Deeper Than the Dead

by Tami Hoag

  It was only because she had felt weak and vulnerable, and he had felt so strong and safe by comparison. And she wanted to trust him. The deepest, most private part of who she was had existed in emotional isolation for most of her life. But in that one moment of weakness she had wanted to drop those shields just to feel the comfort of another soul next to hers for a little while.

  The sound of his low, rough voice was warm in her head as she stood in front of her bathroom mirror.

  It’s all right. . . . This shoulder has been cried on before.

  She ached all the way through at the memory of how much she had needed to hear someone say that.

  Now she pushed the feeling away as something impractical and a waste of time. She had things to do and needing was not high on the list of priorities.

  The Thomas Center was a collection of white stucco buildings that had been a private Catholic girls’ school from the early twenties into the sixties. Modeled on the style of the old Spanish missions, the buildings formed a courtyard between them with a fountain at its center and stunning, simple gardens rambling along the stone walkways.

  It was a beautiful place by daylight. By candlelight it was magical. Hundreds of tiny flames seemed to dance on the dark night air. The courtyard was nearly full. Franny had scoped out the scene before Anne got there and had chosen a spot with the optimum potential for eavesdropping.

  “This is my entertainment for the evening,” he said as she joined him. “I’m giving up Miami Vice to be here.”

  “Well, I hope for your sake a car chase ensues at some point,” Anne said.

  “I’d settle for a Don Johnson sighting. Or a sighting of your Mr. Leone,” he suggested, raising up on the tiptoes of his Top-Siders to survey the crowd. “What were you doing out there in the woods all that time, Anne Marie? A little horizontal hokeypokey?”

  “Oh, yeah. In a shallow grave,” Anne whispered. “Have some respect, please. We’re at a vigil.”

  “We should hold a vigil for your vagina if you take a pass on the Italian Stallion.”

  A couple of heads swiveled in their direction. Anne grabbed his arm and pinched him hard. “Behave yourself!”

  “I liked the way he put his hand on your back,” he said. “Very proprietary. BIG hand, I might add.”

  Anne shushed him and told herself the flush of heat that washed through her was embarrassment and had nothing to do with the memory of Vince Leone touching her.

  Jane Thomas stepped up onto a small stage that was positioned at one end of the courtyard and thanked everyone for coming. The program was short. A poetry reading in memory of Lisa Warwick. A plea for information from the public regarding both cases. An announcement about the reward the center had posted. Donations from the public would be accepted in memory of Lisa. A local folksinger got up and sang a song that made everyone tear up. The end.

  They shuffled toward the exit with the rest of the crowd. Talk of the findings at the salvage yard that afternoon rippled through. Speculation about the sudden series of crimes ran the gamut from evil seeping north from Los Angeles to an obvious decline of a once-great society.

  “I need an espresso,” Franny declared as they made it to the sidewalk. “All this melancholy has worn me out.”

  As they turned in the direction of the plaza, Anne caught a flash of red from the corner of her eye.

  Janet Crane was bearing down on her like a charging tigress. Her eyes were so wide-open the white was visible all the way around the iris. Her lips pulled back in a grimace that showed gritted teeth.

  Anne’s heart plunged into her stomach and bounced back up to the back of her throat.

  “Miss Navarre,” she spat each word as if it tasted bad. “I would like a word with you.”

  Anne swallowed hard. Show no fear. She stepped out of the flow of human traffic and faced the woman, hoping she appeared calmer than she felt. Janet Crane didn’t stop until no more than a foot separated them.

  “Mrs. Crane—”

  “How dare you!” Her voice was lowered to a harsh whisper to keep from being overheard, but carried all the strength of a shout. “How dare you try to use my son.”

  Caught mentally flatfooted, Anne couldn’t think of a response. She was guilty as charged. She didn’t deserve to defend herself.

  She glanced at Tommy, who looked both mortified and hurt, and wouldn’t make eye contact with her. His expression was a harder punch in the stomach than any verbal attack his mother could launch.

