Carolyn Haines - Wishbones

As I passed a patrol car, I saw a canister of pepper spray on the seat. I reached in and took it. Then I was running, heading behind the building, hoping that there might be a way for me to slip inside before Tinkie could risk her life.

I heard Sheriff King cursing a blue streak, but I was too far away for him to stop me, unless he shot me, and I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t do that. Not yet.

When I made it to a corner of the building, I pressed myself against it and took some deep breaths. To my horror, I saw that Tinkie was proceeding toward the building, too. She was going straight to the doors.

I pushed off the wall and began circling behind. Although I couldn’t see them, I knew snipers surrounded the building. Moving quickly, I ran along the back looking for a window or door or some opening where I could push myself inside. I had to hurry. Tinkie and Graf both were in danger.

I was on the north side when I found a window with a cracked pane. If I did this wrong, tragedy could result. Using my elbow, I cracked the glass more and began to pull it out piece by piece. When I could get my hand and arm inside, I unlocked the window and gently raised it.

In another three minutes, I was inside, completely disoriented but able to hear the sound of someone knocking.

“Go away or I’ll kill Milieu,” Jovan yelled.

I followed her voice, tracking silently through the huge building.

“It’s Tinkie Richmond,” I heard my partner say. “Will you please talk to me? Jovan, your mother is worried sick about you.”

“Yeah, right. She was so worried she gave me away at birth.”

The last and final piece clicked. Tinkie had been right. The parents on Jovan’s Web site had adopted her. Her mother, the lovely Ivana, had not wanted to raise the daughter that was a product of… her marriage or an affair? Was Federico Marquez her father?

I moved steadily closer to the sound of Tinkie pounding on the door. “I can help you, Jovan. You have a career and fans and Federico cares for you. You don’t want to hurt him.”

Don’t go there, Tinkie, I wanted to shout at her. Federico might be her father. And her lover. Shades of Chinatown. Don’t go there. But it was too late.

I saw a flood of daylight as the door opened and Jovan reached out and snatched Tinkie inside just as several slugs whammed into the side of the building.

“You were trying to set me up to be shot.”

I crept forward. Jovan gripped Tinkie’s shirt.

“It’s not too late for you to give up,” Tinkie said. “I’ll try to help you.”

Jovan pushed her back so hard that Tinkie fell. She stayed on the floor.

“You can help me,” Jovan said. “You can watch as I gut the man who destroyed my family and my life.” She stepped around Tinkie and went to a set designed as a bedroom. Federico was sitting in a chair, tied so tightly that he couldn’t move.

Jovan stepped behind him and picked up a knife on a small table. Quick as a flash, she grabbed Federico’s hair and pulled his head back, revealing his throat. She passed the blade in front of him, and for a moment I thought she’d slit his jugular.

“Federico Marquez slept with my mother to get even with my father.” Jovan kept repositioning the knife. At any moment she could easily kill him.

“So Vincent Day is your father,” Tinkie said. She walked closer. She was calm and poised. Tinkie had courage.

“That bitch Carlita seduced my father. She used him to try to manipulate Federico. And then Federico turned on his best friend and tried to ruin him. My father’s last two films ended in bankruptcy because Federico convinced the backers to pull out.”

The man tied in the chair began to struggle and fight against his bonds and the gag.

“Why don’t you let Federico speak?” Tinkie asked. “Have you given him a chance to tell you his side?”

“I don’t need his side. His pathetic daughter told me how he’d killed Carlita and wouldn’t allow the children to see her. He’s a vile man and he deserves to die. I’m going to make sure it happens.”

“Carlita died of anorexia,” Tinkie said. “No one killed her. She killed herself.”

Tinkie was getting to Jovan. I inched around to the flank position. If Tinkie could just distract her, I could knock her down and douse her with pepper spray.

“Federico loved his children and his wife. Carlita was ill. She needed validation of her beauty, and she did some bad things to people, especially to Federico and his children. And to you and your parents. Federico is as much a victim as you are.”

“That’s not true!” Her rage was instantaneous. “How dare you!” She started to lunge at Tinkie and I hurled myself out of the shadows and at her legs. I took her down at the knees like an Ole Miss tackle. She hit hard and before she could recover, I pressed the button on the pepper spray and sent a thin jet of it directly into her eyes.

“I’ll kill you,” she raged, thrashing and choking. “I’ll kill all of you.”

Tinkie found an extension cord and together we bound the model’s hands behind her back. “I think you’re killing days are over, Jovan. And just so you know, Estelle is going to be fine.”

We left Jovan on the floor and untied Federico. He looked like he might keel over, but he assured us he hadn’t been harmed. While Tinkie went to signal the deputies inside, I knelt beside Jovan.

“Where’s Graf?” I demanded.

“Screw you,” she said. “He’s as good as dead.”

I grasped a fistful of hair. “I swear to you, if you don’t tell me where Graf is, I will snatch you bald-headed.”

Something in my tone must have convinced her. “In the trunk on set eight.”

As King and the deputies entered the building, I was rushing to set eight. It was built to be an attic, and I saw the trunk instantly. It opened with a creak, and I found Graf bound and gagged.

For a moment I thought he was dead, but he opened his eyes when I removed the bandanna she’d wadded into his mouth.

“Sarah Booth,” he said. “I knew you’d come.”

Tinkie had walked up behind me. In the background, Sheriff King was reading Jovan her rights. Tinkie helped me loosen the bonds that held Graf, and he climbed out of the trunk bruised, but none the worse for wear.

I can’t say for sure who embraced whom, but we were holding each other like we intended to graft.

“Oh, no.” Tinkie spoke so softly that I thought something had happened to her. But when we followed the finger she was pointing, we saw it.

What looked like miles and miles of film had been pulled from canisters and burned. Cameras were bashed and destroyed.

We ran toward the devastation, but I knew what it was. Jovan had achieved her goal of destroying the movie. Every scene Federico had shot was ruined. In one vengeful, insane act, she’d changed all of our lives.

Graf, Sweetie Pie, and I stood on the tarmac of the private airport and waved good-bye to Tinkie and Chablis. On the flight to Los Angeles from Costa Rica, Tinkie had formed a strong friendship; Charlize was loaning Tinkie her private jet for a quick trip home.

My heart ached as she waved out the door and then disappeared into the plane. She reappeared at a window, waving Chablis’s little paw.

“What’s Federico going to do?” I asked Graf.

He’d spent the morning with the director. Not a single frame of the movie was salvageable.

Jovan was in jail, charged with Suzy Dutton’s murder, kidnapping, and a dozen other offenses. Estelle was recuperating in Petaluma. She was scheduled to fly to L.A. to stay with her father.

“Federico doesn’t know. He can’t afford to reshoot the film. His backers have abandoned him. They don’t care that none of this was his fault.”