Kiss

by Ted Dekker

  “I am sorry about your friend Corbin,” Khai said after Shauna’s silence.

  “I didn’t even know him,” Shauna said.

  “He cared about you.”

  Shauna set her teacup on the night table.

  “You knew him?” Shauna said, surprised.

  “I don’t think our encounters went that deep.”

  “What exactly were your ‘encounters,’ then?”

  “Back in September, about a week after your accident, I helped a writer at the Statesman with a story on human trafficking over the Mexico border. We were put in touch by the organization that sponsors me. I participated in a group interview about a sting operation we had organized.”

  “This is before you came to work for my father.”

  “The sting was before, but I had been working for your family about two months when the interview happened. The writer brought a photographer with him, and he heard me mention that I worked for the McAllisters.”

  “Corbin Smith.”

  Khai nodded. “Our director wouldn’t allow him to take any photos, but he stayed through the discussion and drew me aside afterward. He said he was a friend of yours and that he was afraid for your life.”

  “You trusted him?”

  “I didn’t have any reason not to. He offered to help me with some . . . research I am doing, if I would call him when you were released from the hospital.”

  “Research about your daughter.”

  “Indirectly.”

  “So when you found those documents at my house, you kept them aside for me because you understood that they were connected to Corbin in some way.”

  “I kept them because they were hidden. I did see his name on the credit lines, but I never told him I had them. The way Patrice behaved! If she found out . . . then again, I’m not sure they were what she was looking for. Do you know?”

  Shauna shook her head.

  “Well, I thought if Corbin was right, and you were in some kind of trouble, and Patrice was also connected—”

  “I doubt she’s connected to anything except her own interests.”

  “She is not a compassionate woman.”

  Shauna sighed and flopped back down onto her pillow. “This is a lot to process.”

  “But you must figure it out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because all the pain of your history, all the things you can’t explain right now—all that contains the power to save lives. Including your own.”

  “Just because yours did doesn’t mean everyone else’s can.”

  “You have to believe it first.”

  “I don’t know if I do. Who wants to hold on to their regrets, or their failures, or their disappointments? Why would I want to remember what might kill me?”

  “Not hold on to them; be changed by them. Changed for the better. There is a significant difference, and it always leads to life. Remembering Areya saved my life.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Khai! I’m talking literally here, and you’re getting all philosophical on me.”

  “Do what you want then.” Khai stood and put her still-full cup back on the tray. “Forget. Turn your back on what you are. Make a little life for yourself that looks safe to you. I promise you: it will be poor and entirely unmemorable.”

  For an hour Shauna stewed, experiencing irritation and epiphany and apathy in various combinations. Wayne intruded to ask if she wanted some dinner; he would go out for something if she was interested. She asked for a bowl of soup.

  Shauna understood that Khai believed what she said. And she knew it was another reasonable argument that she would have to weigh in making her decision about whether to follow Wayne’s advice or Khai’s.

  Even her own desires competed with each other. She really did want to live, and she feared for her life. And yet if someone would kill her for trying to uncover the truth, the truth must be compelling, valuable. She really did want to know what happened, ideally to acquit herself of the guilt she felt over her brother’s condition, and maybe even to keep herself out of jail, though there were no guarantees that the truth would do either of those things.

  In the end, she took the coward’s way out by landing on what was less a decision than an ultimatum.

  She had the files Khai had brought to her the night before. She would read them thoroughly, once, and see if they contained anything to spur her forward. If she finished and still nothing made sense, she would abandon everything and let the future lead where it may.

  Shauna rolled off her bed and went to the dresser where she had stashed the articles and e-mails. She separated them into three stacks—articles, e-mails, a lone CD—according to date. The material spanned February to August of that year, beginning with Landon’s victory in the national primaries and ending roughly one week before the accident.

  She read the first two articles, which focused, respectively, on Landon’s victory and the landmark health care reform bill he proposed that was so popular among the middle class. She turned to the third article and paused at the photo, a flattering shot of Landon and Rudy on the campaign trail. They sat shoulder to shoulder at an RV’s dinette, leaning over a single sheet of paper, intimate and focused while the other bodies in the background were a blur of motion.

  The photo accentuated similarities between father and son that Shauna had never before noticed. Rudy and Landon had always looked alike, but the depth of resemblance in this image unnerved her. Their body posture, the tilt of their necks, the way in which their fingers clutched their pens—how could two men so dissimilar in personality be such twins?

  “Senator Landon McAllister (D-TX) and son Rudy McAllister, deputy campaign manager, review changes to his stump speech en route to Massachusetts.”

  Shauna looked for the credit line.

  Corbin Smith.

  She held her breath. Riffled through to find other photos. Many of them were by Corbin.

  She looked at the article bylines, starting with the two she’d already read. Miguel Lopez. Miguel Lopez.

  Every article in the stack was written by Miguel Lopez.

  She reached for her cell phone, found her list of calls made, and scrolled down to Scott Norris’s number. She selected it. Would he be in on a Sunday evening? If he had caller ID, she trusted he might answer.

