A Memory Worth Dying For (27 page)

Cynthia nodded. “Yeah, how crazy is that? I looked up some of your paintings on the Internet, Marti. They’re great.”

Skyler agreed. “I know. Your work is amazing. To think we have a famous celebrity in our midst.”

“Oh, come on, you two. That’s enough.” Marti’s face felt hot.

“So what gives with you and Daniel?” Cynthia leaned forward and played with the napkin on the table, her eyes averted—as if she wasn’t happy about prying but couldn’t help herself.

“Yeah, Marti, I wondered why you never came back after the accident. I heard you just left with no explanation.”

Marti’s cheeks burned.

Cynthia stared at the uncomfortable look on Marti’s face and gave Skyler a frown. Then she leaned over and covered Marti’s hands with hers. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to pry.”

“No. It’s okay. You were the best friends I had when I lived here, and I’m sorry I didn’t call you when I left. I was just so devastated . . . after the baby . . . and everything. I don’t want to go into it all, but Daniel and I . . . we just . . .” Tears filled her eyes, and Marti struggled to keep them from rolling down her cheeks.

Skyler rubbed Marti’s arm. “It’s okay, hon. We understand. Let’s not talk about it now. Maybe sometime later, okay?”

Marti nodded. “Anyway, Gerald asked me to come and paint a portrait of Daniel to hang with the other portraits in the study. He was hoping it might help jump-start Daniel’s memory.”

“That’s neat about the portrait, but I bet it’s hard, isn’t it?”

Marti didn’t answer, but her gaze shifted to stare unseeing out the window.

“Hey, how about we go down and stick our feet in the creek?” Cynthia jumped up and looked out the window at the river below. “I see lots of cute guys down there, Skyler. That should pique your interest.”

Skyler stood up and hooked her purse over her arm. “
Ooooh,
that sounds like fun, but, unfortunately . . . I have to get back to work. Dr. Watson gets his dander up when I take too long for lunch.”

“I thought you worked at the clinic.”

“That’s only part-time. Working for Dr. Watson pays my bills, and working at the clinic feeds my addiction . . . me.”

They all laughed.

Cynthia stood up as well. “Yeah, she spends all the clinic salary on jewelry. Wait up, Skyler. I’ll go with you.” She smiled down at Marti. “Dr. Watson’s a great boss, but we do have to stay on our toes. Thanks, Marti, for meeting us for lunch. We loved seeing you again, and we’re so glad you’re on board with the fundraiser.”

Marti smiled up at her friends. “Yeah, me too. I’ll fill out the application and drop it off at your office before I leave town.”

“Would you like us to drop you somewhere?”

“No, I have my car outside, and I’m meeting someone in about ten minutes. You two go on back to work.”

Cynthia leaned forward and hugged Marti. “Oh, do you still have that cool Lexus Daniel bought you when you got married?”

“No, unfortunately, I was too fond of eating. I had to trade it in for a smaller car.”

They all laughed.

“We sure missed you when you left, but it’s so good to see you again, my friend. We felt lost without you.” Cynthia’s voice was soft and sincere.

Skyler nodded and gave Marti a hug.

Marti could feel her throat closing with emotion, so she just smiled.

After Cynthia and Skyler left the room, Marti leaned back in her chair. Tears tickled the edge of her eyes when she thought about how many friendships she had lost. Now, for some reason God had brought the two areas of her life together for a purpose. Even though she wanted to believe God abandoned her, she knew better. The Bible said plainly that all things work together for good for them that love the Lord. God had allowed all the things in her life. She just had to trust that God knew what He was doing.

After leaving a tip for the waitress, she decided to brave the heat once more and wait in the car for Clara. She thanked the hostess for a delicious lunch and walked out into the sunshine and oppressive heat.

Across the street, she saw Clara unlock the door of her car and get into the driver’s seat. Marti waved, but Clara was fitting the key in the ignition and didn’t see her. Marti stood beside the blue plastered wall of the restaurant and waited for the traffic to clear before she could cross the street.

She watched the last car roll past her when a horrible explosion blasted her hearing. The air seemed to vibrate around her, charged with current. She instinctively put her hands over her ears and turned away from the blast. The impact of the explosion pushed her backward, and she fell against the building behind her. When she finally raised her head and looked toward the whooshing sound, she was horrified to see her car completely engulfed in flames. It took a few seconds for the sight to penetrate her understanding. Her car had exploded!

