Thomas got out as well, answering her across the beading water of the vinyl convertible top of the Mustang. “No, but I accept it. You are who you are. I’ll back you up, but I’m for minimum involvement here, minimum footprint, yes?”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
“A moment.” Thomas took a compact umbrella from his pocket and opened it to shield them both from the falling rain.
“You’re well equipped,” she said.
“Nice of you to notice. Oh, this? No true Englishman is ever without his brolly, especially in this beastly climate. Reminds me far too much of home.”
Thomas walked with her as Cal headed for the glass-fronted gym. The transparent nature was mitigated from the outside by mirroring film and appliques, making it easy to see out and hard to see in.
As they stepped inside, Thomas raised the umbrella and held it high and close to the camera on the wall, blocking its view completely. Cal ignored the bright-eyed young woman at the front desk in favor of roving her gaze over the crowd inside. It appeared noon on a weekday was a popular time for working out, with most of the stationary bikes, elliptical trainers and stair machines occupied.
Brook stepped out of the locker room entrance in back. It took Cal a moment to recognize her. Her long blonde hair was now short and black, and instead of frilly dresses or sweatshirt and jeans, she sported a stylish skirted outfit of cotton and spandex, black with pink accents that worked well with her new hair. If Cal weren’t specifically looking for Brook, she’d have missed her for the transformation.
Their eyes locked across the room, and Cal cursed herself for not changing something about her own appearance—or perhaps sending Thomas in first. As it was, Brook recognized her instantly and stopped, and then backed up into the locker room again, reaching a hand into her bag.
“Shit,” said Cal. “You see that?”
“I did.” Thomas stepped out of the camera’s view and folded the umbrella with a practiced shake and twist. Then, gun in hand, he moved swiftly forward, prompting a surprised objection from the woman at the desk. “She’ll be rabbiting,” he said as Cal followed. “Perhaps I should have been waiting out back.”
“Then you couldn’t back me up here if she decided to attack,” Cal replied.
Thomas grunted and pulled ahead, much swifter than Cal with her injuries. He disappeared into the locker room, prompting shrieks from the inhabitants.
As Cal entered the room, an alarm rang out, either because Brook had pushed out the rear emergency exit or because the desk clerk had triggered it. Cal struggled to keep up with Thomas as she followed into the back alley and across it. Rain slashed her face as the autumn storm brewed ever more violent. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed from a near strike. The light revealed Thomas turning a corner between two industrial buildings, evidently still following their quarry.
Cal power-walked as fast as she could, feeling her gut muscles protest and her aches and pains manifest themselves all over again. Adrenaline drove her on, fuelling that dogged determination which defined everything she did.
When she rounded the corner, she saw Thomas enter a door in the building on the left, forty yards down. The structure’s broken windowpanes gaped like shattered teeth, preserved from complete uselessness by the bars set in their openings. Whatever the place had been, it wasn’t now.
Cal unholstered her pistol as she entered the dimness, shaking her wet hair and letting her eyes adjust. She pulled out a mini-light and held it ready, but didn’t turn it on. “Thomas?”
“Over here,” his voice answered, and she made her way between dark piles of machinery and stacks of abandoned boxes. A packaging line, recognizable by its long belt of rollers, blocked her way until she circumnavigated it.
“She’s in there. I think we have her cornered,” said Thomas, gesturing toward a set of half-open double steel doors. Beyond them, a little light from the broken windows relieved the darkness, and Cal saw movement within.
Edging forward, she saw Brook using a piece of metal, trying to pry the bars off a window. Her workout bag lay at her feet.
“Brook,” Cal called.
Brook turned and faced Cal, a blade gleaming in her hand. “Back off, bitch. I cut you once, I’ll cut you again.”
“Not with two guns on you,” Cal replied, heart thudding in her chest despite her superior position. “Listen to me for a minute.”
Brook grabbed her bag and moved sideways into deeper shadow. “So, talk. Not like I have a choice, right?”
