Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2) (21 page)

     
Alberta continued, "He didn't give his name—I think he could be on drugs or something because he's so jumpy. He says he was a patient of Dr. Treisman . . . I hope I did the right thing?"

     
Sylvia pulled back internally. In his will, Malcolm Treisman had entrusted her with all his patient files. "You did the right thing. I'll talk to him, Alberta."

     
A sharp hiss signaled the line transfer. There was a long silence during which Sylvia feared the caller had been cut off. But a voice finally asked, "Dr. Strange?"

     
He had the breathless tone of a boy. He was clearly agitated.

     
"Yes, this is Sylvia Strange. Who are you?"

     
"I should apologize—to bother you so late, I didn't know what else to do—Dr. Treisman always told me—at the end, I—" Abruptly, he stopped speaking. For several seconds, the only sound was his ragged breathing.

     
Gently, Sylvia said, "Can you answer a few questions forme?"

     
"I'm so tired—" The words almost got away from him. "But I'll try to talk about it. . . ."

     
"Good. I want you to do that." Sylvia kept her voice low and soothing and listened for any change in his tone. She said, "Where are you calling from?"

     
"A motel."

     
"Which motel?" Pause. "Is someone there with you?"

     
"I'm alone. I thought it would be all right to call. . . ."

     
Sylvia reassured, mirrored. "It was all right to call."

     
". . . when I got crazy again."

     
She heard a young man who was hypertense, angry, scared, but coherent. The histrionic fiber of the voice worried her the most. Drugs, alcohol, the manic phase of a bipolar disorder, roller-coaster mood swings—any of these could give him that audible edge. All of them qualified as red flags when it came to the possibility of self-destructive behavior. Sylvia guessed at least one of them applied to the person on the other end of the line.

     
"I need to know, have you taken something?"

     
"No. . . but I've got to cut myself."

     
When a client threatened self-destructive behavior it was the therapist's job to take the threat seriously—and then assess the risk. On the phone with a stranger, Sylvia had no personal history, no personality assessments, no one-on-one experience to draw on. She had to function under the same directive as a cop facing a suspect in a dark alley: assume there's a weapon. She said, "Did you do something to hurt yourself?"

     
"I need to let it out. I need air—light to burn them out."

     
"Who? You need to burn who out?" The sustained silence was nerve-racking.

     
He asked, "Don't you know who this is? We've met."

     
She stopped breathing.

     
"What do we teach you, Dr. Strange? Crazy people—what do you see in us?"

     
Awareness seeped through her body like cold water—she was talking to Dupont White. Her heart scudded against her chest. She tried to keep her voice calm. "Dupont? I don't think you should be alone right now. I'd like to get you some help."

     
He laughed softly. "So you do recognize me. I'm glad. But I don't want anybody's help. Not even yours, Dr. Strange."

     
Click. The dial tone jarred.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

E
IGHT MILES SOUTH
of downtown Santa Fe, Benji Muñoz y Concha paced the yard outside Dormitory A at the penitentiary's Minimum Restrict Facility, the murf. The Saturday morning air was tepid because the sun had only been up for two hours. But already, the promise of intense temperatures was palpable.

     
Behind the bleachers Benji paced a small area of parched ground. In a center court two inmates were playing a game of one-on-one, and they smacked the basketball aggressively. They shouted challenges or encouragement to each other; sweat oiled their brown bodies. On the bleachers men sat in groups or alone, smoking cigarettes and talking.

     
Unlawful taking of a vehicle. That was why Benji had to do his time. He had taken the car—he admitted that much. But he wasn't really part of any car ring like the cops had claimed. And minimum-security time was still time, even for a first offense. He had one year, eight months, and four days to go. . . not counting good time.

     
Dust billowed out from Benji's feet as he paced. He couldn't find Rosie Sanchez anywhere. He needed to talk to the penitentiary investigator.

     
A horn honked; the perimeter patrol vehicle was bouncing over ruts and weeds next to the perimeter fence. From this distance, the correctional officer's head was the size of a pea.

