by Sharon Sala
Clay’s footsteps sounded hollow on the floor of his portable office as he strode to the window overlooking the construction site.
“Good…and not so good.”
Borden reached for an applesauce doughnut, took a bite, then talked as he chewed. “Give me the good news first.”
“Francesca came back.”
Borden almost choked. “The hell you say!” He took a quick swig of coffee, then leaned forward in disbelief. “How? When? And, more important, where has she been?”
Clay sighed. “That’s the bad news.”
“I take it this call isn’t social,” Borden said.
“No.”
“Wait,” Borden muttered. “I can’t find a pen…Oh, here’s one. Okay. Shoot.” Then he went back to his doughnut as Clay started to talk.
“I came home from work and found her asleep in our bed. All I can tell you for sure is that she was in an automobile accident within an hour of her arrival in Denver. Not only does she not remember where she’s been, she has no memory of ever being gone.”
“And your problem is…?”
Clay took a deep breath. “Frankie believes she’s in danger. She claims there’s no way she would have left willingly. And we both know there’s no such thing as some crazy just letting someone go—especially after two years.”
“Yeah, right,” Borden said. Then he added, “Don’t take this wrong, but what do you think?”
“I believe her.”
“Okay. So what do you want from me?”
Clay combed his fingers through his hair. “This is where it gets tough. I know what I want, but I don’t have much info to give you.”
Borden turned to a fresh page in his notebook. Ever since he’d quit the case, he’d been bugged by the knowledge that he’d somehow let this man down. Now was his opportunity to rectify the situation.
“What do you know?” Borden asked.
“The police talked to a cabdriver who picked up a woman at the bus terminal who fit Francesca’s description. The cabby claimed the woman acted strange—almost afraid. But other than a few errant memories that don’t make much sense and a gold ankh tattoo on the back of her neck, Frankie knows nothing.”
“What the hell is an ankh?” Borden asked.
“Picture a cross, except that the top is a loop rather than a straight line.”
“Oh, yeah. One of those Egyptian-looking things.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Anything else?” Borden asked.
“Well, Frankie says that the man who was holding her captive had a matching tattoo on his chest. She also thinks that wherever she was, there was an earthquake. And, as you know, California recently had a big one.”
Borden’s interest piqued. “It’s a place to start.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think,” Clay said.
Borden leaned back in his chair, mentally reviewing the file he’d collected on Francesca.
“You know, I mentioned this to you before, but we never went anywhere with it. What do you think about delving into her past while we’re at it?”
Clay frowned. “I still don’t think Francesca has a secret past.”
“No, you misunderstand me,” Borden said. “I don’t mean that kind of past. I’m talking about her childhood.”
“She grew up in an orphanage,” Clay reminded him.
“I know, and I know it’s a long shot, but maybe there’s something there that could help us.”
Clay sighed. “Right now, I’m willing to try anything.”
Borden made a few more notes. “The children’s home was in Albuquerque, right?”
“Yes.”
Borden fiddled with the pen, tapping it lightly on the top of the desk as his mind jumped from one scenario to another.
“You know, Clay, any branch of child welfare is usually pretty closemouthed about releasing information to outsiders. I can check out some things with no problem, but in my opinion, your best bet is to take Francesca and go back for a visit. Talk to the people who work there. Ask about her friends. Her habits. Why wasn’t she adopted? Stuff like that. The worst that could happen is that you just take a trip to Albuquerque. The best is that she might remember something that will help.”
Clay’s mind was turning as he glanced at the calendar on the wall. If his dad would step in and help out again, he might just make it.
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’ll talk to Frankie about it tonight.”
“Good,” Borden said. “In the meantime, I’ll go at it from my end. Together, we might come up with some answers we can use.”
“Thanks, Harold. I appreciate you getting on this so quickly.”
Borden frowned. “I owe you one, boy. Remember, I worked for a year looking for that girl. It’s just good to know she’s back, however it happened. Say, are all your numbers still the same?”
Clay gave him their cell-phone number to add to the file.
“Okay, that should be it,” Borden said. “Keep in touch, and I’ll do the same.”
Clay hung up, feeling better about the situation than he had since the day Frankie had come home. He was on his way out the door when the phone rang. He answered absently, his mind still focused on his conversation with Borden. But when he heard Avery Dawson’s voice, his interest changed.
“Detective, I was going to call you today.”
“So your wife said,” Dawson answered.
Clay frowned. “You talked to Frankie?”
“Yes. Just a little follow-up stuff for the chief before he signed her permit.”
Clay frowned. “Permit? What permit?”
Dawson hesitated. It hadn’t occurred to him that Frankie would have kept it a secret, but it was too late to back out now.
“The carry permit,” he said.
“Oh, that,” Clay said. “For a minute I forgot. So is everything all right?”
“Yeah, I guess. I think the chief will probably okay it.”
“Is that why you called me?”
Dawson frowned. “No. Something happened at work the other day that I thought you should know. Someone called, identifying himself as an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. Said he was following up on some runaway posters in trying to identify a Jane Doe.”
