Gloria looked up at a scruffy-looking man in tight jeans and a Lakers T-shirt faded from too many washes, wearing ancient sneakers with no socks on his big feet. “Yeah, I remember you. I couldn’t leave town, but your call sent me right out to buy a .22. You and the gun saved my life.” Arturo heard only a slight tremor in her voice. She was trying to keep it together.
He straddled a kitchen chair, crossed his arms over the back, and scooted it close to her. He studied her a moment. She was gorgeous, young, and she looked exhausted, crashing from the adrenaline high, but she was trying to be tough, and Arturo liked that. “I like cats,” he said, and nodded at her red-and-white cat-covered pj’s.
She blinked, swallowed, and he saw a ghost of a smile. “I do, too. I had to leave Lola at home with my parents.”
“My tabby’s a bruiser named Hank, jumps on my chest when he wants me to get up.”
She stared at him. “His name’s Hank?”
Arturo smiled, studied her amazing face. “Hank and I live only a quarter of a mile away, that’s how I got here so fast. When you’re ready, tell me what happened.”
She’d rehearsed it, he realized, like a part, and so her recounting was straightforward and precise. “It seemed like he was standing over my bed forever, but I knew it had to be only a couple of seconds. It was the weirdest thing, but I was frozen, couldn’t move. Then we both heard the sirens and he jerked up and everything inside me broke open, and I emptied my gun at him. A minute later I heard two officers banging on the front door, yelling at the top of their lungs, to scare him, I guess, if he was still here. But he wasn’t. I told them he’d probably jumped out the window. I might have shot him, I don’t know. They immediately went after him, but I guess they never saw him, and then you were here.”
Arturo waited a moment, but she said nothing more. He saw her swallow, fist her hands. He said calmly, “There are a lot of us here now, looking for him. They’ll be speaking to neighbors, checking garages, any empty houses. If he’s still around, they’ll find him.” He pulled her empty .22 out of his jacket pocket.
“You’d have to be really lucky if you hit him. This is a crap gun.”
She raised dark brown eyes to his face, her pupils still dilated. “I know, but it’s all I could get. I thought I was a good shot. I really did my best to hit him.”
She sounded disappointed. Excellent, more power to her. He watched her walk to the sink to get a glass of water, noticed her long legs that probably brought her height to his forehead. She filled a glass, looked at it and set it on the counter. He said to her back, “Even I couldn’t have hit him with this sorry excuse for a gun unless I was nearly on top of him. You were scared, too, and the adrenaline rush makes you shake. How far away was he when you shot at him?”
“I was behind my big velvet chair, and he was standing by the bed, maybe ten, fifteen feet.” She walked to the fridge and pulled out a nearly empty bottle of champagne, pulled the cork out with her teeth and chugged the last of it down. He couldn’t help the grin when she swiped her hand across her face. “What chance is there you’re going to catch this guy, Detective?”
“Depends on whether you hit him, and whether he’s still anywhere near. Not much champagne left. What happened to the rest?”
She tossed the champagne bottle in the trash can beneath the sink and came back over and sat down. She gave him a huge smile and told him the role she’d won as Detective Belle DeWitt. “So I was a little buzzed when I went to bed, thanks to the rest of the champagne. I read Vanity Fair for a while, then fell asleep.” She stopped cold, swallowed.
“What?”
“I don’t know whether to tell you this because it sounds so unbelievable, but I heard a voice yelling at me to wake up.” Her voice fell away and she searched his face. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you?”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“Look, I know it had to be a dream, no other explanation, but the voice was Deborah’s voice. Deborah Connelly’s.” Her chin went up, daring him to call her crazy, but Arturo said, “It was only a matter of seconds before you heard him coming in the window in the second bedroom, right?”
He watched her push a hank of hair behind her ear. “Yes. You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”
“Nah, you’re not the least bit crazy.” Arturo stood up. “You did good. You’re alive.”
She cursed, full-bodied curses, then, “You don’t think I hit him, do you?”
Arturo was charmed. He hadn’t heard a fine ripe curse from a woman since his ex-wife. “They haven’t found blood anywhere yet, no blood trail. Maybe they’ll have more luck in the morning. So you knew Deborah Connelly?”
“Yes, and Doc. Not all that well, but well enough.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “I didn’t want to die like she did.”
He rose, lightly laid his hand on her shoulder. “Ms. Swanson, I don’t think I’ll arrest you for firing an illegally obtained firearm. Your .22 will have to go in my report and into evidence, but I don’t think you’ll be hearing from the D.A.”
She rose and shook his hand. “In that case, you can call me Gloria.”
A black eyebrow went up. “Gloria. Gloria Swanson.”
“The new and updated version. One of these days I’m going to be famous and you’ll tell everyone how you met me.”
Arturo turned at the sound of voices to see Cam and Daniel in the kitchen doorway. “Come in, guys, and let me introduce you to Gloria Swanson.”
Cam shook Gloria’s hand. “Ms. Swanson, I’m delighted to meet you. You’re alive and well and that pleases me more than you know. I know you’ve already been talking to Detective Loomis, but we need to hear it all, too. Arturo, if you could stay, break in if you think of more questions?”
Arturo raised his hand in the middle of her second recital of what had occurred. “I’m not clear about something. When did you call 911?”
“Sorry, I forgot. I’d practiced each step I’d take if he broke in, but then I forgot my cell. I crawled back to my night table to get it, and called 911.” She swallowed. “It was only a couple of minutes before he opened the bedroom door.”
Daniel said, “One more time. Can you describe him?”