Sole Witness (2 page)

Over her dead body.

Amber lit her cigarette and
dropped the pack and the lighter back into her purse. She couldn’t wait until
her days of languishing behind a computer-topped desk were over.

In fact, she hated the Isla
Concha Savings & Loan, hated the idiots whose accounts she had to look up
because they forgot to bring their checkbooks or weren’t smart enough to
operate an ATM. She also hated being trapped in a building with hundreds of
thousands of dollars and being unable to stuff any in her pockets to make up
for the joke of a paycheck they doled out every fifteen days.

If there were some way to sneak
into the vault undetected, she’d have done it by now.

Her heels clicked on the steamy black asphalt as she
strode to her car.

Yeah, it was new, it was red, and it was freshly
waxed—but it was a Camry sedan, not a racy, convertible Spyder. If all went
well, her Spyder days were close at hand. Amber popped the trunk. If all went
well, she’d soon be a kept woman. She deserved to be spoiled.

Trapping her cigarette between
her teeth, she emptied her purse of the candies and random office supplies
she’d stuffed it with before leaving. She didn’t need most of that crap, but
who cared? The bank could afford it.

With her first real smile of the
day, Amber fished her gun out from under a fleece blanket and tucked it into
her purse between her wallet and makeup. Since the hyper-friendly tellers had
left, she no longer felt like killing anyone… but one never knew what the day
might bring.

Before slamming the lid, she
shrugged out of her black suit jacket and tossed it in the back. Layers should
be outlawed in Florida. Even March steamed like a broiler.

She unlocked the doors with the
remote and slid inside the car—no easy feat in four-inch heels and a black
skirt so tight her legs squeezed together. That’s what Tommy liked, though, so
that’s what Tommy would get.

Amber turned on the car so the
A/C would start kicking, and undid buttons on her white silk shirt to bare her
cleavage.

Sweaty. Damn.

She snatched a Kleenex from her
center console and dried off the dampness as best she could. The air blasting
from the vents finally turned chilly, blowing her blonde hair from her face and
hardening her nipples. Amber smirked. Tommy’d appreciate that.

Re-applying lipstick with one
hand and steering with the other, she drove to his studio in record time. Going
home with him from the bar on Saturday had been such a bonus. He was rich and
about to get richer, just as soon as he finished his new album. It was crap, of
course. White men shouldn’t be allowed to rap. But who cared?

The richer he got, the richer she’d get. Or at
least, she would, once she ramped up her status from one-night-stand to
permanent girlfriend. And once she was rich enough, she’d find someone even
richer, and she wouldn’t be stuck with Tommy ‘T2’ Turner anymore.

Life would be sweet.

What the hell were all these cars
doing on his street? Tommy better have sent his band members and groupies home,
like he promised. Amber swore and circled the block again. Stupid studio didn’t
even have a parking lot—she’d have to talk to him about that, too.

A pickup truck slathered in
racing decals pulled away from the curb and she slipped in the empty space.

Almost an hour remaining on the meter. More than enough
for a bounce on the couch. Contrary to his lyrics, Tommy was an incompetent
lover. But she’d put up with almost anything to trade her bare-bones condo for
his high-priced gulf-side mansion and to spend her days in indolent luxury
rather than trapped in that box of a bank and smiling kindly at morons.

Amber stepped out of the car and
smoothed her hands over her clothes.

Slinging her purse over one
shoulder, she closed the car door and walked up the sidewalk to the recording
studio, careful to sway her hips and thrust out her chest. Never know when
Tommy might be peering out the door in anticipation.

What a loser.

He’d latched onto her like he’d
never had a woman before. He’d been almost too easy. Men were such pigs. Too
bad she was forced to interact with them—corralling a moneyed playboy was the
next step up the ladder of success.

Without bothering to knock, she
swung open the studio door and sashayed inside. Giant photos of Tommy adorned
the wide, spacious antechamber, and overstuffed chairs and cigarette-burned
loveseats filled the interior.

Tommy leaned over a coffee table
pouring champagne into two fluted glasses. Short but muscular, he wore his
standard ripped blue jeans and bleach-bright white tank top, his shaggy black
hair tamed by a folded blue bandana and his tanned skin covered in naked-women
tattoos. What a prize.

Glancing up at the sound of her
heels on the hardwood floor, his eyes met hers.

“You.”

Amber sculpted her lips into her
sultriest pout.

“Who did you expect, honey? You
asked me to come by after work. And I… came.”

She fluttered her eyelashes with
mock coyness and assumed a provocative pose. To keep from smacking him, Amber
kept reminding herself he was her ticket to a better life.

Tommy’s face cleared. “I forgot.”

Idiot. “You forgot, silly? Then
why are you pouring champagne?”

He shrugged. “Someone else is
coming over. You have to leave.”

The first tendril of ice snaked
down her spine. “Who?”

Tommy flashed a mean smile. “Lori
Summers.”

Amber raised an eyebrow. “Lori
Summers? The swimsuit model?”

Please.

Granted, she was as surprised as
the next person when the blonde bombshell stopped touring the world’s waves in
brand-name bikinis to settle down here in Isla Concha, half a mile off
Florida’s gulf coast and forty miles south of the nearest big city—if Tampa
could be considered a big city.

But no way did Lori Summers trade
a life of gracing glossy magazine covers for hooking up with squinty-eyed Tommy
Turner, white-boy rapper.

He topped off the glasses without
responding, so Amber stepped close enough to lay a hand on his bicep.

“You’re just mad at me for being
late, aren’t you?” she asked in a teasing voice. “You missed me, poor baby. You
missed… this.” She licked the edge of his ear and almost fell onto the coffee
table when he shoved her.

“I said get lost, Amber.”

