Triple Exposure

by Colleen Thompson

  “I’ll call the sheriff. And he’ll probably want to talk to you about it, too. Maybe he’ll even find out it’s connected to the man who shot at your truck.”

  “But you’d rather Castillo didn’t know you stayed with me to night.” It hurt, having to be that kind of lover. Invisible. Quickly dismissed and forgotten. It was why he fought so hard to stick to celibacy.

  She turned to face him. “I’m not ashamed of being with you. And I’m certainly not asking you to lie about it to protect my reputation.”

  “But if it doesn’t come up…”

  “Simpler that way, don’t you think?” He heard, rather than saw, her smile. “And you won’t have to worry about Patsy spitting in your lunches.”

  Both of them finished dressing, and Rachel pulled her tousled hair into a loose tail.

  “I’m following you home,” he insisted. “I need to make sure you get there safely. You have a problem with that?”

  “Would it matter if I did?”

  “If there’s someone out to hurt you—”

  “I know,” she said miserably, “though sometimes I wish this woman would just step out of the shadows. Meet me face-to-face and get this over with.”

  “Probably she doesn’t want it over with. This is her way of keeping her son, or at least her grief, alive a little longer. Once it ends, she’ll have nothing.”

  “Except a nice, cozy prison cell if I have anything to say about it. Or a locked room in a psychiatric institution.”

  While Rachel stepped into the bathroom, Zeke went out into the chill morning to feed his animals. By the time she climbed into her van, he was warming up his pickup. Regret welled as he followed her taillights through the predawn dimness. Regret that escalated when, after stopping to open the gate, she trotted back to him.

  When he opened his door, she leaned in and threw her arms around his neck, then kissed him. Softly, sweetly, before she ran her palm over his whiskered cheek.

  “Thanks,” she told him. “Thanks for finding me last night—and for reminding me that sex can be—that it can be lovemaking.”

  Before he could think of how to answer, she hurried back to climb into her rusted gold van. And he wanted nothing more than to stop her.

  Or to roll time back to that moment before he had awakened her with his kiss.

  Rachel kept darting worried glances at the rearview mirror. Wondering if she’d hurt Zeke. Or if he thought she was insane for assuming that one night in her arms meant he’d necessarily want more. For all she knew, he was back there celebrating that she’d let him off the hook so easily, that he was free to move on to his next conquest.

  But even though he’d tried to conceal himself from her, she knew he wasn’t that type. Knew that being with her had meant more than he would say.

  She refused to stew about it, to steep in guilt over something both of them had so clearly needed, especially after last night’s terrifying ordeal. In spite of the way she’d been slandered in the courtroom and depicted by the tabloid media, she was a laughably long way from promiscuous. Still, she didn’t buy into the notion that she had to spend the rest of her life a cloistered nun.

  But that didn’t mean she wanted to hear about her night with Zeke Pike from her family, so she fervently wished he would veer off once she turned into her grandmother’s neighborhood. Preferably before somebody saw them and put two and two together.

  She spotted Mr. Morgan’s cat first, a fat orange tabby clambering up the pecan tree in his yard. The reason became clear a moment later, when a barking black-and-white blur leapt at the tree’s base.

  “Wake up the whole damned neighborhood, why don’t you?” she grumbled at James Dean. She parked and climbed out of the van, then waved a quick good-bye to Zeke before returning her attention to the dog’s noise.

  As she approached, J.D. quieted to stare at her. She could swear she heard the whir of tiny circuits running computations in his round head. Figuring his odds of capture, bath, or at the very least fun spoiled.

  “Don’t move,” she whispered to him. “Don’t. You. Dare—Oh, damn it, J.D.”

  The Boston terrier took off running. Rather than chasing after him, Rachel decided to go in and grab her secret weapon, a beloved squeaky toy she’d held in reserve for just such an occasion.

  She unlocked the side door and went in, then cringed at the sound of the TV blaring from the living room. Grandma must be awake, then. But had she noticed Rachel’s absence?

