Red Ochre Falls (27 page)

“Oh, so now I’m the
sidekick?”

“Hey, at least
you’re in the game,” I joked back, which got a laugh out of him. Bringing
someone strong like Garrett might be the only way the Sultan would let me live
long enough to question him.

“Will you
reconsider?” Cal asked.

“I don’t think we
have a choice.” I told him. “Sultan’s guys came for the key. Let’s give it to
them, and see if we can get some answers.”

“Sultan’s guys
didn’t hurt her when they came for the key,” Garrett added. “I guess that’s a
good sign.”

“You still need to
be careful,” Cal warned. “I’m not letting you two go alone. I’ll be there when
you go in, and waiting to make sure you both come out alive.”

We didn’t argue
with Cal. Knowing he’d be there reassured me. This might actually work.

“Now, what about
Ruggiano? He wants the key too,” Cal said.

I thought about how
to appease Ruggiano. “Maybe we can give them both what they want. I’ll call
Chloe’s mom and see if she’s got a copy.”

“Okay, but why
would they need a key when they could just break in?” It sounded strange to
hear Cal talk about breaking the law, but he made a good point.

Someone, probably
Sultan or Ruggiano, had already broken into her apartment. Why did these guys
both still want the key? Maybe there was a third party who had broken in, I
didn’t know, but we had to find out. My head ran in circles then started
thumping. I rubbed my temples trying to make the ache go away.

“Mattie,” Garrett
said. “You need to rest.

He was right, but
it didn’t make me happy to have to lie down in the middle of all this.

I’d have to tell Cal
about Tess later. Garrett and Cal went next door to talk things over and I
reluctantly went to bed.
 

My head throbbed
until exhaustion won out. Then I felt nothing.

CHAPTER 23

Later that night I had the strangest dream. The native man I’d seen
dusting bodies in the field before was standing near a bunch of slot machines
this time. He picked up a bucket and poured rust colored paint over one of the
machines. I reached out to touch the cool, wet paint as it flowed over the
machines.

The man did it
over, and over again, until the one-armed bandits looked like they were
melting. He said something in another language right before the machines
exploded. I ducked as millions of coins and bits flew past. The man noticed me,
but didn’t speak. He bent down and scooped up some pieces. They fell through
his hands, but changed into a waterfall.

Water flowed into a
lake beneath the man’s feet. He shifted and showed me one remaining piece. It looked
like Chloe’s key. The man closed it in his hands, then cupped his hand over
mine, and gave it to me. When I looked down, I didn’t see the key, only the
keychain. It broke apart and red ochre oozed from it. Before I could ask the
man anything, I was jolted awake by a noise.

Only bits of dream
remained when I sat up, so I curled back up and tried to get comfortable. I
couldn’t sleep. It didn’t help that I had a gut full of food. Could my strange
dream have been triggered by indigestion?

The left side of my
head hurt, so I took a couple Tylenol, drank some water, and went back to bed.
Around three o’clock my eyes popped open again. I lay there a while.

A small red light
on the TV caught my attention, then I timed a green smoke detector light
blinking every seven seconds. I observed vertical lines thrown against the wall
a few feet away with each repetitive flash. On. Off. On. Off. Then I dozed.

When the digital
clock read 5:39 am, I had to get up. My ears buzzed and my body vibrated like
I’d been on a bender—only I hadn’t. Unless you counted last night’s
banquet.

I’d worked through
worse, so I got up and grabbed a shower. I needed the water to massage the
places that hurt, too many to count. There were a few even the water couldn’t
reach. Still, the heat pelted my shoulders and helped wake me up.

I pulled my hair
back, but tried to add some volume by blasting it with the hair dryer and hair
spray. Although I felt kind of big-hair-country when it was finished, it looked
pretty good.

I opened the curtains
as soon as I was dressed. Dew coated everything—cars, blades of grass,
lampposts, even the corner of my window. I pulled a sweatshirt on over my jeans
and t-shirt, noticed a cloudy film on the in-room coffeemaker, and wished for a
gourmet breakfast. I checked my phone for messages, texted mom and Jos, and
watched the sun come up over the horizon.

