Echoes (5 page)

Callie looked from one man to the other. “Pack?”

“As of Monday, I'm out of a job and out of my house,” said Mac.

“You say that as if it's unwarranted!” John turned to Callie. “You saw the gendarmes this morning! He probably killed my sister!”

“You don't even know the woman they found is your sister.” If asked that morning, Callie could not have conceived a scenario in which she would defend Mac Brody, but since her father's death she had found herself in more than one previously unimaginable situation. “And from what I hear, the police are just as interested in you as they are in him.”

“Where did you hear such a thing?”

“On the beach in Grand Case, same place I heard they couldn't identify the woman. In all probability, the gossip has spread all over the island. At the very least it's saturated the French side.”

“Dammit, I—”

“It's all right,” Mac broke in, his voice oddly gentle. He touched the back of Callie's hand with one long finger, creating a tiny electrical current that raised all the fine hairs along her forearm. “John's made his opinion more than clear, and I have no desire to work where I'm not wanted.”

“Look—”

“You gave me until Monday to get my things together, so I figured to keep doing my job for the next forty-eight hours or so. But if you don't want my help, like I said, it's no skin off my nose. I still think you should talk to Ayida. And deal with that other matter we discussed at breakfast.”

“What matter?” asked Callie.

“The security chief here,” said John, voice rich with disdain, “recommended asking you for a DNA sample to compare with the woman found on the beach.”

Callie studied Mac, who offered no apology, excuse, or explanation.

“Why?”

“Because my wife is dead, or at the very least missing. And you're here, you look like her, and you just became the first guest in the history of the Paradis to have her room burglarized. Even if I believed in coincidence, which I don't, I'd have a hard time accepting all those things as unconnected.”

“And if it turns out I am related to the woman on the beach? How would that help? Doesn't it make more sense for John to get tested? Or have you already identified her?”

It was John who answered. “No, we aren't certain of her identity. But I haven't been completely open with you about Nicole. She is—was—the product of an affair my stepmother had, so testing me won't help. But you look so much like Nicole that if you shared DNA with the woman they found, it would be one more confirmation. I don't know who her father was, so I can't ask for his help, but perhaps your father . . . one of your parents was related to him?”

“My father did not have an affair with Nicole's mother, if that's what you're implying.” Callie wiggled her shoulders, trying to release the instinctive defensive tension. John was trying to make sense of an unimaginable situation—if anyone could understand that, she could. And what, really, did she know about her father? He'd obviously kept secrets. “It's possible, I suppose, that one of them was related to either Ava or her lover.”

“Could you ask them?”

“My mother died when I was a child, and my father died six months ago. So no, I can't ask. But it doesn't matter. Without Ava's lover's name, I'd have had nothing specific enough to ask anyway. And, as to the other, my parents were devoted to each other. My mother was ill for years—if their relationship had any weaknesses, it would have self-destructed.”

“I'm sorry,” said Mac.

“That must have been dreadful for you.”

Callie acknowledged both men's sympathy with a single nod. “But you still haven't explained why my relationship to the dead woman, or lack thereof, matters.”

Mac shrugged. “Maybe it doesn't. But all practical considerations aside, aren't you curious?”

Was she? Absolutely. Being related to Nikki Lewis, Nikki Brody, would raise more questions than it answered, but it would also give her license to ask them without appearing suspicious.

“Of course I am. My mother was estranged from her family, and my father's only brother had no children, so I have no family—I'd love to find some.” She examined the two men, but both wore matching poker faces. “How do we go about it?”

“Do you care whether we involve the gendarmes?” Mac turned to pace as if developing his ideas on the spot, but Callie had the feeling he'd planned well in advance. She curled her fingers into fists at the deception, the desire to fight back rising in her breast. But she needed to play the game, not call him on his bullshit if she wanted answers.

“Not at all. Why?”

“Because they have the equipment, the sample cards, and the procedures to keep track of the chain of evidence.”

“Sample cards?”

