by Alice Sharpe
“The marshal? A little. Rumor has it he’s not a happy camper at his job. One of those disgruntled types, you know. In my book, that makes him dangerous. But worse, my contact said the man disappeared from California a week ago.”
“Damn.”
“Since you mentioned him, I’ve been thinking. Ballard has access to where you came from, who your friends are, everything. If he’s the one after you, he’ll look here next. He also has to know of any number of hired killers willing to make a few bucks by eliminating you—and yours. You opened a can of worms when you left the program.”
“They failed to protect me,” Adam insisted, his voice wary. “So I protected myself.”
“At great cost,” Whip said with a sidelong glance at Chelsea.
Adam looked down at the ground then into Chelsea’s eyes. “You think I don’t know that?” he muttered. She caught his hand and squeezed it tight. “Anyway, Ballard has no personal vendetta against me. The most he did was finger me and fail to warn me when trouble came. I can’t see why he would come after me.”
“You’re being shortsighted. If he’s guilty of fingering you and it comes out he’s in danger of losing his job, you, son, constitute a loose end and men like Ballard don’t like loose ends.”
The silence stretched on and Whip shook his head. “Look, I know I’m being blunt. I’m just worried.”
“Yeah,” Adam said.
Chelsea attempted to break the tension with an off-topic remark. “We heard Aimee Holton is still living on the mesa.”
Whip’s eyebrows furrowed. “Aimee Holton? Why are you asking about her?”
“Everything Holton is on our radar right now,” Adam said. “I thought the government confiscated his possessions after his conviction.”
“All I know,” Whip said, “is that Aimee’s father is some wheeler-dealer back east. Tons of money. Bought the place through a holding company or something. The mesa didn’t belong to Holton so the Feds couldn’t touch it. For all intents and purposes, it’s Aimee’s. You did her a favor by helping to cut her loose from her husband.” He clasped Adam’s shoulder and softened his voice. “It’s time to cut your losses. Does anybody else know you’re here?”
“Just an old friend,” Adam said.
“Old friends mention things to people and then they mention it to other people—”
“One way or another,” Adam interrupted, “I’ve got to put an end to this.”
Whip finally looked resigned to Adam’s will. “Okay, if you won’t listen to me, then at least let me help.”
“I think it’s better if you don’t,” Adam said. “Frankly, Whip, I want you out of this mess.”
“I’m not the kind of guy to back down, you know that,” Whip grumbled.
“Please.”
He glanced at Chelsea again. “I really wish you two had stayed away from this place. I have a bad feeling—okay, but remember I’ll be here if you need backup. You can always depend on me. All I want is your safety.”
“I know. Thanks,” Adam said. He took Chelsea’s hand. “We’d better get going.”
They took a few steps toward the van before Chelsea asked a question. “Why did you tell him you were here to show me Arizona? Don’t you trust him?”
“With my life. But as you can see, he’s overprotective at times. I gave in and owned up to my real reasons because he saw through me. He always does.” He peered down into her eyes. “I’m banking the answers we need are up on that mesa.”
She sighed. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
Chapter Thirteen
A youngish woman with a black ponytail opened the Holton door. With a sweep of her arm, she ushered Chelsea into the house.
“I’m Daisy Hanks, the new cook,” Chelsea explained. “Ms. Holton is expecting me.”
“Maria,” the woman said, tapping her chest. “Sigueme,” she added as she gestured for Chelsea to follow her. Instead of going down the hall that appeared to lead to the bedroom wing of the spacious house, they went in the other direction, through the kitchen, where a teenage girl stood at the sink with her back to the room. Her jeans and T-shirt were good quality but hung on her small frame.
“Aqui,” Maria coached, and led Chelsea past the laundry room and a small bath, ending in a square room with one window set high in the wall. “You sleep,” the woman said in broken English. She pointed at the bed.
Chelsea assumed she didn’t mean they had an early curfew but that this was Chelsea’s room.
