Down the Darkest Road

13

The Thomas Center for Women near the center of Oak Knoll had been built in the late 1920s as a private Catholic girls’ school—which it had remained into the sixties.

The buildings had been modeled in the style of the old Spanish missions that studded the length of the California coast like jewels in a necklace. Gleaming white stucco and red tiled roofs; arched corridors and curved, pedimented gables; a terraced bell tower standing tall above the thick walls.

Lauren recognized the details as they had been lovingly described to her by her husband. Lance had been obsessed with the missions. He had visited all of them—most of them more than once. He had always talked about building a family compound in the same style, situating the main house and separate guest cottages and work studios in a ring around a fabulous courtyard garden.

Lance had toured the Thomas Center when he had been staying in Oak Knoll during the remodeling of Bump and Sissy’s house. Lauren remembered him talking about it, waxing rhapsodic about the architecture. A beautiful design had been like a beautiful woman to Lance. Bump had often teased him that buildings were like mistresses to him and that if he didn’t watch out, Bump was going to step in and adopt his family out from under him.

Lauren was very aware of the women’s center housed in these buildings now for the last decade or so. The woman who had founded the center had spoken to several of Lauren’s women’s groups in Santa Barbara over the years. She knew Jane Thomas well enough to recognize her and exchange pleasantries, and she admired her tireless hard work for the center.

The Thomas Center was a place for disadvantaged and abused women to reinvent themselves. A place for healing and rehabilitating, a place of hope. Women from all walks of life were welcomed.

Lauren parked in the lot on the side of the main building and sat there for a moment. She felt abused—by life and by herself. No doubt she needed healing.

Hope, at this point, looked like a lovely white bird just out of reach. She had held on to it once, held it too tightly, and it had escaped her grasp. Now she kept snatching at it, pulling the feathers from its tail, but never quite getting hold of it.

She dug a couple of Tylenol out of her purse and washed them down with Evian water. Eleven o’clock and her head was still pounding from crying and drinking and not sleeping the night before. She had taken the care to put makeup on, but knew it couldn’t do much to hide her exhaustion or the fact that she was hungover, or that she had spent most of the night beating herself up for being weak and stupid.

She didn’t bother to look in the mirror to confirm what she knew she would see. She put her sunglasses on and got out of the car.

Anne Leone kept an office here in the Thomas Center. Lauren asked for directions at the front desk and kept her head down as she walked past Jane Thomas’s office to the far end of the hall. It seemed a long walk. The heels of her shoes clacked against the polished Mexican tile, and the sound floated all the way to the top of the barrel vaulted ceiling.

She paused at the office door. It opened from the inside before she could change her mind and leave.

Anne greeted her with an easy smile, as if they had been friends for a long time.

“Hi, Lauren, come on in. The desk called and told me you were here.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to chat with you on the phone when you called,” she went on as she led the way back from a small reception area to her private office. “I had someone waiting for me.”

“No problem,” Lauren said. “I had errands to run anyway. Not a problem stopping by.”

She didn’t say that she had a suspicion this was a setup. Not a great idea to show paranoia in front of a mental health professional.

“Have a seat,” Anne said, waving toward a cushy gold chenille sofa and two matching oversized chairs as she went around behind her French antique writing desk. A coffee station was set up on the credenza beneath the bookcases. “Would you like something to drink? I’m having peppermint tea. A little morning sickness today.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

Even with morning sickness, she looked the picture of glowing health. Especially by comparison, Lauren thought.

“I hope you’re all right with having Leah come stay tonight,” Anne said. “Wendy is all excited.”

“Her mother is going out of town?” Lauren asked, settling into one of the chairs.

“Yes. Sara has been making a name for herself as a sculptor. She just found out she’s won the commission to do a piece for a municipal building in the Monterey area. She needs to go up there for a meeting.”

“Is Wendy’s father around?”

Anne set a pair of Italian pottery mugs of tea on the coffee table and settled into the near corner of the sofa.

“That’s complicated,” she said on a sigh. “Wendy’s parents divorced a few years ago. Wendy hasn’t forgiven her dad for that. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with him—beyond punishing him, that is. Steve pays handsomely for those riding lessons, and the tennis lessons, and the clothes . . .”

She reached for her mug and took a sip of the tea. “She’ll work her way through it eventually. Her father is a man with some issues of his own, but he loves his daughter. And she loves him. She’s just hurt.”

“It’s not easy being a kid these days,” Lauren said.

“I’m sure it’s been difficult for Leah—losing her sister and her father so close together.”

“It’s been a nightmare.”

“How old was she when her sister went missing?”

“Twelve. Leslie had just turned sixteen. Their relationship was a little difficult at the time. Leah worshipped her older sister, but Leslie was at that age. She wanted to be independent. She didn’t want to be bothered by a little sister. And Leslie and her dad were butting heads a lot. Leah didn’t like it.

“Leah likes things neat and tidy, everything and everyone in their proper place,” she said, picking at a dark stain on the thigh of her jeans.

“And suddenly nothing was in order,” Anne said.

“And then her evil mother uprooted her and made her move to a new town.”

“There’s a lot to be said for fresh starts,” Anne said. “And it seems like Leah has some structure to give her security now. She has her job at the ranch. She has Wendy for a friend. I’m happy to be a part of the equation. She doesn’t need to feel at loose ends. That should help.”

