One Last Look

by Linda Lael Miller

  I didn’t really have a choice, since I was married to one of them, but I decided to play along and see what came of it. I lowered the cell phone to my side.

  “Danielle called a few days after she disappeared. I asked where she was, and she said she had to hide out for a while. She told me to keep the store going and tell the police, when they came around, that I hadn’t heard from her.” Becky paused, her eyes enormous, luminous with pleas. “It wasn’t because she did anything wrong. She was afraid of Deputy Rathburn, and he knew everything that went on at the station, so I didn’t dare go to Chief Sonterra.”

  “She was having an affair with Rathburn,” I mused.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Becky protested. “She loves—”

  Loretta and I waited. Becky’s eyes darted from one of us to the other.

  “Me,” she finished. Then her eyes flashed with defiance, and her cheeks seemed to burn like hot plates.

  “She keeps you a secret,” Loretta guessed, and I gave her points for having a killer instinct. “Like there’s something wrong with the two of you falling in love.”

  That time, I didn’t signal her to shut up. She was getting the hang of the good-cop, bad-cop routine, so I let her have her head.

  “It’s only temporary,” Becky said, with less spirit than before. “Wanda loves me.”

  “That’s what they all say,” Loretta replied.

  Now that I knew who was supposed to be the good cop, and, by process of elimination, the bad one, I jumped in again. “Give her a break, Loretta,” I said. “She’s in love. She wants to help Danielle, keep her safe.” I met the scorned lover’s gaze. “Don’t you, Becky? You don’t want anybody to hurt Danielle.”

  Becky swallowed.

  Loretta kept her mouth shut. Sure as shit, she’d been watching reruns of my perennial favorite, Law & Order. In Loretta’s case, this was certainly preferable to the Food Channel.

  “She didn’t want to be with Dave Rathburn,” Becky said. “She said he was disgusting. She was trying to keep Bobby Ray out of jail, that was all. Now that Rathburn is dead, she’ll come back.” A lift of the chin. “To me.”

  “If she can,” I said gently, and waited, while the words sank in.

  Becky went pale. “What do you mean, ‘if she can’?”

  “If she’s with Lombard, she’s got one of two problems. He’s the primary suspect in two murders—Judy Holliday’s and Micki Post’s, and”—I paused—“he was probably responsible for what happened to Suzie, too. She’s six years old, Becky. There’s a possibility she’s suffered a psychotic break, and she’s barely alive. Either Danielle’s in very grave danger, or she’s going to be implicated.”

  “Call her,” Loretta urged, watching Becky. “You know the number.”

  “I don’t,” Becky insisted.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Loretta stared at me. “‘Okay’?”

  I shifted, so that I was standing almost shoulder to shoulder with Becky. Her and me against an uncaring world. “She’s told us what she knows,” I said. “I believe her.”

  Loretta opened her mouth, closed it again.

  “Look at the time,” I said, then remembered to check my watch. “Emma will be home from school soon. Since the bone incident, she doesn’t like to be in the house alone, so we’d better boogie.”

  Loretta consulted her own watch. “But it’s only—”

  “They’re getting out early,” I interrupted. “Teachers’ conference.” I turned to Becky, handed her one of my old cards from Phoenix, with the new information scribbled in. “If you hear from Danielle again, call me. Her life might depend on it.”

  Becky hesitated, nodded glumly, and pocketed the card without looking at it.

  “What just happened in there?” Loretta asked when we were back in the Hummer. “She was on the verge of telling us everything.”

  “She’s panicking,” I said calmly. “Which means, if we watch her, there’s a good chance she’ll lead us to Danielle.”

  “Wait a second,” Loretta said. “We can’t follow her. It might be dangerous. Tony’s the cop—let him do the following.”

  “Oh, yeah. Maybe he could take one of the squad cars, and flash the bubble light for drama. She’d never suspect a thing.”

  “Clare Westbrook Sonterra, we are not going to take the law into our own hands!”

  “Of course we’re not,” I said. “We’ll find out where Danielle is, then we’ll tell Sonterra and stand back admiringly while he does the rest.”

