Night Tides (15 page)

She saved her work, then switched over to the Internet.
The Lady of the Lakes
, curiously, said nothing about Ling Hu. That struck her as odd; how could a person or group know about every cat stuck in a tree and yet
not
know about this? Did he/she/they just not care? Was it a racial or political thing, because the victim was Chinese?

This lapse was a clue, she realized, to the identity of the mysterious blogger. She made a note in the special file she kept, one more tidbit that would, someday, allow Julie to unmask this erstwhile Lady. Then her phone rang with the first of many returned calls.

L
ATER
,
AS SHE
stood on State Street, Rachel wondered what would really qualify as “weirdness.” She was exhausted after last night’s adventures and really should be at home, resting and dealing with the vandalism, instead of standing downtown in the summer heat. She certainly shouldn’t be wearing a vaguely provocative spaghetti-strap top, a tight khaki skirt, and high-heeled open-toed shoes. And she definitely didn’t need the splash of red lipstick that, she knew from experience, accented her mouth in a way that made most men a little nervous. Yet here she was, gazing at the tasteful sign that said
Walker Construction
, while Helena and Jimmy prepared for the lunch crowd and got the estimate to replace the damaged dry-erase wallboards and the ripped-out stool. Some boss she was.

She could’ve just
called
Ethan, of course. His cell-phone number was on the card Marty gave her. That would’ve been enough for most people. But something in her practically screamed to be in his presence again, and she figured that during the middle of the day, in public, would be the best way to keep from making a fool of herself. Well, a
bigger
fool.

She went inside and took the stairs instead of the elevator. When she emerged onto the third floor, she easily found the right door. She opened it and saw a sparse office suite with a young Indian woman at the receptionist desk.

The woman looked up and blinked with slow, dramatic disdain; obviously she felt Rachel was in the wrong place and the distraction annoyed her. She said, “May I help you?” but for a moment it wasn’t clear if she was speaking to Rachel or into her headset mouthpiece. After a moment she added, “Yes, miss, you standing right there.”

“I’m looking for Ethan Walker,” Rachel said.

“He’s not in at the moment. May I take a message?”

What message could she leave?
Came by your office to see if I still get weak-kneed at the sight of you?
“No, thanks, I’ll try back later.”

“He won’t be in the office at all today,” the receptionist said.

“Thanks,” Rachel said, and turned on her heel. When she got to the stairs again, she stopped, leaned against the rail, and took several deep breaths, surprised at how nervous she had been. What did she expect to happen? That he’d appear, throw her across the nearest desk, and act out the fantasy that kept replaying in her mind?

A sudden wave of weariness made her sit on the top step and lean against the painted concrete wall. She licked her lips, tasting salt from sweat unrelated to temperature. Then she dialed the cell-phone number on the business card.

It rang twice before a confident masculine voice said, “Ethan Walker here.”

“Is this Ethan Walker?” Rachel asked before she could stop herself.

He chuckled. Some sort of engine rumbled in the background, and voices shouted in Spanish over it. “Yes. And who’s this?”

Grateful that he could not see her blush, she said with extra dignity, “This is Rachel Matre.”

“I’m sorry, there’s a lot of machinery here. Who?”

“Rachel… Matre,” she repeated, her voice echoing in the stairwell. “I own Rachel’s Diner, off Willie Street.”

There was a long pause, during which she heard more Spanish and the sound of metal pounding on metal. Finally Ethan said stiffly, “What can I do for you, Ms. Matre?”

“Uh, actually, I thought I could do something for you.”

Did she imagine the little catch in his voice when he asked, “And what’s that?”

“Buy you lunch.”

“At your diner?”

“Well, that’s an idea, but I’m in the stairwell of your office building downtown, so it might be closer, and maybe better, if we meet on neutral ground.”

Again the silence and the noise of whatever construction he was supervising. Then he said, “Yeah, okay. Do you know where the Angelic Cannery is?”

“On Johnson Street?”

“That’s it.”

She looked at her watch. “I can be there in five minutes.”

“It’ll take me thirty.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

She snapped the phone closed and put it back in her purse. She was breathing quickly and shallowly all of a sudden. There was no way this could go well; at most she would end up with a clear conscience, knowing that she had tried and could therefore look Marty Walker in the eye when he asked what happened. Besides, she was certain Ethan Walker didn’t date women like her. His type was probably blond, professional, with an immaculate ward robe and a solid golf swing.

