“Right,” Lauren said. “Let’s start with Thou Shalt Not Bring Tuna Casserole.”
“That could be the title!”
“Oh my God.”
How good does it feel to smile, she thought as she leaned forward and picked up the mug of peppermint tea. It felt like . . . relief. Like she had opened a pressure valve and let off some steam.
“What would people think if they could hear us making jokes about this?” she asked.
“They wouldn’t get it,” Anne said. “They can’t get it, and that’s okay. We can’t expect them to.”
“They don’t know the secret handshake,” Lauren said, sobering, remembering their conversation from the night before. You belong to a club nobody wants to join . . .
“We get through it the best way we can,” Anne said. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.”
“He went to prison, right?” Lauren said. “The man who attacked you.”
“He took a plea. He’s in prison for now.”
“But he was a serial killer.”
“There wasn’t enough evidence to charge him on those murders.”
Lauren closed her eyes. The coincidence made her head swim. A serial killer had gone free for lack of evidence. Roland Ballencoa was a free man for lack of evidence that he had taken her daughter.
Was there no justice anywhere?
A crazy image of Ballencoa sitting somewhere in this town having coffee and eating breakfast flashed through her head. People might glance at him, notice him, think nothing of him. They would have no idea who or what he was. Because they had no evidence.
She knew in her heart what he had done, but she had no evidence.
Her heart was beating a little too fast. Anxiety was like a million needles pricking her skin. A fine mist of sweat rose from her pores.
“I should be going,” she said suddenly. She set the mug down on the table and got up without looking at Anne. “I’ll pick Leah up in the morning.”
“No, no,” Anne said. “I’m happy to drop her off at the ranch. Wendy has finagled another riding lesson for tomorrow morning. I’ll be taking her anyway.”
“Oh. Well,” Lauren stammered. “Thank you.”
She could feel Anne Leone’s eyes on her, but she didn’t meet them.
“Thanks for having her over,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” Anne said.
If she thought Lauren’s behavior was strange, she didn’t mention it. She made no move to stop her from heading for the door.
Lauren let herself out of the exit at the end of the hallway. The sun blinded her. She fumbled for her sunglasses on top of her head. One of the nose pads was caught in her hair. Her hands were shaking as she struggled impatiently with the glasses.
“Fuck. Fuck!” she cursed half under her breath, flinging the sunglasses away from her as they came loose. They hit the pea gravel of the parking lot facedown, undoubtedly scratching the lenses.
Angry, Lauren kicked the glasses toward her car, then bent down and snatched them up and threw them at the passenger window of the BMW. They bounced off, fell to the ground, and she left them there, not caring that they were Gucci and had cost more than a hundred dollars.
She got in the car, started it, put it in reverse, hit the gas too hard, and spun the tires.
She kept her head down and didn’t look at the building as she pulled out of the parking lot. She didn’t have to look to know that Anne Leone was probably standing at the side door, watching her make a fool of herself.
She had to escape—not Anne, or Anne’s office, even though at the end there the walls had seemed to close in to make the space as small as a closet. What she needed to escape was herself and the tumult of her emotions.
The way she chose to do that was with a gun.
14
The Scum Lord, as Mavis Whitaker called him, was a wide-framed, stooped man in his seventies in baggy green shorts that looked to have at one time been a pair of dress slacks. Below his knobby knees, dark dress socks came halfway up his calves and were anchored in place by a pair of black sock garters. His shoes were brown oxfords, polished to a shine.
“Mavis Whitaker,” the old man growled, scowling at a spark plug he held pinched between a thumb and forefinger. His thick, red lower lip curved into a horseshoe of disapproval. “Nosy old bat. It’s none of her damned business who I rent property to.”
They stood in a shed that reeked of gasoline and oil out behind Carl Eddard’s modest home, only a few blocks from the house he rented to Roland Ballencoa.
“The man’s money is as good as anyone’s,” he said.
“Were you aware of the problems Mr. Ballencoa had had in Santa Barbara?” Mendez asked.
“Not interested. He paid first and last month’s rent up front. He pays on time. Never asks me for anything. Has never caused any trouble.”
“He was accused of abducting a sixteen-year-old girl,” Mendez pointed out.
“If he’d done it, then he’d be sitting in prison, wouldn’t he?” Mr. Eddard declared. “Nobody wanted to rent to him here, he said. He was willing to pay me nearly half again what I normally rent that place for.”
A premium for the choice hunting ground across the street, Mendez thought, disgusted by Carl Eddard’s disregard for the public safety.
“When did he move out?” Hicks asked.
Eddard wiped the dirty spark plug off with a dirtier rag, then shoved it back in its place on the lawn mower motor.
“I don’t know,” the old man said, irritated, pulling his head down between his shoulders like a turtle, like it physically pained him to be put upon this way. “I don’t know that he has moved out.”
“Do you have a phone number for Mr. Ballencoa?” Hicks asked, pen poised to jot the number in his notebook.
“No. He doesn’t keep a phone.”
“Can you tell us what bank he used?” Hicks asked.
“He didn’t. He always paid with a money order.”
“That seems strange.”
“Better than a check as far as I’m concerned,” the old man said. “You know it’s good.”
He made his way to a bench at the back of the shed, his bowed legs giving him an odd gait.
“When did he stop paying his rent?” Mendez asked, following.
“He hasn’t,” Eddard said, selecting a wrench from a hook on the pegboard above the workbench. “He’s paid up.”
“Through when?”
“End of the month.”
“He hasn’t given notice?” Hicks asked.
The old man crabbed his way back and fitted the wrench over a rust-caked nut on the old lawn mower. “No.”
Mendez exchanged a glance with his partner. According to Mavis Whitaker, Ballencoa had moved out sometime between the end of April and the beginning of June. But he had paid his rent through the month of July. Because he didn’t want anyone to know he had moved? Mendez wondered. Or had his exodus been so hasty he simply hadn’t bothered to try to get his money back?
“Has it occurred to any of you geniuses that maybe he hasn’t moved at all?” Carl Eddard asked, struggling to loosen the nut. “Maybe the man has just gone somewhere. People travel, you know.”
“Would it be possible to go into the house?” Mendez asked, ignoring the raised eyebrows Hicks gave him.
Carl Eddard gave him the stink eye. “Do you have a warrant, young man?”
“We don’t need one,” Mendez said. “You’re the landlord. You have the right to enter the property. We aren’t searching for anything other than evidence of whether or not Mr. Ballencoa is still using the house as his primary residence.”
Eddard scowled. “I’m a busy man.”