Ultimate Thriller Box Set (74 page)

“We’ve consulted on a number of high-profile cases for them,” Harmon said.

“I forget what all you do,” Galaz said, fiddling with his pen.

“Mostly we’re Internet security. Countersurveillance. One division creates websites and develops networks, another is strictly data management. We also offer Internet security services to small businesses.”

It sounded like a sales pitch.

“The point is,” said Galaz, “You know as well as I do we’re not equipped to handle something like this. If this guy really did lure her on the Internet. You know what our budget’s like.” He turned to Harmon. “Desert Lakes, this little podunk town in the middle of the state? They have three times the budget per capita we do. They get the shiny new cars, the cyber-cops, all the perks. Here we are, the state agency, we’re supposed to be elite, and we’re lagging behind everybody else.”

Laura smiled. There was a joke around the investigative division that “DPS” stood for “Don’t Pay Shit”.

“So we have to improvise." Galaz leveled his gaze on her. “How sure are you that this is the guy?”

“Lehman?" She paused. Not knowing what to say.

“Go on. We’re nonjudgmental here.”

Laura didn’t like the way this was going. She didn’t like the “we”—this friend of Galaz’s sitting there as if he were DPS. But she had to be honest. “Even though we’re moving ahead with Lehman, we’re looking at other leads.”

“Would it help if we could find this CRZYGRL connection?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“What if we outsourced this job to Dynever Security?”

So that was what this was about. She opened her mouth to reply, then stopped. Harmon was sitting right here. She realized belatedly she’d walked into an ambush. She couldn’t tell him her real thoughts with Harmon here.

“My guess is, this is going to take some getting used to.” Galaz swiveled in his chair, back and forth, smiling at her. “Tell you what. I’m having a little get-together tonight, just a few people. I’d like you to come by, meet the folks you didn’t get a chance to last time.”

“That would be great, sir.”

“So I can count on you?”

“Yes sir.”

“I particularly want you to meet the head of Dynever Security. Great guy. He’s like a brother to me.”

She nodded, not knowing what else to say.

He glanced at his watch. “I can tell we’re going to get out of here late. Nine o’clock for drinks? You can find my house okay, can’t you? I don’t think you’ve ever been there.”

Laying it on a little thick. Victor was right; she should have gone to the barbecue. She nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“See you then.”

Something in his smile told her that the audience was over.

When the door shut behind her, she felt as if she had been processed through the county jail—her wallet, shoelaces, and belt gone. Folded, stapled, and mutilated.

She found herself staring at the wall of photos again. Noticed that most of them included Nick Fialla, the University of Arizona football coach who had led the Wildcats to a Rose Bowl win two years ago. It amazed her how the prominent people of Tucson, the movers and shakers, flocked to get their picture taken with Nick Fialla.

He should rent himself out, she thought sourly. Like the burros in Nogales that the tourists pose with to prove they’d been to Mexico.

21

The sun had just gone down behind the Tucson Mountains when Laura reached the Vail exit. The lights of oncoming cars were already snapping on, strung out across the pink-purple hills east of Tucson like a necklace of diamonds.

As she drove across the overpass, she spotted a scrawny woman sitting in the open hatchback of a Chevy Vega parked near the off ramp, holding up a cardboard sign that said BLOWJOBS $2.00.

Everyone had their price.

Laura’s price was giving in to Let’s Go People! Galaz. No way she could get out of going to this party; she’d already missed the barbecue—apparently the only person in the whole department who did.

As she pulled up in front of her house, she spotted something pale in the darkness of her porch. It materialized into a white long-sleeved shirt as she approached.

“Tom?" Her heart quickening.

“Hi, Bird.”

“When did you get back?”

“This morning.” He stood up from the steel glider near the door. It creaked loudly—sixty-year-old springs.

He was close enough that she caught the scent of his shirt, a combination of starch and the fresh smell of line-drying. Tom didn’t own a dryer. He didn’t own much of anything.

“I heard about the girl who got killed—thought you might need me.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“Mina.”

“Mina called you?”

“I called her. I was checking on Ali.”