Someone like that
Cap Jo
reporter, she bet.

E
THAN STARED
at the phone in his hand. Had that just happened? He opened it again and pulled up the recent calls. Sure enough, there it was. She
had
called him, and they
had made
a lunch date. Son of a gun.

He ran a hand through his hair. He’d committed himself without thinking it through and suddenly felt both foolish and, inexplicably, afraid.

His foreman, Richie, stopped a few feet away. “You all right? Did you get some bad news?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I’m okay. I just… I have a meeting downtown in half an hour. I’ll be back around two. Keep things moving, will you?”

“As if you were an angel on my shoulder,” Richie assured him.

F
AITH
L
UCAS
and Carrie Kimmell looked silently at each other over their duct-tape gags. The basement was sweltering again, and the dim light that filtered around the edges of the tiny blacked-out window allowed them to just make each other out. Both women were exhausted, thirsty, and starved, and their bodies burned with pain. Their captor would bring them water soon and maybe another handful of saltines, just enough to keep them alive. But their thoughts were entirely focused on the fate of the Asian girl who’d been taken away and had not returned.

Faith sat with her bare shoulders against the wall. Her wrists were raw, and she felt blood trickle from the furrows cut into them by the handcuff ties. The slippery lotion smeared on her skin made her thighs slide together, but the pain there was so insistent that she sat awkwardly bowlegged, her tied ankles crossed. She slowly worked her hands back and forth, gasping behind the duct-tape gag whenever the plastic strip worked into a sore spot. She was no longer terrified, she was simply numb, her feeble escape attempts now a mere reflex. The plastic would not break; she would not escape.

Suddenly the basement door banged open. Both girls jumped, and Carrie inchwormed back against the wall, her shoulder against Faith’s. Their captor stood in the door, breathing heavily, and clearly alone. There was no sign of the Asian girl taken away the previous evening or the bottles of water they’d been expecting. Instead, the hand that pointed at Carrie trembled with either weariness or fear. “Now. You.”

Faith sighed with relief. Carrie began to cry.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

W
HY DID SHE HAVE
to wear that skirt?
Ethan thought as he stepped into the air-conditioned restaurant. Those exquisite legs as she rose from the bench beside the door made his own knees wobble. And, worse, the cold air had the usual effect it did on women’s nipples, and he had to force his eyes to remain above her neck. “Ms. Matre,” he said with a smile, feeling unaccountably like he had on his first date back in junior high. Christ, he thought, should he have brought her a corsage?

R
ACHEL’S STOMACH
did flips as she stood. He was silhouetted in the doorway like a chiseled statue, and as he moved into the amber-tinted interior light, his skin seemed bronze. Again she realized how young he was; he couldn’t yet be thirty. Was she metaphorically robbing the cradle, or at least the middle school?

When he touched her hand, she got a sudden intimate tingle that almost choked her voice. This was no little boy. “Call me Rachel,” she said, glad the shiver hadn’t reached her throat.

They followed the greeter to a table in the back, near the glass wall that displayed the huge beer vats. Ethan tried to hold her chair for her, but it was so unexpected that she ended up knocking it to the floor, where its crash echoed through the restaurant. Blushing, glad for the dim lighting, she picked it up and sat.

“Sorry,” Ethan said as he took his seat opposite her. “Habit.”

“It’s a nice habit,” she said too quickly. “It’s just something I don’t get very often.”

The waitress brought menus and water. Rachel’s mouth was dry, so she drank most of hers in one swallow. She ordered a beer; Ethan requested a martini, extra wet. “I have to go back to work later,” he explained. “You know all those warnings about operating heavy equipment? They’re there for a reason.”

After both had ordered their meals, Ethan said, “First things first. I apologize for last night. I just… I was out, you crossed my mind, and I drove by the diner to just… I don’t know. I didn’t realize you lived there too.” He spread his hands helplessly and smiled.

“I’ve had some bad experiences with men being a little too pushy, so I’m probably oversensitive. If I’d come outside and said something to you at the time, we could’ve cleared it up without the police.” She took a deep breath. “And now it’s my turn. I’m sorry for throwing you out the other day. That was an overreaction. You meant well, and no harm was done.”