“DNA deteriorates over time. There are a number of collection systems. The gendarmerie uses sample cards. They're chemically treated to stabilize and preserve the DNA for transport. John's offered to pay a private lab to expedite the analysis, but without the gendarmes, we'd have to order a collection kit and have it sent here.

“The thing is, if the sample is collected officially, the gendarmes can use it for their own purposes later on down the road.”

“Not a problem. They won't be finding my DNA at any crime scenes.” She hoped.

“I'll drive you over in the morning, then.”

His peremptory tone set Callie's teeth on edge. She could certainly drive herself to the police station—how hard could it be to find? But protesting would be pointless. Mac clearly knew the gendarmes; his presence would doubtless make the whole process run more smoothly.

“Let me just see where we can put you.” John's interruption jerked her attention from Mac. Intentional? Certainly, his dislike of Mac—which the other man returned in spades—seemed both deep and longstanding. Callie had the impression the gendarmes' scrutiny had merely provided an excuse, that John had been itching to fire Mac for a long time.

“Bungalow five is open. It's not made up yet, though. So if you really don't mind staying where you are tonight, we can move you in the morning.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

***

A single light illuminated the oversized mahogany desk. Fingers scrabbling inside the pen drawer, he found the button and released the false back of the file drawer on the bottom right side. He pulled out the leather-bound journal to enter the results of his latest experiments.

Not good. The small piece of Nicole's body he'd removed hadn't defrosted well, and swallowing it had provided no surcease. Of course, he hadn't expected something so external to be important, but he'd given it a shot in the name of science and because, with her body still frozen, he couldn't get to his primary goal. Research, it seemed, must continue. The women had been left to help him, and each death brought him closer to understanding how. Unfortunately, there weren't enough left to keep at it in such a haphazard fashion. He cursed his faulty brain; he should have taken a more clinical approach from the beginning.

Instead, he'd assumed the problem was metaphysical. He'd hired a guy to kill the first two, the twins, believing that the cessation of their lives would suffice to effect his cure. And when his agent had informed him it was done, he had felt strong, renewed, a whole man for the first time in years. It didn't last, however. Within days, the nagging fears, the accusations, all detailed in her whining voice, returned. He was sick. He was wrong. He was doomed. He would lose everything.

He had almost sunk, then, almost given in. But the women, the knowledge that they were out there and could help him, had saved him. He'd read up on spiritual healing and found his first mistake: no action taken by another on his behalf could help him. He had to help himself.

So he'd begun to record his observations and research. The third had been a gift from Father, a sign he was on the right track. He'd called her office on a pretext, giving a false name, hoping to lure her to him, only to find she was already on her way. No time for an elaborate plan, but he'd managed well enough. One day, her remains might turn up, but no one would recognize them. Unfortunately, he'd had to scramble at the end, and though he'd felt stronger the minute her heart ceased to beat, he never believed her murder to be a cure.

Clear of mind, he'd returned to his studies, and had immediately begun planning the fourth. He had carefully seduced her into his trap. The risk had a healing quality of its own, and during the pursuit he hardly ever felt the blade of panic against his throat. He'd slept with her first, because some of the books claimed sex held restorative powers. It didn't. But the murder did. He flipped back to the description in his journal, though he didn't need the words to evoke it for him.

I had placed the knife in the crevice where the seat bench met its back before I picked her up. She wanted to be bad, to do the things she'd never been allowed as a child, and I was more than happy to oblige. I took her to a seedy part of town, got naked with her, and just as she cried out her pleasure into my mouth, I shoved the blade up beneath her sternum and into her heart. I swallowed her air, her cries, her soul as it left her body. I licked the blood from her breasts and I was renewed.

The feeling had lasted for weeks. And even when the voice had returned, it had been weak, annoying rather than fearsome. But experience taught him it would gather strength, so he'd outfitted the little lab that now housed Nicole's body in the hidden room of his home, added studies in biology to those in metaphysics, and prepared to take his cure from Nicole Lewis.

He just hadn't quite figured out how. And now he wondered whether freezing her might have destroyed something vital. Or whether her party-hearty lifestyle had corrupted her beyond help.

