High-Heeled Alibi

She reached for the radio’s buttons, the quiet she usually sought seeming unnaturally still. As she clicked the radio’s on button, she heard a voice, but it did not come from the speakers. It came from directly behind her. A voice she’d heard before. A voice she’d never expected to hear again.

“Beautiful day to be alive, isn’t it, darling?” Michael James observed from the car’s backseat.

Chapter Three

The hell with control. Bitsy screamed so loud the windows vibrated.

In the rearview mirror, the man winced. “Is that necessary?”

She screamed again, louder and longer.

The man rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s not really helping matters.”

She slammed on the brakes and grabbed the door handle. At the same time, the man’s broad hand snaked from behind the seat and snapped down the lock button.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

She twisted her head, meeting the man’s eyes.

“I’m one of the good guys,” he said. His lips parted in a thin smile, the mouth sensual with a touch of cruelness.

Her fear intensified. “Not according to your APB.”

His smile faded, leaving his features gray and drawn. “Just drive,” he ordered.

She faced front. Her hands gripped the steering wheel as if it were a life preserver. He was scared, too, she realized. A tiny bit of her fear slipped away, making room for rational thought. After her marriage, she had bought a weight bench and a set of weights, and lifted every other day. She’d taken self-defense seminars and had gotten up to a green belt in tae kwon do until a torn hamstring had set her back. She had promised herself she would never be a victim again.

She would keep that promise.

She looked through the windshield, hopeful for any sign of life in this small square of the City of Death. All was quiet.

“Where do you want to go?” She asked. Better, she thought. Controlled. Calm. She had to stay cool. If she gave in to the panic coursing through her, the man would win. And she could lose her life.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, saw his gaze nonchalantly lift to hers. She could taste her fear. Like bile, it rose in her throat. She looked away. Damn him.

He leaned in close behind her until she could see the sharply drawn lines of his features in her peripheral vision. His fingers rested on the side of the seat right near her shoulder. One inch closer and those at-ease fingers could wrap about her throat; those nails with their pale half moons could line up like little soldiers along her jugular.

“To your house,” he whispered. A bolt of ice darted up her spine.

The man sat back, the pressure along her seat relenting. Still, his hand remained, deceptively lifeless, on the side of the seat. She slid her foot off the brake to the gas pedal. She released the clutch, not realizing the car was still in third gear. The engine seized. The car bucked. The man swore as he was thrown into the back of her seat. Bitsy was slammed into the steering wheel. She straightened, her hands clutching the wheel as if in spasm.

“Okay, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt on that one. Never did meet a woman who could handle a stick.”

She wrapped her hand around the black knob of the shifter, its hardness beneath her palm. No give, no take. She shifted into first, eased up on the clutch and gently pressed down on the gas. The car moved forward as smoothly as hot fudge melting on French vanilla ice cream. Control.

The street was empty. People were sleeping. Dream now, she told them, as the car passed house after silent house. Dream sweet, illicit dreams.

The police station was in the opposite direction the car had been heading. If she could keep the man preoccupied while taking a series of lefts and rights, he might not notice they were turning around.

“How’d you avoid the police?” she asked. She sounded good. Efficient, in charge.

When he didn’t answer her, she glanced up to the mirror and saw his fingers rake through his hair, a gesture that was becoming too familiar.

“There was an APB issued—” she began again.

The man leaned forward. Bitsy stiffened.

“That was a mistake.”

The breath of his words moved past her. She knew he’d seen her body tense.

“That’s what every criminal says.”

“Criminal?”

She couldn’t believe the man actually sounded disgusted. “You’re a wanted man.”

“I’m the good guy.” She heard the bitterness in his tone.

As she slowed the car to turn left, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The man had taken the sheet from the funeral home, wrapped it around his waist and slung one end over his shoulder toga-style. Only now he had pants on, at least.

“You slipped out, put the sheet over your head and joined last night’s Halloween festivities?” she guessed, trying to keep his attention.

The man was looking out the window. “Nah, I crawled into a casket. Took a little nap.”

She glanced up and saw the man’s easy grin. Not exactly her idea of a cold-blooded criminal. Then again, her character antennae had been whacked out since her first adolescent hormonal rush.

