Blind Spot (22 page)

“More bullshit,” Lang concluded, but he waved a hand, telling her to get on with it.

Claire turned away, ostensibly to hear the call, more because she needed a semiprivate moment. Lang wasn’t completely wrong. There had been nothing in Eugenie Ledbetter’s reports on Cat’s condition that would suggest the pregnancy was anything but textbook. Claire just wanted to keep the power play between herself and Stone under control. Eugenie answered directly and when Claire posed the idea of having Cat interviewed, Eugenie didn’t see it as any kind of problem. “Has she come to?” was all Eugenie asked, to which Claire answered, “Not really.”

“She wondered why you called her,” Lang observed with a small smile as Claire hung up.

Annoyed, she turned to Cat’s door. She would have liked to thwart him in some way. He really, really got to her in ways that probably needed to be assessed, but right now she didn’t have the energy or inclination to go there. Cat came first. As her hand reached for the knob, she asked, “Does arrogance always work for you?”

“A lot of the time,” he answered without missing a beat.

“Part of your police procedural?”

“More like a natural gift.”

“Let me broach Siren Song to her,” she ordered, slipping into the room.

“You’re the professional,” he said, and she was pretty sure she heard a gibe in there somewhere.

He didn’t want to like her. Or be attracted to her. Or even notice any little thing about her. But Dr. Claire Norris was a stunner. Not traditionally beautiful, maybe. Her face was narrow, her profile sharp. But she had sleek, dark, winged brows and warm, liquid brown eyes and a mouth that was a bit too generous, the lips, even without lipstick, like now, soft and pliable and welcoming even while her words were taut and hostile. As they walked in he had to drag his gaze from her slim waistline, a blue satiny blouse tucked into a black skirt beneath the open lab coat.

Cat looked much like he had the first time he’d seen her. Unresponsive. Staring straight ahead. She was blond and blue-eyed and projected an almost eerie innocence, too perfect to believe in.

Otherworldly, Clausen had said of Catherine. It was true, too, of Cat.

“Detective Stone of the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department has come back to visit us again,” Claire Norris said, leaning a bit toward the patient. Lang was conscious of the swell of her hips beneath the lab coat. His gaze traveled to her calves, trim and tight, with neat ankles and a pair of black flats.

What would that leg and foot look like in a three-inch heel?
he wondered.

“He thinks you may have come from the town of Deception Bay. There’s a lodge there called Siren Song.”

Black patent leather, shining, tap-tapping against a wood floor as she walked away from him and—

“Detective?” The woman in question turned toward him, her brown eyes assessing.

“What?”

“She’s responding.”

His gaze flew to Cat’s face. Those blue eyes were now staring straight at him now, unwaveringly. Waiting.

It was enough to send a cold little shiver under his skin. “We think you may be from Siren Song.”

Was he imagining it, or did her eyes dilate?

“We’ve been trying to learn something about you. Your name. Where you come from. Your family members. We’re in contact with someone from the lodge. Catherine,” he added, pushing the truth.

She turned her head away. Slowly. To stare at the wall again. But before that Lang had noticed her skin quiver a bit. From fear? Cold? It was like an oven in this damn room, as far as he could tell, so that didn’t make sense.

“Does any of that sound familiar?” Claire asked her.

Cat didn’t respond, but Lang could tell her breathing was faster and shallower. Something was going on there.

“We’ve identified your traveling companion, Rafe Worster,” he added. “He was a homicide victim the same night you were attacked.”

No response to that. Lang brought up finding her and Worster’s body at the rest stop, but she was gone to whatever world she’d escaped to. There were no more responses.

After a few more moments, Claire motioned for him to head out of the room. Reluctantly he let himself be banished to the hall as Norris assured Cat that she was safe at Halo Valley, that she needed to take her time in remembering, that everything was A-OK.

When Claire came out they walked together back down the hall. Lang asked, “Does that work? All that pacifying?”

“Everyone needs to feel safe.”

“Is that the driving force of her catatonia? How do you know that?”

“I don’t know the driving force,” she said. “But given the circumstances that brought her here, I think a need to feel safe would be right at the top of her list.”

“I’ll buy that. She’s scared. Someone tried to take her baby, or at least tried to cut her there. Wound her. Maybe kill her. And that same person killed her boyfriend.”

“If he was her boyfriend.”

