The Bone House (44 page)

    Delia
struggled to find her voice. 'Yes. Yes, I do appreciate the call, Bobby. Thank
you.'

    She
hung up without letting him say anything more. Her chest felt heavy, as if a
fist were constricting her lungs. She should have guessed immediately. Tresa
had seen Troy's truck. Her daughter must have crept inside and heard what they
were discussing, and now she was there, on the island. With Mark Bradley. In
the line of fire when Troy made his way to the house.
Tresa, Tresa, what
were you thinking?

    Delia
pulled at her hair in panic. She beat her forehead with closed fists, trying to
decide what to do. She clutched her phone and dialed Tresa again, and then
Troy, and both times she got nothing but the infuriating loop of voicemail. She
was helpless. Cut off.

    Just
like Harris, she'd lit a fire, and now it was out of control.

    There
was only one option. One way to stop this. She had to get help. Delia dialed
another number, and this time she felt a huge relief when the sheriff answered
immediately.

    'Felix?
Oh, God, Felix, it's Delia. Are you back on the island yet?'

    'Yes,
I just got home. Why?'

    'You
have to help me. I've made a terrible mistake.'

    Most
of the back roads on the northern tip of the peninsula dead- ended in the woods
or at the lakeshore. Cab drove back and forth along narrow trails with names
like Europe Bay, Lost Lane, Timberline, Juice Mill, and Wilderness, and he saw
the same things: farm buildings, locked gates, boat launches, and hiking
trails, all of them deserted. None of it meant anything to him, and all the
while, it got darker around him. It was already night inside the trees. The
relentless rain poured down over the car.

    He
parked on the road to the state park and turned off the engine. He knew he was
wasting his time here, going around in circles. Running blind.

    Cab
glanced at his phone and saw that he had a single bar of signal. He didn't know
how long it would last. Signal came and went with the wind here. Quickly,
before the air currents switched directions, he called home to Florida. It was
odd that his brain supplied the word. Home.

    'Lala,
it's Cab,' he said when she answered.

    'Well,
well,' she said. 'The tall blond stranger.'

    Hearing
her voice, he could picture her face. Her dark skin. Her fierce eyes. Ebony
hair. The last time they'd talked, he'd been drinking, and this time, she was
the one who sounded buzzed, with a mellowness in her voice. It was softly
sensual. It reminded him of the one time they'd made love and how oddly
vulnerable she'd been in his bed, not wild and uninhibited as he would have
expected. He could picture her naked body and remember the tiny flaws - the
freckles, the scar on her knee, the barest pooch - that made her not perfect
but more beautiful for being that way. They had danced around that night ever
since, with Cab doing what he did best. Running blind.

    'Where
are you?' he asked.

    'I'm
in your condo,' she told him. 'I hope you don't mind.'

    He
was surprised but pleased. 'Not at all. I told you to go there.'

    'My air
conditioner still isn't working. I felt like I was back in Havana. I had to do
something.'

    'It's
fine.'

    'I'm
drinking your wine.'

    'Good.'

    'It's
really, really good wine.'

    'I
know.'

    'I've
had a lot of it.'

    'That's
why it's there.'

    'I
suppose you want to talk about the
case
,' she said, drawing out the word
with a snarl.

    He
did, but he didn't. He needed her help, and he didn't know how long his cell
signal would last before it evaporated into the sky. Even so, he simply liked
hearing her voice out here, in the middle of nowhere. 'What else did you want
to talk about?' he asked.

    'I
did something bad,' she said.

    'I
doubt that.'

    'No,
no, I did. I went through your nightstand drawer. I told myself I was looking
for a rubber band for my hair, but I was just snooping.'

    'What
did you find?' he asked.

    'A
picture.'

    Cab
knew which one. 'OK.'

    'She's
pretty.'

    'Was.'

    'Was.
Sorry.'

    'Her
name was Vivian,' he said.

    'You
want to tell me about her?'

    Cab
took a long time to reply, and Lala let him off the hook.

    'Never
mind, you don't owe me your life story. I like the idea that some woman was
able to get to you. I sure couldn't.'

    'Not
true,' he said.

    This time
Lala was the one who was slow to answer. 'Did she break your heart,
Catch-a-Cab?' 'Something like that.'

    'And
now all of us have to pay, huh?'

    'Something
like that,' he repeated.

    'That's
pretty screwed up.'

    'Yeah.'

    'I'm
saying things I shouldn't,' she said. 'I'm sorry. It's the wine. I better shut
up.'

    'Don't.'

    Lala
hesitated anyway. 'There's something I never told you.' 'What?'

    'Shit,
what am I doing?' she murmured.

    'Tell
me.'

    'I
don't hook up,' she said.

    Cab
tensed. 'I don't understand.'

    'I
don't do it. Some women do. Not me.'

    'I'm
still not sure—'

    'Couldn't
you tell?' she interrupted him. 'I've made love to three men in ten years. I
was engaged to one. I thought I was in love with another. And then there's
you.'

    She'd
been right. He wasn't ready for this. 'Lala.'

