Anyway, I assure you that whoever did this isn't from my office, the U.S. Marshal's office, or the Sheridan police."
"Then who the hell was it?"
"I don't know. But I intend to find out," he added tersely.
"Is anything missing?"
"I haven't noticed anything, but I haven't really looked. I came in, saw the mess, and was so angry I didn't take inventory before calling you."
"Check around."
She did as he asked while his men got on the phone and requested that a crime lab unit be dispatched immediately.
Ricki Sue stood by and watched helplessly as her house was pillaged for the second time that day, this time by professionals looking for clues as to who might have initially vandalized it.
"Look, this isn't an ordinary Beef," Pepperdyne said when her vocal protests turned vituperative. "We're working on a federal case, and because of your close personal relationship with Mrs. Burnwood, you've become an important element in this case."
"This was probably a random burglary and had nothing to do with that."
"You don't believe that any more than I do," he said, guessing that her angry outbursts were bluffs to hide her increasing apprehension. Her complaints had lost some of their previous bluster, which was good. If he couldn't bully her into helping them locate her friend, maybe fear would motivate her to reveal a few secrets.
"Whoever did this wasn't out to steal," he explained. "He didn't take the normal stuff, TVs, cameras, stereos. He was looking for something altogether different."
"Like what?"
"Like a clue into Mrs. Burnwood's whereabouts."
"Then they're S.O.L.shit out of luck."
Pepperdyne ignored the vulgarity as he picked up on some thing else.
"I'm betting that one man didn't do all this.
Subconsciously, so are you. Every reference you've made to the burglars has been plural."
"Don't get all excited, Pepperdyne. I only said what popped into my head."
"It popped into your head for a reason, Ricki Sue. You have someone in mind, don't you? Just as I do."'
Suddenly nervous, she wet her lips. "You mean, maybe it was Matt Burnwood and his father?"
"It's a possibility."
"Oh, shit!" She groaned. "I want nothing to do with those goons."
"When I arrived, you referred to the burglars as 'perverts."
Why?" Pepperdyne asked. "Beyond the obvious. They emptied your lingerie d rawers, but that's common for thieves looking for treasure troves."
"It wasn't that." She took his arm and bragged him across the living room to the coffee table. "Look at these magazines."
A naked, muscle-bound hunk smiled enticingly at Pepper dyne from the centerfold of a Playgirl. "Quite a schlong. So what?"
"Quite a schlong is right. So why would I grind my heel against it and ruin it?"
In the center of the photo, the paper was; pleated, the folds radiating from a central point in a whorl. It did appear that someone had ground his heel on it. "Could Have been unintentional."
Ricki Sue shook her collapsing monument of hair. "I don't think so, because there's another one over here. This really pisses me off, too. I paid fifty bucks for this book. It was the one souvenir I brought back from San' Francisco when I vacationed there two summers ago."
She directed him around the sofa. Books and videos had been swept from the shelves and left where they'd fallen.
Pepperdyne knelt to take a closer look at The book to which she referred. The volume of erotica was opened to a full page color photograph of a couple engaged in a sexual act. Across the photograph were scuff marks, as though someone had cleaned his shoes on it.
"Not exactly the missionary position," Pepperdyne re marked.
"That's why this was the ultimate turn-on picture in the whole book. Jack-be-nimble, the man of my dreams. This pic alone was worth the fifty bucks."
"I'll buy you another copy," Pepperdyne said as he came to his feet. "I'll buy you a whole goddamn library of dirty books if you'll tell me where Mrs. Burnwood is."
"You don't listen very good, do you? Read my lips, asshole.
I don't know." She spread her arms wide to encompass the disarray inside the house. "Whoever came here and trashed my place searching for a 'clue' is barking up the same wrong tree as you."
"Sir, it was them all right. The prints match."
Pepperdyne thanked the officer who had brought him the report as soon as it was available, then he spun around and addressed the police captain.
