“It’s her, Zach. Carrie Ann Whitt. It has to be.”
“Looks that way.” They were driving down the freeway in Zach’s car, the BMW snaking its way through the long lines of traffic.
“They kidnapped her, just like Holly Ives. They took her to the house they were living in at Harcourt Farms and they murdered her.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know for sure that’s what happened.”
“But she fits the description perfectly so there’s a good chance that’s exactly what happened.”
“It could be. If the mother’s home tomorrow, we’ll see what she has to say.”
“Are you sure we should? I mean, what can we really tell her?”
“We’ll play it by ear. We don’t want to hurt the woman any more than she’s been hurt already.”
Elizabeth sat back in her seat. She felt tired, exhausted clear to the bone. She was sure little Carrie Whitt had been murdered in the old gray house. She thought of Holly Ives and the torture she had suffered and her stomach rolled with nausea. She was just a child! Just a little girl!
Had Carrie Ann suffered that same terrible fate? More and more, Elizabeth was convinced that she had.
She fought to hold back tears. She was barely aware of her surroundings until she realized Zach had pulled the car off the freeway and they were heading toward the ocean.
His eyes found hers. “I know this is hard for you. I’m not liking it, myself. But we can’t stop now. We have to find out what’s going on.”
She nodded, swallowed. “We have to know the truth. We can’t stop until we do.”
Zach navigated a turn in the road, taking the car along a highway running parallel to the sea. Beachfront homes lined the shore, and restaurants and boutiques popped up here and there on the opposite side of the highway.
“The afternoon’s pretty well shot,” Zach said. “I figure we might as well stay at my place tonight. We’ll get settled in, then go get something to eat.” He glanced at her, his hands still wrapped around the wheel, big dark hands, nicely shaped, the nails short and clean. Talented hands.
She remembered those hands moving over her body and felt a tremor of desire she didn’t want to feel. “Maybe I should get a room.”
“You don’t have to do that. My apartment’s got two bedrooms, you’ll even have your own bath. You can have all the privacy you need.” But his eyes said, How much do you really want?
Desire slipped through her as she thought of the last time they had made love, how hot she had been, how incredible the pleasure. A single glance at the beautifully sculpted angles of his face, the sensual curve of his lips, made the heat tug low in her belly.
As he turned up a narrow road that wound its way toward a cliff above the sea, she realized she was staring at his mouth, thinking of the way he had kissed her, the way his lips slid over hers, how soft but firm they were, how determined. Zach cast her a long, heated glance, and erotic images danced in her head.
The tires whined on the cement driveway leading down to the underground parking garage, then the car pulled into a space marked with Zach’s apartment number, 3A. Rounding the car, he opened her door, then went back and popped the trunk, took out their bags, and they headed for the elevator.
The building was white stucco, four stories high, sitting on pillars that dug into the side of the mountain. The elevator moaned and lifted upward, carrying them toward the top floor of the building. The doors slid open and they walked out into the corridor. Zach set their bags down outside his apartment door, pulled out his keys, and opened the lock.
She kept telling herself it didn’t matter that she was spending the night in his home. Nothing was going to happen. She wasn’t going to give into her desire for him again.
With renewed resolve, she stepped into the marble-floored entry and came to a sudden stop, unable to look away from the breathtaking view. The sea and coastline, curving miles to the north and south, stretched in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the elegant living room.
“Like it?”
“Oh, Zach, it’s beautiful.”
His eyes moved over her face. “So are you,” he said softly. He was standing so close she could feel the heat of his body, smell his expensive cologne, and a curl of heat slid into her stomach.
“Zach…”
He cleared his throat, looked away, took a deep breath. “I’ll show you your room. You can get settled in. In the meantime, I’ll pour you a glass of wine. You look like you could use it.”
She sighed wearily. “Definitely.” He led her down a hall carpeted in the same cream shade as the living room, which was done in cream and black with bright pieces of oversize artwork, and an interesting array of sculpted glass that added color wherever it was needed.
The guest room was lovely, very chic, with smooth dark furniture and a single chair upholstered in burgundy to match the comforter on the bed and the drapes at the windows, modern yet welcoming.
Setting her bag on the chair, she took out her cosmetic kit, comb and brush, then went into the luxurious bathroom. The black granite countertop over the sink reflected the lights above the mirror, and a single bud vase with a purple-throated white silk orchid looked so real, she reached out to touch it.
