Swingin' in the Rain (19 page)

  “Come in!” I shouted. Kathy popped her head in. “Hi there! Come on in. Thanks so much for doing this. Crazy day!”

  “Sure, no problem.” She sounded like it was a problem, though. She put her make-up kit on the counter and pulled out a wet sponge. “Spread your legs, please.”

  I assumed the position. Hands on hips and parted legs.

  “Whoa! That’s cold! Never quite get used to it.”

  Kathy proceeded to work in silence. While I proceeded to grill her.

  “So that was crazy, huh? Patti being here? How is she anyway?” Kathy was a sphinx. I pressed on. “She was here this morning. You left her a pass?”

   “Oh. Yeah.” She took the sponge and wiped it over the back of my thigh.

  “Aghhh! Cold!”

  “Sorry.” Not.

  I turned to face her and taking the sponge out of her hand I looked her straight in the eye and asked, “Where is she, Kathy?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Did she come here to borrow money? Or your car? Or maybe you gave her your apartment key?”

  When her head snapped up I knew I’d hit it. I thought Patti had ditched us at the club and left town, but she had apparently needed a place to hide out.

  “Come on, Kathy,” I said. “You know Patti’s in trouble. She could get you in trouble, too. Are you letting her stay at your place?”

  She looked down. “I asked her what was going on, why she needed a place to hide out. I mean, why had she quit so suddenly, what was she running from?”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Some BS story about an old boyfriend stalking her

  and that she needed a place to hide.”

  “Did she tell you that was why she quit her job, too?”

  “Well. . .yeah.”

  “You think Patti’s the type to let some creepy ex-boyfriend make her quit her job and hide out?”

  “No, I didn’t think so, and then she said something else kind of weird.”

  “What?” Kathy hesitated so I repeated the question only stronger this time. “What? It’s important, Kathy.”

  “She said, ‘they found me’. When I asked her what that meant she just shook her head. She looked really scared.”

   “She’s in trouble, Kathy, but it’s not a stalker she’s hiding from. It’s a killer.”

  “A . . . what?”

  “She knows something about who killed my ex-husband, Randy,” I said. “She needs to be found by the police before the killer finds her. She needs to help us—the police catch the killer.”

  “OmiGod!”

  “If she’s at your place, and you go home,” I said, “you could be in danger, you know.”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything—I don’t know any--“

  “The killer doesn’t know that,” I said. “Look, you know I’m dating a police detective, right?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Well, tell me the truth and I’ll have him take care of it. I swear, you’ll be safe.”

  She thought about that.

  “You won’t be betraying Patti, Kathy,” I said, softly, “you’ll be helping her.”

  “She’s—she’s not at my place. She’s at my folks’ townhouse. They’re in Europe. I—I gave her the key. She said it would only be for a day or two.”

  “Tell me the address, Kathy,” I said. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to her, or you.”

  “Are—are you sure she won’t be mad?” Kathy asked.

  “She might be mad,” I said, “but maybe she won’t be dead.”

  Haltingly, she gave it to me. It was in the flats of Beverly Hills, bordering Century City.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  While throwing my street clothes back on, I called Herbie and told him I had a family emergency. It wasn’t a total lie. Patti wasn’t family but this WAS an emergency.

  In my car, once I cleared the parking lot, I Blue-toothed Jakes.

  “Alex?” his voice came over the speaker. “What’s going on?”

  “I saw Patti leaving the studio this morning,” I said, “I tried but I couldn’t stop her. Turns out she was here to see Kathy, in make-up. They’re friends.”

  “And?”

  “She’s got the keys to Kathy’s parents’ townhouse. She told Kathy she needed to hide out for a couple of days. That ‘they had found her’.”

  “They? Did she say who they were?”

  “Not that Kathy said. It can’t be good though.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I have the address and I’m on my way over there.”

  “Give it to me,” he said. “I’ll meet you. And Alex?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Stay in your car. Don’t do a thing until I get there!”

  I pulled onto the street where Kathy’s parents had their townhouse. When I spotted the numbers I slowed down. I parked a few doors down and settled in to wait for Jakes. The townhouse was brick, with a staircase up to the front door.

  I was only there a few minutes when I noticed a man walking toward the townhouse. I tried to get a look at his face but he kept his head down, only looking around from time to time. I hadn’t seen a car pull up so I had no idea where he had come from. He could be a salesmen—or Jehovah’s Witness--I guess but something about him made my antennae go up. He looked strangely familiar. My heart caught in my throat. He looked like the guy that approached me on Mulholland, at least in stature and hair color. As he started running up the brick stairs I looked closely at his shoes. I couldn’t tell from where I was if he was wearing cowboy boots or not, but the tips did seem blue.

  As I watched, he reached the door and looked around. I laid down on the seat of my car just in case he caught sight of me. I was afraid to raise my head but slowly I peeked out from behind my dashboard. He was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t sure if he had left or if Patti let him in. Or, God forbid, if he had forced himself in. I didn’t know what to do. Where the hell was Jakes?

  It was only a few seconds later when the guy came out, dragging Patti with him. She was not really resisting, but clearly looked terrified. I started dialing Jakes when I saw her suddenly trying to yank her arm from his grasp.  She grabbed the wrought iron banister at one point, halfway down the stairs, and he tried pulling her free. When he couldn’t he hit her, and that’s when I dropped my phone and jumped out of my car.

  I didn’t do it consciously. If I had, maybe I would have gone into my trunk for a tire iron or something. No, even when I thought about it later I didn’t remember opening the door and getting out. All of a sudden I was just on the street, running towards them.

  “Hey! Hey!” I yelled. “Leave her alone!”

  They both looked over at me and then Patti yelled, “Alex!”

