Queen of the Night

Fourteen

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 1:50 p.m.

88º Fahrenheit

Brian Fellows was on the phone to Records as he raced out of the building. If the carjacked Honda was still on Campbell or Kino, it was probably headed for either I-10 or I-19. Depending on traffic and lights, the trip to the freeway from Broadway could take as little as seven minutes or as long as ten.

The sheriff’s office was only half a mile or so from where Kino intersected I-10. Brian knew that if he hurried, he might well be there before the Honda. There was a chance a Tucson PD patrol vehicle might beat him to the punch, but that was strictly a matter of luck. Brian was afraid his quota of luck for the day had already been used up in spectacular fashion.

The fact that Kath had been grocery shopping in the same place where Southard had gone looking for a victim was beyond luck. It seemed to him that there was a higher power operating somewhere behind the scenes. There was also the disturbing realization that Kath could just as easily have been the carjacking victim. That, too, was strictly a matter of chance.

Brian was too low on the departmental totem pole to merit a shaded parking place. He piled into his stifling patrol car. The overheated steering wheel scorched his hands as he shot out of his parking place and across the lot. When he reached the exit, he was relieved to see there was no traffic at all on Old Benson Highway. He made a quick right-hand turn without bothering to stop and immediately moved into the far-left lane. He was tempted to turn on his lights and siren, but then he thought better of it. Until he was sure there was backup either from the city of Tucson or from Pima County, it was probably best to maintain a low profile.

Once on Kino, Brian drove as far as the intersection with I-10, where he hit a red light. Stopping for that gave him a chance to study access ramps going in either direction. There was no sign of the Honda on I-10, but while he was looking, Brian took a moment to radio back to Dispatch to let them know that they needed to contact Jake Abernathy and tell him that his homicide suspect was now a carjacking suspect as well.

It was nothing more or less than a CYA call. Jonathan Southard’s case was now officially Jake Abernathy’s problem. If someone from Tucson PD made the collar, Jake would be pissed. If Brian made it, the man would be downright livid. In a perfect world, results should be the final judge and this would be all about catching the bad guy rather than who was catching the bad guy. But Brian Fellows had long ago realized that under Sheriff Bill Forsythe, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department never had been and never would be a “perfect world.”

His phone rang. “Okay,” Kath said. “A Tucson PD unit is headed southbound on Campbell. Where are you?”

“At the freeway and Kino and headed north,” Brian answered. “No sign of the Honda so far, but with any luck that unit from Tucson PD and I will catch it in a squeeze play.”

“Be safe,” Kathy said.

“I always am,” he told her.

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 1:51 p.m.

88º Fahrenheit

Jonathan watched the woman as she drove. Fortunately she had finally stopped trying to talk to him. At first he had thought she was much younger, but now he realized she had to be somewhere in her thirties. And her baby-thank God the squalling kid had finally shut up and had evidently fallen asleep-had to be somewhere between three and four years old.

Jonathan didn’t like thinking about what was going to happen to them. It was inevitable. The prospect of that finally forced him to think about what he had done to his own kids.

Esther had deserved whatever she got and more, but maybe he should have left the kids be. Someone would have looked after Timmy and Suzy, he supposed. Corrine, Esther’s busybody sister, for one. If he’d had taken the time really to think about it before he shot them, he might not have done it. But he was having time to think about what would happen to this mother and her little boy now, and it bothered him, just like shooting the stupid Indians bothered him. In this case, however, the young woman and her son were already as good as dead. They just didn’t know it. In fact, the woman was probably still hoping he’d give them a chance to get away.

As far as when he would finish them off and where that would happen? He knew that it would have to be somewhere between here and the border. He’d direct her to turn off the freeway onto a deserted road somewhere. Then, after he’d shot them both, he’d take the car. He’d park it somewhere close to the border and then walk across, using his passport to get him past the immigration people on both sides.

They had been driving south first on Campbell and then on Kino. He was glad she was sticking to the posted speed limit. So far they hadn’t encountered any law enforcement vehicles, and once they merged onto the freeway system, Jonathan figured they’d be a lot more difficult to find.

They were nearing the intersection with I-10 where Kino widened to lanes. The Honda was still in the middle lane.

“The freeway is coming up,” he told her. “You need to get over.”

