Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (42 page)

Laura looked up and down the wash. There were plenty of shallow impressions in the sand, but she couldn't tell if they were from horses, cows, or people. In the distance, she could make out a corrugated tin roof rising above the mesquite. “She could have gone that way, too.”

They decided that Victor would take the road, and Laura would explore the wash on foot.

It was slow going. Laura stayed to the center of the
arroyo
because the mesquite on either bank was impenetrable. Fifteen minutes later, she reached the building, which turned out to be an abandoned barn structure.

Now what? Up ahead on the bank alongside the wash, she spotted a cow pen. When the cows saw her, they started bawling. She saw hay scattered by the wire fence. Laura decided to continue; there might be a ranch house nearby.

She walked up out of the wash and along a narrow dirt lane, which flickered in and out of tree shadow. The sun was low in the sky now, and in another half hour, it would be dusk. She strained her eyes, looking for habitation.

Her eye caught a sudden movement on the right—at the exact moment she heard the revving of an engine.

A truck shot out of the trees.

Laura saw the grill, felt the heat of the engine as she dove sideways, hitting the dirt. The sound of the engine was deafening, the big tires slicing up the ground inches from her ear.

Shocked and bleeding, Laura lay still for a second. Only for a second. Then self-preservation kicked in, and she scuttled backwards into the trees, putting the trunk of one of the mesquite trees between her and the truck.

Brake lights flared and the Chevy shuddered to a stop. Laura darted to a tree farther back as she heard the engine rev again. The truck shot backwards, sideswiping the mesquite tree she'd hidden behind.

The driver's door shot open, and Angela Santero hopped out. She held a gun expertly in a double grip.

Laura inched behind a thicker mesquite and pulled her Sig. Her heart was jumping, and the gun grip seemed to jiggle in her hand. Adrenaline. She braced her arm against the tree, willing her heart to slow down, listening as Angela tramped around in the tall grass.

“I know who you are!” Angela shouted. “You're not gonna stop me, so you'd better get the fuck out of here!”

A bullet whizzed by the mesquite trunk. More shots, hitting trees and going wild—all over the place. Angela was shooting, but not aiming. Trying to scare Laura away, but it was clear she didn't know Laura's exact location.

The shooting stopped, and Laura heard Angela reloading. She tried to count the number of shots fired, but her mind wouldn't cooperate. She was too scared. Too scared to think beyond the mantra:
cover, conceal, escape
.

“Fuck you!” Angela yelled, shooting twice more.

Laura heard the truck door creak open, then slam shut. Angela gunned the engine and the truck shot forward, jouncing onto the rutted lane. It was an old ranch truck, probably stolen because the owner left the keys in it, as ranchers often did.

Laura steadied enough to squeeze off a shot.

The right back end of the truck dropped as she shot took out the tire.

Angela's foot slammed hard on the accelerator, the truck's back end slewing, trying to gain purchase. Laura shot out the front tire and the truck tipped for a crazy moment, then righted itself, and the engine died.

Laura's training kicked in. She came up on the right side—as close to the blind spot as possible. Angela gunned the engine again. The truck went nowhere; the shift lever was in Park. Laura yanked the door open, her gun aimed at Angela's head.

“Both hands on the wheel! Do it now!” Laura's gun fixed on Angela's angry face.

“You won't shoot me,” Angela said, her hand going down to her right side.

“Right hand! On the wheel! Now!”

Angela laughing. Her arm wriggling. Reaching for her gun.

Laura's left hand shot out. She grabbed the girl's hair and knocked her head against the steering wheel. Holding her nose-down against the wheel with one hand, Laura pulled hard on the girl's wrist with the other, bending it back until she heard the crack.

Angela cried out and went limp. Laura used her temporary shock to haul her out of the truck and shove her stomach-down on the ground, pinning her with a knee while she cuffed her.

She pulled Angela to her feet and pushed her up against the truck.

“My wrist!” Angela screamed. “You broke my wrist! You can't do that!”

Seems to me I already did
.

Laura knew better than to say that. But God, she wanted to.

Angela screamed every obscenity in the book. She sounded just like a howler monkey Laura had seen at the zoo.

As Laura spread the girl's legs with one foot, she said, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you—”

“I'll be out in a couple of hours. You think Nina Brashear is going to let this happen to me? She loves me!”

Laura continued to read her her rights, then radioed their location to Victor.

As Laura placed Angela into the patrol car, she asked, “What did you do to Lily?”

Angela smirked. “Nothing. I made her up.”

Laura nodded. It was the answer she'd expected.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Laura was bone-tired. It was going on four in the morning at the excavation site outside the farm machinery building on Trinidad Ranch, and her body ached from standing around.

