Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2) (4 page)

     
When he came to again, his first thought was that he must be naked. There was no breeze to brush against his skin, but he felt exposed. Someone had taken his shirt. . . his jeans. But even naked, he was so hot he felt like he was burning alive. Abruptly something covered his nose and mouth—he went under.

     
When consciousness returned—hazily, painfully—he discovered he was sitting up inside the truck. He could smell sweat—someone else's, and his own. What did they want with him? That question filled him with fear, something he rarely felt. He hated fear. The fear exploded into rage and gave him the strength to fight against whatever held him. He strained forward, muscles flexed, blood pounding up to his head, a growl exploding from his throat. The duct tape around his wrists cut into his skin—but it held. So did the tape that kept his legs spread wide.

     
He was trussed like an animal. His throat was raw, his tongue swollen behind the gag.

     
"Aaaaa." He tried to call for water but the word was only a ragged cry.

     
He sensed the presence of his captors. More than one. Three or four? Maybe they were the crazy family of that girl he'd done. He mustered himself. The gag was ripped from his face, and a voice whispered, "We want to hear you scream when you die."

     
"Who—?" Randall couldn't finish the question.

     
"Call me Killer."

     
He heard the hiss of a match, and the air filled with a sweet, sickening stink. Incense; it smelled like church.

     
Mercifully, his mind drifted again. He remembered a birthday many years ago. The sound of laughter, the taste of a white cake with pink frosting.

     
Perhaps he fell asleep, or maybe it was only a daydream. But his eyes shot wide open, and he tried to scream when he heard a click.

     
He wrenched himself back to consciousness. What? No one had touched him, but there had been a bright light, a popping sound.

     
He strained to lift his chin and found he could see under the edge of the blindfold. He could barely make out a shape in front of him. A hand, gripping something.

     
His heart began to pound. He thought he could smell his own blood for an instant. But that was impossible. Scared . . . he was so scared he knew he'd shit where he sat.

     
Suddenly someone stretched his knees wider. He fought against the force, the naked vulnerability. He'd seen goats right before slaughter. His old man had been a master of the kill. He was quick with the blade, but animals always knew what was coming. They could smell death. . . and you could see death in their eyes.

     
"So you fancy yourself a ladies' man?''

     
There was laughter just as a sickening, red-hot pain radiated out from his groin.

     
"Pain is a great teacher, Anthony."

     
He was unconscious when the mask was ripped from his face, and the second photograph was taken. He didn't see the flash, and he didn't feel the blood that drained down his legs and pooled at his feet.

CHAPTER FOUR

L
ATE
W
EDNESDAY AFTERNOON
, the Dark Canyon fire burning in the Jemez Mountains northwest of Santa Fe was declared seventy-five percent contained. Teams of firefighters working deep in the Santa Fe National Forest had spent two days and nights trenching a three-foot-wide fire line to encircle the flames. A Forest Service dispatcher confirmed that the fire had burned twenty-eight hundred acres, was still active in small areas, and would not be fully suppressed for a day or two.

     
Three hours later, a new pressure system rolled in from the Chihuahuan Desert bringing hot forty-mile-per-hour gusts and not a drop of moisture. The previously lethargic Dark Canyon fire reacted to the transfusion of oxygen and opened up like a giant blast furnace. The ground fire had become a crown fire, one of such heat and intensity that it raced from treetop to treetop driven by its own winds.

     
Benji Muñoz y Concha, a first-year fire rookie, fourth-generation firefighter, and furloughed minimum-security inmate at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, witnessed the explosion near San Antonio Creek. He said a fast prayer that he wasn't watching a blow-up, a blaze that literally shoots hundreds of feet skyward and might devour a square mile within a minute.

     
He took off running uphill—like the flames—but veered west up the safety lane the crew had devised. The safety lane fed into an existing Forest Service road. Eventually, the road would intersect Highway 4.

