Last Writes (16 page)

“I’m afraid I can’t take credit for being a professor,” Claudia said. “I’m just a part-time instructor.”

A strong cigarette smell clung to the young woman’s black T-shirt and jeans, hung unpleasantly on her breath, mingled with coffee. “Oh. Well, I just wanted to tell you, I’m totally looking forward to hearing your lecture. I was massively excited when I heard about it. I’ve been interested in handwriting analysis since high school.” She ducked her head as if she were shy, and a hank of stringy black hair fell over her right eye.

Claudia smiled at the girl, trying to get her to look up. “Are you enrolled in the Forensics program?”

Goth Girl nodded, still not quite meeting her eyes. She looked early twenties, but sometimes students tended to hero-worship lecturers. “I’m going for my private investigator’s license. I think handwriting examination would be cool.”

Having worked with several private investigator clients over a long period of time, Claudia knew they generally tended to be less conventional than most people—after all, they often had to lie and con during their investigations. But that purple hair would need to be toned down a notch if she wanted to succeed in the field. It would make her far too memorable.

“You’re right,” Claudia said. “Handwriting analysis is very cool. You should sign up for my fall class. I get a lot of work from PIs.” She started to move around the girl. “Excuse me, but I have to get started.”

“Wait!” Goth Girl grabbed her sleeve. “Uh, I wanted to ask—uh.” She jerked her head around to look behind her, then let go of Claudia’s jacket. “C’n I have one of your business cards? In case I have any questions later.”

“Of course.” Claudia took a card from her pocket and gave it to her.

Goth Girl thanked her and trotted away. She dropped into a seat on the aisle, halfway to the back of the lecture hall. Claudia watched her go, thinking that something was a little off about the meeting. She saw the girl lean over and speak briefly to the man in the next seat before facing front, waiting for the program to begin.

There was no time to examine what, if anything, might be behind the exchange. Shrugging off the feeling, Claudia took her place at the podium and got her notes from her briefcase on the shelf under the lectern.

 

Lecturing felt comfortable and familiar after the strangeness of the Ark. Claudia easily slipped into the zone and spoke for an hour. She covered the basics of what it meant to be a forensic handwriting examiner; showed slides to illustrate the different types of forgeries, different types of forgers; some cases she’d worked on that had been featured in the news. Afterward, there were many questions from the audience, which meant they had enjoyed the presentation. At the end of the evening when she packed up her things, Claudia was confident that her fall class would be filled.

 

At ten minutes past nine she was back in the Jag, on the way to the Ark. Traffic was light on the Riverside freeway and then the 60 eastbound. Within thirty minutes Claudia was taking the Hemet off-ramp. She navigated the dark, winding roads, wondering whether Kelly had been successful in getting James Miller to talk about Rodney yet.

She had no doubt that if James had any information about Rodney, Kelly would wangle it out of him. She had seen Kelly perform in court. Under her cross-examination, witnesses seemed unable to stop themselves from blabbing the most incriminating information.

There was something eerie about driving into the woods at night. Claudia found herself leaning forward over the steering wheel, as if doing so would allow her to better see the road. When a rabbit bounded in front of her headlights, she gasped and slammed on the brakes, narrowly missing the frightened animal.

At last she rounded the final curve.This time the guard waved her straight through the gate and she parked in the same parking space as before. The dashboard clock said nine fifty. Early enough to seek out the building where Rita had said Kelly was staying—
Ararat
. The name of the mountain where Noah’s ark had landed. All Claudia would have to do was follow the path past the dining hall.

When she stepped from the Freon-cooled air in the car, the temperature was still in the eighties. A good twenty degrees since she’d left the Ark, but walking across the parking lot felt like slogging through maple syrup.

Claudia turned the knob on the front door and walked into silence, deafening in contrast with the chirping of crickets and croaking of frogs in the bushes outside.

A small lamp had been left on in the entry, lighting her way to the stairs. She tiptoed up to her room, noticing a strip of light under the closed door of Harold Stedman’s office. She had not been told whether his sleeping quarters were attached to his office, but he appeared to be working late.