She took another left. “So, if you’re the good guy, Mr. James, why are you being chased by the SFPD?”

“Call me Mick.”

“Okay, what’d you do to upset San Francisco’s finest, not to mention our local boys in blue, Mick?” She bit down on the hard K. “Nothing?”

His eyes, as unclouded as a child’s, met hers in the mirror. “I’m in danger.”

Bitsy steered right, looking away from those eyes. Eyes lied as easily as lips.

“And so are you.”

Bitsy looked in the mirror before making another turn. “That’s pretty obvious to me, Mick.” Again, the cutting K.

His eyes were steady and dark blue in the reflection. “I was set up. Soon I’ll be charged with a crime I didn’t commit. Except I’ve got an alibi—you. So now, when they learn I’m not dead, they don’t only have to find me and kill me. They have to kill you, too. And this time the deaths will be real.”

“For an innocent man, you certainly seem to attract your share of enemies, Mick. First, the police. Now, murderers.”

“One man is dead already. Another was almost killed last night.”

“And you’re innocent.”

“I don’t know any man who’s innocent,” her captor said. “But I didn’t do the crimes they’ll say I did.”

Bitsy knew those blue eyes were looking at her in the mirror, asking her to believe him. She kept her gaze on the road.

Behind her, Mick swore. He’d seen the parked black-and-white sedan with the row of red lights across the roof the same time she had.

She checked the mirror. She didn’t see Mick. Instead she heard, “Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll use this if I have to.”

A hard point jabbed her through the back of her seat. He had a gun. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe. All her control dissolved. Her life was reduced to a half-inch circle at the base of her spine.

He jabbed her again, low at her back, and she felt fear flow from that point right up her backbone. Adrenaline overwhelmed her brain, her body. Everything seemed to speed up, yet slow down at the same time.

“You better pray they didn’t see me,” she heard him threaten.

She’d dealt with death every day, foolishly thinking she’d forged a pact with its unreasonableness. But here it was, the ultimate master of ceremonies. Let me live, she prayed.

She glanced in the mirror, not expecting to see the man. But could he see her if she tried to signal the police? Taking a chance right now could be deadly. So was not taking one.

“Keep your gaze straight ahead,” Mick ordered. “Don’t even think of looking to the right.”

The gun bore into her back. She pulled even with the police cruiser, then past it. The chance was gone.

“Are we close to your house?” he asked.

“Yes.” The word came out anguished.

“For your sake, I hope so.”

She arched her lower back, moving her slim vertebrae away from the focused pressure on her back. In her mind, she could see the hole formed by a bullet, a perfect polka dot piercing her skin, her spine, her organs. Her terror fed on itself now, widening, overtaking her.

She forced herself to concentrate.

She couldn’t risk going to the police station. Maybe if she got him inside her house, she could find a weapon or call the police. “Won’t be but a minute,” she assured the man, her voice June Cleaver surreal.

The man said nothing.

Did he have a full clip in his gun, she wondered. She slowed down and took a right, then another and another until the car was turned around again, heading back to her house. In mute panic, she watched the police car grow smaller until it disappeared from the mirror.

“Are we almost there?” the man asked after a few silent minutes.

“Yes,” Bitsy replied. There was a warm, metallic sensation in her mouth. She’d bitten into her own lip and drawn blood.

The man stayed down, said nothing. She heard his even breathing, his steady, too quiet threat. She smelled the lingering chemical odor from the embalming room. The fluid of death. Her stomach roiled. She feared she’d get sick. She felt the touch of death at her backbone and prayed desperately for another day.

They pulled into the driveway of the stucco bungalow she rented in a quiet neighborhood of similar stucco and clapboard bungalows. She saw the delicate scalloped line of the eaves. She saw the tangle of rosebushes along the trellised front porch. They’d been pruned, in preparation for winter. Still, several thorny trailers continued to grow. She stared at those stubborn tentacles of new green. Tears filled her eyes. Control. The word came like a mantra. Control, Bitsy.

She pushed the garage-door opener on the visor, waited while the door rose, steered inside. She turned off the car’s engine, but clung to the steering wheel to keep her hands from shaking. Still the tremors seized her, and her body trembled.

“We’re here,” she said, sounding like the gracious hostage.

