Lethal

He lowered his voice even more, so that Emily wouldn’t be distracted from her singing. “Do you want Emily around to witness the confrontation between him and me? Because you know it will eventually come down to that. Do you think he’s going to let me just walk into his house and start going through Eddie’s things? No. Whether he’s guilty of partnering with The Bookkeeper or Marset, or an honest citizen safeguarding his dead son’s good name, he’s going to resist my intrusion. With force. Not only that, he’ll be good and pissed with me for dragging you and his granddaughter into this.”

Her expression was a giveaway. She knew he was right. Even so, she continued to look miserably indecisive. He gave her only a few seconds before prodding her again. “What’s Tori’s number?”

She raised her chin stubbornly. “Sorry, Coburn. I can’t.”

“You don’t trust her enough?”

“This is my mess. How can I drag Tori into it? I’ll be placing her in danger, too.”

“Tough choice, I know. But it’s the only one you’ve got. Unless…” He tipped his head toward Emily. “You trust Doral Hawkins to spare her life. I wouldn’t bet on it. You might.”

She gave him a baleful look. “You always use that.”

“Because it always works. What’s Tori’s number?”

Chapter 28

Even before Tori checked the light beyond her shutters, she knew by instinct that it was an ungodly hour for her phone to be ringing.

She groaned and buried her head deep into her pillow to escape the noise. Then, remembering the events of yesterday, she rolled toward her nightstand and grabbed her phone. “Hello?”

“Tori, did I wake you up?”

Not Honor and not Bonnell, who were the only people on earth whom she might forgive for calling her at dawn. “Who’s this?”

“Amber.”

Tori scowled and flopped back down onto her pillow. “What? And it had better be good.”

“Well, just like you instructed me, the first thing I do each morning after turning off the alarm is to turn on the sauna and whirlpool in both locker rooms so they can be getting hot. Then when all the lights in the studio have been turned on, I unlock the front door, because sometimes there are people waiting-”

“For godsake, Amber, get to it.”

“That’s when I check the main number’s voice mail. This morning, somebody left a weird message at 5:58, just a few minutes before I opened up.”

“Well, what was it?”

“ ‘What does Barbie see in Ken?’ ”

Tori sat bolt upright in bed. “That’s all she said?”

“Actually it was a man.”

Tori thought on that for several moments, then said, “Well, isn’t it obvious to you that it was a crank call? Don’t bother me with crap like this again.”

“Are you coming in today?”

“Don’t count on it. Cover for me.”

Tori ended the call and bounded out of bed. She skipped doing her hair and makeup, which she never skipped, and dressed rapidly in the first clothes her hands touched when she reached into her closet. Then, grabbing her keys and handbag, she left through the front door.

But halfway to her car in the driveway, she noticed a beat-up panel truck parked at the curb across the street, about a third of the distance to the corner. Anyone inside it would have an unobstructed view of her house. She couldn’t tell whether or not anyone was behind the wheel, but Doral’s words came back to her. I’ll be on you like white on rice.

Maybe she’d been watching too many crime shows on TV, maybe she was being super-paranoid, but she’d never seen the truck on her street before, her best friend had been kidnapped yesterday, and she’d been threatened and manhandled by a local hoodlum.

She’d rather be paranoid than stupid.

Rather than continuing on to her car, she bent down and picked up the morning issue of the newspaper that was lying in the wet grass. Pretending to read the front page, assuming a casual saunter, she retraced her steps back into the house and soundly closed the door behind her.

Then she quickly went through her house, slipped out her back door, and, cutting a path that couldn’t be seen from the street, walked across her lawn, which melded into that belonging to the house directly behind hers. There was a light on in the kitchen. She knocked on the door.

It was answered by a handsome, buff young man. He was cradling a smug-looking cat in his arms. Tori despised the cat, and the feeling was mutual. But she adored the man, because he’d once told her that in his next life he wanted to be an unapologetic diva bitch just like her.

He was a client who never missed a workout. Well-defined biceps bulged when he pushed open the screen door and motioned her in. “This is a surprise! Hon, look who’s come to call. Tori.”

His partner in this, the only gay marriage in Tambour, whose body was equally buff, entered the kitchen as he speared a cuff link into his sleeve. “Hell must have frozen over. I didn’t know you ever got up this early. Sit down. Coffee?”

“Thanks, no. Listen, guys, can I borrow a car? I gotta go… somewhere… in sort of a hurry.”

“Something wrong with your Vette?”