by Amy Vansant
Catriona picked up. “Hello?”
“Hey, how are you both?”
“We’re fine. Teena’s fine too.”
“I heard. You did a good job. Tell Broch I said so, too.”
“Do I have to? It might be too early in his employment to shower him with praise, don’t you think?”
Sean chuckled. “Just tell him.”
“Fine. It’s going to go right to his head.”
Sean unrumpled the paper in his hand. “Listen, Luther found Jessie’s father’s address. He’s in Rising Sun. I need you two to see if you can find him. Find out if Jessie is there.”
“Rising Sun?”
He rattled off the address and she huffed.
“Why don’t you just ask me to check on the moon while I’m at it.”
He grunted. “It’s still a better job than the one I have.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“I’ve been tasked to watch over the potential next victim.”
“The next...” Catriona’s voice trailed off before returning as a shriek that forced Sean to pull the phone from his ear.
“Fiona?”
“Yep. She’s Aaron’s new girlfriend and the studio’s latest acquisition.”
The phone went silent.
“Catriona?”
Her voice returned. “This is a nightmare.”
“I’ll give her your congrat—”
Sean stopped as he approached Fiona’s new trailer. The door hung open, a smear of blood running from one side to the other. He pulled his gun from beneath his jacket.
“Catriona, I’m going to have to call you back. Go see what you can find. Take Broch and your gun. I’ll call you in a little bit.”
“Is something—”
Sean hung up and dialed Luther.
“Luther, shut down all the exits. I might have a situation.”
“Consider it done.”
Sean pushed the phone into his pocket. Creeping to the door of Fiona’s trailer, he poked his head inside.
The trailer was trashed. A small suitcase lay upended on the ground, shoes and clothing scattered around it.
Sean checked the bathroom and found it empty. He holstered his gun and redialed Luther.
“Be on the lookout for Fiona Duffy, or someone carrying something Fiona Duffy-shaped.”
“Fiona? She ain’t ours.”
“She is now. Aaron’s taken an interest.”
“Damn. And we already lost her?”
Sean sighed. “Find out if anyone’s seen any vehicles leave and get everyone to do a full sweep of the lot. Let’s see if we can find her before I have to tell Aaron his girlfriend’s gone.”
As he hung up, he noticed a pink piece of paper pinned to the wall beside the large lighted mirror. He leaned down and read about Fiona firing the author, written in scrolling pen.
Tucked in the corner of the sofa sat a cowgirl doll, smiling.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I thought I’d have heard from Sean by now,” said Catriona. She and Broch had driven over two hours into the desert beyond Los Angeles to look for Jessie Walker at her father’s house, the terrain growing more and more desolate by the minute.
They passed a derelict amusement park, its once bright colors fading in the desert sun. The giant sign out front still announced it as The Okie-Dokie Corral, but the bulbs that had once illuminated the words had broken long ago. A litter of white glass shards lay on the ground beneath the entrance. Catriona imagined kids had thrown rocks at the bulbs until they were all gone. It would be hard not to.
A giant clown shaking in the hot breeze waved to them as they passed, his million-gallon cowboy hat half missing.
“Not creepy at all,” mumbled Catriona.
Another ten miles down the road, Catriona slowed and crept into the driveway of a modest rancher home.
“I think this is it.”
She shifted her Jeep into park, sad to see the home hadn’t survived the desert any better than the amusement park had. She could see it had been years since the wooden home had seen a coat of paint. The few window shutters that remained hung at unnatural angles.
“Yikes.” Catriona had never heard of a haunted rancher, but if it existed, this was the place.
She caught Broch studying her expression. “He’s nae a wealthy man,” he said.
“No. It appears Jessie came from humble beginnings.”
As they made their way to the door, Catriona found herself patting the gun on her hip. Sean had asked her to bring it and now she was glad he had. The remoteness of the location made her feel uneasy. It had a real this is where you go to die feel about it. All they’d missed on the way there was a creepy old guy at a gas station warning them not to enter the shack.
