Mark popped a nacho in his mouth, swallowed some beer, and stood up. “Come on.”
“What? Where are we going?”
“I’m teaching you how to play pool.” Mark held her hand and threaded his way through the tables to the pool table.
Larissa leaned into John and sighed contentedly. “What do you think about that?” she asked, watching Lauren slide back the cue at the pool table. The eight ball struck another ball, and it was a direct hit. Lauren squealed, and Mark hugged her, then whispered something into her ear that made her grin and blush.
“I think that’s just fine,” John said. He reached onto Larissa’s plate and took a nacho.
“Do you think they’re sleeping together?”
“Good lord, Larissa,” John said and took a swig of the beer. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Larissa giggled softly. “You must. He’s our friend. Doesn’t he look happy? I bet they’re sleeping together.”
John looked at them. “I suppose he does look happy.”
“That’s a good thing. I think she’s good for him. Though I should hate her.”
“Why on earth would you say that?”
“She’s gorgeous. Those long legs and perfect butt. Ugh. Jealousy is such an ugly trait.”
John suddenly cupped Larissa’s cheek. “You’re a damn fool, Larissa. You’re the most beautiful woman in any room.” Then he kissed her.
When she pulled back, Larissa glanced up at the front door. “I may be the most beautiful woman in any room,” she said, “one of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful just walked through the door.”
John turned around and saw Robert Reid, the movie star, walk in. Sarah, seated across from them, jumped up and ran to him.
“So that’s her boyfriend,” Larissa drawled, watching him flash that blockbuster smile. “Oh my heavens. I think I just died and went to Hollywood.”
Eleven
Seth slumped at his desk, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep. He had been thoroughly rattled after the last call from Carlos. No matter where he was, Carlos seemed to know. And yet he didn’t kill him. Of course not, Seth thought sardonically. It was much for fun for the cat to toy with the mouse a bit at first. He was alive at least in part because Carlos really wanted the money back, and without Seth to lead him there, he’d never find it. But the gangster’s patience had a limit, which Seth knew quite well as he studied the latest crime scene photos attributed to an MS 13 hit.
The documents in front of him blurred to a red mess. Seth rubbed his eyes then took another swig of coffee. Unsteady nerves jostled his hand and he tipped a splotch of coffee onto the stack of papers. “Damn it,” he muttered, and looked at his desk for something to use to wipe it up. A fistful of Kleenex only smeared the stain.
“You okay?”
Seth looked up to see his shift sergeant, followed by that sickening spurt of adrenaline and nausea. The man was a pest, all over Seth lately, complaining he wasn’t getting his work done. This morning he’d only commented, “You’re not looking too sharp, Sabich.”
To which Seth had muttered under his breath, “Fuck off.”
“Just spilled some coffee,” he said and walked past him to the break room where he grabbed the roll of paper towels.
“I wanted to talk to you today,” he said.
“Sorry, I’ve been slammed with the MS 13 thing,” Seth mumbled, walking past him back to the office. It was actually a cube, but he called it an office; he couldn’t bear the fact that after eight years on the job, he had not yet earned an office. It was the largest cube though, like that was supposed to be some big consolation prize.
“There’s been some concern, Seth, that you’re falling behind with this thing. You know, you begged for this assignment, you asked to be part of the gang activity task force. Nobody else has seen you though. You’re not showing up to meetings, you’re not answering phone calls. You were supposed to have some phone taps for us ten days ago and I haven’t seen any of them.”
“I’m working my informant,” he said as he sopped up the spilled coffee.
“I think your informant is pulling your chain.”
Seth shook his head, trying to contain the anxiety that was burning through his nervous system like gasoline.
He felt, rather than saw, the sergeant’s attention sharpen. Trying to avoid looking at him, he threw the sodden paper towels into the trash.
“I got work to do here, sarge,” he said, gesturing at the pictures of the cut up man who had been smeared in pig entrails.
