“Okay. We have a vast selection.” I led her over to our back cabinet, lined with the oyster shells that had produced some of the world’s finest. “What length,” I asked.
“I think I deserve some length. I’m not exactly going to my prom.”
I retrieved three strands of our very best. She didn’t flinch when she saw the prices and picked my finest. “No family discount. Not yet, anyway,” she said, and whipped out her credit card.
So uncomfortable, I was, to sell a piece of jewelry to her, I felt pure relief when Marcus Armstrong walked in as I processed the sale for Shirley.
“I guess no golf game, today?” I said.
He laughed with a toothy grin escorted by a generous twinkle in his eyes. “You have that right. I know it sounds like a line, but I truly was in your neighborhood and I realized that my horses really need a good run. I was wondering if you’d like to come by this next weekend?”
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“Invite your boyfriend. I have plenty of horses,” he smiled.
I guess he forgot about that kiss. Or realized I was off limits in that regard. “Okay. I’ll ask him. Can I get back to you, maybe tomorrow?”
He tipped his head. “Sure. Let me know how many riders I’ll have and I’ll have some lunch made up for us afterward.”
He left. He simply left the store.
Shirley brought her Falls & Falls bag over to my counter.
“I remember that man from the jazz concert,” she said. “The doctor. I thought you were getting back with Gage?”
“I am, and I’ve told you he’s just a friend. He’s invited both Gage and me for a ride this weekend.”
“Such a handsome man. Did he have a fall, maybe off a horse?”
“What?”
“Well, I noticed he walks with a limp.”
DETECTIVE STEVE TAYLOR still worked the shooting of Manny Perez. Technically, he knew who shot him, but he also knew Shirley needed answers. He needed answers. Too many loose strings and he was trying to knot pearls together with no holes to string through.
Ridiculous, he thought. Just how many black late-model SUVs are roaming the streets?
“A friggin’ million trillion,” his junior partner had said.
But both Taylor and Shirley had gut instincts. You can’t make a cop a cop without it, and you sure as hell don’t become an FBI agent without it.
“Junior, let’s look at the video surveillance tape from that night of the Perez incident one more time,” Taylor said. “Pull it up on the big monitor nobody uses, but to watch Cheers reruns. Get our IT guy in here to help.”
MARCUS HAD SOME SERIOUS work to do on the home front. His White Goddess would slip away from him unless he acted fast. Not much time to think. Not much time to plan, but he’d plan, anyway. He always had to have a plan.
That man, that Gage Beauchamp, could not move back in with his White Goddess. He would see to that. Even with his significant purchases in Chicago of the idiot’s pathetic attempt at art, it was not enough to keep him away from Tucson. Rachel was less and less an option, although he could still use her.
He needed Beauchamp out of the picture. Permanently. And if that didn’t mean Tucson than it would mean of this earth.
It happened that, with great research, Marcus heard the entire broadcast on The Truth, a local and popular radio station. The host interviewed Beauchamp and Beauchamp was an idiot. He was driving up to Mt. Lemmon on Friday to plein-air paint at sunset.
Stupid, stupid man. Gotcha!
For now, on Sacrum’s end, all was well. He loathed having to travel from the warehouse to The Sarah, but he would do so for as long as it took. His two patients rested, if not too comfortably. Bed sores had become a problem, and Sacrum was doing the best he could to heal them. The skin had to be perfect. The girl needed to lose more weight. He made a grave mistake in his calculations. She was more muscle than fat.
Patience. Good things come to those that wait. The pearls of a heaven waited for him.
Chapter 58
A Hole in the Whole
“WE WERE TRYING TOO damn hard to read the license plate. Or get a look at the occupants,” Taylor said. He shoved a glass of water over to Junior. “Look at it. What do you see?”
“The same that stuff I saw last time.”
“Look at the paint job,” Taylor insisted.
“Pretty neat,” Junior said.
Taylor cocked his head and threw both hands up to the stale air above him. “Shirley, tell him what I’m thinking.”
