She thought she was free, or nearly free. Now she had a fight in front of her.
Noa looked confident; relaxed, even. She remained sitting, with her knees up. Balancing that foam cup. “Imogen Sokoloff?” she said.
Wait. What?
Did Noa think she was Imogen?
Imogen, of course.
Noa had tried to win Jule over with Dickens. And a sick dad. And godforsaken cats. Because she knew all those things would lureImogen Sokoloffinto conversation.
“Noa!” Jule said, smiling, returning to the BBC English accent, her back against the door of her room. “Oh, wow, you surprised me. I can’t believe you’re here right now.”
“I want to talk to you about the disappearance of one Julietta West Williams,” Noa said. “D’you know a young woman by that name?”
“I beg your pardon?” Jule shifted her handbag so it went across her body and wouldn’t easily come off.
“You can cut the accent, Imogen,” said Noa, standing up slowly to keep her coffee from spilling. “We have reason to believe you’ve been using Julietta’s passport. The evidence points to you faking your own death in London a couple months ago, after which you transferred your money to her and took over her identity, possibly with Julietta’s cooperation. But now no one has seen her for weeks. She’s left zero footprint from shortly after the execution of your will until you started using credit cards under her name at the Playa Grande. Does that sound familiar? I wonder if I could have a look at your identification.”
Jule needed to think through all this new information, but there was no time. She had to act now.
“I think you must be confusing me with someone else,” she said, keeping the BBC accent. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to trivia night. Let me get my wallet out and I’m sure we’ll get this all sorted right away.”
She faked as if to look into her bag, and in two steps, she was on top of Noa. She kicked the coffee up from underneath. It was still hot and it splashed in the detective’s face.
Noa’s head jerked back, and Jule swung the suitcase hard. It hit Noa in the side of the skull, knocking her to the floor. Jule brought it up again and slammed it down on Noa’s shoulder. Again and again and again. Noa hit the floor and scrabbled for Jule’s ankle with her left hand while she reached toward her pant leg with the right.
Was the woman armed? Yes. She had something strapped to her leg.
Jule stamped her boot down hard on the bones of Noa’s hand. There was a crunching sound and Noa cried out, but her other hand was still trying to grab Jule’s ankle, to tip her off balance.
Jule steadied herself against the wall and kicked Noa in the face. As the detective coiled back, bringing both hands up to protect her eyes, Jule yanked the leg of Noa’s jeans up.
A gun was strapped to Noa’s calf. Jule pulled it off.
She held the gun on Noa and backed away down the hall, dragging her suitcase as she aimed.
When she hit the stairway, Jule turned and ran down it.
Out the back entrance of the inn, she scanned the trash cans and the cars packed in the back lot. There were bicycles leaning against the back of the building.
No. Jule couldn’t take a bike, because she couldn’t leave the suitcase.
Farther down the hill, the street opened onto a plaza with a café.
No, that was too obvious.
Jule ran through the inn’s parking lot. When she turned the corner of the building, she saw a window into a guest room along the side wall. It was tipped open at the top.
Jule looked into the room.
Empty. The bed was made.
She yanked the screen out of the window and threw it into the room. She pushed her suitcase into the open top—it barely fit—and banged it through the cheap venetian blind. She threw her shoulder bag in and vaulted herself over the windowsill. She scraped her skin going over and landed hard on the floor. Then she shut the window, adjusted the blind, threw her things and the detached window screen into the bathroom, and closed herself in there as well.
The inn was the last place Noa would look for her.
Jule sat on the edge of the bathtub and forced herself to breathe slowly. She unzipped the suitcase and pulled out her red wig. She took off her black T-shirt and put on a white top, then slid the wig onto her head and tucked her hair inside. She closed the suitcase.
