by Mg Gardiner
She parked and got out. The evening air was bone-dry and hot, the sky folded with reds and golds. From the stage, loud guitars rang out.
Zoe hopped down from the truck. “Are we at a theme park?”
Sarah foraged in the glove compartment, found a set of airline earplugs and squashed them into Zoe’s ears. “Music festival. And not Disney.”
She strapped on the Snugli, lifted the reborn doll from the car seat, and tucked it in. Taking Zoe’s hand, she pointed at the gate. “Lead on, scout.”
She paid for general admission to the grounds, which used up her remaining cash. She looked around. This place had to have an ATM—rock ’n’ roll was the most capitalist art form ever invented. She saw a Ferris wheel and T-shirt vendors and a booth for ROSWELL UFO TOURS, which advertised visits to the site where the flying saucer crashed in 1947. On the counter sat an inflatable gray alien with eyes bigger than hockey pucks. Zoe gave it a searching look, like maybe it could be Sparky’s new friend. Sarah spotted a portable ATM. She pulled $300.
By the time she found Medical Tent #1, the air-conditioning inside felt refreshing. At the check-in desk, she said, “Teresa Gavilan?”
A man pointed with his pen. “Saw her in the back.”
Sarah led Zoe past examination bays jerry-rigged with paper curtains. The music from the stage was a battering drone. In the far corner of the tent, a woman sat on the edge of a cot, talking to a patient. The woman was in her late forties, with copper hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She wore an Army-green T-shirt and combat trousers, like a character out of M*A*S*H.
“Ms. Gavilan?” Sarah said.
The woman patted the patient’s hand and stood up. When she turned, Sarah expected the chain around her neck to end in dog tags. Instead, it held a crucifix.
Teresa Gavilan’s eyes were a vivid blue, framed by laugh lines. She looked like she’d spent her life outdoors, battling wind and weather with a hearty laugh.
“You made it,” she said.
Zoe stared. “Are you a vampire hunter?”
For a second, Gavilan looked bemused. Then she touched the crucifix. “No, young lady. I’m a nun.”
25
When Harker arrived, the auto salvage crew was hoisting the blue Chrysler New Yorker onto the flatbed tow truck. In the calm light of a spring evening, the mayhem had brought out the neighborhood to gawk. Harker took in the crumpled frontage of DHL Attorney Services, the bricks spilled around the gaping hole where the door had stood. It looked like a destroyed mouth, leaking wood and glass and office furniture.
He showed his credentials to a uniformed officer, signed the log-in sheet, and ducked under the yellow tape.
“Dos Santos,” he said.
Inside, the detective glanced up. Harker climbed on a pile of bricks and through the hole in the building. At the back of the office, crime scene techs snapped photographs. Dos Santos handed him a pair of latex gloves.
“Seems you were right. Somebody besides us is after Sarah Keller.”
Harker pulled on the gloves and picked his way through the debris. Broken glass crunched and brick dust coated his shoes.
“Prints on the New Yorker?” he said.
“Plenty. We’ll see whose.”
He climbed over a smashed desk, feet sliding on Formica. “Witnesses?”
“Canvassing the neighborhood.”
“Video?”
“Bank on the corner. Not in this building,” Dos Santos said.
Harker nudged chunks of debris with his shoe. On the floor a broken piece of plywood was edged with blood.
“Whose?” he said.
“We’ll find out.”
Outside, a uniform called to Dos Santos. The detective trudged back to the door. On the floor, Harker saw the cell phone. Battered and dusty, lying beneath an office chair. He picked it up and slipped it into his pocket.
Dos Santos consulted with the uniform and returned. “Witnesses say the car raced up the street like a demon. Mounted the curb, took direct aim, and smashed through the front of the building without slowing.”
“What about the woman who was carjacked?”
A female voice answered. “She’ll live.”
Harker and Dos Santos turned. Climbing through the hole in the wall was Danisha Helms.
“My mother’s being held in the hospital for observation overnight. She has a heart condition and today nearly killed her.”
