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But as Landry’s luck would have it, the painting T and Worm described wasn’t in the gallery show.
So where was it? T. and Worm had said that some blond woman had been working at the back of the art studio last night when Simon had gone in. Their description of her matched the artist’s—Willa St. Clair.
She was the key to finding the painting—and ultimately the disk. And Willa St. Clair was going to tell him. One way or another, Landry would have that disk before the night was over.
As he reached to start the car engine and go after her, he heard a soft tap on his side window. He turned and glanced up, only half surprised to see Zeke standing next to his car.
“What the hell do you want?” he asked as he powered down his side window. “Didn’t Freddy D. tell you to call it a night?”
Zeke smiled. “Change of plans, old buddy.”
* * *
WILLA KNEW she would hate herself in the morning if she didn’t go out with Landry Jones. For the rest of her life, she would think of him, actually building him up in her memory—if that were possible—and always wonder what might have been.
She stopped walking up the block and turned, blinking as she looked back. The BMW hadn’t moved but she could hear the purr of the engine. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw that a man was standing beside the driver’s side talking to Landry.
Now was her chance to just disappear. Take the coward’s way out. Run!
Funny, but that’s exactly what her instincts told her to do.
Pop! Pop! The sound took her by surprise. She stared, unable to move even when she saw the glint of a gun through the windshield, saw the flash as Landry Jones fired two more shots.
The man next to the car staggered back, slammed into the wall and slid slowly down, his head dropping to his chest.
Poleaxed, she stared at the dead man—her first dead man—her mind screaming: Landry shot him! He shot him!
She felt Landry shift his gaze to her and suddenly she was moving, kicking off her high heels and running for her life. She could hear the roar of the BMW engine as he came after her, the headlights washing over her.
A main street was only two blocks away. She could see the lights of the traffic. There would be people around. She could get away, get help. But she knew she would never reach it. The BMW was bearing down on her.
She glanced back and blinded by the headlights didn’t see the man with two dogs on leashes appear out of the darkness off to her right.
The man avoided crashing into her, but she got caught up in the dogs’ leashes and went down hard.
“Are you all right? I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” the man said, sounding distraught as he knelt beside her.
“Help me,” she cried, not yet feeling the pain. “He’s going to kill me.”
“Who?” the man asked, glancing around.
She managed to sit up,
vaguely aware that her hands and knees were scraped raw from hitting the sidewalk. The street was dark. No BMW. No Landry Jones.
Three sets of eyes stared at her at ground level, only one set human. The dogs were big and wonderfully muttlike. The man knelt next to her, looking scared and upset.
Willa began to cry. “That car that was chasing me….”
“It went on past,” the man said.
Her hands and knees began to ache and she saw that her dress that she’d bought especially for the showing was ruined. Her new shoes were back down the street where she’d kicked them off.
“Are you sure the car was chasing you?”
One of the dogs licked her in the face. She put her arm around its neck, hugging it tightly for a moment before she dug her cell phone out of her purse and punched in 911.
CHAPTER THREE
