Clare thought about the pictures that would be taken over the course of the weekend on the beach. There would no doubt be lots and lots of images of two happy kids frolicking in the surf with Mom and Dad.
No such thing as a perfect family, she reminded herself. But what the Estradas had looked pretty good.
“Have fun,” she said.
. . .
The interior of the Mercedes had turned into a sauna again by the time Clare and Elizabeth returned to the vehicle. Elizabeth went through the ritual of lowering the windows, taking down the sunscreen, switching on the engine and firing up the air conditioner. She pulled two bottles of water out of the small ice chest behind the seat and handed one to Clare. She opened her own bottle and studied the office tower with a strange expression.
“Okay, this is getting really weird,” she said.
“I’m not so sure about that.” Clare reached for the seat belt buckle. The metal edge was so hot it singed her hand. “Ouch.” She wrapped her fingers around the bottle of water to cool them. “If you ask me, things are starting to fall into place. What do you want to bet that Dr. Mowbray wasn’t a real shrink at all, just some scam artist Brad knew and hired to pose as a psychiatrist?”
Elizabeth smiled ruefully. “You sound positively thrilled at the notion.”
“Yes. Because it explains so much.” Clare finally got the buckle fastened.
Elizabeth exhaled slowly. “Like why Mowbray was so quick to declare me a wack job.” She paused. “How was he able to get the drugs?”
“Come on, Liz. A fourteen-year-old kid can buy just about any kind of drugs he wants on a street corner if he knows what he’s doing. How hard could it be for a couple of professional scam artists to get ahold of a few bottles of psychoactive meds?”
“True.” Elizabeth fastened her own seat belt, put the Mercedes in gear and reversed out of the parking space. “Wonder where Dr. Mowbray is now?”
“I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find him.”
“Me, too,” Elizabeth said with great depth of feeling. “I have a few things to say to that bastard.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Jones & Jones had screwed up, Jake thought. He could feel it in his gut. It wasn’t the analysts’ fault, not entirely. They’d had a lot of help. The intelligence had been bad from the beginning, and Archer Glazebrook’s efforts to protect Clare had sent everyone looking in the wrong direction.
But the biggest problem of all was that no one knew what the enemy’s real agenda was in Stone Canyon. Until he had that information he was chasing phantoms in the dark.
He brought the BMW to a halt and sat looking at the old, abandoned ranch house. It was six o’clock in the evening. The sun was sinking fast in the sky, turning the mountains a dozen shades of purple.
He got out and walked toward the skeleton of the old house. The soles of his low boots left little impression on the hard, dry ground.
He had come across the tumbledown house shortly after arriving in Stone Canyon. The ramshackle structure was perched on a hillside overlooking the town and the Valley beyond. Jake liked the view. He also liked the sensations he got here. The wildness of the desert was a stimulating balm to his senses, allowing him to think more clearly.
He heard a soft rustling noise to his left. A covey of quail bolted out from the cover of some nearby brush and raced madly toward the safety of the shadows beneath the porch.
He opened his senses, taking in the unseen energy of the desert. In this environment life was reduced to its most basic elements. Small creatures darted, skittered and slithered, intent on the next meal or on not becoming a meal, or on mating. Nothing else mattered. Survival and reproduction were the only goals.
He walked through the bones of the old house and out onto the remains of the front porch. When the quail heard his footsteps overhead, they scurried out from under the sagging boards and dashed for some other cover.
He halted, studying the landscape. This afternoon he came out here because he needed to think without distractions. It was time to revise the strategy of the hunt.
The problem was Clare. His instincts were to get her out of the picture entirely; to keep her safe. But that was not going to be possible. He knew her well enough already to realize that nothing he could say would deflect her from her own agenda. And the truth was, he needed her help. If it hadn’t been for her he would still be going down the wrong path.
It was time to tell her the truth. Fallon wouldn’t like it, Jake thought. But it was understood that once he was out in the field, he had the discretion to make decisions of this nature. The reality of the situation was that, thanks to Clare, an entire new avenue of investigation had opened up.
It was definitely time to bring Clare into the loop.
Light glinted amid a mound of boulders on the hillside to his left. His hunter instincts, already fully aroused, reacted in less than a heartbeat.
The speed of his reflexes was all that saved him. Even with that, he was not able to move fast enough to avoid some damage.
The shot from the rifle seared his left shoulder instead of sinking deep into his chest. The impact spun him partway around and off his feet.
There was an audible whack as the bullet tore through flesh and continued on, plowing into the wall behind him.
The initial sensation of icy shock in his shoulder gave way to fire. When he looked down he saw that his shirtsleeve was already saturated with blood.
Chapter Thirty-six
“Where is he? I know he’s here somewhere. Let me see him. I demand that you tell me his condition.”
Clare’s voice reverberated through the thick glass doors that separated the emergency room reception area from the treatment rooms. Jake could hear her very clearly. He smiled.
“Sounds like my ride is here,” he said to the young ER doctor and the uniformed representative of the Stone Canyon Police Department who accompanied him.
“That would be the lady out there in the waiting room?” Dr. Benton asked, watching Clare through the glass doors.
