Nine Lives

by Sharon Sala

  It was the last thing Cat saw before she pulled him under.

  Mark Presley stepped out of the shower with a smug expression on his face. He’d called Penny’s reaction right down to the squeal when she’d seen the yellow teardrop diamond on the gold chain and the scream when he made her come. He loved to be right, but he hated to be late, which was why he began to dry himself quickly. He’d made a reservation at the restaurant downstairs for a special brunch he had planned for a couple dozen of his new acquaintances. Even though it was Christmas Day, it was never a bad time to do business.

  He was just about to reach for the shaving cream when he heard the distinct ring of his cell phone in the other room.

  He grabbed a towel as he left the bathroom, wiping his hands on the way to answer. Penny was at the vanity, drinking champagne and preening. He gave her an absent smile as he answered.

  “Presley.”

  “Mark, this is Wyatt Beech. Merry Christmas and sorry to disturb you during your vacation, but I thought you needed to know this.”

  Wyatt Beech was the pumper on the oil wells on the lease near Tyler, and Mark couldn’t imagine why he would be calling him at all, let alone on Christmas Day.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too,” Mark said. “So what is it you think I should know?”

  “There was an explosion on Presley number nine. The well is burning out of control. We’ve got media all over the place. I’m trying to locate Dan Rimes and his crew. They’re the ones who put out that fire for you down in Louisiana last year, right?”

  Mark’s belly flopped. Explosion? Fire? Media? The number nine well was less than two miles, as the crow flew, from where he’d dumped Marsha’s body.

  “How the hell did this happen?” he snapped, then shoved a hand through his hair in frustration. “Yes, Rimes is the one to call, but I heard he’s in South America. Check with his answering service and tell them it’s a fucking emergency, you hear?”

  “The authorities aren’t sure how it happened, but it’s looking like it might be a car accident. The remains of a pickup truck are in the middle of the blaze, and they’re guessing somebody might have driven up to the well site and accidentally ran into the pump in the dark. The fire’s too big to tell how many people might have been in the truck, but one thing’s for sure, they won’t be talking about it.”

  “God damn it!” Mark yelled. “I thought there were locks on those gates leading in to the wells.”

  “There are. That one’s been cut,” Dan said. “Right sorry to give you bad news like this. Hope I didn’t completely ruin your holiday. Oh…they’re pumping water out of that old rock quarry to fill their trucks. I told them it was okay.”

  Mark’s good mood was gone. “Keep me posted,” he said, then, when they’d disconnected, turned around and threw his cell phone in a chair in frustration.

  Penny was used to Mark’s occasional outbursts of profanity, especially when something hadn’t gone his way. She thought nothing of it as she got up from the dresser and sashayed toward him, naked as the day she was born.

  “Markie…look at me,” she said, dressed only in the yellow diamond dangling from the chain around her neck.

  Mark was struggling to get past a growing panic. It couldn’t be good for that much activity to be happening so close to where he’d dumped Marsha’s body. And the fact that they were using water out of the quarry was dangerous. He didn’t think that they’d find the stuff he’d thrown in, but he hadn’t counted on the water being siphoned out. He glanced at Penny and tried to smile as he patted her on the butt.

  “Yes, darling…you look fabulous.”

  Penny sidled closer, then cupped him suggestively with one hand while she rolled the tip of her nipple between her fingers.

  “Mark…Markie…honey…I want to feel good again. Can you make me feel good again?”

  Mark frowned. That meant getting it up. He wasn’t in the mood to get anything up.

  “Come on, Penny. You know we—”

  “Markie…honey. I want to do it again.”

  Suddenly the pout on her face and the whine in her voice set his teeth on edge.

  “Not now,” he muttered.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed herself against his groin.

  “Yes. Yes. Now. I want it now.”

  Mark grabbed her arms and removed them from around his neck.

  “We’re not doing it again, so don’t ask. Just get yourself dressed. The brunch is in less than an hour, and I still have to shave, okay?”

  Penny pouted. “No. It’s not okay. I want—”

  Mark snapped. Before he knew it, he had his hands around her neck and was shoving her backward onto the bed. He jammed his knee between her legs, then shoved it upward—hard and fast. He heard the pop as his kneecap hit her pelvic bone.

  Penny cried out in shock and pain.

  “Markie, Markie…you’re hurting me.”

  “Shut up,” Mark growled. “You wanted this, remember?”

  Penny screamed.

  Mark’s pulse accelerated. He liked causing pain, but he’d never revealed this side of himself to Penny before. His erection was instantaneous. He entered her, dry and hard, taking pleasure in her pitiful cry of disbelief.

  Stunned by what she could only view as a rape, Penny clutched at the bed sheets in silent misery as Mark rode her. Less than a minute passed before he grabbed her by the hair and came in a final thrust so hard that her head bounced against the headboard.

  He crawled off her without looking at her face and walked into the bathroom as if she wasn’t even there. It wasn’t until the door closed behind him that she reacted by bursting into tears.

  Mark heard the wailing and opened the door long enough to curse, then informed her that she wasn’t welcome downstairs.