“Shut the garage door.”

She did as he said. The door dropped, sealing her farther off from salvation. After its final rattle, she saw the shock of blond hair first, rising cautiously. His eyes, alert, canvassed the inside of the garage, the side door. The pressure against her back stayed. “This is where you live?”

Bitsy nodded.

“Alone?”

She nodded again.

“Any animals? A dog? A cat?”

She shook her head.

“If we step inside and I find out otherwise, I’ll kill them.”

“There’s only me.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

She got out of the car and he was immediately right behind her, gripping her upper arm. She tried to step and her knees buckled. He caught her. The dull point of the gun, covered by the sheet folded across his arm, pressed into her ribs. The heat of his body mixed with the heat of her fear.

“You should get a pet,” he suggested as they headed with awkward steps to the side door. “A little dog or a cat, maybe.”

At the door, he bent over and picked up the keys that had fallen from her shaking hands. “It’s not good to live all alone.” He inserted the key into the door, but before he turned it, the door swung open.

He looked down at Bitsy.

“I must’ve left it unlocked last night,” she said. “I was in a hurry.”

He twisted the key out, watching her. “You should be more careful,” he advised, then pushed her inside.

As soon as he released her, Bitsy took several steps into the house, but her progress was stopped abruptly.

“Bravo, Bitsy,” a woman’s voice said. “You finally brought home a live one.”

Lanie stepped into the kitchen. She wore a pair of Bitsy’s shorts, a T-shirt and a pair of turquoise flip-flops with plastic butterflies along their straps. A tall black witch’s hat sat on the kitchen table atop the heaped remains of the rest of the costume. The woman’s well-placed features resembled Bitsy’s, except, as she crossed her arms and leaned against the refrigerator, Lanie’s held the wry amusement of an older cousin who’d always enjoyed the advantage of power by birth date alone.

“Lanie,” Bitsy warned.

As the name left her mouth, Mick grasped her wrist and pulled her tightly against him in a false embrace. At her hip bone, his other hand pressed the gun into her belly. She instinctively recoiled. He released her wrist to wrap his arm around her neck, pressing her mouth closer to his.

“Don’t,” he whispered like a deadly kiss.

She felt the length of cool steel, its hard edge against the yield of flesh. The heat of her blood rose. The pulse in her throat beneath his palm quickened. All reasoning left her. Only instinct allowed her to speak in a breathless tone to her cousin.

“What are you doing here, Lanie?”

“I had a fight with Roy last night. Just because he was dressed as Casper the Friendly Ghost didn’t mean he could spend half the night in a corner with a Wonder Woman wannabe. So, I crashed here. How come you didn’t show up? Oops, dumb question. I can see—”

“Lanie?” Bitsy’s voice sounded more strangled than passionate.

“Yes, right.” Lanie misinterpreted the urgency in her cousin’s voice. “I can see you’re occupied, so I’ll just discreetly let myself out.”

Lanie gathered her costume, plopping the witch’s hat on her head. As she passed them, she tugged on the sheet wrapped around Mick’s middle. “It seems my cousin and I share the same fondness for friendly ghosts.”

She gave Mick a wink, flashed a smile at Bitsy and was gone. The side door banged, then all was quiet. Bitsy was once again alone with a madman.

Chapter Four

“She doesn’t live here,” Bitsy blurted. “I had no idea she’d be here.”

They stood, breast to chest, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, only a metal snout and a chamber of bullets between them. Bitsy found Mick’s eyes, hot and bright.

“She’s gone. Let me go.”

“I didn’t hear a car leave.”

“She lives four blocks over, three houses down.”

Mick muttered an obscenity, his breath warm and unwashed on her. She held his gaze, her thoughts the same as his. Lanie strolls home, slips the waiting Canaan Courier out of the mailbox or snaps on the 6:00 a.m. news, and sees a picture of her little cousin’s one-night stand splashed across the front page or flashed on the screen. He shouldn’t have let her go. He made a mistake. A sly satisfaction spread though Bitsy’s veins.

Mick’s jaw set. “Where’s a phone?”

She tipped her head to the left, where a cordless phone on its charger sat on the small table against the wall.

