Scent of Roses ; Season of Strangers

by Kat Martin

  They left the site exactly as it was. Crouching low, Raul and Pete followed Ben. They had almost reached the exit when Raul paused.

  “That sounds like a train.”

  “Can’t be,” Sam said. “Track was abandoned years ago. The tracks aren’t even there anymore.”

  The flashlight in Miguel’s hand began to tremble. “It comes some nights…about this time. It comes down the track that is not there.”

  “I’m getting out of here,” Pete said, scrambling toward the exit, Raul close on his heels. Following the boys, Zach grabbed his shirt and pulled it on over his head, noticing for the first time that the temperature had returned to normal. He reached for Liz’s hand to help her out through the hole, and realized she was trembling. He looked over to see tears in her eyes.

  “Time to go, love,” he said gently, not wanting to be down there anymore than the boys.

  Liz looked back at the shallow grave. “I knew she would be here…I knew it…but I prayed I’d be wrong.”

  Zach squeezed her hand. “It’s all right, baby. If it’s Carrie Ann, she’ll finally be able to go home.”

  Liz nodded and the tears in her eyes ran down her cheeks. Zach helped her out of the opening into the house and climbed out behind her.

  As much as he ached for the dead child and her mother, at the moment all he could think of was how the hell they were going to explain all this to the police.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The ten-minute wait for the cops to arrive seemed like hours. Elizabeth paced the small, sparsely furnished living room listening to the distant sound of sirens. A little while later, three sheriff’s department patrol cars rolled up in front of the house. As Zach and Ben let the group of uniformed deputies into the living room, Elizabeth waited anxiously by the door.

  “Thanks for coming,” Ben said to Bill Morgan, the county sheriff. Morgan was tall, his blond hair streaked with silver, making it even paler than Ben’s, a big, husky man who looked as if his ancestors could have been Vikings.

  “They called me at home,” Morgan said. “Figured I’d better get out here.”

  “Sorry about that,” Ben said.

  “Hey, that’s what I’m paid for.”

  It was agreed Ben would talk to the sheriff first. He was a former deputy in the district, and Elizabeth and Zach both hoped that with Ben reporting the discovery, the insane story would sound more believable.

  “Let’s go into the kitchen,” Morgan said to Ben. He cast a look at Zach. “I’ll talk to you two in a minute.” Morgan had recently been elected sheriff of San Pico County and so far had a good reputation.

  Still, when he returned to the living room it was obvious he’d had a hard time believing Ben’s story.

  He fixed his attention on Zach. “Donahue’s told me some of this. I’d say it’s down right crazy, but since it seems there’s a body under the house—” For confirmation, he glanced over at a deputy who had just returned from a trip below.

  “They got a body, all right. Too small to be an adult, but it’s definitely human. Been there a good long while, I’d say.”

  Morgan nodded, pulled a small notepad out of his light tan shirt pocket and flipped it open, then returned his attention to Zach. “Looks like Ben was right. Sooo…I guess I’ve got to listen to what you have to say.”

  Zach looked at Elizabeth as if he didn’t quite know where to begin, then plunged in. “First of all, as your deputy said, I think you’re going to find out the body has been down there for years, possibly since the sixties. I presume Ben mentioned the Martinezes, the husband and wife who murdered a young girl in Fresno?”

  “He did. Apparently he thinks they may have been a serial couple who killed the victim you found under the house.”

  “According to what we’ve discovered, I think it’s highly possible. As you follow up on this, Sheriff, chances are you’re going to find out the victim was abducted in 1969 from her parents’ home in Sherman Oaks. Her name is Carrie Ann Whitt.”

  The sheriff made notes in his pad.

  “The year Carrie Ann disappeared, the Martinezes were living in the old gray house that sat on this spot way back then. By the way, if it turns out the body’s that old, it means none of us could have had anything to do with the crime, since we weren’t even born then.”

  “That’s right, Sheriff,” Elizabeth added. “We only got involved in this when Señora Santiago began having trouble.”

  “Any chance the Santiagos are related in some way to the Martinezes? Maybe their parents knew them, might have somehow found out about the body and told them about it?”

  “They’ve only got a few distant relatives who live up north,” Elizabeth said, “and their parents weren’t even living in this country back then.”

  The sheriff pinned her with a doubtful stare. “So the way you figured all of this out is that the lady who lives here has been seeing a ghost.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” Elizabeth told him. “At first we didn’t believe it, either. Then we started doing some research. This is where it led us.”

  Morgan scratched his big silver-blond head. He started to say something else, but a commotion at the door drew his attention as the county coroner and his men walked in, carrying their equipment.

  “Body’s under the house,” he told them. “There’s an access through the closet in the bedroom, another outside on the north side of the residence.” Morgan pointed toward the bedroom and the men clopped off that way.

