“Um, I don’t know.” Mara squirmed a bit, heat rising along her nape. “I didn’t realize we were coming out here today. Didn’t get directions.”
Biting off an oath, Ethan asked softly, “Do you have a phone? Can we call?”
“No,” was her mumbled response. “I don’t own a cell.”
“Of course you don’t.” Exhaling sharply, Ethan fished his phone out of his front pocket and dropped it into her lap. A lecture on preparedness struck him as a waste of breath. More than likely it would lead to another fruitless argument. “I’m going to pull into a service station for gas. Contact the nursing home to get directions. We’re just off 173.”
Mara picked up the phone and mocked him with a crisp salute. “Aye aye, mon capitain.” Ethan poked his tongue out, and the impudent gesture startled out a laugh. She shouldn’t be surprised, though, she supposed. Beneath the layers of reliability and stolid commitment to principle, she remembered the streak of playfulness that emerged at the oddest moments.
He cut the engine and popped open the gas tank. Once the fuel started running, Ethan headed inside. Sighing gustily, Mara turned her attention to the task at hand. As she tapped in the number, she rehearsed her possible opening lines. Hey, Grandma, long time no see. Perhaps she could start with a joke. A lawyer and a penguin were walking along a beach… No, no jokes. The line trilled imperiously and she waited for the connection. Maybe she could throw herself on the bed and sob like she had as a kid. Back then, a well-timed waterfall was good for peppermint candy and a gumball or two.
“Haven House.” The call connected abruptly and a chirpy receptionist greeted her. “How may we help you?”
She could remember the stroke of the delicate, lovely hand, wiping at a child’s tears. How the hand smelled of powder. Her grandmother’s scent. A real sob crowded Mara’s throat, and she had to cough before she could reply. “Uh, I’m a relative of one of your residents. Mrs. Aiko Reed. Is she available to see visitors?”
There was a pause on the other end, then the woman hesitatingly repeated, “Mrs. Aiko Reed? Are you sure?”
Terror seized Mara and she gripped the phone hard. “Yes. Mrs. Aiko Reed. She’s a resident of your facility. Mrs. Reed.” She swallowed with difficulty. “I’d like to see her today.”
The cheerful tones became suspicious. Her lilt vanished, replaced by clipped accusation. “Who did you say you were?”
“I didn’t.” Oh, God. Had she waited too long? “I’m her granddaughter. Mara Reed. I’m on her visitor list.”
“Well, Ms. Reed, I must confess I’m shocked to hear from you. In the six years Mrs. Aiko has been a guest, she’s not had a single caller. Not one.”
Too relieved to be annoyed by the reprimand, Mara offered, “I don’t live down South, Ms….?”
“Ms. Rao. Sangeetha Rao. I’m one of Mrs. Reed’s caregivers.”
The haughty Ms. Rao stopped speaking to Mara, and she could hear a hushed conversation on the other end. “Hello? Hello?”
“Just a moment, please.”
Classical music poured through the cell phone’s speakers. Placed on hold, Mara scrounged inside the glove compartment for a pen and a scrap of paper with her free hand. She’d need something to scribble directions on, and given the receptionist’s snotty attitude, she’d better be able to write fast.
Bracing her foot against the dashboard, she propped a steno pad on her thigh and flipped open the pages. Ethan’s scrawl marked several of the green sheets, unintelligible notes about lividity and autolysis and cranial fractures. She flipped past a decent sketch of a human skeleton. His attempts at drawing in high school had all resulted in an awkward, cartoonish stick figure. Mara riffled through more pages, humming along to Ravel’s Sonatine.
More references to body parts and chemical compositions. There had to be a clean sheet in here. Turning the notebook over, her hands froze. Hurried black scrawl had etched a name and number into the cardboard. Davis Conroy. Chi Development. 713-255-5555. The man Guffin worked for in New York. The same man they’d tried to deliver her to yesterday. Unnoticed, the notebook tumbled from her lap to the car floor.
Cold sweat broke out on her brow as the implications set in. Ethan hadn’t rescued her. He’d trapped her, tricked her into staying with him until he could collect the bounty himself. All along he’d been working with Rabbe and Guffin. And now she was leading her pursuers to the perfect target. Her grandmother.
