by Kristen Lamb
“We really need to get that hand stitched.”
“I’m fine.”
“Why are you being this way?”
“It’s already done,” I finally confessed.
“What?”
I unwrapped the gauze and he shined his light on my hand. He arched an eyebrow. “Ortiz never mentioned you left.”
“I’m slick.”
He gave me an unnerving stare. “You are, but you have a bit too much gap on the leading edge. I’d have given at least another stitch.”
“That would make thirteen. Got enough bad luck.”
“Speaking of good luck, you think the box is still safe?”
“Or in a junk yard. If JC’s anything like he was in high school, he’s annoyingly efficient. I’m hoping he still has it, though.”
He gave me a stern stare. “You didn’t say anything about murder earlier.”
“Was going to, but then I couldn’t. No offense. Hard to know who to trust these days.”
“Understandable. What’s in the box?”
“The same things I showed you, only there might have been DNA on the necklace or purse or something to give us a clue who might have killed my mom.” I searched the darkness for any of Daddy’s Shadow People. Sometimes even delusions held truth. The picture at Casa Linda certainly qualified as a Shadow Person to me.
“Why do you suspect foul play?” he said.
“First, I never bought Ferris’s story that my mom ran off with another man. She was loyal to a fault.”
“Now I know where you get it from.”
I ignored the comment. “She’d never leave her family and she surely would never have left that necklace in a field. It was far too precious to her. And there’s this.” I showed him the image on my phone. “Any idea what it is?”
He scowled in the gloom. “No. Text it to me?”
I nodded. “And one more thing.” I slipped the photo from my purse. “This guy. You stopped when you saw his face earlier. You know him?”
He used his flashlight to study the picture. “Can’t say I do,” he said, his face expressionless.
“Name’s Ed Metzger. He runs with a biker gang, The Devils.”
“A lot of bikers run through this area. Why’s this important?”
“Because you already know his mother.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ida. My dead neighbor. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
He grimaced. “Neither do I.”
Chapter Twelve
After a heated argument about me following him to the hotel in Nana’s Oldsmobile, Sawyer finally won and he backed out of the drive with me belted in the Suburban, sulking.
“You’re sure that’s all that was in the box,” he said. “Did you have anything in your possession Phil would want? Flash drives? Files?”
“If I did, I’d have happily handed it to you guys over a year ago. And, in a parallel universe where I did withhold something threatening to Phil, wouldn’t someone have come for it sooner?”
He continued staring ahead, picking everything apart in his mind.
After a couple minutes of silence, I said, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re thinking something.” I was still annoyed that he didn’t let me take my own car.
“You seem to be quite the disaster magnet.”
“Bite me.”
“That didn’t come out right.” He furrowed his brow and chewed on his knuckle. After a few seconds, he said, “You’re a focal point of sorts. That interests me.”
“While I know Phil is a disgusting waste of human, I sincerely doubt he killed my mother.”
“Doesn’t change he’s cleaning house and you could be next. What we need to figure out is why you’re a threat. Why are you on that list?”
“Or is it even the same list? Seems I’m on multiple lists lately.” A brief image of Cesar, prone in the breezeway of Casa Linda flashed across my mind’s eye.
“True. Can’t assume anything.”
“Lists aside, I really need my own car.” I already felt out of control and having no wheels only added to my stress.
“You aren’t in any condition to drive. No.”
“You don’t understand. I promised JC’s boys I’d take them diving for golf balls in the morning, before dawn. It’s too late to call and I keep my promises.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“Seriously? You know I need to be up at five in the morning, right?”
He nodded. “It’s no trouble.” He cast a humorless look my way. “Probably safer anyway.”
We bounced down the rutted road leading out of the trailer park, though the Suburban managed the dips far more smoothly than my now-deceased Honda. All of the homes had been abandoned but ours, the Lachlan family the last barrier to Claire’s new vineyard. Even the silver Twinkie sat dark, no cars in front only piles of belongings left in the yard, furniture the tenants couldn’t afford to move or no longer cared to. I felt a strange sadness knowing this would all soon be gone. A part of me had naively believed The Cactus Flower Trailer Park would always be here, that I could have something permanent. As we turned out of the park and drove down the country road toward town, I searched the shadows for all the familiar landmarks, the farms and ranches I’d passed as I walked home from school day after day, year after year. In the darkness, I spied the rotted remains of the old Eisler horse ranch that bordered the trailer park. A small white house sat silent in a lonely nest of scrub. The barn, abandoned for years, listed to the side, barely holding on from collapse. My sister and I played in the decaying barn until Daddy caught us and whipped us both. At the time he seemed so mean, but now I understood he was scared to death for us. That barn was probably loaded in poisonous spiders, scorpions and snakes. Not to mention all the rotted wood we could have fallen through and snapped our necks.
It was surreal that, in a year’s time, all I once called home would be Claire Barrington’s vineyard. But something bigger was going on in Bisby. I just didn’t yet have the right pieces. As we neared the hotel, I studied the wide swaths of land cleared and leveled, the beginning skeletons of strip malls erupting from the earth where stands of Mexican oak and wild plum trees once stood. This should’ve made me happy. It didn’t. Halcyon was all I could think. Funny how I only appreciated my home now that it was gone.
