Down the Darkest Road ok-3 Page 16

  Ballencoa’s complaint would go on Mendez’s record. He was building a paper trail for his lawsuit if he decided to file one. A single complaint wouldn’t get him far, but if he accumulated several, he would have established a pattern of behavior.

  “He’s building himself a buffer,” Mendez said. “If he can make us back off and keep our distance, he’s got breathing room to do what he wants.”

  “This ain’t his first rodeo,” Hicks said.

  “No. He’s got his system down,” Mendez said, pacing the width of the room with his hands jammed at his waist. “What else was in that bag of his?”

  “A sketch pad. A notebook. A couple of rolls of film. Some breath mints.”

  “No photographs?”

  Hicks shook his head.

  “He had his eye on that bag like there was something in there he didn’t want us to get our hands on.”

  “Then why did he bring it in here at all? He could have put that recorder in his pocket.”

  “I should have shot the fucker and solved everyone’s problems,” Mendez grumbled. “I sure as hell thought he was going for a gun.”

  “Me too.”

  “Man, I seriously need a drink after this.”

  “You’re buying.”

  Dixon came back into the room then, his fury barely contained. He backed Mendez into the wall.

  “I ought to beat your ass like a rented mule!” he shouted. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I don’t have an excuse, sir,” Mendez said. “He made me angry and I lost my temper.”

  “Well, I certainly know how that feels,” Dixon said sharply. He paced around in a little circle, shaking his head. “That temper is going to ruin you, detective.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “If you aren’t, you will be,” Dixon said ominously. “You’re suspended. Two days without pay, starting tomorrow. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want to hear of you. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now put your ass in a chair and explain to me what the fuck is going on.”

  27

  Leah hadn’t slept well. She had pretended to. She had spent the whole evening pretending to be normal, and the whole night pretending to sleep. It wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed her time at the Leones’ house with Wendy. She had . . . and yet it hadn’t seemed real.

  As she thought of it now, it was almost as if she split herself into two entirely separate beings—her body-being going through the motions while her mind-being stood off to the side and watched. She didn’t like that feeling. It frightened her. When she felt that way, a crazy panic gripped her that someone would notice there were two of her, and she would be revealed for the fraud and the freak that she was.

  She had been terrified the whole evening that Anne Leone would see. Most people just didn’t look closely enough. They didn’t want to look beyond the surface. They didn’t really want to know what it was like to be her. They all treated her differently because of everything that had happened to her family, but at the same time wanted to think that she was normal because they wouldn’t know what to do with her if she wasn’t.

  And even though Wendy had been through a lot too, Leah didn’t think Wendy saw what she was feeling. She didn’t think Wendy ever felt the way she felt. Not exactly. Leah didn’t try to tell her. Wendy was the only friend she had. If Wendy decided she was a freak, she wouldn’t have anybody.

  Anne Leone was a different story. Anne paid close attention. Leah worried that Anne probably saw everything everybody was thinking or feeling. Leah had felt like she should hold her breath every time Anne looked at her, like she had as a child, when she believed if she held her breath and stood very still, she would become invisible to everyone around her. She didn’t want Anne to think she was a freak.

  Anne was so nice. Wendy had told Leah about some of the terrible things Anne had been through, yet Anne was so open and so happy, and so cool. She loved her children so much it almost hurt Leah to watch. Haley and Antony were constantly running to her for a hug or a kiss, or a tickle and a giggle. It made Leah wish she could have gone back to being small, before she knew there was anything wrong with the world or the people in it.

  Her mom had been like Anne then. She had loved to spend time with her daughters. They had done all kinds of fun things together. And there had been lots of smiles and hugs and kisses.

  Leah missed that. She missed it so badly it hurt to watch Anne with her children. More than once during the evening, she had had to fight to keep the tears from flooding her eyes. She had felt so alone . . .

  The tears rose up now in the remembering as she went about the job of grooming her horse. The barn was quiet. The full-time groom, Umberto Oliva, had gone for his lunch. Maria had gone to the house for the same. There were no lessons scheduled until three thirty. Leah was the only human in the barn.

  She leaned into the task of polishing Bacchus’s coat until he gleamed like a wet seal, and when a shaft of sunlight struck the lighter parts of his coat, big dapples stood out. He watched her quietly from the corner of his eye—the wise, all-knowing Bacchus. He was like a creature from another world, his soul ages old.

  Leah took him out of the grooming stall and back to his own box bedded deep with fresh white pinewood shavings. In the stall she put her arms around his thick neck and pressed her cheek against him, feeling his warmth and breathing in his scent. She wished he could have embraced her as well. She ached with the need to be held.

  If bad things had happened just to her, she could have gone to her mother for comfort. But the bad things had happened to both of them. Now neither of them had anywhere to turn.

  Leah felt the pressure starting to build inside her. She thought of the most recent cut she had made on her stomach. It itched to be scratched. Because it was healing? Or because she didn’t want it to heal?

