Bernice and Waldo barked hysterically, cavorting in the yard as the Red Marvel rolled up to the curb, followed by a van with the dealership logo painted on the side.
I’d been trying to get Sonterra on the horn ever since I’d learned about the delivery, but he didn’t answer his cell phone—damn that caller ID—and when I called the cop shop, Deputy Jesse informed me that the chief was busy with “law enforcement duties.”
A smiling young man with a shaved head and an earring climbed from behind the wheel of the Hummer. “Check out the license plate,” he said. “Mr. Sonterra jumped through a lot of hoops to get it.”
I walked around to the back. FNLY MNE.
I couldn’t help grinning. Finally Mine.
“Take a look inside. Multiple CD changer, global positioning device, the whole enchilada.” The kid couldn’t have been prouder if he’d built the Hummer in his dad’s garage.
A clipboard was produced. I signed, and the young man handed me a set of keys, congratulated me, and got into the van on the passenger side. With a honk and a wave, the delivery team was gone.
I circled the Hummer, confounded and secretly jubilant. Sonterra had money, because of an inheritance wisely invested, but a ride like that had to have put a major nick in the funds.
Bernice and Waldo peered at me through the picket fence, tongues out.
“Let’s take a spin,” I told them. After dashing back inside for their leashes and my purse, I loaded the pair up, and Esperanza stood spellbound on the front porch, watching. I invited her along, but she shook her head and muttered something about cleaning the bathroom.
I climbed into the cab of the Hummer. It felt like a tank, after Loretta’s Lexus. I fired it up, pushed it into gear, and off we rolled.
We hit Main Street doing at least thirty-five, and threw some gravel as we raced into the cop-shop parking lot. Sonterra’s SUV was parked out front, along with a squad car and two state rigs.
I left the dogs in the car, with profound apologies and lots of air, and went inside.
Sonterra met me with a weary grin. He’d lost a lot of sleep since coming to Dry Creek, and I felt a pinch in my heart.
“How do you like your wedding present?” he asked.
If Deputy Dave and a couple of suits from the State Police hadn’t been looking on, I might have flung myself at him and wrapped both legs around his waist.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said.
“Believe it,” he replied.
“I guess you couldn’t get an armored car.”
He laughed. “The ideal choice would have been a tank.”
“It must have cost a fortune.”
Sonterra shrugged. Some invisible cop signal must have passed between him and the others, because Dave and the staters disappeared into a back room.
I wrapped my arms around Sonterra’s neck. “Thanks.”
He spread his hand across my lower belly. “I want you safe until I nail these bastards,” he said. “You and the baby.”
“I didn’t get you a wedding present,” I told him. Suddenly, I was all choked up.
“You’re all the present I need,” he replied, and kissed the tip of my nose.
It was one of his days for saying the right thing. I wished he had more of those, but there you go.
“Then you won’t mind showing whatever you’ve got on Bobby Ray Lombard,” I said easily. The easy part was faked. When I thought of Lombard, I thought of Judy Holliday, swinging from a noose. I thought of Micki, sprawled naked and bloody on top of a grave. I thought of Suzie, who might be alive and might be dead.
Sonterra sighed. In small towns like that one, there are no jailhouse photo albums. Cops go online, to mugshots.com, or something like that, and call up the criminal in question.
Sonterra had the most recent image of Bobby Ray Lombard on the monitor and printing out in a few quick keystrokes. The rap sheet followed.
I studied the picture, scanned the sheet.
Lombard was the stereotypical criminal in appearance. Bad mullet, last washed during the Clinton administration. Acne scars. Mean little eyes that seemed to say, Go ahead, get in my way, and I’ll gut you like a fish.
“Does he look familiar?” Sonterra asked.
I shook my head. I’d seen some version of Lombard a thousand times, in a thousand different arrest photos, but they’d all been variations on the same theme. Creeps Anonymous.
I lowered the printout to my side and held it tightly, just in case Sonterra thought I meant to give it back, which I didn’t. Mentally, I’d already painted a target on that sheet of computer paper, and Lombard’s ugly face was the bull’s-eye.
