Final Scream (31 page)

No! No! No!

Cassidy wouldn’t believe that Brig was dead. Though she’d lived for years telling herself that he’d left this world, deep in her heart, she’d always believed that he was alive somewhere and that someday she would see him again. Then, when she’d learned of the John Doe, when he’d been holding on to a St. Christopher’s medal, she’d let her imagination run away from her and convinced herself that he was Brig.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, tears threatening her eyes. He
can’t
be dead!
Cannot
be dead!

“Hey, you all right?” the detective said. He sounded far away, his voice muted. “You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

“No—” Her own voice was displaced. She ran a hand over her forehead and steadied herself against the wall. Blackness threatened the edges of her vision.

“I could call a nurse.”

“I’ll be fine,” she snapped, still reeling.

Wilson studied her. “You gonna tell me what you know about him?”

“The man in CCU?” She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Yet when I tell you he died, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What is it?”

“I—uh, I just hoped he would make it. So he could talk to me, to you, to explain what happened,” she said, her mind still filled with a kaleidoscope of images of Brig. It had been so many years, and yet she remembered him as clearly as if she’d been with him only yesterday.

“I think we should tell your husband.”

Oh, God!

“He’s not talking to us, you know. Hasn’t so much as said a word, but I can tell he’s listening. Maybe this will loosen his tongue.”

“He’s with his mother now…” Impulsively she touched the officer’s arm. “Don’t say anything until you talk to the doctor, please. I don’t want Chase to take a turn for the worse.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about. But you.”

“I’ll be all right,” she lied, blinking against tears. “It was just such a shock…if you’ll excuse me.”

T. John watched as she pulled herself together. It was amazing how quickly she could transform. A second ago he was certain she would fall in a heap, but she managed to square her shoulders, dash away any sign of tears and offer him a sad smile before she disappeared into the elevator.

“She’s hiding something,” he said to Gonzales. Reaching into his pocket, he found the first pack of Camels he’d bought in months.

“But what?”

“Unless I miss my guess, she knows who the John Doe is.”

“And you don’t?”

“Can’t prove it. Not until we hear back from Alaska.” In frustration, T. John opened the cellophane wrapper from his cigarettes and even got so far as to shake one out. But he didn’t light it, just rolled it in his fingers as he stared at the elevator doors. Nurses, doctors, visitors passed him, but T. John didn’t notice; his mind was too focused on Cassidy Buchanan McKenzie and the secrets she so jealously guarded.

He’d find out what they were. Oh, it would take a little time and a lot of digging, but as sure as Elvis was dead and buried, T. John would find them.

“Call Chase McKenzie’s doctor—Rick, er Richard Okano, I think the guy’s name is—find out when we can talk to his patient.” He lifted the cigarette to his nostrils and smelled the fresh tobacco, then caught the eye of a nurse who stared pointedly at his hands, almost daring him to light up. He noticed the obnoxious no-smoking sign posted near the nurses’ station. Yeah, well, it seemed like you couldn’t light up anywhere around here anymore. Good thing he’d quit.

“Keep the John Doe on ice until someone claims him and check with Alaska—see what the hang-up is.”

“You got it,” Gonzales said.

“And pictures. I want every picture you can find of Brig McKenzie.” He thought for a minute. “I want to talk to every old-timer in town, find out what the gossip around here was seventeen years ago.” His eyes narrowed on the elevator, and he imagined Cassidy as a gawky teenager, a tomboy, pale in comparison to her older half sister. “See what the family dynamics of the Buchanans and the McKenzies were. I want to know why Lucretia Buchanan offed herself, why Frank McKenzie took a hike and how Brig McKenzie fits in with Angie and Cassidy Buchanan. There was friction between him and the Baker boy who got killed. Check that out as well.”

“Anything else?” Gonzales asked.

“Yeah. Find out where Chase McKenzie was during all this time. He was supposed to be the good McKenzie boy, always looking after Mom, toeing the line, going to school and working his butt off. But it just doesn’t wash with me.”

“You think he’s lying?”

“He’s not talking at all, but yeah, he’s lying. The whole damned lot of them are lying. But the trouble with lies is that when one starts to unravel, the entire web starts falling apart. All we have to do is pull one thread and my guess is we should start with Willie Ventura. He’s the one who’ll have the most trouble holding his lies together.”