“There are people after you. You need to turn yourself in.”
“Screw that. One stint in Chowchilla was enough.” Chowchilla was the location of a state women’s prison out in the Central Valley. That explained a lot. “You’d feel right at home there, Corwin.” Brook paused. “So what is this, personal? Did I hurt your feelings along with your guts when I stabbed you?”
Thomas drew Cal gently aside from the doorway and spoke in low tones. “She has a gun.”
“How do you know?”
“I assume the worst. She shot your Miss Duncan, did she not? And she has an athletic bag. I suggest we call the authorities and let them handle it. We’ve already tipped our hand and given up our advantage. You’ve made your play, done your bit for King and Country, and it’s not going to work. We need to move on.”
“All right. You call 911 from your burner,” Cal sighed. “We’ll leave when the cops arrive. They have nothing on us.”
“As you wish.”
As Thomas moved away to make the call, Cal spoke through the open doorway, staying out of the line of fire. “Brook, did I tell you what got me looking into Jenna’s killing in the first place?”
“I’m sure you’re going to explain it. Anyone ever tell you you talk too damn much?”
“Once or twice. As I was saying, Jenna’s boss—her real boss, not you—hired me to look into it.”
“So?”
“So, what do you think happens at a Russian dive bar in the heart of the Tenderloin?”
“Um…Cossack squat dancing?”
“And I thought you had no sense of humor. Think about it, though. Old Russian guys who can barely speak English. Young Russian guys with guns, tattoos and way too much money. Sound like anything?”
“You saying it’s a mob bar?”
“Bingo.” Cal was stretching the truth a bit, but all in a good cause. “And now that I fingered you—played a recording I made of our conversation in your apartment, by the way—they know who you are. They’re real eye-for-an-eye type guys, these Russian mafia. You killed one of theirs, so they’re looking to kill you.”
“That’s bullshit.” Her protest sounded weak to Cal’s ears, though.
“I know you think that—thought that, until now—otherwise you’d have run a lot farther than San Jose.”
“I know people here,” Brook said, still uncertainly.
“Yeah, it always surprises me how predictable perps are. Only a few can really cut all ties to their home turf. But that’s bit you in the ass now, hasn’t it? I found you. The Russians will find you. I hear Pete’s friends might be looking for you too.”
“Fine. If you care about me so much, let me walk out of here. You’ve convinced me. I’ll run a lot farther this time.”
“I don’t want to let you go. I just don’t want to be responsible for your murder. You need to stand trial for what you did. Jenna deserves justice. Pete’s wife, no matter what he was into, deserves justice. Alan deserves justice.”
Brook’s response dripped sarcasm. “Oh, puh-leeze.”
“The police are on their way. I can hear the sirens.” Cal couldn’t, but she was speaking poetically. “Unless you want to die right here.”
“Or maybe you will.” A shot boomed loud in the room, the muzzle flash lighting up the darkness, counterpoint to the intermittent lightning outside. The bullet struck the half-open steel door uncomfortably close to Cal’s head.
Brook was good, very good with both a blade and a gun. She obvi
ously used her sweet-young-thing act to cover up how truly dangerous she was, but it wouldn’t matter now. Cal crouched behind a table and rested her weapon on it, aiming at the doorway. “Come on, Brook. There’s only one way out, and we have it covered.”
“I’d rather be dead than go back inside.”
“I believe you’ll get your wish,” said Thomas from behind Cal.
A hand fell on her shoulder, and she glanced up to see more than Thomas’ shape in the dimness. Three more men, men she’d never seen before, stood behind him with guns.
Correction: she’d never seen these in particular, but she’d seen their type. Thugs with dark hair and stubble, square-jawed men with scars…and tattoos visible at their necklines.
Cal instinctively began to turn her weapon toward them when Thomas wrapped his hand around it in an iron grip. “No, Cal. No.”
“You called them instead of the police!” she gasped. “You son of a bitch!”
