by Sheila Lowe
Ann was a criminal defense attorney Claudia had met through Kelly Brennan. They had worked together on a couple of forgery cases and Ann had a record of winning. Around the courthouse, her colleagues had coined a new term for the district attorneys who unsuccessfully opposed her. They called it getting Cunninghammered. Ann would take Annabelle in hand and figure out what they could do to protect her, and Joel’s job, too, if he would allow it. Of course, in his view, defense attorneys were lower than bottom feeders, so chances were small that he would.
Claudia patted her face dry, blew her nose one more time, and took a deep breath. One thing she knew for sure: her life without Joel Jovanic would be a dark and lonely place. Would he accept a plea of temporary insanity? Or was the damage she had done to their relationship too profound to heal?
She went along the landing to Annabelle’s room and knocked on the guest room door. When there was no answer, she knocked again. “Annabelle, let’s talk about it.”
Still no answer. With a sinking feeling, she opened the door onto an empty room.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Traffic whooshed past as Annabelle trudged east on Jefferson Boulevard, the same road along which she had driven Jamie’s car yesterday on her way to scare Viper into a confession. Less than twenty-four hours ago and life as she knew it had once again taken a horrible turn. She was getting to be a pro at fucking things up.
There was no sidewalk, only a scrub verge on the edge of the wide road. Some of the drivers honked at her as they passed, the backwash of hot air from the big trucks nearly blowing her off her feet. She wished one of them would slam into her. Maybe she should step off the verge and into the road. She was such a screwup. She deserved to die. Nobody would miss her.
Claudia’s voice whispered in her head. “I would miss you.”
Annabelle told herself that she did not merit the love of someone like Claudia. But knowing that Claudia did love her was the thing that kept her from flinging herself into the path of the cars rushing by.
At the beginning of the Ballona Creek Bridge the road narrowed. The verge on which she had been walking disappeared altogether until she got to the other side. Maybe it was because she felt as though she were in a dream that the danger factor didn’t bother her. It was the thoughts of how she was going to make it in jail that made her shiver. But she couldn’t stand knowing that her stupidity had caused a rift between Claudia and Joel.
She’d heard them in their bedroom this morning after they left hers. They had been arguing about her fate. And Joel was going to get in trouble because of her. She had heard him say he was going to sleep at his apartment, too. He never did that. As long as she had known them, every night he came home to Claudia’s house and slept there, with Claudia. They loved each other and she, Annabelle, had ruined everything.
Shame at her culpability sent a hot flush into her cheeks. In her desperate need to avenge Angel she had not given a thought to the consequences her actions could bring down on other people. It had not occurred to her that brandishing a loaded gun, even without intending to use it, could lead to someone getting shot. And that someone getting shot with Claudia’s gun would get Joel into serious trouble.
Annabelle had been plodding along for most of an hour when she reached the bridge that spanned Pacific Coast Highway, her wretchedness growing with every step. At least the narrow bike lane on the PCH Bridge made it a little less unsafe to walk at the edge of the road. She figured Centinela, the last street to cross before she reached her destination, was still over a mile away.
Joel had kept her phone with its damning recording, and it was Claudia’s spare that rang in her pocket at least three times. Annabelle didn’t answer it. She didn’t want to say where she was going. Claudia would try to stop her and she was afraid she would be persuaded. The five mile trek was the beginning of her punishment. She didn’t even allow herself to listen to music as she walked.
She was glad her legs were beginning to ache. She welcomed the blister she could feel forming on her little toe. By the time she got to the blocks of apartments that stood between her and the Pacific Division Police Station where Joel worked, Annabelle felt like she’d been walking forever.
It had only been a few days since the last time she was at the police station, when Claudia had dragged her and Jamie there to give their statement about Angel. That time, Joel had met them at the back door and escorted them inside. They’d had to walk past a couple of losers handcuffed to a low bench in the middle of the walkway. This time was different.
Annabelle moved between the cement bollards that stood at the head of the walkway at the one-story brick building. She passed the row of vending machines outside the entry, where she could see through the door to the lobby. An old guy was standing at a long white counter, talking to a uniformed cop on the other side. Beside the cop, a lady was sitting at a computer, with a phone at her ear. A row of plastic chairs filled with depressed-looking people was lined up along the wall, looking as pathetic as she felt.
Her feet felt glued to the sidewalk, but she had no choice. She had to prove to Claudia that she was not just a selfish little bitch anymore. At the end of October, she would be sixteen. It was time to start taking responsibility.
Annabelle straightened her spine and sucked in a big breath and pushed open the heavy door. She got in line behind the old guy, who was leaning on the counter, griping about his neighbor.
The woman at the computer hung up the phone, but her gaze swept right over Annabelle like she wasn’t even there. She called out a name, and one of the people in the chairs, a skinny young woman with a black eye, shoved past Annabelle and went up to the desk.
People came and went and the cops behind the counter continued to ignore her. Because she was a kid, Annabelle guessed resentfully. Should she go up to the counter, or continue to wait? She shifted from one foot to the other, getting antsy. Beginning to lose her nerve
She started thinking about the days she had spent in Juvie. Angel was the one person who’d treated her like a human being in that nasty, scary place. Angel didn’t deserve to be dead.
