A touch of love (33 page)

"Devil's Playground. That's rich. Do you suppose that's what the area's really called, or is this an example of black humor?"

"Interstate 15 is the road to Las Vegas, and if I'm not mistaken, the Devil's Playground is a vast area of sand dunes." The Indian brave's image flashed in her mind and her expression lit with sudden recognition. "That has to be the desert the Indian was walking though. There are sandstorms in the area all the time, just like in our dreams.''

Jesse stared at Aubrey while he weighed her supposition, but he quickly came to the same conclusion. He reached into his glove compartment, yanked out a tattered map of California, and spread it across the dash. "What's the fastest way to Barstow from here?"

Aubrey quickly plotted their route. "Interstate 15 crosses

the 10 out past Ontario. We'll take it all the way. It will be a long drive. Better let me walk Lucky.''

Jesse left the truck with Aubrey and Lucky, keping a close eye on the road while she walked the dog. He had not argued with her about bringing him, and while he had thrown a shovel in the back, he thought the shepherd might find the gravesites a lot more quickly than he. It was still cool, but the day promised to be warm, and he hoped they would have everything settled by nightfall. Not everything perhaps, he chided himself, but everything concerning the Ferrells at least.

Jesse kept the Chevy at the speed limit until they reached the turnoff for Interstate 15. Then the road snaked and turned as they climbed up and over the San Bernadino Mountains and they couldn't make nearly as rapid progress. "How's Lucky doing? I've had dogs who got carsick in the mountains and I sure don't want to discover that Lucky's one of them too late."

Aubrey had rolled down the window, and Lucky was riding along with his nose pressed into the oncoming stream of air. He appeared to be enjoying himself immensely, although she felt a bit queasy. She had brought along a bag of fruit, but didn't feel up to eating anything. "Lucky's fine, but I've had better days."

"Do you want to stop?"

"No. I just want to get this wretched trip over and done." She had never been able to read in a moving car, but quickly checked the map. "This can't be drawn to scale. I'll bet the Xs aren't anywhere near the actual graves."

"We'll find them," Jesse assured her. "A metal detector might help, but Caine probably stole their watches and rings."

Aubrey wondered if the family had still been alive on the trek out to the desert, then hoped that they had not driven all those miles suffering from the terror she felt

now. She reached over to squeeze Jesse's thigh. "You're a good man, Jesse Barrett. I'm sorry I couldn't have done more for you, but I'll do my best now to help you find the graves."

Jesse regarded Aubrey with an anxious glance. "You've been an enormous help. I've been trying to remember the desert dream, but there weren't any significant details in mine. Were there in yours?"

Aubrey shook her head. "Nothing helpful like a gnarled old tree with a hangman's noose dangling from it." She could not summon the Indian brave at will, but would certainly give it a try should their initial explorations prove fruidess. She hugged Lucky and rolled the window a bit lower for him.

"It's getting warm." She had brought bottled water for them all, but it was nearly gone. "Let's stop in Barstow. I don't want to run out of water."

"Right. We ought to eat something."

Jesse was excited, but relieved they at last had a tangible, if not all that precise, a clue to the Ferrells' whereabouts. Aubrey was simply withdrawn. He knew how hard on her the whole perplexing case had been, and hoped with all his heart they were finally at the end. Interstate 15 had replaced the historic Route 66, but he was still aware of how many travelers had passed that way and could not shake the feeling something deeply memorable was yet to occur.

"I'm not such a good man," he argued absendy. "I just never had much in the way of family, so maybe losing what litde I had hit me harder than it would have most people."

They had exchanged very litde information about their families, but Aubrey was definitely curious enough to prompt him to continue. "You mentioned that your father and Edith weren't close."

"My dad wasn't close to anyone," Jesse admitted darkly,

"unless a bottle of booze qualifies as a best friend. People are a lot more aware of what's going on now than when I was a kid, but back then, my dad was simply a drunk, and my mother martyred herself keeping it a secret."

Aubrey had seen that same deeply suspicious expression on Jesse's face at their first seminar. She could only imagine how unhappy his home life had been, and no child raised with that kind of misery and shame was likely to survive it without scars. She knew just how badly he would react to pity, and strove to keep it out of her voice.