Either way, it was a good thing Calliope Pearson hadn't died before getting to the island. She could serve as plan B. Perhaps even plan A.

By eleven that night, Callie wished she'd insisted on moving right away. She had returned to her room, packed the few items she'd hung in the closet, and luxuriated in a long, hot shower. After dinner from room service—delicious, fast, and hot on arrival, she noted for the article she might or might not write—she'd crawled into bed, certain sleep would take her under immediately.

It didn't. Instead, her mind brought up images of the gendarmes, of Mac's face—angry and hard when first they met, disgusted when she led him to believe she would seduce John to keep her room, half-amused when she had defended him—and of Nikki's smiling image in the web photos. Every sound in the room made her twitch, her mind conjuring shadowy images of the thief returning for something he'd forgotten. Under normal circumstances, Callie surfed the web when she couldn't sleep. But her computer was gone.

She flipped on the light and picked up the photograph she'd set on the bedside table upon arrival. Using her fingernail, she unscrewed the thin, plywood backing from the frame and pried it off. Between her parents' wedding picture and the plywood lay the object that had started her quest.

Unlike the formal black-and-white portrait hiding it, the second photograph had been taken with an inexpensive camera, likely an Instamatic. Enlarged to five by seven, it had become grainy, the colors harsh. Even so, Sharon Pearson's joy beamed out, outshining even the bright Caribbean day. She stood barefoot on the beach, a drooling baby cuddled in her arms. A palatial hotel loomed in the background. Although the sun shone from behind the photographer—her father, Callie assumed—the building seemed in some way shadowed, as if from within. That her father had hidden the photograph inside the framed wedding picture he kept on his various desks as long as Callie could remember would have aroused her curiosity even without the notation on the back:
Sharon and Calliope, PdlM StM, September, 1987.

The identification, scrawled in her father's bold, distinctive hand, was faded, clearly written at or near the time the snapshot had been taken, not so long afterward that he could have confused the dates. Besides, her father had nicknamed her “Pumpkin” because her birthday was so close to Halloween. They'd watched the Charlie Brown specials every year, and he'd teased her about being the “Great Pumpkin.” He wouldn't have accidentally written the wrong month on the back of a picture he obviously considered important.

And if he had, he would have corrected his mistake immediately. Frank Pearson had been meticulously, almost fanatically organized. He kept voluminous records, all of which Callie had surveyed as executor of his will. He'd documented every trip he'd ever taken, kept journals describing the people he'd met and the places he'd seen, both before and after his marriage, but nowhere did information about a Caribbean vacation appear. And although he had been an avid photographer, the picture Callie held was the only evidence she'd found that her parents had traveled at all during her infancy.

She had rejected a dozen possible explanations. Her birth certificate proved she'd been born in New York and hadn't been adopted. The child in the picture couldn't be an older, since-deceased sister because there wasn't enough time between the date of the photograph and Callie's own birth. Sharon Pearson had lost touch with her family long before her daughter was born, so the “Calliope” in the picture couldn't be a relative.

For all her concentration and focus, the image provided no answers; it hadn't since she had discovered it while changing the frame from her father's modernistic ebony and chrome to one suiting her own, more traditional taste. Her recognition of the Paradis remained the only clue it had surrendered, and that tidbit divulged grudgingly, given the angle of the photograph and the distance of the hotel from the subject.

Callie had determined at breakfast that even as early as thirty years past, the Paradis had owned all of its current half-mile-long stretch of private beach, which meant the shot had been taken on hotel property. Her parents might have stayed in the very room in which Callie sat, a fact that did nothing to help her sleep. Muttering to herself in frustration, she slid the snapshot back into its hiding place, retightened the screws, and stood the frame back on the table. Then she padded across the room to the French doors and let herself out onto the balcony. Directly beneath her lay the poolside bar, hidden by the orange tiles of the balcony. In front of her, a series of underwater spotlights illuminated the pool's aqua depths. The hotel discouraged swimming after dark but did not expressly forbid it. The printed sheet of policies Callie had found on the desk in her suite explained that day or night, swimming in the pool or at the beach was at the guest's own risk.

