Daniel Hecht_Cree Black 02 (19 page)

"Hello?" Paul answered. In the background, Cree heard a din of conversation and music.

"It's me—Annie Oakley," she told him.
Actually,
she thought,
at the moment it's more like Calamity Jane.
"What's going on?"

"Hey, Cree!" he said warmly. "Oh, the racket? My annual shrink shindig. Didn't I tell you about this? I've got two dozen esteemed
members of the greater New Orleans mental health establishment here, supposedly networking but really just wining and dining
and telling war stories. We're just getting to the fast-and-loose stage. Hang on, Cree, just a second." She heard him turn
away and call out, "Elaine, not that one, please. No, the other. The bigger one. Yes." Then back to Cree: "Hi. Sorry. Why
Annie Oakley?"

"Well, it's this Western ambience out here. Also, I just went for a long horseback ride. Out on the desert."

"Oh, yeah? How was it?"

Cree surprised herself by blurting, "Paul, does anybody find love and keep it? Is it ever easy? Or is that just romance novels
and fairy tales?"

"Whoa! That was quite a horseback ride. What happened?"

Before she could answer, a burst of laughter came through the phone, and the music in Paul's apartment swelled: zydeco. "I
should call back later," she said.

"I could switch phones—"

"No. No, I just called to . . . I don't know, hear your voice, let you know I was okay. You go back to your guests. I'll call
back later, okay?"

He paused. "Yeah, I guess that would be better." Another hesitation. "Cree, listen. I don't know about love—how it turns
out, whether it's ever easy. Probably it's not. But I have to believe it's worth the effort. If it's . . . real, it'll survive
anything. Sometimes you just have to . . . stick with it."

Cree went to her bed and lay down in her clothes. Just a nap. The windows were going dark already, but it was still early
enough. She could nap for an hour, then get up and meet with Tommy.

The fat envelope of possession materials troubled her, and to get it out of her thoughts she put it into the side-table drawer.
Better. She needed to keep her vision clear, unbiased by either ancient or modern preconceptions. But still her thoughts pestered
her.

She didn't understand why her call to Paul should bother her so much. Of course he'd be distracted, with a crowd of guests
there. Maybe it was that she didn't even know he held that gathering, which reminded her that there was a lot they didn't
know about each other. Or maybe it was that the situation here, Julieta's past and Tommy's entity and the lonely, mystic desert
all around, was pulling her away from her own life. As she'd feared it would. She was being tugged out of the warm orbit of
love and life and away into the colder reaches. Her efforts to nudge herself back were so easily frustrated. Paul seemed very
far away. The way her question had unsettled him showed how uncertain things still were with them.

On the other hand, she agreed with his comment about love: never easy, but always deserving persistence. Love had enduring
powers, too, despite all the obstacles. Good to remember.

And it would be good to see Joyce and Edgar. She'd feel more confident of handling this with the two of them around. Joyce
was a crackerjack forensic and historical investigator, relentless, adaptive, good at spotting the possibilities in seemingly
unlikely links. And Ed: Surprisingly, though his ostensible specialty was physics and though he primarily saw to the technological
side of investigations, the most useful, crucial thing he did was talk to Cree.
Be there
for her. His insight into her emotional processes was deep and subtle. He steadied her and gently guided her through the labyrinth
of her own knots, often providing her with the solutions to intractable problems.

As Joseph Tsosie seems to do for Julieta,
it occurred to her. Which invited the question whether their motivations sprang from the same source—whether Joseph felt
about Julieta the way Edgar felt about Cree.

It wasn't even a question. Joseph Tsosie was in love with Julieta. It was evident in every word and gesture. After listening
to Julieta tell her story, Cree suspected he'd been in love with her for a long, long time.

But how did Julieta feel about Joseph? There was a lot of tenderness there, certainly, a lot of trust and reliance. But love?
Desire? Need? If not, why not? The questions buzzed in Cree's thoughts as if there was a lot more to consider there.

She drew herself into lotus position, her hands seeking the dhyana mudra, slowing her breath and letting every last thought
drain out of her.

