Deadly Sanctuary (19 page)

“You’re hurting me.”

He let go immediately, mumbling, “I’m sorry.” By the look of dismay on his face, it was obvious something was still eating him up inside.

I thought back to what Ginger had told me. There had been nearly two hundred people at the ranch that night. Who among them would have gained from Stephanie Talverson’s death?

“Who else hated her as much as you did?”

His face hardened. “Can’t we drop this now? I know it’s part your bloodhound nature to run around and dig things up, but in this case, it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.” He glanced at his watch, turned, and started to move away. “It’s time for us to go back.”

I felt hot with frustration. Just when I thought he’d laid all his cards on the table, it seemed as if he was hiding one up his sleeve. “Don’t you want to know?”

“Give it a rest.”

“Who are you protecting?”

He stopped in his tracks and whirled around, hands closed into fists. The menacing expression on his face made me shrink inside and I stifled a shriek of surprise when I backed into a gnarled tree. As he advanced toward me, I was amazed at my own volatile emotions, which seesawed somewhere between fright and intense desire for him.

“Jesus Christ! What am I going to do with you?”

“Just tell me the truth.”

“I did.”

Something behind his eyes told me he was still withholding information. And then it came to me. Holy cow. It had been right in front of me all along. There
was
someone who would have benefited from her death.

“What about Lucinda?”

He looked thunderstruck. “Lucy? That’s got to be the dumbest thing I ever heard.” He was looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Lucy may be a lot of things, but I’ve known her since she was six years old. She isn’t capable of murder.”

“Then who else could it have been?”

The look of misery on his face was profound. “It may have been my mother.”

Jake interrupted us, saying apologetically that he needed to talk with Tally for a few minutes before we rode back. We walked to the horses, and as I watched Tally stride away, back straight, head high, my heart went out to him. I don’t think I realized until that moment how much courage it had taken for him to share his terrible secret.

How could I have so thoroughly misjudged this man? I’d forgotten the old adage:
Don’t believe everything you hear and only half of what you read
. I felt ashamed of myself for re-opening such a raw wound and could hardly meet his eyes when he returned a few minutes later. He stood with his lips pursed together, just staring at me until I felt my face flushing.

Finally, he said, “I ought to be angry with you…”

“And you have every right to be. You told me to mind my own business and…”

I flinched as he reached out and placed his forefinger against my lips, silencing me. “Shhhhhhh. Will you let me finish?” Withdrawing his hand he said, “Actually, I’m not angry. It’s a relief to finally get that off my chest. It’s been stewing inside me for two years.” In a now familiar gesture, he lifted his hat, combed his fingers through his hair, and then replaced it. His face still looked drawn and pale. “I can’t go back and change what happened, but I know I’m going to have to deal with this sooner or later. For right now…I just wanted to say thank you.”

“You’re thanking me? What for? For ruining your afternoon and putting you through hell?”

His eyes softened as he stepped close to me. Like the downy wings on a butterfly, his lips brushed lightly over mine. The kiss was over so quickly I had no time to react with anything except surprise.

“Thank you for being…you.”

We had no chance to talk further, because two of the ranch hands rode along with us back to the ranch. During the drive home, I thought over and over again of his gentle kiss. Bone weary, saddlesore and sunburned, I crawled into bed hoping for instant sleep. Instead I lay listening to the lively chorus of night critters and thinking about the day’s events.

Memories of Eric’s ardent kisses the night before intruded. I felt hopelessly confused, and finally ordered myself to banish all thoughts of both men. I mustn’t allow my personal life to become too much of a distraction. The scene with Tally had left me emotionally drained. The new information plus his incredulous statement regarding his mother left me with more questions than I started with.

I sat up, snapped on the lamp, pulled the notebook containing my notes from underneath the mattress, and studied it until my eyes ached. Somewhere in this jumble of names and leads there had to be a clue to John’s disappearance.

