Linda Howard - Kill and Tell

Moreover, nothing had been found on him, so that meant he hadn't found the book. Hayes spared a moment for regret that the book hadn't been on him; it would now be in police possession, but he would know where it was, and getting it out of police possession was child's play. Karen Whitlaw was beginning to worry him. This was twice things had gone wrong. The first time was a logical mistake, but now he wondered why she had moved. To make herself harder to find? How much had her father told her?

Hayes's preference was to find the book, not kill the woman. But, logically, she was the only one who would know where the damn thing was hidden. If he couldn't find the book, then obviously he had to get rid of her.

Chapter 15

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"You see what a problem it is, Raymond," Senator Lake said. The big, gray-haired man nodded in acknowledgment. They sat in the parlor of the senator's Washington townhouse, lingering over their morning coffee. Raymond had gotten a late flight out of Minneapolis the day before and arrived in Washington well after midnight, so the senator had left word for him to get a good night's sleep, and they would talk in the morning.

The senator had gotten, for him, a late start; he had slept until eight, and now it was ten-thirty, the morning sun bright and hot. "I had my doubts about the way Hayes handled the matter of Medina," he said slowly, "and now it looks as if he lied in order to get me to do things his way. I can't imagine any reason why Frank Vinay would deny knowing about Medina's death, if he already knew, or any reason for him to say Medina had no family if in fact he did. I wasn't asking for classified data, and I am chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee."

"Hayes must have his own agenda," Raymond said, his thick brows furrowed as he thought. He looked like a boxer who had gone one round too many, but there was an agile brain behind the battered appearance.

"That's what I thought, too. I wonder if perhaps he is gathering ammunition with which to blackmail me. Whitlaw could have given him the idea." The one good thing about that scenario, the senator thought, was that it proved Hayes's minions hadn't discovered the notebook and he had kept it himself. If Hayes had

the notebook, he wouldn't need any other means of blackmail.

"You know what I think about loose ends." Raymond shook his head. "They're dangerous. You don't use people you can't trust. You said Hayes used people you didn't know to take care of Medina?"

"Yes. He swore they knew nothing about me, that they thought he was the head, but if he's lied in one thing, then nothing he says is trustworthy."

"Get their names from him," Raymond said. "I'll take care of it." Raymond had always taken care of things. Senator Lake could remember, as a child, hearing the burly man quietly say to his father, "I'll take care of it," and his father had always smiled and nodded, and it was done. It was reassuring now to hear him say the words, to know his affairs were being handled by someone he could trust with his life.

"Do you have Hayes's address?"

"Yes, of course." The senator had made it a point to find out. He had not, however, written it down in his address book or had his secretary add it to his computer files. No, anything to do with Hayes was stored only in his head. In his position, he knew too much about the capabilities of current technology to believe anything in his computer was private, and though he took the security precautions any sane man would take, he didn't assume his system was inviolate. If it wasn't written down, then it wasn't accessible; that was the most secure any information could be. He rattled off the street number to Raymond, whose lips moved slightly as he memorized it.

"I'll get right on it," Raymond said, and the senator knew everything was going to be all right.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Piper asked for the tenth time as she and Karen walked across the hospital parking lot to Piper's car. There was a parking deck, but it was reserved for the doctors and administrative staff, so they wouldn't get wet or have to walk very far. The nurses and other peons, who were evidently all in good shape and not allergic to water, had to use a parking lot that was half a block away from the hospital.

Karen squinted into the hot afternoon sun and wished she had her sunglasses. "I'm fine," she said, for more than the tenth time. Piper had insisted on taking Karen home with her. Several of her friends and colleagues had stopped by the emergency department to check on her. Ice had been applied to her various bruises, the cut on her foot had been anointed with antiseptic and covered with a bandage, and she had been made to lie down for several unnecessary hours while they plied her with food and fruit juices. She didn't feel shocky any longer, she just felt tired and harassed. Piper carried her suitcase, having refused to let Karen lift it because of her sore ribs. Detective Suter had been prompt about having her things collected, earning Karen's undying gratitude. Her options until then had been wearing either her own blood-splattered gown or a hospital gown. The hospital gown had won the contest, but just barely. Now she was dressed comfortably and securely in the all-American uniform of jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers.

"It's too hot to cook," Piper said. "Let's get some take-out on the way home. What are we in the mood for? Mexican or Mexican?"

"I don't know. I think I'd rather have Mexican."

