Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2)

by Sarah Lovett

  He focused again on Chaney. Was the man too far gone for credibility? Matt no longer believed so. He gripped the envelope between his fingers. It wasn't just the report that changed his mind—it was Chaney himself.

  The federal agent's story was growing more and more credible—at the same time Chaney had a dangerous edge. The man was disintegrating with grief. Matt knew Chaney was looking for trouble—and he'd find it.

  Matt wished Sylvia had been here to witness the encounter. He trusted her judgment, her training. He trusted her intuition. His already low mood crashed.

  Why couldn't he just come clean about Erin Tulley? Their affair had been brief, and he'd broken it off months before he met Sylvia. But Erin still claimed to be in love with him. Maybe he was just ashamed of the whole thing. Ashamed that he'd almost rekindled the affair in March. Maybe he was ashamed that she still had some power over him, however small.

  MATT PARKED THE Caprice under a streetlight in front of a tan stucco house on Agua Azul. The street was narrow and short and part of a newly suburban maze in south Santa Fe. Each home had a porch, a garage, a patch of lawn, a tree. Children were still at play down the block. The faint sound of their laughter caught and broke on the night air.

  For a long minute, Matt studied number 67: the curtained windows, the brown stubble of grass, the weed-ridden flagstone path that led to a faded blue front door. The weeds were new; four months earlier, the yard had looked immaculate.

  How many times had he been here? Almost every night for the brief time their affair had lasted. And then again in March. It had been a ritual; this time alone in the car, waiting for the porch light to go on.

  And now it did. Bright yellow light flooded the cement foundation and the weathered slatted flowerpots.

  The affair was over; so why hadn't he ever told Sylvia about Erin?

  He approached the house and stood on the doorstep, arms at his sides. Almost instantly Erin Tulley opened the door. She looked tense. And angry. And very young. He asked, "Are you all right?"

  She stared at him with contempt. When he recoiled, she stepped back so he could enter the house. He had to turn sideways to fit through the space she allowed, and his movements were clumsy. He could smell her scent, a hint of rose.

  Matt reached out to touch her face, but she pulled away. "Forget it." She clutched her terry-cloth robe tight to her throat. "That's not why you came."

  Uneasy, Matt glanced around the entryway, into the beige living room, into the yellow kitchen. He felt eyes on his back.

  Erin said, "We're alone, if that's what you're wondering." Her hand brushed against his sleeve and emotion flickered over her face; he couldn't tell if it was bitterness or sadness. She didn't let him get another look.

  "You want coffee?" She had already turned toward the kitchen.

  Matt shook his head. "I'm fine."

  She wasn't listening, or else she couldn't stop moving. She opened cupboards, found a clean mug, filled it, and refilled her own cup.

  Matt accepted the coffee. He didn't want to sit, but he forced himself to settle on the edge of a white plastic chair. The room was small, square, made of prefab materials, and had absolutely no relation to the heavy molded adobes of east side Santa Fe. The stucco walls were bare except for a photograph of the Sandias at sunset and a poster of impossibly perfect habañero peppers. A toaster oven took up half the counter space. A blender and dish rack demanded the rest. Dirty dishes filled the sink.

  Erin kept her head low as she sipped her coffee. Her robe was loose and Matt could tell she was naked beneath the terry cloth. Where the fabric gaped, the inside of one thigh was visible. He averted his eyes.

  She turned to face him, chin square and defiant, and she saw that he was embarrassed. She said, "Why did you come? Aren't you taking a big risk, coming near such a pariah?"

  "Erin," Matt said softly.

  Her eyes filled with tears. "You wanted me a few months ago—before Sylvia took you back."

  Matt stood, moved a step toward her, but she raised the flats of both palms. "No."

  He stopped and shook his head. He wanted to escape . . . he had no idea what to say to her. He'd dreaded finding her like this. That's why he'd avoided a meeting. But she was calling again—her lawsuit was the excuse now.

  Her voice shook like a child's when she said, "I messed it all up. My career, everything. I wasn't tough enough to take the heat." Although he didn't respond, she turned on him and her eyes burned.

  "I had a valid case, dammit. I should've been promoted. I had a valid gender discrimination case, and everyone at D.P.S. knew it. But you didn't stand behind me. Where were you when I needed you?" Fury shook her body and stretched her voice to the breaking point. "You're a coward!"

