Target (3 page)

“Eileen Moggeridge is my friend. She manages the shop, remember?”

“Of course,” Nick said, too uptight to pursue to topic. “Let's get somewhere private. We'll go to Delia's later.”

“Aurelie was on a job interview at Poke Around today,” Sarah said and her eyes were too bright, too pleased. “She got the position and started right away.”

“I don't want to practice law anymore,” Aurelie said at once, leaving Nick with his mouth open, ready to ask a question. “You wouldn't, either, if people hated you for what you do. And they've got a right, some of them. It's not the same with all insurance companies, but mine is still scrambling for reasons not to help Katrina victims and I've had it.”

“But you'll practice somewhere else,” Nick said, and felt his voice rise.

“Ask me in a few years. Maybe I'll think about it then. For now I'm going to make espresso and sell birdhouses at Poke Around.”

This was a nightmare. “Have you told Delia?”

Aurelie didn't answer. She looked overheated in her black linen suit with wide crop pants and flat shoes.

“How long before you've got to get back to work?” Sarah asked, apparently happy to have the youngest Board big-brain hanging out among the butterfly barrettes, ant colony kits and the glass aardvarks for which the shop was particularly known.

“Eileen's really glad I could start today at all. She doesn't mind me being gone for a couple of hours,” Aurelie said. “Look, why don't we save time by talking right here. Nobody thinks anything about seeing us together and we can't be overheard.”

Nick looked at Sarah, who nodded, yes.

“When the thing in California broke we knew we had to decide if I should go back there,” Nick said.

“We wanted to go, too,” Aurelie said.

“Just let me spit this out. Today they announced there weren't enough bones in that mine.”

Both women stared at him. “Not enough for what?” Sarah said.

“For thirty-three people. Not enough. One adult human skeleton has 206 bones, 300 until some early-childhood bones fuse together. They recovered most of the bones for thirty-two people and none—with the exception of some small animal contributions—that didn't belong to those thirty-two.”

Aurelie's blue eyes turned glossy. “Why aren't all of the bones there—for the thirty-two, I mean?”

“Do we have to go into this?” Sarah moved closer to Nick and rubbed his arm. “This is so hard on you.”

He gave her a quick smile. “Thanks.” All his efforts not to think of his mother as a “tangled skeleton” hadn't worked, but he appreciated Sarah's empathy. “Some of the bones would be dragged off and gnawed—by rats and such. More pieces may be found.”

Neither woman spoke.

“They listed all the names they've got on pieces of ID. I recognized them all.”

Aurelie made a small noise.

“My mother's was there and so was Colin Fox's.”

“How awful,” Sarah said. “Poor Mary.”

“I ought to get in touch with Billy Meche about this,” Nick said, referring to the local police chief. “That's what the California cops would want.”

“They would,” Sarah agreed.

“Yes.” Aurelie studied his face. “But would it help anything? I mean, really help? Or just mean we say goodbye to having any peace again? Sheesh, I feel selfish for even thinking about that.”

“Why?” Nick said. “All three of us are thinking it. And what about Delia? You know how she felt when she read that piece in the
News
. She felt terrible, and sad, but I don't think it crossed her mind that we'd consider blowing our lives apart in public.”

Sara slipped a hand under his arm. “This isn't our biggest problem.”

“No,” Nick said. “But we know what is.”

“If you want to go, you go,” Aurelie said. She tipped her hat forward to shade her face. “You have the right to take care of…of Mary. We'll stay here with Delia.”

“I'm not going,” Nick said. “Not now and maybe never. If I did, I could be putting targets on our backs.”

“I know I'm a coward,” Sarah said. “But I feel sick, I'm so frightened. I ought to do better than that.”

He felt her tremble.

“Well, you're not doing any worse than I am,” Aurelie said, reaching for their hands and joining the three of them in a tight bunch. “Do you really think the missing person is…I don't even want to say the name.” Never ruddy, she had paled, including her lips.

Nick squeezed her fingers. “I know it's Colin Fox who may still be alive.”

Aurelie pressed her eyes shut. “He could have left his ID behind to throw the police off if they ever found the grave.”

“The pig,” Sarah said. She still trembled. “He had big plans for Aurelie and me. Disgusting man.”

“They've found remnants of a rope ladder at the bottom of that vent,” Nick said quietly. “Still attached to deep stakes. There weren't any stakes at the top, but they think the rope was cut up there and dropped down.”

Tears squeezed from beneath Aurelie's eyelids and slid down her cheeks. “We didn't come right out with it, but we already guessed Colin killed them.
All of them
. They were so nice to us, especially the women and the other kids.” Her eyes flew open. “He murdered the kids, too.”