  Rachel tiptoed out of the kitchen and peeked into the living room. Her grandmother was lying on the sofa in her nightgown, an afghan covering her to the waist. She must have fallen asleep waiting up for her granddaughter.

  Rachel sighed as she went to her, wondering whether she should simply pull up the afghan and leave her as she was or help her into her bed, where she would be more comfortable. Wondering until she saw her grandmother’s face and screamed.

  Zeke stood near the side door, holding J.D., who’d come right to him. Poised to knock, he heard Rachel’s shrill cry. Pulse racing, he opened the unlocked door and hurried inside. After putting down the dog, he followed J.D. to the living room.

  “Grandma, wake up,” Rachel was pleading as she shook the woman on the sofa. “Please, Grandma.”

  One look at the waxy pallor and mottled purple on the underside of an exposed arm left him heartsick. Dead, and for some time now. There was no doubt in his mind. Placing his hand on Rachel’s back, he said, “I’m sorry. So sorry, but your grandmother—”

  “No.” Rachel’s voice trembled, and her gaze was desperate. “She’s just gotten cold, that’s all. If we warm her up and get a little sugar in her…”

  J.D. jumped up, tail wagging, and pawed at his mistress’s hip. Then whined and pawed again, until the afghan slid down, revealing the edge of a wine-red box…

  A box of chocolates, open and half-eaten.

  Zeke pulled Rachel into his embrace and let her sob. “If I’d been with her,” she cried, “I never would have let her have them. If I’d been here the way I should have—”

  “You couldn’t have known, Rachel. You couldn’t have expected—You only planned to bring me dinner last night.”

  Rachel shook her head and sank down on the floor beside the sofa. J.D. crawled into her lap and licked her chin.

  “I’ll be right back,” Zeke told her.

  He went to the kitchen and called 9-1-1. After reporting

  Benita Copeland’s death, he noticed a list of phone numbers on the counter. Walter Copeland’s, in large block print, was at the top. Zeke thought about the evening he’d brought Rachel home from the hospital, how relaxed and happy the small family had seemed that night. How everything had changed in one fell swoop.

  He went back to Rachel and squatted down beside her. She stared, unseeing, at a point past his shoulder, a lone tear sliding down beside her nose. He brushed away the moisture and leaned in to kiss her temple. “Would you like—do you want me to call your dad and Patsy?”

  There was no change in her expression, only another tear and the stutter of her inhalation as she handed him a tiny, gold-edged rectangle. “It was—I found this on the sofa, next to the box of candy.”

  Dread filled Zeke as he took the gift card. “See you soon, sweet,” it read, and it was signed, “All my love, Kyle.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  —Benita Copeland death—Tox screen? Blood/urine. Poss. poisoning or nat. causes? Diabetic coma?

  —Candy deliv.—Check w/FedEx. Sender?

  —Zeke Pike—verify tax records, bills of sale, Texas DL

  —NTSB report—part failure, glider, prob. age-related. Ac cidental.

  —Area sex offenders checked, alibied out, as per Dep. Varajas. Pike?

  —Case Notes, Rachel Copeland File,

  Harlan Castillo,

  Presidio County Sheriff’s Department

  Tuesday, March 18

  “She had eighty-six good years.” Though Rachel’s father looked uncomfortable in his ch
arcoal suit, he repeated these words to each person who came to speak to him as the small graveside service ended. His eyes gleamed in the late morning sun. “Eighty-six good years…”

  An elderly couple turned to leave, following Zeke as he made his way back to his old truck. Rachel was touched that he had shown up—and surprised to see him wearing both a tie and a sports jacket, a combination she suspected he had bought for the occasion.

  “I only wish…” her father started.

  Patsy grasped his hand. “Stop it, Walter. Please stop. You have nothing to feel guilty over.”

  Rachel stared at her, uncertain whether she’d imagined her stepmother’s inflection—or the icy chill she’d felt when Patsy’s gaze slid past her.

