The Maze

by Catherine Coulter

  “A real big one down,” Savich said. “Everybody to the gym for celebrations.”

  There was groaning from around the table.

  Lacey was still on a high when she went to the women’s room in the middle of the afternoon, a redone men’s room that looked it. When workmen had removed the urinals, they hadn’t patched the wall tile very well. The big room was always dank and smelled like Pine Sol.

  Lacey was washing her hands when she looked up to see Hannah in the mirror, standing behind her. She didn’t say anything, just looked at her reflection.

  “Your lover didn’t want to take the chance I’d slap him with a sexual harassment complaint so he couldn’t fire me.”

  “I thought you denied leaking my relationship to a murder victim to the press.”

  “I did deny it.”

  “Then how could Savich have fired you without proof? Oh enough, Hannah. Say what you have to say and go about your business.”

  “You’re really cute, you know that? Tell me, Sherlock, did you set your sights on Savich while you were still at Quantico?”

  “No.”

  “He’ll screw your eyes out but he won’t marry you. Has he made love to you in the shower? He loves that.”

  “Hannah, it’s none of your business what either of us does. Please, let it go. Forget him. You know I’m irrelevant in all this. Even if I weren’t here, Savich still wouldn’t be going out with you.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Good-bye, Hannah.”

  Ollie was waiting outside for her. He said only, “I just didn’t want her to shoot you.”

  “So you were waiting out here to see if a gun went off?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m fine, Ollie. Any word yet on Marlin Jones?”

  “Nope, nothing. Oh yeah, your father called, asked that you phone him back. He said it was really important.”

  She didn’t want to pick up that phone. She didn’t want to, but she did. She felt an urgency that she’d never felt before. Even as she was dialing her parents’ home number, she was terrified.

  “Isabelle? It’s Lacey.”

  “Oh God, Lacey, it’s your mama. Let me get your daddy on the phone. You just caught him in time. He’s just leaving now for the hospital.”

  “The hospital? What happened to Mother?” But Isabelle had already hit the hold button. “Father?”

  “Lacey? Come home, my dear, it’s your mother. There was an accident. She’s in the hospital. It doesn’t look good, Lacey. Can you get some time off?”

  “What kind of accident? What is her exact condition?”

  “I was backing out of the driveway. She darted out from the bushes that line the street. I hit her. It was an accident. I swear it was an accident. There was even a passerby who saw the whole thing. She’s not dead, Lacey, but her spleen is ruptured and they’re taking it out as we speak. I feel terrible. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think you should come home now.”

  Before she could say anything, he hung up. She stared down at the receiver, hearing the loud dial tone. What more could happen?

  At nine o’clock the next morning she was on a nonstop flight to San Francisco. Dillon took the Dulles shuttle with her to the terminal to catch her United flight, using his FBI identification to get through the gate. “You’ll call me,” he said, kissing her hair, just holding her against him, his hands stroking down her back. “It will be all right. We’ll get through it. Remember in the Bible how God kept testing Job? Well, these are our tests. Call me, okay?” And he kissed her again. He watched at the huge windows until her plane took off.

  He didn’t like her to go alone but he couldn’t just pick up and leave, not now. Everything was coming to a head, he knew it. More important, she knew it. It was just a matter of time. Actually he was rather relieved that she’d be three thousand miles away, although he’d never tell her that. She’d blow a fuse because he wanted to protect her and she was a professional and could take care of herself.

  He stepped back onto the shuttle, realizing, as he stared blankly at a businessman with a very packed briefcase, that she would be justified smacking him but good if he’d said that to her. He had to remember that she was well trained. She was a professional. Even if his guts twisted whenever he thought of her going into the field, he’d just have to get used to it.

  He shook his head as he walked to his Porsche. Could her father have deliberately hit her mother?

  For the first time that Lacey could remember, her mother looked all sixty-one of her years. Her flesh seemed loose, her cheeks sunken in. And so white and waxy, tubes everywhere. Mrs. Arch, her mother’s ten-year companion, was there, as was Lacey’s father, both standing beside her bed.