“You need to get some sleep,” I said uselessly. “Can’t Deputy Dave hold down the fort for a while?” I lowered my voice. “And how come you haven’t fired him? You were pretty pissed off when he left Judy Holliday’s house unguarded.”
The subject raised a charge in Sonterra, I could feel it, but I knew before he opened his mouth that he wasn’t going to clear up the Deputy Dave mystery for me. “No way I’m leaving,” he said. He gripped me by the shoulders and eased me into a chair. “Listen. Dan Post, Suzie’s dad, got a call from her on his cell phone yesterday,” he told me cautiously. “She said she was all right.”
Relief can be as shattering as bad news. I went light-headed. “She’s alive,” I whispered. Then I snapped to attention. “Post waited until today to let you know this? Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“I called him on it first thing. He was feeling paranoid. Thought his phone might be tapped. People do crazy stuff when they’re under this kind of stress, Clare.”
“I take it you’ve already ruled Post out as a suspect? He wouldn’t be the first divorced father to kidnap his own child, you know.”
“Post is rock-solid. You’re losing your edge, Counselor. I ran him through the computers as soon as the scene was secured at Dr. Holliday’s.”
“Suzie’s alive,” I repeated, just for the pleasure of saying it.
“Maybe,” Sonterra clarified, fetching me a cup of water and holding it for me until I had a steady grip. “The ME puts Micki’s death at roughly the same time, a little before the call, or a little after. Which means—”
“That Lombard could have killed Suzie, too. Especially if he caught her talking to her dad.”
Sonterra nodded.
I swallowed a gulp of water. “Did Suzie actually say she was with Bobby Ray?”
“No,” Sonterra answered. He squeezed the back of my neck lightly, then pulled up a chair of his own and sat facing me, taking both my hands in his. “According to Post, the kid was crying a lot. She told him she was scared and wanted to come home.” He paused. “Post said he thought he heard a woman scream in the background, Clare. It could have been the TV, but—”
I closed my eyes. My stomach roiled with a sudden influx of acid. “Or it could have been Micki.”
“We have to consider the possibility.”
“I hate this,” I whispered. I regarded him steadily. “How do you do it? How do you stand it, Sonterra? The bodies, the fear, the ugliness—”
“If I check out, the bad guys win. It’s that simple.”
I didn’t point out that the “bad guys” win a lot anyway. After all, I loved the man, in my own semi-dysfunctional way, and he’d just given me a Hummer for a wedding present.
My cell phone sounded. I answered.
“Cl-Clare?”
A shard of emotion jabbed through me. I pushed the speaker button with my thumb so Sonterra could hear the conversation.
“Suzie?”
Sniffles. “Yes.”
“Honey, where are you?”
“I don’t know. It’s dark. They killed my mama.”
My stomach caught fire. “Who is ‘they’?” I asked, as calmly as I could.
Sonterra was listening hard, but he didn’t speak, and I was grateful. The balance was delicate; Suzie would hang up if she got scared.
“I’m not
supposed to tell,” she said in a small voice. “They said they’d kill me, too, if I do.” Pause. “It’s dark here.”
Careful, I thought. “Whose phone are you using?”
“Dr. Judy’s cell.” Suzie began to cry harder. “It lights up. It had your number in it.”
Sonterra scribbled something on a piece of paper and shoved it in my face. Give me the number. I can put a trace on the call. And who the hell is “they”?
I studied the caller ID panel, but it was blank. I was afraid to press any buttons, in case I broke the connection.
“They’re coming back!” Suzie whispered, then she was gone.
Numbly, I handed the phone to Sonterra. He brought up the number and immediately got on a landline. I sank into a chair while he called Special Agent Timmons, updated him, and asked him to pinpoint the location of Judy Holliday’s cell phone.
Just then, Deputy Dave came through the front door. I half expected Sonterra to tell him about Suzie’s call, despite the palpable hostility arcing between the two men, but he didn’t. I was an emotional Ping-Pong ball, bouncing between the good news Suzie was still alive—and the bad news: She was being held captive in a dark place, by people who had already murdered her mother and the doctor, possibly right in front of her eyes.
