Goose bumps pimpled her scalp. Her pulse elevated.
The street was just too…quiet.
“Jeez.” Inwardly she told herself she was being a big wuss, or pussy as her boyfriend Kurt would say. She needed to get over her case of nerves. Cell phone in hand, she paused at the corner, waiting for the light to change.
With the press of a button, she located her sister’s cell phone number and started texting.
Snap!
Her head whipped up and she looked over her shoulder. What was that sound? Not someone stepping on a twig. More like a sharp, hard click. Something she should recognize.
But she saw no one. Just the old man and dog ambling off in the opposite direction.
There wasn’t much traffic so she stepped into the street against the light and kept texting Laney.
Where R U?
Almost 21.
Legal.
Meet at Silvio’s! 11 p.m. Drinks on me @ midnight.
Party on!
It was strange that Laney wasn’t texting or calling back. They’d been planning this celebration forever! Well, make that twenty-one years. Finally she and her twin were going to be adults! So why the hell was her sister avoiding her?
It was odd.
Not like Laney.
Lucy unlocked the gate to her building and walked through as her phone chirped. She glanced down to check it, vaguely aware of the gate clanging shut behind her.
A text from Laney!
Finally.
It was a picture-text and she clicked it open to see a fuzzy shot of her sister. Laney’s eyes were wide and round with fear and some kind of red gag was pulled tight over her mouth. She looked scared to death!
What?
“Oh, God,” Lucy whispered, her heart pounding crazily, horror creeping up her spine.
What was this?
And then she got it.
This sick picture was Laney’s idea of a joke. “Bitch,” Lucy muttered under her breath. Though she had to hand it to her younger twin; the look on Laney’s face was one of pure terror. Well, of course. Wasn’t Laney going to USC and majoring in theater? Didn’t she have an acting scholarship, for God’s sake? Hadn’t she done a few acting jobs in commercials? Laney knew how to convey emotions perfectly and she had friends in the school who were experts in makeup and film.
Still, it scared the crap out of Lucy. “Not very funny,” Lucy said aloud and then stiffened as she heard the tiniest of noises…Breathing?
No way. The gate had latched behind her…right?
She reached her door and as she mounted the steps, began texting like crazy.
U really had me going for a sec.
C U later!
She reached in her purse for her keys and saw the neighbor’s cat perched on the rail of Chuck’s small porch. It stared at Lucy, its round eyes reflecting the porch light. “Hey, kitty.”
The silver tabby froze for a second, then dropped to the concrete and started to slink under the bottom rail. But it paused at the edge of the shadowy bushes, turned its sleek head toward Lucy and let out a long, low growl.
Crazy cat! “Hey, Platinum, it’s me, Lucy.”
Arching her back, Platinum hissed, showing needle-sharp teeth and round, wild eyes before scurrying madly under the fence.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Platinum, what’s wrong with you?” Lucy asked before she smelled it, a whiff of something foreign in the air. Cigarette smoke? Or…
Snap!
This time the noise was so close to her ear that she actually jumped.
She nearly screamed
From the corner of her eye, she saw something move in the dark ness. A figure, shadowy and shimmering, leapt at her.
What!!!
In its big hands was a thin leather strap.
Oh, God, no!
She tried to yell for help, knew she should run, but it was too late. He grabbed her arm, yanked her hard against him. “Oooph,” she gasped, forcing a weak scream from her airless lungs just as the strip of leather slithered around her neck and grew taut.
What was this?
Pain sliced through her.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. Couldn’t cough. Oh, dear God, the pain!
She clawed at the noose, trying to get her fingers under the smooth leather. The deadly strap didn’t budge.
She felt her attacker breathing fast and hard, getting off on her pain, yanking the leather hard.
Who? Who would want to kill me?
Why?
Her lungs burned and strained for oxygen. She kicked wildly, crazily, hoping her heel would connect with her attacker’s shin or anything nearby. She gasped hoarsely, trying to drag in any whisper of air.
Help me! Please, someone, help me!
Tearing at the damned ligature, she scratched her throat. A finger-nail ripped. Blood welled. Her head was in a vise. And her lungs, oh, God, her lungs…her lungs were about to burst! With a cruel jerk her assailant pulled tighter and the leather bit into the soft flesh beneath her chin.
Her eyes bulged.
Raw, searing pain ricocheted through her body.
She was going to die! Right here at her own front door!
She kicked frantically, hoping to hit her assailant or the door, to make some noise! Wake the neighbors! Anything she could!
Her thoughts swirled, rapid images of her parents back home, un aware that they would never see her again, and her Nana in Santa Barbara, and then there was Kurt, her sometime boyfriend…
Her eyes rolled back in her head, her lungs screamed silently as the will to fight back drained from her body. Her arms were heavy, her legs leaden, her entire being centered on the overwhelming need for air. It was over. She couldn’t fight, couldn’t remain conscious.
Her hands fell to her sides and she was vaguely aware that whoever was holding her was letting her fall onto the concrete stoop.
As the merciful blackness rolled over her, Lucy’s last thought was of Laney…dear sweet, trusting, stupid Laney.
CHAPTER 11
“Bentz is back in town?” Russ Trinidad frowned into his drink, swirling the scotch and studying it as if it held the keys to the universe.
Hayes had asked Trinidad to meet him after work for a drink, which was unusual in and of itself. So Trinidad’s normally suspicious nature was on high alert. “What the hell is he doing back here?”
“It’s about his ex-wife.”
“Jennifer?” Trinidad snorted as water ran through bamboo stalks in a small waterfall near the entrance and soft Japanese music played in the background. “Piece of work, that one. Though I never really knew her.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Hayes said.
At six feet, Trinidad was shorter than Hayes, but kept up a military physique. In Trinidad’s world black was beautiful and bald was sexy as any head of messy hair. They were seated in a corner booth in a bar in Little Tokyo, not too far from Parker Center, the building housing the Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD, yet far enough away not to be a cop hangout. Trinidad was into his second glass of scotch while Hayes worked his way through his first sake.
Hayes had decided to confide in Trinidad, Bentz’s ex-partner, because the near-retiring detective was one of Bentz’s few allies in the department. However at this point Bentz had been gone so long, even Trinidad was iffy.
“Okay, I’ll bite.” Trinidad took a sip from his drink, saw a fleck of something foreign floating in the scotch, and flicked it out with a practiced finger. He drank again, didn’t bother complaining to the waitress. “Fill me in on our old friend Bentz.”
Hayes did.
Told him about meeting with the former LAPD detective the night before, about the photos Bentz had received showing his dead wife out and about in L.A.