  “Don’t worry,” her father said. “The operation went well. They took out her spleen and stopped the internal bleeding. There’s lots of bruising and she’ll have some sore ribs, but she’ll be all right, Lacey.”

  She looked over at her father. “I know. I spoke to the nurse outside. Where were you, Mrs. Arch, when this happened?”

  “Your mother got by me, Lacey. One minute she was there watching a game show on TV, the next minute she was gone. I’d just gone down to the kitchen for a cup of tea.”

  She looked at her father. He seemed remote, watching the woman who had been his wife for nearly thirty years. What was he thinking? Did he expect her to say something against him when she regained consciousness? “Father, tell me what happened.”

  “I was backing out of the driveway to go to the courthouse. I heard this loud bump. I’d hit your mother. I never saw her. The first thing was to get her to the hospital, then I called the police. It was a Sergeant Dollan who found a witness to the whole thing. His name’s Murdock.”

  “What did he tell them?”

  “That she ran out into the driveway. He said he couldn’t figure out why she’d do such a stupid thing.”

  She had to go talk to this Mr. Murdock herself.

  “You don’t believe your mother’s crazy tale that I tried to run her down, do you?”

  “No. You’re not stupid.”

  He’d been tense before but now he relaxed. He even smiled. “No, I’m not stupid. Why did she do that?”

  “Probably to get your attention.”

  “Now that’s nuts, Lacey.”

  “Maybe more of your attention would be a good thing.”

  She looked down at her mother. She was so still. Here she was lying in a hospital bed with a squirrelly brain and no spleen.

  “I’ll think about what you said. Where are you going?”

  “To talk to Mr. Murdock. No, Dad, I don’t doubt you. I just want to hear him tell it. Maybe it will help us both understand her a bit better.”

  Lacey left her mother’s hospital room and stopped again at the nurse’s station.

  “Mrs. Sherlock will be fine,” Nurse Blackburn said. “Really. She’ll be asleep for another three or four hours. Come back to see her later, about dinnertime.”

  Lacey called the precinct station. Ten minutes later, she was driving to a Mr. Murdock’s house, three doors down from her parents’ home on Broadway. It was a fog-laden afternoon, and very chilly. She felt cold to the marrow of her bones.

  It wasn’t nearly dark yet, but a light was shining in the front windows of his house. A desiccated old man, stooped nearly double, answered the door just when she was ready to give up. Standing next to him was a huge bulldog. Mr. Murdock nodded to the dog. “I walk him at least six times a day,” he said first thing. “Bad bladder,” Mr. Murdock added, patting the dog’s head. “He needs more potty time than I do.” He didn’t invite her in, not that she wanted to step into that dark hallway behind him that smelled too much like dog and dirty socks.

  “You saw an accident, Mr. Murdock? A man in a car struck a woman?”

  “Eh? Oh that. Yes, I did see the whole thing. It happened yesterday afternoon. This real pretty women I’ve known by sight for years is standing kind of ben
t over in the thick oleanders. I start to call out to her, you know, I thought she must have some kind of problem, when she suddenly just steps out into the driveway. I hear a car hit her. It was weird. The whole thing was weird. That’s what my nephew said too when I called him about it. What do you want, Butchie? You got bladder needs again? All right. Go get your rope. Sorry, little lady, but that’s all I know. Either the woman ran out into the car’s path on purpose or she didn’t, and that makes it an accident, plain and simple.”

  Lacey walked slowly back to her rental car. Why had her mother done such a ridiculous thing? Was it really that she wanted more attention from her husband? That was far too simple, but maybe it was a place to start. She hadn’t understood her mother for nearly all her life. Why should she begin understanding her now?

  Her father came back to the hospital at seven o’clock that evening.

  “She’s just the same,” Lacey said.

  He said nothing, just walked to the bed and looked down at his wife.

