The Homicide Hustle (22 page)

“Mom!” Zane said, hovering between embarrassment and anger.

My reaction slowed Kim down, but she recovered. “You can give me that ‘butter wouldn’t
melt in your mouth’ look, but I know what’s going on.” She put her hands on her hips.
“I won’t have it. Zane has a future in Hollywood and I’m not letting you get in the
way of that.”

“Believe me—” I started, but Zane interrupted.

“That’s enough.” He ripped the mike pack off and flung it down the hallway. It skittered
to a stop against the wall. He glared at the cameraman until he reluctantly lowered
the camera. Zane approached to within inches of his mother and leaned down until he
was nose to nose with her. “I have. Had. Enough. This is my life, my career, and my
love life. If I want to be with Stacy, I will be.” He grabbed my hand and yanked me
into his arms. In front of his horrified mother, he kissed me. There was more anger
than lust in the kiss and he mashed my lips against my teeth. It hurt. I struggled
against him, furious at being used, but he kept the kiss going for a good thirty seconds
while his mother bleated, “Stop! Zane, don’t be a fool,” and the cameraman resumed
filming.

I finally stamped my heel onto the top of his foot and he loosed me with an, “Ow.”
Standing on one leg, he bent to massage the injured foot. All the things I wanted
to say sounded stagey and melodramatic—“Don’t you dare do that again!” “Touch me again
and I’ll make you sorry!”—so I clamped my lips shut and stalked off. Kim threw her
arms around Zane, presumably to stop him from following me, and knocked him off balance.
They tumbled to the floor in an ungainly heap. I hoped Kim had ripped her multithousand-dollar
ensemble and that Zane had broken his nose or chipped a tooth. I had had it with both
of them.

I vaguely heard Zane call my name as I marched straight out the side door we’d used
more than a week ago. Ignoring him, I let the door snap shut behind me, and took a
deep breath through my nose. I needed four more such breaths before I felt my heart
rate begin to return to normal. The valet parking lot held the big rigs that had hauled
the show’s sets and lights and I could barely see through the trailers to the park
across the street. Lights glimmered in one of the truck cabs and honky-tonk music
filtered through a cracked door. A faint “Raise you five” made me think the drivers
might be playing poker.

A shadowy figure large enough to be Li’l Boni moved into the small slice of park I
could see and I impulsively struck out in his direction, weaving through the semis
to reach the street. The odor of diesel exhaust hovered in the parking lot. Hardly
stopping to think, I trotted across the street, wincing as I realized that I was ruining
the soles of my dance shoes. “Li’l Boni!”

The huge figure stilled at the sound of my voice and the silhouette he was talking
to, distinctly feminine, darted away. Li’l Boni moved closer and I could see his downturned
mouth in the faint wash of moonlight. He was not a happy camper. Maybe it was stupid
of me to come over here alone and interrupt a drug dealer at work. Strike that “maybe.”
His expression lightened somewhat as he took in my attire. “Lookin’ good, dancer chick.
You wan’ to join Li’l Boni’s stable?”

It took me a split second to realize what he had in mind. I hadn’t realized he had
diversified business interests; I’d thought he just dealt drugs. I glanced down at
the plunging neckline of my turquoise dress in dismay. “No! No, I mean, thank you
for the offer, but I just have a quick question.”

He half turned away. “I don’ got time for no mo’ questions.”

“Wait! Please. The other night . . . did Tessa get in on the driver’s side of the
car, or did the other person?” I shifted from foot to foot, and glanced over my shoulder
at the lights of Club Nitro. They formed a pool of safety.

“Other dude,” Li’l Boni said.

A low-slung sports car pulled to the curb fifty yards away and I made my escape while
Li’l Boni was distracted by his customers. I scurried back across the street, handkerchief
hem whipping around my calves, and wondered what to do now. I was sadly afraid that
I knew what had happened the night Tessa died. Zane’s casual words about a designated
driver had rearranged my thinking. What if Tessa hadn’t been driving her Mercedes
on the way home from the club? Her blood alcohol level, according to the autopsy report,
was well over the limit. What if she’d arranged for a designated driver? Who was that
likely to be, other than the person she drove to the club with? Li’l Boni said he’d
seen a man waiting for Tessa at the car, but Phoebe was tall, strongly built. In the
dark, at a distance, she could easily be mistaken for a man. And who was more likely
to be waiting at the car than the woman Tessa had come with?

