Phantom Instinct (9780698157132)

by Gardiner, Meg

  She shook her head. “If you saw Eddie Azerov, then it was no coincidence. Zero and I have a history.”

  “You think the attack had something to do with you?” he said. “Why?”

  She opened her mouth, but no words would come.

  “What are you scared of?” he said.

  At that, she straightened. Pull your shit together. All the hell the way together.

  “Chaos,” she said. “There’s a pit, and it’s got a thin covering on it, but it’s there, and I have a feeling I just tore a gash in it. I don’t want to fall in. You either.”

  His eyes were serious, but his mouth looked wry. “Ms. Flynn, I fell a long time ago.” He nodded at her car. “We’re going to the sheriff’s department. Come on.”

  9

  In the lobby of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station in Agoura, Harper paced while Aiden spoke to the civilian staffer at the front counter. She bit her nails.

  He hurt you?

  Zero went about his rages silently. If you were quick, you’d see him, a flick of motion as he approached from behind. If not, you just heard his voice in your ear. Like that day when she was fifteen, and he came so close that his breath brushed her neck and his words clicked against her skin.

  “Make your life simple. Do what we tell you.”

  So close, too close, his teeth visible. Eddie had tilted his head and tried to poke his index finger into the stitches in her scalp. She jerked away. Her head thundered and nausea coiled through her, from the concussion and from Eddie’s ultimatum.

  His eyes were flat. “Your choice.”

  But the figure behind him had moved into the light and circled her, slowly. She knew it wasn’t a choice at all.

  Now Aiden walked over. “It’ll be a minute. Chill. You’re acting like you’re in a cage.”

  She jammed her hands into her jeans pockets. The station, which covered northwest L.A. County and Malibu, was bright, airy, and spacious. Outside, golden hills rolled into the distance. But she felt hemmed in. She sat down on a blue plastic chair, crossed her legs, and jangled her foot. He watched her.

  “Aiden?”

  A woman strode into the lobby. She was blond, wearing black slacks and a tan V-neck sweater. She was the woman who had been with Aiden at Xenon.

  His face became studiously neutral. “Thanks for making time.”

  “Not a problem.” She extended her hand to Harper. “Detective Erika Sorenstam. Come on back.”

  At her desk in the detectives’ pen, Sorenstam said, “I got your voice mail, Ms. Flynn. And the photo you sent, of the man in the trees at the memorial service.”

  Aiden said, “Harper wanted me to see the photo, possibly confirm the ID.”

  Sorenstam picked up a pencil and leaned back. The pose should have looked thoughtful but instead reminded Harper of a slingshot being pulled back—as if Sorenstam was ready to launch herself. Skyward, maybe, like an ejector seat. She seemed cool and put together, and her eyes, pale gray, looked like glass. One-way glass—she was assessing Aiden as he spoke, from behind an emotional screen.

  He measured his words, an experienced cop relaying information that might become evidence. But Sorenstam was resisting it. A block of concrete seemed to weigh on Harper’s chest.

  Zero. The idea that both she and Eddie Azerov had ended up at Xenon that night by sheer coincidence was a shiny bauble she wanted to grab. But she couldn’t.

  “Fail, and Zero will find you.”

  She hadn’t failed, not at first. They found her anyway, looking at the sky as if it were an avenue to freedom. As they pulled her onto a side street, Zero had leaned close and said, “Nobody’s gonna help you.”

  In the detectives’ pen, the air conditioner rattled. Sorenstam continued eyeing Aiden from behind her smoked-glass gaze. Harper jangled her foot again, stewing over something Aiden had said earlier. Sorenstam saw a car drop off some guys by the alley. It felt wrong.

  That night, nobody was supposed to get into Xenon without a ticket or a swipe card—and without being searched for weapons. But the gunmen didn’t break in or storm past the security checkpoint.

  How did they gain entry? Several possibilities: They came in unarmed past security and grabbed weapons they’d stashed in the club earlier. They came in armed, and security missed it. Or they came in through a back door—such as the staff exit into the alley. From Aiden’s description, that was almost certainly what had happened.