    'You
don't have to say anything.'

    That
was a lie. She wanted him to say something. He needed to say something. He kept
looking for a door. Looking for a key. That was the irony, because he had a key
in his pocket, and he needed a lock to go with it.
Say something.
But he
didn't, and he waited too long.

    'I'm
going to press the reset button on this conversation,' Lala told him, sounding
more sober and sad. 'OK? Reset. Beep. This is Mosqueda. Is that Detective
Bolton? What can I do for you, Detective Bolton?'

    'Lala,'
he repeated lamely.

    'A
report? You want a report? Because I have information for you.'

    Cab
sighed and played the game. 'What did you find out?'

    'Enough
to think that something's not adding up. Enough to think we have a problem.'

    'Go
on. Tell me.'

    'I
started thinking about Glory on Friday night,' Lala continued. 'When she ran
into our bartender friend, Ronnie Trask. I tried to nail down the exact time it
happened. Trask said he took his break before stopping at the hotel restaurant
to stock up on wine for the bar. Then he went straight from his near-collision
with Glory back to the pool bar. He figures he served a drink within two or
three minutes of getting back. I checked the invoices and was able to calculate
what I think was his first sale. Based on that, I have a window of about five
minutes or so when Glory came running from the event center.'

    'Good
work, but I'm not sure where you're going with this,' Cab told her.

    'Hang
on. I called the woman who coordinated the entire dance competition and had her
check that time against the performance schedules. Here's what I found. Tresa Fischer
would have been in the line-up immediately before that time window. Makes
sense, huh? Glory would have been in the arena to watch her sister.'

    'Sure.
Mark Bradley was there, too, so Glory could have bumped into him during the
break.'

    'Yes,
but the
next
scheduled performance after Tresa's team was the team from
Green Bay. So there were a lot of people with Wisconsin connections hanging
around the event center. I started calling people from Green Bay who were
staying in the hotel to see if anyone remembered Glory freaking out. I talked
to a parent of one of the dancers, and damned if she didn't tell me she
remembered a girl losing it outside the event center and go running off.'

    'Did
she know why?'

    'No.
She said that Glory was standing in front of a window in the corridor and
suddenly she screamed and bolted.'

    'What's
on the other side of the window?'

    'A
patio.'

    'I
don't suppose we have any idea who was out on the patio.'

    'Actually,
we do. This woman's daughter was out there, along with the whole Green Bay
team. They were getting a pep talk from their coach, who happens to be Gary
Jensen. Ring a bell?'

    'Oh,
shit,' Cab said. 'Our witness?'

    'That's
him. Call me cynical, but I don't like the coincidence.'

    Cab
didn't like it either. 'Are you digging into Jensen's background?'

    'I'm
doing that right now.'

    'Could
there be a connection between Jensen and Glory?' Cab asked.

    'That's
the million-dollar question.'

    'Could
Gary Jensen be this missing fugitive from Door County? Harris Bone?' 'That was
my first thought, too,' Lala said, 'but no. Unless Bone managed one hell of a
sophisticated identity theft, Jensen's got a paper trail that goes back for
years. Of course, there could be some other connection between him and Harris
that we haven't found yet.'

    'Keep
at it,' Cab said, 'and keep me posted. That's great work.'

    'Thanks.'

    'You've
earned the wine,' he said.

    'I
thought so.'

    'Listen,
about what you said,' he began. 'Before.'

    'Forget
it.'

    'Lala,
you took me by surprise. It's not that I don't—'

    'Forget
it,' she insisted. She added, 'Why did you call, Cab? You obviously wanted
something.'

    
I
wanted to talk to you. I wanted to bear your voice.
He didn't tell her
that; instead, he explained where he was and what he was doing. The map. The
key. The roads that led nowhere. What he didn't say was that he was tired and
lonely, and he'd run out of ideas, it's dark,' he said finally. 'There's no
point in doing anything more tonight. I'm heading back to the apartment. I'll
call you in the morning.'

    Lala
didn't let him go. He wondered if she wanted to hear his voice, too. 'Have you
checked property records in the area?'

    Cab
glanced around at the dark parkland. There were no houses to be seen. There
were hardly any houses anywhere among the roads he'd travelled here. He hadn't
thought about people owning the land, because there seemed to be nothing to
own. 'No, I don't have a laptop with me.'

    'I
can run some searches for you. Give me a second.' He heard the clink of crystal
as Lala put down her wine glass, then seconds later, the tapping of keys. 'OK,
hang on a second. Here we go, Door County Real Estate Records. All nicely
online. You want to give me some street names?'

    'Europe
Bay Road,' Cab said.

    'Sounds
rustic. I'm getting about a dozen parcels and owners. You want names? Two
parcels for Waters, then Petschel, Clark, Moore, Barrick, Sawyer, Lenius,
Haines, Mikel, Knoll, Heinz. Any of those mean anything to you?'

    'No.'

    'Next?'
'Wilderness Lane.'

    'You're
kidding.'

    'No.'

    'Wilderness.
Lots of parcels, one owner. Royston.'