"Is that someone following us?" she asked twenty minutes later, as they drove down the dark Valley Road that led to the country club and all the houses they'd seen on Reese's real estate hunt.
"Nah," he said, adjusting the rearview mirror so he could look back. "They look normal enough."
All Maggie could see were a pair of headlights behind them, but it seemed they had made the turns through town just one step behind them all the way.
Reese fixed the mirror so she could use it again. "I'd tell you to relax, but I think going out alone to see this girl is nuts, so I won't," he added.
"I'm not going alone. I have a big strapping action hero coming with me."
"I only play those in the movies," he drawled. "I'm not bulletproof, Mags."
"Well, it's not like we're going to get shot at," she said. "I just want to find out what's going on."
"And get her to turn herself in," he added. "Don't forget that part."
"Right," she said, having forgotten it. She was so focused on her curiosity about the case that she wasn't really thinking about Taiyari's legal troubles. "Right," she repeated. "We need to convince her to trust Lieutenant Ibarra. She can't hide in the woods forever."
"This is it," he pointed, and Maggie saw a flash of white in her headlights before they passed it.
She pulled over onto the dirt at the side of the road and let the car behind them come up and pass. It disappeared around the next bend. Then she pulled out, and made a U-turn to take them back to where Reese had pointed.
Sure enough, PINE HOLLOW ROAD, the street sign read, though the road it marked was hardly more than a dirt track from what she could see. Punctuating the spot was a white real estate sign, aged and battered, dangling from a chain at one corner, with the chain on the opposite corner having broken loose from its mooring to leave it flapping in the breeze.
There was a bit of wind, and the sign waved back and forth in her car's headlights. "FOR SALE," she read. "ACREAGE." The name of an agent and his phone number were printed below that, a bit faded.
"Not listed by our esteemed realtor with his alphabet of MVP credentials," Reese observed.
"I don't think this is quite the same thing," she muttered, turning into the dirt road that led off into the hills.
A second sign came into view. This one was old, carved wood, and its supports were choked with ivy that had scrambled up over its face. The word CAMP was visible though, and Maggie pointed out that Taiyari had said she was at a campground.
"Then let's go and get this over with," Reese said sourly. "I'd rather be home in bed."
That proved to be easier said than done. Soon enough, Maggie's little compact car started to bog down on the track, and she had to stop, worried she'd get stuck. She turned off the engine, and the lights switched off, enveloping them in the night.
They got out.
All around them the air was clear and cold, and without city lights, it was very dark.
The stars overhead glowed against the blackness, and an owl hooted up in the trees. She could hear rustling in the woods behind her, and the sound of the wild things going about their nightly business gave her the creeps and made her shiver.
She got out her phone and used the flashlight feature to light her way. Reese did the same, and with their two bright flashlights, they were able to follow the track until they came to the campground entrance itself.
This wasn't much, just a big dirt area with looming buildings all around.
To their right was a large log cabinish place, two or three stories high, like a big hunting lodge, but shrouded in darkness. They could see the shimmer of broken windows in the moonlight, and it was clearly in ruins.
To the left was what appeared to be a tumbledown barn, and where the road continued past it, a sign said "RV PARKING" with an arrow pointing up a hill.
In front of them were woods, thick and forbidding.
"Now what?" Reese asked. She could see his skeptical expression in the phone's glow. "Wait for the gunfire?"
"Taiyari?" Maggie called out. "I'm here."
They heard footsteps from the log cabin, and turned that way.
The girl walked across a dark porch that spanned the width of the lodge. "You said you'd come alone," her voice came to them out of the dark.
Maggie turned her phone toward her and saw the girl's wide eyes as she blinked in the brightness. She lowered the light when the girl put her hand up to shield her eyes from the glare.
"It's only Reese and I. We came alone." Maggie opened her arms wide to show they were alone and unarmed, and the flashlight from her phone swept across the woods in front of her. The trees were redwoods, soaring up high in the night, dark trunks crowding close together. She could almost imagine animal eyes staring out from behind each trunk, and had to force down a shiver.
Taiyari stood there on the porch for a minute, watching them, deciding. Then she came down to meet them. She looked haggard, and was dressed in jeans and a sweater that looked dirty.
"No police?" she asked.
Maggie shook her head, and the girl came close to them.
"I promised," Maggie told her. "I didn't call the police. But we will have to call them soon. You have to turn yourself in."
Taiyari shook her head, but Maggie insisted, "Yes. We have to. The longer you stay in hiding, the worse it will get. I know Lieutenant Ibarra. He's a good guy, and I promise you he can't be part of whatever you're mixed up in."
"No!" she said. "Nobody can be trusted." Her wide eyes glistened in the semi-darkness. "Nobody can be trusted. Nobody."
"It's okay," Maggie said, reaching out a hand to calm her. "I promised I wouldn't bring the police with me, and I kept my word. I can swear to you there isn't a cop within ten miles of here."
Reese glanced behind them, back up the road. "Well," he said slowly. "I wouldn't exactly put it that way…."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Will Ibarra came out of the darkness. He switched on his flashlight, a big, professional affair that lit up the whole yard around them.