  He said, “Did that old man tell you that I didn’t try to kill your mother?”

  “Yeah, he did. Look, Dad, you know I had to go talk to him, hear everything in his own words.”

  “You’re my kid. I can understand that. I called a new psychiatrist to come talk to your mother tomorrow. I told her what had happened, what you thought. We’ll see. I’m glad you didn’t think I was stupid enough to try something like that.”

  “Oh no.”

  “I’ve found myself wondering if I could have done it. Maybe, if it had been dark and we’d been in the Andes with no possible witnesses who spoke English.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Yes, I’m joking.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to be in court early tomorrow. I’ll see you at lunchtime, Lacey.” He paused in the doorway. “You know, it’s easy to fall into certain ways of thinking, of behaving. You know that your mother could irritate the hell out of a saint. We’ll see.”

  She spent the night in her mother’s hospital room on a cot an orderly brought in for her. She lay there, listening to her mother breathing, thinking about Dillon, and wondering, always wondering where Marlin was.

  She got a call from Dillon at nearly eleven o’clock, which made it two o’clock A.M. his time. She’d called him earlier and gotten his answering machine.

  “I was going to leave you be, at least for tonight, but I couldn’t. How’s your mom?”

  “She’ll make it. I personally interviewed a witness who told me that my mother appeared to be hiding in some bushes, then dashed out when my father was backing out of the driveway. I had a good talk with my dad. He’s bringing in a new psychiatrist to see her tomorrow. I mentioned that maybe she was trying to get his attention. Should I have opened my mouth? What do you think?”

  “I still think it sounds like your mother really wants something she’s not getting from your father. You’re the daughter. Of course you should say what you think. You know, she might really be just mentally unstable.”

  “As my dad said, ‘we’ll see.’”

  “You hanging in there?”

  “Yes, don’t worry about me. Any word on Marlin Jones?”

  “No. It’s driving everybody crazy. It’s as though he’s just disappeared off the face of the earth. Oh yeah, Hannah called me about an hour ago. She wanted to come over and talk. When I said no, she told me how you’d attacked her in the women’s room this afternoon. She told me you’d accused her of blackmailing me so I wouldn’t fire her. She said you were furious that we’d slept together.”

  The last thing she needed in this crazy mix was Hannah. “I don’t think so, Dillon. But that’s a thought. Let me consider it. I don’t know, she’s pretty strong. It’s possible she could take me down.”

  He grunted. “Yeah, she probably could. Call me at the Bureau tomorrow with an update. Sherlock?”

  “Yes?”

  “I miss you really badly. I had to go to the gym by myself. It used to be just fine—in fact, I used to like going by myself—but now all I could do was one lat pulldown before I was looking around for you.”

  At least she was smiling when she gently laid the phone in its cradle.

  When a shaft of light from the hospital corridor flashed across her face, Lacey was awake in an instant, not moving, frozen, readying herself. It had to be a nurse, but she knew it wasn’t. She smelled Douglas’s distinctive cologne, a deep musky scent that was sexy as hell. She remembered that scent from the age of fifteen when he’d first come into their lives.

  She lay very still. She watched him walk slowly to her mother’s bed. He stood there for the longest time in the dim light sent in through the window, staring down at her mother.

  She saw him lean down and kiss her mother. She heard him say quietly, “Evelyn, why did you do this stupid thing? You know he’s a bastard, you know, surely, that he’ll always be a bastard. What did you expect to prove by running out like that behind his car?”

  Her mother made no sound.

  Douglas lightly caressed her face with his cupped palm. Then he straightened and turned. He froze in his tracks, staring down at Lacey.

  “My God, Lacey. What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to stay with my mother,” she said, very slowly coming up onto her knees, her back against the wall. She was wearing one of her favorite Lanz flannel nightgowns that came up high on her neck and covered her feet. “Didn’t my father tell you I was staying with her? No, I guess not. What are you doing here, Douglas?”