“Thank you,” he said with a nod.

They sat in awkward silence until Rachel finally said, “So you’re in construction?”

He nodded. “It’s a small company, but we’ve gotten some nice contracts. Condos around the lakes and such. Might lead to bigger and better things.”

“Are things that are bigger necessarily better?” Im mediately she winced at her choice of words, but he seemed not to notice.

He said, “No, I don’t think size is the
only
criteria for something’s value.”

“I’ve seen a lot of beautiful property replaced by things that were bigger and heard all the reasons it was better. I’m not convinced. The old battery factory needs to be torn down, but God only knows what they’ll replace it with. More of your condos, probably. Homes to keep people from ever having to meet their neighbors.”

He kept his tone light. “Well, everyone’s idea of beauty is different, I suppose.”

She leaned slightly toward him, her eyes intent. She tried to keep her tone from growing shrill, but this was an issue she had strong feelings about. “Beauty? You call those new McBuildings beautiful? If we’re not careful, everyplace will look like everyplace else. If I see one more Walgreens go up where something original and special used to be, I’ll turn corporate terrorist.”

He sat back, reacting to her intensity. After a moment he said lightly, “Good thing I don’t build Walgreens, then.”

“I know, but you do
build
. Whether there’s a need for it or not.”

“If you’re going to start by ripping me a new one over my chosen career, then we won’t have much to talk about,” he pointed out.

She paused, then smiled and looked down. “I suppose you’re right. I actually
do
have manners, I promise.” She looked back up, tossing her head to get a stray curl from her eyes. “So, to be fair, is there anything you want to get off your chest about diners?”

“No, I generally approve of them.” He paused, then added, “And the beautiful women who run them.”

Their eyes met. A long moment passed before they simultaneously looked away.

Finally Rachel said, “And own them.”

“And own them,” he agreed.

She smiled. “Thank you.”

He drank from his martini. “I guess it’s not really news if I say that I find you very attractive and would like to get to know you better.”

“No, I’ve caught on to that,” she said coolly, hiding all the volcanoes erupting within her.

“How do you feel about it?”

She took a swallow of her beer. “I guess… well, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t also been thinking about you.”

“So it’s mutual?”

“It is.”

He smiled.

“But I should warn you, I don’t have a great history with relationships.”

“With men in general, or just builders?”

“Oh, it’s everyone. I was married once, and that ended badly. I haven’t really dated much, because I tend to attract—no offense—men who want to turn me into something else. And I have a lot of other… issues.”
To put it mildly
, she thought.

“I’ve hit some relationship speed bumps too,” he said. He might’ve turned red as well, but she couldn’t tell in the uncertain light. “I think the trick is to start slowly and make sure we don’t cross any lines prematurely.”

She nodded. “Okay. So how do we start?” Her body knew exactly how it wanted to start, and finish as well. But she kept that to herself.

He thought for a minute, in that exaggerated way that meant he already knew the answer. “Why don’t we try dinner tonight and then see what happens?”

She looked at him closely, suddenly seeing things she’d missed. He was physically big and had the confidence that went with that, but there was also something quieter, an assurance that came from self-knowledge more than any external source. He was who he was, and he was content with that. There was none of the self-pity the other men in her life had worn like a badge. The realization was almost like a breeze on a hot day.

“Why don’t we, then?” she said at last, and smiled.

T
HE BOY WAS
looking for a quiet, shaded place to study for his upcoming physics test. He left the park’s worn path and climbed down the bank to where the big gray rocks marked the shoreline of Lake Monona on the isthmus’s southern edge. The century-old oaks blocked the sun, and the only sound was the irregular slap of the waves. He found a comfortable spot, kicked off his sandals, and prepared to open his laptop.

Then he noticed the clothes.

Jeans, shoes, socks, bra, and sleeveless T-shirt. No panties. The boy, an avid reader of
The Lady of the Lakes
blog, immediately suspected what he’d found and called 911 on his cell phone. Thanks to the driver’s license and debit card tucked into a pocket, the police quickly determined that the clothes’ owner was, or had been, Patty Patilia. She had last been seen leaving her nearby apartment three hours earlier. She’d been snatched in broad daylight barely four blocks from the state capitol.