Thicker Than Blood (25 page)

Striding back down the hall, she passed Earl Downy at the nurses’ station. Strongly built, with a coffee-colored face between the grizzled hair and the starched whites, Earl had been with the hospital for about a hundred years and was as reliable as the sun.

“Dr. Greenfeld,” he called after her. And when she turned, “Any idea where the guy in 408 bed four might have got to? I came up to take him for a CAT scan but I can’t find him.”

333

Rachel’s eyes blinked open, her brain foggily trying to remember where she was. She turned her head and hit her chin on the steering wheel.

Am I in a car?

Either that or a bed with a steering wheel.

But why? And where?

Reality was slow to filter in. She remembered returning the Pathfinder to Hertz and renting a Toyota sedan from Avis. Or was it the other way around? Whatever. Then she had bolted—had driven as far as she could. Finally she remembered pulling onto the shoulder of a side road, too exhausted to drive another mile.

Something tapped on the window above her head.

Adrenaline charging now, Rachel tangled with the steering wheel, finally managed to swing her feet to the floor and sat up. The guy outside wore a uniform. Relief at that wore off as soon as she remembered all the reasons the police might be interested in her, and how many times she had seen cops lately.

He tapped again.

She turned the key in the ignition one click so she could roll the window down a few inches.

“Can’t sleep here, ma’am.” Blue eyes, sandy hair, freckles, the gangly frame of an adolescent. A boy playing cops and robbers. Surely he was too young to be a trooper. Rubbing her face where the upholstery had left marks on her cheeks, she felt centuries old.

“Sorry,” she croaked, her throat still full of sleep. “I was just too tired to go on.”

“Can I see your driver’s license?”

“May I see your ID?” she asked.

“Beg pardon?”

“I want to see your ID.”

A perplexed frown and a finger pointed at his badge.

She shook her head. “Badges are easy to come by. Uniforms can be made, cars painted. I want to see a photo ID.” She thought for a moment, came to herself and added, “Please.”

Wide blue eyes studied her, then he took a leather case from his back pocket, opened it and held it to the window. John Parsons, Jr., it said. And a number.

“Okay.” She pulled her purse from the floor on the passenger side, extracted her wallet, rolled down the window, and handed him her license.

He gazed at it, then handed it back. “Can’t sleep here, though,” John Parsons said. “You okay, ma’am?”

“Fine. I was just tired.” She started to close the window, then opened it again. “Do you know of any cabins for rent?” she called after his retreating back.

“Matter of fact I do.” He traipsed patiently back to her door. “My folks own a real nice place they rent out from time to time.…”

333

John Parsons, Sr., looked flustered when he answered the knock on his door.

Plump and bespectacled, he stood in the doorway blinking at a woman with bright orange hair, wrinkled clothes, and mascara half-moons across her cheekbones. “Eh?”

“Terribly sorry to bother you so early in the morning. Your son gave me your address,” Rachel explained. “He said you could rent me a cabin.”

“Ayah?” One of the suspenders that held up his light blue trousers was twisted. He was still blinking at her as if he thought she might be a mirage projected on his doorstep by some quirk of the early morning sun.

Rachel groaned inwardly, an ache in her neck making her irritable. “Will you rent me your cabin?” She said loudly, spacing her words evenly.

“Cabin!” He smiled benignly and added loudly, “Yes. Of course. Come in.” He retreated into the house. The suspenders were doing a very good job. They held the beltline of his pants above his equator, making extra folds around the seat of his pants so that he looked as though he’d been hung on a hook. “Who did you say sent you?”

“YOUR SON.”

“He did, eh? Well, where did you meet him?”

“JUST NOW, ON THE ROAD.”

“Who is it, John?” Through a doorway behind him, Rachel saw a woman at the kitchen table, her face, the very twin of his, raised in curiosity.

“A lady wants to rent the cabin,” Parsons called.

The woman hurried into the hall. “Of course,” she smiled. “Pay no attention to him, he hasn’t heard a sound in twelve years. Fell off a tractor. Hit his head on a rock. I’m Mrs. Parsons.”

Rachel began her request anew.

Mrs. Parsons assured her they were pleased to interrupt their breakfast for an off-season renter sent by their Son-The-State-Trooper. She took a cash deposit and handed over the key.

