The Perfect Husband (22 page)

Edith turned to the front door, already tugging on the suitcase. But then she froze, the hair on the back of her neck prickling up.

The girl stood in front of the door perfectly naked. This close, Edith could see the butterfly tattoo above her left breast. Nothing big or vulgar. The butterfly was small, dainty even, a light flickering of color that spoke of a lonely wish for flight. Blond hair cascaded down her shoulders, of course — all the girls were blondes.

Edith raised her gaze even though she didn't really want to see more. There was nothing, no message, not a plea to give her a hint. The girl just stood there, naked with blood on her face, and her eyes were faintly apologetic, as if she knew she was as unwanted dead as she had been alive.

“Go away, child,” Edith said softly. “There's nothing I can do for you.”

The girl remained, stubborn. Edith squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, she'd won and the girl was gone.

Belatedly she became aware of the quizzical look on Martha's face. “You all right?”

Edith didn't answer immediately. “Did you hear that serial killer got loose?”

“Huh?”

“Jim Beckett, that's his name. Killed ten women and now two prison guards. Got outta Walpole. That's not far from here.”

Martha didn't say anything, but for one moment Edith saw something flash across those bright eyes. It looked like fear, bone-deep fear. The big woman composed herself quickly, squaring her broad shoulders. “This is a small community, Edith, a quiet place. Someone like him wouldn't have any cause to come here.”

Edith watched Martha awhile longer, but Martha's expression was blank.

“I'm sure you're right,” Edith said at last.

She didn't believe either one of them though. And it bothered her that they'd each told their first lie over such a man as Jim Beckett. It bothered her a lot.

J.T. WAS ON edge. By night he paced the living room with enough energy to power a small city. Marion took one look and returned her beer to the refrigerator. She reentered the room with two glasses of water instead, handing one to her brother.

J.T. downed it wordlessly. He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. Then he resumed pacing.

“Oh, for God's sake,” Marion said at last, “you're giving me gray hairs. Sit down.”

He pivoted and headed the other direction. “Don't you feel it?” he asked.

“Feel what?”

“Tess, go to your room.”

“What?”

“Lock the door. Knit a sweater.”

“Oh, no. If there's something going on, I want to know.”

J.T.'s gaze locked on his sister. Marion shook her head. “I walked the grounds just half an hour ago, J.T. There's nothing out there but your own dark mood. Stop panicking Tess.”

“She wanted to stay.”

“Would someone start speaking English?” Tess demanded. Her belly had knotted.

“I don't like it,” J.T. repeated. “Air's different. Something. Shit, we're outta here.”

“What?”

J.T. strode across the room. “You heard me. Grab your purses, girls, we're blowing this joint.”

“J.T., this is stupid—”

J.T. halted. “You got friends in the Nogales Police Department, right, Marion?”

She nodded warily.

“Call them. Tell then we're going out for a few hours. Tell them we're worried about the ‘intruder' returning. Ask them to send a patrol car to cruise around a bit, say half-hour intervals.”

“I don't know.…”

“Marion, what can it hurt?”

That got her. Marion placed the call while Tess found a light jacket. Tess returned to the living room quickly; she no longer felt like being alone.

Wordlessly they piled into Marion's car, three people staring out at a black landscape, trying to see what was out there.

“A bar?” Tess declared twenty minutes later, staring incredulously at the neon-clad, rock'n'roll — blaring joint. “J.T., this isn't a good idea. Why don't we go to a movie?”

He kept walking. “Crowds are good, Tess, and so is a place with five exits.”

Marion and Tess exchanged dubious glances. J.T. strolled inside, obviously no stranger to the establishment.

Located on a busy street in downtown Nogales, it advertised itself aggressively with loud music and rowdy patrons. At the moment Bruce Springsteen was blasting everyone new eardrums with the loudest rendition of “Born to Run” that Tess had ever heard. Above, a seventies disco ball swirled madly, casting a dizzying array of diamond dots onto a dance floor filled with people who truly knew how to move. The light disappeared at the corners, leaving gaping pools of blackness where she could dimly see couples in various stages of drinking and displaying public affection. Everyone looked Latino.