"You heard him. Gibb and Matt Burnwood vandalized Miss. Robb's house this afternoon. They are in this town. Call in every man on your force. My men are at your disposal, and more are on the way. I want these bastards found. Tonight.
Now."
The policeman charged off to do Pepperdyne's bidding, but the FBI man called him back for one final word: "They're mean sons of bitches. Tell your men not to be deceived by their good looks and pleasant mannerisms. They're fanatics, believing that they're ordained to carry out a godly mission. They'll kill anyone who stands in their way. Tell your officers to proceed with extreme caution if they sight them."
"Yes, sir."
Pepperdyne flopped back in the desk chair and rubbed his tired eyes with the heels of his palms. Surrendering to his fatigue was a luxury he couldn't afford. Since John had been reported missing, he'd only napped now and then, catching a few minutes of sleep whenever he could. He wouldn't sleep through a whole night until his friend and Mrs. Burnwood were found and Matt and Gibb Burnwood were either dead or behind bars under armed guard.
What he had told that redheaded virago had been a personal confession he did feel responsible for getting John into this mess.
It had begun as a joke, albeit a rather cruel one. He had thought it would be therapeutic for John. Spending time with Mrs. Burnwood's baby might undo the damage done to his psyche in New Mexico.
This had been Pepperdyne's thinking when he entrusted them into John's care. Never in his wildest imagination had he thought his friend would wind up a key player in one of the most bizarre crimes of the decade.
The more the Bureau uncovered on the Brotherhood, the more Pepperdyne feared for John and Mrs. Burnwood. Ritualistic executions and disfigurements, chants and secret pass words, enough torture and bloodshed to make the Marquis de Sade seem an amateur these were the Brotherhood's stock in-trade.
Dejectedly, Pepperdyne rose to his feet and stretched his aching lower back. He walked to the window and gazed out over the town of Sheridan. Darkness had fallen. Nighttime would provide the Burnwoods more places to hide and more opportunities to avoid recapture. They were somewhere out there. But where?
Also somewhere out there were Mrs. Burnwood and his friend, John McGrath. No one, not even someone as clever as Mrs. Burnwood, could disappear completely. Somebody had noticed them. They were somewhere.
"But where, dammit?" Pepperdyne said out loud.
He didn't even know where to start looking for them.
The only thing Special Agent Jim Pepperdyne knew with absolute certainty was that if Matt Burnwood found his former wife before the authorities did, she wouldn't have to worry about being prosecuted for her crimes.
She would be dead.
Chapter 34
". . . and the Woman died before her case was brought to trial. She died from AIDS, without dignity and in pain. Yet all she cared about was saying goodbye to her children. A request that was denied _ "
Kendall was recounting for John the story she had told Matt and Gibb in that seemed like another lifetime. It had been another lifetime, far reproved from this small bedroom in her grand mother's farm in southeastern Tennessee.
"Every time I lose a case, I take it personally. It's as though I've let her dow again."
"So that's when you lose one of the toughest jobs available in your profession."
"I suppose."
"It was certainly an impelling incident, but I think there's more. I think you were achievement orien
ted long before you became a lawyer and got involved with this AIDS patient's case."
She raised her head from his shoulder and looked into his face. "Why do you want to talk about my personal history?
Is it important?" '
"I know nothing about you except what's happened since I regained consciousness. Yes, it's important to me."
Sighing, she returned her head to his shoulder. Actually, she wasn't as disinclined to talk as she pretended. His quiet manner inspired personal confessions, and she wanted him to remember her. Afterward.
"Why are you so driven, Kendall?"
"Who says I am?"
"Hey," he chided, "talk to me. What happened to your parents?"
"They died in a private-plane crash on their way to a ski vacation in Colorado."
"What were they like?"
"Vital. Energetic. Funny. Affectionate with each other and with me. I thought they were the most wonderful two people on the face of the earth. I loved them with all my heart."