“Get it.” He released her. The relief drove her backward and made her light-headed. The gun stayed trained on her abdomen. The light-headed moment passed. She took two more steps backward and picked up the phone.

He reached for it, clasped it in one hand and punched in the number, his gaze aimed at her.

“It’s me,” he said to whoever picked up at the other end. A pause followed as he listened. His lips close to the mouthpiece, he then said, “He’s dead. Only one death reported.” Another pause, the silence laden.

“No, don’t come in. Too much risk. Too many involved.” His gaze was as steady on her as the gun. “I’ll meet you. I have resources. Find out what you can. I’ll call.” He paused. “Only as a last resort.” Another beat, then he said, “I have a guest.” A metallic tone had infused his voice. No expression lit his hard face. Bitsy stared at the dull silver gun, stifling an impulse to let her knees buckle.

“I’ll be in touch.” He disconnected and handed Bitsy the phone.

“Who’s dead?” she asked, surprised at her voice’s remote quality.

“We need clothes, any cash, food.” He ignored her question. “An ATM card, a cell phone and charger.” He ticked the items off as if they were on their way to a weekend in the wine country.

When she didn’t move, he reached for her arm. She recoiled and stood strong. Mick’s gaze snapped to hers. It was a matter of wills now, even as the piercing fear deep and unspeakable, welled up, pushing at her limits and she grieved for her lost courage.

“If I was going to kill you, I would have by now.” He sounded weary. Neither of them had slept.

She regarded him in the yellow, florid light. He was a mystery, a danger, yet he made her want to believe in him. Her anger at this parlor trick was like a keen rising in her head and much more valuable than her fear.

“We have to go now, or we won’t have a chance.” He continued the ruse. Her anger was to the point of blaring.

“I’m not the one wanted by the police, Mick.” His name sounded hard on her tongue.

His smile wasn’t warm. “No, the people who want you are much more dangerous.”

“Only one man is holding a gun on me now.”

His lips pulled back farther from his teeth in a devil’s grin. “Right now you’re lucky.” He glanced at the wall clock. Bitsy estimated her cousin should be cutting though McGilicuddy’s backyard with its plastercraft planters and ceramic gnomes. Mick gestured with the gun toward the entryway into the rest of the house. “Clothes, cash, food,” he said as if ordering from a Chinese menu.

Her gut turning, Bitsy backed out of the room, feeling it fatal not to face him. Under the weight of his eyes, she moved, startled when she hit the doorjamb, then she was in the hall, the tidy living room with its coordinated furniture and the Roman shades she’d bought on end-of-the-season clearance from Sears.

“Clothes, Mick?” Her lips thinned and her voice mocked. “Unless you’re a misses size six, you’re SOL.”

He didn’t look worried and that made her wonder. “The clothes are for you.” His heavy gaze dropped, then sidled back up her until her skin prickled.

“You’re afraid I’ll look conspicuous?” She returned the same once-over. “And you won’t?”

He moved toward her as she spoke, forcing her farther down the hall, a frantic pitch of resistance and disbelief vibrating inside her.

“Do I look like a worried man, Bitsy?” His voice softened, designed to throw her off balance more than a sharp pitch.

They were almost to her bedroom with its slightly sleazy black-lacquered furniture and oversize Georgia O’Keeffe framed floral prints. The bathroom was to their left. Bitsy stopped.

“What?” Impatience cracked Mick’s voice.

She screwed up her forehead, her eyes becoming larger, the pupils contracted. “I have to go.”

His features showed no sign of his impatience easing. Her fear and anger remained near at hand. Her resolve strengthened. She shrugged, took a step toward the bathroom door as if she didn’t need his permission.

His hand snapped around her wrist.

“What?” She twisted her arm but he held firm. “I can’t go to the bathroom?”

With the gun, he pushed back the half-opened door and pulled her into the bathroom with him. He scanned the room, the small narrow window with its lowered vinyl mini-blinds, the teal-and-peach ceramic tile halfway up the walls, the shower curtain with pink flamingos stretched across the tub.

“Okay.” He thrust her toward the toilet as he let go of her wrist.

“Okay?” she blurted. “What do you expect me to do? Go at gunpoint?”

He stepped past her, pushed up the blinds and checked the window’s lock. Bitsy glanced in the mirror over the sink, gave a sharp intake of breath.