  He shrugged. “I was naturally worried about her. I just wanted to make sure she was all right. I wanted to see her when I knew your father wouldn’t be here.”

  “Visiting hours were over a long time ago. How did you get in?”

  “Not a problem. I know the nurse, Lorette. She let me in. Seeing you is a surprise. I didn’t know you’d come. That Marlin Jones jerk is still free. I didn’t think you’d ever leave the hunt.”

  “Why were you kissing my mother?”

  “I’ve known your mother for many years, Lacey. She’s a good woman, almost like a mother to me.”

  “That kiss didn’t look at all filial.”

  He ignored that, saying, “I don’t want anything to happen to her, anything more, that is.”

  “That’s hard to believe, Douglas. You were kissing her like she was a lover.”

  “No, Lacey, you’re way off base. Why are you looking toward the door?”

  “I’m waiting for Candice to burst in here. She always seems to show up when you’re with me.”

  “I left her sleeping. She isn’t coming here.” Then he laughed. “But she’ll hate herself that she missed such an opportunity. Here you are in your nightgown in the same room with me. Yeah, she’d go wild.”

  “Well, I’m not up to anything wild tonight. Are you certain she’s home asleep?”

  “God, I hope so.”

  Lacey stood up, her nightgown like a red-patterned tent around her. There was sweet lace around the wrists and the neck. “I think you should leave now, Douglas. I don’t want her disturbed. I need to get some sleep. Oh yes, my father would never hurt her. She ran out behind his car on purpose.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  She had to smile at that. It seemed to be everyone’s litany recently.

  She closed the door after Douglas had left. She took a deep breath once she was in the blessed darkness again. She heard her mother’s even breathing. She burrowed under the three hospital blankets. It still took her a long time to get warm.

  Why had Douglas spoken to her unconscious mother as if she were his lover? Or had she imagined it?

  Her head began to pound. She wanted nothing more at the moment than to go home, to Dillon.

  33

  “IDIDN’T run into the driveway. Your father saw me pruning some oleander bushes. He called out to me, told me he wanted to talk to me about something. When I walked onto the driveway, he gunned his BMW and deliberately ran into me.”

  La
cey said very quietly, “Mother, there was a witness. He’s an old man who lives just down the block from you. He claims you were hiding, then ran out so that Father could run into you.”

  “Old man Murdock,” her mother said, her voice deep with anger. Then she winced at the pain. “That old liar. He wanted me to have an affair with him, years ago, after his poor wife died of breast cancer. I told him where to shove it. So this is his revenge. The malicious old moron.”

  “It’s all right, Mom. Just relax. That’s better. Breathe deeply. You can push that button if you want pain medication.”

  “How do you know what to do?”

  “When I was hurt, that’s what they told me. It helped. Please, Mom, help me understand what this is all about. Why would Dad want to kill you?”

  “To get my money, of course, so he can marry that bimbo lawyer clerk of his.”

  “What money? What clerk? Danny Elbright is his law clerk.”

  “I don’t know her name. She’s new, works with Danny. I don’t really care.”

  Judge Sherlock came into the room. “Ah,” he said from across the room, “you’re awake, Evelyn. How are you feeling?”

  In a querulous old-woman’s voice, Evelyn Sherlock said, “What are you doing here? You’re always at the courthouse this time of the morning. What do you want, Corman?”

  “This isn’t exactly a day to have business as usual. I’m here to see how you’re doing, naturally.”

  “I’ll live, no thanks to you. I’ll be pressing charges, you can count on that. Oh my, my head feels all soft. What’s on TV, Lacey? I always watch Oprah. Is she on yet?”

  “Oprah is on in the afternoon,” Judge Sherlock said. “Get a grip, Evelyn.”

  “Oh, then it’s The Price Is Right. That’s a great show. I can guess the amounts of money better than those stupid contestants. Do turn it on, Lacey.”

  It was down the rabbit hole, Lacey thought as she switched on the TV, then handed her mother the remote.