Behind the Walls (4 page)

He paused. ‘It’s not for the phone. Seriously. It’s big. And I need to talk to you in person.’

A squirrel raced by, ran up a tree. Harper stared after it as it disappeared into dwindling orange leaves. In Iraq’s stark sands, she’d missed the trees, the colors of summer and fall. She pictured it, that final patrol. Watching a car speed up to the checkpoint. Seeing a woman in a burqa crossing the street. And then, the sensation of flying through heat and fire. She remembered it clearly, even the smells of smoke and burnt flesh, but her memories were just that: memories. Not flashbacks. Everett’s unexpected voice had stirred up the past but hadn’t entirely revived it. It wasn’t engulfing her. At least, not yet.

‘Harper? You there?’

‘Yes.’ Well, sort of.

‘I’m just asking for half an hour – an hour at the most. You’ll understand when we talk.’

She didn’t answer. She tasted sand, felt it coating her sweaty skin. Heard Burke’s voice only vaguely. Maybe she’d been too hasty deciding she wasn’t having flashbacks.

‘ . . . wouldn’t bother you after all this time  . . . wouldn’t have come all the way from Milwaukee  . . .’

‘Fine.’ Harper closed her eyes, bit her lip, concentrated on the pain of teeth puncturing skin to avoid falling into the past.

‘Fine?’

‘Yes. Fine. I’ll meet you Thursday. Three o’clock. Ithaca Bakery.’

‘Great, Harper. I’ll be there—’ Burke began. But Harper ended the call, tossed her phone into her bag and zoomed off on her Ninja before he finished his goodbye.

Harper roared downhill through the edge of town, heading out along Lake Cayuga, thinking about the phone call. Trying to figure out what Burke Everett wanted. In the war, he’d been a wimp. A tall, lanky guy, always keeping his head down, bucking tough details. Complaining even about the easy ones. Not someone she’d want protecting her back. Not someone she’d spent much time with.

So why was he calling her now? It had been – what? Seven? Eight years since she’d seen him? What could he want?

Harper didn’t want to think about Iraq. Didn’t want to remember. She’d spent years trying to recover from her injuries, still had a bad leg. Not to mention the flashbacks. She’d been better lately, not having as many. Leslie, her shrink, had helped, had shown her how to diminish their intensity, employing scents, sensations or sharp flavors to keep focused on the present. She wondered if Burke Everett had flashbacks. No, probably not. Burke hadn’t risked much, usually had soft duty, chauffeuring visiting brass through the Green Zone or base camps. He’d never been wounded. Had never seen his buddies blown up by IEDs or suicide bombers. Again, Harper saw the woman crossing the street, approaching the detail of soldiers at the checkpoint. White heat flashed, and Harper felt herself fly.

But this time, she was flying past the lake, not through the air. And the noise was the engine of her Ninja, not bursts of explosives. She needed to stay grounded. In the moment. To focus on colored leaves. Traffic. The cloudless sky and crisp air. Anything except Iraq.

Her mind, however, remained on precisely that. The past. And the unexpected reappearance of someone she’d almost forgotten. Someone she’d chosen not to stay in contact with. Why had Burke Everett called? What could he possibly want? Harper was so intent on those questions that it wasn’t until she turned on to the unpaved road leading to the professor’s long rocky driveway that she gave a thought to Zina and the relics, the reason she was there, racing along a darkly overgrown path in the middle of nowhere.

She hoped that Zina would be waiting outside, that she wouldn’t have gone into the house alone after her panic the night before. On the other hand, maybe Zina felt better, wasn’t as shaken now that it was daylight. Looking up the curved narrow road through the trees, Harper tried to spot the house up ahead, wondering about its history. The missing actress, the murdered family. The dead research assistant. Zina’s fear.

Engrossed in her thoughts, Harper sped ahead. She almost didn’t notice a mass of electric blue just off the narrow road, half hidden by trees. Almost didn’t bother to glance back to see what it was, a color that didn’t belong. Almost didn’t turn and go back to investigate.

But when she did, she barely recognized the heap of mangled metal as the little blue Smart Car that had been Zina’s, smashed against a thick old oak.

Harper jumped off the bike and raced to the wreck, shouting, calling Zina’s name. She tore through trees, around shrubs and over undergrowth. Twigs snapped underfoot like sniper fire, but Harper ignored them, kept moving until she could peer through tangles of foliage, broken glass and twisted metal. Only when she saw what was left of Zina, her blood-drenched body slumped beside the car, her eyes fixed on nothing  . . . only then did she stop and stay still.

