Always Time to Die

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Smart woman,” Dan said, reading quickly. “This will help if the governor tries to get everything back and quash the history. If nothing else, it will give us time to copy all the papers and photos.”

  Gus looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “The governor didn’t want any family history to be published until after the election in November,” Dan said.

  Carly took a final piece of paper from the envelope. Her eyes widened. “Looks like Melissa was right.”

  She passed the paper over to Dan.

  “What do you mean?” Gus asked.

  “Winifred finally lost it,” Carly said. “She demanded that the governor prove he’s a descendant of the Castillos.”

  Dan took the paper and read swiftly.

  “It’s in the public record,” Gus said. “No problem.”

  “It was for Winifred,” Dan said. “She’s demanding a special test to prove the governor was a Castillo.”

  “What—bring back three golden apples from Olympus?” Gus asked.

  “Nothing that mythic.” Carly picked up the receipt and waved it. “She sent in saliva samples of her own and Sylvia’s to Genedyne. That will give a comparison for the mtDNA.”

  “Translation please?” Gus asked.

  “MtDNA is passed to children only from the mother,” Carly said. “The father’s mtDNA never makes it into the female’s egg at conception. The mtDNA is carried in the part of the sperm’s tail that falls off outside the egg.”

  “And?” Gus asked. “Help me here. I barely got through biology.”

  “Bottom line,” Carly said, “is that any child of Sylvia Castillo Quintrell will carry her mtDNA, but only her female children will carry on the mtDNA to the next generation.”

  “So what? The governor has already inherited. What does Winifred think, that he was swapped in the nursery by passing aliens?”

  “I think she wants to make as much trouble as possible for the governor,” Carly said. “She was, um, real blunt on the subject of the Senator. Didn’t like him a bit.”

  “If what she says is true, she had reason,” Dan said.

  “Because he liked women?” Gus asked.

  “Because Sylvia tried to kill her husband and ended up a vegetable instead.”

  Gus stared at his brother. “You’re joking.”

  “Nope.” Dan stood up. “I’m going to talk to Mom.”

  “You’re either meaner or braver than I am,” Gus said.

  “Getting shot does that to you.” Dan dug his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Carly. “Here, you drive. I’ve got some people to call.”

  ON THE ROAD TO TAOS

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON

  56

  THE GOVERNOR’S PHONE VIBRATED AGAINST HIS THIGH AS HE DROVE THE WINDING winter road.

  “Now what?” he muttered.

  The caller ID said Mark Rubin.

  Josh pulled over to the side of the road and answered. “Hello, Mark. I take it you saw Dykstra’s latest?”

  “The phone has been red hot since that show. Reporters clamoring for an interview with you, wanting a contact number for your aunt, wanting to interview everybody from grammar school friends to Vietnam buddies. What the hell is going on? When I asked you about possible land mines to be defused on the way to the presidency, you didn’t say anything about your family.”

  “What’s to say?” Josh asked wearily. “My aunt hated my father and transferred that hatred to me. End of story.”

  “Not this time. Everybody is saying if it’s all kosher with your bloodlines, why not have the test? No big deal.”

  “You don’t think it’s demeaning for a presidential contender to jump through hoops when a fifth-rate gossip queen snaps her fingers?”

  “Not getting a simple test gives her more ammo. Get in front of this story, Josh. Send in a sample. Spike that bitch’s guns.”

  The governor smiled thinly. As always, his campaign manager’s jugular instinct was on target. Josh fingered the thin, fresh scab on his neck. It galled him to give in to Dykstra.

  But he would.

  “Relax,” Josh said. “I cut myself shaving this morning and mailed the bandage to Genedyne, just like my aunt wanted. I should have the results in a day or two.”

  “Do you want me to make an announcement?”

  “To Dykstra?”

  “Yeah,” Rubin said.

  “Not one word.”

  “But—”

  “When the test results come in,” Josh interrupted, “I’m going to make her eat them in front of a live camera.”