Clay’s gut clenched as he thought of all the trips he’d made to morgues across the country, looking for Frankie. At least that was something he wouldn’t have to do again.
“So what does that have to do with my wife?” he asked.
Dawson took a deep breath. “Here’s where it gets weird. He asked about a missing-person poster on Francesca LeGrand. Said the Jane Doe fit her description. I told him it couldn’t be her, and to throw away the flyer, because the woman was no longer missing. I told him we got lucky, that she was alive and had come back on her own.”
Clay was listening but had yet to make a connection that made sense.
“So,” Dawson continued, “we traded a few pleasantries, and I’d started to hang up when the guy had one more question. He wanted to know when she’d come back, so I told him. It wasn’t until I hung up that I began to wonder why it would matter to the guy when she came back. If she was here, she couldn’t be the woman in the morgue.”
“Right,” Clay said. “So what’s the problem?”
He heard Dawson take a deep breath, and when he did, Clay’s gut began to tighten. It was almost as if he knew what the man was going to say before he said it.
“I don’t know,” Dawson said. “Chalk it up to my suspicious nature, but I called right back to the L.A.P.D., asking to speak to this officer. The receptionist told me that no one by that name worked there.”
Clay’s legs went weak. “So what are you saying?”
“That someone wanted to know about Francesca LeGrand and lied about the reason why. Considering the situation as we know it, I find that extremely bothersome.”
“Sweet mercy,” Clay muttered. “She was right. She’s still in danger.”
Dawson frowned. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “But I felt obligated to tell you about the call. Take whatever precautions you feel necessary. We’re investigating on our end, but truthfully, there’s precious little to investigate. We checked phone records. All we know is that the call came from a pay phone in Las Vegas.”
“Did you tell Francesca about this?” Clay asked.
“No, considering what she’s been through, I thought it best to tell you. You tell her what you see fit.”
The urge to take Frankie and run was strong, but Clay knew it would not solve the problem.
“Look, Detective, I’m taking Frankie back to Albuquerque to the orphanage where she grew up, just on the off chance that something there might be the key to what happened to her.”
Dawson made a quick note. “Not a bad idea,” he said. “Especially considering the lack of evidence otherwise. When are you leaving?”
“As soon as possible,” Clay said. “If I learn anything interesting, I’ll be sure to pass it on.”
“Keep in touch,” Dawson said.
“Count on it,” Clay said. “And thanks for letting me know.”
A few moments later, Clay was on the phone again, but this time to his dad. Within the hour, Winston LeGrand was on the site and Clay was on his way home.
Pharaoh Carn was restless, and it wasn’t the forced inactivity from his healing wounds that made him so. His body ached, but it was getting better. Each day his staying power increased. Today he’d been at his desk for almost four hours. Only days earlier he’d all but collapsed after two, but there were some positives to offset his frustration. His empire was spinning smoothly once more.
Ever since his return to Las Vegas, the phone had been ringing nonstop with calls from his business associates. He should have been pleased, but there was no way he could rejoice in his own survival when the woman who belonged at his side was gone. He wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how long he could hold it all together. And no matter how hard he tried, and how much money he spent making it happen, his ride at the top wouldn’t last—not without Francesca.
Before her return to his life, he’d been doing okay, but he’d been on the outskirts of the big time, one of the hundreds of middlemen for the Allejandro cartel.
The day he found her, he’d been on his way back to L.A. from Seattle, after cleaning up a small internal problem. The fact that Pepe Allejandro was now minus one brother-in-law was immaterial to the fact that Allejandro’s missing millions were still intact.
Rolling the rabbit’s foot between his fingers, he leaned back and closed his eyes, remembering that day on the plane. It had been so many years since he’d seen her, yet he would have known her face anywhere.
Until he’d picked up the paper, the flight had been monotonous. And when he’d first seen the picture, he almost passed it by. It was of little importance—something a Denver photographer had taken of a young woman laughing in the rain. But it had been picked up by the Associated Press and run in papers across the country. When recognition dawned, his center of gravity had literally shifted.
It was Francesca. His Francesca.
He felt light-headed, then weighted down by the distance of miles between them. His first urge was to move, and then he remembered where he was. Frustration set heavily on his shoulders as he faced the fact that, until they landed, he could do nothing.
He thought about her during the rest of the flight, remembering her childhood years at Kitteridge House and how she had dogged his footsteps. Remembering that he’d been there for her when her parents had not, remembering that as she’d grown, his feelings for her had changed from those of a boy for a child to how a man loved his woman.
When she had not returned those feelings as he’d expected, he’d chalked it up to her youth. When she grew up, things would be different, and until then, he would bide his time.
And then he’d screwed up. He called it his five years’ worth of stupid. By the time he’d gotten out of prison, Francesca had turned eighteen and left the orphanage for parts unknown. He still remembered the panic of knowing that, like everyone else, she had disappeared from his life.
By the time the plane landed in L.A., Pharaoh’s mind was set on going after her. But first things first. Pepe Allejandro would be waiting to know the outcome of the trip. It wouldn’t do to keep him waiting.