She studied the face in the mirror, saw the fatigue in her eyes. With a sigh of resignation, she ran the brush and comb through her hair, fluffing the dark strands around her shoulders as best she could, then put on a dash of coral lipstick and returned to the living room, feeling a little better.
As good as his word, Zach held out a glass of chilled white wine. The eyes that met hers were dark and intense, and though he wore his guarded expression, she could see the faint trace of hunger he couldn’t quite hide. Their fingers brushed as she took hold of the glass and a tendril of heat slid through her. She took a sip of wine and realized her hand was shaking.
Afraid he would notice, she set the wineglass down on the black, marble-topped coffee table and moved off toward the window, her gaze fixed on the magnificent view of the sea. She heard Zach’s footfalls as he moved up behind her, close but not quite touching. Just the thought of him standing so near made her breath hitch.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Zach.”
“What? Stay here with me?”
“Stay away from you. Be able to keep things objective.” She turned to face him. “This is more difficult than I ever imagined.”
His hand came up to her cheek. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m going a little crazy here, too, Liz. When I’m with you, half the time I feel like running for my car, driving off and never looking back. The rest of the time…” He caught her shoulders and gently drew her toward him. “The rest of the time I want you so much it’s nearly impossible to think of anything else.”
And then he bent his head and very softly kissed her.
She was surprised by the tenderness, the control she knew he exerted. Surprised at the force of her own desire. For an instant, she stiffened, determined not to give into her feelings for him again.
Then her eyes closed on a wave of need. She slid her arms up around his neck and kissed him back, wanting him as much as he wanted her.
Zach deepened the kiss and all gentleness fled. The kiss went deeper, turned wild and hungry. His lips were hot and fierce, his kiss fraught with emotion, the turbulence inside him he couldn’t seem to put into words.
Don’t do this again, a little voice warned.
But he was already unbuttoning her blouse, easing it off her shoulders, his long tapered fingers encircling her breasts. He kneaded and caressed them, replaced his hands with his mouth. Elizabeth moaned and clung to him, knowing she should push him away and completely unable to do so.
More kisses followed, deep, erotic kisses that left her breathless. Dark, seductive kisses that made her hungry for more. Her skin seemed to burn. Her nipples throbbed, and an ache began to pulse between her legs.
They were standing in front of the windows, but the apartment sat high on the hill and jutted out toward the water so that no one could see. She made no move to stop him when he began to strip away her clothes. The sandals came off, her blouse and slacks, her lacy push-up bra. She wore blue lace thong panties, just a scrap of fabric that teased her sex as he palmed her, slid his fingers inside the lace to tease and caress her.
Her head fell back as he kissed the side of her neck, and she thought how much she wanted him, how she craved this, craved him in a way she never could have imagined.
He left her only a moment, long enough to strip away his clothes. Elizabeth watched in fascination, his shoulders so broad, his flat belly ridged with muscle, his chest wide and hard, the muscles flexing as he moved. His legs were long and sinewy, his biceps and forearms muscular and tanned from his work in the sun.
She got wet just watching him, imagining the feel of him pressing her down on the mattress, sliding his hardness inside her. He must have read her thoughts for he simply shook his head.
“Not yet. I promised you once the things we would do. I think it’s time I kept my word.” Moving closer, he slid his hands into her hair and drew her against the naked length of his body, began a slow seduction of her mouth.
Long wet kisses turned her knees to jelly; hot, wild kisses made her ache inside. A little mewling sound came from her throat as he began a slow, determined assault on her neck and shoulders, then he took her breast into his mouth. She trembled at the feel of his tongue ringing her navel, sliding across the flat plane below.
She shivered.
“It’s all right, love, relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Kneeling in front of her, he pressed his mouth against the tiny swatch of lace over her sex, dampening the fabric, then his tongue slipped beneath the lace.
“Zachary…”
“Easy.” He slid the panties down her legs and urged her to step out of them, then returned to his task as if he had never stopped. His tongue slid wetly over her flesh, an erotic imitation of the act to come, and her body clenched with need. Her fingers slipped through the dark silk of his hair and she bit her lip to stifle a moan. Using his mouth and hands, he brought her to climax, an earth-shattering rush of pleasure that hit her so hard her knees buckled beneath her.
Zach caught her up in his arms. Long strides carried him across the living room, down the hall, into his bedroom. Tossing back the gray satin comforter, he settled her among the clean white sheets and came down on top of her, his mouth claiming hers once more.
