by Sharon Sala
Frankie blushed.
Addie continued. “This boy…oh, why can’t I remember his name? Anyway, this boy had become a man.” She glanced at Clay. “All of our children leave us when they turn eighteen, you know, and he’d been out on his own for some time, yet he kept making excuses for coming back, even getting himself hired as a groundskeeper for a short period of time. It took us a while to figure it out, but he’d come back to be near Francesca.”
The skin on the back of Clay’s neck began to crawl. Obsession like that was unnatural, especially a man’s for a child.
“How did I react?” Frankie asked.
“Oh, at first you thought nothing of it. After all, he was such a familiar part of your childhood, “ Addie said. “But as time passed, I think you became uncomfortable. In fact, I think you were beginning to fear him. And then one day he didn’t show up for work. We learned a few days later that he’d been arrested, and later he was sent to prison.”
Frankie leaned forward in her seat. “You mean, I never saw him again?”
Addie shrugged. “Oh, I have no way of knowing that, my dear, but when he was released from prison, he did come back here looking for you.”
She shifted nervously.
Clay knew there was more.
“What happened?” he asked.
“He flew into a rage when he learned you were gone. Broke things in my office, called us all kinds of names. Kept screaming something about Francesca belonging to him.”
Frankie shuddered. Again, something fluttered through her mind. Something dark. Something ugly.
By now Clay was making notes. He wanted to remember all the details to give to Harold Borden.
“His name, Miss Bell. If you could just remember his name,” Clay urged.
Addie nodded. “Of course. Let me get my files. It was a strange name, I remember that.” She opened a drawer in the file cabinet behind her. “Let’s see. I believe the year he turned eighteen was the year we had the fire in the gym. We thought he’d set it, you know.”
Frankie’s eyes widened. “You mean he was really bad, even then?”
“Oh my, yes, I’m afraid so, my dear.”
“Then why did I like him?” Frankie muttered.
Addie shrugged as she continued to dig through her files.
“He wasn’t unkind to you. In fact, quite the opposite. Besides, who knows what goes on in the mind of a child? You’d just lost your parents and had come to a place that was strange and frightening. For some reason, he filled a need in your life.”
Frankie leaned closer to Clay.
Minutes passed as Addie Bell continued to search. Finally she stepped back from the cabinets with a file in her hand.
“Aha!” she cried. “I have it.”
“His name…what was his name?” Clay asked.
She looked up. “Such a strange name for such a strange child. Here’s his picture. Dark skin, black, curly hair. We weren’t sure about his ethnicity, but we suspected at least one of his parents was from the Middle East. And the name Pharaoh—so Egyptian, but who knows?”
When Frankie saw the picture, panic shafted through her so quickly that it took her breath away. She meant to inhale and heard herself moaning instead. The room began to spin. She reached for Clay and felt nothing but air.
In the distance, she could hear Clay shouting her name, but she was too far away to answer. She slid out of the chair and onto the floor without making a sound.
Frankie sat on the motel bed, wrapped in her robe and staring at the seascape on the opposite wall. Steam from the adjoining bathroom spilled into the room like a faint blanket of fog, all but obscuring the seagull shower curtain and the lighthouse bedspread.
Clay was still in the shower. He’d spoken earlier with Borden, and now they were waiting for Detective Dawson to return their call.
The absurdity of the room’s decorations was lost upon Frankie. She was too upset to notice that the motel decor would have been better suited to an oceanside city rather one built on a desert. Every so often her heart fluttered and then skipped a beat. And while she knew the arrhythmia was due to stress, there was no way of alleviating the worry. Not when every day brought a new set of problems.
She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes, picturing the face from Addie Bell’s file. He would be older now. But there would be no way of disguising his skin or that thick, curly hair. And his eyes. She shuddered. The lack of expression had been frightening.
She rolled over on her side and tucked her hands beneath her chin, replaying the events of the day. She’d fainted. There was no getting around the fact. And while she knew there was a part of her that remembered the boy, she had no way of knowing if she also remembered the man. Even more, what was it about him that had been so awful that the mere sight of his face would make her react as she had? According to Miss Bell, she had not returned Pharaoh Carn’s affections.
Even if she bought into the theory that her abductor was this person from her past, then how, after all these years, had he found her? The authorities at Kitteridge House had not known her whereabouts. They couldn’t have told. All in all, her life had been very low-key until her disappearance. It wasn’t as if she and Clay were the kind of people who regularly made the society pages. Frankie had never even had a parking ticket, so it couldn’t have been through the courts.
And then suddenly she sat up.
“Clay!”
The water was still running.
She rolled out of bed and bolted into the bathroom.
“Clay!”
Startled by the sound of her voice, he yanked back the shower curtain. Soap ran from his hair and onto his neck, while the washcloth dripped on the floor.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“My picture.”
“What picture, baby?”
“You’re getting water on the floor,” she said, yanking the shower curtain back in place. “You rinse. I’ll talk louder.”
“What picture?” he echoed, and then stepped beneath the showerhead to rinse out the shampoo.
“The one of me in the rain that ran in the papers. Remember?”
