The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense (16 page)

“It’s going to rain,” he said, gazing down into her face with the sort of melancholy look people sometimes got when flipping through childhood photos.

Iris pushed herself to a sitting position and re-buttoned her jeans and blouse. She couldn’t find the elastic she’d used to corral her hair. To the west, a solid sheet of rain advanced toward them, curtaining the view. She fought a sudden boxed-in feeling by swiveling her head to the east, but the clouds had lowered to meet the treetops of Black Forest and she found no relief there. She stood and walked to the brink of the ravine.

Cade spoke from behind her. “I’ll give you a ride to your car.”

Iris studied the advancing clouds. “I can beat it.” She wanted time alone, didn’t want to be cooped up in a car with Cade right now. She kissed his cheek and he made no move to hold onto her. “I’d better get started.”

She started down the rocks, hearing Cade’s car start up behind her. Descending the slide took all her concentration; it was much trickier than climbing up. As the wind whipped her hair into her eyes, she told herself she was grateful the broiling sun was behind the clouds. Grabbing saplings to steady herself, or putting a hand down to catch her balance, Iris was a bit more than halfway down and could see her car clearly when something made her glance back. She scanned the canyon’s rim and caught a flicker of movement. A bird’s shadow? She looked up at the hematite sky, but no birds flew overheard; they’d all gone to roost to wait out the coming storm. Maybe a tumbleweed. The wind had picked up enough to send tumbleweeds bowling across flat places. The faintest tremor beneath her feet felt like the vibration from a passing train. At first, she thought it was thunder. Then, the stones sang a warning.

twenty-six

iris

A boulder tore free
from the rim and hurtled downhill, gathering dirt and other rocks until a virtual avalanche of stones surged toward Iris. If they hit her, she was dead. She threw herself sideways toward a gnarled pine. Leaping, she caught hold of the lowest branch, knobby and sap sticky, and levered herself up, using all the power in her shoulders and back. Her feet scraped the trunk and then she was clambering higher, praying the tree would stand fast as the first rocks slid into it. Pebbles bounced up, peppering her bare arms where they clutched the tree trunk. She ducked her chin to her chest and squinched her eyes closed.

The tree shuddered and swayed with the force of the avalanche. Iris pressed herself against the trunk so tightly the rough bark imprinted on her torso and legs through her clothes. After what felt like a long time but was probably less than a minute, everything went still. A cloud of dust hung in the air and Iris blinked. Waiting long moments to see if the rocks would shift again, she forced her stiff fingers open. It began to rain, a mist that streaked her dusty limbs with mud. Gingerly descending the tree, which seemed to have shifted several feet, but was still upright, she patted the trunk and laughed weakly. She broke off mid-laugh when she thought of the figure she’d seen just before the avalanche. Someone had pried the first boulder loose—she was sure of it. Delayed reaction set in and she started to shake. Had someone tried to kill her? No, that was silly, paranoid. Scare her maybe, or hurt her.

Iris sank to her haunches until the shaking stopped. Then she stood, wiping damp hair off her face. The rain had picked up, slicking the rocks and drenching her. She ducked her head. She wanted to dash pell-mell down the hill toward the rental, but knew that would result in a twisted ankle or worse, so she forced herself to descend cautiously, gaining confidence as the landscape remained stable. A gentle susurration puzzled her, until she realized it must be rainwater forming rivulets beneath the rocks, coursing downhill unseen.

The memory of the movement she’d seen tugged at her. Someone had pushed the boulder down on her. She didn’t want to think it, but her mind latched onto Cade. She’d heard him drive away, but he might have come back. The possibility that he might have tried to hurt her made her limbs heavy and she stubbed her foot against a rock.
Ow
. Regaining her balance, she skidded down the last twenty feet to the dirt path and turned onto it with relief. She couldn’t think why he might want to hurt her, but who else knew she was here?

She lifted her head and peered through the rain wall to locate her car. The car! Anyone could have driven past and spotted her rental parked in the lay-by. Relief washed over her at the realization that anyone could have followed her, or seen the car and taken advantage of the opportunity to try and injure her or scare her away—it didn’t have to be Cade. She broke into a jog and reached the car moments later, opening the door just wide enough to slide in. Wringing her hair out over the passenger seat, she started the car and watched the windows fog, chilled, bruised and aching in muscles she didn’t even know she had. She tilted the rearview mirror down and looked at herself, pale and with a scratch on her forehead, hair clinging to her cheeks. Her eyes hardened. Whoever thought a rock avalanche would scare her away before she got her father out of prison had another think coming.

