Whispers in the Dark (25 page)

Danesh said, “After that, we can head out to the park. You can pick up your things, and I should check in at the office. Given the circumstances, we’re closing for the day, but I left the visitors center unlocked last night so the search team could use it as a base.”

He led us outside, where a little red sports car was parked at a crazy angle to the curb. Maureen pulled out her keys. Danesh glanced at her shaking hands and took the keys from her. “Kylie, do you want to drive Maureen’s car and follow me, or do you feel comfortable driving the truck?”

I wasn’t sure what I would say to Maureen during the drive, but I wasn’t confident with the truck in traffic. I took the keys.

I needn’t have worried about making conversation. Maureen was too distracted even to comment on the fact that I’d spent the night with Danesh. She stared out the window, silent except for an occasional short, jerky breath.

Danesh turned into a parking lot a few minutes later. If it weren’t for the signs, I wouldn’t have recognized it as a hospital, since the low building had little in common with the mammoth complexes I knew in Boston.

Maureen jumped out and ran for the building, not even bothering to close her door properly. I took care of that and went in with Danesh. We found Maureen at the counter, babbling and gesturing wildly. The pretty young woman behind the counter gazed at her complacently.

The receptionist turned to Danesh. “Hey sweetie, how’s the hero?” Sweetie? And I couldn’t help noticing her long, glossy brown hair and great figure.

He put his arm around me. “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Kylie. Kylie, my cousin Alice.”

“Oh.” I blinked at her as she turned her curious gaze on me. “Pleased to meet you.” A cousin was all right. Then I processed the rest of their conversation. Hero? I didn’t feel like a hero. I didn’t even know yet if I was a murderer. Not murderer, I reminded myself—it was self-defense. But still, I’d caused someone’s death. Manslaughterer, maybe.

“Please, can I see Jerry?” Maureen wailed.

“I’ll check,” Alice said. She headed down the hallway.

“But if she can see him, why can’t I see him?” Maureen demanded.

Danesh took her arm and steered her toward the waiting area. “She works here. Just be patient.” He nudged Maureen into a chair.

I sat nearby and stared at the posters on the wall without really seeing them. Would I ever be able to enter a police station or hospital again without triggering unpleasant memories? I wanted to go to Danesh, to ask him to hold me, but Maureen needed him more than I did.

I breathed deeply and started doing my grounding exercises. Surely I’d proven one thing last night—that I could keep going when the going got tough. I hadn’t forgotten the blind panic that sent me climbing up to the Castle. And trying to explain to the police the logic behind that had not been easy, since I now saw there wasn’t any. Still, for every stupid situation I’d gotten myself into, I’d gotten myself out again. No way was I a hero, but I’d done something. I’d shown up. I could hold onto that.

Alice came back a minute later. “You can see him, but only one at a time.” As Maureen started to rise, Alice gestured to Danesh and added, “He wants to see you first.”

Maureen froze halfway to her feet. “Not... not me?”

Danesh patted her shoulder. “I’m sure he wants to see you, too. I’ll just be a minute. Then he’ll be all yours.”

Maureen settled back in her chair with a little whimper and stared after Danesh as he followed Alice down the hall. She hardly seemed aware of me.

I hoped Jerry wouldn’t ask to see me. What could I say to him? You nearly got me killed, you made me hurt people, maybe kill one, but it’s all right? It wasn’t all right, and I didn’t want to face any of the criminals involved.

But Jerry was in the hospital, seriously injured. Two men were in jail, facing long sentences. Sean was probably dead. I was healthy except for bruises and blisters that would heal in a few days. I was free, and now I had Danesh and a future. I was clearly the winner, if there was such a thing. Maybe that didn’t make up for the terror that would still haunt me, but I could count my blessings.

I moved to the chair next to Maureen and spoke gently. “I’m sure he’ll be all right. He must be conscious if he asked for Danesh.”