  The club’s back doors should have been locked. Perhaps an employee had opened the door from the inside and let them in—but nobody thought that. Perhaps an employee had propped open a door while going out for a smoke, and the shooters had taken advantage of it. Or perhaps the door had been unlocked by an employee swipe card.

  She saw it again: Drew, asking to borrow her card. Just for a minute. I left my camera in the car. I don’t want to have to go through security again.

  And she had given it to him. He’d been gone ten minutes. Ten.

  Had he forgotten to pull the door closed when he came back in? Had he left it open?

  On some level, she had wondered this all along. But she’d never let the thought form fully. Until now, when she knew: They got in through the door Drew had used only minutes earlier.

  Did he know they were coming? Did he have something to do with . . .

  She shifted. No.

  Her swipe card. An oily fear seeped through her: If the building hadn’t burned, if the data from the door lock had survived, she would have been implicated.

  The light slanted through the window behind Sorenstam. The woman’s blond hair looked like a corona. Her gray eyes were as liquid as a slick of mercury. Harper locked her fingers together, to hold herself still.

  Aiden said, “The tattoo—Harper recognized it from my description.”

  Despite the radiant sunlight, Sorenstam seemed etched with dark edges. Her liquid gaze slid to Harper.

  “Is that so?” she said.

  “Aiden described the partial tattoo he saw that night. I recognized it. The entire tattoo reads ZERO.”

  “You’ve seen it before.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t recall any mention of it in your statement.”

  “I didn’t see it that night. The shooter was coming toward me. The tattoo’s on his back.”

  Sorenstam rolled the pencil between her fingers and finally tossed it on her desk. “I know about Zero.”

  Harper straightened. “How?”

  “Eddie Azerov? He’s a known lowlife.”

  “Nobody involved in the investigation has mentioned his name or linked him to the attack,” Harper said. “If you had—oh, my God. I could have told you a year ago that I knew who he was.”

  Sorenstam sat forward. “How is it that you know Azerov, Ms. Flynn?”

  Aiden said, “They went to the same high school.”

  Sorenstam looked at him.

  Harper said, “Detective, have you known since the beginning that he was involved?”

  Slowly, Sorenstam turned to Harper. “He’s not the gunman.”

  “Say what?” Harper said.

  “Eddie Azerov was not at Xenon the night it burned. Two shooters entered the club that night. Both of them died. Neither of them was Azerov.”

  “Because he escaped.”

  “Ms. Flynn, you are, I am afraid, mistaken.”

  Sorenstam’s voice was flat, clear, and definite. A bolus of anger swelled in Harper’s chest.

  “I’m not mistaken.”

  “Azerov wasn’t there. I’m sorry you’ve come all this way and that you’ve brought Detective Garrison along to present your theory, but it’s incorrect.”

  “Why are you dismissing me?” Harper said.

  “I’m not. I take you at your word that you know Azerov and would recognize the tattoo should you see it.
But you didn’t.”

  “Aiden did.” She pointed a thumb at him.

  Sorenstam continued as if Harper hadn’t spoken. “I will make a note that you reported seeing an unidentified person lurking at the memorial. We’ll keep the photo on file. But we can’t use it as evidence that the man at the memorial was also at Xenon. There’s no evidence from Xenon to compare the photo to.”

  “Aiden saw the tattoo. A tattoo that was not found on either of the dead shooters.”

  Aiden said, “Harper, stop.”

  She turned to him. “Why?”

  His face was crestfallen. “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “It has everything to do with me.”

  He looked briefly at Sorenstam. His eyes seemed to sink into his skull. “You could have collared Azerov and brought him here in shackles and it wouldn’t make a difference to Detective Sorenstam.” He stood up. “Let’s go.”

  Baffled, Harper grabbed his hand. “No. What’s the problem?”

  Sorenstam said, “The problem, I’m afraid, is that Aiden—Detective Garrison—has inadvertently misled you.”

