Crash and Burn (14 page)

Chase was talking to himself, and Scarlet couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then Isaac said, “I tried to help.”

“Trying is not good enough,” Chase said. “You could have stopped it. You could have called the police.”

“You could have called the police, too,” Isaac said. “If you blame me in any way for what your friends did, start looking in a mirror.”

Chase froze, and Scarlet could tell by his expression that that was
exactly
why he was doing this. He blamed himself more than Skip and Isaac, and he thought revenge was justice. That he would feel less guilty if he could do
something
to bring Valerie and Tessa’s attackers to justice.

And Skip was the last one walking.

Or, in this case, kneeling.

“I thought they were safe,” Chase said quietly. He put the gun against the back of Skip’s head. “What drugs did you feed them?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You gave Richie the drugs. I know you did. What were they? Why did they leave the apartment? Did you do it? Did you and Richie take them away? Hurt them?”

Was Richie so angry that his plan had been thwarted that he’d found the girls and brought them back to his place? Or had they left willingly? How willing could they have been on the drugs they’d ingested?

Scarlet said, “Chase? Why don’t I search him for you? If I find the drugs on him, you can call the police and turn him in.”

He stared at her. “Do it.”

She came around the bar and searched Skip’s pockets. He was glaring at her with the same hatred he had for Chase. He’d been one of the three who’d confronted Isaac on Friday night. He recognized her.

She pulled out his wallet, his car keys, and some loose pills. She had no idea what they were, but they were small and white. She put them on a napkin on one of the tables.

Chase stared at the pills. “I saw those. At Richie’s house.”

“They’re just caffeine pills.”

“Bullshit!” Chase said and hit Skip on the side of the head with the gun. Skip fell to the floor.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a movement in the storage room. Bishop?

“Don’t move,” Chase commanded her. “How did you know my name?”

She gestured to Skip. “He said it.”

“No he didn’t. Take off the hat.”

She did.

“You were at Valerie’s yesterday.”

“I’m helping Valerie. She was scared and hurt and needed her mother. She’s now home, with her mom, safe. You want her to be safe, right?”

He nodded, almost involuntarily, then said, “Get on your knees. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not a delivery girl.”

She didn’t move. “You want answers, Chase. I get that. I’m a private investigator. I can help you find the answers you want. I know you and Parker got the girls back to their apartment safely. I also know that something happened and they left and ended up at Richie’s house. Tell me, how did you find Tessa? After she killed Parker, how did you find her?”

Tears welled in his eyes, but his jaw was tight with rage.

He shook his head. “I’m not doing this. It’s his fault. He gave Richie the drugs. Those drugs—they weren’t the same girls. They wouldn’t—she couldn’t have done that to Parker.”

He’d found his friend, suspected what had happened—Scarlet had to get him to calm down.

“If you kill him, the police will never be able to trace his supplier. These drugs are responsible for multiple deaths. If you kill Skip, more young women will be raped and lose their minds.” She hesitated. “That’s what happened, didn’t it? Valerie and Tessa killed Juan and shot Richie.”

“I don’t believe it.” But he averted his eyes.

“Where did you get the gun?”

“It’s mine.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care!”

She stepped forward. She had to take the risk. “Chase, you’ve never killed anyone. You didn’t kill Juan or Parker.”

His eyes watered, and this time he couldn’t stop the tears. “Parker—he was my best friend. I didn’t know she’d kill him. I took the gun from her. I didn’t know she’d stab him.” He aimed the gun at Skip. “What did you do to them!”

At that moment, Scarlet nodded to Isaac and he jumped up. His movement distracted Chase enough that Scarlet could leap between him and Skip and grab Chase’s gun hand. She pressed hard against the sensitive and fragile bones on the inside of his wrist.

The gun fired into the ceiling, then he dropped it. He cried out in anguish.

“It’s okay, Chase,” she said. “It’s over now.”

“Like hell,” Skip said.

Before Scarlet could kick away the gun, Skip grabbed it and aimed it at Chase.

“Newport PD, put down the gun!” A booming voice came into the room.

Skip didn’t comply. Isaac leapt at Skip and wrestled for the gun.

Scarlet pushed Chase to the floor and pulled her gun out of the apron. She couldn’t fire without risking Isaac. Bishop had the same problem from his angle. They both stood two feet from the fighting men.

