Fatal Intent (Desert Heat Book 3) (11 page)

EIGHTEEN

Alex had gotten as far as locating the record and familiarizing herself with the facts as the state had known them when Dylan called to find out if she was going to go to Scottsdale with him. As close as she was to confirming whether she’d found Sarah, she begged off. Dylan seemed disappointed, but she was too absorbed in her work to pay much attention.

A trucker had found the girl on the highway shoulder about ten miles west of Casa Grande. She had been unconscious, bleeding from fearsome wounds. The trucker had stayed with her after radioing for an ambulance, but investigating officers had cleared him when they checked his back trail at the weigh station at the Nevada border on Highway 8. The pool of vomit near her testified to his state of mind, as well.

A search on both sides of the highway revealed her struggle to reach it. She’d left a trail of blood for about five hundred yards. Her will to live must have been fierce, to have crawled that far with the injuries she had. But searchers found no identification, nor any clues as to her attackers. She never regained consciousness after the trucker found her. She’d died during the helicopter flight to Tucson, and her remains were still in a vault in the morgue.

Alex called. Would she be permitted to view the remains? Not unless she thought she could identify them, was the answer. She hated to take the news to the Davises with no more assurance than she had, but the coincidence was too strong to ignore. She gave the coroner’s office the information she had and asked them to call the Davises. She identified herself and asked for a return call when the Davises had seen what there was to see.

Meanwhile, she doodled ideas on a scratch pad for hours, trying to find an approach that would make sense for looking for her mom. She had name, birthdate, vital records. Would her mom have given a false name when she went to give birth? Would she have stayed in Arizona? What Alex needed was professional help, but with no money to pay for it, she was stuck with her own resources, and those were dwindling.

Two days after her call to the coroner, her return call came back. The Davises had identified Sarah by a birthmark on her hip. Alex had been responsible for finding the identity of one more set of remains. Meanwhile, a hundred more had come in. What needed to happen was something to stem the tide of people dying in the desert unidentified.

Alex described it as a task like that of Sisyphus, the Greek king who pissed off the gods with his deceit. They punished him for it by making him roll a rock to the top of a hill, where it rolled down again, over and over throughout eternity, symbolizing futility. How ironic that his crime was lying…the thing she hated above all else, and the reason she was still too angry with her dad to talk to him.

Alex felt no joy in her accomplishment. She wondered if the Davises would rather have believed their daughter alive but lost to them. How would
she
feel when she finally found her mother and her half-sibling? Would she be prepared to confront her mother and ask why she’d left her behind?

A call from the Davises put her mind at rest on their behalf. They invited her to the funeral. She still didn’t know how she felt about her mother.

She was still in this frame of mind when Dylan called on Monday to tell her he’d gotten the job. He was over the moon, or so it sounded. Talked about house hunting. Could she go with him the following weekend? With little enthusiasm, she agreed, but the excitement had gone out of it for her.

As weary and discouraged as she was by her daunting task, Dylan seemed like part of her past, not part of her future. She agreed to meet him at a hotel in Scottsdale on Friday evening anyway. He’d decided to rent for a while, to make sure they liked the neighborhood they chose before buying.

She wasn’t sure why he even wanted her there, since he was making all the decisions, but she did miss him. Maybe a weekend with him would cheer her up.

On Friday evening, she met him in the lobby of the hotel and was surprised to see his brothers with him.

“I thought since they missed the outing we promised them, I’d bring them along. They miss you too.”

That was all well and good, and she was glad to see the boys, but it presented a privacy problem. They were too young to stay in a room by themselves. Dylan had reserved adjoining rooms so she’d have her own bed. He and the boys were in a room with two beds. Alex swallowed her disappointment and tried to join in his enthusiasm, but her heart wasn’t in it.

By the time they’d had dinner, watched a movie with the boys and put them to bed, Dylan had picked up on her mood.

“Alex, I thought you’d be happier,” he said. They were sitting on the bed in her room, propped up against the headboard side by side. Neither had put on their nightclothes yet. The connecting door was ajar so Dylan could hear if the boys got into anything.

“I’m sorry, Dylan. I guess I’m depressed about that girl, Sarah. Someone mutilated her and left her to die. I can’t stop thinking about how frightened she must have been.”

Dylan put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest. “I know, babe. It’s awful. I’m worried about you, though. You haven’t seemed yourself since you found out about your mom. Are we ever going to talk about that?” His expression was so mournful that Alex’s heart went out to him.

“I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t burden you with my feelings, when you haven’t even had a chance to mourn
your
mom yet. How are you and the boys dealing with it?”

“We’re okay. Their memories of her are blurred, since they went into foster care quite a while before she passed. And I expected it. Don’t worry about us. Alex, I need to know that we’re okay, you and me.” Dylan took her hand in his free one and toyed with her fingers. “I need to put a ring on this hand,” he said.

“It’s too soon, Dylan. I understand, I really do. It’s just that I need this weight off me before I can think of engagement or marriage. Can you be okay with knowing I love you and I expect to spend my life with you?”

Dylan frowned. “I guess I have no choice, do I? I’d better get some sleep. We’ve got a long day tomorrow. The real estate agent has a bunch of houses lined up, since I couldn’t tell her exactly what we wanted. I think we’re going to see every open rental in Mesa tomorrow, and then in Tempe on Sunday.”

Alex nodded. He wouldn’t be sharing her bed tonight, then. It was just as well, since she didn’t feel much like lovemaking anyway. “See you in the morning.”