“Yes, no, and yes.”
“What?”
“Yes I called them—before I even picked you up. No, not instead of the police. I just called 911, as you asked, but given the usual response times, I don’t have much hope…and yes, I am a son of a bitch.”
The three men nodded at Thomas and moved toward the door. Two held compact submachine guns, the other a pistol. Given the disparity of firepower, Brook had no chance.
“Brook—”
Thomas clapped his free hand across Cal’s mouth and wrenched her gun out of her hands. In her weakened state, she was unable to resist him as he dragged her back. “You can’t stop this, Cal. You set it in motion, and now you have to live with it, just like I do. We reap what we sow.”
Cal shut her eyes with anger and frustration as dozens of shots rang out. The men sprayed bullets into the room where Brook hid, and then moved in after swapping magazines. More shots followed, and then one final, separated report, before the noises died out.
“We’re leaving,” Thomas hissed in her ear, still manhandling her back the way they entered. “Those mob thugs are not my friends, and they’re not professionals. I can’t guarantee they won’t turn on us. And I do hear sirens now. Remaining here serves nobody.”
Cal pried his hand off her mouth. “All right, dammit, all right. I’m coming.” She followed Thomas into the rainy alley, where he opened his umbrella above them both.
Thomas led them away from the gym, wending through the industrial maze until they came out on a side street with traffic on it. Police cars with rollers blazing sped by, and Cal clutched Thomas’ arm. “I’m starting to feel it,” she said, leaning on him. Strength seemed to drain out of her and the last few hours felt like the final gasp of a scenario that had consumed her for over a week—and threatened to consume her still. Her mind shied away from the image of Brook’s athletic body shattered by a hail of lead slugs.
Then she remembered Jenna lying on a slab, her chest looking like cold pulped beef, and she was able to right the listing ship of her mind. Did one thing balance the other? Only in the sense that both battered at her soul. Too much death.
Too much death.
Yet here she was, clinging to a man who danced with death every day.
When they reached the parking lot by their roundabout route and approached her car, Cal found it within her to shove Thomas away. She opened the driver’s side and got in.
Thomas walked around and knocked on the passenger window, pointing at the lock knob.
Cal shook her head and started the car. She left him standing there forlornly in the rain, the minor cruelty of the act only a small compensation for the feeling of betrayal that curled like a viper around her heart.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Are you ready? You got everything you need?” Cal asked Mickey.
“Sure, boss. I…I think so…”
“It’s not like you’re going on a quest. We’re just going across town. Then you can come back here.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Cal motioned Mickey out. He got into Molly with difficulty, refusing to put on a seatbelt and closing the door on his bulk, squashed like a sardine in a tin. He watched out the window on the way to Beachtown. Cal turned on the radio to cover the awkward silence. Mickey was all eyes as they parked in front of the townhouse.
“The beach is right there,” he pointed out. “This place must cost a fortune.”
“That’s why it’s called Beachtown. I don’t think it’s that much; three guys share the rent, Cruiser works for some Silicon Valley tech firm, and the place could use some renovation.”
“Three coders. They gotta be making a good chunk of change. Maybe he can get me a gig like that. Work from home.”
“Work from my office basement, you mean—and I already have a hard time getting you to work for me, Mickey. You really think you can meet deadlines?”
Mickey huffed. “You don’t pay like they do.”
“Yeah, I pay in cash. When was the last time you filed taxes?”
“Umm…”
Cal led him up to the door and rang the bell. Cruiser answered it moments later. He looked them over and motioned them in, though he seemed irritated by their very presence.
Alan sat on the living room floor, taking some kind of mechanical device apart. He seemed very intent on what he was doing. Toys and pieces lay scattered across the rug that covered the hardwood. Good bones for a house, Cal thought. Just needs some work.
The adults took places on the overstuffed canvas sofa. A short surfboard sat in a corner, and a wetsuit jacket lay across a chair nearby.
“This is Mickey, my assistant,” Cal said.
