by Meg Gardiner
The house was quiet and the four-by-four was gone. Sin must have taken off. His heart felt bruised, and wouldn’t stop racing. His eyes were blurry. Like the Jackson Browne song—maybe he’d kept them open too long, seen too much. He felt parched too. And hot. He went to the kitchen for a cold drink, and found her note.
I didn’t mean what I said. I was scared. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I’m sorry.
It melted him. He ran his fingers over the words, trying to tamp down his emotions.
I’m going to talk to a lawyer. Please don’t tell Mom. I have to be the one to do that. I’m really, really sorry.
The page looked smeared. His eyes were a mess. And he felt hot. It must be from the relief, but he sure felt hot.
P.S.—I made your sundae.
The shutters in the bedroom were open, enough to see cirrus clouds glowing white above the ocean. The pines swayed, limbs shirring like brushes on a snare drum, shadows sliding across the ceiling. I scooted to the foot of the bed and grabbed the sheets and blankets from the floor. Pulling them around us, I sat next to Jesse, hugging my knees, watching the sky pour by.
He turned on his side and coiled against me, resting an arm along my leg. I smoothed my fingers through his hair.
‘‘You don’t have to watch me,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m not going to change my mind.’’
‘‘But I want to watch you.’’
‘‘Besides, if I ever did it, you know how it would play. ‘Crip Puts Self Out of Misery.’ How shitty would that be, people thinking it had to be because of the injury.’’ His hand was warm on my leg. ‘‘Fate worse than death and that crap. Well, fuck ’em. I’m sticking around.’’
I stroked his hair. The sun lit the clouds, tinting them pink.
‘‘I’m going to say something,’’ I said.
‘‘You, talk? How novel.’’ But the sarcasm ebbed when he saw my face. ‘‘What?’’
‘‘This sense of guilt.’’ He rolled his eyes, but I kept stroking his hair. ‘‘You think it’s unfair that you lived when your friends died.’’
‘‘It is.’’
‘‘Wrong. Their deaths were crimes. You surviving is a gift.’’
His mouth pulled down, and he started to speak.
‘‘Hear me out. You were hurt, severely, and your life was changed. But you feel so guilty for breathing that you think it’s selfish to acknowledge that.’’
‘‘What do you mean, acknowledge it? I deal with it every way, every day. The point is, it hasn’t ruined my life.’’
‘‘I know. Babe, you suffered a hell of a blow, and grieving for what you lost isn’t petty. But you feel so bad about feeling bad that you only get more depressed. It’s a vicious circle.’’
‘‘Wow.’’
‘‘Sorry,’’ I said.
‘‘No, it’s okay. I’m just amazed. You never talk about this stuff with me.’’
‘‘It’s not fun.’’
‘‘But I’m pleased. You didn’t even dive headfirst through the plate-glass window. I’ve waited years for you to stop being scared to talk about it.’’
I realized he was right. I didn’t want to run screaming from the room. He kissed my hip. His hand slid across my belly.
‘‘Thought you had to go back to work,’’ I said.
‘‘I do.’’
I rolled on top of him. ‘‘When?’’
‘‘Now.’’ His fingers raked into my hair. He pulled me into a kiss, and more.
It was intense. But it wasn’t work. Not even close.
Ricky turned off the TV, thinking: Too much sundae. Finished the whole huge thing. He undid the button on his jeans. He needed a long sauna to work off the calories. Jesus, and after the scare with the bodysuit, he should get right to it. Tight clothes could be dangerous.
In the gym, he turned the sauna up high and shut the door. The heat was overpowering, but that had to be good. This session needed to be quick. He didn’t know when Sin would be back, and he had to be ready to talk to her. This could be a breakthrough. The tang of hot cedar filled his nose. The black stones piled in the heater glowed red. He dumped water on the rocks, three dippers full. Steam powered over him and the temperature shot up. He sat down. Sweat it out, all that hazardous weight.
Except he wasn’t sweating. He was plenty hot, but dry as a bone. He poured three more dippers over the rocks. The air thickened and stung. It felt like being in a fire. He was still dry. His heart was racing like he’d taken speed. What was up?