  Janet Crane’s words broke up like bad radio reception in Anne’s head. She wanted to drop down on her knees and beg Tommy’s forgiveness.

  “. . . making a little boy think his father might be some kind of-of monster . . . absolutely outrageous . . . My husband is a highly respected member of this community. How dare you insinuate . . .”

  Anne felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. Or maybe she wished that she was. She couldn’t seem to move or speak. She was aware of people staring at them, Franny looking like a deer in headlights.

  Then a man’s voice came from her left. Low, rough, familiar. “Is there some kind of problem here, ladies?”

  It took a minute for the rage to clear from Janet Crane’s eyes. She blinked at Vince like he had dropped out of the sky.

  “Oh. Oh! Mr. Leone,” she said, scrambling. Anne could practically see the wheels in the woman’s brain brake to an abrupt halt and struggle to start turning in another direction. “Mr. Leone. What a surprise to see you here!”

  “If I’m going to be part of the community, I thought I should start participating,” he said smoothly. “Is everything all right? This looked like a bit of a disagreement,” he said, wagging a finger from one to the other of them.

  “No. No!” Janet Crane said, flashing the too bright smile. “Not at all. Everything is fine. Mr. Leone, this is Anne Navarre. Anne teaches at Oak Knoll Elementary.”

  “We’ve met, actually,” he said.

  “Oh. Well. That’s wonderful!”

  He smiled down at Anne, a thousand watts of pure charm.

  “I certainly hope it will be. In fact, I was hoping to catch up with you tonight, Miss Navarre,” he said, settling his hand on the small of her back once again. “I need to discuss something with you. If you’ll excuse us, Mrs. Crane?”

  Janet smiled the brittle smile that made Anne think the fine veneer of her face was about to shatter to pieces and reveal the reptilian alien beneath the facade.

  “Of course,” she said. “My son and I were just on our way home. Have a lovely evening. Good to see you, Anne.”

  A chill ran down Anne’s back.

  “Oh my God,” Franny said, finally regaining the ability to speak as Janet Crane walked away. “I think you were just saved from having your soul liquefied and sucked out of you.”

  “That was your fault,” Anne said, angry and upset as she turned to Vince. “Do you have any idea what just happened? I just lost that little boy’s trust. Do you have any idea what that means to me?”

  He had the grace to look contrite. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. She’s going to get Tommy taken out of my class,” she said, swiping angrily at a tear that dared to fall. “I’m someone he should be able to trust and she’s going to take him away, and who will he have then?”

  “Anne—”

  “I’m going home,” she announced, and started walking toward the public lot where she had parked. She felt like Janet Crane had reached right into her chest and torn her heart loose. And it was her own fault. She should have gone with her gut.

  “Anne,” Vince said, taking hold of her arm. “Wait.”

  “No,” she said, jerking away from him, not slowing down. “I’m upset, and I’m going home before I make a complete spectacle of myself in the street.”

  “I’ll fix it,” he said.

  “You’ll fix it?” she turned and stared at him, incredulous. “How will you fix it? How will you get that little boy to trust me?”

  “He�
��ll trust you again,” he promised. “He wants to trust you. He needs to trust you. He sure as hell can’t trust his mother. He’ll turn back to you. And he won’t be going anywhere. I’ll take care of Janet Crane.”

  Anne arched a brow. “Take care of? That sounds like something a gangster would say.”

  “Well, I am from Chicago, but I promise I only work on the right side of the street.”

  “Don’t try to be amusing,” she snapped. “I’m in no mood to be amused.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And what makes you think you can stop Janet Crane from doing something if she’s made up her mind?” she demanded, jamming her hands on her hips.

  “I don’t think I can. I will,” he said. “Janet Crane has a lot, which means she has a lot to lose. Her status, for instance. Her standing in the community. I have the ability to make those things go away simply by having a conversation with a reporter.”

