Home Before Dark (5 page)

The woman from
Texas Life
magazine was definitely getting on his nerves, thought Dusty Matlock as he stabbed the off button of the phone. Christ, how many different ways did he have to say no before she got it?

Blair LaBorde reminded him of his Jack Russell terrier, Pico de Gallo. Persistent as hell, immune to insult, didn't know when to quit. Over-the-top human-interest stories were her stock-in-trade. She needed them to make a living as much as he needed to fly to make a living. And the spectacular way Dusty's wife had died and given birth made him a prime target for the circling buzzards; he'd already turned down
People
and
Redbook.
Amber was almost two now, and he'd put his life back into some sort of order. The bleeding had stopped, the patient would live, but the scars would never fade. The pushy reporter wasn't helping.

The phone rang again, and he grabbed it. “Look, Miz LaBorde, what part of no do you not under—”

“It's Ian Benning from across the lake.”

“Oh. Sorry, I thought it was someone else.” Dusty didn't
elaborate on his troubles with the nosy journalist, but maybe he should. Benning was a lawyer; he might know what to do about a persistent newshound. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to get to Huntsville tonight. Can you do it?”

Dusty didn't take long to consider. Immediate service was his stock-in-trade. “Can you meet me at the airstrip in an hour and a half?”

“You bet. Thanks.”

Dusty was glad for the work. Benning had used his service a few times, and word of mouth on Matlock Aviation was starting to spread.

“Ay, mujer.”
In the next room, Arnufo gave a low whistle. “Come and see what I have found.”

Dusty walked into the front room facing the water. The elderly Mexican stood in front of a tripod that supported a telescope, peering through the eyepiece. The scope was aimed at the dock in front of a cabin across the lake.

“Leave poor Mrs. Benning alone, you old
cabra,
” said Dusty.

“It's not Mrs. Benning. Take a look. I think
La Roja
has a sister.”

Shading his eyes, Dusty could see a woman seated on the dock, her long pale legs dangling over the side. The lowering sun highlighted a head of red hair. At first glance, she did look like Benning's wife. But at second glance…

His gaze clung briefly, then shifted away. “I think I passed her on the road earlier.” He recalled a pretty, distracted-looking woman stopped at the side of the road, as though lost, in a late-model rental car.

“You should have introduced yourself.”

He put the lens cap on the scope. “This is for looking at the stars, not spying on the neighbors.”

Glowering, Arnufo straightened up. “We should bake a cake, go and introduce ourselves.”

“Right.”

A squawk from the playpen drew his attention. Amber was standing up, her little fists grasping the webbing. Both men hurried across the room to her, and she greeted them with her best five-toothed grin.

“Hey, short-stuff.” Dusty ruffled her white-blond hair. She reached up, opening and closing her hands in supplication. But her entreaty was aimed at Arnufo, not Dusty, which was just as well, judging by the smell of her. He stepped aside, saying, “She's all yours,
jefe.
I bet she's cooked up a little surprise in her diaper for you.”

“You are a man of no honor.”

“I am a man who needs to get a weather briefing and a flight plan. I'm taking Ian Benning over to Huntsville tonight.”

“I'll fix you some
tortas
for supper.” Arnufo Garza was a good cook, having learned to rustle grub during his bachelor years as a ranch hand in San Angelo. He picked up the baby. “Come to Papacito. I will not be intimidated by a diaper.”

The three of them were an unusual family. Arnufo and his wife, Teresa, had been employed by the Matlocks since Dusty was a boy, as caretakers of the big house in the Stony Creek section of Austin. Teresa had practically raised him, because his mother stayed busy with his high-maintenance sisters.

When both Dusty and Arnufo were widowed in the same month almost two years before, Dusty had proposed the current arrangement. Now the old gentleman spent his days looking after Amber while Dusty got his business off the ground—literally and figuratively.

He patted his daughter's hair again, its softness slipping between his fingers, then headed out the back to the shed that doubled as a workshop and business office. To the dismay of his ambitious parents, he was in love with flying, not the
petroleum industry. He earned his pilot's license even before his driver's license and had been flying ever since. By the age of twenty-one, he'd acquired a Pilatus PC-6 Turbo Porter, and for fifteen years he'd worked as a pilot in Alaska, flying mining, oil rig and pipeline workers to sites so remote that they seemed to be on another planet.