My steps slowed as I crossed the valet parking lot. As soon as I could retrieve my
phone, I’d call Detective Lissy and tell him what I’d figured out. In fact, I’d use
the nearest phone I could find; there had to be one in the club’s office or behind
the bar. I pulled on the door. It stuck. I yanked harder and the door jerked open.
I barely had time to register the figure standing there before a hand grabbed my shoulder
and twisted me, and an arm like an iron band pressed against my neck.

Chapter 30

“Quiet,” Phoebe Jackson commanded.

Her voice was a whisper, but I sensed the resolve behind the soft words. I panicked
and kicked back, hoping to connect with her shins. Her arm tightened against my throat
until my vision got fuzzy. I quit kicking. The hall was dimly lit and momentarily
deserted. The band’s rendition of a Spice Girls song drowned out any other sounds.
Calista and Vitaly would be dancing.

I made a gargling noise against the pressure on my throat. I couldn’t scream. I wanted
to pry that arm away, but she’d somehow pinned both my wrists at the small of my back.

“In here.” Phoebe nudged me with a knee to the back of my thighs and I stumbled forward
a few steps. My shoulder banged against a door and then it was closing behind us.
It was dark. Pitch dark. Cave dark. From the smell, I figured we were in the room
Club Nitro used to store its booze. I tried to remember what it looked like. Stacked
boxes, sliding doors into a refrigerator area . . . that was all I could come up with.
My knee banged something that yielded like cardboard and glass clinked. Phoebe did
not turn on a light.

She eased her forearm away from my throat slightly. “Don’t yell,” she said, “or I’ll
put you out.”

I had no doubt she could do it. “Okay,” I whispered.

“Damn, girl.” Phoebe sounded sad and very weary. “Why’d you have to keep pushing?”

“You killed Tessa.”

I felt her nod behind me, her chin brushing my hair. Not being able to see a blasted
thing was disorienting. It made no difference whether my eyes were open or shut. My
heart was racing so fast the blood drummed in my ears, making it hard to hear, as
well. Phoebe was behind me and to my right, still pinning my hands in the small of
my back. My wrists ached from the pressure. I could feel her exhales on my cheek.
The floor beneath the thin soles of my dance shoes was hard and chilled my feet. Cement,
maybe. I took a couple deep breaths. Was I imagining it, or did the air taste like
beer?

Phoebe shifted with a rustle of fabric, and I continued, “She went to talk to Li’l
Boni about being in her documentary, and met you back at the car, just like you’d
arranged. It was you, not a man, that Li’l Boni saw. You’re big enough that it’s an
understandable mistake. She’d had a few too many drinks and you were the designated
driver. You started back to the apartments and then I think you must have hit Esteban
Figueroa, right? What happened then?” Her closeness, feeling the heat of her pressed
so close to my back, her strong fingers clenched around my wrists, was both strangely
intimate and unpleasant.

“Oh, God, girlfriend,” Phoebe said. “It was a nightmare. I got turned around getting
off the bridge and ended up on some little road down by the river. I never saw him.
It wasn’t until the impact that I even knew he was there. That thud—that sound will
stay with me forever.” She breathed heavily, the moist warmth unpleasant on my ear.
“We got out, me and Tessa. The man was lying there, bleeding, his leg at a weird angle.
I thought he was dead. Then he opened his eyes and looked straight at me. ‘Dakota,’
he said.”

“You lied to me about not playing a character named Dakota.”

“It was a small role on a detective show. It only lasted eleven episodes. But that
man said ‘Dakota’ again before he died, and I knew he recognized me.”

“What did Tessa do?”

Phoebe laughed bitterly. “What does Tessa always do? She went for a camera, started
talking about what good TV this would make.”

“Neither of you thought to call nine-one-one?”

“There was so much blood. He kind of choked after he said ‘Dakota’ and I thought it
was over for him.”

I leaned forward, trying to put more distance between us. She slowly released my hands.
“Don’t even think about trying to get past me. I’ll put you down so hard you’ll never
know what hit you—and you won’t dance for months.”

I believed her. At least she hadn’t said anything about killing me. Some of my fear
ebbed and waves of regret washed over me. Feeling my way cautiously forward one step
in the pitch dark, I touched a box at head height. Letting my fingertips trail along
the edges, I found the end of the stack and sat down on a box facing Phoebe. Even
though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was a mere foot in front of me. I felt like
crying. Not because I was scared of what Phoebe might do, although I was, but because
I liked Phoebe and this all felt so wrong. I swallowed hard.

