The Summerland (23 page)

She could feel his nod against her hair, feel the brief, fleeting tightening of his embrace, then she looked up.

“
We’re going to be something together, but I guess you know that, don’t you?”

He smiled, his teeth flashing in the shadows of the living room as he pulled away from her just enough to look her up and down.

She held out her hand. “Then why don’t you show me?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Bill dropped Arden off at the Maple Street Inn a few minutes before seven, on his way to an early Sunday morning at the office.

Apparently Mindy Turner was up with the roosters, because she greeted Arden at the door with an pushily inquisitive smile and a basketful of questions on how she’d enjoyed the Fair and her evening with the Sheriff.

Arden tried waving her off, claiming exhaustion, but nothing would stop Mindy’s inexorable advance. By the time she had been escorted to the stairs, Arden had heard the complete clothesline-gossip version of Bill Ashton’s life in Mariposa which included how he was quite a catch since his wife had dumped him rather than move to the foothills. How his ranch was one of the biggest in the county and he’d left his marriage and Los Angeles to carry on the family tradition. And lastly, how the Sheriff hadn’t shown interest in any of the local girls in years, and wasn’t Arden just the lucky one?

Arden wavered between admiration at Mindy’s apparently endless commentary and pure fatigue. It was that pure, luscious fatigue that comes from a long night of good, hard lovemaking. She let Mindy’s voice skip across her mind like a stone on a calm lake as scenes from last night played through her mind.

Sex on the side of a mountain, for God’s sakes! Who would have thought they would click so hard, so fast once the wheels had begun to turn? What they’d shared had been more than sex, and both of them knew it. It was a very scary concept and not one Arden wanted to dwell on right this moment.

She reached her room, Mindy in tow. Turning to the garrulous innkeeper, she excused herself, then slipped through her door, plopping down on the sumptuous softness of the bed. She was sore in places she’d forgotten about, and a few that could have only come from their mountainside escapade. Either way, it was a good soreness, the soreness that came from being thoroughly, completely loved.

A satisfied smile curving her lips, she stretched out, wondering if Bill was a little sore and tired himself. She drifted off with that smile still on her face and erotic memories floating through her mind.

* * * *

“
Well, Agent Drebin’s profile was dead-on, at least in my limited profiling experience. Your subject is highly functional otherwise he couldn’t have kept these abductions a secret for this long. I’d also have to agree that he lives alone. Aside from that, I don’t know what I can offer on him.

“
Kimmie Ross and your other victims, however, I can help with. I’ve looked at both the crime report and Agent Drebin’s profile in making this determination, as well as speaking to Ms. Ross’ parents.” Dr. Porter pushed a small brown leatherette notebook across the table.

“
These are my notes on the crime scenes and from those conversations. Usually I wouldn’t turn those over, but I wanted you to see the thought process behind my perceptions, especially since you’ve been trained in this science as well. These,” he held out a small sheaf of paper, “are what I think you’ve got going on here.”

The Sheriff carefully placed the papers in front of him, then folded his hands over them and looked at Adam. “Give me the verbal version, please. I’ll read these later. I want your thoughts, your first impressions right now.”

“
Very well. Down and dirty…you were right. This definitely looks like Stockholm Syndrome on the surface, but it’s got a different feel once you go deeper. Kim Ross was an independent, opinionated young lady. From what I saw on her autopsy report, she apparently tolerated her incarceration quite well before her final struggle with her abductor. I obviously can’t tell much about the women who went before as there’s simply not enough physical evidence.

“
Once I learned Ms. Ross’ personal background and got with Josie on the religious implications,” he paused, nodding across the table at Josie, “I came to the following conclusion regarding your victims. These women suffered from a modified version of Stockholm Syndrome, assuming a pseudo-identity that captives under Stockholm never suffer. We can surmise, from the physical evidence, that each was held about a year. That is an extraordinarily long time to be held captive. Your victims were cut off from everything familiar, then treated well, until their allotted time ran out.