“That’s her,” Jake said.
“Don’t give me that privacy stuff.” Clare leaned toward the hapless woman behind the desk. “I’m the closest thing he’s got to next of kin in this town.”
“Your wife?” Officer Thompson inquired politely.
“No,” Jake said.
“Must be a good friend, then,” Thompson concluded.
“Oh, yeah,” Jake said.
“Sounds like she’s real concerned about you,” Thompson offered.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Jake said, pleased.
Benton hit the code to unlock the doors. Jake and his two companions ambled out into the lightly crowded reception room.
Clare had her back to him. She was still engaged in an intense conversation with the woman behind the desk.
“No, I’m not his wife,” Clare said tightly. “I’m a friend, the one who got the call from you a few minutes ago telling me that he had been injured.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the beleaguered receptionist said. “I can’t authorize someone who is not a family member—” She broke off at the sight of Jake. Relief brightened her face. “Here is Mr. Salter now.”
Clare whirled around. “Jake.”
“Sorry I’m late for dinner, honey,” Jake said. “Got held up at work.”
She rushed toward him. He had the distinct impression that she was about to throw her arms around him. But to his great disappointment she stopped short, horrified at the large white bandage that enveloped the upper portion of his left arm.
It dawned on him that he probably looked more than a little rough around the edges. The ER team had cut off his shirt. He was leaving the hospital bare to the waist. No one had bothered to clean him up, either. There was a lot of dried blood on his pants and boots.
“How bad is it?” Clare whispered.
“I probably won’t be playing golf for a while,” Jake said, feeling quite cheerful. “You look l
ovely. Is that a new T-shirt?”
Clare frowned worriedly and turned to the doctor. “He sounds out of it.”
“He may be,” Benton said, frowning a little. “I gave him something for the pain. Some people react in odd ways to painkillers. Which reminds me.” He pulled out a notepad. “Here’s a prescription for an antibiotic and some more pain meds. He’s going to feel that arm when the local wears off.”
“Are you sure he’s ready to go home?” Clare asked.
“Yep,” Jake said, rocking a little on his heels. “I’m ready.”
“He’ll be fine,” Benton said to Clare. “If I had any real concerns I’d admit him for twenty-four hours. But as long as he has someone to stay with him, I don’t see any problem. Keep Mr. Salter quiet for a couple of days and watch for a fever or any other sign of infection. There will be some seepage from the wound, but if he starts to bleed heavily get him back here right away.”
“How badly was he hurt?” Clare asked.
“It was just a flesh wound,” Jake assured her. “You know, like in those old Westerns where the hero gets shot from behind. Except I was shot from the front. Sort of. More like on an angle, maybe. The guy was up on the hillside hiding in some boulders.”
He wondered if he had become invisible. No one was paying any attention to him.
“There’s some soft tissue trauma, naturally,” Benton said to Clare, “but no damage to the bone. He did an excellent job of getting the bleeding under control right away.”
“Thank goodness.” Clare’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “Stitches, I assume?”
“Sure,” Benton said, “lots of ’em. He’ll need to make an appointment to have them removed in a few days. Will you be the one changing the bandages in the meantime?”
Jake got a sudden visual of the gory state of his left arm.
“Hell, no,” he said loudly. “I look like something that was sewn together by Dr. Frankenstein. I’ll take care of my own arm.”
Neither Clare nor Benton looked at him.
“Yes, I’ll deal with the bandages,” Clare said.
“In that case, here are the instructions for wound care,” Benton said, handing her a sheet of paper and the prescriptions he had just written.
Clare scanned the list of instructions. “I assume I can get these things at any good drugstore?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Benton said. “Or you can pick them up at the hospital pharmacy on your way out. You can fill the prescriptions there, too.”
“I’ll do that,” Clare said. She folded the paper and tucked it into her shoulder bag. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“Hey, it’s what I do,” Benton said, smiling broadly. “Got to tell you, Mr. Salter was definitely one of the more interesting cases I’ve seen in a while. We don’t get a lot of gunshot wounds here in Stone Canyon. They show up all the time at the big hospitals in Phoenix and Tucson, of course. But this town is not exactly Crime Central.” He glanced at Thompson. “Isn’t that right?”
“We like to think we have a nice, safe little community here.” Thompson studied Clare with a considering expression. “Haven’t had a gunshot fatality in six months.”
“Right, the McAllister murder,” Benton said genially. “I didn’t start working here until a couple of months after it happened but people were still talking about it. McAllister’s death was a big sensation at the time. They never caught the killer, did they?”
Jake was starting to get irritated by the way Thompson was looking at Clare.
“Case is still open,” Thompson said.
Benton nodded thoughtfully. “Officially they chalked it up to an interrupted burglary, but as I recall there were a lot of rumors going around. Everyone seemed to think the truth was that McAllister was murdered by his lover, who just happened to be his wife’s half sister. One of those messy love-triangle situations.”
“Something like that,” Thompson agreed.
