Dangerous Melody (16 page)

“Cigarette smoke,” he said.

Stephanie nodded. “Maria doesn’t smoke, and there was no sign that Eugene did, either.”

Tate had a sudden flash of memory. When he’d tangled with Ricardo in the alley, he’d filed away an important detail in his memory. Ricardo had had a distinct odor about him—the acrid smell of cigarettes.

SEVENTEEN

I
n the next several miles there were four more structures in various states of decay. One was a mere shell with walls, a few ruined fireplace stones and a small windowless jail. The others had been homes and the remnants of a building, which Tate decided must have been some sort of garage. Over time the airborne grit had scoured the paint off the sides and worn away the
edges of shutters and railings, as the desert inexorably reclaimed the town. None of the buildings revealed any clues or hiding places where Eugene or Maria might be holed up, but most held the faint scent of cigarettes. Hours passed before they had completed their search and stopped to rest, sweaty and tired.

Leg and head throbbing, Tate climbed to the top of an old steel tower and surveyed
the surroundings.

“Looks like the rest of the town is clustered in the hollow about a mile from here,” he called down to her. “There’s a railroad track just beyond the hill.” He eyed the sky as he climbed down. It was dusk, and the sky was darkening, rapidly cooling the air around him.

Stephanie looked at him. “I know what you’re thinking. We should wait until morning.”

“No, I was
thinking we should rest, eat something and wait until dark.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Really?”

He almost smiled. “Really. Ricardo is here so we’ve got no time to waste, but if we go marching into town while it’s daylight, we’re sitting ducks.” And truth be told, he desperately needed to regroup if there was to be any kind of physical encounter in the next few hours.

He
let her lead the way to the car, so she wouldn’t see how badly he was limping. She retrieved a bag and handed him a sandwich and some water. They sat in the car and ate greedily, gulping down the water in spite of its warmth.

“It’s another two hours until sundown, and we’ll tack on one more to be sure it’s dark.” He got out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Stephanie asked.

“To
rest in the cabin over there. Didn’t look like any critters call it home.”

She cocked her head. “You can lie down in the backseat.”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because you need to lie down in the backseat.” He finished off his water bottle. “See you in a few hours. Lock the doors and keep the radio close, just in case.”

She grabbed his sleeve. “Wait. Here.” She pressed something
into his hand.

He looked down and found a bottle of aspirin in his palm. “Am I limping that badly?”

“Yes. And I know you don’t have...”

“Have what?” The realization dawned on him. “Painkillers.”

She flushed.

He pulled his arm away. “Listen to me, Steph. I don’t use anymore. I told you I didn’t, and I was telling the truth.”

“But I saw them in your backpack.”

He closed his eyes and bit back a groan. “Yeah. I keep them there. You know why?”

She shook her head.

“Because every day I ask God to help me keep that bottle closed, and every night when the lid is still on, I know I beat it. Every single day, I beat it with His help.” The anger throbbed in his throat, the injustice that he would never be clean in her eyes. And he wouldn’t allow himself
to become any more vulnerable around her.

You’re not forgiven, not by Luca and not by Stephanie. And you never will be.

She might have called out to him, or it could have been the mournful sound of an owl winging its way over the darkening landscape. He did not turn. He could not. She would look at him through eyes filled with bitter memories, and he could not stand to see it on her
face. Instead he settled into a corner of the old shack and tried to sleep.

* * *

Stephanie stretched out on the backseat, eager for sleep that did not come. She wondered if Tate was able to get any shut-eye. The angry scene replayed in her mind.

Because every day I ask God to help me keep that bottle closed...

Every single day, I beat it, with His help.

She felt conflicted
by his outburst. Day by day, he was beating back the addiction that nearly ruined him. The strength it took to do that, she could not imagine. But addicts often lied, didn’t they?

They did, but something in Tate’s gray eyes told her that he was not lying. Besides, of all the things he’d done to her—shoved her away, blown up when she’d tried to stop him from using, forbidden her to work for
Bittman—he’d never lied to her.

Never.

She let herself entertain the incredible thought. What if he was clean? Would there be a chance at reconciliation between them?

