Buried Evidence (32 page)

“I don’t think I need you to remind me,” Lily snapped, thinking he was hitting below the belt. “Here I have to carry all this guilt because I shot the wrong man, and the man I should have killed is still terrorizing us.”

“The police are looking for Curazon,” Richard told her, thinking he had picked the wrong time to argue his viewpoints on the Middleton case. “If it will give you some peace of mind, I can sleep on the sofa at your place tonight.”

“No,” Lily said, shaking her head. “I called the Santa Barbara P.D. and asked them to have a unit watch my place. Besides, I don’t want Shana—” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “You should have told me as soon as you heard that Curazon was carrying around a picture of Shana.”

“I didn’t want to alarm you,” he explained. “This thing with the picture may only be a coincidence. For all we know, Curazon could have shown the guy an actual photograph of some woman he’s been dating. You know the psychological profile of men who commit these types of crimes. It isn’t uncommon for them to seek out relationships with women who resemble their former victims.”

“None of this stuff with Curazon is a coincidence,” Lily said, adamant. “It all fits, don’t you see? He had to have been inside the guest house. The key to the duplex disappeared, along with the envelope with Shana’s address on it. That’s why I don’t want her to go back there.”

Richard ran his hands through his hair. “I thought you said there were no signs of forced entry. I’ve searched for months for things I’ve misplaced. Then one day they just turn up. The more emphasis you place on the Curazon situation, the less strength you’re going to have to help Shana during this ordeal she’s facing with her father and the accident.”

Lily scooted her chair even closer to him. “I got into a screaming match with John yesterday,” she said, nervously scratching her shoulder. “He believes I’m the one who told Shana not to talk to him. Then when I told him I expected him to be
out of the duplex by Monday, he started threatening to turn me in to the police again.”

“You’ve already told me,” Richard said. “You didn’t answer my question, Lily. How do you think Curazon managed to get inside your place? Did you change the locks when you moved in?”

“No,” she told him. “I could have accidentally left the door unlocked one day. He could have found my spare key, for that matter.” She saw him grimace, and impulsively shouted, “Okay, I was an idiot to keep a key hidden on the property.”

He pointed toward the window, reminding her that if she didn’t want her daughter to overhear their conversation, she would have to lower her voice.

“I realize most criminals know people hide spare keys,” Lily whispered, rubbing her forehead. Why did she do such foolish things? Hadn’t she learned the worst lesson any woman could learn when it came to personal safety? She did stupid things because she was habitually preoccupied. When they had worked together, she’d seen Richard in the same state—times when he’d fallen into such a deep state of concentration that she’d practically had to kick him to get his attention. “Curazon may have crawled through an open window,” she continued. “I felt safe there, don’t you see? I let my guard down. Now I’ll have to get a security system installed right away. The only problem is, I can’t do it without getting permission from the owners.”

“Why would they care?” he rationalized. “All you’re doing is improving their property. You’ll be paying the monthly expense.”

“My landlords are away in Europe until next month,” Lily said, a sudden breeze lifting her hair off the nape of her neck. “What makes it so terrifying is the man Shana saw prowling around outside the duplex the night of the hit-and-run. It had to have been Curazon, Richard. Thank God I called the police that night. They must have pulled up just in time to scare him off.”

“Well,” he said, “at least she’s with you now.”

Lily rolled her neck around to relieve the tension. “Maybe this is what he’s been waiting for.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, swallowing the few drops of brandy left in his glass.

“How could you forget?” Lily’s eyes glazed over with fright, memories from the past surrounding her. “We were together when he raped us.”

She glanced at the bedside clock. It was almost eleven o’clock. Lily started to retrieve her briefcase from the living room to go over a few cases, but she couldn’t muster up the energy and instead removed her clothing and climbed under the covers, thinking that tonight sleep might come. Almost euphoric knowing her daughter was asleep in the new four-poster bed across the hall and the evening had gone so well, she turned off the light. It then dawned on her that she had not checked the doors, a chore John had always handled before their separation
.