“I was planning on getting on I-19 at Ajo Way,” she said. “There’s all kinds of construction on I-10 right now. That intersection might not even be open.”

“I said get on the freeway,” he insisted. “Do it now.”

He saw her check in the rearview mirror for traffic. Even so, she didn’t pull over right away, and the entrance ramp was coming up way too fast. The last thing he needed was for this dumb broad to wreck her car with him in it.

“Get over,” he ordered again. “You’re going the way I tell you. Understand?”

She nodded. At almost the last moment, she jammed on the brakes and slewed the Accord into the right-turn lane.

“You stupid bitch!” he yelled at her. “You almost took us out just then. What the hell were you thinking?”

Naturally the abrupt lane change woke up the kid, and he immediately started howling again.

Great, Jonathan thought. But at least they were entering the freeway now and could blend into traffic there. He breathed a sigh of relief. Things were finally starting to go in his favor.

It was about time.

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 1:52 p.m.

88º Fahrenheit

Ginny knew that each passing telephone pole and each passing bridge abutment were missed opportunities.

She understood that she needed to choose one and use it before they got on the freeway, but she just couldn’t summon the nerve. All her instincts and all her experience were screaming at her: Do not wreck your car! But in these dire circumstances, wrecking the car was exactly what she needed to do. What she had to do.

Pepe was still asleep. If she did it while he was asleep, chances were he wouldn’t be tensed up and frightened by the impending crash. In the mirror she caught a glimpse of his bare little neck with the tiny dark curls blooming around it. What would happen to that precious little neck, the one she kissed at night when Pepe was sleeping? Would it snap to pieces in the collision? Would she be dooming her child to death or, worse, to life as a quadriplegic? Pepe would never forgive her for doing that to him. Neither would Felix. Neither would her mother-in-law. In other words, Ginny needed a slow-speed crash, not a fast one.

Hoping to see a possible crash site-an appropriate crash site-Ginny wanted to stay on surface streets and at surface street speeds for as long as possible. She saw the street signs and knew the intersection with I-10 was coming up, but she didn’t want to take it. She stayed in the middle lane.

“The freeway is coming up,” he told her. “You need to get over.”

If he was from out of town-his license plates had said California-he probably wasn’t up on the latest news concerning highway construction projects around Tucson. At least she hoped he wasn’t.

“I was planning on getting on I-19 at Ajo Way,” she told him. “There’s all kinds of construction on I-10 right now. That intersection might not even be open.”

“I said get on the freeway,” he insisted. “Do it now.”

They were driving past the yard-shed sales lot. Reluctantly complying, Ginny glanced in the mirror. Just then she saw a car in the opposite lane, a vehicle that looked like a Pima County sheriff’s car, jam on its brakes and jerk into a sudden U-turn. There were no flashing lights, no sirens, but as soon as Ginny caught sight of the brake lights, a spark of hope bloomed in her heart. Maybe someone was coming to help them after all.

While that was happening, though, she very nearly missed the merge onto the freeway.

“Get over,” the gunman ordered again, shouting at her. “You’re going the way I tell you. Understand?”

He sounded angry, but he was looking at her-staring at her. He wasn’t looking in the mirror. Ginny swung the car into a hasty right-hand turn. They were going fast enough that the Accord almost didn’t make it. Tires skidded on the pavement. The rear end of the car washed sickeningly from side to side. It was all Ginny could do to get it back under control and onto the entrance ramp.

“You stupid bitch!” he yelled at her. “You almost took us out just then. What the hell were you thinking?”

Jarred by the abrupt turn, Pepe awakened with a start and immediately began crying. Ginny ignored him and forced herself to look straight ahead. She wanted to know if the cop car was behind her, but she couldn’t risk staring in the mirror. The guy might read a telltale expression on her face and would know that help was coming. The only thing Ginny could hope for now was that between the two of them-Ginny and this unknown police officer-they could find some way to surprise the gunman and take him down.

“Can’t you go any faster than this?” he shouted now. “If you merge at twenty-five, some eighteen-wheeler doing eighty is going to run right over us.”

Ginny didn’t want to, but she stepped on the gas. He was right. Traffic on the interstate was moving right along. If she wasn’t careful, they would be run down before they made the merge.

