Bones and Roses (15 page)

“Go!” I order, more forcefully. No sense in us both getting caught.

She hesitates a second longer, wearing an expression I never expected to see on her face: sheer panic. This from someone who gets her kicks from skydiving and who never met a road she didn't yearn to race down. I've always wondered if there was anything in this world Ivy feared. Now I know: She's scared of something bad happening to me. I'm awash with love for her in that moment.

“I'll be back,” she whispers, then grabs my messenger bag and vanishes into the darkness.

Thunder cracks. Lightning flashes. The crunching of footsteps grows louder. With a final tug, accompanied by the sound of ripping fabric, I free my jacket from whatever it was caught on and swing my other leg over the sill. I let out a sob with relief when I have both feet on the ground. But before I can take so much as a single step, a man's deep voice booms, “Stop, or I'll shoot!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I may not have shown much respect for the law lately, but I have more than enough for the superior strength of the man standing before me and the rifle aimed at my chest, so I obey his command. “Evening, Stan.” I strike a relaxed tone. A dog won't bite if you don't show fear, and he's Big Dog. “Home so soon? Guess tonight wasn't your lucky night, huh?”
Or mine, for that matter.

He ignores the reference to his poker game. “What the hell do you think you're doing?” With two long-legged strides he closes the gap between us. He towers over me: an Ionic column of a man, all hard-packed muscle and blazing eyes. Rainwater dribbles from the brim of his cowboy hat where it forms a natural spout. Dark, wet patches stand out on the suede jacket he's wearing.

“I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by.”

“Cute.” He's not smiling.

The neighbor's dog is barking like crazy now. Stan darts a glance in that direction, looking nervous all of a sudden. He produces a set of keys and in one swift motion unlocks the door to his cabin. He grabs me roughly by the arm and pulls me inside with him, shutting the door behind him. He doesn't turn on any lights. There's only the dim glow from the porch fixture. It's a moment before my eyes adjust to the darkness and the room's shadowy contours take shape.

“Sit down!” he barks.

I never knew one's knees could knock from fright—I'd always thought it was a figure of speech—but mine are doing just that. I sink down on the bed, not taking my eyes off him. “Go ahead. Shoot me. But you won't get away with it. Not like with that stunt you pulled the other day.”

“What makes you think I did it?”

“Gee, I don't know. You seemed pretty jumpy that day I came to see you, and the next thing I know, I'm the target of a one-man turkey shoot. Now you're pointing a rifle at me. What am I supposed to think?”

“I was at work all day. Like I told Detective Breedlove.”

“So you said.”

“I got witnesses to back me up.”

“How do I know they weren't just covering for you?”

“Jesus. What is it with you?” Standing against the window with his face in shadow, he looks like an anonymous source in a
Sixty Minutes
interview. “If anyone has a beef, it's me. You've been nothing but a pain in the ass since the day we met. Now I catch you breaking into my place.”

“You lied about not knowing my mom was dead. I wanted to know what else you were lying about.”

“What did you expect to find? A diary? Or maybe I have the missing eighteen minutes of the Nixon tapes squirreled away somewhere.” I hear the disdain in his voice but also a note of fear.

“I'm not naïve,” I snap. “But I did find one thing. I noticed the link for the White Oaks website when I was scrolling through your search history.” I glance at his computer. “Which I found interesting, considering you claimed not to have known where Mom was or how she got there.”

I see him stiffen. “No crime against surfing the Web.”

“No, but it is to kill someone and dispose of the body.”

“I don't know nothing about that. Like I told you, Ava and me, we parted ways. End of story.” I notice his Texas twang has grown thicker, like he's hiding behind his good-ole-boy persona.

I ignore his protestations. “You want to know my theory? I think it was a lover's quarrel that got out of hand.” I don't mention my other theory, the one involving Douglas Trousdale. “You lashed out at her. I'm sure you didn't mean to kill her—you didn't know your own strength, or she fell and hit her head—but you'd have done time even if it was involuntary manslaughter. So you disposed of the body and left town to make it look like you and she had run off together.”

He shakes his head. “You watch too much TV.”