“It’s very nice,” Chelsea said.
A honking car startled both women. It sounded like it came from right outside the window.
“Mi amiga,” Maria said with a smile. She nodded at Chelsea and hurried from the room.
“It was very nice to meet you,” Chelsea called after her as Maria disappeared toward the kitchen. A minute later, Chelsea heard a nearby door close. She moved to the window and stood on tiptoe to look outside in time to witness Maria getting into a sedan driven by a friendly-looking woman. The car drove away almost at once.
It took Chelsea less than five minutes to unpack her bag and stow her toiletries in the bathroom. She returned to her room, sat on the edge of the bed and found herself missing Adam.
Time to put her mind elsewhere. Time to spy.
She returned to the kitchen, hoping she might run into Aimee. Snooping might be the reason she’d taken the job, but cooking was what was going to keep her around long enough to ferret something out.
The dark-haired teen still stood at the sink washing what Chelsea now saw was a cupboard’s worth of stemmed glasses. “Hi,” Chelsea said.
The girl turned anxious brown eyes in her direction. Only the bruise on her cheek distracted from the beauty of her heavily lashed eyes and smooth olive skin.
“How about I dry these for you?” Chelsea asked.
The teenager’s expression remained blank. Chelsea opened a drawer and pulled out a clean cloth. She dangled it from her fingers in what had to be the universal language for “I can dry.” Eyes now wide, the girl turned back to the sink.
Chelsea looked around to make sure they were alone. Touching the girl’s shoulder to get her attention again, she parroted Maria’s gesture and touched her own chest. “Yo me llamo Daisy,” she whispered in her newfound second language. It was the first Spanish she’d spoken in the house and the reason was probably silly. Aimee had made a point of asking Chelsea if she spoke Spanish. Something about the way she asked the question caused Chelsea to shake her head.
Was that James Bond-like or what?
For several seconds the girl said nothing but finally her lips parted. “Mariana.”
“Mariana,” Chelsea repeated. She touched her own cheek and added in Spanish, “Did someone hit you, Mariana?”
The girl’s sudsy hand flew to her face. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Mariana nodded.
“Who?” Chelsea asked in English. “Quien?”
Mariana’s lips parted, then she quickly turned her head and went back to work right as Aimee Holton wafted into the room.
“You’d be wasting your time with that one even if she did speak English,” Aimee said. “The girl has a foul temper.”
“Don’t you find it hard to communicate your wishes?” Chelsea asked. There was no way she was going to address the temper remark. For one thing, did that mean Aimee had inflicted that bruise on Mariana’s cheek? And for another, the kid looked scared, not angry.
Aimee responded to that question by firing off a flood of Spanish directed at Mariana. It was like her words were battering rams, each one striking the girl until her eyes clouded over and she shook her head. She rinsed the glass she was washing, set it too hard on a folded towel, where it bumped against another, which toppled over and created a domino effect. Chelsea dived to save glasses from crashing against the floor. Mariana’s hands f
lew up to her face as she watched in horror.
Chelsea expected Aimee to scream or gasp, but what she did was worse. “Fuera de aqui,” she said in a deadly quiet voice, firing the girl on the spot.
Holding her jeans up around her waist with one hand while dabbing at her eyes with the other, Mariana fled the room.
“Daisy, don’t just stand there, clean up that mess!” Aimee demanded as she stormed after Mariana. “I have a call to make!”
By the time Chelsea had disposed of the debris and Aimee returned, the dishes were all washed and put away.
“Can you believe that brat?” Aimee said as she sat down.
“I think someone hit her earlier. She seemed kind of afraid or nervous—”
“Give me a break,” Aimee said. “Someone got exasperated with her and I don’t blame them.”
“But hitting—”
“I can’t abide busybodies,” Aimee interrupted with a warning scowl. “I sure hope you aren’t one. Now, how about some iced tea?”