  Rubin was still laughing when Josh disconnected.

  TAOS

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON

  57

  CARLY ONLY MADE TWO WRONG TURNS BEFORE SHE FOUND HER WAY TO THE DURAN house. Dan hadn’t been much help. He’d been on the phone nonstop. She shut off the engine and waited for him to finish his conversation. From what she’d been able to figure out listening to one side of the conversation, in this latest call Dan was talking with someone called Cheryl, a Genedyne technician who also had connections to St. Kilda Consulting.

  “That’s right,” Dan said. “They were mailed Wednesday, arrived Thursday.”

  “No sign of anything in the computer,” Cheryl said. “Could it have been a special order?”

  “Check everything you have.”

  “Checking as we speak.”

  Dan covered the receiver and said to Carly, “It will be a minute.”

  She turned the engine back on to keep the truck warm. There wasn’t enough snow coming down for a whiteout, but it was edging closer. Occasional gusts of wind buffeted the truck and made snow dance crazily.

  “Do you have any of the lab kits we need to send in samples for testing?” Dan asked Carly.

  “I had a dozen sent to Winifred. She only asked for ten, but I figured some extra couldn’t hurt. And I sent a dozen to your house. They should be in today’s mail.”

  “You’re brilliant,” he said, pulling her close for a fast kiss. “No, not you, Cheryl. What do you have?”

  “A yen to be called brilliant,” the tech shot back.

  “You’re brilliant,” Dan said instantly.

  “Two samples, one labeled Sylvia Castillo, one labeled Winifred Castillo, mtDNA only.”

  “Is there enough of each sample to do more tests?”

  “Sonny, you’d be amazed how much I can do with how little. What do you want?”

  Dan looked at Carly. “Y-DNA, mtDNA, and…?” he asked, holding the phone out to Carly.

  Carly took it and spoke quickly. “Go to at least twenty-five markers on the Y-DNA, and at a minimum, a maternal match and every other refinement you have for mtDNA, and I hope to God I can afford it.”

  “My treat,” Dan said, taking back the phone. “Did you get that, Cheryl? Give the samples the works and bill everything to me. And don’t let anyone know.”

  “Got it. How soon do you want it?”

  “Somebody tried to kill me. How fast can you get it?”

  Cheryl whistled. “Does Steele know?”

  “No. It’s personal.”

  “So is dying. I’ll get back to you in twenty-four, max.”

  “Wait. I’ll be sending more samples in. Same tests, same rush.”

  “Bring it on. We just got a dandy new machine that’s so fast it scares me. Anything else?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then you’re wasting my time and your money.”

  Dan didn’t bother to say good-bye. Neither did Cheryl. He punched out and stared through the windshield.

  “Something wrong?” Carly asked.

  “Something else, you mean?” He took a long breath and adjusted the watch cap he wore to conceal the bandage on his hairline. “No, not yet. But it’s coming.”

  Carly looked at the house, where lights glowed against the early twilight brought by snowfall.

  “At least Dad isn’t home,” Dan said. “He’s so protective of Mom that I ha
ve to fight him to get to her.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t—”

  “Too late. This isn’t a game anymore.” Dan got out and said through the open door, “But you don’t have to come. It’s not your problem.”

  “What?”

  Carly shut off the engine, shot out of the truck, and hurried to catch up with Dan. She hit the small front porch at the same time he did. He put his arm around her as if he’d been doing it all his life, knocked, and opened the door.

  “Company,” he called out, pulling Carly in and shutting the door behind them. Knowing his mother, he headed straight for the kitchen. “I brought Carly.”

  “Come in,” Diana said, hurrying into the kitchen from the greenhouse. Her dark eyes were stormy and her smile was enough to turn heads. “Have you eaten lunch?”

  “We’re not hungry, thanks,” Dan said. “We had a late breakfast.”