“You don’t have an informant, do you?” The sergeant’s face was so calm and steady, so certain.
Blazing heat swept up his face. “That’s crazy,” he muttered, but his voice was too high. He tried to force himself to calm down, don’t let his parasympathetic system get the better of him. Because if the sergeant suspected there was no informant, it was just a tiny leap to realize that Seth was the informant, the one who was running interference for the MS 13, planting lies about their activities and covering for them. Not only would he be fired, he was pretty sure that was a federal offense. That meant life in prison, if not the death penalty.
The sergeant stepped back to the wall of the cube, slinging his arm over the corner. “You okay, Seth?”
“I’m fine,” he said loudly. “I’m busy as hell. You’re all over me, my informant is scared… I’m just trying to finish this up. I want to put an end to the gangs and I’m trying to do my part to get it done.”
“Well get it done,” the sergeant said with that ethereal calm. “I’m watching you.”
He started to walk away but Seth, struck with a sudden brainstorm, stopped him. “I… Look, the truth is, I’m having some family problems. I’m sorry.”
“What kind of problems?”
Seth glanced around the mostly empty room. “My girlfriend left me. Look, Frank, I need to tell you something. It’s eating me up inside.”
His demeanor changed, sharpened. Seth was heartened by the sudden concern in his face. “Tell me.”
“I think my ex girlfriend has become … involved… with a lieutenant in MS 13.”
The words had pierced all that weird calmness. His eyes widened with surprise. Obviously he’d knocked him back on his heels.
“I’m going nuts with this thing. You know?”
“You have to tell internal affairs right away.”
Damnit. That was a grievous miscalculation. Fatigue, nerves and the cheap scotch he’d resorted to keeping in his desk drawer were starting to betray him.
He shook his head sadly, as if genuinely caught in a conundrum he couldn’t solve with IA. “I can’t go to IA on pure speculation. I don’t know for sure, and I can’t get distracted from my investigation.”
“That’s bullshit. People go to IA on speculation all the time. I have to go if you don’t, Seth.”
Seth ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Can you just give me the weekend? I’m planning to fly out to Portland to see if I can get some info about Aimee’s whereabouts. I’ll be back on Monday and I’ll go see IA first thing.”
His boss eyed him, his mouth a grimace.
“Boss, I’ve been working my ass off to nail these guys. Look at me, I’m a mess, working twenty-four hours a day, not sleeping, barely eating. You said so yourself. I’m just asking for a shot to resolve this before I destroy her life. Can’t you give me that?”
A tense moment passed when he glanced over and saw another detective listening to the conversation. He met Seth’s eyes, unflinching. Yeah, so what, he wasn’t the most popular guy around here. But damn it he was still a cop, and cops were supposed to stick together.
The sergeant folded his arms over his barrel chest and eyeballed Seth levelly. “I don’t like this, but I’ll give you till Monday.”
“Thank you.”
“If you’re not at Internal Affairs by oh-eight hundred Monday morning, I’m going myself. Capisce?”
“Yeah, I understand. Oh, one last thing. I kno
w it’s a pain in the ass, but could I have an advance on my paycheck? You know, for the trip to Portland.”
It was not yet noon when he arrived at the house on Ontario Street. He hadn’t been back here in weeks, too afraid of Carlos coming in during the night and gutting him like a fish. Instead of driving home his Jeep, he had used his MPD-issued but non-marked sedan, hoping it might throw off Carlos and his goons.
He parked around the corner, then took a long look around. Nobody obvious was waiting for him. He got out, lingering at the door for just a second to see if anyone would charge from the shadows, but it looked all clear.
At the door, his fingers shook but he managed to unlock the door and step inside. The service revolver in his hand shook a little as he nosed forward, still expecting an ambush.
The house was clear. He grabbed the wireless phone from the kitchen and the pre-paid disposal cell phone he carried in his briefcase and dropped them on the sofa next to the gun.
