“Smells good,” she said, sniffing the air and pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Brandon Walker’s Sunday-morning surprise,” he answered with a grin, although that was hardly a surprise since those were the same dishes he made pretty much every Sunday morning. “If we’re going to go out and tackle the desert, we’ll have to keep up our strength. And if we’re taking the Invicta, we need to head out before it gets too hot.”
Brandon was the cook in the family. Cooking wasn’t something that really interested Diana Ladd. If she had to, she could cook well enough to survive, but that was about it. For a long time, Nana Dahd had done the cooking for the family. Once she was gone, Brandon had stepped into the breach.
“I see you’re dressed for travel,” he said as he set glasses and silverware on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.
“Yup, sunscreen and all,” she replied.
For a long time now, for weeks, Diana had seemed lost in a kind of despair that Brandon hadn’t been able to penetrate. She had always been reserved and quiet, preferring to observe those around her rather than being the life of the party. But this had seemed more serious than that, especially in light of what was going on with her publisher.
Brandon had gone so far as to suggest that perhaps they should see a doctor and look into the possibility of having Diana take antidepressants. That suggestion had met with firm disapproval. This morning, however, the fog seemed to have lifted. Diana’s answering smile gave him cause to hope. Maybe he had been pushing panic buttons for no reason.
“I sent June Holmes an e-mail and told her we’d be there around nine-thirty or so. If we go any later than that, we’ll roast. Or else we’ll have to ride with the top up, which,” he added, nodding toward the baseball cap, “probably isn’t what you had in mind.”
“Yes,” she said. “Definitely top down.”
“And what about Damsel?” Brandon asked.
Diana shrugged. “She’s welcome to come along, as long as she doesn’t mind riding in the backseat. When you go in to interview the lady, the two of us will stay with the car or in the car, depending on if you park in the shade.”
Diana’s good mood held all through breakfast and during the initial part of the drive to Sonoita. Speeding down the freeway with the sun broiling down on them and with the wind roaring in their ears, there wasn’t much chance to talk. From time to time, Brandon glanced in the rearview mirror at Damsel, who sat with her nose thrust outside the car and with her long ears flapping in the breeze. Soon after they exited I-10 onto Highway 83, Diana suddenly went somber again. The change in her mood was so abrupt it was as though a bank of clouds had suddenly passed in front of the sun or someone had flipped a switch.
Damn, Brandon thought. I was hoping it would last all day.
Highway 83, South of Tucson, Arizona
Sunday, June 7, 2009, 8:30 a.m.
75? Fahrenheit
D iana saw Max Cooper sitting there in the backseat out of the corner of her eye.
Her father-or rather the man she had always thought to be her father-was dressed the way she remembered him dressing back when she was a child and still believed he was her father.
He wore a pair of rough work pants held up by heavy-duty suspenders. Even though it was the dead of summer, he still wore a set of flesh-colored long johns, the kind he had always worn for working in the woods and for overseeing the garbage dump in Joseph, Oregon. His chin was covered with rough stubble, and the anger that had always burned in his eyes when he looked at her was still there, as malevolent as ever.
He’s dead, Diana reminded herself. He isn’t here, not really. My mind is playing tricks on me.
Max Cooper had succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver at least a decade earlier. Diana had no idea what had become of Francine, his second wife, and she didn’t care. But here he was with his arms folded belligerently across his chest, glowering at her from the backseat of her Invicta while Damsel, unaware of his threatening presence, continued to stare at the passing scenery.
“It won’t work,” he said. “You can sell the car if you want, but getting rid of it won’t keep you from doing what needs to be done. Why don’t you just go with the flow, take the easy way out?”
Ignoring him, Diana stared at the road unspooling ahead of them, at a hot ribbon of pavement winding over parched rolling hills topped with tinder-dry winter grass.
“Diana,” Brandon asked. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“Go away,” she said. “Leave me alone.”
Of course, she meant those words for Max Cooper. In this case, Brandon was an innocent bystander. Max had appeared there in the backseat of the moving vehicle as if by magic. Diana wanted him to disappear that same way.
“I know what you had in mind,” Max said with a snide smile. “Take this thing off the same curve out by Gates Pass, the one where Lani wrecked years ago. No seat belt. No roll bars. No nothing. You’d be gone just like that. Best for all concerned, don’t you think?”
Max snapped his fingers. To Diana’s surprise she could hear that finger snap, even over the rushing wind. How did he know she had thought such a thing? And how did he know that was exactly why she wanted to unload her Invicta? So she wouldn’t be tempted. If what the future held for her was drifting further and further into some kind of dementia or even Alzheimer’s, that was bad enough. Her committing suicide wouldn’t help anyone, most especially the people she loved.
She turned to Brandon. “How soon do you think you can get this up to Scottsdale for the auction?”
“Are you sure you want to sell this old boat?” he asked. “You’ve always loved it, and nobody makes cars like this anymore.”
“I’m sure,” she insisted. “I’m ready to let it go.”
“If it’s going to be car-show worthy, then it’ll have to be detailed,” Brandon said. “Since Leo Ortiz did the original restoration work on it, I could check with him and see if he has time to do it.”
Diana nodded, then turned to look at Max Cooper to see what he thought of that.
Naturally he wasn’t there. By then the only passenger in the backseat was Damsel-Damsel and nobody else.
It’s coming, Diana thought. I can still remember Brandon’s name and mine, but I still can’t remember Davy’s wife’s name. And I’m seeing people who aren’t there. At least I don’t think they’re there, but what if other people can see them, too, like little Gabe Ortiz did the other day? What does that mean? Do they exist, or am I just losing it?
She looked over at Brandon. He was wearing sunglasses, but she could see the frown behind the green lenses. He wasn’t frowning because he was concentrating on driving. He was worried about her. She loved him for that, but she didn’t want to be the cause of it.
About the time Andrew Carlisle had gotten out of prison and come looking for Diana, Brandon’s father had taken off in Brandon’s Pima County patrol car. They’d found him much later, wandering in the desert near Benson. Ultimately he had died of exposure, turning a seemingly harmless joyride into tragedy.
Exposure. That’s what the death certificate had said, but that was back in the seventies. People didn’t talk about Alzheimer’s then the way they did now. That was what had really gotten Toby Walker, and Diana understood it was likely to get her, too. Driving the Invicta off a cliff was tempting-a siren call urging Diana onto the rocks when she knew it would take more courage to stay and face whatever was coming.
In Diana Ladd Walker’s heart of hearts, she knew that leaving Brandon too early would hurt him more than staying and facing down the enemy together.
Grateful for Brandon’s reassuring presence, she reached over and rested her hand on his thigh. His frown lifted. He turned and smiled at her. Then he squeezed her hand and lifted it to his lips.
And that’s why, she thought, deliberately shaking off the evil spell Max’s unwanted presence had cast over them. Because he loves me more right now than Max Cooper ever loved anybody.
Max Cooper had married a girl who was pregnant with another man’s child. In small-town Joseph, Oregon, he had grudgingly given her illegitimate daughter, Diana, the benefit of his own slender claim on small-town respectability, but that was all he had given her-his name and that was it. As a child, she had faced his constant torment-the beatings and the verbal abuse-with implacable resistance and without even once rewarding him with