“Clara! Oh no!” She heard herself cry the words. She rushed toward her car, yelling as she ran. “Help! Someone help her! She’s in the car.” A few feet from the car, Marti had to pull up short when heat from the flames burned her face. The entire car was swallowed in flames, and she couldn’t see anything but a wall of orange and yellow rising high into the sky. A grim realization hit her in the chest. It was too late.

Marti’s hands covered her eyes. Knowing Clara was inside that towering inferno shocked her. If she left the restaurant a few minutes earlier, she would have been in the car as well.

No. Not just in the car, but driving.

Suddenly, her chest pounded with a heartbeat so fast it hurt. Surely only a bomb could have caused such a violent explosion. A cold chill ran through her in spite of the intense heat. Someone had planted a bomb in her car to explode when she cranked the engine. That bomb was meant for her. When the realization hit her, she wrapped her arms around her waist and sobbed.

Zach wasn’t her stalker. The note he left was about someone else. Her stalker was still out there, and Clara had died in an explosion meant for her.

Marti’s knees buckled, and she sank onto the curb.

People were running all around her. She heard someone call, “Here comes the fire truck!”

Sirens sounded in the distance, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

She felt someone touch her on the shoulder.

“Marti? Are you all right?”

She looked up into Daniel’s face.

“Daniel, Clara . . . she was . . . it was supposed to be me . . .”

“Calm down, Marti. You’re not making any sense.” Daniel sat down beside her.

“Clara was in my car,” she cried in anguish.

“Clara? Clara who?”

Marti didn’t answer but turned to him and fell against him in utter horror. She felt Daniel’s arms circle her and pull her close. His hands rubbed her back, trying to give her comfort, and his embrace felt like a warm blanket on a winter’s day. She had the strange sensation of being home, surrounded by things familiar and comforting.

A fire engine roared toward them and came to a jolting stop in front of the car, blocking the street. Firemen ran to pull hoses from the back of the truck out into the street. A man, obviously the fire chief, yelled orders at the men hooking up the hose to a fire hydrant in front of the restaurant. The hose finally bulged, and water sprayed onto the towering inferno. The hot metal hissed when the water hit, and Marti’s heart felt every sizzle.

A police car pulled up and blocked the traffic flow down the street. Two policemen stepped out of the car and began pushing the crowd farther away from the fire. One officer came over to Marti and Daniel and waved them back.

“Step back, folks. Let’s give the firemen room.”

Marti raised her head and babbled, “But that’s my car.”

The policeman lifted an eyebrow and came closer. “Did you say that’s your car, ma’am?”

Marti nodded. “And . . . a woman was inside.”

The policeman jumped to attention. “There was someone in the car?”

When she nodded, he ran to tell the firemen fighting the flames. When they nodded their understanding, the officer returned to her. “Ma’am, I’m Daren Fisher from the Carson City Police Department. Could you answer some questions now?”

Marti sniffed and nodded.

Officer Fisher pulled out a black notebook and a pen. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Marti Rushing.”

“Any relation to Daniel here?”

Marti looked at Daniel and shook her head. “Uh . . . no.”

“She’s staying at our house, Daren—painting an oil portrait.”

“Oh. Well, could you tell me who was in the car?”

Marti rubbed the tears from her eyes with a tissue and answered. “A nurse from the clinic. Her name was Clara, but I can’t remember her last name.”

“Watting,” Daniel supplied. “Her last name was Watting.”

The officer wrote down the name in his black book and asked, “Do you know what made it explode? Was the motor hot or smoking when you cut it off?”

Marti grasped at the idea. Maybe it wasn’t a bomb, but it exploded too fast to be anything else. “I don’t think so.”

The policeman left her and reprimanded a couple of boys who were climbing on the fire truck. He spoke to a couple of the eye-witnesses standing around the perimeter and wrote down their answers in the book.

Daniel took Marti’s elbow and pulled her back to the curb on the opposite side of the street. “Come back, Marti. Let’s move back from the heat.”

She let him lead her back to the doors of the café.