“That’s some rig out there,” Deputy Dave said, sounding a touch too hale and hearty. He was clearly trying to get back into Sonterra’s good graces. “Does it have a GPD?”
“Yes,” Sonterra said flatly. Definitely not playing ball.
My brain was shorting out. “A GP what?” My Escalade had been a no-frills, closeout model. At the time I bought it, I’d been poor too long to be all that comfortable with extras.
“Global positioning device,” Sonterra said mildly.
Oh, great, I thought glumly, and with a twinge of resentment. Now he’ll probably be able to track me wherever I go. I gave him a look, but it didn’t stick.
“You must be making a hell of a lot more money than I am,” Dave offered, still pouring on the cheer.
Sonterra didn’t answer.
“Dogs are raising hell,” Dave went on, clearly determined to strike up some kind of conversation. He probably wondered, as I did, if Sonterra was already taking résumés.
I jumped to my feet at the reminder of the dogs. I’d forgotten all about Waldo and Bernice.
Sonterra pushed me gently back into the chair. “Sit there until you catch your breath,” he said. “I’ll get them.”
“Something going on?” Dave probed. His tone was good-natured, but his eyes were watchful and slightly narrowed.
I looked to Sonterra.
“Not a thing,” he said, and disappeared through the outer doorway.
Dave looked baffled. “Everybody’s on edge,” he said with a sigh. “Too damn many murders around here lately.” He hung up his hat, pushed back his desk chair, and sat. He’d been putting on a façade while Sonterra was in the room. Now he let some of his rancor slip out. “Just goes to show you, big-city cops don’t necessarily have all the answers.”
I bristled. “I wouldn’t count on that,” I said.
If the deputy picked up on my tone, he didn’t let on. He began riffling through a stack of files. “Madge told me to ask you and the chief out to our place for supper tonight. Seven o’clock. She’s making chicken spaghetti.”
Sonterra returned, with Waldo and Bernice on their leashes, and caught the tail end of the invitation. “I can’t make it tonight,” he said. There was a slight edge to his voice. “How about a rain check?”
Dave smiled slightly to himself, sobered when he looked up and found me watching him. “Madge’ll be disappointed. She’s real proud of that recipe.” He eyed the dogs, now sitting obediently at my feet, evidently waiting for their cue. “Maybe you could come, Ms. Westbrook. Bring your niece.”
I was still jumpy over the call from Suzie. If I had to sit around the house all evening, waiting for the phone to ring again, I’d go crazy. Besides, if I was going to fulfill my duties as an investigator, I needed to know the townspeople as well as possible.
“Sure,” I said.
Sonterra darted a glance in my direction, but he didn’t comment.
“Good,” Dave replied, and got up to fill his coffee mug. “Seven o’clock,” he reiterated, as though I might have trouble following simple instructions.
I gathered up Bernice’s leash, and Waldo’s. “Can I bring something?”
“No need,” Dave said. “We live over behind the high school. Green house with gnomes in the yard.”
“See you then,” I replied brightly, and made for the exit with the dogs.
Sonterra followed me outside.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“I might ask you the same question,” I retorted. “You obviously don’t like Dave Rathburn, but he’s still got his badge.”
“He’s only a couple of years from retirement,” Sonterra allowed. “He blew it the night of the Holliday murder, but I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“And you don’t trust him.”
“He disobeyed an order, and the results were tragic. So, no, I don’t trust him.”
I studied him. “I think there’s more.”
“Think what you like. I need your cell phone, Clare. If Suzie calls again, I have to talk to her.”
I was torn. Sonterra was the best of the best when it came to cool, calm, and collected, but if Suzie called, she’d be expecting to hear my voice, not his. She might panic and hang up.
I said as much.
“Timmons has the Bureau computers patched into Holliday’s number by now.” Sonterra held out his hand. “I can handle this, Clare.”
“She must be so frightened,” I whispered.
