Blind Spot (13 page)

She watched the whole act. Was somewhat embarrassed that she got a secret thrill from watching them go at it. Noticed Rafe’s back muscles gleaming as he humped her hard. Tasha just stood there. Her back to the wall of the building. Her mouth open like she was going to yell. But she was silent and had to clap her hand over Rafe’s mouth as he moaned, “Tasha…Tasha…. Oh, God…Tasha.”

And then Rita saw
her
hands begin to tentatively explore Rafe’s buttocks. That drove him wild and he jammed into her hard till she cried out with pleasure and Rita sank onto the ground, ran her fingers into her hair, ripping it out by the roots. She was hot herself, her center molten. Oh, how she wanted him inside her. Wanted him filling her up with babies. Her Rafe.
Hers!!!

But that
blond bitch was fucking him!

She decided right then she had to kill her. Had to.

She slid away from the sight of them. Moved to her mother’s dark sedan, fell inside, drove home in a fury, threw herself onto her own bed, and thrashed on the bedsheets.

Nobody stole Rita’s man.

Nobody.

She had visions of slicing apart the yellow-haired devil. She would find a way to get inside those wrought-iron walls that Rafe could scale so easily and stab her. Take her life.

It took a supreme effort for Rita to pull herself together that night and pretend to Rafe that she didn’t know. It was so difficult. So, so difficult. Sometimes she could barely pull it off, especially when Rafe, clearly lost in thoughts of banging Tasha’s brains out, could hardly get it up for Rita.

Bastard. Oh, how she loved him.

But Rita Feather Hawkings knew about game playing. She could lie. She could smile. She could seduce. She was good at all of it. That’s how she’d hooked Rafe in the first place! He was the best-looking man around. Young. A little immature. But handsome as the devil. Rita had made up a potion from herbs the Fertility Goddess recommended and fed it to Rafe, telling him it was an aphrodisiac, though it was more a narcotic. Still, it slowed his virile body and mind down long enough for Rita to win him over, and once hooked, he was hers.

Until that
blond bitch
got her talons into him. From then on, Rita had to work twice as hard. She just wished she would get pregnant, then Rafe and the baby would be hers. Hers alone.

Several months passed and Rita believed things were getting better between her and Rafe. He still went to the fortress where Tasha lived, with Rita following, but Tasha didn’t come out; Rita could almost believe she didn’t exist.

But then, one night last April, everything changed.

Rafe, who had access to Siren Song in those days, before the cult-mother learned the truth and tossed him out, wasn’t home when Rita got to his place after a long day at work. He lived in a camper on blocks, not far from Rita’s mom’s, and Rita paced outside the front door, knowing in her heart that something had happened. That evil witch had drawn him back.

She was about to charge to Siren Song herself when he suddenly appeared, driving the rattletrap Chevy truck with its back filled with rakes, scythes, a push mower, handsaw, and other gardener’s tools. His handsome face was bright and happy, but when he saw Rita guilt raced across it.

That fucking Tasha whore…

“Rita,” he gulped. “Sorry, babe. I can’t stay. I’ve got…some work to do. Just came home to grab a few things.”

“Uh-huh.” Rita’s blood started a slow simmer in her veins.

His black hair fell over his forehead and he couldn’t stop the smile of joy that showed his white, white teeth. “But I’ll be back later, okay? I’ll call you.”

He pushed past her, unlocking the door and disappearing inside the tiny space. The smell of leftover pizza and something sour wafted out, maybe unwashed dishes or clothes. Rita deplored his lack of housecleaning skills, but he was young. That’s what she was there for. He needed her as much as she needed him.

He slammed back out and reversed onto the road. Rita waved and got behind the wheel of her mother’s car, a dark Malibu that had also seen better days. When Rafe raced away, she knew where he was going: to Tasha. Rita’s hopes were crushed. Rafe’s and Tasha’s lovemaking might have waned for a bit, but it was back on. That’s where he was going. Rita was once again forgotten in his blind desire for his princess.