  “Shauna! You call to set up dinner?”

  “Did you hear about Corbin Smith?”

  “Hours ago. You just hear?”

  “Scott, I need to talk to Miguel Lopez. Can you tell me how to reach him?”

  “Migu—You are all over the map! I told you yesterday that the guy vanished, disappeared, doesn’t come around here anymore.”

  Shauna’s hopes took a dive off their high board into an empty pool. Miguel Lopez. Scott had mentioned him.

  “Yeah, you were only half paying attention then.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “I mean when did he disappear?”

  “Oh, I dunno. A month, two months ago. Yeah. It was the beginning of September. Chief figured he’d skipped town to work for some bigger fish.

  Lopez had been hard on the political beat, tagging along with your father now and then . . .”

  Shauna didn’t hear the rest of what he said. Her accident happened September 1. Corbin knew her. Miguel knew Corbin. Miguel and Shauna were connected by this window in time that contained more mystery than reality so far.

  Maybe Miguel was Corbin’s witness.

  Maybe Miguel was long dead.

  Her mind vaulted a dozen other possibilities.

  “. . . sent a formal letter of resignation, no explanation. We all thought it was out of character, but you never really know, do you?”

  Shauna jumped in when Scott took a breath.

  “Where did the letter come from?”

  “You mean was it from Lopez?”

  “Really, Scott. I mean what city?”

  “How am I supposed to know that?”

  “Could you find out?�
�

  “Why would I?”

  “Because you’re naturally curious.”

  “Well HR is closed right now. It’s Sunday, so it will—”

  “What better time to take a look than when no one is there?”

  “You heard of breaking and entering?”

  “You’re a brilliant man, Scott Norris. I’m sure you can find a loophole.”

  “And risk my career for a source who won’t even talk to me? I don’t—”

  “Think of me as a source with connections that might advance your career.”

  His half-second hesitation cracked his resolve. “I want an exclusive about the scene at Smith’s.”

  “How did you know I was there?”

  “I’ve got connections too, you know.”

  “Done. But all that comes later. Call me back?”

  “Maybe.”

  Shauna closed the phone and leaned back against the foot of the bed. If Lopez’s resignation letter took her to a dead end, where would she look next?

  18

  Shauna’s phone rang in the bedroom an hour later, while she and Wayne were finishing their soup in the kitchen. Khai had gone out for the night. Shauna excused herself to answer it. Scott Norris’s number showed on the ID.

  “Yes?”

  “Old home address on the letter, on the return envelope. Not helpful. But you might be interested in this: a Victoria postmark?”

  Could mean anything. Dropped in a post office box en route to anywhere. Mexico, for example.

  Looking for a particular Miguel Lopez in Mexico would be like looking for a one-cent error in Microsoft’s books. Impossible to find.

  She sighed.

  “Thanks anyway.”

  “I still get my exclusives.”

  “Sure. But later.”

  “Don’t be a stranger.”

  Shauna stood facing the wall next to her bed for a full minute, closed phone in her hands, before her mind remembered what her eyes had registered on two other occasions. Corbin’s receipt, the one he had scrawled his message on, was from a liquor store. Victoria Liquor. In Victoria? Or was that just a name? She had given that note to Detective Beeson this morning. If she racked her brain hard enough, she might remember.

  Nope.

  What was the other? Victoria, Victoria.

  The address on the paper that appeared in her coat pocket the day she arrived at the guesthouse.

  The day Corbin had confronted her outside the courthouse.

  She recalled his awkward toe-stomping. Had he dropped the address into her jacket then? She hurried into her closet to find it.

  “Everything okay?”

  She whirled. Wayne leaned against the door frame. “Yeah.”

  “Who called so late?”

  Why did she feel relief that she’d stowed away the newspaper articles before he returned with the meal?

  “Wrong number.”

  Wayne didn’t challenge her, but his eyes didn’t believe her either. Instead he said, “I called Trent today to explain why I spilled the beans last night.”

  “And?”

  “He’s worried about you.”

  “I guess that’s better than being angry at you.”

  “I’ll say. You should give him a call tomorrow. Put his mind at ease.” He gestured toward the living room sofa. “Up for some TV? Get your mind off things? We can avoid the news channels.”

  She straightened a blouse on its hanger. “I’m sorry. I’m so tired—I’ve been lying in bed all day and I’m exhausted.” She tried a halfhearted laugh. “How does that work? You go ahead though. Maybe tomorrow we can do something?”

  “I understand. A good night’s sleep does wonders for the perspective. Sleep well then.”

  “Thanks.”

  Wayne closed the door and Shauna continued to search for the jacket, remembering a minute later that she had left it in Wayne’s truck. Without a good reason to tell him she needed it, she would have to wait to fetch the address. In the meantime, she would assume Victoria. Yes, she was pretty sure the address was somewhere in Victoria. Her memory of the past few days seemed unexpectedly sharp, sharper than the first few days in the hospital.

