One Week To Live (10 page)

“I know.”

“One week to live, Brian. Only three more days before the child dies, and it could happen sooner.” Hysteria tinged her words and he hated it.

What was it about this victim,
he again wondered? Was Angie personally connected to her? “Let’s go,” he said, fishing in his wallet for the tip. “What does ‘Rub-a-dub’ mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shit,” he mumbled, following her out of the restaurant.

****

The warm muggy night hit them as they walked toward Brian’s car. Looking to the East, she saw a flash of lightning rip across the sky. Distant thunder rumbled ominously. They could be in for another deluge before the night ended.

“Does your car top still leak?” she asked.

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

“Great,” she mumbled. Settling into the seat, she glanced around.

“What are you searching for?” he asked, slipping into the driver’s seat.

“The bailing bucket.”

“Very funny,” he mumbled, shoving the key into the ignition.

His cell phone rang and he looked at the number. “I’ll take this outside, you just relax.” She watched him pace back and forth by the car, his expression growing more and more grim.

When he got back in, he didn’t start the car right away.

“What is it?” she asked fearing it might be bad news about her granddaughter. She prayed it wasn’t.

He took a breath before speaking. “That was the San Diego police. Ray Ramirez is dead. Killed in a car accident.”

“What?” she said in shocked disbelief. Looking out at the glitz of pulsing gold lights and signs flashing “Casino” and “Loose Slots,” the news seemed horribly surreal. Not something she wanted to accept.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, his face reflecting his own shock.

Ray was not only a former neighbor, but also the cop who’d believed in her psychic ability even when she hadn’t. While most law enforcement people scoffed at her, he hadn’t. They’d worked well together, and his wife, Sally, was a good friend.

“How did it happen?” she whispered, still trying to digest the gut-wrenching news. How could Ray be dead?

“I can’t believe it either.” He shook his head. “A hiker discovered his car in the Cuyamaca Mountains yesterday. It apparently skidded off the road, plummeted down a hill, and smashed into a tree. They found Ray’s remains nearby. He’d been thrown from the vehicle.”

She cringed at the graphic image. “Poor Sally.” Tears welled up. “When did it happen? Are they sure it’s him?”

“Yes, it’s him. They think it happened sometime last week.”

“I don’t understand. Ray was a good driver.”

“Thunderstorms plagued San Diego, too. They think he skidded off the wet road. They’re saying it looks like an accident.”

“You don’t think so?” she said.

“They found a half-empty bottle of bourbon when they searched the car.”

“But Ray stopped drinking. He bragged about the fact he’d been sober for over a year,” she said.

“The cops think he fell off the wagon.”

“But you don’t.”

“No. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt. That’s why he was thrown out of the car. The man always buckled up. It doesn’t add up.”

“So what do you think happened?” She pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped her eyes. Grief began to hit her hard.

“Ray wouldn’t give up on the Tucker case. He continued to work on it in his off-duty time. Sally told me he’d become obsessed with tracking down the killer. I think Ray was close to nabbing the guy. The nursery rhyme kidnapper killed him and made it look like an accident.”

“If that’s true, the man we’re dealing with has advanced from killing children to killing adults.” Who was this maniac?

“Killing is killing, Angie. If the man kills innocent children, nothing would stop him from killing an adult, particularly one who was about to finger him.”

“So you’re saying he might kill me if I get too close.” A shiver coursed through her. She could no longer ignore the danger she might be in. Ray’s death made that clear.

“You’re going to be okay, Angie. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“But—”

He swallowed her next words with a kiss. A long, lingering one that sent slow heat curling through her. “Believe me,” he said softly, ending the kiss “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He started to lean toward her again, the intensity of his gaze filling the darkness. Facing a friend’s death, he craved the same affirmation of life that she did, but she couldn’t let it happen.

“No,” she said softly. “Not now, Brian.” She was upset and vulnerable and yearned for what he wanted to give her, but she wouldn’t accept it.

He sat back in his seat, put on his seatbelt, and started the engine. Putting on her own seatbelt, she looked out the window. The family from the restaurant was getting into the car next to them. When the mother took her daughter out of the stroller one of the youngster’s sandals slipped off.

A powerful vision overtook her. She saw the shadow of a man yanking sandals from a child’s feet.

“Angie, what’s wrong?”

His voice came from far away, muffled as if she listened to it through cotton batting. “Pink sandals,” she mumbled.

“What?”

She slowly opened her eyes and spoke in a harsh whisper. “Do you know what Polly wore when she disappeared?”

“Yeah, she was dressed all in pink.”

“Shit.”

“Angie?”

“We have to find her soon.” Or it would be too late, she thought, and it wasn’t something she wanted to accept.

Chapter Eight

Tuesday night

He backed out of the restaurant’s parking lot.

“Where are we going?”

“Wherever there’s a rub-a-dub tub,” he said.

“Would that be a bathtub or a boat?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood. The shock of Ray’s death slowly sank in, but she still found it difficult to believe.

“Let’s hope a boat. There are thousands of hotel rooms in this town with thousands of tubs,” he said, attempting a smile. “Tell me about the vision again.”

She repeated what she could remember. Her visions, just brief flashes, weren’t easily remembered afterwards.

“Angie, think hard. Can you recall any details that could help us figure out where the child is?”

“No. I didn’t see the face, only her feet, and…” She thought for a moment. “She was on a mattress.”

“Go on.”

“You can wipe the eagerness from your voice, Murphy. That’s all I remember, a bare, blue-striped mattress. No sheets, blanket, or bedspread.”

“Any other details?”

“No.” She stared out the car window. They’d turned onto the Strip and crawled along with the other evening traffic. Bright, colorful neon signs accosted her from both sides of the street.