"They were killed years ahead of their prime. So you feel that you must live life for them and get from it what they were denied. That's what drives you."
Her head popped up again. "What are you, a shrink?" She was teasing, but he remained unsmiling.
"What made you the determined, are, Kendall?"
"I told you'
"Dig deeper."
"All right, if you want to play doctor, I'll humor you."
Resigned, she took a deep breath. "The morning they left for Colorado, while we were saying our goodbyes and hugging all around, my dad said, "Before we come back, see if you can straighten up your room and make us proud." Well, they never came back. So I guess I'm still trying to make them proud."
"That's the condensed version, but it's very insightful."
"Thank you. Now, can we move on to something more recreational? There are more fun ways to play doctor, you know."
headstrong woman you
"You can't win the approval of someone who's dead, Kendall. You don't have to be the best at everything."
"So I've been told."
"By whom?"
"My husband."
He gave her a sharp look, and Kendall's heart almost stopped. Panic seized her, but she knew she had to keep talking, had to offer a hasty explanation. "I mean, you'r so different now, that I think of that husband, the one who betrayed me, as someone else."
"I am someone else. Aren't I?"
"Yes, you are," she replied huskily. "You've changed even since we've been here. And you don't even resemble the nan I married. He belongs in a bad dream that happened a bad time ago, in another place."
He held her gaze for a long time before resuming the discussion. "You began lying when your parents were killed, right?"
"I don't lie."
"That's not even a debatable point, Kendall. You're very good at it."
"If I were that good, you wouldn't suspect that everything I tell you is a lie."
"Not everything. But a lot. You must have had years of practice."
"I always wanted to make things better than they were.
When I was a child, I would . . . rearrange reality, make it more palatable. Rather than having parents who were dead, I invented two fascinating parents with fabulous careers that prevented them from living with me.
"One year they were film stars who wanted to protect me from Hollywood's corruption. One year, explorers to the berth Pole. Then they were missionaries to an Iron Curtain country who converted the lost on Sundays and ran dangerous errands for the CIA during the week."
"Quite an imagination."
Smiling reminiscently, she added, "My imagination didn't go over so well with school counselors and teachers. I stayed in trouble for what they called lying, but what I considered readjusting the facts to improve an otherwise intolerable situation."
"What about later, in adulthood? If an intolerable situation cropped up, did you readjust the facts?"
"For instance?" she asked cautiously.
"For instance, if your husband was stricken with amnesia, and couldn't remember you or anything about your relation ship, would you fake how you really felt about him?"
Tears formed in her eyes. She shook her head. "You're right, I've told too many lies to count. Usually to put a more positive spin on a situation. Sometimes, I admit, to get my way."
She touched his hair, his eyelashes, his lips. "But some things can't be faked. And one of them is love. If I didn't love you, I couldn't pretend to. Even with amnesia, you would know the truth, wouldn't you? You would feel it."
She guided his hand to her heart and held it pressed there.
"When you regain your memory, you might suffer another kind of amnesia that will block out everything that occurred after the accident. You will have forgotten this time we've spent together, here in this house."
She framed his face between her hands. "But if you don't remember anything else, remember that I loved you while we were here." She kissed him softly to seal the vow.
He kissed her in return. Soon their mouths melded. His hands began to explore the soft contours of her body. Her bent knee provocatively nudged his groin.
"Again," he whispered.
She lightly ground her knee against the firm fuzziness of his lap until his erection became distinct. She took it between her hands and massaged its hard, smooth length.
He kissed his way down her center, leaning into her until she was lying on her back. He nipped her tummy with his teeth and nuzzled her mound. He stroked her thighs, gradually separating them.
Then his mouth was intimate with her.
Kendall gave herself over to the breathtaking sensations.
Without shame or modesty she allowed them to undulate up through her belly and breasts. Delicately his tongue probed and flicked and stroked and raved until she shattered like a fine piece of crystal.