Ginny dared a quick glance in the rearview mirror. To her immense relief she saw what appeared to be an unmarked cop car turn onto the entrance ramp and come racing up behind them. The lights still didn’t come on. He didn’t signal her to pull over, but he stayed right there, a few feet off her rear bumper. Unfortunately, by then she had brought the Accord up to highway speed and made the merge. She had also passed the last of the light pole masts for the intersection. That meant that she had also driven past her last chance of making a partially controlled, low-speed crash.

“Mommy, Mommy,” Pepe howled at her from the backseat. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

Every time he called to her it was like a stone through Ginny’s heart. Her little boy needed her comforting presence and assurance, but she couldn’t afford to look at him. She didn’t dare. And she couldn’t tell him she loved him, either. All she could do was hope she could find a place to wreck the car without killing both of them.

Moments later-at least it seemed like moments to her-she saw the first exit signs for southbound I-19. She knew as soon as she saw them that the exit ramp itself would be her last opportunity to do what had to be done. Once they started up and over the overpass and onto the other freeway, she would immediately resume highway speed. If she was going to do this, she had to do it now-before the overpass, not after it.

When she switched on her turn signal, she could see the gunman nodding in agreement.

“Good,” he said aloud. “I guess you finally wised up.”

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 1:54 p.m.

88º Fahrenheit

Brian was driving like hell and trying to get through to Dispatch at the same time. Before he made any kind of move, he wanted to have backup units in place. To do that and because they were still inside the city limits, he needed to coordinate with Tucson PD.

“And tell them no lights or sirens,” he rasped into the radio as he charged up behind the fleeing Honda on the I-10 entrance ramp. “I’m pretty sure the driver knows I’m here, but the bad guy doesn’t. I want to keep it that way.”

“Do you know where they’re headed?”

“All I know right now is they’re westbound on I-10.”

“Which means they won’t be able to exit again until Prince Road,” the Dispatch operator said. “Do you want us to have someone lay down tire strips?”

“Negative on that,” Brian said. “Too risky. There’s a baby in the backseat.”

But then, as if to show the Dispatch operator how wrong she was, the Accord’s turn signal came on again, blinking the notice that the vehicle was exiting after all, moving onto the exit ramp that led to I-19-the only exit ramp through the downtown area of Tucson that hadn’t been shut down for construction.

“Suspect vehicle is exiting onto I-19,” Brian shouted as he started for the exit ramp as well. “Tucson PD units are approaching.”

He was relieved that someone had given the word about making a stealth approach. At least three marked patrol cars were coming up fast in the right-hand lane behind him. As he had requested, there were no lights and no sirens.

“Tell Tucson PD that we’ll try to hem them in and bring the vehicle to a stop that way.”

“Roger that,” the operator said.

Then, just when Brian dared hope there might be a good end to all this, the Honda suddenly careened off the road. It slammed into a guardrail partway up the exit ramp and then spun a full three-sixty before staggering through another guardrail and down the incline into westbound traffic.

All Brian could do was stand on his brake and try to avoid the flying wreckage that spun skyward in a whirlwind of chunks of metal and glass along with a storm of highway grit and dust. In the instant the car flew past him, he could see that the air bags had deployed, but that was all he could see.

From that moment on, things seemed to happen in slow motion. Before the Accord stopped moving, coming to rest halfway in the freeway’s right-hand lane and facing the wrong way, Brian had stopped his Crown Victoria in the middle of the on-ramp, slammed it into park, yanked on the hazard lights, and erupted out of the vehicle. He vaulted over the remains of the shattered guardrail and slid down the steep shoulder, drawing his weapon as he went. Behind him he heard a cacophony of sirens as the Tucson PD units hit their lights and sirens.

He saw a woman scramble out of the driver’s side of the Honda. “Get down,” he shouted at her. “On the ground.”

If she heard him, she ignored him. Rather than getting down, she stood there for several seconds, struggling to open the Accord’s back door. When it wouldn’t cooperate, she simply threw herself through what Brian realized must have been a broken rear window. And he knew, then, too, what she was doing: Virginia Torres was going after her baby.