  Anne’s eyebrows went up. He meant it. Seriously.

  “I owe you,” he said. “Besides, people can’t mess with people I like. And she can’t screw with me because she’s got no currency with me. She’s got nothing to threaten me with. I’ve got the big stick, and I’ll use it.”

  Anne thought about that for a moment. She had never had anyone rush to defend her before, let alone promise annihilation of the enemy. And she had no doubt that he would do exactly what he said. His expression was just this side of fierce. He radiated power. She felt a little like she had poked a stick at a lion.

  “Let me see you home,” he said, dialing down his intensity a notch.

  “I’m capable of driving myself home,” Anne said.

  “I’m well aware you’re capable,” he said, brows lowered over his dark eyes. “I would feel better seeing you home. You’re upset. You’re not going to be paying attention. There’s still a killer on the loose. Now that I’ve fucked up—pardon my French—your relationship with your student, making sure you’re safe seems like the least I can do. Is that all right with you?”

  Without examining her reasons too closely, Anne handed him her car keys.

  46

  Anne led the way up the sidewalk to the home she had grown up in, a sturdy Craftsman-style house of dark painted wood and stone. Soft amber lights flanked the front door. Rosebushes lined the front walk. The roses glowed white in the moonlight.

  Vince followed her up the steps, admiring her behind in a pair of blue jeans. “You live here alone?”

  “With my father. He allegedly needs a keeper.”

  “Right. You said his health is poor. What does he have?”

  “His heart is bad,” she said. “Literally and figuratively.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Seventy-nine,” she said, unlocking the front door and letting them in. She glanced up at him, catching the surprise on his face. “My father was an English professor with a wandering eye. My mother was his much-younger student.”

  Vince kept his mouth shut. He had to be happy her father was seventy-nine and not forty-nine. Anne started to go down a dark hall, and he caught her gently by the arm.

  “Whoa, sweetheart. Don’t go charging down dark hallways,” he cautioned. “Do you keep all your doors and windows locked?”

  “As of this week I do,” she said.

  Vince flicked on the hall light. “You can’t be too careful. We still don’t know who this killer is, but he’s not the guy sitting in jail. He could be someone you know.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  “And that’s what this kind of predator counts on. He hides in plain sight and gets a rush out of knowing no one suspects him.”

  “That’s unnerving,” she said, that emotion plain in her pretty brown eyes as she looked up at him.

  “Better that you know it than not. You don’t exactly fit the victimology, but you’re the right age, and God knows you’re pretty,” he said, tracing a blunt-tipped forefinger down her pert little nose. “You don’t have a connection to the Thomas Center, but I don’t have a crystal ball, either. He could know you some other way and decide you meet his profile well enough.”

  “You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

  “I just want you to be careful, honey. If you’re in a situation that doesn’t feel right to you, there’s a reason you feel that way. Get yourself out of it and call me. Day or night. Or call the sheriff’s office and ask for Mendez. Okay?”

  She nodded solemnly as she looked up at him. His gaze lingered just a little too long on the full soft bow of her lower lip. The memory of the taste of her was still in his mouth. Electricity hummed in the scant distance between them. It made her skittish.

  “I’ll give you the nickel tour,” she said, her voice a little breathless as she turned and started down the hall.

  The first door they came to was a cozy library/office with a big old mahogany desk and heavy leather chairs. A masculine room. Her father’s study, the built-in shelves crammed to the ceiling with books. Vince checked the window to make certain it was locked.

  Amber light shone under the last door on the hall. Her father’s bedroom.

  Anne knocked and cracked the door open. “I’m home.”

  Her father was sitting up in his bed in maroon pajamas, reading. An oxygen tank sat beside the bed, clear tubing conducting the air into his nostrils. He didn’t even look over at his daughter, but merely grunted his acknowledgment.

  “Did you take your meds?”

  He made a sound in his throat that might have meant anything.

