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Authors: James Scott Bell

Tags: #Mystery, #Suspense, #Array

Deceived (8 page)

BOOK: Deceived
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“My husband . . .”

Husband! Ted squeezed the phone.
Just my luck. The good ones are
always taken. All right
,
you’re still here
,
impress her anyway.
“What about your husband?” Ted said.

“Down . . . there.” She waved her hand. “I think he’s dead.”

A chill ran the length of Ted’s sweaty body. Now this was serious. No more thinking about her and you or any other absurd fantasy of being some cowboy.

Take command.

“Wait here,” he said, surprised and pleased with his authoritative tone. His father used to tell him you had to lead, follow, or get out of the way. Ted had spent most of his career doing the last two. When he tried to lead, it ended in disaster. He was not a lead dog.

Right now he was.

He walked toward where she had pointed. As he did, he punched 911. He told dispatch, in a firm but calm voice — he was in control now, all would be well — where they were and that someone was injured and possibly dead.

Finishing the call, he found himself looking down a steep dropoff at the still body below.

He paused and thought about waiting for help to arrive. But he had come this far. He was at least doing something. This time he wasn’t going to blow it. “Fat, fired, and forty” was not going to be his epitaph.

Edging down the rocks slowly, almost stumbling once, Ted kept eyeing the body for movement. Nothing. The poor guy had to be dead. The woman’s husband. Tragic. He was participating in a real, honest-to- goodness tragedy here.

At least it was out of the ordinary. That alone made this an experience worth having. He felt alive in a strange and exhilarating way.

The blonde woman with the head gash was so vulnerable. If he could find a way to comfort her . . .

He didn’t get too close to the body. This was a crime scene. He’d seen enough TV to know you don’t mess with a crime scene. You don’t touch anything. You don’t want the cops chewing your rear because you blundered all over the evidence. He did look for a sign of breathing or movement. There was none. The sun had baked the blood around the man’s head into a dark gel.

He backed away, almost retracing his exact steps. Started up the hill.

She’ll need me, he thought. She’ll need someone to tell her everything will work out, to just stay calm.

He was glad he’d dropped three pounds over the last two months. What he lacked, he always knew, was motivation. She could be his motivation.

He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want to think of her the way he was thinking of her, not yet anyway, but he just couldn’t help himself.

She wasn’t exactly beautiful, not in a movie-star way, but she had this kind of hot quality that just poured out of her. Even with that ugly gash on her head. Maybe because of it.

“They’ll be here soon, I know it,” Ted said.

The girl said nothing, just nodded. Her eyes looked dazed.

They both sat on the ground, the sun dropping fast now. It would be dusk soon, then dark. Ted pictured them sitting by a fire all through the night. Maybe she’d put her head on his chest and he’d hold her and comfort her.

“Can you tell me your name?” he asked.

She looked at him. Her eyes were blue, like a Kansas sky. “Liz,” she said.

“I’m Ted,” he said. “Ted Gillespie. I’ll stay right with you until they come.”

“My husband . . .” She left a lilt on the end, like she was asking a question.

“I’m afraid that . . .” How do you break this kind of news?

“Afraid what? Tell me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Tell me!”

“You’ve got to be strong,” he said. This is just what Walker, Texas Ranger, would have told her. “Your husband, he’s . . .” He found he couldn’t complete the thought.

But the expression on her face told him he didn’t have to.

“And now we’ve got to take care of you,” Ted said. “Got to make sure you get better.”

She said nothing. Looked like she was in shock.

Now what? Where was the script? Ted felt like a crab out of water, clacking blindly around the deck. Maybe if he kept talking —

“I just happened to be walking, see, and maybe it’s one of those things that’s meant to be. For me to get you help. I don’t know how things happen or why things happen,” —
If there’s a God
,
help me
now!
— “but things do happen, and there’s a reason. I’m just glad to be here to help.”

She still said nothing. She was holding her knees now and resting her head on top of them.

“I’m a computer guy,” he said. “Used to work for AIG, Blue Cross, some other big companies. I’m on my own now. Always wanted to start up my own consulting group. You?”

He felt stupid trying to draw her out like this. But he had to do something. Sitting in silence wasn’t acceptable. Whenever he did that, he had the feeling people were watching him, judging him.

“I can’t talk now,” she said.

Idiot!
“That’s okay. That’s really okay. I didn’t mean — ”

“I know. Thank you. Just thank you for being here.”

So silence it was, but he didn’t feel judged at all. She was grateful.

He was grateful, too. There
was
a God.

Why wasn’t Arty answering or returning her calls?

Rocky snapped her phone shut and breathed a small curse. She needed money, and Arty had always been good for a loan, because she always paid him back. She always managed to find more work. She always scraped by.

Sure, there were plenty of lean times. Like now. The past year had been the worst so far. But Arty was always there to help. Even though they hadn’t been as close in recent years, Arty was the rock of the family.

Older by two years, Arty had been her protector when they were kids. If he ever heard anybody making fun of her face, he went after the kid like the Tasmanian Devil in those cartoons.

It didn’t matter if the kid was older. She remembered when one eighth grader, a big kid who played on the flag football team at Arty’s school, called her “freak face.” It was summer and she and Arty were walking back from the park. Arty was teaching her how to play softball. She must have been ten at the time.

It was a hot day, and they stopped at the 7-Eleven. Arty bought them both Slurpees. As they were walking out, the big kid came in with a skinny friend and almost bumped into them.

The big kid said, “Watch it,” and then threw in a word Rocky thought only applied to a mean woman. But the kid had called Arty that.

Arty said, “You watch it.”

The big kid looked down and sneered, then looked at Rocky. “You and freak face better get out of here,” he said.