“Probably. And if he did all that, he's not going to want anyone around who could connect him to The Refuge.” Hoover bumped against Nick's hip, looking for attention, but there wasn't any to spare right now. “He would have had a new life to walk into, with a new name. But we could still identify him.”

“His eyes,” Sarah said. “They were like green glass. I know he was good-looking but I can't understand why Mary…”

“No,” Nick said. “But there must have been a reason. I only asked Delia about my mother once and she didn't tell me much. When I wanted to know why both my mother and Delia decided to keep us hidden, all she said was that someone dangerous could come looking for us.”

“So you've definitely decided not to go to the police here—or to California?” Sarah said. “Not even to Matt Boudreaux? He's just about your best friend.”

Matt was also deputy chief of police, Billy Meche's second-in-command. “No, not even Matt,” Nick said. “I'm not going to do anything official. And we'd better be watching our backs in case Colin decides he'd seriously prefer us dead.”

“Oh, God.” Aurelie knelt beside Hoover and buried her face in his fur. She held him around the neck and looked up again. “Nothing official?”

Nick considered his words carefully and said, “If the opportunity comes to deal with Colin, I'll take it.”

B
aily Morris slipped off her earphones and listened. She worked as a chemist on the lowest of four floors at Wilkes and Board's Pointe Judah lab and, faintly, she'd heard what could have been a thud from the room above.

There shouldn't be anyone upstairs and there should be nothing likely to fall on the floor without help.

Concentrating hard, she strained to hear any other sounds. There were none.

Open vertical blinds made stripes through purple-pink evening light beyond the windows. Baily glanced at the still fronds on shadowy palm trees outside, then at the ground fog starting to gather. She'd arrived earlier than usual this evening, waiting only long enough to be certain all those who worked by day had left. In the future she might make a habit of stretching her hours at the lab.

Night was her preference, night and solitude. She liked the peace, and not having to deal directly with any of the Boards. Sarah was jealous of Baily's abilities. Nick didn't spend a lot of time there, but when he did show up, he pretended not to notice her. For a few weeks that had been very different, until he decided she wasn't what he wanted anymore.

His loss. Baily intended Nick to pay for the way he had treated her.

Each evening, for as long as she dared to put off her Wilkes and Board assignments, Baily worked on a project of her own. In weeks or months or however long it took, she would show the Boards who was the superior chemist. A product guaranteed to fill and keep deep wrinkles invisible for hours would be Baily Morris's ticket to freedom and fame, or at least to being her own boss. Her cream would come out before Wilkes and Board's planned the release of something very similar—she would make sure of that. Baily smiled.

When Nick had first asked her out for dinner, she had been happier than she ever remembered being. For months she'd spent her time at the lab waiting for a glimpse of him. She'd let him know, subtly of course, that she was interested. And then it happened, the first date.

Baily pushed her chair back. Nick had taken her to Damalis's, the ritziest place for miles around, and by candlelight he'd concentrated on her—only her. Afterward he'd taken her home and kissed her on the doorstep. What a kiss. But he'd gently turned down her offer to come in.

Tears prickled in her eyes. There had been more dates, over several weeks, but increasingly she'd done most of the talking. But he was so masculine, so sexy, and just being with him made her feel all she'd ever hoped to feel with a man.

He never invited her to his place, and never came inside hers. She liked sex and she knew she would more than like it with Nick. At last she'd come right out and asked, “What weird rules are you playing by, Nick? Is there something that's stopping you from sleeping with me?”

That had been their last date. He'd gone on being kind, but became steadily more distant. No arrangements were ever made to get together outside work again. When she did find the courage to ask him what happened he had told her, “I'm not a rules kind of guy. That makes you and me different. You see a certain progression for a relationship, I like things loose. You're lovely, Baily, and I like you, but we're not a match in the way we tried to be.”

So kind, so general—and so embarrassing for her to be told, if not in so many words, that he didn't want a romantic setup with her if it included sex.

Baily scooted her chair back in and concentrated.

The sound she had heard still hadn't been repeated.

Naturally, the formula she was working on for the company, the result of Nick's research, stayed at the lab. Her own, slightly different and much better version, she carried back and forth in her briefcase. It took up so little room—just a few small containers in the bottom of the bag.

She finished assembling everything she needed on the counter before her, including fresh tubes.

Another heavy impact came from overhead. This time she hadn't replaced her earphones and the vibrations made her flinch.

The cleaners. It had to be. Sarah Board occasionally worked at night but she would have popped her head in to say hello before she went upstairs.

One thing she didn't need was an interruption from people working earlier than scheduled. The cleaners usually came after midnight.

Baily fumbled in her pocket for her keys, then remembered they were in her briefcase. She found them, hurried from the room and locked it behind her.

She would tell the cleaners to leave and come back when they were supposed to. Some people didn't understand they had to follow the rules. The elevator stood open and she ran inside.

