That Was Yesterday

by Vella Munn

  She should go back to bed. If she was going to go on with her life, she had to stop jumping at every sound. Only a coward—

  Reed had told her to call him. “I don’t care when it is. If there’s a problem, I want you to call.”

  Yes. Reed. He would—

  Mara didn’t give herself time to question what she was doing. Instead she picked up the scrap of paper he’d left near the phone and dialed the number of the hotel. Four rings later an elderly man answered. What was the name she was supposed to ask for? And if that nonexistent man came on the line, what would she say?

  Lobo heard rabbits. It scared me. I needed to hear your voice. Mara muttered her second “I’m sorry” of the night and hung up without asking for Lane Reaves. She felt almost as cold as she had that hot afternoon five years ago when her father’s car had burst into flames.

  She’d cried that day. Cried and then pulled the scream inward so no one would know. She could do that again.

  Shivering, Mara crawled back into bed. She tried to concentrate on the soothing sound of Lobo’s breathing and the seemingly impossible task of quieting her own, but in the vast silence between Lobo’s gentle sounds, she listened to the night. Listened…for what, she didn’t know.

  Mara was up and showered before daylight. She killed another half hour by reading the paper and then stalled even longer by preparing an elaborate omelette that she wound up sharing with Lobo. Finally, when it was fully light, she walked outside with the animal. Lobo went straight for the back yard, sniffing at the mesh fencing around the flower garden. Was there more than idle curiosity to his actions? It seemed as if he was giving the fencing an intense scrutiny, but she’d never paid close attention to the way Lobo surveyed his territory.

  “You’re making an old woman of me,” she said, following up her honesty with a laugh that had to be worked at.

  Lobo woofed softly and lifted his head. Then he dropped his muzzle back down to sniff the ground.

  “Tell me.” It was more plea than order. “Tell me if you smell something.”

  Once again the dog woofed, the sound a little labored because his nose was pressed against the earth. And then, as it had last night, the growl rumbled through him.

  Clint’s parents came to work with him in the morning. Because he was concerned that his father not overdo, Clint was unable to give his usual energy to his work. He asked Mara how she was doing, but she didn’t think he was listening to her and told him little. Reed attended the morning session but had to leave in the afternoon. As arranged, he came back later, first for a private lesson and then to take her into town to help her purchase a revolver. He wasn’t sure when he’d have time to show her how to use it. Until then she agreed to put it away. Mara had no problem with that. Holding the gun in the store had unnerved her.

  “I can’t stay,” he told Mara when he brought her home, and she asked if he wanted to come inside. “I want to see Jack and then…”

  “Then what?”

  “There’s someone I’m trying to connect with. It might mean spending the evening in the hotel bar.”

  “It doesn’t sound as if that’s something you want to do.”

  “It isn’t,” he said as she stood next to the Jag and watched him adjust the rearview mirror. “I’ll call as soon as I can. I don’t like leaving you like this.”

  A small ache settled deep inside at the thought that Reed had to leave her but Mara merely held up two fingers. To her relief, they were steady. “I’ve been here two nights now and nothing’s happened.”

  Was that true? Mara wondered, when she was alone once again. Was she right in saying nothing to either Reed or Clint about last night? Lobo had barked. She’d had the police out. They hadn’t found anything, and in the daylight her fears lacked substance.

  Maybe, if she could keep her mind off Reed, she’d be able to concentrate on what else she was feeling.

  The next morning Mara’s acreage was gray, as if caught somewhere between night and day. It was Reed’s fault. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to see you,” he’d said when he called as she was getting ready for bed. “Things are happening.” Another automobile had been stolen and, maybe, he’d made contact with one of those responsible. “I’ve got to work on gaining this man’s trust. Make him think we have something in common. I wish…”

  “Don’t. It’s your job. I understand.”

  She did. Didn’t she?

