Going to the Bad (5 page)

“There isn't one. They haven't seen each other in decades.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.” A smile filled out her thin lips. “Why do you think I brought you up from the gate?”

“I thought it was because I threatened to go on TV and embarrass your family.”

“I could care less about that. I don't even live in this country anymore.” She said it as though the United States and her family
were both distasteful memories. “But I am curious to find out what Leland may be doing with Allan after all these years.”

For some reason her calling him Allan bugged me the same way her knowledge of my father had. “Why do you keep calling him that?”

“Allan? That's his name.”

I managed not to say that Bud must prefer the “stupid nickname” since he'd been using it my entire life. “When was the last time you saw Bud?”

“Over fifty years ago.”

“If you don't mind my asking, what was your relationship?”

“I already told you,” she snapped. “Allan was Leland's best friend.”

“That's what he was to Leland. What was Bud to you?”

“I don't like your tone.”

“If you don't like my tone, then what I'm actually thinking would really offend you.”

She laughed. “I have a pretty good idea what you're thinking. You're not exactly a difficult person to read.”

I knew this was true, but that didn't keep me from feeling annoyed. “I'm thinking that every time you call him Allan, you're raising your leg like a dog marking its territory. Most people aren't that possessive about friends of their brother's who they haven't seen in fifty years.”

She gave the truck some gas and we climbed the short hill.

I continued, “And why haven't you asked me how he is? An old acquaintance who hadn't seen him in that long would be curious. He could be dead for all you know.”

We cleared the hill and sailed over the crest. For the first time, we had an unobstructed view.

My breath caught and I momentarily forgot my questions.

“It's something, huh?” She glanced at me. “The architect actually had dirt trucked in to construct that hill we just came over. He wanted a dramatic introduction to his work.”

“The house is the least of the drama.”

The dirt road continued its path through the wild brush and ended at a long, two-story building made of glass and concrete. It barely registered as a house. Instead, the large structure, built near the edge of the bluffs, served as a complement to what lay below. Warner had built his mansion overlooking a working oil field.

Pollution was low today, so the view stretched for miles. Power poles and cables formed a black web over the land. A second network of shiny pipes connected everything on the ground. In several places, flames shot straight into the sky burning off gas. The derricks themselves bobbed up and down as they sucked raw crude out of the earth.

“This was where Leland dropped his first well.” Her abrupt tone had been replaced with something gentler. “Before that, this land used to belong to our father. When I was a girl, I would cross the river just below the bluffs and climb up here. I could see the men picking fruit and sometimes even my father riding his horse out to check on them.”

Her nostalgia turned wry. “I hadn't thought Leland sentimental, but after I ran away from home, he chose this spot to build his mansion. Maybe the fact that I was forty before I got the courage to leave made my desertion all the more unexpected.”

The two-story building had been constructed of large blocks of concrete stacked in vertical lines, interspersed with columns of windows. A greenhouse capped each end of the building, with large trees inside reaching as tall as the house. They were either trapped or showcased, depending on your perspective.

As we approached the copper double doors set in the exact middle of the house, I spotted a man in a Valsec Security uniform. He stared at us with his arms crossed. I recognized him as Warner's head of security.

Miss Warner saw him too. She slowed and then stopped in front of the house. She put the pickup in park, but left the engine running.

“I brought a visitor up, Frank.” She carefully stepped down into the dirt. She was even shorter than me. “This lady's the niece of an old family friend.”

“It's okay, Miss Erabelle. You did the right thing.” He gave me a curt nod. “Good to see you again, Miss Hawkins.”

I came around the front of the truck and stopped. Frank was in his fifties with a spare tire and graying hair. He looked like someone who might be a friend of your dad's, but his blandness hid some nasty skills.

“Why are you happy to see me?” I said. “Looking for someone to assault and kidnap?”

Erabelle, as he'd called her, looked surprised. I guessed she really didn't know about the business last year.

Frank told a young guard to take the truck to the garage, then held open one of the copper doors for us. “Mr. Warner saw you on the security cameras and is eager for a private chat.”

“I doubt Warner's as eager to see me as I am to see him.”

I entered, followed by Erabelle. Another glass greenhouse containing a single willow tree sat in the exact center of the house. The branches had been decorated with white Christmas lights.

Frank shut the door behind us. “If you'll come with me, Miss Hawkins.” He started around the tree.

Erabelle followed. “I'm coming too.”

Frank continued to a wide staircase placed before a wall of windows. The view was of the oil field.

He spoke with politeness, but no respect. “Sorry, Miss Erabelle, Mr. Warner already gave his orders.”

I followed as Frank climbed to a landing where the staircase split in opposite directions. It appeared each side led to a different wing of the house.

“I don't care what his orders were.” Erabelle rushed to keep up on her older and shorter legs. “Tell him I insist.”

Frank didn't pause before taking the stairs to the right. “Has that ever worked before?”

The answer was written all over Erabelle's defeated face. After watching Frank's retreating figure as it disappeared down a hallway, she turned to me. “Don't leave without seeing me first. I want to know what's going on.”

I agreed and then hurried to catch up with Frank. “How sick is Warner?”

“He's got two nurses with him, round the clock.” We reached a doorway at the end of the hall and Frank raised his hand to knock.

I stopped him. “Can we send the nurses out? I need to see him alone.”

“Not going to happen, but the nurses are paid for their discretion.”

The door opened and we each stepped back as an unusually attractive man exited. I think the best description was tall, dark, and handsome. He wore perfectly creased khakis and one of those polo shirts with a logo. “There you are. I don't think I've ever seen Dad this excited about a visitor, and that includes me.”

