Kiss of the Bees w-2

by J. A. Jance

  Lani pressed herself against the sheltering stalagmite and held her breath. She didn’t dare peek out for fear the beam from the light might reveal her face glowing white in the darkness. She marked his progress by watching the bouncing ray of his flashlight as he came across the room and by the curses and moans that accompanied his every step. She couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying, but every once in a while the word “knee” surfaced and there was something about “cops.”

  Perhaps, in clambering up and over the debris, he had reinjured the knee that had been bothering him earlier. That would explain the knee part. As for the cops, Lani couldn’t imagine what he meant. It didn’t seem possible that there would be police officers outside looking for her. How could there be? How would anyone know where to look?

  After what seemed an eternity, Mitch disappeared into the second passageway. Lani was tempted to stay where she was, but since this was the first hiding place she had found and the one nearest the opening to the second cavern, it was also most likely the first place Mitch Johnson would look when he came searching for her again. She would have to do better than that.

  Hoping the noise of his own movements would mask hers, she crept on, trying to suppress the ragged breaths that threatened to catch in her throat and ignoring the sweat that trickled down the back of her neck. Two steps farther, her foot slipped off a sharp edge into a pool of icy water. The splash sounded like an explosion in her pounding ears, but when she stopped still and waited, there was no answering sound from the other room. Perhaps he hadn’t heard it.

  Barely able to breathe, she moved on. A dozen more steps into the mountain, she found a gap between two stalagmites and burrowed her way into that, stopping only when she came up against solid rock.

  Closing her eyes against the darkness, she let Nana Dahd’s comforting words spill over her soul:

  Be like I’itoi, Little Olhoni.

  Be like I’itoi and hide yourself

  In the smallest crack. Hide yourself somewhere

  And do not come out again until the battle is over.

  Listen to what I sing to you, Little Olhoni.

  Do not look at me but do exactly as I say.

  Trying to obey Nana Dahd’s instructions, Lani pressed herself even deeper into the crack in the wall. She had just eased her way down into a reasonably comfortable sitting position on another low-slung stalagmite when she heard the roar of rage in the other room. She cringed. Now it’s coming, she thought.

  Now the evil Ohb knows I’m gone.

  Summoned by Sheriff Bill Forsythe, a loose coalition of officers from several jurisdictions converged on the Walker home in Gates Pass. They were just starting to work when the doorbell rang and Brandon went to answer it. Standing there was FBI Agent in Charge, Brock Kendall. After years of working together, Kendall and Brandon Walker had gone from being colleagues to becoming friends.

  Kendall held out his hand. “I heard you were having some trouble,” he said. “How does that old saying go? I’m from Washington and I’m here to help.”

  Brandon Walker’s face cracked into a pained grin. “Thanks, Brock,” he said. “Come on in.”

  “How bad is it?”

  Walker shook his head. “The worst,” he said. “About as bad as it can get.”

  “And the perpetrator may be Quentin, your own son?”

  As a father, Brandon could barely stand to answer that question. “Yes,” he said. “That’s the way it looks.”

  Even with Brian Fellows and Dan Leggett doing the briefings, it still took precious time to bring all the players up to speed. Brandon Walker tolerated the seemingly interminable interviews as best he could because he knew they were necessary. And he understood that a meticulous crime scene investigation conducted by FBI-trained personnel was equally essential. Even so, it was hard not to fall prey to the thought that nothing much was happening.

  At six o’clock in the morning he went into the bedroom. Diana, fully dressed, lay on the bed, staring dry-eyed up at the ceiling. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Brock Kendall is here, on an unofficial basis, of course, unless it starts looking like someone crossed state lines or until he can clear the way under missing and exploited children. Detective Leggett just sent out for a search warrant for Quentin’s apartment over on Grant. Dan’s a thorough kind of guy. He isn’t going to make a move until he has all his ducks in a row.”

