Hidden Pearl

by Trueax, Rain

  Katy managed a worn smile. "I want to bury everything... in the ground beside Lane. When he died, I lost all that mattered."

  "Except," Christine shook her head, "You have your children to consider."

  "I know. I’ll pull it together but right now I feel everything inside of me is dead. It’s not just that he died. It would be if he purposely did it."

  “But you don’t believe he did. Your instincts are crying out that it is an injustice to him.”

  “They are. It’s… probably not wanting to face that possibility.”

  “I don’t think so. I only just met you but you don’t strike me as a woman who fools herself. You are a woman who will fight like a tigress for her own though, aren’t you?”

  Katy cried for a few minutes, then said, “I have had a life which hasn’t made me fight for much. It all came so easily, even Lane. Now I suddenly do have to fight and I only hope I can. I don’t know where to turn though. The police, they really don’t see how he could have been murdered. No clues to lead them that way.”

  “I hope you can find peace with this… however it turns out.”

  “I had it all and lost it in a span of two days.”

  “I wish I had words to help now. They say time heals all wounds.”

  “And I say bullshit. Pardon my French,” Katy said with a little laugh.

  Christine managed a laugh too. She hadn’t experienced anything like Katy was going through which made her feel inadequate to help with it. She was beginning to wonder if she would though if she kept going with Storm Walker. Maybe the time to get out was now.

  “You know,” Katy interrupted her thoughts, “I thought we were immune to something like this. I mean, Lane was an architect. What’s dangerous about being an architect?” She looked at Christine, tears again filling her eyes. “We went to church, did all the right things. Why did this happen to us?”

  "I wish I had answers. Life is full of things like that."

  Katy shook her head. “I just don’t know how to go on. It’s as though half of me was torn away and I’m never going to get it back. I sleep alone at night. I have to answer my children when they ask where daddy is.” She gave a little sob. “He’ll never see his children grow up, never make love to me again. I’ll never hear his step coming down that hall.”

  “I don’t know you very well,” Christine said, “and I certainly can’t give you cheap answers. No one can take away the pain and no one can tell you why. I wish there were such answers."

  "I am glad you said that..." Katy's voice broke again. "I hate cheap answers and they always come from those who can’t begin to imagine how you might feel if your husband preferred to hang himself than to come home to be with you and his children."

  Christine shook her head. "Don’t give in to that. S.T. is determined to follow this where it goes. I… well I’ll do what I can also. I have met Peter Soul.” She managed to not shudder. “Really there is every possibility that there will eventually be proof that Lane didn’t kill himself. You’d still have lost the man but you’d get back the knowledge of his love. Would that help?”

  Katy nodded. “Are you... that is are you in love with S.T.?"

  "Hard question. I am not sure. But I am in something." She managed a smile

  "Well, if you’re smart you won’t fall in love with him.” Katy tightened her mouth.

  “Why?”

  “Forget I said that.” Katy managed a small laugh. “I’m a fool. I am not sorry I loved Lane and had him for as long as I did.”

  “To be honest, I haven’t wanted to fall in love with anybody. For a career woman, especially with a job like mine that requires a lot of travel, a relationship only gets in the way. I’ve seen so many women who give up themselves for a man. I never understood how someone could do that... and yet, here I am following this man over hill and dale, calling my editor to make excuses for why I’m not flying back already.” She shook her head.

  “I don’t know S.T. very well. We have only seen each other in a few social settings, briefly through Lane’s work and his being the same. He’s a striking man; so I did notice him.”

  “I fear feeling too much for him. Maybe you understand that. He’s so full of energy and power. He could suck a woman right into him until she had no identity.”

  “I think that is a problem for women in relationships anyway,” Katy said, dabbing at her eyes again with a Kleenex.

  “He might want more than I can give. More than I want to give.”

  “I like talking to you,” Katy said with a watery smile. “I need to think about somebody but myself. I’d like it if we could visit again sometime. I will say this. I wouldn’t have traded, even now today, the time I had with Lane, for not having to go through this now.”

  “This isn’t the end of your life,” Christine quickly said. “You are young. You will love again.”

  Katy gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t want to…” Then stopped herself. “Okay that was foolish to say. Nobody can know the future, can they? Right now I feel that way… Like my heart was ripped out and it’s gone. Maybe someday it will be back. Right now I don’t want it to be but I guess I need it for my kids, don’t I?”

  Christine felt tears on her own cheeks as she put out her arms and hugged the grieving woman to her. The loving touch helped them both.

  Half an hour later, sipping another cup of coffee, Christine looked up to see S.T. at the kitchen door. "Did you find anything?" Katy asked him.

  S.T. shook his head. "Did you show me everything?"

  “As far as I know."

  "We have to go, but if I learn more, I'll get back to you," S.T. said. "I don’t know if I can help you prove he didn’t kill himself, but I will do what I can. I saw nothing in his work to indicate a man losing himself. The sketches looked good, better than..." He almost said better than Soul deserved, but he didn't want to plant any trails in Katy's mind, not yet.

