Scent Of Roses Part 9

The man was outrageous! She had no idea why she found herself biting back a smile. "We were talking about Maria Santiago, and I've already said more than I should."

"She isn't your patient, is she?"

"Well, no. Not officially. She asked me to sit in on her session with Dr. James as a friend."

"Then there isn't a problem. Eat your French fries. They're getting cold."

She picked one up and dipped it into the ketchup she had poured on her plate. "Maria refuses to see Dr. James again."

"I think I can understand that." Zach oversalted his fries, then picked one up, tossed it into his mouth, and chewed with obvious relish. "According to Raul, Maria made him promise not to tell her husband what's been going on in the house, but the girl is convinced the ghost is real."

"Why did Raul tell you all this?"

Zach shrugged. "Like I said, we've been talking. I come up a lot on the weekends. We're trying to get the barn built, you know? Working with the boys gives me a chance to get to know them, try to encourage them. I teach a cla.s.s on drug and alcohol abuse. I talk about my past and how it's possible to change your life if you want to bad enough. By the way, I think you're right about Raul. He seems like a really good kid."

"And he told you about his sister?"

He nodded, swallowed a bite of ketchup-and-oversalted French fry. "Yeah. He's really worried about her."

"What did he say about the ghost?"

"He says he believes her. That's the reason he talked to me about it. He knows I'm a lawyer. Raul wanted me to speak to my brother, see if there was somewhere else Miguel and Maria could live."

"I don't believe this. She actually wants to move out of the house?"

"Apparently so. Whatever's going on, there's no way my brother's going to inconvenience himself because one of his farm workers believes in ghosts."

A shadow pa.s.sed over the table. Elizabeth glanced up as a tall blond man approached, and the guilt she'd felt earlier rose up again.

"Well, speak of the devil," Zach said, his expression going hard.

Carson stopped beside her chair and there wasn't the least hint of a smile on his face. "I thought you had more sense," he said, bringing a flush to her cheeks.

Zach shoved to his feet, one hand unconsciously fisting. "Leave her alone, Carson."

If Elizabeth had ever needed evidence the man had been in prison she saw it now in his face. Hard, cold, dangerous. Even lethal was a word that came to mind.

"She needed to talk to me about one of her cases," Zach said, "a boy at Teen Vision. That's why she agreed to come to lunch."

Carson's disapproving gaze swung to her. "That right?"

Elizabeth didn't flinch, though it wasn't that easy to do. "It doesn't matter why I'm here. I can to go to lunch with anyone I want, Carson. Even your brother. Just because we've been out a couple of times doesn't give you any say in what I do."

Carson's jaw tightened.

Zach seemed surprised she hadn't gone along with the half-truth he had invented to give her an easy out. She didn't need his protection. She didn't really care what Carson thought.

Carson forced a smile. "I suppose that's true." His gaze fixed on Zach. "How's Lisa?" A sarcastic edge crept into his voice, and Zach's eyes darkened in warning.

"I wouldn't know. I haven't seen her since I left town last week."

"If I happen to run into her, I'll tell her you said h.e.l.lo." Carson walked away and Elizabeth's gaze swung to Zach.

"Lisa?"

"Lisa Doyle. We see each other sometimes when I come up on the weekends."

Lisa Doyle. The name leached the blood from her face. She knew Lisa Doyle. Their enmity went back a long way. "You're seeing Lisa Doyle?"

"Not exactly. We're not really involved, if that's what you mean."

Elizabeth rose shakily from her chair, her stomach twisted into a knot. "Not really involved? You mean you're just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her. Why am I not surprised?" He was Zachary Harcourt, after all. When he was young, he had used women like Kleenex and tossed them away. She wasn't about to be treated like one of them.

Opening her purse, she took out her wallet and tossed enough bills on the table to pay for her lunch and a tip.

Zach s.n.a.t.c.hed up the bills and stood up. He thrust the money in her direction. "I invited you to lunch and dammit, I don't answer to Lisa any more than you answer to Carson."

"I'm not sleeping with Carson." Ignoring his outstretched hand, she turned and started walking, but Zach caught her arm.

"Look, I didn't handle this right. It was a spur-of-the-moment invitation. I didn't think it would matter. I'm sorry."

She looked at him and something twisted inside her. "Funny thing is, so am I."

