Sketch a Falling Star (22 page)

Whether he was after any young woman who appeared vulnerable or after her specifically didn’t matter. He wasn’t Ed McMahon, and he wasn’t there to award her a million dollars whether she bought a magazine subscription or not. She opened her handbag and groped around in it until her fingers closed on the Walther PPK. She pulled it out and set it atop the bag as she ran through her options. There was no time to call for help unless Superman happened to be in the neighborhood. The viable alternatives were few. She could stop the car, and if the other driver got out of his vehicle to approach her, she could hit the gas and have maybe a thirty-second head start to try to lose him. Of course, if he wanted to shoot her, she’d be a much easier target while she was standing still. Or she could simply try to “get out of Dodge” without further ado. Her jaw clenched with equal parts tension and determination, she made her decision and gunned the engine, spinning her wheels and kicking up loose gravel and dirt as the tires sought traction. After what seemed like forever, the car rocketed forward onto the roadway, the rear end slewing to the left. She wrangled it under control without letting up on the accelerator. The SUV was on her again in seconds. Okay, maybe waiting until the driver had left his vehicle would have been the smarter move. But that was water under a good half-dozen bridges by now.

She raced ahead, taking the curves as fast as she dared. The car’s lower center of gravity provided an advantage over the SUV, which could flip if it tried to match her speed on the turns. She was pinning a lot of hope on that possibility. After she’d navigated a particularly wicked curve she checked the rearview mirror. The SUV was no longer in sight. Without slowing, she strained to hear the sounds of a vehicle tumbling out of control, but apart from the distant buzz of traffic on the main roads, the night was troublingly quiet. She was beginning to think the other driver had given up when the SUV erupted from the side street she was passing. To Rory it looked like the driver took the turn on two wheels. Who the hell was he? A stuntman?

Her luck seemed to be running out. They’d reached the section of the road where there were fewer and more shallow curves. Her advantage was gone. The other driver realized it too. He pulled the SUV into the oncoming lane and came up beside her. At such close range, Rory could see that the vehicle was a deep green, but she couldn’t stare at it long enough to make out more than a vague silhouette behind the wheel. She put her hand on the Walther, making sure it was still in easy reach. The feel of the cold steel under her fingers brought a strange comfort. Shooting blind wasn’t a great option, but she’d use it if she had no other choice, and that moment was fast approaching.

The SUV started crowding her. She didn’t have much room to play with; the trees were too close to the edge of the road here. Any one of them could take her out at the speed she was going. They were rounding a long bend when there were suddenly headlights coming at them and the screaming of a horn when that driver realized the SUV was in its lane. Anticipating the SUV’s next move, Rory slammed on her brakes. The SUV flew past her, barely missing her front fender as it swerved back into the right lane, avoiding a head-on collision by seconds.

Rory figured she had two options now. Hang a quick U-turn and try to eat up as much ground as possible before the SUV turned around, or find a place to hide. The houses in the area were set far back from the road, many on higher ground, their driveways hard to make out in the dark. Up until now the SUV had been too close for her to escape into any of them unseen.

She was about to go with the U-turn when she saw a break in the tree line a few yards ahead. She swung her car into it, hoping for the best. At that moment, the best would be a private road she could follow until she was out of sight. The worst would be a patch of dirt that went nowhere.

It proved to be the latter, an area of open ground maybe twenty yards wide and not much deeper, where the vegetation had been cleared by either disease or fire. She bumped along the rutted earth until the trees barred farther travel. It was time to stop running and take a stand. Dousing the headlights, she jumped out of the car and took up a position behind it. At least now she was the one setting the parameters of their encounter. She was the one lying in wait with a gun.

