by Tami Hoag
Hicks closed his mouth as the meaning sank in. “Oh, man. That’s disgusting.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Mendez agreed. “He goes in her house, helps himself to the wine, touches her stuff, jerks off in her underwear, and does the laundry so there’s no evidence. Does that sound familiar?”
“The B and Es,” Hicks said. “Somebody breaks in, messes with their stuff, but doesn’t take anything.”
“This could be our guy,” Mendez said. “And if it is, he’s not just some perv, he’s a predator casing his potential victims.”
“Holy crap.”
“We need to pull those case files and take another look at who’s living in those houses.”
“Right.” Hicks narrowed his eyes. “Hey. Why didn’t you call me?”
“Last night? Why? We should both get dragged out of bed on a prowler call?”
“She called you at home?”
“I gave her my card. What?” he asked at the roll of his partner’s eyes. “She’s new here. She doesn’t know anybody. She’s been to hell and back. She doesn’t think anybody gives a shit.”
“You’re a regular Welcome Wagon, Tony. Is this something new for Oak Knoll? Every newcomer gets their own personal sheriff’s detective?”
“It’s not like that,” he said, irritated. “She’s got special circumstances. I’m just trying to be a decent human being.”
“Whatever you say.”
“That’s what I say.”
Mendez got up and threw half of his doughnut in the trash and dumped the last of his coffee in the sink.
“What’s your plan?” Hicks asked.
“I handed the photograph off to Latent Prints. We’ll see what they come up with,” he said. “I’m going to start calling utility companies. Maybe Ballencoa can live without a phone, but I’m betting he’s got electricity. I’m going to track this bastard down, and we’re going to have a chat about how things are done in Oak Knoll.”
24
“Mommy, I like Leah,” Haley Leone said, looking up at her mother as they walked hand in hand on the shaded path that surrounded the playground of the Thomas Center day care facility.
The day care had been open for nearly three years now, offering a service to the community and an opportunity for women in the center’s program to work in what was truly a nurturing environment.
Anne brought her children here every morning while she saw clients or tended to other work. It was a safe, secure environment with plenty of supervision and activities for the kids.
Never shy, Antony always made a beeline for the toddler sandbox, where he immediately set about building a mountain of sand to run toy trucks into. Haley, more reserved, liked to take her walk and have a few minutes of quiet time with Anne before she joined her little girlfriends on the swings.
Anne smiled. “I like Leah too. She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?”
“She’s really nice. She showed me how to braid hair. She said when she rides in a horse show she has to braid her horse’s hair a certain way, but she knows a bunch of different ways to do it. She said different kinds of horses get their hair braided all different ways. I want to learn how to do that. Can I, Mommy?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. We don’t have any horses to practice on.”
Haley was undaunted. “Leah said she would show me on her horse. Wendy wants to learn too. Maybe we could go watch Wendy ride again and then afterward Leah could teach us.”
“Maybe,” Anne said absently, distracted by her own thoughts of Leah Lawton—so quiet, so polite, but with such a tight grip on herself Anne thought she might just shatter at the slightest touch. She seemed almost to hold herself as if she was protecting a deep, raw wound—which, Anne supposed, she was. Not a physical wound, but an emotional one.
“Maybe?” Haley said with dramatic despair. She leaned against Anne and gave her most plaintive look, although there was a sparkle in her dark eyes. “Mommy, p-l-e-a-s-e.”
Anne chuckled at her daughter’s acting talents. “We’ll see.”
“Oh, n-o-o-o-o!” Haley wailed, though a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
This had been a little joke between them for a long time. When Haley had first come into her life she had told Anne that when her biological mother had said “We’ll see,” it almost always meant no.
Anne laughed, bent down, and kissed the top of her daughter’s head, breathing deep the soft scent of baby shampoo in Haley’s thick tangle of dark curls. Haley had done her hair herself that morning, catching it up in two slightly messy, uneven pigtails. She had also chosen her own outfit—a blue-and-white sundress. Always the girly girl.
