by Meg Gardiner
“How are you, Aurora?”
She set the glass on the counter. How much courage did it take for him to ask that question?
“I’m broke,” she said. “I just got canned. The charity I worked for lost its funding. I’ve got steel screws in my right leg but last week I clocked five K in nineteen minutes. Yesterday I watched Judge Wieland get shot by a vigilante with shitty aim. That guy then got a hole blasted through his chest by a shotgun. One of the gunmen had his head blown out twelve inches from my face. The cops think I was doing a Texas two-step with the guy and that I’m in his rooting section. And just before you turned up, Grigor Mirkovic’s pot roasts tried to scare me into confessing I screwed the trial over out of love for the cops.” She smiled. “I’m great.”
His face was grave. “Grigor Mirkovic’s men?”
“For carnivorous worms, they looked good in coat and tie.”
He said nothing. Her pulse had picked up. She was on a roll.
“I missed the bar exam,” she said. “The hospital wouldn’t discharge me in time to take it.”
“I realize.”
“That cost me the job with the firm in San Francisco.”
“I wish it hadn’t.”
“They said the job offer was contingent on me being up and running with a law license in my back pocket. They couldn’t wait for me to take the exam the next winter.”
He nodded. Was he telling her he already knew? Or was he urging her to go on—like a man being whipped, saying Please, sir, may I have another?
“It blew me out of the water,” she said.
She couldn’t tell him the rest. It had lodged so far down in her chest, and felt so sharp for so long, that letting it heal over had taken every effort to be still, to let scar tissue tighten around it. It had become a flaw in her heartbeat.
Quietly, he said, “I’m sorry.”
But sorry didn’t cover it. And he knew that. He didn’t plead, didn’t expand on those two words. He waited, unarmed, for whatever she dealt back at him.
She waited until her breathing calmed. “Where have you been?”
He hesitated. Like he couldn’t believe she was letting him off the hook. He gave her a quizzical look. “What have you heard?”
“You left the force and moved away.”
“That’s all?”
“I heard that you were injured,” she said. “In the line of duty.”
The quizzical look on his face remained. As did the tilt in his shoulders, and a tightness, maybe an ache. He looked toward the kitchen. Maybe he wanted coffee. She didn’t want him to feel at home. She didn’t want him to know how goddamned awful it was that he looked so amazing, so present, so alive, so near.
He said, “I saw you talking to Detective Xavier. Who else have you spoken to in the police department?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“It’s important, Rory. Please.”
Please? Seth had never been good with asking nicely. Not with suspects, not with drunks in biker bars, not with anybody who crossed him. And she assumed that he regarded her as having crossed him. Telling him, We’re done. Period. Permanently, would seem to fall in that category.
“You don’t work for the police department anymore. You’re not investigating the courthouse attack. Why should I divulge anything to you?”
“Fair enough.”
She calmed herself. “Seth. Why are you here?”
“To warn you.”
“About what?”
He took a moment. “Don’t count on the Ransom River PD to properly investigate the attack. Don’t trust anybody from the department.”
“What?” She heard the incredulity in her voice.
He turned, slowly, from the fireplace. “Don’t talk to the cops anymore. The department’s bent.”
For a long moment she didn’t move. Then she said, “I’ll make coffee. You talk.”
19
“The Ransom River PD is corrupt,” Seth said.
He stood with the morning light slatted behind him through the kitchen shutters. Hands in his pockets, for something to do with them. Cops on duty never put their hands in their pockets or laced their fingers together. They needed them free to react to threats. Rory guessed that said something about how he saw her.
“There are officers in the department on the take. Some who sell information to outside organizations, and I don’t mean the media.”
“Which officers?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“But you’re certain?”
“It’s why I quit.”
She had the coffeepot in her hand. She stopped. “What happened?”
“The undercover op I was working when you left—guy got killed. An ATF agent.”
He said it without emotion, but it packed a punch.
“That’s terrible,” she said.
