Collision Course: A Romantic Thriller Page 16

  And God, what about him? What about Ruby? What in the hell had she done?

  Not a half-hour before, she’d driven past the Taos motel where they stayed yesterday—was it only yesterday?—and her stomach twisted with the memory of him, warm, loving, insistent. She swore she could still feel him inside her, that she could still smell him in her clothes and her hair.

  Her hands began to tremble on the steering wheel of Ruby’s truck. Ruby’s truck! She’s stolen Ruby’s truck! On the seat next to her lay his newspaper ID badge, a stack of notebooks, and the black-and-white faxed images of Janey O’Connor and Bradley Rowe, the happy couple.

  This was a nightmare. And she was never going to wake up, was she?

  “Oh, Daddy!” Janey gripped the steering wheel so hard that the rough edge of the cast cut through her right palm. “Daddy, what happened? Daddy, help me!”

  But Janey knew that even if Kevin O’Connor were alive, he couldn’t help her now. No one could. And she kept driving north, further into the blackness, because there was nothing else to do.

  Three beers and four Advil had blunted the ache in Ruben’s jaw and hand. He sat sprawled out on Gina’s couch in the soft light of a table lamp, still cupping the ice pack to his face. His boots lay on the floor.

  Gina sat with her legs crossed. One of her slippers flapped up and down against her heel as she swung a crossed leg through the air. She chewed on her bottom lip. She sighed for about the hundredth time that night.

  Ruben looked like hell, even without the spreading purple bruise under his mouth. He looked as bad as the night his parents died, the night he sat right there on the same couch and cried his heart out to her.

  And what a mess the guy was in now! Gina wished she knew how to help him, but she didn’t. Should he believe what this Jane O’Connor was telling him? Hell if she knew! Was this Jane person really in danger? No way to know. Should Ruben be concerned for his own safety? Who could say?

  Would he go after her?

  She sighed again. Gina knew this man on her couch, and she knew that if Ruben Jaramillo wanted something, he found a way to get it. So yes, no matter how stupid or dangerous, he’d go after her.

  “You need to get at least a couple hours sleep, okay? There’s nothing you can do now anyway, it’s after one a.m.”

  “I can’t sleep,” he mumbled. “I’ve got to get into the office.”

  “And do what, Ruben? Fall face-first onto your desk?” Gina rose up, retrieved his empty beer bottle and walked out into the kitchen to throw it in the recycle bin. The crash of glass against glass made Ruben start.

  “I better go,” he said, sitting up. “Ohhh, mmmmph.” Ruben closed his eyes and poked at his jaw.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Gina passed through the living room long enough to make that declaration then disappeared down the hall. She returned with a blanket and a pillow.

  “Stay put. We’ll wake you up early.”

  Ruben looked up at her and surrendered to the pain, the exhaustion, and the common sense in her offer.

  “Okay. Thanks.” He grabbed the blanket from her and stretched out. Gina fluffed the pillow for him and he lay down his head.

  “I appreciate this, Gina. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Ruben pulled off his glasses and laid them on the table near his head.

  “Yeah. Between you and Pookie I always feel needed around here.” She switched off the lamp next to the couch. “Goodnight, Ruby.”

  “Gina?”

  She stopped, her hand on the archway between the hall and the living room. "Yeah?”

  “I asked her to marry me tonight.”

  Thank God it was dark, Gina thought. In the dark, Ruben couldn’t see her arrive at a clinical diagnosis of his behavior, officially declaring that he was out of his fucking mind!

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yup, I heard you. So was this before or after she told you she was the Sugar Plum Fairy running from the mob?”

  “I didn’t say she was running from the mob! I don’t know who she’s running from, other than Bradley Rowe. And you sound like you don’t believe she could be some famous dancer out East.”

  “Well, I…”

  “I saw those newspaper articles, Gina. She’s a Philadelphia prima ballerina engaged to this Brad guy, a Mr. Society antiquities dealer. And if I went back to the newsroom I could figure out the rest of it. That’s where I should be.”