She waited until she was inside her room with the door closed before turning on the bedside light. With the windows open wide, the place had cooled appreciably. She kicked off her shoes and exchanged the Donna Karan summer suit for chocolate-colored Capri pants and a sleeveless T-shirt; pumps for running shoes.

She had already started back to the door when something stopped her. Like a cat whose whiskers are in tune with the finest changes in the environment, Claudia stood still, reading the room.

Moving on automatic, without consciously knowing why, she went to the desk and opened the laptop. Almost immediately she spotted a curly black hair about two inches long wedged between the H and J keys. Her own hair was long and auburn. Claudia’s mind flicked through the various TBL members she’d met. Her memory told her that Lynn Ryder was the only one who had short black hair.

Lynn Ryder had known that Claudia would be away from the compound for several hours. The only plausible explanation for the hair being in the laptop was that Lynn had been in her room, trying to gain access to her computer.

A flash of anger burned her face and neck. Despite knowing that there had been hidden microphones at the rally, she had not expected to be spied on in her own bedroom. She thought about what was on the computer that might tip anyone off to their real mission here, besides the notes she’d typed up.

Nothing,
she decided with relief. She had password protected it anyway. Unless her skills as head of security included hacking, it was unlikely that Lynn Ryder had gotten into her files.

Claudia slipped quietly out of her room and back downstairs, keeping to the edges of the risers to avoid any steps that might squeak. The hallway was dark, and she had to feel her way along by staying close to the wall. The back door opened without a sound and she stood on the porch for a moment, getting her bearings before setting out.

Her rubber-soled running shoes kept her footsteps silent on the dirt as she sped along the path next to the vegetable patch. Too bad she hadn’t the foresight to bring the Maglite she kept in the Jag. But the moon and stars sparkled in the near-desert terrain, not hidden behind a haze of smog as in Greater Los Angeles, but making the sky brighter than in the city. Until she reached the avenue of tall trees where the air was far cooler, her route remained well lit.

Outside, the crickets were raucous; there must have been thousands of them. A coyote howled in the distance, probably calling its mate. Somewhere closer, the hoot of an owl startled her. Loping along at a near run, she soon closed in on a lumpy dark shadow that she knew was the dining hall. She passed it by, then the other buildings Esther had pointed out on their first day at the Ark.

In another five minutes she’d reached the four-story building where Rita had said single members of TBL were housed. A plaque on its front wall read
Ararat
. She had reached the right place.

No lights showed in the windows. With a seven a.m. breakfast call, and no TV to distract them, she assumed the residents probably retired to bed early.

Inside the dimly lit lobby, a wooden board fixed to the wall reminded Claudia of her college dorm. There was a list of room numbers beside sliding slots that held the name of the occupant. She scanned the names and found only one room listed as Guest: 339.

Not wanting to risk the noise of the elevator, she took the stairs and walked along a narrow hall, silently counting down the numbers until she came to 339.

Her soft tap on the door went unanswered. Kelly wouldn’t be asleep at this hour, even if she had to get up early. She was a night owl who stayed up past midnight most nights. Hoping she had the right place, Claudia turned the knob and quietly entered the darkened room.

A dim table lamp at the end of the couch threw just enough light to illuminate the man sprawled across it. Even at the awkward angle, Claudia recognized James Miller.

 

 

 

Kelly was on her knees, straddling Miller, who looked helpless beneath her. Her shirt was pulled up, her full breasts pressed close to his face. Her right hand was buried in his Jockeys—
Of course he would wear Jockeys and not the bikini-brief type
—his trousers pushed down almost to his knees.

Claudia stepped inside and closed the door behind her with a snap.

James’s body jerked like a marionette. Kelly twisted her head to see what he was looking at. Seeing Claudia, she pulled her hand out of his pants and climbed off. “What the hell are you doing here?”

James was on his feet before Claudia could blink, tripping in his haste to raise his trousers, tuck in his shirt, and get his belt buckled. He rushed across the room, trying to salvage any shred of dignity he might have left.

