California Schemin' (13 page)

“The wall extends a mile beyond the last
house at each end,” he said, “runs back a couple of hundred feet.
There are motion detectors and security cameras so when someone
tries to go around, they get picked up and whisked off to jail. One
or two crooks tried it when the community first went in. They got
maybe fifty feet into the perimeter before they were picked up.
Don’t think anyone has tried it since then.”

Senator Wallace walked into the room, and
everyone tensed. He had on tan slacks and a brown golf shirt and
carried a worn briefcase. For some reason the briefcase reminded me
that I’d been abducted and wasn’t here of my own free will. The
smile faded from my face.

Wallace sat on one of the soft leather
couches and motioned me to sit on the one across from him.

“Richard,” he said. “Kindly take Paris for a
stroll in the yard. I need to talk to Ms. MacGowan. Mr. Moore, get
the car ready.”

Paris made a face but didn’t protest when
Hammie led her out the door. Moose disappeared back down the hall
towards the garage as Wallace set the briefcase on the coffee table
between us and extracted two photos from it. He set the photos on
the table and used two fingers to slide them across to me.

“These are the two men who are responsible
for my wife’s death. Do you recognize them?”

“Your wife’s death?”

“The woman you saw fall to her death from the
Foresthill Bridge. She was my wife.”

“Your wife.” I fell silent. I didn’t want to
push the innocence factor too much. I didn’t know exactly how much
he knew.

The photos were five-by-seven head shots
taken in black and white. A round-faced bald man with dark eyebrows
stared at me from the first photo. The second had a thin face,
dark, stringy, shoulder length hair and light eyes. I shook my
head. Neither man was familiar to me.

“I didn’t see anything, Senator.”

“And your camera?”

He knew about my camera. If I hadn’t been
sitting in front of him, I would have slapped myself on the head.
Of course he knew. He probably sent the guys who broke into the
cabin and car. I looked Senator Wallace in the eyes.

“If my camera picked up anything, I never saw
it. The sheriff’s department took my memory card. I lost all the
photos I had of my time in California.”

The Senator leaned into me, making me
extremely uncomfortable.

“Bree, it’s very important that the people
responsible for the death of my wife are brought to justice. I
don’t think I can achieve that without your help. As far as we know
you were the only eye witness.”

Besides the thugs who were with you and
the suit in the woods.
Too bad the bear can’t
testify.

“Isn’t it the Sheriff’s job to bring these
guys to justice?” I slid the photos back across the table.

“Sheriff Fogel is out of his league. I’m
doing all I can to help him.” He smiled and pushed the photos back
to me. “Take another look,” he said, “just in case.”

“They don’t ring any bells.” I looked
briefly, then picked up the pictures and handed them to him. His
glance dropped, and I realized that he was looking down my dress.
My face flushed, and I stood and turned to look out the window.
Hammie and Paris were sitting by the pool. He was leaning into her,
talking earnestly. She had turned away and was looking out into the
hills. I felt sorry for him. She was obviously cold and
calculating, and he deserved better.

“Bree.” The senator’s voice was close behind
me. “You’d be doing a good thing, identifying these men. I know
pulling Lily from the river must have been very traumatic for you.
This would be a way to make it better.”

I turned to face him. “Lying will not make me
feel better. I’d like to help, but I can’t.”
You probably killed
her and I won’t lie to get you off the hook
. “Sheriff Fogel
sent me home because I didn’t see anything except a body in the
river. If he thought I’d be any help, he would have kept me here. I
want to go back home now. My family will be worried about me.”

“Your animals are being well taken care of,
and your family knows that you are here as my guest. No one is
looking for you.” His voice was smooth, but the lack of menace gave
me chills. He expected to get what he wanted, and if he didn’t, I’d
end up falling from the Foresthill Bridge with a bullet in my
head.

I turned back to the windows as he motioned
Paris and Hammie back into the room. I’d rather Hammie see the
distress on my face than Senator Wallace. As it was, Paris glanced
at my face as they entered the room, but Hammie kept his face
turned away from me.

