A Deadly Wilderness, page 24
“What I don’t need is a psych report in my folder.”
“You’re going to throw away your career if you don’t come to terms with this. A clean folder won’t mean much then.”
She didn’t answer and, after a moment, he leaned forward and smoothed back her hair so he could see her face. Her eyes were closed again. “Deborah?”
He shook her arm. “Deborah, get up. Come in the house. You can sleep on the couch.”
She didn’t move. Ray let Rocky in, then half-carried, half-dragged her into the house. She slid onto the couch without offering resistance. He grabbed a quilt and dropped it over her. He stood studying her sleeping form. “This is a habit you’ll have to break, my friend.”
Numb with weariness, he started down the hallway to the bedroom.
“Ray.” Her voice was a whisper.
He stopped. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about Mrs. Martinez.”
“I know.” He forced himself forward, shoulders bowed under the weight of the knowledge that sorry wasn’t always enough.
Chapter Thirty-one
“Miss Susana. Wake up. Wake up!”
Susana jerked awake, instantly terrified by the fear in Benny’s voice. Early morning sun streaming through the window blinded her, but she felt him tug her arm. “What, Benny, what is it? Are you okay?”
Benny shook his head. “He made me promise. He said I had to wait until it was light.” His voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “I knew it was wrong, but he made me swear. Please, don’t send me back. Please, don’t tell Mr. Daniel. Please.”
He sobbed, his arms wrapped around his thin chest.
“Benny, it’s okay. We’re not sending you anywhere. I promise.” Susana shoved back the sheets and slid from the bed. “What are you talking about? Is it Marco?”
When Benny didn’t answer, she grabbed his arms. “Look at me. Did something happen to Marco?” Benny cringed as if expecting a blow. Horrified, Susana wrapped him in a quick hug, then touched his chin, forcing him to look up. “Please, Benny, I’m not mad at you. I won’t hurt you. Just tell me where Marco is.”
“He got stuff from your purse.” He punctuated the words with hiccupping sobs. “Money and your cell phone.”
She flew across the bedroom. Her purse lay open, the contents strewn about the desk. Her billfold was empty. Marco had taken money. And her debit card. A horrifying sense of dread rippled through her. She leaned over, propped her hands on her knees, and tried to breathe. Marco had taken money and left the house. And gone where? “Benny, where’d he go?”
“To Mr. Ray’s ranch. He was going to call a taxi with your phone. He said Mr. Ray would make it safe for you, like he did before when the bad guy was after you.” Benny suddenly sat on the floor as if his legs wouldn’t hold him.
How could an eight-year-old boy get safely from a San Antonio suburb to a ranch on the other side of Helotes in the middle of the night? A worse thought plunged through Susana like a finely-honed sword. If Marco had made it to the ranch, Ray would have called her immediately—unless the shooter in the BMW had shown up at the ranch and found both Ray and Marco there.
Her knees buckled as horrifying images sprang to mind. She forced herself upright, raced to the phone in the kitchen, and punched in her cell number. It rang and rang. Come on, Marco, pick up. Pick up. It rang once, then voicemail kicked in. She disconnected with a jab of a shaking finger. What was Ray’s number? Terror blocked it.
She dashed back into the bedroom, smacked into the chair, nearly fell, rebounded. Her address book was in the mess that had been the contents of her purse. Her hand closed around it. Ray Johnson. Ray Johnson. The number came to her, even as she flipped through the pages.
Back to the kitchen. Again, no answer. Susana waited with barely contained impatience until Ray’s recording finished and the all-important beep sounded. “Ray, pick up, please, pick up. Is Marco there? Call me the second you get this message. Sooner, if Marco shows up at your place.”
She called Samuel. Voicemail. It wasn’t like Samuel not to answer his phone. Maybe he’d gotten called to a scene. She left a message and slapped the phone down. Benny stood in the middle of the kitchen, tears streaming down his pinched face. Susana didn’t have time to comfort him. “I’ve got to look for him, Benny. You stay here.”
“I’m going, too.” Before she could stop him, Benny charged from the room.
