Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2) (27 page)

     
Dr. Cray's eyes widened; Benji was right. . . but there was no way he could know this.

     
Benji backed toward the door. This doctor was part of some plan to keep him away from Rosie Sanchez. Well, it wouldn't work. He would find her, and then he would explain that her friend the psychologist—Sylvia Strange—was in trouble.

S
YLVIA DROVE FROM
the Albuquerque International Airport to her house outside Santa Fe. She was grateful to be on solid ground. The aerial step-down to Albuquerque had been turbulent; it usually was during the warm summer months. Although she flew regularly, she rarely enjoyed the experience. Especially when she had so much on her mind.

     
All in all, the forty-eight hours spent in Santa Barbara seemed unreal. Especially her encounter with Garret Ellington, and the message from Roxanne White about the Gentlemen's Club and Judge Nathaniel Howzer. Instead of finding answers, Sylvia had stirred up more questions.

     
She wanted to talk it all out with Matt—but they had some personal business to clear up first.

     
She considered whether to stop by his office, but decided against that plan. She wanted a little more time to consider her own feelings before she opened the floor to discussion on Erin Tulley's allegation. Anyway, state police headquarters wasn't the place to bring up Tulley's name.

     
She reached the edge of her twenty acres by noon and experienced a familiar sense of comfort, of coming home. Across the lane from her mailbox, crows monopolized a honey locust. Their loud caws sounded like insults hurled down from above. Blackberry avian eyes pierced the skin, jet bird feathers gleamed even through the haze. She had seen that morning's
Albuquerque Journal
headline in the airport newsstand, reporting two new small fires burning in surrounding mountain ranges. The dry heat felt foreign and harsh after the softness of ocean air. When she opened the metal box to pull out three days' worth of mail, she disturbed a layer of lacy ash. She stacked the letters on top of newspapers, drove the last hundred yards to her driveway, and climbed out of the Volvo.

     
In front of the house the lilacs were droopy, and the fruit on the apricot trees was tinged gray. Sylvia set her luggage on the front porch under the portal and moved the hose and sprinkler between two trees; their roots were desperate for moisture. She turned on the faucet, and water sprayed her bare legs and her shoes. She smiled when she remembered hot summer days in early childhood; her father was master of the garden hose and a stream of water—he would swing the jet like a jump rope while his small daughter squealed and jumped, dripping wet, deliciously happy.

     
She unlocked the front door and entered. The interior smelled stale, and she left her bags in the bedroom and immediately opened windows. Next, she twisted the cap from an icy bottle of Pete's Wicked Ale and read a postcard from her mother. The card showed a massive iceberg surrounded by gray-blue ocean. Her mother had penned a brief and humorous update of her Alaska cruise.

     
She spread peanut butter on an Oreo cookie and stared at the blinking light on her answering machine. Fuck it, she thought, as she jammed the cookie into her mouth. She had urgent business on her agenda: chill out, come down to earth, and water the damn garden. But first she wanted to smoke a cigarette.

     
She was in the side yard, barefoot, in shorts and T-shirt, when she heard a car pull into the driveway. She dropped the garden hose and stepped quickly toward the house. Then she recognized the roof of the Caprice and stopped. With both hands she pushed damp hair from her face. A smear of dirt decorated her chin and her shirt was dripping wet from the hose; she wrung water from the thin white fabric.

     
She wished Matt had given her another few hours to relax and pull herself together. Or at least enough time to get pleasantly high because that would be fine, too. She found her beer where she'd left it on the deck, drained it, and met Matt at the gate.

     
He smiled at her, kept his hands in his pockets, and kissed her lightly on the cheek. That was his compromise between warring instincts: to hold her or to fight. He was angry, and the anger had been building for weeks until his chest felt as though it was encased in concrete. Sometimes it was difficult to breathe. Like now. He knew the feeling of suffocation came from pushing down his emotions, keeping them below the surface, but his knowledge didn't help him. Always, when he tried to let his anger out, it got the best of him.

     
He leaned against the sagging coyote fence. After an uncomfortable silence, he asked, "How was Santa Barbara?"

     
"Weird." Her resolve to ask Matt about Erin Tulley wavered. She picked up the hose, aimed the nozzle toward the sky, and took a drink. Then she adjusted the spray over the flower bed, and began to speak—too fast.

     
She said, "Santa Barbara was
very
weird. Dupont's mother, Roxanne, is involved somehow with Garret Ellington—
the
Garret Ellington. And I drove out to Devil's Den Ranch; I found out Dupont had a cousin, a little girl, and both kids were out there in the summers—so were Roland White's cronies, and Fuller Lynch called them Roland's 'gentlemen friends.' Roxanne White left me a message that Judge Howzer is connected to the gentlemen—"

     
"Whoa. You're babbling. Slow down a minute." Matt took the hose from her fingers and set it down in a bed of cosmos. The water made a soft urgent sound. "Nathaniel Howzer is involved with Dupont White's family?"

     
"That's what I just said." Abruptly, Sylvia tipped her head and sighed. Then she raised both hands, palms out, and stepped away from Matt. "Stop. Wait. This is making me crazy."

     
"What?"

     
"Did you fuck Erin Tulley?"

     
Matt opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. His voice was soft. "Yeah."

     
"Jesus." Sylvia shook her head. Then, carefully, she picked up the hose and turned the spray on Matt. He jumped from cold and shock when icy water hit his face and chest. After a few seconds, Sylvia let the hose drop to the ground.

     
Matt wasn't sure whether to laugh or get mad. "Sylvia, it happened before you and I even knew each other."

     
"She's young enough to be your daughter." Sylvia swallowed hard, then she turned and walked past the salt cedar.

