"Hide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Lisa)

18

THE PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL Airport was a sea of white Bermuda shorts, broad straw hats, and red-flip-flop-wearing humanity We dodged families, business travelers, and youth groups, trailing our carry-on luggage through an endlessly long terminal. My memory of Arizona was bright Southwest colors, dancing green kokopelli dolls, red terra-cotta pots.

Apparently, no one had told the airport designers that. This terminal, at least, was decorated in morose shades of gray. Taking the escalator downstairs was even more depressing. Dark concrete walls gave the entire space the feeling of a dungeon.

None of it improved my state of mind. Run, I kept thinking. Run while you still have the chance.

I'd barely made it back to my apartment from the Petracelli home when Detective Dodge showed up. I made him wait downstairs while I frantically tossed items in my overnight bag. Then I broke the news that we'd need to drop Bella off at the vet's on the way to the airport. He didn't seem to mind, taking my bag, opening the car's back door for my enthusiastic dog.

"Why don't you call me Bobby," he said on the way to the vet's. We dropped off Bella-who gave me a last devastated look before the vet's assistant led her away-then continued on our way.

At the airport, D.D. was waiting at the terminal with her usual grim expression.

"Annabelle," she acknowledged curtly

"D.D.," I shot back. She didn't blink an eye at the familiarity.

Apparently, we were one big happy family. Until we boarded the plane. D.D. opened her briefcase, fanned out an assortment of files, and got to work. Bobby wasn't any better. Had his own files, pen, plus a propensity to mutter.

I read People cover to cover, then studied the Sky Mall's choices for pet products. Maybe if I bought Bella her very own drinking fountain, she'd forgive me for boarding her.

Mostly, I tried to keep myself busy

I'd never flown before. My father didn't believe in it. "Too expensive," he'd say. Too dangerous is what he really meant. Flying involved buying tickets, and tickets could be traced. Instead, he relied on old clunker automobiles purchased with cash. Whenever we left town, we'd stop at some salvage yard along the way. Bye-bye, family automobile. Hello, new bucket of rust.

Needless to say, some of these cars proved more reliable than others. My father became an expert at repairing brakes, replacing radiators, and duct-taping various windows, doors, bumpers. It amazed me now that I'd never wondered before how an overeducated mathematician became so good with his hands. Necessity is the mother of invention? Or maybe I simply didn't want to know all the things I didn't want to know.

For example, if a moving van had packed up our old house, why had I never seen any of my childhood furniture again?

WE'D FINALLY REACHED the airport exit. Thick, smoked-glass doors parted. We stepped into the enveloping heat. Immediately, a man in a chauffeur's uniform headed toward us, bearing a white placard with Bobby's name.

"What's this?" D.D. demanded to know, blocking the chauffeur's path.

The man stopped. "Detective Dodge? Sergeant Warren? If you would please follow me." He gestured behind him, where a sleek black limo was parked across the way, at the median strip.

"Who arranged this?" D.D. asked in the same clipped tone.

"Mrs. Catherine Gagnon, of course. May I help you with your bag?"

"No. Absolutely not. Not possible." D.D. turned back toward Bobby, stating in a vehement undertone: "Department regs specifically state that officers may not accept free goods or services. This is clearly a service."

"I'm not a police officer," I offered.

"You," she said flatly, "are with us."

D.D. resumed walking. Bobby fell in step behind her. Not knowing what else to do, I gave the perplexed chauffeur a last apologetic shrug, then trailed in their wake.

We had to wait twenty minutes for a taxi. Enough time for the sweat to build up under my armpits and trickle down my spine. Enough time for me to remember that my New England family had only made it nine months in Phoenix before fleeing to a cooler climate.

Once in the taxi, D.D. provided an address in Scottsdale. I started to put the pieces together. Former Back Bay resident, now living in Scottsdale, with a penchant for sending limos. Catherine Gagnon was rich.

I wondered if she needed any window treatments done, then had to cover my mouth with my hand to stifle a hysterical giggle. I wasn't doing very well anymore. Blame it on the heat, the company the sensory overload of my first plane ride. I could feel tension knotting in my belly. The growing tremors in my hand.

Everyone wanted me to meet this woman, but no one was really telling me why. I'd already said that I'd never heard of Catherine Gagnon. Yet the city of Boston was still willing to pick up the check for two detectives and one civilian to fly five thousand miles round-trip and overnight in Phoenix. What did Bobby and D.D. know that I didn't? And if I was so smart, why did I already feel like a pawn of the BPD?

I pressed my forehead against the warm glass of the window I wished desperately for a glass of water. When I looked up again, Bobby was watching me with an inscrutable expression. I turned away.

The cab made a left. Weaved in and out of dusty, purple-hued hills. We passed towering saguaros, silver creosote bushes, red-tipped barrel cacti. My mother and I had been so intrigued when we'd first moved here. But we'd never adapted. The landscape always felt like someone else's home. We were too used to snowcapped mountains, dense green woods, and granite gray cliffs. We never knew what to make of this terrible, alien beauty.

The cab came to a long whitewashed stucco wall. Black wrought-iron gates appeared on our right. The cab slowed, turned toward the gates, and found a speaker mounted on the outer wall.

"Say Sergeant D.D. Warren is here," D.D. instructed.

The cabbie did as he was told. The elaborately swirling gates swung open and we entered a shaded green wonderland. I saw an acre of perfectly manicured lawn, lined by broad-leafed trees. We followed the winding road to a circular drive, where a tiled fountain bubbled amidst a carpet of flowers. Which set the stage perfectly for the enormous Spanish Mission-style house that unfolded in front of us.

To the left: towering windows framed in dark mahogany beams, set in thick adobe walls. To the right: more of the same, except this side also included a glass atrium and what I guessed was an indoor pool.

"Holy mother of God," I murmured, and to my deep shame, really was curious if the mysterious Mrs. Gagnon might need any window treatments. The size and scope of the windows here. The challenge. The money…

"Back Bay dollars go far in Arizona," Bobby said lightly.

D.D. just took in the whole thing with a tight look on her face.

She paid the driver, asked for a receipt. We trudged up the long, sinuous walk to a pair of massive dark walnut doors. Bobby did the honors of knocking. D.D. and I clustered behind him, clutching our luggage like self-conscious guests.

"What do you think it costs to water this lawn?" I started to babble. "I bet she spends more on her grounds crew each month than I do on rent. Did she ever remarry?"

The right-side door opened. We were confronted by a matronly Hispanic woman with iron gray hair, a short stocky figure, and drab taste in housecoats.

"Sergeant Warren, Detective Dodge, Senorita Nelson? Please, come in. Senora Gagnon will see you in the library."

She took our luggage, asked if we required refreshment after our long trip. We all moved on autopilot, surrendering our belongings, assuring her we were fine, then following her lead from the vaulted foyer into the mansion.

We walked down a broad, creamy white hallway, walls periodically inlaid with quartets of Mexican tile. Dark exposed beams supported a twelve-foot-high ceiling. More thick planks formed the flooring beneath our feet.

We passed an atrium, an indoor pool, a fine collection of antiques. If the outside of the house made the point, the interior added an exclamation point: For Catherine Gagnon, money was no object.

Just as I wondered how long one hallway could be, the housekeeper turned to the left and paused in front of a pair of heavy walnut doors. The library, I presumed.

The housekeeper knocked.

"You may enter," a muffled voice replied.

The doors parted and I caught my first glimpse of the infamous Catherine Gagnon.