An hour later, after a hot shower, three bottles of liquid bandage, and a half a bottle of Calamine, I was all clean, patched, and nestled into the downy comforts of a giant hotel bed. Sawyer hadn’t yet showered, but had changed into running pants and a white undershirt. He bundled my clothes and stuffed them in a plastic trash bag.
“Hey, that’s my best outfit,” I said.
He tossed the bag onto a small table. “Which happens to be loaded with every briar, sticker, and cactus needle from that field you ran through.”
I made a face. “I was hardly running. Thanks for the loan.” Nana forgot to pack anything I could sleep in, so I wore one of Sawyer’s Quantico T-shirts. Though it was clean enough, I could tell he’d worn it. It smelled of him. As tall as he was, the shirt hit past my knees, making it a respectable nightgown. Now that I’d eaten my dinner, he handed me a handful of ibuprofen and Benadryl and a Sprite from the hotel mini-fridge.
“I can’t drink that. Probably costs fifteen bucks.” I pointed to the Sprite.
“I got this.” He sat on the bed next to me and pressed the bottle into my hands. I tried to ignore the flutter in my stomach at his touch, his nearness. I could still smell the earthiness of the field mixed with his sweat and cologne. I thought of our kiss then banished the memory. I wanted him closer, but kept that to myself.
“Drink.” He’d spent the past half hour helping me remove needles out of my calves and ankles then he’d cleaned and bandaged my wrecked feet while I tended my hand. I had huge angry welts on my legs and arms from the bug bites, stickers, and needles. Sexy as a leper.
“Feel better?” he said.
&
nbsp; I shrugged and swallowed the handful of pills. “I’ll live, much to Phil’s disappointment.”
“We’ll catch him. Guys like Phil aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are. They always screw up, especially when under pressure.”
Now that I’d calmed down, I remembered the conversation with Claire and my mind wandered.
“What?” He nudged me.
“Nothing.” I smoothed the sheets. My feet were ice cubes. I wasn’t accustomed to sleeping anywhere with strong AC.
He frowned. “That’s not what your face is telling me.”
I chewed on a long strand of damp hair, wondering why I felt this was important, but a deep niggling told me it was. “Claire said something tonight.”
“What?”
“Probably nothing.” I forced myself not to scratch my legs even though I wanted to peel off my own skin. I rubbed my tired eyes instead. The bed was calling me. I’d sat still long enough for my weariness to catch up.
“In my line of work, nothing is nothing.” Though his face was unreadable, his eyes glinted with interest.
“Claire said a sentence. It stood out because it was basically the same pitch I’d given Phil.”
“What’s that?”
“She said ‘Bisby is the new Santa Fe.’”
“Why do you think that’s important?”
I continued to fidget with the bed sheets as I spoke. I hated thinking about Phil at all, let alone back when we were a couple.
“Romi,” he said.
“When Phil and I first dated, he’d asked about me, where I came from and all that new dating stuff.” My chest tightened. “I remembered him questioning me about Bisby. Don’t get me wrong, I bailed out of here at the first chance I got, but for more reasons than to escape my crazy family.”
“What reasons?”
I expected him to whip out his little notebook and start taking notes. I was tired of Agent Sawyer, and wanted Ben. “The obvious. There weren’t any opportunities here. Unless one counted a career at the Waffle House, Bisby was a dead end. No gas or oil. A few ranches that struggled along. But…”
“But…”
“As much as the economy sucked, it was always pretty here.” I thought back to the Bisby of my memories, the vast expanse of sun-painted earth dotted with just enough green and all the sky in the world. “I love the desert. I loved the old town, the old houses built by the settlers. There was a lot of history here.”
“Go on.”
“Anyway, Phil kept pressing about Bisby, which started plenty of fights because home was the last thing I wanted to talk about. It also seemed bizarre he’d be so interested. I remember one night he kept asking about my home, and I said almost those same words. ‘Bisby could be the new Santa Fe . ’”
“What made you think that?”
“Hell, Marfa did it. Only thing people knew about Marfa when I was growing up was it had alien lights. Now? It’s nothing but art galleries, spas, and fancy boutiques.”
Sawyer clenched his jaw, the way he did when he was contemplating something serious.
I broke the strained silence. “You mentioned earlier that if we understood why I was a threat, we’d understand why I might be on the list. What if I’m on Phil’s hit list because I’m the one who’d recognize the pitch?”
“A bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” He didn’t look convinced.
“Then tell me. Where’s all that money he stole?”
He said nothing, which told me the FBI didn’t have a clue.
“At dinner, you asked why Phil hired me, why he promoted me.”
“Why did he?” He cocked his head and leaned closer.
I inched away, his nearness unsettling. “I never meant to go into sales. I wanted to be an analyst. Always thought I’d work for a think tank or something.”