Exasperated, I tucked it underneath the mattress and turned out the light. At the edge of sleep, the elusive thought burst from my subconscious. My eyes popped open. Of course! What was the common denominator between Claudia Phillips and the sheriff? “The teenage girls,” I whispered aloud.

That thought triggered another memory. During our second lunch together, Ginger had said that teens frequently vanished or turned up dead in Mexico. Could it be…

Fully awake, I slid from bed and paced in the dark, while a monstrous theory took shape. What if…what if Claudia and the sheriff were in league to capture and market runaway girls to some international smuggling ring? Or…I thought feverishly, perhaps Claudia was the head of some weird cult that sacrificed them in bizarre rituals. I’d researched Ginger’s statement and discovered that within the last year, Mexican authorities had dug up the remains of twenty people who had been first tortured, and then burned to death. There had been some connection to a Cuban drug lord.

If those two girls had been killed trying to escape the clutches of Claudia and Roy, that would explain why the toxicology reports had been conveniently lost. Was that the secret John Dexter hoped to uncover? And if Hollingsworth was involved that would explain why the hunt for the missing reporter had been called off. He already knew John was dead. Where did that leave me?

I threw myself down on the bed and groaned into my pillow. Somehow I had to find the proof that would link Claudia and Roy to the girls’ deaths. Did I dare approach Tugg with my wild theories without him thinking I was certifiable? Unanswered questions circled endlessly in my mind as I fell into an exhausted sleep.

I was still mulling over the disturbing possibilities as I phoned my parents in the morning. I felt less sure of myself now. It had made perfect sense last night, but somehow my suspicions seemed preposterous in the brilliant sunlight.

It was comforting to hear their voices, and I felt a sharp pang of homesickness as they talked about family get-togethers, picnics in the woods, and walks in the rain; all things familiar to me, and much missed. I chose not to worry them with details concerning my assignment, and instead kept to the topics of my improving health and the two men I was seeing. After listening, my mother urged me to go after Eric, explaining that he sounded more my type.

I hung up, lingered in a long bath, and I felt almost human again as I headed into town to do more research at the Castle Valley library. The parking lot was almost empty, but that wasn’t surprising. It was Sunday, and most of the townspeople were probably at the fairgrounds for the rodeo.

Clara Whitlow, the elderly, blue-haired librarian, welcomed me with a friendly smile and handed me a stack of recent articles on runaways she had volunteered to pick up for me from the main library during her trip to Phoenix the day before. Not only had she brought everything I had asked for, she also included some pamphlets she’d obtained from her cousin who worked at the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

I thanked her warmly, settled into a chair at one of the scarred wooden tables, and began to leaf through the material. Other than the fly bumping in vain against the nearby windowpane, and the low murmur of voices from the adjoining room, there were no other sounds.

Two hours later I sat back and drew in a deep breath filled with the odor of musty books. The information before me was disturbing. Statistics showed an appalling forty-three hundred homeless or runaway children in Arizona within a one year period. Limited funding available through private foundations, corporations, and federal grants provided a dismal forty beds statewide, and most of them were for children younger than thirteen. No state programs existed to assist homeless teenagers.

“Miss O’Dell, how nice to see you.”

I glanced around to see Thena Rodenborn approaching. “Well, hello, Mrs. Rodenborn. Were you in the meeting?” I asked in reference to the gathering of the Castle Valley Historical Society who shared space with the library.

Her blue eyes twinkled with humor. “Since I’m the president I guess I have to be.” She went on to say that they were in the process of trying to obtain donations to buy the old Hansen house from the heirs. During the past twenty years they’d been able to save three of the town’s oldest structures.

“Well, that’s really commendable,” I commented. “I’m surprised you didn’t try for the old mission out near where I live. The one that’s now the mental facility.”

“Ooohh!” She clasped her hands together. “I’d absolutely love to get my hands on that place. Are you familiar with its history?”

“No.”

