Hallowed Ground (Julie Collins Series #2)

by Lori G. Armstrong

  Martinez lifted both brows. “Not tomorrow?”

  “I wish. Instead I get to suffer through a family thing.” The clock on the far side of the room caught my attention as it clicked to 9:00. “Look. I’ve gotta go.”

  Maybe I could block this night, last night, and tomorrow from my memory banks with earsplitting music and cold beer.

  He placed his palm on my knee. “Stay.”

  A simple request. But hanging around would be a stupid move on my part, despite my body going soft simply from the heat of his hand.

  “I can’t,” I said with genuine regret.

  His hand slid away. A heartbeat later his fingers were on my chin, turning my face toward his. “I wish you’d stop running from this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s gonna catch us eventually.”

  I wanted to deny it. I didn’t.

  He smiled. “Be careful.”

  Unnerved by his confidence, I blurted, “Why? Think the Carluccis shot Donovan?”

  All the teasing warmth bled from his eyes. “Concentrate on finding Chloe and let me worry about the Carluccis.”

  “They know who I am, don’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t lie, another point in his favor.

  Before I asked another question I didn’t want the answer to, I snapped my mouth shut, gathered my stuff and left before I did something foolish and stayed.

  I’d barely made it to my car when I sensed someone behind me.

  I whirled around in the darkness, automatically dropping into a fighting stance. I’d been involved in a brawl in this parking lot before. Although I’d won that particular battle, I wasn’t anxious for a repeat performance, especially in heels.

  Rondelle materialized, her hands held up in surrender. “Please. Don’t hurt me.”

  “God, Rondelle. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “You sound just like Harvey,” she scoffed.

  Comparing me to her brother was not a wise move. “What are you doing skulking around in the parking lot?”

  “Waiting to talk to you.”

  “About?”

  She sidled closer, fingers twisted in a knot, gaze aimed at the tips of her Keds. “Chloe.”

  I leaned back against my car, crossing my arms over my chest. Didn’t care if it looked belligerent, because I was definitely feeling it. “Excuse me for acting stupid, but weren’t we just talking about Chloe?”

  She raised her wet eyes to mine, firmed her trembling lip. Her despair—whether real or feigned—was quite a performance. “You think I don’t care about her, don’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  “I do care.” Tears trickled out; she wiped them with the heel of her hand. “It’s just when you told me that Donovan had been shot … it shocked me and I sorta went crazy.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Her gaze flew to me. “W-w-what?”

  “Don’t play the ‘I-was-so-upset-I-didn’t-know-what-I-was-saying’ card with me, Rondelle. Unlike Harvey and Martinez, I can see right through you.”

  The internal debate showed on her face. Continue to act like a spoiled child? Or reveal the real Rondelle? Little girl lost disappeared. “You ain’t very sympathetic, are ya?”

  “Nope. I’m saving my small amount of sympathy for Donovan. It’ll be a miracle if he lives.”

  “I never meant for him to get hurt.” Her sorrow actually looked real.

  “A little late for that now, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” Rondelle focused on the bar behind us and said thoughtfully, “Interestin’ that you ain’t still in there with Tony.”

  “Why is that interesting?”

  “You’re out here in under thirty minutes and you ain’t wearin’ that ‘I-just-got-laid’ smile.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said dryly. “How do you know we didn’t just have a quickie?”

  “He likes to take his time.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask how she knew Martinez’s sexual preferences, but the bottom line was I really didn’t want to hear a second hand answer.

  “That’s why you’re acting like you trust me all of a sudden? Because I’m not screwing Tony Martinez?”

  “That, and because Harvey don’t trust you.”

  So much for my ego.

  “Man.” She dragged her hand through her tangled hair. “I fucked up. I never shoulda let him make me do that job.”

  Who made her do what? Had she been forced into prostitution? “How did you … I mean … Hell, were you really taking money for sex at those parties?”