“It’s an assumption I’m going with until I hear differently,” Lang said. “Makes the most sense, and it goes with what Cade said. Rafe, the sometime womanizer, worked at Siren Song around all those young women under Catherine’s charge. He got to one of them: Cat. They started an affair and then…
bam
! She’s pregnant. Bad news for everyone. So then…”

They were back in the lobby, but Claire had drifted toward the empty morning room. Lang followed her and they moved in unspoken decision toward the bookcase along one wall.

“So then?” she prompted.

Her face was close to his. For a moment he lost his train of thought. There was a strange intimacy about being in this corner, their voices low, their dialogue concerning a sexual affair. “So then they have to get out. Away from Catherine and all that repression. They run away together.”

“Hmm…” She sounded unsure.

“What are you thinking?”

“By the time they run, she’s seven or eight months pregnant. Her pregnancy has to be obvious to everyone. It’s not like they could hide it.”

“Lots of times women hide pregnancies. Teenagers hide them from their parents all the time. Some women don’t even know they’re pregnant until they deliver.”

“That’s the rarity,” she said, but her tone was thoughtful. “They wear dresses that are almost smocks.”

“So maybe Catherine didn’t know?”

“You think Cat hid her pregnancy, and then ran away with this Rafe, who was her lover, before anyone could find out?”

“Maybe.”

Claire’s brow furrowed. “I’m not saying Cat’s from Siren Song, but if she were, she might have felt it was imperative to leave when she did.”

“To keep the news from Catherine. To save the baby. But then Catherine found out and went after them, found them at the rest stop, took out a knife—”

“No.” Claire shook her head. “Not in her character. She’s raised all those girls, apparently. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Anybody can kill,” Lang argued. “And Catherine seems to be a woman of rigid rules. This could have been a complete betrayal. What if she tracked them down, planning on—I don’t know—forcing an abortion.”

“What a sick mind you have,” she sputtered.

“Coming from you, that’s saying quite a lot. You being the expert on sick minds.”

“I don’t think that’s Catherine’s M.O., either. If Cat is really a member of the Colony, and she took a lover and became pregnant, that might certainly stir up some strong emotions in Catherine, but I don’t think it would set her on a path of murder. Either the baby, Cat, or even this Rafe.”

“Then why won’t she even talk to me?” Lang demanded.

“You haven’t given her a clue what it’s about.”

“She knows Cat left. She has to be worried about it. But for some reason she doesn’t want to face it, and why would that be? Because she’s at fault in there somewhere. Maybe criminally at fault.”

“You’re trying to force facts to fit your own theory.”

“Well, why are you so dead set on defending a woman you don’t even know?” Lang demanded.

“Why are you so dead set on making her out to be a monster?”

“Because she’s holding those girls hostage. Not letting them out of that place!”

“You don’t know that.”

He snorted. “You say you live in Deception Bay? Well, how’d you miss the four-one-one on Catherine of the Gates? From what I’ve learned, she makes Nurse Ratched look good.”

“So she follows Cat and her boyfriend and attacks them with a knife? Killing him and stabbing away at Cat’s belly, with no real direction, then leaves her and the baby to die, too? If she’s as concerned with rules as you say, she wouldn’t break so many of them.”

“You just want to defend her because she’s a woman,” he said.

Claire’s eyes flashed. “You’re going to make this about gender?”

Her eyes weren’t totally brown. They had gold specks inside them. Gold specks that glowed hot. “It is about gender. You don’t think a woman could be diabolical enough to chase them down and knife them to death?”

“Oh, yes, I do. Women can surprise you with their strength, fury, and commitment. I just think you’re totally off base with Catherine. You’re objecting to the circumstances in which the Colony women live. You think it’s a kind of forced slavery. So Catherine is the head evildoer. You’re focused on her, and it’s taking you away from the real killer.”

“I’m just letting this go where it goes,” he countered. “Investigations are like that. You just follow them. They lead you where they’re gonna lead you. To Catherine, or maybe to someone else. But she’s my impasse.”

She thought that over for a moment, turning slightly as if listening to something.

“What?” he demanded.

“It is about gender,” she said, reversing her earlier stance.

“Wait. Really. My head’s spinning,” he said wryly. “Now you think I’m right?”

“You can’t reach Catherine because you’re not a woman,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm.

But he saw where her thoughts were heading. Wasn’t sure he agreed.

“Her world is all about women. Men are—”

“The enemy?” he guessed.