"You promised!" Taiyari said, turning to run.
"Wait!" Maggie said. "I didn't call him. I swear."
"I did," Reese said. "I wasn't going to let you come out here without backup."
"Backup," Ibarra snorted. "You amateurs are going to get yourselves killed with all this game-playing."
Taiyari was still backing away, and he said, "get back here, young lady," with an authority that stopped her in her tracks.
She turned and came back. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to take you in, and we're going to get to the bottom of this."
"You can't, Will!" Maggie said. "She's innocent."
He shook his head. "She's a person of interest. There's an APB out for her. This is only going to end one way, Maggie. Now come here," he said to the girl. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."
Taiyari was crying. "I didn't kill him. I didn't," she sobbed. "I was just going to talk to him."
"About what?" Maggie asked.
"About his cheating. My friend told me he had another girlfriend. She said that was why people didn't like him."
Ibarra took her by the arm. "Put your hands behind your back," he said.
She was crying.
"Please, Will," Maggie said, but he ignored her. "Then you don't know?" she asked Taiyari.
"Know what?"
The light from Maggie's glowing phone showed Taiyari's tear-streaked face, and her confused expression.
The handcuffs snapped as Ibarra closed them around the girl's wrists.
"About your grandmother," Maggie said.
"What about my grandmother? What's going on?"
"She really did protect you."
Ibarra was holding Taiyari by one arm, and had the flashlight in his other hand, pointed toward the ground.
Reese had already turned off his phone's light, and Maggie followed suit, and they all stood there in the pool of light created by that big flashligh
t, their feet lit up and their faces shadowy, and the dark trees circling all around them in this quiet place.
"Protect me from her worries?" the girl said, showing that observant quality Maggie had noticed when they first meant. "Yes, she did. She said she had things to think about, but she didn't want to distract me from my studies."
"I see. So you've never actually been a threat to their plan at all."
"What plan?" she asked. Her face was round and shadowed in the dim light, and she turned wide eyes to Maggie. "You know who killed Ethan?"
Maggie nodded, and opened her mouth to speak.
But she didn't get the chance.
There was the loud bang of a gunshot, and several things seemed to happen at once.
She saw Ibarra push the girl down and throw his body on top of her.
She felt Reese grab her arm and jerk her out of the pool of visibility created by the flashlight and into the shadows.
And she heard light, quick footsteps running toward them out of the darkness.
Reese pulled her close and they ran.
He pulled Maggie to go faster, and she tried to keep up with his long strides. Without flashlights to guide them, they stumbled along, tripping over every fallen branch and overgrown weed.
He hauled her up the little path that went past the ramshackle barn.
She heard another shot, this one sounding different, and she wondered if Ibarra was returning fire toward the killer.
Had the first bullet hit Taiyari? Had Ibarra stopped the killer? And where were they?
"Reese!" she whispered, but he shook her arm and hushed her.
They kept running until they plunged into water up to her knees.
They stopped, but the splashing continued. They had disturbed some wild thing that scrambled quickly away across the water.
In the faint bit of moonlight through the trees they could see the shimmer of the water in front of them. They had apparently landed in some sort of pond.
Maggie felt her feet sinking into the mud, and tried to pull them out.
"Stop!" Reese hissed.
The sucking sound of moving her feet seemed loud in the quiet night woods.
There was another sound. Footsteps.
These were running, apparently following the same path they had taken, coming closer.
But then they stopped, and Maggie and Reese held their breaths, clinging to each other in the water, listening.
The steps started again, this time slowly, methodically, coming closer.
Then the footsteps headed away. There was a looming shape fifty yards away. Maggie was confused by the darkness, but she thought it might be the other side of the big barn they'd seen before.
The footsteps faded away to silence.
"Get down," Reese whispered.
Maggie felt his body pressing her down to crouch in the muddy pond. She sputtered when her face went underwater, and the man on top of her quickly pulled her up.
"Shhh!" Reese whispered. "Stop splashing."
"Hiding won't do me much good if I drown," she whispered back at him.
Something moved by the barn, and he pushed her head down again, ducking down beside her.
He put his mouth close to her ear. "I think that's Taiyari lurking in the shadow of the barn. But I haven't spotted Ibarra. And the killer has to be close, too. Have you figured out who it is yet?"
"You assume I will," she whispered.
"Of course," he said, his breath warm against her ear. "But it would help if you solved it before we're killed."
"I thought it was Donovan Cruz. But that shape looks like a woman. And stop sitting on my hand." He shifted his hips, and she was able to pull her hand out of the mud.
Maggie shivered.
"Cold or scared?" he asked.
"Why not both?" she whispered back.
It was too dark to see him clearly, but he pressed close to her side. She huddled against his chest, and felt his heartbeat, steady and true as ever. "Aren't you scared?" she whispered.
"Would I be crouching in the mud up to my neck if I weren't?" he asked. "There's somebody taking pot shots at us."
"At Taiyari," Maggie corrected.
"I'm not sure the killer is that particular about who they hit," he said, his sarcastic drawl still clear in the faint whisper.