Annabelle was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to live through another confinement. Last time she had cut herself with a piece of broken glass after she got out. She pulled down the long sleeves of her t-shirt, conscious of the scars that still stood out against the pale skin of her wrists. That little adventure had been followed by a week in the psych ward. A lump clogged her throat. It would have been better if—
A startled voice shook her out of her reverie.
“Annabelle?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
For an instant, Joel Jovanic’s heart skipped. What the hell was Annabelle Giordano doing in the lobby? If something had happened to Claudia…
Ignoring the curious stares of the woman at the front desk and the uniform talking to a citizen, he went around to the door that separated the lobby from the detective squad bay and beckoned Annabelle to follow him.
He led her to one of the small interview rooms and sat her down on one side of the table, while he took the other chair. Normally, he would have remained standing to show who was in control, but he felt bad about the way he had acted this morning, scaring her the way he had, despite the fact that she had earned it, and more.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“Please don’t break up with Claudia.” Annabelle’s voice was shaky, tears threatening. “I’m gonna tell them I stole the gun and you guys didn’t know anything. She’s been locked up in the bathroom all day, crying and crying, and I feel like shit. I know it’s all my fault.” Finally, she ran out of words and hung her head.
Hearing that, Jovanic felt like shit, too. He had never known Claudia to go on a crying jag. Knowing that he was the cause of her tears made him want to crawl into a very deep hole. He looked acro
ss the table at Annabelle and found that this morning’s anger had drained away. Maybe he was just too tired to hang onto it. Or maybe the bullet he had put into Gerald “Crash” Harris’s head had given him perspective on what was important.
“Viper is dead. Crash killed him in the hospital.”
“What? Crash—”
“They knew each other a long time ago and they were enemies. Crash had a son named Travis—”
“You mean Travis who knew Angel?” Annabelle interrupted.
“Yeah. He learned tattooing at Viper’s shop. We’ll never know for sure, but my guess is he probably grew up hearing from Crash about how much he hated Viper. I think maybe he trained at Dragon House and then set up his own shop to try and take business away from Viper in revenge for his father.”
“Did Viper burn down Travis’s place?” Annabelle asked.
“Yes, I think he did. And when Travis got killed, Crash decided to get his revenge.” Jovanic did not tell her about what he now believed was collateral damage—Darla Steinman and Shane Oliver. Connecting what Steinman’s mother had told him with what Claudia discovered at the Inkslingers Ball, he was not surprised when the ballistics report showed that the same gun had killed both Steinman and Oliver. He had developed a theory that Crash either went to Darla for help in getting at Viper and she’d rejected him, or he had simply shot her in revenge over their old rivalry. He then went after Oliver for the same reason, or believing that he held incriminating evidence. With both Viper and Crash dead, they would never know for sure.
As much as Annabelle had suffered, Jovanic wanted to spare her those details. “Crash must have seen on the news this morning that Viper was hospitalized,” he said. “It’s easy to call and find out what room someone’s in. I just happened to be there when he arrived.”
“But Travis got killed last week. Why did he wait so long?”
“Viper always had bodyguards around until last Friday. They’re in custody right now.”
“What happened to Crash? Did you arrest him?”
“I was too late. He shot Viper and I had to shoot him.”
Annabelle’s hand went to the place on her abdomen where Crash had put the sugar skull tattoo on her. “Is Crash dead, too?”
For a half-second, Jovanic was back in Viper’s hospital room doorway, his gaze fixed on Gerald Harris’s gun hand. There had been no time to think before squeezing the trigger. Once Harris started to turn, Jovanic’s reflexes had taken over. Before he could register the sound of the discharge or the bullet hole in Harris’s cheek, the other man dropped like a rock. Then all hell broke loose.
He looked at the teen with sudden understanding. Considering all she had suffered in her young life, maybe she wasn’t doing so badly after all. He nodded. “Yeah, Crash is dead, too. So, that puts this matter to rest and you can go home.”
Annabelle looked confused. “What do you mean?”
Exhaustion pressed down on Jovanic. If he could have laid his head on the table and closed his eyes right then, he would not open them for a week. He loosed a big sigh. “I mean that nobody here is going to want to hear your confession. With both these guys dead, the file is going to be wrapped up and nobody will want to unwrap it. They won’t care who shot Viper first, and they sure as hell won’t want to do the paperwork because it’s not going anywhere. Under the circumstances, the D.A. won’t prosecute you. There’s nobody left to press charges.”
He could have had her write up a statement and hand it in at the front desk. But the truth was, the person in charge would thank her for her honesty—wink, wink—and drop it in the trash can as soon as she was out the door. They would roll their eyes and comment on sexy little attention whores who’ll do anything to get on the front page of the newspaper. They would not notice that Annabelle would rather not call attention to herself, or that she was trying to clear her conscience. Their motivation would be to clear their desks.