“Paris, come sit and amuse me, dear. Richard,
please show Ms. MacGowan to her room.”

It was a pleasant enough room with pale
yellow walls and an attached bathroom, but I couldn’t wait to get
out of it. I’d been in a lot of crummy situations in the last six
months or so, and I was ready for a change of pace that didn’t
include dead bodies, being drugged or abducted. I missed my
friends, my animals and Beau, of course. I hoped he was taking it
easy, not that he had any alternative. It’s kind of difficult to
get yourself into trouble when you’ve got your leg in a cast.

I stood at the window looking out over the
gold and green landscape. It hadn’t rained enough to turn the hills
completely green, but you could see it coming in patches.
California was so strange compared to Vermont where it was green
and lush in the summer, brown and muddy in November and April, and
barren and snow-covered the rest of the year. Here, brown was still
the prominent color, but I could see that given a couple of good
rains the hills would be green again. Green in the winter, go
figure.

There was a quiet knock, and Paris let
herself in the room. She plopped onto the bed. I half expected her
to collapse backward and let the bed support her, but she kept her
spine straight and scowled at me.

“Wallace sent me in here to talk you into
identifying the guys that murdered his wife. Thought maybe a
woman’s touch would soften you up. Personally, I don’t think you’re
that gullible.”

My emotions were near breaking point again,
and I didn’t want to go crazy on this girl like I had on Hammie
last night. I turned to the window again, gazing out across the
fields. If I went out the window at night, how far could I get
before someone caught up with me? Paris moved restlessly behind me,
and I turned back to her.

“Do you know anything about what happened?” I
asked.

“Only rumors. They’re flying thick and fast.
Half the people I talk to are convinced that Wallace killed his own
wife, the other half think someone had it out for her for other
reasons. I don’t know what’s true.” She flopped back onto the bed.
“I wish Richard would get the heck out of here. Wallace gives me
the creeps, and now I’m stuck here, too, unless we can get you to
cave.” She turned her head and looked at me. “You’re not going to
cave, are you?”

“Don’t think so.”

“He’ll find a way. Richard didn’t want to
work for him. Told him flat out no. And look where he is now.”

“Why would the senator want someone working
for him who didn’t want to be there? Doesn’t make sense.”

“Because Richard’s the best at what he does.
He’s an ex-Navy Seal. Got all kinds of awards. Could probably get
in the FBI or the CIA if he wanted, but he doesn’t want that. He
wants to put all that stuff behind him and be a normal person
now.”

Paris seemed too naive to be with a guy like
Hammie, but maybe that’s what he wanted, someone who couldn’t
imagine or guess what he’d done. Someone who would comfort him when
he woke up in a cold sweat but wouldn’t ask questions.

“How did you meet Ham, er, Richard?”

She smiled and stared at the ceiling,
stretching her arms up over her head and wiggling into the
comforter.

“He’s a friend of my older brother. They were
in the Navy together, and when Roger got out he brought Richard
home. We’ve been dating ever since. He won’t even sleep with me,”
she closed her eyes, “because I’m Roger’s sister. Says I should
wait until I’m married. It was really nice until Senator
Gets-What-He-Wants got his hooks into Richard. That spoiled
everything. I know it’s not your fault he had to sit with you at
the concert, but it’s awful that Richard is spending all his time
doing stuff for him. It’s not fair.”

“Yeah? Well, life’s not fair. At least that’s
what my momma always told me. So what are you going to tell Senator
Gets-What-He-Wants about me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ll hang out in
here a while longer. He won’t bug me while I’m in with you. He kind
of gives me the creeps, and he never leaves me alone with Richard
anymore. Richard’s noticed it too. He was mad when I wore that red
coat. Wallace gave it to me, and Richard said I should give it
back. He doesn’t want me to be indebted to Wallace. I like the
coat. I’m not giving it back.”

“It’s your decision.”

I turned back to the window and examined how
it opened. It was one of those sliding jobbies, the kind that opens
by sliding to the side instead of up and down. It wasn’t locked. A
ground floor room with a locked door but unlocked windows. A
mixture of emotion spread through me. The sane part of my brain was
sending out warning signals, the other was planning my escape.

