Wicked Lies (27 page)

Good.

Let her terror rot her from the inside out. She, who dared summon him!

I’m here, witch. Just like you wanted!

He thought about the car he was driving, a silver Nissan. How long was he safe with it? He’d left its driver almost dead at Seagull Pointe, but they would learn who she was and come looking for her vehicle. He’d switched plates with old man Gerald’s Taurus, which would buy him some time, but he was doomed to find another car.

A frisson disturbed the murky air.

Suddenly he jerked to attention, squinting toward Ocean Park’s entrance. Exiting the hospital at that moment were Dr. Maurice Zellman and the woman whom Justice guessed to be his wife. Justice’s gaze narrowed on her. Holding on to her hair to keep it in place, she was hurrying to catch up to the doctor’s longer strides to no avail. Zellman’s large steps and ramrod straight back ate up the distance to a black Lexus that crouched near a security lamp. Wifey barely managed to scramble into the passenger seat and was still closing the door when Zellman backed out in a tight turn, his tires giving a little
broop
against the pavement as he hit the gas and the sedan leapt forward, narrowly missing a green minivan parked in the next space.

Zellman half turned Justice’s way as he passed, and Justice smiled coldly, wondering if the doctor could feel him as he purposely sent the man a warning. But Zellman seemed as oblivious as ever, glowering through the Lexus’s windshield. The doctor had no ability to sense Justice at all.

From the interior of the Nissan, Justice watched Zellman’s departing car with a sort of detached interest, not the urgency the women of the lodge inspired, but a kind of clinical curiosity. The doctor had counted himself as Justice’s savior. This meaningless cockroach, this self-congratulating piece of dirt, deigned to believe he knew something—anything—about him!

And then Justice caught an overwhelming whiff of Lorelei’s pungent aroma.

He swiveled his head so hard the vertebrae in his neck cracked. He barely noticed. His nostrils flared and his lips curled at her noxious odor.

Pregnant whore!

I’m coming for you,
he told her, but the wall she’d erected was tall between them, one he couldn’t scale.

I’m coming for you!,
he screamed.
Sick witch! You can’t hold me out forever!

She was inside the hospital.
Right there.
All he had to do was slip inside . . . !

Blinded with need, he slammed out of the car and moved to the side door of the hospital, stopping just short of the security camera, shaking with a desire to kill so intense it stole his common sense. The middle of the day was no time to attack her, but he didn’t care. He wanted her.
Now.

With a frustrated scream caught in his throat, he dug at his scalp, ripping at his hair. He needed the sea . . . a cold Pacific breeze . . . the lighthouse. . . .

He took a step forward, into the camera’s range, then pulled back. Ducking his head, he returned to his vehicle, slid inside, and slouched in his seat. Flexing his fingers on the steering wheel, he attempted to regain control. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, let the bitch win.

He wanted her badly. Could almost feel his hands clenching over her soft throat as he felt the life seep out of her. He imagined watching her naked whore’s body burn in a foul and malodorous stench that would rise to the heavens in thick black smoke as her body was condemned to hell.

Lorelei.

Above all else, he needed to snuff out her life and that of the life she’d spawned.

Could he charge inside and just take her?
Could he?

Zellman’s Lexus was stopped at the end of the parking lot. He and the wife were arguing, apparently, and the vehicle was stalled while they yelled at each other. Then it jumped forward again, and Justice watched Zellman drive to the end of the lot and turn onto the main, tree-lined drive that accessed the hospital from Highway 101.

Glancing back, Justice stared at the hospital until it felt like his eyes were burning in his skull. Then, grinding his teeth with impotent fury, he shoved his car into gear and hit the gas. He’d follow the doctor.

“You all right?” an impatient voice demanded in Laura’s ear.

She’d dropped into a chair in the front reception area, her legs practically collapsing beneath her. That feeling . . . that recognition . . . Though she’d had her mental wall held high, she’d sensed Justice on the other side, his malevolence nearly smothering her.

It was Dr. Loman who’d questioned her, his blue eyes cold ice as he glared down at her.

Of course she would run into him. A brush with the older doctor was even worse than one with her own ex-husband. Loman was imperious and arrogant and dictatorial.

