Love Kills (26 page)

I wasn't sure if he heard me.

But Holt did and was suddenly talkative. “Nancy? Sweet darlin'? They're lying. You know it. Don't let them poison your mind against me. How can you believe them? They're jealous women. Think about it, Nancy Lee. Baby. Sweetheart. Only you know what we have. You're my wife. Listen to me.”

His words resonated with a desperate sincerity. The raw anguish in his voice was heart-wrenching. Marshall Weatherholt, trained actor.

We had warned Nancy, told her not to listen, but she nearly skidded off the road when he spoke her name. When he began the endearments she began to watch him in the rearview mirror. They made eye contact, which made me nervous.

“Okay,” I said abruptly. “Pull over, Nancy. It's time I drove.”

Riley nodded her approval.

Lacey, holding my hand, opened his eyes, in protest I thought. His lips moved and I leaned over to hear what he was trying to say.

“Suzanne,” he murmured, then faded out, his pupils fixed and dilated, his open eyes empty. Gone, just like that.

I sighed, and looked up at Riley, but she was focused on a hairpin turn in the road ahead, watching for a safe place for Nancy to pull over.

From behind me, Holt saw everything. He knew.

With a furious cry, he lunged forward across the seats, caught Nancy by the hair, and jerked her head back. She screamed. Holt cursed. I rolled Lacey's body off the seat and kicked Holt in the side, in the groin, in the ribs, as hard as I could with both feet. He kept his stubborn grip on Nancy's hair as the car fishtailed all over the road.

“Let go.” Riley pointed the Glock at his head. “Let go, now!”

Holt didn't. The car careened sideways and began to tip over as though in slow motion.

The explosion hurt my ears as the car rolled, then rolled over again. I felt the shock waves as blood spattered everywhere in a red sheen.

I thought of Miami and home as the car rolled again and again.

I opened my eyes, saw blood and brain tissue, wondered if it was mine, then blacked out.

When I woke up, the car had finally stopped moving. I saw open sky beyond the shattered windshield, a strange sky with a pale orange sun skirting the horizon.

Nancy's screams assured me that I was still alive. So did the fierce pain that made me wince, double over, and cry out.

No, no, I thought. Please. This is too early. Too early for this baby. I remembered Onnie's words,
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,
and I repeated them, over and over.

I don't know how long it was before I was lifted from the overturned car on a backboard and felt the whirlwind of chopper blades. I saw Sam Stone's face and heard his words of encouragement and, disoriented, believed I was back in Miami.

Strangers' voices discussed my broken shoulder, possible head injuries, and a fetal monitor. The pains grew surprisingly intense.

“Don't worry, Britt, it's all right,” K. C. Riley said. She held my hand.

“I know,” I murmured. “Everything will be all right now.”

I am grateful to the brilliant star hustler Jack Horkheimer and to the supremely gifted Paul Jacobs, star of the concert stage and the Juilliard School.

New friend J. Jason Wentworth of Fairbanks, Alaska, generously shared his world for this book. So did my old buddies Robert Tralins and Miami Beach super-chef Steve Waldman.

Special thanks go to the world's best pathologists, Dr. Joseph H. Davis, Miami-Dade County Chief Medical Examiner Emeritus, and Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, Chairman of the Florida Medical Examiners Commission and Chief Medical Examiner for the 10th District of Florida. I'm also indebted to the renowned forensic odontologist Dr. Richard Souviron for his help and friendship.

Attorney Joel Hirshhorn, the Reverend Garth Thompson, and my good friend Renee Turolla continue to do their best to keep me out of trouble. It's no easy job.

The usual suspects, Frank and Angela Natoli, Ann Hughes, Mary Finn, Kay Spitzer, Lloyd Hough, Dale Kitchell, Cynnie Cagney, and Arnold Markowitz, came through, as always, when I needed them. So did Patricia Keen and Howard Kleinberg, along with all the other sharp-eyed, quick-witted, Cuban-coffee-drinking Sesquipedalians.

Raul J. Diaz, former homicide major, private eye, and true soldier for justice, was patient and generous with his time and words. Again.

Two razor-sharp young Miami journalists, Andrea Torres and Stephanie Garry, helped me during the writing of this book. As did Glenn Lane, William Dishong, Norry Lynch, Bart Wever, Marie Reilly, Jerelle Farnsworth, Colleen Rudnet, Cristina Concepcion, and Miami Police Public Information Officer Hermina Jacobson.

My heartfelt thanks go to my longtime friend and agent, Michael Congdon, and to the rare and wonderful Mitchell Ivers, an editor who
can
be trusted.

And a special thank-you to that glamorous redhead Marilyn Lane, my chief accomplice, co-conspirator, and getaway driver.

What a sterling cast of characters.

The old saying is true: Friends will bail you out of jail, but good friends are sitting in the cell next to you, saying, “Damn, that was fun!”