The air smelled of oil and blood. Harper stared; sweat poured down her torso. And somewhere, guns began firing. Men cried out. No, she insisted. Not now. But, even as she told herself that the fighting around her wasn’t real, that it was a flashback, she ducked low to the ground, dodging bullets, feeling them whizz past her ears. Guns popped. Smoke clouded her vision. Someone screamed. She reached for her weapon, couldn’t find it. Realized that, damn, it must be back with her gear. So half crawling, half scooting, she made it back to her Ninja, pulled out her leather bag, reached inside for a pistol, found a phone. Dug some more. And pulled out a lemon.

A lemon? She blinked at it, forcing herself to remember what it was doing in her gear. A voice deep in her head commanded:
Bite it
. Bite it? The lemon? But wait – a woman was crossing the street, her hand reaching inside her burqa, and a green car was speeding toward the checkpoint. She knew the explosion was coming, needed to warn the patrol  . . .
Bite it!

Harper jammed the lemon into her mouth and chomped; sour acidic juice spilled on to her tongue, startling her. Overpowering her mind. Making her focus on taste. On the moment. And suddenly, the checkpoint, the car, the woman suicide bomber – the war faded away, leaving Harper alone on the wooded path to Professor Langston’s, a phone in her hand, a lemon in her mouth. And, a few feet away, Zina, dead, huddled beside her car.

Lights and sirens. Sirens and lights. Harper sat on a large rock, watching as police and firemen and medical technicians scurried around. The coroner’s van pulled up. A tow truck. A television crew. She didn’t know what to do, where to be, so she stayed off to the side, huddling. Trying to understand what had happened. Zina had to have been speeding, must have lost control of her car and hit the tree. Must have crawled out, injured, and died. But why had she been speeding? What was her hurry? Was she being chased, maybe? Here? On this unpaved back road? Something nagged at her about Zina’s body. She was almost sitting up. And there was so much blood. Not much, if any, inside the car. None visible on the seat. What had caused her to bleed so much?

A man wandered over, balding, maybe in his forties. Tall, lanky. Prominent cheekbones. Wearing jeans, a tweed blazer. He nodded in her direction, stood watching the commotion. Hands in his pockets.

‘Hell of a thing.’ He didn’t look at Harper, kept his eyes on the wreck.

Harper didn’t answer. But he was right; it was a hell of a thing.

Finally, the man turned to her. ‘Angus Langston.’

Langston. One of the professor’s sons? Angus held out his right hand. As if introducing himself at a social function.

Harper shook the hand. It was large and lean, smooth-skinned. ‘Harper Jennings.’

Police and EMTs huddled around Zina’s body.

‘So, Ms Harper Jennings, they tell me you’re the one who found this? You called it in?’

Harper nodded.

He nodded, silently watching the scene. After a while, he looked at her. ‘Well, if you don’t mind my asking, Ms Jennings, what exactly brought you here to this spot this morning?’

Harper opened her mouth to reply, but Angus continued. ‘Being as this is private property. A private road. Which would make you a trespasser.’

Wow. Harper’s mouth was still open. She closed it, stunned. Zina was dead, her body still crumpled beside battered blue metal, and this guy was bothering her about her presence on his property? Slowly, deliberately, she stood to her full five foot three-and-almost-a-half inches, assumed an officer’s stance.

‘You live here, Mr Langston?’ She used her most authoritative military voice. Had to arch her neck to meet his eyes. ‘In the professor’s house?’

Her tone surprised him; he took an instinctive step back. ‘No, I stay in the cottage. But where I sleep isn’t your concern. The house and property belong to me and my brothers.’ He shifted his weight, eyed her. Lost some bluster. Looked away.

‘Look, I’m aware that this is private property,’ Harper continued. ‘But I am not trespassing. I was invited here.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Really. Because I sure don’t remember inviting you. And I doubt my brother invited you—’

‘Actually, I was invited by the woman over there.’

Angus crossed his arms. ‘Well, that’s interesting. Because the fact is, that woman didn’t have the right to invite anyone here. It’s bad enough she was here, wandering around. Which by the way, she didn’t have the right to do. Now she’s brought you. Next, everyone and his uncle Fred will be here.’

‘Hey, Mrs Jennings? Harper?’