  Matt moved into her space and grabbed her by both shoulders. He outweighed her by sixty pounds, and she only resisted for a few seconds before her strength seemed to give way. She collapsed against his chest and wept.

  When most of her tears were spent, Matt sat her down at the table and got her a fresh cup of coffee. She drank half the cup before she could speak.

  "Do you hate me?" she asked.

  "Why would I?"

  "Because I screwed up on Randall."

  He kept silent for a few seconds. Really, he didn't understand why she'd lied and then broken rank. Except she was so shaken by the long, drawn-out lawsuit. She looked like a different woman from the one he'd thought he loved—and different from Erin, the cop. She'd been good at her job. He said, "It didn't matter in the end."

  Erin released her breath in a long sigh. Matt was afraid she would cry again, but the storm passed.

  She said, "I needed your support."

  "You had the police officers' association on your side."

  She shook her head. "I got so sick of the way you all shut me out."

  "What did you expect?" Matt asked her wearily. "You accused the department of discrimination. Did you think they'd applaud you for it?"

  "I thought you might."

  Her words stung him. Just as quickly, he knew most of the anger was meant for himself.

  He studied Erin now. Behind the exhaustion, the emotional havoc, she was still striking. For the first time he was shocked to realize she reminded him of his wife. Mary had been nothing like Erin in temperament. But she had seemed incomplete without her husband or son by her side. Erin had that same air of incompleteness. Sometimes she was like a lost kid. She had a neediness that Matt rarely saw in Sylvia. And Erin wanted him—she'd made that clear ever since their affair.

  And he had been equally clear that he was unavailable. But when Sylvia had asked for some time alone last March, Erin had been eager to renew the relationship. Remembering that final encounter made Matt feel ashamed. He'd hurt Erin again because he felt rejected by Sylvia. Guilt washed over him, made him even more uncomfortable. He glanced surreptitiously at his watch.

  Erin said, "I know it wasn't easy for you to come." Her face was shiny and pink from crying, as if she'd scrubbed it too hard. She tried to smile and got halfway there. "Thanks."

  He stood and started to tell her he was sorry: she was right, he hadn't stood behind her because he didn't want to get involved in her problems.

  She shook her head, and brought her fingers gently to his mouth. "Before you go, I need to know . . . are there any leads on Randall?" Suddenly, she looked stricken. She pulled back and covered her face with her hands. "I messed up bad—if I could do it over—" She fought for control, gulped air. Slowly, she let her arms drop to her sides. "But I can't. And maybe it doesn't matter—at least he didn't get away with rape."

  Her eyes were fierce. "I still love you, Matt."

  "Erin, don't—"

  "It's how I feel."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SYLVIA FOLLOWED THE procession of Rosie, Benji, and Velio Cruz as they passed under the metal bower of razor ribbon. They were in limbo between Housing Unit 3's exercise cages, the sally port, and the death house. It struck her as unlikely that the adm
inistration had approved a midnight full-moon healing ceremony in the closed security yard. She half expected the tower guard, who was undoubtedly watching them, to start shooting. She was jumpy.

  Moonlight sharply illuminated the hawklike features of Velio Cruz, the inmate shaman, who would try to reverse the effects of black witchcraft. Unlike a Spanish curandero, who was an all-around healer, Cruz was more like an arbulario, a practitioner who specialized in reversing bewitchment. Cruz borrowed his techniques from Native American, island, and Anglo cultures in addition to Spanish culture. If anyone could "cure" Benji, it was Velio, because, most important of all, he'd honed his prison survival skills: perception and observation, manipulation and power plays.

  Velio Cruz had spent thirty-five of his fifty years behind bars. Currently he was an inmate at the penitentiary's North Facility, serving a life sentence for armed robbery and first-degree murder.

  Cruz was tall and thin, as if intensity had stretched and whetted his body to a spare minimum. Faded black tattoos snaked up his muscled arms and chest. His hands were large, his fingers long and tapered, but his knuckles were so swollen and deformed by arthritis that they resembled walnuts.

