by Meg Gardiner
It knocked him on his ass. ‘‘That’s not possible.’’
‘‘She didn’t show at the harbor, either. And unless she’s with you, we’re looking at a world of trouble,’’ she said. ‘‘Because the Mings did show at the harbor. And we’ve got a one-eighty-seven.’’
‘‘Say that again?’’
‘‘You heard me.’’
The walls went crooked. One-eighty-seven. That was the California Penal Code section for murder.
Not at home, not at Nikki’s house, not at Lavonne’s. Her cell phone was out of service. Where was she?
He phoned the Fiesta Coast Motel, both Brian’s room and Marc Dupree’s. He called everyone. She was nowhere. He grabbed his car keys.
He drove to the motel. The rooms were upstairs, and it took him five minutes to find the fucking elevator. He pounded the doors so hard and shouted so loud that other guests began poking their heads out to see who the wacko was. He went back down to the parking lot.
The hole started forming in his stomach.
He tried her phone again. He got back in his car and jammed the key in the ignition. He stopped, trying to slow down his heart.
But the thought devoured him. One man was dead, and Evan had vanished somewhere between Cold Springs and the harbor. And the Mings had been driving Marc’s truck, Rodriguez said—the truck he’d seen in his rearview mirror as he drove away from her. God. Fuck. Fucking hell.
He could phone Rodriguez and tell her to check the hospitals. But once he did that, he knew where else she’d check, and he couldn’t face that thought.
He had a single option left. He had to retrace their path, starting back on the road where he’d spun out. He fired up the engine. He dropped it into drive and went ripping out of the parking lot. One last time.
Late that evening I roused from thorny dreams, hearing voices in the hallway. I squinted at the door. My eyes were swollen nearly shut, and I couldn’t focus.
I swam back to sleep, but when a nurse came in I said, ‘‘What’s going on?’’
‘‘Checking your blood pressure.’’
I thought about the voices and said, ‘‘Lily Rodriguez is here.’’
She wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around my arm. ‘‘The sheriff’s detective? Honey, that was three hours ago.’’
‘‘Oh.’’ I closed my eyes. ‘‘Did Brian get Jesse?’’
She ripped off the cuff, taking a long while to answer. ‘‘Everything will keep till morning.’’
Her gentle tone unaccountably disturbed me. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’
‘‘Nothing. Let’s get your pain medication.’’
But something was amiss. I swallowed the painkillers. I tried to unravel my sense of foreboding, but my mind and spirits were tangled by the drugs. A vision swept past, of a black wing cutting through my life and cracking open the sky.
‘‘You sleep,’’ said the nurse.
The specter fled. I lay in the dark, feeling my heart pound.
I knew what the phantom was. It was death. Only when I woke in the morning did I learn how close it was.
25
Light was creeping through the window. Outside the door the breakfast cart trundled down the hall. The television was on, with the sound muted. That was odd enough. It took me half a minute to focus my eyes sufficiently to see that the local news was reporting a murder.
I fumbled awake. On the TV I saw a shot of the marina. Sailboat masts and last night’s sunset. By the gate a sheet covered a body. The camera zoomed out, and I saw a slick of blood trailing back to a truck. Marc’s truck.
I moved, and my body groaned. The pain had drilled to the core and spread wide. I blinked at the television. A reporter was interviewing a witness on the dock. The woman talked and pointed toward the body. I groped for the remote control. I mashed my palm against the buttons and the sound jerked on.
‘‘—moaning and shouting,’’ she said. ‘‘I came up on deck and saw the one guy on the ground and the other running past my boat, screaming at somebody.’’
She pointed to the far end of the dock, where Toby Price moored his boat.
‘‘Then the police drove up, with all the lights and sirens. And he dove off the dock in his clothes and everything.’’
A reporter came on, thin and brusque. ‘‘Police continue to search for the dead man’s companion. The victim’s name is being withheld pending notification of the next of kin.’’
My head thudded. I exhaled.
‘‘It was Merlin Ming.’’
I turned. Jesse was sitting in the easy chair beside the bed.
