Her smile illuminated the room. She put the knife on top of a dresser near the door, came over, and shook my hand—a good firm shake, about like she’d shake the hand of an insurance agent right after signing up for term life. “Hi. I’m Shanna.”
“Hayes.”
A flicker of distrust again. Her smile dimmed slightly. “How do you know? Danya wouldn’t’ve said.”
“Vince Ignacio told me.”
“Who?”
“Guy called Vince. Probably calls himself Vinny. I chased him out of here eight or ten minutes ago. Him and his camera.”
“I don’t know any Vince or Vinny.”
“Short rat-faced guy with bad hair? In his mid- to late-twenties. A reporter for Celebrity News. He was in the house, snooping around. Just coming out the back door when I showed up.”
She sagged. “Sonofabitch, goddamnit, fuck.”
That pretty much covered all of life’s most useful words. Maybe she’d done a stint in the Navy.
“Where’s Danya?” she asked.
“Dunno.”
“Seriously? She was here when I left. She didn’t say she was going anywhere.”
“Where’s your phone? You two don’t keep in touch?”
“Right here. What’s left of it.” She got an iPhone off the dresser top, or half of an iPhone, shedding pieces. “Yesterday I dropped it in a Raley’s parking lot and some guy ran over it with a pickup truck.”
“That’ll do it.” I looked around the room, trying not to stare at her top because the phrase “dirty old man” was circulating up there in the rafters. Thing is, a jog bra can only hold so much, and hers was about maxed out.
“I called Danya at ten like she asked,” I said. “Got no answer. Twice. I left a message. Then she called back, said there was a creep looking in the windows here, so she went out the back and got lost. Didn’t say why, or why she didn’t call 911 to get the police out here to save the day—”
“Well, fuck.” For a moment, Shanna stared at the floor. “I guess this was bound to happen, or could’ve happened. Maybe I should’ve, I don’t know, done something . . .”
She’d lost me. “What was bound to happen?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She held out a hand. “Can I borrow your phone? I’ve got to talk to her.”
I handed it to her. She dialed, listened for a moment, gave it back to me, shook her head. “Voice mail.”
“She do that a lot?”
“Not if she knows it’s me. She might not answer if she didn’t recognize the number, which I guess she wouldn’t.”
“Now what? Know where she’d go?”
Again, she didn’t answer. She plucked at her halter top, which had a damp V in the cleavage and dark spots beneath her armpits. “I ran down to the gym, that’s three miles, worked out, then ran back. Mind if I get out of this? I need a shower like crazy.”
“Do I look retarded?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “I didn’t mean to put it that way or imply anything, Mr. Angel. Go wait in the living room or something while I get cleaned up. How’s that?”
Mr. Angel? Shit. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
“I’m sure. Good-bye.” She shooed me out.
I went into the living room with stupid thoughts circling in my head. Shanna Hayes had a figure that would stop traffic. Bouncing along the sidewalks between here and whatever gym she belonged to, which is what she would do—bouncing, that is—I thought RPD would classify her as an attractive nuisance and put an end to it to keep the number of fender benders under control. Ignacio had told me I wasn’t in her league, and from his perspective that was about right. She was six feet tall, with short spiky blond hair accented with a fluorescent pink streak on the left side, slender and leggy, terrific skin, beautiful, with the kind of figure that ends up on the covers of magazines and makes millions of high school girls feel perfectly and permanently inadequate.
I peered out the windows again. Still nothing was going on out there in the street. I wasn’t sure why I thought there might be, but Ignacio’s presence had me worried. I had the feeling things weren’t as they seemed around here.
Which is when my phone rang.
I checked the number, then said, “Hola, Danya. So nice of you to check in.”
“You just phoned,” she said tersely. “What do you want?”
“Do you want a complete list or just the top two items?”
“Don’t be funny. What do you want?”
“For starters, how about telling me where the hell you are. We had a date.”
“I’m . . . around. Where’re you?”
“Your place. I chased the Celebrity News creep away.”
Silence. Then: “Celebrity News?”
“Uh-huh. I take it you weren’t expecting publicity or a photo op with a nationally distributed tabloid.”
“Oh, my God. I, uh . . . is anyone else there?”
My gumshoe training kicked in. “Like who, kiddo?”
“Well, anyone.”
“Maybe blond? About six feet tall? Figure not too awful?”
“Oh geez. Let me talk to her.”
“She’s in the shower. I got chased into the other room. And I don’t know if she’s still got that knife with her.”
“Knife . . . ?”
“Bit of a long story. Thing is, right now I’m not welcome in the shower—uh, the bathroom. And my health insurance doesn’t cover avoidable knife wounds.”
“Tell her you’re coming in anyway. Or something. Tell her it’s me. I’ve got to talk to her. Give her your phone, like right now!”
Lot of excitement there, not that I needed to be told twice to pop into the bathroom to give Shanna the phone. Of course, to avoid a reverse Psycho scene in which the girl in the shower with a knife attacks the guy in the bathroom—not an easy thing to explain, if it came to that—this would require some finesse. But, no problem. Having tracked down mom-and-pop tax dodgers for the IRS for sixteen years, I was all about finesse.
I went down the hallway and stood outside the bathroom door, which was open six or eight inches, not a bad sign.
“Hey!” I yelled. “I’m comin’ in, that all right?”
“No! Stay the hell out!”
“Danya’s on the phone. Says
