by J. A. Jance
Whatever innocuous words Diana Ladd Walker may have used to tell her side of that story, the one thing they couldn't absolve Davy of was the fact that he hadn't helped her. After all, what kind of a son wouldn't save his mother? Whenever David Ladd thought of those long-ago events, it was always with an abiding sense of shame and failure. He had let his mother down, had somehow forsaken her, leaving her defenseless in her hour of need. What could be more shameful than that?
For years Davy had fantasized about that day. In those imagined scenarios, he always emerged from the cellar and did battle with the evil Ohb. In those daydreams, Davy Ladd always fought Andrew Carlisle and won.
In writing Shadow of Death, Davy doubted his mother had taken his feelings on the subject into account. By reporting what happened in a factual manner-and Diana was always factual-she had no doubt held up Davy's glaring inadequacy for all the world to see. Everyone who read the book-even Candace-would know about David Garrison Ladd's terrible failure in the face of that awful crisis.
"I haven't read it," he said after a long interval.
Candace looked shocked. "You haven't? Why not?"
David Ladd thought about that for a minute more before he answered, fearing that just talking about it might be enough to bring on another panic attack and send his heart racing out of control.
"I guess you had to be there," he said finally. "Maybe my mother doesn't mind reliving that day, but I do. I don't ever want to be that scared or that powerless again."
"But you were just a child when it happened, weren't you?" Candace objected.
David nodded. "Six, going on seven," he said.
"See there?" Candace continued. "You're lucky. Most kids never have a chance to see their parents doing something heroic."
"Heroic!" David echoed. "Are you serious? Stupid, maybe, but not heroic. She could have had help if she'd wanted to. Brandon Walker wasn't my stepfather then, but I'm sure he offered to help her, and I'm equally sure she turned him down. The other thing she could have done was pack up and go someplace else until the cops had the guy back under lock and key."
"Still," Candace returned, "she did fight him, and she won. He didn't get away with it; he went to prison. So don't call your mother stupid, at least not to me. I think she was very brave, not only back then-when it happened-but also now, for talking about it after all these years and bringing it all out in the open."
David didn't want to quarrel with Candace, not in this elegant dining room populated by fashionably dressed guests and dignified waiters. "I guess we're all entitled to our opinions," he waffled. "You can call her brave if you want to. I still say she was stubborn."
Candace grinned. "So you could say that you come by that honestly."
David nodded. "I guess," he said.
They lingered over dinner for the better part of two hours, savoring every morsel. Then they went back up to their room and made love. Afterward, Candace fell asleep while Davy lay awake, waiting to see if the dream would come again, and worrying about what he would do if that happened.
How the hell could he be engaged and about to elope, for God's sake? He liked Candace well enough, but not that much. No way was he in love, and yet her suitcases were all packed and waiting by the door. And her father's bribe-her father's astonishingly generous twenty-five-thousand-dollar bribe! — was safely stashed in the side pocket of Candace Waverly's purse.
Davy rolled over on his side. Candace stirred beside him, sighed contentedly in her sleep, and cuddled even closer. The soft curls on her head tickled his nose and made him sneeze.
All his life David Ladd had pondered the mystery of his parents' relationship. He had never met his father. Everything he had heard about Garrison Ladd from his mother had been steeped in the dregs of Diana's disillusion and hurt. As a teenager, David had often asked himself if it was possible that his parents had ever loved one another. If not, if they had never been in love, why had they gotten married in the first place? What had caused them to disregard their basic differences in favor of holy matrimony?
Now, lying next to Candace, he was blessed with an inkling of understanding. Perhaps Garrison and Diana had been swept along on a tide of misunderstanding and confusion neither one of them had nerve enough to stop. Perhaps they had woken up married one day without really intending to. David had read a book once called The Accidental Tourist. And now here he was about to become an accidental bridegroom.
And it would happen, too. Candace would see to it. Unless Davy himself had brains and guts enough to do something to stop it.
David Ladd had been brought up by Rita Antone, by a woman raised in a non-confrontational culture. Among the Tohono O'othham, yes is always better than no.