The soap was gone, and so was Clay’s patience. He turned off the water and stepped out of the tub, wrapping a towel around his waist as he did. Her agitation was obvious, but he was still in the dark.
“Yes, I remember. But I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Suppose,” she said, beginning to pace, “just suppose that this Pharaoh person who was obsessed with me as a child is the one who abducted me.”
Clay sat down on the closed lid of the commode.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“All afternoon I’ve been trying to make sense of it all. If he cared so much about me, wouldn’t you wonder why he waited so long to come get me?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Clay muttered. “But remember, Miss Bell said that he did come looking for you, but you’d already graduated and left Kitteridge.”
“Right. But didn’t she also say that he pitched a big fit because no one knew where I was?”
He nodded.
“Then consider this. If one day he happened to find me, how do you think he would react?”
Clay stiffened. “How are you suggesting he happened to find you?”
“I know it’s a long shot, but in an odd sort of way, it almost makes sense. Remember the picture the Denver paper ran of me in the rain? The one that was picked up by the Associated Press?”
“Yes…so?
“It was only a couple of weeks before the day I disappeared.”
Clay’s expression stilled. “Son of a—”
“It’s just a theory,” she cautioned.
Clay stood. “But it’s a damned good one, Francesca.”
She smiled. It felt good to be doing something positive toward solving the mystery of her past.
“So what do you think?”
“I think I’m calling Borden back, and when Dawson calls, I’m going to add thi
s to the list of things he needs to know.” Then he added, “You realize we could be making a mountain out of a molehill. Pharaoh Carn could be happily married and living an ordinary life in some suburb.”
“Not according to Miss Bell,” Frankie reminded him. “Boys who set fires and run with criminals rarely wind up in the suburbs.”
“Be careful, goddammit,” Pharaoh groaned, glaring at the physical therapist who was putting him through his workout.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carn, but you won’t regain full strength unless you use these muscles.”
He cursed beneath his breath, which didn’t seem to faze the therapist.
“Now, Mr. Carn, I need you to roll over on your stomach for me.”
Pharaoh rolled, enduring the therapeutic massage because he had to. The man’s long fingers dug deep into unused muscles, causing Pharaoh to wince once again. He raised himself up to argue, but before he could speak, Duke hurried into the room with a phone in his hand.
“Boss, it’s for you.”
“I’m busy,” Pharaoh said.
“I think you might want to take it. It’s long-distance from Denver.”
“It’s about time,” Pharaoh muttered as he reached for the phone.
“Hello?”
“Boss, it’s me.”
Pharaoh frowned. Finally Stykowski was checking in.
“Where the hell have you been?” he growled. “And why haven’t you called?”
“Hurry up, Stykowski,” the guard said. “You don’t have all day.”
Marvin Stykowski glanced over his shoulder at the jailer, then nodded.
“Who’s that?” Pharaoh asked. “Who are you with? I told you to keep this low-key.”
“Uh…I ran into a little bit of trouble,” he said.
Pharaoh stiffened, then gave Duke a look that prompted him to remove the therapist from the room.
“What kind of trouble?” Pharaoh asked.
“I got picked up, boss. I’m in jail.”
Ignoring the pain of movement, Pharaoh rolled until he was sitting on the side of the massage table. Not by the tone of his voice, or the choice of his words, could anyone have told he was seething.
But when Duke came back in the room, he knew. The expression in Pharaoh’s eyes had gone flat. He tensed, wondering what Stykowski had done wrong.
“Picked up for what?” Pharaoh asked. “And where are you now?”
This was the admission Marvin hated to share. “For possession, boss. I ran a red light, and they found it in my car. I’m in jail, trying to make bail.”
Blood thundered through Pharaoh’s ears, and it was all he could do to concentrate.
“When is your arraignment?” he asked.
“In a couple of hours.”
“There will be a lawyer at your arraignment. You will make bail, and then you will get your ass back to Las Vegas before midnight, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Boss,” Marvin said.
“Don’t screw up again,” Pharaoh warned. “I don’t like mistakes.”
Marvin paled. It was only now that he could hear the true anger in Pharaoh Carn’s voice.
“I’ll be there, boss. You can count on me.”
“We’ll see,” Pharaoh said.
“Uh, boss, about the other…?”
Pharaoh frowned. “Save it,” he snapped. “You’ve got company, remember?”
Marvin glanced at the guard. “Yeah, right. I’ll fill you in when I get there.”
As soon as the line went dead in Pharaoh’s ear, he flung the phone across the room, shattering it against the wall.
“Do you want the therapist back?” Duke asked.
Pharaoh nodded. “Hell, yes, let’s get this over with. It’s getting so I can’t depend on anyone but myself. I’ve got to get well.”
Pharaoh had been at the library window for hours—sometimes sitting, sometimes standing—contemplating the city, the lights, and now watching the headlights of a car as it came up the winding road to his estate. Fury sat in his belly like a rock, seething, rolling, with nowhere to go.
Finally the car pulled up to the main gates. Beneath the security lights, the driver’s red, curly hair and goatee were a giveaway to his identity. Stykowski.
Pharaoh reached for the intercom. “Let him in,” he snapped.
