Harmful Intent: A Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels/Dawson Hughes Novel (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Arroyo

Day Fifteen, Morning

Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels, PI

His back is to me. I drop my Barbie doll, the one he gave me. I'm running, running toward him, but I'm not getting closer. I cry out, "Daddy. Daddy!" He won't turn to face me. Why is his back always to me?

Green mist swirls around the playground jungle-gym and sandbox. Dad stands outside the fence surrounding the play area. His back still to me, he chats with a smiling man in a pin-stripe suit and horn rimmed glasses. The slide shape-shifts into a roller coaster and Dad's companion collects tickets. He beckons to me. "Come for a ride, little girl."

The mist turns yellow and the slide returns to its regular shape and size. The man climbs up the slide's ladder. At the top, he waves to a woman flying on a trapeze who looks just like my mom. He walks to the front door of the fun house, knocks, and in a singsong voice taunts, "You can't hide from me. I know you're in there."

More knocking.

Kicking at the damp sheet didn't free me of it. I'd twisted myself into some kind of cocoon. My PJs were soaked, and sticking to my skin. "Just a minute," I croaked.

"Oh, Ronnie, I just want to make sure you're okay. You overslept." Bertha's voice is filled with concern.

I grabbed my alarm clock and stared at it through bleary eyes. It hadn't rung. I was now half an hour late for my breakfast shift. "Sorry, I'll be right down. Sorry."

"Aw, honey, don't feel sorry. If you're all right, that's all that matters."

"I'm fine, really I am. I don't know why my alarm didn't go off." I had just put on my most cheerful voice and hated that I sounded so much like my mother.

It had been years since I'd dreamt my dad wouldn't look at me. I'd often had this type of nightmare as a little girl when my mom responded to my dad's transgressions with overly cheerful displays, which were invariably met by his silence. This nocturnal haunting stopped when I went to college. When I returned home, the dream reoccurred but not with any great frequency. Eventually it stopped all together.

But who was the man with the glasses? He was a new addition to this alarming scenario. Something about him niggled at me. I brushed the feeling aside. That the dream had come back, more vivid and disturbing than before, could only mean I was under greater stress than I realized.

Years ago, I told my mother about the original dream starring my dad as its sole character. She'd held me in her arms, kissed my brow, and advised me not to read too much into it. For some strange reason, that one time, I agreed with her.

After rubbing the sand out of my eyes, I stretched, but the lethargy, as the aftermath of the dream, had a grip on me. I struggled into a pair of jeans, pulled on a tee, and splashed water on my face. Thankfully, it was easy to pull my hair into its usual ponytail. I hustled down the stairs and into the dining room, grabbed the aspirin bottle under the counter and dry swallowed two. Anything that might put a dent in the throbbing at my temples. "Sorry, sorry. I overslept."

My cheering section at the counter all wanted more coffee.

"Fill 'er up, sleepin' beauty." Amos chortled, while plucking at his red suspenders. One of them slipped out of his fingers and snapped back, hitting his chest. "Ouch."

Curly ignored his friend's pain and focused on me, grinning. "Now, don't you go and strain yerself, none."

"You sure you got yerself enough rest?" Jasper tugged on his mustache.

The front door opened with such force the trio gave up their poor excuses for joking.

Everyone turned around to look.

A rail thin figure in black, skin-tight jeans and black hand-tooled, western riding-boots strode in. From the waist up, the individual sported a neon-yellow hoodie with the brim of a black baseball cap protruding low on the brow. Just under that, a huge pair of silver aviator glasses sat on a perky nose. That facial feature, the only indication this was a woman.

I came around the counter and pointed to a booth in the front.

She swept by me. The back of the hoodie read 'CHANEL' in block letters. The second indication this was most likely a woman.

Amos grabbed hold of his suspenders again and gave a low, "Woo-wee."

Curly blurted, "Now, ain't that a sight to behold."

Jasper looked as if he might pull one side of his mustache off. "All that yeller, like to blind a body."

I took two steps, following her. "Any booth in the back is fine. I'll bring you coffee and a menu."

She glanced over her shoulder at me, but kept walking. "Could you make it herbal tea? Any variety is fine. I don't need a menu."

I knew that voice. The question was, from where? "Oh, sure. Milk, honey, or lemon?"

"Just honey."

I pivoted and headed behind the counter to get the hot tea.

She walked to the last booth and paused as if she couldn't decide which side to sit on. After a quick pivot and an intense scrutiny of the front door, she took the far side. This gave her a clear view of the entrance. She craned her neck once as if to test that.

A moment later, I set down a cup of cranberry-apple tea. "Will there be anything else?"

She removed the glasses, and Uma Kantrel peered up at me, eyes wild, akin to those of a cornered cat. "I have to talk to you."

I slid into the booth opposite her. "You wanna tell me what this is all about?"

She mixed two teaspoons of honey into the tea, but said nothing.

I waited. The pounding in my head had not diminished any, so I was glad for a moment of quiet.

She took a sip of tea. "I caught Cassidy and Reece together." She ducked her head so low I could barely hear her words. One of them sounded like witch, but I'd bet anything it started with a
B
.

"When did this happen? You were with Morgan when he left the funeral to pick Cassidy up at the airport."

"He dropped her off at her apartment, but then said he was tired and dropped me off at my bungalow. I never was the jealous type, but see, he'd been getting all these nonstop calls from her while she was in New York." She had a slight accent. Maybe Alaskan? Her cadence was like that of the former governor.

"I understand." Boy, did I. The ache in my gut was still hollow and deep. "I guess with Mark gone, she has to steal somebody else's man."

"Oh, no, it didn't go down that way. They set him up… um, your husband, Mark, that is."