  “Ruben.” Gina walked back to the couch and sat cross-legged on the floor, in the dark, next to the couch. She kept her voice soft and patient.

  “You asked a woman to marry you after knowing her only a few days, days during which she couldn’t even tell you her name. On what planet would that be considered a rational decision?”

  “They were wonderful days. The best of my life. And I knew all I needed to.”

  “Such as?”

  Ruben propped himself up on his elbow. He could just make out Gina’s upturned face in the darkness, and her concern.

  “She is kind and generous and likes to laugh. She’s incredibly talented—no, gifted—and worked like hell to get where she was. She’s beautiful and sexy and smart. She’s the woman I’ve been looking for all my life.”

  “You were looking for a particular woman? Since when?”

  “Since forever, Gina.”

  “You could knock me over with a feather.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, I just never took you for the kind of man who believed in that kind of stuff, that there was one special woman somewhere out there just for him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, your past behavior led me to believe you were more of a shopper than a buyer, you know, squeezing all the melons in the produce section of love but never making it to the checkout.”

  Ruben snickered. “You crack me up.”

  Gina hissed at him. “Just thank your lucky stars she didn’t take your proposal seriously.” She laughed as she got up from the floor. “I mean, think of the jam you’d be in now if she agreed to marry you!”

  “She took it seriously. She said ‘yes.’”

  Gina spun around. “Say what?”

  “She said if circumstances were different, she’d marry me.”

  Gina let loose with a belly laugh and a single “honk!” emanated from the front yard.

  “She just knocked down your fence in her rush to get away from you. That’s not the way we gals usually accept a proposal of marriage.”

  “She said she loved me, Gina.”

  “She did?”

  “And I’ve got to help her. Nothing else matters.”

  “Right on.” Gina shuffled down the hallway in her slippers. “You better rest up, then. See you in the morning.”

  Chapter 12

  Friday, March 24

  Ruben woke up abruptly on Gina’s couch and looked down at the glowing green numbers on his watch. It was three-thirty. His brain must have realized it was back on duty.

  He sat up. His jaw felt stiff and sore and his hand felt somewhat better but was swollen. He squeezed and stretched his fingers to work out the kinks.

  The geese screamed, hissed and nibbled at his ankles as he made his way to Gina’s front gate, and Ruben mumbled obscenities at them until he was safely on the road. He could barely make out the damage to the front of the Taurus in the dark, which was probably for the best. He took a quick shower and changed his clothes and headed into the office.

  Ruben used the security card in the Taurus’ glove compartment to enter the parking lot and the building. Suzie nearly screamed when Ruben shuffled into the brightly lit newsroom.

  “Good Lord!” She scanned Ruben as he stood in front of her cubicle. “Have you been in a fight?”

  He offered her a weak smile, and the crack on his bottom lip began to sting. “Did you make coffee yet?”

  She stared at him blankly. “Yes.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Suzie Gilligan watc
hed Ruben cross the newsroom to Howard’s office, where he poured himself a mug of coffee. He walked back to the group of editor’s desks and took a seat next to her, blowing over the top of the mug.

  He realized he’d never been in the newsroom at this hour. It was deathly silent.

  “I’m in serious trouble.” Ruben set the mug down.

  “Obviously.” Suzie waited.

  “Is Coop down at police headquarters?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, he is. He’s been doing your shift since you disappeared—not too happily, I might add. A married guy with a baby doesn’t like to get up in the middle of the night to go to work.”

  Ruben nodded quietly. “I can imagine.” He touched Suzie’s arm. “You’ve got to help me.”

  She pursed her lips, and Ruben saw the network of fine lines that feathered from her mouth.

  “Tell me what’s going on.” Suzie crossed her arms over her narrow chest. “Howard said only that you had personal issues to work out and that you’d be back when you could.”

  Ruben laughed a little and reached for his coffee. “That about sums it up.”