“I can see that.”
“Phil recruited me because I was apparently crazy good at seeing patterns, identifying emerging markets years ahead of everyone else. Many of my predictions gave Verify a huge edge, and I was one of the reasons the company grew as quickly as it did.” I stopped and bit down on my lip. “Wait, that sounded totally conceited. I didn’t mean to…” Blood burned my cheeks.
He stared at me, his expression bemused. “There’s no doubt you’re sharp. No need to apologize. What are you thinking?”
“A theory,” I said.
“I’m listening.”
I gestured to the lush room around us. “We’re sitting in a Courtyard Marriot that, up until a little over three years ago had been a wide stretch of nothing. According to my sister, the Bisby boom happened right about the time that Verify started fleecing our clients. Where did that boom capital come from?”
He didn’t reply, but I could tell I had his attention.
“Three can keep a secret but only if two are dead,” I said.
“You’re quoting Ben Franklin?” He arched a brow.
“What if the other Verify crooks knew the money was being laundered through Bisby? Dead men don’t talk.”
“Good point.”
“And maybe Phil knew I’d be the only person left who’d connect the dots. I don’t have any other reason for him to want to kill me, aside from my cooking. Other than that, I was a pretty good girlfriend.”
A hint of a smile flickered across his lips. “I don’t doubt it.”
“My theory about Bisby or that I make an awesome girlfriend?” I grinned.
“Either,” he said, but then shifted away, his body tense and his expression unreadable. “It’s a solid theory you have. I’ll do some digging and see what turns up. In the meantime, you need sleep. We have an early morning.”
“Don’t remind me.” I groaned. It was already after midnight.
He gently pushed me back onto the pillows, then drew the covers up and tucked me in. I wanted him to stay, wanted him close.
“What am I?” I asked. His face was inches from mine and a growing heat filled the space between us.
He raised an eyebrow. “A Marfa space alien?”
“Now you’re using my tricks. No joking. What am I?” I lifted closer. “I’m not a suspect. I’m not in Witness Protection. And tonight, when we—”
He backed away as if bitten. “A mistake. Sorry.” He stared at the floor and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Stung, I said nothing as he turned away.
He opened the door that separated our rooms and stood there, his back to me. “Knock if you need anything,” he said over his shoulder, his voice taut as his body. “Keep the door locked and don’t let anyone in but me. Get some rest. I’ll wake you in time to go get the boys.” He closed the door behind him, but I noted he didn’t lock it. I’d expected to hear at least three deadbolts and maybe a dresser slide in front of the door. He clearly thought he’d screwed up. I had to respect that even though it was yet another painful blow to my ego that hurt far worse than all my physical injuries combined. I was tired of being some man’s mistake. When did I get to be his perfect fit? The one he’d searched for all his life?
I switched off the light and settled into the legendary darkness of hotel rooms. I hugged my pillow, the smell of Sawyer enveloping me. I wondered why I was so drawn to him.
I barely knew him, yet strangely felt like I’d known him far longer. It hurt to be walled away, but probably best in the end. I’d already wasted enough of my life loving men who didn’t want me. That still didn’t stop me from longing for the man who’d kissed me under the moon, to get lost in his arms, if nothing else but for him to hold me close and help me forget all the bad converging around me.
Chapter Thirteen
I was in the middle of some crazy dream about the old Eisler horse ranch. The cryptic drawing from my mom’s purse had come alive, an endless dark maze where something evil hunted me. When someone shook me from sleep, I bolted straight up, nearly head-butting Sawyer. It took a moment to remember where I was. I brushed my hair out of my face and gasped. “What’s wrong?”
Sawyer flicked on a small lamp. “Rise and shine. Time to go hunt golf balls.”
The boys stood waiting in the gray pre-dawn wearing swim trunks and t-shirts toting bags of snorkeling gear. Sawyer loaded them up while I nursed a cup of coffee to lift the heavy fog from my brain. I kept reminding myself this would be easy. Two hours. Keep the kids alive and out of trouble and then I could return to the nirvana of the hotel bed. I wore a hot pink Bone Collector shirt and blue jeans with sparkles on the butt. My sister and I might have been mistaken for twins, but our fashion tastes were as far apart as Lubbock and the moon. I wore my hair in a ponytail under a bedazzled pink baseball hat, which made me feel like a walking fishing lure. Sawyer, by contrast, was clean-shaven and sharp in his 5.11 attire. I wondered how early he’d gotten up.
It turned out to be a good thing Sawyer drove, not only because I was half-delirious from fatigue, but because his vehicle had GPS and I doubted I would have found the spacious resort. It was perched up on an old mountain ground to a high hill, a place where red-tailed hawks used to hunt rabbits back when coyotes outnumbered people. The Vista Grande Resort was a palatial adobe structure that reflected the early dawn rays, painting the gardens of desert plants in a rosy glow that made the place seem even more opulent. The grounds were dotted in large Chinese Pistachio trees surrounded by thick beds of flowering succulents, and tiny songbirds bathed in the numerous fountains around the property.