Harper turned. Saw a face from the past. Detective Charlene Rivers. She shut her eyes, opened them again. Still saw the detective approaching, walking across the road. Not a flashback. Rivers was actually there. Oh God. Memories swirled: a student jumping out of a window. Another, dead on her front porch  . . .

‘I saw your Ninja over there.’ Rivers smirked. ‘I thought I was done dealing with you.’

Harper nodded. ‘Good to see you, too, Detective.’ She rubbed her eyes, pushing away bloody memories. She hadn’t had contact with the Rivers since that debacle with stolen drugs over a year ago.

‘Who’s your friend?’ Rivers eyed Angus Langston who introduced himself just as another news van pulled up the road.

‘Aw, hell,’ he scowled. ‘Who the fuck let them on the grounds? Doesn’t anyone understand the words “private property”? What’s next? Rock bands? Concession stands? What is this, goddam Woodstock?’ He stomped off toward the television van.

‘Friendly guy.’ Rivers watched him, turned to Harper. ‘So tell me. What are you doing here? You know the victim?’

Wait, the ‘victim’? Harper drew a breath. Looked across the road to the empty coroner’s gurney awaiting Zina’s body. And, as she began to answer, remembered that Detective Rivers was in homicide.

What was a homicide detective doing at the scene of a car accident?

Rivers and Harper walked along the road, heads down, voices low, as Harper summarized the events of the night before. Gravel crunched underfoot; the air smelled of dry leaves. ‘So basically, you’re saying that your friend was afraid for her life?’

‘I guess. But she wasn’t entirely rational, at least not at first. She thought a Nahual was after her. But Nahuals aren’t real.’

‘So you think it’s just a coincidence that the very next morning she’s dead?’

Harper shrugged, shook her head. She had no idea. ‘Detective, what are you saying? That Zina was murdered?’

Rivers stopped walking, looked back at the crash site. ‘Truth is, I don’t know what I’m saying. I have to wait for the coroner’s report before I draw any conclusions. All I know is I heard the dispatch that there was a fatality out at Langston’s, so I came out to see what went down.’ She looked at Harper. ‘You know about this place? The history?’

‘Some.’

‘Then you know what I’m talking about. This dead woman was a researcher for the university. Just like the last dead woman way back in – I think it was eighty-nine? That’s the kind of thing that sends alarms bells off in my head. I don’t believe much in coincidence.’

Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted. Odd. An owl, in daytime? Weren’t they nocturnal? Owls were supposedly one of the Nahual’s favorite shapes. Ridiculous. But maybe not to Zina. In fact, maybe Zina had seen an owl – or even a deer or a fox. Or a large cat. Maybe she’d thought the animal was the shape-shifter again, coming after her, and she’d panicked, smashed her car into a tree. It was possible.

Damn. Harper should have arranged to drive with her, not to meet her at the house. If she had, Zina would still be alive. Far away, guns fired; Harper felt snipers watching her from the shadows. She scanned the ground for IEDs. The detective was still talking.

‘ . . . press will go bonkers, especially now at Halloween time with all the ghosts this house supposedly has. So I wanted to see for myself. Find out what really happened. And, frankly, after talking to you, I’m not happy.’

Oh dear. ‘Why?’

The detective shifted her weight, sighing. ‘Harper. People do not normally freak out and claim that someone’s trying to kill them. And, even when they do, they don’t normally die within hours. Unless someone was really trying to kill them.’

Oh. That was why.

‘No. My gut tells me this car accident is wrong. This woman didn’t just floor her gas pedal and drive into a tree. And, superficially? Her heavy bleeding from the chest, those wounds seem wrong for a car accident.’ Rivers sighed, shook her head. Looked at her feet, then back at the car. ‘No. I can’t prove it, at least not yet, but this woman, Zina Salim? I’d put money on it: she was murdered.’

Rivers had been right about the press. Instantly, the news media focused on Zina’s death, presenting it not as a tragic accident, but as just the most recent of a long list of bizarre occurrences at the old house. By the six o’clock news, tales of the missing actress, the fallen maid, and the murderous father gone amok were resurrected along with that of the mutilated former research assistant. Anchors indicated that the huge house was haunted or cursed, noting that none of the current owners actually lived in it, speculating that they didn’t dare reside under its roof.

Hank was not pleased. He turned off the television, glowering. ‘Dead. Fault. My.’ His eyebrows furrowed.

Trent had stopped by for Happy Hour. He poured Scotch. ‘I’m not sure I follow. You’re saying it’s your fault that the woman drove into a tree?’