  “Who hit you, Ruby?”

  “Kovac.”

  “No way!” She leaned closer to him. “Have you been gone all this time because of the fight you had–you’re still having, apparently–with Kovac?”

  “Not at all. Look, here’s what I need help with. I wrecked Car No. 3, the maroon one. It’s out in the parking lot bashed to hell. I checked it out last night after my truck was stolen, but I’m going to be in deep shit because I wasn’t on an official assignment when it got wrecked. I need you to smooth that over for me for a couple days.”

  Her mouth hung open.

  “Also, I’m going down to Metro to press charges against Kovac for this,” he pointed to his face. “So I’ll need you to try to keep the gossip to a dull roar until it gets sorted out. Can you do that?”

  Her mouth still hung open.

  “I’ve also found myself involved with a woman who is in a lot of trouble and I have to try to find her, help her. It’s a mess, and right now, I don’t know how it’s going to get worked out.”

  Suzie still said nothing, but at least her mouth had snapped shut.

  “I have to work here for a couple hours and I’m going to ask you to not mention that I was here. Just tell Howard I’ve got Car No. 3 and I called in to say there was an accident and I’ll take full responsibility when I come back in a couple of days.”

  “Why did Kovac punch you?”

  “Because he’s an asshole.”

  “What kind of trouble are we talking?”

  “I’m not sure yet. It’s the woman I hit on the motorcycle.”

  Suzie’s entire face widened in surprise. “What? I thought she was going to be fine.”

  “She is fine,” Ruben said with a slight smile. “She’s wonderful. I’ll be on the computer for a bit, then I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He got up and began to walk away when Suzie called after him. “I’m worried about you, Ruby.”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Thanks, Suz. No matter what happens, just know that I’ve always appreciate your concern for me. I mean that.”

  By five-thirty he’d amassed quite a dossier on Bradley Rowe, the East Coast’s premiere antique arms dealer, and Janey O’Connor, the down-to-earth diva Rowe planned to marry.

  Ruben had to laugh. Most everything he assumed about her was way off base. Her father, an autoworker, raised her alone in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood. She earned scholarships to study dance in the summers at the American Ballet Theater and then at Julliard. She stayed in the top echelon of a grueling profession but was a passionate advocate of children’s charities. The ballet world praised her as much for her easy-going personality as for her flawless technique and athletic dance style.

  So that was how Olivia Richards knew Janey. Olivia worked as an arts reporter in Philadelphia. But how did Olivia know Janey was in Albuquerque? And why did she care? And why was she receiving faxes about Janey?

  Ruben stopped at Suzie’s desk. “I’m headed out. Thank you for helping me.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll do what you asked, but I can’t promise it’ll make any difference. Just take care of yourself… and Ruben? Could you please try to drive carefully?”

  It had been pointless. Even if there were road signs up here, she hadn’t been able to see them in the blackness, and Janey had to admit she was lost. She found a darkened gas station, pulled around near a trash dumpster in the back, and tried to sleep away the hours until the sun came up.

  She dreamed of Ruby. In the dream she was floating, soaring with him, holding him close. There was no plot to speak of, only sensation, and it was with sadness that she had to open her eyes and let him slip away.

  What was that pounding sound?

  “Oh, God!” Janey sat up in the seat and clutched her chest.

  “Are you all right, Miss?”

  A man in a baseball cap leaned close to the window and peered in at her. How long had he been watching her?

  “Fine. Fine.” It was obviously morning now—the sky was a shameless blue outside the windshield. She looked around. Apparently she’d found refuge at a Diamond Shamrock gas station somewhere along Highway 3. She rubbed her face and tried to evaluate the safety of the situation.

  The man looked normal enough, friendly even, though she knew all too well that didn’t mean a thing. She turned around to see a group of four men and two women peering at her from behind the truck. She summoned her courage, reached for the door handle and stepped out into the brisk air.

