for air, Hallie rolled away from Stan, who lay on his back spluttering and clutching his precious camera to his bony chest. Heedless of her aching knees, she scrambled on all fours toward the doorway and gripped the doorpost. Out on the sun-soaked street, Damon charged into the street, arms pumping, the braided cord no longer in hand. A green-and-blue Papa Morelli’s Pizza delivery car whizzed up the road, and the ball player dodged barely in time to avoid being hit. Then he raced onward and out of view between the houses.
“What was that all about?” Stan’s footfalls came up behind her.
Dazed, Hallie stared up into his wide-eyed face. “Call 9-1-1. Damon killed Alicia. I saw.” Her voice came out in a rasp. She struggled to her feet, leg muscles jittering. “At least, I think she’s dead. I’d better…I need to check.” She forced a lump down her throat.
Stan gaped at her, freckles standing out like punctuation marks on his pale cheeks.
“Just call.” Her voice rose an octave.
She brushed past him and wobbled into the living room. Debris crunched under her pumps as she approached the body. To one side lay the cord she’d seen in Damon’s hand. He must have dropped it when he fled. In the background, Stan’s excited voice reported the emergency.
Gaze averted from Alicia’s face, Hallie watched the body’s chest for some sign of rising and falling, but she spotted no movement beneath the gauzy, long-sleeved tunic top swirled in psychedelic 1970s colors. She crouched beside Alicia and pressed two fingers to the inside of her wrist. She held her breath while she counted to ten. Not a flicker of life.
Groaning, Hallie closed her eyes and bowed her head. Not again, Lord. Why did women stay with men who abused them? She’d asked that unanswerable question over and over in the nine years since Teresa’s senseless death. Back then, as a college sophomore, she had been powerless to gain justice, but this time she was in prime position to make certain the guilty party didn’t get away with murder just because he was a popular athlete.
Jaw clenched, Hallie opened her eyes, and her gaze fell on the edge of a band of metal on Alicia’s wrist that she’d nudged aside in order to feel for a pulse. The etching on the band looked familiar. Hallie pulled the featherweight shirtsleeve away from the inch-wide bracelet and took a closer look. Every muscle went rigid.
She knew the unique markings on that brass and copper armband. The Nigerian artisan had been dead for over two decades, since Hallie was eight years old. But the woman had never in her life sold her work commercially—only given it to people she regarded as special.
Why was Alicia Drayton wearing a bracelet fashioned by Hallie’s mother?
Hallie sucked in a deep breath, and then let the air seep from her lungs. Her hand dug for the camera phone in her purse’s outside pocket. This was going to be the most distasteful thing she’d ever done in her life. But she couldn’t step away without a clear record of her mother’s work, and she couldn’t make off with the bracelet. Blanking her mind and moving quickly, she snapped several shots of the dead woman’s arm.
“The cops and the paramedics are on their way.” Stan’s voice came from the doorway.
She glanced over her shoulder and spotted an eight-by-ten photograph lying face-up on the floor. The glass inside the cherry-wood frame was cracked in a crazy pattern that suggested someone had stepped on it, but she could still make out a man’s smiling face. No taller than average, with hair touched by gray and a middle displaying a small paunch, his confident presence overshadowed the women in the photo. He stood between them with an arm around each of their shoulders.
One of them could only be Alicia, just a few years younger. Her full lips pouted beneath a bored green gaze. Typical teenager. The other woman, Alicia’s decades older mirror image, stood stiffly and a bit glassy-eyes, as if the camera made her nervous. The man—Alicia’s father?—grinned like he’d won the lottery. And why not? His wife was stunning and his daughter even more so. Correction. The daughter had been stunning. These parents now had horrible news coming to them. A whimper squeaked out Hallie’s tight throat.
Nausea squeezing her stomach, she stood and picked her way toward Stan. How could he hover there, calmly panning his video camera over the room?
“Remind me,” she said as she brushed past him into the foyer, “never, ever to volunteer for the police beat.”
“You couldn’t guess in a million years the trouble Hallie walked into this afternoon.”
The tense words brought Brody Jordan’s head around from the sports highlights he was editing in the video room. Vince Graham, the crime reporter, stood in the doorway, craggy face drawn into those taut planes that made his mug so compelling on the air. Brody clicked off the video and waved Vince in.
The crime reporter shook his head. “No time for a chat. Stan called the story in, and I’m headed for Alicia Drayton’s house. The woman’s been beaten and strangled, and Hallie caught Damon Lange in the act.”
Brody stiffened, nostrils flaring. “I don’t believe it.”
Vince frowned. “Hallie’s not given to hallucinations, Jordan. The cops and the medical examiner are already on the scene, and they’re taking the whole thing very seriously.”
“No, I didn’t mean Hallie imagined a murder, but there’s no way Damon hurt Alicia.”
The ends of the crime reporter’s mouth twisted upward. “Enjoy your illusions, buddy. One thing I’ve learned on this beat is anyone’s capable of anything.”
“Have they got Damon in custody?”
“Naw. He skedaddled. There’s an APB out on him.”
“I’m coming with you.” Brody rose.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Brody narrowed his eyes at his smirking coworker.
“The six o’clock news broadcast? You can’t be in two places at once.”
Brody checked his watch. “It’s later than I thought. This is one time in a million I could do without being the evening sportscaster. Just let me know if Damon is arrested, okay?”
“You got it.” Vince strode away.
Brody grabbed his suit coat from the back of the chair and headed up the tile-floored hallway toward his office. Should he call Hallie and get the story firsthand? He could find her cell number on the interoffice list. Arriving at his desk, he opened the top drawer then froze, hand on the internal directory.
No, getting her on the phone was a bad move. Not only would she be up to her neck in police questions right now, but he didn’t want to have this conversation long distance. He had to look her in the eye and make her repeat the claim that Damon killed Alicia. Even then he wouldn’t buy it. He knew the young basketball player too well. In his experience, Hallie told the news with integrity and enthusiasm, but maybe her crusading nature got things exaggerated or misconstrued this time.
Brody frowned. Then again it was kind of hard to misunderstand a dead body. He sank into his desk chair, tugged at his left earlobe, and ruffled his fingers through his coarse brown hair.
A few months ago, Brody hosted the Golden Gophers star basketball player for a live interview, and the young man had brought Alicia along to watch. Yes, she sometimes treated Damon like gum under her shoe, but that day she’d been in a good mood, playful even. She teased the ball player about his “camera presence,” green eyes sparkling in that cameo-perfect face. Damon adored her. He would have given his life for her, not snuffed hers out.
Brody bent and pulled his trash can from under his desk. If he could get Hallie to himself for a few minutes and ask his questions, maybe he could start to understand. Fishing amongst crumpled papers, he came up with an invitation he’d chucked a couple of days ago. The rectangle of card stock showed a multi-colored cake with many candles on top and read: Guess Who’s 29. For Real!