  “You taught your son to make a mean chili,” Carly added.

  “He’s a good cook, when he bothers.” She looked warily at her son, then at Carly. “Should I ask why you’re here?”

  Before either could answer, Diana turned her back and went to the sink to wash her hands.

  “Have you talked to Winifred today?” Dan asked.

  Diana went still. “No. Is something wrong?”

  “You tell me. You’d hear rumors before I would, especially from the hispano grapevine.”

  Diana gripped the edge of the sink. “Then it’s true? She’s dead?”

  “No one has announced it.”

  An odd shiver went through Diana. She crossed herself and said, “It is done. It is finally done.”

  “Not yet,” Carly said. “Someone shot Dan.”

  Diana whipped around, her shock clear.

  “Guess the grapevine didn’t have my name on it,” Dan said, peeling off his hat.

  Diana swayed and clenched her trembling hands together to keep from reaching for the son who watched her with distant eyes. “You are—all right?”

  “As you can see, I’m fine. I have a hard head. The guy was trying for Carly. I just got in the way.”

  Diana’s glance moved over Carly, taking in the protective way Dan stood close to the young woman.

  “Stop asking questions,” Diana said bluntly to Carly. “The violence will also stop.”

  “Do you know who’s behind it?” Dan asked, his voice careful. Neutral.

  Diana tilted her head back and fished in her pocket for a tissue. Even though she’d added another humidifier to the house, her nose was bleeding again.

  Dan grabbed a clean tissue from a nearby box and pressed it into his mother’s hand.

  “Thank you,” she said. “It will pass soon.”

  “My questions won’t,” Dan said evenly. “Do you know who is behind the violence?”

  “No.”

  “Any guesses?”

  “No.”

  “But you’d be happy if whoever it was succeeded, right?”

  Dan’s tone made Diana flinch. She looked automatically toward the back door, where John would come in as soon as he got back from buying a part for the old tractor.

  “He isn’t here,” Dan said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “Even if he was, I’d keep on asking. If anything more happens to Carly, it will be over my dead body.”

  Dan handed his mother another tissue and took the soiled one.

  There was silence for a long time. Then Diana sighed and stuffed the second tissue in her pocket. For now, the nosebleed was gone.

  “I wouldn’t ask you if I had any other choice,” Dan said, shoving the first tissue into his jeans pocket. “I’m not a teenager anymore, curious about my grandparents and my mother’s childhood. I’m a man who has been trained to evaluate threats and remove them when necessary. Please don’t get in my way. I don’t want to hurt you.” His mouth settled into a grim line. “Carly is innocent of whatever happened in the past. It’s the innocent who must be protected first. You taught me that, Mom.”

  Diana bowed her head. What Dan was saying was true. But there was another truth, and its ugliness made her stomach clench and cold sweat slick her body.

  “Take her away from here,” Diana said in a hoarse voice. “Far away. Don’t come back until the last of the devil’s spawn is dead.”

  “I won’t go,” Carly said gently. “I made a promise to Winifred. I keep my word. Do you know anything that would help me do my job?”

  “I know evil exists.”

  Carly had no idea how to respond to that.

  Diana looked at Carly, saw she didn’t understand, and said to her, “You don’t believe in evil, just in good. Evil knows its enemy. Good knows only itself. That is why the good die young.” She looked at Dan again. “Take her away from here.”

  “Kidnapping is against the law.” Dan pinned his mother with a bleak glance. “Do you know anything that could help us find out who’s behind all this?”

  “I haven’t heard anything.”

  “Have you tried?” he asked.

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “Try,” he said. “Please. If we know which part of the Quintrell history is causing the problem, we’ll have a handle on who as well. Your past can’t be remade, but Carly’s future can.”

  Diana closed her eyes and fought against the nausea turning in her throat, the memories of drunken men and a mother who never heard her own child’s screams, a father who was more than that, hideously more.

  “It’s happening again,” she whispered.