Color flooded the
sky and it hit me. I rushed to my messenger bag. Where was the key, I wondered?
I shuffled through everything until I found it. My eyes scanned the keychain
until I figured out our next move.

I threw the rest of
my clothes in my bag, and double-checked the room for stuff I might have
missed. When I felt confident everything I’d brought was going home with me, I
rushed to the pass through door.

Garrett opened it
before I even knocked. He held out a coffee cup. “Thought you might need this,”
he said, without passing judgment, and completely overlooking my zombie eyes
and ten-foot hair.

“Thanks.” I took
the cup. “I needed this. Couldn’t get much sleep last night, which would have
really bugged me except I think the tossing and turning might have shook
something loose.”

“Really? Want to
fill me in on the details?”

“Yes. But we need
to make a stop on the way home.” I tipped the cup and felt the sweet, hot
coffee warm me as it went down.

Garrett looked me
over as if deciding just how crazy I was today, but just smiled. Good, he’s
getting used to me, I thought, and we left.

It didn’t take much
convincing for him to let me drive his car. He was surprisingly comfortable
handing over his keys considering his Maserati was worth more than some
people’s homes. I revved it to hear the engine grumble. Man, I could get used
this, I thought then hit the gas.

We pulled up to one
of the ritziest places ever built. Someone answered the speaker at the gate. I
gave them my name, and they buzzed us in. Beyond the wrought iron, we travelled
over the meandering brick paver drive with inset designs and a decorative
border. It looked like a piece of art, same with the impeccably maintained
landscape.

We parked at the
top of the wrap-around driveway. A doorman opened more iron gates and let us
inside the front doors.

The house had high
ceilings, like over fifteen feet high, a double curved staircase, and luxurious
appointments.

Our host dressed in
a brown mohair sweater and cream pants reached out to hug me.

“Thanks for meeting
us Mrs. Ellis,” I said. “You remember Garrett McKenzie?”

“Yes, nice to see
you both. You mentioned time was of the essence. Let’s head upstairs.”

Mrs. Ellis walked
us up the elegant staircase capped with polished rails as big as joists. We
turned toward Chloe’s room. It had been five years since my last visit, but
some things never change.

Her room was posh. Light
turquoise covered the walls, and the large furniture was decked with white
mohair throws and fluffy pillows. I nodded to Mrs. E, then went to the closet
and dug around. Past the shoes, boots and bags were some brown boxes. One of
them had LEGO SETS written on it. I pulled the box out and set it on her desk.

I lifted the lid
off. Underneath some brick sets, she’d hidden a couple files. There were photos
of a black-tie event, maps of pipelines, and notes about oil and gas usage.
Underneath the files she’d left a notebook with numbers and the word
‘Enlightenment’ written on the inside cover. I pulled out the paper with the
date from the photo on Chloe’s desk. Under it, we found Chloe’s laptop.

Chloe had been
super paranoid in undergrad. She made back-ups of her back-ups because she lost
a term paper—once. We came here, back when she was alive, and I
remembered she stored one of her copies at home. I thought she meant a hard
copy of some term paper, which she had, but she also kept a back-up library—on
a back-up computer.

I fired up the
computer then got out the keychain. I searched the LEGOs for the duplicate,
which looked slightly different than the one I had.

I popped it apart
to reveal a flash drive. It took a couple tries to realize Chloe had left the
password ‘enlightenment’ in plain sight. I was able to unlock her laptop and
find the file Chloe meant me to see. It was a land contract listed under a
Michigan address. The same one on the paper Tom Clark gave me at her funeral.

When I double
clicked the file, a list of names and dates came up. We’d have to figure out
what they meant, but it was time to get to the Ruggiano hand-off.

“Mind if we take
the whole box?”

“Sure, Mattie. What
is all this about?” Mrs. Ellis questioned.

“Chloe went to a
lot of trouble to hide this information. I think she was killed for it. I’m
sorry, Mrs. E. I don’t know much more than that. We have to go.”

Mrs. Ellis looked
shocked. We couldn’t stay and explain, so I hugged her and started for the
door.