J.T. cut a clean path through the madness, his gaze watchful. Tess and Marion kept close to him. J.T. raised his hand and pointed to a corner, his lips moving but his words lost in the thundering music. Tess and Marion moved quickly to follow, fading deeper into the hallway, the music receding behind them. New odors assaulted their senses: beer, urine. Sex.

Finally J.T. came to a doorway guarded by tendrils of orange and red glass beads. He held the curtain back and motioned for Marion and Tess to enter. His gaze swept the hall behind them, then he let the curtain drop.

“A video arcade?” Marion huffed. “You brought us here for video games?”

“They're better than the beer, Marion. Or are G-men too tough for pinball?”

Tess stared. They weren't alone in the room by any means. It was filled with a huge crowd and electronic sounds. She heard a coin machine dispensing change and the glug-glug of some animated character dying. Several men looked up when they entered, appeared a little surprised, then went back to what they were doing before. There were few women in the room. One of them, scantily clad in a crimson skirt and halter top, looked like hell on wheels sitting at a car game. She'd attracted several onlookers and didn't seem to mind.

J.T. went straight to a row of older pinball machines and selected one. DEAD MAN WALKING, it said.

Tess shuddered.

“Come on, ladies. It's hand-eye coordination.”

“I don't have any, thanks,” Tess volunteered.

With another scowl and frustrated sigh Marion gave up on protesting and sized up the machine. “All right. You're on.”

“Two out of three?”

“Four out of seven. You're obviously not new here.”

“High score is mine.”

“Oh, really? How drunk were you at the time?”

“Stone cold sober,” J.T. drawled. “Down here, Marion, pinball's serious business.”

“Yeah, well, so is cotton,” she muttered.

“Tess,” J.T. said calmly. “Watch the doorway, will you? If anyone white walks in, let me know. I don't think we were followed, but it's been a bit since I played cat and mouse.”

J.T. popped two quarters into the machine. Marion cracked her knuckles and stretched out her arms. The two of them got down to the obviously serious business of pinball, but Tess didn't relax that easily. Her gaze kept darting back to the doorway, just in case Jim Beckett magically appeared.

J.T. was no slouch. He hit five digits before his turn was up, and gave way only after delivering a mocking bow. Marion took over with narrowed eyes and thinned lips. She looked as if she'd gone to war.

She moved too fast, and the first silver ball escaped through the paddles before she'd made much progress. She slapped the machine, earning a tilt sign.

“Relax, Marion. It's just a machine.”

“Fucking machine,” she supplied.

“Have it your way.”

She attacked the second ball, and since she had phenomenal hand-eye coordination and a wicked learning curve, she made the machine sing. A light began to burn in her eyes. And for a moment she looked exactly like J.T.

“She's something, isn't she?” J.T. murmured.

Tess nodded. “What did your parents feed you?”

“Lies. Pure lies. Taught us the truth of the world early on.” His lips curved into a ghost of a grin. “See any sign of trouble at the door?”

“No.”

“Huh. Maybe Marion was right. Maybe I just need a drink.”

“J.T.—”

“Shit!” Marion yelled, and hit the machine. “Piece of junk!”

J.T. jostled his sister aside. “Easy, honey. Machine can't help it if I'm better than you.”

Marion leaned against the wall next to Tess, but she no longer looked relaxed. J.T. settled in at the pinball machine, looking like a captain at the helm of his ship.

“Face it, Marion, you should've joined the marines.”

“No, thanks. I figured one Dillon punching out COs was enough.”

J.T. pulled back the handle and sent the silver ball flying. “I suppose I could've just enrolled him in the Communist Party, but beating the crap out of his own wife seemed to deserve something a little bit more personal.”

“Communist Party?” Tess asked. She wasn't sure she wanted to understand this conversation.

“West Point,” J.T. supplied. “I enrolled the director in the Communist Party. I
hated
West Point.”

“And that got you kicked out?”

“Nah. That was considered a boys-will-be-boys prank. When he came to call me on it and found me in bed with his daughter,
that
got me kicked out.”

“You seduced the director's daughter?”

“He's a pig,” Marion said. “Absolutely no self-control.”

“How do you know I was the seducer?” J.T. quizzed innocently.

Marion shook her head. “Give it up, Jordan. If you were turned loose in a nunnery, by the end of the day they'd all renounce God.”