  The healer's skin was pocked and discolored by acne. A handlebar mustache drooped over his thin stripe of a mouth. Sylvia had been instantly aware of his eyes. His irises were dark enough to be black, and he had san paku—a quarter moon of white was visible under each pupil. She felt their cold power.

  Cruz stopped suddenly and pivoted toward Benji. "Here."

  He had chosen his site. The maximum-security facility would be their scrim, while the death house and the sweat lodge, which had been built by Native American inmates for purification rituals, occupied the wings. Only the cedar sweat lodge seemed appropriate for the ceremony. Cruz had demanded the outdoor location. He insisted that the bad energy had to be released into open air. The most protected yard was here outside Housing Unit 3, which housed the most violent inmates at the penitentiary. Rosie maintained that she'd arranged for official permission; Sylvia didn't believe her friend.

  Sylvia felt Rosie's hand on her arm. Rosie said, "He's starting." She turned toward Benji but froze when a distant scream cut the silence.

  It came from Maximum. The inmates would not witness the ceremony; their cells were located on the far side of the cinder-block building and faced north or northeast. But by natural prison law they knew something was going on. They could sense action the way a pack of coyotes catches the first scent of its prey. The faint cacophony of their catcalls and howls hung on the night air. Sylvia knew what the din must be like inside the unit. She took a breath.

  Again, she felt Velio's eyes on her skin. Earlier, in a visitors' room, Cruz and Benji had completed their platica, or discussion of the basic problems at issue—in this case, a dark witch, or brujo negro. Even then, the healer had watched Sylvia. Now, she heard his deep voice and turned to stare. He had removed his shirt. The tattoo that covered his chest depicted a crow, dark wings open in flight.

  Velio Cruz raised both arms, suddenly as fierce and graceful as a panther. His voice was deep and sonorous, and he murmured something that sounded like Latin. A prayer.

  Benji Muñoz y Concha moaned. He sat bolt upright on the brown grass opposite Velio Cruz. His loose hair fell past his shoulders. His body was lost inside a large work shirt and blue jeans, both turned inside out. He looked like a wide-eyed ten-year-old, not a prison inmate.

  Rosie, apparently engrossed in the ceremony, murmured softly, and Sylvia tried to shake off a sudden feeling of dread. But when she looked away from Benji and Cruz, her eyes settled on the death house bleached white by moonlight.

  JESSE MONTOYA—GRANDSON of Augustine Montoya, a sixth-generation Montoya whose ancestors had followed Vásquez de Coronado's conquistadors through the Jornada del Muerto—moaned as the motion of the truck tossed him like a shell in the tide. He didn't fight the momentum but let his body roll. Bruises would not matter. Nothing would matter. The monster with the painted face had made that clear enough. Jesse knew he was going to die.

  In his imagination, he made the sign of the cross. He made it slowly and carefully, just as he would if his hands weren't bound; his limbs had gone numb long ago. Perhaps by now they were poisoned by lack of blood. That wasn't something he could say; he wasn't a doctor. He could only guess at such things.

  He thought about his grandfather, who had prayed for hours—days—that Jesse would stop hurting people. Jesse knew that his sins had caused great pain for his grandfather. But he had done so many bad things, the memories flowed together and filled his mind like one vast sea. He prayed now: If you let me go free, Madre de Dios, I will never hurt another girl. He started to cry.

  And for a moment, Jesse believed he could honor his side of the bargain.

  When he was finished crying, he tried to fight the fear. But he wasn't good at it—not without help from marijuana or Four Roses—and fear coursed through his body until he knew he would fail to die like a man.

  So much had been wrong in his life. He didn't trust that the end could go better. He wished he had known his real mother. He missed his grandmother, his abuelita. He missed the voices of women as they chattered in the kitchen over great steaming pots of pinto beans and chile.

  Dios, ayudame—help me. But it wasn't God who embraced him with great warm arms; it was his grandmother. She called his name softly: Jesse, jito. She told him she was waiting for him.

  SYLVIA FOUND THAT she was falling into a light hypnotic trance, lulled by the deep voice of Cruz, the incense, the night air. Clouds had covered the moon in gray silk. The light was diffuse and rich with shadow. She lost track of time and simultaneously became hyperalert. The opposing sensations reminded her of adolescent drug-induced states. The first streak of acid coming on when she was sixteen. The trip had been seductive and dangerous.

