Dark Paradise (58 page)

been many unfortunate things, but no Rafferty would ever be a hired gun.

"You're starting to sound like a native, Marilee," she mumbled, amused

and a little dismayed by her automatic defense of the clan. Keeping her

eyes on the dog and the door, she reached down and jabbed the doorbell

again, holding it an annoyingly long time.

There was always Lucy's hired hand to consider for the hit man lineup.

Kendall Morton, shady drifter. She knew little about him, but by his

description he sounded as if he just might be the kind of man willing to

waste someone for spending money and then disappear. She wondered if she

could get his criminal record if she called the sheriff's department and

claimed to be a business owner checking Morton out before hiring him.

Quinn wouldn't give it to her any other way.

She heaved a sigh and hit the doorbell yet again. The interior door

remained closed, but the dog was diverted.

It bounded toward her, loping through the house with big, loose-limbed

strides, ears up, pale eyes boring into hers. It jumped up and put its

paws on the side light, toenails clicking against the glass, and stared

Marilee in the face. He was very clearly male and, as he slurped his

long, pink tongue against the glass, he was very clearly not a killer

watchdog. He jumped down from the window, galloped around in a tight

circle, barking, made a dash toward the closed interior door, then

dashed back toward Marilee, whining.

Marilee tried the front door. Maybe the old geezer had keeled over while

auditioning paramours and was lying on the bedroom floor, praying his

trustworthy dog would fetch help. Or maybe the hit man had wasted him.

The door was unlocked. She slipped into the foyer, feeling like a thief.

The dog danced around her, his thunderous barks resounding off the

adobe-look walls.

"Judge Townsend?
 
Anybody home?"

After the third call, the dog tried again to get her to follow him to

the closed door beyond the living room.

He had scratched deep gouges into the door, leaving raw open wounds in

the pine. Not far from the door, beside a potted fig tree that sat along

a bank of windows, he had left a big pile of doggie business that was

fresh enough to make Marilee wrinkle her nose.

Standing close beside the door, she listened for voices.

Silence.

"Judge Townsend?" She drummed her knuckles against the center panel,

inciting another booming bark from the dog, then silence again. The dog

shoved his wet nose into her hand, as if he thought he could physically

compel her to reach for the doorknob. Scowling, Marilee wiped the dog

snot off her palm onto the leg of her jeans and reached for the knob of

her own accord.

The door swung open to reveal a spectacular study.

Dark wood and big windows, a forest of leather-upholstered wing chairs,

and a fieldstone fireplace. The heads of a number of unfortunate

creatures were mounted on the wall above the fireplace. A mule deer, an

elk, a mountain goat, several antelopelike creatures she had never seen

outside the pages of National Geographic. There was a zebra hide tacked

up on the far wall with an enormous tiger skin beside it. The disparity

in size would have made zebras glad they didn't live in tiger country. A

grizzly bear stood in the far corner, petrified for all eternity on his

hind legs with his lips curled back in an ugly snarl.

Centered along the windowed wall was Townsend's desk, a massive polished

walnut piece with brass accents.

Slumped over, facedown on the desk, was Townsend. By the look of things,

he had stuck a gun in his mouth and blown the top of his head off.

For a long while Marilee stood frozen, staring. Every detail of the

scene soaked into her memory like indelible ink. She wanted to look

away, but couldn't. The shock had shorted out the brain synapses that

had to do with motor functions. She was trapped there, staring at the

carnage, a detached corner of her brain studying the play Of the

sunlight through the blood and brain matter splattered on the window

glass behind the desk. Bloodstained glass. The air in the sun-warmed

room was rank with the thick, gagging stench of violent death.

Her gaze drifted to Townsend again. The body was a dead husk, crumpled

and discarded. The essence of the person had gone on to places unknown.

His right hand was still wrapped around the handle of the pistol that

had shattered the crown of his head like the shell of a soft-boiled egg.

In a heartbeat Marilee's brain kicked back into action and she jolted

into motion. Her whole body jerked backward.

"Oh, my God!" she whispered, as if she were afraid of waking him. "Oh,

my God!"

The gasp jammed in her throat as her breakfast rushed up from her

stomach. Clamping a hand over her mouth, she stumbled back through the

maze of wing chairs and out of the room. There wasn't time to hunt for a

bathroom. The kitchen was a straight shot through the living room on the

other end of the house. She managed to make it to the sink before the

sight of the judge and the smell of dog shit made her gag.

When there was nothing left of her Rainbow Cafe buttermilk pancakes, she

turned the faucet on and stuck her face under it, as if she could wash

away what her eyes had seen. Trembling violently, she reached for a dish

towel and pressed it against her cheeks.

Townsend was dead. Lucy was dead, then Miller Daggrepont, now Townsend

had killed himself. She could still see the look of surprise in his

eyes, as if he had seen something unexpected in that final split second

between life and death. She could still see the blood that had run out

of his mouth to puddle on the desktop, and the hand that still gripped

the butt of the gun.

