Tessa pulled out her iPod ear buds and knelt down to pet the pumpkin-colored furrball. “Oh, they’re so cute! What are their names?”
“That one’s Sunshine and the black one’s Midnight,” he said.
I knelt down to pet Midnight.
She clawed at the air and hissed at me.
“You have to reach out toward her with your hand open,” said Tessa, demonstrating. “And do it more slowly. That way she knows you’re not going to hurt her.”
I wondered if Tessa was really talking about the cat.
Midnight purred, rolled onto her back, and let Tessa scratch her stomach. “See?”
“I never would have pegged you as a cat person, Tessa,” I said.
“I love cats.”
“I didn’t know-”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she said flatly.
I was beginning to realize just how true that was.
“Hello, there.”
I turned toward the voice and saw that Ralph had stepped into the room.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Just wanted to say hi to the brains of the family.”
“Thank you,” said Tessa.
“You remember me, right?”
She nodded. “Special Agent Ralph Hawkins.”
“Uncle Ralph.” He gave her a hug.
So I made her cry, but Uncle Ralph got a hug. Wonderful.
She pointed at his pocket. “What’s that?”
“Um, nothing.”
She feinted to the right and then leaned left, stuffed her hand into his pocket, and produced his PSP. “Sweet,” she said.
“Hey, give me that!” He tried to snatch it away from her, but she stepped back just in time.
“I should have warned you, Ralph,” I said. “She’s good.”
“Why are you playing video games?” she asked. “I thought you were supposed to be like solving murders or something.”
“Everyone needs a break sometimes. Now give me that.” He reached for it again, missed. Sighed.
“So what are you playing?”
He gave up and leaned an arm against the wall. “Sorcerer’s Realm IV. I can’t seem to make it past the crypt on Level Five.”
“No prob. I can help you.”
“You play?”
She did that sarcastic teenage girl jut-your-head-forward-and-tweak-your-voice thing. “Yeah.”
“Oh,” said Ralph. “Right.”
She flopped onto the couch, and he positioned himself next to her. Then she began to maneuver the game controls like a pro while he watched submissively. “See that cave?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s a secret passage in there, but you need to behead the ogre first.”
“I didn’t know you could behead him. I always just beat on him with the club.”
“No, beheading is definitely better.”
I watched them for a few minutes, Tessa pointing. Ralph nodding, his head bobbing up and down above those massive shoulders. Watching Ralph trying to use his thick fingers to press the tiny control buttons made me think of trying to type wearing a catcher’s mitt. No wonder he couldn’t beat Tony.
And every once in a while Tessa would laugh. For the first time in months I actually heard my stepdaughter laugh.
As she showed my friend how to behead ogres.
64
Before Ralph left he pulled me aside. “Tucker’s on disciplinary leave,” he told me. “Until they can figure out exactly what went down last night.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I expected that. Any word on Vanessa?”
He shook his head. “Last I heard she was the same. Bullet matched, though. It’s the same weapon as the mall. Listen, I gotta go, have a good afternoon with Tessa. She’s a darling girl.”
Darling wasn’t exactly the word I would have chosen. “OK, I will.”
Then he said good-bye to Tessa and took off. I hung out with Tessa and the cats for about half an hour, and then I checked my messages. Three voicemails from Margaret. Huh, that was even faster than I expected. One message from Lien-hua.
I called Lien-hua.
Maybe I should have been surprised when she told me that two hours ago they’d found the rest of Jolene’s body in the home of Reggie Abrams, retired FBI agent, but I wasn’t. Maybe I should have been surprised when she told me Abrams had been shot execution style in the head or that he was the former head of FBI in the state of North Carolina, but I wasn’t.
The only thing that really surprised me was that Ralph hadn’t mentioned any of this when he was with me at the house.
Weird.
“Did we find out any more about this cult in New Mexico?” I asked her.
“A little. The leader’s name is Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid. He used to own PTPharmaceuticals but dropped off the map after selling the company a few years ago. I’ll email you his picture and bio. Oh, and I have an address. We just called it in to the local police about ten minutes ago. They’re heading over to check him out.”
“Give me the address,” I said, flipping open my laptop.
“What are you doing?” asked Tessa, picking up Sunshine.
Yeah, this is good. She likes video games. “Watch this,” I said and booted up F.A.L.C.O.N.
“You’re not gonna believe this,” Lien-hua said. “Here’s the address: 19654 Walnut Road, Taos, New Mexico.”
“What’s so significant about that?” I typed in the address, and Tessa watched the screen tilt and then zoom in on the coordinates. First the planet. Then the hemisphere. Then North America. The west. New Mexico. Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
“Sweet,” she said.
“Well,” said Lien-hua, “the phone number for Peoples Temple was Walnut 1-9654. It was retired after the tragedy. It’s never been reassigned to another customer.”
“Subtle,” I said. But as the screen zoomed in closer, I began to regret my decision to let Tessa watch.
“What’s that?” asked Tessa.
Deep billows of black smoke churned from each of the six buildings. “The ranch is on fire,” I whispered. “The whole place is.” I maneuvered the cursor around the screen, tilting it, zooming in and out to observe the buildings from different angles. A fierce desert wind from the west whipped the flames into a white frenzy.
“Are there any people in there?” Tessa asked softly.
I flipped the laptop closed. “Tessa, wait over there for a minute ’til I’m off the phone.”
“But-”
“Please.”
“Patrick-”
“Now.”