For a moment, her heart felt light, dancing on an ethereal hope until the dark feelings took over again. Memories trickled across her mind, stinging like crawling insects.

Tate bleary from the drugs.
Let go of
me, Steph.

Her grasping desperately at his arm.
You can’t drive. I won’t let you.

I don’t want your help. I don’t need it. I don’t need you.

Those words had hurt more than any of the rest.

I don’t need you.

She’d made up her mind right then not to need him, either. Ever. In spite of what her aching heart told her, the emptiness of her arms was a feeling to be pushed aside
and buried deep.

I don’t need you, either, Tate Fuego, and I never will again.

She prayed for Victor then, hands clutched so tightly her fingers ached. With no chance of sleep, she powered up her laptop, scanning emails to find one from Tuney. There wasn’t one, and none from Luca, but she chalked that up to the inconsistent wireless connection. She checked her watch. Luca was probably
just landing in San Francisco. Her heart throbbed again thinking about Victor.

She shut down the computer and shoved her hands in her pockets to ward off the chill that was settling in as the temperature dropped steadily. Her fingers found the paper from Rocky. He’d been helpful and kind. She was not sure what gave him the idea they’d skip out on paying the bill.

She unfolded the note.
It was a printed copy of an email sent to the hotel.

Please forward this message to Stephanie Gage, without delay.

Stephanie, as it is September 20th, the anniversary of the date I first met you, it was my pleasure to send flowers to the hotel, the deepest azure, the color you wore upon our meeting that day. You were not there to receive them, I have been informed. Please call
me with all haste and report on your progress. When you have found my violin, we will celebrate. Devotedly, Joshua.

She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Flowers. She used to love them, but now every blossom reminded her of Joshua—the parade of bouquets sent to her for the anniversary of their introduction, her birthday, Valentine’s Day. She felt sick. It had started out so innocently.
She’d been referred by a client of her father’s to do a computer consulting job for Joshua. There should have been some sign in his pale countenance, some hint of madness in his eyes, but she had seen nothing to give her pause until much later, until it was far too late.

She tapped out a message on her phone, anything to keep him off her back for a few hours longer so he would not take action
against her father or Tuney.
Getting close, S.
Without much hope that she could communicate a message from such a remote location, she hit the send button.

The hours passed in agonizing slow motion. Finally, when the stars showed against a brilliant black velvet sky, she let herself out of the car, pocketing the keys and putting Sartori’s radio in her back pocket. Tate met her in front of
the cabin.

“Get any rest?” she whispered.

“No. You?”

“No. That bill from Rocky was actually a message from Bittman.” She relayed the contents. Though she could not see his face, she felt him stiffen next to her. Something made her take his arm for a moment. She felt a flood of guilt that she’d kept such a hard heart, that she hadn’t believed he was finally clean. “Tate, you were
right about Bittman. I should have listened to you.”

He sighed, a small sound filled with the same wistfulness she felt twining through her own emotions. “Lots of people fall for his charm. I just hope we can keep him out of this before anyone gets hurt.”

“He seems to know my every move,” she said as they started up the winding trail.

“This time we’re going to get there first.”
Tate pushed ahead of her. “We’ll stick to the rocks as much as we can. Radio?”

“Got it.”

He pressed something into her hand, encased in a hard leather sheath. “Your knife?”

“Yeah, just in case.”

She pushed it into her other back pocket, and they crept along past the ruined buildings that cast otherworldly shadows in the moonlight. They found the broken railroad tracks and used
them to guide them into what had once been Lunkville, a thriving town supported by the productive borax mines.

Tate stopped to let her catch up. “There,” he said, pointing suddenly to a lopsided building in the distance. “I saw something, a flicker of light.”

She held her breath, staring until her eyes burned. “I don’t...” A gleam of light shone for an instant before it vanished again.
Tate was already crouched low and moving fast, keeping to the shadows as much as he could. She jogged behind him, pulse pounding.

They pulled up even with the building. There were a half-dozen windows that Stephanie could see, but all of them were too high to peek through. Tate edged his way around the ramshackle structure and she followed, avoiding some of the beams that protruded like splintery
claws. They found themselves at a back door, pulled crookedly closed, the handles rusted through. Tate flicked on a flashlight and cupped his hand around it to dull the light.