The wilds of Alaska would always call to the adventurer inside him, but with the birth of Amber, he'd had to make adjustments. Including leaving the frozen wilderness for his home state of Texas and the picture-postcard world of Edenville. The flying business was working out well here. Between Austin dot-com millionaires and good-old-boy oilmen, Dusty stayed plenty busy. But there was a jagged hole in his life, and he figured there wasn't any arrangement he could make to change that. His folks complained that Eagle Lake was too far from Austin; why didn't he find someplace closer?

They didn't understand. Karen had died in the autumn when the trees in Alaska took fire with color. She had always loved that time of year, when the first skin of ice on the lakes meant taking the floats off the plane and replacing them with skis. She would like the idea of her little girl growing up in a place where trees turned color as though touched by magic. The sight of those trees here in the middle of Texas was something special, like finding a pearl in an oyster, or a four-leafed clover. Rare, unexpected. Lucky, even. Discovering the maples here was like watching a bumblebee fly. Aerodynamically impossible, but they defied nature anyway.

From the window of the business office, he watched the woman on the dock. Though unable to see her in detail, he knew somehow that Arnufo was right. She was definitely related to Mrs. Benning. Where had she come from and why hadn't he seen her before?

You should have introduced yourself.

Arnufo was always handing out advice like that, but then again, life was a simple matter to Arnufo. So was death, come to think of it. In life, you made certain you did good work, took care of your family and kept your promises. If death happened to steal something from you—say, your wife of fifty-two years—well, then, you made a new sort of life for yourself.

Go and take what you want from life, Arnufo liked to counsel him. Don't wait for it to hand you something. Things given away freely are given away for a reason—because no one else wants them.

Dusty had tried dating a few times in the past few months, but he found the whole process depressing. His heart wore an armor of numbness. He had better luck when he stuck to running his business and raising his daughter. That's what he told himself, anyway.

“Introduce myself,” he muttered under his breath, booting up the computer to log on for his briefing and clearance before gearing up for the night flight. “Hi, I'm Dusty Matlock, and I haven't been laid in two years.”

“Some women would find that a great challenge,” said Arnufo, joining him in the shop. On his hip, he carried a smiling, much more fragrant toddler. As she tugged at Arnufo's trademark bolero tie, she yakked away with the uncanny conviction that her babbling made sense.

“Yeah? Like who?”

“Bunny Sumner at the airpark, for one. She gave you a whole plate of brownies and you never called to thank her. And what about Serena Moore from the Country Boy grocery? The one with the
muy grande…
” With his free hand, he pantomimed a huge rack.

“Okay, I get your point. Should have introduced myself.”

Arnufo swung the baby high in the air, crooning a little
song in Spanish and earning a sweet chortle from her. The old guy was a natural when it came to Amber. The father of five grown daughters and a herd of grandchildren, he reveled in kids of any age.

Dusty smiled to himself as he worked at the computer terminal, yet he felt a vague stirring of unease. Arnufo was so comfortable with the baby. Dusty wasn't a natural when it came to kids. He loved his daughter, and perhaps the bond was even stronger because of what had happened to Karen, but that didn't mean he knew the first thing to do with Amber. The truth was, he handled her awkwardly, loved her awkwardly. He could read a German instrument panel, a Chinese flight manual or an aberrant weather pattern. He could compute climb and descent times and fuel burn in his head. But he could not read his daughter's face.

Arnufo watched him work in silence for a while. Dusty logged in to the weather and flight planning site and went through the drill. A seventy-one degree course, 192.2 nautical miles. Rhumb lines spidered across the screen, and the printer hissed out a chart.

“Take
la princesa.
” Arnufo held out the baby. “I will get you packed for the flight.”

“I need to call the tower and get clearance over the Air Force base, then I'll be ready.” Holding the baby, Dusty followed Arnufo outside. Sunset covered the lake in a blanket of gold. Amber made a sound of displeasure as Arnufo headed for the house, but she didn't cry as she sometimes did. Pico de Gallo came racing across the yard, distracting her and cheering her up. The dog was insane, but entertaining; Amber was nuts for him. She shifted in Dusty's arms, her sharp little elbows and knees poking into him. She smelled like flowers and sunshine and yeasty warm milk.

