Linda Howard - Kill and Tell

"I know it was. He aimed for us." She managed to keep her voice even, but she was trembling inside with rage. The driver hadn't cared that Piper would have been seriously injured, possibly killed, too. Anyone with Karen was apparently as expendable as she was.

She couldn't say just when she had arrived at the conclusion that someone was trying to kill her—maybe while she had been airborne between the two cars, hearing the impact behind her. But she wasn't stupid, and she wasn't paranoid. As improbable as it seemed, someone really was trying to kill her. Detective Suter thoughtfully tapped his notebook against his knee. Karen sat quietly, having finished what she had to say. She had outlined her father's murder and the burning of her old house. Added to both of that day's incidents, it was enough to make anyone thoughtful. Piper's ankle had been X-rayed, revealing a hairline fracture. No cast was necessary, but the ankle was securely wrapped, and she was under orders to stay off it for a week. Karen's scrapes had been cleaned and bandaged, but she was free to go. The question was, where?

"Ms. Whitlaw," Detective Suter said slowly, choosing his words so as not to give offense, "you've had a very rough day. Anyone who has endured what you have could be forgiven for thinking there's a conspiracy against her. I'm sorry about your father, too, but from what you tell me, he was living on the streets, and those types of crimes are all too common. As for the house fire—" He looked helpless.

"How can you tie that in with anything else that's happened?"

"I looked in the phone book," she said. "The new ones don't come out until December. My address is still listed as the house that burned."

"Still—"

Karen leaned forward. "Someone knew I was still at the hospital this afternoon, that I would be going home with Piper. Why else would he have been waiting in the parking lot? I work third shift; I wouldn't normally be there this time of day. You knew I was going with Piper, because you were here when she asked me. Who else knew?"

The detective's face went hard and blank. He said slowly, "I see what you mean. I guess I'm glad you're not accusing me of anything."

She didn't entirely trust him, either, but she didn't tell him that. She thought he was a straight, honest cop, which was why she had asked for him, but at this point she wasn't taking anything for granted.

"Your whereabouts weren't a secret," he said slowly. "Several people asked your condition, and I told them you were okay and would be going home with one of the other nurses when her shift ended. For that matter, maybe someone called the hospital and checked."

"Only a condition report would be given, not my plans for the evening." He looked distinctly unhappy. "Ms. Whitlaw, looking at things in that light, I agree that something unusual is going on here. But why would someone be trying to kill you? Do you owe a lot of money to someone?

Did you witness something you shouldn't have? Do you know a terrible secret?" Karen shook her head to all those questions. "No, none of that. I don't know why anyone would want to kill me, but all the indications are that someone is trying to. And that man who tried to run me down in his car wasn't concerned that he might hit Piper, too. My friends are in danger, Detective. I can't stay with

anyone without worrying they might die in a house fire or get shot if they step in front of me at the wrong time. What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know." He turned the notebook around and around. "I can't help. I can't even justify investigating, because there's nothing to go on. The only dead person is the guy who broke into your apartment. If we run across a beige Pontiac with no license plate, a damaged right fender, and paint scrapes, we can get the owner for leaving the scene of an accident, but that's all. Not attempted murder. I don't know what to tell you, except that you should take a leave of absence and go somewhere safe. Don't tell anyone where you're going, either."

A leave of absence? She sighed. At the hospital, there was no such thing as a leave of absence unless you had a medical reason. Administration would grant her request for a leave, but whether or not there would be an opening for her when she came back was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. It would also have to be an unpaid leave of absence, which would eat up her savings. Because of the life insurance policy on her mother and the proceeds from the sale of the house, she had more money in the bank than she had ever thought she would have, but by no means could she simply quit work.

"Just think about it," Detective Suter said.

This time, Karen walked alone to the parking lot, to retrieve Piper's car and then pick Piper up at the emergency department. Night had almost fallen; twi-light was still hanging in there, but the street lights had come on. She would have asked an orderly or another nurse to walk with her, but after the hit-and-run, she didn't want to take chances with anyone else's life. The entire situation felt like a Twilight Zone episode, with danger lurking all around her, and she didn't know what form it would take or why she had been targeted.

Leave. That's what Detective Suter wanted her to do. Hide. But if she didn't know what she was hiding from, how would she know when it was safe to come out of hiding?

It all tied together somehow. All of it. From her father's murder to the two attacks today, they were all for the same reason.

She was so tired, too tired to think clearly. Surely, when she was rested, she would be able to see a picture that eluded her now. But she'd had very little sleep in two days, and today had been a shock to her nervous system from start to finish.

She could think clearly enough, however, to know she couldn't go home with Piper. Her conscience hurt her, because Piper was on crutches and she needed someone. But Karen's presence brought danger, and she was too tired tonight to stay awake and alert.