Beyond the pool, the reflection of the moon gleamed against the rippling onyx sea. It called to her, and she pulled on a pair of cropped pants, an old T-shirt, and her flip-flops, then took the stairs down to the lobby. No one sat at the desk, but Callie had no doubt ringing the little silver bell would bring a night attendant in record time. She didn't test the theory. The lounge chairs by the pool had been neatly stacked to one side, and the canvas umbrellas in their oversized, sand-filled planters were closed, as was the bar. She made a mental note to ask John whether it stayed open later during the high season.

The slap of her flip-flops echoed as she descended the winding, bowered path to the beach, sending a little shiver up her spine. She felt like a character in a
Twilight Zone
episode, wandering a strange and deserted land, alone, surrounded by oppressive beauty.

The stone pavers of the path gave way abruptly to sand, and the front of Callie's shoe caught, sending her sprawling. She checked reflexively to be sure no one had noticed the embarrassing slip, then shook her head at her own foolishness. Who could have seen her? Plucking off her sandals, she curled her toes in the sand, which had gone slightly cool despite the warmth remaining in the air. She meandered along the water's edge, letting the tiny waves lap over her feet, occasionally glancing back to judge her distance from the Paradis, until she considered herself positioned in much the same spot where her mother stood in the mystery photograph.

She plunked herself down on the sand and drew her knees up beneath her chin. What had Sharon Pearson been thinking that day? Callie didn't have much experience with children, but if she'd had to choose an adjective to describe the baby in her mother's arms, she would have chosen “new.” Tiny, wrinkled fingers grasped the edge of the blanket wrapping her, and her face, equally wrinkled, was blotchy and red. A dozen times, Callie had tried to see herself in that baby. A dozen times, she had failed.

“I'd expect you to be asleep.”

Callie's heart stuttered and her muscles froze before she recognized the honeyed drawl with its sandpaper edge.

“I needed to unwind. I didn't realize having my things stolen had affected me so much.”

Uninvited, Mac settled beside her, close enough that the heat radiating off his body caressed her skin. “You handled it well. Better, as John mentioned, than most of our guests would.”

Distracted by his nearness, it took her a minute to interpret the comment. “Is there a question in there somewhere, Mr. Brody?”

“Mac. And, yeah, it occurred to me you might have expected something similar, and it might not have come as such a surprise.”

“I assure you, I expected nothing of the kind. If, as you claim, my shock didn't show, it's because I'm a tad less sheltered than your standard clientele.”

“You're not exactly poverty-stricken.”

She should have realized he'd pry into her background, but the sense of violation the simple comment engendered was as strong as that from the burglary. Her response sounded stilted and prudish, but she couldn't soften it.

“I've lived all over the world, including places where money attracts undesirable attention.”

“You traveled with your father?”

“Yes.”

“According to the press, he was a businessman.” Another question couched as a statement. It seemed Brody's preferred method of interrogation. She would go with it, at least for the moment. Nothing about her father's life could hurt her, and perhaps talking about him might spark hitherto hidden memories.

“Half businessman. The other half diplomat.”

“Diplomat.” The word rolled across Mac's tongue. “Another word for ‘spy'?”

Callie laughed, her first spontaneous outburst since her arrival. “For a while, in my early teens, I imagined him as James Bond. But no, he wasn't some undercover hero. I meant ‘diplomat' in the most literal sense. Let's say you owned a big corporation”—Mac snorted—“and you wanted to open an overseas branch. You'd hire my father and he'd go first to find all the contacts you'd need. He'd pave the way with individuals and government entities, find you security personnel, work on community relations, and clean up messes your predecessors might have left behind. Sometimes, the trips we took were short. Not much in Europe, for example, took very long to arrange. A couple of months here, a couple of months there. But we spent a year in Greece when one of his employers got tangled up with some unsavory types, and two in Indonesia while he tried to mediate between various factions in and out of government.”