“Ms. Reed?” Ms. Rao chose that moment to return to the line, her tone noticeably warmer. “I’ve been discussing your request with our director. We typically don’t allow visitors on nonvisitor days, but Dr. Harding is willing to make an exception. Mrs. Reed is a dear lady, and we’re sure she’ll be excited to see you.”
Shaken, Mara reached down to grab the pad. “Can you give me directions, please?” When her voice quivered, she willed it to steadiness. Panic could come later. “We’re on 173.”
“We? Is this another family member?”
Choking over the horrid lie, she replied, “It’s my fiancé. Is that a problem?”
“Aww, I’m sure Mrs. Reed’ll be glad to make his acquaintance. Let me tell you where we’re located.” The directions came as though through a wind tunnel, but Mara forced herself to focus. She copied them on the first sheet she got to, unconcerned about the information on the other side. Overlaying her writings, she could still see the image of Ethan’s solid handwriting forming the name of Davis Conroy. The pen shook violently and she scratched the words onto the page.
“Thank you.” She managed to ring off politely, proud of her performance. The cell phone dropped to her lap, her hands trembling too hard to hold it any longer. With effort, she evened out the hitch in her breathing, demanded that her brain focus on the matter at hand. If Ethan had betrayed her, freaking out about it would do her no good. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Hell’s bells, she was a professional.
Mara checked the storefront. Truckers loitered at the counter, she could see, but no sign of him. First she needed to hide the evidence. Quickly, she ripped out the directions to the nursing home and shoved the steno pad inside the compartment. Folding the paper, she tucked it into the pocket of her borrowed khakis. Ethan wore an identical pair, but hers had been cinched high at the waist. To think she’d been grateful for the loaner clothes, and he was part of the reason she’d had to ditch her favorite pair of jeans in Alston.
While she waited for her temper to cool, Mara rummaged through the car for a makeshift weapon. She stuck the ballpoint pen behind her back, cap off for easy use. Then she unlocked the car door. Once, in Miami, she had to leap from a moving van, and when that decision was made, it was best to leap before you had the opportunity to look.
Preparations made, she released her seat belt and anticipated Ethan’s return. For most, she supposed, the realization that your partner was working for the man trying to kill you would lend itself to histrionics or melodrama. But not Mara Reed. No, sir. She would be the model of self-possession until she had the chance to confront the bastard who had the temerity to doubt her ethics when he was nothing more than a hired gun.
Eyes narrowed by renewed fury, she glared through the windshield at the traitor who ambled out of the gas station. Long legs ate up the distance between the sliding glass doors and the convertible. She had precious few seconds to decide how to play this one. An amateur would try the circuitous route, which was usually a bad play. Usually, when you tried to trick a person into conversation, he’d get skittish and cover his tracks.
The direct approach played well, especially with overconfident pricks like Ethan. Already he assumed she was easy prey. After all, she’d been so grateful at his rescue act, she’d broken a twelve-year silence. Nearly a week of self-flagellation for a slimy louse manipulating her guilt and shame into confessions. He wouldn’t expect a confrontation.
By the time he yanked open the door, she’d balled her hands into fists to prevent herself from clawing his eyes out. It required a surfei
t of acting talent and the driving fear that somehow Ethan already knew her grandmother’s whereabouts to relax her hands onto her lap.
“Get the address?” He stuck the key into the ignition, turning the engine over. The resulting purr of the V-8 pleased him. Three years of nights had gone into restoring the clunker he’d rescued from a salvage yard in Austin. Between the now cloudless sky and Solomon Burke crooning over the stereo, his mood lightened. “It’s close to noon. We’ll have an hour to visit your grandmother, then we might have a chance to grab lunch before we need to head toward Kiev.” He steered the car out onto the access road. “Which direction?”
“West,” Mara said evenly. She gripped the door handle with one hand and clutched the pen with the other. “What’s the hurry, Ethan? Lesley’s not coming until six. Did your plans change?”
Ethan shot her a quizzical look. “No. Why?”
“Just wondering. Maybe Davis Conroy is expecting you to deliver me to him by lunchtime. Wouldn’t want you to be late.”
