Expert Witness (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO:

Archer’s Apartment, Hermosa Beach

“Jesus Christ, Hannah. You’re damn lucky I didn’t shoot you.”

Archer paced, he lectured, and Hannah sat on the couch with her knees together, feet out, hands clasped, and head down. He probably thought she was ashamed, but she wasn’t; she was embarrassed by the sight of a shirtless, shoeless Archer wearing only his raggedy robe and sweat pants. His hair was mussed and he needed a shave. The only reason she was upset was because he had been sleeping alone.

 “Hey, are you listening to me? I could have hurt you. I could have. . .” He pulled his hands through his hair and stopped right in front of her, splaying his legs, bending from the waist, barking at her like a drill sergeant. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Hannah’s head snapped up, she raised her sharp green eyes to his keen dark ones. He couldn’t intimidate her. Sixteen years of her life was like sixty for a normal person, but he’d forgotten that. All he saw was a kid sneaking around his place.

“Stop yelling. I can hear you.”

“And I’ve got a telephone,” he barked. “You could have called.”

“And I didn’t because you’d be pissed at me. You think I don’t know when Josie is here she’s off limits?” Hannah came back strong, but her bravado was a beat off. “She might have forgotten to tell me she was staying here, you know. It’s not like either of you is used to having a kid around.”

 Her stunning, dark face tightened with indignation. She picked at the upholstery, looking more like a child than Archer had ever seen her look. Finally, she pushed her chin up and shook her hair back.

 “When my mother didn’t come home all I had to do was look in some dude’s bed to find her. I’m sorry if I’m just doing what comes natural.”

Archer opened his mouth only to close it again. What could he say to that? The girl had a point. Sixteen-years-old, she had been framed by her own mother for murder, a mother who slept with anything that moved, who abandoned Hannah for days on end when she was little, and kept doing it until the day they put her in jail and threw away the key. Yeah, Hannah had cause to worry when the adults who were supposed to take care of her went missing.

“Point taken,” he mumbled.

“Okay.” Hannah gave an inch because he had. She raised her eyes again and the fingers of her right hand methodically tapped her left.  “I don’t expect Josie to babysit me, but if I saw that she was here I could at least go home and sleep. But she’s not here, she’s not anywhere, and now I’m really scared.”

Archer sat down opposite her and put his elbows on the chair arms. He covered his face with his hands then drew them down slowly as much to wake himself up as to give him time to check out this girl who had changed the way he and his woman went about their business.

Josie Bates had almost given her life for this kid – literally - then turned their world upside down for her. She made sure Hannah saw a therapist twice a week, got her into school and encouraged her art. He understood. This was Josie’s way of healing her own broken heart, crushed when her own mother abandoned her. She’d been close to Hannah’s age when that happened. Even Archer had to admit that Hannah and Josie were a good fit: just different enough and just alike enough to make theirs an interesting, dedicated and complex relationship.

Given all that, it made no sense that Josie would not check in with Hannah. Besides, Hannah’s obsessive-compulsiveness led her to check every nook and cranny of her surroundings a hundred times a day, so logic dictated that she had searched meticulously for Josie. If she hadn’t been found, something was definitely wrong.

“Okay. Okay.” His hands fell to the side. “When did she leave?”

“I saw her yesterday morning.”

Hannah hugged herself and shook her head. Those startling green eyes of hers never left Archer’s face. For the hundredth time he admired the genetic recipe used to create this girl: not black or white, East Indian or Irish. She simply was exquisite and that, as far as Archer was concerned, added to the trouble she brought with her.

“When did you get back from school?”

“Three-thirty,” Hannah answered. “Then I went to an appointment with Doctor Fox.”

“And what time did you get back from the doctor?”

“Six.  Max was sitting by the front door. He needed to go out.” Hannah grabbed a couch cushion and hugged it.

“Did you call her cell?”

“No,” she drawled. Archer raised a brow. She raised one right back. “I called the cell like maybe a hundred times. It was turned off, or she wasn’t near it or something. All I get is her message.”

“Could you have called me a little earlier?”

“No.” Hannah did that Egyptian head thing home girls do when they are trying to be cool. It was an affectation that always amused Archer. He thought the gesture something akin to a mouse trying to intimidate a hawk by twitching its nose. “Sometimes people don’t come back when they say they will; sometimes you have to wait until people want to be found.”

“Josie isn’t some people.” Archer’s voice dropped as his mind kicked into gear. Investigating was what he did, and it never helped to panic or rise to the bait of people who were on the verge of it. “What’ve you been doing all this time?”

“My homework. I tried to paint,” Hannah answered. “I called Burt, but Josie wasn’t at his place.  I looked out the window hoping I’d see her. I fed Max and I took him out for a walk, but we didn’t go too far. Mostly I waited. What?”

Hannah stopped talking, aware that Archer’s line of vision had shifted to her arm. She was scratching it through her shirt.

“You okay?” Archer asked.

Hannah pulled up her sleeve up. The chocolate colored skin was crisscrossed with razor thin scars, none of them fresh.

