Danger in High Heels (22 page)

Dana rolled her eyes at me.

Another left, then a right, and I pulled onto Victory just in time to see the Malibu's taillights sail through a yellow light.

"Sonofa-," I stopped myself just in time as I hit the brakes on the red. I watched the Malibu go a block down, then make another right. I tapped my fingers in anticipation on the steering wheel. "Come on, come on, come on," I encouraged the light. Finally it changed to green, and I hit the gas with such force, Mrs. R surged backward in her seat, almost toppling over.

"Sorry," I called to my passengers, chasing after the Malibu and making the sharp right like I'd seen her do.

Only I realized two things as I turned the corner and the next street came into view. One: that as we had engaged in our very safe, low speed chase along surface streets, we'd wound our way north, almost to the 5. And two: losing Katrina along a back road was the least of our problems. Because I knew exactly where she was going.

"Oh no," I said out loud, as I watched Katrina's taillights pull to the right, past the Bob Hope Metrolink Station.

Leading right into the Burbank airport.

Chapter Eighteen

"Ohmigod, she's making a run for it," Dana said, realization hitting her too as the big, bold "Welcome to the Burbank Airport" sign came into view.

While "run" might not be the accurate word for the speed her car was going through the terminal, the sentiment fit. Clearly Kat was taking the money and leaving town. My money, to be exact.

We watched her pull into long term parking, though I had a sneaking suspicion that she had no plans to pick up her junker car again later. I followed her, pulling into a slot two rows over as I watched her get out of the car, pop her trunk, and pull out a suitcase big enough to fit my entire shoe collection in.

"She doesn't look like she's going on an overnighter," Mrs. R remarked.

I nodded. "No kidding."

"So, what are we waiting for? Let's go after her," Mom said, hand on the door handle.

I paused. While I didn't want to let our one and only suspect get away, the last thing I wanted to do was expose my babies to a woman who was at best a thief and at worst a cold blooded killer who'd murdered her own twin. Plus, the babies were asleep. Everyone knows you
never
wake a sleeping baby.

"You guys stay here. I'll go stop her," I told Mom and Mrs. R.

Mom's eyes cut to the babies. She nodded, as if understanding my motivation.

"I'm going with you," Dana said, hopping out of the van in her couture gown before I could stop her. "You might need backup."

There was no "might" about it. I totally needed backup. While it was reasonably safe to assume that Katrina wasn't carrying a weapon with her into a high security airport, as I knew from my past experience with her, it didn't take a gun to put someone down.

I left the keys with Mom, and Dana and I quickly made up time, following in Katrina's footsteps from the long term parking lot to the short line of terminals. While Burbank was a busy airport, it was nowhere near the size of LAX. Burbank was the locals' choice for easy commuter flights, servicing mostly flights going to west coast hubs. It was a domestic airport, meaning Kat wasn't making her international run from Burbank. But with the amount of international hubs that Burbank connected to, it was also an easy way out of town. I knew for a fact from my days at the Art Institute, that several flights a day went between Burbank and San Francisco, which was an easy connection to anywhere overseas.

Dana and I hung back as Katrina got in line behind a group of girls in volleyball uniforms at the Delta counter. And we might have done a bang up job of blending in with the other travelers, too, had Dana not looked fresh from the red carpet.

"Ohmigod, ohmigod," a chubby, short teen guy in a
Moonlight
T-Shirt yelled. "I know you! You're Dana Dashel!"

"Uh… no?" Dana said. "I'm not?"

"Ohmigod, I totally loved you in that HBO series,
Lady Justice
! You are, like, the hottest lawyer I've ever seen."

"Um, thanks," Dana said, keeping her voice low. "But I'm not really a lawyer-"

But Super Fan didn't take the hint. "I am so sorry about Ricky!" he went on. "I totally know he's, like, innocent. I mean, hello? He's a movie star."

The fanboy moment was attracting a crowd. A couple at the next ticket counter turned and stared, and a family of four was pointing and whispering. In the waiting lounge, heads were turning, and I saw three tween girls pop up from their chairs and get a running start toward us.

I whipped my head around to the Delta counter.

Katrina was staring straight at us.

I swallowed hard, watching her take in the scene, then quickly turn on her heels and head toward the departure gates.

If she made it past security, there was no way we'd catch her.

I thought of alerting one of the many security personnel milling in the area, but so far all we had her on was selling stolen goods on eBay. And I didn't even have proof of that; she'd just mailed it to me. I wasn't sure that my say-so was the level orange kind of risk these guys would care about.

"Can you sign my chest?" Super Fan asked, shoving a sharpie at Dana and pulling up his shirt to expose a pair of pimply man boobs.

Dana's eyes shot from the chest to me to Katrina's departing back. She mouthed the words, "Go. I'll catch up."

I did, quickly following Katrina.

Katrina turned, saw me approaching, and took off at a run. She knocked into a couple with carry-ons, narrowly avoided a magazine rack, then ducked into the women's restroom. I chased after her, hitting the door just as a large Asian family emerged. I navigated around them and was confronted with dozens of shiny, metal stalls.

I paused. Katrina could be in any one of them. A woman in a heavy scarf stood at the mirror, applying lipstick. An executive type in a blazer and A-line skirt was adding tap water to a bottle full of powered drink mix. And a teenager with spiked hair was washing her hands.

Behind them, flushing, paper being rolled.

I ducked down, checking out the shoes in the first stall. Loafers. Not our girl.

I duck-walked down the line, peeking under the doors of each closed stall. Sandals. Uggs. Flip flops. Pumps.