  Patsy had made a show of kindness these past few days, but Rachel didn’t trust it. Nor did she trust whatever impulse had prompted the invitation to move into her father and stepmother’s house.

  After thanking her politely, Rachel had decided to stay in the spice-brown adobe with a sadly subdued J.D. Her dad and Zeke stopped by to check on her so often, she barely had the time to feel alone or nervous. Patsy, too, had called several times, and the sheriff had come by twice to update her on his investigation.

  Rachel had been grateful beyond measure to learn that the chocolates had not been poisoned, that her grandmother’s death had come without pain as she’d drifted from sleep into a diabetic coma. But Rachel could scarcely breathe for the regret crowded in her chest, the terrible knowledge that a cruel hoax meant to frighten her had taken someone she’d loved so dearly.

  Her father’s faced reddened as he looked at his wife. “You tried and tried to warn me she was slipping. But I was so damned blind. Refused to see how much she needed looking after.”

  Tears welled in Patsy’s blue eyes. “She knew. Rachel knew it. But she still left her to go out and—”

  “What can I say that I haven’t said already?” Rachel pleaded. “How many times can I apologize? You know—you know how much I loved her. I never meant to stay out that night—never meant for that SUV to come out of nowhere or to get lost in the desert.”

  Emotion shimmered across Patsy’s expression. “You expect us to believe that you and Zeke were running around the desert all night?”

  Rachel looked out among the sun-bleached tombstones, unable to face her stepmother’s suspicion—or to compound her sins with a lie.

  “Don’t do this, Patsy,” Walter pleaded. “Rachel could have died, too.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rachel told him. Nothing mattered except the reality that she would never again be enfolded in the warm fleshiness of Benita Copeland’s embraces, never be regaled with stories from the woman’s half-imagined childhood or urged to drive a sporty little car or put on a few pounds to attract a man. No one would ever again mistake her for a dead great-aunt named Cora, or make up words to cheat at board games, or argue that James Dean really meant to be an angel.

  She looked at her stepmother. “Go ahead and blame me. It’s not like you can make me feel worse than I do already.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” Patsy said quietly, not quite meeting Rachel’s gaze. “I know how much you’re hurting. I know.”

  “We all are.” Rachel’s father laid a hand on each of them as if he harbored hope that tragedy could forge one family indivisible out of jagged, disparate pieces.

  Wednesday, March 19

  The following morning, all three Copelands returned to the house’s kitchen after their meeting with the Alpine attorney handling Benita Copeland’s estate.

  “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.” After stepping around J.D., Walter scooped freshly ground beans into the basket of an ancient coffeemaker. “All this time, she’s been scrimping, clipping coupons and griping over every purchase—remember the fuss she put up about going to the hospital? And all this time, it turns out that Dad wanted…that he had made provisions.”

  Rachel went to him and hugged him, as overwhelmed as he was by the second shock she had received since yesterday’s service. At the thought of Dr. Thomas’s phone call—his insistence that she stop avoiding him and listen—the room whirled around Rachel briefly before she brought it into focus. Not now, she warned herself. You can think about that later if you have to.

  Dragging her mind back to the present, she told her father, “You heard what the lawyer said. That insurance policy felt like blood money to her. She was happier and more comfortable living on your father’s pension. The Grandma I knew never wanted for a thing.”

  Patsy sat with her elbow on the kitchen table, her hand covering her mouth and hiding her expression. Along with Rachel and Walter, she hadn’t said a word during the half-hour drive back here. When she did speak, her voice quaked with emotion. “I underestimated her. I think we all did.”

  Rachel dredged up a smile, remembering the day her grandmother let her know she was well aware of her granddaughter’s legal problems—and mad as hell she’d been “protected.” “You know what I think? I think she enjoyed having her secrets. She probably loved the idea of taking care of us once she was gone, too. But who would have imagined she’d been managing an investment portfolio like that all on her own?”

  “She picked a darned good broker.” Pride warmed her father’s voice. “But it looks like my mama made some damned shrewd decisions of her own, too.”