  “If Lani’s already dead, what difference will being thorough make?” Diana asked despairingly.

  “Don’t say that,” Brandon returned. “Don’t even think it.”

  “You heard the tape,” Diana said. “What else is there to think? And why would Quentin do such a thing? What did Lani ever do to him? Is it jealousy? Is that what this is all about? We would have done exactly the same things for Tommy and Quentin that we did for Davy and Lani if they had ever shown the slightest interest. And every time we tried to do something, Janie was right there saying it wasn’t good enough for them. No matter what we did, it wasn’t enough.”

  “Shhhh,” Brandon said, laying a finger on Diana’s lips. They were as parched and dry as if she had been running a fever. “It isn’t Janie’s fault that Quentin’s gone off his rocker,” Brandon said. “Don’t waste your time blaming her, and don’t blame us either.”

  “That’s what you’re saying then? Quentin’s gone crazy and what’s happened has no connection to the book? Nothing tonight has anything to do with the danger Fat Crack warned us about?”

  Brandon slumped wearily against the headboard on his side of the bed. “I can’t see what the connection would be,” he said. “Insanity is the only thing that makes sense.”

  Just then there was a tap on the door. A young deputy poked his head inside the room. “Brock Kendall was trying to use your phone a few minutes ago. He said there’s evidently a message on your answering machine. He said you should probably listen to it just in case it happens to be a ransom demand. We’re in the process of setting a trap on your line. This call must have come in before that.”

  Brandon played back the message. Using the speaker phone, they both listened to Wanda Ortiz’s voice.

  “Gabe and Baby just left for Rattlesnake Skull Charco,” Wanda said. “He wants you to meet him there. He says that’s where you’ll find Lani.”

  By the time the message ended, Brandon had already slipped his shoes back on and was bent over tying them. “What are you going to do?” Diana asked.

  “You heard Wanda. Fat Crack wants me to meet him at Rattlesnake Skull Charco, and that’s where I’m going.”

  Diana started to slide off the bed. “If that’s where she is, I’m going too.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Why not?” Diana demanded, slipping on her own shoes. “Why the hell shouldn’t I? Lani’s my daughter, too.”

  Brandon didn’t want to say the real reason, that he was afraid of what they would find at Rattlesnake Skull Charco—afraid of what they would see. He couldn’t seem to do much, but at least he could spare Diana that.

  “One of us needs to be here to answer the phone,” he said. “What if a ransom call does come in?”

  Diana’s voice rose, verging on hysteria. “There’s not going to be any ransom call. You know that. You just—”

  “Please, Diana,” Brandon said huskily. He reached out and touched her, letting his fingers graze gently down the curving line of her cheek. “Please stay here. I can’t order you to stay, but do it because I need you to, Di. Because I’m asking.”

  Diana sank back down on the bed. “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay.”

  “Thank you,” Brandon said. He started toward the door.

  “You’ll take the cell phone?”

  “It’s already in my pocket.”

  “Call the moment you hear anything,” Diana added. “The moment you find her. Promise me you’ll call, no matter how bad it is.”

  Brandon stopped at the door and looked back at his wife. “I promise
,” he said. “No matter how bad.”

  Leaving Diana alone, he hurried out into the living room. “What’s up?” Brock Kendall asked.

  “Hitch up the wagons. We need to go out to the place where they found those bones yesterday afternoon. According to Gabe Ortiz, that’s where we’ll find Lani—at Rattlesnake Skull Charco.”

  Brian Fellows leaped to his feet. “I can take you there,” he offered. “It’s not easy to find but—”

  “I’ve been there before,” Brandon Walker said. “It’s the same place where we found Gina Antone all those years ago. Besides, Brian, I want you to stay here.”

  Disappointment washed over the young deputy’s face. He started to argue. “But I—”

  “Most of the other officers here are strangers, Brian,” Brandon Walker said. “You’re family. I’d like you to be here to be with Diana just in case. To give her some emotional backup. I only pray she won’t need it.”

