A Desperate Silence (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 3) (15 page)

     
Although Serena seemed to find some moment of peace in the music, Sylvia was going crazy. But she ignored her own frustration and watched the child, assessing, gauging.

     
What had Margaret Tompkins said? "
The demon may well be inside the child
."

R
ENZO
S
ANTOS WAS
in a pensive mood. He'd had a successful meeting with the Child Protective Services social worker. She had explained quite thoroughly where C.P.S. stood on the issue of the girl, the psychologist, the future. If there was any confusion at all, it was not on Renzo's part.

     
He guided the Suburban down a quiet street past office buildings and vacant lots. By his watch, he had time to reconsider the situation; it was an interesting one.

     
He could eliminate the shrink. He could eliminate the girl. It would take him less than a minute to end two lives.

     
Here was the rub: once the child was dead, she couldn't tell him what he needed to know. And while she was alive, she couldn't tell him what he wanted to know. The social worker had confirmed that the girl was mute—at least temporarily.

     
Renzo thought she could be faking.

     
Of course, it was possible that the child knew nothing. But Renzo suspected that wasn't the case. In his work, Paco had been so self-contained, so uncommunicative that Renzo had always assumed the man kept a mistress hidden away. That was to be expected.

     
He had never suspected Paco's confidante would be a child. In fact, Renzo hadn't truly believed a child existed until he'd seen the hideaway in Anapra for himself—and by then Paco was already running north. Even while Renzo was in pursuit, it had never occurred to him that the child would be Elena's.

     
Renzo had badly underestimated Paco Fortuna. For ten years—ever since their terrible first meeting—he'd watched the rumpled, quiet man go about his business.
Ten years
. A decade. And all the while Paco had been hiding the child away in an adobe castle.

     
But now that Paco was a corpse and the girl was fair game, how could Renzo get the information he so badly needed?

     
He closed his eyes, turning the puzzle in his mind like wine on the tongue. Tasting, absorbing, testing . . . like the Buddhist koans, the puzzles he'd heard about in martial-arts movies.

     
What is the sound of one hand clapping?

     
Tuna would answer quickly: That depends upon who it hits.

     
Renzo wasn't yet sure what his answer would be, but he was working on the solution.

     
He turned into the parking lot of a restaurant called Little Anita's. He parked near the door. He was hungry, so he would eat.

     
He had to follow his instinct; he had no alternative. Who would Paco trust?
The girl
. And who did the girl trust?
The shrink
.

S
YLVIA PULLED INTO
the parking lot of the low-slung tan building located on Vivigen Way just off St. Michael's Drive. A short distance behind the offices of Child Protective Services, the roof of the hospital cut oblique angles in the blue sky. The C.P.S. parking lot was deserted except for one battered Pinto. There was no traffic on Vivigen Way. Saturday was a slow day for area businesses. Sylvia parked next to the Pinto; she thought it might belong to Dolores Martin. She cut the engine and set the brake, leaving the keys in the ignition. She waited without moving for several seconds, then glanced at her watch: 8:38
A.M
. The social worker had agreed to meet here at eight-thirty.

     
Serena was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She refused to look at Sylvia. Her small body was an express statement of stubborn resistance—or resolute calm. Overhead, a jet thundered across the sky. It looked like a military craft from Alamogordo, flying low and loud. As the plane disappeared from view, the trail dispersed like cotton fluff.

     
Sylvia rolled down the window of the truck and glanced out at the C.P.S. offices. The front door was shut; the windows were dark. Nobody home, and no sign of the Pinto's driver.

     
Digging for her small notepad with the C.P.S. phone numbers, she reached for her cellular phone. It wasn't in her purse.
Serena!

     
There was no phone booth in sight, even though common sense allowed that social-service offices were often the place where family dramas played out. Well,
they
could drive to a pay phone.

     
She knew better than to leave Serena alone in the truck.

     
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and watched a fat cloud lumber eastward across the sky. Serena eyed her and glanced away again; she was up to something.

     
Discreetly, Sylvia rechecked her watch. It was ten minutes before nine. She had dealt with Dolores Martin once before; she'd found her to be less than reliable. She sighed, opened the door of the truck, and jumped down. She walked around the front of the vehicle, her fingers grazing the warm hood, and when she reached the opposite door she patted the metal. Serena pulled up the lock and allowed the psychologist to lift her out and set her on solid ground.

     
A vacant field adjoined the parking lot. Developers were quickly using up the area, but a few acres remained for the use of prairie dogs, rabbits, and other durable animals. Sylvia took Serena's hand, and together they stepped over a concrete barrier into the field.

     
Sylvia stopped and glanced back when she heard a car engine. A dark four-wheel-drive vehicle passed slowly along Vivigen Way. The social worker? No, the car looked much too expensive for the salary of a government employee.

     
When Sylvia looked back, Serena was on her hands and knees—a small sharp twig in hand—scratching in the dirt. The child's mouth formed a moue around a tiny tip of pink tongue; her forehead was creased, her expression one of total concentration. She worked quickly, cutting a series of lines in the parched earth.

     
Sylvia crouched down to look more closely at the emerging pattern. As she watched, the child crisscrossed the lines, working along a two-foot measure of earth. Dirt flew, and granules stung Sylvia's cheek. But Serena seemed oblivious to dust and flying particles.

     
As she drew, the crosses linked to become a . . . fence line? A border?

     
Tracks
.

     
Now Serena completed a series of rectangles on wheels directly above the tracks . . . in a line, connected. She stepped back suddenly, as if to allow Sylvia better access.

     
A train
.

