Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (37 page)

“We have a rehearsal then,” Laura said quickly. “Look, I just want you to go over the music with me, show me where I should take the breaths. We can get in the room I'm going to sing in. It's at the Arizona Inn—the library area. I'm heading out there now for breakfast. I thought we could check out the acoustics and run through it once or twice.” Laura was making it up as she went along. She remembered that the Arizona Inn had a piano room, that people did perform there, so that was plausible. “Could you meet me there? We could have breakfast by the pool. ”

“Well … ”

“I'll buy.” It had been her experience that wealthy people loved a free lunch. That was how they stayed wealthy.

“I'm not sure … ”

Laura praying now.

“I guess I could do that.”

Laura closed her eyes. Her relief made her smile. They arranged to meet by the pool at nine fifteen.

Laura wanted to ask about Dr. Brashear, if he had already gone to the clinic, but didn't dare take a chance.

As she hung up, she realized she was shaking. Worried that Angela had picked up on something. A born predator, Angela would sense if something was wrong. Laura hoped she'd been a good enough actor, that her story sounded plausible to Angela. She was counting on the notion that Angela didn't know much about voice lessons or singing. It wasn't necessary for her to know about music, so she didn't bother.

Laura used the Arizona Inn to lure Mrs. Brashear. The recital ploy made it an easy choice, but that wasn't the only reason. Very few people turned down a chance to eat breakfast poolside at the Arizona Inn.

Laura got to the Inn fifteen minutes before she was due to meet Mrs. Brashear, entering through the gate in the north wall. On her way to the pool, she passed croquet wickets on shaved green lawns, flagstone paths bordered by beds of bright flowers, a cactus garden, and a tennis court hidden by twenty-foot-tall oleanders. The Inn and all the
casitas
were pink stuccoed-adobe with blue shutters and doors. Coming here was like stepping back into the 1930s. The Inn was built by Arizona's first congresswoman, Isabella Greenway, who put wounded World War I veterans to work building furniture to support themselves. Eventually, there was so much furniture she built the Inn to accommodate it.

Celebrities stayed here. The employees at the Inn were discreet.

Laura found a table and watched the guests splash around in the pool. No celebrities popped out at her. Above the clay-barrel tile roof across the way, royal palms and Aleppo pines rose against the blue vault of sky. But despite the beauty of her surroundings, she felt a mixture of dread and grief. Dread that Angela Santero might kill again. Grief for Christine, forever her Broken Wing Sister. Grief for Jaime and his family. Even if Jaime recovered, he would never be the same. He might never be able to go back to the job that made him who he was.

And now she was about to tell this woman that the daughter she thought had been returned to her was an imposter. She had to tell Nina Brashear that she and her husband had been scammed. Someone had come into their home, bringing with her a palpable evil.

For the hundredth time, Laura asked herself how she had missed it. How had Angela Santero fooled her so easily?

She heard the iron gate open and close. Nina Lantz-Brashear walked toward her, the sunny yellow of her suit matching the umbrellas and tablecloths.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Steve awoke to the smell of bacon cooking. For some time now, he had suspected that the man was in his house.
Living
in his house.

That was crazy, of course. But as he slowly swam his way out of sleep, he heard the sound of a gas burner turning on, a small
whumpf
, and a pan being set down on the stove.

Jake, by the bed, did not move. But he growled. He growled low and deep in his throat.

Steve got up as quietly as he could. Reached over for his glasses. Got out of the old double bed without making the springs creak. Moved silently across the floor. Looked back at the jingling sound of Jake's tags. He held out a hand: stay. Jake sometimes obeyed the signal and sometimes ignored it. This time, he put his head down on his paws, no more anxious than Steve to confront the ghost in the kitchen.

Steve crept down the short hallway.

The man was using tongs to remove bacon from the pan, placing the bacon on a doubled-up paper towel. The smell of bacon, the sizzling sound of the pan, the man's tuneless whistle—all of it made the moment so vivid that Steve could not look away.

“Who are you?” Steve asked.

The man's shoulders stiffened, but he didn't turn to face him.

“Turn around and look at me,” Steve demanded.

The man sighed. He set the tongs down in the sink. He started to turn around.

That was when Steve awoke.

The sun came through the window. It was late. Late for him anyway: nine o'clock.

He had dreamed—that was all. But he knew that it
wasn't
all. It might have been a dream, but the reality he awoke to was not all that far removed. The man really was out there. He still roamed the woods around Steve's cabin, still sat at his picnic table, still walked in and out of the tool shed with impunity. Didn't matter that Steve had replaced the padlock; every time he went out there, the padlock hung askew, the lock open.

The man might as well be in his house.

