Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (32 page)

Whoever had tried to kill her had succeeded more than he would ever know. He had killed something inside her. She had no home, she had no job to speak of, she had no initiative—there was nothing left.

Nothing but guilt, which pressed down on her like a blanket, smothering everything else. She knew in her heart that because of her, Chris Lujan was dead. Someone had mistaken Chris for her.

She spent her nights in a guest
casita
at the ranch. Laura knew this was temporary, but she still wasn't prepared for a visit from her old high school friend and landlord, Mark Hewitt.

The
casita
was beautifully appointed, with Mexican furniture and Peruvian rugs on the new slate floors. It had a kitchenette and a Jacuzzi tub. The guest ranch charged $250 a night, but Mark had told her she could move in there temporarily. Laura saw it as a hotel room. She had two suitcases full of clothes and the personal items she needed to get through the days and nights: toothbrush, hair dryer, all that stuff. The rest of her belongings were being shuttled in boxes to the Stop 'n Store.

Mark showed up four days after she moved in. She asked him in but he shook his head. He wouldn't look at her.

“Just came by to tell you that I've got a weekend full of guests coming in and we need the place.”

Laura nodded.

“What about the house?” she asked.

“I'm not sure what we're going to do.” He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She noticed he'd developed a paunch since she'd seen him last. “It was an old house. I'm not sure it's worth salvaging.”

Laura nodded again.

“I'm sorry about this, but we need—”

“It's okay. It was nice of you to let me stay this long.”

His turn to nod. He looked away, then down at his shoes. “It's been a bad week.”

Laura drove the area around DPS, which wasn't the best of neighborhoods, looking for a place to live. Any place—she didn't care. She spotted a banner stuck on a green hump of lawn in front of some seventies-era apartments. Gray-brown stucco, to match her mood. The banner said “Move-in Special—$95 Dollars!” A furnished apartment rented for $399 a month.

Laura moved in her two suitcases, her toothbrush, her hair dryer and the other stuff.

The bed was too soft, so the first night she slept on the floor. Her body ached when she woke up and that was fine with her. She kept thinking that Chris Lujan would only wish to have a few mild aches from sleeping on the floor.

Laura knew she was depressed. She realized she was flogging herself and that was not doing anyone any good. Didn't she want to go after the mamba? Didn't she want to know who it was? Why he was after her?

But she couldn't seem get up any enthusiasm for the idea.

Maybe because she was afraid. Afraid that the next time she grabbed the mamba's tail, it would get her instead.

As bad as her life was, something stubborn and visceral and grasping inside her made her want to keep it.

One day at St. Mary's, Laura saw Mrs. Molina come out of the elevators by the waiting room on the fourth floor. She was alone.

Laura stood up from the chair she'd been sitting in and followed Ana Molina around the corner. “Mrs. Molina?” she called.

The woman stopped. She was a pretty woman, compact and strong-looking. As usual, she wore a dress. Laura noticed she always dressed up to see Jaime. Laura remembered from the photos on Jaime's wall that she favored slacks. But she wore dresses now. Perhaps it was an act of faith, perhaps it was a gesture she made to show Jaime that it was important for her to get up in the morning every day, dress up, and go visit her husband.

“Mrs. Molina, I'm Laura Cardinal. I worked with Jaime.”

“I wondered who you were. I've seen you here a lot.”

“I know I can't see him now, but I'm wondering if you would mind, down the line … when he can have visitors … ” She drifted off. “I wanted to make sure you don't mind.”

“Why would I mind?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

Laura didn't know what to say to that.

“Jaime asked about you,” Ana Molina said. “He wrote it on a pad he has. He wanted to know if you were all right. It was one of the first things he asked about—after Chris.”

The emotion Laura felt at that moment was overwhelming. Tears sprang up in her eyes, and she turned away to give them a furtive swipe.

“He knows I wasn't hurt?”

“He knows. He was so relieved. He said he didn't want anything to happen to his partner.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Laura was unpacking dishes in her new apartment at the Village Green when she heard a knock on her door. Although the screen was locked, the door was open, because Laura wanted some sunshine in the place. She had not gotten around to lamenting the loss of the
hacienda
and the desert in which she lived, but that time would come. It was already beginning to show itself in her need for the little slice of sunshine that came through the front door of the apartment.

The visitor was Julie DeSabato.

Laura's natural caution kicked in. She didn't go right up to the door, but studied Julie closely. Her body language, the fact that there was nothing in her hands. All she wore was a knapsack purse, the kind Laura herself favored.

“How'd you find me?”

“It's really kind of a coincidence. I went to the Department of Public Safety and asked if I could get in touch with you—”

“I'm sure you got nowhere.”

“Right. But I was driving back up Tucson Boulevard, and I saw you in the parking lot.”

Laura had spent plenty of time moving boxes from the Yukon up to her apartment. Anyone could have seen her—why hadn't she thought of that? She unlocked the screen door and let Julie inside. “Would you like a glass of water? That's all I have.”

“No thanks.” Julie DeSabato sat down on the couch. She wore a Bohemian-type skirt with flounces and a soft-looking top. Lavender and purple with a little gold. Laura wore an old T-shirt and a pair of shorts and flip-flops. Julie DeSabato won the prize in the looks department.