A moment later, she caught herself as her head bobbed: She'd almost fallen asleep sitting up. Groggily, she laid her aching
head on the pillow and pulled the spread over herself. Already the inside of her thighs had begun to stiffen from the unaccustomed
exertion of riding. She liked the feeling. Sleep came in a series of big smooth sweeps, a great hand moving across a blackboard
and erasing her entirely.

When she awoke, the room was dark. She pushed the glow button on her travel alarm to find that it was almost eight o'clock.
She'd slept for three hours! Sensing that something was wrong, she scanned the dimly lit room and realized that the darkness
was flickering. Adrenaline spiked in her fingertips before she noticed that the strobing effect wasn't coming from the night-lights
or the ceiling light in the hall. It came from outside. Again and again, the windows flashed and darkened, a racing heartbeat
of light.

She stumbled to one of the south-facing windows, which gave a view down the center of campus, the road and buildings lit at
intervals by mercury vapor lamps. A quarter of a mile away, in front of the cafeteria, a different kind of light sparkled:
the strobe panel on an ambulance van. As she clutched the windowsill, the boxy truck pulled out and turned away toward the
main entrance. Its flasher lit the angles of the administration and classroom buildings in fitful red and white lightning,
and then darkness steadied around the school as it accelerated out of the main entrance.

Cree could make out several figures, left behind in a cone of streetlight glow. They stood in a clump, looking after the ambulance:
Lynn, no doubt, and a couple of other staff members. Standing apart from them, a motionless figure that could only be Julieta.

Cree felt a lurch in her chest, a twang of alarm and devastation and longing, and couldn't tell if it was her own feeling
or something sprung from Julieta, the anguish of a mother seeing her child borne away and gone from the insufficient shelter
of her love.

21

JULIETA'S OFFICE in the admin building was big enough to include a large desk, a low Mission-style coffee table surrounded
by four leather chairs, a side table with a chrome coffeemaker on it, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, a pair of splendid jade
plants. Julieta sat behind her desk, her chair swiveled toward one of the west-facing windows. Ghosted in the rectangle of
black glass, her features looked painfully lovely, perfect, ruined. When Cree walked in, her face tipped to regard Cree's
reflection, but she didn't turn.

"Why didn't you call me?" Cree demanded.

Julieta shook her head. "You needed to rest. I doubt there was anything you could have done."

"What happened?"

"He was eating dinner. He . . . started stabbing himself in the hand and arm with his knife.
It
did, I mean. God knows what would have happened if the staff hadn't stopped it."

Another classic symptom,
Cree thought with dismay, remembering the awful illustrations among Mason's materials.

Julieta stared out at the night for a long moment. "So soon. I thought we'd have some time. A few days, anyway."

"They're bringing him to the Indian Hospital again?"

"No. This time he's going straight to Ketteridge. It's a private hospital in Gallup, highly regarded for neurological diagnostics
and psychiatric treat­ment."

"Think that's where he'll stay?"

The chair pivoted as Julieta came around, her face hardening. "Not if I have anything to do with it."

"What options are there?"

"I'm not sure. I've got a call in to our attorneys. Technically, he's still enrolled here as a resident student, which could
mean I have some limited rights and responsibilities. There are probably some legal gray areas I could exploit. I might preserve
access to him during litigation, anyway, or retain some say in medical decision making."

"What do the grandparents want to do?"

Julieta shook her head. "Can't get through—they don't have a regular phone, and cell reception's no good up there. But my
guess is they'll want him to come home. I might be able to persuade them to send him back here one more time, but if I can't,
I could probably delay his going home by legal means. Give you some time with him."

Cree digested that as she turned to look at Julieta's photo gallery, which covered half of one wall. Nicely framed, most were
of class groups, rows of smiling faces of teenagers posing with their teachers. There were four whole-school photos, too,
sixty-odd kids and twenty or more faculty and staff, sitting and standing in front of the log hogan at the center of campus.
In each of them, Julieta looked radiant with pleasure and pride. Cree spotted Joseph in one group photo, standing next to
Julieta, both smiling as if they'd just shared a joke. Nearer the desk was another of Joseph, caught off guard as he turned
to look out the side window of his truck: a disturbingly straight-on gaze from a very handsome man.

Over closer to the door, in a separate cluster were half a dozen smaller pictures of horses. Cree recognized Spence from the
yin-yang blaze.