  “What is?” Dan asked, his voice gentle. She looked so pale, so worn, her eyelids closed, quivering.

  “Evil. Death that shouldn’t have been. My mother, screaming and laughing, then just screaming.”

  Dan’s breath caught. It was the first time he’d ever heard his mother mention her childhood. “Why was she screaming?” he asked softly.

  “Because the dead walk among the living. I know this for truth. My mother’s friend saw it. Susan. She told my mother and my mother told me.”

  Dan bit back a curse. His grandmother, the liar and addict, lost in her own twisted mind.

  “My mother saw the ghost of another man,” Diana said, opening her eyes. They were wide, staring, fixed on nothing. “A dead man walking, using the name of life.”

  The darkness in his mother’s eyes made Dan want to hit something. He hated doing this to her.

  “Two days later she was dead,” Diana said in a raw voice.

  “What other man did she see?” Carly asked gently.

  “Cain.”

  Carly looked at Dan, who was watching his mother with sadness and pity combined.

  “Is that what your mother said?” he asked.

  “I remember. I remember the exact words. They live in my dreams. Nightmares.” Diana spoke quickly now, the past a river whose dam was crumbling, a torrent seeking release. “She said, ‘The dead walk and eat at my father’s ranch. Cain lives and Abel is dead.’ Then she started screaming and laughing and smashing everything she could reach, cutting herself on the glass, throwing knives and dishes and splashing blood everywhere, shrieking about a prodigal daughter finally getting even with God, and then she came at me with a knife and her hands were bloody and her eyes…her eyes…”

  Diana’s throat closed as she stared through the present into a past no child should ever have seen.

  Dan caught his mother in a hug, trying to comfort her, hating himself and whatever had happened in his mother’s past.

  “I ran,” Diana said starkly, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I knew she needed help but I didn’t get help for her. I hated her and I hated the evil she sold me to, so I hid in the church and told no one.” A shudder racked her body. “The next thing I remember, she was dead. I could have helped her but I hated her too much. I wanted her dead. She was evil and the evil came down to me. No matter how much good I do, I am as evil as my mother and her brother were, and my grandfather who addicted her and turned her into a whore who sold her own child
.”

  Dan bent until his cheek was on his mother’s hair. He held her, simply held her, hating the questions that had brought such pain.

  And that was all they’d brought. Nothing in Diana’s and his grandmother’s half-crazed memories of the past could help the present.

  “I’ve seen evil,” Dan said, tipping up his mother’s chin, kissing her cheek. “You aren’t it. You’re simply human. You were an abused, terrified child who grew up into a woman children run laughing to meet, knowing that they’re safe with you. You’re not evil at all. I love you and I’m very proud of you.”

  Diana’s sad, bitter smile made tears burn in Carly’s eyes.

  “I have only one more thing to say, then we will never speak of this again,” Diana said. “Ever.”

  Slowly Dan released Diana and looked down into the eyes of a woman who was both his mother and a woman he’d never known. “I can’t promise that, because I’m certain you haven’t told me all you could. Why?”

  “The words would choke me,” Diana said in a raw voice, “and they would destroy you. Take your woman away from here. Evil wants her, and evil always wins.”

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON

  58

  MELISSA WAS PACKING AN OVERNIGHT CASE WHEN PETE CALLED HER.

  “The governor’s here,” Pete said. He stood in the doorway to their apartment in the big house.

  “What are you talking about? No helicopter would fly in this weather.”

  “He drove. I’ll bet he has our pink slips.”

  Melissa’s full mouth turned down. “We knew that was coming when we were told to pack up the house.”

  “How soon can we get our stuff out of here and head for the land of perpetual sun?” Pete asked. “I’m sick of this place.”

  “The furniture we own isn’t worth moving,” she said. “Same for dishes and stuff. It’d be easier to walk away and replace what we need at the other end than fuss with an international move.”

  “A few days? More?” Pete pressed.