“I want to be inside you,” he said between deep, erotic assaults on her mouth. “I want to get so close I can’t tell where your body ends and mine begins.”
Elizabeth moaned, wanting exactly the same. The pleasure was incredible, but she wanted even more. She wanted to be joined with him, so close they were no longer two people but one single soul.
As if he read her thoughts, he eased himself inside her, his dark eyes fixed on her face. He held himself in check for several long moments, letting her body grow accustomed to his size, the heavy length and weight of him, then slowly he began to move.
He was big and hard and he filled her completely. Elizabeth clung to his shoulders, absorbing his heat, the power of his long, hard-muscled body, feeling the need build inside her. She arched her hips, taking him deeper still, and heard Zach groan.
His movements grew faster, deeper, harder. He thrust into her again and again and the need inside her built.
“Come for me,” he whispered, his deep voice a command, and Elizabeth let herself go. Her body tightened, broke free. She felt as if she were soaring, as if time stood still. She cried out Zach’s name, and the muscles in his powerful body went rigid as he followed her to release.
For seconds neither of them moved. He pressed a last gentle kiss on the side of her neck then lifted himself away and lay down close beside her.
Outside the window, she could hear the waves breaking on the shore at the bottom of the hill. The sound mingled with the beating of her heart and the turbulence of her emotions. She was in love with him. Running away from the fact wasn’t going to change that.
Dear God, what should she do?
Zach trailed a finger along her arm. “That was amazing,” he said softly. “I never knew it could be that way.”
She turned a little so she could see his face. “You’ve been with dozens of women, Zach. How can this be any different?”
His eyes found hers. “It’s different…because I never loved any of those women.” He said the words as if they explained everything, and Elizabeth’s world turned upside down.
* * *
They left the bed, went into the shower and made love in the hot, misty spray. They went out to dinner, then later that night slept together in Zach’s big king-size bed. But he never brought up the subject of love or anything to do with his feelings for her.
Elizabeth said nothing, either. She had begun to wonder if she had actually heard him correctly, wondered, as she had before, even if it were true, what would it change? Zach was Zach and always would be. Whatever he felt for her, he would not stay.
As the hours slipped past, even curled up beside him, Elizabeth couldn’t fall asleep. Her thoughts kept shifting from Zach and her love for him to Maria and the fear she felt for her friends.
Miguel still lived in the house. What unseen danger did he face?
She wondered what they might discover tomorrow during the meeting Ian Murphy had arranged with Carrie Whitt’s mother. And if they learned something important, what should they do with the information? Lying there in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling, Elizabeth thought of the little girl who had appeared at the foot of Maria’s bed, warning her of the danger in the house.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and prayed nothing terrible would happen before they got back.
* * *
The home Paula Whitt Simmons lived in with her second husband was much like the one owned by Detective McKay, a San Fernando Valley tract house, this one in a subdivision of small, boxy stucco houses in Sherman Oaks. Paula, now sixty-five years old, had been twenty-nine when her nine-year-old daughter, Carrie Ann, disappeared.
“It was a terrible time,” she said as they sat at the kitchen table drinking lukewarm cups of coffee. “It seemed like it would never end, and instead of getting better it got worse.” Paula Simmons had short gray hair and the wrinkled face of a much older woman. As she lit up her third cigarette in the short time since their arrival, Elizabeth understood why.
“How did it get worse?” Zach asked.
“My first husband left me eighteen months after Carrie Ann disappeared.”
“I’m sorry.” Elizabeth thought how hard it must have been to lose both a daughter and a husband.
“The divorce wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t seem to pull myself together. George wanted a wife and all I could be was a grieving mother.”
“Divorce is fairly common when the loss of a child occurs in a family,” Elizabeth told her.
“I read that later, in one of those self-help books. Didn’t do much good by then. Lucky for me, eight years after Carrie Ann disappeared, I met Marty. He helped me get on with my life.”
“Some people aren’t that lucky,” Elizabeth said.
Paula nodded and took a long draw on her half-smoked cigarette. Some of the ashes fell onto the table and Elizabeth realized the woman’s hand was shaking.
“If this is too hard—”
“It’s all right. It happened a long time ago. I’ve had two girls with Marty. Raising them helped me come to terms with what happened to Carrie Ann.”
“And what do you think that was?” Zach asked gently.
“I think my little girl is dead. I think some monster took her away from me and killed her.”
