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Thud, thud, thud! Tiny, hard feet hit in rapid succession.
Pain screamed through his body.
He fell to the floor, knocked senseless, hardly able to stay awake.
“Stop!” Noah ordered.
Through his pain, he saw the muzzle of Noah’s pistol aimed straight at his face. Remmi stood next to him.
“Don’t,” Milo croaked out.
“Jade?” A worried female voice called from a far, far distance. “Jade? Are you up there? Remmi? Is everyone all right?”
The old lady, he thought, his blurred gaze focusing on the tiny Asian woman.
And then she aimed at his thigh again and let loose with a wild cry. He slanted a look at her, and their eyes met.
He saw the pure hatred in her gaze.
“Jade, no!” he heard Remmi cry as the compact woman landed all of her weight on him. Pain screeched up his leg, and he shrieked, writhing, hearing his own bones crack.
“Stop!” Remmi yelled once more, but it was too late.
The viperous woman struck hard. Again.
This time he passed out.
CHAPTER 34
Settler wasn’t satisfied.
She sat at her desk in the homicide department, her eyes gritty from lack of sleep, and she didn’t yet feel that special little glow of gratification she always experienced when a case was closed, even though she’d found a new piece of evidence.
Maybe it was because everyone else in the department seemed to be in a better mood than she was, the hum of conversation and jangle of phones louder today, it seemed, than usual. Or it might be because the phone calls from the press had been non-ending. Or perhaps it was because Tim Vance had given her the once-over and hadn’t bothered to hide his disapproval at her disheveled appearance, even though she’d been up most of the wee hours of the morning bringing a killer to justice.
Pain in the ass.
Knowing she was being petty just because she was tired, she pushed Vance out of her mind and sipped the double espresso she’d picked up on her way to work. The night had ended somewhere around 4:30, and she’d gotten less than four hours’ sleep before she’d walked Earl, left him with the neighbors, and made her way like a zombie through her shower. Then she’d scraped her hair away from her face, snapped it into a ponytail, and dressed in black slacks, black top, and a jacket. Good enough.
She should feel a little more satisfied than she did, though.
Yes, they had Milo Gibbs in the hospital, a guard at his door, and statements taken from his wife, kid, and everyone at the Emerson house. Gibbs had already had surgery on his leg and should be rousing soon. She and Martinez intended to interview him once the anesthesia wore off.
It appeared as if Gibbs was, indeed, the assassin who had killed Karen Upgarde by giving her a little push, either psychologically, physically, or by lacing whatever she was drinking with psychotropic drugs. The autopsy and tox screen would clarify what was in her bloodstream. And, of course, he’d shot Trudie and Ned Crenshaw. She suspected the DNA from the blood found on the trail leading away from the crime scene would no doubt be matched to that taken from his body. Not to mention his killing of the handyman they’d discovered rolled in a tarp in the back of the man’s Kris Kringle van. Then there was the attempted murder of Noah Scott and/or Remmi Storm, and all of the eyewitnesses to that thankfully botched crime and who knew how many more?
But there were still big pieces of the puzzle missing.
From a pile on the corner of her desk, she picked up her copy of I’m Not Me and stared at the distorted picture of Didi Storm on the cover, wondering if Milo Gibbs had killed her. He’d certainly tried . . . or been a part of it somehow. Noah Scott had IDed him as the assassin who had put a bullet through his throat in the desert that night twenty years earlier. And someone had died in that burned-out Mustang. That, too, looked like Gibbs’s work, and the bullets confirmed it, though the male victim was still unidentified. She took another swig from her cup. Somehow, Didi had escaped in her white Cadillac that night, only to disappear the next day. It seemed as if Milo was the killer. But why?
Personal grudge?
Paid assassin?
Martinez showed up at her desk, all smiles in a pressed shirt, slacks, and jacket.
She eyed him and said, “I think I need a wife.”
“Everyone needs a wife,” he agreed. “Wives need wives.”