     
On the other side of that fence, Benji could
see freedom
.

     
He couldn't stand still; if he did, he knew he'd catch fire on the inside and burn down to nothing. He had to get out—he had this bad feeling about the future. Not
his
future, but the future of Rosie's friend, Sylvia Strange.

     
To calm himself he closed his eyes and let his mind slip through the eyes of the chain-link fence, ascend over the security T-line, glide across no-man's-land, float once again through fencing, this time parallel panels topped by razor ribbon.

     
To find guidance. To find an answer.

     
Now he was a blue-white orb of energy hurtling through air. Past the National Guard armory, where the weekend trainees jogged the frontage road; across four lanes of 1-25; over the racetrack where the first race of the day had just begun—
and they're off!
He didn't stop to place a bet on a white-legged filly named Run in Her Stockings, even though he knew she'd pay off fifteen to one.

     
He eased north, caught an air current and soared over the Caja Del Rio Plateau, past Bandelier National Monument, to choppier air currents above the Jemez Mountains. To his right the Valle Grande gaped. To his left he saw what the Dark Canyon fire had left in its wake. He knew this land, this earth—he'd been cradled here as a child.

     
He hovered over the ridge where he had seen the burning body. If the killer was human, he had driven in on the forest road; only a ten-minute drive from State Highway 4, it had been a good choice for a drop spot. It was the place Benji would have chosen. Somebody had known his way around . . . and there was nothing left now but scorched and smoking earth.

     
Benji glided directly across the mouth of the caldera over the peak of Cerro Grande, at 10,199 feet, and Pajarito Mountain, where the skiers would be busy next winter. San Ildefonso Pueblo was below him now. And then Pojoaque, Nambe, and the Rio en Medio.

     
As he approached Little Tesuque, he began to feel the first twinge of heat.

     
Fire.

     
But there was no smoke, there were no flames visible. There was no fire here, only the ashy remains of some past inferno. The ashes stretched as far as Benji could see. All the way to the tops of the mountains.

     
Some evil force reached out to probe Benji's soul as he soared over the Santa Fe Reservoir. His heart caught in his throat, but still he soared. And then he saw the ash begin to move. Here and there it stirred, shifted, pressed itself into a new shape. A human form. A corpse.

     
When Benji was directly overhead, the corpse sat up suddenly. It turned to stare at him, and he knew that it was a woman. It was Sylvia Strange.

T
HE BELLY OF THE
737 skidded over invisible crosscurrents while the ocean fifteen thousand feet below the aircraft stayed as smooth and still as blue glass. The pilot completed the wide, banking turn, and corrected the plane right, then left. Sylvia's stomach churned, her knuckles were white.

     
This trip to California had begun at five-thirty
A.M.
that morning. The phone call from Dupont White had scared her; it had also mobilized her into action. On the drive to Albuquerque she tried to reach Matt from her cell phone. She'd called him again from the airport terminal. When she couldn't track him down, she found herself wondering if he was with Erin Tulley.

     
With a sigh Sylvia snapped the airplane handset from the seat in front of her. She was careful to tuck in her elbows; the plane was full, and she was wedged between a "window" who overflowed his chair and an "aisle" who had managed to carry on and was now devouring a New Mexican meal, including tamales, enchiladas, green chile, and sopaipillas with honey.

     
Air-bus time.

     
So far Sylvia had managed to avoid a lapful of chile, but she didn't want to tempt the gods. Carefully she ran her phone card through the slot and dialed Matt's office. She could barely hear it ring under the deep throb of the airplane's engines.

     
She was startled when he answered.

     
"Sylvia? Where are you?"

     
"Coming out of the clouds over Santa Barbara." Sylvia pressed the handset tightly to her ear. Mr. Window was staring at her. She shifted forward in the seat. On the other end of the line she heard a faint, unfamiliar voice say, "Time to go, Matt."