Although she’d planned to visit the hospital again and assess Pastor Matt’s condition for herself, Iris let the lure of warm, dry clothes pull her to the motel room. Once inside, she spent twenty minutes in the shower before the hot water petered out, then dressed and sat at the desk to call Jane, wishing she were at an anonymous luxury hotel with room service so she could order a bowl of hot soup. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about her scrape with death, but now her finger shook as she punched in Jane’s number.

The sound of Jane’s no-nonsense voice cheered her immediately.

“It’s about time you checked in,” Jane said by way of greeting.

“Your phone dials out, too,” Iris pointed out.

“Hmph. What’s going on out there?”

“Not much. I got a threatening phone call and my car was vandalized, found out that my brother’s a soldier and I’m an aunt and that my best friend knew all along about Brozek abusing me.” She left out the bit about a rock avalanche. She didn’t want to worry Jane too much. “Oh, and I almost slept with my high school boyfriend.”

“Almost?”

Just like Jane to key in on the sexual element. Iris smiled. “Almost. The tingle was still there, but the connection wasn’t. Besides, he’s married. Separated, but married.”

There was silence from Jane’s end while she processed that. She apparently decided to let it lie, because she asked, “What threatening phone call?” When Iris filled her in, she said in a sharper tone, “You told the police, of course.”

Iris’s silence answered her.

“Iris! The police have ways to trace calls now, even after the fact. The NSA probably records every conversation we have.”

“That’s paranoid, even for a dyed-in-the-wool liberal like you.” Iris twiddled the wand that controlled the blinds, opening and closing them so light striped the floor and then disappeared. The rain had stopped.

“Whatever. The point is, you’ve been threatened and you need to get the police involved.”

“I called them when someone painted ‘liar’ all over my car. So far, they haven’t hauled anyone off to jail.”
And weren’t likely to any time soon
.
The Community protects its own
.

As if reading Iris’s mind, Jane sighed. “And your friend?”

“Jolene.”

“She knew all along that Brozek was molesting you?”

“Apparently.” Jane’s outrage pleased Iris, but the wound was too raw; she didn’t want to touch it and regretted mentioning it. “How’s Edgar?” Through the window, she watched a young family tumble out of a van and gaggle toward the motel office, mom cradling an infant, dad towing a toddler, and twin boys racing ahead. She hoped they didn’t get the room beside her.

“Doing better.” Jane sounded relieved.

They said their farewells and Iris got dressed. Talking to Jane had reminded her that she needed to work on the award piece, so she picked up her sketchbook with trepidation, worried that the ideas wouldn’t flow. The pencil felt as ungainly as a shovel between her fingers, but she forced herself to draw. Nothing worked. Increasingly frantic, she ripped out page after page, some with no more than two or three lines on them, and flung them toward the trash can. Flipping the pad closed, she dropped it on the desk and lowered her forehead to her clenched fists. Wherever her creativity came from, it was dammed up like the ravine, choked off by her emotions, her history, Pastor Matt. She hoped it was merely blocked and not gone forever. Feeling desperate, she got out some of the rocks and gems she had with her, feeling them cool and round in her palm, looking for inspiration. Nothing nothing nothing. When she gave up and shoved them aside, it was dark. The bedside clock read 8:30.

Surprised by the lateness, she put away the sketchbook and her supplies, feeling not tired, but restless and itchy. When her stomach gurgled, Iris traded her work boots for a pair of peep-toe pumps, grabbed her leather jacket and headed out.

One hour and one margherita pizza later, Iris strode through downtown Colorado Springs, headed toward Weber Street and the Greyhound bus station. She knew it was foolish—it was still too early to go looking for trouble—but the thought of lost girls arriving at the station she had left from, threading their way past drug dealers and pimps, con artists and sickos, drew her away from the busy downtown. She considered calling Jane, but slid her phone back in her jeans. Jane wasn’t her sponsor in some sort of twelve-step addiction program. As she crossed Tejon Street, a large neon parrot standing guard over a bar called The Thirsty Parrot caught her eye. The name was familiar and it took her a moment to remember that it was the one Aaron Brozek had recommended.

She hesitated, part of her leaning toward the bus depot and the possibility of a fight, her saner half arguing that sex would do the trick, would scratch her itch and restore her equilibrium. She wrenched herself off the sidewalk and into The Thirsty Parrot. The bar felt and smelled and sounded familiar, even though she’d never been there before. It could have been any one of a dozen bars in any one of a dozen cities. The crowd looked to be part college kids, part military, and part professional. Easy pickings. She wound her way to the bar, still fighting the urge to stake out the bus station. Swinging herself onto a barstool with a scowl, she ordered a Laughing Lab.