She blinked. “You’re not
serious.”

Tommy crossed his arms. “As a
heart attack. Why would I want to screw you again,” he said, raking his eyes
over her body, “when I could be screwing Lori Summers?”

Heat raced up Amber’s neck. “Lori
Summers may be an empty-headed fashion slave, but I doubt she wants to screw
you, Tommy.”

“She’s a high-class model.” His
tone was amused, condescending.

Amber’s eyelid twitched. “You
mean high-class whore.”

Tommy smirked. “Saturday night I
got laid for the price of a vodka tonic. Guess that makes you a low-class
whore.”

Snarling, she pivoted on one
shaky stiletto and marched toward the open studio door, her clicking heels
echoing her anger.

“Don’t call me—I’ll call you,”
Tommy sing-songed.

Amber’s fingers
convulsed on her purse and she halted mid-step.

Nobody mocked Amber
Tompkins. Nobody. She slid her hand in her purse and clenched her fingers
around the barrel of her gun. The cold metal relaxed her muscles and twitched
her lips into a Cheshire smile. Tommy didn’t know her well enough yet to
realize he’d made a very, very bad mistake.

He was about to find
out.

With a sense of intense
satisfaction, she twirled in place to face him, swinging her hand across her
body toward the wall. The butt of the gun smashed into the center of his
grinning photograph, sending a shower of shattered glass across the room.

He yelped and jumped back as
shards of glass glittered to the floor. Fear clouded his eyes for a brief
second before his ego kicked back in and his gaze turned calculating.

“Oh, baby, don’t be mad,” he
said, and grinned. “There’s plenty of Tommy to go around. I can probably give
you a little taste before she gets here.”

He glanced down to fumble at his
fly and Amber hefted the gun in both hands. Before Tommy had a chance to finish
unzipping his jeans, her arm was steady and the Glock pointed directly at his
face.

“No thanks.” Amber smiled. “I’ve
got other plans.”

She wasn’t sure which she heard
first when she pulled the trigger—the satisfying blast of the bullet barreling
into Tommy's forehead or a hideously sweet voice calling out, “Tommy?”

He hadn't been lying.

Unbelievable. Amber fired a
second shot into his crotch for good measure and turned on her heel to chase
after the woman who’d spoiled all her well-made plans.

She reached the sidewalk just in
time to watch the taillights of a hot pink monstrosity careen around the
corner.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,”
she muttered. What was this girl, Barbie?

Barbie or not, Tommy belonged to
Amber and she didn’t play well with others. She’d seen him first, claimed him
first,
owned
him first. No supermodel hussy was going to stop her from
getting what she wanted.

She stalked back inside and
stared at the lifeless body draped over the wooden coffee table. The room
reeked of blood and gunpowder. With his glassy eyes and gaping fish mouth,
Tommy looked like a moron even in death. She should’ve aimed for a higher class
of sugar daddy to start out with.

Careful not to step in the
growing pool of blood, Amber filched his wallet out of his back pocket and
flipped it open. Packed with bills. Excellent. She dropped the leather wallet
and the warm gun into her open purse and wiped the door handle free of
fingerprints with her sleeve.

Gross. Didn’t he ever clean this
thing? Now her favorite white blouse was ruined.

Fuming, Amber strode out to her
car.

Lord knew she’d put in her time.
She deserved a better life.

Tommy had owed her. The world
owed her. Little Miss Supermodel owed her.

And… what if the living Barbie
doll had seen her?

Amber plopped into her Camry and
gunned the engine before the cops decided to pay a visit. Lori Summers would
rue the day she decided to make this particular booty call.

Ducking her head to light a
cigarette, Amber considered the ramifications. She doubted Tommy had spoken of
her to other women. He was too much of a player.

So even if Lori-the-slut tattled,
she couldn’t name names. But if she could identify her from a lineup or
describe her well enough…

The size-zero bimbo would have to
be silenced.

Amber bared her teeth in a
distorted parody of a smile and eased away from the curb. She would triumph.
She always triumphed.

Lori Summers must die.

Davis Hamilton straightened the
piles of paperwork rising from his desk like stalagmites. He glanced around the
station. For as relatively few city employees as worked in the Isla Concha
P.D., everyone was oddly busy. Dispatchers shouted into phones, lawyers
interviewed witnesses, cops grilled suspects—probably meant the day was about
to get longer.

His own partner had the desk
across from him, and if he held still for much longer, she was bound to look up
and rip him a new one. Tonda Carver had a quick wit, indeterminate ethnicity,
and a belly so pregnant Davis was surprised she could reach over it to touch
her desk.

As if he’d caught her attention
with the power of his mind, she glanced up and impaled him with her gaze.

“Don’t just sit there running
your fingers over your hair, hot stuff. It’s too short to get messy. Or are you
afraid you’re going bald?”

“I’m not going bald,” Davis bit
out, forcing himself not to touch his head to make sure.

“Not yet, anyway. But if you had
hair like mine, you’d wish you were.”

Carver shook her head. Tiny black
spirals sprang out in all directions in a cross between a porcupine and Shirley
Temple. Her deceptive cuteness was all Shirley, but when she opened her
mouth—pure porcupine.

She tossed the empty Chinese
cartons from their rushed supper into her trashcan and flicked a stray piece of
rice at his desk. How she could find anything on a desk that messy was beyond
him. She fished a cough drop out from her desk drawer, unwrapped it, and popped
it in her mouth.

“Sick?” Davis asked.

“Fruit drop. Vitamin C. I feel a
cold coming on. Hey, have you got a Kleenex?”

Davis slid open his top desk
drawer. Pens, pencils, sticky notes, a well-worn page ripped from a magazine,
folded so he wouldn’t be able to stare at her face…