  He turned to Sorenstam. The look on his face could have cut rock from a cliff face. The shine in Sorenstam’s liquid eyes dulled.

  She said, “Detective Garrison knew about Eddie Azerov’s existence before the shoot-out at Xenon.”

  Harper’s lips parted.

  Sorenstam’s gaze drifted to Aiden. “Right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  The dark edges on Sorenstam’s face grew sharper. “Azerov was a suspect in an armed robbery eighteen months ago. Sporting goods store—the robber took six grand in cash and a dozen Remington shotguns.”

  Harper held on to his arm. “Aiden?”

  He shook his head. “Stop.”

  Sorenstam said, “He’s confused, Ms. Flynn.”

  “So am I,” Harper said.

  “Erika,” Aiden said.

  “He is misconstruing what he saw at Xenon. Because you conjured a demon where there is none,” Sorenstam said.

  Harper said, “You think he imagined seeing Zero that night?”

  Aiden said, “Erika. Let it go.”

  Sorenstam had stopped looking at him. “He didn’t see Zero that night. He’s imagining it right now. And it’s because you planted the idea in his mind today.”

  “But I didn’t,” Harper said.

  He pulled free of Harper’s grasp. “Enough.” He raised his hands and backed away from the desk. “I’m done.”

  Harper and Sorenstam both said, “Aiden.”

  He turned and strode across the room and out the door.

  Harper stood to follow.

  “Wait,” Sorenstam said. “You need to give him some space.”

  “That was cold.”

  “I mean a lot of space. As in, put some distance between you.”

  Harper’s pulse thumped in her ears. “Are you deliberately trying to sound cruel? The man has a traumatic brain injury. And he just drove sixty miles to offer you evidence in an unsolved murder.”

  Sorenstam got to her feet. “Ms. Flynn, I know that you were close to Drew Westerman. I understand your confusion and your wish that there was something more we could do in this case. But going down the rabbit hole hand in hand with Aiden Garrison is a bad idea.”

  “There’s no rabbit hole. I didn’t plant the idea that he saw the tattoo. He told you about it a year ago.”

  “Yes. While he was hospitalized, he told us he’d seen a partial tattoo. He was severely injured and heavily drugged. He told us all kinds of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “You need to trust me on this. I’ve known Detective Garrison for four years. You’ve known him for four hours.”

  “I know he’s trying to do the right thing,” Harper said.

  “Do you know that he’s paranoid?”

  “So am I. I bet you are, too.”

  “I’m not joking,” Sorenstam said. “And you’d do well to pay attention to people who have superior information. Or are you an inveterate kitten-rescuer?”

  Harper’s vision pulsed. She clenched her hands at her sides to keep from taking a swing at the woman. “Aiden told me about the Fregoli syndrome. That’s not paranoia, it’s a temporal lobe injury.”

  “More precisely, it’s a diffuse lesion of the fusiform gyrus—the portion of the right temporal lobe that deals with facial recognition. And it’s not the only consequence of his TBI.”

  A cold finger seemed to scrape down Harper’s back. She remembered what Aiden had said earlier. Sometimes it manifests as changes in personality. Issues with anger and impulsivity.

  “You’re telling me he has other serious issues?” she said.

  “I’m telling you who Aiden is.” Sorenstam lowered her voice. “He perceives threats everywhere he turns. Maybe because he spent the last decade doing jobs where distrusting other people kept him alive. Add a catastrophic head injury, and everything that was burning beneath the surface erupted.”

  Harper shook her head. “No. That . . .”

  “He got hurt. It unlocked a cage.” Sorenstam picked up the pencil again, seemingly to orient herself. “You need to see something.”

  From her desk drawer, she took a thumb drive. Tersely, she loaded it into her computer and brought up a video.

  And Harper understood.

  10

  Sorenstam queued up the video and turned her screen so Harper could watch.

  It was soundless, a black-and-white video that showed a corner of the detectives’ pen and Sorenstam’s desk. Harper looked up. The camera was tucked near the ceiling.