Steve was beginning to think that the man who was so free with himself on his property was also the man who had killed Jenny Carmichael. That was the current theory at least.

He wouldn't tell the detective, though.

He didn't want to make a fool of himself in front of her. He found more and more of his time was spent thinking about her. It felt as if they had known each other all their lives. Ridiculous, but he felt so comfortable around her. Even though he was still a “person of interest,” he knew she felt that pull, the same as he did. He knew that in her heart she did not really suspect him at all. She was
supposed
to suspect him, so she did what she was supposed to do. But inside, he knew that she saw him as a good person.

He wished he could help her find the man who
did
kill Jenny. He wished he could drop the killer before her like a cat leaves a mouse on the doormat for its owner. Signed, sealed, and delivered.

If he could just get a look at the guy's face. But The Man Without the Face was too quick for him.

Steve got the feeling he didn't want to show himself yet.

Steve got up and went to the refrigerator. There were bacon and eggs. He didn't want bacon. The thought of that stranger in his house, cooking bacon—it was so real. Maybe it had happened after all. Maybe while Steve was sleeping, the man really had come in and cooked bacon.

He sniffed the air, but smelled nothing. The frying pan was in its proper place on the hook by the cabinet. He reached under the sink and pulled out the trash can, half expecting to see grease-blotted paper towels, but there were none.

Jake stood in the doorway, watching him.

He'd forgotten all about him. Jake would have to go out. Since Steve usually got up at five or six in the morning, Jake was used to going out early.

“Sorry you had to hold it in,” Steve said as he opened the door to the porch and then the screen door. Jake shot out past him.

Steve watched the dog, feeling a vague unease. Jake seemed different to him. Steve watched the dog go from tree to tree, lifting his leg, scratching the ground, acting like, well, a dog. Steve, trying to pinpoint what was off about him.

He looked the same. He was just as hungry. He was just as anxious to go for walks. He was just Jake. Except—

Except Jake seemed a little cool toward him.

Which was, on the face of it, ridiculous.

But when he thought about it, he realized with a pang that it was true. Jake acted as he'd always had, but he didn't lie at Steve's feet anymore. He was usually in another room, not the room Steve was in. When Steve would call him, Jake would come running; he would be the same old Jake, but sometimes Steve thought that Jake was—

Pretending?
Shining me on
.

“Right,” Steve muttered. “My dog is shining me on.”

When Steve was a kid, the family had owned two cats. One, very old. The younger cat had been her shadow. They’d always slept curled up together, a patchwork of black and gold. They’d always been together. Steve's mother had worried that when the old cat died, the younger cat would be broken-hearted. She needn't have worried.

About a month before the old cat had died, the younger cat had stopped curling up with her. It had become clear she was distancing herself, to the point where it had seemed she was ignoring her former mentor completely.

The old cat had died, and the younger cat hadn’t seemed to notice. She’d slept in the same places and filled the hole where the old cat had been.

That was the feeling Steve was getting from Jake now.

As if Jake had written him off.

Steve was a great believer in the instincts of animals. Before the devastating tsunami of 2004 hit, the elephants had run to higher ground, saving their handlers. Animals acted strangely before earthquakes. They knew when trouble was coming. There had been plenty of scientific data that bore that out. And Steve knew from his own experience that Jake sensed any change in Steve's thought processes almost before they happened. Animals were the ultimate mind-readers.

Steve called to Jake. Jake looked up, cocked his head, but remained where he was. Steve called to him again. Dutifully, Jake came trotting up. Not
bounding
up, as he usually did. And when Steve ruffled the stiff black hairs on his neck and told him what a good boy he was, Jake didn't react at all.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Eyes obscured by dark glasses, Nina Brashear said to Laura, “I went by the library. I didn't see any announcement. There is no concert, is there?”

“I want to talk to you about that.”

Mrs. Brashear was drumming her fingers on the tablecloth. Laura reached out and took hold of Nina's hand in hers.

Nina looked down, looked at Laura. “What's going on?”

Laura could feel the beating of the woman's heart through her fingers. She was already frightened.
Fight or flight
.

Laura debated coming right out and telling her. Decided it might be better if Nina Brashear made the leap on her own.

“I want you to look at something. Tell me if you recognize anything. Anything at all.”

“What
is
this?”

“If you'll just look—”

Nina Brashear stood up, and Laura thought she had lost her. Then she sank down in the chair. “It's something to do with Micaela, isn't it?”

Laura looked at her. The woman was more than flustered; she was on the verge of panic. “Mrs. Brashear, I just want you to look at this inventory of—”

“Okay. Fine. But then I've really got to go. I have voice lessons later this morning and—”

Laura pictured a voice student driving up in the middle of a SWAT team raid. “Can you cancel them?”