1
Nicole left her office, turned a corner of the hall, and nearly ran into Nancy Silver who looked at her with beleaguered eyes. “What’s wrong?” Nicole asked.
“Avis didn’t show up to teach today. She didn’t call. No one can reach her. I even went by her house. Her car is there, but she didn’t answer the door, so I came back to school.” Nancy frowned. “Nicole, I heard about what Avis did to you in the parking lot yesterday. I wondered if she called you or came by your house last night to apologize.”
Nicole started to say she doubted if Avis were the least bit sorry for what she’d done, then realized Nancy’s genuine worry didn’t deserve a sarcastic answer. “No, Nancy, I haven’t seen or talked to her since yesterday afternoon. But she was in quite a mood.”
“I know it’s none of my business,” Nancy said hesitantly, “but I’ve wondered—”
“What we argued about? The other day Avis was in my office and I started laughing. I’ve been under a lot of pressure and you know how strange she acts sometimes. She did something that struck me as hilarious. It was inexcusable of me to laugh like I did and she was terribly offended. In the parking lot yesterday I was trying to explain my mental state and apologize, but she was having none of it. She made some scathing remark about my husband leaving me, and I took the bait and shot back an insult, and she pushed me.”
“Oh, God, Nicole, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. Besides, I wasn’t hurt and maybe I deserved it.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ve been friends with Avis a long time. I’ve seen her change dramatically over the years. My husband and I don’t even visit her at home anymore because, frankly, she started giving him the creeps. He thinks maybe she killed her mother—”
“Killed her mother!” Nicole burst out.
Nancy’s dark eyes clouded. “I suppose you’ve never heard the story. Anyway, I always thought it was an accident. Nevertheless, after her mother’s death, she went from eccentric to downright strange, and no one knows better than I how she can goad you into saying things you’d never usually say. Just because you reacted to her insults doesn’t mean she had the right to knock you down. I think she’s going to lose her job.”
Nicole was genuinely upset. “Not over that silly incident! She didn’t even knock me down. She just pushed me and I lost my balance. Good heavens, if I thought she were going to be fired because of me—”
“Not only because of you. The incident yesterday was just the final straw after four years of inappropriate behavior and terrible comments to students and teachers. They’ve bent over backward for her here, given her every chance.” Nancy bit her lip. “I’m afraid she realizes that maybe she will lose her position here and she’s done something to herself. After all, this job is all she has left.”
“Come to my office, Nancy,” Nicole said briskly. “I have a friend on the police force. I’ll call him and see what he can do about locating Avis as soon as possible.”
2
“Ray, this is a job for uniforms, not for us,” Cy said as they sped north.
“Normally I’d agree, but I think this woman’s disappearance has something to do with the Chandler case.”
“What it has to do with is the fact that Nicole called and asked you to check it out, so you jumped like a puppy on a leash.”
“It has to do with the fact that this woman is a teacher in the same department as Nicole and yesterday she threw a fit in the parking lot and knocked Nicole down.” He looked over at Cy. “And we both know what’s been happening to people who do harm to Nicole Chandler.”
“She offs them, or attempts to.”
Ray stiffened. “That’s an assumption.”
Cy laughed. “Get off your high horse, Ray. I know how you feel about her. That’s why you need me around. I’ve got a more objective view of things.”
“It sounds to me as if your mind is already made up.”
“I’ve got some thoughts about all of this,” Cy said vaguely. “In the meantime, we’re off on a wild-goose chase, two homicide detectives looking for a woman just because she didn’t show up for work this morning. The lieutenant would be thrilled.”
“The lieutenant doesn’t have to know if we don’t find anything.”
Cy fell into a deep silence. Probably thinking about what he was going to have for dinner, Ray mused disdainfully. All the guy seemed to care about these days was food.
Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of a rambling Victorian house. Like the Dominic home, it had obviously once been beautiful, although not so grand, but suffered from neglect. “This Simon-Smith woman isn’t into home repair,” Cy commented. “This place needed a coat of paint about three years ago. Car in the driveway.”
“Nicole told me the woman drives a brown Mercedes. That’s it.”
They climbed the verandah steps and knocked on a heavy door wreathed with beveled glass. After four tries, they gave up. “Let’s check around back,” Ray said.
“Oh, good lord, Ray. What’s the big deal?”
Ray sighed. “Five minutes. That’s all it’ll take to knock on the back door.”
“Okay,” Cy said. “But I still hate wasting my time just to impress your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Whatever you say.”
They walked across the grass and around the side of the house, where there was no door but a multitude of dirty windows and faded green shutters.
