Hit and Run (23 page)

“Did Brittany have a boyfriend?” She looked at R.J.

“We didn’t find one.”

“But you looked?”

“Absolutely. So did the cops. I’m sure she had guys asking her out all the time, but we didn’t find evidence of anyone in particular.” He looked at her. “Why?”

“It just seems like such an emotional crime.” Her previous theories about possible corporate sabotage—all that seemed impossible now. “Whoever did this was in some kind of rage.”

“You’re thinking Holland found out she had a boyfriend?”

“Possibly,” she said, “but there’s still the problem of the non-existent alibi. Holland’s an ass, but he’s also smart and he’s a lawyer. I don’t see him committing a crime this way.”

“Then what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking maybe her boyfriend found out she had someone new.”

He shook his head. “We went through her phone records, her texts, her credit cards.
If
she had a boyfriend, it was someone she interacted with face-to-face. But like I said, we didn’t find anything.”

“No alternate suspects to throw under the bus, huh?”

“None.”

Krista knew the strategy. Juries didn’t like unsolved homicides. They’d be much more likely to acquit a defendant if the crime could be pinned on someone else, so defense attorneys were always on the lookout for scapegoats.

Krista thought about Brittany and how beautiful she was and the white Avalanche rolling past her house on the day of her murder. Jilted lover, maybe? Someone who had tried to pick her up and been rejected?

She glanced at R.J. It was time to tell him about the Avalanche. She’d been putting it off, partly to develop the lead more, but also because she didn’t fully trust him.

“Want to get dinner?” He turned to look at her and the sunset reflected off his shades.

“What, now?”

“Yeah, I interrupted your lunch. And you put in a long day.”

She glanced at the ocean. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know? Are you hungry or not?”

She shot him a look. It was more complicated than that, and they both knew it. They’d managed to keep this thing between them—whatever it was—safely in check. But they’d done that by focusing on work. If work spilled over into dinner, and dinner spilled over into hanging out late—

“You’re afraid of me.” He smiled.

“Get real.”

“No, you are. I can tell.” His smile turned to a grin, and she looked away. “You’re afraid to be alone with me, Hart. Just to come out and admit it.”

“It ever occur to you that I might have plans tonight?”

“Yeah, but you don’t.”

She shot him a glare.

“Come on,” he said.

Then his phone buzzed and he dug it out of his pocket. “Flynn.”

Krista gazed back at the water, trying to get her temper under control. His ego was mind-boggling. And annoying. It was one of the
many
qualities that made him a pain in the ass to work with.

“When?”

The sharpness of his tone made her look over.

“You sure?”

His expression had gone from smug to grim in a matter of seconds.

“All right, text me the address. And meet me at Pablo’s.” He hung up and Krista watched him, waiting for an explanation.

“Who was that?”

“Brian.”

She just looked at him.

“My cousin, Brian,” he said. “You met him the other night.”

“Carrot Top is your cousin?”

He cut across three lanes, prompting a chorus of honks. “He’s meeting us at Pablo’s.”

“Who’s Pablo?”

“The taco place. He’ll pick you up there and give you a ride to your car.” He glanced at her. “Sorry about our dinner plan.”

“We didn’t have a dinner plan.”

“That’s okay—we’ll do a rain check.”

~ ~ ~

With R.J. safely out of the way, Krista was free to get back to her regularly scheduled programming. Which consisted of work, work, and more work, because R.J. was right and she didn’t have a social life.

She started at White Lotus, where a giant Buddha statue dominated the entrance. The place smelled like sweat and incense. A water fountain filled with lotus flowers gurgled in the corner, and Krista remembered something from an Asian art class she’d taken in college, something about the lotus symbolizing purity, floating above the muddy waters of desire and... something. She couldn’t remember the rest.

“Namaste.”

She glanced around to see a young bald man seated behind a bamboo table. He had a slender build and the perfect posture of a ballet dancer.

“Will you be joining one of our classes tonight?” he asked, although she figured he was just being polite. She wasn’t exactly dressed for yoga.

