Healing Sands (14 page)

I pressed my hand to my mouth. If he had, he probably never would again.

It was a thought that might have taken me over the edge, if another one hadn't pulled me back: if he played soccer in the same league, Dan might know him.

No, even Dan would have said something.

But what about Alex? Miguel was older, but it was a small organization. Was there something Alex might know about this boy and why Jake would be in his truck? It was obvious Jake wasn't going to tell me, but now, after today, Alex might.

If I wasn't going to get any more God-images, this was all I had to cling to. And I did.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
onday morning at ten o'clock, Martha and Kyle were both seeing clients and, for the moment, were out of each other's faces. Olivia was studiously typing at the computer, something Sully had seldom seen her do before—another personal-growth tip from Kyle, he was sure. All was quiet at Healing Choice, and Sully could leave it for an hour with relative assurance that it would still be standing when he got back.

The plan had come to him over the course of the week. It was clear that he wasn't going to track Belinda Cox down using her legal name, not if she was now going by Zahira. He had to go with that for now, because it was all he had.

That and a thirteen-year-old photo, which until Thursday night he'd thought was virtually useless, especially in its current state. He'd straightened it out and left it under a pile of art books for three days, but it still looked like it had been used as a large spit wad. He was flipping channels that evening, half watching, half ruminating, when he landed on
CSI
. One look at the police sketch artist in the episode—some supermodel in a cameo role—and he had an idea.

A few calls on Friday had led him to the crisp-sounding Tess Lightfoot, who told him on the phone, in no uncertain terms, that she was a “forensic artist,” working as an independent contractor, and that she'd meet with him Monday morning at ten thirty at a coffeehouse called Beans and Bytes. Sully hoped she could sketch out an updated version of Belinda Cox, especially with the details Sarah Secretary had given him at the church.

Porphyria had thought it was a good idea too. Though her voice had sounded a little thready, she had been eager to turn over all the stones with him on the phone Friday night.

“If I can't locate her by name, I might be able to track her by face,” Sully said to her. “But not the face she had—what?—over a dozen years ago.”

“Well, no,” Porphyria said. “Time isn't kind enough to anybody to leave them looking like they did back when.”

“With one exception. Time has treated you with a great deal of grace.”

“Now, when did you start that?”

“Start what?”

“Shameless flattery.” Porphyria gave him the throaty laugh. “You want something from me, son?”

“Just your reassurance that I'm not going after Belinda Cox for revenge.”

“So that's what all this procrastination is about.”

“As if you didn't already know that. The closer I get, the more worked up I get.”

“And don't you think that's normal?”

“Not for me.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Sully stopped pacing his kitchen and straddled a chair. She was about to take him down anyway; he might as well sit.

“It's normal for everyone else on God's earth to want to chew barbed wire when they think about somebody that destroyed their family,” she said, “but not Sullivan Crisp.”

“But we're talking about vengeance, which last time I checked, was supposed to belong to the Lord.”

“No, we are talking about your perfecution complex.”

“Persecution complex?”

“I did not say that. I said per-FE-cution.”

Sully grinned. “New psychological term, Dr. Ghent? You want to define that for me?”

“You think you have to be perfect, and you persecute yourself when you aren't. And just like any other complex, it keeps you so focused on it, you can't go on and do the next God-thing.” She gave a soft grunt. There was obviously more to come.

“And?” Sully said.

“I used to think perfecution only occurred in women.”

“I always have been in touch with my feminine side.”

“And right now you're in touch with your stupid side. Come on, Sully—you know you'd like to tear Belinda Cox's arm off and beat her with the bloody stump, but you also know this isn't about what you'd like to do, it's about what you
have
to do. And what you have to do you can't do alone.”

“I just said that to a client three days ago.”

“I hope she's listening to you better than you are.”

Sully grinned now as he turned onto Amador Avenue and grabbed his sunglasses from the visor. He didn't go far here without his shades. Or without a Porphyria fix. Both kept him moving forward.