Referring to a famous bareback bronc named Old Yeller. Ten years ago, before Old Yeller took the inevitable downward spiral to the dog food factory, Tom bought him, changed his name to Ali (“because he was The Greatest”) and towed him around from job to job. Ali was twenty-three years old, sway-backed, and deeply suspicious of Laura.

She inhaled the night air, soggy and laden with the odors of creosote and manure. She was glad Tom was here—
really
glad. “How long have you been waiting?”

“I wasn’t waiting. I was sitting.”

Zen and the Mystic Itinerant Wrangler. He reached out and touched her lightly on her cheek, which sent her thoughts whirling like sparks from a kicked-up fire, her mind buzzing on and off like an old neon sign. He was aware of his effect on her, but had the good sense not to say anything. “I thought we could go by the cantina and get a drink. Mina’s beginning to wonder if you’re avoiding her.”

Mina, the proprietor of the Spanish Moon Cantina on the Bosque Escondido, liked to micromanage the lives of the people who lived and worked here. Laura wondered if she’d weighed in on the living-together issue yet.

“I’d better not drink anything. I have to be somewhere later.”

“Oh?”

“A party at my lieutenant’s house—it’s mandatory.”

“Mandatory?”

“For me anyway. I didn’t go to the last one, so I’ve got to go this time.”

“What’ll he do if you don’t?”

She shrugged. “Probably nothing. It’s politics.”

“Sounds to me like he set you up.”

Great insight from a man whose only possessions were a truck, a saddle, a horse trailer, and one decrepit horse.

Here she’d found a man who was perfect for her in every way except one. In the currency she valued most, the currency that defined her life—career—he didn’t even have pocket change. He had no ambition. Thirty-five years old and he wrangled horses on a guest ranch.

He said, “Did you get my note?”

“Of course I got your note. I have to eat, don’t I? Lucky for you, you didn’t leave it in the cleaning closet.”

He had both hands on her shoulders now. “Have you thought about it?”

“I haven’t had time.”

If she thought he’d be heartbroken, she was wrong.

“Okay, I can wait. If you can’t drink, can we at least eat?”

“I was going to have mac and cheese.”

He smiled. “Not much food in those little boxes.”

“I’ve got two of them.”

Laura drifted in and out of sleep, her body one long smile. Naked in the cool swirl of sheets, the boat-oar ripple of the ceiling fan playing over her body, legs entangled with Tom’s long, lean ones, the feel of his skin against hers … times like these, she felt young again. Young in that innocent romantic way before life started cutting away at her. Before Billy Linton blew her romantic ideals out of the water. Before she learned that no matter how strong a bond you had with your family, it could be ripped away from you at any time.

Lying here, she felt like the college kid she once was, infatuated with life, absolutely certain about her future. All she had to do was succumb to her feelings, and she could hold it again, that hope. Allow herself to be swept away by this incredible lover whose touch shot through her like electricity.

Still drowsy, she found herself looking at the length of his body in the light from the bathroom. It was impossible to keep herself from touching him. She reached out and laid a finger on his skin. Felt a shiver, although it was warm. Traced a line down his muscled forearm, down along his rib cage, the bump where one rib had broken during a bull ride, then down into the hollow between his hipbones.

Another shiver.

Why shouldn’t we live together?

Because it could go wrong. That was the lesson she had learned from her marriage.

Marriage?, the hard-ass in her said. Whatever it was she and Billy had, you couldn’t really call it a marriage.

The fact was, love could go wrong. All those good times, feeling you were joined at the hip, that you knew the other person so well, as well as you knew yourself, and then something bad happens and all of a sudden you become enemies. You don’t even know how it happens, but one day you meet in the hallway and you skirt around each other, looking away, trying not to touch. Because all of a sudden touching is impossible, you can’t stand to feel him on your skin. How does that happen? Just bad luck? Did it happen to everyone who went through a tragedy? She didn’t know.

Tom stirred and his arm fell across her.

She couldn’t deny how good it felt to be with him. Logically, she knew she couldn’t judge Tom by the Lintons. Besides, Tom didn’t have a rich family.

