The Burying Place

were my friend. So now I pay the price for trusting you.'

Her words hit Maggie like a frigid breeze stinging her face. In the aftermath, she heard Serena breathing loudly.

'You can believe it or not, but it was not like that,' Maggie told her softly. 'Stride had an attack. I found him like that. Serena, he needed someone. It just happened.'

Serena rolled her eyes. 'It just happened? Is that the best you can do? Sure, you didn't plan anything. Oh, and by the way, nice hair, Maggie.'

She knew her excuse was lame. 'I just wanted something different.'

'Well, you got it. Now get the fuck out of my car.'

Maggie climbed out and closed the passenger door behind her. She leaned back in the window. 'I never meant to come between the two of you,' she said. 'I still don't. I'm out. It was one time. It was an accident. He loves you, and I'm not going to mess that up.'

Serena put on her sunglasses again. 'Too late.'

Maggie opened her mouth to say something more, but she had nothing to say. She took a step backward and then walked away in quick, angry steps toward Regan's house. She could see strands of her red hair dangling in front of her eyes, and suddenly she hated herself and her damn strawberry hair and what she had done to Stride. Serena was right. She could tell herself that she had never meant for anything to happen, that she had never meant to stumble into the middle of their relationship, but on some level, she knew she was lying. Consciously or not, she had known all along what she was doing. She had gone into Stride's house with her eyes wide open.

Chapter Thirty-seven

It was already night by the time Stride arrived at the base of the sloping hillside of the Sago Cemetery. He got out of his truck and felt the craving for a cigarette. There was something about cold, sweet air that made him want to smoke. He leaned against his truck and studied the tall pine trees standing guard around the perimeter of the graveyard, protecting the dead. As the wind blew, they shrugged their tufted black shoulders at him.

He hiked up the slope through the thin coating of snow, navigating around the dark outlines of the marble stones. The metal flagpole banged incessantly, like a child demanding attention. At the top of the hill, he crept along the ragged edge of the woods, looking for the path that led to the trailer where Micki Vega lived. When he found it, he plunged into darkness between the columns of tree trunks. He took careful steps, avoiding noise, as if he were intruding on something sacred. He remembered what Micki had told him: this was a place where people buried things they didn't want found.

Ahead of him, fifty yards away, he saw the squares of light from a mobile home in the clearing. It was an isolated place to live, hidden from view. As he got closer, he heard the canned noise of a television, sounding odd and artificial in the forest. When he knocked, he heard a female voice speaking loud, rapid Spanish, and then the television went silent.

Micki Vega opened the door. She scowled when she saw him. 'You again. What do you want?'

'Can I come in?'

'What if I say no? You going to bust down my door?'

'No.'

Micki shrugged. 'Yeah, what do I care, come in. See how I'm taking bread out of the mouths of American workers.'

He climbed three steps into the trailer, which sagged under his weight. It felt claustrophobic with its low metal ceiling and narrow walls. The furniture smelled musty, like a wet dog, and the tiny space was messy, with magazines on the floor and dead plants on the window ledges and empty beer cans stacked on card tables. The room was uncomfortably warm, and Stride began to sweat.

Micki wasn't alone. On the far side of the trailer, near the half-open curtain that led to the bedroom, a heavyset woman with long black hair lay in a recliner in front of a small television. She was in her early fifties and wore a plastic mask across her nose and mouth that was connected to an oxygen tank on the floor. He could hear her lungs wheeze with each breath. On the television, with muted sound, he saw a word puzzle on the Wheel of Fortune game show.

'That's my mama,' Micki said. 'I told you she was sick.'

Stride nodded politely at the woman, but she didn't react, other than to watch him with open suspicion in her dark eyes.

'You can see we're rich,' Micki said. 'What were you expecting to find anyway? Did you think I had Callie Glenn hidden in here? You think I'd take a baby out of that beautiful mansion and bring her to this place?'

'That's not why I'm here,' Stride said.

'Yeah, well, what is it now? It's time for dinner.' Micki stirred yellow rice and ground beef in a frying pan on the small stove near the door. She took a swig from an open can of beer. She wore a roomy white T-shirt from the Minnesota State Fair and a pair of jeans that hugged her fleshy thighs. Her feet were bare.

'We think Regan Conrad is dead,' Stride told her.

Micki wiped foam from her lips. 'Really? How?'

'It looks like someone murdered her.'

Micki crossed herself and murmured under her breath. 'Sweet Mary. That's a terrible thing. Murdered?'

'Yes.'

'How?' 'Someone shot her in the head.'

'My God.'

'We found Marcus Glenn in her house,' Stride added. 'He was searching her medical files.'

Micki's mouth fell open. 'Dr Glenn? You think Dr Glenn killed her?'

'We want to know what he was doing there,' Stride said.

'You won't be happy until you bring him down, will you? Dr Glenn would never do something like that. He couldn't.'

'He's acting like he has something to hide. I think you know what it is.'

'Me? How would I know?'

'You know Dr Glenn. You knew Regan Conrad. You were in the house when Callie disappeared.'

'So what? I hadn't talked to Nurse Regan in months. I've told you all that before. Why can't you leave me alone?' Micki went back to stirring the rice with angry swirls of a wooden spoon.

'If you know anything about Dr Glenn and Regan Conrad, you really need to tell me,' Stride said. 'I understand you feel gratitude for what he did to help you, but if he was involved in these crimes—'

'He wasn't,' she snapped.

'Regan Conrad thought he was.'

Micki looked up from the stove. The steam from the pan raised a moist glow on her forehead, and she wiped herself with a towel. 'Why do you think that?'

'Regan contacted Valerie Glenn. She told her that Dr Glenn was involved in Callie's disappearance.'

'How would she know?' Micki asked.

'I don't know, but now Regan is dead, so she'll never have a chance to tell us.'

'She was wrong.'

'How can you be sure?'

'I know Dr Glenn,' she insisted. 'He would never have deliberately harmed his child. Never. Whatever happened, it was something else.'

'Deliberately?' Stride asked. 'Do you think it was an accident?'

'You're twisting my words. I'm telling you, he's innocent.'

'Migdalia,' a raspy voice called from the other side of the trailer.

Stride saw Micki's mother pointing an index finger at her daughter. The oxygen mask that had been draped