The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told (35 page)

Lisa Allen was still beautiful, of course. That hadn't changed in the handful of months since Glen left town. But a whole lot had. Glen knew that coming through the door of the house they'd once shared.

No kiss for him tonight. Not even a hug. They sat in the kitchen, a couple of beers on the table. The back door was open behind Glen's shoulder, and he could smell the herbs in the little patch of garden scrabbling along the side of the house. Sage, rosemary, thyme . . . probably a whole lot of other stuff out there that Lisa's hippie parents had sung about back in the sixties when they built the adobe on a scrubby patch of Arizona notmuch. Of course, Glen didn't say that, even though it was the kind of thing that would have made Lisa laugh back in the days when his coat hung in a closet down the hall.

Back then, things were different.

Those crickets were still out there somewhere, sawing that high, even whine. But Glen ignored them. Instead he listened to the words coming out of his own mouth, surer and steadier than he could have imagined. And he listened to Lisa's answers, which were just as sure and just as steady.

“You saw those photos, Glen. Kale couldn't have done that.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“The cops told you what they pieced together, didn't they? Kim was out at Tres Manos . . . you know how she loved it out there. They found her rock-climbing gear. She was on that wall south of the third fist, and she must have had an accident. God knows how long she was out there alone—”

“Or maybe she wasn't alone. And maybe it didn't happen that way. Maybe someone just wanted it to look like it did.”

“Jesus, Glen. Did you listen to the cops at all?”

“Yeah. I listened to them tell me what made sense to them so they could slot a file into a cabinet pretty damn quick.”

“So what do you plan to do about it?”

“A lot of that depends on you. I only know what my gut tells me . . . and that's that I need to get Kale Howard in a place where he's going to do some straight talking. I want to hear what he has to say about this, and I want to look into his eyes when he says it.”

“You tried that before, Glen. If you remember, it didn't work out so hot.”

“Yeah.” Glen stared at Lisa. “I remember.”

And Glen did remember. All of it. Images came at him like hard popping jabs. He and Kale had exchanged a couple of simple, unvarnished words. And then Kale Howard had thrown a punch that rocked Glen solid, and Glen's hands were on the rangy bastard, handling him the way you handle a chicken leg when you're real hungry and you just want to tear it apart at the joint. Which meant that Kale had exited the room through a plate-glass window before Glen even realized what he was doing.

“Look, Lisa. I only came here for one thing. You need to tell me where Kale is.”

Surprised, she raised an eyebrow. “Who'd you talk to over at the cop shop, anyway?”

“Some joker with a roll of nickels up his ass. Guy named Bryce.”

“And he didn't tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Things changed after you cut out of town last December. Kale moved in with Kim.”

“You're kidding.”

“Not a chance.”

“And he's still there? That's what you're telling me? He's living in her house?”

“It's his house, Glen.”

Lisa stared at him.

“Kale and Kim drove up to Vegas on Valentine's Day and got married. Kim left him everything.”

A bitter laugh caught in Glen's throat. “Okay,” he said. “Things are beginning to make sense now.”

“Don't you think the cops thought that, too?”

“If they did, they sure as hell didn't show it. They found my sister torn to shreds out at Tres Manos. Her climbing gear was scattered around, and she had a broken leg, and they figured . . .
Gee, there are coyotes around here, aren't there?
So they did the math the easy way and wrote the whole thing off as an accident
times two
.”

“Uh-uh. Not the way it happened. This may be a small town, but you've got to give the cops some credit. They grilled Kale. They were all over Kim's house. They didn't find a thing.”

“Hard to find what's locked up in a bastard's head . . . unless you're willing to use the right tools, that is.”

“You'd better think about that. You know the law around here. You try something like that . . . twice? And with a guy who's got a restraining order against you? It'd be crazy.”

“Yeah. Maybe that's exactly what it would be. And maybe that's the way it should have been all along. The truth is that I stopped short when I tossed Kale through that window. You know that better than anyone, Lisa. I should have whipped that dog until I was sure he'd turn tail and run. If I'd done that, maybe Kim would still be alive. Hell, if I'd done that, maybe I wouldn't have had to leave.”

“You never had to leave. That was your choice.”

“No. It was your choice, Lisa . . . you made it when you called the cops and stopped me cold last December.”