  “I think even Becky might notice a red Hummer on her tail,” Loretta countered. “This is a bad idea, Clare. If Danielle is with Lombard—”

  “We can use your Lexus,” I said. “Are you in or out?”

  “I could tell Tony what you’re up to. That would be the end of this whole stupid plan!”

  “You wouldn’t, though. Don’t take up poker anytime soon, Loretta. You can’t bluff for shit.”

  Loretta sighed. “Damn it.”

  “Let’s go out to the ranch and pick up your Lexus.”

  “What about Emma?”

  “Emma?”

  “Yes, Emma. Your niece. The one who’s getting out of school early and afraid to be home alone?”

  “Oh, that Emma. She’s doing some research for a paper in the school library after her last class, and by the time she gets home, Eddie and Sonterra will be there, too. Even if they weren’t, she wouldn’t be scared. The kid wants an overnighter in the Lizzie Borden house for her fifteenth birthday.”

  “You were lying the whole time. About everything!”

  “Go figure, Loretta. If you don’t want to go with me, we can just swap cars.”

  “Of course I’m going with you,” Loretta huffed. “Obviously, I don’t dare let you out of my sight for more than five minutes.”

  Twenty-four

  A t dusk, we parked the Lexus in front of the Doozy Diner, just up the street from Danielle’s shop.

  “So this is what a stakeout is like,” Loretta said.

  I sighed. If Sonterra caught us, there would be hell to pay, but he was busy back at the house, going over the coyote case with Special Agent Timmons. They may have pinned Oz Gilbride and Deputy Dave down as the ring-leaders, but there were still a lot of desert dogs out there, doing the legwork. Loretta and I had left the Hummer at the ranch, when we swapped it out for the Lexus, and Sonterra believed we were shopping in Tucson. I hadn’t exactly lied to him when I called—I just told him I needed maternity jeans, which was true, and let him draw his own conclusions.

  At seven o’clock sharp, Becky Peakes closed the shop, shutting off the lights and locking the door. We watched as she walked, slump-shouldered, hands wedged into the pockets of her denim jacket, down the sidewalk in the general direction of Danielle’s house. She’d probably been living there all along, sharing her boss’s bed whenever there was a vacancy. I wondered where she’d been during the book club meeting.

  Loretta moved to start the Lexus.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “I thought we were going to tail her.”

  My friend’s cop lingo made me smile. “Before we can do that, she’ll have to go someplace,” I said. “Give the girl time to get home, feed the goldfish, and put in a call to Danielle.”

  “Good Lord,” Loretta lamented, anxious to begin her career as a crime buster. “That could take hours.”

  “That’s the nature of a stakeout,” I replied. We’d buzzed through the drive-in for burgers and fries, and I munched on the last of my dinner. “Becky might not turn a wheel tonight. For all we know, she doesn’t even own a car.”

  “Then why are we sitting here?”

  “Because I could be wrong.”

  “I didn’t ever think I’d hear you say those words.”

  “Wonders never cease.”

  I let half an hour go by, during which we debated the pros and cons of Loretta’s plan to get a real estate license versus turning the ranch into a business, then gave her the nod. A
t my suggestion, we parked at the top of the alley behind Danielle’s house and doused the lights.

  Another forty-five minutes passed, then our patience, as they say, was rewarded. Becky came out of the house, approached the door of the ramshackle garage, and fiddled with the padlock. Next thing we knew, she was backing a battered blue sedan into the alley.

  I flashed back to the day I’d gone to Tucson for the job interview with Eli Robeson, driving Loretta’s Lexus. I couldn’t be sure, but I had a strong hunch that this was the same car that had bashed into me from behind and sent me spinning into that busy intersection.

  “Holy shit, Batman,” I muttered.

  Loretta speared me with a look. “What?”

  “I think that’s the same car that smashed into the back of your car in Tucson. Back up and head for the main road. She’s going to notice if we bump down the alley behind her. Better yet, let me drive.”

  “Not a chance,” Loretta said, throwing the car into reverse. “I’ve never done this before. I want the experience.”

