Dreamer (The Seeker Series Book 2) (16 page)

“Yeah, they’re great. Donny was away at college during my asshole years. It’s nice to have one person in the family who doesn’t remember what I was like then. I haven’t seen him since their wedding last spring.”

“Well, it’s really great of them to let us stay with them. So, have you ever heard the Taos Hum?” I referred to the low frequency humming sound some people swore they could hear in this area. It was somewhat famous and had even been mentioned on the X-Files.

He laughed. “No. And I don’t know of anyone who has. I don’t think it’s real, querida. Sorry.”

“So, you believe in psychics and what was it? Curanderas? But you don’t believe in the Taos Hum? Seriously? I’m so disappointed, Jack. This could be a deal-breaker.” I tried to look serious.

He chuckled and reached for my hand. “Yeah, well, I personally know several psychics and at least one curandera. I might believe in the Hum if I actually heard it.”

“Well, I guess we can still be together. You are a pretty good kisser, after all.”

“Pretty good? I can see that you need a reminder in the very near future.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. “If you think I’m only pretty good, you should have an opportunity to reevaluate.” He pulled into the driveway of a fairly large adobe-style house.

“Hmm. You could be right.”

He blew out his breath. “Well, here we are.” He turned to look at me, taking both my hands in his. “Thank you for coming with me, Ally. This is going to kind of suck. Thanks for being here.”

My heart melted at his vulnerability. “Of course, Jack. I love you, you know?”

“I know.” He smiled and leaned over to kiss me.

We walked up the driveway and Jack used his key to open the door. The house was cool inside and Jack turned lights on as we went. I withheld comment on the bare walls and boxes stacked everywhere; Marcos had apparently done some packing before moving to Albuquerque. I followed Jack down a hallway to a bedroom with a blue wooden J on the door. Inside, although it smelled musty, it looked as though the boy who had lived there had just stepped out; the bed was unmade and dirty clothes were piled on the floor.

“Jesus, it looks just like I left it,” he breathed. He walked over and toed the pile of clothes. “That’s what I wore the day before I got arrested.”

“You haven’t been back since?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “No. I went straight to juvenile detention and from there, straight to Manny and Trina’s. They packed up some clothes and books for me. Okay, first things first.” He went to the closet, kneeled down, pulled back a piece of loose paneling, and retrieved a metal lockbox, which he set on the bed.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He sighed heavily. “My stash. I’m really embarrassed about this, Ally. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come in person and pack up my room, rather than letting my dad handle it. He probably wouldn’t have found it, and I couldn’t leave it here for the next owners. What if some kid found it?”

“God, Jack. Don’t be embarrassed. Not with me.” I reached out to touch his arm. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Burn it. Come on.” I followed him out of his room to the kitchen, where he stopped to find some matches. He led me through the glass doors onto the back patio, where he set the box on a table and bent down to turn the dials on the combination lock. It opened after a few tries to reveal baggies full of pills and marijuana, a small bong, and several dirty magazines. “Yeah, I was a real prize, huh?” he asked, running his hands through his hair. He emptied the box into the kiva fireplace at the corner of the patio and dropped a lit match on top of the pile. The magazines caught fire quickly, spreading it to the rest of the drugs and paraphernalia. He found a piece of wood and smashed the bowl of the bong while everything burned. I stepped close to him, put my arm around his waist, and leaned against him. He pulled me close as we watched the vestiges of his misspent youth smoke and smolder. When the flames had burned themselves out and all that remained of his drug/porn stash was cinder and glass fragments, we turned and walked back inside the house to his bedroom.

I started pulling books off the shelf, sorting them into piles while Jack went out to the SUV to get the boxes we had brought. Jack had said he only wanted his books, CDs, and a few other assorted items; he had grown so much in the past few years he had no need for the clothes that were left. “So, do you want to keep all your Captain Underpants books? It looks like you had the complete series,” I asked as he returned.

He laughed, coming over to look at the books I had set aside. “Yeah, I was a big fan back in the day. Let’s bring them for Megan.” We finished packing the few things from his childhood he wanted to keep in less than an hour. I was distracted by the box of school pictures we found, enjoying seeing Jack from kindergarten through early high school.

“Oh, my gosh, you were an adorable little boy, Jack.”

He came to look over my shoulder. “I want to see your school pictures when we get back to Albuquerque. It’s only fair, querida. All right, I think we’re done here. Let’s load these boxes in the SUV.” It took only a few minutes and then Jack locked the house back up. He pocketed the key and stood staring at the door for a few seconds.

“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “It was actually not as bad as I was expecting, but it wasn’t my favorite thing, either.” He pulled me close. “Thank you for helping me do this, Ally. It means a lot to me.” Then he kissed me, a bit fiercely, showing me exactly how much he appreciated my help. “All right,” he said as he pulled away. “What do you say we see some of the sights Taos has to offer?”

We spent a glorious, relaxed afternoon sightseeing, driving ten miles north to see the Taos Gorge Bridge, a 564-foot-high suspension bridge spanning the Rio Grande River. We then turned back toward town to visit the Taos pueblo, a thousand-year-old adobe dwelling where people still lived. We returned to town to wander around the plaza until it was time to meet Audra and Donny for dinner. Jack seemed lighter and so relieved to have the unpleasant chore of revisiting his childhood out of the way; I hadn’t seen him this carefree for a long time. Or maybe ever.

We had an enjoyable evening with Donny and Audra as they treated us to dinner at the elegant Mosaic restaurant. I went with them to Mass the next morning and we spent the rest of the day relaxing around the house.

As we drove back to Albuquerque on Monday, I thought about how much I enjoyed traveling with Jack; this trip had cemented our relationship in a new way I was having a hard time understanding. It was different being so alone with him for such an extended time. I may not have understood it, but I liked it an awful lot.