     
Night was lit up like day. Benji lunged over the rough road and felt heat lick at his heels. The runt end of the Dark Canyon fire was going to dog him until he reached the ridge top and his comrades. His heavy logger boots slowed him down; the fireproofed green pants clawed at his sweat-soaked legs. His yellow shirt was gray with ash. Somewhere along the way he lost his "salad bowl," the plastic hardhat all firefighters wear, as well as the backpack that contained his goggles, headlamp, gloves, maps, and first-aid kit. Also gone were ax, brush hook, and shovel. Two canteens still dangled from his nylon belt. So did a portable fire shelter—the tent-sleeping bag that was every firefighter's worst nightmare; once it became necessary to use the shelter, odds were the firefighter was a ghost.

     
Benji felt confident he could outrace the fire. He was a runner trained for endurance, an athlete who had logged hundreds of high-desert miles. For Benji, running connected him to his Spanish and Pueblo ancestors—it was a spiritual exercise. He never lost stride—at least not until he spied the man.

     
At first, Benji thought he was one of the other firefighters, maybe injured or smoke-blind. He sat—no, he was propped—against the grandfather of all trees in a stand of old-growth piñon. And he was buck naked.

     
Benji veered toward him and called out. Then he stumbled, retching.

     
Smoke oozed from the man's pores, flames tickled the bottoms of his feet and turned his skin black; his eyes glowed red like those of a mad dog, he howled, writhing as the fire ate the flesh from his body.

     
This man is alive with fire
.

     
A sharp eruption of light and noise jerked the burning man forward and he teetered in front of the firefighter.

     
In that terrifying instant, Benji's mind closed like a door. Locked inside were faint memories of feast days and masked dancers with painted bodies, visions of
curanderas
and
arbularias
—healers and those who offered protection against black witchcraft—and all the ugly prison mojo he'd ever seen.

     
He was without defenses when he saw the second apparition: a witch.

     
It rushed toward him, skin painted with blood and earth. In Benji's eyes, the witch was a two-legged bird of death—an owl that flew directly in his path. He heard a death rattle, felt the owl claw at his soul—and fear clutched his heart, held it between icy fingers, and refused to let go.

A
T EIGHT-THIRTY P.M
., Cerrillos Road was crowded and every motorist in the southbound lane was on a blind collision course with the sun's final rays. Cruising low-riders cut across white lines to sniff rival tailpipes. The heavy beat of car stereos gave a bass rhythm to the stop-and-go traffic and rising tempers.

     
Stranded at a red light, Sylvia eased her head out the window. She tasted warm exhaust fumes, and smoke from someone's barbecue; the day's heat settled over the city like a lid.

     
Her home was still twenty minutes away, in La Cieneguilla. The adobe house would be surprisingly cool, and dim, except for two automatic security lights. The recently installed alarm system made her feel more secure, but it didn't make the house less lonely. No one waited for her at home, not even her dog. For several months, Rocko, her terrier, had been staying with her former partner's son, six-year-old Jaspar Treisman.

     
Sylvia slumped down behind the Volvo's steering wheel. Before her relationship with Matt England, solitude had always been desirable, pleasurable. A relief. Now, nothing was quite so simple.

     
At the corner of St. Michael's and Cerrillos she turned right. Matt wasn't coming to her house tonight, but she would go to his. She touched the bag next to her on the seat. Through paper, the thick bottle of Absolut chilled her fingers. In addition to the vodka and some jalapeño-stuffed olives, she had focaccia sandwiches from Portare Via. She wanted to feed her lover, then she wanted to fuck him. She wanted to drink too much vodka. Get stupid. Gain distance from her professional life for a few hours.

     
The Volvo's engine whined as the revs slowed in second gear. She patted the steering wheel; the car seemed weary and worn out, and she identified with it. Not a good sign.

