A Hoe Lot of Trouble (23 page)

I heard the sickening crunch of metal on metal and glass shattering. My vision blurred and white spots danced in my eyes as the brakes screamed. Then I heard nothing at all.

"Stop scratching."

"But it itches," I said with a hint of a whine in my voice. Okay, maybe more than a hint. All right, all right. I was whining.

"But it won't heal if you keep scratching it," Analise said, brushing my hand away from the big gash arcing across my forehead.

I growled. If I was itchy then I wanted to scratch! Infection be damned. When Ana slipped into the kitchen to get me water, I pressed my face against my pillow and rubbed.

"I hear that," she said.

"I itch!"

She tossed a wet washcloth onto the couch. "Press that to it."

"You're not supposed to get stitches wet."

"You're not supposed to scratch them either!"

I pouted. "You're cranky."

She threw her hands in the air. "And you're a fine one to talk!"

I made a lousy patient. I hated being cooped up. The hospital had kept me there for a whole day, for observation. Apparently I observed well, because they let me go late Saturday night. Thanks to a few pain pills, I had slept that night, and all of Sunday away too. Now Monday morning was nearly over, and had seemed impossibly long.

"Kevin's still waiting to talk to you."

I had put off talking to him. He'd made an appearance with Riley at the hospital, but he hadn't said much to me other than pleasantries. The doctors said to take as much time as I needed before talking to the police, and I had done just that.

Unclenching my jaw, I forced myself to relax. I didn't remember much about the crash. I must have passed out when the train hit the car. But I remembered with startling clarity all the details leading up to the accident.

Luckily, I wasn't seriously hurt. I had vaulted far enough off the tracks to avoid serious injury from flying debris. It could have been, as everyone who'd entered my hospital room told me, a lot worse. I broke my pinkie finger (I still don't know how), bruised my tailbone, and I had a cut that needed six stitches along my forehead from flying glass. My Corolla, sorry to report, was mortally wounded in the attack. There were no funeral plans at this time.

"You can't keep putting him off," Ana said, breaking into my thoughts. "He needs to investigate the accident. Someone tried to kill you."

As if I needed to be reminded. Everyone, from my mother (who tried desperately to find a way to pin this on Ana) to Mr. Cabrera, had been telling me so. To add to my pain, Mr. Cabrera had brought Ursula Krauss with him to visit me. I'd spent thirty torturous minutes with her clucking over me.

"Just a few more hours, Ana?"

"I'm afraid not," Kevin said from the doorway.

I jumped, not having heard him come in.

"I'll be in the kitchen." Ana brushed past Kevin without saying a word to him.

I pretended a great interest in the weaving on the throw blanket my mother had brought me.

"I know you're tired, Nina. I'll try to make this as fast as possible. The obvious question is, Do you remember any more about who might have done this to you?" Kevin's voice was soft, kind. I almost didn't recognize it. He stood next to the couch, a small notebook in one hand, a pen in the other. His wide shoulders were hunched just a bit as if he were very tired. He wore his standard on-duty outfit. A long-sleeved button-up shirt, a loose necktie that didn't match his shirt, a suit coat, and jeans. Pressed jeans. If you asked me, pressed jeans were unnatural. Talk about anal. But then again, no one asked my opinion.

"No."

"Did you get a
look
at who did this?"

I scratched at my stitches.

"That will make it worse," Kevin said.

I swore under my breath and dropped my hand. "A small white car. Tinted windows. I didn't see a plate. It was too dark to make out the driver." My tone said, N
ow go away.

He made no move to leave.

Damn.

He made some marks in his notebook. I knew he wasn't writing anything down. The notebook was for show. He had an amazing memory and rarely needed notes. "Can you tell me when you first noticed that someone was tailing you?"

"I was on Mockingbird, coming home from work. Didn't think anything of it. Traffic wasn't heavy, but there was nothing unusual in having a car a few lengths behind me."

"Then?" Kevin asked.