She shouldn't have let it bother her. So what if Zach was seeing someone? She'd been dating Carson, hadn't she? And it was only a friendly lunch.

But Zach had been pressing her for a date for the past two weeks and he hadn't mentioned that he was involved with someone. That it was Lisa Doyle, the woman who had destroyed her marriage, made her stomach roll with nausea.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she drove back to the office, a memory stirring of the weekend she and Brian had come back to San Pico three years ago to attend her high school cla.s.s reunion. He'd insisted she go, perhaps because they had been having problems in their marriage. Brian was always working late, even on the weekends, and Elizabeth had begun to grow suspicious.

That night had been glorious, seeing old friends, Brian more solicitous that he had been in months. She had been talking to Gwen and her husband, dancing with some of the guys she'd known in high school. She didn't even notice when Brian slipped away.

Then the band had taken a break and she couldn't seem to find him. He'd had a lot to drink and she was worried about him driving the car back to her sister's house where they were staying. More and more concerned, she walked out in the parking lot in search of him. That's when she spotted the Lexusand saw that it was moving, rocking back and forth on its springs.

As she started toward the car, Elizabeth's legs were shaking, her heart pounding. Dread clogged her throat at what she might find.

The car was parked beneath a big overhead light in the parking lot. When she reached it, she could see two people crammed into the deep cream leather backseatBrian and Lisa Doyle, one of the most popular girls in Elizabeth's cla.s.s. Brian's pants were down around his knees, Lisa's skirt shoved up to her waist.

For several seconds Elizabeth just stared. She could hear the slap of bodies, the moans and grunts of s.e.x.

"That's it, baby," Brian said. "Come for me."

A whimper caught in Elizabeth's throat. She turned and started running back toward the cafeteria where the reunion was being held. He'd heard her high heels. .h.i.tting the pavement because the car door swung open.

"Elizabeth!" Brian's voice reached her. "Elizabeth, wait!"

But she just kept running, pus.h.i.+ng her way inside the entry, heading for the women's bathroom. She wanted to hide, desperately needed time to recover herself, to try to figure out what to do.

In the end, Gwen came in to get her, helped her wipe her tearstained face and repair her makeup. Apparently Brian had made up some story of a misunderstanding and Gwen did her best to pretend she believed it. But Elizabeth knew the truth. Brian had been cheating all along, just as she had suspected. Their marriage was over.

And the image of her husband s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Lisa Doyle in the backseat of their car was forever burned into her brain.

The afternoon slid away. Zach returned to the hospital to spend a bit more time with his father, who seemed to be a little more lucid than usual. Zach pushed his wheelchair out onto the covered patio and they sat in the shade, absorbing the heat and listening to the water splas.h.i.+ng in the fountain. Zach got him talking about the old days on the farm, the older man smiling with pleasure at the distant memories that only occasionally returned.

He talked until he grew sleepy, then the nurse came out, chided Zach for tiring him and pushed the wheelchair back inside the building.

Zach thought it was probably good for his father and didn't regret the hours they had shared, something that had never happened when he was a boy.

As he left the rest home, the sun was setting behind the low range of hills to the west, casting the sky into deep shades of pink, orange and blue. The long day was nearly over. Driving down the highway, he thought of his disastrous lunch with Liz earlier that day.

Zach swore softly. If he had ever felt like getting drunk, tonight was the night. He wouldn't, of course. He'd been down that ugly road and he never intended to go there again.

He shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have pressed Liz for a date when he was still seeing Lisa. He wasn't sure why he had. h.e.l.l, he hadn't really believed she would accept. And for chrissake, it was only lunch!

He had always admired her honesty. He should have been honest with her. d.a.m.n!

Zach took a deep, steadying breath. From the start, there had been some kind of spark between them. Liz might not want to admit it, but it was there just the same. He had seen it in her pretty blue eyes whenever she looked at himthough she did her best to ignore it. And he had screwed it up.

He could still remember how pale she had gone when Carson had said Lisa's name, the son of a b.i.t.c.h. There was something going on there, Zach figured, something between Elizabeth and Lisa that Carson knew about and Zach didn't.

It didn't matter, he told himself. It was just a lunch date, probably wouldn't have gone any further anyway.

Still, he was done seeing Lisa. Whatever attraction he had felt for her had been fading for some time. He hadn't wanted to sleep with her last week, couldn't wait to leave the following morning and had gotten a room at the Holiday Inn instead of going back that night.