     
Salazar Elementary was deserted for the summer. The only structure in the illuminated school yard was a white trailer. It sat in the far southwest corner. Tires dotted its roof. Next to the trailer, a small patch of earth had been transformed into a lush garden. Matt's garden. Planted in neat rows, green chiles, tomatoes, and corn thrived. Between rows, giant sunflowers—great floral babushkas—seemed to nod their heads reverently. Mounted on a pole, a big yellow beach ball mimicked a predatory owl with huge black-and-red eyes. It was designed to repel jays, crows, and magpies. The ball bounced off the pole in a sudden gust of wind. An automatic sprinkler ticked insistently, and the air was tangy with the scent of moist soil. Beyond the garden's fenced border and the wooden compost bin, an elm tree had grown up through weeds like a leafy flagpole. Matt had an agreement with the school: they gave him free rent and a trailer pad; he brought his own trailer and kept an eye on the property when he was off duty. It was typical of state cops to choose a trailer over a real house.

     
The Caprice was gone; Sylvia parked next to Matt's battered pickup truck with its wrought-iron calf rack. She watched a dust devil chase itself across asphalt and dirt. At the trailer door, she balanced groceries and briefcase under one arm and used the key Matt had presented to her three months earlier. She opened the door and was greeted by a throaty meow. The old tomcat, not yet adjusted to domestic life, liked to complain. His head was misshapen, and his nose bore scars from his recent career as a stray. Matt's new pet was fodder for "kitty" jokes at D.P.S. A cop with a cat simply wasn't manly.

     
"Hey, Tom," Sylvia murmured. "Lonesome?" The cat brushed against her bare leg as she switched on the trailer's overhead light and stepped into icy cold—Matt had left his air conditioner at full blast again.

     
The small entryway led into an almost equally minute kitchen. The groceries landed on the counter, the Absolut went straight to the freezer.

     
The living room accommodated a couch, stereo system, and television. The master bedroom was located at the trailer's west end. During late June and July, it took the day's full heat. When the air conditioner was off, the result was hot enough to bake a cherry pie.

     
Sylvia threw her jacket and briefcase on the couch and stripped off her clothes. She pulled on one of Matt's extra-large T-shirts, this one sporting a law-enforcement academy logo—like most cops, he was never completely out of uniform. And then she splashed cold water on her face and blotted away makeup.

     
Maybe she could finally let go of the day, the courtroom, the office. She intentionally set her briefcase beside the couch, out of sight. Not quite out of mind. Her partner, Albert Kove, was on vacation, due back in four days. He was sorely missed; for Sylvia he was both a peer and a boss, a teacher and a friend. She sighed; Albert had better be in the office of the Forensic Evaluation Unit on Monday morning. Negotiations on the renewal of their state contract were set to begin. Professional do-or-die time.

     
In the kitchen, the snap of the pop-top elicited mews from Tom. While the cat scarfed his dinner, Sylvia made herself an Absolut martini, straight up, double olives. She switched on the television, sprawled on the couch, and sipped the drink, which wasn't quite cold enough.

     
Everywhere she looked, she saw Matt. His fly rod propped in the corner behind the couch. A baseball bat and a basket of balls. On the wall, a framed photo of his wife and young son, both killed years earlier in a car crash. Three state police certificates of commendation next to the photograph. Tacked to a closet door, a paper target—a man's torso outlined in black against a white background. Bullet holes neatly etched a happy face on the target torso. On the end table, a copy of
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
, part of Matt's self-education program.

     
She could count on the fingers of one hand the possessions she had in his trailer. She had a new pair of underpants tucked under the pillow on the bed. Her toothbrush, floss, and hairbrush were in a bathroom drawer next to his razor blades and shaving cream. She kept a box of tampons under the sink. She knew he wouldn't mind if she left clothes in his closet, CDs, or bath oil, but she didn't want to make the present arrangement comfortable.

     
Comfort always came with an unpleasant edge.

     
She needed an escape route. She needed to feel she could retreat into her own world. No doubt that need could be traced back to her father's desertion and disappearance. Sylvia made a face and downed the rest of the martini. She wasn't in the mood for her own two-bit analysis. She let her body settle deeper into the cushions of the couch.