SUMMER of FEAR (19 page)

I thought. We circled the marina again, slowly. "So why in
hell," I asked, "did you come to me?"

She was watching me again. Amber always had a way of not being there,
the capacity simply to exit, leaving only her body behind. She had often done
this when under duress. She had sometimes done this when I made love to her—a
form of punishment and a way of experimenting with a martyrdom that, like her
smoking, she rarely took beyond the casual. I sensed her absence now. Slowly,
almost visibly, she repopulated herself.

"Because of Martin. I began to wonder. He told me he was at my
house that night because a call came over his police radio, and he was in the
area, so he answered it. I believed him at first—he kept saying
we,
like
it was he and his partner and everything was official. When he told me what
he'd found, I was too afraid to see what a strange story it was—that he just
happened to be in my neighborhood. I mean, how long since Martin has been on
patrol? How long since he drove around with partner? So I pressed him. It
didn't take much. He kind of broke down—all two hundred pounds of rock Martin
always was---he made this, this...
confession
that he'd been in my room
on his own, that he'd been there before, always when he knew I’d
be
gone. That he'd lie in my bed and think about
us.
Russ, that scared me
almost as much as what he'd found, or said he' found. So I came to you."

"But you knew I was inside your house,
too."

She looked at me through the dark glasses. "I believe what you told
Martin. That you'd seen him come out, then found my sliding glass door open.
Russ, I understand what you were doing parked outside my house that night. I
think of you sometimes and I dream of you, and I know you think and dream of
me. It's all about the way we were, the way we won't ever be again with anyone
else. But you're not capable of true obsession, Russ—the same way I'm not.
You're harmless. That's another way of saying that I trust you. Right now, I
think you're one of the few men in this world I can truly trust."

"What about Erik?"

"Erik is still upset about our breakup. I don't think he should see
me now."

"A decade of panting after you, and poor Erik only gets one thin
year to bathe in the glow."

I simply couldn't resist the opportunity to hurt Amber, only because I
knew that my weapons had always been to dull to dent her shining, perfect
surface.

"Russell?" she said, "Why don't you
just fucking grow up?"

Not grown-up,
harmless and incapable of true obsession, I guided the car back up to Coast
Highway and north toward Laguna. The anger I thought Amber's words would bring
to me did not come. For a long time, all I could think about was Izzy, asleep
in the small bed in her father's house. I tried to send her the most peaceful
and hopeful of dreams. And I was aware of Amber as of someone in a dream,
too—she was nearby but intangible, present but unavailable. Then, a new emotion
began to gather inside me, though at first I couldn't identify it. But as it
started to fill the space left by my diminishing confusion and shock at seeing
Amber again, I realized what it was: I was pleased that this woman was alive.
In fact, I was more than pleased; I was happy, grateful. And deeper down,
beneath these understandable and approvable truths, grinned a simple,
unsanctioned, forbidden concept that I tried to ignore but could not: I was
thrilled by her nearness. Secretly, wildly, insanely thrilled.

"Can I trust you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What should I do?"

"Did Marty kill her?"

"It could only have been Martin. That's why I didn't go to the
cops, Russ. That's why I came to you. He killed her because he came in,
thinking the house was empty. She panicked. He panicked. He tried to make it
look like that Midnight Eye, but later he got scared and figured he should just
hide it all—everything—even Alice. The second night, when you found him there,
he'd just finished cleaning. He made up the story about seeing Grace come out
the night before. If he has to, if anyone presses him, if he loses that crazy
mind of his, he's going to pin it on you and her. What other explanation can
there be?"

"I'm working on that."

"You don't think he did it?"

I pulled into the Towers lot, waved off the valet,
and parked next to Amber's gray rental K car. "Where were you going last
night when I saw you on Coast Highway?"

"Back to Las Brisas Hotel. That's where Martin told me to stay. He
forbade me to leave the room, but I was getting suite fever. I was leaving the
White House when you saw me I'd had a table up front, by the band."

I listened to her explanation while staring out the windshield. A pale
coastal haze had settled over the city, light dew that would vanish at first
sunlight. The cars and streets seemed to sweat now, giving up their heat to the
moisture.

"How long since you've seen our daughter?"

"Two months. Three. I've written. Imagine me writing letters, Russ.
I've called. She ignores me."

Amber said nothing, sighed quietly—how strange, how compelling it was to
hear in her even a hint of surrender—then folded her hands in her lap and
looked down at them. "I know I've made some mistakes, Russ, and I'm doing
what I can to correct them. I was trying... I've
been
trying to connect.
With my family. My old friends. My daughter. I burned so many bridges, it's
hard finding my way back. Follow the smoke, I guess. And now.. .Alice. Poor,
poor, lovely girl."

So there it was, the first time in the twenty years I'd knowN Amber Mae
that she had shown anything like doubt, fallibility regret—and meant it. I
discount her thousand well-acted scenes, I was dumbfounded.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"Have you talked to your agent?"

"Reuben is my
manager.
Yes. He knows I'm okay, but not
working, not taking calls, not gettable. I swore him to secrecy, and Reuben is
good to his word. He's the only one I've talked to. He and Marty, that
is."

Amber actually
shuddered then, though the night was hot and damp. A smell came off her that
reminded me of the odor of Grace, the night she had come to me: woman, perfume,
fear. But most of all, fear. "Where should I go?"

"You checked out of the hotel?"

"No.
I didn't want to alert anyone that I was leaving. Martin is probably calling
every five minutes. Or waiting. He insisted on having a key. But everything
I've been living on is in that car. I've got an eight-thousand-square-foot
mansion two miles from here, and I'm living out of a Chrysler. Ugly little
thing, isn't it?"

