"Can I trust you?" she asked.
"Yes."
"What should I do?"
"Did Marty kill her?"
"It could only have been Martin. That's why I didn't go to the cops, Russ. That's why I came to you. He killed her because he came in, thinking the house was empty. She panicked. He panicked. He tried to make it look like that Midnight Eye, but later he got scared and figured he should just hide it all-everything-even Alice. The second night, when you found him there, he'd just finished cleaning. He made up the story about seeing Grace come out the night before. If he has to, if anyone presses him, if he loses that crazy mind of his, he's going to pin it on you and her. What other explanation can there be?"
"I'm working on that."
"You don't think he did it?"
I pulled into the Towers lot, waved off the valet, and parked next to Amber's gray rental K car. "Where were you going last night when I saw you on Coast Highway?"
"Back to Las Brisas Hotel. That's where Martin told me to stay. He forbade me to leave the room, but I was getting suite fever. I was leaving the White House when you saw me I'd had a table up front, by the band."
I listened to her explanation while staring out the windshield. A pale coastal haze had settled over the city, light dew that would vanish at first sunlight. The cars and streets seemed to sweat now, giving up their heat to the moisture.
"How long since you've seen our daughter?"
"Two months. Three. I've written. Imagine me writing letters, Russ. I've called. She ignores me."
Amber said nothing, sighed quietly-how strange, how compelling it was to hear in her even a hint of surrender-then folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "I know I've made some mistakes, Russ, and I'm doing what I can to correct them. I was trying… I've been trying to connect. With my family. My old friends. My daughter. I burned so many bridges, it's hard finding my way back. Follow the smoke, I guess. And now… Alice. Poor, poor, lovely girl."
So there it was, the first time in the twenty years I'd knowN Amber Mae that she had shown anything like doubt, fallibility regret-and meant it. I discount her thousand well-acted scenes, I was dumbfounded.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"Have you talked to your agent?"
"Reuben is my manager. Yes. He knows I'm okay, but not working, not taking calls, not gettable. I swore him to secrecy, and Reuben is good to his word. He's the only one I've talked to. He and Marty, that is."
Amber actually shuddered then, though the night was hot and damp. A smell came off her that reminded me of the odor of Grace, the night she had come to me: woman, perfume, fear. But most of all, fear. "Where should I go?"
"You checked out of the hotel?"
"No. I didn't want to alert anyone that I was leaving. Martin is probably calling every five minutes. Or waiting. He insisted on having a key. But everything I've been living on is in that car. I've got an eight-thousand-square-foot mansion two miles from here, and I'm living out of a Chrysler. Ugly little thing, isn't it?"
"Marty's idea?"
She nodded, then looked at me again. "How's Isabella?"
"Great."
"I'm so sorry, Russ. If it was in my power to change things, I would."
I said nothing for a long moment, then, idly, "She's strong."
"She must be terribly strong. I don't suppose she would let me stay for a few days? I could cook and clean and stay out of the-"
"No."
It was only then, with the outrageousness of that plea, that I fully realized the depth of Amber's fear.
"No," she said. "That would really not be right. I'm sorry. That was presumptuous."
I thought for a moment. Marty Parish-or anyone else who wanted to find her-would check the local hotels first, then keep working outward from town. Cash payment and a false name would give her a head start, but she couldn't stay hidden for very long, not with a rental car, not being Amber Mae Wilson. Who would think to look for her in my world? Marty, maybe. But I knew someone who could handle Martin Parish. The trouble was, he disliked Amber, and Amber had years ago tired of wasting her charms on him. I turned over a dozen other possibilities but kept coming back to Theodore Francis Monroe, and his little house nestled darkly under the oaks of Trabuco Canyon.
"I'll tell you something, Russell. I'm not going to let Marty get away with this. I'm going to make sure he pays for Alice. I don't know how or when, but I'm going to live to see it happen. "Follow me," I said.
My father was standing on the porch of his cabin before I even shut off the engine of my car. He was centered in the halo yellow light cast by a bulb above the door, wearing only a pair of jeans, his old Remington 870 cradled in his arms. In the rearview mirror, I watched the Chrysler roll up the driveway behind me. I stepped out, motioned for Amber to stay put, then crunched across the driveway gravel toward my father. A thousand crickets made a continuous, strangely sourceless buzz. The horses shuffled from the darkness of the corral. The stair boards were damp and soft as I climbed.
I studied him as I came across the porch-his large, hard body; the black hair graying only slightly; the eyes made wary and strong by years of ranch work; the downturned, unforgiving mouth of a man familiar with disappointment. Bathed in the yellow bug light, he looked alien, otherworldly.
"Dad."
"Russ."
"Got kind of a problem."
"I can see that."
He set the gun against the house, shook my hand, then hugged me. He smelled like a man's sleep. Looking past his shoulder, I could see the K car reflected in a window. "What's with the scattergun, Pop?"
"This Midnight Eye's got me spooked. Maybe I'm getting old. What's with you being here at this hour? It isn't something with Izzy, is it?" "She's with Conine and Joe. She's okay." "Is that who I think it is in the car?"
"Someone tried to kill her. They got her sister instead. She's scared out of her mind and needs a place to stay."
He looked out at the car, then back at me. "Because they're going to try again."
"Maybe."
"Well, then get that damned Chrysler into the shed and bring her inside."
"Thanks, Pop."
"I don't see a great deal of choice."
He gave me a very silent, very assessing stare.
"This isn't what it looks like," I said.
We sat in the pine-paneled living room as I told my father the story. I did not tell him everything, and I omitted any hint of my own presence outside Amber's home on that hot night of July 3. I could not admit that to him. He listened almost silently, sensing, I am sure, that his was an edited version. Amber sat off to one side of the couch, her hands and ankles crossed contritely, her platinum blond wig rendered suddenly ridiculous by the rustic interior of the cabin. She said little.
By one o'clock, when the night seemed its most private, my father had brewed up a pot of coffee to sustain him through the morning. We agreed that one of them should always be awake. He showed Amber the second bedroom, then I walked her out to get some of her things from the car.
Inside, the shed smelled of wood rot and mildew and motor oil. It was neat because all of my father's things were neat.
Amber opened the K car's trunk and looked at me. "I took everything Marty collected from… Alice. All the Baggies and fingerprints and pictures-all his notes. There's some stuff in here; I don't even know what it is. I thought you might want it."
"Damn, Amber."
"Did I do wrong?"
I prodded through the cardboard box containing finger print cards; a dozen or more bags containing hair and fiber paint chips, soil samples; a tape recorder he'd probably use to catalog and walk himself through the scene; one loose audiotape; a pile of Polaroids; a neat stack of enlarged 35-mm prints. There was even a notebook, with entries matched to the "exhibits." There were several folders of the type the county uses for its criminal files-some empty, some containing the basic rap sheets. I opened one: County Sheriff's employment history of Russell Monroe-1976 to 1983.