“Someone’s had a bad day,” the man on the stool to her left said jovially. Gray hairs sprouted above the neckline of his purple silk
T-shirt and tangled in the heavy links of a gold chain. A gut spilled over the waistband of his slacks. He winked when he caught Iris’s eye.

Iris gave him a “drop dead” look and turned her back on him. On her other side, a young couple were kissing and feeling each other up like they were alone in a bedroom instead of standing in full view of a couple hundred people. The man’s hand had shoved the woman’s short skirt up far enough that Iris glimpsed lacy black undies. She rolled her eyes and faced front again, drinking half her beer. Maybe she wasn’t really in the mood for sex. She’d drink two beers and go. Back to the motel, maybe, or to the bus depot. She’d see how late it was when she finished her beers.

Halfway through her second beer and a friendly conversation with the female bartender, Iris felt someone wedge his way between her stool and Mr. Winker’s. The voice that ordered a martini was familiar and she looked up to see Aaron Brozek standing beside her, casual in jeans and a button-down shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows.

“Hey, I know you,” he said, catching her eye as he picked up his beer. He smiled. “The co-op.”

“Thanks for recommending this place,” Iris said. “You’re Aaron, right?”

“And you’re Iris.” He put down his beer to shake her hand.

He didn’t say her name like he knew about her, and Iris gave him a brilliant smile. Mr. Winker chose that moment to belch and slide off his stool, headed for the bathroom or home, and Aaron seized his seat. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” Iris flipped her hair over her shoulder and rested her elbows on the bar. The movements reminded her of Greg Lansing and she felt an inexplicable pang. “So, you’re working on your master’s. In what?”

“Psychology.”

“So, is a cigar ever just a cigar?”

“Sometimes.” He laughed and she caught hints of Jolene in the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’m not a Freudian.”

Iris half-listened as he explained the research he hoped to turn into a dissertation topic. Her hand brushed his where it lay near hers on the bar, and her knee rubbed his thigh when she swiveled her stool. He jumped like he’d been hit with an electric current, then leaned in closer.

“It’s loud in here,” he said, his lips mere inches from her ear. She nursed her beer for half an hour, flattering him and teasing him and asking interested questions about his studies. He was nice, if a bit pretentious about his intellectual attainments. He’d be better looking than most of the men in the bar if he lost the soul patch. She suspected he affected it to make himself look older and more serious. Licking her lips, Iris realized that she was only going through the motions, that she wasn’t in the mood for sex anymore, that her calculated seduction of Jolene’s son had drained her of randiness, rather than stoking it. She wanted to sink into her bed, alone, and sleep until noon. The thought surprised and un-nerved her.
This is a hell of a time to get scruples.
College-age men had always been self-absorbed and ever so slightly boring, so why was that putting her off Aaron and, for that matter, every man in the bar?

She let anger rise to displace the anxiety that threatened to derail her, and defiantly ordered a martini, despite her long-standing rule of no more than two beers. Sucking the olive between her lips when the drink arrived, aware of Aaron’s gaze glued to her mouth, she let her body sway to the grinding bass beat of the music pulsing through the bar. It seemed twice as loud as it had. Desire stirred within her again and she fanned it by downing the rest of her martini. She immediately felt buzzed and welcomed the feeling. When her glass was empty, she slid off her stool, standing close enough to Aaron to feel his chest expand with each breath. “I’m going,” she said, her tone a take-it-or-leave-it invitation.

His response was instantaneous. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

Tamping down the sadness that threatened to swamp her, Iris linked her fingers with his and followed him out of the bar.

They ended up at the motel when Aaron admitted to having a roommate in his thin-walled apartment near the university. His body was slim and his chest almost hairless, and his lovemaking was thoughtful and considerate when Iris wanted raw and unconstrained. Her short nails raked his back and bruises bloomed along his neck where she tasted him. In the end, he seemed to catch some of her fury and drove himself into her, expression almost savage as he strained for his orgasm. He left her technically satisfied, but writhing with an unfulfilled need she couldn’t name. She rolled away from him almost as soon as he was done and pulled up the sheet. Aaron flipped over on his back and let out a long breath.

“I’ve never had sex in a motel before,” he said, surprising a laugh out of Iris.

“Really?” She thought about it and realized he’d probably confined his sexual activities to the back seats of cars, and hurried trysts in apartments or dorm rooms when his or his partner’s roommates were out. Unless he was bedding married women, he’d have no need of a hotel’s anonymity. Iris felt old. “Well, now you have. Was it any different?”

She meant the question as a joke, but he took it seriously. “You’re different. I’ve never made love with an older woman.”

“You haven’t yet.” When he looked puzzled, she added, “That was sex, not lovemaking.”