Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers

by Kat Martin

  “When the Martinezes lived in the old gray house.”

  “Exactly. It took a while, but believe it or not, the guy came up with the name of a missing child who fits the description. Murphy took the information and cross-checked it with a disappearance that was reported in the L.A. Times, the story of a little girl who went missing in September of 1969, blond, blue-eyed, nine years old. He hasn’t got much of anything else—except that she was abducted right out of her own front yard.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Yeah. Sounds a little like what happened to Holly Ives, doesn’t it? Young girl taken brazenly in the middle of the day? Murphy doesn’t know if this is the girl we’re looking for, but he wants us to talk to one of the LAPD detectives who worked the case back then. He’s retired now, living in the San Fernando Valley. I thought we’d drive by the hospital and check on Maria, then head down to L.A.”

  Her pulse was racing. This was the first real break they’d had, the chance, at last, to find some answers. After last night, she was desperate for an explanation—any explanation—no matter how far-fetched it might seem.

  “What about Miguel?”

  “If he’s back in town, we’ll talk to him before we leave. Oh, and pack an overnight bag. Ian says we may be able to speak to the girl’s parents, the mother, at any rate. She’s working today, but she’s usually home on Sundays.”

  Elizabeth nodded and headed for the bedroom. She packed a toothbrush and her cosmetics bag, a comb, hairbrush and a change of clothes. She didn’t let her thoughts dwell on the notion that the trip might require an overnight stay. Zach had spent last night in a motel room; she could certainly do the same. And she knew he wouldn’t press her to do something she didn’t want to do.

  They left the apartment half an hour later in Zach’s black convertible.

  “I wanted to get here in a hurry” was his explanation for driving the car instead of his Jeep. “The BMW’s faster.”

  Which seemed to be true as he sped through town on the way to the hospital. As the car leaped away from a stoplight, Elizabeth happened to notice the dark green pickup behind them that she had seen before.

  “I know that car.” Glancing behind them only once, she fixed her eyes on the road ahead. “I think it’s following us.”

  “The pickup?”

  “Yes. I’ve seen it twice before.”

  Zach frowned as he looked in the mirror. “When?”

  “He was back there the day I went to the newspaper office, so I drove on past the building. I went back to my office and walked over a little while later.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just figured it was one of Carson’s people trying to figure out what we were up to. I didn’t really think it was important.”

  “Maybe it isn’t, but I don’t like it.” They pulled into the hospital parking lot and the pickup drove past. Zach watched until the truck disappeared out of sight. “Big guy in a cowboy hat. Might be Les Stiles, my brother’s number one flunkie. We’ll keep an eye out for him from now on.”

  They went into the hospital and spent a few minutes with Maria, who looked a little better than she had last night. But the doctor wanted her to rest so the nurse urged them to leave. Miguel was standing outside the door when they left the room.

  Zach saw him and his jaw went hard. “We need to talk,” he said darkly.

  Miguel just nodded. He looked haggard, older than his twenty-nine years. His eyes were bloodshot, his face a little puffy, and Elizabeth wondered if he might be suffering from a hangover.

  Since the waiting room down the hall was full, Zach led the three of them out of the building. It was already heating up outside, which seemed to match Zach’s mood. He didn’t mince words with the handsome Hispanic.

  “Your wife nearly died last night.”

  Miguel swallowed. “I know. I came home as soon as I got word.”

  “You mean as soon as you got home from the bar,” Zach said.

  Miguel glanced away.

  “What’s going on, Miguel?” Elizabeth asked. “You’ve never been much of a drinker. Lately it seems you’re getting drunk all the time. If something’s wrong, maybe we can help.”

  He shoved back his straight black hair. It was unwashed and overly long, as if it hadn’t been cut for some time. “I do not know what is wrong. Lately I just feel restless, you know? Maybe because of the baby. I get angry. I don’t know why. Sometimes I just have to get away.”

  “Are you and Maria having problems?”

  He shook his head. “I love my wife. I have loved her from the first time I saw her.”

  “What about the baby? How do you feel about having a child?”

  “I want this baby. Already I love it. Maria lost a baby last year. Both of us want this one. I cannot wait to be a father.”

  “If that’s the case,” Zach put in, “then you won’t try to stop Maria from moving out of the house.”

  Miguel stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s frightened, Miguel,” Elizabeth said. “I know you don’t believe in ghosts, but I was there in the house last night. I saw the little girl—I saw the terrifying things that happened in that room. Maria can’t stay there. She almost died. She will if she doesn’t leave.”

  Miguel said nothing for the longest time. When he looked up there were tears in his eyes. “I am sorry. I will find her a place to stay.”

  “She can stay with me.”

  He shook his head. “She needs to be with her own kind. She can stay with Señora Garcia. She and her husband live in one of the other houses. They have an extra room and no kids. That way I will be close by if Maria needs me.”

  Elizabeth mulled that over, thinking it was a compromise Maria could probably live with. She cast a glance at Zach, whose jaw looked iron hard. He made a slight nod of his head.

