If, if, if!
She closed her eyes and allowed the events of the past few days to replay in reverse in her head. Downloading Sara’s files. Finding Jacob with his throat slit. Lying on the bed with Peter in the motel. Fleeing down Lombard with Eve. Finding Ashley battling for her last breath. The smell of smoke.
Smoke.
Kayla snapped her eyes open. Smoke was seeping into the garage.
In an instant, she understood Blond Guy’s plan. He hadn’t wanted to have his way with her. He’d wanted it to look like she’d killed her uncle and had set fire to his garage to coverher tracks. The ropes around her wrists and ankles would burn away, leaving no trace of her having been tied up.
Giant orange plumes of fire licked the inside of the garage door. Accepting fate was tempting, but an inner voice cried,Get moving!She tried to scramble to her feet, but her binds made it impossible.
Through the murky haze, she scanned the crowded garage for something sharp to cut the ties. Where was an infernal knife when she needed one? She spotted the rototiller with its thick blades and inch-wormed to it. She shimmied up. Positioned her wrists on either side of the lowest blade’s edge and hesitated.
If she slit her wrists, she would die from blood loss. If she didn’t . . .
She rubbed the rope back and forth against the blade. The hemp began to shred.
The flames grew taller. Hotter. Wood beams crackled and burst as the fire fed on them. The sole thing keeping the blaze from turning the garage into a tinderbox was the muddy hill that served as one wall of the structure. Silently, Kayla thanked her uncle for cutting corners and not complying with county codes.
When the last strands of the ropes gave way, freeing her wrists, she yanked the rag from her mouth and untied the restraints around her ankles. She stood, legs wobbly, and surveyed the rest of the garage. Blond Guy and his Jaguar-loving buddy had pushed the heavy-duty file drawers in front of the main staircase to the house, preventing an easy exit. Boxes of metal tools blocked the windows.
To her relief, the rototiller had obstructed the view of the tiny door leading to the hidden passage she’d descended Thursday to fetch her uncle’s whiskey. She could access it.
Gingerly, she slid between the massive machine and the mud wall. The wood door was hot to the touch. She pulled the sleeve of her sweater over her hand and banged on the hatch. The doorsplintered. Smoke spewed out. Holding her breath, she climbed the ladder, praying the brittle rungs wouldn’t give way.
At the top she butted the trapdoor with her shoulder, pushed aside the throw rug, and crawled into the living room, desperate for fresh air.
But fresh air was not to be had. Smoke and flames engulfed the house, too.
Luckily, the throw rug wasn’t on fire. She wrapped it around her head and shoulders and propelled herself through the glass-paned front door. She collapsed on the porch, rolled onto her back, and gulped in oxygen.
When she’d recovered enough to stand, she raced to Peter’s car. Her relief was short-lived when she remembered Blond Guy had disabled the hatchback’s engine. She cursed under her breath, but then she caught sight of the dilapidated shack down the hill and started toward it. Just shy of the entrance, she jerked to a stop. Were Blond Guy and his Jaguar buddy waiting for her in the shack, or had they put miles between themselves and the crime scene?
She made a perimeter search of the shack.Clear.
She rushed inside, batted away cobwebs, and hooted with glee. Her uncle’s Suzuki was there, draped with a dusty tarp. She threw off the cover, slid the helmet off the Suzuki’s handlebar, and slipped it on. She gathered her uncle’s leather jacket from a peg on the wall and shrugged into it. The sleeves were too long and the odor of cigarette smoke lingered in the plaid lining, but she needed to wear it for warmth. How she wished she could hold onto fond memories of him, but she couldn’t. By his own admission, he had been weak and up to his neck in whatever this was. And in Ashley’s murder.
She opened the shack’s door, snatched the key for the bike off a peg on the wall, straddled the Suzuki and, hoping the gas tankwas full, switched it on. The engine roared to life. She booted the kickstand and zoomed out.
Freedom had never felt so good.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Megan questionedPeter Vaughn for an hour, but she wasn’t able to persuade him to give up a location on Kayla Macintyre or to say something negative about Captain Wald. Had she imagined Vaughn’s agitation regarding her boss because she, herself, mistrusted him?
Exhausted but ready to end this meeting, she stood and extended her hand. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Vaughn. If I need anything further, I will be in touch.” She headed for the green room yelling, “Rodrigo, assemble the team.”
The green room, given its name because of the abundance of potted plants, was designed to be conducive to brainstorming.
When everyone was seated, Megan opened with, “Kayla Macintyre’s alive.”
Rodrigo gaped. Others cracked wise.
She continued by updating them with the information Peter Vaughn had provided. “Rodrigo, meet with Mary Dorman’s parents. You two”—she pointed—“Fred Collins’s wife. You guys”—she shot a finger at the senior pair on the team—“Phyllis Appleton’s daughter. I want answers fast. Find out if utility companies or service people have visited any of them. Learnwhether anybody’s home has been broken into. I want copies of each coroner’s investigation.”
Rodrigo looked up from his notepad. “You don’t think these deaths were accidents?”
Megan scowled. “Jacob Feinstein, Kayla Macintyre’s former client, had his throat slit. Do you believe that was an accident? Look, I think the killer believes Kayla knew something and, therefore, offed her clients as well as her—or rather, mistakenly, her sister Ashley—to keep the secret.”