Cruiser nodded. “Dude. Whassup?”
“Nah much, dude. You?”
“Mickey has something…” Cal didn’t know how to finish. Mickey had explained it to her, but she was bound to get something wrong if she tried to describe it.
“It’s called an Augmentative and Alternative Communication device,” Mickey jumped in. “Or AAC for short. There are commercial devices on the market, but they are—”
“Way out of our price range without insurance approval, which I can’t get until everything goes through probate and the court grants me permanent custody,” Cruiser said. “I’ve looked at that kind of thing before. You have to get it approved by a therapist, and your health care provider, and then there’s months of training…”
“So, this isn’t that,” Mickey said. “It’s not a full communications device. I’ve rigged up a DelphiPad I bought used. It has a touch screen and it runs Linux. You can create a button, and label it, and record a word to go with it. Like these.” Mickey pulled out a device that looked like somebody chopped the screen off a laptop and lost the keyboard, and poked at its face. Mickey’s own voice came out of the device.
Hungry. Potty. Batman.
Alan’s head jerked up. He looked at the pad and stood up, dropping his screwdriver. He walked over to Mickey and stared at the screen. Mickey showed it to him, touching the virtual buttons again.
Potty. Batman. Potty. Hungry.
Alan’s eyes grew huge. He grabbed Cruiser’s shirt to pull him closer.
“Do you want it?” Mickey encouraged, holding it toward Alan. Alan wouldn’t take it, but Cruiser took it from Mickey and put it into Alan’s hand. Alan let go of Cruiser’s shirt. He touched the screen.
Batman. Batman. Batman.
“The buttons say different things,” Mickey pointed out, trying to explain it to Alan. “You can pick what you want to say.” He reached over to touch it, but Alan kept it away from him as if it were his greatest treasure.
Batman. Batman. Batman.
Cruiser got up. He went to the video player and put a disk in. Alan sat down in front of the TV with the device in his lap, and waited for the opening scenes of Batman.
“Thank you,” Cruiser said, his eyes shiny with tears.
“You can make new buttons, record them to say whatever you want. Or whatever Alan wants. And there are page buttons too, so you can
make a button that opens a new page, with more buttons on it. You can set one up for food, or feelings, or favorite shows…” Mickey’s eyes were on the TV.
“DelphiPad, huh? I’ve never seen anything like that outside a lab. You programmed it yourself?”
“Yeah, Ericsson electronics manufactured and sold them a few years back. They didn’t catch on, so you can find them at yard sales and stuff.”
“Mickey’s a wiz,” Cal said proudly.
Cruiser squatted to look over Alan’s shoulder. “I got a buddy over at Apple that likes to play with stuff like this. Hardware, I mean. I’m more of a software guy myself. I should clue him in. Delphi-Pad. Kinda like a big iPod. I-Pad?”
“That’s a cool name. Be my guest. Someday, kids everywhere will be able to have their own AACs,” Mickey said. “Consumer electronics, all the new ideas that are out there…they’re going to revolutionize communication for kids like Alan.”
“For everyone, maybe,” said Cruiser.
Cal rolled her eyes. Geeks were all the same. They thought gadgets were going to change the world, but people were people. “Come on, Mickey. Let’s leave Leonard here in peace. You can always chat online.”
“Yeah, cool,” said Mickey, rising to follow her.
“Hey, what’s gonna happen to Randy?” asked Cruiser. “I heard Brook was his sister or something? That he covered it up because she actually did it, and then disappeared?”
Cal sighed and looked away. “I’m sure he’ll be charged with filing a false report, obstructing justice and so on. As for Brook…” She shrugged to hide a shudder. “Not my problem anymore.”
She dropped Mickey off and went by the morgue after confirming Stone was there and she could slip in without trouble. “I want to see Potoczek.”
“Here he is,” said Stone, sliding open a drawer. “Two major wounds, exsanguination.”
The Girl In the Morgue Page 29