  Almost anything could explain that. Natural recovery or pharmaceutical help. Shauna considered the pill bottles, still by her bed. Or perhaps her decision to avoid those medications had allowed a fog to lift. Somehow, there was a connection between her memory and those drugs. In her anticipation of meeting Corbin, she had forgotten the morning dose. Tonight, then, she would dispose of twice as much. See what happened.

  Shauna picked up one of the bottles. Had she been given these same drugs while she was in the coma, or something different? It hadn’t occurred to her to ask Dr. Carver.

  She returned the pills to the nightstand, stepped into the bathroom, flushed the toilet, turned on the shower. Then she opened the door adjoining Khai’s room, and by the light of the bathroom, booted up the laptop.

  Khai had said anytime.

  She brushed her teeth, then returned to Khai’s computer.

  She popped the unlabeled CD into the drive. It contained a single PDF file labeled MMV Annual. McAllister MediVista’s latest annual report, easily downloaded from the Web. Why would she have set this aside? She knew two of the firm’s three top executives—Wayne and Uncle Trent—not to mention her father’s role as president. She tabbed through the first fifty pages. MMV had experienced a year of record-breaking profit margins, and the report oozed with self-satisfaction.

  Nothing else remarkable. She ejected the disk.

  Shauna MapQuested Victoria, though she did not have the address. The town was just over two hours away, in what she guessed was a residential neighborhood.

  Then she Googled Miguel Lopez. More than half a million hits. She tried “Miguel Lopez American Statesman” and found hundreds of links, all in the newspaper’s archives.

  In the first ten pages she found three articles that were about a Miguel Lopez rather than written by a Miguel Lopez.

  The first was about a driver apprehended for driving under the influence during the holidays last year.

  The second was the obituary of a beloved local farmer who donated pumpkins to schoolchildren every October.

  The third featured a journalist who received an award for his coverage of a flash flood in Austin that destroyed an entire neighborhood and killed five people. The article was accompanied by a picture of him holding the plaque and shaking hands with a man identified in the caption as the publisher.

  Even in profile, his face was instantly recognizable to Shauna. Square hair-line, trim beard, full lips. Modestly happy here, furious the only other time she had seen him:

  In her vision at the Iguana Grill, pointing a gun at her.

  Shauna bolted awake in the predawn darkness of Monday morning as alert as if she’d injected espresso into her heart.

  She had a decision. She would drive to Victoria with the picture of Miguel that she had printed off last night, go to the address Corbin had given her, find out if Miguel Lopez lived there. Or if the person who lived there knew of him.

  Of course, it was possible that the address had nothing to do with Miguel Lopez.

  But if Corbin had gone to such trouble to sneak it to her without Wayne knowing, it must have some connection to her situation.

  The thread of possibility was so slender that Shauna realized she had stopped breathing, as if the breeziest wind from her own lungs might snap it in two. She stared at the shadows of her surroundings, aware of many reasons why she shouldn’t go, the first being her slim chance of actually finding Miguel Lopez.

  Then there were the terms of her bail. She was not supposed to leave Travis County.

  Which was what Wayne would say to try to talk her out of going. And if he did, what would she have then? A name. A collection of articles and e-mails. A picture with no other facts to frame it.

  She sat up in bed and swung her feet over the edge. She felt the solid sup-port of the looped
berber carpet underneath her toes. She looked at the clock: 4:22. She could take Rudy’s car and get there well before any resident left the house, be back late morning.

  Sooner if this was yet another dead end.

  How hard would it be to leave without being noticed? She would have to hurry.

  She dressed in the dark and gathered up the articles she had stashed in the dresser drawer. She found her purse, which still held Rudy’s keys, and her cell phone.

  She wrote a note for Wayne by the light of the phone’s LED display and left it for him to find on her nightstand. Please don’t worry. I’ll be back by noon. She would have to think through a reasonable explanation for her absence by then. She waffled, then decided to leave the phone with the note. Wayne would think it had been a mistake, and might be less worried than if she ignored his calls.

  Shauna eased open her bedroom door. The silence of the little house generated a hum in her ears and she hesitated. Visions of Corbin bleeding in his own bed challenged her decision not to tell Wayne what she was doing. Did Corbin’s murderer have eyes on her too? Was he waiting for her to be alone?

  Wayne would most definitely stop her.

  A killer would stop her permanently.

  But she had to know about Miguel Lopez.

  She passed through the dim living room, exited the house without incident, descended the porch stairs, and approached Wayne’s truck. The cab was unlocked. She eased open the door and slipped her left arm behind the passenger seat to reach her jacket. With any luck the address would still be in the pocket. Her fingers closed around the collar, and she pulled.

  The coat snagged, and she gave it a yank. It flew out the door, tossing two silver objects onto the ground, clattering like stones.

  She grimaced at the noise, then looked to the house, expecting a light to flicker on.

  All stayed dark.

  She exhaled and bent to fetch the items, but when she saw them, she hesitated to pick them up. Moonlight glinted off the cool shell of a cell phone that had popped open when it hit the ground. And a camera.

  The phone was not Wayne’s. She looked at the backlit display.