“Hi.” Krista looked around. On the other side of a glass window, a crowd of people simultaneously arched backward like they were made of Play-Doh. “Wow.”

“Ustrasana.” He smiled serenely. “It takes practice.”

Krista stepped toward the desk, holding out her PI’s license. He glanced at it.

“And how may I help you, Detective?”

“I wonder if you remember a woman who used to come here.”

“Brittany Holland. Of course I do.”

Krista tucked her creds away. “So, I take it you’ve been interviewed before?”

“At length.” His expression didn’t change, but his voice grew sad. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have much to offer. Brittany wasn’t here the night of her—” He looked flustered a moment. “Passing.”

Passing.
The word bore absolutely no resemblance to the photos Krista had seen earlier.

“What about the day before?”

“She hadn’t been in at all that week.” He shook his head. “The last time I saw her was the previous Thursday, August fifteenth.”

It seemed an odd detail to recall, but maybe investigators had made him look at a calendar.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. She lost her keys that night, and we stayed late while she waited for a ride.”

Krista filed that away. “You recall who picked her up?”

“Cheryl, one of her friends from class.” He tipped his head to the side. “Do you mind my asking—are you an investigator with the D.A.’s office or the defense side?”

“The defense.”

She’d expected the answer to make him clam up, but he seemed okay with it.

“I’m sorry, would you like to sit down?” He nodded at a chair nearby.

“Thanks.” Krista sat.

“I’m Josh, by the way. Mineral water?”

“No, thank you. Did you know Brittany personally?”

He rolled his chair sideways and opened a glass-fronted fridge packed with water bottles. He took one out and unscrewed the top.

“The thing about Brittany,” he said, rolling back, “she was really trying, you know?”

“You mean at yoga or...?” She wanted him talking, but she wasn’t following.

“
Life.
” He sipped his water. “Everything—body, mind, and spirit. She’d turned a corner.”

“Sounds like you were close.”

“We were friends. I miss her a lot.” He stared pensively at his desk.

“Do you know if she had a boyfriend around the time of her death?”

“The police detective, he asked the same thing. I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

He shook his head. “Brittany hadn’t been going out much. She wasn’t a partier.”

Krista glanced into the studio as all the bodies shifted in unison. Not a lot of men in the class.

She looked back at Josh. “One more thing—have you noticed anyone here who happens to drive a white Avalanche?”

His face was blank.

“It’s a pickup truck,” she elaborated. “With sort of a short truck bed.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar,” he said. “Sorry.”

The door to the studio opened, and a stream of women filed out, all looking like they’d just walked through a car wash. They tucked mats under their arms and grabbed waters from the fridge. Several stopped by Josh’s desk, and his expression told Krista he needed to get back to work.

She stood up and stepped out of the way.

“You might try next door,” he added. “The karate studio? Some of them drive pickups. They mostly park in the back, though, because that’s where the entrance is.”

“Thanks for your help.”

“Of course.” He smiled at her. “Namaste.”

~ ~ ~

No white pickup trucks at the karate studio either, but Krista would try again tomorrow. She drove back to her office. The streets were pretty empty this time of night and she had no trouble parking. The building was dark and she switched on the light in the foyer so she wouldn’t break her neck trudging up the stairs.

Mac’s falling computer code screensaver cast the office in a greenish hue. Krista flipped on some lights. She was reading through a pile of messages on her desk when her phone chimed. She dug it out of her bag. Scarlet.

“Ace Ventura, pet detective.”

Pause.

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Scarlet said.

“I wish. Mrs. Ruman’s put the word out.”

“How’s the real work coming?”

Krista pulled the lid off the file box and thumbed through the folders. “I spent the evening with R.J. looking at autopsy photos.” She gave her a rundown of the medical findings and the cause of death.

“I thought it was an icepick?”

“That was
after
the bludgeoning. It was the skull fracture that killed her.”

“Jesus, this guy sounds like a psychopath.”

“Yep.”