‘‘Murphy’s the one who dove into the marina. The Harbor Patrol hasn’t found him. And Toby’s boat is gone.’’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘‘I hate having to tell you this.’’
From the state of his clothes and the way he was slouched in the chair, I guessed that he’d been there most of the night. A couple of pillows were shoved behind his back, and his feet were propped up on the seat of the wheelchair.
‘‘Merlin?’’ I said.
‘‘Bled to death from a gunshot wound.’’
Along with shock, I had a spooky sense that Jesse was here only by providence. The black wing and broken sky sliced through my thoughts so sharply that I felt pain.
He straightened up. ‘‘And the news has it wrong. It isn’t a murder.’’
‘‘No?’’ I glanced at the TV, showing the slick of blood. ‘‘Don’t tell me it’s suicide.’’
I didn’t like the look that crossed his face when I said that word. He pulled his feet down, reached over, and lowered the rail on the bed.
‘‘No.’’ He swung over to sit by me. ‘‘It’s justifiable homicide. Marc shot him.’’
I let my head fall back on the pillow, remembering gunfire as Marc drove up in the wedding car.
‘‘They haven’t arrested him, have they?’’ I said.
‘‘No, but he’s at the station answering questions.’’ As if to soothe me, he added, ‘‘Lavonne’s with him.’’
He was being magnanimous. Very much so. I closed my eyes.
‘‘Marc’s going to come out of this okay,’’ he said. ‘‘The DA may give him a rough ride, but Marc had cause. The best cause.’’
‘‘Murphy.’’ My throat felt tight. ‘‘He said it wasn’t finished. And now—’’
‘‘There’s a police officer guarding your room. Rodriguez badgered SBPD into sending him.’’
My nerves began vibrating. My eyes stung yet again. I squeezed back tears.
‘‘Okay.’’
He put his hand on the blanket near mine. ‘‘Toby’s running. And Murphy may have drowned.’’
‘‘Do you believe that?’’
‘‘Toby’s gone and isn’t coming back. He’ll be arrested as soon as he runs out of weed and Oreos and sails into port someplace to resupply.’’
‘‘But Murphy.’’
Jesse never sweetened things for my benefit. ‘‘I don’t know.’’
I drew a painful breath, getting a good look at him. He seemed far beyond exhaustion. His voice was calm, but jarringly so, like the eerie quiet at the eye of a hurricane. I couldn’t bring myself to start the conversation we needed to have.
‘‘How’d you convince the nurses to let you in the room overnight?’’ I said.
‘‘Georgia knows me. From when I was here.’’
What an understatement. ‘‘When he was here’’ encompassed critical internal injuries, a broken pelvis, compound fractures of both legs, and crushed spinal vertebra. He came in that evening with a paramedic riding the stretcher on top of him, pressing on his femoral artery so he wouldn’t bleed out. He faced multiple surgeries, weeks in ICU, followed by a long stretch in the Rehabilitation Institute.
I felt like a sissy.
Jesse had borne more than I could stand to consider, and I had never seen him cry about what happened to him. I was going to walk out of here this morning, and I was close to mewling. I tried to blank my face and herd th
e tears back down my throat. I failed.
I covered my eyes with my good hand. Jesse shut off the TV and eased my hand away from my face, leaving me no choice but to look him in the eye.
‘‘Yesterday was a cascade failure,’’ he said. ‘‘One thing slamming into the next until, boom.’’
‘‘I wish we could erase yesterday.’’
‘‘We can’t.’’
The urge to cry was growing. His hand lay on mine. I held intensely still so that I wouldn’t sputter. He kept my gaze.
‘‘And coping with yesterday is going to absorb your strength, and fear, and anger, for a long time,’’ he said.
I breathed.
‘‘Tell me what you want me to do,’’ he said. ‘‘Do you want me to leave?’’
‘‘No.’’ I took hold of his arm. ‘‘God, no.’’
Relief seemed to flicker behind his eyes. It was the first expression I’d been able to identify on his face.
He held on to my arm. ‘‘Then I want to get you out of here, and get you mending. Everything else will wait till you’re up to it.’’
‘‘You don’t have to baby me.’’
