“So Megan’s inside?” Sophia asked, eyeing the place skeptically and walking toward the door, Julia just a step behind.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“Locked inside?”
“Well, of course. Until she comes around . . . I can’t let her out. It would spoil everything.”
“If she comes around.” Sophia was shaking her head. This wasn’t right. And the women who had died, been murdered? “We can’t do this. Julia, really, we can’t lock someone up. I don’t know what I was thinking . . .”
“The same thing I was: about the money.”
The tone of her voice stopped Sophia short. It sounded as cold as this blustery December day.
“Yes, but I was wrong. We both were. We have to find a way to get out of this. We have to work with Megan, explain that we made a mistake, convince her to understand and—”
She felt it then. Something hard against the back of her neck. In an instant she knew. Julia had a gun, the barrel pressed against her nape. Oh, God, no—She swung and started to spin, but it was too late.
The next second, her life swam before her eyes.
* * *
Once they caught up with him, Bruce Porter rolled over like a dead fish. He’d been out of town, visiting his sick brother, he claimed, but was back for the holidays, and the thought of going to prison again was enough to get him talking.
“Look, I don’t want no trouble,” he said as Mendoza and Rivers stood on the front porch of the little bungalow he shared with Andie Jeffries. In stocking feet, he stood on the other side of the screen door, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap. A television was rumbling in the background. “For God’s sake, we’re supposed to go to Andie’s folks’ house in an hour.”
“Just tell us what you know about Gus.”
“Oh, fuck. Give me a sec.” He reached to the side, and Rivers had his own hand on his service weapon, but Bruce was only grabbing his jacket. He slid it on, stepped into a pair of nearby slippers, then pulled the door shut behind him. Huddled under the porch lamp, they stood on the front porch on a street where a few houses were decorated, blow-up Santas and snowmen swaying in the breeze that rattled down the street lined with parked cars, trucks, and SUVs. “Look, I don’t have much time. Andie’s in the shower. We’re goin’ to her folks for dinner in an hour. And anyway, I don’t know much, just that Gus was in some trouble, and he stuck his hand in that tile saw to hide some kind of evidence—a wound, I think.”
“A wound from what?” Mendoza asked.
“A fight, I guess. I dunno. I asked him about it, and all he said was that it was ‘big trouble.’ Well, really he said ‘big effin’ trouble,’ but he used the ‘f’ word, y’know.” He seemed a little embarrassed and looked down a lot, the bill of his cap shading his eyes. “I don’t want no trouble, like I said. I’ve got a good thing goin’ here with Andie, and we’ve got a kid comin’, and I don’t want to blow it. This—whatever Gus is involved in—has nothin’ to do with me.”
“Was he out of town?” Rivers asked and gave him the date of Charity Spritz’s murder.
“I don’t know.” He looked to the side, rubbed a hand around the back of his neck, obviously weighing his options. “Oh, Christ . . . maybe so,” he finally admitted. “Gus had me pick him up at a motel by the airport in Spokane and told me not to say anything to anybody, and so I didn’t.”
“Do you know if he has fake ID? A passport in another name?”
“No . . .” But as he thought about it, he paled. “Oh, shit, I don’t know nothin’ about that.” Rivers could see the wheels turning in his head. “I thought—I mean he said he’d gone to Las Vegas and didn’t want anyone to know cuz he’s got this gambling habit. You think . . . oh, shit!” He let out his breath and adjusted his hat. “You think he killed that reporter woman?” Porter turned in a small, tight circle under the light fixture. “I can’t believe it. I mean . . . holy shit!” And then the true seriousness of the situation hit. “Look, I swear I knew nothin’ about any of that, I just gave the guy a ride, okay?” He looked over his shoulder. “Jesus, I just heard the water go off. She’s gettin’ out of the shower. She can’t know nothin’ about this . . . she’d be so pissed!”
He started to turn toward the door. “Wait a second,” Rivers said. “Does Gus know Sophia Russo?”
“What? Hell yes, we all do. She works at the hotel as a bartender and sometimes does a shift or two at the café and the Christmas shop.”
Mendoza asked, “Do they hang out?”
“I dunno. Not that I know of. Look, I gotta go. Andie can’t find out about this!” With that, he was inside, the door pulled shut behind him.
“A relationship made in heaven,” Mendoza remarked as they trudged through the snow and across the street to the spot where Rivers had wedged his Jeep between a jacked-up Ram pickup and a Dodge minivan that showed spots of rust. “She doesn’t want him to know that she’s talked to us, and he’s afraid