He'd talk to her tomorrow, tell her their arrangement was over. He didn't figure she'd be too upset. She had a string of admirers a block long waiting in the wings. Zach knew she saw some of them when he wasn't around, just as he dated whomever he wanted in L.A.

Nothing serious. Just women he met and enjoyed. They knew where he was coming from. Just like Lisa. For as far back as he could remember, Zach had always been a loner. h.e.l.l, his nickname in high school had been the Lone Wolf.

He didn't like people getting too close, didn't like letting his guard down enough to let them. If he did, something always seemed to go wrong. Better to keep his distance, play it safe. With Lisa that had been easy.

With Liz, he didn't think it would be.

h.e.l.l, maybe it was good things had turned out the way they had. Better for everyone all around.

At least that was what he told himself as he steered his Jeep along the highway that evening, slowing as he reached the gate to Teen Vision, meaning to have supper with the counselors and the boys.

He did that sometimes. Though visiting hours and phone calls were strictly limited, as the organization's founder he had special privileges. It gave him a chance to talk to the kids, try to encourage them.

He parked in the dirt lot, got out and closed the door, then pressed the lock b.u.t.ton on his key fob and headed across the parking lot.

Sam Marston met him before he reached the dining hall.

"Zach! I'm glad you're here."

"What's up?"

"It's the Perez boy. He's skipped. If he's not back in a couple of hours, I'll have to turn him in."

Raul was out of juvenile detention but still under strict rules of supervision and those did not include leaving the premises without special permission.

"What happened?"

"According to his friend, Pete Ortega, he made his usual Friday night call to his sister then headed back up to his room. Pete said he seemed upset about something and a little while later, he turned up missing."

"Keep your cell phone handy. I'll call you if I find him." Zach went back to his Jeep and cranked up the engine. A few minutes later, he was rolling along the highway toward the section of Harcourt Farms that contained the workers' cottages, the overseers' houses and the main farmhouse.

Zach had a very strong hunch Raul had gone to see his sister.

Ten.

Elizabeth pulled into the driveway of the Santiago home and parked next to the single car garage. As soon as she cracked open the car door, she was. .h.i.t by a wave of evening heat. The town was furnace-hot this time of year, the ground as hard as pavement except for the irrigated agricultural land that provided most of the jobs in the area.

She glanced at her surroundings, at the perfectly s.p.a.ced walnut trees in the orchard behind this section of the farm, the endless rows of cotton stretching for miles along the road. The heat worked miracles on produce, but it was h.e.l.l on the people forced to endure it five months out of the year.

Ignoring the perspiration beginning to dampen the back of her neck, she started toward the narrow cement walkway leading to the small, yellow stucco house.

Maria had called her at home, which she had never done before. Elizabeth was careful of the people she gave her home number to, but in the two years she had been working with Raul, somehow Maria and her brother had become people she particularly cared about, and she was determined to help them.

She thought of the young woman's frantic phone call.

"I am sorry to bother you at home," Maria had said, an edge of panic in her voice, "but I did not know what else to do."

"It's all right, Maria. What is it? What's happened?"

"It is Raul. He called me as he usually does on Friday and I mentioned that Miguel was going to be working all night. He asked me if I was afraid to stay alone and I told him I was. I wish I had lied, but he would have known if I did. He said he was coming over to stay with me until Miguel got home. I tried to talk him out of it, but he would not listen. He is on his way here now."

Elizabeth sighed into the receiver. Leaving the youth farm would have dire consequences for Raul. "Once he gets there, just keep him there. I'll be over as quickly as I can."

Elizabeth hung up the phone, grabbed her purse and car keys, and headed out the door. If Raul was caught AWOL from Teen Vision, he'd be sent back to juvenile hall. Neither Maria nor Elizabeth wanted that to happen.

She was out of the car and walking up the sidewalk when a dark brown Jeep Cherokee pulled up next to her car. Her mouth thinned as Zachary Harcourt got out and closed the driver-side door. Annoyance warred with a funny little tug in the pit of her stomach.

He caught up with her at the bottom of the front porch steps. "I gather we're both here for the same reason."

"I suppose so. Raul?"

He nodded.

"I'm not sure he's here yet. I take it he's not at the farm."

"He was earlier. Turned up missing just after supper."