Then I hit pay dirt.

Hot pink cheetah printed platforms.

I stood and put my ear to the door (incurring a funny look from the executive type at the sink in the process). Silence.

"Katrina?" I asked.

Nothing.

"I know you're in there."

Again, silence.

"You can't hide forever."

Still no response.

"I know you stole the shoes-" I started, but before I could finish, the metal door slammed open, hitting me squarely in the nose.

"Uhn." I staggered backward, pain exploding behind my eyes as the full force of Katrina's dancer body slammed into me while she bolted past.

I recovered just in time to grab a handful of her tank-top, yanking her backward.

She yelled, a short yip, stumbling on her platforms and twisting to the right. She pushed me backward, into the bathroom stall. I tripped, falling butt first into the toilet.

"Ew!" I cried, feeling the back side of my skirt get soaked. I jumped up, regaining my footing, just as she made a break for the door.

I scrambled after her, and flew out of the restroom just in time to see her pull open a service door next to a taco restaurant, disappearing behind hit. I chased after her, my wet skirt slapping against my thighs. I slipped through the service door to find myself in a long, slim corridor, with several doorways leading off in both directions.

I paused, listening to my own breath echo off the concrete walls. No footsteps. No sign of Katrina.

"Katrina?" I yelled, the silence deafening. I took a tentative step forward. Then another.

I was halfway down, when a blur of cheetah flew at me from a doorway.

"Uhn." I heard myself grunt as the weight of her body took me down to the floor. But this time I held onto her, arms wrapping around her middle as she tried to wiggle free.

"Let go," she screamed at me.

"No way. You have my five-hundred and thirty-nine dollars."

She paused, her eyes narrowing. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the money you sold the stolen DWC shoes for on eBay!"

Katrina sucked in a breath. "You're bargainbaby49?"

"I am, and you're busted."

"Hey, I was conducting a legitimate sale," she protested, wriggling in my grasp. "If you have an issue with it, contact eBay."

"A sale of items you stole," I pressed, holding tight. "Irina got you onto the
Dancing with Celebrities
, then you stole wardrobe items to sell on eBay."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she protested.

"I think you do. I also think your sister found out about it, and you killed her."

"No!" Katrina shouted, breaking from my grasp and struggling to her knees.

"Yes!" I yelled, pulling at a handful of her hair.

She grunted. "You have it all wrong, you stupid beetch," she said. "I didn't steal the items. Irina did."

I'll admit, that tidbit threw me. So much that I involuntarily loosened my grip, allowing Katrina to struggle away and gain the upper hand. She lunged at me again, straddling me on the ground. One cheetah platform sailed toward my jugular. I reacted without thinking, shoving my purse between her heel and my throat just in time.

"Why would Irina steal from her own show?" I choked out.

"She needed the money."

"What they were paying on DWC wasn't enough?" I asked, turning to the side, and slipping out from under her foot. I scrambled to my hands and knees.

"No!" Kat shouted, her hand shooting out to get a grip on my ankle. "Irina didn't see any big money unless she won."

"Which is why she was trying to rig the votes," I added, puzzle pieces falling into place.

"It was a stupeed idea," Katrina said, using her favorite word again. "Too risky. The producers were bound to find out. And Vladimir agreed with me."

"Vladimir Muskavo," I said, kicking at her hand with my other heel. "So you were working together?"

Her face scrunched up. "Working together? No!" She spit on the ground and cursed in Russian. "He was a snake, a fiend, the worst kind of man."

I kicked free, getting as far as my knees before Katrina pounced again, growling under her breath as she grabbed me from behind.

"I don't get it then," I said, straining away from her. "If you weren't working with him, what was your connection to Vlad?"

"Irina and I had to get out of our hometown. You have no idea what it's like there. Where we come from, women are dogs. They can marry American or be prostitute. That's all."

While it sounded horrible, I had a hard time conjuring up sympathy for her while she had her arms wrapped around my throat. "But you did get out. Two years ago," I said, quoting Irina's official bio.

I felt Katrina nod behind me. "We did. We paid big money to a man to smuggle us out of the country."

Puzzle piece! "Vladimir." He wasn't smuggling stolen goods
out
of the country, he was smuggling people
in
.

Katrina nodded again. "We paid him a large sum of money to get us into the country through Canada. He provided us with new names, passport, everything we needed to make it look like we belonged here."

"But that was two years ago," I pointed out, twisting to my right, breaking her grip to face her. "Why was he here now?"

Katrina pulled away, panting. "Because of my stupeed sister," she said. Then she spit on the ground again. "She has some big idea to be a famous dancer. She goes on TV. Lets the whole world see her!"

"Including Vladimir," I said, starting to get the big picture.

"Yes. He said that if we didn't pay him more money, he would turn her in to immigration, and they would send us both back to Russia."

"So that's when Irina came up with the idea of fixing the votes to win the money."

Karina shook her head. "Yes, but Vlad wanted money now."

"So when trying to fix the votes didn't pay off soon enough, Irina started stealing items from the set to sell," I said.

Katrina nodded. "This was my plan," she said, beaming with pride. "People will pay big money for TV memorabilia."

"So what went wrong?"

Her eyes flashed. "Vlad was greedy. We sold one item and gave him the money, but he wanted more. He said we had to bring him to set to steal things. He said he could make big bucks smuggling all kinds of equipment off the set and selling to Canadian production companies."

"But Irina was against it, and they argued," I concluded.

"She knew the producers would figure it out. That's why he must have killed her." Then Katrina lunged at me again as if I acting out that very thing.