He rubbed his chest. The walls were turning green and yellow, like fireworks. Purple, shit, emerald green again. This was way wrong.
He heard a scraping sound right outside. A metallic noise against the wood. The handle of the door jittered.
He stood. He had no coordination. His heart was zinging like a hummingbird. He reached for the door handle.
It wouldn’t move.
He shook it. It wouldn’t budge. He put his face near the window in the door and tried to see what was going on outside.
Shaun’s face appeared on the other side of the glass.
Ricky screamed.
Shaun stared. ‘‘The ravens are here.’’
Ricky staggered back, screaming. The colors swooped at him.
‘‘Die, fucker.’’ Shaun head-butted the glass. ‘‘Die!’’
Ricky tripped against the water bucket and fell back on the floor, cracking his head on the bench. His heart was jumping up and down. The heat was killing him.
That scraping sound again. The door handle jangled. And he heard another voice. His daughter’s voice.
‘‘Stop. Shaun, don’t.’’
She was coming. Steam and the wild colors obscured Shaun through the window. But he saw Sin’s arm around his neck, saw them wrestling. God love her. He tried to get up. His feet went their own way and his butt stayed down. But he had to get up, had to help Sin. Shaun would overpower her. Holding on to the bench, he tried again to stand.
The scraping sound came again, and the door swung open. Shaun stood in the doorway holding the crossbar for the dumbbell. That was what had locked him in. Sin was pulling on Shaun’s belt, trying to hold him back, punching him in the kidneys.
‘‘No,’’ she yelled.
Ricky staggered to his feet. He cocked his hand into a fist.
Sin begged. ‘‘Shaun, don’t. You’ll leave prints. You’ll leave trace evidence. Let it be—the heat’ll get him.’’
The colors jumped at Ricky. The racing in his chest stopped, bang, cold. His legs slid out from under him. He looked at Sin, undone. He was going down.
Until Shaun caught him. ‘‘Not yet. Look at me, old man. I’m the light you hoped you’d never see.’’
Ricky felt himself lifted off the floor. He felt the burning when Shaun swung him toward the heater. Toward the red-hot rocks.
34
When my cell phone rang, the sky had deepened to cobalt and the room lay in shadow. Jesse was stretched out facedown, with his head at the foot of the bed and one arm hanging off the side of the mattress. He was sound asleep. For the first time in months, perhaps. I was faceup, staring at the ceiling, sprawled across him with my legs splayed over his back. I had no idea where the bedclothes or pillows had gone. Or the headboard. The phone rang again. Rolling over, I found it on the floor.
‘‘You left me an urgent message?’’ Lily Rodriguez said. ‘‘What’s going on?’’
I shook myself awake. ‘‘Sinsa Jimson.’’
I summarized P.J.’s confession, told her that Sinsa was behind the identity theft, and that Brittany Gaines had gotten hold of P.J.’s fake credit cards the night she died.
‘‘And get this, Shaun Kutner wasn’t in Barbados that night. He was in Santa Barbara. I found his plane ticket and boarding pass.’’
‘‘You think he was building himself an alibi?’’ she said.
‘‘Yes.’’
She went quiet. I found my jeans on the floor. Squeezing the phone against my shoulder, I worke
d my way into them.
‘‘I think he killed Brittany, then drove to L.A. and flew back here in the morning, pretending he was returning from Barbados.’’
Jesse raised his head, saw the sun heading down, and said, ‘‘Oh, shit. Work.’’ He pushed himself up, searching for his clothes.
Lily’s voice was cautious. ‘‘I’d like to see the ticket.’’
‘‘That’s why I got it out of the trash.’’ I wriggled into my shirt.
Jesse found his own shirt crumpled between the wall and the top of the bed. He also found the headboard, collapsed onto the floor. He pulled on the shirt to discover the buttons torn off. I opened his dresser and tossed him a sweater.
‘‘I’ll bring everything by the station,’’ I said.
Jesse found his trousers, took one look at the destroyed zipper, and dropped them back on the floor. I threw him a pair of jeans.
‘‘If I’m not here,’’ Lily said, ‘‘leave the tickets with the desk. Think I’ll get Zelinski and go have a talk with Miss Jimson.’’