He wondered, as he drifted off to sleep, if someone had told Candace Waverly that little secret about him, or if she was simply operating on instinct. Probably instinct was the correct answer, he thought.
As far as he could tell, women were like that.
Mitch hadn't thought that the girl would still be so far out of it, but she was. She lay quietly, making hardly any protest when he donned a pair of latex gloves and scrubbed her whole body with a rough, sun-baked towel-parts he had touched and some parts he hadn't-making sure that no traces of his own fingerprints lingered anywhere on her skin.
It took time to make the tape, asking her leading questions in a way that elicited mumbled but predictable answers. By the end of that, though, Mitch was concerned that it would soon be time to leave for town to keep the date with Quentin. Still Lani Walker dozed on and off. That frustrated Mitch no end. What he required from her-what he wanted more than anything-was awareness and fear. Without those, what he was doing just wasn't good enough. He knew he would have to treat her with scopolamine once more before they left for town-a much lighter dose this time-but in the meantime…
Taking out a pair of rubber-handled kitchen tongs he had purchased new for that sole purpose, he laid the metal teeth on the burner of the stove, turned on the fire, and set them to heat. He didn't take them off the flame until the rubber handles were starting to smolder.
When Mitch returned to the bed, he found Lani Walker sleeping peacefully once again. He stood for a moment looking down at her and feeling godlike, observing the smooth skin of her body, flawless still, except for those few white marks. He had the power to leave that body flawless or to mar it forever. There was never any real question of whether or not he would do it. There was only one decision left to make-choosing which one he would take.
"Lani!" he called out sharply. "Lani, wake up."
The long lashes fluttered open, but the dark eyes that looked questioningly up at him were vague and confused. There was no still comprehension in them, still no fear.
"Watch this," he said.
For ease of use, Mitch had left the tape recorder sitting on the floor beside the bed with the controls set on pause. With his gloved left hand, he reached down and punched the "record" button, then he slammed his good knee into her abdomen. The force of the blow sent the wind rushing out of her. Holding her pinioned to the bed with the full weight of his body, he clamped the scorching teeth of the tongs into the fullness of her right breast, an inch and a half on either side of the tender brown nipple.
Even tied hand and foot, Lani bucked so hard beneath him that she almost pitched him off her. He had to grab hold of her waist with his free hand to keep from being thrown onto the floor. Even that far away, the fierce heat from the searing tongs warmed the skin of Mitch's own face. The shockingly sweet smell of singeing flesh filled his nostrils.
It was a magic moment for Mitch. Feeling that naked body writhe in agony beneath his was as good as any sex he ever remembered. But the best part about it was the scream. That was far more than he could have hoped; better than anything he had ever imagined. Hearing Lani Walker's shriek of torment, it was all Mitch could do to hold back an answering moan of his own, one of exquisite pleasure rather than pain.
At last she lay still beneath him. As s
oon as she did so, he unclasped the tongs. He had to force the metal free from the charred skin. Around the wounded flesh, a wave of shocked goose bumps slid across her body. Mitch was surprised to see them. Who knows? he thought. Maybe it did as much for her as it did for me.
Reaching down, he quickly switched off the tape before she had a chance to say something that might somehow lessen the impact of that beautifully unearthly scream. Her sudden stillness was so complete that for a moment Mitch was afraid she might have fainted, thus depriving him and putting a temporary end to his fun. But no, when he looked down, her watery, tear-filled eyes were wide open, staring up at him in outraged, accusing silence.
Mitch Johnson wanted her to speak to him then, but she did not. If nothing else, he would have liked her to beg and plead with him not to hurt her again, but she didn't do that, either. After that one shrill, involuntary cry, no further sound escaped Lani Walker's lips, not even a whimper.
As the girl studied him, Mitch thought about Eve in the Garden of Eden. Like Eve growing beyond her mindless goodness, Lani had emerged from the cocoon of her drug-induced slumber. Willingly or not, she had now tasted the forbidden fruit. The dark, burning eyes she focused on him had been forever robbed of their trusting innocence.