The words were out of Glen's mouth before he even knew they were in his brain. Lisa stared at him like he'd just crawled out from under a rock. Seeing that expression, Glen knew it might as well have been that night last December, with the kitchen door closed to the cold and the herbs cut back against the frost and an icy wind rattling the window at his back. His left eye throbbing from the sucker shot Kale Howard had landed just before getting his miserable excuse for an ass tossed through the living room window, Glen trying to explain to Lisa how he knew in his gut that kind of punishment wasn't enough for a guy like Howard, how a guy like that needed more if he was going to get the message.

He'd never forget that moment, just as he'd never forget the anger that flared inside him when Kim admitted for the first time how things really were with Howard, or what he was certain needed to be done with that anger, or what he'd done with it in the moments after his sister's confession. And he'd sat there that December night in Lisa's kitchen with all those things roiling inside him, and no way to get an explanation past his lips that could make sense to the woman he loved.

It didn't make sense to her now. “You're saying that if it weren't for me, everything would be okay today?”

Glen took a breath, but he didn't say a word.

“Jesus, Glen. You're not really sitting here saying I'm responsible for Lisa's death, are you?”

“No. But you're the one called the cops when I told you I was going back over there.”

“And I told you I'd do that. You walked out of here with a
gun
, Glen.”

“I was just going to scare him. That coward would have been across the state line by midnight.”

“C'mon. You don't know how Kale would have reacted when he saw a gun. And when it comes to the cops, I would have called them anyway. Remember, I'm the one who reported Kale as an abuser. Hell, I would have let Kim move in here until things straightened out if she would have done it. I made the offer while Kale was locked up. She wouldn't even admit that they had a real problem.”

“Sometimes people can't handle what happens to them.”

“They have to.”

“And what if they aren't strong enough?”

“You help them get strong.” Lisa sighed. “But you can't live their lives for them. You can't walk through the fire they've got to walk through. And you can't burn down your own life because they're not strong enough to do the job. But that's what you did. To yourself, when you walked out of here with that gun. To me, too . . . and to us. And you paid the price for it. But it could have been worse.”

“I don't see how.”

“I do. If I hadn't stopped you that night, you'd probably be sitting in a jailhouse, serving time for murder. We both know that's true.”

Glen shook his head.

“Maybe that's where I'll end up still,” he said.

Now it was Lisa's turn to look at him without saying a word.

“Guess we're done here,” Glen said.

“Yeah. I guess we are.”

Glen stepped to the door. There was a phone on the counter. “Hate to do this,” he said, and then he unplugged the phone, cradling it under his arm.

“One other thing before I go,” he said.

“What's that?”

“Your cell phone, Lisa. Hand it over.”

Glen hit the gas, bulleting down that red road. Suddenly, it was just like it had been six months before. Lisa and his life in the rearview, God knew what ahead.

At least the cops wouldn't be waiting for him at the end of that road tonight. That wouldn't happen, now that he'd taken Lisa's phones. From Lisa's place, it was a long walk to anywhere.

But he hadn't had a choice in the matter. No way he could afford a rerun of last December's action. That night, Sheriff Randall himself had responded to Lisa's 911 call. The old man had been quick about it, too, heading Glen off at the point where the dirt road that led to Kim's place met highway blacktop.

After Kale Howard got into the act, Glen ended up in lockup for a week on an assault charge. Of course, Howard had gotten the restraining order, dropped the charges—all like that.

Kale took some heat, too, but in the end he got off with probation and counseling . . . and soon he was back with Kim, who wasn't talking to either Lisa or Glen.

That wasn't the worst of it, though. Glen had issued his own sentence, and in retrospect he was one hard-ass judge. Because somehow, he had turned out to be the bad guy. In the eyes of the law, and his little sister, and in Lisa's eyes, too.

And maybe even in his own eyes. Because he was the one who hit the road, not Kale Howard. He was the one who didn't hang around when things went bad with Lisa, and with Kim. He was the one who didn't talk to either of them for months. He couldn't dodge that fact any more than he could make up for it now.

More than anything, that was what drove him forward. He cut the wheel harder than he should have and hit the blacktop, heading north. He tried to bury the regrets he'd felt while sitting at Lisa's table, and the familiar longings that went along with them. But he couldn't manage the trick. Though his gaze traveled the road ahead—tracking the painted line that gutted its center—his thoughts lingered behind.