“Maybe one day next week,” Anne said. “Daddy’s coming home tonight. He told me he wants to take us someplace special tomorrow.”
Haley’s face lit up with excitement. “Where? To the zoo? Are we going to the zoo?”
Anne shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a secret.”
“I want to go to the zoo!” she said, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Antony wants to go too! Are we going to the zoo?”
“I don’t know,” Anne said again. “We’ll see.”
Haley groaned and crumpled against her.
“Haley, come on!” The call came from a little redheaded girl on the swing set twenty feet away.
Anne kissed her daughter’s head again. “Go have fun, you. I have to get to work. I’ll see you at lunchtime. I love you.”
“I love you, Mommy,” Haley said with a wave as she trotted off toward her friends.
Anne watched her go, thinking—as she did every day—how lucky she was. She had looked death in the face more than once. Every day with her children was an enormous gift she never failed to appreciate.
She rested a hand on her stomach and said a little thank-you for the new life growing inside her. She was a lucky woman. She had a wonderful husband, beautiful children, a career she loved.
Then she thought of Lauren Lawton. Lauren had had a wonderful life too. She’d had a loving husband—now dead. She’d had two beautiful daughters—one gone.
She thought of Leah again, a trouble line creasing up between her brows.
Then, as if she had conjured her up, Lauren Lawton was walking toward her on the path.
“They told me at the desk you might be out here.”
She looked like hell, Anne thought. Pale and thin as a ghost, gaunt, with deep purple smudges beneath her eyes. She could have been a junkie strung out on heroin, or a cancer patient poisoned by chemotherapy.
“My morning ritual,” Anne said, showing none of the alarm that had struck her at the sight of the woman. “Haley and I have to have our little walk and talk before I can go to my office.”
Lauren looked over at the girls playing on the swings. “No one would ever guess she wasn’t your biological child. She looks just like you. Did you adopt her as a baby?”
“No,” Anne said. “Haley was four. Her mother was murdered. She was the only witness.”
Lauren looked at her, shocked, as most people were when Anne revealed her daughter’s tragic background. She had managed to shock Lauren twice now—with Haley’s story, and with her own—which she thought was a good thing.
In her experience, victims sometimes needed to be pulled out of their myopic self-absorption in their own terrible tales. Not to minimize what they had gone through, but to show them others had gone through terrible things too, and had worked their way through to move forward with their lives.
“Oh my God,” Lauren said. “Does she remember what happened ?”
“Some of it,” Anne said. “She used to wake up screaming every night. Gradually, we’ve worked through it with her. The most important thing she needed was to know that she was safe again.”
“I know the feeling,” Lauren said quietly, her eyes on Haley—laughing and happy. Anne suspected she envied the little girl that.
“When you’ve been through a nightmare, it’s hard to imagine ever feeling normal again, i
sn’t it?”
“Impossible,” Lauren murmured.
“Let’s go inside,” Anne suggested. “You look like you could use a cup of coffee. Have you slept in the last . . . year or two?”
“God. Do I look that bad?”
“I’m not one to pull punches,” Anne said as they started back toward the main building. “I’m sure you know the answer to your own question. I know I was well aware I looked like I’d been run over by a truck for the first few months after my ordeal. I didn’t care.
“Some women do, though,” she said. “I’ve seen people go to great lengths to pretend they’re just fine when they’re anything but. That’s a heavy lie to bear. They always crash eventually and have to start over from square one.”
“So are you saying I’m ahead of the game?” Lauren asked drily.
“I’m saying you might as well be honest. A perfect, controlled façade can be worse than a prison,” she said, thinking again of Leah, wondering what exactly the girl was trying so hard to keep locked within.
They went inside the building and down the cool, dark hall to Anne’s office.