  Mara could make out the outline of the Corvette. It was a silent, hulking beast shrouded in too much dark. But it was only a car, a car surrounded by a predawn world. She could slip into a robe, put a key in the ignition and sit behind the wheel. There wasn’t a thing in the world to prevent her from driving it.

  Lobo was delighted to be released from the confines of four walls. After a quick tour of his turf, the Doberman joined his mistress as she walked over to the sports car. “No,” she whispered when he started to move away. “Wait. This will just take a minute.”

  Before she could open the door, Lobo stepped up to the sleek vehicle and began sniffing the back bumper. The dog breathed rapidly as he drew air deep into his lungs.

  “What’s wrong?” Mara asked. “Do you smell something?”

  Lobo growled.

  That was the only sign Mara needed. She had better things to do than drive a car around the training oval while still in her nightgown. She would get ready for the day and go to work. And she would ask her secretary to call her if Reed called.

  “Sorry. Nothing from him,” Diane explained when Mara came into the office during her lunch break. “Too bad. If I was a little younger—all right, a lot younger. I’m glad to see you’re interested in someone. I saw his car. He’s rich, is he?”

  “I guess,” Mara said absently.

  “There’s nothing wrong with a rich man. Oh, I have some good news for you. Someone found your purse.”

  “My purse? Where?”

  “I asked, but the man was vague. He sounded pretty old.”

  “Oh. Does he want me to pick it up?” Why was she asking this? There was no way Mara wanted what her attacker had pawed through. “I don’t suppose there’s any money in it.”

  “I’m afraid not. But he did say the credit cards and your driver’s license were in it. I guess that’s how he tracked you down. He was kind of nosy.”

  Mara leaned against Diane’s desk. A man had found her purse. A man. “What do you mean, nosy?”

  “Well, maybe nosy isn’t the right word. He went on about how people are so careless these days, how no one takes responsibility for their possessions. He sounded a little put out, like he had better things to do than try to get your purse back to you. You know, he reminded me of my father. I thought he was going to give me a lecture about how young people today haven’t lived through the Depression and can’t possibly understand what it means to lose everything.”

  Mara had met Diane’s father. Her description of his lecture fit with what she knew about the man. The anxiety that gripped her evaporated, and she shared an understanding laugh with her secretary. “I’d probably feel the same way if I’d been alive when half the country was out of work. I can’t believe my credit cards are still in it. Maybe the man who grabbed me guessed I’d have them canceled and that’s why he didn’t take them. If only he’d gotten in touch with me before I’d gone to all the trouble of having them reissued. The guy who called isn’t going to mail the purse, is he? I don’t want some old man going to that expense.”

  “No.” Diane looked down at her notepad. “He said—this is kinda weird—he said to tell you he goes to this ice-cream parlor on Market and 5th every afternoon. He’s going to leave it there and you can pick it up the next time you’re in the neighborhood.”

  “An ice-cream parlor? He said…that?”

  “Hey.” Diane grabbed Mara’s hand. “Are you all right? You didn’t swallow something the wrong way, did you?”

  Ice cream. Diane was still staring at her, but Mara couldn’t think about trying to exp
lain. “No. I don’t believe— No. The number for the Harbor Island Police Department. What is it?”

  “Just a minute.” Diane grabbed the telephone book while Mara pulled the phone close. Mara almost came unglued, waiting for Diane to give her the number. But finally she made the necessary connection.

  She wound up having to talk to two other people before getting hold of Detective Kline. She locked eyes with Diane but didn’t really see her. An old man? Maybe he’d disguised his voice.

  Detective Kline wasn’t so sure. “Let one of our units check it out, Miss Curtis,” he offered when Mara finished her disjointed explanation. “Yes. I understand. You had ice cream with you when you were attacked. You think it isn’t coincidence.”

  “I know it isn’t,” Mara protested. “He’s playing a sick game. If he thinks I’m going to walk into that place… He’d just laugh at me and then he’d…” Mara had been going to say the man would follow her home, but she couldn’t. Not with Diane listening and an experienced detective telling her not to jump to conclusions. “All right,” she forced herself to say. “I’ll wait until you call. If my purse is there…I don’t care if I ever get it back.”