“It’s been opened recently,” he whispered, peering at the marks in the earth. “I can’t make out any footprints. Contact Sartori on the radio and tell her what we’re up to.”

“No time,” Stephanie said. She grasped
the corrugated handle and heaved, the whine of distressed metal thundering through the air before she darted inside, Tate at her heels. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the near darkness. Moonlight shone dimly through the gap where a window had been. The interior of the cavernous space was filled with oxidized mining equipment, all coated by a dull layer of grit. She turned on her own flashlight
and pointed it to the floor. Footprints shone distinctly in the grime.

Stephanie saw her own surprise mirrored in Tate’s expression. He held up two fingers.

She nodded. There were definitely two sets of prints leading to the rear of the space. Walking carefully to avoid tripping over the odd collection of antique equipment, they moved farther into the darkness.

Stephanie felt the
aching mixture of fear and hope. The footsteps were mismatched, one large and one smaller. It had to be Eugene and Maria. Anticipation rose inside her. Ricardo might have given up, left Lunkville without his precious violin. She held her breath as they approached an enormous rusted cart, which she surmised had transported loads of borax ore to the waiting trains decades before. Now it crouched like
some prehistoric animal waiting to devour them. The smell of mold tickled her nose, and she caught a musky scent of animal, as well.

Tate pulled her to his side, forcing her to come to a stop. She stood in the shelter of his arm, motionless except for the blood that raced through her body. A soft swooshing echoed through the building. Above them? From behind the cart? She could not tell as
the sound bounced wildly.

She turned sharply as the noise intensified; skin prickling, as she tried to pick up the origin. Tate aimed the beam of his flashlight at the rafters far above. The light caught dozens of beady eyes staring, a column of skittering mice traversing the beams above them. Ears twitching, they surveyed the trespassers down below.

Stephanie gritted her teeth, trying
not to think of the living freeway of rodents right over her head. If one dropped down onto her, she was not sure she could prevent herself from screaming.

Tate kept hold of her hand, and she clutched the strong fingers. Her tension mounted as they edged by the cart, giving them an unobstructed view of the rear. Piles of rotting boxes stood along the wall in what had once been a tidy arrangement.
Now they had spilled through the ruined cardboard, disgorging their reddish contents onto the floor.

Stephanie’s breath hitched as she viewed the outline of a door. It probably led to a smaller storage area. They both saw the gleam of light at the same time, a slight glimmer under the threshold.

Tate let go of her hand and moved stealthily to the door until his foot caught on a discarded
length of chain. He kept his footing, but the chain scraped against the floor. There was a scuffling beyond the closed door. Tate turned to look at her just as the door crashed open. Eugene, eyes wild in his tangle of hair, tore out of the storage room, clutching the straps of his backpack.

“Wait,” Tate called, but Eugene pushed by him, knocking him into the pile of boxes.

Tate righted
himself and took off after Eugene. Stephanie overcame her shock to join in the pursuit when she heard something inside the storage space. Fearing it was Ricardo, she drew back into the shadows.

“Tate?” a voice whispered, soft and tremulous. “Is that you?”

With a surge of relief, Stephanie hurried inside. “It’s Steph, Maria. Tate is here, too. He went after Eugene.”

Maria was huddled
in the corner, her face luminous in the dark. She clicked on a small lantern that blinded Stephanie for a moment.

Maria’s long, dark hair was pulled into a loose braid. She wore a torn pair of jeans with an oversize shirt. There was a rolled-up sleeping bag in the corner, along with the remains of a box of crackers and a half-empty bottle of water. “You found me.”

“It wasn’t too hard.
We knew where you were headed. How did you get here?”

Maria shrugged. “Thumbed a ride from a guy who mines for turquoise. I gave him my watch in exchange. I guess I’ll never be on time again,” she said with the ghost of a grin.

Stephanie’s tension boiled over, and she could not restrain her impatience. “We’ve been chasing you for days. Why did you decide to go after Bittman’s violin?”