“Wait, James.” Kelly was still glaring at Claudia as she spoke to him. “We’re not done!”

He mumbled something incoherent and clutched at the door handle, fumbling it in his haste to get it open. His face was pale and pinched with anxiety, or maybe it was guilt. Claudia was positive he wouldn’t want Stedman knowing what he had been doing in Kelly’s room. She called after him, embarrassed by her own intrusion. “Please don’t go, James.
I’ll
go.”

But he wasn’t listening. Intent on escaping, he ignored them both and finally got the door open. He tore off down the hallway; a moment later Claudia could hear him clattering down the stairs.

Kelly shut the door and leaned over, hitching her bra and T-shirt into place. “Well, that was bright,” she said acidly. “What are you doing here?”

Claudia colored up. “I, uh, came to see if you’d gotten anything out of James.”

“Holy shit, Claudia; if you’d given me another five minutes I would have gotten every last detail. Now I’ll never get anything out of him. He’ll avoid me like the swine flu.”

“Well, you weren’t supposed to get the information that way.”

“Hey, sistah, this is not the time to turn all prissy-righteous on me. If a hand job is the fastest way—”

Claudia held up her hands in protest. “I just thought sexually assaulting the man was a little over the top.”

“You know what they say: The lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.”

“That poor guy; he didn’t stand a chance.” Claudia reached over and tucked in the tag sticking from the neck of Kelly’s T-shirt. “Seriously, do you think he knows anything?”

“Of course he does. He knows exactly where Rodney and Kylie are, and he wants to tell, too.”

“What do you mean? Did he actually say something?”

Kelly smirked. “Lawyer’s instinct. Never fails.”

“Oh, great. We have to rely on your psychic abilities to save the day.”

“Hell, Claudia, that boy was ripe for the pickin’ before you busted in.”

“You were pretty ripe yourself,” Claudia retorted. But she felt bad because she knew it was true. She might have just ruined their best prospect for getting the information they needed. “I have to wonder how you managed to get such a decent, God-fearing guy like James into the sack so fast.”

“Are you kidding me? They’re the horniest guys ever—the more decent they are, the more horny. I finagled my way into sitting at his table; worked on him all through lunch.” Kelly patted her lips in a fake yawn. “That had to be the longest meal of my life. You were damned lucky, getting a ticket out of here. How was your lecture?”

“Fine, good crowd. I talked to Joel. He said he’d check out whether the Ark has ever been visited by Children’s Services.”

“Good idea, though I can’t say I’ve seen anything that remotely resembles child abuse. The kids I’ve seen at lunch have been well behaved.” Kelly interrupted herself. “Well, unless you call it abuse to make the little guys play statues the whole time everyone’s eating.”

The two of them went over and sat on the couch Kelly and James had occupied. With its budget crimson velvet fabric, it might have been borrowed from a low-rent motel.

“So, lunch was boring?” Claudia prompted. “Did you get to ask anything about Rodney and Kylie?”

Kelly shook her head. “There was just no way to wrench it into the conversation without being überobvious. That’s why I got James to come up here tonight. He was actually pretty interesting to talk to, believe it or not, once he was away from all the holiness.” Kelly folded her hands as if in prayer and adopted a saintly expression. “As far as I’m concerned, the well-hung mind is the sexiest part of a man.”

Claudia rolled her eyes. “Save the bullshit for someone who brought their high boots and just tell me what happened.”

“First, we had to wade through this entire ritual. A blessing that went on and on until the food was cold. Then someone read a text about the end-of-time days. Then we all had to discuss it. Everyone looked so freakin’ happy at the idea of all life on earth being wiped out. There’s something wrong with that.”

Kelly waited for Claudia’s nod of agreement, then continued. “Then we had to discuss in mind-numbing detail about the workday, for Chrissake. I was so bored I wanted to scream. And mind you, that was after spending the afternoon stuck in a hot-as-hell room the size of a closet being spoon-fed TBL propaganda by Methuselah. He just had to explain what horrible sinners we are.”