Annabelle’s lips pressed together in a tight line, as if determined to hold back her tears. Jovanic got a little choked up himself. “It’s gonna be okay, kiddo,” he said. “What you did was totally wrong, even though it was for a good reason. And now, you’ve tried to make it right, so at least you learned something. You’re going to have to see Dr. Gold about what happened, and you’re going to have to keep going until he says you’re okay. And then, let’s put it behind us.”
A big fat tear spilled over and dribbled down Annabelle’s cheek, landing with a splash on the tabletop. She quickly brushed it away and wiped her wet fingers on her jeans. “I l-l-love Claudia. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
Jovanic reached out and took her hand in his. “She loves you, too. Don’t ever think otherwise, Annabelle.”
She nodded and asked in a small voice, “Are you going to break up?”
Jovanic looked at her long and hard before giving her his answer. “Kiddo, I don’t know.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Thursday evening
Claudia took a quick peek in the rearview mirror and checked her makeup. The eye drops had done their job and though the skin around her eyes was still a little puffy, most of the evidence of her two-day crying jag was camouflaged under a light application of highlighter, makeup, and blush.
On this, the third day, when Jovanic texted and asked that she meet him at Shanghai Reds for dinner, she had almost dropped the phone. His lengthy silence since the shooting at the hospital—which she had learned of, to her horror, on the news—had persuaded her that she was never going to hear from him again. Her feeble attempt to begin rebuilding the walls around her ego had already begun.
In those days since he had left the house, Claudia’s world seemed to have shifted and crumbled. Even Annabelle was strangely quiescent following her disappearance after the Big Confrontation, as she had come to think of it. But she had refused to say where she had disappeared to and Claudia could not find the heart to press her on the subject. Then Monica invited Annabelle to stay for the last few days before her father came home from Canada and Claudia had been glad to let her go.
She found it a relief, not having to put up a cheerful front for the girl’s sake, but having neither Annabelle nor Jovanic in the house made it a very lonely place. In a half-hearted attempt to take her mind off Jovanic and the burden she had placed on him, she made a stab at dealing with some of the work that was piling up on her desk.
A woman had sent the handwriting of her abusive boyfriend, wanting to know whether he was dangerous. Claudia wanted to shake her. In light of the hateful way the man addressed her in the handwritten letter, she should not need a graphologist to answer that question. However, the woman’s own handwriting, which Claudia required when doing a third-party analysis, demonstrated her need to be a “good girl.” That meant a pleaser who failed to recognize the boyfriend’s behavior as abusive and call a halt to it.
Staring at the specimen, Claudia’s mind was a blank. The red flags for danger in the man’s handwriting were clear, but with every attempt she made to start writing the analysis, Jovanic’s face floated in front of her vision. Putting her fingers on the keyboard and typing the words seemed to exceed her current abilities. Despite his attempt to cover it up she had seen how much she had hurt him that day. She wished with every fiber of her being that she could reel the words back in.
Then his text arrived and Claudia began to wonder whether he had chosen the site of their very first formal date as the place to formally break off the relationship.
What kind of clothes were appropriate for an imminent breakup? Her pride refused to allow her to dress as provocative as she would like. It would be humiliating if he thought she was trying to manipulate him into staying with her. She settled on a rose-colored cowl neck shell under a soft black knit cardigan and pants. On her way down to the garage, she argued with herself over perfume. Jovanic loved the Opium sce
nt she often wore for him. Before she reached the Jaguar, she ran back upstairs and compromised with a light spritz in the hollow of her neck.
She arrived at Shanghai Red’s in Marina del Rey and turned the Jaguar over to the valet. Her nerves were getting the better of her as she paused on the little bridge over the koi pond, struggling to center herself. A school of the big colorful fish swam over, gathering in an expectant group below her, doing their best to look hungry. Claudia wished she had some offering to drop into the water, but the koi were destined to be disappointed. She sighed. Disappointment was the theme of the week.
Standing there in the gathering dusk, she tried to prepare herself for the coming meeting, but the tranquil beauty of the waterfall and the twinkling lights strung on the wooden rafter above the walkway could not touch her anxiety. Finally, gathering her wits, she left the hopeful koi behind and continued on to the restaurant.
Jovanic was already in the lobby, standing by the fireplace. He looked serious and ill-at-ease. Not a good sign, Claudia thought. But her stomach flipped the way it always did when she saw him and she had to remind herself not to reach out for him.
“Thank you for coming,” Jovanic said, making no attempt to kiss or touch her. His manner was as formal as if he were about to interview a suspect. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
Claudia tried to smile, but her facial muscles seemed frozen. “You’ve been very quiet.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of sleeping. And thinking.”
Uh-oh, here it comes.
The hostess called his name then, and handed them over to their server, who led them to a back room that overlooked the marina. The lights in the condos across the water were just beginning to come on, reflecting gold on the water. As irony would have it, they were seated at the very table where they had sat that first night. Claudia had been nervous then, too. But that had been the jitters of excited anticipation. Pretty much opposite to the way she felt now. What was she going to do without him?
