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32
Kirra’s Condo
SATURDAY MORNING
They know you’re Eliot Ness. Do they know you’re Allison Rendahl, too? Doesn’t matter, they want to kill you either way, like they killed your parents.
Kirra swiped her hand through her tangled hair, forced herself out of bed and into ancient sweats. She was brushing her teeth when the voice came out of nowhere—I see the little bitch! Let me do her. Then the words were gone, fast as a light switched off.
She stared at the face in the bathroom mirror, too pale, her eyes too shadowed. She looked afraid and hated it. She knew they wouldn’t stop trying. Jeter had told her the young killer’s name was Todd Winters, with a sheet longer than her arm, but she was his first try at murder. Kirra knew in her gut if Ryman Grissom had come for her himself yesterday, she’d be dead at the bottom of that gulley. She doubted Jeter would be able to trace Winters or his weapons back to Oliveras or Grissom.
She heard the voice more often now, sounding in her head, not a voice, really, but the words, like flashes of lightning. She closed her eyes. She was in very deep trouble. She wished she could speak to Jeter, confess everything, but he was a cop and she’d broken the law. She wouldn’t put him in that position. Kirra thought of her boss, Alec Speers, of other attorneys in the office, but she could no more speak to any of them than she could fly to the moon. She’d never felt so alone in her life. If Uncle Leo were here, she knew she couldn’t keep Eliot Ness from him, and if she told him, he’d take her back to Australia, or put his own life at risk. There was no one else she could tell, without putting a target on their back.
She said to the woman in the mirror, “I know Ryman was one of the two men who murdered my parents. I’m going to find out who the other one was, and put them both in prison.”
I see the little bitch, let me do her.The voice sounded in her mind again, sharp, vicious, and then it disappeared like smoke in a wind. She froze. Who was that second man? Ryman Grissom seemed to be a loner now, but fourteen years ago he’d had a partner.
When Kirra’s doorbell sounded, she flinched. She knew Officer Hendricks was in his car across the street, but he never came in. She didn’t have a gun, but she did have her razor-sharp Benchmade AXIS lock knife she’d used for years. She slipped it out of its pouch and walked quietly to the front door. She looked through the peephole, whooshed out a breath.
She knew that FBI face, it was Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith. Kirra pushed back the dead bolt, unhooked the chain, and opened the door. She hadn’t thought he’d be here this early. She gave him a big smile, actually relieved it wasn’t someone there to kill her. She grabbed his hand, shook it. “You’re a welcome surprise, Agent Hammersmith, even this early on a Saturday morning. Come in.”
Griffin hadn’t expected such an enthusiastic welcome. Kirra stepped out onto the small porch and looked up and down the street before she pulled him in. One neighbor, Mr. Farber, was walking his prancing white poodle and looking at his petunias. She smiled up at Griffin, wanted to throw her arms around him, but instead she said, “Hey, I know it’s early, but maybe you want to go to a movie?”
Griffin looked down at the wild-eyed woman in baggy gray sweats and no makeup, her feet bare, her hair a tangled mess. He watched her slide a wicked-looking knife back into its pouch and slip it into her sweatpants pocket. “The attempt at humor wasn’t bad. I see you’re a bit on edge, but that’s okay, I’m here now. Makes me feel needed. I spoke to Officer Hendricks sitting in his gray Honda across the street, let him know I was here to take his place. I gave him a go-cup of black coffee and a donut, told him to enjoy his weekend. Yep, Agent Savich assigned me to be your second skin, to keep you safe.” There was no reason to tell her why Savich wasn’t here, that Sherlock and Molly Hunt had been taken. He quashed thinking about them. He was now in charge of Kirra Mandarian aka Eliot Ness, and nothing was going to happen to her, not on his watch. He said, “Did Jeter text you about your would-be killer, Todd Winters? It’s a pity, but no real surprise he’s dead. He was a bad seed since the age of eight, when he tried to rob a 24/7 with a water pistol.”
She blinked. “A water pistol? What happened?”