Marti looked into his eyes for the first time. The compassion she saw there made her stomach flutter. He helped her sit on the steps of the restaurant and wrapped his arm around her for support.

Officer Fisher came back to Marti and sat down beside her.

“The eye-witnesses confirmed there was a lady sitting in the car when it exploded. They also say it exploded when she turned the key in the ignition. Can you tell me about this lady, Clara Watting, and why she was in your car?”

“She was the head nurse at the Carson Clinic. I picked her up on the road. She had car trouble, and I was taking her back to her car at the garage. I gave her a key so she could run the air until I was done with my lunch meeting. But, I didn’t know—” She shook her head and looked up at the officer. “Zach wasn’t the one. I thought all this was over, but Zach wasn’t the one.”

“What do you mean, Marti? What does Zach have to do with anything?” Daniel’s voice sounded confused.

“That note he wrote before he died. I thought the woman he mentioned was me . . . that it was me he was stalking . . . ever since—” Suddenly, she realized what she was about to say. She couldn’t tell Daniel about leaving here three years ago. “Someone has been stalking me . . . for several years. When Zach mentioned a woman in his note—that she didn’t deserve it—I thought he was talking about me. I thought he was my stalker, but now . . .”

The policeman shook his head. “Ma’am, you’re not making any sense. I can tell you’re hiding something. You’ll have to come with me to the station and talk to Detective Simmons. If someone was killed in your car, you have some explaining to do.”

Marti’s mouth hung open.

“What do you mean?”

“Ma’am, if you asked someone to ride in your car, gave her the keys so she could use it, and it exploded as soon as she started it up, that sounds awfully suspicious. Exactly what did you have against this woman?”

FIFTY-ONE

MARTI WAS APPALLED. “NOTHING! I
had nothing against her. I didn’t even know her that well. I only met her yesterday.”

“That fact will be investigated. As soon as I talk to my partner, I have to take you in for questioning.”

Marti turned to Daniel in shock. “Please, Daniel. I didn’t do anything.”

“Aren’t you jumping to conclusions, Daren? You can see she’s upset. There’s no way she’s involved. Anyway, what makes you think a bomb caused the explosion?”

Daren’s posture stiffened. “She has to come in for questioning. No arguments.”

“Well, at least let me take her to the station. Don’t put her in the back of the squad car like a common criminal.”

The policeman frowned but nodded. “All right, Daniel, but make sure you go straight there.”

The policeman nodded at Marti and turned back toward the fire.

Marti was terrified. She half whispered to herself. “He thinks I killed Clara.”

“Don’t worry, Marti. It’ll all be straightened out as soon as you tell them what happened.”

Marti’s reasoning took over, and she realized Daniel was right. She had no connection with Clara, and she knew absolutely nothing about building bombs. Anyway, she was sure the bomb wasn’t meant for Clara anyway, it was meant for—

All of a sudden the crowds around her became one big face of terror. He might be here—looking at her with murder in his eyes right at this moment.

“Dad said you mentioned a stalker, Marti, but why would he follow you all the way to Texas? And, when did he have access to your car long enough to plant a bomb? Connecting a bomb to explode when you crank the ignition takes time, and it’s certainly not something he could do out here on the street with everyone watching.”

Marti looked at him in disbelief. He didn’t believe her. What could she do to make everyone understand?

“I saw someone standing around my car while I was in the café, but he was there only a minute. I guess he didn’t have time to plant a bomb.” Her voice oozed defeat.

Daniel put his hands on Marti’s arms and turned her toward him. “I don’t know what’s going on, Marti, but you’re obviously upset. We’ll talk to the police and see what they say. If someone’s after you, we’ll protect you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise. Don’t worry, okay?”

Marti listened to Daniel’s words but felt no sense of comfort. Daniel couldn’t remember, but what he’d done to her was far worse than any fear she felt from an anonymous stalker.

Daniel helped Marti stand on shaky legs and guided her to his car. Before he pulled out into the traffic, he leaned over and gathered her hand into his and laced their fingers together like the old days. “It’ll be okay, Marti. We’ll get this figured out.”

They drove to the police station where Detective Brent Simmons showed her to an interrogation room off to the side of the reception area. Daniel sat down outside the room in one of the chairs lined up against the waiting room wall.