“
You're
Starfish Enterprises, aren't you?” I press on. “You leased the unit in the name of a dummy corporation so it couldn't be traced back to you. Except you weren't in it alone. You had a buddy help dispose of the body. How do I know this? Because it wasn't by accident that it turned up after all these years. You two must've had a falling out. He must've been out to get you when he fixed it so the shit would hit the fan.” To use Ivy's expression. “He had to have known the trail would lead back to you. What, did you cheat him out of some money, sleep with his wife?”

“You're blowing smoke,” Stan growls.

“Where there's smoke, there's fire.”

“You got nothing on me.”

“No, but Detective Breedlove might be interested to know what's on your computer.”

In a sudden move that takes me by surprise, he seizes the computer, yanking the cord from the electrical outlet into which it's plugged, and tosses it out the open window like it's a Frisbee. I hear the muffled crash of electronics meeting concrete amid the drumming of the rain. “'Bout time I got myself a new one, anyway,” he says mildly, turning back to me. “Now, where were we?”

I point a shaky finger at him. “You can't run forever. The truth will come out eventually.”

“The truth?” He steps from the shadows, and I see his features are contorted in a mask of anguish. The man standing before me is not the callous-seeming figure of my first visit. “You have no idea.”

“Tell me, then.” I switch tactics, adopting a cajoling tone. “I can see it's eating at you. You'd feel better if you got it off your chest. What've you got to lose? I can't use it against you if I'm dead.”

“Dead?” He gives a harsh laugh. “Quit being so dramatic.”

“So you're not going to kill me?” I feel my body go slack with relief.

“Hell no. You ain't worth going to prison for.”

“You could've fooled me.” I gesture toward the rifle.

“I was apprehending an intruder,” he reminds me.

“Yeah, okay, but I didn't take anything, and the only thing that got broken was the computer you smashed.”

“Tell it to the cops,” he growls and then whips out his cell phone and places a 911 call. “Hello? This is Stan Cruikshank out at Four Chimneys Ranch. I'd like to report a break-in …”

On second thought, I might've been better off if he'd pulled the trigger.

“This is getting old.”

Spence looks anything but amused as he says this. We're standing in the rain, a short distance from where a patrol car sits with its engine idling and bubble light flashing. I'm soaking wet in my flimsy rain gear while he's fully weatherproofed, wearing a heavy-duty slicker and rubber boots and holding an umbrella over his head. He hasn't offered to share the umbrella with me.

“I can explain,” I tell him.

“I don't doubt it. And you'll have all the time in the world where you're going.”

“Why do you have to be such an asshole?” I burst out, close to the breaking point.

“Funny, that's not how I see it,” he says coldly. “What I see is a guy who was relaxing at home, just settling in with the wife to watch some TV after getting the kids off to bed, when he gets called to
yet another crime scene
starring the one and only Tish Ballard. Now, you tell me, which one of us is the asshole in that scenario?” I haven't seen him this angry since I torched his car.

He has a point. I have been turning up at a lot of crime scenes lately. Though in all fairness, this is the first one from which I've been escorted in handcuffs. What's ironic is that the cops were already en route when Stan made his 911 call. Ivy beat him to it, having decided she'd rather visit me in jail than attend my funeral. “I didn't do anything those other times.” I defend myself.

“Really. Because I'm starting to see a pattern here.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know yet. I haven't figured it out yet. All I know is, you're the common denominator.”

“If you hadn't flunked math, you'd know that's the key to the solution, not the problem.” I couldn't resist reminding him of his weak spot. It had been the talk of the campus at the time. He'd almost lost a college scholarship because of it and had to go to summer school to take the class again.

I know the barb hits its mark when he flushes, his already tight lips disappearing into his square-jawed face. Then he rocks back on his heels as if to better take in the sorry sight I make in my soggy clothes with my wet hair plastered to my head, and his expression softens slightly. He must feel sorry for me, if only a little, because his grip, when he takes my arm to guide me to the cruiser, is surprisingly gentle. The thing that pisses me off the most about Spence Breedlove is that I can't get a fix on him. Just when I think he's a total asshole, he displays a shred of humanity.

As I'm assisted into the backseat, the driver, Jordan James, turns around to address me. On the proverbial shoe that fits, he's the gum stuck to the sole. “Well, well, what have we got here?” He's smiling, but his eyes are cold. Yeah, he definitely knows it was me who pulled that dirty trick on him at our junior prom. “I don't know which one of you is crazier, you or your brother.”