Elizabeth ignored the tightening in her chest and the shiver that slipped down her spine. “Can you tell us a little about her?”
For the next half hour, Paula Simmons talked about the child she had lost. She told them how pretty she was, how people said she looked just like an angel. How smart she was, that she was in the gifted children’s program at school.
“She loved children,” Paula said. “Especially babies. She wanted a little sister or brother so badly.”
Elizabeth looked at Zach, whose jaw tightened though his gaze remained fixed on the woman’s face.
“What did she call you?” Zach asked. “Did she say Mother or Mommy?”
“She called me ‘Mama.’ I guess because I always called my own mother that.” Paula’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. This just brings all of it back.”
Elizabeth had heard enough. She had begun to feel as if she knew the little blue-eyed girl who had been so beloved by her mother, and it made her ache inside to think what might have happened to her.
With a glance at Zach, she shoved back her chair and rose to her feet, and Zach did the same. “We’re sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Simmons. But we really appreciate your help in this.”
Paula made a jerky nod of her head. “On the phone, Mr. Murphy said that you wanted to talk to me about Carrie Ann. I figure you were with the police or something. But you aren’t, are you?”
“No, we aren’t,” Zach said. “We’re just trying to solve a mystery. It may have nothing to do with your daughter. But I promise you, if it does, we’ll be sure to let you know.”
“You don’t think she might still be alive, do you?”
Elizabeth’s chest squeezed hard. “We have no way of knowing for sure, but we don’t think so.”
“I don’t think so, either,” Paula said. “If she was, I think I’d feel it right here.” She pressed a fist over her heart.
Elizabeth could feel the woman’s pain, even after all these years. “I think maybe you would, too,” she said softly, a thick ache swelling in her throat. She and Zach said goodbye, thanking the woman again for taking the time to talk to them.
They left the house and Zach aimed the car toward San Pico. He had decided to drive his Jeep today and as the vehicle rolled along the freeway, Elizabeth thought of Paula Whitt and turned her face to the window, unable to hold back tears, hoping Zach wouldn’t see that she was crying. She didn’t realize he had pulled off the freeway into the parking lot of a supermarket until her car door opened and Zach hauled her out of the car and straight into his arms.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Just let it go.”
Locking her arms around his neck, she started crying in earnest, great heaving sobs that shook her whole body. Zach just held on to her. He didn’t speak, didn’t try to make her stop, just held her and let her cry. She wished she could stay in his arms forever.
“Better?” he asked as her tears began to ease.
Elizabeth nodded but didn’t let him go.
“In time this will all be over and your life can return to normal.”
She dragged in a shaky breath, eased a little away but remained in the circle of his arms. “I’m not sure that’s possible anymore. Everything I thought was real has changed.”
He held her a moment more, then let her go. Elizabeth climbed back inside the car and they rode in silence for a while, Zach’s gaze focused on the road. They were driving through the mountains, the hills dry and brown, the valley still some distance away.
“That little girl I saw in the house…” Elizabeth said, “it’s Carrie Ann, Zach. I know it. Those monsters murdered her and now her spirit is trapped in the house. She’s been trying to protect Maria, trying to save the baby. We have to find out where she is, Zach. We have to set her free.” Her eyes welled again and she glanced away.
“We’ll find her,” Zach said gruffly.
“We need to dig…” She swallowed. “We need to dig under the house. The Martinezes buried Holly Ives in the basement. If they murdered Carrie Ann, there’s a chance they disposed of her body the same way. Since the new house is built where the old one stood before…”
“I know. It’s the logical assumption.” He released a tired breath. “If Carrie Ann was murdered, that might explain why her spirit’s still there, even if her body isn’t. There are acres of open fields around the house. They could have buried her anywhere.”
She swallowed. “I suppose that’s true, but I still think we should look under the house.”
“So do I.”
She turned in her seat. “Maybe after Carson hears what we’ve found out, he’ll let us search.”
“I doubt it. Not without a warrant.”
“Can we get one?”
“I’m not real popular in San Pico, and even if I were, I doubt any judge is going to sign a warrant based on the appearance of a ghost.”
“Then we’re stuck with having to go to Carson.”
“I guess.”
“But you don’t think it will do any good.”
“My brother can be a real bastard at times. He’s determined in this, so, no, I don’t think it will do any good.”
“Then let’s talk to the police.”
Zach cast her a glance. “Maybe we should just get a couple of shovels.”
Elizabeth didn’t smile. “Maybe we should.”