     
As she scrutinized the drawing, Sylvia pictured the police report detailing the child's accident; the Honda had collided with a local train on its way from Lamy to Santa Fe. The car had been pushed along the spur's metal tracks. Who had been driving the Honda? Had they managed to run away after the accident? Or could a young child possibly—

     
Sylvia heard the roar of a car's engine.
No, it was a truck
. She sprang to her feet and pivoted.

     
Her
truck—with Serena behind the steering wheel!

     
As she raced across the field, she heard the clamor of grinding gears. The truck was moving, jerking backward. Sylvia dashed alongside it and yanked open the driver's door. Roughly, she jumped up on the runner, reaching inside to switch off the engine. It sputtered, then settled into silence.

     
Sylvia grabbed her keys from the ignition and set the emergency brake. She leaned her weight against the door and let her heart rate slow.

     
The child sat stiffly, gazing straight ahead out the windshield.

     
The little devil!
Sylvia felt as if she'd been running a marathon for the past twenty-four hours just to keep up with Serena. Well, damn it, she was losing the race.

     
She shooed Serena into the passenger seat and climbed behind the steering wheel, slamming the door of the truck. Sunlight reflected sharply off the dashboard. The glare was intense. She could barely read her watch face. Twenty minutes to Lamy . . . twenty minutes back . . . that left twenty minutes free. She pulled a pen and a small notepad from her purse and scribbled a quick note—
Back by 10:30
—and signed her name.

     
If she kept to the schedule, she could arrive at her engagement party with time to spare. She made Serena come with her to tack the note to the door of C.P.S.

     
When they were back at the truck, Sylvia squatted down and grasped the child by the shoulders. "You drew train tracks. Was that where you crashed the car?"

     
Serena nodded.

     
"Were you driving—were you steering by yourself?"

     
She nodded again, stamping her foot as punctuation.

     
"Was someone else with you?"

     
Without moving, Serena closed her eyes.

     
"Do you want me to take you there?"

     
Serena expelled air from between pursed lips. She nodded a third time—an exaggerated up-and-down motion—and then she cupped Sylvia's face between the palms of both hands, as if she had to contend with a very slow learner.

     
Sylvia sighed. "Fine. Let's go."

S
ERENA HEARD
P
ACO
's voice call out again, and she could barely sit still behind the seat belt. His voice was low and soft, but it was filled with need. He had come to her when she was sleeping, and he had looked so sad.

     
All morning, he had whispered in her ears.

     
Fresa
, he called her—Strawberry.

     
¡Fresa, ven aquí!
Come here!

     
Wherever she turned, she'd heard his low cries.

     
Te necesito
. I need you.

     
¡Ayúdeme!
Help me!

     
This was
her
Paco,
el viejo
, who must be lying cold and hurt in the desert. Maybe he had only broken a leg—from
el demonio
—maybe that's why he hadn't come to take her home. And why hadn't she gone to find him sooner?

     
His face had looked
so
sad.

     
Serena's eyes grew hot with tears, but she held them back. She knew that crying would not help. Tears were useless.

     
No, Serena would use all her power, and she would find her Paco.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

S
YLVIA REACHED OVER
to lay a hand on Serena's forehead. She was warm to the touch. Her olive skin was unnaturally pale; her eyes shone overly bright. Was she crying? Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Sylvia draped her linen jacket over the child's narrow shoulders.

     
She tried to focus on the drive. Sylvia had always loved this stretch of road; over the years, she'd watched it develop. Beyond a series of subdivisions, Lamy and Galisteo were the two true villages situated just south of Santa Fe. The former, an Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe rail junction founded in the late 1800s, was named in honor of Archbishop John Lamy, missionary, pioneer, interloper. Galisteo began as an Indian pueblo that flourished for many years before it was first noticed by Europeans when Fray Rodriguez explored the area in the sixteenth century. Lamy was about seventeen miles southeast of Santa Fe, and the trains still rolled into the AT&S depot. Roughly five miles further south on Highway 41, Galisteo's rustic adobes were interspersed with million-dollar homes. Still, against the vast geology of the Galisteo Basin, the sparsely set human dwellings seemed inconsequential.

     
The Galisteo Creek rose to the land's surface near Lamy, flowing west toward the Rio Grande. A mud-red snake of water slithering between high clay banks, the creek shimmered far in the distance as the truck crested a hill. Sylvia noticed a gray hawk scooping the sky above; she pointed the bird out to Serena. The child watched its flawless gliding progress. But it wasn't a hawk. Sylvia looked closer; it was a paper kite. There were two kites, three. Serena shivered as the tiny paper forms floated on distant air.

     
The truck was approaching the site of the crash. Even though the accident had occurred after dark, the terrain seemed to strike a responsive chord in Serena. She had grown more withdrawn with each mile. She hardly reacted when Nikki thrust her head through the connecting window, dog breath warm and rank. The shepherd whined, excited by the open space and the motion of the vehicle.

     
Sylvia found the truck's speed creeping up to sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five. She lifted her foot from the accelerator and forced herself—not just the pickup—to slow down. A semi roared by, leaving a wake of turbulence that vibrated the smaller vehicle. Sylvia noticed a handmade sign, then another, announcing the village of Lamy's
FIRST ANNUAL OCTOBERFEST
. That explained the kites dancing in the sky.

     
Now the child pressed her head to the window. She seemed to be searching for landmarks. A low moan escaped her throat. The pulse in her slender neck jumped, while her hands fluttered in her lap. Every few seconds she cast a quick glance at Sylvia, and then her eyes returned to the land skimming past like an earthen wake.

     
The truck topped another rise. Beyond the high point, directly south, the mesas and bluffs melted away from the vast blue sky, and the earth flattened to form the Galisteo Basin. To the east, a mile or so ahead, a small paved road turned off to Lamy. Just one hundred feet in front of the truck, the railroad tracks cut across the highway like a geologic vein.