One more time. He had tried to call Kimberly and Rob in Portland numerous times, but they insisted Aimee wasn’t there. After a while, they just refused to pick up. He suspected she was there, but it was possible.. just possible.. that she wasn’t. She would, after all, know that Portland was the first place to look for her. And he had no more time to mess around with this. He had to get the cash to Carlos immediately.
If Aimee was having some wild adventure, she was probably in contact with the guys next door. They had always been thick as thieves, regardless of what Bryan said. Seth didn’t like to gather intelligence this way, but since Aimee had stupidly taken her laptop when she left, he didn’t have much choice.
Using the disposable cell phone, he dialed the number for his contact at Verizon. He stood up, pacing the floor like a jerk as the phone rang. He’d been doing that a lot, it seemed. Waiting for people. Aimee. Carlos. This was not how the world was supposed to work.
The cheap disposable cell phone rang.
“Yes?” The voice of his Verizon contact was positively neutral. A couple years ago, he’d been accused of credit card fraud. Seth “accidentally” misplaced some files critical to the case. The Verizon employee now routinely provided Seth with the information he needed. It was a lot easier than getting a search warrant.
“You were supposed to call an hour ago with the password,” Seth intoned.
“I was just about to call. It’s R-E-D-exclamation point – 4-5.”
“You sure?”
“What do you mean am I sure? That’s the password.”
He hung up and glanced at the time. Half past noon. Bryan and Jake were at work. Bryan was a lawyer and Jake was a banker, so they kept regular hours. Seth walked to his front door and peeked outside. He touched the gun on his hip, on point and alert in case Carlos appeared.
He stayed like that for a moment, waiting. When he was sure it was all clear, he walked outside. Seth dashed to the other side of Bryan and Jake’s house, keeping to the wooden fence along their driveway behind the house. A blue Prius was parked in the carport – but that meant nothing. They both took the Metro every day.
Seth quietly eased open the screen door and tried the knob. Locked, as he expected. He pulled out the small tool in his pocket and easily unlatched the deadbolt. He held the knob for a few breaths, then eased the door open, waiting to hear the wail and shriek of an alarm. Nothing but the little dainty footsteps of their stupid white dog. She stood looking at him curiously.
Seth stepped inside the foreign kitchen and quietly shut the door behind him. He had never been inside their house before. Aimee used to come over here for coffee a couple of times per week, but he put a stop to that. It drove him crazy trying to imagine what they talked about. He believed that Aimee was discussing their personal, private business with those guys – and he didn’t like them knowing anything about his household. Plus, he didn’t like them because they were gay. It actually angered him. It was disgusting, what they did.
With the little white dog following, he stepped inside an office and spotted a laptop on the black modern desk. Perfect. He heard an indistinct, muffled sound. He looked at the dog, wondering if it had whined at him. Had to be the dog or someone outside.
He opened the email program. It asked for a password. He typed in Red 45!
And there, in all its glory, was the item he was looking for. Email from Aimee Baxter. His blood was pumping with the spurts of adrenaline and the steady stream of anger that nourished him. He felt pure gluttonous rage as he read:
All is well here. I’ve sent a postcard to Kimberly, so she knows generally where I am. I’m not willing to risk Seth finding me though.
So Kimberly knew where she was. That was a start. Bryan’s reply was less important, but he smirked when he saw that he had mentioned Seth:
Thank God you’re okay. Seth has lost his mind. We’ll cover for you. Take care and let us know where you are when you can.
A long moan boomeranged off the walls upstairs. Seth listened, stock still. Another moan. He suddenly realized he was not alone in the house. He pressed the power button of the computer and turned it off. Then the noises increased.
“Yes…. God yes…”
The rage already boiling in his veins zinged through him like a pistol shot. They were upstairs fucking. Why was his cock suddenly at full salute? His involuntary biological reaction only served to make him angrier. He pressed his hand to his crotch, trying to make it go down as he began to creep back toward the door. He was looking up the staircase when he stepped over the dog, catching its leg under his footfall. The dog yalped loudly.