‘‘Ev. You took care of me. Let me take care of you.’’
I squeezed his arm. The impenetrable mix of fatigue, sorrow, and distance on his face was still giving me pause.
‘‘We have to talk,’’ I said.
‘‘I know.’’
‘‘Are you angry?’’
‘‘I’m so far past furious that not even light could catch up with me,’’ he said. ‘‘But not at you. At the men who did this to you.’’
He let go of my arm. He reached for the wheelchair and hopped on.
‘‘Let’s find out when you can blow this joint.’’ He pressed the call button for the nurse and took out his phone. ‘‘Shall I see if Nikki can bring you some clean clothes?’’
‘‘Please.’’
Staying busy was how he kept his mind off of things. Working, coaching, swimming—noise and motion were his hiding places. And at that moment I was glad for it.
Or not. The nurse came in, and through the open door I saw the uniformed officer outside the room. The nurse smiled, and we talked, and she patted Jesse on the shoulder and asked if I wanted breakfast. Surprisingly, I did. She bustled out, and Jesse spoke on the phone to Nikki.
‘‘She’ll be over soon,’’ he said.
I gazed at the door, fretful.
He looked up at me. ‘‘If my car . . . Nikki can drive you home. I don’t have to.’’
‘‘That’s not it,’’ I said. ‘‘Are the police going to put a guard on my house?’’
‘‘For a few days.’’
‘‘But not beyond that.’’
‘‘No.’’
I knotted the blanket in my hands. I felt an urge to lock the door and jam a chair under the knob. Jesse leaned on his knees, focused now.
‘‘Brian and I are working on it,’’ he said.
I almost remarked about the unlikelihood that they could work together on anything, but his expression stopped me. Finally a look I recognized: pure ferocity. I knew he had given Brian that look when he arrived. Brian would have stepped aside when he saw it. Without a word.
‘‘He’s doing T and E,’’ he said.
Test and evaluation. With Brian’s job, that involved air combat maneuvers and studies of weapons lethality.
‘‘What’s he evaluating?’’ I said.
‘‘Recoil. I need something that won’t dump me flat on my back when I fire.’’
He was buying a gun. I didn’t say anything, but he felt the need to reassure me.
‘‘Evan. These guys are not going to get you. Not while I’m alive.’’
That was what worried me.
26
Monday morning the alarm clock rang at seven. Jesse turned it off and lay for a few seconds, rubbing his eyes. The sun was shining through the shutters in my bedroom. He caught me watching him, pulled closer to me, and propped himself up on an elbow. He stroked my good shoulder, one of the few places on my body that didn’t ache.
It was all the touching I could stand. Almost every other inch of me howled. My shoulder and elbow had improved, but seemed to lack any strength.
Jesse had been here since bringing me home from the hospital. He hadn’t left my side. And we still hadn’t talked. Not about the spinout, the attack, us, anything. I brushed the back of my hand across his face. He looked half-asleep.
‘‘I’ll make coffee,’’ he said.
He got out of bed, careful not to jostle me. Before heading to the kitchen he came around to my side and pulled the quilt over my shoulders.
‘‘Thanks,’’ I said.
A minute later I heard the coffeepot turn on, and the television news. He returned to the bedroom and set the morning paper on the bed within my reach. Soon enough the hot water ran in the bathroom, and through the open door I saw him shaving. He was getting ready for work. I pulled my knees up and huddled deeper into the quilt.
Nikki would be going to work today, too.
Brian and Luke would be over soon, but Brian had to return to duty. They were going home this morning.
A uniformed police officer was parked outside my house in a patrol car, and would be for another twenty-four hours. The sun was shining. If I opened the windows, I could hear the birds singing in the trees. But I didn’t want to open the windows.
Jesse had bought a handgun, a Glock nine-millimeter, but couldn’t get it until a background check went through. Damn laws. Damn lawyers, abiding by them.
Marc had to stay in town until the police finished their investigation into the shooting death of Merlin Ming. His gun lay beyond reach in the evidence locker at police headquarters.
I wanted protection.
I cringed my way out of bed and padded into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Seeing myself in the mirror no longer horrified me. I was black and purple ripening to green, with a cut through my eyebrow and a busted lower lip. I was hideous, but I was used to it now.