  Her lips curled with contempt. “Nah. I just like fuckin’ with Harvey’s head. Asshole deserves it. Thinks the worst of me anyway. When I wasn’t workin’ the cage I really was just a cocktail waitress.”

  Why would she tell such a big lie?

  A rusted Buick LeSabre cruised right toward us. She watched it cagily, slouching out of sight.

  It braked in front of us anyway. The driver’s side window rolled down. A man poked his head out.

  “Rondelle. Come on. We gotta go.”

  He was a good-looking Native American male, about thirty, cocky, with intense eyes. On second thought, shifty eyes.

  “Frankie, I told you to stay over there. No one’s supposed to know I’m here.”

  “This is boring as shit. How much longer I gotta wait?”

  “Until I’m done.”

  Like an angry stallion he tossed his head; a long black mane cascaded over his broad shoulder. “Who the fuck is she?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” I retorted.

  Frankie sneered and said something to Rondelle in Lakota. I caught wasicu, the derogatory name for a white person. Great.

  Her abrupt response to him included hand gestures.

  Lip curled, he glared at me, destroying his previous beauty. Bald tires spun gravel as he sped away.

  “Frankie Ducheneaux, I presume?”

  “Yeah.” She watched his taillights disappear. “How’d you hear about him?”

  “Donovan.” I settled back against the car door. “What’s the deal? You dating him?”

  “I did for awhile, after we met at a meeting.”

  With the way Rondelle had knocked back the vodka I’d bet my last fifty bucks it wasn’t a Sacred Buffalo Sobriety meeting. “A church social?” I joked.

  “Sort of. Medicine Wheel Holy Society.”

  “The group that opposes the casino? You’re a member?”

  “Used to be. Frankie still is.” She closed her eyes. “Lately he’s worked at Trader Pete’s in the restaurant.”

  Seemed strange Frankie wouldn’t have told her who she was working for.

  “Know what’s pathetic? The only reason he hooked up with me was to get me to feed him information from Donovan about what was goin’ on at the building site. Then he could share it with the Medicine Wheel Society and act like a big man with the leaders. When I wouldn’t tell him nothin’ anymore, he dumped me.”

  “Then why are you here with him now?”

  “Not my choice. Harvey tracked him down and told him to bring me here. Frankie ain’t stupid enough to tell the Hombres no. Jerk knew where I’d been hidin’ out.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  She laughed. “No. I ain’t leavin’ with him, either.”

  I counted to ten, patting myself on the back for my uncharacteristic patience. “You sure you should be telling me this, Rondelle?”

  “No, but there’s some other stuff you oughta know. It’s about the Carluccis. Somethin’ I didn’t want them to hear.”

  Withholding more information? Not a smart move. “Martinez is better equipped to deal with any problems you’re having with them.”

  “No. You’ll understand because … ”

  “I’m a woman?”

  “Yeah.” She gnawed on her lip for a second, debating. “See, there’s a reason I didn’t tell them the guy’s name I was with when I overheard that stuff about the sabotage. I was
n’t s’posed to be in the private meeting room.”

  I waited; alarm bells rang in my head. “Who brought you there?”

  “Little Joe Carlucci,” she said softly.

  “Oh shit.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How did you get mixed up with him?”

  “He started buggin’ me the first week on the job. I was sorta flattered, I mean, he’s a good lookin’ guy, smooth, has money. And everyone called him ‘Junior’, not Little Joe. My boss, Robin, just told me to be nice to him.”

  “So, how nice were you?”

  “Guess.”

  On her knees or naked on her back kind of nice.

  I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know what she’d been dealing with. “Straight sex?”

  “Mostly.”

  “How long did this go on?”

  “Too long. I got sick of it real fast. Didn’t need his bullshit with all the other junk goin’ on in my life, so I gave notice.”

  Rondelle didn’t strike me as the type who’d give warning before she left a crappy job. “Why didn’t you just quit?”

  “Would’ve put my boss, Robin, in a bind, tryin’ to fill my shifts. I trusted her to keep it quiet.”