Cassidy walked on legs made of rubber. There was no proof that Brig was the man in CCU, no reason to believe that he was dead, yet her stomach was sour and an emptiness stole through her heart as she found her way back to Chase’s room.

“Mrs. McKenzie—” The nurse at the station seemed worried. “Mrs. McKenzie, I’ve been trying to locate you.”

Oh God, what now?
Cassidy hesitated. “Yes? Is something wrong?” she said, reading the concern in the woman’s dark eyes. “My husband—”

“Is stable. It’s not him. It’s your mother-in-law.”

“Sunny?” Dread was a needle pricking deep into her heart.

“Yes.” The nurse lifted her hands. “She’s not with you?”

“No, I left her here, remember?”

“Oh, dear. I’m afraid she must’ve slipped out of the room while I was making rounds of medication and the other nurse was attending someone else—”

“Wait a minute.” Cassidy’s foggy mind instantly cleared. “You mean to tell me that she’s not here. Not in the hospital?”

“I don’t know about the rest of the hospital.” The sallow-faced nurse started to get defensive. “But she’s not in this wing on this floor.”

“You’re certain?”

The woman’s mouth became a formidable line. “Yes, Mrs. McKenzie, but I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

“Has anyone checked the bathrooms?”

“No, but—”

Cassidy’s heart was pumping wildly. Sunny wouldn’t have taken off, would she? She couldn’t get very far. She used a cane, for crying out loud. “Look, my mother-in-law needs to be found. I’ll check my car and the restrooms. If you would have someone look elsewhere, in case she’s confused—” Cassidy was already running down the hallway toward the front doors. She didn’t believe for a minute that Sunny had gone to the Jeep, but she couldn’t be certain.

Outside the sun was blazing. Hot rays burned across the pavement, softening the tar in the asphalt. The Jeep was where Cassidy had left it, and she was just about to turn back to the hospital when she spied a note, tucked beneath the wiper blade of the driver’s side.

She snatched it up and saw the penciled scrawl:

Don’t worry—the spirits are with me in my quest. Love, Sunny
.

No!

Cassidy sagged against the fender and stared at the blinding white paper, the back of which was soiled and advertised yard work—a flyer that had apparently just blown across the parking lot.

“God help her,” she said, shading her eyes as she swept her gaze across a sea of vehicles. Where would Sunny have gone? And why? What the devil was her quest? Chase was right, she was getting worse. Now she’d fantasized that she was off on some vision quest, the kind her ancestors followed.

Chase would be furious. He hadn’t wanted Sunny to visit him, and now she was running loose, capable of inflicting pain on herself or others. Cassidy kicked at her tire in frustration, then slowly walked down each and every row of parked cars, making sure Sunny wasn’t crouching behind a station wagon or lying in the bed of a pickup. She wasn’t. Not a sign of her. How had she left? Called a cab from the hospital? Hitchhiked? Stolen a car? Found a bus? Hobbled off with her cane for God’s sake?
How?

Sweat beaded on Cassidy’s scalp as she made her way back to the hospital. She didn’t know how to break the news to Chase. Any of the news. Not only was it likely that his one brother was dead, but his half brother was very much alive, though Chase didn’t know they were related. On top of that, his mother was missing. All Cassidy’s fault. One more reason for their already crumbling marriage to fall more quickly apart.

“I knew she should never have come here,” Chase growled, once Cassidy had told him the news about Sunny.

“I thought she needed to see her son.”

“Well, she didn’t stay here long.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No.”

“Oh, Chase—” She walked to the bed and stared down at him. His angry eye followed her. “She’ll be all right.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

She grabbed the rails of his bed and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond.

Calming herself, she slowly let out her breath. “There’s something else you should know.”

“More good news?” he mocked, his words barely distinguishable through the wires in his jaw.

“No. It’s bad.” She took in a shuddering breath. “The man in CCU died today. That’s where I was; I saw the detectives come in and I had this feeling and…”

The eye closed and the room grew incredibly still. If possible, he seemed to stop breathing, his lips tense, the bruises on his face green and garish. Noises through the door were muted—phones ringing and carts rattling and voices speaking—all seemed so far away and unimportant.

