to my number until further notice. I hope you don’t mind. If you find that you have to do something with your hands because waiting is driving you mad, I left a few simple restringing jobs behind. There’s no hurry on those, though. Keep me posted.”
Briefly Gretchen wondered if Larry’s intentions were as unmotivated as he pretended. Reprogramming her mother’s machine seemed like a bold thing to do, considering the competitive nature of the doll business. Well, Gretchen reasoned, her mother would have lost customers with unmet deadlines anyway.
She decided to ignore Steve’s message and his petulant remark. This was the new Gretchen Birch.
She drove away from the house with a grumbling, pet-free Nina riding shotgun. Detective Albright pulled out from the curb behind them. “Doesn’t he have anything better to do?” Gretchen said. “He knows by now that I don’t have a clue where she is. Is he waiting for me to solve the case for him? Tagging along to claim the prize and win a promotion?”
“He’s probably looking out for you,” Nina said. “I think he’s cute.”
When they turned onto Lincoln, Gretchen dialed 911. “I’m being followed,” she said into the phone. “The driver is shaking a tire iron at me in a threatening way and displaying obscene gestures. In fact, he tried to run me off the road. Please help.”
Nina stared at Gretchen.
“No, he’s too close to read his license number.” Gretchen gave the dispatcher her location. “He’s driving a blue Chevrolet. Me . . . ?” Gretchen hesitated, searching the cars ahead of her and spotting a likely candidate. “I’m driving a yellow Mercedes convertible. We’ll be passing Twenty-fourth Street soon.”
A few minutes later, Gretchen heard sirens in the distance. Without signaling, she abruptly pulled over on the shoulder of the street, startling Matt, who had no recourse other than to continue on ahead of her. He slowed, then pulled over when he heard the siren and saw the lights looming behind him.
“Imagine his surprise,” Nina said, watching the police vehicle slide in behind Matt’s car.
Gretchen pulled back onto Lincoln and drove past the startled detective, who was already out of his vehicle flashing his badge at the responding police officer. “We don’t have much time to make our getaway,” she said, adapting a choice word from Aunt Gertie’s repertoire. “He’ll be after us as soon as the police officer realizes who he is.”
“I didn’t know you had it in you,” Nina said, incredulous.
Gretchen smiled wordlessly.
Nacho streaked down the street with Gretchen in hot pursuit and Nina somewhere behind in the Impala. She wore her favorite running shoes in anticipation of this exact scenario. Best of all she had surprised him instead of the other way around. She had seized the advantage and was right on his heels.
But she had yet to figure out how to stop him, short of a full-body tackle, because she really didn’t want another broken bone.
She was so close behind him that his smell filled her nostrils, ripe body odor and dirty clothes. And fear. She smelled his fear. Even though she had never smelled fear before, she knew this was it, the same way any predator knows the smell. She’d had her share of fear last night. It was his turn.
Passersby looked on in astonishment as the two darted down the sidewalk clogged with people heading for work. A dog barked. Gretchen reached ahead with her good hand and tried to get a grip on the back of his shirt. He squealed and wrenched away.
How to stop him? She might have an uncanny new inner strength, but her dull mental processing could use some sharpening. Suddenly the answer came to her.
“Daisy’s hurt,” she managed to call out through bursting lungs. “She had . . .” Gretchen puffed. “. . . a car accident. She’s in the hospital.”
She sensed him wavering, an almost imperceptible change in his speed.
“She needs you.”
Nacho slowed to a trot, and Gretchen forced herself to be patient. Don’t grab at him. Let him come to you now.
He twirled, still moving, backwards. “You’re lying.”
“No, she was driving my mother’s car.” Gretchen saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. He knows, she thought. He knows about the car but not about the accident.
“She’s hurt badly. I can take you to her.”
She pulled her cell phone from a clip on her belt. She had planned ahead to keep her hands free from the burden of a purse. The clip was Nina’s idea to allow her freedom to move. Gretchen