A
fter half an hour had passed, Rory decided her assailant wasn’t coming back. Maybe his close brush with death had reordered his priorities. She rose slowly from the place where she’d been hunkered down behind the car, her legs cramped and aching, her gun arm shaking from the strain of holding the Walther in position for so long. Every time she’d heard a car approach she’d tensed, readying herself for the showdown. And every time the car drove by she’d exhaled, not even aware she’d been holding her breath. She’d debated calling 911, but decided she’d rather take care of the problem on her own. Even if the police could find the driver of the SUV, what would they charge him with—“leaving the scene of what might have been an accident”? Beyond that it was just a case of “he said, she said.” Although Leah could certainly be counted on to vouch for her, there was no proof the incident had ever happened. There weren’t even the tiniest of scratches or dents on her car to corroborate her story. And she was beginning to think the driver never intended to leave any evidence or do her any actual harm. Whoever it was, he wasn’t high on anything. His actions had been too precise, in their own way too careful. He’d had to be stone sober to try to run her off the road in the dark without once grazing her car though there were only inches between them. It occurred to her that it could have been one of the suspects trying to scare her off, possibly the same person who’d broken into her house and given Hobo the toy with the note. Or maybe it was all a bizarre game that had nothing to do with the case, like a dare or a hazing. She might never know for sure, and, at least for now, she didn’t care. She just wanted to get home.

The adrenaline that had coursed through her during the chase had ebbed away, leaving her body as wobbly as Jell-O. She climbed into the driver’s seat and sat there without moving for a few minutes before she found the energy to turn the key in the ignition. She drove home slowly, her heart jumping every time she saw headlights behind her.

Hobo met her in the entryway. Although he was as happy as ever to see her, he seemed to sense that all was not right. He didn’t try to jump up and plant his big paws on her shoulders. He just sidled up against her in the way a cat would and licked her hand with his rough tongue. Rory appreciated the low-key welcome. She knelt down and hugged him, burying her face in the dense fur at his neck and allowing herself a sigh of relief for the first time since the chase ended.

“My sweet, goofy Hobo, you were nearly orphaned again tonight,” she told him, expecting the words to come out as silly hyperbole. Instead they brought an unexpected rush of tears to her eyes. Before she could blink them away, the light above her flashed, and Zeke appeared in the doorway to the living room; fate could sure be sadistic.

“Sounds like you must have had yourself quite a scare,” he said, having apparently been eavesdropping before he materialized.

“It was probably more of an overreaction on my part,” Rory replied, struggling to make her tone light while the tears spilled over her lower lids, sabotaging her efforts.

“I doubt that. If anything, I’ve always known you to
under
estimate the danger of your predicaments. So why don’t you tell me what happened, and let me be the judge?”

“Yeah right—because you’re so impartial.” At any other time, her words would have contained a good dash of sarcasm, but tonight her voice hitched on a sob that was still hiding in her throat.

“I never claimed to be.”

“Look, I’m telling you—my imagination just got the better of me.”

“In what regard? Are we talkin’ flyin’ elephants or an attempt on your life?”

“Someone followed me out of the parking lot,” she said, since he clearly wasn’t going to drop the subject. Maybe she could get away with a brief overview of what happened, then plead fatigue and go up to bed. “It seemed like they wanted to run me off the road. You know, throw a scare into me.” She tried for a casual shrug, but it came off forced and stiff. “It might have been some stupid kids working on a dare.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

“I wasn’t much of a fan myself. But it’s over and I’m fine, so after I let Hobo out, I’m going to sleep if you don’t mind.”

“Would it help if I did?”

“Not in the least.” She headed off to the kitchen with Hobo at her side and was surprised that Zeke wasn’t there waiting for her with a dozen follow-up questions. When Hobo returned from taking care of his necessities, she locked up the house and set the alarm for the night. It was barely nine o’clock, but all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a couple of weeks while her subconscious worked through whatever issues it had racked up during her adventure.

Hobo, who’d no doubt slept during her absence, had nothing against some additional shut-eye, especially when it involved a fluffy quilt and a human pillow. He bolted past her to the top of the stairs and led the way into the bedroom. While she shed her clothes and pulled on a nightgown, Hobo made himself comfortable on the bed. By the time Rory crawled in beside him, he was snoring and wheezing like a one-dog band during happy hour.