She pressed her lips to his, and he stirred again.

The sudden thrill of absolute wanting always caught her by surprise. Undeniably needy … and he always responded.

Now he rose up on one arm above her, settled his lips onto hers.

She cupped the back of his head, and they kissed long and slow.

Exquisite.

But something not so good insinuating itself into her mind—

“Shit!”
She sat up, grabbed the bedside clock and turned it so she could see.

Tom, his dark eyes cloudy with sleep and desire and questions, “What’s wrong?”

Eleven ten.

“Dammit!”

“What’s wrong?” Concern etched into two grooves between his eyes. Realization. “You missed the party.”

She hopped out of bed, stumbling in the sheet and having to grab the bedpost to stay afloat. In the bathroom, turning the shower on full spray. Fumbling for her toothbrush. Before or after her shower? What would she wear? What kind of shoes?

Feeling impotent. Unable to make decisions. Duck into the shower, make it fast.

As she scrubbed, she tried to remember. How did she let this happen? The two of them sitting on the porch eating macaroni and cheese. Watching TV, starting on the couch and transferring to the bedroom, hurried and wanting.

Immersed in their lovemaking. Mindless pleasure. Spending themselves, energy dwindling down to a tiny speck, like the dot on her grandmother’s old television set just before it went dark. She remembered thinking as she drifted off, I’ve got time. Just a few minutes and then I’ll get up …

As the hard needles of spray drilled into her skin, Laura thought of something Frank Entwistle used to say.

There are no accidents.

She took Old Spanish Trail, flooring it along the edge of the Rincon Mountains, knowing it was too late. Doglegged over to the Catalina Highway, turning right onto a single lane of blacktop that climbed along the base of the mountains to where Galaz’s house overlooked the city. No cars parked outside the closed decorative iron gate, the house dark.

Driving back, Laura was surprised how bad she felt. She sensed that this time, she’d done the unforgiveable. Victor always warned her that she needed to pay attention to what was going on with the brass. He’d told her on more than one occasion that she was impolitic. She’d always brushed it off, because in her opinion sucking up wasn’t important to the job she did every day.

The moon peeked over the shoulder of the Rincons, a laughing clown.

When she got home, Tom was gone. She was surprised, although she couldn’t expect him to stay. If they lived together it would be different. He’d be there all the time.

Too tired to think now anyway.

She got into bed, was asleep within minutes. Awakened not long after by a loud thump. Hallelujah—the bobcat kittens were back.

Laura sat up in bed, listening to them play on the roof, watching the moonlight and mesquite shadows tremble across the floor. Most ranch houses in the southwest had concrete floors. This one had been deep red for the majority of its eighty years, scuffed and chipped by generations of cowboy boots, spurs, dragged saddles and bridles. Laura had painted it hazelnut brown, a glossy finish. In the moonlight, though, it was hard to tell what color it was.

She wished Tom had waited. The lack of his presence prickled her, like the ghost pain from a severed limb.

She had not had this feeling since Billy—that heart-thumping, nerve-shattering, high-voltage infatuation. Like two electrical wires touching, igniting feelings both visceral and surprising.

Laura had spent some time thinking about it. She’d known sexier men, better-looking men, more powerful men. Maybe it was the forbidden nature of their relationship. The desire for the forbidden had probably been pummeled into her during catechism—kids being prone to absorb the opposite message as they were. By the time she was a teenager, forbidden pleasure as a concept was in full force. It fueled her poor choices in middle school, high school, and college. Beautiful boys who knew they were beautiful and had nothing else to occupy their minds except contempt for those who worship them.

Her mother wasn’t here to disapprove now. But Laura knew she’d adopted her prejudices. An itinerant former bull rider was not the right man for her. The end result was a relationship that tasted and felt illicit—and therefore delicious.

A train horn blared. The railroad tracks ran along the freeway, some five or six miles away as the crow flew. On sleepless nights, which lately had been all too many, she heard every big truck out on the highway and the mournful horn of the trains. Those sounds had been woven into the tapestry of her life, the lonely sounds of people going elsewhere, passing in the night.