"Spence," she said. "Huh. Why'd you name him that?"

The question clearly caught Julieta by surprise, slipping past her defenses. "After Spencer Tracy. I just . . . I've liked
those movies ever since I was a little girl. That whole . . . style." A choked voice, someone fighting tears.

Another angle of view on Julieta: the little girl, spellbound by the debonair, dashing men and beautiful, clever women and
their droll yet passionate romances where everything was fated to work out just right in the end. Cree spent another minute
looking at the photos before she turned to face Julieta again. "You think the family would let me near him?"

"Possibly," Julieta said tightly. The angry resolve had taken over again.

"He's a terrific person, isn't he? I really saw
that today. He tries to play resentful and rebellious, but he can't hide what he really is. He's decent and respectful. Very
smart, yet at the same time so . . . innocent."

"Yes, he's a very special young man. Which is exactly why I'll fight to make sure he has the opportunities he needs and deserves."

Cree nodded, trying to muster the courage to say what she knew had to be said. "Can I make a suggestion? A frank one?"

" Like—?"

"Like, Julieta—every time you've screwed up in your life, it's been when you've gotten angry and confrontational and self-righteous
and proud. When you've held on to what you felt you were owed." Julieta frowned and she tucked her chin, beginning to bristle.
Cree's heart was thudding hard in her chest, but she made herself go on: "Don't do it this time, Julieta! Don't get your back
up. And don't put Tommy in a tug-of-war over who's in charge of him. He's already torn about five ways. He doesn't need it.
Sometimes you have to let go a little."

Outraged, Julieta said through her teeth, "I
have
'let go,' Dr. Black. Of all too much."

Her fierceness was intimidating, but Cree pushed back: "Have you really?" She made a gesture toward her,
Look at yourself. Where you're at right now.

"What would you suggest?" Julieta said icily. But Cree sensed that behind the hardness was a measure of grudging agreement.

"See what the grandparents say. Roll with it. Encourage them to let me spend time with him, wherever he ends up."

"And if they don't agree?"

"Don't assume that yet. Cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, there's work I can do here."

"Like what?" Julieta's anger was veering toward despondency.

"I can explore your idea that the entity is a revenant of Garrett McCarty. Or that it's some formerly place-anchored entity
connected with this location. I can get my colleagues out here and do some physical and historical research."

Julieta spun back to the window. Not that there was anything to see, Cree thought, but the same unwelcome reflections, hovering
in their black frame. She stared stonily at nothing for a long time. The armored face broke Cree's heart as much as any outright
sorrow would have.

"Nobody knows how you feel about him," Cree said gently. "Nobody will understand why you fight so hard to stay near him. They
don't know the story. You'll seem pushy and grasping and arrogant. You'll get their backs up. Right?"

Julieta gave it another full minute before she came around again. "Fine," she snapped. She was trying mightily to stay hard,
Cree saw, but it wasn't working. "You're right. That's how I screw up. Joseph has also been kind enough to bestow that little
piece of wisdom upon me. You're right. Okay? I'll talk to the grandparents. I'll be conciliatory and sweet and charming as
all get-out. And now I want to be left alone. I have a whole school to take care of. I've got work backed up to the rafters."

Cree overcame the urge to touch her, to smooth the lines in that lovely face. She turned toward the door to leave, but then
paused. "Can I ask one more thing? Something that will help me think about this?"

"What?"

"How did you determine that Tommy is your child? I want to understand your . . . recognition of him. When you first knew,
how you knew. Was it from his records, or—"

"It's complicated," Julieta said. She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was soft and husky as regret and doubt overcame
the iron. "And it'll just have to wait for tomorrow. Because I don't have anything left today. I haven't got what it takes.
It's too much. Too complex. Just like every other goddamned thing in the world."

Cree nodded and went into the hallway.

"Cree."

Surprised, Cree turned back. Julieta sat facing her raptly, but kept her eyes on her desk. "I just wanted to say . . . I think
I understand what you're trying to do. And I know I'm not making it easier. I can't believe what a total bitch I've been.
I've just . . . it's just . . .
hard
right now. I hope sometime we can get to know each other under . . . other circumstances."

"I'd like that, too. Very much." Cree shot her a smile and shut the door.