The gun went off and Scarlet’s heart skipped a beat. She saw blood on the back of Isaac’s left arm. The bullet had gone clean through.

Isaac hit Skip hard in the jaw with his right hand, then grabbed his wrist and pinned it down.

Bishop stepped on Skip’s fingers and the shooter finally let go of the grip. Bishop kicked it away.

“Get off, Dunn,” Bishop said, holding his gun on Skip.

“Dammit, Isaac!” Scarlet said. What had he been thinking? They’d had this covered. But Isaac was a man of action, and he’d reacted on instinct. She understood—and respected—that.

Isaac punched Skip in the gut as he got up, blood pouring down his arm.

Bishop ordered Skip, “Down, on your stomach, hands behind your back.” He told Chase the same thing. He tossed his cuffs to Scarlet. She clipped them onto Skip and tightened them.

Then she turned to Chase, who had his head down as Bishop had ordered. “Stay put, Chase,” she said. Then she turned her attention to Isaac.

“Heather,” she shouted, “call an ambulance.”

“I called 911,” she said.

“Bring me all the clean towels you can find.”

“I’m okay,” Isaac said as Scarlet put pressure on the wound.

Bishop was on the phone with his people, and Scarlet took the towels from Heather. “Tell everyone at the bar drinks are on the house.”

Bishop said, “But hold off serving until I get everyone’s statement. I don’t need a bunch of drunks giving me their eyewitness accounts.”

Chapter Thirteen

Organized chaos filled the bar. Uniformed officers took custody of Skip and Chase; other officers came to help with witness statements, and Hank Riley showed up right after Heather left with Isaac in the ambulance. Scarlet wondered if maybe there was something going on between the barmaid and the bartender, but she didn’t tend to care much about other people’s relationships. She barely cared about hers.

Diego arrived—after a three-hour drive in traffic from the east valley. Scarlet filled him in while Bishop was in the parking lot transferring the chain of custody to two uniformed officers. She wished she could ask Chase more questions, but she had to give Bishop room to do his job.

She didn’t think Chase killed his friends. She also didn’t think that Skip had. It was clear Chase was protecting someone. Whenever a new designer drug came out, there were unintended consequences. They tweaked and manipulated the formula until it was “perfect.” That’s why it was crucial that Bishop get Skip to talk. Knowing where they came from, who made them, would help them take this bad batch off the street.

“I leave for the weekend and my business falls apart,” Diego mumbled. “A shooting? Why are you even here, Blue? I thought you were supposed to keep my bar safe and clean.”

“Hey, I got it under control. This wasn’t something we could have prevented.”

“Heather told me what happened Friday night.”

“And the same thing would have happened if you were here.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Diego was acting like a hard ass, but his eyes showed concern.

“It was a clean shot,” Scarlet assured him. “Isaac will be fine.”

“You need to wash off that blood. It’s making me queasy.”

She looked at her shirt. It was stained red. Her hands, though she’d washed them in the bar sink, were still pink. “Tell Bishop I’m upstairs.”

The adrenaline from the hostage situation had left her system, leaving her tired and sluggish. At least, that was her excuse when she walked into her apartment and saw Wendy Anderson standing in the middle of her small studio with a gun aimed at her.

“It’s about freaking time you came home,” Wendy said.

“There’s a bar full of cops downstairs.”

“Most of them have left. Besides, they have no reason to come up here. Lock the door.”

Scarlet complied, assessing the situation and trying to figure out how much time she had before Bishop came up. It could be five minutes. An hour. Tomorrow. She couldn’t count on anyone else to get her out of this mess, but that was okay. She’d always depended on herself first.

“Where’s Jim? He’s not at his apartment, he’s not at my parents’ house, and he’s not at any of his friends’. Where is he?”

“You promised me that if Jim didn’t want to get back together, you would leave him alone.”

“But that was before I knew you wanted him all to yourself!”

“There is nothing going on between Jim and me. If you really think about it, you’ll know I’m telling you the truth.”

Wendy shook her head. “Hardly. Why
wouldn’t
you want Jim?”

“He’s not my type.”

She reddened. “Are you saying I don’t have good taste in men?”