He rose above her, but not until he was kissing her mouth did he enter her. When she adjusted her hips to take in all of him,- he closed his eyes and swore softly.
Kendall sank her fingers in his hair and clasped his head.
"Open your eyes, John. Look at me," she said in a soft, urgent voice. "Look at my face. Remember me."
He did as she asked, but he didn't cease the firm, fluid thrusts that sent him deep inside her. When he came, he called her name in a hoarse, choppy voice, then surrendered to the spasms that rocked his body, his world.
When it was over, he gathered her beneath him, enfolding her, his face buried in her neck. Kendall held him for a long time, occasionally stroking his head and whispering, "Remember me, John. Remember me."
Chapter 35
A man slid into the booth across from Ricki Sue. "Hi."
"Fuck off."
"That ain't very neighborly. Don't you remember me? My brother and me asked you for directions today."
For the past half hour Ricki Sue had been sitting alone, drinking steadily, trying to dull the cutting edge of Pepper dyne's sharp warnings.
If something terrible happened to Mrs. Burnwood and her baby, it would be Ricki Sue's fault, he had said.
If she wanted to see her best friend alive, she had better play straight with him and tell him everything she knew.
If they died, she would forever after have their deaths on her conscience. Their lives were in her hands.
He had gone on and on, spouting so many dire predictions that she had felt the need to escape his voice. After he'd left, the house made her claustrophobic. It was still a mess.
Pepperdyne had promised to send over a cleaning crew tomorrow to help with the black dusting powder, but she couldn't stand looking at the damage a moment longer.
The constant reminder that someone had invaded her privacy and handled her personal things had left her with a rare sense of vulnerability. Besides and she would never admit this to Pepperdyne she was frightened to be there alone.
She'd had to get out. So she had come to this bar. It wasn't a place she visited often. Not wanting
company tonight, she had avoided the clubs where she was well known and likely to run into friends wanting to party.
She wanted to get stinko tonight. Alone. Already a few men had regarded her speculatively, but she'd shot down their come-ons with hostile glares. No one had dared approach her until now.
When she raised her head and looked more closely at the man who had joined her, she recognized him instantly. Her heart gave a little skip. Her standard, scathing brush-off died on her lips. Her scowl reversed into a smile.
"Did you find Sunset Street?"
"Yeah, thanks to you. But the friend we were looking for had moved. Somewhere out of town." Henry Crook shrugged indifferently. "Don't matter none. We were just knocking around and thought we'd look him up."
"Where's your brother?"
"Luther's his name. Mine's Henry."
"I'm Ricki Sue. Ricki Sue Robb."
"Fancy running into you twice in one day. Must be destiny or something."
"Must be," Ricki Sue simpered.
His eyes were an exceptional color of blue. Nice blond hair, too. No mental giant, but so what? Pepperdyne was smart, and he was a royal pain in the ass.
Besides, supersmart men made her feel inferior. She preferred men who were her intellectual equals. Ordinarily she was turned off by bad grammar, but Henry and his twin had a tough, rawboned appeal that aroused her.
She fluttered her eyelashes. "I'm almost finished with my drink."
"Can I buy you another one?"
"That would be lovely. Whiskey and soda, please."
He went to the bar and ordered. Looking back at her, he smiled in a boyishly shy way that caused a catch in her throat.
Shy men never failed to turn her on. There was so much she could teach them!
He returned with their drinks. After the first few sips, she asked, "Where're y'all from?"
"Uh, West Virginia."
"Hmm. You sound more southern than that."
"We were raised in South Carolina, but the family moved when me and Luther were in high school."
"What do you do?"
"We're in the automotive business."
"How interesting!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "I'm fascinated with cars and engines and stuff."
She wasn't in the least, but her phony fascination gave her an opportunity to lean forward and provide Henry a stunning view of her deep cleavage. She was wearing a black, open weave top over a black bra, which was meant to reveal.
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