With her terry-cloth robe wrapped loosely around her, she padded barefoot into the kitchen, deciding to check the kitchen door first. It was a quiet neighborhood: no cars, no barking dogs, just blissful stillness
.

Entering the kitchen, she saw the drapes billowing in the slight breeze, being sucked through the open sliding-glass door. She chastised herself for not locking it but felt the area was so safe, it probably wasn’t even necessary. As she pushed the drapes aside and started pulling the door in the track, a funny feeling came over her, a sense of something amiss. Holding her breath in order to hear better, she heard a squeak, like the sound of a basketball player’s sneakers on the court
.

It all happened at once: the noise behind her, her heart beating so fast it hurt, her robe pushed up from the floor over her face with lightning speed. As she struggled to scream and free herself, her feet slid out from under her, but she did not fall. What must be an arm was placed directly over her mouth. Trying to sink her teeth into the arm, she bit a mouthful of terry-cloth instead. She was nude from the waist down and felt the cold night air against her lower body. Her bladder emptied, splashing against the tile floor
.

She tried to move her arms, but they were trapped across her chest inside the robe. Kicking out furiously, her foot connected
with what must be a kitchen chair, and it screeched across the floor, landing with a loud thud against the wall
.

The backs of her calves and her feet were burning, and she knew she was being dragged down the hall—toward where her daughter slept. Shana, she thought. Oh God, no, Shana! The only sound she emitted was a muffled, inhuman groan of sheer agony coming from her stomach through her vocal cords to her nasal passages. Her mouth would not move. Her feet struck something. The wall? No longer kicking—no longer struggling, she was praying: “…as I walk through the Valley of Death…” She couldn’t remember the words. Flashes of the past were meshed with the present. Not Shana, not her child—she had to protect her child
.

“Mom.” She heard her voice, first questioning and childlike, and then the terror of her sickening high-pitched scream reverberated in Lily’s head. She heard something heavy crash into the wall, body against body, the sound heard on a football field when the players collided. He had her. He had her daughter
.

In another moment they were on the bed in Lily’s bedroom. When he removed his arm, the robe fell away and she could see him in the light from the bathroom. Shana was next to her and he was over them both. Light reflected off the steel of the knife he held only inches away from Lily’s throat. His other hand was on Shana’s neck. Lily grabbed his arm, and with the abnormal strength of terror she almost succeeded in twisting his arm backward, turning the knife toward him, seeing in her mind the blade entering his body where his heart beat. But he was too strong and with eyes wild with excitement, darting back and forth, his tongue protruding from his mouth, he forced the blade sideways into her open mouth, the sharp edges nicking the tender edges of her lips. She bit down on the blade with her teeth, her tongue touching something crusty and vile. His face was only inches away, his breath rancid with beer. “Taste it,” he said, a look of pleasure on his face. “It’s her blood.”

“Lily!” Richard shouted, leaping out of his chair. She had been sitting there silently, staring off into space when she suddenly struck out at him, shattering the wineglass in his hand.

“My God,” she exclaimed, “you’re bleeding. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said, wrapping his hand in a white napkin, the crimson blood soaking through almost instantly. “You were just sitting there when you began flinging your arms around.”

“I’m sorry,” Lily said, forcing back the memories. “Is it bad?”

Richard let her take his hand and look at the wound. A sliver of broken glass was embedded in his palm. “I feel terrible,” she said. “Do you have a pair of tweezers?”

With his left hand Richard quickly plucked out the piece of glass, then held the napkin pressed tightly against the wound to stop the flow of blood. “It’s nothing, Lily,” he told her. “In a few minutes it will probably stop bleeding.”

“Let me see it again,” Lily protested, still fighting off the terrifying images from the night of the rape.

“No,” he said, taking another look at it. “It’s not that deep. I’ll be fine. You and Shana need to go home, try to get some rest.”

Lily glanced in through the window and saw that Shana was still talking to Greg. They were both pleased when they observed the animated expression on her face and heard her laughing. Entering the bungalow, Lily tiptoed over and closed the French doors; her daughter was so preoccupied, she didn’t notice.