What was it with the doctors here at Ocean Park? Most of them seemed to be egomaniacs, well, except for calm Dr. Hanson and funny Dr. Charles, one of the few women surgeons on staff. But the docs at the top. Imperious, self-inflated jerks.

“I’m fine,” she said to Loman.

“You’re not fine if you’re sitting down on the job,” he pointed out, frowning darkly.

Oh, great. Of course.

“Just catching my breath.” Laura got to her feet and bit her tongue to keep from saying something sarcastic as she sidestepped the man.

He followed after her, soft-soled shoes squeaking on the tile. “I know who you are,” he said, surprising her. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted. “You’re one of them, and I
know
them.”

Laura glanced over her shoulder to catch a glimpse at him. He seemed like he was on the verge of exploding, as if something she’d done had sent him over the edge.

She knew what he meant. Dr. Dolph Loman and his now deceased brother, Dr. Parnell Loman, had been the doctors who’d attended Laura and her sisters when they were children. Laura recalled Dolph, though Parnell was a distant memory. She half recalled something salacious and unpleasant in regard to Parnell and her mother, or maybe it had been Dolph, or maybe it was all faulty memories, a fabrication she’d concocted from the lore she’d garnered about her promiscuous mother. All this time she’d worked at Ocean Park, she’d hoped Dolph hadn’t recognized her. Now she knew that hope had been in vain.

“So, you’re diagnosing patients now?” he said with a faintly disguised sneer.

“Was there something specific you wanted, Dr. Loman?” she asked him coolly.

“Mind yourself,” he snapped. “You’re a nurse here, not a doctor. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Is it?” She reveled in his look of surprise. “Seems to me you’re saying a lot more.”

“We both know about your family,” he said, recovering quickly. “Soothsayers and nuts and quacks.”

“Quacks,” she repeated, eyeing him hard. “Is that a new medical term?”

He flushed, the barb hitting home. “My reputation is impeccable.”

“I remember your brother,” Laura said, though it was nothing short of a lie.

That left the old man speechless. He opened his mouth and shut it twice before saying quickly, “My brother was an excellent surgeon! His death was a tragedy.”

He seemed to want to say more, but he was definitely flummoxed by Laura’s decision to confront him right back. He strode off, muttering about her rudeness, and she wondered what exactly had gone on between her mother and Dr. Parnell Loman and/or Dr. Dolph Loman. Would Catherine tell her, if she asked? Would she even really know?

Laura headed back to her rounds, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the events of the past few days, but since there was no way to explain, and because she wasn’t about to blame her weakness on her pregnancy, she drew several deep breaths and soldiered on.

She was beginning to wish she’d listened more to Harrison. She’d been so sure she’d be safe at the hospital, but now she longed to be with him, safe within his protection. Grabbing her cell from her locker, she placed a call to his and wound up with his voice mail. She hesitated, frustrated, but instead of leaving a message, she replaced the phone and determined she could get through the rest of her shift without talking to him. It was just a case of mind over matter.

CHAPTER 22

“D
etective.”

Lang strode through the front doors of the department instead of the back because he’d parked his Jeep on the street rather than in the rear parking lot, which was currently full of potholes as deep as the Grand Canyon. May Johnson, the unsmiling, heavyset black woman who manned the front desk, spoke the single word like a cannon shot. She didn’t much like Lang, and he didn’t much like her. He thought she was arrogant and uncompromising, and she’d disliked him on first sight as well, seeming to regard him as too loose on rules, too entitled, too, maybe, male. She definitely considered him a cowboy in both dress and spirit, and now, looking down at his dusty boots—definitely not department issue—Lang allowed that yes, that part was probably true.

He reluctantly slowed his steps and gazed at her expectantly. He’d just come from the scene at Seagull Pointe, and he wanted to report to Sheriff O’Halloran before he headed back out. “Yeah.”

“Sam McNally returned your call.”

Lang lifted his brows. Geena Cho was dispatch, and to date Johnson had let her deliver all Lang’s messages rather than go out of her way to make sure he was informed.

“Thanks.”

She nodded curtly, then nearly bowled him over by asking, “How’s the adoption going?”