“I guess it only goes to show that just because a family is rich and powerful doesn’t mean it can’t be just as screwed up and dysfunctional as any other family,” Benton said. He punched in the code to unlock the security doors again. “Well, folks, you’ll have to excuse me. Got a long night ahead. Lives to save and coffee to drink, you know. Hope I don’t see you in here again anytime soon, Mr. Salter.”
The doors closed solidly behind him.
Jake looked at Clare. Her mouth was very tight at the corners.
Thompson had removed a notebook from his pocket. “I didn’t catch your name, ma’am.”
Well, damn, Jake thought. He could almost see Thompson’s cop-brain grinding away. He tried to shake off the fuzzy, disoriented sensation that had enveloped him.
“Clare Lancaster,” Clare said politely.
“Thought so,” Thompson said. He made a note.
“Hey,” Jake growled. “Stop that.”
Neither Thompson nor Clare looked at him.
“Do you have any idea who shot Jake?” Clare asked aggressively.
“Not yet,” Thompson said.
Clare narrowed her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be out looking?”
“We’re working on it. I just finished taking Mr. Salter’s statement. Do you mind telling me where you were around six o’clock this evening, Miss Lancaster?”
“I was at Mr. Salter’s house,” Clare said. “Cooking dinner.”
Jake put his good arm around her shoulders. “Nothing a man looks forward to more after a hard day’s work getting shot than coming home to a nice home-cooked meal. What are we having, sweetheart?”
“Grilled salmon with pesto sauce,” she said.
“Excellent,” Jake said. He winked at Thompson. “Fish is good for you, I hear.”
Thompson made a note, but Jake didn’t think it had anything to do with the benefits of eating fish.
Thompson was looking very hard at Clare again. “Anyone else there at the house with you?”
“No,” Clare said.
“Make any phone calls?” he asked.
“No,” Clare said.
This was not going well, Jake thought. Probably ought to do something. But it was hard to think through the murky haze the painkiller had created in his brain.
Thompson wrote something else on his notepad. “Anyone call you, Miss Lancaster?”
“The only call I got was the one from this hospital telling me that Jake had been injured,” Clare said evenly.
Jake tried revving up his senses to beat back the pleasant mushy-headed sensation. When the psi energy pulsed through him he managed to glimpse some clarity amid the clouds.
“Get a grip here, Thompson,” he said. “I was shot with a scoped rifle, remember? You’ve got the bullet I dug out of that stud. You know as well as I do that you’re looking for some guy who likes to hunt.”
Thompson nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Well then, that proves it,” Jake said.
Thompson’s brow furrowed. “Proves what, sir?”
“That Clare had nothing to do with my getting shot, of course.” Jake gave her an affectionate little pat on the top of her head. “Doubt if my little Clare has ever hunted a day in her life. Right, sweetie?”
Clare stiffened. “Hunting is certainly not my thing.”
“See there, Thompson?” Jake said, “What did I tell you?”
Thompson made the derisive snort all hunters make when someone informs them that not everyone considers shooting animals to be a fabulous way to spend an afternoon.
“Feel sorry for Bambi?” Thompson asked Clare.
“I know that there are some legitimate reasons to hunt,” Clare said through her teeth. “Thinning the herds by removing diseased animals appears to be at the top of everyone’s list of justifications. But why anyone would want to kill and eat a diseased animal is beyond me.”
Thompson scowled. “That’s not the only reason.”
“Well, I suppose there is the sport factor,” she agreed politely. “But in my opinion gunning down unarmed creatures wi
th a high-powered weapon does not strike me as something that a civilized person would do for the sheer fun of it.”
“She’s not from around here,” Jake explained confidentially to Thompson.
“Yeah, I got that impression,” Thompson said.
“Comes from San Francisco.” Jake patted Clare on the head again. “CFL territory.”
“What,” Clare asked in a dangerous tone, “does CFL stand for?”
“Certified Flaming Liberal,” Jake explained. “Yes, sir,” he said, turning back to Thompson. “I think it’s safe to say that my little Clare is a genuine, card-carrying member of the bleeding heart antigun lobby.”
“Speaking of bleeding,” Clare said, giving him a steely smile. “We need to get you home and into bed. You heard what the doctor said. You’re supposed to rest.”
“Okay,” Jake said. He looked around, trying to be helpful. “Which way is home?”
“This way.” Clare took his good arm. She glanced at Thompson. “Can we leave now? Jake looks like he might collapse at any moment.”
“Nah,” Jake said. “Steady as a rock. That’s me.”
The room tilted on its axis. Clare steadied him.
“The doc was right,” Thompson said. “Whatever was in that pain shot is hitting him hard.”
“Yes.” Clare steered Jake toward the door. “You know where to reach us if you have any more questions.”
“You need some help with him?” Thompson asked.
“No, thanks,” Clare said. “I can manage.”
Jake smiled benignly. “She’s stronger than she looks.”
He allowed himself to be maneuvered through another set of glass doors and out into a hallway. He was vaguely aware of Clare pushing him gently into a chair while she made some purchases at the hospital pharmacy.
A few minutes later she eased him carefully into the passenger seat of her rental car.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the seat. He heard Clare’s door open and close. Then he felt her fumbling with his seat belt.