The Good Die Twice (20 page)

“She probably wanted to tell her husband she
was alive,” Padre offered.

“True. And she called him first. Records show
the call came from a pay phone at the truck stop off Exit 4 on the
toll road.”

“And she probably wanted to get the jewelry
from where she had hidden it.”

The two men continued their search of the
shoreline in silence. They were searching for the other earring
Rachel had worn the night she died.

“How much time did you say elapsed between
the time the murder was reported and you came down to the
townhouse?”

“Ten minutes.”

Padre thought for a moment. “Doesn’t seem
like enough time to move the body and replace the rug. She had to
have been wrapped in the rug and dumped in the lake.”

“I’m not about ready to have Sergeant
Duranski call out his divers.”

They found a bench and Padre sank down onto
it. “Let me just rest a minute.” Dagger joined him and the two sat
and listened to the thunder rumbling off in the distance.

They had been walking east, away from the
Dunes Resort since Dagger figured the killers, if they were to dump
the body, would want to do it away from the prying eyes of the
resort patrons.

“You know,” Dagger started, leaning back,
arms stretched across the back of the bench, “this is just too long
of a walk for those guys to carry the body away from curious eyes
and be gone before I got down here. Are you sure you didn’t find a
fresh grave anywhere?”

Padre scoffed and massaged his chest where
the wound was still tender. “If the shoreline is too close to the
Dunes Resort, I would think the surrounding woods would be,
too.”

“Well, the only other option is they never
moved the body.”

Thunder rumbled softly, then gradually grew
as the winds carried the sound eastward. The two men pondered the
possibility and slowly turned toward each other, their minds on the
same wave length.

The two men climbed the stairs to the
townhouse where Rachel had died. Padre said, “When I stopped by,
the washers and dryers were being installed. But the desk clerk
said the units might not be occupied until the middle of
August.”

They made their way around to the back of the
townhouses. The beam from the flashlight rested on the back
door.

“Here, hold this.” Dagger handed Padre the
flashlight and fished around in his pocket for his lock pick.

“I’m not seeing you do this, you
understand.”

“You don’t see a thing, Padre. You were never
here.” He heard the tumblers click and turned the knob.

“This is really stupid, Dagger. Don’t you
think the delivery men would have smelled a dead body in this
heat?”

“Maybe there’s a crawl space and the killers
did a John Wayne Gacy number on her.”

Except for the décor, each of the units was
identical, until they reached the third unit.

“Damn, look at the size of this living room.”
Dagger flashed the beam across a large fireplace, entertainment
center, and wet bar. The kitchen was the size of one you might find
in a downtown restaurant.

Padre snapped his fingers. “I remember. The
desk clerk said each building had a hospitality room, one unit that
would be shared by all and could be reserved for private parties.
Look, it even has a pool table.”

Dagger walked down an aisle past the laundry
room to a storage room. “Well, here’s something the other units
didn’t have.” He pointed to a walk-in freezer.

Padre pulled out his handkerchief and
carefully flipped on the light switch. “The refrigerators in the
other units weren’t plugged in, yet this baby is humming to beat
the band.”

The room contained empty stainless steel
shelves and probably served as a pantry. The floor was covered in
stark white tile and the two men checked for blood or any other
signs of foul play.

“You ready?” Padre asked, his fingers itching
to open the freezer.

Dagger smiled. “Let’s do it.” The freezer
door had been padlocked. Dagger used Padre’s handkerchief to hold
the lock while working the pick through the tumblers. Once it
snapped free, he grabbed the large freezer handle, pulled it down,
and yanked the door open.

A plume of frosty air billowed through the
doorway as if seeking warmth. But it didn’t block their view of the
body lying on a wooden crate. Her dress was stained red, her blonde
hair flowing around her head.

“Wow.” The word escaped Padre’s throat like
crinkled foil. “I guess your client wasn’t imagining it.”

Her beauty was frozen in time, her blue eyes
locked open in childlike wonder, and her skin tinged in blue.
Rachel Tyler was no longer a missing person.

Dagger unfastened the matching earring from
Rachel’s ear and turned it over. “Now we found the second earring
to the collection. All we need is the necklace.”