It took two minutes for her to change into jeans and a T-shirt. She pounded on Lily’s bedroom door. Joaquin opened it a second later, stifling a yawn. The sleep in his eyes fled as she explained. He wrapped his arms across his massive chest, his expression immediately opaque. Instantaneous cop mode. “No one’s answering at Ray’s?”
“No. And Marco doesn’t answer my cell.”
Lily shrugged on a robe. “Maybe they’re asleep. Maybe Ray didn’t want to wake you up, so he just let Marco spend the night,” she said, tightening the belt. “They probably stayed up all night talking.”
Susana tried to rein in mounting panic. Too many scenarios pressed against her. Too many terrifying possibilities. “No. Ray would have called me right away if he knew Marco was there. Maybe Marco got out there and Ray wasn’t home.” She didn’t voice her worst fears. Saying them aloud might make them real. “Maybe Ray got called in to work. I’m headed out there to see for myself.”
Joaquin grabbed a rumpled T-shirt from the chair next to the bed. “I’ll get dressed. Let me drive.”
“No. Find Samuel. He’s not answering his cell. I need Samuel.” Susana swallowed back a sob and tried to keep her voice steady. “If anybody in Missing Persons owes you a favor, ask them to be on standby. I’ll call you as soon as I get to the ranch. I may need you to start checking with taxicab companies . . . and emergency rooms.”
Joaquin looked doubtful. “You sure you can drive?”
“I’m fine. Just find Samuel.”
“Okay. Drive very carefully. It won’t do any good to get yourself killed on the way out there.”
Benny dashed into the room and collided with Joaquin. The boy’s dirty shirt was buttoned wrong, and his feet were bare. “I’m going to look for Marco.”
“No. You stay here with Lily and Joaquin.”
“He’s my friend. I lost him. I have to find him.”
The stubborn look on his face and the tears in his eyes broke her heart. She took his small hand in hers and squeezed tight. “Let’s go then.”
Marco had been out there alone for hours.
* * *
“Hey, hey, quit it!” A rough, wet tongue slathered Ray’s face. He breathed in funky puppy breath. He forced himself from murky dreams of gunfire and screaming babies, opened his eyes, and shoved the puppy from his chest. Rocky barked twice, jumped back up, and licked his face again. “Yeah, yeah, I love you, too, but stop it.”
A pounding noise registered. Sudden adrenaline pulsed through him. The noise was coming from the front of the house. Ray rolled, sat up, grabbed his weapon from the nightstand, and stood. Paused, listening. It was pounding on the door.
Rocky woofed twice, jumped from the bed, and raced from the room. Ray laid the gun back down, rubbed his face with both hands, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes. The pounding accelerated, as did the barking.
“I’m coming.” He dragged himself down the hallway, realizing as he went that he was still wearing his dress pants and shirt.
“Ray, Ray. Open the door. Please!” Susana, her voice muffled, was outside his door. She sounded as if she’d been crying.
He pulled the door open. She stood there, hand still raised. Benny was with her. But not Marco. Rocky launched himself onto the porch, and Benny scooped him up in his arms.
“Why didn’t you answer the phone? Where’s Marco? Is he here?” Susana had to shout over Rocky’s delirious barking.
“What? What are you doing here?” He wanted to understand. Despite everything, she was here, and his sleep-deprived brain couldn’t quite grasp why.
“Hey, do you mind? Not so loud!” Deborah’s voice floated out to them. “I’m trying to sleep.”
The look on Susana’s face would be etched on Ray’s brain forever. He grabbed her arm before she could turn. “It’s not what you think.”
She pulled away. “I have to find Marco. Benny thinks he came here looking for you. He saw the story on the news about the Doyle case and freaked. He thought you could keep us safe.”
The sarcasm in those words slit him to the bone. She might believe Ray could keep her safe physically, but she would never trust him now to keep her safe emotionally.
“What’s going on?” Deborah staggered into the foyer. She wore Ray’s favorite Houston Astros T-shirt. Her long legs and feet bare. The shirt was just long enough to touch the top of her thighs. “It’s gotta be the crack of dawn. First, I had to disconnect the telephone. Now, we got pounding on the door. All this racket makes it hard for a person to sleep.”
