The Switch (53 page)

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing. Guy humor."

"Are you laughing because it sounded like a fart?" "Melina, such language! I'm shocked."

"You? NASA's poet laureate of vulgarities and obscenities?" He grinned. "I like that you're not too prissy. You can appreciate a man for behaving like a man."

"Like a boy, you mean."

He grinned wider. "You'd be fun to go on a date with." "What?"

"A date. You know, dinner. In a restaurant."

"Oh."

Each was suddenly struck by the absurdity that they'd been as intimate as two people can be, but they'd never been on a date. That was a territory best left unexplored.

She must have thought so, too, because she kept the mood light. "I remember restaurants," she said as she licked ketchup off her fingers. "I even know how to use cutlery."

"So do I. On a good day." They smiled at each other.

But the mountain loomed. Despite their attempt at banal conversation, the mountain was a presence they couldn't ignore for any appreciable amount of time. Even from a couple miles away, the compound on the crest seemed to be aglow with security lighting.

Chief hated to admit even to himself how daunting it was. He and Melina had been prepared for the Temple of Brother Gabriel to be imposing, but now that they were actually here in its shadow, he wondered how in hell they would ever breach the security. Whether they succeeded or failed, there would be serious consequences.

Strangely, before going to Dallas, he'd had a cavalier attitude toward his postretirement future. But now, having met Longtree and seen how he lived, having listened to the man's quiet but persuasive convictions, he felt an urgency to do something quickly to improve the lives of the Native Americans who were still ensnared by poverty and despair.

He'd never been passionate about his Indian heritage. Longtree had changed his attitude, infusing him with a spirit of kinship. Or had it been there all along, lying dormant while he denied it, waiting for him to acknowledge and accept it?

And then there was Melina.

What about Melina?

It was fair to say he was conflicted. Was he attracted to her solely because she was Gillian's double? He had thought so. For a time. Now he was no longer sure that's all there was to it. He wanted to be with her again. He wanted to discover what he'd missed by not kissing her mouth. But how could he desire her and still claim to have fallen in love with Gillian? And he had. That was indisputable.

What a mess. All he knew for certain was that when it came to his emotional state of being, he was fucked up—to put it in
the vernacular. He was accustomed to handling problems in a strictly pragmatic manner. You had a problem, you got to the source and solved the problem. Easy. No emotional element to consider. Not so this problem.

But before he could confront his future or his emotional condition, he had to deal with Brother Gabriel, who lived in a veritable fortress. "NASA doesn't throw that much light on the shuttle during a night launch," he remarked as he tossed their debris into a trash bin, then turned the pickup around and headed back toward the center of town.

Even if he and Melina went through the proper channels and got an audience with the evangelist himself, they wouldn't be allowed to roam freely about the Temple, poking into corners and closets. They would see only what Brother Gabriel wanted them to see. And if they went up there without the sheriff's sanction and managed to sneak past security...

He could envision the world's headlines now:

ASTRONAUT ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING. NASA DISCLAIMS DEEDS OF FORMER COMMANDER. SHUTTLE PILOT'S MENTAL STABILITY IN QUESTION.

That's how they would read, and they would be right. This was nuts. It wasn't too late to back out. He could call Tobias and let the feds take over from here. He could disassociate himself.

Screw that, he thought, dismissing the idea before it was fully formed. No. Hell, no. He was committed. He was going to see this through.

The sheriff's office, which they'd spotted earlier on the main drag, was a freestanding adobe building. Chief wheeled the pickup into one of several parking slots and cut the engine. "Now what?"

Melina drew a deep breath. "I don't know. I guess we should just go in, spill our guts, and see what kind of reaction we get from him."

"That's your plan?"

"Do you have a better one?"

He pushed open the door and stepped out. He went around to help her from the cab, but she was already standing beside the truck, chafing her arms. The temperature was much colder at this higher elevation than it had been at Longtree's property.

"Want my jacket back?" he offered.

"I'll be fine inside."

Scotch-taped to the office door was a handwritten note from the sheriff informing anyone who came looking for him that he would be back shortly. He had thoughtfully jotted down the time he left. Chief glanced at his wr
istwatch. "He's stretching the '
shortly' part. He's been gone almost three hours."

"What kind of sheriff leaves his office unattended?" Through the window they could see that no one was inside. "Doesn't he have any deputies?"

"They could be out on patrol, too."

Clearly Melina was annoyed by this unexpected delay. "I guess we have no choice but to go inside and wait."

The door was unlocked. They went inside. The sheriff had apparently anticipated the night to turn chilly because he'd left the central heating on. "Well, you won't be cold. That's for damn sure." Chief shrugged off his jacket and hung it on a peg near the door. "You could bake cookies in here."

The office was small and square, with a hallway extending from the center of the back wall. It had the usual wanted posters tacked to a bulletin board. A large detailed map of the county covered almost one whole wall. There were three tall filing cabinets, but from the appearance of Ritchey's desk, the office generated little paperwork. The top of his desk was inordinately neat.

Chief remarked on this atypical tidiness to Melina, but when he turned, she wasn't there. She had wandered down the hallway and was exploring the other rooms. "What's back there?" he called.

"A small room with a coffeepot, carelessly left on. Rest rooms."

Then a scream and, "Oh, no!"

Chief charged into the hallway, banging his elbow on the doorjamb as he went through the opening. It hurt like hell, then caused his forearm and hand to go partially numb, but it didn't slow him down. His long stride covered the length of the hallway within seconds, so that when he pulled up short in front of the single jail cell, his boots skidded on the tile floor.

