Triple Exposure (26 page)

Tuesday, March 25

“So you’ll go away?” Rachel asked Zeke as she finished dressing. As much as it hurt her, she needed his assurance. “If I promise to see to your animals, you’ll go someplace where you’ll be safe? Please…”

He nodded, his green eyes awash with grief, and fastened his jeans. He watched her step into her shoes.

“And then you’ll let me know where you are? So I can meet up with you?”

“No,” he said. “I can’t.”

“But I’ll talk to my father. I’ll make things right with him, I promise. I’ll find the horses good homes, and Gus, too. Really good homes.”

“No, Rachel. You stay with your family—behind locked doors. And don’t give up on your career. If you came to me, you’d lose both. And I already have enough on my conscience.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t it matter that I love you?”

“More than I can tell you. But not enough to ruin your life. Listen to me, Rachel. This woman who’s stalking you, she’s gotten way too bold, coming out into the open to burn your van. Castillo’s sure to find her. Then
this will be all over, and you’ll be free to go on with your life.”

She swallowed hard, resisting the temptation to ask
What
life, without the one person she could really talk to—the one person,
other than her dad, that she could love
?
Because she’d be damned if she played the poor-pitiful-me card, damned if she begged him to rethink a decision that had so clearly cost him.

He’d never promised her forever, had never done a thing except discourage the idea of their getting together. Because in the grown-up world, there were factors that trumped love.

“If you change your mind…” she started.

He touched her cheek with callused fingers. “You just be careful until she’s caught, maybe move in for a while with Patsy and your father. Because it’d kill me if I found out you were…”

She leaned against him, hugging him for all she was worth. After a long hesitation, he cradled the back of her head, his fingers stroking her hair. He kissed her crown and whispered, “I’m not changing my mind, Rachel. And you’d better get going. I still have lots to do before I leave. I’ll feed the horses, though, so you won’t have to come out ’til tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll leave you money for their upkeep, a check on the table in here—”

She pushed herself onto her tiptoes and kissed him hard on the mouth, catching his flavor and his heat. Long before she had enough, she pulled away and headed for the door.

“Good-bye, Zeke Pike,” she said over her shoulder, then rushed outside to the car, hurrying so he wouldn’t see her break down.

She didn’t make it to the door before her tears came, but it didn’t matter. Because Zeke didn’t follow. She had the night—and her grief—to herself.

Ten minutes later, as she drove home, her cell phone rang. Eyes blurred with weeping, she made a desperate grab for it and prayed that Zeke had changed his mind, that he’d
decided he couldn’t live without her. Too late to check the caller ID, she remembered that he didn’t have a phone.

“Hey, Rusty, it’s your old man,” her father said, his voice rough.

“I’m on my way home now,” she told him, more irritated than she should be by his protectiveness.

“I decided to drive by the house, just to check things out before you got home. And I almost killed J.D.”

“What’s he gotten into now?” The dog had been so quiet lately, she almost welcomed a return to his usual mischief.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, I
really
almost killed him. He ran right out in the street. I barely saw something shooting toward my tires. If I hadn’t reacted—run up a curb and taken out the neighbor’s planter—I would’ve hit him for sure. You didn’t leave him loose, did you?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I left the doggy door unlatched so he could go out into the backyard, but both the fence and back gate were secure. I know it.”

“Well, I found the gate standing wide open. And I’m not exactly sure, but…”

“What, Dad?”

“I thought I might’ve seen a movement in the backyard. It was dark, and maybe my imagination was still stirred up from the fire, but I could’ve sworn I saw somebody go over the back fence and take off running.”

“Are you okay? There’s no one there now, is there?” she asked.

“I’m fine, and if there was anybody, he—or she, I guess—is gone.”

“And what about J.D.?”

“He’s fine. He’s with me inside now,” her father told her. “But hurry home, Rusty. There’s something here you need to see.”

She wiped the dampness from her face. “What’s wrong? Did someone break in?”