Chapter Forty

Irene had scorned the isolation of the glass booth and was standing at the garage entrance waving as the cars arrived. The bird on her hat bobbed with each wave. She had moved her cart into the garage and built herself a nest to sleep there so she would be sure to have the gates open on time.

When the black sedan pulled off the street, she gave the man who leaned out the window and flashed a detective’s ID her best smile.

“You know a Rachel Chavez?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Irene said. “Believe I do, as she is the lady who owns this establishment.”

“Where is she?”

“Can’t rightly say. Could you move your car just a wee bit so you don’t block the way?” A car halted a moment at the entrance, then pulled on through.

The detective moved his car a few inches, cut the engine, and eased his big frame from behind the wheel.

Irene thought he must be seven feet tall, and he looked every inch mean. She marched up to him and propped her hands on her hips. “Yes? And what brings you here, if I might ask?”

“When will Ms. Chavez be back?”

Irene’s round shoulders rose and fell. “Don’t know.”

“You must know something if she owns the parking lot and you work here.”

“What’s this all about?” Hank had come up behind Irene.

The detective’s neck was so thick he seemed barely able to turn his head. “Rachel Chavez. Know her?”

Hank frowned. “Why are you looking for her?”

“Couple questions we want to ask her.”

“In connection with what?”

“Nothing much. Seems like she might be the last person to see someone alive. Leastwise her fingerprints was all over the place.”

“Who?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Irene had lifted her chin high to peer into the cop’s face. “You saying Rachel did something wrong?”

“Not at liberty to say that either.”

“I’ll give her the message,” Irene said firmly.

“Think maybe I’ll just wait around.”

“Well, she’s not here. And you’re still blocking traffic.” She pointed to the stream of cars edging through the space behind the black sedan.

The man gave her a steely glare.

Irene decided he couldn’t run her in for sleeping in the street. Not now he couldn’t. “You get on out of here. Shoo!”

He stared a moment longer, then ambled back to his car. “Tell her I’ll be back.”

Hank and Irene watched the cop drive off.

“No good for business, police hanging around,” Irene said. “No good at all.”

333

Crawling along a road fit only for the hardiest four-wheel-drive, dodging rocks and getting her head slammed into the roof of the Toyota, Rachel finally found the cabin.

With its redwood siding hugged by a cedar-shingled gambrel roof, the little house looked wonderful. And safe. A quarter-mile farther down the road, she parked the car on the shoulder and walked back.

The furnishings were no-nonsense pine, doubtless hammered together by Mr. Parsons and painted with enamel. In the parlor a worn corduroy sofa and a faded chair squatted shapelessly next to the hearth like beloved old dogs.

In a canister on a shelf over the stove, Rachel found some coffee. Both the can and the shelf had been covered with red and white contact paper. The coffee she brewed was harsh and acrid, but she drank it anyway and tried to think.

Something had trimmed her life expectancy to practically zero. But her sleep-starved mind buckled under the effort to comprehend why.

An old black telephone sat on a pine table in the parlor. Surprised to hear a dial tone, Rachel dialed. She listened to the message, then called into the mouthpiece, “Goldie! Pick up!”

The line buzzed. “Holy shit! Where you been, girl? ”

“I’m still among the missing, or I sure hope I am,” Rachel said and told her about the apartment and the ransacking. “I’m in a cabin in the mountains.”

“You’re where?”

“In the mountains. Near Lake Arrowhead.” Rachel rushed on, “You said your brother had some friends on the force.”

“He had a buddy who’s a rookie now in South LA,” Goldie said.

“Any chance you could ask him a favor?”

“I don’t know him real well, but I guess I could. Lemme get a pencil,” Goldie sighed. “Okay, shoot.”

Rachel described how she had found Charlotte.

“Jesus, that’s three dead people!”

“Four if you count Jason,” Rachel said.

“You’re like a one-woman death camp!”

“Please, Goldie. I need your help to figure this out.”

“Like how?”

“The point is, I didn’t see a gun anywhere near Charlotte. How could she shoot herself and then get rid of the gun? You think your brother’s friend could talk to someone with Riverside police and find out why they think it’s suicide?”

“He’d have to give some reason for asking.”