     
He followed her, tasting the dusty scent of the bush as he moved. "We saw each other for a few months. She said she was in love with me. . . but I didn't feel that way."

     
She stopped, pivoted, and let her eyes burn holes in his skin. Her voice was incredulous. "That's it? That's all that happened?"

     
His answer was a fraction too slow. "Almost. That's almost all."

     
"Dammit! Will you just give me a straight answer?" She stomped over a flower bed, crushing pastel cosmos underfoot.

     
Matt stood his ground. "We got together again in March."

     
Sylvia skirted the side of the house and slumped down on the wooden steps of the deck. Matt walked over to her and leaned against the railing. He thought he saw tears on her cheeks.

     
Her voice sounded very young, almost tremulous. "Was it after I told you I needed time alone to think about our relationship?"

     
"Yeah."

     
After a silence, she said, "Please don't make me ask."

     
He looked embarrassed. "We had drinks a few times—dinner."

     
"Did you have sex?"

     
Matt blushed. "Goddammit."

     
"Okay." She looked miserable. The crows in the yard were crabbing; loud, heated squawks emanated from tree branches, fence posts, and the power pole. Their cousins, a family of magpies, joined the debate.

     
Sylvia barely heard the cacophony. She asked, "Did you sleep with her again?"

     
"No."

     
"Did you want to?"

     
"I wanted you. I love you."

     
She took a breath. "Why didn't you tell me when it happened?"

     
"I was going to. . . but you and I were back together . . . and there was really nothing to tell." Matt's forehead creased with concern.

     
Sylvia sighed. She studied Matt, and thought about the fact that she could have lost him. And she thought about the fact that he was in love with her. And how good that felt.

     
She stood slowly and walked over to the hose. It was still running, and water had puddled around the walkway. Sylvia turned the nozzle on herself. Icy needles of water stung her throat and chest. She closed her eyes, let her head fall back until the sun burned a golden fringe around her eyelids. She felt Matt's hands on her shoulders, and she almost shook him off. Instead, she twisted her body, and pressed her cheek against his chin. The shaved bristles of his beard roughed up her skin.

     
Above the sound of the spurting water, she barely heard him whisper, "I love you."

     
Behind the fabric of his collar, she bit soft skin. His body tensed, and he scooped her breasts in his hands. When she found his mouth with her tongue, she forced his lips apart. Still, the hose gushed cold water between their bodies.

     
She pulled back for air, and mumbled, "Water's freezing."

     
Matt slid his hands from her nipples, down her belly, to her thighs. He eased one finger between her legs. She moaned, but she pushed him away and pressed the garden hose into his hand. Her voice was a growl. "Get rid of this damn thing."

     
Then she knelt down in front of him, unzipped his wet pants, loosened his shorts, and pulled them down around his ankles. He was hard, pressing toward her face, and she took him into her mouth. His body swayed, and then he caught himself, balanced with one hand on her shoulder. Water still poured from the hose in his other hand.

     
Matt caught his breath sharply, and he dropped the hose. She had him inside, all the way to her throat, and her teeth were sharp.

     
She willed him to relax, ran her fingers gently over his bare butt. Gradually, he let go, gave in to the rhythm of her mouth. And, finally, he let her have her way.

I
N THE KITCHEN
, after a long, warm shower, they shared a beer. His muscles had turned into jelly. He leaned up against the counter and watched his lover pour potato chips into a bright blue bowl.

     
He said, "If you've got a craving, why don't you just smoke a cigarette?"

     
Her eyebrows arched, and she popped a potato chip into her mouth. Then she shrugged, opened the utensil drawer and scavenged a slightly-worse-for-wear cigarette from behind the spoons. She lit it with a kitchen match, inhaled, and exhaled in his face. "If you knew I smoked, why didn't you say something before?"

     
"I wanted to see if you'd volunteer the information." He gave a short laugh. "I'm going to stop acting guilty about my bad habits."

     
"Be my guest." Sylvia smiled, shook her head.

     
Matt eyed her quizzically, wondered how well he knew her, and what other secrets she might have.

     
Her fingers drummed the countertop. "Anything on Kevin?" Her voice was edgy. "I keep expecting him to show up."

     
Matt considered how much to tell her. He said, "You remember a pedophile named Manny Dunn?"

     
Sylvia nodded, then paled. "Don't tell me he's dead?"

     
"He's not dead, yet. But we got a tip that Kevin and whoever he's working with have set Manny Dunn up for a kidnapping tonight."

     
Sylvia's eyes shot wide. "Where?'' She stepped forward, her body tense. "I want to be there."

     
Matt shook his head. "We'll have the place staked out. We'll be waiting when they show. They won't get away."

     
"Does Dan Chaney know about this?"

     
"Yeah."

     
Sylvia hunched forward nervously, and asked, "Will you call me as soon as it happens?"

     
"You bet." Matt wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "I'd feel better if you were at Rosie's."

     
Sylvia opened her mouth to protest, closed it again. Then she nodded.

     
"I'll call you the minute we've got them."

     
She stabbed her cigarette out in the sink. "Be careful."

     
She walked him to the gate. At the edge of the deck she stopped and stared up at the sawback ridge that sliced jaggedly into the sky behind her home. When she turned back to Matt, her face was soft with emotion.

S
HE PUT ON
her running shoes and took off on a jog along her regular makeshift course. It was much too hot for exercise, but she had so much pent-up energy that the run took twenty minutes instead of forty. Her route followed the dirt road, cut up onto the lower flank of the ridge back, and doubled back to the house.

     
The phone began to ring as soon as she walked in the back door. She shook her head, bent over to catch her breath, and heard the answering machine click on. The volume was down. She could ignore the world and this message. At the sink, she filled a tumbler with water, and then her fingers moved reluctantly to the machine. She turned up the volume.