Dos Santos said, “And what about you?”
In the dim office, Helms looked dusty and banged up. Her lip was busted. She had a butterfly bandage on her forehead, holding together a deep cut.
“Still standing. Sad to say, so’s the bastard who threatened me.”
Dos Santos said, “Had you seen the man before?”
“Haven’t seen him yet. White guy, from what I could see around the eyeholes of his ski mask. Young, judging by his voice and physique. He was in shape.”
Harker said, “Did you see the driver?”
She shook her head. “I saw that it was my mother’s car. After that I was running. I scrambled out the back door with bricks flying and the grille of the car on my ass.”
Dos Santos said, “Why do you think the car rammed the building?”
With a withering stare, she crunched past him into the center of what had been her office. “Man wanted me to turn over on my employee. Instead, I defended myself. He took it badly.”
Dos Santos said, “About that, Ms. Helms.”
“Handgun license is here someplace.” She swept her arm at the devastation. “Or you can find it in state records. Concealed carry.”
Harker said, “This part of town has a neighborhood alliance, folks supposed to be watching out for each other. It has a reputation as a safe place. Or it did.”
She gave him a cool glance.
“Of course, if you or one of your employees opened the door to violence, that would be a sad thing for the neighborhood.”
In the middle of her ruined office, she looked tired and battered. But her voice was surprisingly firm. “What opened the door to violence were two psychopaths who carjacked my mother and drove her in a goddamn Chrysler through the front door,” she said. “I’m going to see my mom at the hospital. Please get fingerprints and take your photos and find the sons of bitches.”
Dos Santos said, “Yes, ma’am.”
She turned and surveyed the rubble. “Has anybody found a cell phone?”
Harker climbed out the hole in the building and walked back to his car.
Rolling along Northwest Expressway in the sunset, the rented Navigator was silent. At the wheel, Fell scanned the highway. Riding shotgun, Reavy pointed at the turnoff ahead. In the back seat, Grissom fumed.
Physically he was unhurt, Fell knew. When the Chrysler jumped the curb and plowed into the DHL office, he had thrown himself clear.
“Way she moved, she acted like she had military experience,” he said.
His problem was Danisha Helms. She’d outgunned him. Made him need rescue. A woman.
“She’s a dyke. We’ll see to her,” he said. “Yes we will.”
Reavy hesitated, just a fraction of a second. “Course we will.”
Fell echoed her. “Course, Grissom.”
She sensed him twitch. With Grissom, hesitation equaled heresy. Women were required to demonstrate absolute obedience—in action, thought, and soul. It wasn’t enough to submit immediately to a man’s command. Women had to love their obedience. Anything else was rebellious.
What a lucky control freak Grissom was, to have found himself a spiritual home with the Worthe family. And Fell knew the price of any slip: a life of chains.
She’d slipped once. She had asked why.
But all that was about to be made right. Get the kid. Make the family whole. Then, maybe, her chains would fall away.
She thought of the way Grampa Eldrick kissed her cheek after her husband Coffey died, and Uncle Isom told her she had to be strong. Yeah, well, she was doing that. She was going to
get Nolan’s kid back.
Reavy pointed to a strip mall beside a creek, overhung with live oaks. The UPS Store was at the far end. It was nearly seven, and inside a young man was closing up for the night.
Grissom opened his door while the SUV was still rolling. “Follow my lead.”
He hopped out and strode to the door. In his hand he held a letter he’d scrounged from DHL after the Chrysler rammed the building. It was a Heart Association circular addressed to Sarah Keller at a street address on Pennsylvania Avenue. To their utter lack of surprise, the address turned out to be this UPS Store. They walked in and straight to the desk.
“I’m here on behalf of one of your mailbox owners,” Grissom said.
The clerk wore a brown uniform shirt and a wary expression. “What can I do for y’all?”
“Box 2933.”
The clerk nodded at the wall of mailboxes behind them. “Far left.”
“I need access.”