On the other hand, Piper couldn't go home, either, because he had known Karen planned to go home with her. Having missed once, the logical thing would be for him to try to get to her at Piper's house. He might already be there, inside, waiting for them.

Chill bumps roughened her skin at the thought of walking into a dark house, to be met by a stranger with a gun.

A motel, that was the ticket. Just for tonight, for both of them. Piper wasn't dumb; she would see that the only logical thing to do was not take the chance of going home. Tomorrow—well, tomorrow she would

think of something else. Piper had a sister with whom she could stay. And Karen knew where she was going. If she had to hide out, then she intended to hide out in the one place she really wanted to be. She was going to New Orleans. To Marc. All she had to do was stay alive until then.

Marc replaced the phone, frowning. Karen still wasn't at home. He had called twice, even though he was still royally pissed, because after the blood bath in the Garden District, talking to her had suddenly seemed more important than cooling down. Even if he was angry, she needed to know that he cared enough to get in touch. In trying not to spook her, he thought, he had made the mistake of not letting her know she meant more to him than just a hot time between the sheets. He usually wasn't that clumsy in love affairs, but hell—

He ran his hand over his face. The operative word before had been affair . Now the emphasis was on the other word.

Love . He'd never been in love before. He had greatly cared for some of his lovers but never before felt this fascination, this obsession, with a woman. He loved her, and it scared the shit out of him. What if he did the wrong thing? He seemed to be walking a delicate tightrope between not coming on so strong that he scared her off, and holding back so much that she thought he didn't care at all. To hell with it, he thought. From now on, he was going to go with his instinct, which was to move as fast as possible and make damn sure she and everyone else knew his intentions. The primitive urge to stake his claim went beyond the physical; making love to her was wonderful, but he wanted all the legal ties, he wanted his ring on her finger for all to see.

But where in hell was she?

If he knew Karen, she had worked last night, never mind having gotten very little sleep the night before, never mind the hassle of navigating airports and wrestling luggage. He hadn't called earlier because he figured she would be asleep, but it was late enough now that she should be awake. Night had fallen, and the Quarter was alive with tourists looking for good food, hot music, cheesy strip joints, all of which were readily available.

It occurred to him that she didn't know his home phone number, and she couldn't get it by calling information because it was unlisted. He dialed her number again and left a third message, giving her the number and ending with, "Call me, sweetie. No matter what time you get home, call me." She did have his voice-mail number, though. Just on the off chance she had called it, he punched in some more numbers and listened to his messages. There were only two, one from a gutter punk trying to make points by feeding him some info he'd already had for two days, but the second message was from Karen. His heart thumped against his ribs when he heard her voice.

"This is Karen. Someone is trying to kill me. I'll be on flight sixteen twenty-one, American, arriving at ten-thirty in the morning."

Every hair on his body stood up. Swearing, sweating, Marc waited to see if there was an addition to the message telling him where to reach her now, but the line clicked off, and nothing but silence followed.

God damn it! He stood and slowly paced around the living room, thinking. This had to be tied to her father, just like the Medina murder. But how? Why? A comparison of the slugs taken from Rick Medina hadn't matched the one that had killed Dexter Whitlaw, but just because they hadn't been killed with the same weapon, that didn't mean the murders were unconnected. Neither was this. Every cop instinct he had developed after years on the job told him Karen was in danger for the exact same reason her father had been killed. The problem was, he didn't know why, he didn't have a clue who was behind it, and Karen was evidently in hiding somewhere and he didn't know how to get in touch with her.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, and picked up the phone one more time. He had some instructions for Shannon.

The only seat available on the flight was a window seat, in the very last row. Karen stared down at the blue bowl of Lake Pontchartrain and the brown coil of the Mississippi River, with New Orleans sandwiched between them. It had all started here, with Dexter. Even if Marc wasn't interested in her personally, he would still help her, because he was a good cop, and Dexter had been murdered in his territory.

She still hadn't talked to him. When she called from a pay phone last night, she had gotten his voice mail again. The message she left was to the point: "This is Karen. Someone is trying to kill me." Then she gave him her flight number and arrival time and was too tired to think of anything else to say, so she hung up. Maybe going to Marc wasn't such a bright idea, but he was the only person she could think of who might help, and she would certainly be safer in New Orleans than she had been in Columbus. She had had to use her real name to get the airline ticket, since passengers were now required to show a photo ID

when checking in for the flight. Assuming her pursuer had the expertise, contacts, and funds, he would be able to trace her movements to New Orleans, but once she was there, she planned to check into a motel under a false name and pay cash, so there wouldn't be a paper or electronic trail for him to follow. New Orleans was a big city, a tourist city, with thousands of tourists every week and a lot of hotels and motels to accommodate those tourists. She could easily hide.