The Bone House (24 page)

    Cab's
wine glass was empty, and his skin was numb. He turned his back on the harbor
and went inside. In the warmth of the apartment, he smelled his quiche burning,
and when he opened the oven to a cloud of smoke, he saw that his dinner was
charred and inedible. It didn't matter. He wasn't hungry anymore. He poured
more wine. More than half the bottle was gone.

    His
phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and checked the caller ID and saw that
Lala Mosqueda was calling from Florida. He was glad to have a conversation with
someone other than Vivian, and the truth was, he missed Lala. He'd felt himself
falling for her when they dated. He didn't know if their relationship would
have gone anywhere, but he hadn't wanted the risk of leaving himself
vulnerable, as he had done once before. That was why he'd pushed her away. As
usual.

    'Mosquito,'
he said automatically, and his face screwed up with self- disgust. He was doing
it again. 'Sorry. Lala.'

    'Hello,
Cab,' she replied. 'I tried you twice. Where are you?'

    'The
Arctic, I think. I'm pretty sure I saw a polar bear. Anyway, the signal comes
and goes around here. Are you still at the office?'

    'No,
I'm home.'

    'Good.
You work too hard.'

    Lala
was slow to reply. He knew she was wondering if he would sting her with a joke.
Anything to maintain their distance.

    'Yeah,
well, home's no treat. The neighbor's yipper dog is barking again, and someone
didn't take out their trash this week, and the a/c is broken, so it's like a
compost pile in the rainforest in here.'

    'Florida,'
he said.

    'Exactly.'

    'You're
welcome to stay at my place while I'm gone,' Cab suggested.

    Lala
was silent.

    'It's
right on the beach,' he added.

    'I
know,' she replied coolly.

    'I
know you know. I'm just saying. The a/c works. You could feed my fish.'

    'You
have fish?'

    'Actually,
no.'

    'Are
you drunk, Cab?' Lala asked.

    'A
little.'

    'So
what, is this a game or something?'

    'No,
I'm serious. If you want to stay there, I have a spare key in my desk. You
should do it.'

    'Thanks,'
she replied, 'but I think I'll pass. We both decided that once was enough when
it came to my staying at your place. Remember?'

    Cab
knew he deserved the reproach. He also knew it was easier to open the door to a
woman when he was a thousand miles away. 'Sure.' 'Nothing personal,' she said
with an edge.

    'No.'

    'I
called to give you an update on this end,' she told him.

    'Go
ahead.'

    He
listened to her quietness on the line. They'd both pushed too far. It had
become a sport with them, leaving bruises on the other. He half expected her to
apologize, but she didn't, and he didn't want an apology anyway. That would just
make him feel sorrier for himself.

    'You
made the right choice,' Lala said. 'Going to Door County, I mean. So far,
things are still pointing that way.'

    'You
mean Mark Bradley?'

    'Yes,
but not just him.'

    'Then
who?'

    'The
boyfriend. Troy Geier.'

    'What
about him?' Cab asked.

    'I
tracked down a girl who was at the hotel pool on Saturday night when Glory and
Troy were there. According to this girl, Glory was flirting with other boys at
the pool, right in front of Troy. I mean, it sounds like she was groping some
of them under the water. Troy flipped. He pulled Glory aside, and the two of
them went at it. The girl couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, but she
got the gist. When Troy stormed away, she said he looked like he was ready to
explode. Those were her words.'

    'Troy
didn't strike me as having the guts to stand up to anyone,' Cab said.

    'Well,
what if he woke up in the middle of the night and Glory wasn't back in their
room? We know he'd been drinking, and he was already pretty steamed at her.'

    'True
enough. Any word from the ME? Was there evidence of sexual intercourse?'

    'He
can't say yes or no,' Lala replied. 'That's the bad news. The Gulf gave her a
salt-water douche.'

    'What's
the good news?'

    'The good
news is that two of her fingers were buried in enough sand that the water
didn't wash away all the organic material. He found some skin cells, enough to
run DNA matching. Including the sample we took from Mark Bradley. We'll need to
get a swab from the boyfriend, too.'

    'I'll
work with the sheriff's department up here,' Cab told her. 'Just for the hell
of it, see if we can get a sample from the bartender. Ronnie Trask.'

    'Already
in process. Mr Trask was glad to oblige in order to clear his name.'

    'Good.
Oh, there's something else you can do for me. It looks like Glory may have been
a witness at a murder scene several years ago. Sounds bad - a husband torched
his house with his family in it. The guy's still at large. His name is Harris
Bone. Come up with everything you can on him and the fire, OK?'

    'Sure,'
Lala said. 'Is there a chance this guy was in Florida?'

    'I
don't know. Once we get a profile, let's start comparing it to hotel guests. Glory
saw someone she knew, and she got scared. If it was Bone, she had plenty of
reason to run.'

    'OK.'
She added, 'You want more good news?'

    'Definitely.'

    'I
got another call. Another witness.'

    'Tell
me someone saw Mark Bradley on the beach that night,' Cab said.