“I told Tessa to put the damned camera away, told her I couldn’t get arrested for
drunk driving, for hitting the man. I was already a two-time loser—I couldn’t face
a third strike. Even if they’d have tried me in D.C. or Maryland—I don’t even know
where we were, exactly—I couldn’t do prison again. Nuh-uh. No way.”

Fear tightened her voice.

“What did Tessa say?”

“She kind of laughed, said it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did, we could make
another documentary, bring my story full circle. She wasn’t thinking about a thing
except her damned filmmaking, another Emmy or an Oscar.”

I had trouble blaming Phoebe for being bitter about Tessa’s reaction.

“I got back in the car,” she continued. “I was going to drive away. I don’t know to
where, but I figured if the cops didn’t catch me at the scene, it would be Tessa’s
word against mine, and the car was Tessa’s after all. I was only planning to drive
away. . . .” She trailed off.

“What happened?” I kept my voice low, non-accusatory. My hands worked to pry up the
sealed edge of the box next to me, hoping to extract a bottle I could use as a weapon.
The rough corrugations bit into my fingers. My thumbnail snagged on a heavy-duty staple
and ripped off well below the quick. I sucked my lips in and bit down to keep back
the yelp.

For the first time I sensed hesitation in her. “I must have left the car in reverse
somehow. When I pressed on the gas pedal, it shot backwards. The car knocked into
Tessa. I heard her cry out.”

“Did you get out to help her?”

“It was an accident! I figured she couldn’t be hurt too bad, not at that speed. Someone
would come along. She had her phone. I just needed to get away. How was I to know
she’d been knocked into the river, that she would drown?”

Even through the whisper, I heard the lie. Terrified of returning to prison, Phoebe
couldn’t afford to leave any witnesses. I didn’t know if she’d deliberately run into
Tessa or not, and I didn’t want to visualize her getting out of the car and dragging
the injured woman toward the river, but I couldn’t stop the images from forming in
my mind. I guessed Esteban was lucky that she’d thought he was dead. I didn’t ask
about the camera; it was at the bottom of the Potomac. “So you drove her car to the
airport.”

“You figured it all out, girl. I left the car in long-term parking and walked back.
Couldn’t risk being identified by a cab driver if the police found the car. It must
have been eight or ten miles. I barely made it home and got cleaned up before it was
time to meet Vitaly for practice. My ass was dragging.”

I imagined her jogging along the roadside in the wee hours, covering five or six miles
an hour. Even as fit as she was, it must have been scary. She’d have been running
on adrenaline and guilt, replaying the scene in her mind, ducking out of sight when
a car passed. I didn’t want to empathize with her. “You tried to kill me.”

“No way, girlfriend! I tried to warn you off. When the brick through the window didn’t
work, I cut your brake lines, figuring you’d have a fender bender, maybe get banged
up enough to give up investigating. I’m not a killer.”

Good to know. My nervous system wasn’t reassured, however; goose pimples had sprung
up on my arms and I shivered. “What are you going to do with me?”

She shuffled her feet. “I just need time to get away.”

“I’ll give you an hour before I tell anyone,” I lied.

She chuckled in a sad way. “Liar. I need you out of the way for a few hours. I meant
to catch you in the parking lot and pop you into the trunk, but Nigel came into the
Green Room right after you left and I couldn’t get away. You came back too quickly.
Now . . .”

She trailed off, apparently considering her options. “As soon as you started on about
characters named Dakota, I knew I’d have to run for it. I’d heard on the news that
the man survived, but when the police didn’t come for me, I figured he hadn’t been
able to tell them what happened, or that he didn’t remember. But when you showed up
tonight, asking about Dakotas, I knew. You talked to him, didn’t you?”

I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me. “Yes. He said ‘Dakota came.’ I didn’t
know who he meant, but then someone called Kristen ‘Chelsea’ this afternoon, and it
got me thinking about how the public confuses actors with their characters sometimes.”

“Why’d you have to keep at it and at it?” Phoebe asked angrily. “It was just a game
to you, a challenge, trying to figure it all out. You had to win, just like on the
dance floor. Nothing else mattered. You didn’t stop to consider that you were ruining
my life.”

A lump lodged in my throat and I swallowed hard. Was she right? Had my competitive
nature taken over so completely that . . . no. “
You
ruined things by killing Tessa,” I said. I slid my fingers under the box flap and
pulled. The ripping sound alerted Phoebe.

“What’re you doin’?” Her hand landed on my shoulder.