She used the kitchen phone to call the sheriff's department, shaking so

badly she had difficulty punching out 911. The dispatcher assured her a

car would be sent out right away - as soon as they could determine where

exactly judge Townsend lived.

Too shaken to sit still, Marilee wandered through the house. She found a

bottle of Glenfiddich on the sideboard in the dining room and drank a

little to soothe her jangling nerves and calm the chaos swirling like a

cyclone through her head. Townsend's grisly last portrait remained in

her brain, but she was now able to concentrate on other aspects of the

picture - a clean slice of sky in the window; the scales of justice

sitting front and center on the desk, one side weighed down by a handful

of change and a roll of stamps; the telephone, black and high-tech, its

receiver nowhere in sight, a red light burning on the console.

No receiver. She stared out the window at the front yard, waiting for

the distant cloud of dust that would signify the imminent arrival of a

deputy. She took another sip of scotch and held the cool, heavy tumbler

against her cheek. No receiver. Had he taken the receiver off the hook

so as not to be interrupted by some telemarketing flunky as he carried

out his final verdict on himself?
 
Or had he been calling someone?

If his suicide had anything to do with Lucy's death . . . if he had been

talking to someone shortly before his own death . . . might that person

have some connection to Lucy?

The dog came into the dining room, whining, and bumped against Marilee's

legs, gazing up at her with worried eyes. She stroked his head absently

and set her glass aside. Quinn was fed up to his eyeteeth with her

theories.

He wouldn't want to hear this one either. He certainly wouldn't allow

her to nose around the crime scene. She would be summarily removed from

the vicinity and escorted back to the station to make her statement with

no embellishments or queries allowed.

With the German shorthair trailing despondently after her, she went back

into the living room and stared at the open study door while her heart

did a slow drumbeat against her sternum and the scotch simmered in her

stomach. She ordered the dog to stay and walked on into the study as

purposefully as her quaking knees would allow. Keeping her eyes trained

away from the judge, she skirted around the front side of the desk to

the end where the telephone sat with its red light glowing like an evil

eye.

The redial button was just to the left of Townsend's ravaged head.

Concentrating on the button, she reached out with the eraser end of a

pencil and punched it. The electronic music of modern technology played

over the receiver, which lay on the floor. Marilee watched the number

appear in the LCD display above the answering machine cassette

compartment, listened to the phone ringing on the other end of the line.

On the third ring a woman with a heavy eastern-European accent answered.

"Mr. Bryce's residence. 'Ello?"

Samantha stretched out in the lounge chair, her eyes shaded from the

glare of the sun on the pool by a pair of sunglasses that cost more than

she made in a week. Bryce had loaned them to her. Actually, he had given

them to her, but she felt more comfortable considering it a loan than a

gift.

She had called in sick to work. After their discussion the night before,

she had no desire to run into Mr. Van Dellen today. Bryce told her not

to worry about it. Drew was meddling where he didn't belong without

knowing all the facts, he said. Drew didn't understand their friendship,

he said. He didn't understand what she was going through with Will. He

was feeling protective of her - like a brother for a sister - but wasn't

that ironic, since Bryce felt the same way?
 
No need for a conflict when

their goals were essentially the same.

Bryce's words had soothed her last night. Just the sound of his voice

soothed her, warm and rich as it was.

He smiled at her with that movie-star smile, his eyes kind and wise, and

for a moment her life didn't seem quite so screwed up. But when she woke

up alone in her bed with the morning sun glaring like a spotlight on her

shabby room, Bryce's comfort had faded away and Mr. Van Dellen's

disapproval had shone through.

Think what you're doing, Samantha!
 
You're not like them. Can't you see

that?

Yes, she could see it. Apparently, everybody could see it - that she was

just a dumb, gawky half-breed kid trying to be something she wasn't.

Everybody saw it except Bryce. He treated her as if she were just as

good as, just as important as any of his rich and famous friends. He

treated her like a beautiful woman instead of a kid sister.

That was what she could see: that she had a husband who didn't care and

a man - a friend - who treated her better than her own father ever had, even

in her dreams.

Bryce saw possibilities for her; he gave her encouragement when all she

had ever gotten from anyone else was pity or ridicule or nothing at all.

Nobody else seemed to understand that.

So she had sought refuge today with her friend. She could spend the day

on his mountain, beside his pool, hiding away from the reality of her

life. She could leave Sam the tomboy barmaid behind on the dusty side

streets of New Eden and become Samantha of the hip crowd for a day. She

could lie by the pool with Uma Kimball in the next chair and a famous

trial lawyer bringing her drinks and staring at her cleavage.

Actually, the last part made her uncomfortable, so she turned onto her

stomach on the chaise and pulled her long hair over her shoulders for a

curtain.

"Thanks," she murmured, setting the Margarita aside on a low

glass-topped table.

Ben Lucas grinned at her as if she had just said something truly witty.

He stood between her and the pool, a tan, health-club body in orange

Speedo trunks.

"You'll get a better tan without the shirt," he said.

Samantha stared up at him, seeing her reflection in the mirror lenses of

his sunglasses. From the selection of swimwear in the guest room, she