  He returned his attention to her and Zach. “If what you say pans out and the girl really is Carrie Ann Whitt, we’re talking about kidnapping. That means we’ll be calling in the feds.”

  Zach nodded.

  “I need you to write all this down…how you figured this out, who you talked to, everything that happened up until tonight. In the meantime, I don’t want any of you leaving town.”

  Zach flicked a glance at Elizabeth, who wished she weren’t so glad he would have to stay. Of course, the hearing for his father’s operation was set for Thursday, so even if he went back to L.A., he would have to return.

  “You finished with us?” Zach asked.

  “I’ll need to talk to the others, get their take on all this. As soon as I’m done, you can all go home. But like I said, I need you to stay in the area. There’s bound to be more questions.”

  * * *

  Watching the sheriff, trying not to think what those questions might be, Zach nodded. He rested a hand at Liz’s waist and guided her over to the sofa to wait while the sheriff spoke to Raul, Pete, Sam and Miguel.

  They had just sat down when the front door slammed open and Carson came bursting into the house. He spotted Zach and stopped dead still in front of the sofa, his blue eyes iron hard.

  “What the hell’s going on here?”

  Sheriff Morgan turned away from the discussion he was having with Miguel. “Evenin’, Carson. I guess you heard the sirens. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Carson’s face was a mottled shade of red. His goons had failed to keep them away. Carson didn’t like failure. “What’s happening, Bill? This is Harcourt Farms property. I have a right to know.”

  “I was planning to stop by first thing in the morning. As you say, this is your property so you need to know that as of now, this place is a crime scene.”

  “A crime scene? Santiago do something to his wife?”

  Zach couldn’t help wondering if Carson had noticed the changes in his overseer’s behavior in the past few weeks, though it was doubtful h
e would involve himself that closely with one of his workers.

  “It’s nothing like that. Your brother and his friends found a body under the house.”

  Carson’s face went bone-white. “Someone…someone’s been murdered?”

  “Take it easy. From the way it looks, it happened a long time ago. At least thirty or forty years, maybe more. According to your brother and Ms. Conners, there’s a good chance the people who did it have already been dealt with.”

  Some of the color washed back into Carson’s face, though he still looked visibly shaken. “I see.”

  “We’ll expect your full cooperation.”

  “Of course. That goes without saying.” He didn’t look at Zach or Liz but it was clear he wasn’t pleased. His kingdom had been breached. His hired thugs hadn’t been able to keep them away from the house. Now he was forced to deal with the consequences.

  Zach thought he looked ready to explode.

  “The Santiagos will need a place to stay until this is resolved,” the sheriff said.

  Carson’s jaw moved back and forth. “The Easy 8 Motel is the closest. They can stay there until you’re finished with the house. Harcourt Farms will take care of the expense.”

  Liz surged to her feet. “They’ll need to stay until the baby comes. Maria can’t deal with this right now, she’s too close to her delivery date.”

  Carson gritted his teeth. “Fine. They can stay until she has the baby.”

  Barely able to hide his fury, Carson talked to the sheriff a moment more, then said goodbye to Morgan and left without a word to either Zach or Liz.

  “My brother doesn’t look like a happy man,” Zach said.

  “That’s an understatement,” Liz agreed.

  Sam, Raul and Pete finished answering the sheriff’s questions and all of them were finally able to leave. The deputies drove Sam and the boys the short distance back to Teen Vision, and Zach and Liz drove Ben back to his car, which was parked at her apartment.

  At last they were home and alone.

  Zach watched Liz walk over to the sofa and wearily sink down. “I still can’t quite believe it,” she said. “Carrie Ann was there, just like we thought.”

  She’d been a real trouper tonight, he thought, demanding to do her share of the work even when she was so tired she could barely stand. And finding those little bones…knowing they had to belong to a child. It was obvious how badly she had been shaken.

  “The whole damned night was surreal,” he said. “The train whistle, that awful rose smell. Finding the body of a ghost. I don’t think the Santiagos should ever move back in.”

  “Neither do I.” She looked away from him toward the window, though the curtains were closed and it was too dark to see. When she turned, he caught the sheen of tears.

  “I keep thinking about Paula Whitt. I can’t imagine how she’s going to feel when she finds out her little girl was murdered, maybe even tortured and raped.”

  Zach sat down next to her and gathered her into his arms. She looked so damned tired, so emotionally drained. He wished he hadn’t let her go with them. Then again, she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  “We still can’t be certain it’s her,” he said. “Not yet. We don’t even know for sure the child is a girl or that she was actually the victim of a crime and didn’t die some other way. They’ll have to get a DNA sample from the mother and try to match it to the body. It could take months for that to happen. Unless they run across some other clue, that’s the only way to know for sure it’s Carrie Ann.”

  “It’s her,” she said, leaning into his shoulder. “I know it is.”

