“It’ll take a few days to arrange,” Wyatt said. “I haven’t kept up with business associates.”
Two days was too long to wait for progress. I was on a tight budget and a tight schedule. I mean, it wasn’t like I could bill a ghost. And Van had already left two messages on my phone. I couldn’t put him off indefinitely. “Did you clear her office?”
“She worked in a classified area. Someone there handled the task. All her personal effects were given to her mother. There wouldn’t be anything work related.”
“Her mother? Why didn’t you collect Sofia’s things?”
“Inez insisted, and it wasn’t worth the battle.”
That either made him a strong man or a pushover.
He’s a good man, Sofia insisted.
I folded the pad of paper to a fresh page. “Maybe there was a personal computer, an organizer or a diary of some sort.”
“Engineers usually use special work journals and those become part of the work files. Property of the company.”
“You never know, though. Do you think her mother still has Sofia’s things?”
He snorted. “Inez Castille lives for her daughter. If anything, whatever she was given of Sofia’s is enshrined.”
Now there was dysfunction for you. Refreshing, though, to find out other families were as crazy as mine. “Could we pay Mrs. Castille a visit?”
No! The slide of Sofia’s fear slalomed right through me.
Wyatt’s jaw worked. “I’m not exactly welcome there.”
“Why not?”
He flicked me a strange look. “Inez didn’t approve of Sofia’s marrying me. She didn’t approve of my donating Sofia’s organs, even if I was just honoring Sofia’s wishes. Sofia’d already signed her donor card. Technically the doctors didn’t need my permission.”
“I see.”
“No, I don’t think you have any idea what you’re getting into.”
“Even if there aren’t any work-related materials, maybe there’s a personal journal where she wrote her thoughts about what she was feeling about her work. It’s worth a shot.”
Please, no, Sofia begged, but didn’t deny the possibility of finding personal writings.
I could detect no emotion in Wyatt’s face, yet his gaze seemed to penetrate deeply, and I certainly didn’t like the piano wire of tension it twisted in me.
“Sofia was murdered.” I was losing patience with him. “We have to start somewhere.”
“Hang on.” An undertone of threat rumbled in his sandy drawl.
He snapped on his signal and took the exit with too much speed, forcing me to hang on to the door handle.
A sense of unease reared up in the pit of my stomach. With each step I took, I was closing another door, miring myself deeper into Sofia’s world. And the last thing I wanted to do was get completely lost in a place not mine.
Wyatt whipped over the overpass, down the ramp and onto the highway in the opposite direction. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Sofia’s parents lived in a gated community on the southwest side of Fort Worth. The guard waved Wyatt through. So much for security. The house was an immense mustard-colored brick box with a pair of two-story-tall, white Tuscan columns supporting the narrow porch cover. Someone had sculpted the shrubs hugging the house to perfection. Caladiums and a riot of red impatiens massed the flowerbeds. An S-shaped brick path led up the small incline to the front door still bearing a black wreath.
That couldn’t be a good sign. Maybe Wyatt was right and this visit wasn’t such a good move.
Leave, Sofia said, her voice so feeble it sounded as if it were coming from the far end of a long tunnel.
Wyatt knocked on the door and waited, his face impassive. “Let me do the talking.”
“Maybe she’d respond better to a woman.”
“She doesn’t respond well to people in general.”
I’d play it by ear. If Wyatt wasn’t getting me what I needed, I’d jump in.
Inez Castille looked very much like her daughter. She’d swept her black hair into braids and twisted it into an elaborate do. In spite of her death-white skin, her head and neck had a regal bearing. Her eyes were the same deep brown as her daughter’s. But the similarities ended there. Though her haunting was disturbing, I thought of Sofia as soft. This woman was hard-edged and sharpened with anger. More than a year after her daughter’s death, she still wore a mourning-black dress.
“Inez, could I talk to you for a minute?” Wyatt asked.
Inez stared at her son-in-law with a decided lack of enthusiasm and started to slam the door in his face.
Wyatt reached out and caught the door. “I’ll take only a bit of your time.”
