Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [62]
She got out of bed and raised the shade on the window that overlooked Greer’s backyard. Now, at half past ten, the yard lay in semidarkness, the lamp from the patio casting just enough light to throw shadows across the flat expanse of lawn. Somewhere out there was someone with blood on his hands. If Sean was right, this someone was watching for her, waiting for her. Maybe right now, at this minute, this someone was cutting the glass in one of the panes in her back door, sliding the glass out carefully and quietly, then lifting the latch. Was he already inside, treading carefully across her kitchen floor, maybe in bare feet, pausing every few steps to listen for sounds of her stirring on the second floor? In his pocket did he carry the same knife he’d used to butcher Marian, or the gun he’d used to put a bullet through Derek’s head?
And what, she wondered as she chewed on a fingernail in the dark, was the point? What had he, this faceless, nameless someone, wanted from Derek, from Marian, that he might now want from her?
Hard as she tried, though she lay awake several more hours thinking about it, Amanda could not come up with one good reason why anyone would want her—and Derek, and Marian—dead.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Humming along with the radio, his fingers tapping out the beat on the steering wheel of his car, Vince Giordano sat in the cool shade of a sweet gum tree, watching the cars that buzzed by, waiting for Dolores to arrive home from work and hoping she wouldn’t be too late. He had a surprise for her. Oh, did he ever.
The white compact slowed, then pulled into the drive and disappeared around the back of the house. Still humming, thinking how it was a shame that some car company had started using that particular song in their commercials, because now every time he heard it, he thought about pickup trucks, he craned his neck, hoping she’d come back around the front. And just as he thought it, there she was. He got out of the car and started across the small patch of grass that had gone too long without water in the late summer sun.
“Hey,” he called amicably.
“Vinnie.” Dolores’s face brightened. “What are you doing here?”
“I was passing along the street, and I looked at the clock and said, ‘Hey, Dolores should be just about getting home right about now.’ And you know what?” He took one of her hands in his own and watched her blush. “Just as I was thinking it, didn’t you pull right into the driveway?”
“No way.”
“Oh, yeah. So I’m taking that as a sign that you don’t have plans for dinner tonight, and that you’d come out for dinner with me.”
“Well, I . . . I just got home.” She blushed again, brushing off her dark pants. “And I’m not really dressed up. . . .”
“You look great, Dolores. Better than great.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward to touch her forehead with his own. Richard Gere had done that in some movie, and Vince had been hoping that someday he’d have occasion to use that move in real life.
“If you could give me a minute, maybe to fix my makeup, feed my cat . . .”
“Sure. Whatever time you need.”
“Okay, then. Yes. I’d love to have dinner with you tonight.” She backed toward the sidewalk, still beaming, the faint blush still tingeing her cheeks. “Would you like to come in, just while I . . .”
“Sure. Sure. That would be nice.” Vince smiled gently, as if he were a simple man being invited into the home of a friend.
The small twin house had a porch with an old-fashioned swing at one end. A row of geraniums in plastic pots that were supposed to look like clay were set along the perimeter of the porch, where a railing had once been. There was a rusty black mailbox attached to the front wall and a wreath of bright plastic flowers on the door.
“The previous owner took the rails off,” she explained as if she needed to. “I want to put them back on someday. But I had to put money into the kitchen—”
“Hey, don’t feel like you have to make excuses to me. Please.” He held up one hand as if to halt her