"Where were you while all this was going on, just out riding and making up the adventures you told us about?"

"Yeah, you could say that. Until his heart gave out, my father had a constitution of iron. He never missed a day of work in the copper mines, nor a night of drinking until he passed out in his chair. When I was little, my mother actually told me that he was having back trouble, and found sleeping in his easy chair more comfortable than the bed. I couldn't have been older than four or five, but even then I knew she was lying. It can't be good for a kid that young to see his father as a drunk and his mother as a liar."

"No, definitely not, but I think it's common in alcoholi families."

Sorry he had shared such a pathetic tale, Jesse straightened up. "I've made it all right on my own, but I do want my aunt to finally have some peace. Let's hope we can give it to her today."

Jesse may have effectively closed the door on his past, but he had just explained a great deal to Aubrey without realizing it. He did not associate a home and family with love and security as she did, but that did not mean he could not learn to accept them as his right. Thinking things might not be as impossible as she had feared, she hugged Lucky and began to enjoy the passing countryside.

Irrigated with well water, wide alfalfa fields blanketed

g

the desert land with green, and had their errand not been such a sad one, Aubrey would have found the agricultural setting a relaxing one. Willows and cottonwoods lined the farms, but as they neared the city, the landscape gradually changed to the familiar one of gas stations and convenience stores. Aubrey never ate fast food, but when Jesse pulled into his favorite place for hamburgers, she felt safe in having a chocolate milkshake.

After eating, they replenished their supply of bottled water, fed and walked Lucky, then passed on through Bars-tow, and continued northeast toward the Devil's Playground. Aubrey could not help but wonder if Harlan Caine had chosen the site for its evocative name, or simply because it was remote. They had to drive the better part of an hour before the first sign naming the area appeared.

Jesse pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway, and he and Aubrey consulted the makeshift map. "Other than to put us in the general area, this map is absolutely useless,'' he complained.

"Let's scout around a bit," Aubrey suggested. She had worn tennis shoes with Levi's and a T-shirt, and after such a long drive was ready to get out and explore. "The soil is too sandy for Caine to have driven off the road, so the bodies can't be very far away."

"It's been two years. I doubt Lucky can catch any scents, but let's give him a try before we resort to conjuring up Indians."

"That's fine with me," Aubrey agreed, but she handed Jesse Lucky's leash to hold and wandered around on her own. The sand sparkled exacdy as it had in her dream, but there were no trails through the wind-sculpted dunes. She closed her eyes and tried to recall how the scene had looked from above when the Indian had carried her aloft, but envisioned no more than a golden haze.

She glanced back toward the highway, and was relieved

to find she had not wandered far. Jesse and Lucky were off to her right, and feeling safe, she closed her eyes. "Come to me, Indian," she begged. "Show me where they are." She had the ridiculous notion she ought to offer a bribe of some sort, but was positive spirits would have no need of Earthly treasures.

A divining rod was a tool for locating water, but she had never heard of anyone using a similar device to discover bodies. She stood still while a warm breeze caressed her face and strove to hush such distracting thoughts. If the Ferrells' bodies were closeby, surely they would be calling out to her just as they had heard Marlene's heartbreaking wail in their garage.

"Call to me," she whispered. "Tell me where you are."

As she waited, the noise from passing traffic blurred to a dull hum but no ghostly voices interrupted her inner silence. Frustrated by her lack of success, she trudged through the sand to where Jesse stood gazing out across the dunes. Lucky was sniffing the ground in lazy circles, but clearly had not caught a scent.

"We should have brought a bloodhound," Aubrey complained. "I drew a blank. Can you sense anything?"

Jesse dropped his arm around Aubrey's shoulders and gave her a quick hug. "Not yet. I didn't realize what a vast area this would be. Let's walk parallel to the highway, and keep moving in. If we don't come across a scrap of fabric, or any other clue today, we can go back to Barstow, buy toothbrushes, and spend the night in a motel. The sand looks as though it's always drifting here, and maybe what we don't find today, we'll be able to discover tomorrow."

