Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2) (38 page)

B
ENJI
THOUGHT
HE'D
never seen anything more beautiful than the old adobe walls of Cristo Rey Church. But he didn't linger; he followed the path of the great owl. The bird stayed with the river, parallel to Upper Canyon Road.

     
Each house along this stretch of the Santa Fe River had a different character. A cloistered eighty-year-old adobe stood next to a light-drenched solar house; farther on, a barnlike studio fronted a rustic stone cottage.

     
Benji raced past someone's yard and ornamental pond. He glanced down into dark water, and he saw a cluster of orange, white, and red koi, their tails undulating in unison. The rhythm of the fish mesmerized him, but he did not allow his pace to slow. He kept traveling toward the mountains.

     
When he had almost reached the entrance to the reservoir, he realized that his guide, the owl, had disappeared. Deserted him. Now he felt the immobilizing voice of fear. All the way to his toes he felt it. And it was the one thing that could take him down, the one thing that could destroy his flight. Fear was the only emotion that could rob him of his power.

     
He was surrounded by mountains. Beyond the reservoir and the ski basin there would be only wilderness. Benji could smell the sharp tang of ashes. Ash, smoke, fire.

     
He felt a presence behind him, turned, and spied the owl. It was perched on the branch of a tall pine tree near the mouth of a dirt road. Its powerful talons gripped the rough wood, its gray feathers moved almost imperceptibly with each breath. Ever so slowly, the owl rotated its blunt and feathered head one hundred eighty degrees to clutch Benji with its avian eyes.

S
YLVIA
GAZED
AT
the woman she'd known as Erin Tulley. She hardly recognized the eyes or the mouth; rage had altered Erin's features, turned them hard and cold.

     
Tulley said, "I've been waiting. What took you so long?"

     
"Erin, where's Matt?" Sylvia struggled to keep her words stripped of emotion.

     
Adobe howled from another room, a grating plea for release. The Doberman's paws scratched wood. The judge seemed to hear his dog for the first time. He looked worriedly at Erin, but she ignored him. Instead, she focused her attention on Sylvia.

     
Erin smiled. "It's time for the Killer to follow the path of judgment and destruction."

     
Her voice chilled Sylvia; it was Dupont White.

     
Erin said, "You can't be trusted, none of you."

     
Sylvia watched Erin carefully, trying to gauge where the madness stopped, where logic began. The woman was sweating, almost hyperventilating, and her body was rigid. But there was a canny spark of intelligence in her eyes.

     
She said, "After Las Cruces, Dupont came to me. He'd been shot. For three days, I never left him, not for a second. And then he died like a warrior. After that, I still kept him with me."

     
For a few moments, Erin was distracted by the sound of an airplane flying over the house; she stood stiffly as the engine noise faded away.

     
When silence returned, she whispered, "Nasty dreams. . . that never go away."

     
She began to unbutton her shirt. Paint was streaked across her bare throat and chest. A carefully designed bird had disintegrated into muddy smears of black and red across her small breasts. Sweat, repelled by the greasepaint, ran down her skin in rivulets; the waist of her pants was soaked through under her belt.

     
With her left hand, Erin pulled a buck knife from a leather sheath on her hip. She sighed, "They hurt me." She placed the tip of the knife to her chest, and drew the blade diagonally across smooth flesh. Blood beaded and ran; it flowed over her ribs. She didn't react to the pain; her eyes were cold and clear as water. And her fingers stayed steady on the revolver's trigger.

     
She slid the knife back into its sheath. Then she scraped her thumb along her rib cage. Her focus didn't waver from her two captives as she smeared greasepaint mixed with blood across one cheek, then the other.

     
Sylvia knew what she represented in Erin's eyes: she had the man Erin had loved, she had professional standing, and she made a career of understanding the men Erin murdered. The Killers' Doctor.

     
And Erin had become a killer.

     
The revolver wavered now, but Erin forced herself to cock the trigger as she stepped closer to the judge. She whispered, "Why couldn't you make them stop? That was your job, all along. You were no better than they were." She shuddered. "That's why I let Anthony Randall walk out of your courtroom."

     
The judge didn't move. He had a faraway look on his old face—one of resignation and compliance. He said, "If you want to kill me, go ahead."

     
Erin's control crumbled. In an instant she looked completely bewildered, like a lost child. Sylvia thought of the little girl who had spent her summers at Devil's Den. That child was here, in the room, crazed with pain.

     
Howzer spoke again, and his whisper held puzzlement. "Jayne? Did you come to hurt me, child? Is that what you want?" He shifted his bulk in the chair and reached out one trembling hand. He was seriously ill. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His complexion had a florid glow, the kind of glassy tone that precedes a heart attack. His gaze was vacant and unfocused.

     
Erin pulled a photograph from her back pocket and tossed it at Nathaniel Howzer. It fell to the floor by his feet. She hissed, "You gave this to Dupont, but it's too late for your bullshit justice."

     
Sylvia stared down at the photograph. It looked like the ones she'd seen at the motel: a very young Jayne Gladstone, naked and bound. A travesty of the golden child. She felt Erin's eyes on her. She lifted her gaze. For an instant, those eyes belonged to the girl in the photograph—then the child was lost behind the grotesque and primitive mask of the killer.

     
The gun jerked to life in Erin's hand—spit fire and metal when she pulled the trigger three times. The first bullet came within inches of Sylvia's throat. The second bullet hit the wall behind Nathaniel Howzer. The last one shattered glass.

     
It took Sylvia a moment to register that the judge had not been shot.

     
Howzer looked up at Erin blankly. His arms went slack. The house was silent except for the Doberman's worried cry.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

E
RIN
T
ULLEY
JABBED
the barrel of the .38 between Sylvia's ribs. "Stand up. Move."

