Virtue Falls (54 page)

Or did she? Perhaps this was not a memory, but a dream, the fantasy of a lonely, motherless child. Yet in her mind’s eye, she could see it so clearly.

Pulling out her phone, she started to call Garik.

A piece of paper fluttered out of the side pocket.

A note, in Garik’s handwriting:
In case we lose cell service again—meet me at your old house at three. By then, I’ll have something to show you.

She didn’t believe it. When would he have put that in her bag? Why not just tell her?

She called him.

“Damn it to hell.” She didn’t have service.

She examined the note again.

No way around it. This was Garik’s handwriting: loose, large, distinctive.

She flung her bag over her shoulder. She called down to the guys, “I’m going to walk up to the top of the canyon and see if I can get through to Garik.”

Shaken from their concentration, Ben, Luke, and Joe looked up from the work in disgust.

Joe stood. “I’ll walk you.” To the other two, he said, “I’ve got to take a leak, anyway.”

Elizabeth almost grinned. Relentlessly practical, these guys—if she was going to tear one of them away from the work, he might as well take the break that refreshes.

Joe and Elizabeth made the climb to the rim of the canyon.

Joe visited the Port-a-Potty.

Elizabeth tried her phone. Nothing. No bars. No service.

Joe came out, adjusting his waistband.

“Can you make a call?” she asked him.

He gave his phone a try, and shook his head. “Nope. Even when we haven’t had a couple of sizable earthquakes, this close to the Pacific, service is iffy.”

“Yes.” She looked down at the note still clutched in her hand. “The thing is, I’ve got a note from Garik telling me to meet him at my old house.”

“Your old house? You mean, where your father—”

She cut Joe off before he could repeat the words she had heard so many times in the past. The words that she now knew were not true. “Yes. That house. Garik says he’s got something to show me. So I’m going to go ahead and see what he wants.”

Joe put his hands on his hips and tried to look manly, rather than nerdy. “You can’t go alone.”

She shouldn’t. She looked at the note again. She looked at the black-and-white drawing. She thought about the watercolor. And she thought about Garik, waiting for her with news about the killer. “It’s not far. There’s nothing between here and there. I know what you’re thinking—I’m thinking it, too—but logically, I can’t see a murderer figuring out that I’m anywhere but at the research site.”

She had spoken the magic scientific word.
Logically
.

“That makes sense. But I’ll go with you anyway.” Joe went to the rim and shouted, “I’m taking Elizabeth to her old house to meet Garik.” The two of them started walking. “I
have
to go,” he told her. “If by some chance something happened to you and I didn’t, Garik would crush me like a bug.”

“That is so true.” She tried again to grin. She couldn’t quite do it. Because she was scared. She was jumpy. She was hopeful. She was intent on their destination, yet she managed to chat as they walked the mile to the empty house on the empty plateau above the sea.

When the house came into sight, they both stopped.

“I heard it was haunted,” Joe said. “Now I believe it.”

She nodded.

Here her childhood had been destroyed. Here her life had changed forever—and yet to her, now, it looked like an old-fashioned, decrepit, isolated seaside home on a plot of land five miles wide. Here, salt-toughened grasses waved, a few scattered cypresses bowed down to the constant wind, paint peeled off the siding that sagged with weariness. Broken windows showed jagged teeth. The roof was missing shingles. The place was sad. As Joe said, haunted.

“No vehicle in front,” Joe said. “What time’s he supposed to meet you?”

She glanced at her watch. It was two fifteen. “Three.”

“We’ve got some time then. Come on, let’s check it out.”

“Yes. Let’s check it out.”

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

Garik had no right to take Charles from the Honor Mountain Memory Care Facility. He wasn’t a relative. He had no legal justification.

But he walked confidently down the corridor toward the front door, escorting Charles, speaking to everyone they met. The facility was still in shock from the discovery of Yvonne’s body, numb with horror and grief. The medical professionals, the other patients … no one paid them more than passing heed.

Charles walked beside him exuding a special kind of assurance, as if he understood exactly what was at stake, and in fact as they got closer to the nurses’ station, the one that guarded the door, he murmured, “I’ve always wanted to break out of prison, and this is exactly how I imagined I would do it.”

Garik glanced sharply at him.

Did he see the care facility as a prison?