  Half a dozen Harleys roared in, making conversation impossible until they parked.

  Finally, she said, “’Course, someone told him.”

  My brows lifted.

  “Not Robin. She was the only friend I had up there.”

  “What happened?”

  “On the day before my last shift, he called me upstairs. Stupid me, I went. He must’ve been on something, cause he dragged me outta his office by the hair into the next room and raped me. First … then, the other, right after.” She shuddered so hard she rocked my car. “He was in such a hurry he forgot to—”

  Rondelle’s eyes flicked to me, the stark fear in them made me sick.

  “He forgot to what, Rondelle?”

  “Never mind. He scared me. I never felt so …”

  Dirty. Helpless. Used.

  “So stupid. I shoulda known better.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, you get the picture.”

  A picture I didn’t want.

  “And so did I. I got the picture.” At my baffled look she said, “You ever noticed all them cameras in casinos watching everything goin’ on?”

  I nodded.

  “They’re even upstairs. They change them disks every twenty-four hours but they gotta keep records for seven days.”

  My mouth dropped. “The whole thing is on disk?”

  “Yep. He got so riled up he forgot ‘bout the security camera.” Her voice trickled to a whisper. “But I didn’t forget. I’ll never forget.”

  I forced myself to focus on the details, not the distress in her every movement. “How’d you get the disk?”

  She fidgeted. “Lifted it from the security room.”

  “By yourself? Weren’t the security guards suspicious?”

  “Nah. I’d been hangin’ out with them ever since I started the job. Nice guys. Lonely. Told me more than they shoulda about the security system. I knew those upstairs cameras were on a different video feed. Little Joe didn’t like no one checkin’ up on him so the monitors in the security room were always off.

  “Plus, since I worked the cage and was around money all the time I had security clearance to be in there. They didn’t have no reason not to trust me. Nobody ever goes back and checks them disks anyway. Especially the ones from upstairs.”

  “Where is the disk now?”

  “Safe.”

  “Like Chloe is safe?”

  Her chin drooped to her chest and I felt like a total bitch.

  I softened my tone. “Rondelle, this is beyond dangerous.”

  “I know. That’s why I wanna ask you something important.”

  A strange foreboding seized me: This case would change drastically in the next ten seconds.

  “Stop lookin’ for Chloe for a couple of days.”

  Wasn’t expecting that.

  “After, when you find her, call me and I’ll disappear with her for awhile.”

  I thought about Donovan, fighting for his life in the hospital. How would he feel if he woke up and realized he might never see his daughter again? Wouldn’t he rather have her gone, than dead? How could I possibly have a hand in making that decision?

  “Can I ask you something?” she said softly.

  “I guess.”

  “Who’s the one person you’d trust with your life? Trust to do the right thing by you no matter what?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Sheriff Tom Richards.”

  “Yeah? Why him? ’Cause he’s a cop?”

  “No. Because his sense of right and wrong is black and white. Mine isn’t. That’s why I had to stop working for him, but I’d put my life in his hands any day.”

  What did it say for my partnership with Kevin that his name wasn’t at the top of my list?

  “I only got one other person I can rely on.”

  The way she worded the sentence led me to believe she’d decided to put her faith in me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. Why am I on the short list?”

  Her doe-like eyes held trust I didn’t want and sure as hell hadn’t earned.

  “Because you didn’t roll over for Tony or Harvey or Donovan, or for me for that matter. But mostly because you understand what it’s like.”

  Despite the balmy night my blood ran cold. Not rape. It.

  Jesus. How the hell had she recognized the victim in me when I tried so damn hard to keep her hidden?

  “I keep tellin’ myself it ain’t so bad.” Sour laughter followed. “I’m sure he don’t think he did nothin’ wrong since I’d been with him before. But not like that. I’d never let him do that to me.”

  Rondelle was a lot tougher than I was, facing her rapist after the fact.

  “How do you deal with it?” Her staccato breath cut the balmy air as she toed the gravel with her girlish pink tennis shoe.

