Spicer was there, he asked me for a ride to his hotel… Lord, if only I’d said no…”
“You obviously had the damage to the car fixed. If he’d gone to the police later, it would have been your word against his. Unless he had some kind of evidence. Did he?”
“Yes. Photographs. He took them with his cell phone camera. The woman, the blood, the damage, my license plate.” Rossi drew in a shuddery breath. “The police are sure to find them now that he’s dead…”
“Not necessarily. It depends on where he kept them.” Sharon Rossi’s ice-gray eyes shifted to pin Fallon. “You know Spicer’s dead-if you didn’t kill him, that means you found him. Did you find anything else?”
“There wasn’t anything else to find.”
“You’re sure there were no photographs?”
“Not anywhere you’d think to look.”
“Did you notify the police that Spicer was dead?”
Fallon said nothing.
“No, you didn’t,” she said. “And you won’t say anything about a three-year-old accident, either, will you? Without evidence it would be your word against David’s and mine. You know that as well as I do.”
“I know it.”
“So you’re going to forget what you just heard and let my husband and me handle it. In return, we’ll forget you told us Spicer is dead and you didn’t report finding his body. Deal?”
He didn’t have any choice. He’d satisfied himself that neither of them had anything to do with Spicer’s death, but he’d overestimated his ability to control the situation, let himself get backed into a moral corner. Maybe the police would find those photographs and maybe they wouldn’t; maybe David Rossi would continue to get away with a drunken, fatal hit-and-run. Either way there wasn’t a damn thing Fallon could do about it.
“Deal,” he said.
THREE
HE DIDN’T LIKE HIMSELF much when he left the Rossi hacienda. Getting in deeper and deeper with every move he made. But it was too late for him to quit, even if he ended up hating himself. All he could think about was Casey and her son, out there somewhere, alive-they had to be alive. Nobody else was hunting for them. They didn’t have anybody else.
Hey, Geena, he thought, how do you like this for a commitment? What would you say if you knew about it?
Well, he had a pretty good idea what she’d say. Something like “This isn’t a commitment anymore, it’s an obsession.” Something like “You’re not as tough as you think you are.” Something like “Fools rush in. You’re a damned fool, Rick.” And she’d be right, according to her view of him and the world she lived in.
But she’d be wrong, too. He might be a damned fool, but living in his world depended on finishing what he’d started.
The Rossis were out of it now. Bobby Jablonsky was still his last best hope in Vegas. All he had to do was find him.
He made another trip to Sandstone Way. Still nobody there.
Where was Jablonsky? Somewhere down in the Laughlin area? Candy should be home, even if he wasn’t. One o’clock now. Maybe she’d gone to the Golden Horseshoe early. Maybe Bobby J. was there playing poker by now.
Wrong on both counts. Neither of them was at the casino. Nobody he talked to had seen them yet today.
On the run?
Fallon rejected the thought immediately. From what he knew of the man, Bobby J. wasn’t the type to panic. Even the commission of a homicide wouldn’t be enough to prod him into running. His dealings with Spicer had been covert; he’d know it was unlikely that he’d come under suspicion once the body was found. He’d just cover his tracks and go on home as if nothing had happened.
He was around Vegas somewhere. Keep looking in the same places and sooner or later he’d turn up.
Midafternoon.
Fallon had been traveling the desert-eater’s veins and arteries for nearly three hours, covering the same ground. Sandstone Way, Cheyenne Street and Casino Slot Machine Repair, Glitter Gulch and another quick check-in at the Golden Horseshoe. Still no Bobby J.
His nerves had always been good. Tense situations didn’t bother him. If anything, he functioned better under pressure, focused on a single objective. But this was a new experience, more urgent than any except Timmy’s fall and fatal injury, and there hadn’t been anything he could do about that. Passivity ran against his grain. And that was what all this futile running around amounted to-doing nothing, putting himself and his emotions on hold.
Three thirty-five. Sandstone Way again.
And this time, finally, there was a car in the cracked asphalt driveway.
Not Bobby J.’s Mustang-the light-colored four-door he’d seen parked there on Sunday night.
Candy’s wheels.
She took her time answering the door. The reason was that she’d been getting ready for work at the Golden Horseshoe. Putting on makeup: she had a mascara brush in one hand, and she was wearing a thin blue robe with a towel draped around her neck. She scowled at Fallon and said angrily, “What the hell’s the idea leaning on the bell like that?”
“Are you Candy Barr?”
“Goddamn salesman,” she said, and started to close the door.
He jammed his shoulder and leg against it, shoved hard enough to send her backpedaling. She caught herself as he stepped inside and threw the door shut behind him. He said, “Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you.”
He could have saved his breath; she wasn’t the screaming type. A fighter. She came rushing back toward him, her eyes flashing. Her fingernails were long and painted blood-red and she’d have gone straight for his face and eyes if he hadn’t shown her the Ruger, drawn the hammer back with an audible click.
It stopped her cold. Her mouth opened, snapped shut. She began to breathe heavily through her nose, staring at the gun.
“What do you want?” The words came out scratchy but with more anger than fear.
“Bobby J.”
“Yeah,” she said, “that figures. He’s not here.”
“Where he is?”
“How should I know? I’m not his keeper.”
“Anybody else in the house besides you?”
“Nobody else lives here.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“No. Just me.”
“Let’s go make sure.”
He moved forward, gesturing with the Ruger. She backed up, finally turned as he came close, and walked away slowly with her head tilted around so she could watch him. The room they were in, the living room, was shabbily furnished but kept neater than he would have expected. The kitchen, a dining alcove, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a utility room, a tiny back porch-all empty. The only one that had a disordered look was the last, the bedroom she shared with Jablonsky: unmade bed, her skimpy costume laid out on it, and a vanity table cluttered with tubes and bottles of makeup.
She said, “You satisfied now?”
“Bobby J. bring anybody here last night?”
“Like who?”
“A woman and a young boy.”
