Page 1 of Accidental Murder
CHAPTER ONE
MONDAY
“Kayla—”
Kayla answered her cell phone hands-free. “Sara?” Silence. Only the hum of the Jeep’s engine. “Sara? You there?”
Of course she wasn’t. It was the third time in three minutes the connection had ended. She checked her signal:strong. The inability to hook up wasn’t on her end. Where the heck was Sara? Under water? Locked in a basement? Kayla tamped down a jittery laugh. Sara Simmons was a defiant bioethicist. A warrior. She was definitely investigating something, but whatever it was wasn’t dangerous.
After tapping the speaker icon on the steering wheel, she said, “Call Sara Simmons. Mobile.” It rang once and cut out. At the same time, a bicyclist bolted in front of the Jeep. Kayla slammed on the brakes. Skidded short of the crosswalk. She opened the window, ready to give the rider an earful until she saw he was followed by an endless stream of bicyclists sporting bibs forBikersforAids.
“Chill, Kayla,” she whispered. Yes, she was late, but she wouldn’t squabble. The bicyclists were braving the frigid elements for a worthy cause.
To work through her tension, she loosened her ponytail and took a gander at the city. San Francisco was hands-down the best place in the world. Even during the holidays when streets were jammed and shoppers were out in droves. Even when festive decorations dredged up the bittersweet memory of last Christmas when her father was alive.
During a mini-break of bicyclists, she frowned when she caught sight of the Policemen’s Ball banner hanging across the entrance of the nearby Hyatt Hotel. Her dissatisfaction with the police went way back, but dwelling on the past was a waste of time.Time, her father had said more often than she could count,shouldn’t be squandered.
Drawing in a deep breath, she tried Sara again. When she reached her friend’s voicemail, a frisson of concern ran down her spine. “Sara, it’s me. Where are you? Why does your cell phone keep cutting out? I’m?—”
No. She wouldn’t utter the wordworriedout loud. Bad luck.
Glibly, she added, “To answer the question you left on my voicemail last week, no, I have not gone to the dating site you recommended yet.” Sara wanted Kayla to be as happily married as she was and repeatedly prodded Kayla to find a guy. Like that wasn’t a Herculean task. Good guys were hard to find at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. Sara didn’t seem to grasp that. Neither did Kayla’s sister Ashley who, like Sara, was intent on finding Kayla the perfect match.
The last of the cyclists sped by. Kayla pushed concerned thoughts aside and tore ahead on Front Street. She turned left on Battery in the direction of Chinatown, hit the brakes, and groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” An octet of Santas playing tubas was parading by. She tattooed the steeringwheel. Part of being a reliable computer troubleshooter required keeping to one’s schedule.
Cool your jets, she chided silently.The Universe is not conspiring against you.
When the line of Santas narrowed, she veered onto a side street and searched for a parking place. “Right in front,” she chanted. The mantra worked. She maneuvered the Jeep into the vacant spot, hopped out with toolkit in hand, and fed the meter. “Fa-la-la,” she sang as she raised the hood of her Stanford sweatshirt to block the wind and forged ahead.
Minutes later, she was crouching beneath Mary Dorman’s desk, invading the tower of Mary’s ancient computer. Despite being a graduate chemistry student at the University of San Francisco, Mary had no clue how computers worked. Complex hydrogen formations, sure. Computers? Not a chance. Which was why Mary had bought her brother’s computer instead of investing in a shiny new laptop. Functional was all that mattered to her.
“Heard from Sara?” Mary perched on the edge of her desk chair.
“We’re playing phone tag.”
Sara had introduced Kayla to Mary at USF’sBe a Mentor Day. Mentors didn’t have to pursue the same career as the grad student. They merely had to help a student maintain focus. With Sara as head cheerleader for the cause, how could Kayla refuse?
“Did she sound okay on her messages?” Mary asked.
“Sure. Why?”
“No reason.”
Kayla told herself to keep calm. Her tendency to overreact shouldn’t be foisted on others. Just because fatal accidents happened in her family was no reason to believe they happened to all families. Sara was fine. She wasn’t dead.
“Stop staring,” she muttered. She wasn’t talking to Mary. She was addressing the dozens of stuffed animal reptiles occupying the floor and shelves of Mary’s office. Mary hadn’t grasped that to be a true collector she needed to keep the items in mint condition. Each of the reptiles had been well loved. Seams required stitching. Button eyes had gone missing.
“Did you buy that new Yamaha you were telling me about?” Mary would never go dirt biking herself, but she was an ESPN junkie and could discuss American motocross stars at length.
Kayla nodded. “Yeah. Black and silver. Very sexy.”
“Make any upgrades?”
“I installed an S.S. Valve. It’s four-way adjustable so I can go from desert to woods to motocross with a few clicks.”
“Cool.”
“I’m thinking about getting a stealth muffler to cut the noise pollution.”