"Welcome to the real world, babe," Mitch Johnson said, then he turned and walked away.
He held the tongs under running water from the faucet long enough to cool them down, until the fierce heat sizzled away, first into steam and then into nothing. Once they were cool enough, he put them back in the shopping bag they'd come in originally. Then he rewound the tape to the beginning, returned it to the plastic carrying case, and put that in the bag as well.
This one's for you, Andy,he thought. It's a promise I made and one I kept. Somehow I doubt Diana Ladd Walker will like it as much as you would. In fact, she won't like it at all, but it's something she and Brandon Walker will never forget, not as long as they live.
The pain was so blindingly intense that for a time Lani wasn't aware of anything else. The whole universe seemed centered in the seared flesh of her wounded breast. It overwhelmed her whole being. There were no words that encompassed that awful hurt, no thoughts that made such inhuman cruelty understandable.
At last, though, through her unseeing anguish, Lani became aware of the man standing over her, aware of his eyes pressing in on her and of her nakedness under that invasive gaze. She squirmed, as if hoping to escape that look, but the scarves binding her hands and legs held her fast. The only way to combat that look was to stare back at him, holding his gaze with her own.
Studying him, she was suddenly aware that he wanted something more from her, as if what he had already taken wasn't enough; as if he longed for something else in order to achieve real satisfaction.
Trying to imagine what that could be somehow took her mind away from the searing pain arcing through her body like the burning blue flash of her father's welding torch. And then, as clearly as if she had read his thoughts, she knew. Standing there, clothed in his presumed superiority, he was waiting for her to speak, to say something. It was almost as though he needed her to acknowledge his brutality and then bow before it.
Her only weapon was to deny him that satisfaction. She kept quiet, biting her lips to hold them together. After a long moment, he melted out of her line of vision, leaving her to ride out the terrible pain alone and in utter silence.
But somehow she wasn't alone. The vision came surging at her out of the past the moment she closed her eyes.
Lani was five years old again, standing naked in front of the mirror in her parents' bathroom. She had pawed through her mother's makeup and found the tube of concealer, the white lipstick-looking stuff Diana sometimes put under her eyes before she applied her other makeup.
Carefully, looking down at her body rather than watching her reflection in the mirror, Lani drew a perfect pair of half-moons on her flat chest, encircling the little brown knob of flesh that would someday grow into a nipple.
Then, pulling on her nightgown, she went racing through the house. She wanted to show someone her handiwork, but her parents were out. Instead, she went searching for Rita Antone. She found Nana Dahd in her room at the back of the house, working on a basket.
"Look," Lani crowed, pulling up her nightgown. "Look at what I did. Now I can be just like Mommy."
Rita's face had gone strangely pale and rigid the moment she saw the circle Lani had drawn on her body.
"Go wash," she ordered, in a terrible voice Lani Walker had never heard before. "Go wash that off. Do not do it again! Ever!"
"But why can't I be like Mommy?" she had said later, after she had showered for a second time. Once again dressed for bed, she had come back to Nana Dahd's room to say good night and hoping to make some sense of what had happened.
"Shhhh," Nana Dahd had told her. "Your mother looks like that because the evil Ohb did something to her. Because he hurt her. You shouldn't say such things. Someone might hear you and make it happen."
Now someone had.
Lani's eyes came open. The pain wasn't any less. If anything, it was worse. She looked down at the angry welt of seared flesh. It was red now and blistered, but someday it, too, would be a pale white scar, almost the same as the one that encircled the nipple on her mother's right breast.
And that was the moment when, without being able to say how, Lani knew this was the same thing. Lani had learned from reading her mother's book that Andrew Carlisle had been blinded and terribly disfigured by the bacon grease Diana Ladd had thrown at him. And she remembered a few weeks earlier, when her mother had told her father at dinner that it had said in the paper that Andrew Carlisle was dead.