Rita followed a few minutes later, but she knew the routine. Rafe parked on the east side of the grounds and worked his way to one of the remotest lengths of the fence where a sumac and Scotch broom and mountain laurel all crowded together as if dying to get inside as much as Rafe was.

He climbed the bushes and the fence and threw himself over. To get back he had to go closer to the front of the lodge and climb a large rock to throw himself over. Rita knew he’d surreptitiously managed to add more rocks, creating a pile, while he worked on the grounds, thereby making his vault to freedom easier with time.

Rita parked farther away yet, nose out in the long, winding driveway of a nearby vacation home that was never used, as far as she could tell. She worked her way to the wrought-iron fence, tucked into her own viewing position, invisible in the weeds and behind a couple of scrub Douglas firs.

Sure enough, there was Rafe, just over the fence and crouched, walking fast, to the shadowed walls of the lodge. She fantasized about following him over the fence and killing Tasha with her bare hands, but she kept her cool.

And then Tasha appeared, sliding through the shadows to fall into Rafe’s welcoming arms. “I got your note,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“They found out,” she said, her voice quavering.

“About us?”

“They wouldn’t let me out of my room. But I got a key.”

“I’ve missed you.” And then he was all over her, pushing her against the wall, then pulling at her, trying to get her to the ground. “The graveyard?” he murmured, when she wouldn’t comply.

The graveyard. Rita’s nails cut into her own palms. It was taboo in Rita’s mind. You didn’t mess with the dead. But Tasha didn’t care. There was no end to her badness. Rita had witnessed Rafe and her writhing away on top of a grave, had seen her enemy’s breasts laid bare and Rafe’s dark head suckling frantically while Tasha lay like a zombie and stared at the stars.

But tonight Tasha wouldn’t leave the shadows; she kept her back against the building. Rafe was too eager to care, and he was dry-humping her in a way that made Rita seethe with fury.

Then Tasha, distraught, said in a little girl’s voice, “I’m with child.”

With child?
Rita’s brain couldn’t process.
Pregnant?

Rafe had been scrabbling with her dress, yanking the folds to her waist with one hand and jamming the other into her panties while Tasha stood stiffly.

He froze. “You’re fucking kidding me!”

“Shhh.” Tasha put a finger to his lips. “I can’t stay here. You have to take me with you! We have to leave!”

Rafe stumbled backward, his hands raking through his hair. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jeez-God.”

Rita’s ears were rushing. With child. Tasha was with child. Rafe’s child. Rita’s child.
Rita’s child!

“We need to make plans,” she said urgently.

“Plans,” Rafe repeated.

“You and I, Rafe. For us, and our baby…”

Rafe lifted his head slowly and met her gaze. Rita wasn’t exactly sure what happened then. One moment he was in terrible shock, the next it was like Tasha had him under her power because he suddenly bent over and kissed her stomach through her dress. Tasha held his head close and then looked over
right where Rita was hiding
! They were yards apart, there was little moonlight to see, but it felt like those blue eyes sent lasers searching under Rita’s skin and finding no baby. No child. Just an empty vessel.

Rita shrank back and stared at her enemy.

It was then that she knew she had to take her baby from Tasha. She had to take Rafe back, too. Find a way to break the witch’s spell on him.

But Rafe’s dead….

Rita came back to the present with a bang.
Rafe,
she thought brokenly.
Rafe…

“Rita?” Nina Perez, one of Ocean Park’s head nurses, was eyeing her harshly, enough to make Rita worry that she’d said something, given something away. Nina had caught Rita daydreaming before.

“I feel ill,” she murmured.

“What’s wrong?”

“Maybe the flu…?”

“Well, if you’re really feeling that sick, maybe you should leave.”

“My shift isn’t over.”

“Go home. Get some rest.”

“Okay.”

Rita shuffled away, head down, toward the employee restroom and her locker. She rarely took time off work, was hardly ever really sick. It wasn’t from a sense of duty, or even a need for money. It was camouflage. Rita, the good nurse. The exemplary employee. As dependable as the day was long.