Of course he did. Another prison that confined him and kept him from going out into the world to do his work, visit his daughter … seek revenge.

The test for this jail break would come at the nurses’ station. Someone had to buzz them out, and Garik had to convince them it was okay. Everyone always saw Garik with Elizabeth, everyone knew Elizabeth was Charles’s daughter, and everyone knew they had been married.

Maybe this would work.

This had better work.

Garik and Charles walked up. Garik leaned against the desk and smiled sympathetically at the two female LPNs who stood with red-rimmed eyes, and at Layla, the new nurse who had taken Yvonne’s place. “How is everyone doing?” he asked.

They all nodded with varying shades of sorrow.

“I didn’t know Yvonne well,” said one of the LPNs. “I’ve never worked the same shift. But this goes beyond friendship into—”

“Horror,” Charles said.

“Yes,” the LPN agreed.

“Charles is pretty shook up, too,” Garik told them, “and in need of some sunshine. Is it okay if I take him out into the garden?”

Layla hesitated.

“I knew Yvonne so well.” Charles’s voice broke. “She was kind to me and kind to my daughter, and I am so sad.”

He sounded sincere.

Garik knew he
was
sincere. “If you’re in doubt that this is okay, call Sheila,” he said. “She knows me. She’s knows I’m an ex-FBI agent. She knows Charles. She’ll vouch for us walking outside together.” He was pretty sure she would, too.

“Sheila doesn’t come on until the night shift. I’m not going to bother her while she’s sleeping.” With her hand on her shoulder, Layla rotated her neck as if she had a kink in the muscle. “You can go. No more than fifteen minutes. Aurora, you go with them.”

The biggest LPN, a massive woman with a Midwestern accent, nodded and came out from behind the desk.

From behind the desk, Layla unlocked the door.

Garik spoke in Charles’s ear. “My truck—it’s the white Ford F-250. I’m parked close. Angle that direction. Don’t run until the last minute. I’ll catch up with you.”

Charles nodded.

As they exited the building, Garik smiled at Aurora—and gave Charles a push toward the garden. “So,” Garik said as Charles wandered toward the row of roses, “Where are you from?”

“Minnesota.” Aurora pronounced it with a distinctive lilt. With her gaze on Charles, she asked, “Is it all right for him to go so far on his own?”

“He’s old. He’s feeble. He’s been in prison for years. And he’s suffering seizures. I think we’re okay.” Garik marked every time Charles swerved, turned to look back at his escorts and smile sweetly, leaned over to smell the roses. Yet always he moved toward the parking lot, toward the truck.

Old and feeble and a prisoner and suffering seizures, yes. But the man was brilliant, and Garik felt his respect—and his sense of urgency—escalate.

“Patients will do anything to get away,” Aurora said with assurance.

“Where could he go?” Garik gestured toward the forest that surrounded the facility. “It’s not like he can find a bar around here and stop for a beer.”

Aurora stared at Garik as if he was not too bright. “The patients, they can’t think that far ahead. He could get lost in the woods and we wouldn’t find him until he was dead of starvation and exposure.”

Garik did his best to look abashed. “You’re absolutely right. If he takes off, I promise I’ll run after him.”

The female viewed Garik with narrow-eyed suspicion.

Either Garik was losing his touch, or Aurora was one smart cookie.

And Charles was veering away from the garden.

Garik put his hand on her arm. “I’ll catch up with him.” He hurried toward Charles.

Aurora hurried after him.

Charles picked up speed, heading toward the truck.

“Hey!” Garik started jogging. “Charles, hold up!” He gave Aurora a big thumbs-up, and surreptitiously used the remote key to unlock the vehicle. “Charlie, really. Come on. You can’t get away.”

Charles opened the passenger side and climbed in.

Garik faced Aurora and laughed a little. “Unless he can hotwire my truck, he’s reached the end of the line. Relax. I can get him. I’ll show him the interior. He really is a good guy.”

Aurora slowed. She stopped.

At last Garik yielded to his need to
hurry
. He sprinted to driver’s side. He opened the door, slid inside, started the engine.

Charles locked the doors.

Aurora shrieked in fury and roared toward them.