Melina was crouched on the floor just inside the cell. She was holding something close to her chest and keening noisily. "What the hell?" He knelt down beside her and placed his arm around her. "Melina?"

"Oh, Chief, Chief," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

Then she flung her arm wide and swung it toward his head. Whatever she'd been holding connected with the spot on his cheekbone where the skin was just now closing over the original wound. He fell back, landing hard on his ass, legs spread. He pressed his palm against his cheek, which was ex
ploding with pain, and roared, "
Fuck!"

Melina surged to her feet and ran through the cell door, dragging it closed behind her. It slammed and locked with a loud metallic clang that echoed in the empty building. She flattened her back against the opposite wall and dropped her weapon—a brass paperweight in the shape of New Mexico, which she must have taken from the sheriff's desk.

Sparklers were dancing behind his eyeballs, but Chief managed to pull himself to his feet. His face was bleeding, but he didn't even realize that until he gripped the bars of the cell and noticed that his right hand was red with blood.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he yelled.

She was breathing rapidly through parted lips. Her eyes were wide and unblinking as she stared at him with apparent horror over what she'd just done. "I'm going up there. T-to the Temple."

He shook the bars like a demented inmate. "Let me the hell out of here, Melina."

She shook her head no and began inching along the wall to-ward the exit door. "Together, they'll never let us in, Chief." She bit her lower lip, but the gesture couldn't contain her sob. "I'm sorry for hitting you. Oh, God, I'm sorry."

He gripped the bars tighter. "Melina—"

"No." She squeezed her eyes shut as though that would also close her ears to his pleas. "I need to do this alone. She was my twin. Revenge is up to me, and... and I don't want you to suffer the repercussions. There are sure to be some. You don't deserve that."

"Listen to me," he said in his most imperative commander's voice. "You'll get yourself killed if you go charging—" "He won't hurt me. You, yes. But not me."

"You don't know that. Now let me out of here!"

"He won't hurt me," she repeated.

"What makes you so damn sure?"

She swallowed dryly, then turned and ran down the hallway, shouting over her shoulder, "I have a secret weapon."

Tobias was feeling the effects of the last couple days. If required, his body was conditioned to function on no more than a few hours' sleep. But the past two days had been exceptionally arduous. He was exhausted from the travel alone. Couple that with the complexities of this case—and maybe the scotch he'd drunk earlier—and it was no wonder that he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

This case was so damned multilayered. The outer skin had been the murder of Gillian Lloyd. The next layer had been Gordon's suicide, the next the attack on Melina. Another, Linda Croft's murder. Followed by the discovery of Jem Hennings's duplicity and his eventual assassination.

Tobias strongly suspected that once all the layers had been peeled away, he would find Brother Gabriel at the core. And if even a few of their conjectures about him proved to be true, this case would have a ripple effect on the scale of a tidal wave.

An hour earlier, he had dutifully pulled Gillian Lloyd's murder case file onto his lap and opened it. But his eyes could barely remain focused, and several times he'd caught himself nodding off.

If he knew what he was looking for, it would be like going on a treasure hunt. He'd be motivated by knowing that a search would result in a prize. Instead, he wasn't even sure there was a treasure to be found. Chances were very good that none existed, that there wasn't a clue that had gone undetected. Surely either Lawson or he would have found it by now.

Desultorily, he flipped through the tabs that separated the particulars of the case into categories and, for the umpteenth time, reviewed the facts he already knew.

Crime scene.

Dale Gordon's background and personality profile. Statements from Melina, Christopher Hart, Jem Hennings, and the neighbor who'd discovered the body. The autopsy report.

Information on the Waters Clinic.

He had to give the national chain credit for being so cooperative, from the chairman of the company on down. Personnel were assisting Agent Patterson to locate sperm donors and urging them to facilitate the investigation in lieu of being subpoenaed. The staff at the clinic seemed genuinely incredulous and outraged by Dale Gordon's misconduct. Tobias believed that the establishment's involvement was purely innocent.

He leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes. The TV was tuned to a
Cheers
rerun. He listened to the dialogue, smiling at something that Sam said to Woody. But soon, even the snappy comedy writing couldn't keep him awake. His head listed to one side. His conscious mind gradually shut down its circuit board. He drifted toward unconsciousness.

And in that free-falling state of mind, something sparked. Something he'd recently read.

He was jerked awake by the alarming realization that if he didn't grab hold of that flicker of a thought now, it would burn out. It had been like the blink of a firefly on a very dark night. There one second, gone the next, as though it were a trick of the eyes and had never been there at all. Almost too elusive to have been real.

Yet he knew that it had been there, and that it had been real, and that it was important. Vitally. What was it? What was it?

"Think, dammit." He closed his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it hurt. "Think."

Then suddenly it flickered again and burned brighter, longer. He sat up and frantically flipped through the tabs in the notebook until he came to the one he was looking for.

Rapidly he scanned the top sheet, then nearly ripped it from the silver rings of the binder in his haste to leaf to the second page. He missed the notation the first time, retraced the path his eyes had taken, stopped, read. Reread.

He flopped back against the headboard and stared blankly at the TV set. Carla said something snide to Diane, but the catty remark didn't register with Tobias. Methodically he assimilated this tiny but monumental fact, which up till now had been obscured by seemingly more important information.

When his mind finally made sense of it, he bolted from the bed, yanked open the door, and raced down the motel breezeway toward Lawson's room.