Then, also in slow motion and moving as if in a daze, a man clambered out of the passenger side of the wrecked vehicle. Brian saw the figure first and then the telling details-the sling, the gun. Brian’s first thought was that he would try to grab the woman or the baby and use them as human shields. That may have been what he had in mind, but for some reason the rear door wouldn’t open and the window on that side hadn’t shattered.

“On the ground!” Brian shouted again. “Drop your weapon.”

Jonathan Southard looked up. Brian recognized the man’s bloodied face from the driver’s license photo. He seemed surprised to see Brian standing there, but he didn’t get on the ground and he didn’t drop his weapon. Just then the first Tucson PD officer arrived on the scene as well. He, too, had his weapon drawn.

“Drop your weapon.” The arriving officer issued the same orders Brian had given. “Get on the ground.”

Jonathan Southard did neither. He stood stock-still for a moment, as if assessing the situation and his opposition. Then, without checking for traffic, he turned and sprinted into the speeding freeway traffic.

Brian Fellows made as if to follow, but then he saw the woman again. She had managed to wrestle the child out of the vehicle. Now she stood there holding the baby and frozen in place, staring in horror back at the freeway.

Brian heard the bellowing horn of an approaching semi. He knew as soon as he heard it that it was coming too fast. He heard the thump of engaging air brakes and smelled the smoke from scorching tires. The woman was terrified and too dumbstruck to move. Brian wasn’t. He leaped forward, grabbed the woman’s arm and propelled her up the bank to safety. Then something smashed into him from behind. After that he knew nothing.

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 2:10 p.m.

89º Fahrenheit

Kath Fellows left the store parking lot and went home. She unloaded the car, put away her groceries, and waited for Brian to call. She didn’t want to call him. If he was involved in some sort of emergency situation, the last thing he needed was the distraction of a ringing telephone. First ten minutes went by without any word. Then twenty. Then thirty. With each passing minute she grew more and more anxious. She was sure something was wrong-terribly wrong.

Finally, unable to wait any longer, she put in a call to Brian’s office. She managed to bluff her way through to an emergency operator, but what she was told didn’t help. “Sorry, Ms. Fellows. It’s a chaotic scene right now. There are injuries. We don’t know who or how bad.”

As soon as Kath heard those words, she knew that she had to go see for herself. She didn’t want Amy and Annie to know how worried she was, but she didn’t want to take them with her, either. She called their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Harper, and asked for help.

“Of course,” Estelle said. “Just let me turn off the ball game. I’ll be right there.”

Kath was standing by the front door with her purse in one hand and the car keys in the other when Estelle rang the doorbell.

“Okay,” she announced as she let the woman into the house. “I’m going out for a while, girls,” she called over her shoulder. “You listen to Mrs. Harper and do whatever she says.”

“Where are you going?” Amy asked.

“Out,” Kath answered.

“Why can’t we come with you?”

“Because,” she said, then she fled out the door and down the steps.

She drove toward the spot where she’d last heard from Brian-I-10 and Kino. She was half a mile from the intersection when she ran into stopped traffic. She still had a rooftop emergency bubble light in her glove box, one she’d never quite gotten around to taking out of the Odyssey. She retrieved the light, plugged it in, and slapped it on top of her vehicle. Then she threaded her way through the traffic jam until she reached a cop who was directing people away from the freeway.

“Freeway’s closed, ma’am,” the officer said when she reached him. “You’ll have to go around.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out her Border Patrol ID. “I’m off duty,” she said. “They called in all available units.”

The officer barely looked at her ID. He simply stepped aside, motioned Kath onto the on-ramp, and then stopped the car directly behind her.

As soon as she turned onto the ramp, she could see the jumble of traffic ahead of her. There were a good hundred cars or so, stopped here and there, parked at odd angles. Some of them had stopped so suddenly that they had rear-ended the vehicle ahead of them, which meant that there were several fender benders, but at the head of that field of broken and battered automobiles Kath could see a mass of wreckage. At first what she was seeing didn’t make sense. As she inched her way closer, however, she realized that the debris field came from an overturned eighteen-wheeler that had spilled a massive load of construction materials in all directions.

All right, then, Kath thought. Brian’s up there, helping deal with this horrendous wreck. No wonder he couldn’t call me.