“It’s not only understandable that they would associate themselves with their abductor, it’s to be expected. Just look at the example of Patty Hearst and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Granted, the Symbionese Liberation Army tortured her, but in that time she developed three distinct personalities. That was under direct threat of life. It doesn’t seem like your victims suffered a threat, beyond their obvious incarceration, that is.” Porter finished succinctly, looking dapper and rested, every inch the prosperous physician.

“
Okay,” the Sheriff answered slowly, “I can buy that, it fits pretty well with what I thought. I know profiling isn’t your gig, but would you mind making a hypothesis on the bullet hole in their heads? We think they were all strangled. It fits his MO. Why kill someone twice?”

“
I can answer that,” Josie piped in from the other side of the conference room table. “Or at least I think I can.” She smiled wanly, stress lines beginning to show around her eyes and mouth.

“
But, it’s Wiccan lesson time again, so just hang tight, okay? There are seven centers of power in the body with the sixth being the Psychic Center. It is located in the center of the forehead and functions as both a receptor and a transmitter. It’s also known by other names, most importantly the Third Eye and the Purity Center for anyone who had done research into this subject, or even seen some of the late night psychic infomercials. The sixth center is a very active psychic center and an exit point for the astral body.

“
Okay so far?” At their nods she continued. “I think he may have shot them there, and only there, to keep them from ascending to the next plane. To trap them in their worldly bodies and deny them entry to The Summerland, which is the Wiccan version of Heaven or the Happy Hunting Ground. Such a violent blocking of The Summerland or any existential plane of existence is fundamentally against the Wiccan rede, but then again, so is killing people.

“
It even begins to make a kind of perverted sense since the bodies and the crime scenes contain elements of both altars and sacrificial sites. In my humble opinion, he’s split and doesn’t seem to know what he’s looking for, or he knows what he wants and can’t find it. Either way, he’s dangerous as hell. I’m afraid your lady friend’s sister may be the next one we find. Unfortunately, he knows we’ve found his worship site. He’ll move now, keep it private.”

Adam interrupted smoothly. “Did I understand Josie correctly—is there another victim?”

“
Jesus doc, don’t you watch the news or read the paper? A woman disappeared from a roadside rest station three months ago and no one’s seen hide nor hair of her since. Ordinarily it would just be a missing person’s case, but she left half a million bucks in the front seat of her car. That qualifies as a little bit out of the ordinary, if you know what I mean. Then her sister shows up, loaded for bear, manages to get herself shot, and finds a link to our bad guy in the damn car. The car, might I say, that our eagle-eyed crime lab looked over with a fine-toothed comb.” The edge that entered the Sheriff’s voice was unintentional, but it was there, and rapier sharp.

“
Luckily the goddamned blood-sucking press hasn’t figured out the witchcraft end of this little scenario, but I don’t expect that to last much longer. Someone will open their big mouth around the wrong set of ears and it’ll be splashed all over the Sacramento Bee or the San Francisco Chronicle just in time for the morning edition.” Bill leaned back in the creaky oak chair. “And now, to top it off, we need to move the command center out of here, school starts Tuesday. We were okay as long as we were out of sight, but I can’t really think of anyplace else in town that can hold this investigation, and hold it quietly. The whole situation sucks, across the board.”

Porter looked at the Sheriff, amusement dancing through his eyes and in his voice. “I’ll bet you were the terror of the L.A.P.D. Remind me not to make you angry. You’d be a worthwhile, if formidable, opponent.”

Bill found nothing wrong with that assessment, and it served to throttle back his temper a few notches. He grinned at the doctor with a smile that seemed to say, ‘no fear, it’s just between us boys.’

Josie, however, was looking at the doctor with cautious eyes. Something about his tone, his intonation, went beyond mere macho male bonding. Did the Sheriff threaten him? After all, Bill Ashton was a good-looking, intelligent man, attractive enough and smart enough to make him number two on the short list of eligible bachelors in the county. She watched for a moment longer, but saw nothing but two handsome men looking at each other with shit-eating grins on their faces.