The floorboards of the short front porch groaned as they crossed them to the door. She knocked, feeling Broch’s presence behind her, the great bulk of him jutting like a rock in an ocean of dust and tumbleweeds.
“You don’t have to stand that close,” she murmured, feeling his breath on her neck.
“Ah’m yer backup, sae ah hae tae be up yer back.”
She tittered. “You are such a goof. Back up a little. I don’t trust these boards and if we go through them and end up stranded, living with a family of armadillos, I’m blaming you.”
“Whit are armadillos?”
“They’re like giant rats wearing suits of armor.”
Brochan scowled and peered over the edge of the porch as if hoping to catch sight of the creatures.
Catriona knocked again, the screen-less door rattling beneath her knuckles.
“Mr. Walker?” she called.
An old Chevy truck sat parked on the side of the house, up on blocks, tires missing. The ancient vehicle didn’t look as if it had moved from its spot for many years. Tumbleweeds were piled in the back tire well like a bird’s nest.
As she stared, a snake appeared from somewhere on the back of the house to slither beneath the truck.
Catriona grimaced. “Do you have snakes in Scotland? Didn’t St. Patrick drive them all out?”
“That’s Ireland.”
“Oh. Right.”
“We hae adders. Or at least we did.”
Nodding, Catriona returned her attention to the door.
I need to get out of this Mad Max nightmare.
She tried the knob. It turned.
She opened the door a crack.
“Mr. Walker?”
No response.
She pushed the door open farther, pressing her shoulder against it, when it stuck on what she guessed used to be a shag rug. Now it resembled a greasy slick of blue putty.
She entered, with Broch tightly behind, her fingers dancing on the grip of her Glock. The smell of the house didn’t seem right, but then, she hadn’t expected it to smell like a summer’s day.
They stepped directly into a small living room with an old television deep enough to hold the complete works of Shakespeare and a sofa as threadbare as a pauper’s jacket. Dust swirled in the beams of light filtering through the torn shades.
Broch’s nose wrinkled. “It smells o’ death.”
“I guess his housekeeper’s quit.”
Catriona glanced through the side window and felt her heart race. She’d spotted the abandoned truck again through a dirty window, and for a second, thought someone had pulled up to the house.
Sean had asked her to find Jessie’s dad, but at the moment, Jessie’s dad felt like the last person she wanted to see.
Catriona walked across the carpeted floor, each step bringing her closer to burning her shoes when she returned home. She peered into the kitchen. Dishes piled high around the sink. Something on the counter near the refrigerator caught her eye.
“Is that thing moving?” she whispered, pulling her gun from her holster and using it to point at what looked like a red, pulsing pile of insects.
“Aye.”
Broch answered, but he didn’t go charging across the kitchen
to investigate.
“Shouldn’t you check it out?”
He put his hand on his chest. “Me?”
“You’re the big tough guy.”
“If that wis a man aboot tae attack ye, ah’d break him in hauf, bit that’s lik somethin’ oot o’ a nightmare.”
They stepped forward together across the yellowing linoleum to inspect the object, Catriona’s gun still drawn.
“Ants,” they said in unison.
The ants had swarmed a half-made sandwich covered in mold. A jar of mayonnaise sat beside the sandwich with the lid off, growing its own bumper crop of exotic plant life. As she watched, a cockroach skittered across the stovetop. Catriona yipped and recoiled, stumbling back toward the outskirts of the room, Broch steadying her as she went.
“Walker’s bin gaen a while.”
Catriona jogged in place, wiping imaginary critters from her arms.
“Agreed. Ugh.”
When she’d rid herself of the willies, they pushed deeper into the house by way of a dim hallway. Passing a bathroom, Catriona poked her head inside, unwilling to investigate further. The torn shower curtain hanging against the wall revealed the grubby tub as empty, for which she would be forever grateful. She’d rather eat the ant sandwich than pull back a closed shower curtain right then.