Four hours later, Pharaoh was on his way home, still trying to digest his windfall. Pepe had been extremely pleased with Pharaoh’s performance—so pleased that he’d just promoted him to a district all his own. That it was in a seedy section of L.A. rife with gang wars didn’t bother Pharaoh a damn. This was his chance to prove himself, and he wasn’t going to blow it.
And there was another fact that he couldn’t ignore. All of this had happened after he’d found Francesca again. He started to grin. It was just like before. The teachers at the home had viewed him as nothing but a troublemaker doomed to failure—and then she’d come along. After that, it had been harder for them to judge him as bad when that sweet-faced baby had given him her devotion. That was when he’d known she was more than his friend. She was his luck.
He rubbed the palms of his hands on the fabric of his slacks, smiling with inward glee as he looked down at the newspaper again. If Francesca thought getting rained on was fun, she would be delirious when she saw his face. And he would find her. In his mind, success depended on it…
But that had been then, and this was now, and Pharaoh was philosophical enough to know that the things worth having never came easy. His body protested as he shifted in his chair. He didn’t want to think of his disappointment again, but finding her hadn’t been all he’d imagined it would be. He hadn’t expected such violent objections from her. He hadn’t planned on keeping her under lock and key, but one day had turned into another and then another, and before he knew it, she’d been with him for months. The months had turned into years, and she still turned her face from him—pleading to be let free, begging to go back to her husband. Ironically, it was nature, rather than man, that finally thwarted him. He hadn’t counted on an earthquake rocking his carefully laid plans.
He turned toward the window, staring out at the gray, cloudless sky. Something was wrong, he knew it. Stykowski was way overdue to check in, which made him nervous. But then, he reminded himself, since the earthquake, everything was still a mess. Two of Allejandro’s best men had been killed in a car on a crumbling piece of freeway, several had been injured and one was still missing. The infrastructure of the entire organization was in disarray. The men Pharaoh often counted on were being used in other capacities, and he had been forced to use second-rate men like Marvin Stykowski for his personal business.
Pharaoh tossed the rabbit’s foot onto the desk and cursed. His mistake had been not in keeping Francesca locked up, but in letting her husband live. And yet, as often as he thought about letting her go, his greed would not permit it. With her, the wealth he had amassed was staggering. His power within the cartel was only less than that of Allejandro himself.
But he was tired. Tired of thinking. Tired of waiting for his carefully orchestrated world to start coming undone. He needed Francesca. And he needed to rest. He glanced toward the bookcases against the east wall. He would rest, but later. There was something more important he needed to do.
With a halting step, he moved toward the books, running his fingers along the shelves, counting down the titles until he reached the eleventh one from the end. He pulled, and as he did, the wall opened soundlessly. He stepped inside the passageway as the door slid shut behind him.
The passageway was narrow and winding, with false turns and dead-end halls, meant to confuse an intruder. But Pharaoh knew where he was going, and the closer he got, the more rapid his steps became. He likened the feeling within these walls to being inside a womb. The massive cinder blocks were reminiscent of the great blocks of stone from which the pyramids had been made, and the narrow hallway down which he was walking was not unlike the passagewa
ys inside the tombs of ancient Egyptian kings. The closer he came to the light, the more rapid his heartbeat became.
A faint odor of incense greeted him as he reached the entryway. Instinctively, his gaze moved toward the pair of dark marble statues against the wall. Their majestic features were etched in stone, capturing the godlike quality that had marked them throughout the centuries. He inhaled deeply, drawing strength from their images. His legs were shaking from exertion, and his rest was well past due, but the discomfort was unimportant compared to what he derived from being here.
He moved, stopping only inches from the statues. Deep within the bowels of this house, the silence was almost deafening. The sound of his heartbeat, the exhalation of each breath, each served as a reminder that he alone was still among the living. His gaze moved across the first statue, separating the high, noble forehead from the large, sightless eyes, measuring the cut of her cheekbones against his own—envisioning the touch of her lips upon his brow.
Isis.
If he’d had a mother, she would have been like this—noble and magnificent.
He exhaled slowly. The sound was like a wail within the small, cloistered walls. There, in the shadows, he waited for a sign. Somewhere within him, time ceased. Unaware of the cold, hard marble on which he stood or the weakness within his bones, he listened with his heart, knowing that an answer would come.
And when the image of Francesca’s beautiful face suddenly flashed before his eyes, he shuddered. The need to hear her voice, to feel the texture of her skin, was a visceral ache. But he had his answer. He knew, as certainly as he knew his own name, that Francesca LeGrand would be with him again.
Only after the plane lifted off from the Denver airport did Clay breathe a slow sigh of relief. Detective Dawson’s phone call had put a rush on his plans like nothing else could have. He glanced at Frankie, who was sitting in the aisle seat beside him. Her knuckles were white, her jaw tensed. He slipped his hand over hers and leaned sideways, whispering in her ear.
“It’s okay, we’re off the ground,” he said softly.
Her eyes were wide and filled with fear as she met his gaze. “I’ve done this before,” she muttered.