“What?” Mick wheeled from the secured window.

Bitsy peered at her reflection, the sunken eyes, the skin gray with fatigue and stress beneath the garish remains of her makeup. “I knew you looked like crap, but I didn’t think I looked this bad.” She pushed a lank lock of hair off her brow.

Mick stepped back. “You’ve got one minute. I’ll be right outside.”

He rounded the door, pulling it half-closed behind him. She waited for it to close totally.

It didn’t.

“You’re not going to close the door?”

“Fifty seconds.” His shoulder and arm, the gun dangling in his hand, were visible at the door’s edge.

“What do you think I’m going to do?” She pulled down her stockings, panties. “Hang myself from the shower?”

“Forty-five seconds.”

“Pull out the .44 I keep in the back of the toilet tank?”

“Thirty-five seconds.”

“You’re not making this any easier.” She rattled the toilet paper holder, ripped off a length.

“Thirty seconds.”

She flushed, pulled up her panties, adjusted her stockings, twisted the hot and cold water faucets all the way open.

“Ten seconds.”

“I’m washing my hands,” she yelled back.

“Five, four…”

The water stopped. “I’m drying my hands.”

“Three, two…” The door started to swing open.

“One,” Bitsy yelled, aimed the value-size can of extra-hold hair spray at Mick’s face and sprayed full force into his surprised blue eyes. She heard a guttural gurgle as she pushed past him. His hands reached for her but, blinded, he only found a fistful of the hairpiece she’d added to last night’s costume. She jerked her head hard as he yanked the opposite way, and the hairpiece ripped loose. She ran. She was down the hall, into the kitchen when he came behind her, spewing passionate oaths aimed at her and her children and her children’s children. She heard him hit something hard and curse loudly. She looked frantically for her car keys but didn’t see them on the table or counters. She was running out of time. Undoing the lock on the side door, she dashed out, slamming the door behind her. Freedom was her wildly delicious, delirious last thought…till she ran head-on into a mountainous, unmoving mass. She bounced back onto the concrete floor and was knocked out cold.

SHE WAS BEING HOISTED UP under the armpits when she came to. In front of her in her garage stood an angular man with a thin face and hatchet features, pointing a gun casually at the left side of her chest where her heart pounded crazily. Twice in one day. Go figure.

Bitsy jumped as someone behind her wrenched her arms together and bound her wrists with a hard tie that sliced into her skin. She whipped her head around and found the no-necked brick wall that had stopped her escape. She twisted her head farther and saw the razor-thin wire circling her wrists. Any attempts to escape its hold would only result in slicing through flesh, arteries, veins.

She turned back to the front. Her gaze careened around the garage. She saw nothing of the blue-eyed, charming-smile son of a bitch who’d gotten her into this mess in the first place.

Was Mick dead? The thought hit her harder than the mass of muscle behind her. Had the man with the cold fish eyes in front of her killed him with the gun now holding her hostage?

“Let’s go.” The man gestured with the gun.

Holding her bound wrists, the gorilla nudged her forward. Control, Bitsy repeated to herself as she was led to a gray BMW. Stay in control. She frantically searched for self-defense techniques. Look for an advantage. The creep behind her was so close, she could feel his erection pressing into her. Her wrists were bound behind her back, but her feet were free.

The thug gripping her arms released one to open the car door. As he pushed her in, she aimed her spiked heels at his groin and got off a couple good shots to his shins. He let out a yelp as he shoved her down into the backseat.

“You wanna play rough?” He came at her, his shaved head ducking her flailing feet. His hand came up, struck her hard once, twice. Her head whipped right and left. Her brain rattled.

“Cut out the social niceties,” the other man growled as he slid into the driver’s seat. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.” He looked over his shoulder and gave Bitsy a sickly grin that soured her stomach.

The strong arms shoved Bitsy back into the seat, grabbed her ankles with one hand and circled them with the thin wire. She gingerly prodded with her tongue several teeth loosened by the blows.

“There, honey.” The ape leaned over her, his thick lips rolled back from his pale-pink gums. The moist smell of male sweat and cigarettes overwhelmed her. “This is only the beginning. Whatever god you believe in, I’ll have you screaming for him before I’m done with you.”