“You still feel that way?”
“What do you think?”
Fallon said, “It’s a hundred and twenty miles from Vegas to this part of Death Valley. How’d you end up where I found you?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you did come here intentionally. Death Valley-dead place, place to go and die.”
“No. I’ve never been here before. I told you, I just kept driving until the car stopped. What difference does it make, anyhow?”
“It makes a difference. I think it does.”
“Well, I don’t. The only thing that matters is that you found me too soon.”
They rode in silence again until they reached the intersection with the Shoshone highway. Six miles from there to Furnace Creek Ranch.
He said as much to Casey. “When we get there, I’ll tell the infirmary people you made the mistake of driving out into a wilderness area in the wrong kind of vehicle, and when it broke down you tried to walk out and lost your bearings. That sort of thing happens a dozen times a year in the Valley. Nobody will think anything of it.”
She was silent.
“After that I’ll get a cabin for you so you can rest up.”
“Don’t you listen? I don’t have any money.”
“I’ll pay for it. You can pay me back later.”
“Pay you back how?”
“Cash or check. I don’t want anything else from you, Casey.”
“Oh, sure. That’s what you all say.”
“I’m not other men. I’m Rick Fallon.”
“Why should Rick Fallon care about me?”
Good question. He kept thinking about the way he’d found her, how she’d looked lying there in the wash. And the suicide note. And everything that she’d told him. And above all the face of the boy, Kevin, smiling at him from the photograph she carried-the boy who looked like Timmy.
But all he said was, “We can talk about that later.”
“We’ve talked enough. I have, anyway. You know my story, so now I’m supposed to listen to yours?”
“No.”
“Then we don’t have anything left to talk about.”
“I think maybe we do,” he said, and let it go at that.
FOUR
FURNACE CREEK RANCH WAS a sprawling tourist oasis that Fallon avoided except when he needed to buy gas and supplies. Eighteen-hole golf course, the world’s lowest at 214 feet below sea level. Two hundred and twenty-four moderately priced rooms and cabins. Restaurants, saloon and cocktail lounge, shops, a Borax museum, swimming pools fed by underground springs, tennis courts, stables, airstrip, RV and trailer parking, service station. Too crowded, too much engine hum.
It was midafternoon when they drove past the lushly landscaped grounds of the Furnace Creek Inn, just down the road from the Ranch. The Inn catered to those who preferred luxury accommodations and meals at a four-star restaurant. He’d stayed there once with Geena, at her insistence. It had everything you could want-everything she could want, anyway. The engine sounds were more muted there, but he could still hear them, and he missed the silences and wide open freedom of the remote sections of the Valley. He’d never been back to the Inn.
Before he delivered Casey to the infirmary on the palm-shaded Ranch grounds, he repeated the lost-by-accident story he was going to tell and warned her not to say anything to contradict him. Her response was a head bob. She seemed to have lapsed back into a brooding lassitude.
“I’ll have to tell it to the park rangers, too,” he said. “They may or may not want to talk to you, now or later. If so, just stick to the story.”
Another head bob.
There were no problems at the infirmary. The woman on the desk asked for Casey’s address and medical insurance card. Casey said she didn’t know where her purse was, and Fallon said it was in the Jeep. He went out, checked her wallet and found a Kaiser card. Her driver’s license had been issued within the past year, so the address on it-716 Avila Court, San Diego-was probably current. He slipped the license out and took it and the insurance card inside, leaving the purse where it was.
From the infirmary he made his report to the ranger on duty and went from there to the Ranch office. Even though the resort throbbed with people, there was usually space available at this time of year. Today was no exception. He used one of his credit cards to secure a cabin for two nights in the name of C. Dunbar.
At the cabin, he brought her luggage and purse inside and laid them on the bed. Neither bag was locked. With the door shut, he went through them. Nothing but cosmetics and personal hygiene stuff in the overnight bag; no drugs other than a prescription vial of Ambien sleeping tablets. The suitcase contained a skirt, a pair of slacks, a couple of light-colored blouses, a thin poplin jacket, underwear. And wadded up inside one of the liner pockets, a pair of torn cotton panties and a third blouse, white, also torn, and spotted with streaks of dried blood.
He closed both cases and checked the purse again. The name and address on the Toyota’s registration was the same as the one on her driver’s license. He put that aside and removed the other items one by one. Wallet. Coin purse. Leatherette business-card case. Cell phone. Lipstick, compact, nail clippers, tissues. The last item was a small, round chunk of plaster of paris with the words “For Mom, Love Kevin” etched into it-the kind of thing grade- school kids make and loving parents cherish. Timmy had made something like it for Geena. And for him, a crude wood-modeled keychain that he still carried in his pocket.
He still had Casey’s license and insurance card; he returned them to the wallet, then opened the leatherette case. A dozen or so glossy business cards, all done in red and black embossed lettering, all the same: Vernon Young Realty, 14150 Las Palomas Avenue, San Diego. Casey Dunbar, Sales Representative.
The cell phone was charged and working; you could almost always get a satellite signal in this part of the Valley. He opened the cell’s address book. Around a dozen entries, listed by first name or initial or type of business or institution such as “School”; most had telephone numbers only. The few addresses were all in San Diego and environs. The final entry was “S. Ulbrich,” with a phone number but no address. He wrote the number down on a sheet of paper from the writing desk.
The wallet next. Other than the one credit card, probably maxed out, and the twelve dollars in cash, there was nothing but the driver’s license, medical card, and snapshots of her son. He looked at the snaps again-six of them, ranging from when Kevin was a baby to his present age. The physical resemblance to Timmy was not that strong, really, and yet the boy’s image brought memories flooding back. Fallon resisted an urge to take Timmy’s photo from his own wallet and compare the two side by side. He closed Casey’s wallet and returned it and the rest of the items to her purse.
All right.
Outside he retrieved his cell phone from his pack, took it back into the cabin. The digital clock on the nightstand gave the time as 4:30. Will Rodriguez should still be at Unidyne. He put in a call, waited through a five-minute hold before Will’s voice said, “Hey, amigo. I thought you were going packing in Death Valley.”
“That’s where I am.”
“Everything okay?”
“More or less. Listen, Will, are you busy right now?”
“No more than usual. Why?”
“I stumbled into a situation here and I need a favor.”
“You got it. What kind of situation?”
“It involves a woman-”
“Ah.”
“No, nothing like that,” Fallon said. “She’s in trouble. I need some information on how bad it is.”
