Party Crashers

the food court, she stepped into the main corridor of the mall, into a stream of shoppers heading toward the exit. Dozens of people passed her, going in the opposite direction, brushing her shoulder, bumping her purse.
    She searched their faces, desperately hoping to see Gary in his orange ball cap, laughing, saying everything had been a huge misunderstanding. But they were all strangers to her, giving her a fleeting glance, if that. People staring past her and through her, shuffling toward their respective destinations. Life went on.
    Then her gaze settled on one familiar face a few yards away, walking toward her: Beck Underwood. He was walking next to his sister, who was talking, her blonde head turned toward him. He was laden with Neiman Marcus shopping bags—apparently Michael had scored a fat sale. At that second, Beck's gaze landed on her, and recognition registered on his face. Recognition and concern.
    Jolie quickly turned her head and walked faster, carrying herself past and away from the man with the perceptive brown eyes. Unreasonable resentment flickered through her body—people with as much money as the Underwoods didn't have to worry about things the way that normal people did. If they were wrongly implicated in a crime, they'd simply make a couple of phone calls and the problem would disappear. Gary had called it the "Buckhead Bubble"—a magic bubble, he said, that surrounded the country-club set that lived in the ritziest part of Atlanta.
    For a few seconds, she fantasized what it would be like to walk in the designer shoes of the rich and famous...to have all doors and possibilities and pleasures at your fingertips. It was an attractive daydream when her own humdrum life seemed so precarious.
    Swallowing past a lump in her throat, her mind jumped to who the dead woman could be, and why she had been in Gary's car. Where was Gary, and why had he implicated her by stealing her car? And could Detective Salyers be right? Could she herself be in danger?
    She pushed open the door leading to the parking garage and stepped out into the uncharacteristic chill of the evening. It wasn't quite 7 P.M., but the days were getting shorter, and the sunlight was already fading. In the parking garage, the light was even more diffuse, and two flickering bulbs didn't help to dispel the darkness in the corners. She jumped when the heavy metal door slammed closed behind her.
    The garage was full of cars, but empty of people, except a few who were unlocking trunks for their shopping bags. She walked down the ramp a half level to where she'd parked her car, her pumps clicking against the concrete, sending rhythmic echoes around her. Jolie pivoted her head right and left, telling herself it was good policy to be alert, that the detective's words hadn't spooked her. But when she spotted her rental car, she found herself walking faster and faster.
    Footsteps sounded behind her, and a shadow fell upon hers. She walked faster and the footsteps kept coming. Her heart thrashed in her chest and she whipped around. A man walking a few yards behind her held up his arm, aiming something in his hand. A scream gathered at the back of her throat just as his thumb moved and the car next to hers bleated, the lights flashing in response to a keyless remote. Oblivious to the fact that she was on the verge of cardiac arrest, the man nodded briefly, then walked past her, opened his door and swung inside.
    Jolie slumped against the door of her own car in abject relief, chiding herself for letting the detective's words get to her. No doubt that Gary, wherever he was, was in a lot of trouble, but she had no reason to be afraid.
    Then she wet her lips and listened to the blood rushing in her ears. So why was she?

Chapter Three

    JOLIE SCOOTED INTO THE tan-colored rental and closed the door behind her. When she pulled the seat belt across her shoulder, she had a grisly vision of a faceless woman belted into the passenger seat of Gary's Mercedes, the clawing fear she must have felt when she realized the car was going into the muddy river, the car filling up with water—
    Her cell phone rang, sending her pulse and imagination into overdrive. Gary? She pulled the phone out of her purse with a shaking hand and checked the screen: Leann. With a sigh of relief, she connected the call. "Hi."
    "The police called me looking for you!"
    "They found me."
    "What's going on?"
    "They found Gary's car."
    "You're kidding. Where?"
    "In the Chattahoochee River."