She turned tear-filled eyes on me. “I love him,” she whispered. “I really do love him, and I’ve been so hard on him... pushing him to get a better job, nagging him about money. I might have lost him last night. I’ve been worrying about how well we’re going to live, when we should just be living. We should be starting a family. He’s a good man and he’ll be a good father. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

She put her hand over her mouth and started crying. I patted her arm awkwardly and mumbled something meaningless.

A minute later, Maureen jumped up and raced for the hallway. Alice turned back with her while Danesh joined me. He sat with a sigh. “Jerry wanted me to apologize. He feels terrible that he put you in danger. He swears he didn’t mean to—you scared him when you came in with that story of seeing Sean, and he panicked. He called Sean to warn him, but he thought they’d just run.”

“But how did he get involved in the first place?”

“He stumbled on Sean one night doing something suspicious. Sean spun a story about being an undercover agent. Said Jerry would be helping the FBI if he played along and acted as a lookout.”

I frowned. “And he believed it? Did he even ask for ID?”

“Jerry admits that he suspected Sean might be lying. But Sean offered money.... Jerry was afraid he’d lose Maureen if he didn’t marry her soon, and she’s the kind of woman who expects a big flashy ring, things like that. Sean offered a thousand dollars for every meeting where Jerry acted as lookout and bonuses for providing information in between. It’s been going on for two months, long enough to buy Maureen that ring. Jerry convinced himself that it didn’t matter too much.”

He shrugged and shook his head. “The whole thing is ludicrous. I can’t understand why Sean went to all that trouble. Why didn’t he just find someplace else after Jerry saw him? Why choose that location in the first place? It’s ridiculously complicated.”

I remembered something one of the criminals had said out in the ruins about Sean trying to be clever. “I think it was a game to him. Using Jerry, trying to pull one over on me, flirting with danger by using someplace remote and yet still too public. He was playing at being some kind of criminal mastermind. It wasn’t sensible, but it must have given him a thrill to manipulate people and take risks. Like some role-playing video game brought to life.”

“Yeah, maybe. That game’s over, anyway.”

I shifted uncomfortably in the plastic chair. “And as foolish as it may look now, he almost got away with it. If I hadn’t happened along at just the wrong moment, and been stupid enough to investigate, he could have pulled it off.”

He reached over and took my hand, linking his fingers through mine. We sat silently. The hospital was strangely peaceful—no sirens blared as ambulances pulled up, no urgent announcements came over loudspeakers. Any drama was tucked away quietly in private rooms. Finally I said, “I thought they were a strange couple. But she really cares. More about him than the money, I mean. How do you think she’ll feel if she finds out what he did?”

Danesh chuckled. “Knowing Maureen, she’ll be flattered. She’ll say he’s finally showing some initiative.”

He shifted in his chair to face me and put his hands on my arms. “Kylie, it’s up to you. I still don’t want to say anything about Jerry to the police. I think he’ll tell them himself, but if they believe he was tricked into it, he should get off.” He ran his hands up my arms and cupped my face. “But you could have died last night. If you want to insist on justice, I’ll stand by you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t see the point in ruining more lives. I don’t know if I can just forgive and forget, but I’ll try to at least forgive.” I started to smile. “Although I’m not convinced we’re doing him a great favor. Maureen is talking about starting a family right away.”

Danesh pulled me close and squeezed, laughing. “He’s on his own. I’ll face the police, but I’m not taking on Maureen.”

He leaned back and stretched. “Well, Maureen will probably be a while, and she has her own car. Let’s head out to the canyon. I’d like to know what’s happened since we left.”

Chapter 30

Half an hour later we passed a police car at the park entrance, turning tourists away. Ten minutes after that, we pulled up beside a police car in the visitors center parking lot. I suppressed a shiver and told myself it wasn’t the police’s fault that I kept running into them in unpleasant circumstances. They were a trigger for my anxiety, but one I could overcome.

