A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(70)

"No, I'm fine. I need to talk to you." He cocked his head toward Julissa who leaned against the doorframe.

"I can take a hint." She pushed off and disappeared down a hallway.

Maricela sat in an overstuffed easy chair, forcing Art to perch on the edge of her couch if he wanted to make eye contact.

"What's going on?" The lines of her face deepened with concern.

"When I got home the police were at my house."

"Dios mio." She covered her heart with her hand.

"Gwen's missing. They're looking for her." Art hesitated.

Maricela was still recovering from the shock of finding a body. He hated to upset her, but she would hear soon enough.

"Someone was found dead in her Dana Point listing," he said.

"What? Who?" She paled.

"A man. Lance something. The guy she was working with on the Laguna house." Art watched Maricela's face. He needed to know what she knew.

"Fairchild." She looked at her hands.

"Yeah, that was it. Who the hell is this guy, Maricela?"

"He's an agent. He worked at Humboldt." Her voice was subdued.

"I know that. What I don't know is why the police think Gwen may have killed him."

Maricela's head shot up. "Killed him? That's ridiculous. Gwen wouldn't kill Lance... Wouldn't kill anyone."

"I know that too."

They sat without talking for several ticks of the cuckoo clock on the wall. Art broke the silence. "What aren't you telling me?"

Maricela looked to the ceiling for help. "It's nothing."

Art waited.

"I told her he was a player. I told her to watch out for him."

A stone dropped into the turmoil in Art's stomach. "What do you mean?" He steeled himself for the answer.

"They were talking about becoming partners. A business team, you know?" Maricela's words were hardly more than a mumble. "I don't think anything was going on between them. I don't. They flirted, but..."

Art didn't want to hear more. He would have gotten up. Just left the house. Except Gwen might be in danger. If she wasn't, when he found her, he was going to kill her.

"Thursday or Friday something changed. Gwen was upset, but she wouldn't talk about it to anyone but Lance. You could tell they had a secret."

Art stood and began pacing again, as if he could walk away from her words.

"I kept telling her he was like Enrique, not a good man, but she wouldn't hear it. I'm sorry, Art."

"Is that it?" he said. He didn't think he could take anything else.

"I saw them coming out of The Leaky Barrel together on Thursday. I remember because I thought it was strange. Usually, we only go on Fridays. And it was early. Only like two o'clock."

"So you haven't heard from her? You're not trying to protect her?" Art asked.

"No. I wouldn't lie to you." She reached out a hand and touched his. "I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon."

Art's cell phone rang. It was Mike McKibben.





CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE


Time was meaningless in the dark. It could have been three in the afternoon or three in the morning for all Gwen knew. She dozed from sheer exhaustion, but pain from the tape pulling at the small hairs on her arms, pain from forced inactivity, pain from the blow she'd received the night before prodded her awake.

Only the nightmares seemed to last for hours. Every time she slipped into unconsciousness, she entered the same continuous loop. She was on a farm with her father, helping him on his large animal rounds. She stood, a small figure, looking up the barn. It was larger and darker in her dream than it had been in real life.

She entered through the heavy door. The smells of hay and dung and something worse flew at her and clung to her skin like mold spores. On her right was a high window. The hay bales beneath glowed golden in the beams of light streaming from it. Her father was always there in the sunlight, smiling at her.

On her left was a loft shrouded in shadows. If there was a window on that wall, it was blocked by the mountain of hay piled in front of it. Under the loft, tucked into the corner of the barn, was a pigpen. It drew her with an irresistible force.

She had this same dream often when she was a child. Sometimes she'd yell herself awake before she saw the sow. Other times she'd wind up in the pen with wild, red eyes trained on her. Screams and squeals mingled. Small, pink shapes darted around her feet. Brown teeth flashed. A white, hairless mountain of flesh charged her again and again, backing her into a smaller and smaller space until there was no corner left to hide in.

Shivering and panting, she would bolt up in her bed clutching her covers and cowering into the headboard. Then her mother would be there, smoothing her hair, speaking soothing words.

"Finish the story, Gwen. Your father came and banged that pan against the pen wall and yelled at that old pig. You sneaked right past her snub nose, and out through the gate. You weren't hurt. It was a close call, but you are just fine. Think about that, honey. Think about that now."

Gwen's father had warned her to stay away from the sow, who'd just had a litter of piglets, but she begged to see them. He'd relented as long as she promised to stay outside the pen.