Ruthless Game (A Captivating Suspense Novel) (17 page)

"Did you know that polar bears are left-handed?" she countered.

"All of them? Think that's where they came up with south paw?"

"You mean from bears that live in the North Pole?" Alex asked.

Greg grinned. "Maybe not. But that's very useful information," he said, sarcastically. "I mean, you never know when you might be fighting a polar bear. Now I know I should stay clear of that left paw."

Alex sat up and crossed her legs. "Versus the fact that a starfish has no brain. Now, that's hugely helpful. I keep talking to them and they don't answer." She spread her arms out. "And now I know why."

"Smart ass," he snapped.

Alex jumped to her feet and started sparring at Roback. "What did you call me?"

"You heard me," he said, holding her off with one long arm.

She ducked under his arm and landed a punch to his gut.

"Ugh," he groaned. He doubled over and Alex looped her leg around his and launched him backwards onto the mat.

A few of the people in the gym clapped and Alex leaned over and helped Roback up again.

"Don't mess with her," he said to the room. They laughed again.

Alex wiped her hands on her shorts.

"You heading home?"

She nodded and had started to speak when she felt someone watching her. She turned and spotted a man standing in the far corner of the gym, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. His face was partially hidden in shadow, but he was clearly looking in her direction. Alex looked away, trying not to make it obvious that she'd seen him. It wasn't so unusual to have a guy stare at her, especially in a gym where she was the only woman.

But she usually recognized them. The gym was dirty and old, not the kind of place that attracted a lot of new people and certainly not the kind of place where someone came to pick up women. And this guy had been around all morning. She'd even caught his eye a few times earlier, but she hadn't seen him do any exercise.

She thought about her attacker. She guessed he was about six one or two, broad shouldered with strong arms and big hands. This guy met that description. She leaned over to stretch and took another look at him. He was still staring.

Greg started to walk away and Alex called him back. "What?"

"Come here," she whispered.

He halted without coming back. "What?"

"Get over here and help me stretch this quad."

Greg ambled back. "Stretch your own damn quad."

She stood up, her back to the guy, and approached Greg. "Don't look now, but there's a guy in the corner."

Greg whipped his head around. "Where?"

Alex grabbed his arm without turning around. "Jesus Christ, you want to scare him away?"

Greg continued to look around the gym. "Scare who away?"

Alex looked back to see that the corner was empty. "Damn," she said, scanning the rest of the gym. He was gone. She saw the door to the men's locker room shut and she ran for it, hearing Greg behind her.

As she reached the door and started to push it open, she heard Greg say, "You can't go in there."

But she did. She pushed the door open and ran in. The room was thick with steam and bodies. She searched the faces for the one she'd seen. A couple of men quickly covered themselves while others whooped and hollered. One snapped a towel at her and another just danced around naked.

Greg grabbed her arm, but she shook herself free. Ignoring the naked man dancing in front of her, she moved around him and looked up and down the rows of lockers. When she didn't find him there, she looked in the shower.

"Christ," one man yelled at the sight of her. "Can't a guy get some privacy?"

She came out of the shower room deflated. Where the hell had he gone so fast?

"You done in here?" Greg asked.

She nodded.

The naked man continued to dance in a small circle around her. When he stopped and gyrated in front of her, she looked down and said, "Can you go ring your little bells somewhere else, please?"

"Nasty," he said, dancing out of her way.

Alex turned and walked out of the locker room and straight for the door.

Greg was on her heel. "You want to tell me what that was all about?"

Alex looked up and down the street, but nothing stuck out. "I thought that was him."

"Him?"

She nodded.

"In the gym?"

She nodded again.

"You think maybe you're getting—"

Alex slapped her hand over his mouth. "Don't say it. Don't say I'm getting soft or paranoid. I'll put your ass on the ground right here. I'm tired, I'm sore, and I think I saw the killer in a fucking cop gym."

"Who you calling a fucking cop?" Greg snapped back with a small smile.

"It's not funny, Roback."

He looked down the street. "I know." They turned toward her car. "Byron's running that print tomorrow. Lou will process the pants as soon as he can. He had something else he had to do first. We'll know a lot more in about twenty-four hours."

She nodded. "I'm going home to take a bath and go to bed."

"You going to be okay?"

"No. Not until this shit is over."

He nodded. "I know. Me, too. I'm going for a run, but I'll beep you if I hear anything from Byron or Lou. Call me if you hear from our man."

"I will." She turned and walked to her car, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder every step. With a quick glance at the backseat, she opened the car and got in. Revving the engine, she put the car into gear and looked out the windshield to see a parking ticket.

"Goddamn it," she cursed.

Yanking on the emergency brake, she opened her door and got out of the car, reaching for the ticket. She snatched it from under the windshield wipers and threw it on the passenger seat. She headed home, too exhausted to think.

As she turned down her street, she wished she were relaxed. Instead, though her muscles ached, she still felt wound up. Maybe the bath would help. She pulled into her driveway and got out of the car, grabbing the parking ticket as she did.