I lowered myself gingerly from the truck. Thick socks and my tennis shoes cushioned my sore feet, but my muscles ached. I held the open door for balance as I turned stiffly to shut the door. Something on the floor of the cab caught my eye.

My pepper spray.

I stared at it. How had it gotten—?

I groaned. It must have fallen out of my pack when I got my phone to call the police. I hadn’t spotted it on the dark floor. Oh well, the squash had worked, maybe even better since the effects lasted longer. I put the spray back in my backpack, which was also still in the car, and trailed Danesh into the office.

Danesh hailed a man in the back room by name. He and Danesh leaned over the map on the coffee table while they talked.

“No sign of the missing man yet, dead or alive,” the officer said. “We’ve done a pretty thorough search of the whole canyon, for one mile upstream and two down. I’m glad you’re here. We want to get up into some of the ruins in case he’s hiding, but a couple of them are hard to access.”

“I can help you with that,” Danesh said. “I gather he’s pretty familiar with the site.”

“If he drowned, he could be miles downriver, and the area isn’t exactly easy to search. We’ve called out a rafting team. They should be here in an hour. That’s the most likely scenario, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

I shuddered and stared at a poster on the wall. I recognized the high cliffs of Yosemite towering over dark green forests and cool water. I wondered if that had been Jerry’s poster, reflecting a dream of someplace he thought would be better.

“That guy couldn’t have been the ringleader, surely,” Danesh said.

“No, just a local contact,” the police officer replied. “We picked up a drug lord a few months ago, and we think this man Sean stepped in to fill the gap. The stuff is coming in from the south. The two we have in custody—the older one’s American, but he’s lived in Belize for twenty years. We have his prints on file. We’re still trying to identify the younger man, but he may be from Central America.”

I paced, hugging myself to ward off a chill. I’d heard enough. I touched Danesh’s shoulder and said, “I’m going to my campsite.”

He caught my hand. “Wait a minute.” He spoke to the officer. “What about the campsite? Is it safe?”

“We did a thorough sweep, and we warned everyone staying there. We have someone checking cars on the way out, too, just in case he decides to try hitching a ride.”

Danesh’s thumb rubbed over my knuckles, and he looked up at me. “All right. Can you check on the Wests? I want to make sure they don’t need anything, and it looks like I could be busy here for a while.”

I nodded and withdrew, hoping Danesh hadn’t noticed the way my pulse jumped when they started talking about the safety of the campground. It hadn’t occurred to me that Sean—if he were even alive—might have made it back up here, but now the shady path through the woods looked ominous. I got my pepper spray, but even armed, I decided to take the longer and busier route and headed for the canyon rim.

When I reached the rim, I paused and gazed out over the canyon. I barely recognized the nightmare world of the night before. The Castle stood beautiful, ancient, and mysterious, the blocks glowing a warm red against the blue sky. The sun shone down, bright and cheerful, warm on my face. I’d want to change from sweats to shorts soon.

The depths of the canyon stretched out below me, still cool in the shade. I caught glimpses of the river and trembled at the thought of Sean’s body tumbling through the water for miles. But I concentrated on my breathing and forced myself to gaze down. I would not allow the horrors of the previous night to ruin this place for me. It meant so much more than the folly and cruelty of a few men. If I avoided every place where I’d had a bad experience, my world would keep shrinking. I’d lose not only those places, but the opportunities—and the people—that came with them.

I still had work to do here, and I would do it. I had something special with Danesh, and I would explore it.

But I wondered how long it would be before they found Sean. He couldn’t have survived without serious injury, but I hoped he was alive, for the sake of my conscience. I didn’t need that particular ghost haunting my memories.

I nodded to a few tourists as I walked along the rim before turning down the path to the campground. Birds sang in the trees, and I flinched only a little when something small rustled in a bush. I spotted the Wests as I neared their campsite and found myself smiling before I was even close enough to wave.

“Kylie!” Lily lumbered to her feet and embraced me. “Have you been getting into trouble again?”