No fence surrounded the large backyard. A once-beautiful gazebo stood in the center of the yard, but its shabby condition indicated it was never used. A shame to let a place like this go, Cy thought. Aline would love this house, and she’d manage to make it look like a showplace without spending a lot of money. They could sit in that gazebo in the evenings, drinking mint juleps and discussing their day…
While Cy stood contemplating the gazebo, Ray started to knock on the back door. Then he stopped. “Cy, a pane of glass in the door is broken. Come here and look. It’s right beside the doorknob. Looks like a little blood on the glass, too.”
But Cy didn’t answer. His gaze had drifted from the gazebo to the back of the lawn, where a hooded figure with long, skinny legs dangled from a branch of a huge, beautiful live oak.
3
It was seven o’clock. Nicole had promised to call Nancy as soon as she learned anything about Avis, but she’d called Ray three hours ago and still heard nothing. She paced around the living room, dusting furniture she’d just dusted two days ago, talking briefly on the phone to Shelley, who was growing increasingly restless at her grandmother’s, and trying vainly to concentrate on lesson plans for the next day. When someone knocked on the door, she ran to it, flinging it open.
“Ray!” she cried. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
He looked tired as he stepped through the doorway, his smile strained. “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.”
Nicole searched his face. “Something’s wrong. Avis is dead. She killed herself, didn’t she?”
Ray drew a deep breath. “She’s dead,” he said softly, “but she didn’t kill herself.”
“An accident?” Nicole ventured with a sinking heart, knowing she was only hoping it had been an accident.
Ray put his hands on her shoulders. “Nicole, she was shot in the head, then hanged wearing a hood.”
Slowly the world went dark for Nicole. Then she was being placed on her bed. In a moment Ray was back with a cold cloth for her forehead. “Nicole, you fainted.”
Nicole nodded. “Avis was murdered like the others.”
“Yes. She was in her backyard.”
“Oh, God, Ray. I don’t suppose a tall, dark-haired person was spotted at the scene.”
“We haven’t found any witnesses so far.” He looked down. “You’ll be formally questioned tomorrow.”
“And arrested?”
Ray clearly didn’t want to answer the question. “There’s no physical evidence against you.”
“But there is motive. And I don’t have an alibi.”
“We only found the body three hours ago. Evidence pointing to someone else might turn up. And don’t worry about an alibi.”
“What do you mean?” Nicole asked, her voice high-pitched. “I was here at the house all evening, no visitors, no witnesses.”
“You let me worry about that.”
“What are you talking about? Inventing an alibi for me?”
“If I have to.”
“Ray, I can’t let you do that. Your career—”
He turned toward her, his eyes burning. “Nicole, I’m not worried about my career right now. I’m worried about you. I’m not going to lie to you. You’re in deep trouble. This murder looks really bad for you on top of everything else. But I know you didn’t do it. Dominic did.”
Nicole swept the cloth off her forehead. “How can you be so sure it was Paul?”
Ray looked at her in disbelief. “Nicole, someone hurts you, or attempts to hurt you, and they wind up with a bullet in the head, hanging from a tree and wearing a hood. It happened fifteen years ago and it’s happening now. Paul Dominic was arrested for the murders of Zand and Magaro. He ran, disappeared, but now he’s back. How much more proof do you need?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t need any,” Nicole said weakly. “Ray, I know you’re convinced Paul committed these murders. What does your partner, Waters, think?”
“Waters only sees what he wants to see.”
“And he wants to see me as a murderer, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he suspects you,” Ray said reluctantly. “But that’s what Dominic wants. That’s why he’s lying so low, why he’s only shown himself to you. No one but you.” He looked at her soberly. “But I know he’s back and he’s killing like the madman he is.”
4
“Can’t sleep?”
“How’d you know?” Cy asked.
“You’re not snoring loud enough to rattle the windows.” Aline propped herself up on her elbow. “You’re thinking about Nicole Sloan.”
“Nicole Chandler, Aline. She got married. Now her husband claims she slit a hole in his brake line and nearly killed him.”
“That little bitty thing? I don’t believe it. Brake lines are tough.”
“She could have managed it. And he was at her house the night before. Hit her in the jaw. Then there’s that Simon-Smith woman. She pushed Nicole in the parking lot yesterday. Knocked her down. Today Ray and I found her dead and hanging in a tree, just like Magaro and Zand and Dooley.”
Aline shivered. “That’s grotesque. Surely you don’t think Nicole could actually hang people in a tree.”
“Now that doesn’t seem too likely. Still…”
They lay in silence for a moment. “Cy, have you looked into those murders that happened fifteen years ago?”
“Yeah, but so far I haven’t learned anything new. I’m not through, though.”
“The other night you sounded like you didn’t think that pianist could have killed them.”
“Paul Dominic. And I didn’t say he couldn’t have killed them. I just wasn’t convinced.”
“You said you thought he’d be smarter about disposing of the evidence.”
