Lisa Scottoline - Lady Killer

Then she did a double take. Mary couldn’t see the face of the man or the woman because they were hidden under the umbrella, but she’d know that fox jacket, tight pants, and stiletto boots anywhere.

“Trish?” Mary sat bolt upright, stunned. The man and the woman crossed onto the pavement right in front of her window. The golf umbrella read Dean Witter. She ducked, and if she hadn’t, they would have looked right into her face. Then they took a right, passing her window.

“Yikes!” Mary plopped down the coffee cup, jumped out of her chair, and went to the front door. She undid her chain lock at warp speed, flung open the door, and peeked out. The man and Trish were walking close together to a door a few down the row, then they were pausing in front of the door. Their bodies came close together under the umbrella, as if they were kissing.

So Trish was alive, and this must be the guy she was cheating with! But what were they doing up here? Mary felt about a thousand feelings at once, notably, joy that Trish was still alive, followed quickly by rage that Trish had worried her to death.

She squinted through a crack in her door as Trish disappeared inside the room, and the mystery man under the Dean Witter umbrella ran back to the car, opened the driver’s-side door, and climbed in, then closed the umbrella. Mary squinted but couldn’t make out any detail of his face or even build. She tried to see the model of the car, but it was too dark and rainy. It was a black sedan, four doors, a new-model something, and she wasn’t about to let it get out of sight.

The car drove around the parked cars in the middle, heading for the exit, and Mary darted into the rain. She reached the exit a split second after the sedan pulled out, just in time to see his license plate.

“RK- 029,” Mary said aloud, so she wouldn’t forget it, but that wasn’t what struck her. Above the plate was an emblem she knew well. The car was a Cadillac.

She flashed on Trish’s diary. Cadillac thinks he’s stealing. Cadillac said that my watch must have cost an arm and a leg. Cadillac keeps having his suspicions. Her questions rushed at her, one after the other. Was Cadillac the mystery man under the umbrella? Why was Trish running around up here with another man, not one day after Bobby’s murder? What the hell was going on, anyway?

Mary turned on her heel and made a soaking-wet beeline for Trish’s door.

M ary knocked gently, guessing Trish would think it was the mystery man coming back. The door swung wide open, and Trish’s expression morphed from delicious anticipation to abject shock. She had on a tight black sweater with sequins around its deep V-neck, and her makeup looked fresh as a tattoo. She’d expected a lover but got a lawyer, and it hardly seemed fair.

“Mare?” Trish asked, her mouth a perfect circle.

“What’s going on?” Mary pushed past her into the motel room, which reeked of burning cigarettes, rather than burning hair.

“I can’t believe you’re here. How did you find me?” Trish closed the door behind them, and Mary turned on her, not bothering to keep anger or hurt from her tone.

“Never mind that, Trish. You think I’m playing a game here? I’ve been worried sick about you. I thought Bobby killed you. So did the girls and your mom.”

“Mare, calm down. I know what I’m doing.”

“What? What’s going on? Do you know Bobby’s dead? Murdered?”

“Yeah, I do.” Trish edged backward. “I found out.”

“How? How did you find out? Did your boyfriend tell you?” Mary could see the question strike a chord, because Trish stiffened, defiant.

“It’s not your business.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?” Mary almost spat. “Was that Cadillac from the diary? Or the stockbroker from the salon?”

“My diary? You read my diary?” Trish’s eyes flew open in outrage.

“Sue me,” Mary shot back. “Now what are you doing here? Why didn’t you call and tell everybody you’re alive?”

“What are you, stupid? I couldn’t. I was afraid for them, if they knew. Somebody whacked Bobby. They could be after me, next. Do you know what that’s like for me?”

“For you?” Mary shouted. “What about everybody else? Your selfishness is breathtaking! The cops are looking for you. My friend Reg is looking for you. Giulia and the girls have been out there looking for you, for days, and your mom’s a holy mess. What the hell are you doing here? What happened on your birthday, at the house?”

“Who do you think you are, yelling at me? I’m not a little girl.” Trish’s tone echoed the old Mean Girl years, which only made Mary madder.

“Tell me what happened or I’ll call the police right this minute.”

“Fine.” Trish reached for a cigarette from a pack on the night table. “If you shut up and let me talk.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Good.”

Trish lit her cigarette and Mary took a seat in the chair opposite the bed, neither woman speaking for a moment, as if they were two prizefighters, returned to their corners. Trish sat on the olive green bed, sucked on the cigarette one last time, then stubbed it out in the ashtray in the light from a cheap brown lamp.

“The night of my birthday,” she began, “Bobby came home and said he had a surprise and we had to drive to it, so we came up here and he showed me this crappy little house in the woods.” Trish snorted. “He said he owned it and he was gonna get outta the Mob, and we were gonna move up here, have a slew a kids. He said I was gonna marry him. He didn’t even ask me, he told me, like I was some dog, and he had this ugly ring and I freaked and threw it at him.”

Trish’s tone rang true, though Mary couldn’t help but doubt her. Finding her with Mystery Man was too weird, and she couldn’t wrap her mind around it yet.

“So when I did that, he freaked. Crazy mad, madder than I ever saw him before. He’d been drinkin’ the whole way up, so I knew I was in trouble.” Trish wet her lips, her cadence slower. “He tried to hit me but I ran around the dinin’ room, and he hollered at me was I cheatin’ on him and I told him I was because I wanted him to let me go, that I couldn’t marry him ever, and I wanted out.” Trish’s voice caught with fear, and Mary studied her face to see if the emotion was real, but couldn’t tell. She didn’t trust Trish any longer, and worse, she didn’t trust her own instincts.

“Okay, so then what?”

“Then I realized that nobody knows where I am, I’m in the effin’ mountains and he could get away with killin’ me, so when he grabbed me, I picked up the lamp and hit him on the head.”

The lamp. The blood. It was Bobby’s, not hers.

“He dropped like he got shot, unconscious. I’m no dummy. I took his car keys and drove away.”

“In the BMW?”

“Right. He had another car there, a black pickup truck. I didn’t even know he had a second car.” Trish shook her head, disgusted. “I didn’t know he had any of this goin’ on. I don’t even know how he found out about this hellhole.”

I do. “Okay, go on.”

“So I called my boyfriend and we found this place to hide out in.”

“Is your boyfriend Cadillac?”

“No. Cadillac’s a wiseguy that hates Bobby.”

“How did you know Bobby was dead?”

“He told me.”

“Who?”

“My boyfriend.”

“Who is he?”

“Just a guy. A married guy. I met him at the shop, a businessman who doesn’t need any of this crap.”

“The stockbroker?”

“Yes.”

Mary thought a minute. “So he’s Miss Tuesday Thursday?”

Trish’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”

“Why didn’t you write about him in your diary?”