That was all the invitation she needed. She sat down in the chair opposite me. “It was built in the late 1700’s and served as a monastery for trappist monks until the early 1900’s. At that point, it was converted to a mission and remained open until about twenty years ago when the Church suddenly decided it wasn’t worth the expense. It was such a shame. The place was falling to ruin and vandals had desecrated some of the buildings. As hard as we tried, we could not convince the Catholic Church to donate the mission to the town. We were all shocked when the property was sold to an out-of-town developer.”

“Mary Tuggs told me it operated as some kind of health resort before it was Serenity House.”

“That’s true,” she said smoothing the jacket of her peach silk suit. “It was some sort of New Age retreat where people sit around in a triangle, look at stones and drink carrot juice or something.” Distress lines etched her forehead. “I almost wept when we discovered the new owner had demolished most of the old buildings. Let me tell you, it took a lot of persuasion to convince him to leave the rectory standing. Why, the bell in the tower alone is priceless.” She paused for a breath and then continued in an animated tone. “Has anyone told you the story of the missing monks?”

“No.”

“According to what little we’ve been able to uncover from historical records, supposedly a whole group of them vanished one day and were never heard of again. One theory is they wandered into some of the box canyons behind Castle Rock and were lost. Another is that the monks supposedly dug a series of tunnels beneath the various buildings leading to safe rooms where they could hide in case of Indian attack. But,” she added unhappily, “we’ve never been able to verify this, because no one can get onto the property now.”

“Did you talk to Dr. Price about continuing your research on the place?”

“You know that was a curious situation. The first time I phoned him, he was very pleasant and seemed open to the idea of allowing some excavation on the property. But, when I spoke to him the second time, he told me he was not well. Something about growths on his vocal cords. He said to call back in a few weeks after his surgery.”

“Did you?”

“I did, but that was right around the time that horrid lunatic escaped. The one who murdered, then cut up his family or whatever. Did you hear about that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my dear girl, you should have been here.” she said, with a dramatic sweep of her hand. “The entire town was in a state of absolute panic until the man was found. Afterward, Dr. Price had that fence erected and when I spoke to him at the fund-raiser three years ago…well, he seemed different somehow.”

“Different? In what way?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly. He was very aloof and…well…he didn’t…sound the same.” She shook her head slightly as if the memory still bothered her. “Anyway,” she said with a tone of regret, “now he says he can’t have people traipsing in and out. He said some of his patients were too unpredictable. I must say, there just wasn’t the same level of enthusiasm from the other members of the society to continue the study after the scare we’d all had.”

She paused, looking wistful. “So you see, the same fate awaits the old Hansen house. If we fail to raise the money to buy it, the heirs plan to demolish it and apply for commercial zoning. That would be a frightful shame since it’s well over a hundred years old. It’s as old as this building, as a matter of fact. Did you know that this was once the territorial jail?”

I told her I didn’t and would write up a story for the paper if she’d get me all the details. Pink with delight, she thanked me and before she could leave I said, “Ah…actually, it’s very opportune that we met today because I was going to call you. I’m still researching for my series on runaway girls, and I’ve misplaced some of the notes from our earlier meeting.”

“What can I help you with?” I could tell by her blank expression that Eric had not yet spoken to her about arranging for me to have an interview at the Desert Harbor.

“I believe you had said Claudia Phillips arrived quite soon after the death of Violet Mendoza. Had you advertised for a replacement?”

“Why no. We’d only just had the funeral and I hadn’t had time to arrange for that yet.”

“So…how did she know you had the opening?”

She stared at me blankly before answering. “Isn’t that silly of me. It’s been quite some time ago and you know, I really can’t remember. She just…showed up one day about a week after the tragedy.”

“I see. And where was it she’d worked before?”

“I’ll have to check my records on that, if I even have them.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment. “She did tell me at the time…but I’ve forgotten. I was still so very distraught over Violet…that it didn’t seem important.”