“I was going to say, men are a foreign culture. She doesn’t understand them and doesn’t want to deal with them.”

“So I should go with a woman next time? Or send one?”

“You can go with me.”

The words flew out of Claire’s mouth before she really knew what she was saying. The discussion with Lang had been low and intense, and Claire, though she didn’t really want to be so near him, felt strangely certain that she was on the right track where Catherine of Siren Song was concerned. And she wanted to help Cat. She wanted to be a part of this. With or without Langdon Stone, though she knew she couldn’t just charge out on her own without him.

“No,” he said.

“I can help you with her.” Claire was calm and certain.

“You’re out of bounds.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

He was on the defensive and it pissed him off. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but you and I—face it, lady. We’ve got problems enough already, and I don’t want to have you under my care.”

“Under
your
care.”

“Let’s not…” He stepped away from her, hands up, as if she were some armed villain.

“You don’t have to like me,” she said determinedly. “But no matter what you think, I’m good at what I do. I’m going to try to talk to her. On my way home. You can join me if you want, but you can’t stop me.”

She didn’t wait for his response. Didn’t wait for anything. She swept past him and up the stairs and took out her keycard and let herself out of the hospital and into the medical office building.

Claire took her own car, but she was completely attuned to the gray truck following her Passat as they drove west toward the coast. Detective Langdon Stone was following close behind her. She was pretty sure she’d taken complete leave of her senses.

“Is that a professional opinion?” she asked herself grimly. The answer was yes.

She shouldn’t be doing this. Sure, she was trying to learn more about her patient, but rashly telling Langdon Stone that she was heading to Siren Song wasn’t exactly part of the job description.

Why? Why had she jumped at this opportunity?

Claire took a corner too fast and forced herself to slow down, easing her foot off the accelerator. The rain was in abeyance but that didn’t mean she should be driving at the mercy of her emotions. She was normally pretty good at self-assessment. Years of practice, she thought with a faint inner smile. When her marriage had broken up, she’d examined all the reasons, picking them apart, spreading them out, examining each one. Her ex, for all his faults, of which there were many, wasn’t a bad guy. They just hadn’t been on the same page.

Not all his fault. Not all hers.

Claire had done what so many had done before her upon the disintegration of their marriage: she’d thrown herself into her work. Her job was the one place she felt truly competent. She was good at it. She understood her patients. She made serious headway and glowed under the compliments of a particular one who’d overcome a crippling shyness, got promoted at her job, and gave all the credit to Claire.

Then came Melody Stone’s death…at Heyward Marsdon III’s hands.

Claire’s professional foundation had crumbled and she’d been working to restore it ever since, sometimes with success, sometimes not.

And then Langdon Stone had entered her world and, well, here she was, making rash and strange decisions, acting anything but like her normally rational self.

“Do you have something to prove?” she asked herself as she turned north onto 101 and toward Deception Bay. “What are you doing?”

Glancing into her rearview, she could see Stone’s wide shoulders above the dash and steering wheel.

“You want his approval? You can’t get it this way. You know that.”

With an effort Claire shut her brain down on the subject. She was committed to this task, come hell or high water, so she might as well just follow it through. Time for postmortems and recriminations later.

She drove past the cutoff to her rented cottage on the way, giving it a quick glance as she passed by. It was getting dark and she could see lights on at Dinah’s place. As soon as she’d completed this harebrained attempt to solve the mystery of where Cat came from, she would have a drink with Dinah. Maybe two. Wine, not tea.

The turnoff to Siren Song was along the road that led to the Foothillers’ community, but it was a long, twisting turn and a rutted lane to the front gates. Claire pulled into a spot, bumping over gnarled roots and flattening waist-high grass. There was no parking area, as such; the Colony members didn’t need one.

Lang’s truck bumped along slowly toward her as Claire climbed from the Passat. She could see him swaying back and forth inside the cab as the wheels hit potholes. He turned in next to Claire, a small pine limb brushing his truck’s side, and he had to push hard on the driver’s door to extricate himself, some kind of catch there, Claire surmised. When he got out he surveyed the damage from the limb. His vehicle had seen a lot of hard use, and it amused her that he frowned at an apparent scrape.

“Maybe you can claim it on your insurance,” she said. “Or, since you’re working for the police, maybe they’ll step up.” She shrugged.

“It’s not that bad.”