“They locked me in here but didn’t bother to
lock the windows.”

“There’s some sort of perimeter alarm. They
don’t need to lock the windows or the rear doors because a siren
goes off if anyone goes through the back yard. There’s a motion
detector on the property line.”

I went back to planning my escape anyway.
Maybe if I jumped off the roof I could avoid setting off the alarm.
Then I remembered the roof was three stories high.

“Damn!”

Paris jumped up, and I realized I’d spoken
out loud.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” I hadn’t
noticed that she’d gone to sleep.

“S’okay.” Paris rubbed her eyes. “I shouldn’t
be sleeping now anyway. I’m getting into a bad cycle. I can’t sleep
at night, and I end up napping during the day. Then I can’t sleep
at night. It’s the awful hours here. They get you all strung out so
you’ll be confused and easily manipulated. Richard told me
that.”

Smart Richard
, I thought. I went back
to scanning the back yard and the hills beyond. After all, this
place wasn’t built as a fortress, so there had to be ways to get in
and out without detection. I heard Paris get up off the bed and
turned to see her pulling her clothes back into place.

“I’m going to my room,” she said. “Maybe he
won’t find me for a while.”

“Hang on.”

“Yeah?” She turned to look at me, her hand on
the doorknob.

“Why are you staying here? Couldn’t you go
home if you wanted?”

“I’m not sure if they’d let me go home or
not, but if I did leave, I’m pretty sure I’d never see Richard
again. It’s up to me to save him.”

Great, another woman who thinks she needs
to rescue her man.
I shook my head as Paris slid out of the
room and waited to hear the lock click back into place. It didn’t.
I crossed to the door and tried the handle. It turned. I waited
until Paris had plenty of time to get up the stairs, cracked the
door open and looked up and down the empty hall. I slipped off the
blue heels and ran silently down the hall past several closed doors
in my bare feet. The carpet muffled any sound my feet may have made
and I reached the wide stairs at the end of the hall before my
brain kicked in and I started to have doubts.

But the doubts died a quick and painless
death because there, across a vaulted and sun-lit foyer, was the
entrance door. Not the door through the garage that I came in
through, but the front door. The door to freedom. I’d started
across the tile, thinking of freedom and not what I’d do once I was
out that door, when a hand covered my mouth and an arm caught me
around the waist.
Hammie
, I thought as he dragged me
backward into the hall I’d just come down. Who else would be
man-handling me? Sure enough, when the arm around my waist relaxed,
I spun around to find Hammie, finger to his lips. His arm was still
around my waist, and he was too close for comfort. I struggled to
break free.

“Stop it!” he hissed in my ear. “I need to
talk to you.” He dragged me through one of the doors lining the
hallway into a small room. Books lined the walls, two overstuffed
armchairs flanked a small round table, and the same
floor-to-ceiling windows as the living room let light into the
room. A small desk sat facing the view of the pool.

Hambecker released his hold on me, and I
almost fell into one of the comfy chairs.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing,
trying to get yourself killed?” he asked.

“Nice room,” I said. It was a nice room, but
I didn’t want Wallace to have nice rooms. “How did you know I snuck
out?”

“Your room is bugged, and there are cameras
in the hallway. When Moose isn’t driving, his job is to watch the
video feed from the cameras.”

“Guess that explains why the senator needs
more than one driver. I suppose you’re going to lock me back in and
pump me full of knock-out drugs again now.” I fought an irrational
urge to stomp my foot. I wanted to at least pretend I was mature
and in control of the situation.

“Every time I think I’m going to get away,
you’re one step behind me, and since you’re faster than me, it’s
just as good as being one step ahead. Do you have any idea how
annoying that is?”

“Bree, I need to talk to you. I need you to
play along with Senator Wallace for a while. Whatever it is he
wants you to do, pretend that you’ll do it. Give me some time.”

“It’s illegal.”

“It’s not illegal if you stay of your own
free will.”

“Not that, what he’s asking me to do. It’s
against the law.”