“That, among other things, bothered me.” He sighed. “There was something about him. Maybe it was those fine manners, or the respect he showed me. Or maybe it was the look in his eyes that got to me. I’ve heard people protest their innocence until they’re blue in the face. I’ve seen them cry, and swear on their children’s lives, and ask God to strike them dead if they aren’t telling the truth, but their eyes give them away. But this guy’s eyes looked, well, bewildered, hurt, like he honest to God didn’t know what the hell was going on.”
“How did he defend himself?”
“He didn’t. He didn’t confess, but he didn’t say one word in his defense, either. His lawyer did all the talking for him.”
“That was smart if he was guilty.”
“Yeah, but it’s unusual. Unless you’re dealing with an habitual offender, or somebody in organized crime—you know, the type that’s always in trouble and always hiding behind a lawyer—the accused usually make an occasional outburst about their innocence, whether they are or not. Dominic didn’t say a damned word. Just sat there looking flabbergasted.”
Aline stroked Cy’s arm. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you? After all, you said you thought what happened fifteen years ago is connected to what’s going on now, and there’s a whole mess of trouble around that girl. Those murders at her house, her husband, now this college professor…”
“Things look bad for her, Aline. Coincidences happen, but not constantly. Yet everyone who does her wrong ends up dead or seriously hurt.”
“But Cy—”
“Look, Aline, I am working on this. I’ve already retrieved the gun that killed Magaro and Zand from Evidence. I’m having Ballistics make another stab at recovering that serial number.”
“Do you really think the serial number is so important?”
“I think it could be.”
“Is that all you’re doing?”
“For now.”
“Doesn’t sound like much to me.”
“It’s about all I can do. A trail gets mighty cold after fifteen years.”
“If you say so. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you. Someone named Jewel called here for you.”
Cy sat up in bed. “Jewel! Jewel Crown?”
“Jewel Crown? What kind of name is that?”
“Aline…”
“Okay. She didn’t give her last name. She just said she wanted to talk to you. I told her to call headquarters. She said she couldn’t do that, then she started to cry.”
“Did she say where I could reach her?”
“No, or I would have told you earlier. I thought maybe it was a crank, her refusing to give a last name or to say where she could be reached or to call you at headquarters. Is she important?”
“She could be.”
“Oh, Cy, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you. You know I wouldn’t deliberately keep a message from you—”
Cy leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “Don’t worry about it, darlin’. If she didn’t say where I could reach her, there’s nothing I could do anyway.”
“Well, why wouldn’t she call you at work if it was so important?”
“I don’t know. She’s a hooker, Aline. Hookers aren’t fond of police stations.”
“Does this Jewel have anything to do with Nicole Chandler?”
“Yeah, indirectly. At least I thought it was indirectly. She was Izzy Dooley’s girlfriend.”
“His girlfriend! A guy like that could have a girlfriend?”
“They say there’s someone for everyone.” Cy sighed again. “Look, Aline, I’ll make you a deal. I won’t make up my mind about Nicole Chandler’s guilt or innocence, and I won’t give up checking into the murders fifteen years ago, on one condition.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“Well, that tofu-and-soybean dinner you served earlier was healthy but left me feeling completely empty. I want a sandwich. A real sandwich with meat and cheese and pickles and mayonnaise and about a thousand calories.”
Aline laughed and kissed his cheek. “You got it, honey. We’ll consider it brain food.”
5
Nicole lay in bed, knowing sleep would elude her again tonight. Worried, she knew if she didn’t get some rest, she would collapse from exhaustion.
Ray had left three hours ago, but it seemed like twelve. With every passing minute, her fear of being arrested grew.
Another person had been murdered. Poor Avis. Nicole hadn’t liked her, but she certainly didn’t want her dead. And to think Avis might have been murdered because of her was unbearable. She shuddered. Ray was convinced Paul had done it, not just because Avis had pushed her in the parking lot, but because Paul was a “madman.” Paul Dominic, a madman. She shook her head.
Nicole rose, went to the stereo, picked up the tape Dominic, Gershwin, and Carnegie Hall, and put it in the slot. A few moments later the first seductive strains of Rhapsody in Blue filled the room. How long had it been since she’d listened to the song all the way through? Every time it came on the radio, she turned it off. If she was at a party and someone put it on, she left the room. To her it had come to represent death—the death of love as well as the rape and the subsequent deaths of Magaro and Zand, for which she’d been considered indirectly responsible.
She sat down on the couch just as the piano began. Paul playing the piano. Paul at Carnegie Hall. She closed her eyes and it was fifteen years ago. Paul and she lying on cushions in the big music room. Vanilla-scented candles flickering. Her hand in his. The song ending and Paul leaning over, his penetrating hazel eyes gazing into hers. “Do you believe in destiny, Nicole?…I believe I was destined to come back to Texas and meet you again.” She opened her eyes. “Will I see you tomorrow?” he’d asked at the door. “I have to go to the Mission San Juan to finish my research.” “Then I’ll meet you there,” he’d promised. He said the day they’d spent at the mission earlier was one of the happiest days of his life.