Chiba walked over to him. Seth crouched and scratched the dog behind the ears.
“I’d set up a meeting with the sellers. When the ATF guy and I got there we were ambushed,” he said.
She didn’t move. “Oh my God.”
“I don’t know who, but one of my brother cops tipped the sellers off.”
He stood and sauntered to the window. The sun striped his face.
“Seth…”
He stared out at the trees and foothills.
Rory said, “Detective Xavier asked me about you.”
“Did she, now.”
“Like a kid poking an animal with a stick. Asked if I knew why you quit. Said people in the department would like a clear explanation.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “Xavier came by to twist your hair over it? Interesting. So they really won’t be happy to see me.”
“Why would the police department be unhappy to see you? Because you moved away? You’re the son of a much-decorated detective.”
“They distrust me.”
“So the feeling is mutual.”
He stared again out the window. “If you let Xavier talk to you again, she’ll probably channel some talking points and gossip. Colder’s assignment blew up in his face. Colder allowed another cop to get killed. Colder lost his nerve. And so he quit.”
Coming in a flat, dispassionate tone of voice, it sounded brutal.
“That’s preposterous,” she said.
He shrugged.
She felt indignant. “No—Seth, that’s…Christ, is that what people actually believe? Or is it a snide lie somebody’s deliberately spreading about you?”
He tilted his head and for a second, the well-trained neutrality slipped from his expression. He looked at her with gratitude and warmth. Then, as though a painkiller had abruptly worn off, he glanced away.
She swallowed. “The bent cops—they’re spreading this story?”
“I don’t know. Guy quits the force when he leaves the hospital—people draw conclusions.”
“Hospital.”
She said it as an opening, but he shut that door.
“Nobody comes out of an ambush pretty.” He turned from the window. “So I quit. And then I went looking for work someplace else. I blew town. You’d had it right all along.”
“How’s that?”
“What you always said. ‘Don’t look back—something might be gaining on you.’”
Acid rose in Rory’s throat. “Did you tell anybody?”
“In the department?” He smiled. “Ms. Mackenzie, you can try to convince the world you’re completely cynical. But I am on to you.”
Heat spread across her cheeks. Of course he hadn’t told anybody. He didn’t know who to trust.
“The rot in the department is deep,” he said, “and goes way back.”
“How do you know?” she said. “What do you know?”
“I haven’t been ignoring the department these past two years.”
“You’re convinced.”
“You have no reason to trust me, but I’m asking you to.”
It felt like a slap. “I trust you.�
� Oh, how her heart twisted. “Do you think the department—crooked cops within the department—are, what, selling information to whoever was behind the courthouse attack?”
“Behind the attack?”
“Nixon and Reagan weren’t the only people involved. I’m sure of it.”
He walked to the kitchen counter. “Let me make the coffee. You do the talking.”
She explained what had happened during the siege, what she’d seen on the courtroom CCTV video, and the accusations Detectives Zelinski and Xavier had made during interrogation.
“How’d it end?” Seth said.
“I said I wanted a lawyer.”
He smiled sourly. “Saved and damned in one sweet statement.”
“I know.”
“They’re trying to scare you,” he said.
“It’s working.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I’m convinced somebody besides those two gunmen was behind the attack. The thing is, whatever they wanted, they didn’t get. That means they still want it. And they’re still out there.”
“A criminal attorney won’t be able to help you with that,” he said.
“I know. So I’m going to need to turn to another law enforcement agency for help—the FBI? The U.S. Attorney’s Office?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yes.” She felt angry now. “Yes, I’m asking you for help. Unless you drove out here just to tell me I’m in deep shit and sayonara.”
He didn’t flinch. “Hold fire. If things get bad, we’ll call in the feds. But for now, we lack proof.”
We. “How are we going to get proof?”
“Rory, I know you hate to fight. You’d rather walk away and let idiots scream and swing at thin air. But when you get backed into a corner, you battle your way out.”
