by Meg O'Brien
She shook his hand and glanced around for an empty chair. Every single one, it seemed, held files and law books. Angelita’s cousin made a rueful grimace. “Sorry.” He cleaned files off a chair with one swoop of his arm, then he took a few tissues from a box on his desk and dusted the seat of the chair, gesturing for her to sit.
Abby raised a brow at the mess on the floor, and he grinned. “Just old stuff I’ve been going through. It’ll still be there later.”
He was nice, she thought, and reassuring in clean khakis, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and no tie. He had an angular face, dark Hispanic complexion and vaguely resembled the actor Jimmy Smits. Or maybe it was just the name, Abby thought. Either way, he was the kind of man you meet and know right away you’ll like.
“What did you think of my cousin?” he asked, sitting in his own chair.
“I think she’s a gutsy lady,” Abby said.
“She tell you anything about herself?”
“As a matter of fact…”
Jimmy nodded.
“She’s kind of a walking soapbox.” He smiled. “She likes other women to know what she’s been through, so maybe they’ll get the message that they don’t have to put up with it themselves. Not that I necessarily approve of the way she handled her own problem.”
“She said she got three years. That doesn’t seem very long for killing someone.”
“You might say Angelita was lucky. The police caught him in the act three times, beating her to a bloody pulp. When she killed him and claimed self-defense, the police reports left no doubt that it was. Not to mention that she had the world’s best lawyer.”
“You?” Abby guessed. “I see you have plenty of law books on the shelves.”
He smiled. “The real estate is a sideline. Kind of a hobby during the summer when everything slows down here.”
He rested his arms on the desk. “But to get back to you, Abby. Angelita must have tagged you as an abused woman, too. Still, I don’t think you came to a real estate office for help with that. Am I right?”
“You are. That’s not to say I couldn’t have used some help along those lines a couple of years ago.”
“Ah…so Angelita was on the mark. Just off about the time?”
“A bit,” she said, ending that part of the conversation. “I actually came here to ask for some information about a property here in Phoenix. I figured a Realtor might have access to that sort of thing.”
“There are a lot of things we can access online,” Jimmy said. “But you could have gone to the county offices for the same thing.”
“I’m not too familiar with the area, and you were nearby,” she said. “Besides, a Realtor might have more information about a specific property and its neighborhood than a busy clerk in a county office.”
“Well, let me see what I can do.” Jimmy straightened in his chair and turned to the computer on the desk. “What’s the address?”
“It’s 13259 El Caballo,” Abby said.
He connected to the Internet. “Are you interested in buying this property?”
“Not at all,” she replied. “It’s badly run-down. I’d like to know who owns it now, and who’s living there.”
He turned back to her. “May I ask if this has anything to do with what happened to you?”
For a few minutes, Abby had forgotten about the stitches and the bloodstained clothes, despite the constant headache she’d had since leaving the hospital. But of course, it was obvious that something bad had happened.
“Are you asking if this happened there?” she said.
“Well, El Caballo Street and some of the areas around it have had a reputation for being high in crime. The city’s trying to reclaim the area and there are developers building new houses out there. The project hasn’t completely taken hold yet, though.”
“I’ll say,” Abby murmured.
“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay,” Jimmy said. “I’m just wondering…were you jumped?”
“Something like that. I was looking for someone I thought lived there, and the current residents weren’t real happy to see me.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. Do you live in Phoenix?”
“No. This is my first time here in about twenty years.”
“We can’t be leaving you with much of an impression, then.”
“On the contrary,” Abby said. “It’s left me with quite an impression—on the top of my head.”
Jimmy stared a moment, then laughed. “At least they didn’t rob you of your sense of humor.”
He turned to the computer again. “Let’s see now….”
He began a search, and Abby closed her eyes to rest them. The throbbing in her head wasn’t helped by the clacking of the computer keys, but at least they were rhythmic, and it was cool in there. An old air conditioner rattled in a back window of the small one-room office, and between the different white noises as background, and the fact that she felt safe here, she began to relax.
“Abby?” A hand on her shoulder startled her.
“No!” she shouted, hitting out instinctively. “Get away!”
Jimmy stood at her side, his hands splayed outward to show that he wasn’t going to touch her. “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “You fell asleep, that’s all.”
She forced her breathing to slow, and realized where she was. “Oh, God,” she said, shocked at her outburst. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just brought you some water,” he said. She followed his eyes to the desk where he’d placed a glass filled with water and ice cubes.
“Thank you,” she said, grabbing the glass of water and gulping it down. “They gave me medication in the hospital. I guess it made me sleepy, and when I sat down…” She smiled shakily. “I really am sorry.”
“Well, you do have quite a punch there.” He grinned, then turned serious, going back to his desk chair. “But I’m afraid I can’t help you much with that house.”
“Oh?”
“It seems to be owned by a corporation—TCIL. Some sort of import-export company. At least, that’s who pays the taxes. There doesn’t seem to be anyone living there, though.”
