I drink, what I eat, probably what I’ll be wearing.”

“Never that,” Al said, studying her. “They’ll just think you’re in your underwear,” he added, because to him that’s exactly what her outfit looked like. Tonight she was wearing an ankle–length seafoam–green silk slipdress overlaid with some gauzy fabric in a paler green. With it she wore towering silver mules trimmed with a blob of maribou (Dolce & Gabbana and they cost a fortune, she had told him when he had complained about them) and long, dangling antique earrings with green stones that he hoped were not emeralds because they would probably have cost more than he earned in a year, and a huge matching ring. Bizarrely, he thought, she had on a huge steel watch that looked like the kind of timepiece a railroad worker might have used to time steam locomotives in the old days, and also green nail polish.

Marla heaved a gigantic sigh. “What do you know, Mr. Fashion Plate?” She swept a withering glance over his white T–shirt and khakis. Then she smiled. He looked so darned good, so lean and lithe and downright sexy, she could have eaten him up––in the nicest possible way of course. “Only you could look sexy in that outfit,” she added. Generously she thought.

He grinned back at her, his left eyebrow lifted mockingly. “Seen the Gap ads lately? Plenty of sexy guys wearing exactly what I’m wearing.”

She sipped her martini. “I think I need to introduce you to Armani.”

“You already did. You bought me the shirt, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember I’ve never seen you wear it.”

He laughed and took her hand across the table. “I’m making you a solemn promise,” he said, one hand on his heart. “One day I will wear that Armani shirt you bought me.”

But Marla wasn’t satisfied with this “one day” nonsense, she knew him too well. “
Which
day?” she demanded, gripping his hand hard so he couldn’t wriggle away. “I need to know so I can plan my own outfit accordingly.”

“Okay, the day we capture Laurie Martin. What d’you say to that?”

“I say great, fine, let’s hope it’s soon.” She stared moodily into the martini glass, shoving the olive around with one finger. Her striped amber–gold hair hid her face but Al could sense something was wrong.

“What’s up, hon?” he asked softly. “Something’s bothering you, I can tell.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Oh, nothing, I guess. Except it’s just that I saw someone this morning who reminded me   .   .   .” Her voice trailed off and she frowned, studying the olive in the martini glass as though she was about to dissect it.


Who
did you see?” He was surprised, Marla didn’t usually act like this, sort of . . . fey . . . and distracted.

“Just some woman. Walking down the steps at City Hall.” She shivered, remembering the look in the woman’s eyes.

The waiter stopped by and they ordered a Caesar salad to share, then the special striped bass for her and the New York strip for him, medium rare––with fries.

“So what spooked you about the woman?”

“Looking into her eyes, it reminded me of that night. . . .”

“At Vickie’s?”

She nodded and took another sip of the martini. Her hair slid over her face again, but Al could see she was upset.

“Hey, hon, what was it about her eyes? You know it couldn’t have been Laurie.”

“Hardly likely, coming out of City Hall with the LAPD right around the corner. No, it wasn’t Laurie. This woman was dark, thinner, dowdy––kind of clumsy–looking. But something made me turn to look at her. And you know what? She turned and looked at me too. Must have felt my eyes on her, I guess. You know that feeling you get when somebody’s watching you.”

“So
how
did she look at you, then?”

Marla thought about it. “I’ve seen that look before,” she said slowly. “Like she wanted to kill me.”

Al whistled. He gripped her hand across the table. “Hey, listen, hon, you’ve got to get over this. I know it was a terrible trauma and maybe I should have done something about it earlier. But now I think you ought to get some help, see a psychiatrist, y’know, that kind of thing.”

She looked at him. “I wasn’t imagining it,” she said evenly. “This woman hated me. I could feel her hate, like prickles up my spine. I don’t need a psychiatrist for that, Giraud.”

He was stumped. “Then who the hell was she that she hated you so bad?”

Marla shrugged as the Caesar salad was placed in front of her. She thanked the waiter then said, “It was just some nut, I suppose. And just my bad luck to have to see that kind of thing twice.”

“Never again, honey, I promise you.”

Her smile was tremulous and Al thought worriedly he had never seen her like this. Marla was his golden girl; the superwoman. She was bossy; in charge; feisty as all get out and perky as hell. He didn’t like what was happening to her––and all because some crazy bat gave her the evil eye on the steps of City Hall.

“Okay, so I’m snapping out of it,” Marla said determinedly, “but, Al, let’s just find this Laurie Martin. I don’t like the idea of her running around out there, getting ready to strike again.”

“One thing’s for sure, Laurie won’t be striking you or Vickie again. She’s already got Steve Mallard taking the rap for that. It would ruin things if somebody else had another go at you. Nope, you are safe, Marla. Besides”––he grinned at her––”I’m not letting anybody near you ever again.”

She laughed. “Even another woman?”

“Especially another woman.”

She perked up and he thanked God. It took a lot to get Marla down but now she seemed over it. They ate the Caesar salad, enjoyed the striped bass and the steak and she ate half his fries. They were on to the chocolate soufflé, which came in a huge French coffee cup and was to die for, like hot molten gold sliding down your throat, when she brought up the subject again.

BOOK: All or Nothing
13.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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