"Marty's idea?"

She nodded, then
looked at me again. "How's Isabella?"

"Great."

"I'm so sorry, Russ. If it was in my power to change things, I
would."

I
said nothing for a long moment, then, idly, "She's strong."

"She
must be terribly strong. I don't suppose she would let me stay for a few days?
I could cook and clean and stay out of the—"

"No."

It
was only then, with the outrageousness of that plea, that I fully realized the
depth of Amber's fear.

"No,"
she said. "That would really not be right. I'm sorry. That was
presumptuous."

I thought for a
moment. Marty Parish—or anyone else who wanted to find her—would check the
local hotels first, then keep working outward from town. Cash payment and a
false name would give her a head start, but she couldn't stay hidden for very
long, not with a rental car, not being Amber Mae Wilson. Who would think to
look for her in my world? Marty, maybe. But I knew someone who could handle
Martin Parish. The trouble was, he disliked Amber, and Amber had years ago
tired of wasting her charms on him. I turned over a dozen other possibilities
but kept coming back to Theodore Francis Monroe, and his little house nestled
darkly under the oaks of Trabuco Canyon.

"I'll tell
you something, Russell. I'm not going to let Marty get away with this. I'm
going to make sure he pays for Alice. I don't know how or when, but I'm going
to live to see it happen. "Follow me," I said.

My father was
standing on the porch of his cabin before I even shut off the engine of my car.
He was centered in the halo yellow light cast by a bulb above the door, wearing
only a pair of jeans, his old Remington 870 cradled in his arms. In the
rearview mirror, I watched the Chrysler roll up the driveway behind me. I
stepped out, motioned for Amber to stay put, then crunched across the driveway
gravel toward my father. A thousand crickets made a continuous, strangely
sourceless buzz. The horses shuffled from the darkness of the corral. The stair
boards were damp and soft as I climbed.

I studied him as I came across the porch—his large, hard body; the black
hair graying only slightly; the eyes made wary and strong by years of ranch
work; the downturned, unforgiving mouth of a man familiar with disappointment.
Bathed in the yellow bug light, he looked alien, otherworldly.

"Dad."

"Russ."

"Got kind of a problem."

"I can see that."

He set the gun against the house, shook my hand, then hugged me. He
smelled like a man's sleep. Looking past his shoulder, I could see the K car
reflected in a window. "What's with the scattergun, Pop?"

"This
Midnight Eye's got me spooked. Maybe I'm getting old. What's with
you
being here at this hour? It isn't something with Izzy, is it?" "She's
with Conine and Joe. She's okay." "Is that who I think it is in the
car?"

"Someone tried to kill her. They got her sister instead. She's
scared out of her mind and needs a place to stay."

He looked out at the car, then back at me. "Because they're going
to try again."

"Maybe."

"Well, then get that damned Chrysler into the shed and bring her
inside."

"Thanks, Pop."

"I don't see a great deal of choice."

He gave me a very silent, very assessing stare.

"This isn't
what it looks like," I said.

We sat in the
pine-paneled living room as I told my father the story. I did not tell him
everything, and I omitted any hint of my own presence outside Amber's home on
that hot night of July 3. I could not admit that to him. He listened almost
silently, sensing, I am sure, that his was an edited version. Amber sat off to
one side of the couch, her hands and ankles crossed contritely, her platinum
blond wig rendered suddenly ridiculous by the rustic interior of the cabin. She
said little.

By one o'clock, when the night seemed its most private, my father had
brewed up a pot of coffee to sustain him through the morning. We agreed that
one of them should always be awake. He showed Amber the second bedroom, then I
walked her out to get some of her things from the car.

Inside, the shed smelled of wood rot and mildew and
motor oil. It was neat because all of my father's things were neat.

Amber opened the K car's trunk and looked at me.
"I took everything Marty collected from... Alice. All the Baggies and
fingerprints and pictures—all his notes. There's some stuff in here; I don't
even know
what
it is. I thought you might want it."

"Damn, Amber."

"Did I do wrong?"

I prodded through the cardboard box containing finger
print cards; a dozen or more bags containing hair and fiber paint chips, soil
samples; a tape recorder he'd probably use to catalog and walk himself through
the scene; one loose audiotape; a pile of Polaroids; a neat stack of enlarged
35-mm prints. There was even a notebook, with entries matched to the
"exhibits." There were several folders of the type the county uses
for its criminal files—some empty, some containing the basic rap sheets. I
opened one: County Sheriff's employment history of Russell Monroe—1976 to 1983.

"Nice work, Amber, I think."

"He was carrying all that around in his
car," she said "Please take it. He said he found that audiocassette
in my stereo, the night that Alice... died."

I slipped the tape into my coat pocket.

On the way back to the house, I put the box into the
trunk of my car. My father was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed now,
drinking his coffee. I walked Amber into the small bedroom. A lamp on the bed
stand cast a warm light against the knotty-pine walls.

"Can I ask you a question?" she said.

"Sure."

"Did you like me better when you thought I was
dead?

It was half surprise at the question and half
uncertainty of my answer that left me quiet. All the deep silence of the night
outside seemed to enter that small room and encircle us.

"No," I said.

Amber looked at me while she reached up, pulled off her wig, and shook
out the great brown waves of her hair. They lengthened as they loosened, down
past her shoulders. And I was struck then, as I had been struck before—but
never,
never
so hard—by how much Amber looked like Isabella. In the burnished
lamplight of the cabin, Amber was, at the moment her hair settled, radiant.