“You’ve already taken too much from me.” Her voice was both thick and hollow as if she were already halfway dead.
“I just want to look at a few of Sofia’s things.”
Inez frowned. “Why?”
“To help her.”
“Help her! Help her!” Inez screeched, intensifying her Spanish accent. “Where was this helpful attitude thirteen months ago when you allowed those butchers to dissect my daughter?”
“I would rather talk inside.” The muscles of his jaw spasmed, but his voice remained gentle and calm. “Please, Inez.”
She glanced nervously over Wyatt’s shoulder as if she was gauging the neighborhood’s reaction to her visitors. After a long moment, she allowed us in, treating me as if I were invisible.
All the window shades were drawn, making the inside of the house dark and depressing. The air was still and lifeless, and I couldn’t help reaching for the heaviness in my chest.
Inez picked up a photo of Sofia from a small table in the vast entrance hall. With a shaky breath, she hugged the frame to her breast and looked up at Wyatt, her gaze so icy I shivered. “I have no interest in hearing anything you have to say.”
Light flickered from the living room where a television was on. I spotted the outline of a man in a black velveteen recliner. His corpulence had spread and molded to the contours of the chair. Seemingly unaware of the visitors or his wife’s distress, he flicked through the channels with such speed, I doubted any of the pictures racing by registered, then he stopped on CNN at what looked like coverage of a plane crash.
“I need to look through Sofia’s work things,” Wyatt said.
Instantly suspicious, Inez bristled. Stiffly she snapped the frame back on the table and seemed to grow a couple of inches as she assumed battle position. “Why?”
“Because I need to know what she was working on when she died.”
“Why?”
Wyatt’s fingers twitched at his sides. “Because there’s a chance her death wasn’t an accident.”
“Are you saying my daughter was murdered?” Inez’s voice became piercing. “My Sofia?” Her lips trembled. “Who would do such a thing to such a sweet angel?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“Why now after all this time?” Sharp nails of rage spiked her voice. “Why now when time has finally dulled the edge of pain on my bleeding heart?”
“Because—”
“Of her? You have found a new woman, and you dare invite her into my home. Are you expecting my blessing?” Inez shot me a look of pure hatred. “Who are you to defile my daughter’s memory?”
The woman was insane. I could barely hear Inez through the whooshing of blood past my ears. My skin went cold as if someone had shot my whole body with Novocain. “I’m the woman Sofia’s gift of a heart gave life to.”
Before the sentence was out my mouth, I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
Inez gasped, bringing both her hands to cover her mouth and half sinking to the ground. Her eyes rounded, then narrowed with spuming fire. She rose up again and curled her hands into fists. “You are the one my daughter’s body was violated for?”
“Four others got a chance at life because of her generosity.” Every cell in my body prickled with static energy, skipping ove
r my skin and leaping through my hair.
“She was carved like an animal, separated from her soul.” Inez placed a hand on my chest and crimped my T-shirt in her grasp. For the briefest of moments, I couldn’t move.
“No!” Fear, wild and stark, galloped through me. Mine? Sofia’s?
Darkness blanked through my mind, and for a moment I thought I’d pass out.
Instinctively I surrounded Inez’s fist with both my hands and pushed. But it was as if I were watching the scene from outside myself. I had no strength. Every movement took a massive amount of effort.
“That’s enough.” Wyatt grasped Inez’s wrist, forcing her to release her hold of my T-shirt. “This won’t get us anywhere. We’re here to help Sofia.”
Inez, still blind with fury, continued to spear me with hatred. “Who are you to think you can replace my daughter?”
I blinked, jerking back into myself, and rubbed at the throbbing at my breastbone. What was happening to me? Why were my muscles so weak? Was my heart failing? “I’m not—”
“You are not Sofia. I spit on you.” Despite Wyatt’s interference, Inez’s aim was true and spittle landed on my cheek and burned like a brand.
Shocked, all I could do was stare at Inez’s face contorted into an ugly mask of rage. A rumble grew inside me like a dormant volcano coming to life.