“Come on, Richard.” Lily grabbed a piece of the hotel’s stationery and dashed off a note to Shana, telling her that they had gone for a drive and would return shortly. Leaving the note on the dining room table, she told Richard, “There’s a Von’s down in the village. That’s a nasty cut and I don’t want it to get infected. We’ll take my car and pick up some bandages and disinfectant.”

Richard protested. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,

Lily.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “Would you rather go to the emergency room?”

“No,” he said, shuffling behind her and grudgingly climbing into the passenger seat of the Audi.

•  •  •

S
IGN HERE
, Mr. Montgomery,” Norm Reynolds said, sliding a lease agreement on a metallic blue Buick LeSabre across his desk. An African American in his mid-twenties, Reynolds was a good-looking young man, dressed in a brown turtleneck sweater and matching slacks. He was excited that he’d managed to close another deal in time to make the weekly stats, even if he did have to stay past the dealership’s nine o’clock closing time. There was still time to go home, shower, then swing by and pick up his girlfriend. He’d already called her and told her, bragging that he would be posted on the board as salesman of the week come Monday. She was home primping for their big night out on the town.

John quickly forged the name Bryant Montgomery in the spots where Reynolds had affixed small red tags, then handed the stack of papers back to him. “What do we do next? I’ve got something important on the burner. One of my biggest clients is arriving at LAX tonight. I can’t afford to leave him waiting at the gate. He’s looking at homes in the two-million-dollar range.”

Reynolds stood, deciding he would have to check out the real estate profession. From the financial information Mr. Montgomery had provided, the man was raking in a pile of bread. He’d listed his income as thirty thousand per month. “What kind of commission would you make if this guy bought a house in that price range, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh,” John said, “I’d estimate around forty grand. My client is a high-level executive with Microsoft. Need I say more?”

“Real estate sounds like my kind of game,” the young man said, quickly stapling all the forms together. “How long would it take me to get a license?”

“I’d be happy to tell you all about it,” John told him. “But like I said, I’ve got to get to the airport. Being Friday night and all, I could get stuck in traffic. My client might get pissed and decide to take his business elsewhere.”

“We’ll get you out of here,” Reynolds assured him, circling around to the front of the desk. For some reason, when people
bought cars they wanted them immediately. He might not be selling million-dollar estates like this Montgomery guy, but a person couldn’t just walk in off the street and expect to drive off in a new car in the time it took to pick out a pair of tennis shoes. “All I need now is a copy of your driver’s license and a check for the deposit,” he told him, “and then you’ll be out the door. You already called your insurance man, right?” As soon as John nodded, he continued. “Are you going to leave your other car here on the lot and come back for it in the morning? If so, make certain it’s inside the gate.”

“My wife dropped me off,” John lied, relieved the man hadn’t seen him pulling up in a cab. “This car is a surprise gift for my wife’s birthday.” He remembered how jealous he’d been when Lily had given Shana the Mustang for her high school graduation, realizing why he had fabricated that particular story. He reached into his pocket as if he were going for his wallet, then came up with the folded-over stack of hundreds. “What in the hell—” he exclaimed, making a show of patting down all his pockets, then looking around as if he thought his wallet might have fallen out on the floor. “Someone must have picked my pocket when I was walking around at the shopping center a few hours ago. I had several checks in there as well.”

Reynolds glanced at the rolled-up bills on the desk. “Why would a thief snatch your wallet and not go after your cash? Did you carry your wallet and money in the same pocket?”

“No,” John said, brushing his palm over the top of his head. “I usually carry my wallet in my back pocket.” He swept the bills up, quickly putting them away before one fell under the desk. “I’ll give you the six hundred for the deposit in cash. My driver’s license number is on the lease application, so you’ve already verified I have a valid license.”

Reynolds was beginning to get antsy, afraid he was going to ruin his own plans for the evening. He couldn’t afford to blow his job, however. “I’m not supposed to let you take the car without a photo ID.”