  When they had arrived at Anne’s house after a hot afternoon, all the kids had changed into swimming suits and jumped in the pool. Leah wore a one-piece suit so there was no chance of anyone seeing the scars she had drawn on her own body. Wendy had teased her about it.

  “You look like you’re trying out for the swim team. Don’t you want to get a tan? You’ll have a fish belly if you wear any short tops.”

  “I am going out for the swim team,” Leah said. “And I ride horses all day. Nobody can see if I have a tan belly or not.”

  She panicked a little at the thought of going back to school and starting over with new kids and new teachers. At her old school, she had figured out how to get changed in the locker room without anyone being able to see. Everyone there had known her forever and didn’t pay attention. As a new kid in a new school, she imagined everyone would be staring at her all the time, wondering about her.

  Why was she this way? Why did she do that? Isn’t she that girl with the kidnapped sister? She must be weird. Her whole family must be weird. Why else would something like that happen? Didn’t her father kill himself? He must have done something to her sister . . .

  It would be like it was happening for the first time all over again.

  Leah felt the pressure within her building again, like she was a balloon already too full of air. A part of her wanted to be able to tell someone about it, but she didn’t dare tell Wendy, and she didn’t dare tell her mom. Anne Leone had been a crime victim. She helped victims and troubled kids for a living. But what would happen if Leah told her about the things she felt and the things she did to make those feelings stop? Anne would for sure tell Leah’s mother. She couldn’t have that.

  Knowing there was someone who might be able to help her but she didn’t dare go to was like being a starving person at a banquet but not being able to eat.

  The pressure built some more.

  Leah fought against the need to cry even as she slipped a hand inside her breeches and found the Band-Aid that covered the wound. She scratched it aside and raked her fingernails over the half-healed
cut, the pain sharp and sweet.

  Then came the relief.

  Then came the shame.

  Then came the tears.

  Leah pressed a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut, willing them to stop. Bacchus turned his head to look at her with a sad curiosity in his big dark eyes. Leah reached out and stroked trembling fingers down the slope of his Roman nose.

  Outside, the delivery truck from the feed store rumbled into the stable yard, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  Leah stepped away from her horse and wiped her eyes on the tail of her black polo shirt.

  A man’s voice spoke just outside the stall, making her jump.

  “Excuse me? Miss? Can you help me?”

  She didn’t know him, had never seen him. He was older—like forty or something, but good-looking—tanned and tall with broad shoulders. His hair was blond and tousled like a surfer dude’s. He looked at her with a smile meant to win her over, but it didn’t touch his eyes. The smile faded as she looked up at him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You’re crying.”

  “My horse stepped on my foot,” Leah said, hoping Bacchus would forgive her the lie. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m Mike” he said, reaching his hand in through the open yoke of the stall door.

  Leah looked at his hand, thinking he must be some kind of salesman. They came by all the time trying to convince the Gracidas to change the feed they used or the supplements they gave their horses.

  She started to raise her hand to meet his, then realized the ends of two fingers were smeared with blood. She pulled her hand back and wiped it on her shirt.

  “And your name?” he asked.

  “Leah,” she said reluctantly. She decided she didn’t like him. He was handsome, but his hazel eyes were narrow and hard-looking. If he had been an animal, she would have been nervous that he might bite her.

  Bacchus stretched his neck to sniff at the man’s hand, his ears back.

  “Hi, Leah,” the man said, still smiling. “Do you work here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice place.”

  Leah said nothing. She sighed the sigh of the bored teenager, letting him know she wasn’t impressed with his phony charm.

  “Do you ride, Leah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this your horse?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a handsome animal.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you been boarding here very long?”

  “Do you need something?” she asked.

  The phony smile faltered. He moved his jaw left, then right. He didn’t like it that she wasn’t buying his nice-guy act.

  “I’m looking for the trainer.”

  “She’s not here,” Leah said. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable now as she realized she was still alone in the barn. Umberto and the other grooms and ranch hands would be dealing with the feed delivery.

  She thought of Leslie. She had always wondered what had happened, how it had happened. Had it been like this? Had the guy just started asking her questions like this, like he needed her help?

  Leslie talked to everybody. She wasn’t afraid of people. She liked to be helpful. She would have talked to the guy who took her because she had seen him around. She knew who he was. Leah knew that the police thought he must have pulled up alongside Leslie on her bike, maybe asked her to help him with something or offered her a ride home. When they found her bike, one of the tires was flat. He might have done something to the tire at the ball field and followed her as she tried to get home afterward.

  Whatever the case had been, he had grabbed her and thrown her and her bike into the van and that was that.

  Leah glanced down the barn aisle now to see the stranger’s car parked at the end of the barn, away from the actual parking area. He could drag her down the aisle and throw her in the trunk and be gone down the driveway before anyone knew anything had happened.

  “Do you know when she might be back?” the man asked.

  “Soon,” Leah said. “Any minute.”

  “I’ll just wait, then.”

  “You should go,” Leah said bluntly. “You should go talk to Umberto.”