 “Nothing up my sleeve,” she quipped.

“Good. Josie would have my balls if. . .”

  Archer’s voice trailed off. That wasn’t the right thing to say to a teenager, but this girl had been abused and misused.  There was no way she was going to dial back to high school sleepovers and waiting to be asked to the prom. Archer got up, retied his robe, walked out to the deck, and instantly felt clear-headed.

 He loved California fall: sizzling hot days that drove people to the beach, early sunsets that sent them home again, slow night cooling so the natives slept with their doors open and covers on.  Right now it was late enough that early was making itself known. The black sea was dark grey, but in a couple of hours there would be a pink sunrise.  Josie should have been there with him.  The fact that she wasn’t by his side, or that none of the locals had heard from her, narrowed the field to possibilities that didn’t thrill him. Three came to mind: Josie was with another man, something had ticked her off royally and she was on cool down, or she was hurt. He discounted the first, couldn’t imagine what could cause the second, and it made him sick to even think about the third.

He swung his head and looked over his shoulder half expecting to see Josie behind him, but it was only Hannah hanging near the doorway.  He gave a little snort, not to laugh at her but to express his reluctant sympathy.  Doors were her obsession the way honesty was his. Both things allowed them to know exactly where they stood. She needed to see who was coming into her life and who was taking a hike out of it; he needed to know exactly what he was dealing with so he could decide how to dodge, swerve or run headlong into trouble. Archer nodded her way; Hannah raised her chin.  Truce for now. Not that they were enemies, they had just migrated to the same territory and were unsure of how much of it they could claim.

“Did you two fight?” Archer asked.

“Did you?”

“Nope.” Archer laughed outright and shook his head. “And you gotta cut me some slack, Hannah. I would have asked you the same thing if you were Mother Theresa.”

There was only a beat while she gathered her courage to tell him what really scared her.

“Josie and I were supposed to go to court Wednesday.” Archer looked at her quizzically. “You know. Court? The guardianship. Josie was going to make it legal on Wednesday. We’re supposed to see the judge.” Hannah’s eyes were brighter, and if Archer didn’t know better he would have sworn she was going to cry. “Will you help me find her, Archer?”

“No.”  He pushed off the wall and walked past Hannah. “But I’ll find her for you.

Before she could object, he disappeared into the bedroom. Five minutes later he was dressed: jeans, a Hawaiian shirt, and a windbreaker that covered the revolver at the small of his back. They left the apartment together, went down the empty Strand and turned onto the walk-street that led to an intersection with Hermosa Boulevard. Josie’s house was on the corner. Hannah had left every light burning like a beacon to help Josie find her way home.

Archer held the gate for Hannah. Without a word they went inside the house: Hannah to the answering machine to check for messages, Archer locking up.  Archer took off his jacket and didn’t object when Hannah made the rounds again: doors, windows, windows doors. Eventually she was satisfied, said goodnight and made Archer promise to wake her when Josie walked through the door. Archer promised knowing he’d damn well wake the whole neighborhood when she came home. That would be after he reamed her up one side and down the other for causing such worry.

Turning the inside lights off, he left the one over the front porch burning, walked through the darkened house, through Josie’s bedroom and out to the adjacent patio. He pulled up a chair and settled in. Every inch of this place was as familiar to his eye as Josie’s body was to his touch. This house had been a tear down, but Josie saw a diamond in the rough. She rebuilt and refurbished it with her own two hands.

 The tiling was complete, and the low wall around the patio was built, raised planters were now pocked with succulents and flowers. Inside, the archway between the living room and dining room was waiting for plaster, and the hardwood floors needed refinishing.  

He rested his hair on the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Josie was a heck of a woman, a lawyer, and a friend.  He and Hannah were lucky to share this nest with her even if they were so strangely cobbled together, a family without joints. They moved uneasily against one another.

In the kitchen, the icemaker popped a few cubes. Somewhere an electrical circuit clicked. The silence from Hannah’s bedroom was heavy with her anxiety. Max the Dog ambled through the bedroom and across the patio, his nails clicking on the tile. He walked close to Archer’s chair, and the big man let his hand slide over the dog’s back. It bumped over the raised scar left after Max tried to save Josie from Linda Rayburn’s murderous attack.  Archer took a handful of fur and pulled him close.

“Where is she, Max?’

In answer, the dog lay down beside him. Together they kept watch while, alone in her room, Hannah Sheraton counted the minutes until Josie’s return.

It was three thirty in the morning.

An Outbuilding in the California Mountains

Things Josie heard:

The creak of metal.

A swish.

A thump.

A grunt.

Something falling hard.

Things Josie saw:

Walls of grey. Waves of grey.

Early morning light. Not much of it. Coming on slow.

Someone. Hunched over. A man? A shadow of a man?

Things Josie tried to do:

Speak.

Why couldn’t she speak?

Reach for him. 

What happened to her arms?  She couldn’t feel her hands.

She must have made a noise, moved, done something to catch his attention. He turned his head toward her. Her eyes closed. A movie came to her muddled mind. What was the name?