  “All right, Mr. Walker,” Brian said. “If that’s what you want me to do, I’ll be glad to stay.”

  Brandon had left the Suburban parked out in front of the house. “Gabe Ortiz,” Brock Kendall was saying as they climbed in. “That name sounds familiar. Who is he again?”

  “A friend of the family,” Brandon answered. “He’s also the Tohono O’othham tribal chairman.”

  “But what does he have to do with all this, and how would he know that’s where Lani might be?”

  “He’s a medicine man,” Brandon answered, heading for the door. “He knows stuff. Don’t ask me how, but he does.”

  Sitting in the mouth of the cave, watching the flashing red lights in the desert below, Mitch Johnson fought his way through an initial attack of panic. He was convinced that the lights had nothing to do with him. What he couldn’t understand was why the hell they didn’t finish up whatever it was they were doing and go away. The little Indian slut was still missing, but he was beginning to think that maybe she hadn’t made it out of the cave after all.

  He couldn’t believe he had screwed up that badly, but there was no one to blame but himself. He had counted too heavily on the drugs to control Quentin. He had kept the Bronco’s ignition key in his pocket, but Quentin must have had a spare. He had raced out of the cave in a rage when he heard the Bronco start up without taking the precaution of securing the girl first. When he first discovered that Lani was missing, he had figured she had simply followed his own path up and over the landslide debris in the smaller cavern and out to the steep surface of the mountain.

  Now, though, he wondered if that was true. Had she gone that way, she, too, would have seen the lights. If she had gone straight there, hoping to be rescued, wouldn’t her appearance have provoked an almost instantaneous reaction? By now the mountainside would have been crawling with cops ready to use Mitch Johnson for some high-tech nighttime target practice. No doubt a bunch of eager-beaver searchers would have combed every inch of the surrounding terrain. One of them was bound to have stumbled across the crumpled hulk of Quentin Walker’s Bronco.

  No, as the still night slid into early morning, as the sky brightened in the east, and as the flashing red lights stayed right where they were, Mitch grew more and more convinced that Lani Walker was still somewhere inside the cave and probably freezing her cute little tush off as well.

  He had already decided on a backup plan of action. All he had to do was make it to the Bounder. Even with his knee acting up again, he could walk that far. Then, if he drove into town, hooked on to the Subaru, he could drive off into the sunset and no one would be the wiser. He understood, however, that a plan like that would work only so long as Lani Walker wasn’t alive to point an accusing finger in his direction.

  Which meant that, inside the cave or out of it, Mitch Johnson had to find her first.

  Had time not been an issue, he could simply have settled into the passage and waited. Eventually Lani would be faced with two simple courses of action: she would either have to come out or starve to death.

  Mitch’s real difficulty lay in the fact that time was an issue. By now the Walkers knew something was up and had probably called for reinforcements. And so, after checking the flashing lights one last time, Mitch Johnson turned back into the first passageway. He did so with only one purpose in mind—to find Lani Walker and kill her.

  Somewhere over southeastern Colorado, Davy Ladd finally did fall asleep. The next panic attack hit while the Boeing 737 was cruising over central New Mexico. An observant flight attendant realized something was wrong and quickly moved the little old lady out of the way to an empty seat several rows forward.

  As the dream started, it was similar to the others. The evil Ohb was there once again, armed with a knife, and chasing Lani and Davy through miles of mazelike tunnels. Once again he was awakened, gasping and sweating, by Lani’s chilling scream.

  “Something’s happening,” David said when he could finally speak again as he sat mopping rivulets of sweat off his face with a fistful of napkins the flight attendant had provided.

  “What do you mean?” Candace asked.

  “Something’s happening, and it’s happening now,” Davy declared.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know how I know, I just do.”