At which point Arty shoved his Slurpee into the kid’s face. Before the kid could even sputter, Arty was all over him, getting him in a headlock, pulling him to the ground, pummeling him with both hands.

The skinny kid just stood there, like he was watching two dogs fight and was afraid to get bit.

The man behind the counter shouted something that sounded like, “You stop that!” and ran around to pull Arty off. Arty wouldn’t be pulled. He kept the fists flying. Another man, who had been browsing the magazine rack, came over to help. The two men finally subdued Arty.

The big kid was crying. “You’re dead!” he said through sobs.

But Rocky couldn’t remember ever seeing the kid again.

She did remember Arty walking her home and not saying anything about it, except that the kid shouldn’t have told him to watch it. What he didn’t say but that she knew to be true, was that he had done it for her.

She wished they’d been closer these last few years, but there was that woman in the way. The one he was blind about.

Liz. Elizabeth. Little Southern Belle. The way she’d squeak her voice, as if she could twist any man around her little finger. It drove Rocky crazy.

Liz, the woman who had come between her and Arty.

Jealousy was probably a factor, too. Rocky hated to admit it, but she felt it and it was strong.

Geena came back in with hot tea. “You know what I feel like?” she asked.

Rocky said, “Tell me.”

“I feel lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Yes.”

“As in going out and buying lottery tickets?”

Geena looked dead serious. “Aligned with the right spheres,” she said. “And if you stick close to me, it could rub off. We’ll go to the Mashed Potato, and you’ll get lucky.”

Rocky picked up a teacup. “You want to my philosophy of luck? It’s all random. Arbitrary. It’s like Darwin said.”

“The evolution guy?”

“It’s all a roll of the dice,” Rocky said. “Mutations happen by pure chance. You get dealt a hand, and you can’t draw any more cards.”

“But we have the power to change our lives,” Geena said. “Through visualization and — ”

“You think visualization changes anything? You think the woman on the freeway who gets taken out by a drunk driver could have changed that by putting a different picture in her mind?”

Geena said nothing.

Rocky shook her head. “Random,” she said and raised her cup. “Cheers.”

5:17 p.m.

“Are you feeling well enough to give us a statement?” the young deputy sheriff asked. He was tall and lanky. His uniform hung loose on his frame.

“I don’t know,” Liz said. She held her head, now with a large bandage on it. The medics were just pulling out of the small lot at the entrance to Pack Park. They had her sitting on a hard bench, and her head was absolutely splitting.

She really didn’t know if she could talk.

But she was glad this guy, this hiker, happened along. A lucky break, really. He would make a nice witness to her distress. He seemed just the sort of guy you’d want at a time like this.

He was a bit pudgy, hair thinning, didn’t have a wedding band. He wasn’t going to be dating any models. And judging from the way he talked, a little too eager to please. He was definitely of the malleable variety of male. A doofus.

Liz knew all about that kind. When she’d first arrived in LA, she found one early on. Went hunting for just the right one and found the hunting grounds — Beverly Hills, to be exact — teeming with possibilities.

Her head really hurt, though. The things you have to do.

The doofus — What was his name? Ted? — talked in the way doofuses do. A little too fast, a little too much. She filed that information away. Maybe he’d do other things for her.

“Maybe you should talk to her tomorrow,” Ted said to the deputy. He had refused to leave her side. Liz got the impression the deputy was annoyed.

“If I can just get a few facts out of the way,” the deputy said. Liz thought he looked a little like Christian Bale. Not bad.

“I don’t think — ” Ted started to say.

“It’s all right,” Liz said. “Let’s just get it over with.”

The deputy had a clipboard box with a form on top and was ready to write. There was ample illumination from a light post near the bench.

“Can you just tell me, briefly, what happened to you and your husband?” he asked.

“We were hiking,” Liz said. “And we fell. Really, I was falling and Arty tried to . . .” Liz put a sob in her throat.

“Just take your time, ma’am.”

Ma’am?
She didn’t like being called that. Not one bit.
Ma’am
was what you called the old frump in the checkout line, rifling through her coupons.

“How did you fall?” the deputy asked.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t watching where I was going. I was being kind of reckless. I don’t know why. I was just happy to be outside on a hike with my husband. He was always so serious about things. Always so serious . . .”

She choked her words off again.

“Is this necessary?” Ted said.

“Please, sir,” the deputy said. “If she doesn’t want to go on — ”

“No,” Liz said. “I have to. For Arty. You have to know what kind of man he was. I slipped over the edge and he reached for me. I reached for him and grabbed his shirt. But he wasn’t balanced, I guess, and he went down. Over me.”

She cleared her throat.

“You’re doing good,” Ted said.

Liz nodded. “I went after him. I hit my head and blacked out, I guess. Oh Arty!”

She put her head in her hands.

“Let me,” Ted said. “Take my statement now.”

The deputy paused, nodded.

“I was hiking along and enjoying myself when I heard this woman, Ms. Towne, call for help. I saw her on the trail and saw she was hurt and called 911. I had her sit and wait and went to see about the guy. I climbed down and saw he was dead. I just can’t tell you how strong she’s trying to be.”

“I can see that,” the deputy said.

“I want to be with Arty,” Liz said. “We can’t leave him there.”

“No, ma’am. They’re sending a team to get him. We’ll take it from here.”

Liz jumped up from the bench and started walking back toward the hills.

“Ma’am?” the deputy said.

Liz cried, “Arty!”

6:42 p.m.

Mac thought he’d take a chance and catch Arty at home. He had left three voice mails but still wasn’t getting a call back.

Maybe there was something wrong with the phone.

Or maybe there was something wrong at the house.

It was no secret to anyone at church that Arty’s wife was not exactly down with his Christianity. She’d shown up with him at a couple of Sunday afternoon potlucks and was nice enough. But she was obviously strained.

BOOK: Deceived
8.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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