“Thank you. I try.” J.T. gave Tess a look that was blatantly wolfish. “Did I scare you?”

“When?” She was having trouble concentrating.

“Earlier. When I asked Marion to call the police.”

“I guess. I have a lot to be scared of.”

“You have both Marion and me here, Tess. It's even legal for Marion to shoot to kill.”

“He's right, you know,” Marion said. “At least this time. It's not easy to become an FBI agent, and it's even harder for a woman. I'm good. I'll make sure nothing happens to you, Tess.”

Tess didn't answer; she'd been told such things before, and none of the assurance had helped her when Jim had stepped out of her closet and hefted a bat to his shoulder. She said, “That was a nice thing you did — putting away the beer. Teetotaling is really getting to him.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. I knew about the annual tequila binges, but they're only once a year and, well, given the circumstances…”

“His wife's death?” Tess guessed.

Marion nodded. “Teddy died instantly. But Rachel… She was in a coma for five days. J.T. just kept sitting there in the hospital, holding her hand. He seemed so certain that she would open her eyes and be with him again. He just couldn't let her go. He's weak that way.” Marion pushed away from the wall. “You have to be able to cut your losses, to move on. But J.T. can't seem to do that. He wants to go back and fix things way after the fact. It's a waste of time.”

J.T. lost his turn and Marion strode forward, leaving Tess to digest this unexpected burst of information. J.T. came to lean against the wall beside her, stretching out his legs and crossing his arms. He already appeared much more relaxed. She moved a little closer to him and joined him in a comfortable silence.

It wasn't until the seventh game that the trouble happened.

Tess never did know who started it. One moment she was watching J.T. volley the silver ball back into the megapoints zone, the next she heard a scream followed by a crash.

Everyone turned at once.

A man, obviously drunk, was towering over the woman who'd been playing the car game. He pointed at her and cursed her in voluble streams of Spanish. Though only half his size, the woman didn't give an inch. She stood to her full height and screamed right back.

The man pulled back his arm. He slapped the woman hard, snapping her head around. She crashed against the machine, falling bonelessly to the ground.

“For God's sake, no!” Marion cried. She lunged for J.T.'s arm, but she was too late. J.T. lunged into the thick of it.

Like a massive tidal wave, the crowd of people surged, some eddying out the door to escape and others moving in closely. More people — muscle-bound, testosterone-pumped men — flooded in, looking for action. Tess saw the woman try to rise, then flounder and fall back. Something dark and wet matted the woman's hair. Blood.

“Damn,” Marion said. She shook her head, then seemed to lose the war with herself and stepped forward.

Tess looked at J.T. He was raising his left arm to block one blow and pulling back his right arm to deliver another. She looked at Marion, striding purposefully ahead.

She took a deep breath.

She set her sights on the fallen woman and stepped into the whirlpool.

IT WAS HOT. Sweat-soaked flesh pressed against sweat-soaked flesh until the air seemed to steam. It was loud. She couldn't distinguish any single voice or cry, she just heard the dull roar building to a crescendo. It was thick. She was too short to see over and too small to shoulder her way through. So she pushed and pawed, as if hacking her way through a dense undergrowth, trying to remember where she'd last seen the woman and head in that direction.

She burst into a small clearing and drew in a huge gulp of air. Then, like a swimmer, she held it in her lungs and plunged back in.

An arm caught her in the shoulder and she stumbled. Another arm caught her and tossed her back onto her feet. She lurched forward, her hands fisted at her sides, her jaw clenched. Someone jostled her, and in a spurt of terror she used some of her newly developed muscle to push back. The body gave way instantly. She was amazed.

She pushed herself through and found the fallen woman, who was moaning and clutching her head. Tess hunched down, eyeing the woman anxiously.

A crash resounded above them. Tess and the woman swiveled their heads simultaneously to find the new threat. A man stood beside then, looking not at them but at another charging man. The first man wielded the jagged half of a broken beer bottle in front of him.

“Damn,” Tess swore. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Marion bursting from the crush, her hair disheveled, her blouse ripped. She didn't even glance at Tess or the fallen woman. She went straight after the man with the broken bottle. He tried to bring up his arm to fend her off.