“Maybe he could say that some informer told him it was murder? It’s important.” Rachel rubbed her eyes and pinched her nose where the phony eyeglasses had been. “Please.”

“Okay, okay. Get up off your knees. Give me your number.”

“It may not be a good idea to talk much on the phone,” Rachel said. “I mean it’s probably okay now, but I don’t know for how long.”

“I know you’re not saying I got to come up there.”

“I need help figuring this out,” Rachel said again.

Goldie groaned and Rachel could hear her pounding on something. “Okay, okay. How do I get there?”

Rachel recited the roads. “Memorize it. Then tear up that piece of paper.”

“You sound almighty paranoid.”

“I am.” Rachel described the attempt to get into her room at the Biltmore and the man in the black leather jacket.

When she finished, there was a long pause on the line before Goldie spoke. “Girl, I’m not sure I want to be in the same room with you.”

Chapter Forty-one

The first day in the cabin was easy for Rachel. She felt safe and it almost seemed like a vacation.

She was asleep that night when a loud thud jarred her awake. She assured herself it was just a branch falling on the roof, but could sleep no more. Wrapped in a blanket, she prowled the rooms, every nerve alert, flinching at the smallest sound. Rain began peppering the roof and daylight came slowly.

Rachel peered bleakly out the window at the leaden sky, the cheerless landscape, its color gone grey to match the haze.

Is someone looking for me?

How long before they find me?

She tried to light the heater on the wall. It wouldn’t cooperate.

Jerking a change of clothes from the closet, she sent the hanger clanking to the floor, and barely resisted an urge to twist it into some unrecognizable shape. She was bone-deep cold.

There was the fireplace, but she didn’t want to unlock the door to get to the wood pile. Besides, the cabin was safer if it looked deserted. Smoke coming from the chimney would give her away.

She picked up the phone and called Irene, whose voice immediately dropped to a conspiratorial level. “What kind of trouble you in, dear girl?”

“What makes you think I’m in trouble?”

“I took a look-see for that cat of yours. Figured he got locked in your place upstairs. Just used the key on the ring here. Not a pretty sight up there. No sir, not at all pretty. And a giant-size copper came ’round looking for you.” She paused.

“Tell me true now, dear girl. You in trouble with one of them mob types? ’Cause if you are, I got to find me some other line of employment.”

“No. It was a burglary. I’ll clean it up when I get back.”

“And when might that be?” Irene asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Did they find what they were looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said.

“You’re sure it isn’t some kind of gangster you’re hiding out from? Irene can handle most anything else, but curs like that, they got no morals, no morals at all. You never know what they might do.”

“I swear it has nothing to do with gangsters.” Rachel hoped that was true. “Did you find Clancy?”

“Who?”

“The cat.”

“’Fraid not. He wasn’t up there, and the food I put out here ain’t been touched. He may have run off, dear girl.”

“Keep putting out the food, okay?”

“Don’t you worry yourself about that,” Irene promised.

Rachel was placing the receiver back on the hook when she heard the low hum of a motor. Tires crunched on gravel, the motor stopped, doors slammed.

With trembling fingers, she lifted the edge of the faded green-and-orange drapes, sighed with relief and thrust open the front door. Goldie was picking her way along the long path from the driveway. Behind her was Hank.

“You sure you weren’t followed?” Rachel kept her voice barely audible.

Goldie shook her head. “Not unless they were flying over our heads. Not a soul on the road behind us. God’s wonder we found this place at all. How’d you get here? In a space ship?”

“Where’s your car?” Hank asked from behind her, brow furrowed, eyes tense.

“Parked down the road,” Rachel whispered, gesturing with her chin. “Maybe you should do the same.”

Hank’s scowl deepened. “Are you that scared?”

“Yeah. I am.” Rachel heaved a sigh. “Thanks for coming.”

He eyed her for a moment, taking in the ragged blanket around her shoulders, the mussed orange hair. “I’ll move the car.” He turned and jogged back to the driveway.

Rachel hugged Goldie. “My brain is out of gas. I don’t know what to do.”

“All you got to do is get inside. I sure as hell didn’t drive all this way to hang out in the cold rain. You get struck by lightning? Is that what did that to your hair?”