“No thank you,” Chelsea said.
“Tea for me, Daisy, not for you,” Aimee said.
“Oh.” Chelsea found a pitcher of tea in the fridge and poured a glass. Aiming to get the conversation back on track, she delivered the iced glass with a question. “I see another house is being built up the road. Are you going to have neighbors?”
“That’s my new place,” Aimee said. “This house is so dated and small. And it reminds me of Devin. That’s my husband.”
“Oh. I take it you’re divorced or—”
“No,” she interrupted. “He was framed and sent to jail. I’m going to tear this place down and build an indoor tennis court. I love it up here. Oh, everyone thought Devin was the driving force behind buying this land, but it was really me.”
“You must be livid at the people who put your husband in prison,” Chelsea said.
“Do you know what he did?”
“No,” Chelsea lied.
“You’ll hear soon enough. People love to talk.”
“Don’t you resent the people who, um, accused him or testified against him?” Chelsea said, still trying to get a response to her question.
“The main rat behind it was my sexy bodyguard,” Aimee said in a confidential tone. “What a hunk, but Devin should have known better than to hire someone as straight-arrow as him. I can’t tell you how often I pranced around in next to nothing and he never made a move.” She thrust out a lower lip. “Don’t you have something you need to do?”
Everything about this woman grated on Chelsea’s nerves. She wore entitlement like a badge of honor, as though it was something she’d earned. The sneer beneath her smile and smirk lingering in her eyes bore this out. And if there was an ounce of compassion or humanity in her, it was well-hidden. “Yes, ma’am,” Chelsea murmured as she began wiping down a counter.
Aimee gave no sign that she’d noticed Chelsea’s sarcasm. She tapped her fingernails against the windowsill as she sipped the tea. In contrast to her afternoon ensemble of shorts and a cotton blouse, she currently wore a plunging white jumpsuit. High-heeled sandals gave her a two-inch lift, aided by mounds of reddish brown hair piled atop her head. She was a pretty thirty-something-year-old woman living all alone on a mesa.
“On a different subject,” Chelsea began, “since I really only have tomorrow to plan and shop for Friday night, I need a few details about your soiree.”
“My what?”
“Soiree. Party.”
“What details?”
“Like who’s invited.”
“My guests enjoy their privacy.”
“Well, that’s great but I need some idea of quantity and allergies...”
She waved her hand. “We can discuss all that tomorrow when you whip a few things up. Actually, I’m glad I ran into you. I’m having a breakfast meeting in the morning. Maria can’t cook worth a lick so I’ll have to depend on you to have a carafe of hot coffee in the garden room at six thirty, followed by breakfast at seven.”
“Okay,” Chelsea said. “What are your menu preferences?”
“Oh, anything. Eggs benedict with smoked salmon, biscuits, pancakes, sliced fruit—you know, the usual.”
As Chelsea’s idea of the usual was apparently a bagel, she only nodded. Aimee’s cell phone rang and she slipped it from an invisible pocket, checked the screen and swiped it on. “About time you called,” she said, as she walked out of the room. “Where are you?”
Chelsea thought about eavesdropping on Aimee’s side of the conversation but abandoned the idea. Instead she let herself outside onto a narrow porch. A closed gate on her left invited investigation and she opened it cautiously. It was dark by now, but as she moved inside the gate, sensors activated low-wattage lights that illuminated a footpath that led to a spacious patio.
Several rooms of the house bordered the patio. One was brightly lit and drew her attention. She saw Aimee perched on the corner of a desk in a room that was decidedly masculine. Her husband’s old den or office? Maybe. She was still on her phone.
The path curved around a built-in grill and toward a lovely pool. Native rock and clever use of the land’s natural contours made what had to be an aboveground pool appear like a sunken one. It would be heaven to jump in and paddle around but she knew without asking that was a no-no for the hired help. She walked around the pool and let herself out through another gate.