"Say, that's a good idea. Do you want Taco Pete's or—"

A car pulled out of a parking slot and headed down the aisle straight toward them. Karen stopped listening to Piper rattling on and watched the car. A man, probably one of the maintenance workers, was driving. There wasn't anything unusual about the car; it was a beige Pontiac, several years old. But it was going too fast, and she edged Piper more to the side to give the car plenty of room to pass. If she hadn't been attacked that day in her own home, she probably wouldn't have paid the car more than cursory attention, but she was on edge, something deep inside her still frightened and outraged that the sanctuary of her home had been violated. She didn't feel safe. And so she watched the car, watched it gaining speed as it came down the aisle of the parking lot.

The driver was wearing sunglasses. She saw him clearly through the windshield as the car bore down on them, and she had the impression he was looking at her.

Piper broke off her running list of Mexican restaurants and said, "He's going too fast." The fine hairs on Karen's arms stood up. She stopped, staring at the driver. Closer, closer. He gunned the engine, and the car rocketed toward them. Karen turned and drove her shoulder into Piper, knocking her sideways into the space between two parked cars. There was a loud crash, and metal screamed as it tore and bent. They both hit the pavement hard, sprawling on the grit, Piper under her and the suitcase tangled between them. The car beside them rocked wildly on its suspension as it was hit, the rear end skidding around toward them. The front end of the car crashed into the car on the other side of it and bounced back, coming to rest with the rear tire only an inch from Piper's head. Tires squealed in the parking lot. Someone shouted, and they heard running feet. Then tires squealed again, and there was the sound of a car engine roaring as it turned its maximum rpms, rapidly growing fainter with distance.

Gingerly, Karen sat up. She was already sore, and this latest insult to skin and muscle only aggravated the previous injuries. Now her hands were bleeding as well, from sliding on the pavement, and her right knee throbbed.

Piper sat up also, a hand on her head. She leaned against a tire and looked at Karen.

"Are you all right?" they both said together.

They stared at each other another second. "Yeah," Karen finally said. "How about you?"

"Oh, your standard contusions and abrasions. That car almost hit us!"

"Are you two all right?" Another nurse practically vaulted over the fender to reach them. "He didn't even stop!" She knelt down beside them, dragging things from the pockets of her tunic. Her name tag announced her name was Angela, and the tiny koala clinging to her stethoscope with Velcro paws announced she worked in pediatrics.

Most of the nurses on first shift had already left; Piper was running late because she had swung by emergency to collect Karen. But there were still a few people around, and they all came over. "Go get some gurneys from emergency," Angela said to an orderly, her voice crisp and calm.

"We're all right," Karen and Piper said in unison.

"Don't be silly. You both need to be checked out. You know, sometimes people can't tell if they're injured until several hours later, because of the shock." Angela would have made a good general; maybe it came from dealing with kids all day long.

"Here," another nurse said, tearing open a disposable package containing an antiseptic wipe and handing the package to Angela.

"Do you have any more of these?" Angela asked, taking Karen's hands and wiping her raw, bleeding palms.

"No, just that one. Let's see." The second nurse dug in her pocket again. "Here's a gauze pad, but that's it." She climbed over the bumper, since the car was now sitting at such an angle that its front end was almost touching the bumper of the car beside it. Karen and Piper were sitting in the slight V-shaped space between the two cars, with Piper in the wider part of the V. The nurse crouched beside Piper and pressed the pad to a cut on her forehead, which was sullenly oozing blood. "Someone needs to call the police," she said positively. "That creep not only almost hit you, he left the scene. The owners of these two cars will need an accident report for their insurance companies."

"I've got a cell phone," someone else said. "I'll go call." Within minutes, the parking lot was swarming with emergency personnel, both the medics who happened to have been in the department at the time and one of the emergency department doctors as well as two of the nurses. Two gurneys were brought, despite Karen's and Piper's groaning objections. Piper tried to stand and sank back to the pavement with a startled exclamation. "I think I must have sprained my ankle," she said sheepishly. "I guess I'll need that gurney after all, unless someone wants to lend me a pair of crutches."

A patrol car pulled into the parking lot then, and they all got to tell their stories to the policemen. The orderly said, "Man, he didn't even have license plates on the car. I got a good look when he was leaving the parking lot, because by then it was obvious he wasn't going to stop." No one recognized him, but it was a big hospital; it was impossible for everyone to know everyone else. And since there was no security at the parking lot, anyone who wanted to could park there regardless of whether or not they worked at the hospital. All the cars were supposed to have employee decals on them, but no one ever checked, so the decals were useless.

Angela said, "I was standing just over there. It looked to me as if he tried to hit them." She didn't speculate about what sort of chemicals might be zipping around the driver's bloodstream, but several others did.

Karen knew better. When she could, she said quietly to one of the police officers, "I'd appreciate it if you would notify Detective Suter about this."

He gave her a "Get real" look, and she added, "This is the second time today someone has tried to kill me. I'm sure you heard about what happened this morning, when two officers shot and killed the burglar. That was my apartment."

He got serious fast. "You think this was deliberate?"