* * * *

It didn’t take long for the news of impending romance between the Sheriff and Arden Jones to pass through town. It relegated the continuing talk of murder to a distant second in the Sugar Pine, and was passed around with the collection plate at St. Gregory’s Sunday mass.

It was scattered like so many seeds around the circle of men camped in their permanent positions on the porch in front of the Feed Store, their brittle bones creaking as they passed secrets faster and more accurately than old women in a quilting circle.

* * * *

Bill showed up at Arden’s door at precisely three o’clock, feeling used up and just a little awkward. He knew his presence was grist for the rumor mill, but he really didn’t give a damn. After his meeting with Josie and Adam, he’d put in almost four hours of case review, looking for something, anything they might have missed.

He had nothing to show for that time but grainy eyes and a headache that had promised to become debilitating if he didn’t take a break. Right now he couldn’t think of anything better than seeing Arden, doing something nice for himself for a change.

Waking up to find Arden snuggled against him this morning had put everything into perspective. He had looked down at her while she slept, noting the way sleep had smoothed out the stress lines that bracketed her mouth too often these days, noticing how she’d filled out a little, but still had the look of an athlete. Then she’d opened her eyes and a rumpled, sleepy smile crossed her face like a slow wave and he’d felt his heart turn over in his chest.

The fact that she was in his bed on a Sunday morning not only seemed right, it seemed destined. He couldn’t think of a better way to start the morning, and dropped his mouth to hers, waking her with a long, slow kiss.

Now, almost ten hours later, he’d had time to think about last night and this morning. Bill knew where he was headed, but he wasn’t sure if Arden was working off of the same map. One thing was for certain. They needed to sit down and talk this through, the whole situation, including Samantha. He had a feeling it might be one of the most important discussions in his life.

With that in mind, he stood before her door, his fist raised to knock when it opened and Stumpy Goltree stepped out, a smile on his face as he smoothed his uniform shirt into his pants.

For a moment Bill was shocked speechless, then anger shot through him like lightning. For his part, Stumpy had the grace to look devastatingly uncomfortable as he stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to booted foot and flushing to the roots of his flattop.

“
Hi, ah, Sheriff. Captain Jones wanted me to come by. Um, I guess I’ll be going now.” He began to bolt for the stairway, but was caught short by Arden’s voice as it floated from the room.

“
Thanks again for coming by Deputy. Oh…” Bill could tell his appearance had caught Arden off guard, and his tired mind automatically, irrationally jumped to the wrong conclusion as to the reason for the deputy’s visit. He knew, deep in his heart, that Arden wasn’t the type of woman to betray what they had shared last night and this morning, but his overactive imagination and pure anger at seeing Stumpy in general overrode all rational thought. He could actually feel his temperature rise and feel the blood suffuse his entire body. Arden’s next words did nothing to check his anger.

“
Hi Bill,” she said warily, unconsciously tensing as the two big men faced each other across her threshold. “I was just thanking Deputy Goltree in person for what he did for me earlier this summer.”

“
Oh, you mean almost getting you killed?” Bill shifted his glower from Arden back to Stumpy and felt his fury multiply tenfold. He would deal with Arden Jones and her treachery shortly.

“
I think the department has thanked him quite enough, haven’t they Deputy? Internal Affairs was incredibly kind to you, at least in my estimation, but then again, what I thought didn’t mean a whole helluva a lot when it came to you, did it? Get back on patrol.” With that Bill dismissed the deputy and turned back to Arden, not liking the way her color had risen and the dangerous light in her eyes signaled a coming battle.

“
Never mind him, Stumpy. Thank you very much for everything.” The big Deputy fled down the hallway, mumbling something to Arden under his breath, hell-bent on getting out of the Sheriff’s range.