“I have to find Marco.” Susana bolted down the porch steps.
Rocky wiggled from Benny’s arms, plopped to the ground, and shot across the yard toward the barn.
“The puppy knows he’s here. He can smell him.” Benny took off, his short legs pumping.
Susana veered away from the car and followed.
Ray stumbled after them, barefoot, hampered by the pain in his ankle. “Wait. I’ll help. Have you called the police?”
“You are the police. That’s why Marco came here. The innocence of a child, right? He doesn’t realize we wouldn’t be in danger if you hadn’t involved us in the Doyle case in the first place.” Susana’s bitterness raked over him. “I left Samuel a voicemail. He’ll call as soon as he checks his messages. Don’t worry about it. We’ll find him.”
“I can help. What if he did somehow get here during the night? If he saw—saw what you just saw, he may’ve decided not to come in, after all.” Ray tried not think how the scene last night would have played to an audience of one young boy who badly wanted to believe he and his mother would spend the rest of their lives with Ray. “I thought I heard a noise. The animals went crazy. Let’s just take a quick look around before I make calls. We’ll get Missing Persons involved, okay?”
“Joaquin’s already calling someone he knows.” Susana walked faster, then broke into a trot, outdistancing Benny.
Ray limped as fast as he could, but he couldn’t keep up. “Nothing happened. She was here when I got home last night. Her date dropped her off. She didn’t have her purse or her keys. She was drunk, so I let her sleep on the couch.”
Susana grabbed the barn door and heaved it open. “Who you spend the night with doesn’t concern me. Only finding Marco.”
“We didn’t spend—nothing happened.” Ray hopped on one foot, so he could try to pick off stickers piercing the tender skin on the bottom of his other foot.
“Marco. Marco.” Susana screamed the name. It echoed. Then silence.
“Marco, please, if you’re in here, please come out. I promise I won’t be mad.”
“Marco, it’s me, Benny. I waited, like you told me to. I waited until it got light.” Benny’s voice was tiny in the big barn.
“Mom? Benny?” The anxious note in Marco’s voice bounced against the rafters.
Benny darted across the barn to an empty horse stall and squeezed through the gate, Susana right behind him. When she spoke, her voice shook. “Marco. Oh, son, are you okay?”
Marco huddled in the corner of the stall under a horse blanket. His face was dirty, and he had straw in his hair. Otherwise, he looked perfect. Ray leaned against the stall gate and sucked in air in greedy gulps.
Marco’s voice was rusty with sleep. “I took a taxi. I—I wanted—but then—I slept here.”
“A taxi driver agreed to give a little boy a ride at eleven thirty at night?” Susana glanced back at Ray, the fury in her face so intense he wanted to take a step back.
“I told him my parents were divorced and I had a fight with my mom so I was going to my dad’s house.” Marco stumbled over the word dad, his tone painfully defiant. “He said whatever, as long as I had the money to pay. When we got to the beginning of the dirt road, I told him I wanted to surprise my . . . my dad. He said, whatever, and drove off.”
Susana dropped to her knees next to the boy. Her hands went to his face, her fingers wiping away the smudges. Wordlessly, Benny sat down on the ground. Ray wanted to join them on the ground, take them all in his arms. He gripped the rough wooden bar of the stall until his hands hurt.
“Why didn’t you answer when I called you?” Susana clipped every word with controlled anger.
“The battery’s dead.”
She gave one sob, pulled Marco to her, and smothered him in a hug. “Don’t you ever do that to me again. Do you understand? Never again.”
Marco stared over his mother’s shoulder at Ray, his dark eyes bleak and accusing. “I won’t. I’m never coming here again, ever.”
Susana grabbed Marco’s hand and pulled him to his feet as she stood.
“Wait, let me explain.” Ray started after them.
Susana hustled the boys through the barn door and out into the brightly lit morning.
