Jeanne Stein - Retribution

At one p.m., a limo pulls up to the entrance. The driver disappears through the main entrance.

A few minutes later, he returns with a woman. He holds open the rear passenger door for her and stands aside. The woman is tall, slender. She’s wearing a charcoal pantsuit tailored to accentuate broad shoulders, a small waist, narrow hips. She has red hair, fair skin.

She pauses outside the limo and her gaze sweeps upward.

Directly at me.

I have the absurd impulse to duck. I resist. I know there’s no way she can possibly tell that there’s anyone sitting in a car so far away.

Besides, this is a busy frontage road and there are two other cars, one parked in front and one, behind me.

Still, she is looking only at my car.

Then, a strange thing happens.

The amulet around my neck begins to burn.

IYELP AND PULL THE AMULET FREE. IT’S GLOWING red.

What the hell? If this is what Ariel meant by telling me the amulet would let me know when I was close to Burke, she could have warned me.

I start to yank it off, but the image of those three women and the promise I made to keep it on stays my hand. I let it fall against the outside of my blouse. It still smarts through the fabric, but not nearly as much.

By the time I look again at the parking lot, the limo is gone.

Shit.

The amulet’s glow diminishes.

It takes me a second to regroup. There’s only one egress from the warehouse. If it didn’t come by me, the limo must have gone the other way.

Burke must have been in the limo.

I hang a U and take off.

The limo is a quarter mile ahead. I hang back and follow. They jump on 805 North and proceed up the coast. At the junction with 52, they head west, into La Jolla.

La Jolla is a wealthy enclave of the rich and famous. It attracts lots of tourists—so forget about finding a place on the street to park. But people try. As a consequence, traffic along Prospect, the main drag, is usually stop -and-go. At lunchtime, it’s stop and stop and stop before a short go. But it gives me plenty of time to watch the limo as it pulls up in front of La Valencia hotel.

The driver doesn’t get out this time. Instead, an extremely big, extremely burly guy in a cheap black suit that strains across his chest gets out of the driver’s passenger side door, scans the street, then opens the rear door.

The redhead steps out and goes straight into the hotel. Burly guy slams the door, scans the street once again, then slaps the roof of the limo. It pulls off and he follows the woman into the hotel.

So where is Burke? Is she meeting the redhead inside? The damned amulet is throwing off heat again. Whoever the redhead is, she must have a powerful connection to Burke.

I know this hotel. Unless the redhead is staying here, she’s probably on her way to lunch in one its four restaurants. I can narrow her choices further because one of those restaurants, the Sky Room, is open only for dinner. I’m hoping she’ll go for one of the two places that open onto the patio. That would make it easier for me to check her out.

First though, I have to find a parking spot. Not valet. Not with this crowd. If I have to beat it out of there in a hurry, I don ’t want to stand around with my thumb up my ass waiting for a kid to find my keys. That burly guy in the bad suit is probably not a date.

There’s a parking structure across the street on Girard. I leave the Jag there and jog back to the hotel. I realize I ’m taking a chance, assuming Burke is meeting the redhead. What if she’s not? What if she left with the limo? Too late to worry about that now. Besides, the amulet is still glowing. If Burke is not inside, my backup plan will be to keep tailing the redhead.

It wouldn’t be smart to walk into the hotel and start scoping out the restaurants. If she ’s here, Burke will recognize me. Instead, I go around to the back. The hotel is built to take advantage of an ocean view. Prospect sits above Coast Boulevard and a green ribbon of park that snakes along the shore. The hotel is built another twenty feet or so higher. There is a terrace along this side that two of the restaurants open onto. It’s not a pretty day, cloudy, cold with an ocean breeze dropping the ambient temperature another ten degrees. Since anything below seventy-two sends most San Diegans scurrying for winter coats, no one will be eating outside today.

Which works to my advantage.

The base of the hotel is ringed with evergreens and bou gainvillea. Perfect cover for a person scurrying like a lizard up the wall to the deck. Thorns tug at my clothes and tangle my hair, but at the top, I slide over a wooden railing and hide myself behind stacked tables.

So far, so good.

There is a buffet being served in the Mediterranean Room, the restaurant in my direct line of sight. It’s crowded. I don’t see the redhead.

I wonder if I’m going to have to go inside when a figure moves into my line of sight. A big, broad back holds out a chair and the redhead slips into it. Burly guy takes up a position near the table, his back to the sliding glass door, scanning the crowd.

I wait to see if anyone joins the redhead. She’s already begun to eat. Rude, if she’s with another party. Finally, after five minutes, I come to the exasperating conclusion that she’s alone.

Shit.

Was I wrong? Did Burke leave with the limo? So much for letting a superstitious relic determine my course of action. I finger the thing, tempted to take it off and throw it into the bushes.

Instead, I squat down behind a big potted plant. Superstitious or not, I made the witches a promise. Stupidly maybe, but I did it nonetheless. Nothing to do now except follow the redhead. Or go back to the warehouse and start over. Patience is not my strong suit. The urge to grab the redhead and shake information out of her curls my hands into fists.

Serves me right for putting my faith in a damned charm. Burke is nowhere in sight.

I don’t have time to waste.

I’m climbing to my feet when the redhead slips her jacket off and hands it to the bodyguard. She’s wearing a sleeveless silk tee. It’s cut to reveal her shoulders and lean muscled arms.

My stomach lurches at the same time the amulet emits another blast of white-hot heat.

The redhead has a tattoo on her right shoulder. A skull with a crimson rose where the mouth should be.

I’ve seen that tattoo before.

On Belinda Burke.

Reason is telling me not to jump to conclusions—that there could certainly be more than one woman in the world sporting a tattoo like that.

But the amulet is blazing away, trumping reason. If this isn’t Belinda Burke, it’s someone close to her. It has to be.

I’m not going to waste another single minute with Culebra’s health hanging in the balance.

The redhead has headed back for the buffet. I use the opportunity to sneak into the restaurant through the unlatched sliding glass door.

The people at the table nearest the door, an elderly couple, look puzzled. I’m in jeans and a leather jacket. Not exactly lunch attire in La Jolla.

I put a finger to my lips and whisper, “It’s my mom’s birthday. I just got in from London to surprise her.”

They give me the once-over but don’t call for security. After all, I might be a rock star with my shaggy hair and faded jeans. You never can tell anymore.

I make my way toward the redhead. Her bodyguard is with her. She’s looking over the dessert table. He’s looking over the crowd. He watches me approach, but doesn’t react with anything but bored indifference.

The amulet is so hot now, I think it’s going to catch my clothes on fire. I reach for the .38.

The redhead’s back is to me. She has a plate in her hand. I’m no more than ten steps away when she puts the plate down and turns around.