  “All right,” Elizabeth said. “Once she’s released from the hospital and out of danger, she can stay with Señora Garcia. But I want your word, Miguel. You won’t do anything to upset her. And you’ll stop drinking the way you have been.”

  He swallowed again, glanced away. “I give you my word.”

  “Thank you.”

  With Maria’s immediate problems resolved and their bags in the trunk, they left the hospital and set off down the highway. Driving through Santa Clarita, they stopped at Red Lobster for lunch, then drove on down to Van Nuys, where the detective lived who had worked on the case of the missing child.

  Ian Murphy had made the appointment for three o’clock and they drove up in front of the small tract house in a subdivision just off the freeway with a few minutes to spare.

  “You ready?” Zach asked as he unsnapped his seat belt. He was casually dressed in slacks, a short-sleeved shirt and loafers, and wearing his guarded expression. He had been all morning, and yet, again and again she could feel his eyes on her, the gold in them glittering like sparks that could blaze out of control any minute.

  Elizabeth felt the same banked heat whenever she looked at him. She’d been attracted to Zach from the start. Knowing their relationship couldn’t possibly work didn’t change that. She wanted him, and it was obvious he wanted her.

  Still, their first priority was Maria. Zach opened her car door onto an L.A. day far more pleasant than the one in San Pico. He helped her out on the sidewalk and they started toward the front door. A tall man in loose-fitting jeans and a faded old L.A. Rams T-shirt stepped out on the porch before they reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Zachary Harcourt?”

  “That’s right.” Zach guided her up the steps. “And this is Elizabeth Conners.”

  “Liz,” she corrected though she didn’t know why, and extended a hand.

  “I’m Danny McKay.” McKay shook her hand and then Zach’s. “I used to be
a detective with the LAPD. I’ve been retired for almost eight years. Come on in.” McKay looked to be pushing seventy, almost completely bald, with sparse gray hair around the shiny dome of his head. He held the screen door open and they walked past him into a living room with a white brick fireplace at one end.

  “My wife passed away four years ago,” McKay explained. “Place always looked real good when she was alive. I try, but I just can’t seem to keep it the way she did.” The house was built in the sixties, redone maybe late eighties. The light green carpet had begun to fade and the matching sofa and chair looked worn.

  “We’re just happy you took the time to see us,” Zach said, all of them sitting down across from each other, Elizabeth next to Zach on the sofa.

  “No problem. I don’t get that many visitors these days. You want some coffee or something? I think there’s some iced tea in the refrigerator.”

  Elizabeth glanced at Zach. “We’re fine, thanks.” She eased forward on the sofa. “What can you tell us about the missing girl, Mr. McKay?”

  “It’s just Danny. And I remember that case very well. I guess ’cause she was such a pretty little thing. Can’t tell you much about it, though. That child just seemed to disappear.”

  Zach leaned forward. “According to what Ian said, she was taken right out of her own front yard.”

  McKay nodded, sunlight gleaming on his bald head. “Broke her parents’ heart. ’Specially the mother. Only child, you know. Mother really loved that little girl.”

  Elizabeth felt a chill. According to Maria, the little girl had cried for her mother. I want my mama, she had pleaded.

  “The papers said she was nine years old,” Zach said, “with blond hair and blue eyes. From what Murphy told me, there wasn’t much beyond that in the case reports. The files were thirty-six years old. Pages were missing. They didn’t have everything on computer the way they do now.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s true. It’s a lot easier to track that kind of thing these days. And with the Amber Alerts and all the news on TV, we’ve got a better chance of stopping the abductor before it’s too late.”

  “Any chance you remember what she was wearing the day she disappeared?” Zach asked.

  “Crazy as it seems, I do. That day was her birthday, you see. She turned nine years old that day. The party was in full swing, the kids all out in the backyard. But according to her mother, her dog started barking—a little Pekingese—and Carrie ran after him, out to the front yard.”

  “Carrie?” Elizabeth asked.

  “That was her name. Carrie Ann Whitt.”

  Elizabeth swallowed.

  “Go on,” Zach urged.

  “At any rate, Carrie ran after the dog and I guess so much was going in the backyard with the party and all, no one missed her for a while. By the time they did, Carrie Ann was gone.”

  Elizabeth didn’t say anything more. Her throat was hurting. In the eye of her mind, she could see the little girl playing with her friends, all dressed up for her birthday party. The vision changed to the child at the foot of the bed dressed in her pretty pink pinafore, her blond hair freshly washed and gleaming. The ache in her throat grew more painful.

  “Nobody saw anything?” Zach asked. “There weren’t any witnesses?”

  “When we were canvassing the area later that day, someone said they saw an old beat-up blue car in the neighborhood around the time Carrie Ann disappeared. But they couldn’t give us the license plate number or anything more than a vague description of the vehicle.”

  “How many people were in it?” Zach asked.

  “Two.”

  A muscle clenched in Zach’s jaw.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” the detective said, his eyes on Zach’s face. “You see it in the files?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen the files.” Zach shot a glance at Elizabeth. “It’s a long story.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to hear it.”