“Wait—”
“Ray, Treviño’s on the line.” Deborah stood on the porch, still in his shirt and not much else, waving a cell phone. “You remember Joey Doyle’s main squeeze, Candy Romano? She went to the movies last night and never came home.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Abduction was an ugly word. Ray stood in the middle of the apartment complex parking lot and closed his eyes. Heat radiated from the asphalt. Sweat trickled down his temples. Candy Romano’s face, blotchy and red from crying, swam in front of him. It had been dark and a little cooler when she’d come home from the movies. Maybe she’d been laughing. Maybe still thinking about the flick she’d seen. Not thinking about dangerous people who lurked in shadows. The laughter had disappeared. A choking, breathless fear had followed. That kind of fear ought to leave a residue. He jerked his eyes open. The parking lot was empty, a silent, unwilling witness to her horror.
Oscar Treviño trudged over to Ray. The detective shoved his hair from his eyes and turned his back to the sudden, hot wind. “We’ve canvassed every townhouse and apartment on this side of the complex. Nobody saw or heard anything. It’s like Candy Romano just disappeared. Maybe she was in this with someone else, and they decided to cut and run.”
“Did she take any bags? Is there any evidence that she split?” Ray’s gut reaction said abduction. No evidence of that either.
Oscar shook his head. “Nope. Nada.”
Deborah’s pickup truck careened into the lot, forcing them to take a step back. She pulled in too fast, screeched to a stop, and didn’t bother to straighten the vehicle.
She hopped out. “Well, what’s the deal? Did you find a body?”
Like nothing had happened. Ray exhaled. She seemed determined to be oblivious to the train wreck she’d left in her wake at the ranch. They’d made the drive to her apartment in silence. She’d descended from the Bronco with a blithe, “See you at the scene,” like they’d been out to dinner or gone to the movies.
“No. No body. Car’s parked and locked. No sign of struggle. No nothing.” Oscar leaned against Deborah’s truck, his forehead wrinkled. Ray waited, giving the detective time to collect his thoughts. Oscar had begrudgingly admitted he needed Ray and Deborah’s insight to try to find Romano. They’d interviewed her twice. Deborah had been in her apartment and talked to her mother. They should have some feel for her demeanor. They were still in the game, at least marginally.
That was the good news. The bad news was Susana and Marco would probably never speak to him again. At least, he had work to do. He didn’t want to sit around his house, reliving the look on Marco’s face as he’d stumbled from the barn and climbed into Susana’s car without giving Ray a chance to explain.
He glanced at Deborah. She gave an impatient shrug. The previous evening’s events were plastered across her face—bloodshot eyes, pasty skin, brutal purple slashes under her eyes. She’d been no help in assuaging the situation. She claimed she’d awakened during the night uncomfortable in her dress, so she’d grabbed his shirt from his drawer. That was it. A simple explanation for his huge blunder.
No point in thinking about it now. Solving the Doyle case would be the first step in getting Susana and Marco back. Determined, Ray shut out his seething feelings and focused on Oscar. His wrinkled clothes, scruffy five o’clock shadow, and red-rimmed eyes told Ray he hadn’t seen the inside of his own home in quite a while.
“Candy Romano’s mother is upstairs in the apartment,” Oscar said. “She spent the night at her sister’s. That’s why she didn’t know until this morning that Candy hadn’t come home. She’s worked herself up to some pretty good hysterics. I’m letting Mallory deal with her.”
As if on cue, Lindstrom came out of the second-story apartment above them and clomped down the stairs, her lips pursed as if she’d been sucking on a lemon. She waited until she was at the bottom of the steps to speak. “The mother says her daughter has been getting weird phone calls. She wouldn’t tell her mother what they were about. She suddenly started talking about looking for another job—out of state. We looked at the notes from your interview with her at the dealership after Joey Doyle died. Could she have been involved in Doyle’s death? Maybe an accomplice?”
“I didn’t think so at the time.” Ray let his gaze skip to Deborah again. His partner seemed absorbed in sipping from a tall Starbucks cup. “Candy admitted that she was involved with Joey, but she said he never gave her any details on the big scheme he was supposedly hatching. She seemed devastated by his death. And didn’t like Kevin Doyle at all. I felt she was genuinely upset about Joey’s death. She described in detail the last meal they had together, talked about how he’d given her money, so they didn’t lose the family car, said he was a kind man.”
