Triple Exposure (7 page)

“A spider bit
you?
” She stood at the door, her brows
raised and her smile teasing. “You’d think he’d offer you professional courtesy, one recluse to another.”

With the van idling, Rachel lingered. She had gotten what she wanted, needed. She’d handed him every shot she’d taken, given him every opportunity to voice his objections. So why did she feel as if she had just stolen from Zeke Pike?

The trouble was, he was starting to grow on her. Blunt and irascible as he could be, there was something refreshing in his honesty. She found that she preferred it to the way people tiptoed carefully around her, making her feel as dangerously explosive as a flask of nitroglycerin.

The cell phone she’d left in her purse rang. Mindful of her father’s annoyance with her earlier, she pulled it out and checked the caller ID window.

It was Patsy calling from The Roost. Or maybe her dad had stopped for breakfast and was using the phone there.

“Hello?” she answered.

“I need you to get over to your grandma’s, quick as you can.” Silverware clattered in the background, and Patsy sounded both worried and distracted. “One of the neighbors called me, said that dog of hers has gotten into his trash. He knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer.”

“Could she be out? Maybe she went to breakfast with one of her canasta buddies.”

“Most of her friends have died off or moved to be near their children. Besides, she’s never out and about this early in the day. I tried to reach her on her phone, but I can’t get any answer. I’d run by if I had time, but I’ve got customers and there’s no one here to cover for me.”

Rachel fired up the engine. “Does Dad know?”

“He’s not answering his phone—probably up to his elbows in that restoration. Besides, he’d just tell me she’s napping or caught up in one of her game shows again. I swear, the man’s stone blind when it comes to his mama. After last month, when she got her medications confused…She
might not be
my
mother, but she’s the closest thing I’ve ever—I’ve been concerned about her.”

Rachel thought first of the lapse she’d witnessed on the way to Alpine and then of her father and Patsy’s recent argument. She still wanted no part of that squabble, but she was worried about her grandma, too.

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Rachel promised, “and I’ll call and let you know what’s going on.” If everything was all right, at least she could appease the neighbor by capturing her grandmother’s trash-eating Boston terrier and cleaning up his mess.

“Thanks.” Patsy quit rattling dishes and lowered her voice. “One other thing, real quick. Some woman stopped by earlier. Looking for you. Blonde with big sunglasses—I didn’t recognize her, so I didn’t tell her anything. When I asked her name and business, she took off in a hurry.”

Rachel’s throat tightened at the memory of last night’s disturbing call.
I’m coming for you, Raaaachel. You can’t run far
enough or fast enough. I’ll always know where you hide
….

But there wasn’t time to worry about that at the moment, so she swept it out of her mind, along with her last lingering doubts about the photographic release.

“I’ll call you as soon as I can,” Rachel promised. After ending the call, she turned the van around and drove toward the little, cinnamon-toast adobe house where Benita Copeland had happily lived alone for decades.

With a shiver, Rachel pressed down harder on the old van’s accelerator. What if they’d been wrong to take her grandmother’s health for granted? What if, right this moment, she was lying on her tiled floor, helpless and alone?

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Marlene’s husband, Dan, said, “but for once, I think Kathy’s right. Your mother doesn’t
want
help, and she sure as hell won’t thank you even if you actually do find her.”

Marlene looked up from her packing to see that not only Dan, but also their two sons, had come into the bedroom. It was bad enough she’d had to listen to her sister’s ragging; now Team Testosterone was ganging up on her as well.

“He’s right, Mom. Besides, you shouldn’t be traveling alone,” the older boy said. Though Taylor, a high school sophomore, was savvy enough to claim a manly concern about her welfare, he was probably more worried she’d be unavailable to ferry him to basketball or run him to the mall.

“You aren’t going to bring her back
here
, are you?” twelve-year-old Josh whined. “I don’t want to have to give up my room and bunk with Taylor. He leaves his smelly socks all over, and he talks half the night on the phone when we’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Shut up, you little douche bag—”

“Taylor,” warned his father at the same time Marlene said, “That’s enough.”

When Josh opened his mouth again, she pointed at him. “Shut it down. Right now. Both of you.”

Her gaze flicked from the younger to the older, and then up to Dan, who had clearly been the mastermind behind this “stealth” operation. If they weren’t so damned annoying, they’d be cute. “Listen, you three. I know this is an inconvenience. And I also know that Grandma, well Grandma’s had some issues for quite a while now. Ever since…She loved my little brother, really loved him, the way that I love you. When he died, it hurt something in her. But the thing is, she’s still my mother, and I promised Grandpa I would—”

“Of course she’s still your mother,” Dan said, “and no one could ever say you haven’t done your best to help her. But you’ve turned over every scrap of information the police asked for, even more than they requested.”