His view surprised her. She thought she ran, not walked, from hopeless battles. “Is that where I am? In the corner, backed against the ropes?”
“And it’s time to come out swinging.”
“With what? You have ammunition?”
“Yeah. To start with, I found out Nixon’s real identity.”
20
From his shirt pocket Seth took a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to her.
She unfolded it. It was a rap sheet that summarized a long criminal career. She inhaled.
“Sylvester Church. Recognize him?” Seth said.
In the mug shot Church had unkempt brown hair and a droopy biker mustache. Down his cheek ran a scar, like the track of a tear. His eyes, gleaming from the flash, were hot and confrontational.
“It’s him,” she said. “The guy who called himself Nixon. I saw his face when SWAT pulled off the ski mask. He’d shaved the mustache and his head. But it’s him.”
She was both baffled and impressed. She pored over the rap sheet. “How did you find him?”
Sylvester Lyle Church. Age forty-five. Five foot eight. A hundred ninety-two pounds of larded muscle and cruelty. His sheet went back twenty-seven years. Burglary. Possession of stolen property. Possession of crystal meth with intent to sell. Armed robbery. He had done time in county lockups and state penitentiaries. She counted nine and a half years incarcerated.
“What the hell was he doing in the courtroom yesterday?” she said.
Seth had a canny light in his eyes. He seemed to be thinking the same thing she was.
Church was a con. A pro.
She scanned the sheet again. “An ex-convict. With nothing on his rap sheet but crimes dealing with money and profit. Something’s missing.” She turned it over. Nothing on the back. “Where’s the record of his ties to extremist groups—prison gangs? Aryan Brotherhood, Christian Identity?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s a big hole here. Called motive.”
“He had to have motive.”
The image on the page gripped her. Church’s eyes were wild, maybe with chemical fury. “How did you find this guy?”
“What time do you have to be at court?”
“Nine thirty. Why?”
“Sylvester Church isn’t the only thing I found. Got time for a drive?”
Seth, Mr. Surprise. Why did she ever doubt it? “Let’s go.”
They drove toward the city center in Seth’s new truck, a black Tundra. The sun was gold and sharp in the sky. In the shadows, frost prickled on the grass. Morning traffic surrounded them: school buses, farm trucks, commuters drinking coffee or texting or both. Rory had grabbed a two-minute shower. Her hair hung damp on her shoulders. She held Sylvester Church’s rap sheet in her hand.
“How’d you get this? Did you talk to somebody in the Ransom River PD?”
“No. Called some contacts to verify information, but only after I found it myself.”
“And what did you find?” she said.
“The two gunmen drove to the courthouse. By themselves.”
“You know this for certain?”
“A Chevy Blazer was found parked behind the building.”
“You saw it?”
“On the news, like five million other people. Being winched onto a flatbed truck. That’s how I know they drove it themselves, and nobody else was with them.”
She thought about it. “Because, if somebody had dropped them off, they wouldn’t have parked the Blazer and left it there. And if anybody else came with them and stayed outside as a getaway driver, they wouldn’t have stuck around when things went bad.”
“You got it. Once the sirens got loud, they would have hauled ass. But nobody did that.”
“Before Judge Wieland got shot, the gunmen ordered four of us to line up and walk through the door to chambers. I didn’t know—” Her voice wobbled. “Didn’t know what they planned to do with us. I thought…”
For a moment she smelled cordite and heard screams.
Seth glanced at her. “Rory? You okay?”
“They were taking us out of the courtroom, but I didn’t know—I was afraid that…”
Her voice was getting away from her. It all was getting away from her. She balled her hands in her lap so Seth wouldn’t see them shake.
After a long moment she could see clearly again. What she felt was relief, so strong that it nearly made her cry.
“If there was a getaway car parked out back, a big SUV, that’s where they were taking us,” she said.
“What else did you think?” He shot a glance at her. “Jesus. You thought they were taking you out to kill you.”
She shut her eyes. When she opened them, Seth was reaching toward her. It seemed an automatic gesture, an urge to comfort her. But he hesitated. His hand hung in midair.