“Oh, do you have
the spare key?” It was vital to have it if we were going to give one to
Ruggiano, and one to Sultan.

She nodded and
pulled a key out of her pocket. She held my hand before she let the key go. “Be
careful, Mattie. This isn’t worth your life, too.”

I reassured her
we’d do our best, and we hustled out of there.

CHAPTER 24

Now that we had a duplicate key and key ring, we could pass off the one
without the flash drive and files to Ruggiano’s crew. But we’d have to get
there first.

Good thing we
weren’t in my old beater, or we wouldn’t have made it in time. As it happened,
we almost missed the meeting.

He was an imposing
figure, but I knew there were vulnerable places I could kick him if things got desperate.
And if I had trouble, Garrett was nearby.

Thor didn’t speak.
He just held out his hand.

“Here you go.” I
dropped the key into his hand.

He looked at the
key. Then nodded to me, and left.

Well, that
wasn’t so scary
, I thought.

“We’ll be in touch,”
he said over his shoulder.

So much for being
off the hook.

When I got back to
the car, Garrett asked me how it went.

“I gave him the
key. He said they’d be in touch.”

Garrett eyed me,
knowing I’d said it too casually.

“What?”

“This was only to
buy time.”

“I was kind of
hoping we were done with Ruggiano.”

“If Ruggiano
doesn’t find what he wants, he’ll be back. And even if he does, he might come
back anyway. Just to toy with you.”

I shuddered.

“Let’s head home.
We’ll see if we can pull something off the drive and laptop.”

We still had the
back-up keychain with the flash drive. We planned to set up a meeting with
Sultan under the guise of giving him the key dark-haired Zorro came to get.

I sort of spaced
out running through scenarios for our next exchange. Once we pulled the data
off the flash drive, we’d scrub it. I figured we’d add some dummy files back
onto it, in case Sultan’s crew checked the drive out during the exchange.
Hopefully, giving him something would convince Sultan to share information
about Chloe’s case. I just hoped Ruggiano wasn’t looking for anything more than
the key, or else he and the twins would be paying another visit.

When I got outside
of my own head, I glanced at Garrett. His eyes faced forward and he stayed
quiet. Maybe he was working things out in his head, too.

It wasn’t long
after looking at him that I abandoned problem solving. There was a lot the two
of us needed to work out. There was definitely chemistry between us. But did we
want a relationship? What would happen if we tried being a couple and it didn’t
work? I worried about mom if things got messy between Garrett and me. I sighed.
There wasn’t anything I could do about it right now.

We remained quiet
the rest of the ride and sorted through theories and feelings.

Although, I enjoyed
more personal freedom while mom was gone, I had missed her. I was concerned
about her health; concerned about people threatening me; and I really needed
some motherly advice. So much was happening, I was glad she was coming home.
But I freaked out seeing Aunt Eileen’s sedan parked in the lot.

What would mom say
when she saw my bruised face? What would mom say when she saw me with Garrett?
These things worried me. On top of all that, we still had a killer to catch.

Garrett helped me
out of the car. He paused before he closed my door. His deep blue eyes surveyed
me.

“Don’t worry,” he
said, and gave my hand a squeeze. “This is a lot to process. Your mom’s going
to ask questions. If you need help explaining, or time before we tell her
what’s going on between us, let me know. We can do whatever you want.”

Between us. I liked
the sound of it. But I had my doubts about rushing in and telling mom, “Hey, I
know you were only gone a few days, but Garrett and I are a thing now.” How
would it sound? Would she be angry? Would it hurt our living arrangement? My
left eye started to twitch running through the scenarios.

I wanted to be
honest, but this was not the time to tell mom everything. She’d have enough
questions about my accident. Garrett made a good point about waiting.

“Let’s not wait too
long, though.” Garrett leaned near me to shut the door. “It’s killing me not to
kiss you right now.” His lips grazed my cheek. From behind, it probably looked
innocent, like he moved to close the door. But the heat from his movements told
me otherwise.

Warmth faded as we
walked inside expecting to see mom. Pangs of guilt intensified the pain of my
episode with Ruggiano. My knees began to buckle. Garrett propped me up just as
we opened the office door.