"A metal detector might not be a bad thing to have," Aubrey suggested.

"Come on, let's see what we can sense on our own. Let's go in separate directions, and then meet in the center before we walk a new area."

Aubrey believed their task a thousand times more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack, but she was not ready to give up without making a determined try. "Fine." She turned away, and started back the way she had come. Moving slowly, she held her arms away from her sides and hoped the Ferrells' restless spirits would guide her to their graves.

The sun was high overhead, and she was getting thirsty, but she pushed herself up and over the first dune in her path, and on to the next. She wondered how much Pete Ferrell had weighed, and how far Caine and Gilroy could possibly have carried him. Surely there had been a limit to their endurance, but late at night, they could have stopped anywhere along the highway to dispose of the grim evidence of their crime.

She stood still for a moment before turning back, but the only sensations to reach her were the waves of heat radiating off the sand. Thinking perhaps she and Jesse had made a mistake in separating, she paused to wipe her sunglasses on the hem of her T-shirt before turning back. But as she donned them and looked up, she was shocked to find Harlan Caine no more than three paces behind her. He was holding an automatic pistol that fit easily in his hand, but it appeared enormous to her. She lifted her gaze to his, but there was no fear in his eyes, only an expression of fierce loathing.

"Gilroy played a nasty trick on us both," Caine murmured softly. "Only he gave you a map and a head start before calling me." He moved toward her over the sand. "I do believe he expected an old-fashioned showdown where you'd kill me, but that's just not going to happen. The sands here have probably swallowed bodies by the score, and a couple more won't make a bump on the horizon."

He gestured with his weapon. "Now you're going to go

back the way you came, but stop just below the crest of the second dune. Yell to Jesse that you've found something, but don't even hint at what."

"You'll never get away with this," Aubrey warned in a desperate attempt to stall for time.

Caine laughed at her threat. "My dear, I mastered getting away with murder years ago. Getting rid of you two won't even pose a challenge."

"Wait a minute. If Gilroy telephoned us both, what makes you think he didn't call the police, as well?" Aubrey placed her hands on her hips, planted her feet firmly in the sand, and shouted for Jesse in her mind. If he were listening as closely for the Ferrells' cries as she had been, she felt certain he would hear her and come running.

Caine took another step closer. "Gilroy would never telephone the police. Now I realize this has to be a disappointing way for your afternoon to end, but it's inevitable. Now start moving, or I'm going to cause you some excruciating pain."

He raised the pistol as though he meant to strike her a bruising blow, but Aubrey stood her ground. She again screamed for Jesse in her mind, and began to smile. "You are a lying coward, and this is the last day you'll ever walk the Earth free."

Thinking Aubrey must have a reason for such an outrageous display of courage, Harlan Caine quickly glanced over his shoulder, but the dune at his back blocked his view. Positive no rescue could possibly be imminent, he simply changed his plan and took careful aim. "Good-bye, Ms. Glenn. Do give the Ferrells my regards."

Aubrey saw him slowly begin to squeeze the trigger, but a wild war whoop rang in her mind, and her smile didn't waver.

Jesse's strength had been honed on a lifetime of hard work, and he used every muscle to its full advantage. He had never lost a fistfight in years of scrapping behind honky-tonk bars, and each punch he threw was brutal. He repeatedly yanked Harlan to his feet for the sheer joy of knocking him right back down, and when the developer was too dizzy to stand, Jesse drew a razor-sharp knife from his boot.

Standing over Harlan, he spoke clearly so he could not possibly be misunderstood. "Pete Ferrell was my cousin, and I loved Marlene and the boys. Now I would just as soon gut you right here and leave you screaming your head off while you bleed to death in the sand, but I owe my relatives a Christian burial. I'll give you a single chance to tell us where you left their bodies. If they're not there, I'm going to cut you to ribbons."

Aubrey prayed Jesse's ghastly threat had been made solely for effect, but when Harlan Caine tried to scramble away with a slip-sliding sideways crawl, it was plain he believed every word. The breeze had picked up, and the air was filling with fine grit, but she knew the men could still see her clearly.