Part 33 (2/2)

I panicked and was stepping backward when the naked older woman's bulging eyes caught mine and she nodded wildly.

”Let go!” I yelled, moving deeper into the room, aiming right at the bald woman. ”Let go or I will shoot you!”

CHAPTER 72.

THE BALD WOMAN started, stepped back, let go of the rope, and stared at me and the gun before raising her trembling hands and saying hoa.r.s.ely, ”What is this?”

I grabbed a robe off a chair, tossed it over the older woman I a.s.sumed was Pauline Striker, and came around behind her, still aiming at the bald woman.

”Get down on your knees, Coco, then facedown on the bed, hands behind your head,” I said.

She seemed even more frightened now that she realized I knew her name, and she started to lower herself to her knees while I worked the gag off Mrs. Striker. She spit it out, choked, and cried, ”He-”

”Are you the police?” Coco asked from one knee.

”The next best thing,” I said, pulling out my cell phone. ”Just need to know one thing, Mrs. Striker. Was that consensual? Or was your life in danger?”

Before the older woman could speak, Coco said in a deep male voice that startled me, ”Of course it was consensual. Pauline, tell him. You can't have our interlude coming out in the Palm Beach Post. Not with Edwin's new thing just around the corner. It would be everywhere.”

I gaped for a second, realizing that Coco had to be Jeffrey Mize. But even though the person in front of me was bald, my brain was having trouble with the idea that she was a he. If not for the lack of hair, Mize could have been an aging supermodel.

”Mrs. Striker,” I said, feeling unsure now. ”Please answer my question.”

The older woman seemed less upset than before, and she looked at me, then over at Mize, who was on all fours, gazing at her.

”Tell him, Pauline,” Mize said. ”Whoever he is.”

Mrs. Striker swiveled her head to look at me, choked out, ”Who are you?”

”A Good Samaritan,” I said. ”I'm here to help and to contact the police if you need them.”

”Wait,” Mize said, pus.h.i.+ng up into a kneeling position. ”You're not a cop?”

”How did you get in here?” Mrs. Striker asked, sounding angry.

”That's not important; what's important is whether this was consensual or not,” I said, feeling the situation slipping away from me.

”It was consensual,” she said emphatically. ”But I most certainly did not consent to having you in my house holding me and my guest at gunpoint. Who are you and what are you after?”

”Who I am doesn't matter,” I said, trying to figure out a way to exit gracefully and anonymously. ”What matters is that Mr. Mize has been linked to the murders of three Palm Beach socialites.”

”That's not true,” Mize snapped.

”He painted their portraits. Lisa Martin. Ruth Abrams. Maggie Crawford. Is there a portrait of you here in the house, Pauline? Were you about to become number four?”

Mrs. Striker looked bewildered for a moment and then said, ”I don't know anything about that.”

”See?” Mize said, smiling and straightening.

It was time to either cut and run or do something audacious. I chose audacious.

”Then I apologize and I'll be going,” I said, lowering the gun. ”But I'd rather see you free of your bonds before I go.”

”That's not necessary,” Mize said.

”I insist,” I said.

Taking my eyes off Mize, I squeezed my phone, then crouched and set it on the carpet behind the ladder-back chair at the foot of the bed. With my left hand, I began working at the knots. My right thumb found the latch on the Ruger and I pressed it before I moved the gun to my left hand.

I made a sound of frustration, set the pistol on the bedspread, and set to work in earnest on the knots. I'd undone two and was stepping around Mrs. Striker when Mize dove on his belly, grabbed the Ruger, and aimed it at me, point-blank.

”I don't know who you are, but I am going to enjoy killing you,” Mize said in Coco's voice. ”And don't you move now, Pauline. We have unfinished business, you and I.”

”No, Jeffrey, I-”

Mize slammed the b.u.t.t of the gun backward, hitting the side of Mrs. Striker's head and opening up a rectangular cut that bled as she moaned.

”Why'd you do that?” I demanded.

”I needed her out of the way so you and I could have fun,” he said, coming off the bed, gun three feet from my chest. ”Who are you?”

My mind was on overdrive, spinning through the little pieces of what I knew about Mize and the murders and what I'd heard coming up the stairs.

”Why kill me?” I asked. ”I don't fit your pattern. The mommy complex. Did you even have a father?”

”Shut up,” Mize said.

”It's not difficult to understand you hating your mother and taking it out on these women,” I said. ”Miranda, your mother, humiliated you right from the beginning, dressed you up like a girl until age ... what?”

Mize glared at me, said nothing.

”I figure it had to be one of the few things that got you attention from her,” I said. ”Women's fas.h.i.+on and style were what you had in common. Maybe fas.h.i.+on was the only way you could tear Miranda away from all those men.”

”You don't know anything about her,” Mize snarled.

”I know she spent a lot of money. I figure you barely inherited enough to keep up the house she left you. Or maybe, between your trust and the portrait commissions and your shop, you had enough money for a while. But recently the trust ran out, or the commissions stopped, or your shop began floundering. And it all got to be too much for you, didn't it, Jeffrey?”

Mize seemed to be staring right through me now.

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