     
She asked, "What's going on?"

     
"A photo lineup . . . Forest Service got a look at the fire setter at Tsankawi."

     
"I'll keep this short because we're about to land. Last night, Dupont White called me at home." She felt Matt's astonishment.

     
"He identified himself?''

     
"Yes." The engine noise increased. Sylvia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hear.

     
"—get him on tape?"

     
"No. Listen, I'll be back on Monday—"

     
"Hold on."

     
"I can't—" But Matt was gone. Sylvia imagined she heard voices, doors slamming, a phone ringing twelve hundred miles east, in Santa Fe. But in truth, she could barely hear herself think. She shifted her body toward the aisle and narrowly escaped a spoonful of cheese and chile.

     
Claustrophobia washed over her, and a sweat broke out on her forehead. When she lowered her head, she caught the compulsive jerky action of Mr. Window's thigh.

     
Suddenly Matt was talking again. "—going over to your house—want you to be careful—damn, hold on." After long seconds he came back on the line.

     
She said, "Let's do this later."

     
"Sylvia, come home."

     
"Soon. I miss you." She pressed
OFF
and snapped the phone back into its cradle.

     
The kelly green seat-belt sign blinked.

     
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing in Goleta–Santa Barbara shortly. . . ."

     
For a moment Sylvia's thoughts settled on Benji Muñoz y Concha; she was still intrigued by his history, his spirit, his visions. She remembered a discussion with Malcolm Treisman about a client who made an excellent living as a psychic. Malcolm had described the man as a "well-informed intuitive." Did that describe Benji as well? She shrugged—she hoped the session with Velio Cruz had helped him. Then the 737 banked again, and she swallowed and turned her head to glance out the windows on the opposite side of the airplane. The sky was veiled by cirrus clouds. As the wing dipped lower, a picture came into focus: a sandy beach crowned by palm trees. Paradise on a postcard. Judging from the statuelike stillness of the trees, there was hardly any ocean breeze in this new world.

     
She exhaled as the plane's wheels slapped the runway. She was the sixth passenger to exit. As soon as she stepped into the quaint Spanish-style terminal, she saw Leo Carreras.

     
He stood in the center of the walkway. His smooth, dusky skin set off rich brown, keen eyes and chalk-white teeth. He was lean and tall and easy to look at, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his linen suit. Sylvia noticed that several women cast lingering glances at her old friend. When she'd last seen Leo, five years before, he'd carried a few extra pounds and been minus the startling streak of silver just above his left temple. The wire-rimmed glasses were a new addition, too. No doubt they served him well when he was testifying in court. Professorial specs earned "smart" points with juries.

     
His smile widened as he walked over to her and kissed her cheek. "I'm still wondering how I got you here after five years of groveling."

     
It was her turn to smile. She pinched the sleeve of his jacket and shook her head. "Come on, I need fresh air."

     
Leo pushed open the glass door, and her first impression was of soft, salty air scented with camphor—her second impression was how deeply the humid warmth seemed to penetrate her pores. In New Mexico, high-desert light heightened visual perceptions; here, at sea level, the primary sensory experiences were touch and smell.

     
The golden flecks in her brown irises darkened a tad, and she said, "I'm here, Leo."

H
IS
SEA-GREEN
L
EXUS
was parked at the curb in a no-parking zone. Sylvia raised her eyebrows, but Leo just laughed. He used a remote to deactivate the alarm and unlock the car. The Lexus bleated a plaintive greeting, then Leo opened the passenger door and offered Sylvia his hand.

     
She sat and eased her long legs gingerly into the car. The Lexus smelled heady, of warm leather and sandalwood. It was spotless, and Sylvia smiled when she thought of her own dusty, battered Volvo. She ran her fingers over the gray leather interior, and they came away free of even the faintest smudge. She noticed a thumb-size carved wooden crucifix resting in the compartment between bucket seats. She knew Leo's mother was a devout Catholic; Leo used to be a dedicated atheist.