“I just wanted to stop by to thank you again for letting Leah stay last night,” Lauren said. “Was everything all right? Leah hasn’t stayed over with a friend for a long time.”
“She did fine,” Anne said. “I checked on the girls a couple of times during the night. Once the gabfest was over, it looked like everyone slept soundly.”
“Good,” she said quietly. “She hasn’t gotten to have much of a childhood the last few years.”
Anne opened her office door and was greeted by the intoxicating aroma of coffee and fresh-baked blueberry muffins.
“Oh my God, smell that,” she said on a groan. “The kitchen staff is spoiling me into obesity.
“Leah is delightful,” she said, going to the coffee bar and pouring two cups without asking. Lauren was going to welcome the coffee, and she was going to eat a muffin if Anne had to sit on her and force-feed it to her.
“Any time Leah wants to come stay is all right by me,” she said. “Antony and Haley loved having her. If she ever wants to make a little money, she can help Wendy with the babysitting duties.”
Lauren frowned a little. Anne read her concern.
“Remember, my house is like Fort Knox. There’s always somebody watching if Vince is out. Even if it’s just date night. Nothing is left to chance.”
“That’s an interesting arrangement you have with the sheriff’s office.”
Anne pushed the cup of coffee into her hand and motioned for her to take a seat.
“They’re like family,” she explained, bringing the basket of muffins to the coffee table. She kicked her shoes off and curled herself into a chair. “Vince has done a lot of work with Sheriff Dixon and his detectives, but he won’t take their money, so they give back in kind.”
“Do you know a Detective Mendez?” Lauren asked cautiously. Unable to resist, she sipped at the coffee. The steam rising from it put a hint of color into her cheeks at least.
“Tony?” Anne said, surprised. “Absolutely. He’s my son’s godfather—and namesake, sort of. It’s a long story. Anyway . . . Do you know Tony?”
“We’ve met,” she said, carefully neutral. “He’s a good detective ?”
“He’s excellent. Vince wanted to recruit him to the Bureau back when, then life took some crazy turns for all of us, and here we all are still in Oak Knoll. Why do you ask? Is everything all right?”
Lauren looked down at the arm of the chair with the expression of someone tempted to burst into hysterical laughter. Clearly, everything was not all right.
Before she could peddle a lie or a platitude, Anne leaned forward and forced eye contact.
“Lauren, I know we’ve just met, and I’m sure you don’t trust people any easier than I do,” she said. “But when I tell you that you can tell me anything, I mean it. You don’t have to be a client. I feel connected to you through Wendy and Leah, and the fact that we’ve both had to deal with some rotten shit in our lives.
“I will never judge you,” she said. “I will never tell you you should or shouldn’t feel one way or another. And if there’s any way I can help you, I will.”
Lauren still wouldn’t really look at her. Tears rose in her cool blue eyes. Anne had never seen anyone more in need of a hug in her life, but she also knew better than to offer it. She suspected it would not be well received.
Lauren had spent the last four years fighting for her daughter, fighting to keep herself together, fighting the dark energy that stalked every victim of violence. She had taken on a warrior persona that would never allow vulnerability.
Anne knew at the heart of that lay fear—the fear that if she allowed a chink in her armor, that would be the end of her. She would crumble. The strength that had gotten her through every day of her personal hell would dissolve, and then where would she be? Who would she be? How would she get from one day to the next? How could she be a mother for her remaining daughter?
“No matter what it is,” Anne said, “you need friends to help you get through it. You will never find anyone more qualified for that job than me.”
Lauren tried to force a smile. She managed to nod, but she still looked away. In the smallest, tightest whisper she murmured a thank-you.
Anne wondered if this was what Leah looked like behind the wall she had built around herself—terrified, eaten raw by the acid of grief and guilt and uncertainty. She suspected so, and a part of her wanted to broach the subject with Lauren, but Lauren seemed so fragile . . . She would tread as carefully as possible.
