SURVIVAL INSTINCT

CHAPTER: 21

On the other hand, Sarah knew that Ryan was dangerous. She had only his word for it that Diana never showed up for their appointment. He could have met her and killed her and then called Sarah, pretending to have been waiting for an hour. She had no idea what his motive might have been, but it need not even have been anything personal; with Ryan's background, someone could have hired him to get rid of Diana. As she had been so universally disliked it was amazing she had survived as long as she had, and The Times paper's implication that she might have been mixed up in something illegal made a lot of sense. Once a crook, always a cook as the saying goes, right?

And it seemed to Sarah that one would need a certain personality-type to slit someone's throat. It was not like pulling a trigger from a safe distance, or poisoning somebody's food without their knowledge, or cutting the brake cables of somebody's car to cause a fatal accident. Throat-slitting is a very up close and personal thing and seems to require a particularly brutal, yet unemotional personality. It will require a lot like the personality of Ryan Johnson's.

But if he did kill Diana, why involve Sarah? He could have just walked away, riding on his bike, and would have disappeared. Nobody would have known that he was ever there. Unless somebody had seen him, of course. Particularly a neighbor, maybe. Or unless he had left behind some evidence, and he wanted to be sure that he could explain away anything the forensic team would find. His fingerprints and DNA should have been in the police database from the time he was arrested before, and it would be impossible to get around hair or fingerprints found in the house if he claimed never to have been inside.

The driveway of 102 South Massachusetts Avenue, was empty, and Sarah continued down the street while her thoughts kept churning. She was so occupied that she almost ran the stop sign at the corner of South Avenue, and came within a couple of inches of hitting an Audi A3 with a middle-aged black man behind the wheel. He mouthed an insult, to both Sarah's race as well as gender, before he drove off in a cloud of smoke. His car obviously had engine problems, and she supposed that was punishment enough for calling her names.

She was just about to turn the corner and follow him when she caught sight of something in the parking lot across the street. It was a black motorcycle, parked in the shade under a tree, and although she was not an expert at motorbikes, the sleek, black Harley-Davidson looked familiar.

Sarah inched forward, peering from behind the rows of leaves of magnolias. The parking lot flanked a long, low building, with lots of windows, covered with faded blue curtains.

A motel? Sarah wondered. She narrowed her eyes. Was it possible that she had discovered entirely by accident, where Ryan lived?

But no, luck did not favor her. The sign at the entrance said Morrison House and below the name, in smaller letters, Home for the Aged.

All right, so Sarah knew she said earlier that she did not want to be the next Agatha Christie. but she did, however, have a healthy share of what her mother called unladylike curiosity. This must be the nursing home where Jemima Atkins lived. It was at the right distance from the house for her to have walked over, and it seemed to be the only nursing home Sarah had seen in this part of town. and that bike looked an awful lot like Ryan Johnson's bike. But if it was, what was he doing there? Had it something to do with Diana's murder? Or was he perhaps; her eyes narrowed; talking about the house? Telling Mrs. Atkins that if she would take it off the market, he would buy it directly from her, without using an agent? Thus doing away with Walker and Sarah, and cheating them out of their commissions?

Sarah did not think; she just reacted. She parked her car in the parking lot and found a spot close to the entrance. Then she stalked inside, ready for the battle.

The reception area was gloomy, with a green carpet, and a functional desk. Sarah summoned a fake smile and plastered it across her face. "Excuse me?"

The receptionist, a middle-aged plump woman, looked up from her issue of Essence Magazine. "Yes?" she asked.

"Do you have someone named Jemima Atkins living here? I would like to see her, please."

"Miss Atkins already has a visitor." She did not close the magazine, and Sarah saw a photo-spread in the magazine showing five or six dark-skinned men with their shirts off. Their muscles bulged out and the receptionist's eyes did too. Sarah hoped her eyes didn't, but she was not entirely sure.

"That is all right," Sarah said. "He is a tall guy in jeans and a T-shirt, with a tattoo of  a cobra curled around his bicep, right?" Sarah asked the woman.

The receptionist nodded. "Miss Atkins said he was her grandson."

Of course, she must have, poor, confused, old woman, she was Sarah thought. And it must not have occurred to the receptionist to ask Ryan to prove it. Particularly, not when he looked like one of her photo-spreads come to life. Sarah pried her teeth apart. "We are old friends. He would not mind if I would drop-in," Sarah said.

The receptionist tossed her head. "Lucky girl. Room 111, down the hall on the left."

Sarah thanked her and headed in that direction. Officer Shawn had said that the nursing home where Ms. Atkins lived was not the nicest place, and now when Sarah was in she had to completely agree with him. The interior of the Morrison House looked almost as bad as the house on Massachusetts Avenue, with peeling paint and chipped tiles, while it smelled worse, both sour and clinical at the same time, of antiseptics as well as bodily excretions that had been left far too long without being cleaned. It indeed was amazing how some of these places managed to get and keep the health department's seal of approval. Sarah felt it would be better to shoot a loved one than to allow them to live in a place like this, and she did not blame poor Jemima Atkins for trying to escape. Sarah felt that if she were in her place she would have done the same thing to get out, too.

The door to Room No: 111 was shut, but she could hear a murmur of voices inside. They stopped when she knocked on the door. It was silent for a few seconds, and then the door opened a c***k. Ms. Atkins's wrinkled face peered out. "Yes?"

Sarah smiled. "Hello, again Ms. Atkins. Do you remember me, from this morning?"

It did not look like the woman did. "Are you from the health department, darling?"

Sarah shook her head. "Sorry, no. We met this morning at your house on Massachusetts Avenue. Remember? I was there with..."

It was all that she could speak because now the door was pulled all the way open and Ryan looked down at her, that too above Ms. Atkins's head. And as the adage goes, 'Looks can Kill.' Sarah could tell he was not happy to see her there. His eyes were black and hard, his lips were set in a tight line, and he somehow managed to look taller and more imposing than he usually did.

He did not speak to Sarah, just stepped around Ms. Atkins and into the hallway. "I think it is time to go." He grabbed Sarah by the arm.

"You will be back, won't you baby?" Ms. Atkins smiled toothlessly up at him. Officer Shawn had said that she had bitten Officer Turner, but Sarah had a hard time figuring out how that could have happened when she had no teeth. It must be that the old woman must have gummed him, that being more likely. The thought made her smile, and the old woman smiled back.

"You do take good care of my boy, do you hear?" the old woman told Sarah.

The old woman patted Ryan on the arm. He did not say anything, just nodded to her before he impelled Sarah down the hallway toward the reception area. His legs were a lot longer than hers, and Sarah was again wearing high heels. She had to take two steps to match one of his. The receptionist at the desk got halfway up from her chair and stared at them with a mouth wide open, but she did not say anything. Maybe she did not realize that Sarah was being more or less kidn*pped, or maybe the look at his face warned her off. Either way, the receptionist did not interfere, just let him walk through the lobby without lifting a finger.