Little Lamb Lost (23 page)

“Remember on the Fourth, when I told you
about the case? Michael’s case?”

“Sure.”

“Remember I said that Ashley, the little
boy’s mother, had a mysterious boyfriend who showed up at the jail the day I
went to see her?”

“Yeah.”

“The boyfriend was following me around
Oak Mountain today with a knife.”

“Good Lord.”

“Take a left here.”

The direction I’d given was opposite
from the way to my house. He didn’t question it, and turned as I asked.

“What did you do?”

“I got off the trail and lost him in the
woods, until I got to the parking lot. He was there, but by that time I’d found
some other hikers.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. I’m afraid he may have followed
me from my house. I wanted somebody with me when I went home. So I went to
Royanne’s.”

“Then where are we going now?”

“I want to drive around for a minute. Make
sure he’s not following me. I think I lost him before, but I want to make
sure.”

“Poor thing. He really freaked you out.”

That was true. The shaking had stopped,
but I couldn’t ditch this horrible sensation that I was being tracked.

“You shouldn’t be alone tonight, Claire.
Why don’t you stay at my apartment? Or I can stay with you? On the couch,” he
finished mildly.

That might not be a bad idea. Not that I
was going to get a lot of sleep, but it might be nice to have some company. I
shrugged noncommittally and directed Grant to Highway 150, and from there up
the Lakeshore extension. I scanned every direction, with Grant’s help, for a
black pickup. It wasn’t until we were on a more or less deserted stretch of the
four-lane road that I was convinced we were alone. Grant took a right at West
Oxmoor and within a few minutes we were in my neighborhood. As he pulled into
my driveway, I was fiddling with the drawstring on my shorts so that I wouldn’t
give him a full moon as I slid out of the van. As I tied a tight bow, Grant
asked a question.

“Exactly how many men do you have
stalking you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked back,
looking at him.

He nodded toward the house. “That man is
sitting on your stoop again.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Oh, Christ. Kirk Mahoney was the last
thing I needed right now. But on my stoop he sat, as unwelcome as a pimple on
prom night. This time with a plastic grocery bag beside him.

“Damn.” I muttered. What was I going to
do now? I needed to talk to Kirk, but I didn’t really feel like introducing him
to Grant. The less Kirk knew about my personal life, the better.

Grant rescued me from having to make
some awkward excuse. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I go to my apartment and
pick up a change of clothes? You can talk to what’s-his-name. I’ll be back in
thirty minutes. You’ll be okay with him here, right?”

“Yeah, okay.” I picked up my clothes and
slid out of the van. I turned to face Kirk, clutching my shorts again.

“What do you want?”

“That’s the second time you’ve shown up
in that van. Who is he?” Kirk jumped down off the stoop and made his way down
the concrete path to meet me as Grant backed out. I could think of little else
except getting into the house and making sure no one had been there. And
getting out of sight.

“None of your business.”

“Touchy, aren’t we? Can I come in? I
want to talk to you.”

I was hurrying past him at a race-walk,
keys out. I slid the key into the doorknob and motioned him inside, closing the
door fast behind us, then locking it. Once inside, I scrutinized the living
room. Nothing seemed disturbed.

Kirk began, “What —”

I held up one finger to silence him
while I continued my search. Checked to make sure the door to the carport was
locked, then the back door. Looked in the pantry and all the closets. Under the
guest bed and under mine. Kirk followed me from room to room, confused.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure no one’s here.”

“Why would somebody be here? And why are
you wearing those huge clothes?”

I was at the end of my emotional rope. I
could not spend another second talking to anyone, or explaining anything. “Can
you give me a minute? I’m going to go change.” I found some clean underwear,
shorts and a top, then locked myself in the bathroom. I wet a pink washcloth
with warm water, and, leaving the water running, pressed it to my eyes. I took
deep, deep breaths to ward off the sobs. It didn’t work. The shakes were back,
worse than before. I wet the washcloth again and pressed it to my face.
Breathe. Breathe. I was tired. Tired of being scared, tired of grief. And my
legs hurt like hell.

After a few minutes the hysteria passed
and I felt more in control. I washed my face, changed, and put Royanne’s
clothes in the wicker hamper to be washed. Took one last deep breath and went
out to face the reporter in my living room who thought I was a paranoid
schizophrenic.

He was sitting on the couch, watching
CNN. I eased down beside him. “Hi,” I said, limply.

“You okay?”

“No, not really.”

“I didn’t think so.”

I was drained. “What’s going on?” he
asked.

“I had a little incident today on Oak
Mountain. Somebody threatened me.”

“God. What happened?”

“I can’t really talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because of your work? Was it one of
your clients?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Did you call the police?”

“I’ll take care of it. You said you
wanted to talk to me.”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry. I was rude
to you on the phone. I feel bad.”

“It’s okay.”

“I brought you a peace offering.” He
handed me the grocery bag, which had been sitting on the coffee table. In it
was a six-pack of Michelob Ultra.

For what seemed like the first time that
day, I smiled. “Thanks.”

“You look like you could use one, too.
They’re probably a little warm. Let me go put them in the fridge.”

“Pour me one, while you’re at it. The
glasses are to the right of the sink.”

He came back, carrying two pilsner
glasses of beer. It was a little tepid. I didn’t care.