Instead of a gentle touch, he clenched his fist and thumped it against her shoulder. A play-punch, almost a rewind to their childhood.
It was reassurance, and it worked. The humming terror that had gripped her in the courtroom dissolved. She felt lighter. The four chosen hostages hadn’t been headed for execution in the judge’s chambers.
“The gunmen wanted to get away with you,” Seth said. “That’s more interesting.”
“And worrisome. They wanted me yesterday. I assume they still want me today.”
He turned onto a broad avenue and headed downtown. Orchards gave way to crowded housing developments with maple saplings turning autumn red. They passed a park where morning dog walkers were exercising. The swings on the playground were empty.
“Here’s the thing,” Seth said. “Experienced criminals like Sylvester Church, guys who take part in grab-and-go robberies, know that a getaway car is necessary but it isn’t enough.”
She turned, curious.
“In a well-planned heist, the team swaps out their getaway car. They drive away from the scene in one vehicle. Then switch to a second. They either meet up with other members of their team or switch to a vehicle they positioned ahead of time.”
“And did Church and his partner have a switch car?”
“It was the first thing I looked for, when I saw their Blazer getting towed.”
“
You found it.”
He continued toward the center of town, poker-faced. “Want to see it?”
“Is it parked in a spot where security cameras can catch it?”
He let out a heh. “Clever girl.”
“The cops think I’m an inside man. Video showing me checking out the switch car would do my cause no good.”
“No video cameras. As Church undoubtedly wanted it.”
They passed St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, and then First Presbyterian, and the Assembly of God, and the Unitarian church, and the Iglesia Pentecostal. They passed the cross street that led to the civic center and the courthouse. Rory couldn’t help looking. The tree-lined boulevard ran perfectly straight, cutting across the valley like the crossbar of the letter H. The courthouse was two miles west, beyond the long procession of traffic lights, corner after corner of them. Green, yellow, red, an electric pulse driving the city.
At the wheel, Seth looked focused and eager. That look was familiar, and yet it masked two years of blank history.
“What are you doing these days?” Rory said.
“Working in L.A. Living in Santa Monica.”
She wanted to ask him: wife, kids, harem, any new fetishes? Women whipping him? Jesus, why was she thinking these things?
“You finally open that workshop you always dreamed of, crafting exotic Chia Pets?” she said.
He smiled. “I sit behind a desk in the Federal Building all day. Reviewing cold-case files.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You joined the FBI?”
“No. I’m working for a legal outfit, evaluating closed cases, convictions that are being appealed, miscarriages of justice.”
“Like the Innocence Project?”
“Specific to federal cases. Why? You want my card?”
“I guess I’m surprised,” she said. The rest was implied: Seth, behind a desk?
“It’s a job,” he said. “It’s a paycheck for a guy who ain’t gonna run and jump through fiery hoops anymore.”
Something in his tone worried her. “Are you okay?”
“Got all my fingers and toes. Some say I even still have my mind.”
They passed a strip mall so Californian that in five thousand years, it would be regarded as an archaeological site. Taco Bell, In-N-Out, Applebee’s, Jack in the Box, and Burger King. Teenage wasteland. Next door was a big-barn bed-and-bath store—ten acres of fluffy pillows and downy duvets and king-size beds. In fifth grade, she and Seth once bicycled here after school. They bought Jolly Ranchers and a Sports Illustrated at the 7-Eleven and sat on the curb sucking their blue Slurpees through straws. To get out of the heat, they locked their bikes and went inside the Beddie-Buy. It was cool and soft and seemed padded, floor to ceiling. The bedroom displays looked magnificent. Like the White House, Rory thought. And she got the idea that if a global catastrophe occurred, they could hide in the store until the army came. They spent hours exploring, working out which bedroom they’d each choose if the apocalypse rolled down on Ransom River. The Beddie-Buy had a Starbucks, so they figured they’d have food and drink for the duration.
