Key West Heat Page 18

  That was how Taylor knew it wasn’t her aunts who told her about her parents’ wedding. Pearl and Netta would have been too upset by the subject to speak of it. Any mention of Desiree or Paul sent even rigid, conservative Pearl into a tizzy. So, who had told Taylor these things? Certainly not Early. He was the one who had warned her against bringing up the past because it would cause her aunts pain. “Let the dead bury the dead,” he had said, sounding like Aunt Pearl. Of course, there had been no actual proof that Taylor’s father was not alive. Still, there had always been the assumption that he must not be. Taylor had grown up believing that assumption to be fact. Until this very moment, she had not challenged this belief, nor let herself think much about it, either. To readjust her thinking now would require a drastic shift in all of her perceptions about her life. There would be questions to be asked—of Early, of Winona, of anyone still living who could have known that Taylor might not actually be an orphan after all, but did not tell her so.

  Suddenly, the numbness was gone, almost as quickly as it had settled over her. She stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from the bedspread where she had been sitting. She walked to the dresser and replaced the papers and the photograph precisely as she had found them inside the portfolio. She slipped the portfolio back into the bottom of the dresser drawer. She arranged the socks and T-shirts and shorts in exactly their original neat order atop the portfolio, refolding when necessary just as she had so often watched Aunt Pearl do. Taylor closed the dresser drawer and straightened the scarf that covered the dresser top. She went to the window, but she didn’t climb back out the way she had come in. Instead, she lowered the window, then turned and walked to the door.

  She was not surprised to find Des still standing in the hallway outside the room. She had sensed he would be there. She didn’t stop to speak to him, however. She barely acknowledged his presence as she walked past him and down the length of the hallway to the front door of the rooming house. Once outside that door, she walked directly to Des’s Jeep. The keys were in the ignition. Again, she had sensed they would be there. It didn’t even occur to her to think what she would have done had the keys not been in the vehicle. She climbed into the car and turned the key. The engine rumbled to life. She pushed in the clutch and put the car in gear. She had driven four-wheelers many times. They were a favorite on tough north-country roads. She knew she would have no trouble driving this one. As she pulled out into the street, she heard Des call to her from the sidewalk in front of the rooming house. She paid him no attention at all.

  * * *

  DES STOOD at the edge of the road watching Taylor drive away in his car. He knew there was no sense in calling after her again, even though the top was off the Jeep and she might have heard him. She had ignored him inside the house when she swept past him as if he wasn’t even there. He had reached out to take her arm, but she was already gone, walking rapidly to the door, pushing it open, stepping through without so much as a second of hesitation or a break in her stride. There was determination in her straight-ahead gaze and in the way she moved, holding herself tall and upright as if a string were attached to her shoulders pulling her into perfect alignment from head to toe. Determination, and something else he didn’t have time just now to define more closely.

  He had hurried down the hall and out the door after her. She was already in his Jeep on the driver’s side when he reached the front stoop of Lewt’s building. Des bounded down to the uneven sidewalk and called out her name. She didn’t answer. She must have turned the ignition key while he was calling to her, because the next sound he heard after that of his own voice was the Jeep engine starting up. Des didn’t usually leave the keys in his car this way. He wasn’t that trusting. He must have been so rattled earlier that he forgot his usual rule. Taylor had that effect on him more often than he liked to admit. Now she was driving away in his car, leaving him stranded here on the tail end of Caroline Street. He was not happy about that. He was even a little angry.

  But anger wasn’t the emotion Des was feeling most keenly at the moment. What disturbed him more was that he had grown suddenly afraid—afraid for Taylor. There had been something not right about the way she looked just now. He recalled his impression of a string pulling her rigidly upright. That image carried itself one step farther, calling to mind a marionette suspended by its command strings. The way Taylor had walked down that hallway made him think of a puppet being manipulated from above, not by its own will but by that of the puppet master. Des had no idea what that image might mean. He wasn’t even sure his impression had been accurate. He only knew, with the instinct a person sometimes has toward somebody they care very much about, that Taylor was in trouble and she needed him.

  Des thought about running back inside Lewt’s building and pounding on doors till he roused somebody who had a telephone, but that would take too long. Maybe he could find a parked car with the keys left in it as his had been. He didn’t think that was likely. He was desperate enough to resort to hot-wiring if he had to. He was looking around for a promising hot-wire candidate when a white-and-blue Key West police car came around the corner from Grinell Street and glided to a stop in front of him. He knew the cop at the wheel as a frequent customer at the Beachcomber.

  “Landon,” Des said, using the last name everybody called the cop by. “A friend of mine just took off in my car. I need to follow her. I think something’s wrong. Can you give me a lift?”

  “Sorry, Des. I’ve got a report of a possible B and E at this address.”

  “Would that report be about a woman climbing in a rear window?”

  Landon had his hand on the door and was about to exit his patrol car. He stopped and stared at Des with a look that had cop-type suspicion all over it. “What do you know about that, Des?”