  In the Silverado driving away, Christine said, "What didn't you tell Katy?"

  He glanced over at her, then back at the road. "What makes you think I held something back?"

  "I just know. What was it?"

  "Not everything was there," he said after a moment. "Before sketches even, he would have done a soil analysis, foundational studies. Not there. No applications for permits, and from the time he started work, he should have all that available to him. Something came up that stopped him cold. I don't know what, but something’s not right."

  Christine stared straight ahead. “I don’t believe he killed himself."

  S.T. glanced over at her. “Instincts again.”

  “Just the way Katy talked about their love for each other. I don’t think he’d have voluntarily given that up.”

  “Unfortunately, proving it will be another thing.”

  “Maybe you should have told her about what wasn’t there. It might have helped.”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s better she go on with her grieving, stay out of all this.”

  “You think she will? She’s pretty convinced it wasn’t a suicide and that the police won’t investigate.”

  “But without anything, she can’t get herself into trouble. You and I both know Soul’s a dangerous man. Better for a vulnerable woman like Katy Brown to stay out of his orbit. "

  "I guess you’re right."

  "Of course I am." When she looked over, she saw his smile was crooked. Damn the man kept earning points with her when she did not want it to go anywhere, but it was going to.

  "So what do we do now?" she asked to distract her from her real thoughts.

  "I make calls to the county offices down there and try to find out if permit requests were filed and what happened to that blasted soil analysis. After that we go out to dinner."

  "Sounds lovely."

  "It looked like you and Katy had both been crying when I got out to the kitchen."

  "We had."

  "Geesus."

  Christine felt her eyes again filling with tears, "it was important
to do. She needs to cry, to let it out."

  "You too?"

  "Sometimes."

  "I'll never understand women."

  "We're not so complex."

  "That I definitely don't believe."

  "We just want to love and be loved." When she said the words, she felt shocked at herself. She would never have said something like that before. Where was her precious career in that flat statement? Why did it suddenly not seem so important? She glanced over at S.T. to see how he had taken her words, but his eyes were on the highway, his profile hard and unyielding.

  #

  Three hours later, Christine sat across from S.T. in a dimly lit restaurant, fully aware of his seething frustration.

  "Talk about it," she said as the waiter filled their coffee cups.

  "Nothing to talk about."

  "There is. Tell me what."

  "Stone walling always frustrates me.”

  “Someone in county did that?”

  “Maybe. If Lane had done any preliminary work, ordered anything, it should have been there. He had been on the project long enough, despite what Soul said that he would have begun acquiring what he needed to draw up plans."

  “You think he either didn’t or someone there got rid of them? Isn’t it possible the work was delayed and that’s the reason?”

  He shook his head, absently rubbing the back of his neck. "Not likely. Legitimate studies should be with the rest of the plan and on file somewhere. Lane wouldn't have begun without that. Then there was the expression on George's face when I pushed him about it. The thing is there is no reason for even a quasi legal religious bunch to not do them. What’s the gain?"

  "So what was missing exactly?"

  "Everything. And from my own short time at the site, there were no percolation test holes. I used that as an excuse to dig a test hole myself, then claimed the soil wasn't good enough for a building the size they want, which just looking at it, I think is highly possible. I suggested testing other sites and started to head up the hill."

  "And George didn't like that?"

  "He blocked my way. I'd have had to fight him to get past him. He was upset. First time I'd seen one of them angry. It gave me the idea for later that night."

  "Which worked out so well," she quipped.

  He gave a snort. "All right, I've had better plans, but it did get a rise out of George. I've been thinking that if they had tried to fake an analysis, Lane would have figured it out. Maybe he went out to do his own test and they didn't like it."

  "Enough to murder him?"

  "That seems unlikely unless there was something else up there."

  "You're scaring me."

  The waiter interrupted them long enough to take their order. “I don’t want to go back down,” Christine said when they were again alone.

  "Good."

  "I mean, I don't want either of us to go back. Couldn't you just go to the police with what you already have?"

  "You mean a hunch? My mother’s chindi? They'd laugh me out of the station."

  “What’s chindi?”

  “The dead, if you aren’t careful come back to cause trouble. That’s why a Navajo of true belief won’t use the name of someone who died. They won’t go in their homes if they died there. They feel it’ll draw that dead person to them.”

  She shuddered. “Still the police might go up on the hill and look."

  “Without a search warrant? And you don’t get those without evidence. Besides, maybe one of them would turn out to be on Soul's payroll. He told me he's got two thousand people in this area, with more elsewhere. His tentacles could have a long reach. I'd bet on one thing, the man's not a simple church leader. He's got a lot more irons in the fire than we know. The last time he paid me a visit, he had a couple of goons with him."

  "Goons," she repeated, feeling a surge of fear.

  "Hired guns. You name it. I hadn't seen either at his compound, but they had that same dead-in-the-brain look the rest of his people do. Maybe he brought them up when things began to get dicey to him."

  “Dicey?”

  “If they murdered Lane, they had to hope they wouldn’t leave any clues. In a way I am surprised they called on me so soon. It was just asking for somebody to come across the same thing Lane might have.”