I raised my hand, palm out, to her in a stopping gesture. "Hold on. How do you know that?"

"Okay, so, let me backtrack and tell you everything." She shot a feral look at the front door and then slouched down, making herself smaller in the chair. "When Reece told me he was tired last night and wasn't going to come in, I acted like it was fine and dandy with me. I went into my place and turned on the vestibule and living room lights, but as soon as he pulled out of the driveway, I left the house and ran for my car. I broke every speed limit, ran half the stop signs, and beat the louse to Cassidy's apartment building."

That's what hurt and jealousy will do to a woman. Turn her into a maniac behind the wheel with no regard to her safety or anybody else's.

"Cassidy never loved Mark. She was trying to get him hooked on drugs so she could stop doing the fandango with him… if you know what I mean. But he wasn't a druggie. He was more of a health nut."

My back went ramrod stiff. "So, she killed him."

"Oh, I have no idea who killed him, but I do know why he freaked-out two days before he was murdered."

My mouth went dry. "Why?"

"I don't want to talk here. There's no telling who's involved, or who might drop in for a bite to eat and then innocently say something that gets back to the spa. I'm not even taking a chance on my car being seen here. I borrowed my neighbor's van and wore this get up."

I nearly laughed. "You thought nobody would spot you in canary yellow?"

"They might, but they wouldn't know it was me as long as my pink hair was covered. I grabbed the hoodie on my way out." She gave a small shrug.

"Where do you want to talk?"

Her eyes darted toward the door again. "Give me a head start so I can stay ahead of you in Abilene traffic. I'll drive into the next county and meet you at the penny arcade in Clyde."

My mouth went dry, or drier than it had been. If this was a trap and anything happened to me there, Hughes would have no jurisdiction in the next county. "Let me think about where to meet. I've got about twenty minutes left to my shift and I'll let you know then."

She gave the Uma pout. "I don't feel comfortable sitting here."

"Pull the van around to the back of the Chuck Wagon and park there."

I drove myself crazy looking at the clock on the wall, not to mention trying to figure out how to waylay a trap, if one had been planned.

After my shift, I walked out the back door. A fanny pack for a concealed weapon sat on my left hip with my Glock inside, my banker's special strapped to my ankle. I rapped at the driver's window of the van and she lowered it. "Let's meet one hundred yards south of the Bar None Stables in Buffalo Gap."

She nodded. "Okay."

"Drive around front and wait for me to pull out. I want to leave first."

She nodded again and started the van's engine.

I walked through the diner slowly, giving her plenty of time to phone any accomplice, if there was one, with the new location. When I got out front, I tapped her window again. "Changed my mind. I want to go west to Merkel."

Her nose wriggled. "Merkel? Where in Merkel?"

I grabbed my phone and googled. With the gray matter in my cranium pulsating, I had to try three times. "How about the Merkel Community Church cemetery?"

Merkel was a dot on the map. How large could this cemetery be? Hopefully small enough for me to spot anyone following her.

"All right, I guess." She took down the address.

"I'll leave first." Once I'd nearly reached the cemetery, I would phone Hughes. That way, he wouldn't be able to stop me. I'd never disobey a direct order from an officer of the law, but what he didn't have prior knowledge of couldn't deter me.

I took Route 20 west and slid in an Adele CD I'd picked up at Wal-Mart as a defense against the barrage of country western radio stations in Abilene and its environs. Thirty-five minutes later, as I approached Merkle, I realized my headache was gone. Either the aspirin had kicked in or the music had soothed away my distress. More likely, I'd slipped into professional PI mode and had no place for a headache.

I pulled out my cell phone and hit speed dial for Hughes. No service. I tried again. Still no service. I was on my own.

The small clapboard church sat off the state road. Instead of pulling into the driveway, I passed it, turned into a feed store's parking lot, and parked behind a Chevy flatbed truck. Then I got out of the Smart Car and peered around the truck and down the road. Several minutes later, I could see Uma's borrowed van turn into the church parking lot.

She got out of the vehicle. Even from a distance, it was hard to miss her in all that yellow. She walked around the side of the church toward the cemetery.

Nobody turned into the parking lot after her. No vehicle slowed as it passed the church. I watched a full five minutes. None turned around and went back.

When I drove into the cemetery and got out of my car, Uma stood under a scraggly tree, next to a marker topped with a cherub. She threw one hand in the air, pointing her index finger, and charged toward me. That's when I noticed the silver flames etched into her boots. Nice.

She glared, as her lips twisted. "I thought you wanted to get here first. I was gonna give you another two minutes and then leave."

"Sorry, I stopped to use the restroom at a fast food joint." Bertha would shake her head in dismay at my disregard for the truth, but Jack had insisted lies were a routine part of interrogation. He'd learned that as an MP in the Army.

She exhaled rapidly through her nose, twice. "Well, you're here now."

"So, what did you want to tell me?"

The annoyed look on her face swiftly changed to one of jealousy. "Cassidy was waiting for Reece under the portico of her building with her designer overnight bag in her hand. He took her back to his place."

"I'm so sorry. I know you must've been devastated."

She dismissed my concern with a small wave of her hand. "I have a key to his house and know the alarm code. I wanted to confront them. He didn't even have the alarm on. Getting in was a snap."

I took a step toward her. "So what did you learn?"

"I was all set to rush in on them, but something about Cassidy's screeching tone stopped me dead in my tracks. She was terrified."

I touched her elbow, hoping the gesture offered support. "Did she let on what she was afraid of?"

Uma nodded, then frantically looked from side-to-side.

I thought she might bolt, so I held onto her arm.

She shook free of my grasp and took a step back. "They were talking about the night Reece left the spa with Cassidy and Mark in his BMW. They drove into the hills to meet some Mexican gang leader."