  For the next three hours Mara went through the motions of trying to teach while she waited for Diane to tell her the police had called back. Finally Diane poked her head in the classroom and gave the thumbs-up sign.

  “It was there,” Detective Kline explained. “There wasn’t anything when my men went by the first time, but we got a call from the manager a little while ago. Someone had left a purse on one of the tables.”

  Mara slumped into Diane’s empty chair. “They don’t know who? An old man. Did anyone see an old man?”

  “I’m sorry. School’s been out about an hour. The place has been pretty busy. There are senior apartments nearby. They get a lot of repeat customers, some of them are in there every day.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we don’t know anything. It could be some public-minded citizen. That’s what I’m inclined to believe. An old man who didn’t want to get any more involved than he has.”

  Mara’s head throbbed. She had been aware of the growing headache all afternoon, but there was so much pain now that it was hard for her to talk, or think. “But an ice-cream parlor.”

  “It could have been McDonald’s.”

  “Or a police station. Why didn’t he take it to the police?”

  “Like I said, he probably thought he would have to answer a lot of questions. This was a place you could find, one that wasn’t out of his way.”

  But why had he left it on one of the tables? Hadn’t Diane said the man was going to turn it over to one of the employees? Even with the throbbing in her temple, Mara realized that further argument would serve no purpose. Detective Kline with his years of training was telling her not to let her imagination get away from her. Maybe he believed what he was saying, and maybe he was trying to keep her from becoming too alarmed about something neither of them had an answer for. Mara concentrated while the detective itemized what was in the purse. He offered to keep it in his office until she could come for it.

  “I appreciate it. I just wish I understood.”

  “I know. At least you got everything except your cash back. You’re pretty lucky.”

  Yes. Lucky.

  It wasn’t until after seven that night that Mara got around to fixing something for dinner. She was sitting down with a tuna fish salad when the phone rang. Although she told herself it would be Reed, she had to force herself to pick up the receiver. The connection was bad. For a moment she wasn’t sure who was on the other end of the line. Then she heard, “You’re home. Do you have a few minutes?”

  Reed. “Yes,” she told him with her eyes on the curtained window and her mind wrestling with the question of what, if anything, she would tell him. “Where are you?”

  “At the hotel. I’ve got company coming in a few minutes. But I’ve been doing some checking. There’s a target range we can use.”

  Mara gripped the phone, trying to bridge the distance. “When?”

  “Tomorrow evening if you can make it.”

  They’d be together tomorrow. She couldn’t tell him how important that was; she couldn’t admit it to herself. “I’ll be there,” she told him. “But you don’t have to do this. If you don’t have the time—”

  “I’m making the time. Damn. He’s here. Look, let me give you some directions.”

  Mara nodded and picked up a pen so she could jot down what he was telling her. Reed didn’t know how much time he would have, but made it clear that teaching her was a priority. “Wear old clothes,” he told her and then hung up.

  The sound of Reed’s voice carried Mara through the next hour. Maybe she should fix something so they could eat together. But maybe he had to meet someone later and her effort would be wasted. If only she could call him back and get the answer to that question. But she couldn’t. He was with a man, maybe one of those who’d tried to kill Jack.

  This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be between two people getting to know each other. He should come here for a home-cooked meal and conversation. They’d talk about how to make a garden grow and the purity of desert sunsets and some of the places they’d both lived. She’d ask him what he believed could be done to protect the environment, and he’d be interested in her political views. She’d ask him if he knew that his eyes darkened whenever his thoughts turned serious. He’d tell her he could gauge her moods by the warmth in her fingers.

  But Reed wasn’t here. The night settled around Mara until she had no choice but to bring Lobo inside. When she stepped out to call him in, the porch light cut only a thin slice through the night. Beyond that was a world of black, capable of concealing a man—a man who dropped off a purse at an ice-cream parlor because, for him, it was an obscene joke.

