Tess Gerritsen - Last to Die

It was a clear, clear night. She was holding Regina as she stood amid a crowd, gazing up at the sky where stars glittered. Some of those stars began to move like fireflies, and she heard the crowd murmur in wonder as those stars grew brighter, traveling across the heavens in geometric formation.

They weren’t stars.

In horror, she realized what those lights really meant, and she pushed her way through the crowd, desperately searching for a place to hide. A place where the alien lights could not find her. They are coming for us .

She lurched awake, her heart slamming so hard she thought it might leap out of her chest. She lay sweating as the terror of the nightmare slowly faded. This was what happened when you had dinner with a paranoid cop, she thought. You dreamed about alien invasions. Not friendly ETs, but monsters with spaceships and death rays. And why wouldn’t aliens come to earth as conquerors? They would probably be as bloodthirsty as we are .

She sat up on the side of the bed, her throat parched, the sweat cooling her skin. The motel’s bedside clock glowed two fourteen A.M. In only four hours, they had to check out and catch their flight back to Boston. She rose in darkness and felt her way toward the bathroom to get a drink of water. As she passed the window, a pinpoint beam of light flickered through the curtain and vanished.

She moved to the window and nudged aside the drape to peer out at the unlit parking lot. The motel was completely booked, every parking stall filled. She searched the darkness, wondering where that flashlight beam had come from, and was about to let the curtain fall shut again when a dome light suddenly went on inside one of the vehicles.

That’s our rental car .

She hadn’t packed a weapon for this trip; neither had Frost. They were unarmed, without backup, against what? She snatched up her cell phone and hit speed dial. A few rings later, Frost answered, voice still groggy with sleep.

“Someone’s screwing around with our car,” she whispered as she pulled on her blue jeans. “I’m going out there.”

“What? Wait!”

She zipped up her fly. “Thirty seconds and I’m out the door.”

“Hold on, hold on! I’m coming.”

She grabbed her flashlight and keycard and stepped barefoot into the hallway, just as Frost emerged from his room next door. No wonder he’d managed such a quick exit; he was still wearing his pajamas. Red-and-white-striped PJs that hadn’t been in fashion since Clark Gable.

He saw her staring at him, and said: “What?”

“Those make my eyes hurt. You’re like walking neon,” she muttered as they headed for the side exit at the end of the hall.

“What’s the plan?”

“We find out who’s in our car.”

“Maybe we should call nine one one.”

“By the time they respond, he’ll be long gone.”

They slipped out the exit into the night and darted behind a parked car. Peering around the rear bumper, she stared down the row, toward the stall where their rental vehicle was parked. The dome light was no longer shining.

“You sure about what you saw?” he whispered.

She didn’t like the doubt she heard in his voice. At this hour of night, with the gritty pavement biting into her bare feet, the last thing she needed was to have her eyesight questioned by Mr. Neon PJs.

She crept toward their rental car, not knowing or caring if Frost was behind her, because now she was starting to doubt herself. Starting to wonder if the light she’d seen was just a remnant from her nightmare. Aliens in her dreams, and now aliens in the parking lot.

The car was one stall away.

She paused, her sweating palm pressed against the rear bumper of a pickup truck. All she had to do was take another two steps and she’d be touching their own bumper. Crouching in the darkness, she listened for movement, for any sound at all, but she heard only the hiss of distant traffic.

She rocked forward and stared between the two vehicles. Saw empty space. That doubtful note she’d heard in Frost’s voice echoed in her head, even louder now. It sent her scrambling around the rear of their rental car, to peer down the passenger side.

No one there, either.

She rose to her feet and felt the night breeze against her face as she scanned the parking lot. If anyone was watching them, he would see her now, fully exposed. And now here came Frost, an even more blatant target in his red-and-white pajamas.

“No one,” he said. Not a question, just stating the obvious.

Too irritated to respond, she turned on her penlight and circled the car. Saw no scratches in the finish, nothing on the pavement around it except a trampled cigarette butt that looked like it had been lying there for weeks. “My room is right there,” she said, pointing to her window. “I saw a light through the curtains. A flashlight. While I was watching, the dome light went on. Someone got into our car.”

“Did you actually see anyone?”

“No. He must’ve been crouching too low.”

“Well, if he got into our car, then it should be …” Frost paused. “Unlocked.”

“What?”

“It’s not locked.” He gave the driver’s handle a tug and the dome light came on inside. They both stared into the lit car, neither one of them moving.

“I locked it tonight,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Why do you keep questioning me? I know I locked the frigging door. You ever seen me not lock my car?”

“No,” he admitted. “You always do.” He looked down at the handle he’d just touched. “Shit. Fingerprints.”

“I’m more concerned about why someone was in our car. And what they were looking for.”

“What if they weren’t looking for anything?” he said.

She stared through the window into the front seat and thought about Neil and Olivia Yablonski climbing aboard their Cessna Skyhawk. She thought about RDX and Semtex and a New Hampshire farmhouse that exploded into flames.

“Let’s take a look under the car,” she said quietly.

She didn’t have to explain a thing; he had already backed away from the driver’s door and was following her to the rear bumper. She got down on her knees and felt grit biting into her palms as she leaned in to study the undercarriage. Her flashlight beam skimmed across the muffler and tailpipe and floor pans. Nothing caught her eye or looked out of place.

She stood, her neck sore from the awkward position. Massaging her sore muscles, she circled to the front of the vehicle and once again dropped to her hands and knees to search the undercarriage.

No bomb.

“Shall I pop the trunk?” said Frost.

“Yeah.” And hope that doesn’t blow us sky-high .

He hesitated, clearly sharing her anxiety, then reached under the dashboard and pulled the release lever.

Jane lifted the trunk and shone her flashlight into the empty space. No bomb. She peeled back the floor carpet and peered into the well with the spare tire. No bomb.

Maybe I did dream it all, she thought. Maybe I forgot to lock the car. And we’re standing out here at three A.M., with Frost in those god-awful PJs, losing half a night’s sleep for nothing.

She closed the trunk and gave a huff of frustration. “We need to look inside the car.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it,” muttered Frost. “Might as well make a whole night of it.” He crawled onto the front seat, his pajama-clad rear end poking out the open door. Who would have guessed he’d go for the candy-cane convict look? As he rifled through the glove compartment, she knelt down and shone her flashlight up into the left rear wheel well. Of course, she saw nothing. She moved to the front of the car, repeated her examination of the left and right wheels, and circled back to the right rear wheel. Dropping to her knees, she aimed the flashlight into the space above the tire.