  “I know that woman was my friend. The one who just drove off in my car.”

  Landon slammed the door shut again. “Get in,” he barked as he popped the patrol car into gear.

  Des thought about protesting when the siren began to wail. He didn’t want to scare Taylor. But he did want to catch up to her, and she had a head start. He felt that flash of fear for her again.

  “Step on it,” he said.

  Landon gunned the police car across Caroline Street. There wasn’t much traffic. “What’s the story on this friend of yours?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Des said. “I just have the feeling something is very wrong with her right now.”

  “How good a friend of yours is she?”

  “I’m not sure about that, either.”

  “This better not be some kind of love chase you’ve got me going on, Des. I haven’t time for games.”

  “Nothing like that,” Des said though he was feeling there might be a game going on, at that, with him as the guy behind the eight ball. “Besides, don’t forget about the B and E complaint,” he added to make sure Landon wouldn’t give up the pursuit.

  Des’s strategy worked. Landon floored the gas pedal and sent them barreling along even faster as cars pulled over to make way for the siren-screeching police car.

  “There she is,” Des cried, pointing straight ahead. “In the red Jeep.”

  They were at the westernmost end of Caroline Street. Taylor was several cars in front of them, leaving the intersection to turn left on Whitehead.

  “Where in the hell is she going?” Des muttered.

  “Damned if I know,” Landon said. “She’s your girlfriend.”

  Des might have said he wished that were true, but he was too caught up in his growing sense of urgency to say anything. They had passed the intervening cars and turned onto Whitehead just in time to see the Jeep two blocks ahead and turning again, to the right this time.

  That would be Southard Street, Des thought. Where is she going?

  She was past the Little White House and Truman Annex. She seemed to be on her way to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park, the narrow spit of pale sand and windblown pine trees that ran along the Atlantic shore on the west s
ide of the island. Des remembered Netta telling the story of how Taylor had been named for that park because her parents went there several times while they were courting. Des had suspected that might have been where Taylor was conceived. Netta would have found that too indelicate to talk about, so he never asked her. Now he regretted he hadn’t pressed harder for the details of that particular Bissett family legend. Maybe it had something to do with what was going on with Taylor this afternoon. That possibility seemed very remote. Des knew he was grabbing at straws to make sense of her behavior. When she crashed the Jeep through the wooden arm barrier by the gate house to the park, he wished more desperately than ever for that explanation.

  “What is this dame doing?” Landon shouted. “Is she dangerous or what?”

  He had reached to unsnap the holster holding his pistol. Des took Landon’s arm to stop him from drawing his weapon. Des could feel the tension in that arm.

  “She’s not dangerous,” he said. “She’s just going through a bad time in her life.”

  “Is she crazy?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that,” Des was quick to reply, but he felt a twinge of doubt that knotted his stomach.

  What if Santos had been right when he talked about Taylor being emotionally disturbed as a kid? What if Violetta’s portents were really true? Until this afternoon, Des had been convinced that couldn’t be possible. He’d even stopped believing Taylor could have had anything to do with setting the Stormley fire. Now he was unsure again. Look at how Taylor acted yesterday in Desiree’s bedroom. Taylor admitted to having what she called “visions.” Normal people didn’t see things that weren’t there. At least, not any normal people Des had ever met.

  What happened next would shake Des’s faith in Taylor’s sanity even further.

  “She’s headed for the water,” Landon exclaimed.

  He was right. Taylor had torn through the parking lot and out of it on the other side, jolting the Jeep over the barrier brake bump at the border of the lot. She maneuvered the Jeep among the trees, but her course was still fairly straight. She was driving toward the beach and, maybe, toward the ocean beyond.

  “We have to stop her,” Des shouted.

  Landon didn’t answer. His expression was grim. The sedan cruiser was no match for Des’s tough four-wheeler. There was no chance they could catch up to Taylor, especially once they reached the sand beach where the police car would most likely bog down. Meanwhile, Taylor plunged on ahead of them. She was almost to the dune line now where the trees ended and a scrub-grass ledge dropped off into sand below. The Jeep flew over that lip of grass as Des had anticipated it would, all wheels clearing the ground for a moment before landing with an impact that must have jarred Taylor to the bone.

  Landon was on his police radio now, calling in a request for backup. Help would be on the way in moments, but that help could not possibly arrive soon enough to save Taylor, who appeared to Des to be on a headlong dash to the sea. Des prayed for the Jeep engine to sputter out of commission when it hit the water, but he suspected it wouldn’t do that, at least not until she was too far out for them to reach her in time. The frustration of that made Des feel entirely helpless. He knew the feeling well. He had relived it every time he dreamed or thought about Desiree and that fiery night twenty-four years ago.

  “No!” Des screamed.

  The scream tore from his throat. He thrust the car door open and jumped free, rolling onto a sharp angle of exposed tree root. He ignored the pain of the impact and was up and running in an instant, surging ahead of the police car, which had been forced to slow down by the deepening sand as they approached the tree line.

