The Sound of Broken Ribs(59)

Carl snored violently as Belinda jotted him a note—

Went to get my finger checked at the Med-Pack down the street. Be back soon.

—and then she left, making sure to take the room key with her.

As she approached the single entrance/exit of the Imperial’s lot, she glanced to the front office. She’d known the same woman from this morning wouldn’t still be on, but she checked anyway. A young black man sat behind the counter, his face buried in his phone. That’s good. He didn’t know her. Not that Monica had known her, but Belinda didn’t want the woman seeing her twice in one day. The further she stayed from the woman’s memory the better.

Belinda turned and moved along the sidewalk parallel to Valley Boulevard. A car horn blared. Belinda snapped her head around in time to see a gray sedan shooting into the Imperial. A guy in a red pickup flipped the gray car the bird as he gunned the engine and roared past the entrance to the hotel.

That’s California drivers for you.

She thought about several things during her jaunt to the urgent care and one of these ruminations was why Monica hadn’t mentioned Belinda’s toilet-paper bandaged finger.

Had Monica stayed quiet because she figured there was a perfectly good explanation for the injury? Could she even tell it was an injury? Had the desk clerk thought that Belinda was simply some eccentric with a proclivity for wrapping appendages in toilet tissue?

This final thought made Belinda smile. Worrying about why Monica had neither noticed nor mentioned the tissue-wrapped finger was silly. Besides, what could Belinda do if Monica had figured something was amiss? It wasn’t as if she would kill her. Right?

Belinda stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. A jogger with breasts bigger than Belinda’s head and a waist smaller than her neck breezed by in a gust of perfume and sweat. The sun felt too hot all of a sudden. She wiped sweat from her forehead. Her hands trembled.

At some point, murder had become the default method of solving problematic people. Belinda didn’t know when this shift had occurred within her, but she knew it terrified her. Was this how serial murderers got started? Were homicides like potato chips—would only one not suffice?

“Jesus,” she breathed. “What the fuck’s happened to me.”

Another jogger with a sizable package swinging between his thighs sprinted past. This guy smelled like damp wood. It wasn’t an altogether pleasant smell.

Fucking really, Belinda? Who gives a fuck what these people smell like?

Belinda forced herself to start walking again. Whatever was wrong with her might be cured with antibiotics. Yeah. Sure. Why the fuck not—right?

Laughing at the insanity of such a thought, Belinda moved along the sidewalk.

*

Is that her? Is that actually her?

Lei had been about to turn into the Imperial Hotel when she’d seen someone who looked an awful lot like Belinda Walsh coming out from under the carport that jutted from the front office like a saluting hand. Lei had eased the brake all the way to the floor. The truck behind her blared its horn. Lei whipped the wheel right and tramped the gas. She shot under the carport and slid to a stop. A red pickup sped by in her rearview.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. She took some long, deep breaths to calm herself. When her pulse returned to normal, she pulled farther into the lot, used a parking space to make a three-point turn, and returned to the entrance/exit. She sat there for some time. Several breaks in traffic came and went. She was sure she looked suspicious, but didn’t really care.

A large-breasted woman bounced past. Then came a man who looked to have a sandbag stuffed down his spandex running shorts. Belinda was almost out of sight now, but Lei still didn’t pull out into traffic. She had no idea what was holding her back.

The tickle of cold, waxy lips on her ear, like a lover’s tongue—if that lover were dead—whispered, Go get her, Lei.

Lei gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles blanched. She managed to pry her fingers from the vinyl wheel cover and reach into her purse where it sat in the center console.

The Glock had a matte finish that made it look like a plastic toy. She slipped her fingers around the grip. Her index finger rested on the trigger guard and not the trigger. “Trigger discipline is the most important rule you’ll learn,” her instructor Wally Firth had said. “This is how you keep from shooting someone by accident, or blowing your big toe off when drawing your weapon. If I ever catch you with your finger casually on the trigger without you intending to shoot, it will be the last time you ever set foot in my dungeon. Are we clear? She’d told Wally that they were very clear. Crystal, in fact. Over the course of five months of target practice in the basement of Go Firth and Pawn, Lei never once laid her finger on the trigger without something to shoot. She plugged holes in pictures of shadow men until her groupings around the face and chest were within one inch of each other. On her last visit, she’d managed half an inch difference between twelve rounds.

Now she pulled the gun from her lap and rested it against her thigh.

What was she planning on doing? Was she intending to pull a drive-by on Belinda Walsh? Pull up, roll down the window, and pump lead into the evil bitch?

No. That would be too easy. Too neat.

Then what did she have in mind?

Whatever you decide—it should be slow.

Acid burbled up her esophagus. Lei chewed it back. Her breathing rapid, she checked to her left for oncoming traffic. Maybe ten cars between her and the next one—a silver coup. Lei took the chance and whipped out into the right lane. She accelerated until she hit the thirty-five mile per hour speed limit.