"Then I looked up again and the car was on top of me. I thought he was going to pass. He almost sideswiped me. I cut him off. It was stupid, but I wanted to see who it was."

I studied my fingernails. They were short, stubby, cracked. My pinkie finger was swathed in a bandage that somehow connected to my ring finger and wrist for support. It looked ridiculous.

"I sped up. He sped up."

"He?"

"I assume. I couldn't see anything."

"Why didn't you pull into a well-lit parking lot?"

I gave him an "Oh, please" look. "You've been on Knickerbocker. You tell me where I could have pulled over."

"Cranky," he muttered.

I growled. "I was heading to the police station when the train's gates came down. I tried to go around, but the train was too close. Then the white car bumped me onto the tracks. I got stuck. The rest you know."

Kevin's eyesbrows furrowed into a deep V. When he did that, he almost looked like he had a unibrow, with an odd resemblance to Bert from
Sesame Street
. The unibrow, the oblong face, the short spiky hair. I bit back a laugh and wondered exactly how much pain medicine I was taking.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"No."

"We need to finish our conversation from Friday night, about Demming."

"Now?"

"Why not?"

"I'm tired."

"Nina."

"Kevin."

His eyes softened. "All right. I'll come back tomorrow." He gazed down at me. "Stay out of trouble."

I bit back my usual "Don't I always" comeback. It just didn't ring true anymore.

He stood by the door. "I just wanted to say that I'm—"

Ana stuck her head in the room. "Almost lunchtime." She looked at Kevin. "You staying?"

"No," he said, not looking at me. "I was just leaving." He closed the front door on his way out.

Not a second later, a soft knock sounded.

Ana tugged open the door and Bridget's head poked in. "Are we interrupting?" Tim stood behind her.

"Not at all," Ana said, guiding them in.

Tim produced a bouquet of daisies with a flourish. "Straight from my mom's field. She sends her best."

I managed a halfhearted thank-you, but couldn't manage to look Tim in the eyes. Suddenly, I wished Kevin had stayed. I couldn't deal with this anymore. The police needed to be told. Everything. Including my suspicions about Tim.

Ana hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "I'll be in the kitchen."

Bridget said, "Mom's worried about you. Feels responsible."

I shook my head, ignored the ache. "Nonsense."

Tears clouded Bridget's eyes. "I'm feeling responsible too."

Words lodged in my throat, but I forced them out. "This could have nothing to do with any of you."

"Did stuff like this happen to you often before you started investigating my dad's death?" Tim asked.

Oh, all the time.
I still couldn't look at him, never mind answer him.

"Look, Nina," Bridget said, perching on the edge of the couch, "you need to stop looking into this mess." Gruffness edged her voice.

Tim nodded, hovering over us. "It's obvious you ruffled some feathers."

I bit back an accusation. "I'm fine."

Bridget gasped. "You were almost killed by a train!" Not many ways to argue with that. "Nina!" She took hold of my hand. "You've got to stop. This is too dangerous." She stood, paced, froze.

I didn't think they'd leave unless I agreed. "Fine, fine. I'll stop," I lied.

Bridget sighed, long and heavy. "Thank heavens. I can't even tell you how worried we were about you."

I put on a brave smile. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help."

Tim said, "All that matters is that you're okay." He turned to Bridget. "We should go. Let Nina rest."

My gaze shot to Bridget. "Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?"

Tim looked none too pleased by the prospect, but didn't protest. "I'll wait in the car."

Locking her arms, Bridget lowered herself onto the couch beside me. "What is it, Nina?"

Unsure how to say what I was thinking, I worried my lip. Finally, I said, "It's about Tim."

"Tim?"

Pots clanged in the kitchen. Ana was supposed to be making soup, but I figured she was eavesdropping for sure.

Bridget waited expectantly. Geez, this wasn't going to be easy. "He was awfully adamant I stop investigating."

"He's worried. About his mom, me, you."

"Is he?"

