Because Sanso understood what role he played in this battle of wits with Janeal, he couldn’t have been happier to discover her “disappearance.” It would work to his advantage if she believed she had slipped through his net, which in truth had been cast much wider than she knew. But because he was the only one privy to his real intent, he put on a good show of coolheaded fury for the sake of his subordinates.
For fun, he stripped the men who were supposed to be trailing her of their vehicle, money, and clothes and left them to find their way back to wherever they came from in boxers and socks. Delightful.
The assistants who’d accompanied him now escorted them out to I-25. Sanso stayed behind to place a call.
“She’s changed her appearance,” he told Callista.
“Enough for you to quit following her around like a slobbering puppy?”
Sanso leaned against the hood of Janeal’s rental car in the salon parking lot and tipped his phone between his ear and shoulder. “Your envy becomes you, sweet. Her car is still here, and she’s looking for Robert alone.”
“So she would have called a cab.”
“Obviously.” He withdrew a pistol from his waistband and checked the magazine. Full.
“And they’re at the Hope House.”
“More than likely.”
“So I assume that’s where we’re headed next.”
“Let’s let the pair have time for a happy reunion first.”
Callista exhaled. “Yes, Master.”
Sanso cackled at that. He closed his phone and dropped it into his breast pocket, then leveled the gun at the tires of the rental car. He took his time, walking around the car in broad daylight and shooting out each tire. And the rear windshield, because he could, and because Janeal could afford to pay for the damages, and because the shocked souls rushing out of the strip mall storefronts wouldn’t dare try to stop him.
Life could become so dull if one didn’t take advantage of every opportunity to make an impression.
Then he climbed into the idling silver Escalade he’d confiscated from his men and drove off to meet his associates and ditch the car. Maybe they’d indulge in a little tequila while they waited.
Katie walked Janeal to her room, a shoe box at the end of a long corridor, flanked on each side by two larger rooms.
“There are six other women on this wing of the house counting me,” Katie explained. “My room’s at the top of the hall where it meets the other corridor.” Katie pointed in the general direction. “Smallest rooms go to newcomers, then you move up as you stick with the program and others graduate. After you’re approved to take a job outside the house, you’re expected to pay rent on a sliding scale based on how long you’ve been here and how much you earn.”
The room contained a cot with a single mattress, a four-drawer dresser and mirror, a table and chair, and a rocker that sat by the window. An old rag rug covered the center of the hardwood floor.
“Spartan,” Janeal said.
“Your first week of chores is kitchen duty,” Katie said as Janeal threw her tote on the bed. “You can pick food prep or dishwashing.”
“Food prep.” Janeal lifted the dusty curtain to a view of a clay hillside strewn with cacti.
“Popular choice.” Katie paused. “You like to cook?”
Janeal dropped the curtain. “I don’t like to do dishes.”
Katie remained standing in the doorway while Janeal examined the onedoor closet and opened the dresser drawers. When she finally sat down to test the rocker, Katie stepped into the room and leaned back against the wall with her hands flat behind her hips.
“Can I have car privileges?” Janeal asked.
“Not until you’re within three months of graduating or file a special petition. We have two group cars available for things like doctor appointments.”
“So I’m stranded here.”
“You sound like you’re fighting a cold. Is there anything I can get you?”
“I don’t suppose you keep echinacea on hand.”
“I ran out of my supply, but I’ll ask Frankie for you. She’s our staffer with a love for all things homeopathic.”
“You use it too?”
“Since I was a baby.”
The herbal immune booster had been a staple among the kumpanía for decades.
“Medication will kill you, I always say,” Janeal said.
“Everyone who comes through these doors knows how to medicate themselves one way or the other.”
Janeal mentally scolded herself for not having been more careful. “You always make your residents feel so welcome?”
“We can’t help you if you aren’t honest about what you’re going through.”
Janeal scoffed. Honesty was not a valuable asset in the world she operated in, at least not since she had run off with Sanso’s money. In fact, one’s survival seemed dependent on playing a strategic game of deception.
“It’s like this,” Katie said. “You respect the other women here and they’ll respect you. We look out for each other. The ones who have been here longest understand what’s at stake. So don’t take offense if anyone gets in your face.”
“Sure.” The easiest approach, of course, would be simply to steer clear of everyone. Not make waves. Find out the information she needed. Make a plan, make a deal. Fall off the wagon. Vanish.
If she wanted to get out of here quickly, she’d have to start quickly.
“I couldn’t help but admire the ring you’re wearing,” Janeal said. Katie released her hands from where they were pinned between her and the wall. Her fingers went to the diamond-studded band.
