Love Can Be Murder

shady, the air stifling instead of aromatic. She blamed her unease on B.J.'s warning that a murderer was still on the loose, and on her own fatigue. Without proper sleep and nourishment, her energy was flagging, her muscles tightening, her lungs constricting. Halfway through the last hairpin turn, she stopped, gasping for air, and leaned over to grasp her knees.
    A loud crack exploded in the air, startling her. From the echo, the noise sounded amazingly like a gunshot. She pivoted, thinking a car had backfired, only to find herself alone on the road as far as she could see in both directions. Another loud crack split the air. This time, whatever it was, was close enough for her to hear the whizzing noise as it sped by, and it caused wood to splinter on a tree next to her. In the fraction of a second that it took for her to register the fact that someone was shooting at her, her feet, thank goodness, had already figured it out.
    An enormous surge of adrenaline sent her sprinting back down the hill faster than she'd ever run in her life. A couple of times the momentum alone nearly took her down, but terror kept her upright and moving, her arms and legs pumping. The stretch of road had never seemed so long. A frightened, keening sound erupted close by, then she realized the noise was coming from her throat. Someone was shooting at her, trying to pick her off like a duck in a carnival game. Her back burned with the overwhelming sensation that someone was bearing down on her.
    At the bottom of the hill, she flung herself across the road blindly, her only thought getting to the other side and into town. A car horn blasted the air. She turned her head to see the blur of a white car and braced for impact. The driver locked the brakes, but the car still grazed her hip, knocking her to the ground. The tang of burned rubber filled the air. The driver's side door sprang open, and Steve Chasen jumped out. "Penny?"
    Shaken, she picked herself up off the road. She was so relieved to see a familiar face, though, that she practically fell into him.
    "Are you okay?" he asked. "My God, I almost didn't see you in time to stop."
    "Someone...was...shooting...at me," she said, her teeth chattering.
    "What?"
    "On the hill," she said pointing.
    He frowned, his expression wary. "It was probably someone playing with fireworks."
    "No," she said stubbornly. "It was gunshots."
    Steve was quiet for a few seconds. "Penny," he said gently, "I heard about Deke, that the police questioned you."
    She read his expression. He thought she was guilty...and perhaps had snapped. "I didn't kill Deke, Steve. And I wasn't imagining things just now."
    He nodded and led her to the passenger side of the car, as if she were a small child. "But you're understandably upset. You might have heard something and thought it was a gunshot."
    Penny opened her mouth to object but recognized the futility of arguing. "Will you please just take me to my apartment?"
    "Of course," he said, opening the car door and helping her inside. While he walked around the front of the car, she glanced back toward Hairpin Hill. Nothing seemed amiss. Had she mistaken the wild shots of a woodsman or a car backfiring for someone trying to kill her? She sank deeper into her seat, her mind racing.
    Steve was quiet as he drove her back toward town, although she felt his gaze upon her. He slowed at the pink house and stared before driving on.
    "I can't believe he's dead," he murmured.
    "Neither can I," she said.
    "Did he really die like everyone is saying?"
    "If everyone is saying that he was stabbed, then yes."
    "With a garden stake?"
    His eyes glittered with excitement, and a finger of unease tickled the back of her neck. Steve had seen her stab the voodoo doll and might have had his own reasons for wanting his boss dead.
    "That's right," she murmured.
    "It's kind of spooky that you stabbed the voodoo doll at the party, and then Deke winds up dead the same way."
    "Uh-huh. By the way, did you bring the doll as a gag gift?"
    "No," he said quickly, then looked sheepish. "I didn't have time to buy a gift." Then his eyes widened. "Do the police think it was someone at the party?"
    "They don't know," she said carefully. "The doll might be some kind of bizarre coincidence. Was Deke having trouble with any of his clients?"
    Steve shrugged. "He was having trouble collecting fees from a couple of people, but otherwise...Wait—Diane Davidson threatened Deke."
    Penny frowned. "Threatened him how?"
    "She said