Chapter 12
“What does Davis Conroy have to do with anything?” Ethan flicked off the radio with an audible sigh. Frowning, he looked at Mara again. The honey-colored eyes glowed hot, a sure sign of temper. He recognized the subtle flare of nostrils and the too-calm voice. “What’s the deal, Mara? You owe Conroy money too?”
Mara studied him closely. Usually, scoundrels had a tell. A twitch of the eye, a curl to the lip. Perhaps he’d show his. “How much did he offer you, I wonder? Decipher the code on the bodies and, as a bonus, I’ll help you avenge your broken heart by delivering your girlfriend to your door. A bit of a rip-off, if you ask me.”
“Avenge? What?”
She could almost believe his confusion, but she was smarter than that. “Or maybe your role was to extract the diary from me and what I knew of the bodies, then slit my throat. More his style, I’d suspect.”
“Christ!” Ethan swerved onto the shoulder of the road, barely avoiding a collision with a station wagon. The tires crunched on the gravel bed and the chassis rattled ominously. There were still some kinks in the body work he needed to address. Not unlike the bend that Mara had obviously decided to round. With a jerk, he thrust the gear into park and spun in his seat. Reaching out, he grabbed Mara’s hunched shoulders. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
Mara quickly raised the pen clutched tight in her fist, its tip angled in warning. “Don’t touch me, you liar! Move a muscle and I’ll sever a vein.”
“A Bic pen will probably do no more than give me blood poisoning.” Muttering, he snared her wrist in a blur of movement and bore a squirming Mara down onto the passenger seat. With more effort than he’d have thought, he wrested the blue ink pen from her claws, barely managing to duck as she swiped at his eye. When a flailing knee came close to unmanning him, Ethan shifted to clamp her legs between his own. “Calm down, damnit!”
“Don’t give me orders, Judas!” she spat, bucking beneath him. “How could you?”
Insane. Apparently the entire Reed clan suffered from genetic insanity. Ethan trapped her wrists with one hand and gripped her chin with the other. Holding her face still, he demanded, “How could I what? Accept a job from a construction company?”
“Betray me!” Mara bucked again, only to further entangle her legs with his. The movement forced her thigh into precarious contact with his belly, and she wriggled impotently.
“Cut it out, Mara. I’m at the end of my tether with you.”
“And I expected more of you, Brutus.”
“More what? Give me something to work with here.” He rested his forehead on hers, panting at the exertion. “Pretend I don’t have a clue about what just set you off. One minute you’re calling the nursing home to get directions, and the next you’re accusing me of trying to murder you. Are you on meds and forgot to take them?”
“Don’t play dumb, Benedict Arnold.”
“Cut out the traitor references and talk to me!” Mara aimed a lethal knee and Ethan trapped her against the seat. “Stop it! What the devil happened while I was gone?”
“I realized I know your boss!” Incensed, she tried to wrench free, but Ethan merely squeezed her captive wrists in warning. The hands that manacled her wrists were hard and strong, but not cruel. Which she’d use. Deciding to bide her time, she inhaled gustily and relaxed her body. Lull him into lowering his guard, she determined, then she’d attack. In the meantime she would get answers. “Davis Conroy wants my blood. Since he’s the one who’s put the bounty on my head. And it’s damned convenient that I am saved,” she spat out the word, “by another one of Conroy’s lackeys.”
“I’m nobody’s lackey, you loon. Davis Conroy is a businessman, not a thug. I’ve told you why I’m here. Chi Development hired me to determine the historical significance of the bodies they found on the property next to the church. That’s all.”
“Bull hockey, Ethan. Neither of us go anywhere near Kiev for a decade, and then suddenly you’re hired to work there at the precise moment I’m in danger.”
He had to admit, she had a point. Being hired to examine the exhumed corpses wasn’t outside the realm of normal, but it didn’t happen every day. And he’d always felt uncomfortable while talking to Conroy, though he’d never been able to put his finger on the reason. But still, Mara had leapt to wild conclusions. “Okay, okay, the coincidences are sketchy. But I’m telling you the truth.” Realizing that one of them had to make the first move, Ethan released Mara and pulled her upright. “Listen, I received a phone call six weeks ago, offering me this job.”