"Do you think Taiyari was shot?"
"Not in that first volley. I saw her run toward the barn. But the other shots…?"
Maggie strained her eyes, trying to see the barn. "If that's true, then the woman lurking over there could be the killer."
"Aha," he whispered, the light dawning. "Amanda Cherryvale."
"Exactly," Maggie said. "The woman scorned."
"She rubbed me the wrong way from the start," he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. "But are you sure?"
Maggie felt some scurrying crustacean crawl across her hand and she had to bite her lip to keep from yelping in fear. She took deep breaths and let them out slowly. Then said, "I think so. I think this whole mystery about Taiyari's grandmother isn't a motivation to kill Taiyari. After all, Ethan never got a chance to tell her who he was working with on the blackmail scheme, so there's no reason to shoot at her now. This has to be about something else."
"And the girl all the boys loved would be the obvious target of a jealous female," he said. He lifted his head, trying to get a better look at the barn, and Maggie saw his blond hair catch the bit of moonlight between the trees.
She pulled him down again, but it didn't matter. It was too late.
There was something else reflecting the shine from that sliver of moon. Something coldly metallic, in a woman's hand, and it was only ten feet away from them.
"Stand up," said the familiar voice, and Maggie realized how right, and how wrong, she'd been.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They stood up, dripping mud and water and probably looking like swamp creatures.
"Hello, Susan," Maggie said, and Reese gave a quick, startled glance at her unsurprised tone.
"Put your hands up," Susan Gallegos said. She was dressed all in black, her hair pulled into a ponytail and a shiny gun pointed right at them.
They did exactly as told.
"You're dressed for the occasion," she said to Susan. "Been following us for long?"
"I knew you were onto something when I saw you talking with Peter Valentine. He was working with that old Méndez woman. Even after she was gone, he wouldn't let it go."
She shifted the gun in her hand, getting a better grip on it. "You told Carmen out at the Kirby farm that you wanted to get in touch with Taiyari. I figured the girl might reach out to you."
"You've got your fingers into every part of this, haven't you?" Maggie said scornfully. "All those years of making connections on every farm. Let me guess: that nice older man who wouldn't tell me anything about the case?"
She smirked.
"So you're the mastermind behind the blackmail at all the farms. Your father, was he—? Of course not," Maggie stopped herself, thinking of all those photographs of Susan's father with the farmworkers. "Your father wouldn't blackmail anyone. He was always out in the fields, helping people."
"People." Susan spat out the word. "They're hardly people. Have you seen how they live?"
"Oh God! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!" Reese quoted softly.
"Does that make me Scrooge?" Susan said scornfully. "You spoiled Carita celebrities think you're so much better. My mom kissed up to you all those years, begging you for your scraps, and for what? To help a bunch of lazy people who couldn't even make it on their own."
"Your father devoted his life to helping the poorest of the poor," Maggie said to her. "And what did you say to me at the party? He was always working on some project or other. It was only through his charity that you got to spend time with him. Because he was helping those people instead of being home with you and your mother."
"Why did you keep th
e charity going after his death, if you hated the workers so much?" Reese asked.
Susan said nothing.
"Because it was all you had of your father," Maggie said. "You had a love-hate relationship with the charity, just like you'd had with your father. You wanted his love and attention, and working on the charity was the only way to get it. So you decided to use your position to get something for yourself. Money. Kickbacks under the table that wouldn't show up on the charity's books, but would come to you, in cash, laundered through co-conspirators at each of the farms where you could find someone as cruel and greedy as yourself."
"Maggie," Reese warned. "Settle down."
"Yeah, Maggie," Susan said sarcastically. "You probably shouldn't insult the person who's going to shoot you."
"If you're going to shoot anyway, why not?" Maggie said. "It wasn't even about the money, was it? It was about sticking it to the people who'd taken your parents away from you. Pushing them down farther and farther into poverty and despair."
"I deserved something," Susan said, very quietly. "For everything they took from me."
"Your mother. Your father. But the money didn't help, did it?"
"I needed more," Susan said, again quietly, like a confession, and Maggie supposed it was.
"More," Maggie agreed. "Because money doesn't really make an empty life better, does it? I've been there, with the money and the pretty things, but still wondering what the purpose of it all was." She sighed. "So you needed Ethan."
"Ethan?" Reese asked, then said, "oh."
"Yeah," Maggie said. "The handsome party boy you recruited to help you in your scheme. It wasn't just a business relationship with him, was it? What did you say at the party? No time for a personal life? So you fell for him, like all the other women did. The guy who seduced all the girls but never really loved any of them."
"Until Taiyari," Reese said. "He was head over heels for that girl. I saw it."
Susan reacted to that. "He didn't really love her," she insisted.
"He loved her enough to break it off with all the other girls," Reese said. "And he was going to tell her the truth about the blackmail scheme, wasn't he?"
"No," Maggie corrected him. "He told Taiyari he was going to tell her everything. Everything. He was going to tell her about her grandmother, wasn't he?"
Maggie and the Hidden Homicide Page 14