It was a full
house—with some surprise guests.

“Mattie,” Derek
rushed up and hugged me, even before my own mother. Everyone stared. “I was so
worried about you—”

Before he could say
anything else, I started yammering. “It’s nothing. Really. An accident at the
farm…fell off a wagon,” I laughed hysterically. “Wow, didn’t actually think
about that before I said it.” Truth was, I hadn’t thought about any of it, I
just wanted to fill space, so no one would have a chance to ask questions.
Unfortunately, my response drew suspicious looks.

“She’s okay. Doctor
cleared her for most activities,” Garrett said.
 

My mom gave me a
huge hug. It was so good to see her again.

“I missed you,
mom.”

“I missed you too,
sweetie.”

Hank told a joke to
ease us through the public homecoming. The conversation shifted, and I felt we
were safely past the questions, at least for now. Mom looked better. The blush
in her cheeks made her look happy. A good dose of family bonding must have done
wonders. We laughed when Hank said his punch line. Derek hung around until mom
decided to head upstairs. Then he tried to say good-bye, but couldn’t quite
leave.

“If it’s okay,”
Garrett spoke. “I’d like to review some information with Mattie.”

Mom nodded. Aunt
Eileen grabbed her bag and helped her upstairs. This left Hank, Derek, Garrett
and me in the office.

Hank made an excuse
to leave—something about seeing a man about a casket. Then there were
three.

As soon as Hank was
out of the office, Garrett ushered Derek toward the door. Derek turned back,
rushed over, and kissed me quickly.

“I was really
worried,” he said, eager for a response.

I stood there
dumbfounded. Although he seemed like a nice guy, Derek had the wrong idea about
us. It was hard to figure out what to say to him, and I could feel Garrett
getting angry.

“Are you afraid of
what he’ll think?” Derek asked me.

My brain hadn’t
formed the words yet. “What? Who?”

“Garrett. Are you
afraid of what he’ll think about our kiss?” Derek dropped it like a lead
balloon, on all of us. I hadn’t told Garrett about the kiss because I thought
it was mostly one-sided, and wouldn’t go any further. And because I was afraid
of Garrett’s reaction. Some part of me also felt IT’s NOBODY’S BUSINESS!

Now, Derek had gone
and spilled the beans, making it appear as if we had something going on, when
we didn’t. It was a sweet kiss. I didn’t know if it there was anything else to
it, but it hadn’t compared to kissing Garrett.

“You don’t mind if
Mattie sees me, do you Garrett?” I turned all sorts of red, and was about to
stop Derek’s nonsense when Garrett spoke.

“If it’s what
Mattie wants.”

I was ready to
shoot my mouth off about making my own choices, but only stuttered a few words.
Garrett left us alone in the hallway.

Derek seemed
pleased before he saw the anger on my face. “What’s wrong?”

“You had no right
telling him we kissed—you kissed me! I don’t know where you got the idea
we’re dating, but we aren’t. Furthermore, if I’m going to be with anyone, it’ll
be a guy who doesn’t try to railroad me for show.”

“I’m sorry. I
thought you felt something when we kissed the other night.”

“I didn’t. Now,
stop talking about it.”

“Are you sure there
wasn’t something there?”

There might have
been something, but I didn’t want to think about anyone romantically right now.
“Please, just leave.” I was irritated, and didn’t have the time or the patience
for this.

Derek’s shoulders
sank.

“Look, I’m sorry,”
it came out flat. “I’ve got too many things to figure out right now.”

He walked out onto
the stoop. I closed the door, leaned my back against the wall, and prayed for
the last fifteen minutes to disappear. But my heart still ached, so I knew it
hadn’t worked.

I’d have to figure out
how to patch things up with Garrett, and revisit whatever latent feelings were
lingering from Derek’s kiss. I walked toward the office when Aunt Eileen
stopped me.

“Are you coming up?
I hope we can visit a little before I head home.”

Nothing seemed to
be going right. My personal drama would have to wait. It would be smart to
think about what I wanted to say to Garrett before I actually said it anyway.
So, I followed Aunt Eileen upstairs. My hands lingered after I shut the door,
thinking of him.