She smiled, remembering how they’d wandered around the grounds, talking about everything, taking pictures of each other, holding hands. “I love you very much, chérie,” he’d told her before she left his house that last night. And he’d saved her on the River Walk when she was attacked by Izzy Dooley. He’d slipped the cross around her neck and gazed once again at her with his intense hazel eyes. “Some loves are forever,” his mother had said.
The song soared into the famous Andantino moderate melody. “Yes,” Nicole said softly. “Forever. I loved you then, Paul, and God help me, I love you now. You love me, too, but I don’t believe that love means you’d kill for me.”
The song concluded and she got up, walking restlessly again around the living room. Paul Dominic murdering five people, one an innocent young policeman sent by Ray to protect her? It was ridiculous.
As she paced around the living room, her gaze fell on the mail lying on a small table by the front door. She had brought it in but promptly forgot it. Now she picked it up, sorting through it quickly. “Bill from the electric company, bill from the phone company, bill from the water company. Wonderful,” she said aloud, tossing aside the bills along with an alumni newsletter. Then she lifted a postcard. On the front was a Spanish mission. “The Mission San Juan,” she murmured. Turning it over, she saw there was no stamp—only the printed words “Meet me here at midnight.” Beneath them was a sloping P.
“Paul!” she gasped. “Paul wants to see me.”
She stood still for a few seconds, undecided. Then she rushed to the bedroom.
6
Nicole peeked out the window over her kitchen sink. There was a patrol car. “Damn,” she muttered.
She glanced at her watch. Eleven-twenty. Quickly she went to the phone, called for a taxi to pick her up on the street behind hers. Then she checked her wallet to make certain she had plenty of money, went to the basement, retrieved the aluminum stepladder, and carried it to the backyard. Placing it beside the back fence, she climbed up and grabbed hold of an overhanging branch, the same one Izzy Dooley had used. She flung her legs over the six-foot fence, hung by the branch with one hand, and leaned down, straining to grab the top of the ladder. She managed to drag it over the fence, cringing at the grating sound it made, and dropped it onto the neighboring backyard so she could use it when she returned. Then she dangled for a moment, took a deep breath, and plummeted. She landed just two inches clear of the ladder and flat-footed, not turning an ankle as she’d feared, and sprinted across the lawn of the vacant house.
For the next few minutes Nicole stood on the sidewalk, terrified a neighbor had seen her climbing over the fence, mistaken her for a prowler, and called the police. How could she explain her actions, especially to Ray? In her mind she invented one lame excuse after another until the taxi appeared. Sighing with relief, she hopped in and said, “The Mission San Juan.”
The driver turned in his seat. “The mission!. At this hour?”
“Is it your company’s policy to question the passenger’s destinations?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then please get me to the mission as soon as possible.”
During the day they could never have made it across town in time. So late at night, though, they arrived only a couple of minutes after midnight. The driver pulled the taxi into the gravel parking lot.
“I want you to wait for me,” Nicole said.
The middle-aged driver turned and looked at her querulously. “Wait? That’ll cost you double time.”
“Fine.”
Nicole started to get out, but the driver said, “No, you wait.” She turned back to him. “Pay me your fare to this point.”
“How do I know you won’t just take off and leave me?”
“How do I know you won’t do the same and stiff me for the fare?”
“Oh, all right,” Nicole snapped. “But don’t you dare drive away as soon as I’m out of the taxi.”
“I won’t. But I don’t like sittin’ out here. This place is spooky at night.”
“Lock the doors and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Yes it was, Nicole thought a minute later as she walked away from the cab. Look at what had happened to the patrolman, Abbott. It was one thing for her to risk her own life, but the life of someone else? But I’m here to meet Paul, she reminded herself. If in my heart I believed Paul had killed Abbott, I wouldn’t have come.
The Mission San Juan was more isolated than some of the other missions along the river, forming the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park. She knew the park officials left at five and the church, which was still active, closed at seven except for special events. She walked through an opening in the stone walls surrounding the grounds, which she hadn’t seen for fifteen years, not since she and Paul had spent the day here together. One of the happiest days of her life, also.
Beyond the wall, the grounds looked huge. Unlike at the Alamo downtown, there was no outside lighting and she depended only on a bright moon that cast its glow on the faded white walls of the church and threw shadows on the trees and the large, rough wooden cross standing like a sentinel inside the mission square. It was hard to believe the place had once bustled with activity, within the compound the Indian artisans producing goods from the workshops and outside the farmers cultivating crops that sustained the whole community. But that had been over two hundred years ago. Now the compound was empty and silent, although she thought she could feel the ghosts of those long-dead people all around her in the deep quiet of the night. The cab driver was right. The place was spooky. She was glad she’d brought her gun.