“That’s enough, Inez,” Wyatt said.
Inez whirled on him. “And you? Have you no shame? Sofia gave you everything—her soul, her body, her heart—”
“And I gave her everything in return. Is it so hard to believe she loved me?”
“She deserved better.”
“And if she was murdered,” Wyatt said, “she deserves to have her killer punished.”
Inez yanked open the front door and showed us out. “Do not darken my doorstep again. If I so much as smell you in the neighborhood, I will have you arrested.”
The door slammed on our backs. I was never so glad to leave any place in my life. Even the hospital seemed like a vacation compared to the preview of hell that was.
In the truck I reached for the antibacterial gel and rubbed it over my face and hands. My heart finally returned to a normal rhythm.
Wyatt’s stiff posture telegraphed his anger. I couldn’t blame him. I’d put him in this difficult position. He had to feel damned on both ends. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have put you through that.”
“I tried to warn you.”
“You did.”
“Inez isn’t a pleasant woman.”
“I gathered that. How did Sofia feel about her?” Given Sofia’s fear, odds were their relationship wasn’t exactly Hallmark TV movie material.
For the longest while my only answer was the flick-flack of the wipers. “She married me in part to get out of her mother’s clutches.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Was Sofia so weak she’d needed someone to run interference between her and her mother?
His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Sofia loved me, don’t get me wrong. She was a gentle, giving, compassionate woman. But she couldn’t handle her mother’s volatile moods. Inez is very old-fashioned. Marriage was the only acceptable way for Sofia to escape home.”
Escape? How bad was Sofia’s home life?
At the flash of headlights in the rearview mirror, Wyatt swung into the right lane. A deep red Cadillac pulled up next to the truck and slowed. The electric window on the passenger’s side slid down. A Hispanic man wearing sunglasses leaned over from the driver’s seat and mouthed, “Hey, Wyatt, pull over.”
Wyatt grimaced, then nodded. “Reynaldo Castille. He’s one of Sofia’s cousins.” Wyatt drove onto the shoulder and stopped, but didn’t turn off the engine or get out of the truck. “Rey’s a little twerp with a puny brain and an inflated ego. And he’s Inez’s lapdog. Don’t ask me why. Sofia found him amusing. I think he’s a royal pain. If I don’t stop, he’ll dog us all the way to the ranch. The less we have to do with the Castille clan, the better.”
Rey parked ahead of the truck, then sauntered over, pulled off his sunglasses and leaned against the door. The overpowering scent of his sandalwood cologne invaded the truck. Wyatt flicked the air vent to high.
Chewing on a toothpick, Rey nodded at Wyatt and leered at me. I shivered, feeling the need for a soapy shower. Rain washed down his slicked-back hair as if he were a duck. He reminded me of the black racers that slithered through the grass behind my mother’s house, and I took an instant dislike to him.
“Have you no manners left, Wyatt?” Rey asked. “Are you not going to introduce me to the beautiful lady at your side?”
“No.”
Rey shrugged his indifference. “Inez sent me. She wants to make sure there will be no repeat of today. She doesn’t want her daughter’s eternal soul disturbed.”
“No problem.”
Rey splayed his hands up in surrender. “Hey, if Inez thinks your new woman is a problem, man, I gotta believe her. It’s much easier to do as she wants than—”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“It’s no threat, my friend. You leave Inez alone or I’ll have to take back the last piece of Sofia.”
Talk about overreaction. I was beginning to think that the whole Castille clan was running a few quarts low. Because of grief? Or had they always been that way?
The storm outside had nothing on the one raging in Wyatt’s eyes. “Inez got everything. There’s nothing left. Her daughter wasn’t even cold in the grave before she burst into my home and packed all of Sofia’s things away. What more does she want?”
“A heart for a heart.” Rey looked pointedly at me, dark eyes shining bright. I wanted to scratch them out.
Wyatt’s fist wrapped around Rey’s shirt and dragged him up until their noses practically touched. The low grit of his voice rolled like the Bullmastiff’s growl in the salvage yard. “She has nothing to do with this. Leave her out of Inez’s delusions.”