“A few old photographs and credit card numbers won’t make her matter to them. Not the way she does to me.” The way she did to Kathy, too, whether or not her sister would admit it.

“Come on, Marlene, isn’t it time to step aside and leave finding her to the professionals? Maybe if you headed back to work, got back to your routine, it would take your mind off things a little. Then, before you know it—”

“Do you honestly think I can set appointments and hassle with insurance companies with this looming over me?” she snapped and wondered if this was really about money. Since her dad’s death, she had lost touch with the family bud get…and so many of the things she used to think important. “I understand you just want—that all three of you want—everything to go back to normal. But things won’t be normal,
can’t
be normal, until I get her back and fix this.”

When Dan’s blue eyes met hers, Marlene’s heart fluttered, reminded of the boy who’d captured it so very long ago.

“Some things can’t be fixed,” he told her gently, “and neither can some people.”

He’d never understand, no matter what words she used to explain it. Frowning, Marlene zipped up her suitcase and
placed one hand on her hip. “Are you going to drive me to the airport, or do I have to call one of my friends for a ride?”

James Dean strutted down the center of a mostly residential street, his tongue lolling and his black-and-white face stained with the evidence of his most recent crime spree.

“And I’ll bet you reek now, too, you little heathen,” Rachel grumbled as she slowed the van and opened her door. When she whistled for the Boston terrier, he stopped and cocked his round head. Probably wondering what was in it for him should he decide to listen.

“Come on, boy. Let’s go for a ride, J.D.” She tried to make it sound exciting, but the small dog must have detected “imminent bath” in her tone, for he turned his stubby tail and bolted between a neighbor’s bungalow and an older, pink adobe.

More concerned for her grandmother, Rachel pulled into the empty carport beside the well-kept, little spice-brown house. “Please, God,” she whispered as she hurried over to the side door, “I know you and I haven’t been on great terms for a while, but please let her be napping, or maybe in the bathroom.”

She knocked several times, then stood on tiptoe to peer through the window in the upper portion of the door. Seeing no one, she bounced on the balls of her feet a few more seconds before trying the door. When she found it locked, she pounded hard enough to bruise her knuckles and called out, “Grandma? Can you hear me?”

She paused to listen for an answer and thought she heard the blare of the ancient cabinet television from the living room. After running around to the front porch, she found the front door locked as well, and no one responded to her knocking or shouting. Maybe her grandma
was
out. She could have thrown on her jacket and walked the two blocks to the little store for fresh bread, a temptation she should—but rarely managed to—resist.

That must
be it
, thought Rachel as she scooted behind the
chain-hung porch swing to peer through the front window…

And saw her grandmother apparently dozing in an overstuffed recliner, an afghan draped over her inert form. Heart in her throat, Rachel rapped hard at the window.

“Please don’t be—Oh, thank you, God. I owe you.” For Rachel saw movement as her grandmother’s head turned. Though her eyes didn’t open, she lifted a hand to rub her face.

“It’s me, Grandma. It’s Rachel. I need you to get up and let me in.”

“Is she in there?” a man called from behind her.

A few days before, Rachel had met the neighbor, Mr. Morgan, a retired accountant out of Lubbock. A smallish man with wire-rimmed glasses and gray hair that wreathed a bald pate, he seemed nice enough, in spite of his understandable dislike of James Dean’s trash can mayhem.

“Please hurry—call an ambulance,” Rachel told him. “I saw her move a little, but she’s not responding. She used to keep a key around back. Let me see if I can find it.”

“I’ll call your mother, too.”

Stepmother
, Rachel thought, but she didn’t slow down to correct him. When she couldn’t find the key, she took one of the rocks bordering the garden and smashed out part of a rear window. Reaching her arm through, she unlatched it, then slid it open and climbed through. Feet crunching on the shattered glass, she ran for the living room, where she found her grandma staring, her plump face flushed.

“Rachellll,” she slurred, “I nee—I need some…” Her lids fluttered, sliding down to shutter soft, brown eyes.

“You need glucose,” Rachel realized. Once, while still a teenager, she’d seen her grandmother when her sugar level dipped too low. She’d looked and sounded drunk then, too. Her breath even smelled a little like it, though she never touched alcohol. “Where are your glucose pills, Grandma?”

