Backing away, she stared into the dim corners where the light didn't reach, expecting to see a figure emerge, perhaps from behind the stacked plywood or from behind one of the old mantels she'd collected or the stack of newel posts. She had no weapon to defend herself, short of grabbing a hammer. She studied the low door beneath the inner stairs that opened to a storage closet. She breathed a sigh when she saw that the bolt was still driven home.
She longed for her gun, which was upstairs in her night table. How many times did one need a.38 revolver to fetch the Sunday paper? Frightened by the shadows at the back of the garage behind what Dallas called her junk pile, she turned swiftly to the pedestrian door and, using the rag in her hand to open it, she retreated to the open driveway.
If she'd had her truck keys she would have hopped in and taken off, made her escape in her robe and called the department from some neighbor's home. Her cell phone of course was in her purse, by the bed, near her gun. Her truck keys were on the kitchen table. She felt totally naked and defenseless. Scuffing barefoot over the dried mud the neighbor's dog had left across the concrete, she hurried up the outside stairs. She paused with her hand on the knob.
She'd left the front door unlocked behind her. Now, when she entered, would Rupert's killer be waiting?
But why would someone set her up as if she'd killed Rupert, then destroy the scenario by killing her as well? That didn't make any sense.
She could imagine any number of estranged and bitter husbands who would like to see Rupert dead, but why would they make her the patsy? What motive would any of them have-except to put themselves in the clear, of course? And why not? What better suspect than an estranged and bitter wife?
Moving inside, glancing through to the night table at the far end of the room, she slipped her truck keys into the pocket of her robe and eased open a cutlery drawer, soundlessly lifting out the vegetable cleaver. Then stepping to her desk, she dialed the department, using the 911 number.
The dispatcher told her that Dallas was out of the station. She told the dispatcher who she was and that there was a dead man in her garage.
"I'm going to search the apartment, if you'd like to stay on the line." Laying the phone down as the dispatcher yelled at her not to do that, to get out of the apartment-and warily clutching the cleaver-she moved to the night table to retrieve her gun.
Pulling the drawer open, she stopped, frozen.
Empty.
Notebook, pencils, tissues, and face cream. No gun.
Her face burned at her carelessness. The gun was in her glove compartment. She hadn't brought it up last night or the night before; it had been there since she left San Andreas. She hadn't touched it since she packed up the truck and headed out, day before yesterday.
The wedding, and all the picky details of coming home and lining up her crew to start Clyde's job tomorrow had totally occupied her. She told herself she wasn't careless with a gun, that Dallas had taught her better than that.
Yes, and Dallas had admonished her more than once for keeping the.38 in her glove compartment, which was against the law, and in her unlocked nightstand, which was stupid.
Approaching the bath and closet, most of which she could see from their mirrors, holding the cleaver behind the fold of her robe, she moved against all common sense to clear the area. This wasn't smart. Even from the closet she heard the dispatcher shouting into the phone. And, louder, she heard a siren leave the station ten blocks away. Passing the door to the inner stairs, she saw that the bolt was securely home, blocking that entrance. As the siren came screaming up the hill she flung the closet door wider, to reveal the back corner.
8
The back of the closet was empty, only her clothes and shoes. A second siren started to scream from down the hills. She moved into the bath, clutching her cleaver, jerking the shower curtain aside. In her inept search of the premises she couldn't stop her heart pounding.
The shower was empty. There was nowhere else for anyone to hide. Slipping out of her robe, she hastily pulled on panties and jeans and a sweatshirt as a squad car careened into the drive cutting its siren, and two more units squealed brakes as if pulling to the curb. Grabbing her sandals she moved across the studio to the front windows. Leaning her forehead against the glass, waiting for Dallas to emerge, she watched three officers get out of their two units, and behind them two medics from the rescue vehicle.
Dallas wasn't with them. Officers Green and Bonner moved up the drive on the far side of her pickup. Green was a wizened, bearded veteran, Bonner a young, new officer as fresh-faced as a high school kid. Detective Juana Davis, dressed in jeans and a sweater, skirted the truck on the near side. All three had their hands on their holstered weapons. Shakily Ryan pulled on her sandals and went out on the balcony where they could see her. Looking down at Davis, catching her dark gaze, she couldn't read what the detective might be thinking.
"In the garage," Ryan said, her voice raspy, the way she'd sound if she had a sore throat. She watched the medics halt to wait until the officers had entered and cleared the garage. She couldn't quell her fear, it was a gut reaction beyond reasoning, she was the only possible suspect, she was in exactly the position the killer had planned. Deeply chilled, she looked to the officers for direction. "Do you want me down there?"
"No," Davis said. "Stay on the deck while we have a look."
"Could I go inside to get my coffee?"
Davis nodded. Ryan returned to the kitchen to refill her cup, then stood on the deck again setting the mug on the rail, trying to stop her hands from shaking, thinking guiltily about Rupert.
The year they were married, he had been so enthusiastic about her joining the construction firm, taking a full-time job in the business. It had all seemed so wonderful, an opportunity for her to use her design education though she didn't have a degree as an architect, an opportunity to learn some basic engineering from the firm's structural architect. From the beginning Rupert had handled the business end, the hiring and bookkeeping and sales, while she assisted the architect and did more and more designing. When the architect moved on to a practice of his own, she had been able to take over all the designing with the help of a consulting engineer. Their clients had loved her work. She had served as a carpenter's helper too, adding to the skills she'd mastered working with her uncle Scotty in the summers and weekends since she was a child.
She had gotten so good at the job that soon she was filling in for the three foremen. But then the trouble began. Rupert hadn't liked that she was on the job alone with a bunch of men, even though she had saved them money. She had never drawn a salary, either as head designer or as a foreman; everything went back into the firm. She'd never wanted to know how much might go for Rupert's personal pleasures. She guessed Scotty had tried to tell her, but she hadn't wanted to listen.
Now Scotty was working for her, her dear, gruff, philosophical Scotty who loved carpentry and cabinetwork, who had never wanted to move into the management end of the business. Who had joined her immediately in Molena Point, no questions asked, her first carpenter and foreman. Moving in with Dallas, into their family summer cottage, Scotty had been as happy as she to be away from Dannizer Construction.
When she left Rupert there was never any question where she'd go. She'd loved Molena Point since she was a child. The evening she left Rupert she'd hauled out of San Francisco, taking the oldest company pickup loaded with most of her worldly possessions packed nattily in an assortment of liquor boxes from the local market. It was an easy two-hour drive. Arriving in the village, she had picked up a deli sandwich and a couple of cold beers, checked into the only motel with a vacancy, and called Dallas. When she told him what she'd done he couldn't hide his happiness. She had told him she wanted to be by herself for a few days to lick her wounds, and he'd understood. She'd taken a long hot shower and tucked up in bed with her beer and sandwich trying to relax, trying to deal sensibly with her conflicting emotions, seesawing back and forth between victory in finally making the move, and fear of what lay ahead. Thinking one minute that she was crazy to go out on her own, that she couldn't make a success of her own company, and wondering the next instant why she hadn't done this sooner-knowing that if she sued him for half the company, Rupert would fight her, maybe so successfully that he would deplete her personal bank account and leave her destitute. Knowing that she had to find an attorney. And that the lawsuit would be incredibly stressful, but that half the business was rightfully hers and she meant to have her share, that she would need that money to get started.