  “Don’t bother getting dressed. I’ll relay your excuses to our guests.”

  Penny was stunned by Mark’s behavior, but not to the point of letting him tell her what to do.

  “You’ll do no such thing!” she screamed, then swung her legs off the bed and strode to the dresser. “I’ll be downstairs welcoming our guests before you get your sorry-ass self shaved. I will smile, and I will nod, and I will play sweet little hostess to all your guests, but you and I aren’t through. Not by a long shot!”

  Then she slammed the door shut in Mark’s face, leaving him inside the bathroom to simmer on that.

  And simmer he did. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Less than two weeks ago, his life had been perfect. He’d taken care of business as usual. Everything had gone as planned until today.

  He grabbed a clean washcloth and some shaving cream, took a new disposable razor out of the packet and set it on the sink. He wasn’t going to think about the fire, or the water they were taking out of the rock quarry, or of Penny. Not right now. She was pissed, but she would get over it, and the rest would take care of itself.

  It was late in the afternoon when Cat woke up again. This time, Wilson was the one still asleep. She watched him for a few moments, remembering the pleasure they’d shared. But remembering also made her feel out of control, and that was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  She rolled out of bed, grabbed her sweats and dressed in the hallway before moving into the kitchen, anxious to get back to her investigation. They’d been in the midst of discovering their first real clue as to where Presley might have taken Mimi when lust had gotten the best of them.

  Cat had to call it lust, because the only other name for what they’d just done had rules and consequences tied to the act, and Cat wasn’t into all that.

  She poured out the coffee that had gone cold and made a fresh pot, then rifled through the kitchen for something sweet. Not wanting a replay of the peaches they’d had for Christmas dinner, she finally settled on a jar of peanut butter and some honey on the verge of turning to sugar. She took a spoon from a drawer, set the peanut butter and honey on the table, then reached for the lists. Before she started, she opened the peanut b
utter, dipped the spoon into the thick, nutty spread, pulled it out, swirled it through the sugared honey once, and popped it in her mouth, leaving the spoon sticking out from between her lips like a lollipop stick. Within a few minutes she was deeply engrossed in compiling facts that might fit her murder theory.

  And that was how Wilson found her.

  She looked up at him as he walked into the kitchen. Even though there was a part of her that remembered she wasn’t alone, she was still a little startled by the sight of the half-naked man.

  He smiled at her—a slow, secretive smile that sent shivers up her spine. Then she watched as he moved to the cabinet and poured himself a cup of coffee. He started toward the table, then paused, eyed the peanut butter, backtracked to the cabinet and got himself a spoon, then sat down at the table across from her.

  Without comment, he dug into the peanut butter and popped it into his mouth.

  “There’s honey,” she said, pointing to the jar.

  “No thanks,” he said. “I’m a purist.”

  She filed the information away for future reference and handed him her list.

  “This might be where he dumped Marsha, and this is why I think it.”

  Wilson scanned the page quickly; then his eyes widened. He took a deep breath and started at the top of the list again, this time going slower—much slower.

  Seven hundred acres of East Texas land, densely forested, with fourteen active well sites.

  A cash receipt for the meal at the barbeque joint in Tyler, which was near the leases, from the evening of the same day Marsha disappeared.

  One phone call to Marsha on the day she disappeared.

  One phone call from Marsha’s phone during the time Cat hadn’t been able to contact her.

  The knowledge that the last call from Marsha’s phone had been from the inside of a helicopter.

  The fact that Presley owned a helicopter, as well as a couple of small planes.

  The knowledge that he had a pilot’s license.

  Then there were motel bills, receipts for personal gifts sent to his office, rather than his home, which meant that Marsha, not his wife, would have been the recipient.

  The lists went on and on, giving proof to the personal connection between Mark and his secretary.

  Wilson finished reading her findings, then looked up.

  “So what do you think?” Cat asked.

  “I think you’d make one hell of a detective,” he said.

  She sat up a little straighter. “Really? You think I’m on the right track?”

  “Yes.”

  “Enough to put Mark Presley behind bars?”

  “Not without a body,” Wilson said.

  “If I could only find out which obstetrician Mimi was going to, then we could confirm the motive.”

  Wilson leaned back in his chair. “No, you couldn’t. The doctor isn’t going to tell you squat about his patient, remember? And even if he did tell you she was pregnant, it doesn’t prove it was Presley’s child. You need DNA for that, and you’re not getting that without her.”

  Cat slapped the table with the flat of her hand. “Damn it! This is making me crazy. It’s like being caught on a merry-go-round that never stops.”

  She jumped up from her chair and strode out of the room.

  Wilson sighed, then got up and followed her.

  Cat was standing at the windows overlooking the parking lot. He walked up behind her, slid his arms around her and pulled her close against his chest, then rested his chin on the top of her head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  She shrugged but didn’t pull away. It wasn’t enough, but it was all he was going to get.

  They stood there without talking, each lost in their own set of thoughts.

  “Have you listened to the weather today?” Cat finally asked.