Dylan gave her a longing look. Had he wanted her to ask him to stay? Before she could say anything else, he heaved himself off the bed and went to his own room, closing the connecting door behind him. Alex turned on her side, still fully clothed, and wept herself to sleep.

~~~

Dylan tossed and turned before going to sleep. Alex didn’t seem to be into this house-hunting trip and he didn’t have any idea how to get her engaged in it. Her unenthusiastic response to his remark about a ring on her hand felt just like when she’d asked him if he was crazy for proposing to her all those months before.

I thought we were over this.

Eventually, sleep found him anyway, or he thought it had when he woke up disoriented. He opened his eyes and spotted the boys on the other bed, doing their best to remain quiet and still entertain themselves. They were wrestling, which had two possible outcomes. Either they’d start giggling and he’d have to wake up anyway, or one of them would hurt the other, resulting in howls and a less pleasant wake-up call.

With a sigh, Dylan resigned himself to getting up and starting the day. The clock said six-thirty. Oh, joy. He had two and a half hours to kill before they were to meet the real estate agent.

He got up and padded to the connecting door, half expecting to see the door on the other side closed and inaccessible when he opened his side. To his surprise, it stood open, so he peeked in to see if Alex was awake. She lay on the bed in much the same position where he’d left her last night, and it looked as if she’d fallen asleep in her clothes. Dylan backed out of her room and shut his door carefully.

“Boys,” he said. “Alex is still asleep, so don’t start making noise. If you want, we can go down and see what kind of breakfast they have. Or you can watch TV, but with the volume very low.”

“Breakfast! Breakfast!” Davi shouted, bouncing on the bed to punctuate his demand.

“Shh.” Juan had it covered. He pounced on Davi and put a pillow over his head. When he let his struggling younger brother up, Juan said in a fierce stage whisper. “Be quiet! Don’t wake Alex up, faggot.”

“Juan!” said Dylan, shocked. “That isn’t a nice word. You will not call your brother names, especially when you don’t know what they mean.”

“It means idiot, Dylan,” said Davi, coming to Juan’s defense.

“Um, no, it doesn’t. Just don’t say that anymore. Come on, you two get dressed and let’s go find something to eat.”

An hour later, the three returned to the room. Dylan turned on the TV, this time not bothering to worry about the volume. Alex would need to get up soon anyway, if she was going to get breakfast before their appointment. He’d brought up two cups of coffee, one for Alex, and he took it with him when he opened the door to check on her again. As soon as the door opened, the noise from the TV must have entered her consciousness, because she stirred, then jerked awake.

“Morning, sunshine,” Dylan said. He walked over to the bed and handed Alex the cup of coffee without remarking on her being dressed in the clothes she fell asleep in.

“Morning,” she replied. She reached for the cup he had extended. “Thanks.” After taking a sip and then a larger gulp when she realized it wasn’t very hot, she looked down at herself. “Why am I still in my clothes?”

“Well, I didn’t think it would be polite to take them off of you, since you were asleep. So I just made love to you with them on.” Dylan grinned as Alex gave him a look of confusion.

“We… oh, you’re joking. You jerk.”

Dylan grinned even more broadly. “I’ll have you know I was a perfect gentleman. And I don’t know why you’re still wearing your clothes. I excused myself to go to bed, and I don’t know what you did after that. You could have gone dancing for all I know.”

“Why didn’t we… oh, that’s right, you brought the boys,” she said, beginning to remember as she woke up more fully. “Where are they?”

“Next door, watching TV. Hey, sleepyhead. You better get ready, before it’s time to meet the Realtor.”

“Breakfast?” she said, a note of hope in her voice.

“Downstairs. The boys and I have been. Better hurry.” With that, Dylan dropped a kiss on the top of her head and walked away. Alex watched him go and wondered when the magic had gone out of their relationship. Was this to be their future? A breezy ‘hurry’ and a kiss on top of her head? In a moment of clarity, she knew it was her fault. She was so focused on these mysteries that she’d pushed Dylan away. Was it too late for them?

Later, after seeing enough houses to lose count, Alex complained to Dylan while out of earshot of the agent. “These are all so much alike. I don’t like any of them, do you?”

“I don’t know what to say, Alex. They all have what we need. There are only so many ways you can put a three bedroom, two bath house together. You’ve rejected ramblers, multi-levels and split-entries. There’s not much left.” Dylan sounded weary.

Alex knew the boys were just about at the end of their patience. “Maybe we’d better call it a day and talk about it, now we’ve seen what’s in your budget,” she suggested.

“Good idea,” he said.

Dylan went over to the agent and spoke to her in low tones, and then returned to Alex and the boys. “Let’s go get some pizza and figure out what to do tonight,” he suggested. A glance at Alex showed him she didn’t want to, but she nodded anyway.

If he could only figure out why she was so down, maybe he’d be able to suggest something that would cheer her up. Making love to her might do it, but that wasn’t a practical option with the boys along and too young to leave in a room by themselves. He was beginning to regret bringing them, and in turn, he resented Alex for causing him to feel that way. To avoid saying something he’d regret, he opted to say nothing at all.

After an awkward evening during which even the boys were unnaturally quiet, they went back to the hotel early and Alex went to her own room. The only encouraging thing Dylan could find was that she’d left her side of the connecting doors ajar. He got Davi started on a bath, told Juan to let him know when Davi was ready to get out, and went to see if Alex wanted to talk.

As Dylan pushed the door open gently, Alex looked up from her laptop, where she was tapping away at the keyboard. “Hey, whatcha doin’?” he asked.

“Writing a blog post,” she answered. Her tone wasn’t easy to read. She didn’t sound happy, and she didn’t sound sad, or mad, or whatever it had been all day.

“I thought we could talk about what we’re going to want in a house,” he said, sitting down on the bed beside her. As he settled, he heard her sigh heavily.

“I don’t care, Dylan. Rent what you want. What difference does it make?”

She closed the laptop before he caught more than a glance at the words on the screen. When had she become so secretive? What was she writing that she didn’t want him to see?

“What was that, Alex?” he asked.