“Damn it!” Seth hissed.
“Did you hear that?” One of the voices rumbled from upstairs. Seth heard footsteps treading down the stairs. He flung open the door and ran as fast as his legs would take him up the driveway.
“Seth?” someone called behind him.
He slammed his front door closed, locked it, and stood very still, his heavy breathing the only noise in the quiet house.
Oh fuck. He grit his teeth, shutting his eyes while he tried to get his breathing under control. Would they confront him? Were they actually going to bang on the door and ask him what he was doing in their house? He’d love to see that, love to be confronted by those contemptible, disgusting faggots. It would give him the perfect excuse he needed to beat them to a pulp.
He ran upstairs and shucked his pants. Rage and sick sexual jealousy and some other dark emotion he couldn’t name bubbled inside him. He lay down on his bed and began to pump his cock with a tight fist. As his release became inevitable, an unbidden image of what they might be doing next door popped into his head. He hated himself for it, but he’d never had a more intense climax in his life.
At PDX, Seth rented a Chrysler and, following the Google maps he’d printed out before he left his office earlier in the day, drove the unfamiliar streets through the Portland suburbs to the Dunthorpe neighborhood where big houses lined wide, tree-lined avenues. Kimberly and Rob’s house was at the apex of a secluded cul-de-sac, a wide, modern monstrosity that made Seth feel inadequate both times he had seen it. When he got the money back from Aimee, he’d start to feel like he could compete a little better with douchebags like Rob and Kimberly. The money was critical, but he also had plans for Aimee herself. Leaving him was not forgivable. The humiliation that woman had put him through would have to be answered. But first things first.
Seth parked the rental car behind a gleaming Lexus so young it still had temporary tags. Another reason to hate these stupid yuppies.
He knocked and rang the doorbell.
A few seconds later, two blurred figures appeared behind the frosted glass in the cutouts of the mahogany door. They peeked through the peephole and then there was some whispering and scuffling.
“Open the damn door, Kimberly,” Seth barked.
Rob opened the door a crack, his body filling the space. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t be coy,” Seth said. “I know Aimee is here. I need to talk to
her.”
“She isn’t here,” Rob replied. “Go away.”
“Prove it. Let me see,” Seth challenged.
Rob didn’t move aside like Seth expected. “Get out of here, Seth. Go away.”
Seth suddenly pushed the door, forcing it into Rob’s face. Seth used the moment of shock to push his way inside. “Aimee!” he roared.
“She isn’t here,” Kimberly said, trying to see if Rob was bleeding from getting a door in the face.
Seth was already barging through the kitchen, hollering for Aimee.
“Get out of here!” Kimberly shrieked and grabbed his arm. He flung her off him, sending her careening into the fridge. On the black granite bar, a blast of color caught his attention. A postcard.
“I’m calling the police,” Rob said through gasps; Seth was gratified to see that Rob’s nose was bleeding and broken.
Seth held up the postcard. “Found what I was looking for.”
Kimberly grabbed the phone and dialed 911.
“Montana, huh? What on earth is she doing there?”
“That’s from Kimberly’s college roommate,” Rob said smoothly.
Seth laughed. “You think I don’t know Aimee’s handwriting?”
Kimberly yelled into the phone, “He’s here now! He won’t leave!”
Seth grabbed the phone out of her hand and threw it against the wall, where it knocked off a piece of art.
Rob grabbed the bigger man by the arm and tried to maneuver him back toward the door. Seth shoved him back. Kimberly cowered behind her husband.
“You touch my sister, I will kill you.”
He smiled. It felt good to finally discharge some of the energy that had been building up since Aimee left. He lunged toward her, but Rob stopped him with a brutal punch to the nose. Momentarily stunned, Seth just looked at them, holding his cheek.
He was sick of getting hit in the face.
“Fuck you both,” he finally said. Knowing Portland police were on the way, he stomped out of the house.
Crash Into You Page 14
