girlfriend Tanya.”
Garreth made his way onto the dance floor and tapped Cici’s shoulder. “It’s midnight for you, Cinderella, and probably you, too, Tanya.” He pointed at Cici’s mother by the door.
The two girls exchanged looks of utter disgust and humiliation but left with Cici’s mother. Though to Garreth’s amusement, Mom seemed reluctant to go.
Before leaving himself, he had the French maid from the buffet table cut a slice of cake for Doris that gave her a whole section of castle wall with a window. Turning toward the door with it tucked in a small box the French maid produced from under the table, he met Anna’s daughter Dorothy.
“You should have come in when you brought Mada back,” she said. “You missed her singing.”
Lane came back here instead of lurking out in town tracking him by radio?
“I never realized how good she is. She sang that song that ends with: ‘These precious days I spend with you.’ Jason and Julie and almost every other couple were hugging and kissing, tears in their eyes. Then she brought the house down with that song Peggy Lee sings, ‘Fever.’”
After hearing her sing in San Francisco, then almost snare him into her Grand Tour, Garreth believed it. “Maybe she’ll sing again. Where is she now?”
Dorothy glanced around. “Around somewhere. After singing she started going from table to table visiting. I’ve never seen her so…friendly.”
A strategy to establish her presence here, he bet. While the reception remained in full swing, and it looked a long way from winding down — even the glimpses he had of Anna and Mary Catherine across the dance floor caught no evidence of them folding soon — everyone would assume Lane was somewhere in the room. But if he planted a suggestion for the crowd to call her for another song, could she appear?
“
So much for trying that.
Doris wanted him to check out a possible prowler at Hammond’s.
On the way he dropped off her cake, but only nodded acknowledgment of her beaming delight as he thought ahead to the greenhouses. Yes, all that glass made a tempting target for vandals tonight. It also made an excellent site for Lane to ambush him.
Nerves strung tight, he worked his way around the buildings and through the bushes behind them, with his radio turned down to a whisper, peering into the mist for any movement. Listening hard for breathing, footsteps, for a whisper of branches moving unnaturally. Sniffing the air for Lane’s perfume. He saw no indication of either Lane or prowlers; smelled nothing suspicious; heard only Doris sending Duncan to a Country Club Drive address for reported vandalism. Then as he neared the front of the greenhouses again, he heard shrieks and a roar of exhaust pipes up 282. Scott and company still out and about.
Back in the car and able to relax, he radioed, “No contact.”
“
Collisions could be expected tonight if people did not drive carefully. At least this one reportedly involved only property damage, no injuries. It was probably too much to expect the accident to involve Scott and his Trans Am.
At the Golden Bowling Alley, Garreth found not only no Trans Am but no accident at all…and no sign of vehicles that could have been involved in one. His nerves snapped taut again. The drivers might have left after examining examined their vehicles and deciding the damage was not worth involving the police…or wanted to avoid being brethalized. Or maybe Lane made the call to lure him here…even though he saw no way for her to ambush him. The mist did not reduce visibility enough to keep him from seeing her sneaking or charging toward him.
Still, climbing out the car to examine the ground at the parking lot entrance for skid marks or broken glass, he watched for her. On the car radio, Duncan reported no vandalism at the Country Club Drive address.
A crank call…or one intending to isolate him by sending his backup to the other end of town? If so, Lane made no use of the opportunity. Nothing came out of the mist at him but a Toyota Corolla leaving the parking lot.
Again he reported no contact.
While he parked under a light with the car doors locked and wrote up preliminary reports on Hammond’s and here, he listened to Doris send Duncan to the high school.
Ten minutes later Duncan came on the radio laughing. “
Garreth’s pulse jumped. Lane’s work! With the reception for an alibi and a disguise to hide her identity, she was free to stalk him. “Did the victim have a real machete with his costume?”
“
At least she could not attack him with that. He ought meet with Duncan — avoiding radio traffic Lane would hear — and warn him to approach anyone in a Jason costume with extreme caution, that the individual behind the hockey mask was many times more dangerous than the Jason Voorhees character.
Only, would Duncan believe that? Not likely. So he was probably safer thinking they had a mere prankster. Then if he encountered her, she might just incapacitate him…not kill him as she surely would if he pulled a weapon and acted macho.
“
Another prowler. Maybe for real this time. Maybe Lane.
With every nerve buzzing, he pulled out of the bowling alley lot and up 282 onto River Road…leaving his headlights off, turning his radio down almost to inaudibility. Building up enough speed to just coast into the big parking lot between the sale barn and the rodeo arena to the south, then wince at the crunch of his tires on gravel. To avoid the lighted front of the building, he parked along its side, then turned off the dome light and pulled his ignition key to prevent an interior light or key-in-ignition warning as he opened the door.
Once out of the car, he stood motionless, peering into the mist, listening, sniffing. Nothing moved in the visible area. He heard nothing…smelled nothing but the scent of old manure in the stock pens, and…aerosol paint.
Could he have a merely human prowler, here to tag the sale barn walls?
Garreth cautiously worked his way around the building, circling well out of the light pools in front. Though if Lane were here she saw him anyway. His skin crawled at his visibility while vaulting the six-foot fences. Better risk that, however, than the greater vulnerability while sliding between the pipe rails and possibly hanging up his gear belt. But nothing came at him. Nothing moved but him. He found no paint on the building or fences, and even the paint odor disappeared.
Until he came around the last rear corner and approached his car. Then he smelled it again. Where did it come from?
A slow turn, sniffing to locate the source, came to a sharp halt facing the car. His nerves cranked tighter. The tires on this passenger side had been slashed. Someone was here. Probably watching him. Lane…had to be, for him to detect no one.
Garreth eased he gun out, shielding the action with his body, and holding the gun down along his leg, resumed walking toward the car. The question was how effective it was against Lane. Could a wound incapacitate her long enough to effect a capture?
But the idea of using a firearm brought an icy chill as he thought of the shotgun in the car. Legend said destroying a vampire’s nervous system killed him…so blowing off his head with a shotgun would certainly accomplish that. What if Lane broke into the car for the weapon while he was on the other side of the building.
To his relief, on reaching the car he saw it still in its overhead rack.
Then a stir of air brought an stronger scent of paint. From a definite direction this time…south. He peered across the parking lot into the mist and saw movement by the rodeo arena. Followed a second later by a flat thrum and hiss.
Garreth reacted with all his cop’s training and instincts…leaping for cover around the front of the car. Before he reached it, pain exploded in his right shoulder. Force like a powerful punch shoved him backward even as momentum carried him behind the car. The gun slipped from numb fingers as he fell heavily, bringing even more intense pain that radiated all the way through him, setting his testicles throbbing again and tearing a scream from