“That offer goes for Leah as well,” she said. “The two of you are in the same boat. You’re both dealing with the same situation, and you both have to feel like you’re drowning in your emotions. One of you can’t turn to the other, but both of you need to be able to turn to someone. You need a place you can open the pressure valve and get some relief—so does Leah.”
Anne could see the mom alarms going off in Lauren’s head.
“You said Leah was fine last night,” Lauren said. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, really,” Anne said, cursing herself.
“Did she say something?”
“No. I’m just concerned because I know girls her age tend to go one way or the other. They’re either drama queens or they’re afraid to show anyone anything they’re really feeling. Leah falls into the second group, and the feelings she’s holding in have to be huge,” she said. “Keeping that all trapped and bottled up can be toxic.”
To say nothing of dangerous—and she said nothing of the dangers. She didn’t say that girls wound as tightly as Leah had a risk of turning to self-destructive behaviors—everything from alcohol and eating disorders to cutting and suicide. She hadn’t seen any evidence, but the threat was there, lying under Leah’s very controlled surface. Her mother needed to be aware.
“I know I’m not exactly Mother of the Year material,” Lauren began.
“I didn’t say that,” Anne said. “I’m sure you’re a great mom; otherwise Leah wouldn’t be the sweet girl she is. And I’m sure you love her very much. I’m saying when one blind person is leading another they aren’t going to get where they want to go without banging into some walls. Let someone who can see do the steering.”
She watched Lauren carefully, hoping she hadn’t pushed too hard.
She plucked a muffin from the basket on the coffee table and tossed it to Lauren like a ball, surprising her out of her tormented thoughts.
“I’m not letting you out of here until you eat that.”
Lauren looked at the muffin like it was something to dread, but dutifully broke off a little piece of the top and put it in her mouth.
“So what did you do with your evening to yourself?” Anne asked. “I hope you had a chance to relax, soak in the tub, read a book, have a nice glass of wine. That’s what I would like to do, but being the mother of a toddler, I need to relax vicariously throu
gh other people.”
“Yeah, that was pretty much it,” Lauren said, still staring at the muffin.
A lie, Anne thought. She wondered if Lauren had sought any kind of help for the anxiety, the depression, the sleeplessness. It pained her to see someone suffering as much as Lauren Lawton appeared to be suffering, knowing that at least modern science could be helping her out if she wouldn’t allow a friend to do it.
“One night next week,” Anne said, “you and Leah are going to come for dinner. And I’ll tell you right now, I won’t take no for an answer, so don’t even think of trying to weasel out of it. Remember: I can always have a deputy pick you up and bring you,” she said teasingly.
Lauren didn’t look convinced, but Anne had made up her mind. She was going to be a friend to this woman whether she thought she wanted one or not. Anne was becoming convinced that two lives could hang in the balance.
25
Roland Ballencoa did indeed have electricity.
He was living at 537 Coronado Boulevard.
Mendez hung up the phone and sat back in his chair. He felt like he’d just found a big fat poisonous snake living under the cushions of his sofa. A predator had slithered into his town and taken up residence with no one the wiser. If not for Lauren Lawton, Ballencoa could have lived there for who knew how long, establishing his territory, settling into his routine . . .
He got up from his chair and started shrugging into his sport coat, drawing a look from his partner.
“Got him,” Mendez said.
“Where?”
“Five thirty-seven Coronado. A target-rich environment. Three blocks from the high school in one direction. Seven blocks from McAster College in the other direction. Hot and cold running coeds all year round.”
And maybe half a mile from his own house. Mendez knew the neighborhood well. He jogged up and down those streets routinely.
“Oh, man . . .” Hicks muttered, rising from his chair. “That’s like turning on the kitchen light in the middle of night and finding a rat in the middle of the floor.”
“Only we can’t just shoot it and throw a rug over the hole,” Mendez said as they headed for the side entrance and the parking lot.