She plunged on. “They still don’t know who he is, Chase, but they’ll be here, asking questions again as soon as Dr. Okano says it’s okay. You…you should think about what you’re going to tell them.”

“I’ll tell them the truth.”

“Which is?”

He stared at her so hard, she nearly cried out. Though he didn’t say a word, she understood that the dead man was Brig. “This will be hard, Cass,” he said with the first trace of tenderness she’d heard from him in a long, long while. “On you. On me. On everyone.”

Sunny thanked the farmer and climbed out of the dusty pickup. The floor was littered with tools. Dust covered every interior space, and the glove box was tied together with bailing twine, but the man was good and wholesome and had offered her a ride and she’d accepted. She’d turned down two before him, one was a bunch of kids in a beat-up Chrysler. They’d rolled to a stop, offered easy smiles with devilment in their teenaged eyes. A cloud of marijuana smoke had billowed out when one of the boys had said, “Hey, Grandma? How about a trip to heaven?” The other kids, packed in like sardines, had snickered.

“Already there,” Sunny had replied with a smile.

“You don’t need a ride? Come on, old lady, you’ve got a cane.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather walk.”

“Ain’t that a pisser?” The boy’s sunny disposition had disappeared, and Sunny realized that her first instinct, that the kids were only picking her up to make sport of her, was correct. She saw their auras, knew that the ringleader, the one talking to her, was a bad seed. No conscience. Out for a good time, and if it meant frightening little old ladies, all the better. The other kids were just along for the ride. Two girls—they were nervous—and another boy, the driver, who seemed worried and kept checking the rearview mirror.

“I’m meeting my son,” she said.

“And who’s he?” the ringleader snarled. “Jesus Christ?”

“His name is T—that stands for Thomas—John Wilson,” she lied. “You may have heard of him.”

“Shit, man, let’s get out of here,” the driver said. “T. John Wilson’s with the Sheriff’s Department. He’s thrown my old man in jail a couple of times.”

“I know.” The ringleader’s eyes glittered like hard, cold stones. “You’re making a mistake, lady.”

“I don’t think so.” Suddenly, she reached forward, grabbed his arm and her fingers wrapped around the small bones. Closing her eyes, she began chanting in her mother’s native tongue, over and over again, her voice high and reedy.

“What the fuck?” the boy screamed, startled.

“I don’t like this,” one of the girls exclaimed.

“She’s crazy, man.” The driver stomped on the throttle, Sunny let go of the boy’s arm and the car sped away, swerving over the center line before straightening.

The next people that pulled over were a young couple with a baby strapped into a car seat. Sunny didn’t take the ride because she recognized the woman—Mary Beth Spears, recently married and now a mother. Mary Beth was angry, her lips drawn into a tight little pout, and though she didn’t seem to recall Sunny, she was in a bad mood.

“Need a ride?” Her husband, a sandy-haired fellow with trusting eyes, craned his neck to look past the stiff profile of his wife.

“I’m enjoying my walk.”

“Mighty hot.”

“There’s a breeze.”

“We’ll be glad to take you back to Prosperity or wherever you want to go.”

Mary Beth shot her husband a hate-filled glance, and whispered something out of the corner of her mouth—something about heathens and the devil.

“No reason, I’m fine.”

“She’s fine, Larry,” Mary Beth said just as the baby in the backseat started to fuss. “Now let’s just get going. Mama and Daddy are waiting.”

“Just trying to be a Good Samaritan,” he said, then looked at Sunny again. “You’re sure, lady?”

“I’m sure.”

“Come on, Larry.” Mary Beth’s fingers drummed on the worn copy of the Bible spread open on her lap.

“Well, good day to ya,” Larry said, as the baby started crying in earnest.

“Same to you.”

“May Jesus be with you,” Mary Beth said, evoking a perfect and pious smile.

“And you.”

The car roared away and Sunny was grateful that Chase had never gotten involved with Mary Beth. They’d only dated once at the Caldwell party, the night Angie Buchanan had died, but that one date had struck fear into Sunny’s heart.

Several motorists passed, sending clouds of dust toward the ditch before the farmer, a muscular man named Dave Dickey stopped. She sensed immediately that he was a good man as he’d leaned over and opened the door to the cab. He was an honest man, his eyes clear brown behind photogray glasses that had darkened in the sun.