No-not for her. If she was the target, he could have waited for her on this lonely street. Gretchen stared into the few parked cars scattered along McDowell and was relieved to find them empty. He must have wanted her house vacant tonight when Lilly Beth's prying eyes wouldn't be able to see him. He would have parked the truck down the road and crept in under cover of night. Would he wear his police uniform?
Probably.
He'd want to fall back on his image of authority if any of the neighbors became suspicious.
What was inside the house that he wanted, if not her? The only thing she could think of were the Kewpie dolls that had been sent through the mail. They, along with the messages she had found inside, were in the workshop in plain view. Gretchen picked up her cell phone to call the police again, wondering why Matt hadn't returned her call yet. She would ask the dispatcher to send a squad to meet her at her home. Gretchen tromped on the accelerator and, with one eye on the road as she steered, she searched through her recently called numbers for the right one. At the stop sign, she signaled to turn left and hit the Send key on her cell phone.
As soon as she turned the corner, another vehicle came up rapidly behind her. It must have been parked close to the intersection and had started up when she passed by. The car was following close behind her, too close. Her cell phone flew from her hand at the first impact. If she hadn't grabbed Nimrod to protect him, she would have had both hands on the steering wheel and might have stayed on the road. Instead, when the second blow struck the driver's side of the car somewhere close behind the front seat, the Echo careened into a shallow ditch that separated the street from the airport on-ramp. It happened so quickly that she didn't see the vehicle until it appeared in front of her after striking her the second time. Now it forced her car away from the street and toward the fence.
A green truck.
She slammed on the brakes and came to a stop, with the pickup truck wedging her next to a concrete pylon. Before she could throw the car into reverse and make a run for it, she saw the blur of a uniform.
And a gun.
And a familiar face.
40
Duanne Wilson of the bushy eyebrows and gleeful bidding tried to wrench the car door open. The jolliness was gone.
"Unlock the door," he snarled, the barrel of the gun up against the glass.
Gretchen had never looked into a gun barrel before, and if she survived tonight, she hoped it would be the last time. She'd never thought of herself as a particularly brave person, and she wasn't out to win any medals right now. Brave and smart weren't the same things.
You could be brave and foolish and dead.
Not having a lot of options to choose from, she chose to go with cowardly, alive, and still foolish.
Gretchen unlocked the door while scanning the seat and floor for the cell phone that had flown out of her hand. No such luck.
"Moonlighting as a Phoenix Police officer?" she said as he opened the door. The badge on his uniform seemed to mock her. The Phoenix bird adorned it. The mythical bird that could never die. "Halloween is still a few weeks away,"
she said.
What a card she was.
"Move over. NOW." The threat in his voice was enough to make her spring across to the passenger seat and wedge Nimrod into her purse.
Gretchen gulped air through an obstruction in her throat the size of a Gila monster.
Maybe he didn't kill women. That would be good news for her. He'd take what he came for and leave. Gretchen didn't believe that for a minute.
Duanne took the wheel. The car lurched backward and sprang from the ditch.
"Finally, I've got you," he said, slamming the gears into drive. "Captured."
Captured? Like a flag?
It's strange what goes through your head when you're paralyzed with fear, Gretchen thought.
"Where are we going? To the farewell party?"
"Not even close."
Gretchen slid her hand closer to the door. Next light, and she'd make her escape. She'd take her chances that Duanne wasn't a sharpshooter. She'd risk a bullet in her back. As if reading her mind, he said, "Try it, and I'll make a point of eliminating every single thing you value, starting with that ragged, floppy mutt and ending with your devoted aunt."
He'd established enough motivation to keep her inside the car.
Gretchen felt Nimrod shudder inside her purse, and she reached in and gave him a reassuring pat.
The airport lights dimmed behind them as they sped toward Camelback Mountain. Gretchen's cell phone rang from someplace on the floor, and she automatically stooped to retrieve it from under the seat.
"Get up," Duanne screamed, digging the gun into her side. "Sit up. NOW!"
She eased back into the seat, careful not to startle him, and listened as the phone rang several more times before stopping.
Was it Matt finally calling her back? Like every other man in her life, he offered too little, too late. This seemed to be a recurring theme.
She glanced down between her feet but didn't see the phone.
Help as close as the floor mat yet as far away as the stars.
A few minutes later, they pulled into her carport. Duanne turned off the car and, waving the gun, motioned her out.
Tied to a leg of the doll workbench, Gretchen contemplated life. It was extraordinarily complex, with unexpected plot twists. Her situation at the moment was a perfect example. She strained to lift the bench to free her hands, even though she knew it was built into the wall. She couldn't feel so much as a millimeter of movement.
She had managed to slip the cell phone into her pocket, a feat she was proud of at first, but what good was it doing her now?
With her hands behind her back, she couldn't reach her pocket, let alone bring the phone to her ear. And with her legs bound together with her own doll restringing elastic, she wasn't going anywhere soon.
She could hear Duanne ripping through the house, pulling out drawers and overturning furniture. Wobbles, true to form, was nowhere in sight. Nimrod, wisely sensing random chaos within his domain, remained inside her purse. It lay next to a bin filled with dolls' underpants.
Once Duanne left the room, Nimrod boldly ran over to Gretchen, crawling over her bound body hunched on the floor.
"Hide," she commanded him after a moment of intense puppy love. He rushed back across the room and burrowed inside the purse.
More banging, and Duanne came around the corner and entered the workshop.
"Where is it?" he said, enraged, his face the same color as the red clay from the darkening mountain framed in the window.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The box. Where is it?"
"It's in the trunk of the Echo." She should have told him where the Kewpies were stashed earlier, but she'd been frozen with fear.
Duanne smiled, a cruel tilt to his lips.
"If that idiot auction creep hadn't pulled a fast one," he said, "none of this would have happened."
Gretchen tried to stretch out a cramped leg but only made her position on the floor more uncomfortable. "You mean Brett?"
Without answering, he stomped away, and she heard the door leading to the carport close. Then it opened again, and he reappeared with the box of broken Kewpies in his arms. He dumped the contents on the floor and kicked shards at Gretchen, stomping on the larger pieces. Bits of porcelain flew in the air, and a powdery silt fell over Gretchen's legs.
"Wrong box, silly girl." He clenched both fists.
"It's the only box I have."
"You're as obstinate as Florence. She wouldn't help me, either." He continued to slam through rooms, and Gretchen shifted her body and stretched her fingers toward her pocket. She felt fabric with her fingertips and continued to stretch, straining as far as she could.