No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale

by Pope, Christine

  He had a difficult time imagining her any other way than she was now: slim, beautiful, perfect. Still, he’d heard that women tended to obsess over their weight even when there was really nothing to obsess over. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” he said, pleased by the smile his words brought to her lips.

  Then her expression sobered. He knew she must be thinking of her coming appointment with the police. There was no use telling her not to worry, because he was just as worried himself. All he could do was give her a reassuring smile, reach out to touch her hand, let her know how much he loved her.

  Something seemed to get through to her, for she took a deep breath and appeared to relax a little. Then she said, “And afterward—”

  “Afterward?” he asked.

  She made a vague gesture with one hand. “After I’m done with the police. After I come back here to be with you permanently. I’ve been thinking about it, and I want to finish school.”

  “School?” he repeated. That surprised him a little, but he knew she had worked hard and was not one to leave things undone.

  “I’m so close to graduation, and I’m hoping my professors will let me make up the finals I’ve missed so I can go straight on to spring semester. If not, I’ll have to make up those classes, but I’d still be able to graduate a year from now.” She spoke quickly, her gaze turned inward.

  He realized she was bringing this up now so she wouldn’t have to think about the police or what she would have to say to them. “Will it be difficult for you?”

  She gave a shaky little laugh. “Oh, probably. People always talk, you know. But then something else comes along and you’re last week’s news. At least I’d have my degree.” A quick look upward through her thick lashes. “And I’d want to sing.”

  “We sing together all the time,” he replied, knowing even as he said the words that that was not what she had meant.

  “I need to try, Erik,” she said. “I have to know if I’m any good.”

  “You know you are,” he replied mechanically. What was she saying—that after all their struggles she would leave him to pursue her career?

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, the desperation obvious in her voice. “I’d try for parts locally, of course. But I would always feel as if I had wasted my training if I didn’t at least try.”

  He shouldn’t be angry with her. She was facing one of the biggest confrontations of her young life, and he knew she was only trying to be honest with him, to let him know what her expectations were. But he still couldn’t help but feel somehow betrayed, as if she had led him to believe that he was enough for her, and only now was telling him that he couldn’t provide everything for her after all.

  “Of course you must do what you feel is necessary,” he said coldly, and laid down his fork on the plate.

  “God, Erik, don’t be like that.” She clasped his hand in both of hers, forcing him to look at her directly. “I love you. I want to be with you. All I’m asking is a chance to be myself as well.”

  Her words shamed him. Was it fair for him to expect that she should hide her enormous talents from the world? How he could he even ask that of her? This girl…this woman—for in many ways she had shown far more maturity than he, even though two decades separated them—had given him nothing but love and healing. It was time for him to begin to give something back to her.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to be anything less, my dear,” he said at last, and brought her hands to his lips.

  She smiled at him then, the light of her happiness evident in shining eyes. He pulled her to him, holding her close, sending her his love, his reassurance. Let the world see her beauty, her astounding gifts. She would take their adulation, smile graciously, and return to him.

  He had to be content with that.

  Chapter 28

  Erik walked me from the house to the garage, protecting the two of us from the rain with an enormous black umbrella borrowed from Ennis. It seemed a little inconvenient to have the buildings separated by a good hundred yards or so, but I supposed it would have ruined the symmetry of the landscape to have the garage placed any closer to the house than it already was. I wished I had taken the time to change out of my black pumps and skirt into something a little more practical, but at the same time I knew I had to get this over with before I lost my nerve and retreated into the reassuring isolation of Erik’s mansion.

  Inside the garage it was chilly and faintly damp-smelling. But the place was spotless, the empty bays stretching on past the ones that held Erik’s S600 and a spectacular vintage Rolls.

  He paused next to the Mercedes and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small black device that looked like a miniature remote control.

  “I have to drive that?” I asked, gesturing toward the S-Class. Up close, it was ominously shiny and sleek, exuding power even when still.

  “Unless you’d rather take the Rolls—”

  His tone was serious, but I could see that wicked gleam in his eyes again.

  I took the little black remote from him. “Where are the keys?”

  “That is the key.”

  “You’re kidding.” I looked at it a little more closely, noticing little locked and unlocked padlock icons on the buttons. “How does it work?”

  “Push the unlock button.”

  I did as he instructed and the door unlocked as the car made a little chirping sound and the lights flashed once. “Impressive.”

  “You’re easily impressed.”

  “Well, remember what I used to drive?”

  He smiled at that and then pulled the door open for me. What followed was a little five-minute lesson on how to adjust the seats, use the windshield wipers, and work the climate-control system. I just hoped I’d be able to remember half of it.

  It was a good excuse for us to evade discussing the real reason I had to drive the car at all, but eventually there was nothing left to show me, and he paused, looking down at me as I sat in the driver’s seat.

  When he spoke, his voice was very quiet. “You’re sure you want to do this.”

  “I have to, Erik. You know I do.” I reached out and touched his hand briefly, then said, “I don’t want us to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders.”