Shirley relaxed her legs out in front of her, shook her feet out a bit. “He’s thinking what I’m thinking. In the right light that paint job could be mistaken as a black and white, especially to a few terrified illegal immigrants.”
Taylor watched as Junior’s jaw dropped with a slack mouth while trying to take in a deep breath. Taylor wondered if the young man was astounded because they were right, or because Shirley and he had developed the means to read each other minds.
“You know what to do next?” Taylor asked of Junior.
“You bet I do. I’ll get this vehicle in different shades of light. Full moon. Half moon. No moon. We’re onto something here. You two are connecting some sort of Sci-Fi cyber-ific dots I don’t understand, but we have something.”
As the door gently closed behind Junior, Shirley pulled her legs back and tucked them under her chair. “It’s still a stretch, Steve.”
“Yup, but the rubber band just got a little tighter.”
ANOTHER DREAM. MY father again.
Desert landscape. Green Palo Verde trees and the giants—the saguaros. Blues and purples dappled the surrounding mountains lit aglow in a rich pink with the setting sun.
I was so happy, but Daddy wasn’t. He was furious. Tormented. His face as red as the western sky. He tugged at my waist and grabbed my wrist. Only as I took another step did I understand his fury. His fear.
The crevasse in the hard desert ground opened up before me, sure to swallow me whole.
Someone else screamed in the deep distance. The far distance below me. It was Zoey Lane. Down the hole in the earth about thirty feet, she held her body tight against a rocky wall. Only a few inches of ledge supported her weighty body.
Zoey yelled at me to turn around and leave with my father, but it was like a Pandora’s Box for me. I had to see what was inside.
Snapping my wrist free from my father’s clutch, I used both hands to support my now-crouched position to observe the very precipice. I could see down about another hundred feet of sheer cliff.
At the basin of this instant canyon, thousands of diamondback rattlesnakes and Gila monsters lurched forward and up toward my ankles.
That was it. I shook myself awake and out of the nightmare. Sweat covered my face and my chest. I sat up. Turned on the light on the nightstand.
Just a dream. A nightmare.
Snake dreams, I remembered from an old and seriously psychotic psyche class, were sexual in nature.
Wrong. Not this time. Even in Gage’s absence there was no sexual desire in my life. Even if I was “dusty up there”, I didn’t “twitch down there”.
And the Gila monsters? I had only seen one in my time in the desert.
It fascinated me. I wasn’t afraid.
STEVE TAYLOR ADDRESSED his circle of good friends that included Shirley and Victor Romero. Zoey’s friends. His body language read stiff. Formal. His words redacted the body language to something unbreakable and angry.
“We’re firing blanks. And at nothing in particular,” he said.
“I’ve engaged the Orion System,” Shirley offered.
“Forgive me, but I’m old school. What is that?” Romero asked.
“An FBI tool to organize tips and leads and anything, anywhere, that could be similar to these crimes,” Taylor said.
Shirley volunteered, “Let’s be brutally honest. All three of us know too much time has passed.”
Steve nodded, “Any safe zone of forty-eigh
t hours is long gone. Zoey’s either met with fate and her maker, maybe she’s on the run, or she’s held up in a hell-hole where she’ll never return whole.”
Victor pounded his fist into the glass table. “Fuck this. There’s a hole in this whole. I know The Z. She’s a fighter. She’s out there waiting for us.”
Shirley shuffled in her chair with an unusual slump in her posture. “We all know Zoey. Does anyone in the room, in this private office, feel like she’s gone?”
Romero dropped his shoulders and shook his head in sync to some unheard jungle song. Or maybe a Grateful Dead tune.
Taylor again executed professionalism. “We know what we feel, but it’s our job to deal with the facts.”
“I’m still trying to get a ping from her second cell phone,” Romero offered.
