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“Finally,” he muttered, flipping up his cell phone to view the number, but it wasn’t Kristina’s. The number was his client Ian Carmichael’s. Disappointed, he waited till the phone connected and then said, “Hello, Ian?”
“Oh, Godddd!” came a woman’s shriek, booming through his speakers.
The sound jolted Hale’s heart. “Astrid?” he asked.
“She’s . . . dead . . . dead. . . . She’s dead! Oh, God. Oh, my God! She’s dead!”
“Who? Astrid? Who’s dead?” Hale asked as he slowed and pulled over to the side of the road, but in some dark region of his mind he jumped to only one conclusion, and just as quickly pushed that thought aside. This wasn’t about him.
There was a sound of scrambling on the phone, as if someone had dropped it and then caught it, and a moment later Ian’s voice came on the line. “Hale?” he asked in a strained voice. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Ian. I’m driving home, and—”
“She’s not dead. Astrid grabbed the phone before I could call. We phoned nine-one-one when we found her. She was in the living room. There was blood on the wood, a heavy chunk like a beam. Must’ve fallen from above. I think she was hit with it.”
“Where are you?” he demanded, but he knew.
“We’re outside the house. She came in through a window. We found her inside.”
Hale was already turning the TrailBlazer around, aiming for Seaside and the Carmichaels’ house. His pulse was like a surf in his ears. “You found an injured woman inside your house?”
“You said they were going to demo soon and we stopped by and there she was.” He gulped audibly. “I think you should come. It might be . . .”
“I’m on my way. It might be what? Ian?” Hale demanded. Then, when Ian wouldn’t or couldn’t respond, he added, “You’re saying a woman climbed through the window.”
“’Cause it was locked, I guess. The Seaside police should be here soon,” Ian answered distractedly. “Umm . . . we’re just outside the front. We saw her and just . . . didn’t go in. There was a window open, maybe.”
One window. The one that wouldn’t close properly. Had some vagrant found it?
He experienced a horrifying, crystal-clear memory of standing with Kristina at their own house and watching rain race down the panes, and him saying, “This weather’s hell on wooden window frames. Good thing we’re redoing the Carmichaels’ house, because it’s a sieve.”
And then Kristina answering, “My par
ents’ house has wood frames. They either swell shut or just won’t latch.”
And him nodding, glad for once that they were having an actual conversation about something besides their relationship, and saying, “These windows are in the ‘just won’t latch’ category.”
Hale had a sudden vision of Kristina on the Carmichaels’ living room floor, the back of her head a mass of blood.
“Ian,” he said, forcing the words past his lips. It couldn’t be. Couldn’t! And yet . . . “Do you think the woman is my wife?”
“I don’t know, man. Just get here.”
Fear seized his chest like a vise, and he pressed his toes to the accelerator as he tore back through the dark night to the job site on the Promenade.
Savannah drove across the Willamette River, through the tunnel, then west on the Sunset Highway. The beams of headlights heading east shimmered on the pavement, and ahead of her pulsed a scarlet trail of taillights. Deception Bay lay over two hours west over the mountains. Her police band sputtered, and she was instantly tired. Damned pregnancy.
There was a Motel 6 coming up on her right, and it seemed as good a choice as any. She took the ramp off the Sunset and pulled into the lot. Zipping up her jacket and holding the collar close, she bent her head to the wind. Tiny flakes of snow swirled around her as she walked into the reception area, which smelled slightly of burned coffee.
She tried Kristina again as she waited for her key at the desk, but her cell phone went straight to voice mail for the dozenth time. She thought about calling Hale, but first Nadine’s and then Owen DeWitt’s condemnation of her sister was in the forefront of her mind, and she just didn’t feel like talking to Kristina’s husband right now.
Not that she believed a word of it. Kristina wanted Hale, and she was too determined that they should have a life together for her to blow it on an affair. Gretz and DeWitt were either lying or mistaken. Kristina wasn’t a liar or a cheat. That just wasn’t the way her sister was made.
“Where are you?” she muttered under her breath.
Her sister’s supposed sexual encounters reminded her of Catherine and what she’d said about her own sister, Mary’s “gift,” as well as her ability to draw men to her. Weird. Then there was Catherine’s strange lesson in genetics and the boys, now men, who’d been born at Siren Song. Where were they? Did they exist? Had they ever? All questions that were going to have to wait until after she finished her part of the Donatella investigation and had her baby.
She rubbed her stomach, and Baby St. Cloud gave her hand a kick. Not as powerful as before. She was getting too big, and there wasn’t the same amount of room for the little guy to move.