“Then you’ll need a key.”
“Much obliged.”
The clerk looked perplexed. He was about twenty years old, a reedy boy with acne. “Beg pardon?”
Fell and Reavy slipped around opposite ends of the counter and approached him. Fell didn’t know what convinced the boy quicker—Reavy’s hand on the back of his neck, or the box cutter she found beneath the counter. But ten seconds later he unlocked the mailbox.
Sixty seconds after that, they had Sarah Keller’s mail and were tearing out of the parking lot. The clerk had his life, and a warning that if he mentioned their visit to anyone, they’d come back.
Fell floored the Navigator along Pennsylvania, streetlights flashing past. Grissom punched the dome light and tore open an envelope.
“Would you look at this. It’s Keller’s credit card bill.” In the looming dusk, he smiled. “This is our ticket to everything.”
26
Sarah followed Teresa Gavilan’s rusting Honda Civic up the gravel driveway, toward a clapboard house surrounded by scrub pines. Roswell had ended suddenly, as desert towns often did. One block was built up, with fast-food drive-throughs and storefront churches and ranch homes; the next was a tawny rolling plain speckled with stunted conifers, a freckled landscape that hinted of mountains beyond the horizon.
When Sarah killed the engine and opened the door, a sweet silence enveloped her. In the bright evening the only sounds were birds whistling, and her engine ticking as it cooled. Zoe was drowsy. Sarah unbuckled her seat belt and coaxed her out, but she sagged in the doorway of the pickup.
Gavilan approached and crouched down. “Piggyback.”
Zoe climbed on. Gavilan huffed, snugged her arms around Zoe’s knees, and straightened up.
Zoe said, “What do nuns do?”
Sarah flushed. But Gavilan smiled.
“Lots of things,” she said. “And right now, this nun is going to see that you get a good night’s sleep.”
Sarah said, “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I appreciate getting the chance to explain my vocation.” She climbed the steps and opened the kitchen door. “There’s a bed in the guestroom.”
“Thank you.” Sarah took Zoe and hoisted her onto her hip.
The house was close from the day’s heat. The floor creaked beneath Sarah’s feet. While Gavilan turned on a ceiling fan and opened the windows, Sarah laid Zoe on the double bed in an unadorned bedroom. She pulled off Zoe’s shoes and socks. Quietly she said, “You sleep tight. I’ll be in, in a little bit.”
“Where’s Mousie?”
Sarah went to get him and placed him in Zoe’s hands. The girl barely noticed before she dropped off to sleep.
Sarah found Gavilan in the rustic kitchen, taking a kettle off the stove.
“Tea will be ready in a minute. If you want wine, it’s ready now.” She nodded at a bottle of Pinot Noir on the counter.
Sarah looked at the wine bottle longingly. But she needed to keep a clear head. “Tea will be great.”
Gavilan poured two mugs, handed one to Sarah, and turned on a portable stereo player to mask their conversation. Bluegrass: mandolin and guitars and a fiddle.
Sarah took a long draft of the tea. “Thanks, Sister.”
“It’s Teresa.” She sat at the kitchen table and nudged a chair out with her foot. “Sit.”
Sarah dropped into the chair. She felt wound up, like a toy. Almost as if she’d spring apart if she let go. She was exhausted.
“Thank you for letting us come here tonight,” she said.
“Not a problem. Do you want to talk, or do you just want to crash?”
For a second Sarah held it in. Keep the spring pressed down tight. But merely being in a room with an adult who knew something about what was happening to her felt … expansive. Strangely safe.
She said, “How’d you end up out here in UFO country? I’m sure New Mexico’s glad to have a nun on duty, but ministering to the drunk and disorderly at a rock festival … what, no convent?”
“My order has chapter houses in several cities. And we have contemplatives. But we’re mainly commissioned to go to rural areas and find a way to put our gifts to work.”
“You have to earn a paycheck?”
“We get a stipend, but we need to make our own way. St. Paul warned against mooching, you know.”