I was out of time. I didn’t know what she had planned for me, and I didn’t want to
wait around and find out. I yanked a bottle from the box, my palm slick on the smooth
neck. I struck out, the weight of the bottle and the force of my swing pulling me
off the box. The bottle glanced off Phoebe, maybe her arm, and she grunted. Her hand
landed on my shoulder and her fingers bit in. I didn’t have the angle to hit her again.
Frantic, I drew my arm back and flung the bottle as hard as I could. Glass shattered
explosively, showering pebbles and shards over us, so many I knew the bottle had hit
the sliding glass door of the refrigeration unit. Cold bathed us and the sweetish
smell of rum saturated the air. Phoebe sprang away from me as footsteps sounded in
the hall.

She jerked the door open and a figure stumbled in, hand still wrapped around the doorknob.
Shoving him or her toward me, Phoebe dashed into the hall. I could see her silhouetted
against the dim light as I crawled out from under the bewildered Club Nitro bartender
and scrambled to my feet. I blinked. My outfit was damp with rum along the left side,
and one of the halter straps was flapping, but I took off after Phoebe. “Call the
police,” I shot at the bartender. Gabriel.

On the threshold, I looked toward the outer door. It was ajar, and I thought for a
moment she’d gone out. Then the odor of cigarette smoke and the sound of voices told
me a couple of employees were taking a smoke break. Phoebe couldn’t have escaped that
way. I ran the other way, toward the dance floor, yelling, “Stop Phoebe!”

The door to the temporary Green Room opened as I neared it and Nanette, Vitaly, Zane,
and Marco peered out. “Phoebe!” I yelled to their startled faces.

“Phoebe is not being here,” Vitaly said as I passed.

My foot caught on something and I almost went sprawling; as it was, I fell against
the wall. Grunting and an outraged oink told me Jezebel had tripped me. The small
pig galloped down the hall.

“Jezebel!” Nanette cried.

I followed the pig, knowing Phoebe must have gone this way. I saw her duck into the
passageway that dancers used coming off the stage following their numbers. She glanced
over her shoulder and I caught the whites of her wide eyes. She saw me, and plunged
forward. She was headed for the front door and freedom. Chances were she’d make it
since the audience would be too startled to react as she ploughed through them.

I was close on her heels as we burst onto the dance floor. The reality guy and his
partner were performing their East Coast swing as Phoebe skidded on the slick parquet.
She recovered her balance and leaped onto the judges’ table to avoid colliding with
the couple whose spins were already a bit out of control. The audience gasped. The
judges, as one, looked toward Nigel, clearly wondering if this was something he’d
staged. Audience members began to stand, trying to get a better view.

“Stop Phoebe,” I gasped. “Killed Tessa.” I’m not sure anyone heard me.

Taking advantage of everyone’s indecision, Phoebe jumped lightly down from the table,
landing in a fighting crouch. She looked tall, determined, and lethal. Before I could
stop my forward momentum, she spun and planted a foot firmly in my diaphragm. I went
down hard, pain jolting from my tailbone clear to the top of my head as I skidded
backwards. I gasped for air. Jezebel, concerned, nosed my armpit and oinked. Vitaly,
Zane, Nanette, and Marco erupted onto the dance floor. Someone bumped into the dancers
doggedly trying to finish their number, and the reality guy joined me on the floor.

I saw Tav start toward me as I struggled to my feet. I waved him away with pushing
motions. “Get Phoebe,” I yelled. My voice was hoarse, but he got the message and nodded.
With an agility I imagined he’d developed on the soccer field, he wove through the
excited crowd, hot on Phoebe’s tail. Avoiding Vitaly’s questions, Zane’s concerns,
and Nanette’s upset over Jezebel, I climbed on a chair to see over the crowd’s heads.

A uniformed police officer appeared in the doorway—summoned by the bartender?—and
Phoebe veered my way. Seizing my chance, I leaped onto her back, wrapping my arms
around her head and my legs around her waist. She bucked and snapped her head back,
cracking her skull into my chin. She’d have had me off in a second, but Tav was right
there. She made as if to snap a kick at him, but he dodged it and tackled her at the
knees, bringing us both down.

Phoebe landed at the bottom of the pile and let out an “Oof!” as my weight slammed
into her. I lay dazed for a second, draped over Phoebe. I felt her lurch beneath me,
then still as three pairs of cops’ shoes surrounded us at eye level. Phoebe went limp
and I felt her shudder. “Why couldn’t you just let me go?” she said in a low voice.