Nicole’s footsteps slowed. What am I doing? she asked herself silently. I’ve been afraid for days that Paul wants revenge, yet I get a postcard and a cryptic message and here I am. What if something happens to me? Shelly certainly can’t be raised by Roger. Not by Mom, either. She hasn’t gotten over Dad’s death. Maybe Roger and Carmen are right about me. Maybe I am crazy.
But she couldn’t stop. She walked toward the ruins of the unfinished church the missionaries had begun in the 1760’s but had had to abandon because of lack of funds and manpower. She had pulled a windbreaker over her blouse and she now wished she’d worn something heavier. Chills ran up and down her arms.
Nicole stopped, then turned toward the parking lot. She was far away from the cab now. She couldn’t even see it clearly. If someone attacked her, the cab driver couldn’t reach her in time to help her. He didn’t seem like the chivalrous type, anyway. If she screamed, he’d probably be flying out of the parking lot in seconds.
Shadows moved across the moon, shifting the light. She could have sworn the large cross moved. The spreading juniper behind it rustled as the wind changed. She’d only been here during the day. She never knew how night transformed the grounds, and she was alone…
Nicole let out a tiny cry when something touched her. She looked down to see a large black Doberman forcing its muzzle into her hand.
“Jordan!” she cried, inexpressibly happy to see the dog. “You certainly are the quiet one. Are you here with Paul? Of course you are. You never leave his side, do you?”
“Only when I ask her to.”
The voice floated out from behind the walls of the unfinished church. “Paul?”
“Yes, Nicole. Come here.”
Nicole suddenly felt rooted to the spot, unable to move. Jordan looked up at her, back at the place where the voice had come, then gently clamped her jaws around Nicole’s wrist, pulling her forward. She passed through an opening in a low stone wall. Before her stood a statue of Jesus holding a baby. Beside the statue stood a man.
“Paul,” she said softly.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.” He walked toward her. “I’m so glad you did.”
She hadn’t remembered how tall he was—over six feet—or how broad his shoulders were, or how he moved with a dancer’s grace. The years had not changed his body. But his face? She stared at it in the moonlight. Yes, the face was harder, the forehead more lined, the cheekbones more prominent. The eyes were just as intense, although she caught a trace of wariness in them that had not existed fifteen years ago.
“Nicole?” he asked tensely when she didn’t answer. “You did come alone, didn’t you?”
Overcoming the shock of speaking to him after so long, she managed a weak, “Yes.”
“No one else saw the postcard?”
“No. And I went over my back fence and got a taxi on a different street so the policeman in the patrol car wouldn’t see me.”
Paul smiled. The same even white teeth, the same dimples, although they were deeper. “My dear Nicole. After all these years you still have to sneak around to see me. I’m sorry.”
They stood about five feet apart, Jordan sitting between them and turning her sleek head as each spoke. “Paul, everyone believed you were dead. Where have you been all these years?”
“Everywhere, making a living any way I could.”
“But your things were found near that terrible car wreck. The police thought the man inside was you.”
“The guy gave me a ride. Then he pulled a gun and took my money. I thought he was going to kill me. He probably would have if he hadn’t been so drunk. I managed to get away, without my knapsack, and later in the day he wrecked. The car was stolen and the police assumed I’d been driving.”
“I see.” Nicole took a deep breath. “Why did you jump bail?”
“I didn’t think I stood a chance of being found innocent.”
Nicole’s throat felt tight. She took a step closer to Paul, looking up into his eyes. “But you were innocent?”
His eyes searched hers. “You’re really not sure, are you?”
“I…I’m sorry, Paul. I never believed it for a moment until you ran—”
“You really aren’t sure.”
“Paul, as I said, you ran.” Nicole heard the agony of guilt in her voice. “And there was so much evidence against you…I’m sorry if my doubts make you angry, but—”
“Make me angry? Make me angry?” Nicole stood slightly open mouthed as Paul burst into laughter. “Your doubts don’t make me angry. They lift the weight of the world off my shoulders. All these years I thought…well, never mind what I thought.”
“What? Tell me what you thought.” Paul shook his head, but suddenly realization dawned on Nicole. “You thought I murdered Zand and Magaro! That’s why you never defended yourself. You thought you were taking the blame for me!” Paul smiled ruefully. “But what about the gun? You believed I planted it at your house and you still protected me?”
“I thought if you planted the gun, you couldn’t have been in your right mind. You were so young, so traumatized. You might have thought I deserved punishment for not walking you to the car that night. Or you might have thought no one would find the gun.”