“Thank you.”
There was an awkward pause.
“I would think there’d be some policy around here about flaunting valuables.”
“It was my mother’s.”
Heat flashed through Janeal. How dare she make such a claim?
“A gift?”
“An heirloom. She died a long time ago.”
“So did mine. Freak accident. The story of my life.”
Katie tipped her head to one side. “Maybe we have more in common than you think, Janice.”
They most certainly did.
“What happened to your mom?” Janeal asked.
“Tornado,” Katie said, speaking toward the floor now. “Impaled her on an oak tree. Killed my three sisters too.”
Janeal shot out of the rocker so suddenly that its momentum caused the furniture to hit the wall and then smack the backs of her knees. Katie Morgon’s mother had been alive and well until the night of the massacre. What was Katie doing, stealing Janeal’s story as if it were her own?
This was some twisted coping mechanism for a burn victim, for any kind of victim. It would have made more sense to Janeal if Katie had blurted such lies to a newspaper in a conscious effort to get in some cheap shots at the woman who’d betrayed her.
Katie must have sensed Janeal’s reaction. She came off the wall, standing straight. “That was more than I needed to say. I’m sorry.”
Janeal stepped out of the window’s afternoon light, glad Katie couldn’t see the contradiction between her words and her furious face. It took an effort to manage her tone.
“Don’t be. What kind of world is this where two people can meet by chance and have such similar tales?”
“Suffering is suffering, though it takes a lot of different forms. I’m not so sure that the depth of pain any one person feels is unique to a given experience. We seem to understand it universally.”
Of all the weak justifications. Janeal tried not to be snide. “I would imagine those scars you bear hurt worse than most.”
Katie touched the side of her face. “I wasn’t meaning physical ones. What kind of scars do you have, Janice?”
“Topic off limits. For now.”
“That’s fine.” Katie moved back toward the door. “You can wash up. Dinner prep starts in thirty minutes.” Janeal fidgeted, unwilling to let Katie leave so soon. “What’s your story?”
“Which part?”
“The burn part.”
Katie put her hand on the doorknob. “It’s not something I usually talk about.”
“Why not?”
“I try to focus on other people’s stories. That’s usually more helpful to them.”
“How long have you been here, Katie?”
“Thirteen years.”
“In all that time have you ever told your story?”
“Abbreviated versions.”
“Honest ones?”
Katie’s pause was the only sign that Janeal’s challenge had taken her aback. In a moment she said, “Of course. Honest.”
“Could you spare me an abridged version then?”
If Janeal could get this much out of Katie, she might have an inkling of how much Robert would know. Or eventually learn. She might also—no guarantees here, but maybe—get a clearer picture of how slanted Katie’s version of the story had become after a decade and a half. How accusatory of Janeal Mikkado.
“Abridged.”
“So long as it’s honest. That’s what this place is all about, right?”
Katie took a step away from the door, halted, then two more steps to the foot of the bed, where she stood with one arm level across her ribs and the other hand raised to grip the side of her neck as if it ached. That ring glinted on her finger, winking its secrets at Janeal.
“Fifteen years ago I met a man who asked for my help in retrieving something another person had stolen from him. I had access to it that no one else in my . . . family had.” She shook her head as if she’d started out with unimportant information. Janeal crossed her arms and leaned against the wall by the window. She tried to remember if Katie had ever told her such a story, or if her older brothers had ever been in criminal trouble.
“What was it you were supposed to recover?”
Katie shrugged. “That doesn’t really figure into the story in any meaningful way, except that I was able to find what the man needed. I made arrangements to get it back to him, but . . . well, my plans didn’t hold together. I was too young then, I guess, too naive to understand what he’d asked me to do. I didn’t mean to do anything but save . . .” She took a deep breath. “I mean I tried to do exactly what he asked, but there were other people involved.”
The nerves in Janeal’s abdomen twitched as she realized whose story Katie was telling. Katie was playing her! She had perceived the truth about Janeal in spite of her blindness and was getting her revenge!
“He thought I betrayed him,” Katie went on. “It was really a horrible misunderstanding, but he became angry. He took my father and one of my dearest friends as hostages. He imprisoned them in my house and burned the place down.”
Janeal started to pace. A sweat broke out at the base of her hairline as she tried to reconstruct how much she had told Katie about what Sanso had done within the twenty-four hours of her first encounter with him. She didn’t think she had offered Katie enough information to construct such a bare-bones tale.
Katie wouldn’t know of her plan to return the money to Sanso. And Katie would never have characterized the events of that night as “a horrible misunderstanding.” Janeal doubted Katie knew Sanso’s name. Confusion settled over her mind.
