The Summerland (16 page)

“
Yes and no. Yes, I took a bullet, obviously, but I didn’t throw myself in front of a cop to save him. I was trying to tackle the shooter and missed her completely. The psychopath who killed those five women is another person entirely. If anyone asks, could you please tell them that?” Arden asked the question wearily. She was getting tired of the sidelong glances and whispered conversations about her.

She’d been on the mend for five weeks now, and there wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t think about the events that had transpired that hot Friday in June.

* * * *

The wail of the ambulance siren was the first thing she became conscious of, and it mirrored her waking moments that morning so perfectly that for a moment she thought she was back in her comfortable bed at the hotel, just beginning her day. The concerned face of the paramedic hovering over her had quickly dispelled that illusion, and with that realization came a bolting, blinding pain. It was centered in her left shoulder, but broke across her whole body in wave after wave. She remembered trying to ask the paramedic where she was, but the gray fuzziness had overcome her once again.

* * * *

The next time she awoke it was to the repetitive beep of monitoring devices. The room was white and cold and sterile and Arden knew then that she was in deep shit. Her upper body seemed to be completely immobilized. She could feel a deep throbbing somewhere in the region of her left shoulder, but her head was so muzzy it was hard to concentrate on any one thing for more than a few seconds. A male nurse materialized at her side, smiling down at her, the bluish-whiteness of his teeth imprinting themselves on her retinas in a ghost image. He wavered, then split into two and she was gone again.

* * * *

When Arden finally, really became lucid, she lay still, counting ceiling tiles and trying to figure out what in the hell had happened. It came back to her in fragments and flashes, almost as if she were viewing scenery through the windows of a moving train…bit by bit by bit. She heard a rustling to her right and carefully craned her neck, looking straight into the soul-searching eyes of Sheriff Bill Ashton. Behind him she could see the starched uniform-blue crispness and rod-straight posture of her boss, Major Mark Allen.

“
Hey,” she croaked, her voice rusty and dry with disuse.

“
Hey yourself,” said Bill quietly. His eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles beneath them almost looked painted there. He reached over and clasped her right hand. “You scared the shit out of us Arden.”

Feeling more than a little bit overwhelmed by both the situation and the genuine concern and fear she could see in his face, she had just begun to formulate some sort of smart, jazzy reply when a diminutive figure swept in.

“
Out, everyone out. Yes, that means you too, Ashton. I’ve got a patient on the mend and a pissed-off throng of reporters out there. You deal with them.” The whirlwind in scrubs swept both men out without so much as protest then turned to his patient. Being in the Air Force for as long as she had, Arden had become accustomed to young doctors, but this guy took the cake. He looked twelve.

Disjointed, she watched him give her a thorough once-over, then looked her straight in the eye. “I know I look like Doogie Howser. Let me assure you, I’m not. I’m Dr. Mark Lewis. I have a medical degree from Stanford and did my emergency medicine residency at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, okay?” At her weak nod he continued. “I’m going to give it to you straight because you look like the type who can handle it and because they tell me you’re some hotshot Air Force supergirl.” Lewis knew he was laying it on a little thick, but he didn’t get a chance to treat too many gunshot wounds that weren’t hunting accidents in Mariposa.

“
You were shot in the left shoulder with a .38 caliber handgun. It tore you up pretty good. However, I see no reason to expect anything other than a full recovery. Your boss wants to have you evac’d to Travis as soon as you’re stable so a military doc can check up on my work. They’ve also got top-notch specialists there, something we obviously don’t have here in the sticks. I’m going to authorize your transport tomorrow, most likely. Any questions so far?” He asked, handing her a cup of water with a straw poking jauntily out of the rim.

She took a sip, then looked up at him. “Where is she?”

Dr. Lewis looked down at her, weighing the pros and cons of even answering that question. Deciding that honesty was the best policy in this case, he answered.

“
She’s dead. She bled out at the scene. You want to know anything else, ask the Sheriff. Speaking of which, he wants to talk to you, question you about what happened. Do you feel up to it, or should I have him wait a while, let you get your feet under you a little?”

Arden could have cried at the earnest solicitude she saw on the physician’s face. Instead she bucked up her chin and asked, “Can I sit up while I talk to him?”

* * * *

Sheriff Bill Ashton reviewed the last week of his life and came to the conclusion that it didn’t get much worse. He now had six dead women, a wounded one in ICU, the Air Force on his ass, and a media feeding frenzy. To make matters even worse, the officer he’d placed on administrative leave for leaking information to the press was now the darling of the fucking state because he saved the same woman he’d placed in jeopardy.

Of course, the newsies weren’t portraying it that way. Stumpy was a goddamn hero because he just happened to be in the same neighborhood as Arden Jones when a contract killer had decided to exterminate her. Bill wasn’t buying it. Stumpy had been there for a reason, and had just made himself number sixty-two on Bill’s list of things to check into.

He’d been second on the scene, right behind Doug Brewster. They’d crossed the rickety old bridge at the speed of light, rounding the corner of the house to find Stumpy, Arden, another bleeder and a very frightened but composed Josie Galloway. She’d been inside the house, working on her computer when gunfire had rung out. The pressure she’d applied to Arden’s wound had probably saved her life.

Bill never wanted to relive the moment when he’d seen Arden lying in the dirt, crimson staining the entire front of her body. His heart had literally stopped. And in that brief, illuminating instant he’d known that none of it mattered. All the bullshit, the press, the dead women on the mountain, it was all meaningless as long as Arden Jones was alive. It was one of the defining moments of his life and it scared the shit out of him. He’d known they were attracted to each other, intensely attracted. Hell, they’d both admitted as much. But what he felt went much deeper than simple attraction, and he couldn’t even begin to explain it.