When Kath could drive no farther, she stowed the bubble light, left her car parked crookedly on the shoulder, and walked. She could see that the accident had started somewhere just after the I-19 exit ramp. And sure enough, there was Brian’s car-the only one in the collection of cop cars that didn’t have a red flashing lightbar. If Brian’s car was here, that meant he was here somewhere, too.

Kath pulled her phone out of her purse and punched the green button that automatically called the last number dialed. Unfortunately, that turned out to be Mrs. Harper’s number. She ended that call when Estelle Harper’s answering machine came on. Then Kath scrolled through to the next number and dialed that.

The phone rang and rang. It rang six times. Just when Kath expected the call to switch over to voice mail, somebody answered-somebody who wasn’t Brian.

“Hello?”

The voice belonged to a woman. It sounded tentative and uncertain. Kath tried to be all business.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “I’m looking for my husband. What are you doing with his phone?”

“I don’t know,” the woman said. “I heard the phone ringing. It was right here next to my car. I thought I should answer it.”

“What car?”

“I’m in a Chevrolet Lumina,” the woman said. “It’s blue. We’re stuck on this side of the truck. Thank God Bobby didn’t hit it-the truck, I mean. It was so close I’m still shaking like a leaf.”

By then Kath was shaking, too. She spotted the Lumina. Going up to the window, she flashed her ID and took possession of Brian’s phone. The front of the phone was shattered. The battery cover was missing completely, although the battery was still in place. It was a miracle that the phone worked at all.

Determinedly Kath picked her way forward through the debris field. The broken semi had disgorged hundreds of rolls of roofing and hundreds of packets of shingles. Those were scattered in every direction. When Kath came around the front end of the disabled eighteen-wheeler, two more cops-DPS officers this time-barred her way.

“Sorry, lady,” one of them said. “You’ll have to go back.”

“That’s my husband’s car over there,” she said, pointing at the unmarked patrol car sitting undamaged on the shoulder of the road, with its hazard lights still blinking. “He’s a Pima County homicide detective,” she added. “He was chasing a killer with his arm in a sling.”

“The guy with his arm in the sling jumped out of the wreckage and ran into traffic,” one of the officers replied. “He got nailed by a car going eastbound. He’s already been transported in an ambulance.”

“Under guard?” Kath asked.

“Yes, under guard.”

She peered around at the remaining slew of cop cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, and at a group of EMTs frantically working on somebody who had yet to be transported.

“Anybody else hurt?” she asked.

At first neither of the cops replied, but the look they exchanged spoke volumes. As Kath started forward again, one of them reached out to stop her.

“Really, ma’am,” he said. “You probably shouldn’t go there right now…” he began.

Kath shook off his hand. “Either arrest me or let me go,” she told him.

He let her go. She reached the clutch of EMTs just in time to see a bloodied human form on a backboard being lifted onto a gurney and then into a waiting ambulance. There was nothing about the battered face or hands that she recognized, but she knew the shoes. Or rather, she knew the one shoe that had survived the impact and had stayed on Brian’s right foot. Her husband was no clotheshorse, but shoes, more specifically ECCO, were his one personal extravagance.

As Kath approached, one of the ambulance attendants tried to muscle her aside. She pushed right back.

“That’s my husband,” she told him determinedly. “Wherever he’s going, I’m going.”

Nodding his reluctant assent, the EMT handed her up into the back of the ambulance. Then he stepped in himself, closed the door, and called, “We’re in.”

With a squawk of the siren and a lurch of tires, the ambulance sped off.

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 4:00 p.m.

93º Fahrenheit

By the time Brandon and Diana neared their home in Gates Pass, Brandon could see that his wife was running on empty. He had suggested they stop in Casa Grande and get something to eat. She had opted for coming straight home. The whole time they’d been in the car she’d been quiet again, quiet and brooding. Since she sure as hell wasn’t talking with him, Brandon couldn’t help wondering if one of those other haunting entities was once again communicating with her.

Pulling into the driveway, Brandon was startled to see a Border Patrol vehicle, a Ford Expedition, parked on the far side of the gate, blocking the way. He was sure the gate at the end of the driveway had been closed when they left the house. No one should have been able to drive inside and park.

“What the hell?” Brandon muttered under his breath. “What’s all this? Wait here,” he said to Diana. “I’ll go check it out.”