Garik peeled out of the parking lot, burning rubber all the way. “Hang on, amigo, this is going to be a wild ride,” he shouted to Charles, and floorboarded the gas pedal.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

As soon as the Honor Mountain Memory Care Facility vanished in the rearview mirror, Garik called Elizabeth.

The call went right to voice mail.

“Oh, come
on
,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” Charles asked.

“I can’t reach Elizabeth right now.” He tried to sound reassuring.

A quick glance at Charles proved he hadn’t succeeded.

What next? “I’m going to make another phone call, check in on another suspect.” Garik dialed Marrero’s number—he’d called it often enough in the past few days—hoping to hell Marrero had showed up at Virtue Falls Canyon and was answering his phone, hoping even more Marrero’s stabbed and lifeless body hadn’t been carried inland by the tsunami, or worse, carried out to sea, never to be seen again.

Garik jumped when the call clicked through, and without waiting for an answer, he said, “Where are you, you bastard?”

But a woman’s voice spoke. “Hang on a minute. Andrew’s a little tied up right now. Let me put this to his ear.”

Startled, Garik asked, “Who is this?”

But the female was gone, and the next voice was Marrero’s. He shouted, “Call the cops! This madwoman has kidnapped me!”

In the background, Garik could hear the woman say, “Now, darling, you’re overreacting.”

Garik tried to get his breath. “Marrero, who kidnapped you?”

“Rainbow!”

No wonder Andrew Marrero had been absent for so long. No wonder Rainbow looked so smug, and appeared only when she wanted. No wonder she had a puffy mouth … Garik sought clarity. “You mean
Rainbow
has taken you prisoner and you can’t escape? You can’t get away from
Rainbow
?”

“She waited until I was asleep and tied me to the bed!” Marrero was obviously furious.

As alibis went, Garik thought that was very impressive. “Okay.”

“This is the most humiliating, horrifying experience of my life!” Marrero sounded as if he was expecting sympathy.

Probably he wouldn’t appreciate Garik’s rising amusement.

Garik could hear Rainbow croon, “Watch how you are talking, lover. I told you—if I want any lip from you, I’ll take it out of my zipper.”

“Call the cops!” Rainbow must have taken the phone away from Marrero’s ear, for Marrero sounded far away.

“You’re a very naughty boy, telling him to do that.” Rainbow’s voice got fainter. “You deserve to be punished, and I’ll have to use my paddle on your plump white ass.”

Garik could not hang up fast enough. He was pretty sure that when he’d had the chance to think about it, he would be emotionally scarred.

But right now, what mattered was knowing Marrero and Rainbow were eliminated, once and for all, as suspects in Misty’s murder.

Garik glanced worriedly at Charles. Not that he didn’t agree with Charles—Bradley Hoff was the killer. But accomplices always added a frightening complication to any case.

Garik called Elizabeth again.

No answer.

He called the Oceanview Café.

Dax answered.

“This is Garik Jacobsen. Is Bradley Hoff there?”

“He left about a half hour ago to check up on his wife.” Dax lowered his voice. “Why? Do you think Vivian Hoff is in danger?”

No. Garik thought Vivian Hoff was dead. “Is Elizabeth there?”

“No. She left with you. What—?”

Garik hung up. With a glance at Charles, he said, “Okay, look. The good news is, we’ve narrowed our list of suspects to one, and you’re right. I can’t say for sure it’s Bradley Hoff, but that’s pretty much merely the caution of a grizzled FBI agent. The bad news is, I’m not getting Elizabeth on the phone. All that probably means is that she doesn’t have service. Since the earthquake, that’s been a problem for everyone.”

“What are we going to do now?” Charles’s voice was calm, but in his lap, his hands gripped each other so tightly his knuckles bulged.

“We’re going to go to Virtue Falls Canyon and talk to her in person.”

“Good.” Charles nodded. “Good.”

Garik headed to the research site, following the road that paralleled the canyon, watching for signs that the team was working below. He sighed with relief when he saw equipment dumped near the canyon rim close to the ocean. “Stay here,” he said. “Let me find her.” He turned off the truck, took the keys, and jogged the path. Standing at the top, he scanned the area until he saw them: two guys, working in the dirt.

Hey!” he yelled. “Where’s Elizabeth?”

The guys looked up, looked at each other, then Ben stood and yelled back, “She said she’d heard from you, and she left.”