“My God, because of me you’ve been on the run for fifteen years!” Nicole flung herself at Paul. His arms immediately closed around her. “Oh, Paul, I’m so sorry!”
“I’m not, at least not completely,” he said, hugging her. “I was so spoiled. Soft. Pampered. The last few years I finally grew up.”
“But your mother…”
“Yes, what all this did to her was terrible. But I’ve always been in touch with her. She’s always known I was all right except for a couple of weeks after the wreck. I didn’t even know about it. Nicole, she encouraged me to go.”
“Certainly not because she thought you were guilty.”
“No. Because she was convinced I’d be found guilty, and she knew prison would kill me.”
Nicole looked up at him. “Did she know you thought you were protecting me?”
“Yes. And she said it was silly—that you would never have killed those men and set me up. But she also recognized that there was no evidence against you, only motive. The evidence was all against me. She saw the reality of my situation, but she never blamed you.”
“She’s a remarkable woman. I saw her on Sunday.”
“She told me. She said you were as beautiful and resourceful as ever.”
Nicole smiled. He touched her face gently and leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her head. “I’m sorry,” Paul said humbly.
“Oh, Paul, I’m so happy to see you. It isn’t that. It’s…”
“It’s what?”
“Well, what about all these recent murders?”
“You think I’m behind them?”
“You called me the night Roger and I had a fight in the driveway. You said if he talked to me that way again, you’d kill him.”
Paul looked at her in shock. “Nicole, I made no such call.”
“But it was your voice. You even called me chérie.”
Paul looked at her earnestly. “Nicole, I swear on my mother’s life that I never made that call: I have never called you. I was afraid your phone was tapped.”
“But it sounded so much like you…” She trailed off, twisting the cross at her neck.
“You’re wearing it.”
“I have since the night you gave it to me on the River Walk. And don’t try to tell me that wasn’t you.”
“Certainly it was me. You saw Jordan. You looked right into my eyes.”
“Yes, I did. You protected me from that awful person, even though you were right out there in the open where you could so easily have been caught.” Her gaze dropped. “Paul, there’s another reason I didn’t let you kiss me.” He was quiet. “I’m afraid I did kill Zand and Magaro.”
She could feel him stiffen against her. “But you said you had doubts about my innocence.”
“I didn’t clearly say what I meant. I’ve been having these dreams lately.” Paul frowned. “In the dreams I see Zand and Magaro where they were murdered. They’re talking about me after the attack, after they’d been cleared of my rape.”
Paul seemed to relax. “I don’t understand why you’re upset. They’re just dreams.”
“But they don’t feel like dreams. They feel like a memory. And I’ve recently learned that I was sleepwalking during that time and that sleepwalkers are capable of violent acts and—”
Paul placed his fingers gently over her lips. “And then you put the gun in my trash along with one of my shirts stained with Zand’s blood?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t believe it. Do you realize the time and planning those murders required? In a sleepwalking state you believe you remembered to bring a gun and hoods and my shirt—which by the way I never knew how you could have gotten—then killed Magaro and Zand, hung them in trees, and finally came on over to Olmos Park to plant evidence? No, Nicole, whoever murdered those two wasn’t committing a random act of violence while sleepwalking.”
“But you thought I might have done it deliberately?”
“You were so traumatized. I thought maybe it was an act of temporary insanity.”
“Temporary insanity? Thanks.”
“Wouldn’t that have crossed your mind if our positions were reversed? After all, you weren’t just raped. You were beaten so badly you required plastic surgery. And it was a miracle you weren’t killed. All because you were sneaking around to see me, a man who didn’t even walk you to your car that night.”
“I wasn’t temporarily insane. I don’t feel like I killed them. I don’t believe I did. You didn’t kill them. Then who?”
“I don’t know. Those two must have had a lot of enemies.”
“Enemies who would set you up?”
“Why not? I was a likely suspect with all my talk of how I was going to get even with them.” He laughed dryly. “My plan to get even with them was to get their contract with the music company broken. I had friends at Revel Music who were already looking for loopholes in the contract. They weren’t anxious to be connected with a band whose lead singer had just been arrested for nearly killing a girl.”
They walked to the low wall and sat down, right arms wrapped around each other, left hands clasped. Paul’s hands had always been strong, but the skin was soft. Now the skin was rough and callused. They were silent for a moment before Nicole asked, “Do you still play?”
“Whenever I’m near a piano and no one else is around. It would take a long time for me to get back to my former level. Maybe I never could.”
“I’m sure you could,” Nicole said fervently. “Paul, why did you come back now?”
“I was here when your father killed himself. I knew you’d be shattered, so I stayed to watch over you for a while.”
“You risked remaining here because you were worried about me, even though you also believed I might have murdered Zand and Magaro?”