“I am sorry you choose to be so difficult.” Rey pushed himself off the car door and nodded at me. “Señorita, perhaps you could change your boyfriend’s mind. He does not realize what a passionate woman Inez is. When she wants something, nothing can hold her back.”
“You could,” I said. What a piece of slime.
Wyatt shot me a warning look but I ignored him. There were three types of people in this world—nice, difficult and wimps. I had Rey pegged as a wimp who liked to hide behind others, and the only way to deal with a wimp was to strip him of his mask.
Rey shuddered with exaggeration. “I do not want to incur her wrath. My aunt is a very powerful woman.”
“Um, does that make you a weak man?” I asked.
Rey’s face reddened and his eyes narrowed. He spit out his toothpick. “Sofia was like a sister to me. There’s a hole in my heart that’s just starting to heal. Leave the dead buried, Wyatt. You’ve already hurt Inez enough by taking her only child.” He glanced at me. “I am sure you have grown attached to Sofia’s heart. It would be a shame to have to give it back.”
Rey’s smile was predatory, as if carving living organs out of bodies was a pleasurable occupation. With a salute, he stalked back to his car and roared off in a spray of water. His juvenile posturing reminded me of high school boys peeling out of parking lots to impress girls. He was a threat I could handle.
Wyatt checked the traffic. “You can’t go around questioning a man’s cojones. Especially not someone like Rey.”
“He deserved it.”
“You insulted his pride. He won’t be able to let that go.”
“He’s just a bully. More bark than bite.”
“For an investigator, you’ve got lousy instincts.” Wyatt jammed the truck into gear. “Rey takes great pleasure in plucking wings off butterflies, kicking dogs and drowning kittens.”
A prime example of the milk of human kindness. “So we don’t bother Inez. We’ll get what we need elsewhere.”
“It’s not that simple. Not when it comes to Sofia.” A
s he eased onto the highway, Wyatt shook his head. “By insisting we visit Inez, you opened up a giant can of worms that would have been better off left sealed.”
“For who? For you?”
He glowered at me as if he wasn’t used to being challenged. “For everyone.”
“Except Sofia.”
An arrow of pain compressed his features. Direct hit into his Achilles’ heel. “Except Sofia.” The windshield wipers slapped madly at the rain. “And now you.”
“You can’t really believe he’d take Sofia’s—my heart out of my chest. That would be murder.”
“That would be justice in Inez’s mind. If she feels we’re desecrating Sofia’s memory with our investigation, Rey is crazy enough to stop it.”
“Sofia’s dead. We can’t hurt her. All we’ll do is put her killer behind bars. Doesn’t Inez want to know who killed her daughter?”
His jaw flinched. “As far as she’s concerned, I killed her by taking her away from the great future Inez had mapped out for her. Now that you’ve told Inez that a part of Sofia lives in you, she won’t be able to let it go.”
“Inez spat on me. Told me I wasn’t Sofia.”
“If Inez feels you’re a threat to the gift her daughter gave you, she’ll have Rey take back what she feels belongs to her.”
A shiver scraped down my spine, and I splayed my hand protectively over my chest. “The heart belongs to me.”
Chapter 6
“Ma!” Wyatt called to the quiet house when we walked through the massive front door of the Quarter Past Ten ranch house.
He plopped my bag on the entrance hall’s green flagstone floor and strode toward the kitchen.
Sofia’s awareness was like cotton on my brain. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and nearly bumped into Wyatt as he paused outside the empty kitchen.
“Ma?”
“In here, Wyatt,” came the muffled answer from the back of the house.
Wyatt doubled back toward his office. “What are you doing in here?”
“There was a problem with the feed store. No one knew where you were, so I took care of it.” Mrs. James, an apple-green apron tied around her waist over the same dress she’d worn that morning, rose from the massive chair, rounded the desk and batted Wyatt’s chest with a file folder. “Close your mouth, son. It’s not very becoming. I wish you’d let me take over the accounting. You know I love to do sums.”
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