Hallowed Ground (36 page)

Did he see that similarity when he looked at me?

Neither of us seemed particularly anxious to break the awkward silence.

“Your clothes are still wet,” he said finally.

Soggy clothes were better than driving home bare-assed in my Sentra, in a lame impression of Lady Godiva.

“Are they in the other room?”

“No. I moved them to the tub.” He angled his head toward the closet. “I’ve got some extra workout sweats. They’d be big, but you’re welcome to wear them.”

I said, “Thanks.”

Martinez sighed. He didn’t fidget, just kept his gaze steadily trained on me.

“Regrets, blondie?”

Why lie? “I don’t know,” I admitted. “You?”

“I don’t regret a damn thing.”

I swallowed. Didn’t help my dry mouth but kept it shut.

My silence surprised him.

Then he surprised me by saying, “You want to talk about it?”

“Why?” My eyes narrowed. “You gonna profess your undying love for me now, Martinez?”

“Ah. There she is. I wondered which Julie I’d encounter this morning.”

“What do you mean ‘which Julie’?”

“I expected you’d pick a fight, giving you a reason to storm out, which I gotta admit, I’d prefer to the polite control I’m seeing you use now.”

I jerked the sheet closer. “Nice, that I’m so predictable.”

“Wrong.” He pushed away from the door but was strangely cautious, stopping at the foot of the bed. “Just when I think I’ve got you pegged, you shock the shit out of me.”

I didn’t know what to say.

His dark eyes latched onto mine and wouldn’t allow me to look away. “You’ve got to know you were more than a warm body to me last night.”

I
really
didn’t know what to say to that.

A door slammed in the outer room and I jumped. Apparently we were no longer alone. Good time to change the subject.

“Doesn’t sound like your warning kept people out of your office.”

“It did for a while.” Martinez sauntered to the closet and slid the track doors. He reached on the top shelf and pulled down two pieces of neatly folded black fleece clothing. Dropped them on the pillows beside me.

I grabbed the sweatshirt. “What happens now? With the Hombres, I mean.”

Again, he didn’t pretend he wasn’t watching me get dressed. “We’ll hold a memorial service when everyone from the other chapters gets here. Then we’ll have a meeting to figure out who’s applying for Harvey’s job.”

“Don’t you just pick a successor?” I said, yanking the sweatshirt over my head.

“No. We consider the candidate’s loyalty, and let’s say their
qualifications
, then we vote.”

“What do you have to do to be considered a candidate?”

He lifted a brow. “Why? You interested in a different position?”

I blushed. Crap. So much for acting casual. I snagged the sweatpants and threw back the sheet, angry at my bout of modesty.

“I don’t do this, Martinez.”

Guilty thoughts slapped me. Seemed like a year ago I’d been with Kell when it’d been less than a week. Martinez and I had borne more nasty shit together in the last few days than most people experienced in a lifetime.

“I don’t care about anything you did before last night,” he said.

That told me nothing. I slid to the edge of the bed. Shoved my feet in the leg holes and shimmied them over my hips to my waist.

“Will you come to Harvey’s memorial service with me?” he asked, out of the blue.

My fingers fumbled with the drawstring. Martinez rarely asked me for anything. It figured he’d want the one thing I couldn’t give him.

I met his gaze head on. “I don’t do funerals either.”

One tiny twitch of his left eye was the only sign I’d given the wrong answer.

“You went to Shelley’s funeral.” When I didn’t respond, he prompted, “What about your partner’s girlfriend? You plan on going to that one, don’t you?”

“No.” I smoothed my hand over my scalp. Fuck it. My hair was as messed up as this situation, and just as pointless to try and straighten out right now. “What do you want from me, Martinez?”

“Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know.”

How was that an answer? And why wasn’t he invading my space and messing with my hair like he usually did?

He tossed an unopened pack of Marlboro Lights and a book of matches on the bed. “Figured you might want these. I’ll clear the guys out of here and give you some privacy.”

Then he exited the room and left me staring after him in total confusion.

Martinez didn’t attempt to dissect the night we’d spent together.

Despite the awful events that had led us there, every time my mind wandered that direction, my stomach got swoopy. We might not see eye to eye on everything, but we were definitely compatible in bed. Very compatible.

Not helping you focus on the real the situation, Julie.

If Martinez could let it idle for a while, then so could I.

He’d told me he’d tentatively planned a joint memorial service for Rondelle and Harvey, hinging on when I found Chloe, or if the mysterious people hiding her came forward once they found out Rondelle was dead.

Noble, that Martinez didn’t want to bury the child’s mother without giving her a chance to say goodbye. But didn’t he understand standing over the coffin wouldn’t give her closure anyway?

I couldn’t fathom the abandonment issues that little girl was facing. Had her father sent her away without explanation? Chances were good Donovan could come out of the coma with severe brain damage. Chloe could essentially be an orphan.

With Harvey gone, what would happen to her? Would a member of Donovan’s family step up and take on the responsibility of raising her? Or was she doomed to follow the same path as Rondelle; shuffled from foster home to foster home on the reservation without any family support?

That possibility turned my stomach and made me more determined than ever to find her. Even if

I had to go against Martinez’s instructions and go to the cops.

On the way home I attempted to piece together what I’d learned yesterday with what I already knew.