Baily twirled, already reaching for the second-floor button. She pulled back, stuffed down a scream, glanced at the door. It slid shut.

In front of the control panel stood a man with his arms crossed. He didn't look at her but pressed the button for the fourth floor. In his other hand, he held a gun.

“M
ight as well take a bath,” Aurelie said. She dropped a lumpy canvas bag and her hat on the hall floor in Sarah's place. A wall had been removed and the hall opened up to the living room where Sarah had been waiting and watching for Nick to come so that they could continue talking.

“Enjoy,” Sarah said. Avoiding the subject, the most important subject that was on their minds, appealed to her. Sarah admitted to herself that she was more likely to pretend there was no big problem than Aurelie was.

Aurelie, with Hoover ambling behind, came into the living room. “Are you okay? I mean, apart from the obvious, are you okay?” She fell into a chair and hooked both of her legs over one striped damask arm.

“You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine.”

Aurelie didn't look at her. “That's a lie. Just like it'd be a lie if I said I was fine. Neither of us is okay and this is likely to get worse.”

Sarah listened hard for a moment, hoping to hear Nick's car.

“Sis,” Aurelie said, “we're in major trouble, aren't we?”

“Not for the first time.” Sarah waited for Aurelie to lift her face and make eye contact. “We've been in tight spots before. True, this could turn out to be the tightest, but we all have to hang together.”

“We can't be together all the time. What if Colin finds us? What if he already has? He could be out there waiting to get one of us alone, then pick us off one by one.”

Sarah couldn't swallow. “Don't say those things. Colin wouldn't have any way of knowing where we are.”

“He could,” Aurelie said. “He could have known almost all along but while we weren't a threat—because he was safe and didn't want to draw attention to himself anyway—he let it go.”

“I wish Nick would get here,” Sarah said. She collected herself. If she and Nick ever got together, that would be a hard adjustment for Aurelie to make. She'd have to tell her about the change when it happened—if it happened.

It had to happen, Sarah thought. She couldn't bear wanting but not having him for much longer.

Hoover gave a single rumbling bark, reminiscent of a low-pitched foghorn, and flopped down on Sarah's pride and joy: an antique Chinese silk rug that sparkled when light settled on the pale outlines of leaves.

“He's drooling,” she said. She loved animals but there were limits.

Aurelie glared at her. “He's had a bad day. He ate a pot of chrysanthemums outside the shop. We stopped on the way back but he still didn't make it completely out of the Hummer before he threw up.”

“That's too bad,” Sarah said.
She would not grin
. The day was winding up with a pale purple flourish. If she hadn't dealt with the heat since morning she might be fooled by the soft drama of it all and think it was balmy outside. “Delia had some business in New Orleans. She should be back anytime. There's a message to both of us from her to go to the house.”

“We won't go until Nick gets here,” Aurelie said. “I don't want to worry Delia. It's not fair to her after all she's done.”

Sarah spread her fingertips on the windowsill and leaned even closer to open the jalousies. “They should both be along any moment.”

“I'm worried about Nick,” Aurelie said.

So was Sarah. She narrowed her eyes. Her stomach rolled—again. “He's making decisions based on our feelings—I'm sure of it. I know him too well. If he didn't feel responsible for us, he'd go to California. His mother's…Mary's there and he'd want to take care of her.”

“Bury her,” Aurelie said. “Of course he would.”

Sarah looked over her shoulder at Aurelie. “I love you because you care about us all so much. You understand us. And you put yourself last.”

“You give me too much credit. I put us all first would be more accurate. You're solid, so is Nick. How much luckier could we get than to know we can go to him anytime we need to?”

Comments like that showed the difference in their feelings for Nick. To Aurelie he would remain her big brother. But not to Sarah. “You're right.” Making the first move with him was so dangerous, she'd put it off for a long time. For years. She blinked, momentarily shocked to think of how long she had loved Nick Board, and not as a brother. He wasn't their brother.

“Are you sure you feel all right?” Aurelie asked, getting out of the chair. “Do you feel ill or something?”

Or something.
“I'm okay.”

The firmness of Aurelie's touch on her arm comforted Sarah. She covered her sister's hand.

Aurelie cleared her throat. “It would be a good thing if Nick found a woman he could really care about. He needs the balance. He hasn't been lucky with women in the past.”

Shut up.
Sarah couldn't think about Nick with someone else. “It was bizarre when he dated Baily. When they started going out he seemed really interested. He never gave any hint of what happened, but he didn't feel good about it. We helped him through that fiasco and he knows we would with anyone else.” She could not, must not wait any longer. Nick wouldn't make the first move.

“He likes women,” Aurelie said.

“Sis, take your bath.”