Page 47 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

I beat on the window with the side of my fist. “DeMarius!” I yelled—or rather, croaked. My voice was getting so bad I sounded awful. “DeMarius! I’ll make you a Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding if you’ll let me out of here.”

From the way his shoulders stiffened, I knew he heard me.

“Just for you,” I promised as loudly as I could.

He barely turned his head, but I saw the agonized look he rolled my way.

“I’ll give you your pick of rum glaze, buttermilk glaze, or creamed cheese icing.”

He stood frozen for a few seconds, then heaved a big sigh and came over to the door.Yes!Happily I began preparing to leave my stinky prison.

DeMarius bent down to the window and looked in, his dark eyes mournful. “Blair,” he said loudly enough for me to hear, “as much as I love your doughnut bread pudding, I don’t love it enough to cross the lieutenant and get demoted.” Then he turned his back and returned to his previous position.

Well, damn. Bribery had been worth a try, but I couldn’t blame DeMarius for not falling for it.

With nothing else to distract me from what I’d been trying not to think about, I arranged the blanket beneath me, got on my knees in the seat, and turned to look out the back window at my home. The firemen were putting up a valiant effort to prevent the fire from spreading to the next apartment, but I knew my neighbors would have massive smoke and water damage at the least. Wyatt’s truck and the car next to it were both scorched, the heat had been so intense. As I watched, the front wall collapsed with a roar, sending sparks cascading up and out like the fireworks at Disney World.

The sudden flare of light illuminated a face—a woman’s face, in the midst of the crowd. She wore a hoodie, her hands tucked in the pockets and the hood pulled loosely around her head. I noticed the paleness of her blond hair first, then I looked at her face. A twinge of uneasiness snaked up my spine. There was something vaguely familiar about her, as if I’d seen her somewhere else but just couldn’t place her.

She wasn’t staring at the spectacle of fire, though. She was staring straight at the patrol car, and at me, and for a split second there was nothing but triumph in her face.

It washer.

Chapter

Nineteen

Ibegan beating on the window again, as hard as I could, screaming, “DeMarius!DeMarius!There she is! Tell Wyatt! Do something, damn it,stop her!” That is, I was trying to scream.

His back remained stubbornly turned, and though he could hear my fist thumping against the window he very likely couldn’t hear anything I said because my voice was almost gone. My throat caught and I began coughing violently, the force of the spasms doubling me up and making my eyes water.

The rasping in my throat hurt; I felt as if I were raw on the inside, from the back of my nose all the way down into my lungs. Even breathing hurt. I must have inhaled more smoke than I’d thought, even with the wet towel over my face. Screaming hadn’t helped any, either—as well as accomplishing exactly nothing.

When I could sit up straight again, I looked for her, for the bitch who had burned down my home, but she was gone. Of course she was; she’d wanted to admire her handiwork, gloat a little bit, but she wasn’t going to stick around.

Tears of fury and pain began to drip down my face. Furiously I wiped them away. I wouldnotlet that bitch make me cry. I wouldn’t let any of this make me cry.

I dug my cell phone out and called Wyatt.

I half expected him not to answer, which would have made me so much angrier at him I’m not certain I’d have been over it by the time I filed for Social Security. Going to my knees again, I looked for him while I listened to the ringing. Then I saw him, taller than most of the other men, his head bent a little as he listened to the fire chief yelling something over the noise, and I saw him reach for his cell. He must have had the phone set to vibrate, which was smart considering the noise level. He said something to the fire chief, checked to see who was calling, then flipped open the phone and held it to one ear while he pressed a finger to his other ear.

“Be patient a little while longer!” he yelled into the phone.

I opened my mouth to blast him, to screech at him that he was letting her get away—and not one sound would come out. Not even a squeak.

I tried again. Nothing. I had completely lost my voice. Frantically I pecked on the microphone with my fingernail, trying to get him to at least look at me. Damn it, there was no way he could hear that little bitty noise. Both frustrated and inspired, I began banging the phone itself against the window.

Note to self: Cell phones are not sturdy.

The damn thing came apart in my hand, the battery cover coming off, the front piece flying into the floorboard—where it could stay, as far as I was concerned, because no way was I rooting around in that particular floorboard to look for it. Some other electronic little doohickey went askew. All in all, it was a futile effort.

Aaargh! I watched Wyatt close his phone and hook it back on his belt. Not once did he glance in my direction, the jackass.

What else did I have in my tote? The knife, of course, but slicing up the upholstery wouldn’t gain me anything and would cost me big-time, because I’m fairly certain the city takes a dim view of having its squad cars sliced and diced. The knife wouldn’t help me. My wallet was in there, my checkbook, lipstick, tissues, pens, my appointment book—all right! Now we were cooking. I tore a page out of the back of my appointment book, got a pen, and in the otherworldly, flickering, uncertain light wrote:TELL WYATT THE STALKER IS HERE I SAW HER IN THE CROWD.

I plastered the note to the window, then frantically began knocking on the glass again. I knocked and knocked and knocked, and DeMarius, damn his stubborn hide, refused to turn around andlook.

My hand began to hurt. If I hadn’t been afraid of giving myself another concussion, I’d have beat my head against the window; I already felt as if I were beating it against a wall. If I’d had on shoes, I’d have started kicking the window. There were a lot of ifs, and all of them worked against me.

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