Dark to Mortal Eyes (55 page)

And he’d sent Josee off with her! Practically packed her into the car himself!

Marsh made quick calls. His chess game needed some new tactics.

Sergeant Turney pulled into his driveway as the phone rang.

“Sarge,” said Henri Esprit, “I may be a few minutes late, but I still intend to meet you in front of Fred Meyer’s. Be patient if I’m not as prompt as I’d like to be. I have something to pick up.”

“I’ll be there. Gonna change outta my uniform, then head out.”

“I have other news. My nephew Nick—he’s a computer whiz, a student at OSU—he’s been monitoring Marsh’s opponent online. Don’t expect me to decipher the lingo, but I guess this man’s logged on and off a couple of times in the past twenty-four hours so that Nick, by process of elimination, has managed to identify his modem. With an unspecified computer program—that for now I will assume is legal—Nick’s gained access to the man’s hard drive and copied his e-mail address base. He believes the information could prove indispensable to your department’s investigation of local terrorist threats.”

“I have no official comment. Off the record? Sounds like he hit the ol’ jackpot.”

“More significantly, he says he should be able to identify the user’s physical address, as well as others from the database. Particularly those within Oregon.”

Karl Stahlherz? Is this our guy? I’ll bet the addresses read like an ICV roll call
.

“Here, Esprit, let me give you a number that Nick can call to hook up with some guys on the state level who specialize in trackin’ Internet-related
crimes. Being as we’re under the gun, they’ll be able to speak his language and jump right on it, get the ball rolling.” Turney dictated the appropriate info.

“Thanks, Sarge. I can only hope Nick follows through on this. He’s a loner, not much of one for working with the powers that be. He might resist on principle.”

“People’s lives are at stake.”

“I’ll urge him firmly, but gently, to get over it.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Turney signed off and climbed the carport steps that led into the kitchen. He closed the door, loosened his belt, and slipped off his shoes. What was he missing? Some crucial element had eluded him.

At the fridge door, his stomach rumbled like a concrete mixer. He set fingers on the handle, felt its cool comfort.

That’s when the second call came to his aid.

“Sarge,” said the detective, “we have a visual at the House of Ubelhaar PO box. Short, college-age Caucasian male with a bleached crewcut, wearing loose-fitting corduroys and an off-white, button-down shirt. He emptied the box. Now he’s hanging around at the corner. Waiting, it seems. He was dropped off by a tan Ford Aerostar.”

“Could be the van,” Turney said, releasing the fridge handle. “The one the espresso-booth girl mentioned. Don’t let him outta your sight, you got that?”

“Yes, sir, but he’s. Hold it, a vehicle just pulled up. An old Studebaker, Sarge, you believe that? I didn’t know there were any still around. Okay, looks like the kid’s handing stuff through the window. Unable to view the driver from this angle. Should we tail them?”

“You betcha. You go after the Studebaker. Have your partner follow the kid. I’ll be dropping below radar for a while, but you can keep me posted on my voice mail.”

“Consider it done, sir.”

“And, Detective? Call for backup if you sense any trouble. With the threat of an attack tonight, I don’t need ya takin’ any chances.”

He turned from the humming mechanical preserver of all things cold and delicious and headed to the bedroom where he changed clothes, cleaned and re-dressed his seeping scars, then slipped on his shoulder holster.

Maybe there
was
something to this fasting exercise.

Thunder Turney was feeling lighter on his feet. Ready to fight.

Ten minutes after three.

Stahlherz wrapped himself in a long black coat, swelling his chest and stretching his arms into the loose sleeves. He repositioned the curved dagger in his pocket, then dropped the phone and stolen glass queen into another.

Years ago he had signed the PO box contract in his own name, protecting his mother’s identity, since his own could not be linked elsewhere. Apparently, Marshall had put together the facts, calling him by name in their phone conversation.

I knew you to be a worthy opponent. Alas, your plans’ll shatter like glass
.

Stahlherz wrapped himself in the coat’s folds and stared into the mirror across the room. His was the form of a shiftless black rook. He drew on his chess parlance and selected the term “doubled rooks,” two castles working in unison.

Yes, he and the rook had become one.

“Josee?”

Her name. Being called. From another planet.

“Josee?”

With a massive effort she pried her eyes open. Saw nothing. When she closed them again, remnants of bright colors whisked around and connected to the dull throbbing in the middle of her skull. She kept her eyes open this time, detecting a movement in the nothingness. An indefinable shape.

“Hello there.” A woman’s voice. Familiar. Like a piece of music heard long ago.

“That you?”

The response was gentle. “It’s me, Josee. Your mother.”

“Kara.” Her tongue formed the word with difficulty. “I can’t see you.”

“No windows down here. We’re in a storage cellar.”

Josee reoriented herself. The beach house. Town of Yachats, on the Oregon coast. “Can’t we turn on the lights?” Even as the question left her lips, she realized she couldn’t move. She was propped in a wooden chair, hands cinched behind her back, knees taped together, feet tied between two posts.

The posts shifted. Legs. Her mother’s legs?