  Good God, the mountains were huge! Just over the heads of the people in the parking lot loomed jagged, blue and white peaks, closer than in Taos, so close she felt she could reach out and feel the cold rock with her hands.

  She knew her mouth was open in surprise and she tried to salvage the situation. “I’m sorry. I’m lost, I think. I was driving in the dark and had to pull over.”

  The group nodded politely. “You looking for the ski resort?” one man offered.

  “El Cuento, actually. That’s where I’m headed. How much further, do you know?”

  One of the women smiled at her then. “About half an inch.”

  Everyone began snickering.

  “Oh!” Janey looked around again, and she felt her heart drop. She gazed out on the wintry town with its dirt side roads and the words of the real estate agent echoed in her head: “El Cuento? There’s hardly ten souls left there since the mine shut down – are you sure that’s what you want?”

  That was what she’d wanted, all right. And here she was.

  “Well, thank you. I’m—” Her brain skidded to a halt. The woman who’d be staying in El Cuento, the name used for the rental agreement and the mail, wasn’t Janey O’Connor, Zia, or the identity she’d used to travel and buy the motorcycle. The name she’d be using from now on was Rosemary Reynolds, in honor of her late maternal grandmother and her first ballet teacher.

  “I’m Rosemary. I’m going to be renting a house near here. On—”

  “Leandro’s place at the end of Rael Road,” the woman said. She pointed a thumb behind her head. “The real estate lady said someone was coming, but we were starting to think you’d never show.”

  “I’m Jake Apodaca.” The man in the ball cap put out his hand for Janey to shake and she offered her cast with an embarrassed shrug. He smiled at her. “I’m the postmaster. I’ve been putting your stuff inside the rental house like the real estate agent said to do.”

  “Wonderful!” Janey nearly shouted. “Thank you so much!”

  “We got plenty of boulders around here, though. You didn’t have to ship your own.” Jake grinned at her and the others chuckled.

  “Sorry,” Janey said, embarrassed. “I know some of the boxes were heavy, books and papers mostly. Thank you again.”

  “Here.” Jake unlatched a huge key ring from his belt loop and quickly ran his thick fingers
through the tinkling metal, plucking a shiny copper key and handing it to her. “Your spare. Welcome to El Cuento.”

  “Thank you.” Janey took a deep breath of the mountain air and tried to smile. “It’s nice to be here.”

  Filing charges against Kovac took all of ten minutes. Misdemeanor simple assault and battery meant Kovac would have to suffer through the cattle call at Metro Court, listen to a brief lecture about anger management, and maybe get a few hours of community service. But he’d get the point, Ruben knew.

  Jim Cooper nearly fell out of his chair when Ruben opened the door to the sewer hole and stepped inside.

  He was on the phone and motioned for Ruben to take a seat on the orange vinyl and chrome couch shoved up against the cinder block wall.

  Ruben felt useless sitting there like a lump in his own office, watching his best friend do what should be his job. He looked around the room and sighed. Truth is, he hadn’t missed it one bit.

  “Well lookie who’s finally come up for air,” Cooper said, putting down the phone.

  “Hey, Coop.” Ruben leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’m surprised you’re still talking to me.”

  Cooper shrugged. “Kinda hard to ignore you in these cramped quarters.” He glowered at him. “Did somebody hit you?”

  Ruben nodded. “Remind me to tell you about it later. Look, I just want say I’m sorry you got stuck doing my job.”

  Cooper shrugged again. “If you ever took a vacation like a normal person I’m supposed to cover for you, right? It’s not a big deal. But when are you coming back? You are coming back, right?”

  “I am.” He looked at his friend for a moment. “I think we need to talk about the evidence story.”

  “No shit.”

  “You go first.”

  “Okay.” Cooper glanced at the door to make sure it was shut. He lowered his voice. “I’ve got a total of sixteen cases in the last two years involving Salazar and Chisolm and evidence discrepancies—sixteen, Ruby! All of them from the South Valley. We’ve got the numbers now. It’s solid.”