‘‘Thanks, Lily.’’ I hung up. ‘‘She’s on it.’’
He was wrestling the jeans up. He nodded at the headboard. ‘‘You have a hell of a kick.’’
I put on my socks and boots and went in the bathroom to wash my face. My cheeks were flushed. I looked like a deflowered hillbilly. When I came out Jesse was tying his high-tops.
He finger-combed his hair. ‘‘Do I look like—’’
‘‘You spent the afternoon having wild sex,’’ I said.
‘‘There goes my annual bonus.’’
A few minutes later we were outside getting ready to leave. The clouds were glowing red with sunset and he was locking up. My phone rang again. It was Marc.
‘‘I’m going home. They’ve cut me loose,’’ he said.
‘‘You’re clear?’’
‘‘No. But they trust me to come back for questioning and court dates. Thank Lavonne for that. She even got forensics to finish with my truck and release it from impound. She’s a bull terrier.’’
Silence stretched on the line. ‘‘I’d like to stop by. Brian forgot to give you back your house key. Can I drop it over?’’
Jesse watched me with not-so-idle curiosity. I had no doubt he knew who it was.
‘‘I’ll be there in forty-five minutes,’’ I said.
Marc hesitated, probably guessing where I was. ‘‘See you shortly.’’
I put the phone in my pocket. Jesse’s gaze was soft.
‘‘Do what you need to do,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll come over later.’’
I dropped Shaun’s airline tickets at the sheriff’s station and headed home. The sky was purple with twilight when I walked toward the garden gate. Lights sprinkled the foothills. The wind was coming up, and the air had a bite. Down the street, Nikki and Thea were walking Ollie. With the little girl holding the leash it looked more of a meander than a journey. I waved.
Inside the house, I flipped on the lights and the stereo. The thought of telling Marc good-bye in silence felt unkind. Fine, I was a coward. I wanted backup, even if it was only the Dixie Chicks.
I took five minutes to straighten up the place, wipe down the kitchen counter, and brush my hair. The Chicks warmed up the atmosphere with fiddle and slide guitar. I began closing the shutters on the French doors. Nikki was in the yard with her charges. She waved to me and strolled toward her kitchen door, letting Thea play in the yard with the puppy. I finished closing the shutters, and listened for Marc’s knock.
But a few minutes later I heard a different set of sounds outside. I heard a heavy engine accelerating. I heard the screech of brakes, and I stopped still, waiting for the crunch of metal. Possibly as it plowed into my car. But the brakes let off and the vehicle roared away.
A few seconds later, I heard Nikki screaming.
Later, a neighbor identified the vehicle: a black BMW four-by-four with JMSNWD vanity tags. It had driven down the road at least twice, cruising around the block before returning and parking a hundred yards from my place.
Sinsa sat at the wheel. Shaun jogged up and jumped in. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
‘‘All her doors and windows are locked. And she has an alarm. I can see the alarm company sign.’’ He glanced at Sinsa. ‘‘And I’m not smashing my way in. The bells go off, she’ll rabbit.’’
‘‘We can’t come back later. We’re running out of time.’’ She stroked her hair. ‘‘We have to do this tonight. We shut this down, now, or it’s all over everyplace.’’
‘‘How am I supposed to make this one look like an accident?’’
‘‘Murphy Ming is after her. Everybody will blame him.’’
‘‘What should we do?’’ he said.
She glanced around at the parked cars, the lights coming on in houses along the street, at the sparse traffic. Well, look at that. A woman with a kid and a mutt were stopping at the garden gate. The kid was yanking the mutt’s leash. It was a little kid, screaming age, still uncertain on its feet. Jerking and stumbling around, with a Frankenstein walk. The mutt looked cowed. The woman opened the gate and they went through.
‘‘Go check it out,’’ Sinsa said.
Shaun trotted across the street and peeked over the fence. Jogging back, he hopped in the BMW and said, ‘‘The mom went in the house, but the kid and the dog are playing in the yard.’’
‘‘I’ll fix this,’’ Sinsa said. ‘‘Go and open the gate, quietly. See if you can get in the shadows inside, like behind a tree.’’