According to the cryptic directions Ms. Lightfoot had given him, the coffee shop was in the downtown mall. When he'd mentioned it to Olivia, she'd rolled her eyes.

“It isn't really a mall, it's just a piece of the street they won't let cars go down. There's, like, nothing there unless you go on Wednesday for fruit and stuff.”

She was right. The Downtown Mall was a ghost town at the end Tess had directed him to, except for a storefront that promised to save kids, a movie theater that showed art films on weekends, and the Beans and Bytes.

Which seemed to pride itself on being uninviting. The glass on the door was smeared with at least a month's worth of fingerprints, and the windows were so plastered with flyers, Sully wondered if it was even in business anymore. The door opened, though, into a cave-like darkness and the mournful sound of the Dave Matthews Band.

Sully stood just inside for a few seconds to let his eyes grow accustomed to the lack of light. He could barely make out a guy in dreadlocks at the counter.

“Welcome to Bytes,” said the formless voice. “What can I get for you?”

“A woman—”

“Can't help you there, pal.”

“No, I'm looking for one who—”

“Internet's in the back,” he said, still straight-faced. “Try eHarmony.”

Sully grinned. “Can you make a Frappuccino?”

The guy cocked an eyebrow.

“Okay, just make it a coffee with a lot of cream and a lot of sugar. Decaf.”

“Dude,” Dreadlocks said. “Why do you even bother?”

Sully looked around, but there were no women in the place. A circle of older Hispanic men had pulled several tables together in the back and were having a lively discussion in Spanish. From the looks of it, they were talking about either politics or their wives, jostling each other with good-natured elbow nudges. It made him feel as if he were on some shelf, looking down at life.

“One sugar and cream with a shot of coffee,” Dreadlocks droned from the counter.

Sully took it with him to a table where the Sunday
Las Cruces Sun-News
was scattered across the top. He took a blistering sip from the cup and perused the front page. Above the fold, the name Ryan Alexander appeared beneath a photo of two men in white shirts and bulging bellies standing in a hallway.
City Council Budget Impasse
, the headline read. Sully chuckled to himself. She hadn't shot the council in heavy discussion. She'd caught these two politicians out in the hall, where, as Sully understood it, the real deals were made. He found another of her photos on the front page of the Life section. She'd snapped a picture of a dark-haired woman in a black leotard, obviously a ballet teacher, surrounded by a circle of plump four-year-olds in yellow tutus. They were all looking up at the camera, creating the perfect image of a black-eyed Susan blossoming on a hillside.

Sully shook his head. It must be a huge challenge to go from Sudanese child soldiers to the local dance studio.

“Sullivan Crisp?”

Sully looked up at a woman who had somehow appeared at the table. She moved like water as she put out her hand and shook his and floated into the chair across from him, all in one fluid wave. Sully knocked the front page of the Life section to the floor.

“You want your usual, Contessa?” called Dreadlocks.

She nodded and turned back to Sully, sliding long fawn-colored hair over her shoulder.

“Is your name really Contessa?” Sully asked.

“No,” she said. “He just calls me that.” She wrinkled her nose in the direction of the counter. “And he's the only one who gets away with it. Just so you know.”

“Duly noted.”

“So what have you got for me? I have about fifteen minutes, so . . .”

“Of course.” Sully pulled the picture from the inside pocket of the tweed blazer he'd worn for credibility and which was starting to itch. He tried to smooth the photo on the tabletop.

She picked it up, moved a pair of rimless glasses from the top of her head to her eyes, and studied it. Sully studied her.

Tess Lightfoot wasn't beautiful, not by magazine cover standards. But then, who was? Still, she was put together well. Her hair was thick and shiny and seemed to have come nowhere near a goat lately. The brown eyes were bright and quick and educated. She hadn't smiled yet, but even in repose her mouth curved, revealing the slightest of overbites and a row of square white teeth.

