Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [60]
“Jeff, are you coming?” asked Morrow, after waiting politely for Jeffrey, who’d been standing in front of the bulletin boards for over five minutes.
“Yeah, yeah … sorry.”
Lydia sat in her car in the driveway leading into her garage. She could see by the absence of lights on inside that Jeffrey was not there. She wasn’t afraid to go inside, she just didn’t want to. A temporary depression had seized her, and instead she sat and smoked in the dark car, feeling like a hole had been cut in her chest and a cold wind was whipping through. She felt exposed, unprotected: the same familiar feeling she suffered every year as the anniversary of her mother’s death approached, but as disturbing as if it were the first time.
The New Mexico night sky was riven with stars, close and bright, like diamonds scattered on velvet. She peered at them through her sunroof, her head resting on the seat. The silence was a presence. The shadows of mountains rose around her.
She thought about Mike Urquia and Maria Lopez’s sad union. She had been so judgmental of him, wondering how he could be so glib and cold. But then it had occurred to her that if her Italian friend from the Eldorado had turned up dead somewhere, she would have had less to tell police about the man she’d slept with less than a week earlier than Urquia had had to say about Maria. She was no better than Mike Urquia. The thought made her sick.
She wondered if Jeffrey would even want her anymore if he knew about this side of her. She imagined trying to tell him about her little sexual assignations, so tawdry and meaningless. Her pathetic attempts to stave off loneliness, her quest for closeness to someone she wasn’t afraid to lose. Jeffrey was so honorable, so upright, how could he ever understand? They never asked each other about their personal lives as far as dating was concerned. It was an understood taboo between them that neither one could stand to know if the other was seeing someone. Jeffrey had had a few relationships when Lydia was in college. She never paid any attention to any of the women in his life because she knew they wouldn’t last. Maybe she’d always known they belonged together and that someday they would be. She couldn’t think about this now, though, with a serial killer on the loose.
She considered heading over to the church to talk to Juno again, maybe have a word with Father Luis, whom she had yet to meet. A glance at her watch told her it was approaching one A.M. Too late for a visit. But she’d have to go tomorrow; the answer was there somewhere, somehow. Did they know their parishioners were missing? Had they missed Shawna? They must have. Could they somehow be involved? A blind, psychic healer/serial killer, that would be a first. She began to laugh and couldn’t stop. It felt like hysteria, the tension she had felt for the last few days catching up with her. She was still laughing when Chief Morrow and Jeffrey pulled up behind her. She stepped out of the car to greet them, wiping her eyes and chuckling.
To Jeffrey it looked like she was sobbing. He pushed the door open and jumped out of the squad car before it had fully stopped moving. “Lyd, what’s wrong?” He grabbed her by both arms, and looked into her eyes.
“Nothing, nothing, Jeff. I just had a funny thought and couldn’t stop laughing. I think I’m a little punchy.”
“Oh. You scared me.” He spoke slowly, unconvinced.
“Is everything all right?” said Morrow, stepping out of the car. Lydia thought how he looked a little like “the Commish,” and she almost started laughing again but controlled herself.
In an unusually pleasant tone she answered, “Yeah, everything’s fine. Have a good night.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight,” Morrow said to Jeffrey.
“Thanks, Chief.”
Morrow got back in his car, glad to be on his way home. He wondered as he pulled away, not for the first time, if Lydia Strong wasn’t one card short of a deck.
“We really need another body to turn up if we are going to get anywhere,” Jeffrey concluded after he had summarized the day’s findings for her.
“Why did