‘‘What are you going to do?’’
‘‘Create a distraction that’ll get Delaney out of her house.’’
‘‘What should I do?’’
‘‘Count to ten and whistle.’’
He took a pair of leather gloves from his backpack. She put a hand on his arm.
‘‘Shaun, quietly. No gunfire or screaming. You want to be long gone before anybody finds her.’’
‘‘She can’t scream if her windpipe’s cut.’’
But she could watch.
He looked toward the gate. ‘‘What if the kid comes out with the dog?’’
‘‘That’s not our problem.’’
I ran outside and saw that the yard was empty. Thea and Ollie were gone. Then I heard tires squealing around a corner, and saw the gate open. I stood as dumb as a sheet of cardboard. Outside the gate, Nikki knelt in the street.
I stumbled toward her. My tongue tasted like copper. Nikki’s back was to me, but her hands hovered above the asphalt, as though afraid to touch what lay before her. From other houses, people were coming out. Helen Potts came running down her walk, one hand clutching her cardigan, the other to her lips. Nikki had gone utterly silent.
In place of her screams came a heartbreaking sound. The puppy crying in agony. My legs turned to paper. I tottered to the sidewalk.
Thea stood by the curb, thumb in her mouth. I scooped her into my arms. Baby smell. God-loving little-girl sweetness. She wriggled against me. Her face was fretful.
‘‘Doggy,’’ she said.
‘‘I know, punkin.’’
Ollie continued whimpering, more softly. Helen Potts knelt down next to Nikki.
‘‘What should we do?’’ Nikki said.
Another neighbor brought a beach towel. ‘‘Here, wrap him up. Poor thing. The bastard who did this.’’
Collectively we looked down the street. The car was gone. Nikki saw me holding Thea and mouthed, Thank you. She eased the beach towel around the puppy. From the house on the corner, Dennis Hutchinson jogged over. He was a vet. I rocked Thea, and the others huddled around the little form in the street. But Ollie wasn’t crying anymore.
Hutchinson took a look and shook his head. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’
After talking to Nikki for a minute, he wrapped the puppy in the beach towel and carried it back to his house. Nikki stood, but made it only as far as the curb. I handed her Thea and she sank down, clutching her daughter in her arms.
; I sat next to her, arm around her shoulder.
‘‘I thought . . .’’ she said.
‘‘Me too.’’
‘‘That gate needs a better latch.’’
Thea strained in her arms, pointing after Dr. Hutchinson. ‘‘Doggy’s sad?’’
‘‘Yeah, baby.’’
We sat there for a minute.
Nikki said, ‘‘This may be the luckiest day of my life.’’ ‘‘Mine too.’’
Life abounds with irony. Irony sucks.
Back inside, I locked the door and dropped down on the sofa. The music was too bluesy, all wrong. The air felt close. I needed a drink.
I heard the floor creak behind me. I half turned and a gloved hand covered my mouth. Silver flicked past my vision. A strong arm held me still. The blade of a serrated knife pressed against my throat.
‘‘Keep absolutely quiet.’’
Shaun climbed over the back of the sofa and crouched on the cushion beside me. The blade bit at my neck. His sea green eyes were vivid. He put his face close to mine.
‘‘You’re going to stay silent and do exactly what I say.’’
He dropped a backpack onto my lap. ‘‘Open it.’’
He hadn’t slit my throat, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t planning to. I stared at him and refused to look away.
A few hours earlier I had made a promise that if Jesse lived, God could have me. And guess what.
No. Not like this. Not now. Not if I could help it.
And, staring at Shaun, I felt with unearthly certainty that this was not my time. That God did not possess such a perverse sense of humor.
I opened the backpack.
‘‘Get out the camcorder,’’ he said.
I took a video camera from the pack. And I looked around for a way out. All the shutters were closed. Shaun had unplugged the phone cord, and my new cell phone was across the room on the dining table. My sense of calm persisted. It may have been shock. But I knew that Nikki was home. Marc was on his way over. If I could get somebody’s attention, I could get help. Better still, if I could get hold of a weapon, I could help myself. And Brian’s gun was in the bedroom.