  She wanted to come out of the stall and run to the feed room, which was located in a separate building between the two barns. But she would have to get past the stranger. He looked strong—stronger than she was, for sure.

  “Where is he?” the man asked.

  With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Leah realized her mistake. Now she would have to admit to him that the ranch manager wasn’t in the barn or even near the barn. He was in another building in the opposite direction from the stranger’s car.

  She wanted to go to the window and start screaming, but she felt stupid. What if she was wrong? What if he was just somebody here to see Maria? She would make a fool of herself and embarrass the man, and embarrass Maria.

  The pressure was coming back now with a vengeance. Her pulse began to roar in her ears. She felt both hot and cold as she began to sweat. Tears filled her eyes. She thought she might throw up.

  “Hi. Can I help you?”

  Relief poured through her at the sound of Maria Gracida’s voice. The stranger turned away and went to speak to Maria.

  Leah felt light-headed, her legs like slender icicles melting into water. She pressed a hand to her stomach, still feeling like she might be sick. But as she touched herself, she pulled her hand away at the feeling of wetness, and she realized with horror that the cut had bled through the fabric of her tan breeches.

  Mortified, she pulled the front of her polo shirt down over the stain, slipped out of the stall, and, head down, hurried past the stranger and Maria, making a beeline for the bathroom. She was too flushed with embarrassment to feel the stranger’s eyes follow her until she closed the door behind her.

  28

  It should have been my husband’s job to go after the man who took our daughter away from us. In another time—before lawyers, when the law was of the land and not a game—he would have had the right . . . No. He would have had a father’s obligation to defend his daughter, and a husband’s obligation to protect his family, to pronounce sentence and carry out punishment.

  I could have lived in that time. When the night is long and the drink is strong, I can close my eyes and fantasize about a time when justice was swift and terrible, and left men like Roland Ballencoa nothing to hide behind.

  Many people would argue that we live in more civilized times now, that we have elevated ourselves above base violence.

  Those people have never had a child taken from them.

  Lance could have lived in that darker time too. He was a man with a strong sense of right and wrong, and the belief that the shortest distance from A to B was always a straight line.

  It had killed him that, even though suspicion had fallen on Roland Ballencoa, no one had been able to touch the man. The police had not been able to compel him to give them an interview, let alone take a polygraph exam. He hadn’t had to account for his time the day Leslie went missing. He hadn’t had to answer yes or no as to whether or not he had spoken to her that day.

  Roland Ballencoa knew his rights as well as any man who had ever had to hide behind the shield of them. And he was absolutely without apology or remorse in exercising those rights.

  Lance had grown up on television police dramas and movies where bad guys were hauled in and beat down and made to confess their sins like acolytes of Satan in the days of the Inquisition. It had been inconceivable to him that so much time had gone by—more than a year—by the time the Santa Barbara police had been granted a search warrant for Ballencoa’s home and vehicle. So much time that any evidence that may ever have been present was gone.

  All but one tiny blood sample, too small to test.

  That reality was my husband’s purgatory.

  From the day that Leslie went missing, he never lived a day without the weight of guilt beating down on him like a w
ar hammer. He blamed himself for losing his temper with Leslie that night at the restaurant. If he had handled that better . . . if he had damned his pride and let her stay home that night . . . if he had been firmer with her earlier on . . . if he had been more understanding . . .

  He had damned himself from every possible angle, and punished himself with the brutality of an Old Testament God. And in the end he had pronounced sentence on himself, absent the power to do so to the man who had taken his child.

  The most terrible burden that had been put on him, aside from what he had put on himself, had been the spotlight of suspicion that had been cast on him by the public, the press, and the police. He would have gladly lain down and died for either of his daughters. To have people think otherwise had been like pouring acid on his soul.

  And the police—completely impotent to deal with Roland Ballencoa—had gone after Lance with the zeal of hunters shooting fish in a barrel. Because he wanted to cooperate, he sat through hours and hours of interviews and interrogations. He took polygraph after polygraph. He had weathered every indignity and accusation leveled at him.

  He had fought with his daughter in public. He was known to have a temper. There were holes in the time line of his day that day, time unaccounted for. He wouldn’t have been the first father to lose his temper with a teenage daughter.

  What if he had seen her on the road that day, riding her bike home from a softball game she had been forbidden to attend? Maybe he had stopped his car and grabbed her. Maybe in his anger he had shaken her or pushed her. Maybe she had struck her head and died. Maybe he had panicked. Maybe he had panicked and killed her, and yet had the presence of mind to dispose of her body so thoroughly it was never found.

  Not once, not for one heartbeat had I ever believed Lance could have hurt Leslie. Not even after the detectives had done their best to drive a wedge of doubt between us. Not even after people who should have known Lance had begun to doubt. I would sooner have stopped breathing than stop believing in his innocence.

  My husband’s death was ruled an accident, just another sad statistic against drinking and driving. Half the people who had suspected him of murder believed his death was karma. The other half turned on a dime and mourned him as the poor tormented father, unable to go on without his firstborn child.