I got a whiff of the same expensive cologne Rod wore. The smell provoked an emotional reaction. It was as though my heart lurched toward this stranger.

“It's really quite a compliment.” He smiled and the spell was broken. This man might smell and dress like Rod, but his smile left me cold.

“I'm not flattered by empty compliments, especially from manipulative bullies like Warner.” I entered and shut the door behind me.

The windows in this room offered views of the oil field on one wall and treetops on another. The master bedroom, sitting at the end of the wing, butted up against one of the greenhouses.

The furniture was in a hodgepodge of styles collected over a lifetime. The bed belonged in a New England beach house, while the brown tile floor was covered in a Native American rug. It felt as though Warner had given his architect full creative control to
express a vision, then sabotaged that vision with his choice of furniture.

The man himself sat in bed, hooked up to monitors and IV bags. His drooping eyelids made it look as though he were dozing, but I knew better. He'd probably even heard my comment in the hallway.

I quickly crossed the room. “I need to talk to you.”

“That's your opening move?” He stirred in the bed. “As a manipulative bully, I was hoping for something much more challenging.”

Christmas Eve, 10:52 a.m.

I
'm not here to entertain you,” I said. “This is serious.”

“And I'm seriously disappointed. I'd hoped someone with your damaged personality would make better conversation.” Warner turned to one of the nurses. “The poor girl has almost no friends and more one-night stands than relationships. I suspect she's on the autism spectrum.”

I should have stayed focused on Bud, but it's hard not to hit back when someone is kicking you in the gut. “So I hear you're dying.”

A ripple went through the silent nurses.

Warner smiled. “That's more like it.” He waved the nurses away with a flick of the wrist.

After they'd retreated to the other side of the room—where they could still hear us, but at least weren't hovering—I continued, “Who's going to take care of your daughter, Mary, once you're dead? Isn't she parked in a high-class mental hospital right now? It's a shame you won't be around to protect her.”

He took a quick breath and let it out slowly. Instead of firing back, he said, “What did you need to see me about?”

Had I just won? Warner had to be in really bad shape. I actually felt a little guilty.

I sat down in a wingback chair set near the bed. “When was the last time you saw my uncle Bud?”

“That's why you're here?”

“I know he used to work for your father back when you both were teenagers. I heard you were friends.”

“He was my best and only friend.” Warner looked in my
direction, but his eyes lost their focus. “We were inseparable, right up until he turned eighteen and volunteered to go fight in Korea.”

“Why didn't you go too?”

“No sensible person wants to go to war. And I had responsibilities. My father was sick and my mother was dead. Unlike Bud, I knew what I owed my family.”

I straightened. “What's that supposed to mean?”

He let his head fall farther into the pillows. “Bud wanted adventure. When he came back from the war, he only stayed a year before going to Alaska to fight wildfires. He was addicted to risk.”

I knew Bud had been a smoke jumper—his knowledge had saved my life last summer when I'd been covering a wildfire in the mountains—but I'd never thought of that or his military service as selfish.

Warner suddenly turned to me. “Why don't you ask Bud these questions?”

“He's been shot.”

Warner's eyes opened as far as I'd ever seen, which is to say, a little. Still, he looked more sad than frightened. “I don't know why Bud insisted on living the way he did. Petty get-rich-quick schemes, associating with disreputable thugs. He could have been better than that. He wasted his life.”

“You might try to hold back on all that sanctimonious judgment. Whatever got him shot involves you too.”

He didn't move. Unlike before when he'd at least registered something, now he was a blank slate. “Why do you say that?”

“He saw something at a pawnshop yesterday that set him off in a panic. The first thing he did was call someone and shout your name into the phone.”

One of the nurses made a small sound of recognition.

I turned fully to her. “What do you know about it?”

“Well, I think—”

Warner raised his hand. The skin was a yellow-and-blue patchwork of faded bruises from previous attempts to connect an IV
with a working vein. But even in Warner's weakened state, that one gesture was enough to silence the nurse.

I got up and crossed the room. “What doesn't he want you to tell me?”

The nurses stared back at me. Clearly, supernurses of the rich and famous knew to keep their mouths shut.

“Where is Bud?” Warner said. “And what is his condition?”

I turned back to the bed. “He's in surgery at Bakersfield Medical Center.”

Warner thought for a moment. His body remained still.

“I want answers,” I said. “And I'm not leaving without them.”

“Bud lived in a terrible neighborhood and had low friends. I'm sure whatever bad end he came to had nothing to do with me.” Warner took a deep breath, but the air caught in his chest. “Why aren't you at the hospital? If Bud is fighting for his life, you should be with him.”

I shook my head. “I have no intention of sitting all day in a waiting room like a useless piece of furniture. This time I'm asking questions and getting answers.”

Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult for Warner, but his eyes shot to me. “This time? If unanswered questions about your father's death are motivating you now, then I'm truly sorry. That's my fault.”

Last year Warner had tried to bribe me. Through corporate espionage, he'd supposedly obtained internal documents from my father's employers—a rival to one of his own companies, Warner Petroleum. These documents supposedly laid out a case that the accident that killed my father was a suicide. Since I'd refused to make a deal with the devil, in this case Warner, I'd never seen the contents of the file.

I'd thought about it a lot over the past year, not that I would have admitted it, even to Rod. I'd decided Warner had hit on a truth I'd been denying—that my father had been a withdrawn depressive—and then lied about the rest to manipulate and control me.

“Your father's death was an accident.” His eyes looked directly into mine, despite his labored breathing. “I made up the business about suicide because I was desperate. I needed to silence you for my daughter's sake.”

Even though his statement confirmed what I'd already decided, hearing the words loosened something inside me that had been tightly coiled.