“The Asian woman who owned the store punched him, took the water pistol, and squirted him in the face, but that lesson didn’t set him on the straight and narrow. He escalated from there to auto theft, breaking and entering, you get the idea.” When Kirra didn’t answer him, he said, “Jeter told me you don’t know who might have paid Winters to come after you.”
“That’s right. I’m preparing a list of possibles, people I’ve prosecuted who might want to do me in.”
Griffin said, “You’re pretty new at it, so the list can’t be long.”
“True enough,” she said, “particularly since I plea-bargain so many criminals out you’d think they’d want to throw me a party, not shoot me. Forgive me. Here I am thinking I’m the center of everyone’s universe.”
He stepped into the small entrance hall. She again looked up and down the street before she closed the door. Griffin said, “Let me say you’re now the center of my universe given what happened yesterday. Jeter said you’re an excellent driver and saved yourself. He also told me he’d scour Winters’s phone, his car, and his apartment. Hopefully he’ll find out who paid him.”
She didn’t look like she believed Jeter would find out anything. She was standing in front of him, looking scared yet somehow gallant. He lightly touched her arm. “I’m going to see to it no one’s going to hurt you. Try to trust me, okay? I’m so tough even army boots avoid me.”
Kirra studied his face. She didn’t doubt he was sincere, but he was only one man and he wasn’t a killer, not like Ryman Grissom. It didn’t hurt he looked tough and fit, but she’d learned from her years in the outback you never knew how tough someone was until they showed you. “All right,” she said, nothing more.
Griffin flashed back on Jeter’s text he’d also sent to Savich and Pepper, short and to the point: I HAVEN’T CONFRONTED HER.
As if any of them needed reminding the situation was fraught with potholes. Griffin, like Jeter, hated the ongoing charade.
“You look like you’ve had a tough night,” he said.
“You think?” Kirra looked down at herself, began pulling on a loose thread of her tatty sweatshirt. She looked up at him. She didn’t know where it came from but a laugh burst out of her. “Sorry, I’m a mess. Give me five minutes.” She happened to glance in the mirror beside the living room arch. “Make that fifteen minutes,” and she dashed away, calling out over her shoulder, “Fresh coffee in the kitchen. Help yourself while I go make myself presentable.”
Griffin watched Kirra race down the hall, her tangled hair flying. He walked into her kitchen. It was small, with shiny new appliances and a cozy feel. Her coffee wasn’t bad, not as good as his, but only Savich’s was better. Griffin walked back through a nice archway into her living room, his eyes immediately drawn to the colorful pillows she’d tossed haphazardly on her sofa, itself covered with a South Seas Island print, a bright red chair facing it. Cream painted walls drew in light from four big windows. He saw amazing canvases, at least a dozen, on the long wall framing the fireplace. Each canvas was colorful and intricately rendered, with swirls and squares and dots that seemed to mean something. He was mesmerized.
Kirra said from behind him, “What’s so cool about Aboriginal art is each painting tells a story using symbols. Actually their art is the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world. My favorites are these by Jeannie Petyarre. I met her when Uncle Leo and I were in Utopia—great name, right? It’s a small town in central Australia.”
Griffin tore himself away from the art to the many photographs that covered the mantel and every tabletop in the living room. He turned to her and stared. He’d seen her in her professional getup—suit and heels—and seen her only a few minutes before looking like she’d just rolled out of bed after nightmares hounded her. Now she looked going-to-meet-friends chic—in snug jeans, sandals showing a French pedicure, and a white cami covered with a boxy pale green jacket, probably cashmere. She tossed a purse the size of his two-year-old nephew on a chair.
“You look nice,” he said. Now that was an understatement.
Kirra said, “I’ll take nice as opposed to what you saw when I opened the door for you. Look at that one—that’s my uncle Leo.” Griffin looked at teenage Kirra pressed against a big man’s side, both smiling widely at the camera, both dressed in jeans and T-shirts that said across the front: SURVIVE THE WORST AND APPRECIATE THE BEST. She looked tanned and strong, a pretty girl with promise of becoming a beautiful woman.