  He kept staring down at me, as if wanting to memorize my features, as if he thought he might never see me again. I couldn’t imagine what must be going through his mind. “Wise Christine,” he said. “Of course you are right.” Then he leaned down and kissed me very gently on the forehead. “Be safe in the rain.”

  “I will,” I replied, and let him shut the car door. I docked the key in the ignition and felt the engine rumble to life beneath me. It was frightening, having that much power at my command. Thank God it wasn’t a stick—of course I had driven one most of my adult life, but adjusting to an unfamiliar gearbox was the last thing I needed right then.

  I touched the button on the overhead console to open the garage door and eased my way down the drive, watching through the rearview mirror as Erik slowly lifted a hand to wave goodbye. In answer I raised my own hand briefly, then focused my attention on the road and the car around me, which felt as if it were pushing against my timid handling, yearning for someone who really knew how to drive it.

  Before we had left the house, Erik had explained to me how to leave his secluded street and head into Old Pasadena. Once I was back on Colorado Boulevard and heading east I was into my own home territory, only a few blocks from L’Opéra and all my other familiar haunts. Since I didn’t want to park the car near the police station and possibly have it be recognized, I pulled into the parking garage at the Paseo Colorado shopping center. It was still early enough on a Friday afternoon that it wasn’t overly crowded, although I knew it would start to fill up in a few hours as people got off work and came looking for food and entertainment.

  The second level of the parking garage was nearly deserted. I parked in a space close to the elevators and sat for a moment in the car, breathing in the pl
easant scent of expensive leather upholstery. My story was simple enough—I just had to keep my nerve and not let the police fluster me, no matter what sorts of questions might be thrown in my direction.

  Easier said than done, I thought, visualizing hard-faced police barking questions at me as I tried desperately to keep them from guessing the truth. My hands shook a little as I gathered up my purse and umbrella, but I forced myself out of the car, barely remembering to lock it as I headed toward the elevators. From behind me I could hear the little chirp it made as the security system armed itself. Thank God the car had more brains than I did.

  Rain still fell steadily as I exited the elevators and headed through the open main square of the plaza, back toward Colorado Boulevard and over to the corner of Walnut and Garfield where the police station was located. The shopping center was sparsely populated; the rain had driven most everyone indoors. The civic center had a few more people walking about, but Southern Californians were not brave about rain, and everyone I saw was hurrying to be somewhere else.

  My feet were beginning to get wet inside the impractical pumps, and I hurried along as best I could, even though I was anything but eager to reach my destination. Still, I arrived there soon enough, sooner than I would have liked. Ignoring the rain that beat down on my umbrella and the increasing dampness in my shoes, I stood outside the door for a long moment, watching as others hurried in and out. A few people cast curious glances in my direction, no doubt wondering what I was doing, standing out there in the rain.

  I wondered as well, for a moment. Then I saw Erik’s face in my mind—his whole face, scars and all, his cloudy green eyes warm with love. I thought of his voice, and how his mouth felt on mine. I thought of all the million and one things that made him uniquely Erik, and I remembered how much I loved him. It was for him, and us, that I did this.

  Then I pushed open the door and went inside.

  Officer Campbell paused significantly outside Ortiz’s doorway. He knew something was up, because her dark eyes were gleaming and she could barely repress a grin.

  “What is it, Campbell?” he asked. The morning had been uneventful enough; he and Kosky had been called in to investigate a burglary, but otherwise he had spent most of his time catching up on paperwork and studiously ignoring the Daly case.

  “Someone to see you, detective.”

  He waited, not bothering to answer. Obviously Letisha wanted to take her time with this one.

  She raised an eyebrow, apparently irked that he hadn’t risen to her bait. “A Miss Christine Daly, detective,” she said finally, and stepped aside to let a young woman enter the office.

  After a few seconds in which he was certain the occasional arrhythmia he experienced was going to develop into a full-blown heart attack, Ortiz regained himself enough to say, “Please come in, Miss Daly.” He looked over at Letisha, who still loitered near the doorway, obviously enjoying herself hugely. “Thank you, Officer Campbell. Can you shut the door on your way out?”

  Letisha gave an irritated roll of the eyes but acquiesced in silence, closing the door after Christine had fully entered the office and taken the chair Ortiz indicated.

  He continued to stare at her for a moment, as shocked by the change in her appearance as by her presence in his office itself. Gone were the shabby, worn-too-many-times clothes and the slightly frizzy hair. She wore an expensive cashmere twin set and narrow skirt, and her curly hair fell in gleaming spirals over her shoulders. Hanging from her ears and circling her neck was a matched set of sapphire and diamonds that his experience investigating high-end robberies put at no less than fifty thousand dollars, and another huge stone glittered from the ring finger of her right hand. She was absolutely stunning, and far more elegant than he could have ever imagined.

  “Officer Ortiz?” she asked, extending the hand with the sapphire.

  He tore his eyes away from the ring and accepted her hand. “Miss Daly—I must say that I’m a little surprised to see you.” Especially looking the way you do, he thought. If someone had told him she’d spent the last two weeks vacationing at some European spa, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

  The color rose in her cheeks, obvious against her fair skin. “I’m very sorry for any trouble I’ve caused, detective. That’s why I thought I had better come in to talk with someone.”

