Pie A La Murder (39 page)

But I had seen only a woman by herself in the other car. We weren’t in a gang area. Exchanging information hadn’t seemed dangerous. For a moment, I’d thought the woman was Tanis Fontaine, the former Mrs. Nicholas D’Martino. We weren’t that far from the Olympia Grand Hotel.

Surprise!
It was Roxanne Redding in a blonde wig.

Light must have been crouched in the back of this car, and slipped out while I was climbing down from the Jeep. With my attention focused on the woman, he’d been able to get around behind me.

Roxanne was driving south, keeping to the speed limit, obeying traffic laws. With my hands tied behind me, my torso secured by the seat belt, the doors locked, and Light beside me with the pistol pointed at my chest, I doubted that even Houdini could have escaped.

I’d have to wait until we stopped somewhere.

Make conversation.
“Where are we going?”

“A place where we can talk,” Roxanne said.

“We can talk here. Why do you have me trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey?”

“Because you nearly ruined everything,” Light said. “You kept Rox busy while your friends searched her house.”

“I realized that when I found some of my things out of place after you left. There was no one else in the house,” she said.

“You sent that girl to spy—”

Roxanne glanced back at us. “That’s enough, Galen. We’re talking too much, like some stupid TV show where everything is explained to the victim.” She turned back to concentrate on her driving. “God, I hate those shows. Idiot scriptwriters who don’t know how hard it is to—”

“To what?”

“Never mind!”

I let a few seconds pass before I said, “Roxanne, those photos you took of Galen—the ones in the box under your bed—they’re beautiful art studies.”

“How did you know they were me?” Light demanded.

Lucky guess
. “Because you have beautiful hands,” I said, suppressing a shudder at the memory of him pawing me. “I saw the photos before we met, but later I remembered them.”

“So that’s why you set the girl reporter on Roxanne. That’s why she was watching us!”

“Shut up, Galen!”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Rox. Who’s she going to tell—Saint Peter at the pearly gates?”

“I might as well,” I said. “You won’t be meeting him.”

He raised his arm to strike me. I flinched, pulling away from him as far as I could—but Roxanne’s voice stopped him before the blow fell.

“Not in the car!” she yelled. “For Christ’s sake, Galen, have some self-control. In another twenty minutes it’ll all be over.”

Up ahead, I saw the Pacific Coast Highway, and the ocean beyond. Little diamonds of moonlight sparkled on its surface. I felt a fresh stab of fear in my chest. Would this be the last night I’d ever see the ocean?

Roxanne turned north onto Pacific Coast Highway and increased her speed.

I was on the opposite side of the car from the ocean, on the land side of PCH. There wasn’t much to see: two- and three-story small apartment complexes; a few single family homes, lights on inside but no one visible; cars in driveways.

Ticking off the time in my head, I figured twenty minutes had passed when Roxanne began to ease up on the gas pedal. She slowed down, and made a sharp turn onto a side road.

Now we were going up. From the way the car bounced I knew the surface wasn’t paved, but I could see that it was wide enough to accommodate one vehicle traveling in each direction. Unluckily for me, ours was the only car on this road.

We passed a signpost. I just caught a glimpse of one word—“Wild”—but that was enough to tell me we were on Wild View Drive.

Now I knew exactly where we were, and what the destination was—and that we would reach it in less than a minute.

All this time in the car, I had been trying to work my hands free, but even though I’d stiffened my wrists to make them a little bigger, Roxanne had tied the knot too tightly. Still, I might have managed it if Light hadn’t strapped me so hard against the back of the seat.

Several narrow roads branched off Wild View Drive. I kept hoping that someone would come out of one of them, see us, and wonder why anyone was going to the top of this popular hiking area
at night
. Maybe they’d wonder enough to stop us and ask.

Dots of soft, steady lights off in the distance signified houses. People inside, but no place was close enough for anyone to hear me scream.

We were traveling up a canyon that was about half a mile north of Malibu Bluffs Cliff, heading to a higher elevation that would dead-end at Malibu Falls. I hadn’t been here in five or six years, but I knew the location because Mack and I had hiked it a few times.

Mack had sung those first few lines of the old song “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” to me on our tenth anniversary, when we were reminiscing about the crazy day we’d made love beside Malibu Falls—and paid for our recklessness with a bad case of poison oak.

I told myself not to retreat into memories
.
Stay in
now
.

Two small, man-made parking areas had been bulldozed into the side of the canyon; each was about the size of a lot in a lower-income housing development. Roxanne passed the first one, but turned into the second and cut the motor.

We were about a hundred yards below Malibu Falls. In the distance I heard the faint sound of rushing water. During Southern California’s many periods of drought, the water would diminish to little more than what would come out of a bathtub faucet, but the heavy rains of a few weeks ago had replenished the falls.

“Last stop,” Light said. He unbuckled my seat belt. “Everybody out. Especially you, Della. This is your last stop, ever.”