Kirk said, “You must get threatened all
the time by your clients, no?”

I thought back to the few times it had
happened. The tire-slashing incident last week, the one I’d blamed on Flash.
Now I wasn’t so sure. The client who’d left the lovely note spray painted in
orange on my car. I’d put her kids in foster care. The police didn’t have a
whole lot of trouble discerning whodunit. She’d been hanging out in the parking
lot every time I left the office for nearly a week before committing the crime,
screaming threats and obscenities as I walked out. She’d been charged and
forced to pay restitution. She was now in a mental institution, and her kids
had been adopted.

I’d been held at gunpoint too, while
executing a pickup order, by a father who wasn’t too keen on DHS taking his
kids away. Luckily the standoff didn’t last long. The police officer I was with
called for backup and within five minutes the house was surrounded with SWAT
officers. Daddy made the right decision and put the gun down before anybody got
shot. Their mother had custody now, but he had supervised visitation. He’d
actually sent me a letter of apology later.

So why was this so different? What was
it about today that had me so incredibly shit-scared? Because Michael was
murdered. This was different because someone was dead. And I could be next.

“Hello?” Kirk said, pulling me out of my
musings.

“Sorry. Yeah, I mean, threats do happen.
This was different though.”

“How?”

“It just was.”

“Man, you’re a tough nut to crack.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t share a lot. About anything.”

“I can’t, about my cases. You know
that.”

“Yeah, but you know, I don’t put
everything in the paper.”

“Ha! Sure you don’t.”

“You think I’m that untrustworthy?”

“I think you want to sell papers. Get
the big story.”

“I —”

“Come on, admit it.”

A sheepish grin. I thought it was
adorable until I caught myself.

“See? I was right.”

“I have to get the big stories. That’s
the only way I’m going to get where I want to go.”

“Which is?”

“One of the big weekly mags.
Time
or
Newsweek
.
Or
U.S.
News
. One with real resources for investigative reporters. Another year
or two with a big daily like
The News
, and I’ll be ready to move on. Or
maybe I’ll freelance. I’m not sure. I want to go where the action is, across
the globe.”

I sipped my beer, thinking of Kirk
dressed in camouflage in some war-torn Middle East country. I shuddered.
“Sounds dangerous.”

“So does your job. But you still do it.”

“Because I love it.” I said it without
thinking, and realized the impulsive statement had come from the heart. I
wanted to keep my job.

“So who’s the guy in the van? Is he your
boyfriend?”

I shrugged.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you have a boyfriend?”

“He’s going to be back here any minute.”

“So I should go.” He drained the last of
his beer and put the glass on the coffee table. We made our way toward the
door.

“Before you go, I want to ask you
something,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“Can you look into something for me?
There’s a company here, a local one, called Eclipse Entertainment. Run by a guy
named Donovan Grayson. He owns a bar called Kaleidoscope, along with two or
three others. Can you see if there is anything fishy going on with them?”

“Why? What do you think is going on?”

“Maybe nothing.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“If there is something, then you get a
story.”

“I meant from you. You’ll owe me a
favor.” There was that grin again.

“Kirk —”

“What?”

“No more kissing.”

He laughed. “I’ll dig around a bit and
call you next week. Bye.”

I locked the door behind him, then knelt
on my loveseat to peek out the front blinds. Kirk drove a dark silver Infiniti
G35 coupe. I watched him roar down the street, then sipped another beer while I
waited for Grant.

It was almost dark before he got back.
He knocked on the door softly, and I unbolted it for him. He was holding a bag
from Movie Gallery and two medium pizzas from Papa John’s. “Sorry to be so
long. I didn’t think you were up for going out, so I brought dinner. I got one
pepperoni and one cheese, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You like sci-fi?”

I did, actually. “Yeah.”

The movie was pretty good,
humans-versus-robots with plenty of action. When it was over, we found an
Indiana Jones movie on Showtime. By the end of that one, it was after midnight
and Grant’s head was nodding to his chest. I reached over and ran my hand
through his curls, the natural copper highlights glinting in my fingers. “Why
don’t you go to bed? The guest room has clean sheets.”

“ ’kay”

I leaned over and kissed his stubbly,
sun-browned cheek. “Thanks, for staying tonight.”

He reached a hand around the back of my
neck and pulled me close for a tender kiss on the lips. “ ’Night.”

“Good night.” I watched him pick up his
small duffel bag and walk down the hall to the guest room. The door closed and
I suddenly realized that I was a bit let down. Kirk would have tried harder to
get me into bed with him. Pulling my mind back from bedroom fantasies, I
considered going to sleep. But thoughts of Jimmy were waiting in the darkness.
I channel surfed, trying to concentrate on TV, but instead finding my mind
replaying all of the events of the past week and a half. So I picked up a pad
and pencil.

I am a compulsive list maker. Can’t live
without them. From the grocery list on the magnetic pad on the refrigerator to
the to-do list on my desk at work, lists run my life. They help me think
clearly. This list started with
ashley hennessy
.

Claims she did it. I still didn’t
believe it, and she wouldn’t tell me why she was willing to take the blame for
her son’s death. Would she have killed him for Jimmy? Because he didn’t want
kids? Did Jimmy threaten to leave her if Michael wasn’t out of the picture? Did
Ashley love Jimmy so much that she’d kill her only son? No way.