Leaving the engine and AC running, Brandon stepped out of the CRV. What had once been a single backyard area had been carved into two separate yards in order to surround the lap pool with a kid-proof fence. Looking over the top of it, Brandon was dismayed to see a young man, a total stranger, splashing around in the pool. A little girl was with him. He would lift her out of the water and then splash her into it, while she alternately shrieked and giggled. Off under the gazebo lay two very wet dogs-Damsel and a huge German shepherd. The dog was a complete stranger, too, as far as Brandon was concerned, but Damsel seemed entirely at home with this arrangement.

The German shepherd caught sight of Brandon at the same moment Brandon saw the dog. He bounded up and came racing toward the gate, barking fiercely and sounding as though he was fully prepared to tear Brandon Walker limb from limb.

“Bozo!” the guy shouted. “No! Down!”

The dog immediately skidded to a stop and ducked down on his belly. He seemed to be under voice control, but Brandon Walker wasn’t taking any chances. He stayed on his side of the gate and made no attempt to open it.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded of the guy in the pool. “And what do you think you’re doing in my backyard? This is private property. Now get the hell out.”

“Sorry,” the young man said, hefting the little girl onto his hip and making his way over to the steps. “You must be Mr. Walker. I’m Daniel Pardee. This is Angelina Enos. Your daughter is off doing some shopping. She thought she’d be back before you got home.”

“Shopping?” Brandon shot back. “Sure she is. If there’s one thing Lani hates, it’s shopping. Now who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”

The dog-Bozo? Was his name really Bozo?-clearly took exception to Brandon’s tone of voice. He leveled a withering look in Brandon’s direction, a look accompanied by a low-throated growl and the baring of a set of very sharp teeth.

“Dr. Walker tried to call you to let you know that we were stopping by…” the man began.

“I was working,” Brandon told him. “I forgot to turn my phone back on, but surely Lani understands we can’t just have strangers dropping in and using our pool without any kind of supervision.”

“She needed to do some power shopping,” Daniel said. “She thought she’d be better off without having us along.”

Diana walked up behind Brandon. “Who’s that?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“Apparently our daughter invited some of her friends to stop by and go swimming in our absence,” Brandon said sarcastically.

He was ripped, and he didn’t mind sounding like it.

The little girl slithered off the young man’s leg and went racing back toward the pool, scrambling over the dog in the process. The dog made no move to go after the child, but he still kept a wary eye on Brandon.

“I know your daughter wanted to explain all this to you,” Daniel Pardee began. “I expected her back before now.”

“Who’s that adorable child?” Diana asked over Brandon’s shoulder. “Where did she come from?”

Just then Lani’s Passat came down the driveway. Glancing in the passenger-side window, Brandon could see that the entire vehicle was loaded with boxes. The guy with the kid had evidently been telling the truth about Lani being off on a shopping extravaganza.

“I tried to call,” Lani began, rolling down her window. “I meant to be here by the time you got back.”

Nonetheless, Brandon Walker was furious. It was one thing to have their own grandchildren splashing around in the pool, but to allow a total stranger to bring a child there when no one was home was just asking for trouble, to say nothing of a lawsuit.

Brandon walked over to his daughter’s car. “What were you thinking? You have no business inviting people we don’t know onto your mother’s and my property. Family members are one thing-”

“Angie is family, Dad,” Lani said quietly, stepping out of the car. “She’s mine. Dan agreed to look after her while I went shopping.”

Brandon stopped himself in mid-rant. Was it possible that Lani had had a baby her parents knew nothing about?

“What do you mean, she’s yours?” he croaked.

“It happened this morning. Judge Lawrence issued a court order granting me temporary custody. The problem is, my apartment isn’t exactly child-ready. That’s what I was doing, buying what I’ll need to furnish her room.”

“I don’t understand,” Brandon said. “Why would you be given custody?”

“Her mother, Delphina Enos, was murdered last night,” Lani explained. “Out on the reservation.”

“But why-?”

“Delphina’s maiden name was Escalante, Dad, from Nolic. I’m sure you remember them. She was my cousin. My birth cousin.”

“But if her mother has been murdered, isn’t there someone besides you who can take her?” Brandon asked. “Her grandparents, maybe, or else an aunt or uncle?”

“No,” Lani said. “There’s no one. No one wants to take her.”