Her pale eyebrows snapped together. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I sat straighter, came right out with it. "It means he's a man with a motive. He needs money—"

Without effort, Bridget surged to her feet. Two angry spots of color dotted her cheeks. "How dare you? How could you even
think
such a thing? There isn't a more decent man around."

"Bridget—"

She put up her hand, palm out, the other resting on her extended belly. "No. I don't want to hear any more. I'm disgusted with you." Pivoting, she headed for the door, jerked it open and slammed it behind her.

Ana stuck her head in the room. "Yikes."

I stared at the still shaking door. "That didn't go so well."

The corner of Ana's lip hitched up in a half smile. "You don't say."

Even with Bridget's stinging rebuke still buzzing in my ears, I couldn't rid my suspicions of Tim altogether—although they had been somewhat tempered by Bridget's reaction.

I picked up the cordless phone, punched in the office number. The voice of Queen Elizabeth rang in my ear. "Taken by Surprise, this is Tam."

"Tam, it's Nina."

She gasped. "Holy hell, how are you?"

"Fine, fine. Thanks for the gift."

The gang had all pitched in and bought me a pillow to sit on, the smart-asses they were.

We chitchatted for a few minutes before she mentioned that all the missing tools had turned up over the weekend. I acted all surprised, but she didn't buy it for a moment.

"You're not going to tell who it was, are you?"

"Who was what?"

She tried prying for a few more minutes before giving in. After answering a battery of questions about the accident, I got to the reason I called. "I have a huge favor to ask you."

"Anything."

I leaned back against the sofa cushions. "It's illegal."

She laughed. "Never stopped me before. What do you want me to do?"

Sometimes having felons on the payroll was a good thing. Like when one of them used to be a professional hacker.

"I'd like you to look into an Internet account. E-mails, web traffic, that sort of thing. And bank records if you can get them too."

Rustling echoed over the line. "Give me the addresses and I'll get right to it."

I gave her Bridget and Tim's full names, then rattled off Bridget's e-mail address. "I don't know if that's the only account. Her husband might have e-mail of his own. He's the one I really want to know about."

"If he's got one, I'll find it. Anything in particular I'm looking for?"

I couldn't say. "Just anything that strikes you as odd."

"That's many, many things, Nina."

Smiling, I said, "I appreciate this, Tam, more than you can know."

"Just get better soon. We miss you around here."

After hanging up, I stared up at the ceiling unable to shake the feeling that the police needed to be called ASAP. But I decided I'd wait to see what Tam learned before going to Kevin.

That much I owed Bridget.

I just prayed that Tam found nothing. Nothing at all.

By mid-afternoon, after doing my best to swallow scorched soup, I was not only starving but also going stir-crazy. I wasn't one to be kept prone for so long.

Ana had issued death threats, though, if I tried to escape, so I was housebound. At least for the time being.

Peeking out the window, I saw Mr. Cabrera watering his petunias. They were large petunias, bright purple that circled his maple tree in his front yard. By the look of the small river than ran into the street, he'd been working on that spot for some time. I wondered if it had anything to do with his unfettered view of the front of my house.

A van rumbled into my driveway. I squinted and made out Riley in the front seat with his newest friend—the Skinz with the metal spiked dog collar. As I watched, they both got out of the van and walked toward the front porch. I dropped to the floor so they wouldn't notice me spying.

Mr. Cabrera, ever so casually, turned his hose to water the grass near my porch. I smiled at his blatant nosiness. A man after my own heart.

On my hands and knees, I listened.

Ry and Spike must have been sitting on the porch swing, or somewhere close by, because their voices easily carried in through the window.

"I don't know, man."

That was Riley. He sounded strange. Sort of cocky, yet afraid. I didn't know what to make of it.

"You need one."

One what? What was Spike talking about?

"When can I get one?" Riley asked.

Lifting my head, I peeped out the window. Spike was sitting on the swing, and Riley was leaning against the porch column, his arms crossed. Spike was smoking. I wanted to go out and snatch the cigarette out of his mouth, warn him about the risk of cancer, but I also wanted to hear what they were talking about.