Johnson’s icy facade was at a full-blown thaw. Lang could scarcely credit the change. “It’s going. Slowly.”

Lang’s fiancée, Dr. Claire Norris, was trying to adopt a baby girl whom she’d grown extremely close to. Lang, too, hoped it would happen soon and had been mulling over dragging his beloved to the altar to finalize that step and hopefully give that process a jump start when Turnbull’s escape completely screwed up his timetable.

As if embarrassed by her familiarity, Johnson turned abruptly away, and Lang walked along the counter that stretched the length of the reception area, ending at the back door, then turned down a hallway that led toward the main part of the building and the jumble of offices therein.

The smell of old coffee crept through the hallways from the lunchroom, and phones jangled. A couple of deputies who’d pulled all-night duty at the Tyler Mill fire still smelled of soot as they walked by.

Sheriff Sean O’Halloran was in his office, at his desk, looking troubled. His normally smoothed gray and white hair was in disarray, and his blue eyes, usually bright with inner humor, looked dull and tired. “Goddamn Turnbull,” he said.

“Goddamn Turnbull,” Lang agreed. “Looks like he smothered his mother and strangled this other woman, whom we’re trying to identify.”

“She still alive?”

“Just.”

“Nobody knows her?”

“Nobody at Seagull Pointe,” Lang said. “Savvy and I checked with everyone on staff and the patients who could be of help. We did a turn around the parking lot, checking for extra vehicles. No other cars than those that belong to residents. Also, no security cameras, although the director was quick to point out that they planned on getting some soon. Lot of good that does us. The upshot is we don’t know who she is or how she got there. She’s young. The theory is, she ran into Justice somehow and he strangled her and killed his mother.”

“Any chance—any chance at all—it wasn’t him?”

Lang hesitated. “That a rhetorical question?”

The sheriff sighed heavily.

“You want us to work some other angle?” Lang asked.

O’Halloran shook his head. “Nah. Not until we count out Justice Turnbull completely.” The two men discussed the case at length, then, after they’d exhausted all the new information and Lang turned to go, the sheriff added, “Got a call in from a farm east of Garibaldi. Seagulls and buzzards circling something, which turned out to be a dead body. Male. Sent Delaney down there. The guy’s been dead a couple days.”

Garibaldi was south of the city of Tillamook, but still in Tillamook County. “Any missing person reports?”

“We’d checked the tags on this hippie van that’s been parked overnight in that day lot viewpoint north of town for two nights. Called ’em up to tell them it was going to be towed, and this woman just started screaming that her husband was missing. So, we think our body could be this guy. Actually, he’s her significant other. They haven’t officially tied the knot. But the van’s in both their names, and he left their happy home in Salem in a huff a couple days ago and hasn’t been heard of since.”

“Maybe he’s just cooling off?”

“According to her, they fight, he leaves, and he always comes right back within twenty-four hours. It’s just their way.”

“Sounds like the body’s him,” Lang agreed.

“Could very well be. Description matches. Got his picture from the DMV.”

O’Halloran seemed to be holding back something, something important. Lang thought a moment, then said, “Exactly when did this guy take off?”

“About six o’clock Friday night.”

“And he drove right past Halo Valley Security Hospital on his way to the coast from Salem. That puts him right in harm’s way.”

“It’s a theory,” O’Halloran allowed.

“God damn it. He was Justice’s ride!” Lang was running with it. “How was he killed?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head. Talk to Delaney.”

“I will,” Lang said with meaning. He was already ahead of himself, putting the pieces together of Justice Turnbull’s escape. “So, Turnbull took the van, then dumped it right away. Why?”

O’Halloran snorted. “You wouldn’t have to ask if you saw it. Damn thing’s painted all over with flowers and leaves and shit. Hippie stuff. He’d need something a little less conspicuous.”

Lang thought a moment, his mind spinning with different scenarios, then settled to the only conclusion that made sense. “The woman strangled at the nursing home. Justice found a way to take her car after he unloaded the van.”

The sheriff sighed. “You think he picked up her car at the same viewpoint?”

“Or close by.” Lang shook his head. “Why not just kill her and leave her?”