  Maybe.

  Chapter Eight

  Heat rose from the parking lot in waves and put its stamp on the stretch of dirt and weeds and browning grass that made up the Inland Target Range. Mara parked her loaner car between a camper and a small pickup and reached for the packages in the front seat. One was a cooler containing fried chicken, sliced tomatoes, rye bread and cream cheese. The other was the box containing the gun. Reed wasn’t there yet.

  Mara watched the men and women grouped around dirt berms and weathered wooden seats. Everyone’s attention was focused on the distant bull’s-eye targets. At first the random staccato sound of gunfire jolted her, but Mara stood her ground. She was determined that learning how to load and shoot a weapon would be something she’d handle well.

  It had to be: Reed would see.

  A half hour ago Mara had held out her hand and Detective Kline had placed her purse in it. After thanking him, she’d carried it to her car and tossed it inside. Before she’d gone more than a half-dozen blocks, she’d stopped. After pulling out her credit cards, driver’s license and an envelope containing the latest batch of pictures from her family, Mara had dropped the forty-dollar purse into a roadside trash container.

  He’d seen the pictures of her brothers pretending to strangle each other. How dare he!

  Reed’s Jag pulled into the dusty parking lot. Mara turned, every thought stripped from her except the simple awareness of how long it had been since she’d seen Reed Steward.

  He was a shadow moving among the shadows cast by cars and trucks and campers. He wore a T-shirt proclaiming his loyalty to the Los Angeles Angels and jeans that had long known his body. There was a small rip in the side of his right tennis shoe. He was alive and well.

  “Did you have to wait long?” he asked when he was close enough to be heard over the constant, discordant sound of discharging firearms.

  “No. Not long.” She felt like a girl finally on a date with the boy she’d been dreaming about for months—tongue-tied and uncertain.

  “I hope not. If I’m ever going to get around this city, I’m going to have to learn more about the side streets,” Reed to
ld her, his voice clearer and more vital than it had been over the phone. He smiled. “How was your day?”

  Tense. Disconcerting. At this moment, worth everything that had come before. “Okay. What about yours?”

  “Strange. It’s a little like being Alice in Wonderland.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Reed said. He resettled his weight, but didn’t come closer. “You brought something to eat. Great. Did you bring the bullets?”

  They were going to talk about bullets? He was going to stand there, with five feet separating them, and talk about bullets? “I didn’t know if you’d be hungry,” she told him.

  “I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “Lots of reasons. Lots of things to do. Weird people.” As the word trailed off, he moved toward her with silent grace. “You look wonderful.”

  Mara felt anything but wonderful, but he was saying that, and looking down at her, and for the moment she believed him. For the moment there was nothing for her except their being together.

  His eyes, the shifting of his body toward her told her one thing. If she wanted it, he would kiss her, here, in the middle of a parking lot. Openly. Honestly. For the first time. Did she want that? Was she ready for their relationship to take that step?

  The answer lay in her erratic breathing, the way her heartbeat caught and then regained its tempo, her awareness of him. Knowing nothing and yet at the same time knowing everything, Mara moved into him. The last thing she saw before the world blurred was his smile, clean and uncomplicated.

  His mouth, the touch it seemed she’d waited years for, felt both firm and soft; his arms felt sure around her.

  Challenge waited in his embrace. The challenge was stronger than she could possibly feel comfortable with. Still, Mara didn’t attempt to draw back. Instead she felt herself drifting into him. The line that marked where she ended and he began blurred. She should be alarmed. Just now she needed to stand on her own. And yet, being in his arms gave her certain essential answers, and the molding of her mouth against his made her feel strong. For a few minutes Mara was no one except a woman who’d come to meet a man. Without knowing she was going to do it, she slid her arms around him and held on. She felt bone and muscle sheathed by flesh. As long as she held on, as long as she pressed her mouth to his, this moment might last forever.