  Candace reached in her purse, pulled out a credit card, and removed the air-to-ground phone from its holder in the seat ahead of them. “Call,” she said, running the magnetic strip through the slot to activate the phone. “Call and find out.”

  “Hello?” Diana answered. Her voice wasn’t as strong or as clear as it usually was on the phone. Whether that stemmed from nerves or weariness, Davy couldn’t tell. “Mom? It’s Davy.”

  “Where are you?” she asked. “Still in the hotel?”

  “No,” he answered. “We’re on a plane somewhere over New Mexico. Maybe even Arizona by now. What’s happening?”

  “All hell has broken loose. There are investigators all over the house tearing the place apart. They’ve been here for hours and—” Diana stopped. “You’re flying?” she asked as what Davy had said finally penetrated.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll be here soon?”

  “Yes. The plane should be on the ground in about half an hour. We’ll rent a car and—”

  “Oh, Davy!” Diana whispered into the phone. “Thank you. I can’t believe it. This is an answer to a prayer. But don’t rent a car. Brian’s here with me right now. I’ll have him come to the airport and meet you at the gate. What flight?”

  “America West, flight number one, from Chicago. And, Mom?” he added. “I’m not alone.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. My fiancée is with me,” David Ladd said, reaching out and taking Candace’s hand. “Her name is Candace, Mom. You’re going to love her.”

  The unrelenting cold of the larger cavern had crept into Lani’s body, bringing with it a strange lethargy that robbed her of purpose—of the will to fight as well as of the will to live. The first time Mitch had gone cursing through to the outside in search of her, she had tried leaving one hiding place in favor of a better one.

  She had barely ventured beyond the sheltering cover of the stalagmite when she lost her footing and fell. She came to a stop with one leg hanging out over a void. Unable to tell how deep the hole was, she broke off a small splinter of icicle-shaped rock and dropped it over the edge. It fell for a long, long time before finally coming to rest.

  Shaken, Lani had crawled back into her original hiding place and there she stayed. At first she tried to maintain her connection to Nana Dahd’s song, but gradually the cold robbed her of that as well. The words slipped away from her. She could no longer remember them. She had almost drifted off to sleep when Mitch Johnson returned to the cave once more.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called. “You can’t hide from me forever.”

  The sound of Mitch Johnson’s voice jarred Lani to alert consciousness. She had hoped to convince him that she had left the cavern.
Now, however, as the beam from his flashlight began flickering here and there across the far wall of the cavern, probing one shadowy hollow after another, she realized that wasn’t true. With the light moving ever closer, Mitch was searching for her—searching systematically. Fortunately for Lani, he had started on the far side of the cave, but gradually he was working his way closer. It was only a matter of time before the revealing light found its way into Lani’s shallow hiding place.

  In this unequal contest where one opponent had light and the other did not, Lani knew there was no hope. And it wasn’t just the light either. He had other advantages as well—a gun for sure and probably even a knife. Once Mitch found her, it would all be over. There would be no further possibility of escape. If only there were some way . . .

  No longer able to summon Nana Dahd’s war song, Lani shrank back against the wall, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. As she did so, she felt something brush against the back of her neck. A bat! It was all she could do to keep from screaming as the invisible wings ruffled her hair and fluttered across the skin of her cheek.

  Possibly the bat was as startled by Lani’s presence as she was by the wings fluttering past her. Soaring on across the chamber, the disoriented creature must have swooped past the man as well.

  “What the hell!” Mitch Johnson exclaimed while, at the same time, the flashlight fell to the rocky floor, rolled, flickered briefly, and then went out.

  “Damn it anyway!” Mitch bellowed. “Where the hell did it go?”

  Lani Walker closed her eyes in prayer, although the darkness both inside and outside her head remained the same.

  “Thank you, little Nanakumal,” she said silently to the bat, wishing that she, like the Mualig Siakam of old, could speak I’itoi’s language well enough so the animal could understand her. “Thank you for stealing the evil Ohb’s light.”