Sara sat on a chair in Nick’s hotel room and
watched Nick finish his drink and struggle out of his shirt. He
fell across the bed giggling, flung the shirt down on the floor.
Crawling across the bed, he anchored himself against the headboard.
Smiling at Sara, he patted the bedside next to him.

“I don’t bite.” He blinked lazily, his eyes
glazed, speech slurred.

A hotel room in Tyler lingo was a one-bedroom
suite on the top floor with a spiral staircase leading up to a
loft. The air conditioning purred, drowning out the sound of the
light rain pelting the windows.

“Why do you blame yourself, Nick?” Sara was
attempting to continue the conversation Nick tried to avoid in the
cocktail lounge. She watched his eyes search the room as if he were
getting his bearings. She tried another approach. “Did the
therapist help?”

Nick laughed. “Sucker cost Dad a hundred
bucks a half hour. She wanted to, he changed his voice to a high
falsetto, ‘fixate on my obsession about my mother and how it might
affect my sexual orientation’.” A giggle erupted and Nick rubbed
his hands over his face, inhaled long and deep. “The minute she
heard I had done some modeling, she thought I was gay.”

“So, you never did tell her about
Rachel.”

Nick shook his head. “Couldn’t. No. I didn’t
want to remember.”

“What about hypnosis?”

“Didn’t want it.”

Sara moved to the bed and sat facing Nick.
“Know what I think? I think you didn’t need hypnosis to remember.”
She brushed his damp hair from his forehead. “I think that night,
or at least parts of it, are so clear you are trying to make them
as buried as the parts you don’t remember.”

Nick grabbed her hand and brought her fingers
to his lips. “God, you are beautiful.”

Sara slowly pulled her hand away and clasped
his between her two hands. His skin was warm, the hair on his arms
blonde against his tanned skin. She watched his lids become heavier
and close.

Unexpectedly Nick whispered, “God, she was
beautiful.”

“She?” Sara asked. “Rachel?”

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw her there.
She looked like she was asleep, lying on the floor.” Nick closed
his eyes tightly, pressed his fingers to the corners of his
eyes.

Sara thought she saw tears and when he opened
his eyes, she saw that they were red.

“I thought I must have done it. I was lying
on the couch, actually,” he giggled again, “fell off of it. I had
been to a party and had a few too many brownies.” More giggles
erupted. “But then I felt the blood on the back of her head when I
tried to help her up. She wouldn’t move.”

Sara felt Nick’s hand tremble and heard his
voice crack, the tears coming to the surface. She turned and sat
next to him, tried to put her arm around him. Nick scooted down on
the bed and wrapped his arms around her, his head on her chest. She
tentatively touched his back, not quite sure what his intentions
were. But she felt his body shudder and only when she heard the
stifled whimpers did she realize he was crying.

She cradled him in her arms, tears coming to
her own. Whatever Nick thought he did that night, he was incapable
of removing Rachel’s body on his own. But why should there have
been a body? The crew members said she was on the boat.

“Nick?” She stroked the back of his head and
waited for the trembling to stop. “Nick? According to your father,
Rachel disappeared off the yacht. How could she have been dead on
the living room floor?”

“No,” Nick mumbled against her blouse. “Dad
paid them off to say that. The next morning I was lying on the
grass by the pier, my clothes all wet. I must have carried Rachel’s
body down to the water, probably weighted it down.”

Sara thought for a moment. She gathered her
hair with one hand to pull it out of the way and went back to
stroking Nick’s head. Dagger had shown the picture to Pete, one of
the crew members. He recognized Rachel’s picture and had claimed to
have partied all night with Rachel. Someone was lying.

“Think back, Nick. I know everything is fuzzy
but somehow, in your condition, I doubt you could have carried
Rachel’s body out of the house and all the way down to the pier on
your own. And just the fact that she just showed up again proves
that she didn’t die the first time.”

“That’s a lie. Dagger is wrong.”

