by Sharon Sala
She frowned, thinking of going down there and explaining herself all over again, reliving the horror of finding Mimi’s body and trying not to think of how she’d looked when they’d dragged her up and out of the ravine. No sooner had she thought it than she heard Mimi’s voice, chastising her over a year ago.
“You hide from life, Catherine. Even when you’re in the middle of it, standing toe to toe with all the bad guys you bring in, you manage to keep an emotional distance. I understand why you do it, but ultimately, you’re the one who will suffer. You’re the one who’s going to grow old alone.”
Cat blinked back tears, remembering what she’d told her.
I won’t be alone, Mimi. I’ll always have you.
Obviously she had been wrong.
Wilson went through the motions at work, but he felt as if he’d been broadsided. He’d let a woman get under his skin and had been rejected as easily as a used grocery list. He felt a little like a green high school kid who’d been suckered by a pro. He’d mistaken the great sex they shared for something more.
As he was filing reports, the phone rang, giving him something else to think about besides Cat Dupree. Since his receptionist was out to lunch, he answered on his own.
“McKay Bail and Bond.”
“Wilson, it’s Flannery.”
“Hey, Joe. What’s up?”
“I understand Cat Dupree found Marsha Benton’s body yesterday?”
Now they were interested, Wilson thought, and felt a sense of righteous indignation on Cat’s part, even though he knew it was misplaced.
“Why are you asking me? You should be talking to her.”
Joe rubbed at an ache in the middle of his forehead and tried not to sound as miserable as he felt.
“I’ve called her. She hasn’t called me back yet.”
“Again…why are you calling me?”
Joe leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
“I’m curious. How did she do it? The way I heard it, she just rented a chopper, flew to some oil lease in East Texas and found her…all in one day.”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard, too.”
“Did she get a tip that the body was there?”
“It’s my understanding that between the time she spoke to you and yesterday morning, she’s been gathering every bit of information she could on Mark Presley’s business and whereabouts. I helped her with some of the research, but she put it all together.”
“Helped how?” Flannery asked.
“Let’s just say that I have ways of accessing personal info. She was looking for a break in the man’s pattern of business, both personal and professional. And you know about the phone call she found on her answering machine, right?”
“No.”
“You need to talk to Bradley down in Missing Persons. He can fill you in on that.”
“What was on the message?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know if Bradley found anything more on it than what we heard. It was made from Marsha’s cell phone just after she went missing, but there were no words on it. All you could hear was what it sounds like from the inside of a helicopter—three minutes’ worth before the answering machine clicked off.”
“A helicopter?”
“Yeah. As if you were riding in one.”
“But how does that get you to—”
“I told you, talk to Cat.”
“Yeah, right,” Joe said, and knew he was going to have to backpedal his former attitude to get cooperation from her.
“What do you know about Mark Presley?” Flannery asked.
“Other than what I read about him from Cat’s research, next to nothing.”
“We got a call from his wife this morning,” Flannery said.
“About what?”
“She’s offered to cooperate in any way needed to find Marsha Benton’s killer.”
Wilson frowned. “That’s probably because she has no idea you’re going to be pointing a finger at her husband.”
“On the contrary,” Flannery said. “I don’t know what’s been going on at the Presley mansion, but it couldn’t have been all good.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a well-known fact in some circles that Presley has been having affairs behind his wife’s back for years. It appears now that she knew all along about his indiscretions. Missing Persons interviewed Presley a few days ago, then left a card. According to Bradley, Mrs. Presley called this morning. Bradley told her that since Ms. Benton’s body has been discovered, technically she’s no longer missing and the case will go to homicide. She told Bradley to let us know she’s available to help in any way.”
“Think you’ve got a ‘woman scorned’ thing going on?”
“Don’t know about that so much, but what we do have is access to Presley’s DNA. Hair from his hairbrush, saliva from drinking glasses, toothbrushes. She offered it all in case he refused.”
“And she’s willing to hand it over? Just like that?” Wilson asked.
“So it seems.”
Wilson flipped the pen he was holding, then laid it down on the desk.
“Maybe Cat will get some justice for her friend after all,” he said, then hung up.
He thought about Flannery’s phone call. As ticked off as he was at himself for letting her get under his skin, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Even after he went home for the day, the urge to call Cat was strong. But there had to be a starting point for regaining his dignity, and he’d made up his mind that today would be it.
So while Cat holed up in her apartment, gaining strength for what was to come, Wilson went home to lick his wounds.
As for the Presleys, they arrived home from Tahoe a few hours before nightfall. The trip had been virtually without conversation. Once back in familiar territory, Penny seemed to have gained backbone, while Mark appeared to withdraw. When the time drew near for their dinner hour, they met in the library for an aperitif.
Once the drinks had been served, they’d each moved to a separate part of the room to be alone with their thoughts.
Penny pretended great interest in a new magazine, while Mark scanned through a stack of newspapers, but the tension between them was strong.
Back in Tahoe, when he had broken the news to her that they had to go home, he had been put on the defensive by the fact that he was the one who’d had personal contact with a murdered woman.