Taylor grimaced, “Too late. That battery is long dead, but I’m not saying to quit trying. Shirley told me that the second phone isn’t smart. And likely Zoey disabled the GPS capability.”
Detective Eli, AKA Junior, burst through the door.
“About the vehicles,” he said. “I have the list narrowed down to fifty-two registered owners. Male.”
“And they all walk with a limp?” Taylor grinned.
“So you were right about that,” Junior said. “This isn’t exactly made for TV forensics, but we came up with a list of thirteen that have handicap plates. Car accidents. Hospitalization.”
“How’s that working for you?”
“Nothing so far, Sir,” Junior said.
Taylor reiterated, “This guy is too damn clever. He didn’t and doesn’t have a handicap plate. He wouldn’t have one if he was paid in gold bullions to take it.”
Chapter 59
Emergence
WHOEVER HE WAS, HE understood. At least for the moment. He was becoming less and less of Dr. Marcus Armstrong as he emerged into more of Sacrum.
He could not allow that to happen. Not for the sake of his White Goddess. Sterling Falls. Only Marcus could approach her. Only Marcus could win her soul, her mind, and her body. And her love.
The White Goddess had told him that she needed to resolve things with that other man. The White Goddess had even told him that this other man might be moving back in with her.
Marcus, or Sacrum, now pranced around in front of the great crystal skull. He spoke to it. Chanted. Snarled. “This is unacceptable,” he whispered to the mammoth sculpture.
His mind split like a worm, instantly cut in half and both elements equally surviving. Would they both survive? Right now, for his White Goddess, Marcus would need to be fully surviving and thriving.
Marcus, now collected, realized the White Goddess had told him these things in confidence, because she loved him, or maybe was falling in love with him. He needed to rescue her. Protect her. And that, he would do.
She was his chosen one, but she had yet to fully recognize that he was hers, too.
ZOEY REGAINED A GLIMPSE of consciousness. That was a good thing. She had no idea where she was. Constraints at her hands, but no blindfold. She’d never been gagged and she’d never had duct tape across her mouth that she could recall. That was a bad thing. She knew that meant no one would be in earshot of a bullhorn. She also deduced she was free to look at anything and that meant she wouldn’t be around as a witness, but he had disguised his face with the mask. And his voice. Why did he bother? Maybe she could get out alive.
She lifted her head and tried to focus through the dim light fused with smoke. She could see them in a nearby corner. Her clothes! She dropped her head back to the gurney-like table that supported her body. She thought so hard her brain felt like she’d been at a John Gage concert and his instrument du jour was fingernails on chalkboard. Her clothes! Heavy work clothes. Cargo pants. The doctor had left her purse behind, but just maybe he didn’t know she carried a second cell phone. A cell phone for her private affairs. Her clients that needed The Z comfort. A number where her mother could reach her if ever she was to call. The dumb phone had been turned off. She had just changed the battery and had yet to boot it up when the monster snatched her.
Could she get to it? If so, she knew someone would be looking for her and maybe someone would find the phone registered to her and track the GPS. That was her only hope and that hope had a lot of flaws. The phone still had to be there. It had to have power. And it needed to be turned on. Which meant she had to turn it on.
Zoey succumbed to the drugs. She entered a dream state where she would escape the insanity that engulfed her.
Chapter 60
Together & Totally Alone
SHIRLEY JOSTLED IN HER SEAT, uncomfortable, even in her sweats. “Between you and me, I have something to tell you.”
Detective Steve Taylor offered no more than a simple nod.
“No broadcasts. You yourself told me with were working separate cases,” Shirley said. “We now know that’s impossible.”
“Talk to me,” Taylor said.
“This is a large list your little Junior brought in on the SUV owners, but I recognize a name.”
“Holy go to hell. What are you seeing?”
Shirley stood up, dramatic in her posturing and lower voice, “This can’t go anywhere, but between you and me.”
Taylor pulled his chair closer to Shirley. That was all that was needed.
“Doctor Marcus Armstrong.”
