is shaking a tire iron at me in a threatening way and displaying obscene gestures. In fact, he tried to run me off the road. Please help.”
Nina stared at Gretchen.
“No, he’s too close to read his license number.” Gretchen gave the dispatcher her location. “He’s driving a blue Chevrolet. Me…?” Gretchen hesitated, searching the cars ahead of her and spotting a likely candidate. “I’m driving a yellow Mercedes convertible. We’ll be passing Twenty-fourth Street soon.”
A few minutes later, Gretchen heard sirens in the distance. Without signaling, she abruptly pulled over on the shoulder of the street, startling Matt, who had no recourse other than to continue on ahead of her. He slowed, then pulled over when he heard the siren and saw the lights looming behind him.
“Imagine his surprise,” Nina said, watching the police vehicle slide in behind Matt’s car.
Gretchen pulled back onto Lincoln and drove past the startled detective, who was already out of his vehicle flashing his badge at the responding police officer. “We don’t have much time to make our getaway,” she said, adapting a choice word from Aunt Gertie’s repertoire. “He’ll be after us as soon as the police officer realizes who he is.”
“I didn’t know you had it in you,” Nina said, incredulous.
Gretchen smiled wordlessly.
Nacho streaked down the street with Gretchen in hot pursuit and Nina somewhere behind in the Impala. She wore her favorite running shoes in anticipation of this exact scenario. Best of all she had surprised him instead of the other way around. She had seized the advantage and was right on his heels.
But she had yet to figure out how to stop him, short of a full-body tackle, because she really didn’t want another broken bone.
She was so close behind him that his smell filled her nostrils, ripe body odor and dirty clothes. And fear. She smelled his fear. Even though she had never smelled fear before, she knew this was it, the same way any predator knows the smell. She’d had her share of fear last night. It was his turn.
Passersby looked on in astonishment as the two darted down the sidewalk clogged with people heading for work. A dog barked. Gretchen reached ahead with her good hand and tried to get a grip on the back of his shirt. He squealed and wrenched away.
How to stop him? She might have an uncanny new inner strength, but her dull mental processing could use some sharpening. Suddenly the answer came to her.
“Daisy’s hurt,” she managed to call out through bursting lungs. “She had…” Gretchen puffed. “… a car accident. She’s in the hospital.”
She sensed him wavering, an almost imperceptible change in his speed.
“She needs you.”
Nacho slowed to a trot, and Gretchen forced herself to be patient. Don’t grab at him. Let him come to you now.
He twirled, still moving, backwards. “You’re lying.”
“No, she was driving my mother’s car.” Gretchen saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. He knows, she thought. He knows about the car but not about the accident.
“She’s hurt badly. I can take you to her.”
She pulled her cell phone from a clip on her belt. She had planned ahead to keep her hands free from the burden of a purse. The clip was Nina’s idea to allow her freedom to move. Gretchen wished she’d thought of it sooner.
“We’re ready,” she whispered into the phone.
From the corner of her eye she saw Nina’s Impala pull up to the curb, and Nacho warily slid into the backseat, tensed to make a run for it if necessary.
Gretchen slid in right behind him, leaving Nina alone up front to taxi them to the hospital. “You’re traveling light today,” she said, “Where’s your bag and Daisy’s shopping cart?”
“At my place,” he said. “Like it’s any of your business.”
“My place?” He had a place?
“Take Sixteenth Street,” Gretchen advised Nina. “We don’t want to run into our persistent detective friend.”
They drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence, a dubious expression on Nina’s face. The windows were rolled down to disburse the rank air. Nacho stayed alert, one hand on the door handle. Gretchen sat on an angle, eyeing Nacho in case he decided to make a swift exit.
The critical care receptionist scrunched her nose and gaped at Nacho. Her eyes flicked up and down his body suspiciously, taking in the protrusion on the side of his head, but her expression lightened when she recognized Gretchen.
“Your mother’s feeling better today,” she said, still operating under mistaken identities. “She’s awake.”
“We’d like to see her,” Gretchen said, well aware of the family-only rule and seizing the opportunity to bypass it without having to explain that Daisy’s next of kin was an imaginary movie producer.
“Only for a few minutes. The doctor will be in soon.” She studied Nacho. “Is he family?”
“Uncle Nacho,” Gretchen said. “And this is Aunt Nina.”
“You have quite a family,” the receptionist said, unaware of the hostile glare Nina shot at Gretchen. “Room three twelve. Only one of you in the room at a time. We don’t want to tire the patient.”
The critical care unit was a formidable place, capable of intimidating the most resilient visitor. The air buzzed with activity in spite of the hushed atmosphere.
After finding the right room, Gretchen cast a look down the hall and, after making sure they weren’t watched, motioned to Nina and Nacho to follow her in.
Daisy, encased in white bedding and bandages, looked like an octopus, tentacles of plastic tubing rising in the air.
She opened one eye and smiled when she saw Nacho standing in the doorway.
“Look at this,” she said. “The show is sold out on opening night. Hello, fans.”
“You gave me a scare,” Nacho said, moving close and taking her hand. “I worried about you when you didn’t come back.”
“We all worried about you,” Nina said.
“This is like a fancy resort for me,” Daisy said. “Three squares a day and a button for room service. I might learn to like it here.”
Nacho continued to hold her hand.
“Did you tell them?” Daisy asked him.
“Not yet.” Nacho’s face softened.
“It’s time to tell them. They’re her family,” Daisy said.
Nacho blew out a sigh and turned to Gretchen and Nina.
“Caroline flew out on a plane right after Martha died,” he said. “She didn’t want to leave a trail, so I moved her car away from the airport. She gave me a credit card, and I drove it to Cave Creek and used the card to fill up the gas tank. I did it just like she said.”
“Where did she go?” Gretchen asked.
“She said she had to take care of something important that involved Martha. She wouldn’t tell me anything more than that.”
“How do you know my mother?” Gretchen asked. “And why would she ask you to help her?” She didn’t say the obvious, that Nacho had little to give in the way of support.
“Martha trusted her. That was good enough for me. You’ll have to ask her yourself why she came to me.”
Gretchen eyed Nacho. Unkempt, a knob on his head sprouting up like a cactus through the dry desert earth, defiance in his stance. “Do you know there’s a warrant for her arrest? The police think she may have killed Martha.”
“That’s not true.”
“What about the doll trunk?” Nina said.
“She left a bag in the backseat of her car. She told me to open it and follow the directions she had written on the picture.”