  “Desiree,” Des cried as he bounded down the dune sweep toward the beach floor. He wouldn’t realize what name he had called until later.

  Meanwhile, something was happening up ahead. Taylor’s beeline course was faltering. She zigged and zagged to the left and right. Could she be losing consciousness? The thought made Des plunge on harder through the sand that dragged at his feet and made him flounder. She was almost to the water’s edge when the Jeep veered suddenly and sharply to the right.

  A scramble of boulders had been piled along the beach in that direction, jutting out to form a rocky point into the ocean. Taylor was headed toward those boulders, some of which were several feet in diameter. The beach was nearly deserted on this darkly clouded afternoon. What beachwalkers there were had scattered out of her path to watch from a safe distance as she barrelled along.

  She hit the first boulders with a crashing impact. The Jeep mounted and jounced over that initial barrier, but its speed slowed considerably. Des caught up just as the boulders were accomplishing what he had prayed they would do and the Jeep was grinding to a stop. He tore open the door as the engine finally stalled out. All he could hear was his own gasping breath and the sound of Taylor’s soft sobs as she slumped over the steering wheel.

  Chapter Twelve

  Taylor wished she had an explanation, but she didn’t. Unfortunately, Santos wouldn’t accept that.

  “Tell me again. Exactly what happened?” he asked her a third time.

  “I won’t tell it any differently from before. Don’t you think that I want to understand it myself?”

  Santos leaned back in his chair at the Key West Police Department office and contemplated her for a long moment. “I don’t know what to think about you, Ms. Bissett,” he said. “You have me almost stymied.”

  “Almost?”

  “The one thing I’m certain of is that there’s more to you than you let on.” He rocked forward in his chair and tossed the notebook he had been holding onto his desk. “Maybe we need a psychiatric evaluation.”

  “Of me?”

  “That’s right.”

  Taylor would ordinarily have been outraged. Instead, she nodded her head wearily. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  Santos looked surprised. “Why so agreeable all of a sudden?”

  Taylor shrugged. “I’d like some answers. I think I might do just about anything to get them.”

  “Would you commit murder?”

  Santos had leaned toward her across his desk and was staring into her eyes. She stared back. “Absolutely not,” she said.

  He settled back in his chair. Taylor expected some kind of sarcastic verbal jab at her expense. He was well overdue for one. Instead, he went on in a serious, even kindly tone.

  “What is Des Maxwell’s stake in this? He’s out there acting like he’s going to take the station apart brick by brick if I don’t let him in on this questioning session.”

  “You’ll have to ask him what stake he has himself. I can’t answer for him.”

  “Is he only being protective?” Santos asked. “Or is there something more to it than that?”

  “I told you. I don’t know.”

  Taylor didn’t mean to sound belligerent, but she couldn’t help it. The subject of Des tended to make her lose some control. Besides, she was being completely truthful. She hadn’t a clue what his intentions might be, why he did what he did or, as Santos put it, what stake Des had in all of this. She only knew that after she hit those boulders this afternoon, he came running up and yanked open the jammed Jeep door with what looked like all the physical force in him. She had lifted her head up from the steering wheel just in time to see that resolve along with something close to terror in his eyes. He picked her up out of the Jeep and carried her at almost a run to the tree line. There wasn’t much probability of the Jeep exploding, but he said he wasn’t taking any chances. Even then, he didn’t put her down. He cradled her in his arms as if she were a treasure of infinite value to be preserved at any cost.

  Taylor had longed to bury her face against his chest and sob her heart out while he held her close. At that moment, she hadn’t cared who or what he might have been to her family or what his true intentions could be. She only cared about the strength of his arms and the solidity of his body as a bulwark to hide behind right then, or even now. Of course, she couldn�
��t cry her heart out then any more than she could crawl into hiding now. She must keep herself strong without either of those sources of refuge.

  “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

  Santos’s question brought Taylor back to the present. “It would seem that must have been my intention.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “As I have already tried to tell you, I don’t remember.” Taylor knew how weak that sounded and was all the more indignant because of it.

  “That’s the part that has me stymied,” Santos said. “I keep hearing that you weren’t wrapped too tight mentally as a kid and that you aren’t much better now, but I don’t see it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you strike me as being pretty much on top of things. In fact, sometimes you might even be wrapped too tight in the control department for your own good, if you see what I’m saying.”

  “I see what you’re saying.”

  Santos plopped his feet down on the floor under his desk with a resolute thump. “Then tell me how you could drive your car hell-for-leather almost straight into the drink and not remember a thing about it?”

  “I remember the Jeep hitting the beach hard and feeling like I was just coming out of a fog when it did. I can see myself turning the wheel away from the water, or trying to, but it’s like I’m watching someone else do it. Then I managed to make one sharp right turn. That’s why I hit the rocks instead of the water. I can’t tell you any more because that’s all I know.”

  “Why do you think you were headed for the water in the first place? Just make a guess if you’re not sure.”