He had the feeling now that she was never going to forgive him for what she viewed as rape, and this latest incident had only fueled her fire. For the first time in their married lives, she’d stood up to him and rejected his excuses. He was beginning to think she’d known about his dalliances for years but for her own reasons had chosen to play dumb. But when she’d learned that the police wanted to question him regarding Marsha Benton’s murder, her days of playing dumb seemed to have ended.
Penny feigned interest in her magazine, but inside, her thoughts were tumbling wildly.
Last night while Mark was in the shower, she’d called Ken Walters, their lawyer. Ken had started off by claiming he couldn’t divulge his conversations with Mark, at which point she promptly reminded him that the money in their house was hers first, not Mark’s, and if he wanted to stay on retainer for the Presley Corporation, he’d better start talking.
So he did.
Learning that Marsha had been pregnant when she was murdered had nearly sent her to her knees. Knowing that her body had been found on their oil lease outside Tyler only made what she was thinking worse. She’d known Mark was devious, but she’d never believed him capable of murder. Now she wasn’t so sure. What she was certain of was that she wasn’t going to be dragged down with him if he fell. Tonight they were back in Dallas in what had been her father’s home first and was now hers. This was her territory, and she wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
Mark glanced up from the chair where he’d been reading, watching the casual attitude with which Penny was sipping her drink. She was flipping through the pag
es of the magazine in her lap and humming beneath her breath as if nothing was wrong.
It was unnerving.
As he watched, he began to realize Penny wasn’t her father’s daughter by birth alone. There seemed to be more of the old man in her than he would have believed. Ever since he’d put his hands around her neck back in Tahoe, she had been cold and unyielding, even when he’d apologized profusely.
Then, when he’d had to tell her that the police demanded his presence back in Dallas for questioning regarding Marsha Benton’s death, she’d been livid. He’d tried to explain, but she wasn’t having any of it. He didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t lose her. Even though the world assumed that Mark Presley was the reigning power behind the Presley Corporation, it was really Penny. Mark had the authority simply because Penny was his wife. If she kicked his ass to the curb, the only thing he would be taking with him were the bruises.
Mark never got drunk. It was against everything he practiced, because being drunk meant being out of control, and losing control was not an option. Still, on this night, he’d had too much to drink, feeling sorrier and sorrier for himself with every swallow.
Penny had glared at him all during dinner and cut him off sharply every time he tried to start a conversation. The only advice she had for him was issued during dessert, when she warned him that if he was as smart as he pretended to be, then he’d better have a lawyer with him when he went to the police station the next day.
“What are you getting at?” he asked.
She didn’t bother to hide her disgust.
“We’ll be the talk of the country club as it is,” she muttered. “This is all so common…being interrogated by the police like some criminal.”
A dark red flush spread up Mark’s neck and onto his cheeks as his fingers curled angrily around his glass.
“A lot of people work for me,” he said. “It’s not my fault if they become embroiled in something unsavory in their own time. The only reason they want to talk to me is because she was an employee.”
Penny laid down her dessert fork and leaned forward, her gaze fixed upon her husband’s face. All of a sudden, she felt as if she was talking to a stranger.
“I made a couple of calls on my own,” she said. “It’s not just because she was an employee, and you know it.”
There was a faint ringing in Mark’s ears now. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
Penny slapped the table with the flat of her hand. “They found her body on our land east of Tyler. In a very desolate area that is approachable only by air. It’s a big stretch to believe that a total stranger killed her and used a helicopter to dump her on our land.”
Mark fidgeted nervously with his glass as Penny kept pushing.
“These are little details you neglected to tell me. Why, Mark? Why did you lie? Is it true? Do you know more about this than you’re admitting?”
He slammed his glass back down on the table, and as he did, liquor slopped out and over the sides. An ugly stain quickly appeared and began to spread over the handmade Irish lace tablecloth.
“I can’t believe you said that!” he yelled. “I can’t believe you’d even insinuate I would do such a horrendous thing.”
Penny leaned back and crossed her arms over her breasts.
“Before Tahoe, I might have been as indignant as you. I would have been horrified and thoroughly convinced that you could never be involved in something so shoddy. But that was before you put your hands around my neck and raped me!”
“Raped you? A husband can’t rape his wife. It’s called sex, Penny. Nothing more. Nothing less. Besides, I did no such thing, and you know it. I just lost my temper. I’ve already said I’m sorry.”
Penny’s eyes narrowed angrily. “Yes, I believe you are. Sorry, I mean. You’re sorry that you let a piece of your true self shine through. That’s what I believe you’re sorry for.”
Panic hit Mark deep in his gut. This was worse than he’d believed. Penny wasn’t ranting—she was cold and far too collected to be accused of hysteria.
He sat there, too shocked to defend himself. Then, to his dismay, when he reached for his drink again, he began to cry.
Instead of sympathy, Penny cursed him beneath her breath and left the table.