“Sounds like quite a life for a child.”

“It was. And it prepared me for upheavals, for things like having my belongings taken.” Wow. She'd just revealed more about her childhood to Mac than she had to anyone else in the ten years since she'd moved out of her father's house. Time to turn the tables.

“And you? Where did you grow up?”

“In the slums in Atlanta.”

“I never thought about Atlanta having slums. It seems so clean and pretty.”

He chuckled, a low rumble of sound that heated her blood despite the soft breeze off the ocean. “The board of tourism would be happy to hear it. But in reality, Atlanta's just like any other city.”

“How did you get out?”

“The same way as any other kid in my neighborhood with an iota of ambition. I joined the Army straight out of high school. Learned a lot about the world and myself in my six years in, one thing being I have little talent for—and less patience with—politics. And I'm not good with rules. So I left. Came home and joined the Atlanta PD.” Callie could hear the warning: he knew how to investigate. She chose to focus on another aspect of his story.

“I can't imagine the police department being any less political or rule-oriented than the military.”

“It's not. But if you don't care about rank, and you're good at your job, you can fudge the rules and avoid the politics.”

“I don't understand.”

“There are two tracks in most police departments. In one, you go from foot patrol to radio car and so on up to detective in Vice, Homicide, or wherever you want to end up. That one is based on talent, drive, and determination. On the other hand, you also take a series of civil-service exams that take you from sergeant to lieutenant to captain and so on. You pass the exam, you gain the rank. But if you want that rank to mean something, you want to be able to take advantage of it, you have to make nice with the powers that be. Me, I didn't care about that.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“I lost my peripheral vision.” He touched the scar slashing down his face. “Knife fight. I didn't want to spend my life doing paperwork, so I took partial disability. An Army buddy had retired and opened a charter fishing service down here, so I joined him. It was supposed to be temporary, but it didn't turn out that way.”

“And you got married.” She hadn't meant to say it, to bring the missing woman into their conversation, but she could feel herself getting sucked into his story. His regret and longing for his old life sat beside them in the sand, and she needed to push them away before they became part of her own sadness. Adding Nikki's presence reminded her of all the reasons not to sympathize with him.

“Yeah.” They sat in companionable silence, listening to the swish of the waves. “You should go back. It's not safe here.”

“Back to the hotel, or back to New York?”

“To New York. Barring that, upstairs.”

“Why? What's so dangerous?”

He gestured at the inky water. “The island is like the sea. Beautiful on the surface, even clear down to the sandy bottom. But beauty isn't innocence. Sea urchins, lionfish, even man-o'-war jellyfish are gorgeous but deadly.”

“Cynical.”

“Realistic.”

Callie yawned. “I guess I could head back to bed.”

“Good idea. What time should I pick you up to go to the station?”

The station. Right
. Somehow, in the susurrant darkness of the beach, she'd forgotten about that. Despite their discussion of danger—and her own, deliberate prodding of the open wound Nikki must represent for him—the gendarmes, the DNA, the dead body, even the mysterious photograph that had started her whole journey had seemed very far away. For a few minutes, she'd been a tourist, sharing the sand with a sexy stranger. She let the fantasy go with a sigh. “After breakfast? Say ten thirty?”

“Eating with the boss again?”

“He's helping me with a history of the Paradis.” Again she wondered about the tension between the two men.

“Sure.” Mac walked her back up to the hotel and watched until the door closed behind her.

***

What was she up to? No way did the theft alone drive her down to the beach in the middle of the night. And it wasn't some damned article, either. She'd seemed so straightforward, so honest out there in the night, just a woman sitting on the sand, reminiscing about a lost parent, that she'd drawn him in for a few minutes. He'd almost fallen for the act, but Mac had never had any patience with liars, and his marriage had only served to strengthen his disgust. It had taken the whole trip back to his cottage, but he'd shaken off the brief sense of camaraderie. Whatever Calliope Pearson was hiding, he'd dig it out.