“Then I’ll try not to mooch.” She set down her mug. “And how did a nun get to be an underground confederate of Michael Lawless?”
Teresa pulled her hair free of the ponytail, finger-combed it, and refastened the hair band. “He didn’t arrest me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“So you’re part of his posse?”
“Michael and I have known each other for twenty years. Since before I joined the order.”
“You were involved in the sanctuary movement, weren’t you?”
“Among other things. Women’s shelters. Similar work.” She held her mug. “He told me something about your situation.”
Sarah flicked a glance at her, unsure what she meant by something. “I didn’t know who else to call. When everything blew up. I’ve had five years to be afraid of this happening, and when it did—I was ready, but I wasn’t. I just …”
She leaned on her elbows and pressed her fists against her eyes.
Teresa said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk.”
“I want to.”
When she lowered her hands and opened her eyes, she saw compassion on the older woman’s face.
“It’s just—for so long I’ve kept everything back. Talking, I worry …”
“You’ve trained yourself to stay silent. It’s become muscle memory.”
Sarah nodded.
“And for five years you’ve been on red alert. Your fight-or-flight response is at DEFCON 1.”
“Ready to launch. Seems it was wise.”
“So yesterday, when things exploded, you ran. You didn’t stay to sort it out.”
“And I’m going to keep running until I can get Zoe someplace safe.”
“Then what?”
Sarah’s throat constricted. The brush of the wind outside pulled at her like spectral whispers. “If I had stayed in Oklahoma City …”
“I know. But do you have an endgame? You can’t take Zoe on the road every time something goes bump in the night.”
“Waiting for trouble was no answer,” Sarah said.
But she knew: Zoe should be in school. She should be on a playground skipping rope with her friends. She should be cutting out paper daisies and learning how to use paste.
Teresa’s silence felt both calm and portentous, like the quiet before a logger pulls the rip cord on a chain saw.
“Michael said he suggested you turn yourself in.”
Sarah’s heart skipped. Straight to ignition. “And I said no. That’s not paranoia. It’s a healthy instinct for self-preservation, and it’s keeping Zoe safe.”
In turn, Zoe was keeping her sane. Otherwise her grief over losing Beth, her shock at the violence that had stolen her s
ister, would have torn out all the circuitry that let her handle chaos and desolating truth.
“This is the real deal,” she said. “I’m doing my damnedest here, in an extremely difficult situation.”
Teresa seemed to mull that over. Then, letting it go, she smiled. “Sarah and Bethany. Lovely names. From scripture?”
Sarah’s own smile was ironic. “From the places my sister and I were conceived.”
“That’s unusual.”
“My mom was a travel journalist. She and my dad spent three years in the Middle East and Africa.”
“Bethany I recognize—a town outside Jerusalem,” Teresa said. “But Sarah …”
“Sarah’s my nickname. They were in Morocco, edge of the desert, but naming a kid Marrakech was a step too far, even for Mom. My full name is Sahara.”
“How charming.”
And useful, these last five years. Her Social Security card read SAHARA CARSON KELLER. Her driver’s license, bank accounts, and various utilities read SARAH, SAHRA, or S.C. Confusion was her friend. If anybody asked about discrepancies, she told them, “It’s misspelled.” She didn’t explain who had misspelled it.
“Sounds as if you have quite the family,” Teresa said.
“I know nothing about my family. Mom didn’t talk about our dad, and her background was … cloaked in mist.”
“That must be frustrating.”
“It’s a puzzle.”
And it had drawn Sarah into exploring the world’s most enduring enigma: human history. In college she majored in archaeology. She studied the lost civilizations of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. And she’d tried to trace her vanished relatives. The Red Cross hadn’t been able to find them, but it had convinced her to volunteer for a program that helped people locate family missing after wars and international disasters.
Later she worked part time for Past Link Software. The company’s human anthropology programs let archaeologists and genealogists build a picture of history through census records, archaeological data, and DNA tracing. She had worked there on contract but they offered her a permanent job. Back before.