Mark’s hopes fell even farther. He stood up in anger, then swayed unsteadily on his feet as he gazed about the room. When he realized there were still a couple of inches of liquor in his glass, he downed it angrily, then stumbled out of the dining room and headed up the stairs.
His head was spinning by the time he got to their bedroom. To his continued dismay, Penny and her nightclothes were noticeably absent. He sat down on the side of the bed and kicked off his shoes. He was out before his head hit the pillow.
It was snowing. Mark could feel the bitter kiss of snowflakes on his face as he turned to face the wind. Yet even though he knew it to be cold, his skin was on fire.
And, to his shame, he was crying. His throat was tightening, and there was a pain born of guilt that was so far down in his belly he couldn’t catch his breath.
He turned in a full circle, trying to find the path that had brought him to this place, but there was nothing to show where he’d come from—no tracks, no vehicle, nothing.
And then he saw the blood.
It was splattered in a haphazard pattern across the snow. He stared at it and then the spatters on his pants, trying to remember why the sight brought him such fear. Why did he feel the urge to pee from nothing more than a few red droplets?
The snow began to fall in earnest now, but to his horror, the blood was still there. No matter how much snow fell, it couldn’t cover the trail. The sight sent him into a mental free fall.
He needed the blood to go away. He wanted to go home. He didn’t want to be lost like this, but there was a part of him that knew he could never go back.
“Help!” he cried, and heard the wind swallow the sound of his voice.
“Help! Help!” he shouted, and tasted snowflakes on his tongue.
“Oh God…please. Help me.”
Suddenly the blood on the snow began to get brighterand thicker. The spots became tiny pools, and the pools became puddles, and the trail from the forest became a wide ribbon of red that curled around his feet and stained the hem of his pants.
He tried to run, but his feet wouldn’t move. He looked toward the forest, and through the snowfall he saw movement. Was this the help he sought? Was he about to be rescued?
His heart started pounding in earnest as the shadows in the forest continued to sway. Snow was falling so thickly that he had to blink constantly to clear his vision. When the shadows began to take form, his heart leaped—then momentarily stopped. Even with the distance and the snow and the sweat running in his eyes, he recognized her.
She came closer, and it soon became apparent she was the source of the red path. Blood poured from her belly like water from a natural spring, bubbling and flowing in thick rivulets down her legs and onto the ground. It ran toward him like water from open floodgates, encircling his feet and then rising.
The thick, coppery scent of it was in his nostrils and warm on his skin as the puddle in which he was standing began to rise. The closer she came, the higher the puddle rose, until he was knee deep in her blood and his own urine.
“Get away from me!” he screamed, and covered his face with both hands. “You’re not real. You’re not real!”
When he dared another look, the blood was up to hischin. He couldn’t understand how this was happening. He could see her as plainly as the nose on his face. She was less than a yard away and still her blood pooled only around him. Without a reason. Without a container. And if it didn’t stop, he would drown.
He stared in disbelief as it continued to spill from her belly. The horror of what he’d done was there, right in front of him. There was no denying its existence, no pretending to himself that Marsha Benton wasn’t dead. He opened his mouth to scream, and as he did, he tasted her blood
as it flowed into his mouth and down his throat.
He heard his own screams turning into gurgles, and in a moment of clarity, knew that he’d drowned.
Mark was convulsing on the floor when Penny, roused by his screaming from her bed in the guest-room, ran into the room. She screamed in horror, then fell to her knees beside him and grabbed his shoulders.
“Mark! Mark!”
Before she could dodge, one of his arms flailed up and hit her across the face. She screamed out in pain and fell backward, grabbing her nose as she fell.
Blood began to drip through her fingers and onto her nightgown as she struggled to her feet and ran to the phone.
Even as she was calling 911, she thought he was dying. There was a part of her brain that accepted the fact that this would certainly take care of whatever embarrassment his involvement with Marsha Benton might have caused her. She could play the grieving widow and bury her problem, instead of following him through the court system.
Then the 911 dispatcher answered, and she began to scream.
“Please! I need help! My husband is having a seizure.”
“Ma’am, please slow down. Is this the Presley residence?”
“Yes!” Penny cried, as the dispatcher rattled off their address.
“Mrs. Presley, I’m dispatching an ambulance to your address as we speak. Is your husband breathing?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell,” Penny sobbed. “Foam is coming out of his mouth, and he’s on his back, banging his head on the floor. I tried to help him and got a broken nose for my trouble.”
“You’re injured, as well?” the dispatcher asked.
“He hit me in the nose. It was an accident,” Penny said. “Please. You have to hurry.”
“Did you hit him back? Was that the first time he’s hit you?” the dispatcher asked.
Penny gasped, and as she did, nearly blacked out from the pain. She lowered her head between her knees and tried to focus.
“Lady, we weren’t having a fight. This isn’t a case of abuse. I was asleep in another room and heard him screaming. When I got here, he was convulsing in the floor. When I tried to help him, I got whacked in the nose. He didn’t do it on purpose. He doesn’t even know what’s happening.”