“If you had killed them, I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
“Even if I’d set you up, allowed you to take the blame?” Nicole asked incredulously.
“Nicole, I told you I knew that if you hadn’t been at my house that night, those two wouldn’t have gotten you. And you were so battered, physically and mentally. You were also young. I could understand you blaming me. I felt what happened to you was my fault. So I had to come back now and help you if I could. But I haven’t helped. I’ve just made everything worse.”
“No, you haven’t.” Nicole was beginning to shiver with cold and nerves. Paul pulled her closer to him. She looked up at the strong profile, the dark hair pulled back in the sleek ponytail exposing the strong neck. Her protector, she thought. Even with his doubts about her, he’d still risked his freedom, maybe his life, to help her. “But Paul, all these recent murders are connected to me. The police suspect me.”
“They’re supposed to.” He looked at her. “Now you are being set up.”
“Why? Who could hate me so much?”
“Your husband?”
“Carmen thought it was Roger wanting me to look crazy so he could get full custody of Shelley.”
“Killing people is an extreme way of making you look crazy.”
“The girlfriend of the man who was killed and hanged in my yard said he’d been paid three thousand dollars to murder someone’s wife, a teacher.”
“Your cop friend told you that.”
Nicole felt a stab of guilt at the thought of Ray. What would he think of her sneaking off to see Paul, clinging to him and immediately accepting everything he said as truth? He would be appalled. He might even stop believing in her innocence. “Yes, he told me,” she said softly. “His name is Ray DeSoto. He’s been wonderful to me, Paul.”
“He knows I’m in San Antonio and the very thought of my being near you makes him draw his gun.”
“You hit him in the motel parking lot that night, didn’t you?”
“Yes. He almost caught me. I’ve been following you everywhere, doing my best to look out for you and your daughter. I didn’t feel you were safe in that motel room. Somehow he knew I was there.”
“Someone called the room, pretending to be Magaro.”
“Magaro!” He shook his head. “Not only I, but a dead person is supposedly calling you. But I knew something was going to happen that night. I just couldn’t stay after hitting DeSoto. I was afraid that after he regained consciousness, he’d call in backup. I had to leave the protecting to Jordan.”
“She did a fine job.” Nicole reached out and petted Jordan’s head. She licked Nicole’s hand. “Thank you for saving Jesse, Paul.”
“You should thank Jordan. I saw you going up and down the street, looking for Jesse. Then a patrol car came. I thought you were safe, so Jordan and I went looking for Jesse. She found him around four in the morning.”
“Around the time Abbott and Dooley were being killed at my house.”
“If I hadn’t been looking for Jesse, I would have seen who killed them.”
“Whoever did kill Dooley saved my life. But the others—the patrolman Abbott and Avis Simon-Smith—I wasn’t in danger from them.”
Paul looked at her blankly. “Who’s Avis Simon-Smith?”
“She was a woman I worked with. She was very unstable and she hated me. We had a fight yesterday. She knocked me down in the parking lot. Late this afternoon she was found dead, hanging from a tree in her backyard with a bullet in her head and wearing a hood.”
“Good lord,” Paul breathed. “I saw what Dooley did to you on the River Walk. I’ve even seen what goes on between you and your husband. But I didn’t know anything about this Smith woman.”
“Ray found her.”
“Tell me about Ray.”
“I don’t know much. He’s a couple of years younger than I am. He wouldn’t have been around when you were arrested.”
“It seems so long ago,” Paul said.
“It was.”
“Long enough for you to find someone else to love and marry and have a child with.”
There was no rebuke in his words, only sadness and a note of loss. “It was a kind of love, Paul. Not like mine for you. Roger was strong and smart and if he was a little dull and stodgy—”
“At least he wasn’t the killer you thought I was.”
Nicole looked at him regretfully. “Paul, I never really believed you killed anyone. But you never called me after you ran away. Why?”
“I was afraid you would tell the police.”
“I wouldn’t have, not back then. Later I thought you’d died.” She closed her eyes. “God, Paul, I was devastated. If only you’d let me know you were alive.”
“Again, I was afraid. The police believed I was dead. They stopped looking for me. But if I called you and you told them…”
“They would have resumed their search. I understand.”
“And I understand why you married. You deserved a normal life. And a beautiful daughter. She looks like you.”
“She’s a great kid.” She frowned. “Did you watch her at the playground one day?”
“Yes. I wasn’t trying to frighten her.”
“You didn’t.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you at your father’s funeral. I didn’t think you would see me. When you did, I froze.”
“Why did you come?”
“Partly out of respect for your father. He was nice to me when I was very young, even if he came to dislike me later. And because I wanted to see you.”
“I thought maybe you’d come back for revenge.”