“We’re bound together.” Kara’s voice was hoarse. “Facing each other.”

“It’s you?”

“It’s me.”

Josee blinked in the blackness. She tried to ignore the cellar’s smells. She doubted that she could’ve restricted her own bodily functions in this creepy tomblike space. “Kara, you’re not hurt, are you? Are you okay?”

“I am now.” Kara’s voice trembled.

“It’s hard to believe it’s really you. Is it true you got shot in the hip years ago?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Happened the night you were born. The doctors had
to do an emergency C-section. Can you feel that? That’s me wiggling. I’ve been trying to keep moving in every possible way to stay alert and to keep from cramping.”

“So it is you, Kara. Your voice sounds smoother on the phone.”

“Throat’s parched. Haven’t had anyone to talk to, and they’ve kept me gagged. I’ve been tied up here since Wednesday, fairly miserable. Two days, and I’ve … It’s been so lonely. And I’d hoped to bring you to this house myself.”

“We’re together now. How’s that for irony?”

“Here we are.” Kara sounded small, engulfed by the cellar’s darkness. “Some guy I don’t even recognize—tries to act calm, but he frightens me—he came down last night. Says that he’s not interested in money, that he’s using me as bait to trap my husband. How is Marsh? Have you seen him?”

“He’s looking for you. Yeah, I saw him. And guess what?”

“Oh, darling, don’t tell me. Was he rude to you? I warned you that he—”

“We started off rocky, all right. He came off as a real jerk. But something’s changed, I guess, like he’s opening to the idea. He showed me his father’s journal.”

“Chance’s journal? I wasn’t aware it still existed.”

Across from Josee, Kara’s shape seemed to hunch forward. From above, Josee thought she heard far-off footsteps and the whine of an engine. She squelched the pain in her head and the fear, then shared what she had read in the truck stop. Kara listened with minor interruptions.

As Josee finished, Kara said, “On my end, I have something to share.”

“There’s more? My brain’s already toast.”

“I’m quite serious on this matter, Josee. Not that I want to tell you, not really, but it’ll explain some of Marsh’s reservations in accepting you as his daughter. He’s a good man. I’m partly to blame for the walls he’s erected.”

“No, that’s what women always say. Don’t take his junk and call it your own.”

“Some of it is my own.” Without further preamble, Kara jumped into an abbreviated version of a long-ago indiscretion at a campus party, spelling out the facts as though rehearsing them to herself in the black cellar. Her voice took on the steadiness of one trying hard to maintain control. “It’s an evening
I’ll always regret, an incident I should never have let happen. Marsh’s never believed me, though, never let me explain that it went no further than some kisses and … caresses.”

“So Marsh is my father? As in, the real deal?”

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Please, Josee, I’ve lived with this over my head long enough, even blamed myself for letting you go. As though it’s been my fault entirely. At times I still wrestle with those regrets.”

“But the journal. Don’t you see? I’m like some freakin’ curse in this family. No wonder Marsh and his mother were afraid of keeping me around, afraid that it would lead to others getting hurt. This whole thing’s so twisted.”

“I should’ve insisted on keeping you. I could’ve taken care of you.”

“Hey, we’re here together now, aren’t we?”

Kara’s legs moved against Josee’s in the darkness. “That’s right.”

“And I’ve gotta say it, Mom. You’re looking real good.”

“You, too.”

“Talk about a
captivating
conversation.”

Paralyzed by their bonds, they chuckled. Then Kara said, “I’ll take whatever I can get, a chance to be with my daughter. That’s been the hardest part of being down here. Being hungry and dirty and scared—that’s been bad enough. But knowing you would think I’d run out on our reunion—that was torture. I thought about you all day, cried and prayed. Asked God to open your eyes to all that’s gone on, past and present.”

“Open my eyes? If you only knew.”

“Darling, I’m so sorry it’s happened like this.”

Josee felt her throat tighten. She soaked in her mother’s voice.

Kara said, “I was sure that when I didn’t show up, you’d never contact me again.”

“I called,” said Josee, “and your housekeeper told me it was postponed. Next thing I knew you were gone, and nobody knew where you were. Then they found your car down in a ravine, and some kid on the news said he’d kidnapped you, even had your earrings to prove it.”

“I recognized him. He did work at the vineyard.”

“Yep. Well, for a while they even suspected Marsh. Cops searched your place and everything.”

“Does he know that I’m alive?”

“He thinks you are. There’re things he’s still not telling me. And now he thinks I’m safely tucked away from the action. In fact, he put me into the car himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s that kid on the news, but the woman who drove me over here, she must be as deep in it as any. She lied to me, stinkin’ lured me into that park. Says she works for you and Marsh. Rosamund Yeager, does that sound right?”

“Rosie? She’s here?”

In jeans and a camouflage hunting jacket, Sergeant Turney stationed himself outside of Fred Meyer’s supermarket. The vending machines glowed behind him. He stamped his feet and rubbed his hands against the nip of the early-evening air. Twenty minutes to four. Esprit would be here soon, driving Marsh Addison’s forest green Tahoe.