  Her eyes caught movement as Velio Cruz rubbed something white over Benji. An egg in its shell. Sylvia heard faint chanting until Cruz finally threw the egg, and it exploded against the cinder-block wall of the death house.

  The moon freed itself of obscuring clouds, and sudden milky light poured down on the prison yard. Sylvia felt sick to her stomach; a wave of heat rushed under her skin. Her vision blurred until the moon was a watery orb suspended in dark liquid. She reached out to Rosie, touched her arm, and the sick feeling passed.

  Cruz began to smudge rough lines with charcoal or paste across Benji's high cheekbones, across his chin, and his neck. When the healer was finished, he took Benji's bare forearm in both hands and lowered his head.

  He began to suck at the soft skin near Benji's elbow.

  To Sylvia, it looked as if Velio were a wolf pulling and tearing at the flesh of a deer.

  As Cruz worked, Benji appeared to experience increasing pain. He writhed on the hard earth. Abruptly, he cried out, "Help me!"

  Answering cries echoed from Housing Unit 3.

  But Velio Cruz kept his mouth tight on Benji's arm.

  THE PANEL TRUCK coasted to a stop on a rough forest road just miles from Los Alamos. On either side of the road cut, a wall of ponderosa pines denied trespass. The mature trees—the veterans—stood twenty-five feet. The youngest had grown together, entwined and crippled, in their quest for the sun.

  The driver's door opened, but nothing emerged from the truck except a thin strand of cigarette smoke. After several minutes, the forest's half silence was broken by the throb of a motorcycle engine. The noise grew louder until a Honda roared into view. Tree branches grazed the biker's arm and thigh. Motorcycle tires crushed infinite pine needles and stirred up fine, powdery earth. The bike drew even and came to a stop next to the truck. The biker climbed off the Honda and slowly removed his helmet. Kevin Chase ran a hand through his damp hair and gazed up at the trees.

  The forest was alive, breathing, and seemed to take one step toward the road. Kevin closed his eyes as if waiting to be crushed by the dark, hunkering shapes. Maybe he heard them speak: Tonight, you h
ave the power.

  Finally, he walked around to the rear of the truck and opened the double doors. He saw Jesse Montoya curled up like a sick baby in the farthest corner. Kevin ignored the naked, bound man and stripped off his denim shirt. He had things to do.

  When he opened the toolbox, the small containers of pigment were ready. He unscrewed one bottle and scooped out rust-colored paste with his thumb. Using the index fingers of both hands, he carefully smeared bloodlines along his cheek, forehead, and throat. A canteen of water had been strapped to a metal hook on the truck's left panel. He took the canteen and squatted outside the truck. With his palm, he wore down the earth between his feet. He dripped water into the hollow. Mixed, the dirt and water became mud, which he rubbed over his chest, arms, and face.

  He hunched over the bike and stared at himself in the mirror. A bloody, aboriginal demon stared back. Good. Killer would approve.

  When Kevin dragged Jesse Montoya from the bed of the truck, he got a surprise: Montoya was conscious. He heard the pleading whisper of Jesse's voice. The sound made him uneasy.

  As he dragged Montoya away from the road, he followed spidery strands of moonlight on the forest floor. His feet were cushioned by the carpet of brown pine needles and rotted trees. Montoya's weight slowed him down. He was hot, sweaty, and irritable by the time he reached the clearing. He dropped Montoya, and the man groaned.

  "Fuckin' rapist." Kevin spat on Montoya's exposed neck. Then he turned and retraced his steps. It was his job to carry the red gasoline can already filled with accelerant.

  He reached the road just as Killer emerged from the truck in full paint: reddish brown and black covering face and chest. The owl mask was terrible. The grotesque predatory-bird features mesmerized Kevin.

  Killer reached out one painted arm and flame emerged from between fingers. Like magic.

  And then Kevin saw that Killer also held the video camera. The red light pulsed.

  Hefting accelerant, Kevin led the way; Killer followed with the camera. By the time they reached Montoya, Killer was moving through the trees in slow motion, red light gleaming, body undulating in a private ritual of death. Wet with sweat, anticipating the coming death, Killer plunged deeper into some altered state.