Jesse looked at my reflection. ‘‘I can drive you to your dentist’s appointment.’’
‘‘That’s okay. I need to give driving a try.’’
I grimaced in the mirror. Five chipped teeth, including the top front. I looked like a hillbilly. I put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing in next to him at the sink. His skin was cool, and under my hand his collarbone was prominent. I realized again that he was too thin.
Thin, and tired, and unnaturally composed. He was here, supporting me, virtually carrying me. But he wasn’t all here. His turbulence was gone, and I didn’t know where, or why, or if it would return. Its absence left me ill at ease.
He was knotting his tie when Lilia Rodriguez knocked on the door. Monday mornings agreed with her. She was fresh cheeked, wearing a cheap brown suit, and the cowlick was asserting itself. I was still dressed in one of Jesse’s Blazers Swimming T-shirts and pajama bottoms.
‘‘Good news,’’ she said. ‘‘The assault charge is going away, Evan.’’
‘‘About time,’’ Jesse said.
‘‘In light of what’s happened, especially with your brother, it’s—’’
‘‘What about my brother?’’ he said.
‘‘Exculpation.’’ She caught herself. ‘‘I assumed he’d told you.’’
He hadn’t spoken to his family since the wedding. The cold war was on.
‘‘P.J.’s in the clear over the murder?’’ he said.
‘‘The crime lab found evidence that’s taking us in another direction.’’
‘‘What was it?’’
‘‘That I won’t say.’’
They must have recovered evidence from the scene, or from Brittany Gaines’s body, belonging to the killer. Fibers, hairs, DNA—and it didn’t match P.J.’s.
I said, ‘‘Have you put out a warrant on Murphy?’’
‘‘All kinds. But none for murder yet.’’
Jesse and I exchanged a glance. Either they ha
d insufficient evidence to get the warrant, or they didn’t think it was Murphy.
‘‘What about Sinsa?’’ I said.
‘‘Cynthia Jimson? Nothing.’’
‘‘Have you checked out what I told you?’’
‘‘There’s no evidence to tie her to the murder. Nothing to tie her to the stolen checks, or to the fake Evan Delaney bank account, or to the ID theft.’’
‘‘Lily, she’s involved.’’
‘‘Granted, she knew Brittany Gaines. But we can only draw a business connection. She was producing Brittany’s demo. Not a thing connects her to Toby. Nada.’’
‘‘That’s it? You have nothing else?’’
‘‘She caught the bouquet.’’
Jesse and I both stared.
‘‘At the wedding. Oh, and there is one weird tidbit going around. Not about Cynthia but the car she drives, the BMW four-by-four. And this is wicked weird. Somebody put dead ravens on the engine block.’’
She described it. I wondered whether Shaun Kutner had put them there, or the Mings. Or Sinsa herself.
Lily patted my arm. ‘‘I have to go. I really just wanted to check in and see that you’re doing okay.’’
‘‘I’m splendid. Stick a tiara on my head and call me Miss Universe.’’
Nobody laughed.
‘‘Any leads on Toby and Murphy?’’ I said.
‘‘There’s a statewide BOLO.’’ Be on the lookout. ‘‘They’ll turn up.’’
‘‘On my doorstep, I’m afraid.’’
‘‘You have my card. Call me anytime.’’
We said good-bye and I watched her go, thinking, Anytime? When Murphy came through my bedroom window, a business card would be worth jack. My skin felt the memory of him. Tongue, sweat, meat.
Jesse put a hand on my back. Wholly without volition, I shrank from his touch.
‘‘Sorry, didn’t mean to hit a sore spot,’’ he said.
‘‘Not your fault.’’ I ran my hands up and down my arms. ‘‘I’m going to take a bath.’’
‘‘Need a hand?’’
‘‘No.’’ I needed to hurry. I needed to get clean.
Bending over to turn on the faucet proved too painful just then. But I was having to bathe rather than shower, because I was supposed to keep the tape around my ribs dry. I squatted down next to the tub and tried to stretch, but my balance was shaky.