She coiled away from him, tucking her legs beneath her. Gripping the door handle, prepared to bolt if necessary, she asked, “Why you? Of all the forensic anthropologists, why pick you?”
“Because I’m very good.” He grinned broadly when Mara rolled her eyes. “Not to be immodest, but I enjoy a good reputation. I’m thorough. I’m smart and I can take off for months at a time to work. Most of my colleagues have families, commitments. I don’t have any ties.”
Before she could stop herself, Mara said, “There’s the good doctor.”
Looking away, Ethan rubbed at the back of his neck. “This isn’t about her.”
“Fine. Let’s stick to the topic. You get a call from a construction company that wants to hire you to inspect fifty-year-old bones with strange markings. You’re not suspicious.”
“I’m a scientist. Markings, old bones. They’re my thing. Like a guy asking you to steal a car.”
“I don’t do cars.”
“Nice to know you have standards. Anyway, the request was vetted by the university and the authorities. Exceptionally well-preserved bodies and remains, given the burial conditions. In temperate regions like this, the decay of bodies varies. The coroner didn’t believe there’d been foul play, but he wanted to be sure before they were moved to the county cemetery. The potential find and the chance to look for the Shango manuscript made it worth the investigation.”
Grudgingly amused by the excitement she could hear, Mara shook her head. “As fascinating as that is, I’m more concerned about your employer and his connection to the thugs out to kill me.”
“I’m not convinced by your premise, Mara. Why would Davis Conroy be connected to a card shark out of Detroit who bought a journal?”
She hadn’t a clue. “All I know is that Rabbe was very eager to turn me over to a Mr. Conroy yesterday.”
“Mr. Conroy? Not Davis Conroy?”
“Yes, Davis Conroy. I found an article on the Web. Guffin used to be one of his security guys.”
“In New York?”
His arched brow spoke volumes. Mara frowned over the slim possibility that it wasn’t the same man, but she had a gut feeling about this, and her instincts rarely failed her. “I know what I know.”
“What you know is that a man named Davis Conroy in New York hired a couple of goons to snatch you. And that another man named Davis Conroy, a reputable developer, asked my university to loan me out for a major a
nthropological find.” Yet even as he spun out the rationalization, Ethan doubted his own story. Convenience of evidence was a certain trap for scientists. Offer a person a trite but believable theory and they stopped thinking. Stopped searching for more.
Mara obviously concurred. “Another coincidence? Spare me. Davis Conroy is mnemonically significant, Doctor. Not too many of them floating around East Texas, I’d wager.”
“But Chi Development is an outfit out of Austin.” When her mouth gaped open, Ethan braced for the worst.
“Chi?” For the first time the name struck her. “Chi? As in the letter in the Greek alphabet?”
“Yes.” Ethan tensed, the obvious smacking him squarely in the eyes. With a bemused groan, he spoke aloud what had already occurred to Mara. “Exactly like the letter. And like the tattoos on the dead bodies I was engaged to investigate. And the ones in Bailey’s journal.”
“Another coincidence?” Feeling confined, Mara swung open the door and leapt out of the car. Her feet sank into the wet grass and weeds tangled together on the shoulder. Absently, she scratched at her earlobes. Whenever she felt nervous, the skin there would itch maddeningly.
Ethan recognized the familiar tick, and he slid across the bench and jumped out to join her. “We appear to have a bona fide mystery on our hands,” he offered quietly.
With a snort, Mara slanted him a look over her shoulder. “Ethan Stuart, master of the understatement. A mystery is who ate the last of the peanut butter or where I lost my wallet.” Kicking at a discarded Coke can, she mumbled, “This isn’t a mystery. It’s a conspiracy.”
Because he couldn’t disagree, he walked past her to swipe at the crumpled metal. For several seconds neither spoke as he lobbed the can into the air and caught it on his knee. Adroitly, he danced the container in the air like a soccer ball, passing it from knee to knee. “Conspiracy. That’s a good word. But who are the players? Conroy, who’s a millionaire several times over?”
Hidden Sins Page 16