  The date and time ran at the bottom of the video. Eight months ago. A man sat at the desk beside Sorenstam’s, white shirt, dark tie, holster on his belt. Nearby, another detective, heavyset, with a mustache, was on the phone, taking notes.

  On-screen, Sorenstam walked past the camera, wearing a slim skirt and heels, talking casually to somebody. A second later, Aiden walked into view.

  Even with the middling-quality video, his recovery clearly wasn’t very far along. He looked thinner. His face was drawn. He held his left arm carefully, close to his side, and walked slowly, eyes on his path. He touched the back of a chair to preserve his balance. Serial tasks, not multitasking. Not like he was now.

  She wondered if she should go and find him.

  Sorenstam said, “He was scheduled to come back to work part-time, ride a desk while he got his strength back. This was a day he stopped by, just wanted to see people, show his face.”

  On the video, Sorenstam leaned against her desk, chatting with Aiden. The detective at the next desk stood to shake Aiden’s hand. Bracing himself as though he were on the deck of a pitching boat, Aiden let go of the chair, smiling. “Good to be here. Great to see you, too, you bastard.”

  As they shook hands, Aiden glanced at the guy on the phone.

  Harper wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

  Aiden turned sharply to Sorenstam. Said something, and nodded at the guy on the phone, jerking his chin. Sorenstam said, clearly, “What?”

  Aiden pointed at the guy on the phone and called to him. “Hey.”

  The detective whose hand he’d been shaking took a step back, looking uncertain. Sorenstam raised her hands—a calming gesture. “Whoa.”

  Again, Aiden called: “Hey.”

  The detective on the phone glanced up from his call. Aiden launched himself past Sorenstam, straight at him, and attacked.

  Harper touched her fingertips to her forehead. “Oh no.”

  Aiden shoved the guy’s chair back from the desk, on its rollers. The man pinwheeled for balance, but Aiden had height and momentum. He tackled the guy to the floor. He was yelling. Yelling directly in the guy’s face. He was completely, corrosively, unequivocally losing his shit. />
  The detective and Aiden wrestled on the floor. Sorenstam waded in. Her face was lit with confusion and embarrassed horror. She grabbed Aiden’s collar. The third detective pried Aiden loose. The guy from the phone sat confused on the carpet, saying, “What the hell?”

  Aiden had doubled in pain, but he pointed at the guy he’d dumped on the floor.

  “Him,” he yelled.

  Now Sorenstam stopped the video. “He thought Detective Perez was the third shooter. He kept shouting, ‘It’s him. It’s the guy.’”

  “Oh, God,” Harper said.

  “He was completely convinced. Nothing we said, nothing we did, could dissuade him.”

  “What made him think . . .”

  “It was a hallucination. Fregoli is part of a constellation of disorders called delusional misidentification syndromes. You just saw what that means. His brain throws a gear, and he loses control,” she said. “He thought the shooter had wormed his way in here to destroy evidence and ruin our investigation.”

  Sorenstam stared at the frozen image on the computer screen. “Did he tell you?”

  “He tried to explain.” Shock and fear and empathy pinballed through her. “That was . . .” Awful. Goddamn horrible to see. “Painful.”

  She tried to shove everything back behind the wall. “But it doesn’t negate what I’ve been telling you about the shooter who escaped. Aiden and I both know it was Eddie Azerov.”

  “You don’t understand, do you?” Sorenstam said. “Detective Garrison didn’t simply mistake another detective for the third shooter. That’s not his only delusion. His delusion is that the third shooter exists.”

  A weight seemed to press on Harper’s shoulders.

  Sorenstam said, “There is no third shooter. Gunman Zero is an illusion.”

  Harper wanted to say more, but Sorenstam crossed her arms and planted her feet wide. She became a wall built of conviction and anger. And Harper knew that nothing good came of arguing with cops who were fueled by rage and certainty.

  Still, she straightened her shoulders and stood as calmly as she could.