Only one human skeleton had been found so far. Dental records confirmed that the bones in the grave belonged to Micaela Brashear. Heywood and Angela had probably tortured the girl here in the farm building, then buried her when they she was of no more use.

According to his wife, Clinton Purvis was hard of hearing and stayed close to his trailer and his dogs. But Tom Purvis must have figured it out. Tom Purvis might have planned to blackmail them or might have wanted to join in. Either way, Heywood and Santero had different plans for him.

All of the bones, all of the burial sites, were beginning to blur for Laura. She was sleepy. The heavy-duty lights lit the area like a stadium. She stifled a yawn, felt the breeze pick up. At four in the morning in late July, the heat only abated about this time and only for a little while. Usually any relief came in the form of a breeze.

This breeze was dry and redolent of death. She tried to smell autumn in it, but of course that was too far away.

Although Angela had told them nothing about what she had done between the time she took Purvis's truck and her encounter with Laura, they were able to piece it together by talking to the witnesses: the elderly couple who owned the truck Angela had stolen. When Angela couldn't dig herself out, she'd walked up the wash, just as Laura did. Unlike Laura, Angela had found the ranch house. She’d told the rancher and his wife that her truck was stranded in the wash, and she needed to call someone to pick her up. Once inside, Angela had shot the man in the knee, pistol-whipped him, and tied him up with the phone cord. Then she’d forced the woman to drive her to an ATM, and there, used the couple's credit card to get more money.

The way to the ATM machine had taken Angela and the woman past Hennessy's Steak House. When Angela saw the cop cars out front, her plans changed. She went back to the ranch house, tied the woman up along with her husband, then ransacked the place for money and jewelry. She'd been on her way out to the highway when she saw Laura walking up the wash.

Laura would always wonder why Angela didn't just take the road in the other direction. If she had, she'd be in Phoenix by now, impossible to find.

Instead, she'd tried to run Laura down. That impulse had cost Angela her freedom.

When the FA signaled the techs to pack up the bones, Laura drove home to her apartment at the Village Square, home to the $95-down move-in special.

For the first time since she had moved into the Village Square, Laura felt glad to be home.

________

Laura still wanted to tie Heywood and Santero to the murder of Jenny Carmichael, so later that morning, she faxed the trophy list to Mary Carmichael. Mary called her back ten minutes later.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “But none of the pictures you sent me looks familiar. None of those things belonged to Jenny.”

Laura set the phone down, feeling deep disappointment. Perhaps there was no definitive way to link Angela to Jenny's murder. She wished she could add Jenny's name, get her her own measure of justice, but that seemed impossible at the moment. She stared at her kitchen table, which had become her desk. Jerry said she could come back to work, but since she hadn't had any sleep for almost two days, she'd decided to work from here.

Laura was sad about Jenny, but realized she'd just have to let that one go. There was more than enough evidence to put Angela and her mother away for a very long time, probably for life. And Laura would never forget Jenny, never forget what had happened to her.

She realized she still had Mary Carmichael's boxes of photos and articles documenting Jenny's disappearance. It was time to give them back.

She went down to the car to make sure she had all three boxes. She'd left them there because, up until now, she hadn't had time to look at them. Laura supposed she owed Jenny's mother some consideration for what had happened, a look through the material Mrs. Carmichael had painstakingly compiled. And so, one by one, she brought the boxes up to the apartment and looked at them.

By early afternoon, her eyes were glazing over, but she decided to look at the photo album Mary had put together of the search. A big blue loose-leaf notebook full of newspaper articles and photos Mary Carmichael had taken of the searchers walking the grid.

One photo stopped her. She'd already turned the page, but there was something familiar about a man in the snapshot that nagged her. She turned back.

The man's body was turned slightly away, and he was ten years younger, but Laura knew it was him.

Steve Lawson had participated in the search for Jenny Carmichael eleven years ago.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The Devil’s Hour

Summerhaven

The Day Before

He remembers it all now. Like a glacier calving. First the tiny cracks, then the fissures widening, one piece dropping off and then another, and all of a sudden an avalanche caving in on itself, down into the water, thudding downward into the milky water.

He remembers mostly his rage. It has a color: black with dots of red flickering on and off like the snow of a TV screen. He hardly sees through the rage, through the rain, as he runs across the space between himself and the girl, a few strides is all it takes, fueled by alcohol and rage and grief. A few quick strides.

The girl's fingers tightening on the collar, dragging the whimpering, terrified puppy, and he grabs her arm, her shocked face white and hurt and tearful, but behind her face there's Bill Gardner the Dog Trainer, Snickering Bill, and he's too fucking shit-faced to know the difference.

It happens so quickly. She's cowering against a tree, and he's making his point. That's all he's doing, making a point.
Don't. Ever. Do. That. Again.

That's all. Making a point.