  I could lie, or deny, but I heard myself saying, “The usual. I drink. Smoke. Pretend it never happened.”

  “What a coincidence. Me too.”

  The parallels between us hit me then. Left motherless. Floating through life with sporadic support. But she’d turned on her brother and I’d turned to mine.

  “Rondelle—”

  “Please. Don’t say no. I need your help. If somethin’ comes up, promise you’ll call my friend, the one I trust. He’s the only one who can get in touch with me.”

  “Why would he trust me?”

  “He won’t. Not until you give him the code word.”

  Rondelle had code words and escape routes set up? Crap. I felt myself sinking deeper.

  If Martinez found out all the lies Rondelle told, and that I was covering for her … I couldn’t think about that. Chloe was her kid. She did have a right to make decisions for her, more so than Harvey or Tony, no matter who was paying the bills.

  That attack of conscience dealt with, I snagged a notebook and pen from inside my purse. “Write it down.”

  She scribbled, then held the notebook tightly to her chest. “Who’s gonna see this?”

  “Just me. I’ll transfer the information to my computer at the office just as soon as I leave here.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay.” Rondelle’s chin trembled. “This is really, really important. Don’t talk to no one ’bout this. If anyone calls you or contacts you and claims to be my friend, don’t believe ’em. I ain’t got no friends.”

  Sorrow punched a hole in my heart. So young to be without hope and so alone. “Have you told me everything?”

  “Everything you need to know for now.” She passed me the notebook. I looked at the single word she’d written: tiblo. Lakota for brother. Shivers raced down my spine.

  What else could I say? I handed her a business card. “If you need anything, or think of anything else, call me. Day or night.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered
as she disappeared into the night like smoke, just like Harvey.

  Maybe they were more alike than she cared to admit.

  I stopped at the office and transferred the information Rondelle had given me into my computer. Kevin hadn’t been in his office, but I suspected he would be later. I updated the case and whined about having to face my father without him.

  Paperwork done, alarm reset, I headed straight to Jasper’s.

  Music and beer did make for interesting distractions, but I wasn’t in the party mood after talking to Rondelle. I left early and went home alone.

  The next morning, coffee and a shower stimulated my brain cells, but didn’t exactly speed me along to start my day. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror debating on whether I should bother with make-up. Depending on my dad’s mood, he’d either tell me I looked like a whore or like my dead mother.

  Around 12:30 Kell called. “I’m going hiking with T-Rex today.”

  Kell’s friend T-Rex was a total loser. His (usually illegal) excursions into the great outdoors involved a cooler of beer, loud tunes, and minimal physical activity.

  I didn’t use a hiking trip as an excuse to party. It saved my sanity, spiriting me away from my mental demons.

  Female laughter echoed in the receiver and Kell managed an offhand, “Maybe we can hook up later.”

  Maybe not. Maybe it was time to admit Kell and I were over.

  I couldn’t put off the trip to my dad’s any longer.

  The county road to the ranch ran parallel to Bear Butte. It bisected the new gravel road leading to the casino. Increased traffic also increased the amount of dust, even way out here. With my windows rolled up and the vents shut, red motes swirled inside my Sentra, making me cough and leaving a powdery residue on everything.

  I held my breath until I passed the grove of dead cottonwood trees marking the turnoff to my dad’s place. Good practice since I figured I’d be holding my breath a lot today.

  Scrub oaks lined the rutted lane. I pulled into the yard next to the machine shed, a habit from my teen years.

  After my mother’s death, my dad had started over. Sold the only home I’d ever known in Rapid City and bought a ranch in Bear Butte County. I knew he’d been raised on a farm, but I hadn’t had a clue he intended to return to that rural lifestyle. Not that living anywhere in South Dakota isn’t a rural experience.

  I didn’t adjust well to life on the ranch. My father didn’t care. He wouldn’t let me do outside chores. Instead, I cooked, cleaned, and undertook more household responsibilities than should be expected of a grieving young girl.