  “For what? Your memoirs?”

  “It’s part of the new, proactive me.”

  “Great,” I said, but I didn’t argue.

  We headed for Main Street and, sure enough, Becky’s taillights appeared up ahead. She was moving toward Tucson and not paying much attention to the speed limit.

  “Go slowly,” I warned Loretta, who was clearly in a pedal-to-the-metal state of mind. “If Deputy Jesse happens to be on patrol, we might get pulled over.”

  We stayed about ten car lengths behind, and when a farmer driving an old cattle truck got between us and the quarry, I told Loretta not to pass.

  “Poop,” she said. “I was up for a high-speed chase.”

  “Get over it, Clint Eastwood,” I answered, keeping an eye on Becky’s back bumper. Had she been the one to ram me in Tucson and, if so, why? I’d never met the woman before today. What could I have done to piss her off that much?

  “It must have been Danielle,” I decided aloud.

  “What?” Loretta asked reasonably.

  “She must have been the one driving, that day after I left Robeson’s office.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I’m speculating. Brainstorming. Running things up the flagpole to see if anybody salutes.”

  Becky took a side road, about ten miles out of town. I made Loretta cruise on by, then double back once the blue sedan disappeared around a bend, into a cluster of cottonwood trees.

  “Where do you think she’s going?” Loretta asked.

  “To Danielle, I hope.” I glanced at my watch and squirmed. Like Loretta, I wanted to step on the gas.

  “She’s going to get away,” my friend fussed.

  “Not unless she’s planning on some off-road driving,” I replied. “There’s nothing back there but an old chicken ranch.”

  “Again—how do you know that?”

  “I called the Psychic Network.”

  “Bitch,” Loretta said with a sort of grudging fondness.

  I relented. I could see Becky’s taillights, far ahead, blinking red between the trees. “During my misguided youth, a group of us used to come to Dry Creek to party. This was one of our favorite haunts.”

  I tried to remember the layout of the property. There was a barn, dwarfing the house and leaning distinctly to one side. There was a spring-fed pond, too slimy to swim in.

  And there were trees.

  I thought back to the town picnic, the day Sonterra was sworn in as chief of police. Danielle had wanted to buy the house on Cemetery Lane, because of the cottonwoods. The city council refused to sell, I recalled her saying. It’s the only house in town with trees in the yard.

  “Not the only place, Danielle,” I muttered. “But, then, you knew that, didn’t you?” I could have kicked myself for not thinking of the chicken ranch, with its cottonwood guardians. They were no secret, after all. I’d driven past them a dozen times, on my way to and from Tucson, and never really noticed.

  “If you’re going to ‘brainstorm,’” Loretta said, “would you mind including me?”

  I leaned forward to peer through the windshield at the sky. The moon was in its last quarter. “Shut off the lights,” I said, “and drive slowly.”

  Loretta did as I asked, but I noticed a definite reduction in enthusiasm. “I think we should call Tony,” she said. “Right now.”

  “Not yet,” I answered. “Suppose Danielle’s not here? Becky could be up to something else entirely. Sonterra will want an explanation if we drag him out here, and it turns out we’re wrong. What are we going to tell him then?”

  “He’ll want an explanation anyway, when he finds out about this,” Loretta reasoned, leaning forward and squinting at the dirt road ahead as we jostled along. “Fortunately, that’s your problem. I intend to take the Fifth.”

  An explanation and a pound of flesh, I thought dismally.

  “Keep going,” I said, scanning the trees ahead. No lights, no nothing. “Stop just this side of that boulder, where the road bends. We can walk the rest of the way.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m wearing four-inch heels.”

  “An oversight on your part,” I said. “Feel free to wait in the car if you’d rather.”

  “And let you bumble into yet another situation, all alone? Not an option.”

  “This isn’t going to be a ‘situation,’” I replied. “We’re not going to confront anybody. We’ll just take a look around, then come back to the Lexus. If Danielle is here, we’ll call in the law.”

  “What if she’s not here?”

