“ Mansfield Wayne?”
“ Yeah. The old bastard himself.”
“ Guess he thought you’d want the secret for yourself.”
“ He has cancer, so I can see how this would intrigue him.” Lila scooted back against the wall, got to her feet. “I’ll trade you cars.” She reached into the front pocket of her jeans, withdrew a set of keys, tossed them to Izzy. “Your friends are going to be out for a while. If I was you, I’d get the one in the bedroom back there, toss her in the trunk and get outta town.” She smiled, but it didn’t look friendly. “I’ll take the BMW, tell them not to report it stolen and I’ll forget to tell to Mansfield you’re driving my Crown Vic.”
“ Why?”
“ I don’t like being lied to.” Lila crossed the room, picked up the dart gun.
“ But aren’t you his stepdaughter?”
“ Not really, though he did kind of raise me, but I still don’t like being lied to,” Lila said. “Besides, he’s not really like a father figure, never has been. He’s a user, but then I guess I am too. I suppose we use each other.”
“ That’s kinda sad.”
“ It is what it is.” This time her smile did look friendly. “And something more, maybe I’m walking away because the girl back there has a Grand Palais. I’d like to meet her someday, maybe share a few recipes.” Lila Booth nodded her head, went for the stairs. “I’m out of this now. You’ve got nothing to fear from me.” Then she took the stairs to the living room, threw back the bolt on the front door, went through it and was gone.
Izzy pushed herself to her feet, heard the Beemer turn over, then roar away. She shook her head, muttered, “What in the world is a Grand Palais?”
Chapter Nine
“ A Grand Palais.” Lila Booth shook her head as she piloted the Beemer around the corner onto College. “I let them go because of a stove?” She laughed. She’d never walked away from a job before. Never cared for anybody before, so how come she’d let them go because of a little lesbian who had good taste?
And now she was headed over to Isadora Eisenhower’s, because even though she’d let the women go, she couldn’t tell Mansfield that. Theirs was a strained relationship. She pushed him, but never too far. He pushed back. But she wouldn’t kid herself. The last person she wanted on her bad side was Mansfield Wayne. So she had to go through the motions. Fortunately, she hadn’t told him about the GPS in Amy’s car, so going to Eisenhower’s house would be a natural thing to do.
She’d go there, break in, snoop a bit, report to Mansfield and tell him the woman had flown the coup. But when she turned onto Putnam, she knew it wasn’t going to be so easy. The street was packed with cops. Seven Reno PD vehicles, a crowd of gawkers and a body on Isadora Eisenhower’s front porch.
What happened here?
She parked, took her phone from her backpack, called Mansfield.
“ Good news, Lila?” He’d answered on the first ring.
“ I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m parked across the street from Dr. Eisenhower’s. The street is full of cops and there appears to be a dead body on the doorstep.”
“ What?”
“ Gotta go, I’ve attracted the interest of local law enforcement. A cop’s motioning for me to roll down my window. Later.” She ended the call.
By the time Izzy caught her breath, Lila Booth was gone, leaving her in a quandary. A few actually. What to do with Alicia? Bring her or leave her behind? And should she flee with her Raider or take Lila Booth’s big car? And was she safe here or should she be on the road ASAP? And if she took to the road, where could she go?
Action, she told herself. She had to move.
She got up off the floor, went to the bedroom, having decided to bring Alicia along to wherever she was going. She hoped Mansfield Wayne, or anybody else who was after her for the secret, wouldn’t want to be bothered with the girls, once they knew she was well and truly gone, but she couldn’t count on it.
In the bedroom, Izzy scooped her arms under Alicia and was surprised to find out how light the girl was. She had no problem lifting her and carrying her down the stairs and out into the garage, where she laid her in the trunk next to Amy. Riding back there in their condition wouldn’t do them any harm and Izzy reasoned it was better than having them passed out in the car for others to see and maybe wonder about.
She loved her Raider, but she was going to have to leave it. She hoped Lila Booth was being truthful, because taking her big Ford was the only sensible thing to do. She closed the trunk, pushed the button to raise the garage door, got in the car, pulled out onto the driveway, was about to hit the gas when her lights caught Hunter’s odd eyes. She reached over, pushed open the passenger door.
“ Get in.”
The dog did and they drove off into the night; to where, she didn’t know.
Lila rolled down the window, looked up at a cop, who looked too young to grow facial hair.
“ I’m Officer Marshall. Can I help you, ma’am?” the kid cop said.
“ I hate it when people call me ma’am,” Lila said. “It sounds so old.”
“ Do you have a reason for being here? Do you live around here?”
“ No. I do a blog,” Lila lied. “I saw all the police and thought there might be a story.”
“ I’m not sure you should be here,” the cop said.
“ Is that a body?” Lila pointed toward the porch.
“ Yeah.” Marshall puffed up.
“ Do they know who he is?”
“ I don’t think so.”
“ Jeez, was he murdered?” Lila was trying for wide eyed and impressionable.
“ Don’t know, but the others were.”
“ Others?”
“ You didn’t hear it from me.”
“ No.” She ran her thumb and forefinger across her lips, as if she were sealing them.
“ There’s two others in the house. Both shot up.”
“ Really?” He was bursting with the urge to tell and Lila knew there was no stopping him now. This was probably the most exciting thing to happen to him since he’d become a policeman and from the sound of it, the most exciting of his whole life. “Bullets were flying all over the place in there.”
“ A shoot out?” Lila said, but she needn’t have prodded him, because he was itching to tell her.
“ Major, a major gun battle, like you wouldn’t believe. It’s like something out of a movie and you know what really makes it seem like a movie?”
“ What?”
“ There’s a girl involved. Young and beautiful according to the woman next door. She took off with a big dog, went into the park. And that’s not all.”
“ There’s more?”
“ There’s two cops missing.”
“ Where’d they go?”
“ They’re gone, nobody knows.”
“ What are you doing, Marshall?” An older black cop said.
“ Nothing, Harper.”
“ Ma’am,” Officer Harper said, “unless you got business here, you need to move on. This is an active investigation.”
“ She’s with the press,” Marshall said.
“ No she’s not,” Harper said. “Not with a car like that.” He turned his attention away from Marshall. “Who are you ma’am?”
“ A woman with a blog who wants to know what’s going on here.”
“ Move on,” Harper said.
“ I’m a citizen, I’ve a right to know.”
“ Lady, we’re taking the wacko next door in for questioning, we could just as easily take you in as well.”
“ I take your point.” Lila started the car, backed up, turned and went back the way she’d come, passing an unmarked Crown Vic on her way.
“ Nice car,” Mouledoux said as a red BMW sports car passed them by. “Pretty girl, too.
“ Didn’t get a look at her,” Peeps said.
Mouledoux parked, got out of the Crown Vic, started for the house, decided to have a look at the abandoned ride.
“ They’re gone,” a uniform said. “I’m Marshall.”
“ Where?”
“ Craziest thing, the neighbor, who’s been drinking, but not that much, says she saw them disappear right before his eyes.”
“ Say what?” Mouledoux blinked.