“Suzie knows me,” Sonterra said, and I remembered how he’d introduced the child to Bernice and Waldo Friday afternoon, when we stopped by Judy Holliday’s place, on our way out of town. They’d had a chance to chat while I was inside the house with Micki and the doctor.
I surrendered the phone, albeit reluctantly, and with a caveat. “If you hear from Suzie, I want to know about it. Right away.”
“Cross my heart,” Sonterra said.
My sarcasm detectors were up and scanning, but there were no blips on the radar. “I mean it, Sonterra,” I warned, and put out my hand. “Swap.”
He caught my meaning, and surrendered his phone as grudgingly as I had given up mine. Frankly, I’d expected an argument, or an outright refusal. After all, he took official calls on it. Too bad I didn’t know the access code for his voice mail—I could have been up to speed on a lot of things in no time flat.
“I’ll let you know if anything major happens,” I told him.
Sonterra glared at me for a moment, then opened the back door of the Hummer and hoisted Waldo onto the seat. I set Bernice in front, on the passenger side, and climbed behind the wheel.
“What’s your motive for going to supper at the Rathburns’?” Sonterra asked, with a distinct note of suspicion.
I smiled. “I like spaghetti,” I replied.
I went home.
Esperanza was vacuuming the living room, so the dogs and I took refuge in the study, and I logged on to my computer to check my e-mail.
There were none from Shanda, and I was a little disappointed. My Phoenix practice had apparently sunk without a ripple. Pretty bad, when you can’t even give legal advice away.
I was surfing, just to keep my busy mind occupied, when Emma came in from school. The dogs met her with their usual ecstatic greeting.
Esperanza had finished her work and gone home by then, so we had the house to ourselves.
“Whose Hummer?” Emma asked, looking thunder-struck.
I smiled and abandoned the Internet. “Mine,” I answered. “Courtesy of Sonterra.”
“Wow,” Emma enthused. “Can I drive it?”
“Sure—when you get your license. We’re invited to Dave and Madge Rathburn’s place for supper.
Seven o’clock.”
“Geezers,” Emma said, sounding both tolerant and dismissive. She was pale, and no wonder, after last night’s gruesome scene in the cemetery. “I’d rather stay home, if it’s all the same to you. I have homework, and I want to catch up on my e-mail.”
I relented. Emma was tired, homework was important, and e-mail was her main means of keeping up with her friends back in Scottsdale. “Okay,” I said. “I guess you could heat a can of soup for supper.”
She smiled wanly. “Not a chance,” she said. “Let’s pile into the Hummer and hit the drive-through.” She looked down at the dogs. “What do you say, guys? Cheeseburgers all around?”
Waldo woofed.
Bernice gave a happy yip.
I’d just been railroaded, but I didn’t mind all that much.
We made the trip to B. Boop’s, the only fast-food place in town, and I even forswore their version of a Blizzard, but I can’t claim a lot of credit. My stomach had closed for business the instant I heard Suzie’s frightened voice on my cell phone, back at the cop shop.
God knew how I was going to choke down a plateful of chicken spaghetti. I almost canceled, opting for a long bubble bath and a book instead, but I’d already agreed to make an appearance, and now Madge would be cooking for company.
While Emma plunked down at my computer to check in with the Scottsdale crowd, I chose an outfit—a blue floral sundress and sandals—and took a shower. I even put on makeup.
When I came downstairs, Emma and the dogs had migrated to the kitchen. Her books were open on the table, and her plain, precise handwriting filled half a page in her notebook.
“Are you really going to Deputy Dave’s for supper?” she teased. “Or do you and Tony have a secret date?”
The idea of spending the evening with Sonterra, instead of the Rathburns, filled me with a sudden, fierce yearning. It was almost as if he’d been deployed on some secret and dangerous mission, of indeterminate length.
“I wish,” I said, putting it mildly.
“You seem a little—I don’t know—nervous,” Emma reflected, serious again. “What’s going on?”
I almost told her about Suzie’s call, but I stopped myself. She was a teenager, not an adult, and, as much as I needed to talk the situation over with somebody, it wouldn’t be right to worry her.
One Last Look Page 18