Rita with two days off and the use of her mother’s dark blue sedan.

This time Rita wouldn’t make a mistake. This time Rita would slit the zombie bitch’s throat and take
her
baby from its surrogate womb.

Sheriff O’Halloran was back by the time Lang returned to the sheriff’s department. This time he found a parking spot, though it was the only one, and he hurried in the back door with the rain letting up only slightly.

Johnson gave him the stink eye; it was like she disliked him on sight. Not an auspicious beginning, but she said, “Sheriff said if you came back to tell you to go on through.”

“Thanks.”

Lang was conscious of the water squishing inside his cowboy boots. He scraped as much mud as he could at the door, but he couldn’t stop the wet marks that left a trail behind him. Luckily, he could still see the sheriff’s prints on the scarred wood floor as well.

“Good to meet you,” O’Halloran said in a booming voice that matched his large size. He was something over six feet with a wide girth that was spilling up over a belt. Lang pegged him somewhere in his fifties or sixties, with gray hair turning white and bright blue eyes. Another stereotype. The Irish cop. But there was a glint in those eyes that spoke of intelligence behind this act of bonhomie.

Lang realized this job was not just his for the taking. O’Halloran had professed interest in him, but maybe that interest had changed?

“You got yourself pretty wet, there,” O’Halloran observed.

“I was on an interview.”

“Yeah? Around here?”

There was no reason to hide what he was doing, so Lang told O’Halloran about Tim Rooney and his revelation that one Cade Worster had stolen his truck, the truck that was in the possession of the unidentified deceased male and his currently catatonic pregnant companion.

“Cade Worster,” the sheriff mused.

“You know him?”

“He’s been in our jail a time or two. Mostly disorderly contact. Drunk in public. Possession of stolen property.”

“So, you think Mr. Rooney might be right?”

“I know enough about Cade to believe there could be some truth in it.”

“Rooney told me Cade lived in the Deception Bay area.”

The sheriff nodded. “He’s a Foothiller. Know what that is?”

“I’ve been educated.”

O’Halloran’s eyes twinkled. “This the reason you came here, or are you thinking about the job?”

“I’m thinking about the job.”

“Well, good, then. One of my detectives, Deputy Marcia Kirkpatrick, up and left for a position in Phoenix. Left another detective, Fred Clausen, partnerless. We’ve had a few applicants. Had sort of a trial position thing going, for a time.” He shrugged. “Nothing worked out. It was Clausen who knew your story, suggested I look into your employment situation, so I talked to your lieutenant, and to you, and here we are.”

A detective position. With an experienced partner, by the sounds of it.

“Would it be a trial position?”

“Would only be fair.”

Lang nodded. Actually, he liked that idea. A trial position worked both ways. He wouldn’t have to move immediately, sell his house. He could rent something and give the job some time.

“How long?” Lang asked.

“Three months.”

“When do I start?”

The blue eyes twinkled again. “We got a thing going around here. Tillamook Bay is fed by a number of rivers. Find out their names and how many, and when you’re ready to start, come in here and give a report.”

“Seriously?”

“You wanna finish up the case you’re on, go ahead. Don’t take too long. But yeah, come and give me a report and we’ll put you on. You’re gonna want to meet the other deputies, too.”

Lang shook his hand, a little bemused, wondering if he was getting well, because for the first time in a long time he felt a lifting of darkness from his heart.

Claire checked her schedule for the next day, Friday. It was fairly light. She had an early appointment with Jamie Lou again. An extra one, as Jamie Lou was struggling to do as she’d promised and stay on her meds. Then she had a cancellation, and in the afternoon—

A light knock on her door. She turned with a racing pulse toward the door, as Glenda, her receptionist, hadn’t announced anyone coming her way, and ever since the night she’d met Heyward and Melody, even though that had been a different office, a different setup, she was skittish.

But it was Dr. Avanti who ducked his dark head around the door, smiling. “Got a minute?”

She was instantly wary. Paolo Avanti was no friend of hers. “Come in.”

He moved into the room with a grace and fluidity that some might have described as sexy. She just saw an adversary.