After the destruction of her van, almost nothing would
surprise her. But Rachel felt rage kindle at the thought of her grandmother’s possessions being damaged.

“Just drive carefully,” her father said. “I’ll show you when you get here.”

He met her at the door when she arrived a few minutes later. Frowning, he peered at her. “You’ve been crying. Did that son of a bitch—?”

“I’m all right,” she said, not wanting to discuss Zeke. For the moment, she was holding fast to her fury, letting it keep her grief over losing him at bay. Better that than falling to pieces with her father.

J.D. jumped up against her leg, and she scooped the dog into her arms. He was shivering as if he’d had a bad scare—or maybe he was simply excited to see her home.

Looking around the house for signs of damage, she asked, “So what’s wrong, Dad? What is it?”

“You’d better come and see this,” he said, then led her into the house’s formal dining room.

Her grandmother’s old table and chairs had been neatly pushed into a corner. Where they had been, another table and a set of chairs stood. The very table Zeke had been completing when she’d photographed him in his workshop. Striated with rivers and creeks of turquoise, its red-brown surface gleamed beneath the domed droplight.

She stared, so stunned that at first, she didn’t see the note lying on its surface. By the time she noticed and picked it up, Rachel was crying too hard to make out what it said.

“Let me read it for you, Rusty.” Her father’s voice was a low murmur as he took the paper from her, squinted, then hesitated before saying, “Oh, hell. Maybe you had better read this after all.”

Rachel frowned, as a niggling doubt sparked, then flared into flame. But she pulled herself together, wiped her eyes, and scanned the page. “
That customer didn’t ever come to
claim his special order
,” she read aloud, her voice hoarse and unsteady. “
And now that you’ve got yourself a dining room,
I couldn’t bring myself to sell it to anybody else. I’d rather

think about your family gathered all around it. You and Patsy
and your dad and what ever lucky SOB you marry someday and
have kids with. Just think about me now and then, and we’ll call
it even
.”

“Anything else?” her father asked.

She shook her head, unable to get out the letter’s last two words:
Just Zeke
. And unable to picture a future in which she could look at the table without seeing Zeke Pike, shirtless, flawless, laboring over its creation. Or imagining a green-eyed son, a dark-haired daughter—the laughing ghosts of children who never would be….

Because if she ran back to Zeke now, he wouldn’t take her. Worse yet, he might not leave either, which would expose him to a fate she refused to let him chance.

Still half-asleep, Marlene groped for her phone in the darkness. Without her glasses, she couldn’t see the caller ID, but she knew the ringtone wasn’t Dan’s. Since she’d started searching for her mother, she’d given her number to dozens of people. Maybe one of them was finally calling her with something that would help. Maybe someone who knew what had happened to her mother.

The thought jolted through Marlene’s system. Fully awake she pushed the “answer” button.

“Tell me,” her mother’s voice demanded, “what the
hell
is it you think you’re doing?”

Shock set Marlene’s heart rate soaring. She couldn’t get a single word out.

“Marlene? Are you there?” the caller demanded. “Damn it—answer me.”

Realization dawned, and Marlene breathed again. “Lord, Kathy. I thought you were Mother. You took ten years off my life.”

“Be nice if she
did
call someone,” her sister grumbled. “But you have to
care
about other people to pick up a telephone. And God knows that woman hasn’t cared about a soul since—”

“I know.” No need to waste time revisiting that old wound.

“If you know, why aren’t you back home? With people who
do
love you. Lord, Marlene, Daddy never would have expected you to throw away your life, your marriage, just to—”

“What about my marriage?” Marlene rubbed her throbbing head. “Did Dan call you? Did he say something?”

“Dan’s worried.
I’m
worried. And your boys are scared to death. We all are.”

Shaking her head, Marlene said, “There’s no need to be. I’m not like Mother. I’m just trying to do my duty, that’s all. For Dad’s sake, and for—”

“This is the reason we all pay taxes. So there will be people on the payroll,
trained
people to find loved ones who go missing. Don’t you think they’re better equipped to—”

“If you’ve just called to rehash Dan’s arguments, I’m going back to sleep.”