  They froze for a moment, and then he started trying to pull her again. She held on for dear life. I reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up. Our eyes met and he knew I recognized him. It was definitely the guy I had seen that night on Mulholland. He was a big man, bigger than I even remembered. But there was no question about who he was. There was no cowboy hat, but he had on those turquoise tipped boots.

  “Let her go, damn it!” I said, and started up the stairs. Now, I did remember doing that later, but I couldn’t have said why.

  Patti was holding the banister with one hand and beating on him with the other. When I reached them I was confused as to what to do. I’d never punched anyone in my life. Except when I was acting. At first I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him off her. He was too strong. When that didn’t work I punched him, first on the arm a few times, and then I hit him on the head. All that did was hurt my hand.  Like I said, he was a big man.

  He had a look of complete indifference as he swatted at me with one arm, knocking me back. It was as if he didn’t consider me a danger, at all. And that pissed me off. I summoned up my inner Ninja and lacing my fingers together, formed a club with my hands. I hit him as hard as I could on his back, just below his neck. That got his attention.

  “You little bitch. I’m gonna take care of you once and for all.” He spat at me, as he turned to face me. And I do mean spat.

  I wiped my face off as I backed away from him. He was reaching for me, forgetting Patti for the moment. I grabbed for the other banister as I felt my heel slip on the edge of a step.

  Then I was falling.

  I landed at the bottom of the stairs. As I watched, he stopped trying to pull her from the banister. He looked at me and for a moment I thought he was going to come after me. Then he took something from his pocket, and jabbed Patti with it.  Abruptly she released her hold and grabbed her stomach.

  He had stabbed her, and now he was coming down the stairs towards me.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  He ran down the stairs at me, the bloody knife poised in mid air. I put my arms up in front of my body thinking he was going to stab me like he did Patti. Just then I heard a voice cry out.

  “You leave those girls alone you big bully!”

  He turned toward who was yelling at him then looked back at me. I thought I was going to be next. He surprised the hell out of me when he leaped over me. I wanted to turn to see where he’d gone, but right behind him, Patti was tumbling down the stairs. Before I knew it she was on me and we were tangled on the sidewalk.

  I heard a car starting down the block and then pulling away from the curb. I untangled myself from Patti and then rolled her over to see if she was alive. She was, her face etched in pain.  She was wearing a white blouse, now soaked with blood.

  Another car screeched to the curb and Jakes jumped out.

  “Alex, damn it—“

  “Patti’s been stabbed! Call nine-one-one!” I shouted. “It was him! The guy from Mulholland.  I recognized him. He just drove off.”

  “Take your jacket off and put pressure on her stomach!” I could hear him telling the emergency operators the address where we were as he jumped back into his car and pulled away.

  I quickly pulled off my jacket and pressed it to her wound, trying to stop the bleeding. She was losing consciousness.

  “You’re going to be okay, Patti.” I stroked her forehead, trying to reassure her. Her eyes fluttered a few times and then she passed out. “Oh, God! Please be all right.” I whispered to myself.

  Jakes got back to us just as the ambulance arrived.

  “I couldn’t find him,” he said, crouching over us.

”Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Patti passed out.”

  “Keep pressure on that . . .” he said.

  We tried to staunch the flow of blood. We kept talking to her hoping maybe she’d come to, but she was out cold. When the ambulance came they quickly put her in the back. I jumped in with her. I felt like it was the least I could do. After all, I was indirectly responsible for what had happened.

  “Alex?” Patti said, reaching her hand out, struggling to come to. Her voice was muffled by the oxygen mask on her face.

  I looked at the attendant, and he nodded, so I moved next to her and took her hand. She held my hand tightly all the way to the hospital. I leaned over her, telling her she was going to be all right.

  When we got to Cedar Sinai Hospital, attendants hurriedly wheeled her into the emergency room. Jakes was there ahead of us, and he made a doctor come look at me.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You’re bleeding, Alex,” Jakes said.

  “I am?” I looked down, saw that my sleeve was torn and red with blood. Also, my knees had been skinned. I weakly looked at Jakes and said, “You should have seen the other guy.”

  A nurse took me into an examining room. And then in walked an incredibly gorgeous man. Apparently this was my doctor. And apparently I was going to be okay if I was noticing his good looks.

  “Hi, Alexis. I’m Dr. Hart. What happened here?” he asked as he checked out my skinned knees.

  “Oh, no biggie. I fell down a couple of stairs.”

  “Really? Fell down some stairs, huh.” He pushed my bangs aside. “What about here. Does this hurt?” He asked touching my forehead.”

  “Not much, no. I’m okay.”

  “Wow, you’re a tough one, aren’t you?” He smiled and showed off dazzling white teeth. This guy should be on television I thought to myself, not wasting his time saving human lives.

  He cleaned up my scrapes and wiped my forehead with antiseptic. When I was bandaged he said, “Sit here for a little while.”

  “How’s Patti?” I asked. “The woman I came in with?”

  “I’ll check for you,” he said, “but I want you to sit here for a minute or two. It looks like you may have hit your head when you fell, so stay put. I don’t want you keeling over.”

  “Okay.”

  As he left, Jakes came in.

  “How’s Patti?” I asked him.

  “They’re working on her,” he said, taking my hand. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” I was sitting up on an examination table, my legs dangling, bandages on my knees and elbow. I had a bump on my head right at my hairline, but I hadn’t been cut there.

  “Alex,” he asked, “what happened?”

  “What happened is I almost got Patti killed.”

  “Start from the beginning . . .”

  So I did, from the moment I had pulled up to the curb in my car . . .

  “. . . maybe,” I finished, “if I hadn’t run to be a hero and got myself involved, he wouldn’t have stabbed her.”