“And he is? I know that name, but nothing from inside the department.”
“He’s in the society pages at least once a month. Big contributor to whatever causes suit him. And he’s sort of dating Sterling.”
She continued her diatribe, “Now get this and get it hard and fast. Sterling and I have come a long way and she has already told me to back off with any of my background investigations on anyone she was or is involved with.”
Taylor chuckled and relaxed back into his chair, “And, of course, you didn’t.”
“She can’t know anything about this, Steve.”
“And she won’t, but you have a menacing glint in your eye. What’s up that you’re not telling me?”
“Of course I did the preliminary background check on both guys Sterling is involved with. This guy, this Armstrong. He’s lives here, has a great philanthropic repertoire within the community—the pillar and all that, but the man also happens to be the registered owner of a black Ford Explorer and he walks with a limp.”
“For real?”
“I’ve seen him a few times and yes. For real. And one more little thing. He had a wife go missing a few years ago right here in Tucson before you moved here.”
“And?” Steve asked.
“Disappeared. Took her horse with her. Maybe.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Just remember Sterling and I are working out a history of shit. We’re getting there. She can’t know anything about this, Steve.”
“You already told me that. And husbands and wives go missing all the time. While I know it’s their right, why the devil is this the first time I’m hearing about it?”
“Because I promised I wouldn’t snoop and I snooped and I’m just backtracking on my snooping. There’s one more thing.”
“Oh boy,” Steve exclaimed.
“This man—this Armstrong doctor, hailed from Nashville. Vanderbilt Medical School. Give me some time, Steve. I’m leaving on the first plane out of here tomorrow.”
“Can’t you just call the school, assuming that’s what you’re verifying?”
She shook her head and shrugged. “I found his old address. Thought I’d do some digging around. I like Nashville. Maybe I’ll bring you back a cowboy hat.”
Taylor gazed into the now steely eyes of his friend. “Shirley, I’ll dig up this cold missing person case down here and no one will be the wiser. Do you understand?”
They did understand. That was their deal. Their relationship. Their total trust.
“We may find The Z, you know,” Taylor said.
“We’ll find something,” Shirley said. “Toget
her and totally alone.”
Chapter 61
Dreams
ZOEY LANE SLIPPED IN and out of consciousness. In both states she thought and dreamed of only one thing. Her escape. She’d have to rely on her own self. Maybe karma or destiny, she thought, for she had always had to do so.
She had tried to count the days, but gave up. Too many drugs. Not enough light to distinguish between night and day.
She first concentrated on the sounds. Too quiet. No humans. No dogs or javelina. She could hear cars whizzing by in the far distance. An occasional siren, but as much as she hoped and prayed they were coming for her, she knew better.
Smells. Paint. No. It was oil. Maybe mechanic’s oil and lots of it. Again, not too nearby, but near enough to permeate the air in the room. Pungent. Not blood, urine, or feces. She was glad of that.
Now to see that room. She struggled to open her eyes. Struggled harder to make sense of what she saw. A small space. No windows, she already knew.
She tried to raise her head. So much effort. She would pause, rest, and try again. She’s in a hospital gown and on a hospital bed, but she knew this was no hospital. A thin sheet lay crumpled at her side. She held her head up again. Restraints on her wrists. IV’s. Two of them. No, three!
Her legs are unencumbered. She tried to raise the left one. So weak. So skinny, she thought. She tried to lift it again, but maybe only managed an inch or so. She lifted the right leg. Stronger, but clearly atrophied muscles, she deduced.
Oh, and a catheter? Of course. She had been there for god knows how many days. Weeks? That she didn’t know.
She saw the metal chair in the corner of the room. Her work clothes, piled on top of it, had never looked more beautiful. Maybe if he kept her clothes, he was planning on freeing her.
She tried to remember anything. Being grabbed from behind. Her van. Her last image of her purse on the passenger seat. Her cell phone lost behind the console. A horrible smell at her nose and mouth. And nothing more.
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