“Yeah,” Lauren said.

She wanted to get up and leave. She knew what was coming next. Next would be the How about you? How are you feeling? Have you dealt with your emotions? The usual therapist bullshit. And she would get annoyed and lose her temper and be a bitch and offend Anne Leone.

“You’re welcome to come too, if you like,” Anne said easily. “An evening full of children probably isn’t high on your to-do list, but if you don’t want to stay home alone . . .”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, staring down at the steaming mug of tea.

“I still can’t stay alone.”

Anne’s admission brought Lauren’s head up.

Anne shrugged. “It’s been five years. I still can’t go to my own front door if I don’t know who’s on the other side of it. When Vince goes out of town, a deputy comes and parks a cruiser in front of the house, or one of the off-duty guys comes by.”

“What happened?”

“I was abducted from my home by a serial killer,” she said matter-of-factly, like this was something that happened to every third person. “He would have happily added me to his list of victims, but his ten-year-old son distracted him at a crucial moment and I hit him in the head with a tire iron.”

Lauren practically had to pick her jaw up off the floor to say, “Oh my God.”

“See?” Anne said. “I wasn’t patronizing you when I said I know what it is to be a victim of a violent crime. I lived it. I live it every day. And every night.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lauren said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “I didn’t realize. I feel so stupid.”

Anne frowned and made a motion with her hand. “Don’t. I didn’t mean for that—”

“No,” Lauren said. “I’m always irritated when people tell me they’re sorry. What do they have to be sorry for? And now I’m saying it, and I’m realizing that people say it because they feel stupid that they have no better words.”

“What else could they say?” Anne asked.

“I don’t know. How about, I hope the bastard rots in hell for what he did to you?”

Anne laughed out loud. “Now I like that! That’s what a real friend would say!”

Lauren found herself chuckling. “I’m such a lady! You must be so impressed with me!”

“I am,” Anne said, her dark eyes full of genuine kindness. “I am. Maybe we can collaborate on an etiquette handbook for crime victims and their friends and families.”

“Right,” Lauren said. “Let’s start with Thou Shalt Not Bring Tuna Casserole.”

“That could be the title!”

“Oh my God.”

How good does it feel to smile, she thought as she leaned forward and picked up the mug of peppermint tea. It felt like . . . relief. Like she had opened a pressure valve and let off some steam.

“What would people think if they could hear us making jokes about this?” she asked.

“They wouldn’t get it,” Anne said. “They can’t get it, and that’s okay. We can’t expect them to.”

“They don’t know the secret handshake,” Lauren said, sobering, remembering their conversation from the night before. You belong to a club nobody wants to join . . .

“We get through it the best way we can,” Anne said. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.”

“He went to prison, right?” Lauren said. “The man who attacked you.”

“He took a plea. He’s in prison for now.”

“But he was a serial killer.”

“There wasn’t enough evidence to charge him on those murders.”

Lauren closed her eyes. The coincidence made her head swim. A serial killer had gone free for lack of evidence. Roland Ballencoa was a free man for lack of evidence that he had taken her daughter.

Was there no justice anywhere?

A crazy image of Ballencoa sitting somewhere in this town having coffee and eating breakfast flashed through her head. People might glance at him, notice him, think nothing of him. They would have no idea who or what he was. Because they had no evidence.

She knew in her heart what he had done, but she had no evidence.

Her heart was beating a little too fast. Anxiety was like a million needles pricking her skin. A fine mist of sweat rose from her pores.

“I should be going,” she said suddenly. She set the mug down on the table and got up without looking at Anne. “I’ll pick Leah up in the morning.”

“No, no,” Anne said. “I’m happy to drop her off at the ranch. Wendy has finagled another riding lesson for tomorrow morning. I’ll be taking her anyway.”

“Oh. Well,” Lauren stammered. “Thank you.”

She could feel Anne Leone’s eyes on her, but she didn’t meet them.

“Thanks for having her over,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Anne said.

If she thought Lauren’s behavior was strange, she didn’t mention it. She made no move to stop her from heading for the door.

Lauren let herself out of the exit at the end of the hallway. The sun blinded her. She fumbled for her sunglasses on top of her head. One of the nose pads was caught in her hair. Her hands were shaking as she struggled impatiently with the glasses.

“Fuck. Fuck!” she cursed half under her breath, flinging the sunglasses away from her as they came loose. They hit the pea gravel of the parking lot facedown, undoubtedly scratching the lenses.

Angry, Lauren kicked the glasses toward her car, then bent down and snatched them up and threw them at the passenger window of the BMW. They bounced off, fell to the ground, and she left them there, not caring that they were Gucci and had cost more than a hundred dollars.

She got in the car, started it, put it in reverse, hit the gas too hard, and spun the tires.

She kept her head down and didn’t look at the building as she pulled out of the parking lot. She didn’t have to look to know that Anne Leone was probably standing at the side door, watching her make a fool of herself.

She had to escape—not Anne, or Anne’s office, even though at the end there the walls had seemed to close in to make the space as small as a closet. What she needed to escape was herself and the tumult of her emotions.

The way she chose to do that was with a gun.