Broch passed her and continued into the master bedroom at the end of the hall.
“Cat,” he called.
Catriona closed her eyes and took a moment to steel herself.
Here it goes. I know there’s going to be a body in here somewhere.
She entered the bedroom to find Broch staring at a wall covered with newspaper clippings, photographs and letters. While the frilly yellowing curtains implied that a woman might have lived in the home at some point in the distant past, the items on the bureau were all men’s; a comb, a razor and bits of metal that Catriona imagined meant something to someone.
She studied the clippings posted to the wall and found they were all about Jessie. Her diploma from beauty school had been stapled next to a photo of a smiling girl wearing a graduation robe.
She took a few pictures of the collection with her phone. “This feels different from the shrine at Jessie’s house. More natural. Like a memory board of some kind.”
“Ah think some o’ these gaed thare,” said Broch, pointing at a few empty spots in the collage where the color of the original wallpaper had been preserved by something now missing.
“He took part of his collection here to her house to set up the shrine.”
Pulling back a dusty curtain, she spotted a small barn in the backyard. The side wall of the structure appeared darker than the others and she squinted, trying to gain a better view through the dirty window.
“I think his barn caught fire,” she said, making out the streak marks where it appeared flames had licked a path.
They walked back down the hall, pausing briefly to inspect a room stuffed with boxes and furniture. Beneath the clutter stood a bed covered by a pink comforter, but if the room had once been Jessie’s, it had been a long time since she’d slept there.
As Broch jerked open the back door the unmistakable smell of burnt wood reached their nostrils. A red car sat parked near the barn.
“The roommate said Jessie had a red car,” said Catriona.
They made their way down three cracked cement stairs and walked across the yard to the fire-damaged barn.
The frame of the structure had tilted, knocking the front sliding door from its track.
“See if you can get it open.”
Broch wrapped his fingers around the door’s handle and heaved, wood shifting far enough to allow them access. Catriona lifted a foot to move forward, only to have Broch suddenly wrap his arms around her and swing her away. The barn groaned as the door lost its tenuous hold on the tracks and collapsed beside them, kicking up a cloud that enveloped them in dust.
Catriona choked, her arms pinned by Broch’s, her feet hanging a few inches from the ground.
“Put me down,” she croaked.
He did and she covered her mouth to cough again, waving her other hand in front of her to clear the air around them.
Sunlight flooded the inside of the barn. Both their gazes fell on a large pile of ash in the center of the dirt-floored structure.
“Looks lik’ some kind o’ funeral pyre,” said Broch, his eyes still watering from the dust.
Catriona sniffed and cleared her vision. The charred remains of a human body lay in the center of the ashes, a gasoline can by its side. Several trophies stood sentinel beyond the gasoline can, partially melted, their marble bases the only recognizable parts left.
“Are those flower petals?” asked Catriona, stooping to grab what looked like a bunch of wilted carnations, tied together with a red ribbon.
Broch squatted beside the skull and pushed a bit of ash aside with his finger. “Dae ye think he burned his daughter?”
Catriona lifted a trophy. The words High School were still visible on the base’s brass inscription plate.
She grimaced. Even with the total destruction of the pyre, there remained something inherently feminine about the area. The dead flowers, pushed by the desert breeze, tumbled across the dirt floor.
She grimaced. “Feels like this was his final shrine.”
Behind a wooden workbench in the back of the barn, Catriona spotted a sheet of the familiar pink lined-paper, pinned to a peg board.
Careful to avoid the piles of ash and trophies, she walked to the back and leaned forward to read the note aloud.
“The Diary of Jessie Walker.”
The handwriting on the title page was even more flowery than the loopy print of the sheet they’d found in Timmy’s dressing room.
Beneath Jessie’s name, in an almost child-like print and in a different color of ink, someone had scrawled a second line.