  “Then we’d better come up with a couple of pairs of preggo jeans,” I answered. “Sonterra will expect evidence of shopping.”

  “Or you could just tell him the truth,” Loretta suggested.

  “What a concept,” I said, opening my door, getting out, and closing it quietly behind me. I left my purse behind, but I had my cell phone. I also had the presence of mind, remembering the near miss at Micki’s trailer, to switch it to vibrate. The last thing we needed was a Johnny Cash concert while we were trying to sneak up on the chicken ranch.

  Loretta locked her own purse in the trunk of the Lexus, then removed one of her Manolos, looked sadly at the towering Lucite heel, and broke it off on the boulder. The other soon met the same fate, but at least she wasn’t teetering as we sneaked through the trees toward the hideout.

  “This is so crazy,” she whispered.

  “You were the one who suggested we get wild,” I whispered back. “And be quiet. If you so much as glimpse either Danielle or Lombard, turn around and run like hell for the car.”

  She nodded, and we went on.

  The chicken ranch had been spooky back when I was a kid. Now, having had roughly twenty years to disintegrate further, it looked like something out of a horror movie.

  Becky’s car was parked in front of the barn, which, by some miracle of architecture, was still standing; but there were no other vehicles in sight and no people. The house had fallen in, and the thin moonlight played over an old wringer washer, rising like a rusted phoenix from the ruins.

  A shudder inched down my spine.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Loretta mouthed.

  I shook my head.

  Voices played on the chilly night air, but I couldn’t make out the words or identify the speakers, though obviously Becky had to be one of them. The general tone was angry. Recriminations were flying.

  I stepped out of the trees.

  Loretta grabbed for me, then let out a strangled scream.

  I whirled to see what was wrong and came face-to-face with a living mug shot.

  I’d seen Bobby Ray Lombard on the Internet, and here he was, in person. He had Loretta in a choke hold, the filthy plaid sleeve of his ragged shirt cutting off her wind. Her eyes were huge with fear.

  “Let her go,” I said.

  Lombard gestured with his free hand, and I saw the nine-millimeter semiautomati
c. “Hello, Mrs. Sonterra.” He grinned, revealing both bad intentions and a whole lifetime of dental neglect. “Who’s your friend?” He jerked his arm hard, and Loretta’s eyes rolled back in her head. She slumped, and he let her fall.

  I hoped to God she was faking. When I moved to find out, Lombard slammed the butt of the gun into my head.

  When I came to, I was inside the barn, duct-taped to one of the support beams, Joan of Arc style. There was no sign of Loretta, but then, I had blood in my eyes, so she might have been there somewhere.

  Danielle/Wanda stood facing me with a plastic firelighter in one hand.

  “Hello, Clare,” she said sweetly.

  My head throbbed, and she kept going in and out of focus. I couldn’t decide between throwing up and wetting my pants. “Hello, Wanda,” I said. “Where is Loretta?”

  She didn’t even react to my use of her real first name. “The blond chick? Bobby Ray’s taking care of her. She’s probably dead by now.”

  “You’d better pray she isn’t,” I answered. I might have been jelly on the inside, but my survival instincts had kicked in the moment I regained consciousness, and I had one objective—to keep my baby alive. And of course that meant I had to survive, too. If anything had happened to Loretta—

  But I couldn’t afford to follow that thought too far down the primrose path.

  “You killed my children,” Danielle said. “You escaped retribution back then, but you won’t get away this time.”

  A whimper sounded, somewhere off to my left, and I saw Becky sprawled facedown on the floor of the barn, bleeding from the head. Sick fear roiled through me. What had they done to Loretta?

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I retorted, still playing the only hand I had—a bluff. The painting of the Venetian woman and her children loomed in my mind, vivid in every detail, along with their tragic story.

  “Don’t you remember? You murdered them. Your name was Elisabeta then.”

  I swallowed a throat full of bile. “You don’t seriously believe that.”

  “I know it,” Danielle said. Her eyes glinted.

  “Wanda, don’t!” Becky called. “Please—don’t do this—”

  Lombard entered through the barn door, but Loretta wasn’t with him.