***

The wedding plans overshadowed everything around the Moran household. Mom and Grams dragged me to a winery in the north valley they had fallen in love with for the ceremony and reception. I gave my stamp of approval, of course, and they seemed happy to include me. I went with them to pick out a dress for my mother and for Grams and myself. Grams was going to give her away and Mom had asked me to be the maid of honor. I will admit to getting a bit teary-eyed when she asked. I got even more teary-eyed, and not in a good way, when I saw some of the choices for bridesmaid dresses.

“As God is my witness, Mom, I cannot wear something like this,” I held up a turtle-poop green, off-the-shoulder monstrosity.

She laughed and rifled through another rack. “I was thinking of something a little more like this.” She held up a royal blue dress that was sleek and sophisticated. I fell in love on the spot.

“Yes. That one. Please, Mommy,” I whimpered.

She laughed and handed it to me to try on. When I modeled it for her and Grams, they both said it was the one. At our third stop, Mom tried on a gown that was perfect: it was ivory and flowed from her shoulders in a Grecian style that flattered her and wouldn’t highlight the baby bump that was sure to be visible by June.

Although the wedding was definitely top priority around our house, Brian and I still had a murder to solve. Sunday afternoon, during a marathon session to pick out invitations, I took pity on Brian, who was overwhelmed by all the wedding plans, and took him out for coffee so we could discuss the case. Mom sputtered a bit about him leaving, but he assured her he would love whatever invitations she picked out.

“So where are we, Brian? I know you like Scott as a suspect, but do you have any evidence against him?” I asked after we settled in a booth and the waitress had left a pot of coffee.

“Not yet. This case is going to be very difficult to prove because of the time span. I think Scott did it, but I have no way to disprove his alibi. The autopsy came back.” He paused to take a sip of his coffee.

“And?”

“Patience, Grasshopper,” he said, shuffling papers within the file, finally finding the one he was looking for. “Ashley died from blunt force trauma to the head. Her killer struck her multiple times on the back of the head with some sort of weapon.”

I was lost in thought for a moment as I tried to think back to the last dream I had of her, the one in which I saw her reflection in the lens of the sunglasses sitting on her killer’s face. Why hadn’t I paid attention to the man in the sunglasses? Oh, yeah, because I had been so shocked to see a face other than my own in the reflection. I remember now. It was such a relief to be done with the nightmares; I hadn’t had a single one since I gave the book back to Ashley’s mom. “Was she raped?”

“There’s no way to tell after this amount of time. There was no soft tissue, only skeletal remains, so only injuries that involved bone are left. A fetal skeleton was detected.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, Ally, if this is too much for you. I don’t need to share the autopsy results with you,” he apologized, mistaking my silence for disgust.

“No, I’m fine.” I shook my head. “I can handle it. I feel like I need to, for Ashley. She had to go through it, and she wasn’t much older than me.”

“Okay. Well, we need to review all the alibis again to see if we can spot any discrepancies. I’ve gone over them several times, but I could use a fresh pair of eyes. I don’t have enough time to devote to this case,” he groused. “I’m swamped with more current cases that have better chances of being solved.”

“Okay, well, let’s hear the alibis.”

He opened his notes and walked me through the alibis of everyone connected to the case, starting with Ashley’s parents. Both were at work at the time of her disappearance, verified back in 1984. David Moore was also at work, again verified. His wife, Shannon, was in Las Cruces with their two children. The Graves, across the street, were at work, Mrs. Graves arriving home at approximately five-thirty with her youngest son. The oldest son, 12 year old Mark, was at baseball practice until six-o’clock, but unfortunately was not questioned at the time.

“Why didn’t they question him?” I asked.

“I have no idea.” He threw his hands up. “That’s not the first example of shoddy police work I’ve found in this case. The lack of follow-up on Scott Alder’s whereabouts is also very disappointing, and is proving impossible to find thirty years later. He was allegedly at basketball practice, and didn’t leave school until at least five o’clock, but we have only his word on that.”

“What about other, random people? Weren’t there ever any other suspects?”

He handed me another, thicker file folder. “These are all the tips that came in from the tip line set up after Ashley’s disappearance.”

I flipped through a few pages. “Brian, there must be hundreds of them.”

“Yeah, and that represents thousands of hours of police follow-up work, looking into any leads that looked even slightly promising.”

“Did anything come from it?” I asked hopefully.

“Not a thing. Sorry, Ally. Scott is really the only viable suspect at this point.”

“Just because you don’t have a better suspect doesn’t mean it’s him. I’m telling you, he’s innocent,” I insisted.

Brian looked at me sternly. “Ally, I wish I could believe that, I really do. I know you like him.”

“Please don’t arrest him without telling me first, okay? Give us a chance to figure out who really did it. Please, Brian.” I wasn’t above begging.

He nodded briefly. “I’ll try. That’s all I can promise. Now, I really need to speak with Mark Graves. I’ve left messages, but he seems reluctant to get in touch with me for some reason.”

“Does he live here in Albuquerque?”

“No. He lives in El Paso. I really don’t need another road trip right now,” he groaned. “I’m trying to support your mother with all this wedding stuff, and I don’t relish another melt-down.” We had all been subject to my mother’s recent hormone-induced emotional explosions in the last few weeks.

“Definitely not for the faint-hearted,” I agreed. “And what about David Moore’s kids? Have you managed to track them down, yet?”

“I did speak to his youngest daughter, Karen, a few days ago. She said they moved to California when she was seven, about a year after the disappearance. I haven’t talked to the older girl yet.”

“Okay, what’s our next step?” I asked.

“I’m going to try to get the Graves to contact their son. I’ll let you know when I have something.”

“What’s in the last folder?” I asked as Brian tried to slip it under another.