I think I heard Dana sigh beside me.
“So, I broke it off.”
“Any idea who this other guy was?”
Ricky shook his head. “Nope. I didn’t ask. Honestly, I kinda didn’t want to know, you know?”
I nodded, disappointed.
“Anyway, please don’t tell anyone, ’kay? I mean, my publicist has worked really hard to make me look like this bad-boy womanizer. If word got out that I’m into monogamy, my image would be toast.”
“I think that’s so sweet, ” Dana said, her eyes glazing over as she stared up at him.
“Remember the chip, ” I mumbled to her.
“Chip, schmip, ” she whispered back.
“Hey, you don’t happen to have Veronika’s address, do you?” I asked Ricky.
“Sure.” He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote it on the palm of my hand.
“Thanks.”
“Hey, no sweat, ” he said. Then he flashed us both one of his trademark hunky-gardener smiles.
This time I was sure I heard Dana sigh. Though I had to admit, as he walked away the rear view was hot enough to make me sigh a little, too.
“I think I’m in love, ” Dana said, tilting her head to the side for a better angle.
“So, do we believe him?” I asked.
Dana rounded on me. “Of course we believe him! Did you see those tight glutes?”
I rolled my eyes. “All right, what do you say we go pay Veronika’s neighbor a visit?”
Thanks to the shifty-eyed AD, Dana had to wait until lunch to get away. But as soon as Steinman yelled, “Cut, ” we bolted for the parking lot and pointed my Jeep in the direction of the address Ricky had given us: 1342 Coronado Court.
I made a right on Melrose, then a left onto Highland before getting caught at a red light between Santa Monica and Lexington.
As we idled, Dana leaned down to flip on the radio.
Which, as it turned out, was a good thing. Because had she been sitting up in her seat, her head might not have survived the impact as a car slammed into the driver’s side of the Jeep.
“Unh!” I felt my neck jerk to the right like a rag doll’s. Instinctively, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. I looked up to find a white Range Rover crunched up against the side of my car. I blinked hard, trying to get my bearings as adrenaline surged through me.
“Ohmigod, someone just hit us!” Dana yelled, stating the obvious.
What wasn’t obvious, however, was why the Rover was backing up.
Then surging in for another attack.
Chapter 9
I braced myself against the steering wheel as the SUV slammed into the side of the car again.
“Holy shit! Is this guy nuts or what?” Dana screeched, grabbing onto the dash in a white-knuckled grip.
The light in front of us turned green just as I saw the Range Rover back up for another run.
“Go, go, go!” Dana yelled.
I admit, up until that point I’d been paralyzed with shock. But as I saw the Rover’s tires spin, revving toward us again, adrenaline kicked in full force and I slammed my wedge down on the gas pedal, hard enough to send my Jeep fishtailing through the intersection.
I watched in the rearview mirror with horror as the Rover cut into traffic behind us and sped up to kiss our bumper.
“Ohmigod, who is this creep?” Dana asked, swiveling around in her seat. “What does he want?”
I bit my lip, my eyes ping-ponging between the cars in front of me and the SUV closing in behind us. We were coming up on Sunset and the traffic was three lanes thick. “Hold on, ” I warned, making a sharp right turn onto a side street, just barely missing the curb. The Rover didn’t have quite our turning radius, jumping up on the sidewalk and knocking into a bus stop as it followed.
“Dammit, he’s still coming after us, ” Dana said, her eyes glued to the back window.
A point he illustrated by surging forward and ramming into my back bumper.
Dana and I both whipped forward.
“Unh.” My head snapped back against the headrest so hard it rattled my teeth. I pushed the gas pedal down as far as it would go, quickly making another right and swinging into an alley behind an all-night diner.
The Rover followed and, since it had about fifteen horses on my little Jeep, easily caught up to us. Only this time instead of ramming us from behind, it pulled up alongside us, so close that Dana could reach out and touch the white metal beside her window. She let out a whimper and ducked as the driver swerved left, bumping us against the side of the building. I could hear the sickly sound of metal scraping as we careened out of control down the alleyway.
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ” Dana chanted in the seat next to me.
Ditto. Only my adrenaline was pumping too hard to form actual words. Instead, I closed my eyes, prayed, and slammed on the brakes, pulling hard to the right.
The Rover sailed past us as my little red Jeep whipped around in a circle, tires squealing against the pavement. When the world stopped spinning, we were facing the opposite direction. I switched to the gas again and surged out of the alleyway as fast as I could, making a hard right into the parking lot of a Hollywood Video before pulling the car to a stop.
I cut the engine, the only sound Dana and I panting like Rottweilers as we both tried to bring our heart rates to something slightly lower than a Pomona drag race.
Dana was the first to recover, digging her fingernails out of the dash and slowly flexing her limbs. “Ohmigod, Maddie. He could have killed us!”
A vision of my squirrel friend with the tread marks flashed through my head. “I think that was the general plan.” I pried my hands off the steering wheel, doing a slow mental check of my person. My neck was starting to tense up, but other than that everything else seemed to work. Toes wiggled, arms moved. I looked down. Miraculously, I hadn’t even wet myself.
“Are you okay?” Dana asked, rubbing her temple.
“I think so. You?”
She nodded, even though I could see a bump starting to form on her temple.
I tried my door handle. Wouldn’t budge. Not surprising, since what I could see of the driver’s side looked like it had been shoved in a trash compactor. My poor baby!
Luckily, Dana got hers open, and, after navigating over the gearshift, we both climbed out on legs that felt like overstretched rubber bands. I gingerly walked around the car to assess the damage.
“Wow, ” Dana said.
All I could do was stare. The driver’s-side door was smashed beyond recognition, the front lights busted out, the back bumper hanging on by a thread. The entire rear quarter of the Jeep was twisted at a forty-five-degree angle, and my back tires were flat.
“It’s, like, totally totaled, ” Dana said.
I felt tears well behind my eyes. She was right. The Jeep was toast.
That was it. I was so gonna get this guy.
“Do you think we should call the police?” Dana asked.
I thought about it-for about half a second. Calling the police meant calling Ramirez. And calling Ramirez meant another chapter in the “what’s Maddie gotten herself into now?” book. I was already verging on tears; the last thing I needed was another confrontation with Ramirez to top off my day.
Instead, I pulled out my cell and dialed the one person any independent, competent adult calls when a true crisis hits.
Mommy.
Fortunately, Mom picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me. Listen, I’ve been in a little bit of an accident-”
“Oh my God, you’ve been shot!”
“No, no, I haven’t been shot.”
“The pepper spray, you sprayed yourself?”
“No, Mom, I-”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been mugged?”
“No!” I yelled. “It’s my car.” I looked down at the carnage that was my Jeep and felt that lump in my throat return. “It’s been in a little accident.”
“An accident? Oh, honey, are you okay? Do you have whiplash? Did you get their insurance information?” Mom fired off in rapid succession.