Bud Linderman had sent Rondelle to work for the Carluccis under the threat of harming her daughter. I knew this, Martinez knew this, so how come Harvey hadn’t? Had Martinez decided it was best to keep that information from Harvey?

Obviously it’d backfired. Big time.

So, someone had called Harvey, and shared the information about Bud Linderman’s threats.

Why now that Rondelle was dead?

Revenge?

Who?

A little bird told me
, buzzed in my head like an annoying bee.

What the hell could that mean? It had to mean something, right?

Not necessarily. It’d probably been gibberish from a man crazed with grief.

But the phrase kept pecking away at me.
A little bird, a little bird
. . .

I was desperate for something to make sense in this case. A sign. Anything. I looked up through the windshield at the cloudless sky. It stretched far and wide; in that dazzling robin’s egg blue that often follows a violent summer storm.

And then it hit me so hard I slammed on the brakes.

A little bird wasn’t some nonsensical phrase babbled by a madman.

A little bird was a person.

Robin.

Rondelle’s friend from Trader Pete’s.

I stepped on the gas and headed for Deadwood.

Since Rondelle had told me Robin was her boss, I hoped like hell Robin worked the day shift.

With summer tourist season in full swing I had a decent chance to sneak in under the Carluccis radar. Yet, if I did find Robin, I had no guarantee she’d talk to me.

When I found a free parking spot right behind The Golden Boot, I knew it was my lucky day.

Inside Trader Pete’s I planted myself by the wall in the quarter slots section behind an artificial ficus tree. Pained me to shove twenty bucks in, but it was the smallest bill I had.

Down to my last three bucks, the constant
ding ding ding
of the machines was driving me nuts. A stoop-shouldered cocktail waitress with steel gray hair finally spied me.

She didn’t attempt a smile. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Nah. I’m good.”

Her lips pursed. With the school marm hairdo, I wondered if she carried a metal ruler to whap my knuckles. Nope. No pencil behind her ear, either.

As she turned away, I said, “Can you tell me if Robin is around today?”

“Didn’t you see her? She’s working the cage.”

“No. I hadn’t been over there yet.”

“You a friend of hers?”

No
. “Yeah.”

“If you want, give me your name and I’ll tell her you’re here.”

“That’s okay, I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble. I’ll wander up there in a bit.”

“Suit yourself.”

I cashed out and relocated to another machine that offered me a clear view of the money cage.

Robin wasn’t hard to distinguish; the other person working with her was a dead ringer for Buddha.

Robin was tall, pixie stick-thin, with dark blond hair, and a phony smile.

As I fed quarters into the slot, I wondered how to approach her. I didn’t want the Carluccis to see us together. I’d purposely stayed as far out of camera range as possible.

I considered and discarded several scenarios. Money gone, I made my way to the bathroom. The outer lounge area, an explosion of tufted pink velvet and laden with the scent of rose air freshener, was empty. I pushed through the swinging door into the section with the stalls.

Caught sight of myself in the mirror and nearly screamed.

I looked worse than Kevin’s dotty Aunt Mildred. Martinez’s jumbo sweatshirt hung past my knees, my hair stuck out at all angles broadcasting the fact I’d recently tumbled out of bed.

My eyes were puffy black circles from crying last night and—Good God! Was that a
hickey
on my neck? I peered in the mirror. Oh yeah, that’s just what I needed, proof of my stupidity.

The door swung open. Robin came in and glared at me.

“Who are you? I don’t know where you get off claiming we’re friends—”

“I’m not a friend of yours, I’m a friend of Rondelle’s.”

Her indignant mouth snapped shut.

“Yeah, I didn’t think you wanted me to share that information with Flo, the cocktail waitress.”

Robin slumped against the wall. “Who are you?”

“Julie Collins.”

“What do you want?”

“Answers. I was hired to find Chloe, which I haven’t been able to do. So now that Rondelle and her brother Harvey are both dead—”

“Harvey’s dead?”

“You didn’t know?”

She swallowed. “How?”

“Shot himself in the face.”

“Omigod. When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Why?”

I watched the panic build in her. “He took Bud Linderman hostage after the protest march by the Bear Butte casino. Obviously, it didn’t go well.”

“Did he hurt Linderman?”

“Linderman probably crapped his Wranglers while Harvey had the gun to his head. But in the end Harvey let him crawl away.”

“No!” escaped on a gasp before she clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Didn’t see that one coming when you called Harvey yesterday, did you?”

Her face went milk white and little by little she slid all the way to the tile floor. She shook her head back and forth. “Oh my God. I never expected . . . I didn’t want ... I thought he would ...”

“Thought he would what, Robin?”

Eyes the color of quicksilver flicked to mine. “I thought he’d beat the shit out of that bastard Bud Linderman, like he deserved, not—”

“Not kill himself in a fit of grief?” I said harshly, as the sound of that fatal gunshot echoed in my head.

Tears tracked her ashen cheeks. “No.” Her strangled voice caught on a sob. “Oh God. I shouldn’t have called him. I wouldn’t have called him if I’d have known.”

“Why did you call him?”

No answer. Just the
drip drip drip
of a leaky faucet over her tears.

My patience snapped. “Robin?”

So did hers. “Because I was pissed off when I found out Rondelle was dead, okay? I know that fucker Linderman had something to do with killing her. I just know it. And since Rondelle wouldn’t tell her brother about Linderman’s threats while she was alive, I thought now that she was dead he had a right to know.”