    'You
lead a charmed life,' Lala replied. 'This guy had a room on the Gulf side on
the tenth floor. He says he couldn't sleep, so he was out on his balcony in the
middle of the night smoking a cigar. He saw a man heading out to the beach from
a ground-floor room below him sometime after two thirty.'

    'Could
he identify him?'

    'No,
the man's back was to him. But he said the guy was wearing a bright yellow tank
top.'

    'Did
he see Glory, too?' Cab asked.

    'Not
exactly, but he spotted this same guy down on the beach a while later. He could
see the tank top. He couldn't make out everything at that distance, but he's
sure the man met up with a girl down there. And get this. He says the two of
them were kissing.'

    The Camry
dove into the black side door of the abandoned pickup.

    Glass
sprayed. The headlights shattered and went dark. The chassis crumpled like an
accordion, sucking up the energy of the crash in a loud, tortured twisting of
metal. The car swung into a dizzying spin but stayed upright, a mess of folded
steel. Ahead of them, hammered by the impact, the pickup rolled bottom over top
and spilled into the gully on the far side of the road.

    Inside
the car, Hilary felt her body snap forward, airborne. In the fraction of a
second before the safety belt seized across her chest, the air bag exploded at
two hundred miles an hour and began to deflate as she crushed against it. The
balloon filled her face, and then she lurched backward, tossed between the seat
and the strap like a rag doll. It was over as quickly as it began. The spin
slowed. The momentum of the car bled away, and it drifted to a stop at an angle
on the highway.

    She
heard a hiss of steam venting, but otherwise, the aftermath was oddly silent. Her
eyes were squeezed shut, and she blinked, opening them but seeing nothing.
There was a chemical smell in the car. Pieces of the shattered windshield
sprinkled into her lap like popcorn, and cold air blew through the gap and
stung the abrasions on her cheek. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the air bag
drooped over the dashboard. Outside, over the tented metal of the hood, she saw
the outline of evergreens beyond the car and a slice of night sky.

    'Hilary.'

    It
was Mark. His voice was strangled with fear and urgency. Her brain was rattled,
and she momentarily forgot how to speak.

    
'Hil.'

    'I'm
OK,' she murmured.

    'Don't
move.'

    She
heard him struggle with his door, prying it open. When he spilled on to the
road, his knees caved, and he grabbed the frame to steady himself. His shoes
kicked through metal and glass as he came around the rear of the car. He yanked
on her door, and she felt him unlock her belt, and she dissolved limply into
his arms. She clung to him as he helped her out of the destroyed chassis. Her
legs bent like rubber as they hit the ground.

    'You
have to sit down,' he said.

    She
didn't protest. They were near the shoulder, and he kept her upright for
several steps until she could sink down on to the dirt. Her legs dangled over
the ditch. Her hair was plastered over her face. He slid down next to her and
supported her back.

    Hilary
put a hand to her cheek, and it came back wet. 'I'm bleeding,' she said.

    'You
have a cut from the glass. That's all I see. How are you?'

    She
took stock of herself. 'No serious damage, I think. What about you?'

    'Same.'

    She
eyed the remains of the Camry, which was twisted into an unrecognizable heap
almost to the windshield. On the other side of the highway, she saw the
upside-down wheels of the pickup jutting out of the ditch.

    'God,
Hil, I'm so sorry,' he told her. 'If I'd lost you—'

    'You
didn't.' She added, 'Can you walk? We should see if anyone was in the truck.'

    'I'll
check.'

    Mark
pushed himself up. Hilary watched him limp past their car and skid down the
side of the ditch near the pickup. She could see his head and shoulders as he
examined the truck. When he climbed back to the road, he called across to her.

    'It's
empty.'

    He
returned to the open driver's door of the Camry and reached down to the floor.
She saw the trunk pop with a soft click, as if they were doing nothing but
putting groceries inside. He reached into the trunk and extracted a first aid
kit and a roadside emergency pack. He dug into the pack, and soon she heard
sizzling and saw a fiery red light glowing as he lit a flare to warn oncoming
traffic.

    He
came back and bent down beside her. He'd brought a blanket from the trunk, and
he wrapped it around her shoulders. He dabbed at her cheek with a soft cloth,
causing her to wince. The cloth came away doused in red.

    'Facial
cuts really bleed,' he said.

    'How
bad is it?'

    'Not
bad. Small.'

    She
knew she sounded vain, worried about a scar. She wondered if she would be reminded
of this moment every time she looked in a mirror. 'I'm still beautiful, right?'
she said, cracking a wan smile.

    'Gorgeous.'
He applied a small pad to her face and covered it with tape. He caressed her
other cheek with the back of his hand, and she held it there, savoring his
touch. His face flickered along with the light of the flare.

    'Did
you recognize the truck?' she asked.

    'No,
I haven't seen it on the roads around here.'

    'Where's
the driver?'

    Mark
shook his head. 'I don't know.'

    'He
could still be close.'

    Whoever
had driven the pickup and then left it in their path had disappeared into the
woods and escaped on foot. Or maybe he was still in the trees, watching them.
Mark stood up and made a slow circle, studying the forest. Hilary closed her
eyes and listened for noises close by, like the sound of branches snapping
underfoot. She heard nothing. The sensation of being watched, which had dogged
her at home, was gone.