“Wait a minute,” Brandon said as he finally managed to process what she’d been saying. “You mean those Escalantes? The same people who…?”

Lani nodded. “Yes, the very same people who wouldn’t take me back after the ant bites. This is evidently similar. Since Angie wasn’t murdered along with her mother, her blood relatives have taken the position that she’s now a dangerous object. They won’t take her back. Angie’s father is in jail. His parents don’t want her, either.”

For a long moment Brandon looked hard at his daughter and then at the little girl. Even now Angie was sitting on the edge of the pool, kicking happily with both feet and churning up a spray of water that splashed as far as Bozo who, Brandon noted, had not yet broken his master’s down command.

Brandon glanced back at Dan Pardee. The interloper stood there still dripping and wearing a faded bathing suit, a Speedo Brandon was quite sure was one of Davy’s cast-offs. The younger man was barefoot, but he stood poised on the balls of his feet. He seemed to be assessing the situation in the same way his dog was. He also looked more than capable of leaping to Lani’s defense if that kind of protection seemed warranted.

Diana was the one who ended the uncomfortable stare-down between the two men. She walked past her husband as though he didn’t exist. Opening the gate, she walked past Bozo as well, kicking off her sandals as she went. Rolling up her pant legs, she sank down on the pool edge next to the little girl, dropped her feet into the water, and began kicking, too.

“I’m sorry about not letting you know in advance,” Lani continued, speaking to her father and motioning Dan to come join them. “This is Daniel Pardee, Dad. Dan. He’s an officer with the Shadow Wolves unit of the Border Patrol. He’s a friend of mine and of Angie’s. Dan, this is my father, Brandon Walker.”

Dan held out his hand. Brandon took it, mumbling a halfhearted “Glad to meet you” as he did so, but he wasn’t really paying attention to the handshake. He was staring after his wife.

As she sat there, kicking her feet for all she was worth, there was an expression on her face that Brandon Walker hadn’t seen in years. The smile he had once loved so much, the one that had gone dormant years ago, was back again. The ghosts were gone. Diana was vibrantly alive.

Between spasms of kicking, Diana beamed down at the little girl. “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “My name’s Diana. What’s yours?”

“Angelina Enos,” Angie said. “My mother calls me Angie.”

“Good,” Diana Ladd Walker said. “That’s what I’ll call you, too.”

Brandon looked at his wife’s shadowless face and then at his daughter’s.

“Well,” he said finally, shaking his head. “I guess I know when I’m licked. Come on, young man,” he added, turning back to Dan. “How about if you and Lani and I go inside and rustle up some grub. You may not be starved, but I know I am.”

Brandon led the way into the house. As he stepped inside, he handed Dan a beach towel from the stack of clean towels piled in a laundry basket parked just inside the patio door. He had no idea about who this half-naked young man was or what his relationship was to Angie or to Lani, but he was there. Lani evidently thought he was okay, so Brandon decided he could just as well follow suit.

“I’m glad you’re here, Lani,” he added, speaking to his daughter and glancing back outside at Diana, still sitting on the edge of the pool and splashing away. “Something’s up with your mother. We need to talk.”

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 4:33 p.m.

94º Fahrenheit

As far as first impressions go, Dan Pardee and Bozo were on the same page when it came to Brandon Walker. Dan could see that the man had a point-that he wouldn’t be wild about having uninvited strangers making themselves at home on his property, but he could have been a little less confrontational about it.

Before stepping inside, Dan turned back to Bozo and gave him the silent hand signal that released the dog from his earlier command. Without hesitating, Bozo made for the water, dived in, and swam from one end of the lap pool to the other. Bozo was entirely understandable. People? Not so much. Shaking his head and not sure what had just happened, Dan followed Dr. Walker and her father into the house.

Lani (she had told him to call her that, but Dan still thought of her as Dr. Walker) helped herself to sodas from the fridge, keeping one for herself and passing another on to Dan while her father set about taking a selection of foodstuffs out of the pantry and refrigerator and setting them on the counter.

“Enchiladas?” he asked.

Lani nodded. “That sounds wonderful,” she said.

“Now tell me about all this,” he said.