The moon was partially obscured by clouds, but there was enough illumination for me to see the grim smile on Galen Light’s face, and the lines of strain on Roxanne’s.

“Your TV fans are going to be sad to lose you,” Light said cheerfully. “When your body is recovered it won’t be in good enough shape for an open casket. Maybe there will be rumors—like with Elvis—that you really aren’t dead.”

Roxanne said, “Please don’t joke about this, Galen.” She untied my hands.

“Thanks,” I said, massaging my wrists.

“I didn’t do that for you.”

“Now don’t get cute,” Light warned me, waving the Glock for emphasis.

Roxanne stuffed the necktie into her handbag. She took out a letter-size envelope, held it up in front of me, and said, “As unhappy as you were, you were thoughtful enough to write a suicide note—typed on a computer that no one will be able to trace. Not to yours, not to any of ours. No one will be able to prove you
didn’t
write this. At some point, the letter will be found underneath your wallet, weighed down with rocks.” Her voice was tense, without inflection, as though reciting something she’d memorized.

“Let’s go.” Light dug the Glock into the small of my back, forcing me forward, up the trail toward the top. Roxanne was beside me, with Light close behind us.

I asked Roxanne, “What was I thoughtful enough to say in the note?”

“You are overwhelmed with guilt because you know Nick D’Martino killed Alec and you can’t go on covering for him anymore.”

“Did I say ‘Nick’?”

“Why?”

“Everyone who knows me knows I never call him Nick. They’ll know I didn’t write the note. To me, he’s
Nico
,” I said, using Tanis’s name for him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Light said. “You were upset enough to kill yourself.”

“That’s a big mistake,” I said, chiding her. “If you want to go back and retype the note, I’ll wait.”

Light gave me another painful jab. “Shut up.”

We were almost at the top of the falls. The sound of rushing water was strong. The moon had come out from behind the clouds, making the scene bright enough for me to see that the three of us were trudging along a path bordered by shiny plants sporting a familiar three-leaf pattern.

Galen Light and Roxanne Redding didn’t seem to know it.

Light was breathing hard through his mouth by the time we reached the top. Roxanne was puffing, too. It gave me a certain feeling of triumph to discover that I was in better cardio shape than the two of them.

After taking in a few deep breaths, Roxanne bent down and put my “suicide note” under my wallet. She found a couple of brick-size rocks nearby and stacked them on top of the wallet.

Light prodded me closer to the edge of the falls. The water flowed out from a cave a few feet below where we were standing, splashed onto several outcroppings of rocks, and finally into a pool near sea level.

It was a long way down.

But if my memory was correct, it wasn’t a
sheer
drop onto the rocks. Not if I could get over to my left . . .

I heard Light’s harsh chuckle before he asked me, “Any last words?”

“Oh, Galen, for God’s sake. Just get on with it.”

He snapped his head around to face her. “Damn it, Rox! I said don’t talk to me like—”

This was my moment! Instead of standing still until Light pushed me over the falls, I gave him a mighty shove into Roxanne. She stumbled backward and he fell on top of her.

Taking my one chance to stay alive, I sprinted to my left—

And JUMPED!

Jumped out into the darkness—praying that what had been there years ago still was there.

Terror at having nothing under my feet but air!

Until I plunged into a thick outcropping of bushes! I grabbed at them, gripping their rough branches. Nettles and thorns pierced the palms of my hands.

I dangled for precious seconds.

My thundering heartbeat was beginning to slow . . . when the bush I was hanging on to moved—and started to pull away from the face of the cliff. Little pellets of dirt from around its base hit me in the face. I bent my head, taking most of the particles of loose earth on the top of my skull.

Then I was going down again, my knuckles scraping the face of the cliff, my feet flailing.

Suddenly, the branches of another shrub slapped me. I grabbed it, clung to it, and regretted every dish of pasta or piece of pie that might have added a few ounces to my hanging weight.

This bush, too, began to move, pulling slowly from where it had taken root.

I looked down and could make out a dark shape a little ways below me: a rock shelf!

Bracing my feet against the cliff, I eased my palms—scraped almost raw from my slide—down the branches. A few agonizing inches more . . .

I released my grip, and dropped.

Oh, please God
. . . I landed on the ledge, fell to my knees, and grasped the edge so I wouldn’t go hurtling over.

The edge was surprisingly smooth. The ledge itself was narrow, but solid. The impact of my body hitting it hadn’t caused a tremble.

Water from the falls sprayed me, soaking my face and hair and clothing. I was about to brush water from my eyes, but remembered the poison oak and put my hands back down.

I strained to listen for voices above me, but all I could hear was the rush of water.

I waited, counting seconds into minutes.

Five minutes. Six. Seven.

Did Roxanne and Light think I was dead? Had they left? Or were they still up at the top, waiting for me to emerge so that Light could shoot me?