  Zach just held her. He could feel her shaking as she silently wept and he didn’t try to stop her. He had a feeling she was right, that all the weird coincidences they had stumbled onto weren’t coincidences at all. That the DNA would prove the child was Carrie Ann Whitt.

  He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “If it’s her, if it’s really Carrie Ann, then she’ll finally be at peace. And after all the years of wondering, her mother will be able to put this behind her and get on with the life she’s worked to make for herself.”

  Liz nodded, pressed her cheek to his, and he could feel the soft brush of her glorious dark hair. Her breasts pressed into his chest and he felt the lush fullness. For days he had wanted her. Tonight, sex was the last thing on his mind.

  “It’s been a long night,” he said. “Why don’t you go in and take a shower? We’re both sweaty and dirty. I’ll take one when you get out.”

  She nodded, wearily stood up from the sofa. She started to walk away, then turned back and reached for his hand. “Come with me.” She looked up at him, her eyes on his, the most beautiful shade of blue he’d ever seen. “I need you tonight, Zach. Make love to me.”

  He wasn’t thinking about sex. But he hadn’t stopped thinking of making love to her since they had walked into the apartment. She needed him, she said. Not as much as he needed her.

  Sliding a hand into her hair, he ran his thumb along her jaw and gently tipped her head back to receive his kiss. Their mouths met and held. He felt her soft lips tremble under his and for a moment he deepened the kiss.

  When he eased away, he saw that there were tears on her cheeks. She didn’t say anything, just led him into the bedroom and began to remove her clothes. Zach did the same and they headed for the bathroom. The shower went on, warmed to a soft spray that rushed over his skin as he followed Liz into the water.

  Wordlessly, they soaped each other down, then rinsed in the spray and soaped again. He loved her body, the full breasts and slender waist, the pretty legs and patch of dark curls between them. He was hard. He kissed her deeply, kissed her breasts, began to stroke her. He might have made love to her there in the shower if the water hadn’t started getting cold.

  Instead, they stepped out and dried each other off, and he carried her into the bedroom. They made love slowly, determined to bring each other pleasure, giving and taking until each of them reached a powerful release. Then he curled her against him in the middle of the bed, smoothed her glossy dark hair away from her face, and watched as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  I love her, he thought, as he had before. He loved her and wondered if she loved him.

  Every day, his feelings for her continued to deepen. The longer he stayed, the risk of losing himself became greater.

  He wondered if he could find the courage to leave.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  There were questions, more and more questions. The FBI wouldn’t be called in, the sheriff said, until all of the facts had been gathered and assessed, and they matched the story Elizabeth and Zach had told him.

  But the body had been excavated from beneath the house and found to be that of a child, as they had believed. A sample of DNA had been taken from Paula Whitt Simmons. Now they waited for the lab to compare it with the sample that had been taken from the remains of the child. Unfortunately, the way the labs were backed up, it could take weeks, even months before the results came back.

  In a twist Elizabeth hadn’t expected, Sheriff Morgan had decided to have the coroner bring in an infrared camera for a more thorough search of the area beneath the house.

  “We know the Martinezes killed a child in Fresno,” Bill Morgan said. “If they murdered the victim you found under the house, maybe there are other victims buried down there.”

  The thought made Elizabeth shudder.

  Still, she couldn’t help thinking that if they’d had
a similar device, their efforts would have been a whole lot easier. According to the sheriff, the infrared camera could pick up the location of a decomposed body up to one hundred seventy years old!

  Wednesday morning, she went to see Maria, who had left the hospital and was staying in the Easy 8 Motel.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  Lying in bed in a small but clean motel room, Maria plumped the pillow behind her head and sat up a little straighter. “Much better. The doctor says I am to have complete bed rest until the baby comes, so I guess it doesn’t matter that we have to stay in a motel room.”

  “I’m glad you’re here. I think it’s better if you don’t go back to the house…at least until after the baby comes.”

  “I know what happened last night—I know you found her. Miguel told me all about it on the way home from the hospital. He said you found the little girl who came to warn me.”

  “We found her. The police aren’t certain yet, but we think her name is Carrie Ann Whitt. She was kidnapped in 1969. We spoke to her mother while we were doing research on the house.” She managed to smile, but thinking of the small bones lying in the grave beneath the house, it wasn’t easy. “Her mother said she loved children, especially babies.”

  And Consuela Martinez had lost her unborn child in prison. Perhaps she wanted to replace that child with the one Maria carried. After what had happened, anything seemed possible.

  “She was an angel,” Maria said, “returned to earth to protect me.” Tears welled in her eyes. “It makes me so sad to think what those terrible people did to her, to think that they killed such a beautiful little girl.”

  Elizabeth’s own eyes started to burn. “I can’t imagine how anyone could do something so awful to a child.” She took a calming breath, let it out slowly. “Of course there’s a chance it might not be her. We probably won’t know for some time. I’ll let you know what the sheriff finds out.”