The Next to Die

Directly below, Bonny approached the limo. With the sunglasses and trench coat, she was Dayle’s duplicate. Hank opened the limo door for her.

Across the way, the person talking to the officer a moment ago was now gone. Dayle glimpsed a figure darting around some shrubbery by another building in the complex. Then he disappeared in the shadows.

Something’s wrong, Dayle thought, pressing her hand to the window. Below, Hank was steering the limo toward the exit. At the same time, the police car started to move, but its headlights remained dark.

Dayle remembered Sean mentioning a cop car had been parked in the lot at that cheesy hotel where they were all staying.

“Oh, Jesus, no,” she gasped. She grabbed Sean’s phone out of her purse.

Five stories down, Hank pulled onto the road. The patrol car crept to the lot exit; then the headlights went on—as did the red strobe on its hood.

Dayle dialed the number of her limo. Helplessly, she watched the police vehicle speed up behind Hank, less than half a block from the lot exit. On the third ring, a recorded message told Dayle that the number she’d dialed was no longer in service.

“Goddamn it!” she hissed. She dialed again. Then she looked at the limo, now stopped by the side of the road, the cop car in back of it. One ring. The officer got out of the patrol car. He was reaching for his gun.

Two rings.

“Pick up, Hank!” Dayle hissed. “Goddamn it, please pick up!”

The policeman had his gun out. He approached Hank’s side of the limo.

“Hello?” Hank said, on the other end of the line.

“Hank, it’s a trap!”

The cop was at his window now.

“What?” Hank asked. “Just a minute—”

“No, no, it’s a trap. Please, Hank! Don’t you see?”

She could hear him: “What’s the matter, officer?”

“Hank, get out of there!” Dayle screamed.

“Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, WAIT A MINUTE!”

The noise on the phone was like someone hitting a knife against hollow pipe. A metallic echo. Three times. The cop, or whoever he was, had a silencer on his gun. She heard Hank dropping the telephone.

Dayle could see the cop firing into the open window of the limousine’s front seat. He must have shot poor Hank in the face.

A loud shot rang out. It had to be Bonny firing in self-defense. The cop reeled back, then managed to aim his gun again—this time, at the figure in the backseat.

Over the phone, Dayle heard two more of those metallic echoes. Then a loud pop from Bonny’s gun. The cop retaliated with another two shots.

Still, Bonny must have hit him, because he was clutching his side as he staggered back to his patrol car. He peeled away from the curb, passing her limousine and speeding up the street.

Meanwhile, the limo didn’t move. Dayle could hear moaning on the telephone line. She wasn’t sure if it was Hank or Bonny. But someone was dying.

Sixteen

The 9-1-1 operator told Dayle to stay by the phone.

“I’m on a cellular,” Dayle said. She rattled off the number as she grabbed a couple of towels from Bonny’s bathroom. “I’m headed out to the limo right now. Please, tell them to hurry.”

Dayle threw the phone in her purse and raced down to the lobby. Five floors. She couldn’t wait for the elevator. She ran out to the street. The limo was up ahead, under a street lamp. She could see the beaded windshield-like raindrops, only they were on the inside of the car, and the droplets were blood.

She saw Hank, and let out a strangled cry. He was slumped forward over the steering wheel. A steady stream of blood dripped off the tip of his nose and chin. The limo phone had fallen on the floor—beside Hank’s latest true-crime book.

“You called somebody, I hope,” she heard Bonny whisper.

Dayle opened the back door. “The ambulance is coming,” she said. She swallowed hard at the sight of her friend. The sunglasses had fallen on the car floor. Sprawled across the car seat, Bonny had a laceration above her eyebrow, along her right temple, where a bullet must have grazed her. Under the open trench coat, her pale green sweater was soaked with blood.

Dayle quickly reached into the limo bar and found some bottled water. She drenched a hand towel and pressed it to the side of Bonny’s face. Bonny shivered a bit. “I—I nailed the SOB, Dayle. Got him in the gut. He’ll bleed to death if he doesn’t get help soon.” She winced. “Damn, this hurts.”

“Oh my God, Bonny, I’m so sorry.” Dayle held her hand. “Hang on. The ambulance will be here soon.”

Bonny’s husband, Frank, had on his policemen’s blues. He’d been on patrol when Dayle called 9-1-1. Tall and lanky, Frank Laskey had receding, wiry black hair. At the moment, his blue eyes were bloodshot from crying. His wife was in surgery. He sat beside Dayle in the trauma unit waiting area, a drab room with orange Naugahyde couches, fake plants, and faded Norman Rockwell prints on the walls.

Dayle’s clothes were still stained with blood. She kept her arm around Frank. “She’ll pull through,” Dayle assured him. “Our Bonny’s a fighter. She’ll be okay. Can I get you anything? You want some coffee?”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

She wandered out to the corridor in search of a vending machine. The place might have been mobbed with reporters if Frank’s buddies on the force weren’t guarding the hospital entrances and taking down names. The rumor among the press was that Dayle Sutton and a police officer had been shot.

Dayle had already talked to their chief of surgery on the phone. He’d promised to call in their best doctor for Bonny. Dayle had also arranged for a private room and notified hospital administration to bill her.

It was too late to do anything for Hank. His only family was a married brother in Milwaukee; no close friends except for a book group that met every other Sunday to discuss mystery novels.

Dayle couldn’t afford to break down yet. She hunted through her purse and found Susan Linn’s business card. With a shaky hand, she dialed the number, then got a recorded greeting: “…if you’d like to speak with another officer, press zero, otherwise—”

There was a break in the message. “Lieutenant Linn speaking.”

“Susan?” Dayle said. “Thank God. Listen, this is Dayle. Someone shot my friends. My chauffeur, Hank, he’s dead. And my other friend, Bonny, they shot her too—”

“Hold on,” Susan said. “Calm down, Dayle. Where are you?”

“I’m at the hospital,” she said. Dayle did her best to retell the shooting and keep her composure. “Listen, there’s a place I’d like you to send somebody, okay? Maybe send a whole squad if you can.”

“Where?”

“These people who have me under surveillance, I found out where they’re staying. A friend of mine followed one of them. They’re all holed up in this hotel in the Valley, a dive called the My-T-Comfort Inn. They’re in a bunch of rooms around the back—numbers fifteen through twenty, I think. I didn’t want to tell you about it until I had more information on these guys. I have a private detective working on it. But we shouldn’t wait anymore.”

“I’ll go check out this place right now. From what you tell me, I better give myself some backup.”

“Good,” Dayle replied. “Get those bastards, Lieutenant. Get them before they hurt someone else.”

“I’ve been hit,” Lyle Bender gasped into the pay phone.

“Where?”