Brain Child Page 0,99
did not come to the door. Bob rang the bell once more, waited, then tried the door. It was locked. Slowly he backed away from the door, then hurried to the car.
“She’s not here,” he told Kate a few seconds later. “She must have gone somewhere.” But even as he spoke the words, he knew they weren’t true. He started the car.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to call the police, just like you wanted to. It doesn’t feel right in there.”
Fifteen minutes later they were back. Bob parked his Porsche behind the squad car, then got out and went to the patio gate.
“Stay in your car,” one of the cops at the front door told him. “If there’s a creep in here, I don’t want to have to worry about you.” Only when Bob had disappeared did Roscoe Finnerty reach out and press the bell a second time, as Bob himself had done only a few minutes earlier. “She probably just took off somewhere,” he told Tom Jackson, “but with these two, I guess we can’t blame them for being nervous.” When there was still no answer, Finnerty moved to a window and shone his flashlight through into the foyer. “Shit,” he said softly, and Tom Jackson immediately felt his stomach knot.
“She there?” he asked.
Finnerty nodded. “On the floor, just like the other one. And if there’s any blood, I don’t see it. Take a look.”
Tom Jackson dutifully stepped to the window and peered into the foyer. “Maybe she’s just unconscious,” he suggested.
“Maybe she is,” Finnerty replied, but both men knew that neither of them believed it. “Go ask the Lewis girl if she’s got a key, but don’t tell her what we’ve seen. And when you ask for the key, see how she reacts.”
Jackson frowned. “You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what I think,” Finnerty growled. “But I sure as hell know Alan Lewis didn’t do this one, and I keep thinking about the shit that came down in Marin a few years back when that girl and her boyfriend killed her folks, then went out and partied all night. So you just go see if she has a key, and keep your eyes open.”
“Is she all right?” Kate asked when Jackson approached the car.
“Don’t even know if she’s here,” Jackson lied. “Do you have a key? We want to take a look around.”
Kate fumbled in her purse for a moment, then silently handed Jackson a single key on a ring. “Stay here,” Jackson ordered. He started back to the house, wondering what he was supposed to have been looking for. Whatever it was, he hadn’t seen it—all he’d seen were two kids who’d had a horrible experience only a few days ago, and were now very frightened.
“Well?”
Jackson shrugged. “She just gave me the key when I asked for it. Asked if the Benson woman’s okay.”
“What’d you say?”
“I lied. Figured we should both be there when we tell them.”
Finnerty nodded, and slid the key into the lock, then pushed the door open and led his partner into the silent house. One look at Valerie Benson’s open eyes and grimace of frozen terror told him she was dead. He called the station and told the duty officer what had happened, then rejoined Jackson. “Might as well tell them.”
From then on, the long night took on a feeling of eerie familiarity, as Finnerty replayed the scene he’d gone through less than a week earlier when the same two kids had found the body of Martha Lewis.
The dusty road wound steadily up the hill, and Alex looked neither to the left nor to the right. He knew every inch of these hills, for he’d ridden over them with his father ever since he was a little boy. Now, though, he walked, for along with his father’s land, the gringos had taken the horses as well. Indeed, they’d taken everything, even his name.
Still, he hadn’t left La Paloma—would never leave La Paloma until finally the gringos had paid with their lives for the lives they had taken.
He came to a house, opened the gate, and stepped through into the patio. Not too long ago he’d been in this patio as an honored guest, with his parents and his sisters, attending a fiesta. Now he was here for another reason.
For a few centavos, the new owners would let him take care of the plants in their patio. Idly he wondered what they would do if they knew who he really was.
As he worked, he kept