This conversation was well above Scarlet’s skill set. Anything Scarlet said was going to be the wrong thing. She’d twist the conversation any way she wanted to justify her actions. Frankly, Wendy needed a good shrink. Preferably in a hospital for the criminally insane. Only, they’d put her there after she killed someone, and Scarlet didn’t want to be her victim.

Wendy said, “I know women like you. You’re just like all my friends. You want what I have.”

“You don’t have Jim,” Scarlet said. Damn, she needed to stop talking. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? She’d
never
been able to, which had often got her into trouble.

“Because of
you
. You told him bad things about me.”

“Wendy, I met both of you two days ago during the accident on Jamboree. Remember?”

“How do I know you didn’t know Jim before then? Or maybe you saw how much we loved each other and you couldn’t stand it, so you came between us.”

“Oh, please,” Scarlet muttered.

Wendy stomped her feet. “You just don’t understand! No one ever understands!”

Scarlet understood all right. Wendy was a loony-tune. One of the crazies, just like the people wandering the streets of L.A. off their meds. When she was a patrol cop, every shift she’d end up taking one of these folks to the mental health facility. Some she’d return every month, as if they could clean up and function for a few weeks before they decided they didn’t need their meds anymore, that they were just fine without the pills.

It wasn’t lost on her that some drugs made sane people crazy, like the designer pills given to Tessa and Valerie, and some drugs made crazy people sane. Because Wendy sure needed something to wire her brain right, or maybe a straitjacket and shrink and a nice rubber room with white walls.

Sadly, Scarlet suspected all this could have been prevented had her parents recognized early on that Wendy had mental issues that might have been alleviated with drugs or counseling or both. Because Wendy had money, she could cover up her psychosis by being pretty and educated. But she was still unbalanced.

“Please,” Wendy begged, changing tactics, “tell me where Jim went. I just want to talk to him.”

“Okay, I can do that. You give me your gun, and I’ll give you his new address.”

For a split second Scarlet thought her bluff would work. Wendy’s eyes lit up and she took a step forward. “Really? That would be great.” Then she hesitated. “No, I don’t trust you. You want him, too. Take me to him.”

Scarlet weighed the situation. If she led Wendy down to the bar, there were still innocent people there who might get hurt. However, there was probably at least one cop still around. Maybe. If she was lucky.

She couldn’t risk Wendy taking another hostage. She said, “To be honest, I don’t know where Jim is.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I told him not to tell me.”

“Yeah,
right.
”

A slight movement, hardly more than a moving shadow, came from her deck. Scarlet sensed a shape, nothing more.

“He won’t pick up my phone calls, but I’ll bet he’ll pick up
yours
,” Wendy said.

Scarlet had an idea. “Okay. My cell phone is on the kitchen counter charging.”

“Get it.”

Scarlet complied. The counter was right behind her, anyway. If she could get Jim to talk to Wendy, it might distract her enough and Scarlet could disarm her.

“Now call him,” Wendy said.

Scarlet dialed Jim’s number. He answered on the third ring. “It’s nearly midnight. What’s going on?”

“Jim, it’s Scarlet Moreno. Your ex-girlfriend is holding a gun on me.”

“What?”

Wendy screamed. “Give that to me!”

She rushed for Scarlet. Wendy’s focus was on the phone. Scarlet’s focus was on the gun. As soon as Wendy was within reach, Scarlet tossed the phone over Wendy’s head—in the direction of where Alex Bishop was standing, just outside her sliding glass door. Wendy’s gaze turned to follow the phone and she shouted, “Jimmy!”

Scarlet didn’t know if she even saw Bishop. But Wendy certainly didn’t see Scarlet coming for her gun hand while simultaneously kicking the woman’s legs out from under her. She disarmed her and dropped her in seconds.

Bishop rushed in, his gun out and aimed at Wendy. “You really know how to have fun, Moreno.”

“Tell me about it.”

~ ~ ~

Scarlet sat on her deck. It was dark. There was no moon yet though it was supposed to rise later tonight. It was well after midnight on a Sunday. Tourists were gone or asleep. It had been a long weekend. She needed to sleep. But she couldn’t. She wished Bishop would call her or something—tell her what happened. If Chase really had killed his friends, or if it was Tessa and Valerie like she suspected.