“But I was there,” Abby insisted. “I talked to a woman there just last night.”
Jimmy went back to the computer and turned the monitor around. “Here, I’ll show you.”
She leaned over the desk and saw that he’d brought up a county tax report. “As you can see, this corporation is listed as the owner. Now, here—” He clicked to another page. “I tried a few other things, including everything available to us as Realtors. No current residents come up for that house.”
“But—” Abby sat back down and rubbed her face. The headache was getting worse as the medication wore off.
“Look, don’t take this the wrong way,” Jimmy said, “but, uh…I don’t suppose there’s a chance that the medication they gave you in the hospital caused you to get the number wrong?”
She showed him the piece of paper. “I wrote this down long before I was there, and long before I was in the hospital. I’m certain it’s right.” Abby began to slump in the chair, her energy flagging.
He stood. “Look, see that armchair back there next to the air conditioner? Why don’t you go back and relax a few minutes. I’ve got one more source I can check out.”
“I really didn’t mean to take up so much of your time,” Abby said tiredly. “I should go.”
He smiled. “You’ve got my curiosity going, so you might as well stay. I really want to follow this through.”
“But you must have other work to do.”
“Oh, there’s always something with criminal law. But like I said, it’s slow here in the summer. It’s as if half the crooks are too hot to do much, so they take a siesta till fall.”
“I wish they’d been taking one last night,” Abby said, wincing as a sharp pain ran through her head.
“Go,” Jimmy said. “It’s cooler back there, and if you fall asleep agai
n, that’s okay, too. I’ll wake you up when I know something.”
She hesitated, unsure if she should trust him. His niceness might be an act.
Don’t be crazy. You’re getting paranoid.
The truth was, she felt that for her own safety she had to suspect everyone now—even those she felt intuitively she could trust. Maybe Angelita, the cabdriver, was with the FBI. Did she “just happen” to pick her up outside the hospital because they told her to? Had Angelita brought her here so that this man, pretending to be her cousin, could find something out from her?
It was all too much. Trust, don’t trust. Either way, she could be making a mistake. But when presented with someone she didn’t know, versus Ben Schaeffer and Robert Lessing—two men she did know—she might as well take the devil at hand.
16
A sharp pain flew through Abby’s torso. She was pinned to a bed by someone’s weight, a hand pulling her jeans down, then jamming itself between her thighs. Tears of impotency and rage filled her eyes.
“How does it feel?” a male voice said. “How does it feel to have all that power and not be able to do anything with it?”
She tried with everything she had to shake him off, but her efforts didn’t work. An arm held her head in place, and her screams, coming from deep within her throat, made little sound. He began ramming her over and over, so mindlessly and rough she felt pain in her skull. Then, suddenly, a new kind of agony seared through her, robbing her of sanity and will.
“You know how sick I got of hearing how you wanted a baby?” the male voice rasped. “You wanted pain down here, some doctor, some other man, sticking his bloody instruments up you? Well, now you have it. Everything you ever wanted, bitch.”
She screamed again, though there was no sound. It was the last thing she knew till she woke on the hill…the hill…the cross…oh, God, the cross…the car…the handcuffs…
“Abby! Abby, wake up!”
Jimmy was frowning, standing above her. “Thank God. For a minute there, I thought you were unconscious.”
She was back in the realty office, drenched in sweat despite the air conditioner that still kicked out its icy breath next to her.
“I was dreaming,” she said, her voice weak and her whole body shaking from the memory. It wasn’t real, she told herself. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t…
But the mantra parried with truth, because it had been real, two years ago.
After all this time…why am I dreaming this now? I thought I was better. They told me I was better.
She freshened up in a cramped but clean bathroom that shared space with large new packages of paper towels and toilet paper. Looking in the white-framed mirror attached to the wall, she saw how tired and drawn her face was. Would she ever be over it? The psychologist had called it post-traumatic stress disorder. The dreams, the fear, the flashbacks even when awake…
The bruises on her lower face made her look harsh, and even a bit scary. What must the man in the outer office think of her, showing up on his doorstep like this? Amazing that he hadn’t just called the cops.
She washed her face with a wet paper towel, then tried to style her hair with a damp hand, so that it covered the stitches on her scalp. Her arms quickly became weak, though, and she gave it up as a lost cause.
Sighing, she went back into the outer office just in time to see Jimmy Delgado put her purse back on the desk.
“Looking for something?” she said sharply.
“Uh, no, just moving it…” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets, facing her. “Okay, here’s the truth. I was checking the local news while you were in there. You were on it.”
“Me? On the news?”
“There’s an APB out on you. That’s an all points bulletin—”
“I know what an APB is,” she snapped. “Why are they looking for me?”
“Well, according to the news, the police say you left the hospital without permission.”
“Right. That’s true. But people check themselves out of hospitals all the time. They don’t get arrested for it—and they certainly don’t end up on the news.”
