Crash and Burn Read Online Free Page A

“But I think she’s going to kill me.”
    “Has she threatened you?” Scarlet suspected he was leaving something important out of this conversation.
    “Hitting my car isn’t enough? Following me from work? Sitting outside my apartment all night long?”
    “I suggest getting a restraining order against Wendy. There’re thousands of mutual restraining orders on the books. Stay away from her—she stays away from you. Eventually she’ll find someone else to obsess over.” Nine times out of ten, Scarlet was right. “She thrives on her ability to make you react—even in a negative way. It’s twisted, but I’d seen it a hundred times when I was a cop.”
    “Can’t you make her stop?”
    “I’m a private investigator. There’s nothing I can do.”
    “Can’t you follow her? Watch her follow me? See what she does? What if she finds out where I live? I’ve had to move twice, Ms. Moreno. I’m thinking I need to leave southern California for good. Quit my job.” He paused. “I’m scared of her.”
    Scarlet almost felt bad for the guy. Almost.
    “Look, if she shows up this weekend, call the police. They’ll persuade her to stop. When you get the restraining order, if she violates it, call the police. Go invest in a good security system with a video cam. Put it in tonight if you think she knows where you live. Stay with a friend. But—” She sighed. She was going to regret this. “You won’t be able to get the order until Monday. If you see her again this weekend, call me. I can’t promise anything, and if you call and I come out, you pay my hourly fee.”
    Krista was going to shoot her. She was supposed to get all clients to sign a contract. Especially after that time last year when she spent nearly a week helping a friend and didn’t end up getting a dime. But paperwork was the bane of her existence, and she figured she wouldn’t hear from Jim Douglas again.
    Jim didn’t look happy with her answer, but he nodded. He wrote on the back of a napkin. “Here are all my numbers. And my address. I’ll do what you said. What do I owe you?”
    “For a fifteen minute consult? Nothing. Go. Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”
    She watched him leave, then brought the empty glasses to the bar. Her seat was taken, so she walked behind the bar and dumped the mugs into the sink. Isaac was mixing drinks and said, “Client?”
    “Hopefully not,” she said. “Has a stalker ex-girlfriend. I told him to get a restraining order.”
    Isaac snorted. “In my experience, guys rarely get restraining orders.”
    “In my experience, guys can be idiots.”
    She grabbed another slice of pizza and a bottle of beer and said, “The rest of the pizza is yours, Isaac. Stay frosty.”
    Scarlet walked through the swinging door marked authorized personnel only and maneuvered through the narrow hall. There were two small rooms off the hall, Diego’s office and the larger stock room, which also had a door to the alley. The old staircase to her apartment was dark and curved steeply up to a small landing. She unlocked her door, then shut it with her foot.
    The noise from the bar was a dull throb with an undercurrent of lively pop rock. If she were tired enough, she could easily fall to sleep to the comfortable rhythms of drinking and fun; tonight, though beat, she was still tense from the day. Her studio consisted of a small kitchen against the back wall and two doors on the right—they led to the closet and the closet-sized bathroom. The living area was covered with indoor-outdoor carpet and boasted a couch (courtesy of Krista—an extra from her grandmother’s estate), a bed and a decent television. She did most of her non-field work at the over-sized kitchen table and she would’ve been perfectly happy working out of her apartment. But Krista was right—clients tended to think better of private investigators who actually had a real office with desks and a water cooler and doors that offered privacy.
    She took her beer