  Or lucky ones, Rachel thought, for her grandmother had invested in a couple of ventures that had turned out to be huge winners—with every cent of profit rolling over into a trust to benefit her only living son and sole grandchild. While the final tally was by no means astronomical, each of them had netted several hundred thousand dollars and a half-interest in the house.

  “I’m signing it over,” Rachel told her father. “Every cent of it—”

  His face flushing, he said, “Like hell you will.”

  Patsy looked away from them, her lips tightening in a grimace.

  “Your grandmother wanted you to have it,” he added, “and nothing would make me happier than seeing you living in the house where I grew up. There are a lot of happy memories here, and I don’t know how I’d bear seeing it sold off to some rich out-of-towner who’d gut the place and make it a postmodernist getaway or a tourist rental or one more snooty gallery.”

  “I love living here,” Rachel admitted, “but, Dad, you’ve spent a fortune on my defense—you and Patsy both. I have to pay it back to you. For my own sake, I need to.”

  Rachel knew the amount would eat up most of the cash portion of her inheritance, but clearing her conscience would be an even better legacy. And perhaps it would help to ease the tension between her and Patsy.

  He laid a callused hand on her shoulder, his hazel eyes searching her face. “It wasn’t your fault, Rusty.”

  “I only wish Castillo could’ve tracked down whoever sent those chocolates.” The shipping company’s records indicated that the parcel had been sent from a mailing center in Alpine, that the bill was paid in cash with a non-existent address on the shipping form. The Brewster County sheriff had sent a deputy to question the young clerk who’d been on duty, but try as she might, the high school student couldn’t recall any details about the package or its sender. Since the flowers had been delivered to Rachel in Alpine, the sheriff there had also prevailed upon the floral service to cough up the credit card information on that purchase. But the number had been traced back to a prepaid Visa gift card—which had also been bought with cash.

  “I’m talking about Philadelphia.” Moisture rimmed her father’s hazel eyes, and his color deepened. “None of it was your fault, not a damned bit.”

  Rachel froze, wondering what exactly he knew and how he could have possibly…

  Her father shook his head. “I didn’t mean to overhear you last night. I—I should have left as soon as I realized…”

  Trembling too hard to keep standing, Rachel dragged out a kitchen chair and sank down on it, across from her stepmother.

  “You’re white as a ghost,” s
aid Patsy. “Walter, what did you—”

  “I swung by yesterday evening,” he said quietly, “just to check on Rachel, make sure she was all right. When she didn’t answer, I let myself inside. That was when I heard her crying, talking on the bedroom extension.”

  Rachel’s face burned as she guessed, “So you took it upon yourself to pick up, in the kitchen? You listened in on a private conversation—with my psychologist of all people?”

  Patsy blinked hard. “Walter.”

  “No,” he burst out. “No, I didn’t. I thought—I thought I’d go tap on the bedroom door since it was open. I only meant to let you know I was here and I’d be waiting in the living room, in case you needed…Hell, Rusty, I never planned to stand in the hall listening, but when I heard you say…When I guessed what must have…I felt like I’d been poleaxed. I couldn’t move a muscle.”

  Rachel was speechless. By this morning, she had managed to lock the facts into a dark vault, as coldly and dispassionately as if they belonged to someone else’s history. Later, she could decide how to live with them, but not yet…and especially not with the pressure of coping with her family’s reaction.

  “I don’t understand.” Patsy shook her head. “What—what’s happened…?”

  “The new photos,” Rachel managed, “the—the experts think—they claim they’re certain…”

  When she couldn’t force herself to go on, her father said, “That bastard gave her something—doped her that night at the restaurant—a few weeks before the shooting. Then he took her home and—”

  “I was unconscious in those photos. The drug—they think it was a date-rape drug, dissolved into my soda—it relaxes a person’s inhibitions…and causes amnesia. Then you pass out and…he set up cameras. Cameras, so the son of a bitch could have souvenirs of what he did to me. And not only me. They found two others. A girl he’d dated—and a young teacher from the prep school that expelled him.”