Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“I had Janice do one.”

“Oh, Janice. You’ve been busy. Do I sense a wee hesitation there?”

“I was trying to see Janice lately.”

“Trying? Guess this woman fixed that.”

“And I have the note and envelope the ring came in. Kinsella suggested you might want prints.”

“‘Kinsella suggested.’ Who is he? Mr. Police Expert now? I’ll take it. And what ring is this?”

“What she sent me. She demanded I wear it.”

“I begin to get her MO. What kind of ring?”

“A gold image of a serpent eating its own tail.”

“Seen something like that.”

“It’s called the worm Ouroboros. Ancient infinity symbol going back to the Greeks.”

“So. You wearing it?”

“Just what she called to ask. I told her yes.”

“Must stick in your craw.”

“No. On my keychain.”

Matt had seldom heard laughter from the confessor’s side, but he did now.

“That’s right. Fight her with the letter of her own law. She can’t think of everything, Matt. She’s not supernatural. She’s just ahead of the average person because she’s spending all her time and energy on tormenting you. You know what you have to do?”

“Concentrate on finding and stopping her just as hard. I’m a stalker again.”

“Bingo. Okay, hand over the physical evidence. You’ve got it with you, I assume. Just leave it in your cubicle when you go. Mail me that sketch Janice did. Follow your regular work and travel routine. See only who you have to, and very briefly. Visit the library and look up books on surveillance, bugging, police and covert techniques. Don’t check them out, just read them there and make notes if you have to. Web-crawl the law enforcement sites.”

“Web-crawl! I have to buy a computer too?”

“The wail of an immaterial man being made flesh.”

“You’re saying I have to become her to overcome her.”

“I’m saying you’ve got a new full-time job. I’ll look into what I can, but it won’t turn up much. She sounds like she’s been doing this for a while. If she’s done this before, if she’s left a trail, if she insists on breaking in and getting caught, you could maybe have her put away for a few months.”

“What’s her ultimate goal? What does she really want?”

“There’s only one way to find out, and you don’t want that route.”

“What’s that.”

“Sleep with her and see what she does after.”

“I doubt anyone has ever gotten that advice from a confessor before.”

“It’s not advice. It’s reality, but, hey, you don’t have to give in to reality. It’s not a law.”

He was going to protest when he heard something else he’d never heard in a confessional before.

The yodel of a cell phone.

“Is there no sanctuary anywhere?” Molina growled to herself and her phone. “Yeah? Yeah. At the ranch? Shooting? Right away. This is one denouement I don’t want to miss.”

Matt heard her rise. “Come on. Let’s give your stalker something to chase. Some friends of yours are in mucho hot water out in the desert.”

Chapter 50

Action Traction

Temple came running into the clearing, using her high heels like the pitons she had claimed they were, driving her forward faster than even she believed possible, the security man and his ponderous boots tamping sand behind her.

Leonora had stayed behind in the front seat of the Storm, the door open, her delicate shoes planted on the desert sand, quivering.

But she had ordered—ordered—the man to go with Temple and do what she said.

The scene in front of them wasn’t chaotic, but it was like a stage with three spotlit acts, a three-ring circus: you didn’t know where to look first.

The three dusty wayfaring strangers trilling like a Salvation Army chorus in front of a loose panther was the most riveting vignette.

They were singing, she thought, the song about the lion sleeps tonight. The panther had obviously not been sleeping today.

The lone man on the right, on his knees holding a bleeding face in two blood-gloved hands, caught her attention next, and held it.

Behind her, Rafi’s footsteps veered away and toward his fallen fellow guard.

And then there was the third scene stage right: Max coated in sand dust, beside another fallen man.

Temple couldn’t tell whether he was helping the man, or holding him in custody, or both.

Max’s eyes flicked across Temple, their expression changing from something dark and unreadable to relief, then to wariness as they moved on to Rafi, helping up the stricken guard across the clearing.

Max looked around farther, then focused back on her.

Her eyes questioned him, so he nodded toward the guard’s bleeding face. “Louie’s work.”

“My Louie?”

“You know another?”

She stared at the man in Max’s grasp. He was bleeding from the mouth and his head was turned away. “Your work?”

“His own.” Max kicked the rifle toward Temple, then unlatched his belt and pulled it through its loops like a whip.

Temple thought for a moment he was going to take it to the man, but instead he crouched and bound the guy’s wrists behind his back.

“This might hold him, it might not. So if I were you I’d pick up the rifle and make like a guard.”

A rifle? It was to laugh. But Temple squatted beside it, picked up the stock, being careful not to get near the trigger, and stood, pointing the lethal barrel at the ground. That was where she intended to leave it.

“I take it,” Max said, “that you’ve called for reinforcements.”

“I left my cell phone with Leonora. Don’t worry, I used a spare battery for it, and gave her Molina’s personal number. Several times.”

Max, oddly indifferent to his prisoner, instead watched Rafi.

Temple could see calculations moving across his mobile face. Not all of them were pretty. Were anyone else other than she watching, he wouldn’t let even that much show.

“It’s up to you,” Max said abruptly. “You need to get that Rafi guy the hell out of here. Tell him…the cops are coming and this is a mess and he’s best out of it.”

Max turned to go.

“And this is—?” Temple gestured gingerly with the rifle.

Max nodded. “The killer. In more ways than one.” His voice was drenched in disgust. “God have mercy on his soul. I certainly wouldn’t.”

He turned and scaled the rocks, disappearing into their dun-colored contours and then over their crest like a lizard.

Temple looked from vignette to vignette. The panther, burnished red-black by the westering sun, had settled on its belly, licking a paw. Apparently the singing had quieted it.

Raf had ripped a sleeve off his shirt and dabbed at the other man’s face until the scratches beneath the blood were revealed, nasty but not serious.

The bound man on the ground stayed still, knees tented, head bowed into them, face obscured.

Rafi, his fellow worker tended to, suddenly saw Temple with the rifle.

“Hey! Little lady, you can’t do that! Just stand there and let me take that thing off your hands.”

Temple would have been happy to relinquish the weapon. It was darn heavy, for one thing, but she remembered Max’s instructions. He had given them brusquely, against his druthers, she could tell. She had a feeling he was being more merciful to Rafi than to the killer, for some reason of his own.

“Thanks.” Temple lowered her voice as Rafi neared. “The police are coming. In force. You’ve been so helpful, I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble. I think this guy killed Mr. Van Burkleo.”

Rafi’s features sharpened like a hunt dog’s. He swept the rifle out of her grip anyway.