She looked up at him and returned the glasses to the top of her head. Nodding at Dreadlocks, who put her “usual” on the table, she tapped Belinda's picture with her fingernail.

“How old is this picture?” she asked.

“Fourteen years—about that.”

“It's certainly seen better days. Do you know anything about her life since this was taken? Health issues? Traumas?”

“She's moved a lot,” he said. “Worked as a counselor. The only recent piece of information I have is that she goes by Zahira—or works for somebody by that name . . . I'm pretty sure she's not a belly dancer.”

Tess snorted—an unladylike sound, but it made Sully grin. She glanced at her coffee, still untouched. “Okay, here's what I can do. I'll try to run this through my computer program at home when I have a chance. I have several cases right now with the police department, so it'll have to wait for those to be done.”

She tapped the photo again as she took a sip and winced toward the counter. “Did he make this hot enough? The problem I might run into is the quality of the photograph. If it doesn't scan effectively, I may have to do a hand-drawn rendition.” She gave the picture yet another tap. “What happened to this, anyway? Did you throw it away by mistake?”

“Something like that,” Sully said. She was pulling him along on a piece of silk, and he could feel himself sliding off. “I'd appreciate you just doing what you can.”

“All right, well . . .” She glanced at her watch and didn't seem to like what she saw. “So you don't know anything about the way her relatives aged?”

“As far as I know, she doesn't have any family left.”

“Do you know if she smoked?”

“I don't think so.”

“Did she drink? Overeat? She looks pretty thin here.”

Sully shook his head. It was disconcerting that after a year of intense research, he knew so little about the woman who had ruined his wife's life.

“What about her personality?” Tess said.

“I'm sorry?”

“Was she happy-go-lucky? A worrier? Mean as a snake?”

Sully stared at the picture for perhaps the thousandth time. “She thought everybody had to wrestle with the devil. As far as I know, that continues to be her mission in life.”

Tess didn't say anything. Sully looked up to find her dissecting his face. Who needed a scanner with those eyes?

“All right, well, I have to go,” she said. The picture went into her bag, the hair over her shoulder, the cup into her hand. “I have your number. I'll call you when I get to this. Nice to meet you. Larry, I need an ice cube for this coffee.”

“You're not ruining my masterpiece with an ice cube,” Dreadlocks told her. Too late. The door had already closed behind her, plunging them once more into dimness.

Sully took a sip of his own coffee, which was now lukewarm and far from a masterpiece. He had the feeling Tess Lightfoot was never going to get around to Belinda Cox's photo. Dang, he should have made a color copy and given her that and kept the original. She raced so swiftly, he hadn't even had a chance to tell her that Belinda Cox dressed like a Native American wannabe and was covered in freckles and was still a blonde.

He dropped the coffee cup surreptitiously into the trash can by the door as he left. Out in the blinding sunlight, he fumbled for his sunglasses and felt a vague disappointment. Less than he expected to feel at another dead end. More than he wanted to at the thought of not seeing that fascinating woman again. He wondered if she was married. Not that he was interested in a relationship, but—too bad. Just too bad.

I savored my time with Alex, but it was hard during our soccer tutorials in Dan's backyard not to drift mentally from learning to dribble to looking for opportunities to talk to Jake. When I came on the scene, however, everyone else disappeared like bats in the sunlight, including Ginger and Dan. I could live without them. I didn't think I could live without my son.

Finally, late Monday afternoon, when Alex and I were in Dan's kitchen having a water-chugging contest, Jake appeared in the doorway. His face flickered unwelcome surprise when he saw me, and he took a step back as if he thought he could hide behind the long string of fresh garlic cloves that hung from the ceiling. He was almost thin enough to pull it off.

“Alex,” I said, not taking my eyes from Jake, “why don't you go out and set up those cones I brought so we can practice our ball control?”

He went out the back door.

“Jake, sit down,” I said.

“Dad said I don't have to—”

“I'm not going to ask you questions about what happened. Just sit.”