He walked past her to the gates. He’d either missed her sarcasm or was too single-minded to care. Beyond was the lodge, and so far there were no lights shining from its windows at all in the gathering gloom.

Claire was leaning against her car and he gave her a hard look. “So, okay, you’re the woman. See if you can get a response.”

She walked over to the gates and peered through. The twin ruts continued on the other side and circled around to the back of the house. Huge laurels and Scotch broom and a row of twisted pines, tortured by the winter winds, crowded toward the lodge, whose boards had silvered over time. It was a pretty place, by all standards, but it had a tired, can’t keep up feel to it. Claire bet if they could ever draw nearer, they would find signs of both dry and wet rot. The roof shingles looked okay; there were patches where new light tan ones had been nailed over broken gray ones.

Lang had come up beside her. She could feel heat radiating from his body to hers. The October air felt dense with moisture and night was falling, dropping the temperature. Still, she felt hot and prickly.

“What’s your plan?” she asked him.

He gave her a long look. “You’re the one who stormed over here because Catherine needs to see a woman.”

“It might be better if I were here by myself.”

“You want me to go hide in the bushes?”

“I’m just pointing out that your presence might be the problem.”

“I think I’ll stick around, all the same.”

Minutes passed by. Claire felt a little foolish, but at least she and Lang weren’t in open hostility at the moment, a miracle, given that he now knew that Heyward III had been moved out of criminal lockdown. Inwardly, she winced, knowing this was transitory. He’d granted a cease-fire, but the war wasn’t over; she suspected it never would be.

Rain clouds scudded overhead, gathering ominously, darkening the already deepening shadows. Claire had thrown on her raincoat, but it offered little protection against the cold. She tried not to shiver, didn’t want to show too much vulnerability, but after forty-five minutes of waiting she was fighting full-blown shakes.

“You’re freezing,” he observed. “You should go.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know. I’ll write another note.” With that he pulled a pen and small pad of sticky notes from his jacket pocket and scribbled something down. “My cell number,” he explained. “Like last time.”

“Maybe you should offer something more?”

“I am.” He was still writing, ripping off one sticky note, continuing onto another, and another, and then sticking them together by their glued edges. Carefully, he slipped them through the wrought-iron bars. He then searched around for something and Claire watched him pick up a rock, which he placed over the note. “It’s gonna rain,” he explained, and almost as if his words turned on the spigot, a deluge poured from the sky, sending Claire scurrying to her car.

“You’re soaked!” she called to him over the roar of the downpour.

He nodded, but his gaze was on the lodge.

“Follow me!” she called.

“Where?” he yelled back.

“My place.”

Claire slammed the door behind her and twisted her key in the ignition. The Passat fired right up and she backed around until she was facing out, driving carefully down the now rain-filled ruts.

Definitely, she’d taken leave of her senses. Definitely.

Two women stood inside the three-story foyer with its rough-hewn beamed ceiling and plank board floor, peering through peepholes strategically placed to offer a view of the front gate and unwanted visitors. Behind them, the wide stairway rose to a landing, turned, then led to the second floor. The lodge had been built by laborers from an architect’s design, to the specifications of Catherine’s ancestors. She’d lived here all her life; planned to remain here for the rest of it.

The woman beside her was half her age and confined to a wheelchair. She was slow by normal standards, but her insight was deep. Shockingly so. Like instinct.

“Are they here about Natasha?” she asked.

Catherine watched the strangers climb into their respective vehicles and drive away, then she pulled out the note that she’d carefully folded and tucked into a hidden pocket in her dress. It only listed the man’s name and telephone number. Langdon Stone.

The girl leaned over to look at the note. “What does cell mean?”

“I believe it’s his telephone number.”

“What does he want?”

“I think you’re right. They’re here because of Natasha.”

“They know where she is?”

“Come along, Lillibeth.” Catherine grabbed the wheelchair’s handgrips and pushed her through the Great Hall toward the kitchen area and the anteroom beyond, an adjunct storeroom that had been converted into a room that the outside world would have called a den. There were two settees against opposite walls and a wide, square, low table covered with hardbound books. Another young woman was already seated on one of the settees and folded her hands in her lap as they entered.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

Catherine didn’t immediately answer. She’d ignored the first note, but she’d seen him place another and mark it with a stone. Though her face and demeanor gave nothing away, she was in inner turmoil over Natasha and her child’s impending birth.

“He was with a woman,” she said aloud.