The baby made a gurgling sound and waved a star-shaped
hand at the lake. The woman was a black silhouette now against the sinking light. When she tipped back her head to take a sip of wine, she looked like an antique French ad poster.

“Papacito Arnufo thinks I should've introduced myself to her,” Dusty confessed to his daughter.

“Da,” said Amber.

He perked up. “What's that?”

“Ba.”

“No shit.”

The purple sky, pricked by early stars, deepened to indigo. A clear night for flying. Across the way, the stranger on the dock stood and walked away.

Well, he was taking Ian Benning over to Huntsville tonight. Maybe he'd ask him a thing or two about the woman.

God, thought Lila Benning, putting her hands over her tortured ears, what a stupid-ass lame family. Even with the stereo turned up as loud as she dared, she could still hear the Three Stooges in the next room, revving up for another night of being morons. Tonight's entertainment sounded like an armpit-farting contest. Lila dove for the bed, burying her head in a mound of pillows and stuffed animals.

Predictably, a shout from below created a momentary silence. “Pipe down up there.”

Her father punctuated the command by thumping the wall with a fist, and the morons subsided. Then the inevitable whispers started up, like the munchkins in Oz peeping out from under their flower petals, the volume increasing until bunk beds rattled and giggles crescendoed with idiotic exuberance.

“Don't make me come up there.”

Her dad's next command was followed by an even briefer silence and then an even louder song because, as everyone
knew from the start, that was the whole point. To get Dad out from behind his paperwork and up the stairs.

His Timberland work boots thudded on the stairs with ominous slowness. “Fee fi fo fum…” With each step, he growled out a syllable. She heard him burst into the kids' room with a roar, followed by a chorus of porcine squeals and the rusty creak of bed springs as he wrestled the boys into submission. The ritual ended predictably. Dutch rubs all around, followed by Scottie's nightly reading of
Go Dog Go!
and then a “'Night, guys,” and finally, blessed silence at last.

Lila crept out from beneath the pillows and waited. Dad tapped lightly at her door.

“Yeah?” she called out.

He stepped inside, hesitated. Her dad did that a lot lately. A pause, a measured beat of uncertainty that hovered between them like an unanswerable question. He never hesitated with the boys, but with her, he never plunged right in. The dim light from her computer screen saver outlined his tall, broad form. Her friends often remarked that her dad was a hottie, but she never saw him that way. She just saw her dad, who worked too hard during the week and went fishing on Eagle Lake every weekend and looked at her like she was a space alien.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said.

“Hey. Where's Mom?”

He gestured vaguely. “She's helping me get a bag ready for Huntsville.” He shuffled his feet. In Lila's room, plastered with deathrock posters, littered with schoolbooks and cheerleading gear and cosmetics, he never seemed to know quite what to do with himself, where to settle his gaze. The sight of a bra left out or—God forbid—underwear draped over a doorknob, always made him jittery. “So what do you think of your aunt Jessie?”

Lila gave a shrug of studied nonchalance. “Don't know. I just met her.” The fact was, Lila was sort of fascinated. Her aunt, whom she knew only from the occasional scribbled note on the back of a postcard from Indonesia or Japan, an e-mail from an Internet café in Kathmandu and the Christmas phone call—which always came the day before Christmas because of the time difference—had never seemed quite real to her. She was a remote idea, more like a character in a book or a long-dead relative, like Great Grandma Joan. In person, Jessie was interesting and maybe a little weird. Her red hair was cut chin length, the tips bleached blond around her face. A younger, thinner, hipper version of her mom, without all of Mom's frustrated frowns, long-suffering sighs…and the veiled disapproval that always lurked at the back of her gaze.

“I guess you'll have a chance to get acquainted while she's here.”

Lila shrugged again, pulled a stray thread from her cutoffs. “I guess.” It was about damn time, she thought. About time something interesting happened in this family.

“'Night, kiddo. I'll see you day after tomorrow.” Her dad planted a kiss on the top of her head and stepped out. She lay thinking about him and how strange it must be to go see a man's family while the state executed him. What did he say to them? What did he feel?

Most kids whose dads were lawyers were considered lucky. Their fathers made tons of money and drove BMWs and flew to Aspen or King Ranch in chartered planes. Lila's dad wasn't that sort of lawyer. She was old enough to know his work was important, but young enough to wish he got more out of it than write-ups in the paper and interviews on Court TV.