“Uh…they do if they’re being sought on a murder charge,” he said.
She was so shocked, she couldn’t come up with words.
Jimmy walked around his desk and turned off the television and computer. “The name was the same, but the photo on the news didn’t look much like you. The face was more swollen than yours is now, but the bruises and stitches matched.”
He paused and folded his arms. “So, care to share? Who did you kill? They didn’t say, on the news.”
“I did not kill anyone,” Abby said. “I’m the one who was attacked and almost killed. Besides, what has this got to do with you rifling through my purse?”
“I did not rifle,” he said. “You never told me your last name, and I wanted to check your ID, make sure you were the Abby Northrup they were looking for. I decided not to.”
“And if you had? Would I have walked out here to a posse of cops?”
“I’m not sure. I wanted to know what I was getting into, first.”
“Well, then, you’ll be reassured to hear that you’re not getting into anything,” Abby said coldly, “because I’m leaving. I won’t bother you again.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
She wasn’t sure she had heard him right. “You don’t think what?”
“I don’t think you’re leaving. At least, not alone. As a matter of fact, I have other plans for you.”
He reached under his desk for a brown paper bag. “First, though, you need a change of clothes. Angelita brought these by for you.”
Abby looked in the bag and found a pair of jeans shorts and a sleeveless white T-shirt. They weren’t new, but smelled freshly washed.
“Where—”
“She has her sources,” Jimmy said. “You want to put them on?”
“I…yes, of course,” she said, surprised at the tears this one small kindness brought to her eyes. She suddenly didn’t feel so alone, as she had when she’d woken in the hospital and found that Ben was gone.
It must have been the dream, she thought. The dreams always make me feel lost and afraid.
Abby took the clothes into the bathroom and changed. When she came out, Jimmy picked up a summer-weight tan blazer off the back of his chair but didn’t put it on.
“Come with me,” he said.
“No,” Abby said, shaking her head. “Look, I appreciate all this, your help and the clothes and all, but I’ve been thinking, and I’m not sure—”
Jimmy sighed, but his tone was firm. “Woman, this whole thing has ratcheted up a notch since you walked in here. If I don’t turn you in, I could be charged with having harbored a fugitive. For my own protection, I need to know what’s going on. And, if you’re lucky, I just might represent you.”
“Forget it. I don’t need you representing me. I did not murder anyone.”
“Yeah, well, like they say, tell it to the judge. But you’ll be a lot better off with me by your side.”
“You don’t even know me,” Abby said. “How could you possibly think of defending me?”
“Oh, I’ll know you all right, by the time we’re through. I’ll also know every single detail about your trip to Phoenix, how you got those bruises and stitches, and more important, why.”
She was silent for a long moment. “Why should I trust you?” she said finally.
“Maybe because I didn’t call the cops the minute I heard they were looking for you? Maybe because I told you they were looking for you, instead of keeping you in the dark and letting you walk out of here looking like Herman Munster?”
He walked to the door and pulled down green roller shades against the hot sun, then hung a Closed sign in the window.
“Are you coming?” he called back, opening the door. His voice sounded as if he were mentally tapping an impatient foot.
Abby picked up her small purse and took a quick look inside. Everything se
emed to be there.
“I’m coming,” she said grudgingly. “But don’t think I’ve decided to trust you.”
“Now, why on earth would I think that?” He shook his head, and when she passed through the door, he closed it behind them both with a thud.
17
Abby knew she was losing her mental balance. The beating she’d taken, not to mention the one she’d given herself trying to get out of that car, had taken its toll. Along with everything else, she’d lost her focus on the job at hand. She had to find Alicia. That was the important thing. And she couldn’t do that if she was in jail.
Anger and confusion worked their way through her mind. What are they doing to me? What murder are they trying to pin on me? The one at the Highlands? Instead of Alicia? Or has something else happened?
“Look, I really do have to be somewhere,” she said as Jimmy eased his air-conditioned black Lexus around traffic.
“You said that,” he responded. “A couple of times. Three or four, at least.”
She looked at him to see if he was being critical, or poking fun at her. There was no way to tell with his eyes hidden behind the aviator-type sunglasses.
“Where are we going?”
“I told you that three or four times, too,” he answered. “A place I know.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it. The truth was, she’d either have to get out of the car or give up worrying about where he was taking her. And she didn’t feel up to walking. She would keep her wits about her as much as possible, though, and go with whatever happened. Even if he were driving her straight to a police station, dumping her and her troubles off there, she could handle it. She’d been through worse. Much worse.
“I do have to call someone,” she said, fighting off a growing anger.
He sighed. “You said that—”
“I know, I know!” she snapped. “Three or four times, I’m sure!”
“Actually, only once.” This time he grinned.
“Please don’t patronize me. I do have to call someone.”
“I’m not patronizing you,” he said. “It’s just that your mind is a little—”
“Off! You don’t have to say it, dammit, I know!”