Inside, she dropped her gym stuff on the floor of the laundry room, checked her messages, and sorted through her mail, tossing the junk out. She tore open the remaining mail, all bills, and started to put them on top of the parking ticket when something caught her eye. Dropping the mail, she lifted the parking ticket by its corner and twisted it upside down. On the side where the officer checked a box for the offense and fine, someone had attached a photograph. Looking closely, Alex could tell it was a picture of her car. Exhaling, she studied the street, knowing where it was going to be. And it was. Loeffler's street. A small red date in the corner of the print confirmed it.

Squinting, she could just make out the form of herself in the driver's seat. She stared at the parking ticket form. In neat print, her car's license plate, make, and model had been filled out in the appropriate spots. The violation was parking in a spot reserved for emergency vehicles on Yolo Avenue, and the fine was $250. The time read 3:57 a.m. She studied the officer's name and badge number, but they were both completely illegible. She'd gotten a ticket that night? It was impossible.

The copy that got filed with the station was gone. She looked back at the picture, searching for the red curb. There wouldn't be emergency parking on this street. She closed her eyes. The photo had to be real, but the ticket was almost surely a fake, wasn't it? She blew her breath out. Either way, she was screwed.

If the ticket was real, it wasn't going to take long for someone in the department to realize she'd been there. If it wasn't real, then how had the killer gotten a parking ticket form? Unless the killer was a cop. A cop. As the thought echoed in her head, she stood motionless in the middle of her kitchen, slowly looking around. "What the hell happened that night?"

Chapter 13

The room was cold and damp, wet almost.

It reminded her of playing in the morning when the dew collected in the long blades of grass, moist against her skin. She and Brittany and James would roll down the small slope in front of the house. Roll, then run to the top and roll again, until their jeans and T-shirts were wet and covered in grass stains.

Grass had the smell of summer and sun and play, but this place didn't smell like any of those things. It smelled musty like the basement. Only it was colder here—much colder. She shivered and turned her face. There was another smell—spicy, sort of like her dad's smell. She sniffed again. She smelled her daddy.

"What do you think you're doing?" the man said again.

Scared, she looked around. Was that her daddy? It didn't sound like her daddy. Why was he so mad?

"What do you think you're doing?" he screamed.

Confused, she shook her head. Why was he yelling? She couldn't help the shaking. She gritted her teeth, gnashing them against each other.
Stop moving,
her mother always scolded in church. But she couldn't stop.

She heard a loud pop and fell back against the cold floor, knocking her head. Scrambling up, she covered her ears and cried with the others.

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Alex sat upright in bed. She touched her face. She'd been crying. She hadn't cried in years. What was happening?

Red and blue lights shone in strange stripes and flashes across her bedroom as she rubbed at her arms, trying to stop the incessant shaking. The dream was hazy as she tried to pull it back—a man and a gun were all she remembered.

Had she dreamt about Loeffler? She shuddered.

Suddenly awake, she recognized the lights and heard the scream of sirens. The house was on fire! She leapt from bed and descended the stairs in twos.

The pounding on the front door caught her as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Bring those men up here. We're going in!" a man's voice commanded.

"Greg," she shouted, running to the door.

"Alex," he screamed back, pounding again. "Are you okay?"

She pulled the door open and Greg rushed in, spinning around the room as though he were expecting someone to jump him. Two patrol officers, Rodney and Schade, rushed past him into her house, their guns drawn. One ran up the stairs, his shoes pounding against the hardwood.

Before she could react, Greg took her by the arms and shook her. "Where is he?"

Alex shook her head, too confused and startled to answer.

"Where's the fucking pervert?" he asked, his teeth clenched in rage.

"What are you talking about?" she finally managed.

Dropping her arms, he crossed to the kitchen, looking around before glancing back at her. His brow was set in a long straight line you could balance a knife on. He ran up three of the steps and looked upstairs and then came back. "Where's the guy? He was here."

Her knees sank beneath her as though the bone had suddenly turned to softened candle wax. "Here?" she choked.

Greg took her by the hand and sat her on the stairs.

The officers reappeared. "Place's unpeopled," Rodney said.

"You had us scared," Schade added.

"I'm fine," Alex said, embarrassed. How close had he been this time?

Greg nodded. "Check outside and get someone over here to dust for prints."

The officers started to walk away.

"And can one of you pick up Gamble? He's handling a missing pet over at Blake and Fulton," Greg added.

Matt Schade chuckled. "That sounds like Gamble's speed."

"You'll handle it?"

"No problem, Roback." The officers left, exchanging soft conversation as they shut the door behind them.

Alex glanced down at her bare legs and imagined the fear and tears on her face, refusing to think about what they would be saying at the station. Her heart had finally slowed, and she took a deep breath. "What just happened here?"

Greg sank to the stair beside her, his thick hair messed, his shirt untucked. "I was about ten blocks from here when I heard your call. I came as fast as I could."