Mr. Vega had worn his hair long and in a ponytail when he had been out on the mountain, painting. This man's hair was very short. He was neither blind nor disfigured, but he was somehow connected to the evil Ohb.
Knowing that, Lani had a blueprint of what to do.
"I'm going to untie you now."
Once again the man was standing over her. "Actually, 'untie' isn't the word. Do you see this knife?"
In one hand he held a long narrow knife. The blade was very long and it looked sharp. "I'm going to cut you loose," he continued. "If you don't behave, I'll use it on you. Do you understand?"
Lani nodded again.
"All right then."
One at a time, he cut through the strands of silk that had held her captive. As soon as he set her limbs free, the pins and needles in her arms and legs-the cramps in her shoulders and hips-were bad enough that the new pain took some of Lani's attention away from the pulsing throb in her breast.
"Get up now," he ordered.
She tried to stand and then fell back on the low bed with a jarring thud. "I can't," she said. "My legs are asleep."
"Well, sit there, then." He turned away for a moment and came back holding out a cup. "Drink some of this," he said, sounding almost solicitous. "That must hurt, and maybe this will help deaden the pain."
Lani had figured out by then that he must have drugged her, that he must have put something in the orange juice she had drunk that morning or whenever it was when she was supposedly posing for him. And if he had drugged her once, no doubt he was going to do it again.
She reached up as if to take the cup. Instead of taking it, though, she slapped it out of his hand, gasping with pain at the shock of the cold water slicing across her burned flesh, searing it anew.
"Why, you goddamned bitch!" he muttered. "There's still some fight left in you, isn't there. But believe me, there's plenty more where that came from."
He walked as far as the kitchen. She saw him pouring something into a fresh cup of water, then he came back. This time, before he gave her the cup, he knotted his other hand into the hair at the back of her neck, yanking her head backward.
"This time you'll drink it like a good girl, or I'll hold you down and pour the stuff down your goddamned throat. Got it?"
She nodded.
He pla
ced the cup in her hand, and this time she drank it down. When she gave it back to him, he checked to make sure it was empty.
"That's better," he said. "You swallowed every drop. Here are your clothes now. Get dressed."
Concerned about fingerprints, he had rinsed out her clothing earlier that morning, but hadn't bothered to dry them. How could he? He didn't have a dryer, and if he had hung them on the clothesline, someone might have noticed. They were still a sodden lump when he tossed them into her lap.
"I can't wear these," she said. "They're wet."
"So? This isn't a fucking Chinese laundry," he told her. "Go naked if you want to. It sure as hell doesn't matter to me."
After a struggle, she finally managed to pull on the jeans. The shirt hurt desperately whenever it touched the burned spot on her breast, but at least the man couldn't look at her anymore. Without further protest she pulled on the wet socks and forced on the boots.
"Come on now," he said impatiently. "Off we go."
With her legs shaking beneath her, she staggered across the room. A few feet away, she stopped beside the easel. There in front of her was a picture-a picture that was undeniably of her.
Mr. Vega saw her stop beside the picture and look. "Well," he said. "What do you think? Is this the kind of thing you had in mind for your parents' anniversary present?"
"Tohntomthadag!" she said.
"You were talking Indian, weren't you," he observed. "What do those words mean?"
Lani Walker shook her head. She never had told Danny Jenkins that s-koshwa means "stupid." Not caring what he might do to her, she didn't tell Mr. Vega that in Tohono O'othham, the single word she had spoken, tohntomthadag, means "pervert."
In the forty minutes between the time Brian Fellows called Dispatch for assistance and the arrival of the detective, Brian stayed in the Blazer. Working on a metal clipboard, he started constructing the necessary paper trail of the incident. He began with the call summoning him to assist Kath Kelly and had worked his way up to unearthing the bones when he realized how stupid he was. Rattlesnake Skull, the ancient village that had once been near the charco, had been deserted for a long time, but it had probably been inhabited for hundreds of years before that. It made sense, then, that there would be nothing so very surprising about finding a set of human remains in that general area. In fact, it was possible there were dozens more right around there.