All pretense of prettiness disappeared. This was the utility part of the property, the place where garbage was collected and yard tools were scattered. Its dominant feature was a small building from which the tantalizing aroma of chili wafted on a welcome breeze. A clothesline with various female garments hung on it ran between the structure and a fence. Since the front door was ajar, Chelsea craned her neck to see if this was where Mariana had disappeared to, but the only person she saw was a woman fanning herself with a magazine.
She continued walking until the trail split, the left leading to some weathered-looking buildings a good distance away, and the right toward the bluff.
The wind grew stronger as she reached the guardrail that kept unwary pedestrians from walking too close to the edge. She perched atop it and rested one hand on her abdomen. Her new short hair blew around her face in a pleasant way.
She counted back in her head, wondering how “old” she was in this rendition of her life without a past. Day one would be the crash. Day two would be Doc Fisher. Day three, her brother, day four, the day she bolted and that made today day five. In those five days she’d traveled from California to Nevada to Arizona, shot two men, killing one, been cold, hot, terrified and lost in rapture. Not bad for the first five days of “life.”
She turned her attention to the valley below. From this vantage point, she could see the town in the distance and the more or less straight road that led between it and the mesa, obvious because of the moving headlights of vehicles traveling north and south. Many other lights twinkled, indicating occupied homes, but the brightest glow came from Hard Rock.
“I thought I might find you out here,” a man said, Recognizing the voice, she smiled as she turned. Adam settled his hands on her shoulders, leaned down and kissed the top of her head. It felt so right to have him near. Safer, too, though that was an odd thought as nothing remotely dangerous had happened since they’d gotten to Arizona.
Which must mean they’d fallen off their nemesis’ radar.
“Aren’t you supposed to be rousting rowdy teenagers?” she asked.
“Not until later,” he said, sitting on the fence beside her. “Aren’t you supposed to be cooking something?”
“Not until later,” she mimicked with a smile. “Tonight all I accomplished was getting a girl fired.”
“Why do you say that?”
She told him about Mariana’s upsetting departure from the kitchen. “She has a bruised cheek. Do you think
Aimee’s capable of hitting her?”
“Aimee is impetuous, self-centered and impatient, so, yes, it’s possible she lost her temper,” he said. “How about this party? Who’s coming?”
“She isn’t saying. Claims people want their privacy. And why can’t anybody who works in her house speak much English?”
Adam considered her question. “It might be a holdover from her husband wanting everything he said and did to be a secret. It came out in the trial that he was also importing drugs. Maybe she got used to his ways. She’s very fluent in Spanish. Have you discovered yet that you know some of the language, too?”
“I overheard two women talking to each other and actually knew what they were saying. But Aimee talks too fast for me.”
“Where is she now?” Adam asked.
“Aimee? Inside. She’s all dressed up like she’s going out, but the last I saw she was talking with someone on the phone.”
“A broken date?”
“I have no idea.”
“Man, we have nothing.”
“Well, she did mention a six thirty a.m. meeting tomorrow.”
He perked up. “Did she say with whom?”
“A business associate.”
“What kind of business associate?”
“She didn’t say.”
He swore under his breath. “Diego told me Aimee is behind in paying his crew’s wages. I wonder why.”
“Knowing Aimee for all of two hours, I can say with some authority that if she thought yanking their chains would amuse her, she would do just that. She likes power.”
He stared at her. “You think so?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I wish I knew if the boyfriend is Tom Nolan,” Adam said. “I never noticed the two of them cozying up to each other while Holton was around, but then again, she had a husband and he had a wife to consider. Still, he’s the kind of older, suave guy that Aimee might be drawn to.”
“What does he look like?”
“About fifty, a silver ponytail and a diamond stud in his left ear. You’ll know him if you see him.”
“You said he was a crony of Holton’s,” Chelsea said. “Are you thinking he might still be doing Holton’s bidding?”