The Hidden

“I heard that,” Brett said. “And I’m absolutely fine.”


“We’re supposed to stay right here, right?” Scarlet asked.

“Unless there’s a compelling reason to be somewhere else,” Brett said. “If there is, I let Diego know I’m taking eyes off the stable, then stick to you like glue. He’s really afraid for you, Scarlet. You know that. And he’s not being overprotective. You are in danger here.”

“I know that,” she assured him. “Want to help me help you?” she asked.

“What are you thinking?”

“The morgue. I’d like to go to the morgue.”

*

“I don’t know what happened!” Gwen said. “I was having one of my headaches, so I took a pill—like the one I took the night the Parkers were killed. When I take those pills, I don’t hear anything. I’m so afraid. Charles has been acting so strange. He’s afraid—and he has a right to be. I mean, we’re not used to wide-open spaces and people carrying guns everywhere.”

She was sitting across from Diego in an interrogation room, though everyone had tried to make the place comfortable for her. She had a cup of coffee right in front of her, and a plate of Danishes sat untouched nearby.

She stared at him. “Fat lot of good you all have done us. He disappeared—even though there was a patrol car right outside the hotel. Someone came in and kidnapped him right out from under the cops’ noses.”

“Gwen, I can’t help but feel that there’s something you’re not telling me,” Diego said. He waited a moment and then added, “It’s very unlikely that kidnappers walked into that hotel, then managed to walk out with your husband without being seen.”

“Well, he was there, and then he wasn’t. Obviously he left somehow.”

“That’s true,” Diego agreed, “but it’s easier to slip out unnoticed than it is to be forced or dragged out with potential witnesses everywhere.”

Gwen gasped. “You think that Charles...! But I told you. Charles and I were together at the Conway Ranch when the Parkers were killed.”

“And you had taken one of your pills that night,” he reminded her. “You just told me that they knock you out and you don’t hear a thing. How do you know where your husband was?”

“I had taken a pill,” she murmured thoughtfully. “But...he’s my husband.” She sat back, her cheeks burning, stared at him for a moment and then looked down at her hands. “I’d know, wouldn’t I?” she asked, her voice breathy. “I’d know if my husband was a homicidal maniac. Wouldn’t I?”

He realized that the last question was a plea.

“Has he been behaving lately as if he was...a different man?” Diego asked.

She looked away from him, staring at the wall as if it was a window and she was looking out. A little sob escaped her.

“Not until we got to the Conway Ranch,” she whispered.





18

Scarlet had never been to a morgue before; to be honest, she’d never thought she ever would be.

She’d certainly never thought she would ask to go to one.

She hadn’t expected the reception area to resemble a doctor’s office. But to everyone who worked there—photographers, technicians and office staff, as well as the MEs—it was just the place where they went every day to earn a paycheck and everyone was pleasant. While they waited to see Dr. Robert Fuller, she eavesdropped as the staff talked about family and friends and plans for the weekend.

Life always went on, she thought. Even when you were surrounded by the dead.