Killer in High Heels

door off to the right. I tried the knob. Unlocked. I’d been expected.

I took one more deep breath for good measure and slowly pushed the door open. I felt around on the wall until my fingers came up against a light switch.

The interior of the warehouse was filled with tall metal shelves like the ones Mom had in her garage for storing Christmas decorations and Tupperware tubs of my childhood mementoes. They spanned from floor to ceiling, each filled with big cardboard boxes. Exposed pipes and ducts ran the length of the ceiling and the same corrugated metal decor covered the walls. It gave the feeling of being in a huge tin can. With about the same acoustics.

“Hello?” I called out, hearing my voice echo back to me in triplicate. No answer. I gingerly took a few steps inside, my platforms sounding like firecrackers on the cement floor.

I walked to the metal shelf nearest the door and, with a quick glance over my shoulder, pried open a box on the lower shelf. Inside it were a dozen smaller boxes. Shoe boxes.

I gingerly pulled one out. Michael Kors. I’d love to say I slipped it back in and left it at that, but of course, I couldn’t resist. What can I say? I’m my father’s daughter. I popped open the lid. A perfect copy of last season’s snakeskin pumps in chocolate brown, right down to the brass-buckle detail on the face. I had to remind myself they were fakes to resist trying them on right then and there.

But the sound of tires crunching on the gravel outside snapped me out of it fast enough. I quickly replaced the lid and turned down the flaps of the box, taking two giant steps away from the shelves as the sound of a car door slamming shut echoed throughout the warehouse. I skittered across the cement floor, stepping back outside. And into Felix’s line of vision. If we were going to get any decent shots at all, the exchange had to take place outside.

A black Range Rover had parked next to the Neon. (Apparently they were prepared for the rough terrain.) Two men in black suits stood beside it, both wearing tinted aviator glasses and looking like bad imitations of the Men in Black. I was about to approach them when a third man stepped out of the car. He was smaller than the other two, his suit a gray color, though he wore the same tinted glasses. Must be standard Mob issue. In addition to the eyewear, he was sporting more gold jewelry than Joan Rivers, including a large gold medallion around his neck and pinky rings on each hand. His hair was slicked into a perfect black helmet over his too-big-for-his-body head. All in all, the only things missing were a pair of shoe spats and an Uzi and he’d be the spitting image of the Italian family man.

The three of them slowly approached me, the Men in Black flanking Shortie.

“You have something for us?” the little guy asked, his voice a dead ringer for Joe Pesci as he gestured to the crocodile bag clutched in my vise grip.

I nodded, clearing my throat to make my voice as low as it would go. “Yes,” I answered.

Shortie took off his glasses and squinted at me. “What’s with the veil?” he asked.

My panic meter rose about fifty notches. “Uh…I’m in mourning.” I lowered my eyes to the ground. “Hank passed away.”

Shortie nodded, pursing his thin lips together. “I heard about that. Tragedy.”

Somehow I had the feeling these guys encountered “tragedy” on a regular basis. A thought which did nothing to lower my panic reading.

But instead of saying anything, I just nodded again.

Shortie motioned to the bag and the taller Man in Black stepped forward to take it from me. His hand brushed mine as he did, sending a cold fear prickling up my neck as his tinted eyes settled on my face.

I cleared my throat again and studied my shoes, hoping he mistook my fear for grief. For one long, terrible moment, I thought the jig was up. He’d seen through my woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman ruse and I’d soon be swimming with the fishes. (Or freezing with the peas, as the case may be.) But instead of fitting me for cement slingbacks, he took a step back into formation beside Shortie and opened the bag. Shortie took a quick peek inside, pushing the bundles around to check that I hadn’t slipped a hundred on top and filled the rest with hay. He nodded at Goon Number One, apparently satisfied.

Shortie turned back to me. “You tell Monaldo that we’s sorry about his associate’s untimely passing,” he said, just two notes short of sincere.

I nodded.

Shortie kept his eyes on my face for one more agonizing beat, then slipped his glasses back on, apparently satisfied.

I felt every muscle in my body sigh in relief as he walked back to his car. Goon Number One held the back door open for Shortie, then got in the backseat himself as Goon Number Two got behind the wheel.

Adrenaline-laced sweat dripped down my back, but I stayed rooted to the spot as I watched them do a three- point turn and drive back down the dirt road. What do you know, I was good at undercover work after all. No dead bodies. No angry mobsters. Not even a cranky cop to muddy the waters. I felt glee rising up in the back of my throat as I pictured the look on Ramirez’s face when I handed him the proof that would crack his case wide open. Not so girly now, huh?

I squelched the urge to jump for joy, lest the Men in Black see me victory dancing in the rearview mirror. Instead, I waited until their taillights disappeared down the road, then waved in Felix’s general direction.

I could have sworn I saw the flash of his camera lens in response against the dark night sky.

But that was the last thing I saw.

A crack of thunder exploded inside my head and the desert landscape instantly folded in on itself as the ground rushed up to meet me.

Then everything went black.

Chapter Nineteen

Once when I was in college at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, I went out with a group of my friends after spring finals. Linda, who was majoring in film production and had just landed a job with Dream-Works, suggested we go to the Golden Gate Club to celebrate. She insisted news like a DreamWorks job called for Apple Pie shots. This sounded like a great idea to me considering a) I’d just spent the last three nights staying up until two A.M. writing essays about the difference between a kitten and stiletto heels, and b) who didn’t like pie? That is, until I realized that Apple Pie shots consisted of schnapps, followed by vodka, followed by more schnapps. I’d like to say I had a wild night to remember. Only I couldn’t. Remember it, that is. The last clear memory I had of that night was showing some guy named Snake how I could touch the tip of my nose with the tip of my tongue.

I woke up the next morning with stale gym socks breath, sandpaper tongue, and Tommy Lee drumming a pounding beat between my ears. It was the Brangelina of headaches, the Mt. Everest of headaches, the worst aching-eyes, throbbing-temples, ringing-ears, pounding-head, so-bad-you-want-to-throw-yourself-in-front-of-a-bus- just-to-stop-the-pain headache to end all headaches.

And this was worse.

I groaned, the pressure of a sixteen-wheeler pulsating through my brain with every breath I took. My mouth felt scratchier than polyester pants in August and my eyes ached like they’d been glued shut. I slowly did a mental check of my person, wiggling first my toes then fingers. All ten of each seemed to be functioning. Though, as I moved on to wriggling my hands, I noticed they didn’t have quite the range of motion I was used to. Mostly because they were bound together. I rubbed my wrists together and something sharp and plastic bit into them. Ditto my ankles. I wiggled my butt, feeling a hard, cold floor beneath me.

I gingerly opened one eye then the other. It was dark and I continued the painful practice of blinking, trying to bring the shadows into focus. It looked like I was in some sort of storeroom. Cardboard boxes were stacked along the walls and a couple of empty wardrobe racks sat off to one side. I could hear a steady thump, thump, thump of music from somewhere just beyond the plaster walls, echoing through my head, where I felt a serious goose egg trying to take hold.

“Hello?” I called out. Okay, I should say tried to call out. It was more like a pathetic little squeak, my throat drier than my mother’s elbows in January. And, I realized, useless. Over the music no one could hear me anyway unless they were in the same room.

As I sat there, immobile, slowly letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, I tried to remember how I got here. Or,