When her grandmother didn’t answer, she raced back through the door into the little kitchen and rattled through
the clutch of prescription bottles on the counter near the glucose meter. There had to be at least a dozen—far too many medications to be juggling—but Rachel couldn’t find the one she wanted. So instead, she went to the refrigerator and saw exactly what she needed, a small juice box with a smiling apple on its front. Pulling free the attached straw, Rachel tore off the wrapper and stabbed it through the top of the container.

Seconds later, she knelt beside her grandmother, who roused enough to sip and swallow. Rachel held her hand and kissed her temple. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. This sugar’s going to help, and the ambulance is coming. You’re going to be all right.”

By the time the ambulance showed up, Benita Copeland was far more alert and responsive. As her vitals were checked, she called Rachel “Cora” once or twice, then caught herself and said, “I’m sorry, Rachel. Of course, I know who you are. It’s just that you look so much like her…the way I remember her…”

The paramedic, a clean-cut, dark-haired man whose name tag read “Alvarez,” nodded in approval. “Heart rate, BP, and respirations all look good, but blood glucose is still a little on the low side. Just to be safe, you might want to have her transported and checked out in Alpine.”

“I don’t need to go to Alpine,” Rachel’s grandmother protested. “I’ll make an appointment at the clinic here.”

“That could take a while,” Alvarez said. “Your sugar needs to be stabilized today.”

“But an ambulance ride—that costs—”

“Let Medicare worry about that,” Rachel interrupted.

“But they don’t cover the half of—”

“Forget about it, Grandma. You scared the hell—heck—out of me this morning, and you’re going to the hospital right now.”

Benita was still arguing that she wasn’t so old she couldn’t make her own decisions when Rachel’s father and Patsy arrived.

“You’re going, Mama,” Walter Copeland insisted. “If the
doctors give you a clean bill of health, you don’t have to stay overnight, but you need to get checked out—for our sake.”

“They’ll give me a bill, all right. Like as not, a huge one.” Benita gave a petulant frown, which on her round face looked strangely childlike.

“Please, Grandma,” Rachel pleaded.

“Fine. If that’s what you all want,” she said before she gave them the silent treatment.

As the paramedic’s partner shut the ambulance door and climbed into the cab, Rachel noticed a woman in dark glasses sitting in a black sedan with rental plates, parked behind her father’s pickup. Rachel sucked in a breath, then let it go as she realized the blonde wasn’t Kyle’s mother.

So who was she, and why did she keep darting glances in Rachel’s direction before looking away?

Rachel caught Patsy by the elbow. “Look. Is she the one who was asking for me earlier?”

Never one for subtlety, Patsy whipped around to shoot the woman a hard stare. “What the—She must have followed us. Walter, you need to go talk to that person. Find out what she wants.”

“Her voice—was she the same woman who’s been calling the café?” Rachel asked Patsy.

But the blonde was already opening the car door, unfolding her long, lean legs and striding toward them. No older than her late twenties, she wore a funky, fringed, pink sweater over tight, black leggings and carried a business-sized envelope. She didn’t look particularly dangerous, thought Rachel, just determined.

“Not sure. Don’t think so,” Patsy said before raising her voice and edging in front of Rachel. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re intruding. Can’t you see a family member’s ill?”

The blonde looked over Patsy’s shoulder. “Are you Rachel Copeland?”

She sounded somewhat nervous, but behind the gray translucence of her lenses, her gaze bored into Rachel’s.

Rachel’s father stepped beside his wife. “What do you want with my daughter?”

Embarrassed by the human barricade, Rachel edged into the open. The blonde’s lilting Southern accent sounded nothing like the Psycho Bitch, and she looked sane enough. And soft enough to send packing if she turned out to be some on-the-make reporter out for a follow-up story. “What can I do for you? I’m Rachel.”

“Good,” the stranger said, sounding relieved and breathless as she handed off her envelope. “I’m just here to tell you, Rachel Copeland, you’ve been served.”

“What?”
Rachel demanded. This was impossible. The nightmare was all over. Her lawyer had explained that since she’d been acquitted, prosecutors could never come after her again.

Head tilting, the blonde shrugged and said, “Sorry, Ms. Copeland…nothing personal. Toodeloo, y’all.”

With a ripple of pink, polished fingers, she spun on her high heels and scuttled back to her black car.

Rachel felt like waving back, using fewer fingers. But still stunned—and unwilling to make a scene in front of the neighbors with the gesture—she tore into the letter instead…

Then cursed like a trucker as the disaster unfolded in her mind. Civil lawsuit. Wrongful death. Ten million dollars—
ten
million
dollars—for the “reckless behavior” that had led to the death of Kyle Underwood.

His bereaved, berserk blonde mother had found one last, legal avenue for her revenge.