     
She stood an inch shorter than Sylvia, but she weighed about one hundred forty pounds and much of her bulk was muscle. She had the added power of a woman who had cut loose all bonds that had anchored her to reality.

     
Sylvia knew that Erin's primitive psychological structure would allow her to move fluidly in and out of dissociative or fugue states when her consciousness, memories, perceptions—even her identity—were disrupted. She might sound coherent one moment but not the next. Any attempt to predict her ebb and flow would be like trying to pin down smoke. She also guessed that Erin had at least one more bullet in her gun.

     
Erin's eyes seemed to glow. She gave off an acrid scent. Her dark hair was matted with her own blood.

     
Sylvia said, "The judge is dying, Erin. A heart attack. We've got to get help—"

     
"Go!"

     
Sylvia took a deep, ragged breath and walked out of the house, down the flagstone path toward her car. The driveway was deserted. Dense trees blocked the view of surrounding houses or the road farther below. There was no one to see the bizarre spectacle of the two women—one half naked and painted.

     
Sylvia turned, waiting for a command.

     
Erin said, "This way." She tipped the revolver in the direction of the mountains behind the property.

     
Sylvia led the way alongside the house. Both women passed the veranda, a small manicured lawn, and a fruit orchard—apple, pear, apricot, and peach trees. Beyond the orchard they entered a thicket of pine and aspens. Sylvia thought they were on a trail that led to an out-building—perhaps a garden shed. But the path continued, and beyond the dense cover of trees it became a narrow, rough road.

     
Her heart sank; when someone finally came looking for them, there would be nothing to find.

M
ATT
SLAMMED
THE
Caprice in gear and raced up Alameda Street on his way to Upper Canyon Road and Nathaniel Howzer's home. The state police dispatcher had relayed Sylvia's message to Terry Osuna.

     
Why the hell did she go to see the judge on her own? When I find her, I'll kill her!

     
Matt inhaled a Life Saver as he nosed the Caprice between a parked car and a tour bus. Metal scraped paint from metal. The Chevy had taken lots of punishment today—thank God it was a state car and not his own.

     
Too close. Not going to make it
.

     
He floored the gas pedal, the Chevy bolted suddenly from the jam, and two wheels bounced through someone's carefully tended cactus garden. Prickly pear and cholla were crushed by tires.

     
He couldn't believe how blind he'd been about Erin. Blind and stupid.

     
There were only a dozen homes at the high end of Upper Canyon Road before the old Randall Davey estate. Howzer's was the last house on the road. Beyond the judge's property, you'd find mountains—the start of the Sangre de Cristos. The reservoir. And wilderness.

     
He turned sharply into Howzer's steep driveway, pushed the pedal to the floor, and the Chevy lunged to the top of the grade. Matt braked next to Sylvia's Volvo.

     
In a flash he was out of the car and up the walk. The front door of the house was open. He listened for sounds of life, then he entered with care. Nathaniel Howzer was asleep in his armchair. Somewhere in the house two dogs barked—a deep bass and a yipper.

     
Matt said, "Nathan?" It took him a moment to realize the judge was dead—he saw no obvious wounds; he guessed heart attack or stroke. A photograph lay on the floor near Howzer's feet.

     
Matt knelt down to take a closer look. It was another pornographic image of Jayne Gladstone . . . Erin Tulley. But there was something different about this one. There were two girls. No. It was a mirror image. Jayne and her reflection. And there was a second reflection in the mirror. The photographer had caught himself in the picture. The man was naked. The camera obscured half his face. His features were familiar: Garret Ellington.

     
Matt left the judge and searched the house from top to bottom. No sign of Sylvia or Erin, but at least three rounds had been fired. And there was blood on the floor. It looked like there might be another victim.

     
Please, not Sylvia
.

     
Outside the house he tried to figure out where the women might have gone. There were trails leading away from various points on the property.

     
Matt could hear sirens of approaching vehicles. He knew Terry Osuna was on the way. He stood at a loss, then he made up his mind to take the Caprice and canvas the area. They had probably taken Erin's vehicle and cut back to the main roads. Matt sprinted across the property. He was almost to the Chevy when a flash of color caught his eye and he turned. He saw a man beckoning to him from the edge of the orchard. The man stood between apple and pear trees. He waved both his arms frantically. His body was poised to take off at a run. He wore blue work clothes. He was slight and dark. And Matt had seen him before.

     
He was the firefighter, the inmate: Benji Muñoz y Concha.

     
Confused, Matt called out. His mind struggled to come up with an explanation for the inmate's presence.

     
Benji disappeared between trees.

     
Matt followed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
HE
STEEP
LANDSCAPE
had gradually shifted from ponderosa pine to tall fir and spruce trees. It was cooler up here, but the sun was hot on Sylvia's back, and she was so parched her throat ached. Disoriented, she felt as if she had been traveling for hours; by her watch the uphill journey had only taken nineteen minutes.

     
She slowed her pace. She was a hostage, and because of that, time was her ally. The more minutes that passed, the greater the opportunities to defuse the situation, and, ultimately, the better her own chances for survival. Erin's agenda was chaotic and unpredictable—but Sylvia believed the woman intended to kill her.

     
It wasn't the possibility of her own death that made her sick—if and when the confrontation escalated, Sylvia would still have some control over her own fate—it was the fear that she would find Matt's body at the end of this trail.

     
At times, when the path widened, Erin walked beside Sylvia. She stared then, and she seemed to be memorizing Sylvia's features with a hunger. When the path narrowed again to a single track, she forced Sylvia to lead the way.

     
Now the trail grew even steeper. Sylvia's breath came fast and rough. Tree branches scraped her bare arms. Sweat made her skin itch. Erin appeared unfazed by exertion.