“I thought it was time we talked about the meeting.” He took one of her client chairs and crossed his ankle over his knee, adjusting his lab coat like a sports jacket. He was a little too classy for the shirt open to his navel and gold chains, but the image found its way into her mind.

“Okay.”

“Claire, we all know how hard this is for you. And you’re one of the most dedicated doctors on staff. And everything you do is for your patients.”

“Cut to the chase, Paolo.” His brows shot up in surprise. “What do you want?”

He hesitated, and she could tell he was calculating what tack to take. “All right. I’ll come directly to the point. We’re moving Marsdon to the less restrictive environment.”

“From Side B to Side A.”

“We would sincerely like you to be on board with this, but it’s already been decided.”

Claire absorbed the information, not really surprised.

“The room will be locked. He will only go in and out with supervision. His meds are monitored.”

“Did the Marsdons pull out their checkbook before or after you gave them the good news? I’m guessing before.”

Avanti tried on a smile. “You really are a ballbusting bitch, Claire.”

She smiled right back. “This time you get a thank-you.”

“How
did
you become a psychiatrist?”

“An understanding of human nature. An ability to generally know a lie from the truth. The realization that manipulators never stop manipulating, even when—maybe especially when—they purport to be your friend.”

He held Claire’s gaze. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Try having a knife held to your throat. If you get past the fear, there’s a clarity that follows. Kind of like knowing your place in the world. I have less need to bend and conform.”

“That can work against you.”

“I could lose my job, but even so, I’m a better doctor now.”

“The Marsdons are coming here this evening. They have a scheduled meeting with Heyward, who’s been asking for you.”

Claire regarded him warily. “What are
you
asking?”

Avanti hesitated. This hadn’t gone even remotely the way he’d expected it to. “Could you make that meeting?”

“After hours, you want me to go with you and the Marsdons to Side B? To see Heyward?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “You forget, the Marsdons specifically asked for me to be taken off Heyward’s case. That request is the reason I haven’t seen Heyward since his incarceration.”

“Not the only reason.”

Claire understood psychological warfare very well. Avanti was trying to bully her into doing as he wished. “You think I’m afraid to meet with him?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “It would be a natural reaction.”

“Wait. You’re saying the Marsdons now
want
me to be there?”

Avanti got to his feet and straightened his lab coat, holding on to the lapels with both hands, gazing down at Claire in a superior way. She stood, too, resting the tips of her fingers on her desktop. A duel at noon in the hot sun. “They don’t want you anywhere near him, but they need you. You’re the fly in the ointment, Claire. You know it, and I know it.”

“They’re afraid I’ll go to the courts. Raise a stink. Try to get Heyward’s room assignment nailed down to Side B. Foil their plans.”

“He attacked you. You could probably get whatever you wanted, if you decided to go that route.”

“You don’t think I’ll do it?”

“On the contrary, I think it’s very possible you will,” he said. “Before that happens, you should see Heyward for yourself.”

“Tonight.”

“Yes.”

When she didn’t immediately answer, he dropped his stance and moved toward the door. “You’re a good doctor, Claire,” he said, a hand on the knob. “Maybe a great one. You want what’s best for Heyward even though you’re scared of him. You understand he’s sick. You know his intent was never to hurt you or Melody Stone. You know you should help him, regardless of what you think of his family.”

He hesitated, glancing back at Claire. She was regarding him soberly, struck by his words though she didn’t want to be. He seemed to be waiting for her response.

“When is this transfer to take place?” she asked.

“Kind of depends on what happens tonight.”

“You mean, it’s predicated on how I feel about Heyward? That’s why I need to be there?”

“Your opinion matters, Claire. But it won’t alter the decision.”

“So, basically, this transfer is imminent.”

“It’ll be soon,” he agreed. “The Marsdons want to be here for that as well.”

“Of course they do. They want to do everything for Halo Valley.”

“They just want what’s best for their son.”

“They want what they think is best for their son,” she said. “Whether it is or not is another matter. One the hospital should really look at.”