He slammed on his brakes to keep from hitting several people jaywalking. “Damn idiots. Why don’t they use the pedestrian bridge?”

“Because it’s quicker to jaywalk. They’d have to go out of their way to use the bridge.”

“Such logic.” He smiled. “I’ve missed you.”

He squeezed her hand briefly before shifting into first gear when the traffic light ahead turned red. She didn’t want to admit it, but she’d missed him, too. Missed his easy smile and teasing ways. However, the sexual undercurrent sizzling between them right now made her uneasy. She wasn’t ready for a sexual commitment. This wasn’t the time.

Twice before in her life, she’d fallen for men who set her heart racing. And in both cases, the relationship ended in disaster. This time it had to be different. She wouldn’t act so quickly.

She turned her attention back to the street scene. To their left several gondoliers propelled boats through a canal in the shadow of the Venetian Hotel.

“Rub-a-dub, dub,” she mumbled. “Three men in a tub.”

“Do you think?” He looked at her.

“No, I don’t. There are two couples and a gondolier in each boat. That makes five people.”

“The clue said there could be more than three,” he pointed out.

He might be grasping at straws, but that was Brian. His glass remained half full, hers was always half empty.

“Why are we chasing after his clues?” she asked. “The kidnapper wants us to believe the clues will eventually lead to the child, but we know they won’t. They didn’t last time and won’t this time.”

“It’s not the clues that helped us in San Diego. It was your visions. Visions sparked when we followed his clues.”

“I’ve got a splitting headache,” she announced, rubbing at her forehead, “and I’m tired of his wild goose chase. We’re getting nowhere. Maybe we should let the Feds do their job. They’re trained to find kidnap victims.”

“But will they find Polly in time?” A horn honked and he inched his way forward. He got through the intersection just as the light turned red.

She wasn’t sure they would. The fact that she might never get to know Polly wasn’t something she wanted to think about. Why hadn’t she found the courage to contact her daughter sooner? Become acquainted with her before this tragedy struck. She knew Susan’s adoptive parents were dead. She should be there to support her daughter right now, help her through this. However, since she’d deserted Susan not long after she’d entered the world, did she deserve the right to be by her side now?

“You’re experiencing a headache because your psychic third eye is opening,” he said.

She sighed in exasperation. “I know all about the third eye concept, but right now I blame my headache on the damn heat.”

“Suit yourself, but you’ve got to stop being so negative about your abilities.” He squeezed her hand again.

She pulled free. “In San Diego, I started to believe in my psychic skills. Ray was a great cheerleader.” She fought the tears welling up. “Then along came the Tucker case and my horrible failure.”

“I wish you’d stop blaming yourself.”

“Why shouldn’t I? My feelings of lurking evil and visions of a child’s shoes, an explosion, and a crying youngster amount to nothing.”

His cell phone rang. When he hung up, he looked grave.

“What is it now?” she asked, her heart leaping into her throat.

“They found a kid’s pink, plastic sandal floating in the water in front of the San Francisco Casino.”

“The shoe from my vision.” Why is Polly without her shoe? she wondered. Does it mean she’s dead? She thought of the kidnapper ripping the shoe from the corpse and shivered.

****

The San Francisco Casino was one of the city’s newest. Located on the Strip, its exterior emulated Northern California’s City by the Bay complete with the famous Transamerica Building affectionately known by San Franciscans as the “pointy building.” There were also replicas of the Coit Tower, Ferry Building, and a Golden Gate Bridge that spanned a body of water dotted with sail boats.

Chaos now prevailed in front of the place. Cars with red flashing lights lined the curb next to a downsized version of Golden Gate Park filled with trees, grass, benches, and a Japanese-style pavilion. A crowd had gathered along the fence skirting the park.

Dunning stood inside the fence’s perimeter supervising men fishing what looked like a child’s sandal from the water beneath the bridge. The lights trimming the bridge reflected their golden color on the water and the shoe. She sucked in a breath when she recognized the shoe from her vision. Spotting them, he and his partner walked over.

“It figures you’d show up, Murphy,” Dunning said. “You might as well join the other newshounds. He motioned toward a host of television camera crews already on scene. “They’re interviewing the victim’s mother right now.”

Susan was here? Angie swallowed the nervous lump in her throat.

“The kidnapper left the poor woman a cryptic phone message about the shoe.” The man hesitated. “And no, we couldn’t trace it. He made the call from a throwaway cell phone. We found it dumped in the trash can over there.”

“Shit,” Brian mumbled.

She paid little attention to their conversation. Instead she focused on her daughter. Moving closer, she joined the other onlookers observing a reporter talking to the distraught woman. Seeing the pain edged in her face, Angie’s heart went out to her. Blonde-haired Susan looked like her father, but her brown, tear-filled eyes mirrored Angie’s.

“Look directly into the camera and talk to the television audience,” the reporter instructed. “Tell them about your little girl. Show them her picture. Let them know how much you miss her and how much you want her back.”

Susan nodded, wiping tears away with a crumpled tissue.

“Your little girl could be watching. You need to tell her you love her and reassure her that things are going to be all right.”

“Okay,” she muttered, staring over at the dripping shoe fished from the water.

“Is that your daughter’s?” the reporter asked.

“Yes,” she sobbed, her body shaking.

The reporter motioned to the cameraman. “Get a close-up of the shoe, then focus back on the mother.”

During the interview, roller-coaster cars packed with screaming passengers rumbled over the Golden Gate Bridge and disappeared into the building. Susan didn’t look up. Instead, she pleaded for her daughter’s life.

With every word uttered, Angie’s pain increased. She fought the desire to rush to Susan and try to comfort her. Something she’d never been able to do when she was little. Someone else had hugged her daughter and kissed away the tears. Thoughts of the childhood she’d missed swept over her filling her with sorrow.