Paul’s jaw dropped. “Revenge! Good God, it never occurred to me you’d think that. I must have scared the daylights out of you.”
Nicole smiled. “Yes, Paul, you did.”
“But you’re not scared now?”
“Would I have come here if I were?”
“I suppose not. Still, it took a lot of nerve to meet me out here. But then, you were always brave.”
“I don’t feel too brave these days, Paul. Carmen pointed out to me none too gently that I haven’t even cried over my father’s death. I guess I’m in shock—his death was so horrible. Then all this started. I can’t mourn my father when I’m scared to death I’m going to be arrested for these murders. What will happen to Shelley?”
“You won’t be arrested if I can help it,” Paul said fervently. Then he paused. “Nicole, are you sure your father committed suicide?”
Nicole’s stomach tightened. It was a question that had run through her mind for days, although she hadn’t let herself dwell on it. She combed fingers through her long, wind-tossed hair. “The police are, but I’m not, although both Mother and his assistant, Kay, say he was upset those last weeks. He was also receiving mail that disturbed him. No one knows what the letters said or where they came from, but the last one had a picture of you in it.”
Paul looked genuinely surprised. “A picture of me!”
“Yes. Kay found it partly burned in Dad’s wastebasket in his office.”
“Burned? Why would he burn my picture?” Nicole was silent. “Oh. He was still angry over my relationship with you. But why would someone send a picture after all this time?”
“I have no idea. It wasn’t as if Dad had anything to do with your arrest. It’s true he didn’t like you, but he never said you killed Magaro and Zand. He believed it was some kind of cult killing and you’d been set up because by then everyone knew about our relationship. You were a convenient scapegoat. He didn’t think their deaths had anything to do with me. But Dad’s death was the beginning of this nightmare.”
“No,” Paul said slowly. “The nightmare began fifteen years ago. Everything goes back to your attack and the deaths of Zand and Magaro, even your father’s suicide, if it was suicide. The mysterious mail and the picture of me sent to him convince me of that.” He hesitated. “Good lord, you don’t think he believed I was sending the mail and that I was coming after him!”
“He was afraid you were going to kill him, so he killed himself first? That doesn’t make sense.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Besides, he thought you were dead. We all did.” Nicole reached up and touched his face. “Paul, I’m so sorry. You had such a fabulous life until I came into it.”
Paul looked at her tenderly. “I have quite a few regrets about my life, but meeting you isn’t one of them. I feel the same way about you as I did the last time we were here. Do you remember that day?”
“It was sunny and beautiful. We talked endlessly. We took pictures of each other. I knew that day that I loved you. Yes, Paul, I remember. I’ll remember it forever.”
Slowly Paul’s face lowered over hers. The kiss was gentle and tentative at first, then increasing in passion. Nicole’s mind spun back fifteen years, and suddenly she felt as if she hadn’t been kissed since Paul said good night to her at his door before she left his house that last night. A wave of love that she’d been trying to suppress for so long washed over her and she returned his kiss with equal passion, her slender body seeming to melt into his, their souls seeming to meet the way they had the very first time they kissed. “Some loves are forever,” Alicia had said. She was right Her love for Paul had never died.
She wasn’t sure how long they kissed before Jordan abruptly stood up and growled. Paul broke away from Nicole, who felt weak and disoriented. “What is it, girl?” he asked the dog.
She stood rigidly, gazing out onto the vast, unlighted grounds. “Paul?” Nicole’s voice quavered.
He continued to hold her. “Jordan.” The dog glanced at him, then focused again on the grounds. “Someone is out there.”
“Oh, God,” Nicole said. “What should we do?”
“We stay calm.”
“Go inside,” Nicole ordered, her wits coming back to her. “The first room is still intact. Go in there. I’ll see who it is.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Hey, lady!” a voice shouted. “I’m not waitin’ no more. If you’re out here, come on. I’m leavin’.”
The pent-up air fled from Nicole’s lungs. “It’s the taxi driver. I told him to wait.”
“Then go,” Paul said. “I can’t have you stranded out here.”
“But when will I see you again?”
“Soon.” He kissed her, a quick, hard kiss on the lips. “I love you, chérie. As always. Now go.”
In an instant he and Jordan had disappeared like ghosts inside the unfinished church. Nicole sat for a moment, overwhelmed by the meeting, the kiss, their abrupt disappearance.
“Lady, this is your last chance!” the man yelled. “I’m goin’ back to the cab now.”
Nicole jumped up and ran into the open, spotting the man almost immediately. He was only about fifty feet away. “Wait!” she called to his retreating back. “I’m coming.”
He turned to look at her, his heavy face annoyed. “Well, at last. You’re gonna have a helluva fare, you know.”
“That’s all right,” she said breathlessly, catching up to him. “It was worth it.”