  “Well, you’ve had a lot of people very worried about you,” he replied, although his tone was milder than he would have thought possible.

  “It was—terrible of me to disappear the way I did. I realized that after I saw a story about me on the news the other day.” Her manicured fingers moved restlessly on the purse she clutched in her lap—Prada, he noticed.

  “So are you telling me that you left your home of your own volition? That there was no foul play involved?”

  “Absolutely not, detective.” Her blue eyes were wide; he noticed that they picked up some of the color of the sweater she wore. “I had been having a difficult time deciding what to do about Erik, but when he invited me to his home over the long weekend—”

  “Erik?” Ortiz interrupted. “Erik Deitrich?”

  “Yes,” she replied, looking surprised. “Do you know him?”

  “I know of him,” he replied, his voice grim. Deitrich. Of course. He’d known all along that the man had to be involved in this somehow. Well, that would explain the expensive clothing and jewels, if nothing else. “How do you know him?”

  “I met him at work.” The smoky blue gaze slid away from his, and her full mouth pursed slightly. “We were attracted to each other right away, but it was a little awkward for me since I was already seeing Randall. But he kept calling, and we saw each other once or twice. And then when he asked for me to come over—”

  “To the house on Charles Street?”

  Again that widened gaze. “You know where he lives?”

  Ortiz allowed himself a humorless smile. “Oh, he’s been a person of interest in your case for some time. So you went to him, even though you had been seeing Randall, even though you had just spent Thanksgiving with his family?”

  “It was wrong of me, I know, but I didn’t know what to say to Randall—he did have a tendency to make a scene over things. I thought maybe it would just be better if I disappeared for a while.”

  Having been on the receiving end of Randall’s persistent calls, Ortiz found himself sympathizing with her just a little. Certainly handling Randall could be difficult for someone who had trouble dealing with confrontations. But that didn’t begin to excuse the hell she had put Randall and Meg through these past few weeks. “Possibly you didn’t want to talk to Randall. But why didn’t you at least call Meg to tell her where you were?”

  “I was afraid she might tell Randall.”

  Again, that made sense, but Ortiz was beginning to think that her answers seemed a little too pat, a little too rehearsed. Oh, there was no mistaking the earnest tone of her voice, the pleading look in her big blue eyes, but he’d seen enough convincing acts from people who were guilty as sin to know that looks counted for very little. When he spoke, he deliberately hardened his tone. “So you’re saying that you just up and disappeared for two weeks so you could cheat on your boyfriend with some reclusive millionaire?”

  She winced at his question, even as her full lips thinned a little. “If you want to put it that way, yes.”

  “Well, we can leave it at that for now.” He shifted a few papers on his desk, unearthing the Daly file. Opening it, he flipped past a few pages, just to look official—he had the facts memorized by now. “Do you know a gentleman named Jerome Manning?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Never heard of him?” Ortiz produced a photo and showed it to her. “Have you ever seen this man?”

  She took the photo and stared down at it for a moment. “I might have seen him at school once or twice.”

  “Any idea why he might have been there?”

  “No. I didn’t even know what his name was until you said it right now.”


  Again he got the feeling she was lying, but he decided not to call her on it. Not yet. That there was some connection between Deitrich and Manning he was positive, but he had no proof—they’d been far too careful for that.

  “So you’d be surprised to know that he was arrested in connection with the theft of your car?”

  “My car?” she repeated, looking a little blank. “Did something happen to my car?”

  “Yes—actually, it was stolen by a little thug named Tony Vasquez, then sold and crushed.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, and she did look shocked at that. “I thought it would be okay to leave it on the street—I had a street parking permit, and I figured it was so old and beat-up no one would want it anyway.”

  “Well, someone did. Maybe they just saw it as an easy mark since it had been sitting there for so long.”

  She knotted her fingers in her lap, then looked back up at him. “I don’t understand—if this Tony person stole the car, why would you arrest Jerome for it?”

  “Jerome.” Not “Mr. Manning.” A little familiar for someone she professed to have never heard of before now. Interesting, but again it was just his gut telling him she knew very well who Jerome was. “We had information indicating he had actually paid the people involved to steal the car. Unfortunately, we had to release him due to lack of evidence.”

  “Oh,” she said awkwardly, obviously not sure how to respond.

  “But what you’re telling me is that you’ve spent the last two weeks safely with Mr. Deitrich, that you never heard of Jerome Manning, and up until now you had no idea your car had even been stolen?”

  “Um, yes,” she replied. Then, in a rush, “Oh, I know how terrible this all sounds. I’m not an idiot, you know. But Erik just sort of—well—”

  “Swept you off your feet?” he interjected dryly.

  “Yes.” She leaned forward, all earnestness with her lovely features and prim-but-somehow-sexy twin set. “I—I don’t have a lot of experience, Detective Ortiz. This all came up very suddenly. But my only regret is the pain I might have caused to others.”