Hotline to Murder

immediately repressed it, as she had tried to do whenever Joy mentioned Martha.
    Most upsetting was that it probably destroyed any motive Martha had for murdering Joy. You didn’t murder your beach volleyball partner, especially when she might be your ticket to greatness. Shahla turned away from the table in disgust. She had willed Martha to be a murder suspect, but what one wished for and what one received were often two different things.
    Shahla turned around and walked back toward the beach path. Fifty yards down the path she saw somebody who seemed familiar. The short, dark hair, the compact figure. He looked like Tony. He was walking away from her so she couldn’t see his face. And he wasn’t on crutches. It couldn’t be Tony. Her imagination was playing tricks on her.

    CHAPTER 32
    Tony didn’t know whether all this walking was good for his knee, but he couldn’t stop himself. After he walked the length of Bonita Beach twice, he drove home and checked with the police. Still no news of Shahla. He ate something—he didn’t notice what—in his empty townhouse. So empty he imagined he heard echoes as he moved through the rooms. Maybe he should call Josh and apologize. He didn’t know where Josh was staying, but at least he had his cell phone number.
    After staring at his own phone for a while, he decided not to call. He couldn’t face any more rejection right now. Without a plan, he walked out his front door. He went toward the Hotline office. Distances were not great in Bonita Beach. He walked to the building that housed the Hotline, and then he walked around it, observing the shoppers who were patronizing the adjacent stores. He didn’t go up to the office, itself. That morning, when he had been perusing the Green Book, it had felt eerie without Shahla there. If something happened to her, he was sure he could never go to the office again.
    He walked back to his townhouse, getting home after dark. What now? There was no place he wanted to go. His knee was too sore to walk anymore. He couldn’t even watch television because Josh had taken the TV set. He forced himself to get a pad and pen and sit at his table to formulate a plan of action. He covered the pages with doodles, but nothing intelligible.
    ***
    Shahla ate a dinner that she fixed at home. Most of it consisted of leftover lasagna, nuked in the microwave. It didn’t taste great, but it would keep her alive. She knew some of the rudiments of cooking, but it wasn’t much fun to cook for one person.
    She turned on the TV but couldn’t find a show that interested her. It was dark now and her mother and Kirk still weren’t home. The feeling of unease that had been gnawing at her became a full-fledged worry. What if they had been in an accident?
    She decided to go back over to the Thompsons’ house. They must be home by now. And if they weren’t, she would call Tony. He would know what to do. As she walked out the front door, she could see Thompsons’ driveway. The car that was usually parked there wasn’t. Well, perhaps somebody was home, anyway.
    She walked north along her side of the street until she was opposite the Thompsons’ house. She was about to cross the street when she saw a car coming from the south. She waited to let it pass, but it slowed down and blinked its lights. Considerate California drivers sometimes stopped for pedestrians, even in the middle of a block.
    Shahla waved at the driver as the car stopped, even though the car’s headlights prevented her from seeing who was inside. She had reached the middle of the street when the car suddenly lurched forward, directly at her. Confused, she jumped back toward the curb, trying to get out of its way. It screeched to a halt beside her and the driver’s door flew open, narrowly missing her. A man jumped out of the car and grabbed her before she could react.
    Shahla screamed as the strong arms attempted to pull her toward the car. But the car was still rolling slowly. He let go of her with one hand and grabbed the open door frame of the car with his other hand, apparently to try to stop it. He was holding her by the right wrist. She tried to jam the fingers of her left hand into his throat. It was a glancing blow, at best, but she felt his grip loosen on her wrist. She jerked her whole body as hard as she could.
    Her wrist pulled free, and she ran north along Sandview Street. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man chasing the car, which was rolling toward the far curb.