“Are you going to meet with her, then?” Lillibeth’s eyes were wide.

“He left another note. When the rain abates, I’ll collect it. Then we’ll see.”

She was talking to herself more than either Lillibeth or Isadora.

“Can I tell the others?” Lillibeth asked.

Catherine nodded. “Tell them to meet me in the Great Hall in an hour. It’s time for decision making.”

Rita felt a smile hovering on her lips as she stared at the ceiling while Paolo pressed her against the wall, grunting and fondling and slamming into her. He probably thought it was the height of sexual wildness, being there in the sole empty room on Side A, meeting with his secret lover. They’d been there exactly nine minutes, about all the time he needed. He’d grabbed her in the hall and pulled her into the room, and she’d let it happen. It was dinnertime for the residents and there was little chance of anyone surprising them. Rita was allowing the indiscretion because she was about to break up with him.

Her period was four days late.

Four days late.

She was pregnant. Had to be. Her only regret was the baby wasn’t Rafe’s.

His breath was hot against her neck. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes.

“I’ve gotta get back on the floor,” Rita whispered.

Paolo increased his rhythm and reached an instant climax. He fell against her, groaning. She’d learned more about him the past couple of weeks. He was divorced twice. No children. That had worried her at first, but he’d admitted that his first wife hadn’t wanted kids and his second had suffered a miscarriage. Why the marriages had broken up didn’t interest her.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he muttered, one of his favorite lines, as if this made it all okay.

It really pissed her off, the way it was always about
him.
That wasn’t the way it was in Rita’s world.

Quickly she grabbed her underwear and teal scrubs and slipped herself back inside them. She left while he was still buckling his belt. Bastard, she thought without heat. Fucker. She was through with him.

But when she entered the hall she nearly ran straight into Dr. Freeson, who slid her a look as she passed, his goatee quivering a bit. Weasel. He was always lurking about. Well, that was Paolo’s problem. She would deny everything.

She walked on past him, her lips twitching. Pregnant. A baby…

Her happiness took a hit as she cruised by the morning room and checked out the diners. Tasha was there, big as a house. Rafe’s baby would be here soon.

Rafe’s baby.

She closed her eyes and found her way to the staff room, leaning against the wall for a moment. Then she headed into the adjoining bathroom and stall for a cleanup. She didn’t want Paolo leaking out of her and—

No. No! Oh, no!

Rita’s buoyancy disappeared in a whoosh. Her period had started.

No. Her heart beat hard, hurting. Maybe it was a mistake. Nothing to worry about. Maybe it would be okay!

But no…she recognized it for what it was.

No baby.

It took her twenty minutes to pull herself together. Twenty minutes before she could look at her face in the mirror as she washed her hands. She was dizzy with disappointment. Could hardly keep her balance. The old joyless Rita stared back at her. The one that could take over like another personality and do what was necessary to achieve her goals.

She cruised back by the morning room. Most of the residents were gone, but Tasha still sat there, as if she were waiting for something to happen. Gibby hovered nearby and Rita wanted to suddenly smack him silly. She was furious. She wanted to fucking kill him!

But no…this was not the time for rashness. She needed a plan. A plan.

Tasha. Rafe’s baby. That’s what she’d come to Halo Valley for. Paolo Avanti had been a means to an end: to get a job. She’d made him her lover to get hired and had almost lost sight of her goal because she’d wanted so much to be pregnant herself!

Now she let out a little mew of hopelessness, then immediately clamped down on her emotions, her mouth hard, her expression stony.

Rita Feather Hawkings never gave up. Never.

“Tasha…” she said aloud, softly.

Lang yanked on the emergency brake of his truck and cut his headlights after seeing Claire Norris motion to him to join her as she scurried up the back steps of her home, her head covered by her raincoat hood.

He glanced down a sloping split in the driveway to another house, where he could see candles and blue, red, and gold refracted light, as if fed through a prism or crystal of some sort. A woman walked by, stopping for a moment and looking out as if she might be able to see him, which was impossible.

With a sigh, he climbed from the truck and walked steadily through the pounding rain and up the steps to the back door, which Claire was holding open. This was insanity, but he felt powerless to stop.

“Hurry up before we both drown,” Claire said, and he stepped inside, rain puddling at his feet. She’d hung her raincoat on a hook and he took off his jacket and watched water drip rapidly onto the vinyl flooring beside the puddle from her own garment.