Rory closed her eyes, but sleep refused to come. She was still too wired. She considered going downstairs to watch some mindless TV or maybe drink some warm milk, her mother’s old standby. She was trying to decide which course to take when sleep drew around her, safe and warm and quieting as if she were being cradled in someone’s arms. She drifted off, weightless as a feather borne upon a breeze. From the edge of sweet oblivion she heard Hobo leap off the bed with a panicked shriek that trailed off to a whimper as he scrambled out of the room. She knew that sound…had heard him yelp like that before…. Already swaddled in sleep, she groped for the memory without success. On some deep level, she knew all was well.

Chapter 22

W
hen Rory awoke the next morning, she felt not only rested, but refreshed. Even the car chase of the previous night seemed less harrowing in the sunlight of the new day. She didn’t immediately get out of bed. There was no place she had to be, and Hobo wasn’t doing his little “Hurry—let me outside” jig. For that matter, he wasn’t even in the room. Strange. He always slept in bed with her, usually hogging the covers. Then it came back to her. Just as she’d finally been falling off to sleep last night, he’d leapt off the bed screaming like he’d crossed some invisible border into
The Twilight Zone
. She was sure she’d heard that sound before, but when? The answer popped into her head as if it had been waiting for her to come looking for it. Months ago, back in the fall, when Hobo had still been terrified of Zeke, she and the marshal had been in the study working on a dognapping case when he’d come looking for her. He’d skidded on the hardwood floor and collided with the marshal. Although Hobo hadn’t been injured in any way, he’d made that same horrific sound. But that couldn’t have been what happened last night, because they’d been in her room, which was out of bounds for the marshal. Either something else had scared the dog, or Zeke had broken the rules again. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that Zeke had been there. That’s what came of letting him off the hook too easily for past infractions. Of course, until last night she’d never actually been in the bedroom when he’d come snooping. So why wasn’t she angrier about this more aggressive breech of conduct on his part? Maybe her brush with death last night had changed her perspective and made other issues seem trivial by comparison. Even so, Zeke had to be told he couldn’t just ignore their agreement whenever it suited him. But first things first—she had to make sure Hobo was okay. She pulled on her bathrobe and hurried out of the room, where she promptly tripped over him sleeping in the hall.

R
ory was still in her nightgown and robe, drinking her coffee, when the doorbell rang.

Out back Hobo had also heard the bell. He interrupted his morning rounds and raced to the fence at the side of the house to issue a fierce warning to any visitor with malice in mind.

Rory set her coffee mug on the table and went to see who could be on her doorstep at barely eight o’clock. After a quick glance through the peephole, she turned off the alarm and opened the door. Eloise was standing on the porch. Her white hair had been wrestled into something of a style, parted on one side and brushed smooth around her face. But there were already a few cowlicks poking up on the crown of her head, hinting that a general mutiny was under way. Her clothing was even color coordinated, but her face was set in a grim mask. Behind her was a stocky woman in her forties who looked like she could hurl a discus with the best of them and was, from all appearances, thoroughly uncomfortable to be there.

“Eloise, hi,” Rory said cheerfully, wondering what message her neighbor was there to deliver that required such a dour expression.

Eloise didn’t bother with a greeting or to introduce her companion. “I have to speak to the marshal,” she said bluntly as if she were referring to an average mortal with whom she had business to discuss.

“I’m afraid he’s not available right now,” Rory said, holding out little hope that Eloise would be discreet with regard to Zeke’s odd circumstances. When she was on a mission, she’d proven herself to be single-mindedly obtuse.

Before Eloise could say anything else, her companion stepped forward. “I am Olga Kolchek,” she said with a thick Baltic accent. “I work as aide for Ms. Eloise. I’m sorry we bother you so early, but Ms. Eloise is very determined lady, and is difficult to change her mind once she is made up.”

“I understand completely,” Rory said after introducing herself. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The aide managed a smile. “So good of you, I try—”

“I needed to speak to him last night,” Eloise interrupted, clearly believing her agenda took priority over basic courtesy. “But no one answered the phone when I called, and my son wouldn’t let me come over here. He can be such a trial. And now they’ve hired this prison guard to keep tabs on me. You’d think I was a serial killer or something.”