  “If you didn’t, I have an FBI agent here with me, and he’ll make you take them.”

  Even that got no response from the old man. Anne shut the door and rolled her eyes. “The love is overwhelming, isn’t it?”

  She said it with such dry sarcasm, Vince thought she must have long ago stopped caring whether her father felt anything for her.

  “Does he have a problem with speech?” Vince asked as they started back down the hall.

  “No,” she said. “He’s an ass.”

  “Oh.”

  And yet, she had given up finishing her education and going into her chosen field to come home and take care of him. When her mother died. It wasn’t difficult to piece the story together from what she had said at dinner the night before and what he had just seen for himself. She must have come home because her mother had asked her to. The fact that she had, despite her feelings for the old man, spoke volumes to the kind of woman Anne Navarre was.

  “Do you think I’m a terrible daughter?” she asked.

  “No. Actually, I was just thinking you’re pretty remarkable.”

  She wasn’t comfortable with that and dodged his gaze. “Damn, I forgot to ask him if he’d seen any homicidal maniacs in the house.”

  “That’s my job, anyway,” Vince said.

  She showed him through the rest of the house, hesitating a little when they came to her bedroom.

  “Afraid to go in there with me?” he teased as they stood outside the door.

  “No! Of course not,” she protested.

  He liked watching her when she got rattled. She made him think of an annoyed little cat, ready to get her back up and hiss at him.

  He leaned down a little too close to her ear and murmured, “I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”

  Brows low, she huffed an impatient sigh and pushed the door open.

  The room was neat and tidy, feminine but not frilly. Vince wanted to take time and absorb the surroundings, knowing what he found here would speak volumes about her, but she wasn’t having it. She backed out of the room before he could say anything and started down the stairs.

  “Looks like the place is all clear, ma’am,” he said, following her.

  “That’s a relief,” she said, leading the way back into the kitchen. “I’m not a very good hostess. I should at least offer you a drink for making sure I’m not going to end up a corpse tonight. Would you like something? Wine? Tea? I have arsenic, but I’m saving it for my father’s bir
thday.”

  “A little wine is never a bad thing,” Vince said.

  “I don’t have anything chilled, but I have a nice cabernet from a local vineyard.”

  Vince flashed the big grin. “I love California.”

  She got a couple of glasses out, uncorked the bottle with efficiency, and poured the drinks.

  “I like the look of that porch out back,” he said as she handed him his glass.

  “Will we be safe?” she asked, glancing up at him from under her lashes. Almost flirtatious, he thought. He wondered if she realized it.

  “You’re with me,” he said. “I have a gun.”

  She smiled that crooked little smile. “What more could a girl want?”

  The back porch was a mirror image of the front, but filled with well-used green wicker furniture strewn with thick flowered cushions; an outdoor room with armchairs and a coffee table and big lush ferns on plant stands.

  Anne curled up in the corner of a wicker sofa at one end of the porch where the illumination was as soft as candlelight. Vince took the other end, letting her have some space.

  “What did you mean when you told Janet Crane if you were going to be a part of the community?” she asked.

  “Presently she thinks I’m a businessman looking to relocate here,” he explained. “I had her show me a piece of property today.”

  “No wonder she was so happy to see you.”

  “You think she’s just after my money? I’m crushed.”

  “You should be relieved she doesn’t want to hang you upside down in her lair and deposit her eggs in you.”

  Vince chuckled a little under his breath. “She’s a case study.”

  “Not what I prefer to call her, but whatever.” She sipped at her wine, growing serious. “What’s going on here, Vince? Last week this was Ozzie and Harriet-ville. Now you think there are two killers operating here?”

  “It looks that way.”

  She shook her head. “Things like this don’t happen here.”

  “But they do, honey,” he said quietly, reaching a hand out to stroke the back of her head. Her hair was like silk. “They happen everywhere.”

  “I feel like I’ve been looking at this lovely jewel box garden all these years only to find out there are snakes in the grass.”