  Zach sighed. “All right. But before we start, maybe we’d better have that glass of iced tea.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “It’s her, Zach. Carrie Ann Whitt. It has to be.”

  “Looks that way.” They were driving down the freeway in Zach’s car, the BMW snaking its way through the long lines of traffic.

  “They kidnapped her, just like Holly Ives. They took her to the house they were living in at Harcourt Farms and they murdered her.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know for sure that’s what happened.”

  “But she fits the description perfectly so there’s a good chance that’s exactly what happened.”

  “It could be. If the mother’s home tomorrow, we’ll see what she has to say.”

  “Are you sure we should? I mean, what can we really tell her?”

  “We’ll play it by ear. We don’t want to hurt the woman any more than she’s been hurt already.”

  Elizabeth sat back in her seat. She felt tired, exhausted clear to the bone. She was sure little Carrie Whitt had been murdered in the old gray house. She thought of Holly Ives and the torture she had suffered and her stomach rolled with nausea. She was just a child! Just a little girl!

  Had Carrie Ann suffered that same terrible fate? More and more, Elizabeth was convinced that she had.

  She fought to hold back tears. She was barely aware of her surroundings until she realized Zach had pulled the car off the freeway and they were heading toward the ocean.

  His eyes found hers. “I know this is hard for you. I’m not liking it, myself. But we can’t stop now. We have to find out what’s going on.”

  She nodded, swallowed. “We have to know the truth. We can’t stop until we do.”

  Zach navigated a turn in the road, taking the car along a highway running parallel to the sea. Beachfront homes lined the shore, and restaurants and boutiques popped up here and there on the opposite side of the highway.

  “The afternoon’s pretty well shot,” Zach said. “I figure we might as well stay at my place tonight. We’ll get settled in, then go get something to eat.” He glanced at her, his hands still wrapped around the wheel, big dark hands, nicely shaped, the nails short and clean. Talented hands.

  She remembered those hands moving over her body and felt a tremor of desire she didn’t want to feel. “Maybe I should get a room.”

  “You don’t have to do that. My apartment’s got two bedrooms, you’ll even have your own bath. You can have all the privacy you need.” But his eyes said, How much do you really want?

  Desire slipped through her as she thought of the last time they had made love, how hot she had been, how incredible the pleasure. A single glance at the beautifully sculpted angles of his face, the sensual curve of his lips, made the heat tug low in her belly.

  As he turned up a narrow road that wound its way toward a cliff above the sea, she realized she was staring at his mouth, thinking of the way he had kissed her, the way his lips slid over hers, how soft but firm they were, how determined. Zach cast her a long, heated glance, and erotic images danced in her head.

  The tires whined on the cement driveway leading down to the underground parking garage, then the car pulled into a space marked with Zach’s apartment number, 3A. Rounding the car, he opened her door, then went back and popped the trunk, took out their bags, and they headed for the elevator.

  The building was white stucco, four stories high, sitting on pillars that dug into the side of the mountain. The elevator moaned and lifted upward, carrying them toward the top floor of the building. The doors slid open and they walked out into the corridor. Zach set their bags down outside his apartment door, pulled out his keys, and opened the lock.

  She kept telling herself it didn’t matter that she was spending the night in his home. Nothing was going to happen. She wasn’t going to give
into her desire for him again.

  With renewed resolve, she stepped into the marble-floored entry and came to a sudden stop, unable to look away from the breathtaking view. The sea and coastline, curving miles to the north and south, stretched in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the elegant living room.

  “Like it?”

  “Oh, Zach, it’s beautiful.”

  His eyes moved over her face. “So are you,” he said softly. He was standing so close she could feel the heat of his body, smell his expensive cologne, and a curl of heat slid into her stomach.

  “Zach…”

  He cleared his throat, looked away, took a deep breath. “I’ll show you your room. You can get settled in. In the meantime, I’ll pour you a glass of wine. You look like you could use it.”

  She sighed wearily. “Definitely.” He led her down a hall carpeted in the same cream shade as the living room, which was done in cream and black with bright pieces of oversize artwork, and an interesting array of sculpted glass that added color wherever it was needed.

  The guest room was lovely, very chic, with smooth dark furniture and a single chair upholstered in burgundy to match the comforter on the bed and the drapes at the windows, modern yet welcoming.

  Setting her bag on the chair, she took out her cosmetic kit, comb and brush, then went into the luxurious bathroom. The black granite countertop over the sink reflected the lights above the mirror, and a single bud vase with a purple-throated white silk orchid looked so real, she reached out to touch it.

  She studied the face in the mirror, saw the fatigue in her eyes. With a sigh of resignation, she ran the brush and comb through her hair, fluffing the dark strands around her shoulders as best she could, then put on a dash of coral lipstick and returned to the living room, feeling a little better.

  As good as his word, Zach held out a glass of chilled white wine. The eyes that met hers were dark and intense, and though he wore his guarded expression, she could see the faint trace of hunger he couldn’t quite hide. Their fingers brushed as she took hold of the glass and a tendril of heat slid through her. She took a sip of wine and realized her hand was shaking.