“I don’t think so.” She wanted to tell him
she was the one who saw Rachel that night, that she knew absolutely
sure Rachel had been alive. Instead she said, “Maybe what you think
you might have dreamed was real and what was real might have been a
dream. It’s just a matter of sorting it all out in your head.” He
was silent. Sara could feel his body relax, his breathing slow and
even. Was he asleep? Did he not hear a word she said?

Slowly Nick sat up, raked a hand through his
hair, and stared intently straight ahead. He had the strangest look
on his face, eyes suddenly clear.

“There was something else.” His head
twitched, as though the mind was trying to cast off stray cobwebs.
“Rachel did talk to me. I remember she bent over me on the couch,
kissed me on the forehead and said ‘sweet dreams’. I found that so
strange because I remember looking over and also seeing her still
lying on the floor.”

CHAPTER 33

Sara checked the rearview mirror before
pulling out. She didn’t feel comfortable driving Dagger’s ‘64
Mustang convertible. He said it was worth a lot of money, a
classic, and she didn’t feel that confident yet behind the
wheel.

She pressed a button and the motorized
convertible top folded down. Once it was secured, Sara pulled the
Mustang out into traffic. The earlier storm had moved through
leaving a humid wind which felt good rustling through her hair.
Once she left the downtown lights the sky lit up with millions of
stars.

She used her cellular phone to call Dagger
but got the irritating busy signal when either the call was out of
range or the cellular service lines were tied up. Next she tried
calling Worm at home to see if he had been able to identify the
girlfriend of Rachel’s who could pass for her twin sister.

Sara placed the phone back in her purse and
checked her rearview mirror. Small pinpoints of light were growing
a little too quickly. Maybe it was her imagination but she could
swear a truck had followed her from the hotel.

She maneuvered the Mustang along a road that
wound through the forest preserve. She picked up the phone and
tried Dagger again. Finally, she got through.

Dagger said, “We hit the jackpot tonight.” He
proceeded to tell her where he and Padre found Rachel.

She told him about her conversation with
Nick. “I don’t think he had anything to do with Rachel’s
disappearance but it has been tearing him up. You should have seen
him tonight, Dagger.” Sara watched as the truck’s lights filled the
rearview mirror. “Oh, my.”

“Sara?”

“I think someone followed me from the
hotel.”

“Where are you at?”

Sara turned down a frontage road and slowed
down. The truck turned, too.

“I just turned down the road that runs
alongside the stone quarry. The truck followed.”

“I’m not too far away. Hang in there,
Sara.”

Dagger never let his foot off the gas pedal
as he exited the toll road. He had left Padre to wait for Sergeant
Duranski and a couple of representatives of the Cedar Point Police
Department. Padre had a plan, so Dagger left him to work it out and
hitch a ride home with one of the detectives.

“Sara, talk to me. What’s happening?” He
didn’t like the dead silence. He approached the forest preserve
from the opposite direction and could see the fence surrounding the
vast emptiness of the quarry. Dagger reached into the glove box and
pulled out one of his spare pistols. This one was a Bersa Series 95
.380 automatic. Lightweight, pocket-size, with an overall length of
only six-and-a-half inches.

Yellow eyes peered out from the underbrush
and then scurried across the road. Dagger swerved to avoid hitting
the raccoon.

“Sara?” Dagger tried again. He wasn’t getting
a dial tone so he knew the phone line was still open. Now it wasn’t
necessary. Up ahead he saw a blue truck with a cap pulling off the
road. Dagger tossed the phone on the seat and gunned it. His truck
fishtailed around the corner and skidded into the road behind the
blue pickup.

He almost missed the turnoff the pickup had
taken and had to backup, tires screeching. Racing down the unmarked
path, Dagger pulled up alongside the pickup just as it rammed the
Mustang through the fence. Dagger jumped out of his truck. He
watched in horror as the Mustang with Sara inside soared off into
the blackness, down into the quarry.

“SARA.” His scream echoed through the quarry.
The driver of the truck fired a shot at Dagger, then backed the
pickup out onto the road and disappeared in a cloud of dust and
gravel.

Dagger dove toward the edge of the quarry and
grabbed onto the mangled fence. Several hundred feet below he could
see the light from the headlights of the Mustang and then an
explosion as the car crashed onto the floor of the quarry.