“I don’t care if it costs me my job,” Kathy said. “I’m coming to get you. Now where are you?”

Marlene rolled her eyes but didn’t answer. “Just a few more days, Kath. A few more days and I’ll find her. Because no one knows her the way I do. No one else listens when I explain that she’s a serious threat to her own safety.”

“It’s not just
her
safety.” Kathy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s what has me so worried.”

Marlene’s breath hitched. What had Kathy found out?

“Do you remember Shane Drake? Remember, he was one of those guys—the ones who were there when John Langley killed our brother.”

Marlene’s mouth went dry as she recalled her final glimpse of Shane Drake, a pool of blood expanding near his head. If Kathy knew, how would Marlene ever convince her that their mother’s “mission” was best kept in the family? That Marlene could find the woman before more harm was done?

“I—I’ve seen Shane.” She faltered through the words,
remembering the cutting wit and easy grace of a teenaged boy who’d once seemed to have the whole world on a platter. Remembering Willie working so hard to color campaign posters when his “good friend” ran for class president, a “good friend” who’d so often mocked him behind his back.

“Before he was hurt?” asked Kathy.

“
Hurt
?” Marlene’s surprise was genuine. The man had certainly looked dead to her.

“Yeah, he’s in a coma after a hit and run,” Kathy said, “outside of Albuquerque. And you know what else? Aaron’s dead. Died in a carjacking a few weeks ago, near where he lived in Tulsa. Where
you
followed our mother.”

“That could be a coincidence,” Marlene said.

“And I could be Playmate of the Year.” Kathy’s voice was drier than her Arizona home. “We have to face facts, Marlene. When Dad died, Mom lost whatever scrap of restraint was keeping her from going hunting—because that’s exactly what she’s doing. Hunting them all down.”

“She’s a seventy-year-old woman,” Marlene pleaded. “It’s just not possi—”

“A seventy-year-old woman who’s lost whatever hold on sanity she had since our dad’s not there to keep her in check. I’m calling the police back home this morning to let them know what’s going on.”

“I can stop her, get her to a doctor.”

“A doctor? Mar, she’s
killing
people. Human beings with families of their own. At least two of them already. I don’t know yet about Sam Henderson. Dan’s trying to track down his mom to check on him.”

Fear stitched its way through Marlene. The fear of what else could be learned. “She’s our
mother
, Kathy. She—we can’t let them—Daddy would never want us to—”

“Of course, John Langley’s the one she’ll really want,” Kathy interrupted. “But if the authorities haven’t been able to find him up to this point, I can’t see how she—”

“She knows where he is.” Marlene’s gaze touched the seat beside her, where a section of newspaper lay folded. A
travel section she’d found in the last room vacated by her mother.

“Mother knows exactly where he’s hiding,” she continued in a voice gone whisper-soft. “Which is why I hurried out here. So I could intercept her. So I can find our mother and bring her straight back home where she belongs.”

“Marlene, you have to tell me. Where exactly are you?”

“You aren’t calling the authorities. You’re not having our mother locked up. Because she’s not a criminal, she’s sick, Kath. Can’t you remember the way she was, the way she used to smile back before our brother—”

“What if I come out to
help
you?” Kathy pleaded. “Or Dan. Do you want Dan? And what about your boys, Mar? You could see them both, too.”

Narrowing her eyes, Marlene considered. Then she realized it was a plot, a plan cooked up by Team Testosterone and Kathy. They’d drag her home if they could, leave her mother to the authorities, where she might be hurt or even killed during her capture. Or at best, locked in a cage and charged with murder, thrown in with the worst types of criminals while the real killer—the man who had cost her her sanity—lived free.

So instead of answering her sister, Marlene broke the connection. Then she pulled the battery out of her telephone. Where she was going, she couldn’t afford to be betrayed by the sound of its ring.

And besides, she refused to take the chance that somehow either her sister, Dan, or the authorities would use it to track her down and stop her from doing what she must.