“I came to talk to you about Steve.”

“Your ex-husband,” Laura said.

“He's my ex, but I still care about him.”

Laura had an ex, but she didn't care about him. She didn't even think about him very often.

Julie said, “Do you believe in God?”

Laura just stared at her. Why was this woman coming into her apartment and asking her a question like that?

“I'm asking, because a lot of people believe in God. Most people. If I knew you believed in God, it would be easier for you to get what I'm about to say.”

Laura found herself saying, “Yes, I believe in God. I'm not religious, though,” she added hastily.

Julie pulled her feet up on the couch, her bare toes digging into the couch.

“I don't know how else to say this, so I just will. Steve saw Jenny Carmichael.”

“I know that. He was the one who found her.”

“No. I don't mean when she was dead. He saw her when she was alive.”

Laura went very still. Was this woman telling her that Steve Lawson had met Jenny when she was alive? Did that mean he was there when she was killed? Or did it mean that he had met her some time between the time she arrived at Camp Aratauk and when she was killed?

And why hadn't he told her about it, if it was completely innocent?

“Look,” Julie said. “I'm not saying this right. Maybe it's because you're with the police. You intimidate me.”

Laura said, “Try not to feel that way. I'm a person unpacking in a new apartment like anybody else.” She waved her hand at a box of dishes on the kitchen counter. She wished she had her tape recorder, though. It would spook Julie, so she couldn't do it, but it didn't stop her from wishing. Wondering if there was any way to get to her tape recorder and turn it on without Julie being the wiser.

“Tell you what,” Laura said. “I have to go to the bathroom—”

“He didn't see Jenny,” Julie said.

Laura stayed where she was.

“He saw a manifestation of Jenny.”

“A what?”

“A manifestation. Most people would use the word ghost—”

“Her
ghost
? He saw her ghost? What do you mean by that?”

Julie swiped at a wavy strand of hair. “I knew you'd be skeptical. So was Steve. That's why he didn't tell you. Not that he believes in anything like that, because he doesn't … he didn't. But he's got so much pride. He's always had his feet on the ground—the only thing he believes in is science. In fact, that was one of our problems. He wouldn't even let the possibility of anything like that seep into his consciousness—”

“Hold on,” Laura said. “You're telling me that Steve saw a … manifestation of Jenny Carmichael? When was this?”

“You believe me?”

“Not really.” Might as well go ahead and ask, though. “When did he see this, uh … manifestation?”

Julie told her about the girl by the stream bed looking for her book, finding the book later that day, the girl appearing to him again after her bones had been found. About the collar and the puppy.

“He lied to me,” Laura said. “He gave me some bullshit story about looking for granite.”

Julie looked at her. “What would you do, if it was you this happened to?”

Julie said, “Would you have believed him?”

“I don't know that I believe
you
.” Laura sat down opposite Julie on the chair that came with the apartment. “Let's suppose what you are telling me—what he told you—is the truth. Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I'm scared for him.”

“Scared?”

“The other night, when I met you? We used the Ouija board. I think … I think that a base spirit must have taken over the board because—”

“Base spirit?”

“One of the lower spirits who like to cause trouble. They're mean-spirited and can be harmful. We should have never invited it in.”

This was sounding more like a Stephen King novel with every new revelation. Laura's common sense was beginning to reassert itself. Bottom line: This was ridiculous.

Julie said, “I've been warned about using the Ouija board. You had to be there, but Steve got very strange. He was talking to someone. The look on his face—you wouldn't believe he was the same person. He looked so hopeless, as if … I used to work on the Suicide Hotline. He sounded like the people who committed suicide did. That's why I came here. I'm afraid for him.”

“What do you think I can do?”

There must have been something in her tone, because Julie stood up suddenly. “I don't know,” she said. “This was probably not a good idea.”

“You have to admit, this is a little hard to believe.”

Julie stopped just inside the door. “No, I understand. It's not your problem. I'm sorry to bother you.”

As she stepped out onto the landing, Laura said, “Do you know how Steve got that scar on his arm?”

Julie looked at her. “When he was ten years old, his father came home drunk—that happened a lot. He was mad that his dinner was late, so he grabbed a steak knife and held it to Steve's mother's throat and threatened to kill her. Steve fought him for the knife, and that was how he got the scar.”

________

Steve wasn't sure if he and Julie had conjured up another ghost or if there was a man living on his property.

Ever since the incident with the Ouija board, a large part of which was a hole in his memory, he had been seeing the guy he first spotted by the stream bed.

And it wasn't just Steve seeing things. Jake saw him, too.

Usually, it was when Steve's thoughts were occupied by something else. Digging out from under his grandfather's possessions, loading them into boxes, deciding which of them should go to Goodwill and which he should keep—an endless job. Suddenly he'd look up and see the man outside the window, walking by—just a glimpse. Or he'd come around the corner of the house and see the guy standing under a tree. There was the time he was in the house, saw the man sitting at the picnic table, and ran outside. By the time he made it to the corner of the house, the man was gone.