A few minutes later, her mom came in, carrying an armload of folded laundry. “Hey, sweetie.”

“Hey.” Lila wasn't sweet, and hadn't been in a long time. And both she and her mom knew it.

“Try getting these put away—”

“Before they go out of style,” Lila said, taking the stack of folded shorts and crop tops and setting them on the end of the bed—on top of yesterday's stack. “I will.”

Her mother sent a pointed glance at the stack, but said nothing. She didn't have to. Lila felt the familiar accusation.

Taking refuge in indifference, she said, “So what's the deal with Jessie?”

Her mom looked distracted, maybe nervous, although Lila had never really seen her mom acting nervous. She was always so sure of herself, so decisive. “I'm not certain what her plans are. She's going to do some pictures for a magazine, I think.” Mom pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear; she looked tired and harried. She always did, and that annoyed Lila. These days, everything about her annoyed Lila. The way she always wore faded shorts and giveaway T-shirts, the way she never put on any lipstick, the way she caught her thick red hair in a messy ponytail, the way she ate Scottie's leftover peanut butter toast for breakfast and never fixed anything for herself, the way she pretended to watch MTV with Lila but was really reading one of her bazillion travel books about Provence or Tibet, a dreamy look suffusing her face until something sexy happened on
The Real World.
Then her face would contract into a prune of disapproval. She was uncool and she knew it. Worst of all, she didn't care.

“So what do you think of her?” Mom asked.

“Dad wanted to know the same thing.”

“And?”

“She's okay, I guess. Jeez, we had supper. Big deal. What, am I supposed to love her instantly because she's family?”

Mom blinked in surprise. For a second, she looked almost
pretty. “I don't know what you're supposed to feel. Curious, I guess.”

“Whatever.”

Mom hesitated, then bent down and gave her a kiss. She smelled of the mom smell—cooking grease, shampoo, generic brand antiperspirant. “Make sure your homework is done.”

“You bet,” Lila said, knowing full well she wouldn't do the Spanish or the algebra tonight.

She had big plans instead. Luckily she didn't have long to wait. Dad would be off to Huntsville within the hour, and whenever he went out of town, her mom turned in early to fall asleep while reading
House Beautiful
or
Travel & Leisure.
Thank God tonight there would be no shuffle and squeak of bedsprings and soft giggles as her parents tried to be quiet. That sort of thing was excruciating to Lila.

Tonight she heard only the low murmur of their voices as Dad packed his bag. They were probably discussing Jessie and the guy on death row and maybe the meeting Dad would miss tomorrow with Lila's school counselor. She was glad of that. They kept trying to understand her “issues,” and work on her motivation and self-concept—like those things were going to turn her into an A student with a perfectly clean room.

Sure thing, Mom.

After a while, she heard her dad drive away to the airpark and finally, finally the lights clicked off and the house settled.

A soft pinging sound alerted her. Heart thumping madly, she dashed to the window. The pebble at the window was an old trick, but it worked. She blinked her light three times to let him know she was coming.

By now, Lila had memorized the steps going downstairs. Numbers three, six and eleven creaked; she avoided them. She slipped out through the kitchen door and crossed the deck, and there he was.

Heath Walker. The only thing that made life worth living.

He was like a god, standing there, one hand on his hip, the other offering Beaver a piece of beef jerky so the stupid dog wouldn't sound the alarm.

Lila leaped at Heath, loving the feel of his arms going around her. His thick, wavy hair was made for her searching fingers. They kissed, hot slippery mouths and restless hungry tongues. Heath was ready to party. She could taste the flavor of purloined cigarettes and Shiner beer in his mouth.

“Let's go,” she whispered, tugging him by the hand. “Hurry.”

He tossed the rest of the beef jerky to the dog and they slipped away into the dark woods. He always parked on the other side of the property so no one would hear his Jeep or see the headlights.

“Oh, shit.” Lila froze, clutching his hand.

“What's up?” he asked.

“We've got company. My aunt is staying in the cabin. Shit shit shit.”

“Maybe she didn't hear.”

