Sole Witness (11 page)

Lori slammed her fists on the wheel and kept
driving.

Three hours and eleven hotels later, Lori was ready
to drive off a cliff or sleep in her car, whichever came first. She trudged
through the lobby of the shadiest motel she’d ever been to and waited for the
frazzled clerk to finish arguing with drunken spring breakers.

After a long discussion about tossing kegs in the
swimming pool, he made his way over.

“May I help you?”

Lori took a deep breath. “I’d like a room.”

“Just one left. One bed, ground floor. Smoking all
right?”

At this point, a cot would be fine. Lori nodded
gratefully.

A room felt like it would solve all her problems.
Someplace to close her eyes and pretend she could sleep. It couldn’t bring back
Kimber, of course, but at least the killer would never find her here.

Nobody in the world would guess that Lori Summers,
supermodel, was spending the night in a ratty dive of a motel, a stone’s throw
off the interstate.

“How you wanna pay?” he asked.

She plopped her purse onto the counter.

“I’ll do plastic.”

Lori slid her Isla Concha debit card across the
counter for the clerk.

T2’s snarling rhymes shook the condo walls. Amber
slapped at her alarm clock until his voice shut off, and then sat up.

Stupid top forty station.

Tommy’d probably be richer now than he ever was
before he died. She’d done the creep a favor.

Amber threw off her sheet, stood, and stretched.

Something… something… ah, yes. She grinned so
suddenly her chapped lips cracked and she tasted blood. Lori Summers, dead at
last.

What a fun night.

Rubbing her eyes, Amber stumbled out into the living
room and flicked on the TV. She thumbed through the channels until she found a
news station.

No frantic reporters or flashing headlines. Must
not’ve found the body yet.

Amber squinted at the VCR. Seven thirty. Plenty of
time for Isla Concha to freak out when their favorite local celeb turned up
with more holes than brains.

Not that Lori Summers had brains. She got rich on
her precious body, after all. The high-priced body now riddled with bullets,
that is.

Smirking, Amber stripped her t-shirt over her head
and tossed it over her shoulder as she sauntered to the bathroom. She stepped
into the still-wet tub.

Damn faucet still leaked.

She should’ve swiped some of Barbie Hot Pants’
expensive doodads while she was in there. Oh well.

Amber showered and then blew her hair dry. She
debated wearing a bra today and decided against. Next was makeup… there.
Gorgeous.

She strolled into the living room, grabbed her pack
of Virginia Slims and her Hard Rock Casino lighter, and flopped onto the lumpy
couch.

Still no word about Little Miss Model… wait.

Murder on Cypress Circle. Had to be hers. Amber
grabbed the remote and jacked up the volume full blast. She almost toppled off
the couch when the announcer spoke.

“Tragedy struck last night on Cypress Circle.
Twenty-eight year old Kimberley Jackson was gunned down while visiting Lori
Summers’ south-side home. We go live to–”

Amber’s senses shut down without the television
muting. A loud, rushing noise filled her eardrums as if she held conchs to her
ears and listened for the ocean.

Kimberley who? Visiting Lori? God freaking damn it.
How could this happen?

She fumbled for the channel changer, shut off the
TV, and hurled the remote at the wall. The plastic shattered, sending tiny
buttons and AAA batteries flying.

No way was this happening. If Lori wasn’t dead,
where was she?

Amber threw on a pair of shoes, grabbed her purse,
and flew down the highway. Work would be so surprised when they saw her—five
past nine was her usual. Today she’d show up fifteen minutes early.

Who cared what they thought. She had to know.

 Half an hour later, she pulled into her employee
parking spot and nearly forgot to hide her gun in the trunk before heading
inside. She cast the obligatory smiles at her coworkers as she beelined for her
desk.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she muttered. Why did
computers take forever to boot up?

Finally. She logged in and double-clicked the Isla
Concha Member Accounts icon. She had to start over three times because her
fingers jabbed at the keys too quickly and jumbled up the letters.

At last, Lori’s account flashed on the screen.

Recent transactions… click. Come on, come on… there.
At two fifteen a.m. the Shell Motel logged an eighty-three dollar charge.
Unbelievable. Lori Summers, alive and well.

Amber never made mistakes. Never. And she refused to
accept failure.

She snatched another sticky note from her desk and
googled Lori’s new location. Who the hell was Kimberley Jackson? With fingers
shaking with anger, Amber typed the name into the Isla Concha account system.

Nothing.

The shrill ring of her phone jarred Amber from her
concentration on the screen. God, why did there have to be customers?

“Thanks for calling Isla Concha Savings & Loan.
Amber Tompkins speaking.”

“Amber.”

Crap. Not George again. Didn’t he have anything
better to do than bug her? He ran the bank on the freaking beach. Surely
somebody out there needed money.

“Hi, Georgie. How can I help you?”

“It’s Wednesday, Amber. You said you’d let me know
today. About Saturday. Can I count on you? Please?”

She so did not have time for this. Any other day, he
was obnoxious enough, but today she had an escaped murder victim to deal with.

“Georgie, I’m real busy here. Can I call you back?”

“But you were supposed to call me back today,
Amber,” he whined.

Amber debated chucking her phone against the wall.
She hoped it’d shatter even better than her remote. “Georgie, Wednesday isn’t
over. I just woke up. Can I please call you back?”

“Fine,” he huffed. “I’ll be waiting, Amber.”

Joy.

Amber replaced the receiver and tried to regain her
flow of consciousness.