“Your feelings have been well documented.”

“Yes. Theirs, too.”

“So will you be there?”

Would she? Claire felt the same suffocating feeling she’d experienced when everyone at the hospital seemed to close her out. “I’ll be there,” she finally said. “It’ll give me a chance to thank them for the chocolate cake.”

The door shut behind him with a soft click and Claire sank into her chair, feeling the leaching of adrenaline throughout her whole body.

The rain would just not let up. Not. Let. Up.

Lang’s wipers were working overtime, slapping water away in splashes without much success.

He had half a mind to give up for the day. It was closing on six o’clock and the light was starting to fade. If he drove up 101 and turned onto 26, it would still be an hour and a half or more home in perfect weather conditions. If he cut east toward Halo Valley he could be there in forty minutes, well, except for the blasted rain. Then it would be another hour and a half east to Salem and north to the greater Portland area on I-5.

He didn’t want to see Claire Norris. Not the least because he found her attractive. Something about her control. And those legs. And a slim face with doe eyes that were filled with suspicion, at least when they were trained on him.

If he forgot Halo Valley and went north he could maybe stop at the Foothillers’ residential community and learn something about Cade Worster, maybe even find him. He could potentially learn the name of their murder victim and his pregnant companion. Tanninger had said he could wait to visit Halo Valley until tomorrow. Hell, he could leave it entirely, as this was a volunteer position on his part, more or less.

Or he could go to a bar, order an Irish coffee, and wait for the storm to pass.

He was currently heading north on 101, but had barely left the Tillamook city limits. He was driving slowly, partly because of the rain, partly from indecision. Growling under his breath, he turned the Dodge around and nosed the truck toward the two-lane state road that led east to the Willamette Valley and Salem, the state’s capital city, the same highway that, about a third of the way to Salem, held the turnoff for Halo Valley Security Hospital.

Might as well get the least palatable task off his list first.

He drove fifteen miles under the speed limit because the road was awash with mud-filled water with more pouring over his car as if some gleeful god had tipped a blimp-sized bucket over. By the time he reached the turnoff for Halo Valley, he was sorry he’d chosen this task today. He wanted to be home. Under the hot needle spray of his own shower. Then maybe a Scotch, maybe not. But definitely a face plant in his bed.

He drove down the long entrance lane and past the main hospital parking lot, which was surprisingly full, circled to the left of the portico, and found a spot at the far end of the medical office building, which was attached at the north end of the main building. Wishing for an umbrella, something he never did, Lang climbed once more into the soaking rain and jogged through standing water on the asphalt to the medical office building’s side door, up about six concrete steps and through a door that warned it was locked from seven
P.M
. until six
A.M
.

His boots squished as he walked down a long, gray-carpeted hallway toward a central desk, a semicircular affair made from blond wood with a young man wearing a white shirt, green tie, and Dockers seated on a swivel chair behind it.

“Can I help you?” he asked, eyeing Lang’s dripping jacket.

He had no identification. No credentials. “Detective Langdon Stone,” he said, the lie too easy on his tongue. He sensed now that he’d never left. Not really. Not where it counted. Law enforcement was who he was; maybe all he had left. “I’m here to see Dr. Norris.”

He frowned. “She may have gone home for the day.”

“She called the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department, and they sent me.”

“Oh.” He reached for the phone and punched in a number. After waiting through enough rings to convince even Lang that she wasn’t in, he hung up and shook his head. “Not in her office.”

“Can you page her through the hospital from here?”

“I can call the hospital front desk,” he said, his fingers already on the phone again. After a brief conversation with someone at the other end, he nodded and pointed farther down the hallway, ostensibly toward the juncture with the hospital. “Go to the elevators at the end of the hall,” he said to Lang. “Punch floor two, which leads to the skyway and the gallery level of the hospital. Turn right, follow the hallway, and go down the stairs to the front reception desk. They don’t think Dr. Norris has left yet.”

“Is that the only way to access the hospital directly from the medical offices?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what about the other hospital building? Where they house the criminally insane?”