J. Black - The Survivors Club

“You seem to know them pretty well.”

“Don’t forget—I saw them in action. George asked me to go with him on more than a few occasions, kind of as backup. I knew he was unhappy. Pulling up stakes like that and coming all the way here. I’m divorced myself, and I know what a drain the wrong kind of person can be. Now I’m free as a lark, and doing what I love to do.”

“But it’s an expensive hobby.”

“Oh, yeah. But I come from money, and even though I have a lot less than I used to, I’m doing all right.”

“Was anything bothering George Hanley, besides his family situation? Anything you saw?”

“I dunno. He was such a gracious man. Old-fashioned that way. I guess you could say he was a gentleman.”

“Did he ever mention planning a trip to LA?”

“I don’t think so.” Jaimie stood up, her eyes on the barn. “There’s Alison’s mom. I’ve got to talk to her. Anything else?”

“Did he talk much about the tours he led in Credo?”

“I have to talk to her,” Jaimie said, starting down the steps.

Tess moved fast to catch up with her. “Did he? Talk about the tours in Credo?”

“He mentioned how much he enjoyed them. He was worried about illegals, all the drug running, stuff like that, but who isn’t, around here? It was such a remote place.” Her pace quickened. “Janine!” she called to the mother, who was just getting out of her Cadillac. Jaimie Wolfe darted a glance back at Tess. “Look, I’ve got to get this straightened out. I’m paying fricking alimony to my ex , if you can believe it, the bastard thinks because I’m a DeKoven I’m rolling in it. Which is not the case at all. Plus, it’s the principle of the thing. I’m one of the best there is in this business.”

“Anything,” Tess said, “that could shine a light on who might have wanted to kill him?”

“I’d start with Bert,” she said. “He really didn’t like having George around. Selfish bastard.”

She walked away.

DeKoven. It didn’t occur to Tess what that meant until she’d driven off the property. She was new to Santa Cruz County. But Tess had been living in Arizona long enough to have heard the name.

Jaimie Wolfe was a DeKoven?

CHAPTER 8

Tess rented a house on Harshaw Road. Harshaw Road was a poorly maintained stretch of asphalt outside Patagonia proper—a mixed population of old houses jammed together on dead-end streets, and small ranchettes.

Tess’s place was just about where the houses thinned out to a few acres per landowner.

She turned left onto the one-acre lot, the Tahoe’s tires rumbling across the cattle guard, and parked on the narrow lane that ended next to the house. The place needed paint. It needed a lot of things. But there was a voluptuous pistachio tree in the front yard, one of two remaining from a long-ago orchard, complete with a tire swing.

That, along with the cheap rent and the great view, was what sold her on the place.

From the deep porch (and the porch swing left by its previous residents) Tess could watch horses graze in the field across the way. She often watched the day time-lapse away on the hill across the road, the emerald mesquites catching the last rays, the sun torching them Day-Glo green before the shadows advanced and transformed them to the color of ashes.

It was peaceful and quiet here, except when the coyotes awoke her at dawn. She liked hearing them, as long as the cat was inside.

Her house: two swings but no dryer.

The cat wasn’t waiting for her at the door. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t; depended on his mood. It seemed to her he distrusted her ever since she’d bundled him off to the vet to be fixed.

Tess unlocked the door to the house.

The sun stole across the display case near the big window. Someone had attempted to give the picture window an arch, but this one looked like something you’d carve out of a cardboard box.

The display case made up for it. She’d bought the curved-glass and wood display case at a local antique store. It had come from a museum and cost her one whole paycheck.

Tess grew up as an only child, but her two best friends were the twin daughters who lived next door. Her mother and their neighbor, Celia, were very close too. They took the three girls—Tess, Beth, and Jennifer—to theme parks and movies. Tess learned quickly that Beth and Jennifer were well-acquainted with the term “souvenir,” a word she didn’t know. To the twins, it meant getting their mother to buy them something—usually something kitschy, although she noticed Jennifer held out for more expensive swag. Everywhere they went, Beth and Jennifer clamored for souvenirs. Tess caught on quickly, and did the same.

Fast-forward to her work as a homicide detective. Tess had tracked a serial killer once in her career, the hardest type of killer to find. She’d gotten lucky and made an arrest. That was all it was—luck. What she saw in his house had been expected, but Tess was not prepared for how it affected her.

The killer had kept trophies from the twelve women and girls he’d killed. A hairbrush, a pair of earrings, panties. Even one girl’s asthma inhaler.

That got to her more than anything else. She could imagine the girl’s fear as he choked her—a girl who knew what it was like to require air and fight for it.

That was when it occurred to her that someone had to mark the scoreboard for the good guys.

So every time Tess solved a case, every time a bad guy was put away, she picked out a souvenir that had some meaning to the case. To remember them. To remember the victims. Not as victims, but for the people they were.

Tess’s souvenirs were distributed across three shelves, and placed before each of them was a card, neatly labeled. Right now there were six victims and six symbols of what had meaning for them: a baby’s rattle; a rodeo buckle; a bottle of Juicy Couture perfume; a bottle of CK One cologne; a Genesis CD; and a healing crystal from the Desert Oasis Healing Center.

Her gaze lingered on the healing crystal. She thought of all the bad things that had been generated by the Desert Oasis Healing Center.

And the one good thing that came out of it.

Max Conroy.

CHAPTER 9

When Brayden got to Le Bar this evening, he was there, waiting for her.

Going out with her friends was supposed to be fun.

He was strange. Good-looking—really good-looking—but he was way too familiar. The way some guys are, you know the type. But this was different.

He scared her. And Brayden did not scare easily.

Her instincts were good, and alarm bells were going off.

He was a handsome guy, really, but his grin was crooked with just a hint of his teeth, little teeth. Just thinking about it sent shivers up her spine.

And he leaned too close.

Two days ago, they’d perched on stools by the long bar near the dance floor, a place that funneled the cute guys through. The place was just a zoo, tons of people. Brayden was with her two friends from college and work, Melinda and Daffy (they called Daphne Daffy because she kind of was.) Brayden had been divorced for five months, and it was nice to get back out again in public. Nice to flirt a little.

Frankly, it would be nice to sleep with someone again, without having to share the rest of her life with them. After Justin she could go without marriage for the rest of her life.

But this guy, Steve, bothered her. It was almost as if he’d targeted her. She knew that Melinda and Daffy were hotter than she was. And better at flirting, too, because they hadn’t been out of commission for seven years. So why didn’t he go after Daffy, who was slim and stunning and had boobs to die for?