Alone in the Dark Read Free Page B

cheek. ‘I hoped you’d get here before the cops. I was going to tell you what I knew and then leave her with you.’ He hesitated. ‘I figured everyone would jump to the same conclusion you just did.’
    ‘Was she a prostitute, Marcus?’ she asked levelly.
    He looked her in the eye. ‘I don’t know. I only knew she was in trouble of some kind.’
    That was the truth, Scarlett thought. But not the whole truth. He was holding something back. Something important. She wasn’t sure how she knew. She just did. ‘How did she know how to reach you?’
    ‘I left her my card on the park bench. Stuck it between the wood and the iron frame.’
    She frowned. ‘Why did you leave it for her? Why not just give it to her?’
    ‘Because she never came close enough. Not once. She always stayed at least twenty-five feet away.’ His mouth tightened, his eyes growing dark with fury. ‘And because the last time I saw her, she was limping. She was wearing sunglasses – with big frames. But not big enough to hide the bruise on her cheek.’
    Scarlett got the picture. ‘She was being terrorized by someone.’
    ‘That was my take. The last time I saw her, I didn’t say a word. I just held up my card, then stuck it in the bench and walked away.’
    ‘When was that?’
    ‘Yesterday afternoon. Around three.’
    ‘All right. After she was shot in the stomach, you started first aid. What happened then?’
    He looked away. ‘I didn’t hear him. He must have circled around. Came up behind me. I was talking to her, telling her to hold on, not to die. That help was coming. I wasn’t paying attention.’ His throat worked as he swallowed hard. ‘I should have been paying attention. He shot me, then . . . her. In the head.’
    Scarlett drew a careful breath. ‘He shot you? Where?’
    ‘In the back.’ His lower lip curled in disdain that seemed self-targeted. ‘But I’m wearing a vest.’
    ‘A vest? Why?’ she asked coolly, even as her heart thumped in relief. The size of the exit wound in the victim’s head indicated a very large-caliber weapon fired at close proximity. Had Marcus not been wearing a vest, Scarlett knew she’d have come across a very different scene. ‘Did you expect violence?’
    ‘No. Not like this. Never like this. But I always wear the vest now.’
    ‘Why?’ she asked again, watching in wary fascination as twin flags of color stained his cheekbones.
    ‘My mother made me promise.’
    That Scarlett could believe. Marcus’s mother had lost her youngest son nine months before and had very nearly lost Marcus too. Scarlett could understand a mother’s demand for that promise.
    Except . . . why would his mother believe that Marcus would be targeted again? Instincts prickling to alertness, Scarlett left the question for later. ‘And then?’
    ‘The hit knocked me flat. On top of her.’ He touched his finger to his chest, then held the finger up for Scarlett’s inspection. It was dark red. The black fabric of his shirt had hidden the stain. ‘Hers. When I got my breath back, I pushed off her. Then I saw . . . I saw what he’d done. I tried to go after him, but by the time I got out of the alley, he was gone again. I circled the block, but everyone had scattered, including the shooter.’
    ‘So then you came back to meet me?’
    A one-shouldered shrug. ‘To meet someone. Either you or the first responders.’
    Who’d now arrived, a cruiser coming to a screeching halt at the far end of the alley.
    Scarlett glanced at the cruiser, then looked back at Marcus’s face, needing the answer to one last question before the officers arrived. ‘You said you were going to leave once I got here, when she was still alive. Once she was dead, why did you come back? There was no need to continue first aid, and the shooter might have come back again. Might have realized you were still alive. Might have tried to shoot you again. Why did you come back?’
    He looked down at the dead girl, his expression stark.