My sweet baby girl.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cassidy sat in Jessie’s father’s truck stroking the hair on the doll. Gazing at the window of her apartment, she wondered if it was safe to gather the other dolls. Jessie’s roommate should be at work.
She’d need them all.
Once she started really thinking about it, she’d thought of a bunch of other people who’d ruined Jessie’s life, starting with her mother. She’d left her father when she was a baby. That woman lived in Colorado now with a whole other family. All Jessie ever got from her was a Christmas card once a year.
It wasn’t fair.
Cassidy scanned the area. The street had few cars parked on it. She studied each, searching for people inside. Nothing had been on the news yet about the body in the barn.
She shook her head.
Stop it. Stop worrying. They’ll think Jessie is dead.
Why shouldn’t they?
Jessie is dead.
She set the doll on the passenger seat and exited the car. Entering her apartment building, she reached the elevator at the same time as an old woman. The woman glanced up from shuffling through her mail and blanched. Cassidy smiled, stepped into the elevator, and turned.
The woman remained hovering outside the door, staring at her.
“Are you coming in, ma’am?” Cassidy asked, holding the door.
The woman shook her head. “No. I, I forgot something in the mailroom.”
Cassidy shrugged and made a lasso motion above her head before pointing at the woman. “You have a cowgirl-cool day!”
The woman continued to stare as the doors closed.
Cassidy rode the elevator to her floor and entered the apartment. She flipped to the key on her ring for unlocking the bedroom, only to find the door ajar. Resting her fingertips on the door, she gently pushed it open. Splinters of wood jutted from the frame and lay scattered on the floor like pickup-sticks. Someone had forced the lock.
She swept her gaze over the room. Things seemed the same as she’d left them. It hadn’t been the police. They would have left evidence of their visit.
She glared down the hall at her roommate’s door.
Maybe Sandy decided to let herself inside.
Cassidy entered the room and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the shrine she’d built for Jessie. Tucked behind another photo, she retrieved a shot of herself, sitting on Cowboy Walker’s knee as they practiced the Cowboy Walker and Cassidy show. Her mother had taken that photo before she abandoned them.
A wave of sadness washed over her.
Jessie’s father looked so happy then.
Hanging her head, she pounded the back of her skull with her fist, careful not to smear her makeup.
Don’t cry.
She picked up one of the small cowgirl dolls she’d dressed and held it to her chest.
She couldn’t shake the image of walking into the house, calling for her father. The television blared. Though she hadn’t been home in some time, it seemed like any other day at her father’s house.
Jessie had gone to tell her father about her terrible month. She’d been dumped by Colin Layne and spotted him with a new girl already—Cari, with the coffee-colored skin and wide eyes.
Cari, carrying Jessie’s diary in her head for evermore so she could read the pain she’d caused.
Cari, bloating under Colin’s house.
Jessie’s father found a bloated, dead coyote behind the house once. He told his daughter how a body with no bleeding wounds decomposed faster. Stunk faster. Cowboy Walker knew a lot of little facts like that.
The police had found Cari. She heard it on the news. Colin was in jail now.
No women in jail, pardner.
Cassidy smiled, until the rest of Jessie’s homecoming memory began to play on the theatre screen of her mind.
Jessie had turned off the screaming television and called for her father. Turning the corner into the kitchen she saw him, crumpled on the floor. He’d been dead for a while. There would be no saving him. Blood or vomit had trickled from his mouth and stuck to the floor, leaving a dark stain on the yellow linoleum.
She didn’t know if he’d suffered. Maybe he’d fallen to the ground, dead before his head hit the linoleum.
They’d traveled everywhere together, until Jessie’s mother tired of his meager paychecks and ran off. Jessie’s father started drinking more and Cassidy grew too big to continue the act. No one wanted to see a man pretend to be a ventriloquist with a young woman on his knee, he’d said. She begged him to continue but he wouldn’t have it. She’d worked on her makeup, sewn a more flamboyant costume, but nothing changed his mind.