The gates opened inward, making way for the car to come through. Pharaoh watched Stykowski park. He saw the bravado in his walk. Only after the man had been given entrance to the house did Pharaoh turn his back on the window.
He rolled his rabbit’s foot back and forth between his fingers like worry beads as he strode to his desk. They would be here soon. Duke had his orders. The minute Stykowski arrived, he was to bring him in here.
Pharaoh tossed the rabbit’s foot onto his desk and then opened a drawer just as the knock sounded on his door.
“Enter!”
Marvin Stykowski sauntered inside.
Pharaoh stepped back from the desk and fired without aim. Luckily for Duke, who was only a few feet away, he was a good shot. The bullet ripped through Marvin Stykowski’s brain before he could register fear. Blood spattered across Duke’s face, like blowing rain against a window.
Duke gasped and then froze—afraid to move, afraid to breathe. The look on Pharaoh’s face was terrifying. Never, in all the years that he’d worked for this man, had he seen him in such a rage. Duke took out a handkerchief and began wiping his face.
“Get rid of that puke,” Pharaoh muttered, then tossed his gun back in the drawer and pushed it shut.
Duke stuffed his handkerchief in the pocket of his suit and went for the phone.
Within minutes, the body was gone.
Pharaoh was standing at the window with his hands behind his back, again contemplating the Las Vegas skyline as if he’d never seen it before.
“This is a powerful city,” he mused.
“Yes, sir, that it is,” Duke muttered.
“I should have waited to ask him what he’d learned in Denver,” Pharaoh said.
“If you say so, boss.”
Pharaoh turned, then frowned, as if looking at Duke for the first time.
“Your clothes are ruined. Tomorrow, go downtown to my tailor and get yourself a new suit. I like my men well dressed.”
Personally, Duke was just happy to still be breathing, but he would certainly do as the man said.
“Yes, sir. I will. Will there be anything else tonight?”
Pharaoh frowned. “I need someone I can trust to go to Denver. Who do you suggest?”
Duke shrugged. “I don’t know, Mr. Carn. Everything has been so messed up since the quake, I don’t know who’s where, or if they’re even alive.”
Pharaoh sighed. “And therein lies the problem, right, Duke? It’s the fault of that damned quake. Oh well, I suppose we’ll have to make do. See if Simon Law is available. He’s done work for me before.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get on it right away.”
Pharaoh waved his hand and gave Duke a benevolent smile.
“It can wait until morning. Get yourself a good night’s sleep. God knows we can all use one.”
“Yes, sir. I will, sir,” Duke said. And even though he knew the gun was still in the desk drawer, the flesh tightened in the middle of his back. Later, as he took off his bloodstained clothes and stepped beneath the shower, he wondered which would be worse—knowing you were going to die, or getting it in the back, completely unaware.
Twelve
The motel television was playing softly in the background. Frankie was smiling at the cheese string hanging from Clay’s second helping of delivery pizza when the telephone rang. She jumped, watching anxiously as Clay dropped the slice back in the box and reached for the phone. Frankie hit the mute on the remote as Clay started to speak.
“This is LeGrand.”
Avery Dawson shifted the receiver to his other ear.
“Got your message,” he said. “What’s up?”
It’s Dawson, Clay mouthed t
o Frankie, then reached for his notepad. He didn’t want to forget anything.
“Plenty,” Clay said.
“Where are you?” Dawson asked.
“Still in Albuquerque. We found out some stuff you might find interesting.”
“I’m listening,” Dawson said.
“We spoke to Adeline Bell, the administrator at Kitteridge House, which is the orphanage where Frankie grew up. It seems that there was a young man who was obsessed with Frankie, from the time of her arrival at the age of four up to the time he got sent to prison.”
“Obsessed, huh?”
Clay frowned. “That wasn’t my word, it’s the term Adeline Bell used. I’ll give you her number. Talk to her yourself. She didn’t paint a very healthy picture of their friendship, if you know what I mean.”
“Okay, I’m still listening. So he went to prison. What for?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Clay said. “But Miss Bell said by the time he got out, Frankie had turned eighteen and was already gone. She said he raised holy hell when he found out he’d lost touch with her.”
“And that was how long ago?” Dawson asked.
“Frankie’s been out of Kitteridge for a little over eight years. I’m not sure about when he got out of prison. All we know is he came back looking for her.”
“Yes, but…”
“There’s more,” Clay said. “Frankie claimed she didn’t remember any such person, which seemed to surprise Miss Bell. Yet when Frankie saw a picture of the young man, she fainted.”
Now Dawson was paying attention. “Damn. Did she identify him as the man who abducted her?”
Clay hesitated. “No, she hasn’t remembered anything that detailed. All she’s been able to say about her abductor is that he has a tattoo on his chest, remember?”
“Yeah, that Egyptian thing.” Then Dawson sighed. “Look, Clay, I know this sounds promising, and I will certainly check it out. But you do know that we can’t make a case like this without some actual physical evidence.”
Clay wouldn’t look at Frankie. He knew that she would be able to tell that Dawson wasn’t all that fired up about what he’d just said, and after the way her day had gone, he hated to disappoint her again.