“I hope you’re being careful. Is Rob Holland aware that the woman who kicked his balls into his throat the other night is on his defense team?”

“I don’t think so.” Krista pulled out file after file, reading the labels. Finally, she decided she needed all of them. “Anyway, I’m beginning to agree with R.J. The alibi’s really pathetic and I don’t think he did this.”

“Who did then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, be careful,” Scarlet repeated. “And let me know if I can help.”

Krista got off the phone and packed up the file box. She muscled it out the door and placed it on the floor for a moment while she locked up. Then she hauled it down the stairs and out to her car.

The street was dark and quiet. Moths flitted under the streetlamp on the corner. Krista hitched the box onto her hip and dug for her car keys. She still hadn’t attached the new fob to her keychain. She pressed the trunk button. Nothing. She stood behind the car and pressed it again. Nada.

Annoyed, she hit Unlock and the interior light went on as she walked around to the passenger side.

A squeal of tires. She whirled around to see a car speeding toward her, no headlights. Her heart skittered. She yelped and leaped back against the Impala. The car veered straight for her. She dropped the file box and jumped onto the hood just as it smashed into her car with a deafening crunch of metal.

She screamed and rolled and landed face-first on the concrete, hitting her head with a
thunk
. Tires shrieked. She blinked, disoriented. The world was upside down, blurry, but her brain registered one thing:
He’s turning around.

She lifted her head. Terror gripped her as the car roared toward her. She scrambled to her feet and made a dash for the nearest building.

The patrol officer circled the Impala yet again and glanced around.

“Where’d the bumper go?” He looked at Krista.

She was leaning against the side of his radio car, pressing an icepack to her cheek.

“It didn’t come with one.” Her head felt thick and swollen, her worst hangover times ten. Multiplied by a hundred.

“Dealer plates,” he said. “This thing’s new?”

“Got it this morning.”

He shook his head, making a few more notes on his clipboard as he stood there in the glare of his headlights. The radio in his car kept up a steady stream of police chatter.

Krista sighed and checked her watch, relying on body language to telegraph her annoyance because she didn’t want to talk. Her cheek stung. She shifted the icepack against her face and took inventory of the car’s damage. The entire front passenger’s side was smashed in.

He finished his notes and tromped across the street. The lights threw long, black shadows across the pavement, making him look twelve feet tall instead of six.

“And the other guy? Not even a partial?”

“No,” Krista told him for the third time. “And I didn’t get the make. Something black, four-door.” She nodded at parallel skid marks on the pavement. “Those should at least be able to tell us something.”

He gave her a “get real” look, cop to cop. Or cop to ex-cop, in this case. Krista had made sure to mention she’d once been on the job, but a fat lot of good that seemed to be doing.

The skid marks weren’t going to tell this guy anything because he didn’t plan to measure them, or take photographs, or send paint chips off to the lab so some technician could identify the vehicle that had tried to run her down at forty miles an hour.

“You know, we’ve had a couple of carjackings over at Main Place Mall.” The radio continued to squawk, and he scribbled faster.

“This wasn’t a carjacking.”

“I know, you said.” He sounded impatient. “I’m just saying if it
was
a carjacking, we might be able to investigate it as part of a pattern—”

“It wasn’t a carjacking. Who would want to steal that thing? It’s a piece of crap, and that’s
before
it got smashed to hell.”

He shot her a look. “I’m just saying, we might be able to do more for you if—”

“I told you, someone tried to run me down. Twice. That’s attempted murder. If you guys won’t investigate then I will.”

“Of course we’ll investigate. I’m just saying—”

“I got it.” She stepped away from the car and handed back the icepack. “We done here?”

He shook his head and finished writing on his clipboard. Then he handed it over for her signature.

“I’ll try to swing by tomorrow with one of the CSIs.” He tore off a copy of the report and handed it to her. “Give that to your insurance company. They’ll need it for your claim.”

Krista clenched her teeth as she folded the report and tucked it neatly into the box of case files, which only minutes ago had been strewn across the street like garbage. She secured the lid on the box and hefted it once again.