They didn't speak as they crept along the path. Lila actually held her breath, not wanting to inhale bad luck from the atmosphere. There was one tricky thing about this. To get to the place where Heath parked his Jeep, they had to pass by the row of three cabins. If they were quiet, if they were lucky, she wouldn't see them. If they were unlucky, they'd have to make up some story about him borrowing a homework paper or textbook.

A single light burned in the bedroom window of the cabin. Please please please, Lila thought.

But no. The minute Lila and Heath stepped out of the shadows, there she was, standing in the doorway, shading her eyes.

“Lila?” she called softly, “is that you?”

Lila dropped Heath's hand. “Be cool,” she said under her breath, then pasted on her best teacher-pleasing smile, even though Jessie wasn't anything like any teacher she'd ever known. Lila was a good faker, and she knew it. Her acting ability had kept her from flunking out of school, from getting caught shoplifting…but Jessie was a photographer, like Mom. A pang of nervousness rattled Lila, as she wondered, Can a photographer see things other people can't?

“It's me, Aunt Jessie.”

“Come into the light, where I can see you.”

Lila complied, motioning Heath to her side. Her aunt was wearing silky little shorts printed with moons and stars, and a spaghetti strap tank top. It was something Lila would have picked for herself.

“Um, this is my friend, Heath. He came over to borrow my chemistry book.”

“Oh. Hi, Heath. Nice to meet you.” She stuck out her hand, and for a second she aimed it in the wrong direction. She grinned, and her smile was beguiling. Her accent was unusual, as cool as the rest of her.

“Good to meet you, ma'am.” Heath had perfect manners for meeting grown-ups, Lila thought with a surge of pride. The way he looked her in the eye, shook her hand, she'd never guess how toasted he was.

“So you must be a dedicated scholar, coming out so late to borrow a textbook,” said Jessie.

“Hey, Aunt Jessie, give us a break, okay?” Lila sent her a wide-eyed look of appeal. “We're only going for a walk by the lake, I swear, that's all.” She tried to sound desperate but not pathetic. But God, she had to get away with this. She had to. If Jessie ratted on them, Heath might drop her. He was a senior, captain of the football team and star quarterback. He
could have any girl he wanted, and he might not want a girl who couldn't handle sneaking out on a school night.

Jessie hesitated, obviously trying to assess the situation.

“We're not doing anything bad, I swear it,” Lila assured her.

Jessie pushed a finger at her lower lip. “Okay,” she said at last. “I'll give you this one, girlfriend. I don't want to start our relationship on the wrong foot.”

It was an odd turn of phrase.
Start our relationship.
Like this was the beginning of something. Lila would contemplate that later. For now, she wanted to savor her victory. She lit up with a smile and impulsively flung her arms around her aunt. It was weird to be hugging her, this person she'd never met until today. “Thank you,” she said. “You're the best.”

Jessie seemed surprised by the hug, then she clung hard for a second before stepping back. “Just don't screw up,” she said. “And remember, if your mom asks, I can't lie for you.”

“You won't have to, because I won't screw up, right Heath?”

“You bet. Nice to meet you, ma'am.” He grinned that awshucks grin that made Lila's heart speed up, and it seemed to work on Aunt Jessie, too. She gazed at him with a sort of soft, melty look on her face, not with narrow-eyed suspicion like Mom would have. Pride and gladness surged through her as she took Heath's hand and gave it a squeeze. This was one of those moments she wanted to keep forever, to remind herself how good life was.

They veered down to the lake, then took a circuitous route along the gravel driveway to Heath's Jeep. “Close call,” she said on a burst of relief as she settled herself into the passenger seat.

“I'll say.” He leaned across the console and kissed her again, and this time his hand stole downward to touch her breast.

She felt an electrical sting of fire, then reluctantly pulled back. He'd been pressuring her to have sex, and she'd been holding out, but pretty soon she knew she'd give in. One of these days they'd find the right time and the right place, and it would be perfect. “Everyone's probably wondering where we are. We'd better get a move on,” she said.

“Yeah.” He put the Jeep in gear and drove up past the broken rock, then pulled out onto the road. Lila pushed the power on the radio, and a gut-thumping beat filled the car. A short way down the road, they picked up four more passengers. Travis Bridger and his younger brother Dig, and Lila's best and second-best friends, Kathy Beemer and Sierra Jeffries. Travis, who was seventeen and looked old enough to buy beer in the next town, passed around chilled, sweaty cans of Shiner.