I glare at him. “Fuck you.”

“Be my guest.” A not so subtle reference to my reputation in high school as a slut. Which is when I realize what else handcuffs are good for: They prevent you from making rude hand gestures.

His partner, Officer Ruiz, doesn't so much as look at me. I wonder if she regrets being nice to me before, now that I'm a known felon. Jordan starts the engine. I see the ranch owner, Mr. Valparaiso, a stocky figure in a rain poncho, standing outside Stan's cabin conversing with him. Shadowy figures watch from the other doorways as the cruiser swings around, headed for the road.

Spence is there, ahead of me, when I arrive at the station. He personally takes me through the booking process. The only nice thing I can say about him is that, unlike Jordan James, he doesn't appear to be taking pleasure in my misery. He's all business. “Stan's the one you should be talking to,” I tell him, appealing to his better nature, as he's escorting me to the holding cell.

“So I'm not the only asshole,” he comments dryly.

“I'm sorry I called you that.” I won't get anywhere with him if I don't play nice. “But I was right about Stan. I found something on his computer.” I say nothing about what's on the flash drive that was confiscated along with my personal items. I'm in enough hot water as it is.

“Really. And what might that be?”

“The link for the White Oaks website in his search history. I made the mistake of mentioning it, and he freaked. That's why he smashed his computer. It proves he's hiding something.”

“Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? I can get a warrant issued with evidence like that. The DA can coast to victory in the election on the conviction. I should be thanking you instead of locking you up.”

“Go ahead, mock me. I'm telling you he's guilty.”

“Your word against his.”

I hug myself, shivering. I haven't stopped shivering since I got here, despite the desk sergeant, Bill Hadley, having been kind enough to loan me his fleece jacket. I know him from when I brokered the deal on an acre lot he and his wife had bought. In a weird way I find Spence's presence comforting. He's a familiar face and relatively safe haven in the midst of all the madness.

“Don't you see? He was lying when he told me he didn't know my mom was dead. He knew all along. Because he killed her. He hid the body where no one would find it.
He's
Starfish Enterprises.”

He appears unmoved as he walks at my side, a firm grip on my elbow. “Oh, I see, all right. I see that you obtained unlawful entry to Mr. Cruikshank's residence and it almost got you killed.” He cuts me a glance, and I catch the flash of anger in his eyes, eyes the blue of the porcelain god to whom I once prayed on nights like this (my one consolation in all this is that it wasn't booze that brought me down) and he mutters to himself, “As if I don't have enough to worry about.”

I manage a feeble smile. “You were worried? Gee, I didn't know you cared.”

He snorts in disgust. He's wearing his civvies—jeans and a USC sweatshirt from his college days—his detective's badge on a lanyard around his neck. I picture him at home with his wife, his arm around her shoulders as they sit in front of the TV, and feel a stab of longing, wishing that same strong arm were around me right now. I give myself a mental shake. I must be losing it.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks, not unkindly, as he's locking me in the holding cell.

“Yeah. A lawyer.” When I spoke with Ivy earlier, she assured me she had someone lined up, a woman who she said was one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the county. But I don't know what time she'll be here, or if she's coming at all. She might not get here until tomorrow.

“I meant coffee or a blanket,” he says. “Your lawyer's on his way.”

I look at him in confusion. “You mean ‘she,' don't you?”

“No, the man I spoke with was definitely a ‘he.'”

“This lawyer … you spoke with him?” Now I'm even more confused.

Spence nods. “He's with the firm that's handling Mr. Trousdale's divorce. He called to let us know you weren't to be questioned without him present.”

I stare at him, dumfounded. “Wait. Are you saying Douglas—Mr. Trousdale sent him?”

“So it would seem.”

“But why? I don't get it. Something's fishy.” I start pacing in my cell like a lifer gone stir-crazy, never mind I've been locked up for all of sixty seconds.

“Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. You should be thanking the man.”

“How did he even know I'd been arrested?”

“Seems he was there when your boyfriend got the call.” I had asked Ivy to give Daniel the heads-up, knowing he'd never forgive me if he had to read about it in the newspaper. “And you thought he was a cold-hearted son of a bitch. Goes to show how wrong you can be about someone,” he says, fixing me with a pointed look before he turns and walks away, leaving me to my own thoughts.