Katie licked her lips and Janeal thought that maybe she planned to end her story there. Janeal pressed her thumbs into the base of her skull and linked her fingers behind her head as she paced. This method sometimes worked to prevent the onset of a headache.
Janeal prodded. “You got caught in the blaze.”
“Not exactly.”
Janeal’s breaths shortened and quickened. She anticipated Katie’s blame. What would she do when Katie pointed the finger? She couldn’t snap. Steady now.
“I had the chance to get out. My father was already dead.”
Janeal sat heavily on the bed. My father . . .
“But my friend . . .”
Katie did not speak for a full minute. Janeal closed her eyes to try to regulate her breathing, and when she opened them, Katie’s cheeks were wet. What was Katie trying to do? Janeal wondered if she should demand an explanation or wait for it to reveal itself.
“He would have burned her alive,” Katie said. “He wanted her to die in the fire.” Katie lifted her face. “Do you know what happens to a person who dies by burning, Janice?”
Janeal stood and paced again. “I don’t want to know.”
“If they aren’t fortunate enough to die by asphyxiation first—”
“What was your friend’s name?”
Katie’s lips parted and she seemed to snap back to the present. “I tried to get her out.”
What was going on here? Why was Katie telling Janeal’s story, and why would she change it to protect Janeal from the truth of what had really happened? Or had Katie snapped and concocted a version that helped her to cope, a version that she wanted to believe, unable to come to grips with Janeal’s betrayal?
And what had she meant when she said that Sanso’s money didn’t figure into her story in any significant way?
Janeal dropped her thumbs from the top of her spine and flexed her fingers, mentally grasping for answers. Katie moved from the foot of the bed to the nearby desk chair. She hiked her pant legs at the knees to sit and extended her sandal-clad feet into the middle of the little room. Placing her hands on her thighs and locking her elbows, she leaned forward in the chair so that her shoulders nearly touched her ears.
“I tried to get her out but I couldn’t. I dragged her to the door. I—we fell, and after that . . .”
Janeal didn’t say anything.
“It’s a horrific story. People don’t like to hear it, which is why I’m reluctant to tell.”
Janeal’s eyes drifted to Katie’s feet. The pattern of burns on Katie’s body, what was visible anyway, didn’t make sense. To have been in that meetinghouse, to have fallen through fire, to have escaped an explosion of that magnitude— how had any of her body gone untouched? The right side of her face, the tops of her feet? It seemed likely that Katie’s choice of clothing covered a mangled mass of flesh, but that any of it was as pristine as those feet . . .
Her gaze rose to Katie’s ankles, exposed when she sat down in the chair.
There, beneath the ridges and seams of discolored scar tissue, was the green ink of a tattoo. A flame, melted into an asymmetrical mess.
“You have a tattoo,” Janeal whispered.
Katie’s mood shifted and she reached down to run her fingers over the top of it. She brushed aside the fabric of her pants.
“I do.”
A melted sun with a wavering flame that would have matched the one on Janeal’s own left ankle, were Katie’s in pristine condition.
A copy. It had to be a copy. How far had Katie gone with this pretense? And why?
It couldn’t be a copy. Katie had never seen the tattoo Janeal so boldly acquired.
It couldn’t be.
“It’s a sun,” Janeal said. She felt all the blood rush out of her head as if the gravity from that very ball of fire commanded it.
“You can tell what it is?” Katie seemed surprised. “You’re the first person who hasn’t asked me. A burned sun. Ironic, isn’t it? My last juvenile stunt before . . .” Her expression turned sober again. “I didn’t have time to show it off.”
You showed Robert, Janeal thought, staring at the deformed skin. Not you. I. I showed Robert.
She lifted her own pant leg to see the tattoo’s twin, which she typically covered with heavy makeup.
“What did you say?” Katie’s question was barely audible. Janeal’s head snapped up. Her companion had paled.
“What?”
“You said something.”
“I didn’t.” Had she spoken aloud?
“Something about a Robert?”
“No. I didn’t.”
Katie opened her mouth, but her words did not come out right away. “How did your mother die?”
The starting point of this discussion had fallen far from Janeal’s mind in the presence of this new mystery. She rifled through her brain for some believable headline. It took longer than she meant it to. “She was . . . she was shot. Some random bullet fired during a drug bust at a neighbor’s.”
“Is that the honest story?” Katie’s frown accused. Janeal’s composure flagged.
“I’m not a fraud, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” Janeal wished she hadn’t said it so harshly and that she’d chosen some word other than fraud.