  “Not since this morning. They said it was supposed to warm up.”

  “Good.”

  He chose not to take that personally as he added, “They’re saying this front should move out around midnight. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Why? Already trying to get rid of me?”

  “No, I just can’t stand waiting like this without doing anything.”

  “Okay. Because I’m beginning to like it here.”

  Cat tensed when he pulled her into his arms. A few seconds later, when he lifted her hair away from her neck and kissed her there, she flinched. She didn’t think of the scar on her neck often unless someone was giving her one of those looks, or touching it, and he was definitely doing more than touching.

  “Easy,” Wilson said softly. “It’s just me, remember?”

  Cat tried to laugh it off, but she still felt the need to get back into her own space as she stepped out of his arms.

  Wilson sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to overstep my bounds.”

  Cat looked at him, then looked away. This was Wilson. She knew he wasn’t going to hurt her, and yet the moment he’d lifted her hair and touched her neck, it had flashed her back to the night of her father’s death.

  “Just bad memories,” she said, and ran a finger lightly along the length of the scar.

  Wilson wanted to hold her, but it was obvious he’d already done too much touching.

  “Yeah. I understand. Sorry,” he said, and then purposefully put some space between them by sitting down on the sofa.

  Cat frowned. She knew she sounded whiney and ungrateful, and hated herself for feeling both.

  “Stop apologizing,” she said. “I’m the one with the hangup.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t call having my throat cut a hangup.”

  Cat shuddered in spite of herself.

  Wilson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched her sit down in the chair opposite him. Her hands were trembling as she touched the scar once more, then waved them in the air as if trying to throw away the scar with the memory.

  “It happened a long time ago. I shouldn’t be so touchy,” she said. “You know the story. A man broke into our house when I was thirteen, cut my throat and killed my father.”

  “And they never caught him, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “I had a glimpse.” She frowned. “It was weird. He had a lot of tattoos.”

  “Yeah, I saw the mug shots earlier, remember?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “I heard that you got into this business as a way of looking for him. Is that true?” Wilson asked.

  “Maybe. To this day, every time I hear of a perp with geometric tattoos on his arms and face, I make a point of checking him out.”

  To Wilson, this was something new. “Geometric?”

  She nodded. “They were all over him in an odd, decorative pattern, like designs rather than pictures. His skin was dark, but they were darker.”

  Wilson frowned. “Black tattoos in a geometric pattern?”

  “Yeah, weird, huh?”

  Wilson’s frown deepened. “Do you know what Maori warriors looked like?”

  “Who?”

  “Maori…once a very war-like race of people that inhabited New Zealand, I think. They’ve given up the warrior part of their lives, but I’ve read that some still adhere to the ceremonial scarring and tattooing.”

  Cat’s heart skipped a beat. “Really?”

  He nodded. “It might be worth your time to get someone to run that info through the system. See what turns up.”

  “I will, but you have to remember that I didn’t see much of his face, and every third perp I’ve picked up has been tattooed to one degree or another.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but the ethnicity is a facet you might want to check up on.”

  “Right now, what happened to me is immaterial,” she said. “I need to find Mimi. One way or another, I have a promise to keep.”

  “I know. I’ll help all I can.”

  “You’ve already done enough,” Cat said.

  Wilson felt as if
he were being dismissed, which made him a little nervous. He knew Cat well enough now to know that she was by no means going to sit back and wait for someone else to find her friend.

  “What are you planning to do?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then shrugged, unwilling to give herself away.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re going to check out that oil lease in East Texas, aren’t you?”

  Cat lifted her chin. “Wouldn’t you?”

  He didn’t answer, only challenged her with another question. “You think you can drive onto seven hundred acres and find a body…just like that?”

  “No. I don’t think it’s going to be easy, and I’m not even certain that’s where he dumped her. But she’s missing, she called me from a chopper, he took a chopper to his oil leases on the day she disappeared—and it’s a place to start.”

  “You could give your info to Missing Persons.”

  “They’re doing their own investigation. This is mine.”

  “How are you going to get there?”

  “Drive, I guess.”

  “If you’re following the theory that he took her somewhere in a chopper, then you need to look at it from the same view.”

  “What do you mean?” Cat asked.

  “Say he flew Marsha’s body out of Dallas and dumped it somewhere on that seven hundred acres.”

  “Okay, for argument’s sake, say he did.”

  “All right,” Wilson said. “Then if it was me, I’d be flying over that seven hundred acres just like you’re theorizing Presley did. You’ve got to search from that perspective, and the view from a car is a far different sight than from in the air.”

  Cat’s eyes widened. “Oh. Yes. I see what you mean. Like I need to be looking at places large enough to land a chopper…stuff like that.”

  Wilson nodded.

  “All right. That can be dealt with,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “Wait until I can go with you?”

  “Don’t ask me that,” Cat said.

  Wilson frowned. That was exactly what he had asked. Obviously, her answer was no.

  Ten

  The thaw began around midnight, although neither Cat or Wilson knew it at the time. But what they saw when they woke up ended their self-imposed isolation.