  She felt a shiver of fear. "Which is why you should not go back." She reached across the table and put her hand over his. "We have to find someone to investigate this, someone who's experienced in that kind of work."

  "Maybe after we get what we can from his computer—if there is anything there. Right now, I think I've got the best shot at doing that. The way I'm planning, I won't even have to see him."

  "This is getting so complex. First there was just your sister missing, then there's Lane Brown's death, your being drugged, what will we find next? "

  His smile was crooked and stubbornly determined. "This time I'm not walking into the situation blind. I have a contingency plan."

  "Like what?" she asked, somehow keeping her voice from reflecting the angry feelings within her. He was being so macho that she wanted to pour a glass of water over his head to wake him up.

  "Like a hideout--" he grinned at the word. "After I get what I can, I have a place I can go for a few days to look through it all. If I find anything, I’ll take it down to Jim to figure out the next step."

  "You mean if we do," she corrected.

  His steady gaze met hers. She knew she could sink into those brown depths and never come up for air, that his deep, husky voice could convince her of many things. One of those was not leaving him to face this alone.

  "There's no reason for you to go," he began.

  "I’ve heard it all. You are wasting your breath and this lovely evening. I am going back when you do." She forced a smile. "I can be your back-up or is that the right word?"

  "No."

  "I'll be Mata Hari to your James Bond."

  "They weren’t together and her end was not so great," he reminded her.

  "Okay, I'll be... I'm not up on female spies, but how about Robin to Batman."

  He smiled at that. "I don't think I'd like it if you were Robin."

  "Me either." The love she felt for him had to be showing in her eyes, she doubted she could fool anyone anymore. Katy Brown had guessed. Hank had confronted her with it. Didn't S.T. know how she felt about him? She smiled as she continued to look into his dark eyes. He wasn’t moving forward with her. She sensed there were reasons, but she didn’t press. He had a lot on his mind. She might not even be part of any of his thinking—future or present. When this whole mess was resolved, she would worry about what her feelings meant, what she could do about them. For now, this was enough.

  #

  The drive from Portland to Roseburg didn't take so long, not in hours, but it seemed to S.T. to take forever in terms of thinking and rethinking all he had to do. He went over again all that Jerry had told him about Soul's computer. The way of thinking wasn't a natural for him. For the first time he wished he'd stayed awake more often in his college computer class. Fortunately Jerry had created a disk which he thought might speed the process of working through the codes. S.T. hoped he was right because he had one hour at the most. If he was caught in Soul's office, he wouldn't be able to bluff his way out.

  He glanced over at Christine, apparently lost in her own thoughts. He'd tried every way he knew to convince her to stay with Hank and Jerry, but she had stubbornly told him that with or without him, she would be there. It was better that he keep her with him, maybe then he could keep her safe if this whole thing went bad. The thought of her being hurt or in anyway endangered was unbearable. He refused to consider why that was.

  S.T. pulled the Silverado into a side road not far from the compound. He turned to Christine. "If I'm not back in an hour, take off, get to Hank, then call the police."

  She shook her head. "I'm going with you."

  "You are not." They'd had this argument before. He'd thought he convinced her.

&nbs
p; "I'll go. If I'm seen, I'll pretend I'm there to pick up my camera and rental car as a distraction for you; and if that isn't enough, I just had to hear the wonderful preacher again."

  "How did you get there?"

  "Caught a ride with a friend."

  "Woman, you think he'll believe that?"

  She lifted her chin. "He will because he'll want to."

  "How will you get out then?"

  "After I get the car and camera, maybe listen to him orate, why would I stay after that?"

  He glared at her. "I don't like it. If we're right about this man, he's ruthless."

  "Even if we’re wrong about the murders, he is ruthless—witness the drug he ordered given to you.”

  He clenched his jaw, the muscle twitching as she saw him trying to come up with a better reason. “Hey, I didn't expect you would like it, but you need me. What if somebody starts to go in the office while you're still inside? You wouldn't have time to go out the window if I wasn't there to delay them."

  He gritted his teeth, then reached for her, pulling her into his arms. He felt her fingers tighten at the back of his neck as he bent to claim her lips, the kiss passionate and more than a little desperate. Be careful,” he whispered when they broke apart. He didn't want this for her. She deserved so much more, but she had chosen to entangle herself in the web he felt surrounding him, and he seemed unable to stop her.

  #

  Christine heard the voices singing from the auditorium but didn’t feel reassured by the sound. She had watched as S.T. jimmied the lock and disappeared into Soul's inner office. So far so good. She had little hope their luck would hold but prayed for it anyway.

  When she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall, Christine started walking toward them. "George," she said, greeting him with a smile.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked.

  "I left my camera here, or had you forgotten. You didn't sell it, did you?" she joked.

  He stared at her. "He didn't say you would be coming."

  "You mean Peter?" she asked, keeping her voice deliberately firm and steady. "I didn't tell him. I didn’t know I needed to ask permission. Did I?" She raised her eyebrows questioningly.