Once she took care of Lori, who else did she have to
worry about? Maybe that preggo pig. What was her name? Can’t think, can’t
think… Okay, what was his name, Mr. Hottie Pants? Hamilton. Dave? David? Amber
tried both in the system.

Nothing.

Why wasn’t it mandatory to be an Isla Concha
customer? She wished she could keep tabs on the world. Forget it. She had Lori
in the crosshairs. Amber stared at the yellow sticky note and shoved it in her
purse.

Tonight.

No, not tonight. Tonight wasn’t soon enough. What if
Lori left the motel by then?

Sooner. God, what time was it? Nine thirty-five.

How soon could she take lunch? Maybe noon. She could
say she had a dentist appointment, might be late coming back. She’d be to the
motel by twelve thirty, find and kill Lori, be back to her desk by a quarter
after one.

Yeah. That’d work.

Amber called up Lori’s account again and stared at
the screen.

Shell Motel, get ready. The huntress was on her way.

*          *          *

Lori bolted upright, lungs hitching with panic. She
clutched sweat-soaked sheets around her legs and forced her breathing into a
regular rhythm.

Motel. Kimberley. Everything going wrong.

Even while she slept, she couldn’t escape. Her
dreams were filled with twisted memories. Skydiving with Sara, watching her
drown. Shopping with Kimber, watching her convulse with bullets. Asking Daddy
for a treat on his way home…

Lori turned on the cheap television to drown out the
onslaught of her whirling mind. She hobbled into the bathroom, one leg caught
in the blanket. Didn’t look like this day was starting out much better.

Under the shower, however, her thoughts slowed and
she began to make sensible plans. First item of business: clothes. And a
toothbrush.

With a towel encasing her hair and another wrapped
under her arms, Lori padded to the bedside phone and dialed the operator.

“Shell Motel. May I help you?” came the harried male
voice.

“Yeah, this is room…” Lori checked the tag attached
to the metal room key. “117. Can you send over a toothbrush? Oh, and where’s
the closest breakfast?”

“There’s a diner a half-block south, called Auntie
Lou’s. I got a toothbrush, but you’ll have to come get it yourself. I’m the
only one to man the desk.”

Lori sighed. “Fine. I’ll be there in a minute.”

This place was positively archaic. No plastic door
cards, no room service…

Well, at least she was on the ground floor. She’d
have slept in her car before she’d have taken some high-rise elevator. The last
thing she needed was a panic attack.

The motel hairdryer was earsplitting but hot, and in
no time Lori was clean, dry, and in the same grass-stained clothes she’d worn
yesterday. Great. She checked her cell phone—still full battery.

That much worked.

She dialed the police station and asked for Davis.
After being on hold for what seemed like forever, his voice came across the
line amidst a cacophony of static.

“Hell… there?”

“Davis?”

“Lor… you? Call… mobile.” His voice echoed as though
he spoke through a tunnel.

“I don’t know your cell number.”

“What?”

Cripes. Lori held the phone an inch from her lips.
“I do not have your number!”

“Call… station. Give… number.”

“Okay, one second.”

She hung up without waiting for an answer and dialed
the station. Surprisingly, the man who answered gave her Davis’s number without
question. Davis answered on the first ring.

“Lori?”

It was so good to hear his warm, deep voice.

“I’m here,” she answered.

“Sorry about that. They patched it through and
sometimes it screws up like that.”

Lori sat on the edge of the bed. “I was surprised
they gave me your number.”

“I told them to. Just because I couldn’t hear you
doesn’t mean I couldn’t radio in.”

“Oh.” Duh.

“Where are you?”

“Motel.”

“Thought you were going to your mom’s.”

Lori closed her eyes.

She wasn’t proud of her relationship with her
mother. Never had been. Kimber had been the first and only friend to meet
her—and Mom hadn’t spoken any more highly of Lori, even back in high school.

“Changed my mind. I’m at the Shell Motel.”

“Where’s that? On the beach?”

“No—it’s off the highway. Exit forty-two.”

“Right. Listen, I’m sorry about last night. It
wasn’t like you thought. Exactly. We were just doing exclusionary comparisons.
You know, to prove it wasn’t you.”

Whatever. “Okay.” Lori made a pile out of the uneven
motel pillows.

“So… were you calling just to check in? They said
you asked for me specifically.”

She did, didn’t she.

Lori smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand.
She could’ve asked for Detective Carver just as easily. Davis was still the
first face that sprang to mind.

After all these years, it rankled that her
traitorous heart still felt just as strongly for him as ever.

This time, however, she was all grown up and not
going down that road a second time. He’d dumped her once. He’d do it again.
Besides, now he was a cop. No way was she going to involve herself with someone
who could die anytime.

Not even for Davy.

“You still there?” he asked. “Did you need something
or what?”

Lori cleared her throat. “I– I wondered if it was
okay to come home. I left without packing a bag and I don’t have any clothes.”

“No clothes?”

He paused and Lori rolled her eyes. Men.

“I’ve got the same clothes I had on yesterday, Davy.
I don’t have any
clean
clothes.”

“Oh. Right.”

“So, can I go home now?”

“Unfortunately not. Still processing the crime
scene. No civilians.”

 “But I live there.” Lori punched a pillow. “It’s my
house.”

“Still a civilian.”

“What am I supposed to do, buy all new clothes?”

“No… It’s just that your bedroom was the scene of
the crime. Tell you what, let me know what you want and I’ll swing by and pick
something up for you.”