So Lani did. While she and her father bustled around the kitchen, she explained about the four people who had been murdered near Komelik. She told Brandon about how Dan had discovered the crime scene and how he had rescued the child from there-finding Angie, bringing her to the hospital, and then staying with her while they waited for Angie’s relatives to come collect her, relatives who had no intention of doing so.

There was a lot about this conversation that didn’t make much sense to Dan Pardee. Lani had told Dan and Angie earlier about being bitten by ants as a child, but he couldn’t understand how that had made her unacceptable to her birth family. And he found it hard to believe that Delphina Enos could have been Lani’s cousin without Lani’s having any idea about her existence. It was also interesting to see that Brandon Walker was far more understanding about having Angie Enos air-dropped into his family than he was about coming home and finding unauthorized strangers in his swimming pool. That was as contradictory as it was interesting.

Dan also enjoyed watching what he later thought of as the enchilada dance. Lani and her father worked and talked together-chopping, dicing, grating, and stirring-without having to ask any questions and without ever stepping in each other’s way. The batch of enchiladas had just gone into the oven and they had taken seats with Dan at the kitchen table when Brandon Walker glanced in Dan’s direction and then abruptly changed the subject.

“I need to tell you about your mother,” he said to Lani. “I know I should have talked to you and Davy about this before, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. She’s been seeing people, Lani, and carrying on conversations with people who aren’t there.”

“Like Andrew Carlisle?” Lani asked.

Once again, Dan was listening to a conversation-a private but clearly important conversation, but one with big pieces missing. Who the hell was Andrew Carlisle?

“How do you know about that?” Brandon asked. “Did she tell you?”

Lani shook her head. “Gabe Ortiz did.”

Once again Dan was left out of the loop. Who’s Gabe? he wondered, while Brandon shook his head in apparent dismay.

“How did Gabe know?” Brandon asked.

Lani shrugged. “He’s a spooky little kid,” she replied. “He sometimes knows things people don’t expect him to know. But who all are we talking about here besides Andrew Carlisle?”

“Mitch Johnson, her father, her first husband,” Brandon said. “All the bad guys who made Diana’s life a living hell. She didn’t mention any of this to me or to anyone else because she’s scared to death that she’s drifting into some kind of dementia-or maybe even Alzheimer’s.”

To Dan’s surprise, Lani greeted that dire news with what appeared to be a relieved smile. “It’s not Alzheimer’s.” She made the declaration with absolute confidence.

“It’s not?” her father asked.

“Mom’s hallucinating,” Lani said. “For some people hallucinations come along in a much happier context-pink ponies, purple whales, whatever. Mom has lived through some pretty dark times, so it’s not surprising that her hallucinations are darker, too.”

“If it’s not Alzheimer’s or dementia, what’s causing it?” Brandon asked.

“My first guess would be her medications. What is she taking?”

“I’m not sure. I know she’s had trouble sleeping at times. She takes some over-the-counter meds and vitamin supplements. Why?”

“We need to gather up everything she takes, prescription and nonprescription, and get those bottles to a pharmacy. I’m guessing this is some kind of drug interaction.”

“That’s all it is?” Brandon asked.

“It could be all it is,” Lani corrected. “We need to be sure, but if I were a betting woman, I’d be willing to put money on it.”

The relief on Brandon Walker’s face was apparent. “I’ll do that,” he said. “I’ll gather up all the bottles and take them to the pharmacy first thing tomorrow morning.”

The timer went off, announcing it was time to take the enchiladas out of the oven. Brandon had stood up and was reaching for an oven mitt when the phone rang. A moment or two after he answered, he nodded gravely.

“Thanks for calling, Kath. I’m so sorry to hear this. We’ll be right there.”

He took the baking tray of enchiladas out of the oven and set them on the counter, then turned to his daughter. “We’ve gotta go,” he said.

“Why?” Lani asked. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Brian,” he said. “He’s been in an accident. They’ve taken him to the trauma center at TMC.”

And that’s how Dan Pardee began to learn about the extent of the close connections between Detective Brian Fellows’s family and Lani Walker’s. That was also how it came to be that his day ended as it began, with him waiting patiently in hospitals sixty miles apart, worrying about people he barely knew and watching their looming tragedies unfold around him.

Dan went to the hospital because they asked him to go there with them. He helped out because he could help out-because that was the way his grandfather had raised him.

Ohb or not, that was who he was.