What struck him most was the incredible, killing rage he’d felt. If their shooter hadn’t already been minutes from death, he probably would have finished it and never thought twice. What did that say about him as a lawman, a peace officer? And what did it say about the way he felt about Arden Jones? He’d known her less than a week, for God’s sake, and he couldn’t see past tomorrow, when she’d be gone.

Now she was safely ensconced in her hospital bed, and he didn’t know what the hell to do with her. Her boss, Major Allen, sat next to him on the hard plastic chair. He seemed solid and dependable and knew how to handle the press. For that alone, Bill was thankful. He wasn’t so happy with the fact Allen would be taking Arden away from him. He knew it was selfish, but after the scene this morning in that dusty courtyard, he was feeling selfish, and more than just a little mean.

Drebin had called him as soon as the story had broken on the lunchtime news, and offered to turn around and come back to Mariposa. Bill had, of course, refused. He now saw the whole scenario with startling clarity. Drebin had been both right and wrong.

While the death threat and the subsequent attempt on Arden’s life and the deaths of the five women could not be directly linked, they had all occurred in an eerily similar time frame. He hoped to God the gut feeling he now shared with Arden was wrong, but he didn’t think so. They would find Samantha Henning all right, but he wasn’t taking any bets on finding her alive, or, for that matter, who her killer would be.

It wasn’t like him to be so fatalistic, but he could actually taste the defeat on his tongue on this one, and felt helpless to change the shiver of dread rolling up his spine. Maybe Doug would find a common link between the missing persons and the bodies they’d found. Maybe it would be as easy as finding a fingerprint on something obvious. Maybe the killer would suffer a bout of remorse and turn himself in. Bill wasn’t counting on being so blessed on any of those counts.

So they were back at square one, with the minor exception of Captain Arden Jones. Major Allen had already ensured her safety, because they both knew that whoever had sent the unidentified woman after Arden wouldn’t stop with this one attempt. They thought she knew much more than she did, and they would keep after her until they got what they were looking for. As much as he hated to admit it, Mariposa was no longer safe for Arden. She’d be much more secure behind the chain link and M16s the Air Force could provide.

So he’d take her statement and make his empty promises about finding whomever had done this to her. He’d promise to search for Samantha, to leave no stone unturned. And he was almost certain he’d fail them both in the process.

* * * *

And so here she sat. Five weeks older and not one damned bit closer to either her sister or Bill Ashton. She wanted to be back in Mariposa, digging into the truth of her sister’s disappearance, and maybe exploring what she’d seen in the Sheriff’s eyes when she awoke in the hospital. But no, she’d been ordered to stay put. As a member of the United States Air Force, she was considered an asset, an asset they were not willing to endanger. So, her leave had been cancelled until further notice. They, the Air Force, that is, were watching her like a hawk, making sure that the mysterious Carlos didn’t get anywhere near her.

She talked to the Sheriff on a weekly basis, but there was a formality to their conversations, a stilted awkwardness she could sense but couldn’t quite pin down.

They had nothing. Nothing on Samantha’s disappearance, nothing on her own brush with death, nothing on the murders. They didn’t even have the name of her assailant, at least not that she knew of. The worst of it was, she was still the only person insisting on making the connection between Samantha and the killer.

Everyone involved seemed to think Samantha had just gotten scared and run. It was so implausible it was laughable, and it pissed her off to no end. If she hadn’t known better she would have accused all the authorities of sitting on their asses while trails grew cold left and right. But she knew differently. She’d seen the dedication, that hound-dog determination that drove both the Sheriff and his deputies. If there were something there, they’d find it. It was just maddening to wait for that something to turn up.

The Fifth Fold

The Goddess has been kind. Our combined power, channeled into the form of the sigil I so cleverly placed in that damnable automobile, compelled her blood, her family to leave us, let us seek our destiny together. She may not realize it, but she has the Power. The power over everything. Even me.

It was Lammas, the Celebration of Harvest and one of the major Wiccan holidays. He had been kind enough to inform her of the date, and from her reading she knew the significance of the twenty-four hours she was currently living in.

She stood in front of the massive bookcase, scanning the titles, waiting for something to catch her eye. She’d tried starting at the top and reading down, but the militant alphabetization of the shelves acted as a deterrent. And, she thought ruefully, she just couldn’t read one more word about Allah.

Trailing her fingers lightly over the varying textures and shapes of the tomes, she waited for one to reach out and grab her, like so many had over the past six weeks. Yesterday it had been a biography on David Koresh, and a few days before that, a compilation of articles on the Heaven’s Gate cult. She’d already consumed everything Wiccan, figuring that had been the first, best way to begin to understand Him and what drove their now intertwined future. Anything that dealt with religion seemed to be cataloged in the wall before her, be it positive or negative.

She’d pondered that duality for quite awhile before coming up with a startling insight. By giving her both sides of the coin, she was almost forced to attach credence to whichever side she found most plausible. It was brilliant.

At first she’d been puzzled, finding a common thread between the “straight” religions and less prevalent, less respected ones. She’d even found that although Christianity had eschewed it centuries before, there was a case to be made that the ancient Israelites had worshipped both male and female gods and that this bit of history had been hidden as the advent of the Church approached. It had become easier to read and retain the information as a whole as snippets of her childhood Sunday services came back to her. In most cases they were in direct opposition to what she was reading on the Wiccan religion and animistic beliefs.

What surprised her the most was the religion’s take on sex. It advocated sex for the many things that it could be, including an act strictly for pleasure, for love, for ceremony, or for power. It was how she had always viewed her own sexuality, although she’d never met her match—in either men or women. Yes, she received and gave pleasure, but it seemed like she was always looking, seeking that extra something. It disconcerted her a little to think that what she had been unconsciously seeking may very well be contained within the pages of this man’s library.