That had been the plan, anyway.
Kavita sighed. She wondered if things would have been different if she had told Aditi about the money, if it would have made Aditi rethink Rashesh’s proposal. Maybe it would have made the dream of medical school that much closer to a reality, something she could have clung to when her parents had pressured her to marry.
Maybe, but Kavita would never know, not now, and . . . And she couldn’t stop and look back. She had to look ahead, had to or she’d go crazy.
The car in front of her braked suddenly. Instinctively, her foot slid from the gas pedal and she slammed hard on the brakes, tires squealing, her body thrown forward against the shoulder strap. The driver behind her also hit his brakes, and his horn. Thankfully, Kavita had not plowed into the car in front of her or been rear-ended.
She pulled to the side of the road. She needed a moment to catch her breath and regroup. She’d been driving on autopilot, and now that she’d stopped, she realized she’d driven in the direction she had driven for so many years—to her parents’ home in Bellevue, not to Seattle. She wondered if there was something in her subconscious, something pulling her home. A part of her wanted to go, now more than ever. A part of her wanted to see her family.
But she knew she couldn’t go home, not like this, not this emotionally vulnerable, depressed, and defeated. Her mother would seize this opportunity to toss Aditi’s marriage in her face, as Mrs. Dasgupta no doubt had done, building up her new son-in-law’s family and apparent wealth, relishing the thought of Aditi living in a London condominium, not to mention all of her impending grandchildren.
It must have been painful for Kavita’s mother, though not as painful as it was for Kavita. Kavita’s pain was born of the loss of someone she loved dearly. Her mother’s pain was born of anger and resentment. The two were not the same.
No, Kavita’s mother would not console her. She’d lament again about how selfishly Kavita was behaving. She would guilt-trip Kavita for not giving her a son-in-law or grandchildren, and for making her and Pranav look bad to the family’s friends. Her father would largely remain silent, not wanting to upset his wife, and Nikhil would start again about tradition and heritage and culture.
Only Sam would be happy to see her.
Sam. Kavita considered her phone. Sam had sent her a text message earlier, knowing that the news of Aditi’s marriage would be upsetting. He had invited her to his soccer game near the university, but she couldn’t go. She’d missed his game, missed the chance to see him.
In the distance, she saw the tops of the two-hundred-foot trees marking the state park, and her memories made her smile. She recalled the games she and Aditi and her brothers had played as children in those woods, and of her family’s summer outings picking blackberries to make jam, and hunting for chanterelle mushrooms. She had gone into the park nearly every day as a child. It was like having a five-hundred-acre backyard. And as she grew older, the park had also become Kavita’s refuge, a place where she could go when everything had gone wrong. She’d walk among the trees or sit in a quiet place to contemplate and seek answers.
She pulled away from the curb. She wouldn’t go home. She didn’t need to. She’d go to the park.
CHAPTER 25
Faz turned into the parking lot of the Ridge Apartments, a multistory building at the end of South Cloverdale, which became First Avenue South just past State Route 99. “Let’s see if anyone is home,” he said.
In the passenger seat, Andrea Gonzalez was checking her cell phone. She slid it inside her suit coat and said, “You sure you don’t want to just scope it out, let SWAT come in and serve a warrant?”
Faz glanced over at her. According to Nolasco, Gonzalez had a lot of experience in a tough city, but she was clearly rethinking a noncustodial interview. “You getting cold feet?”
She scowled. “Please, I did this a number of times in LA. I just know from experience that you can prepare for anything and still get it wrong. Times like this it’s nice to have a guy at your back with armor and an AR-15 ready to put a round up somebody’s ass.”
“Maybe so, but this isn’t LA, and we’re already in the middle of a Justice Department investigation into the use of excessive force. We call in SWAT when it isn’t needed and we might have someone else at our back ready to put a foot up our ass.” He considered the building. “Look, most of these people are poor, not criminals. They’re trying to live their lives just like you and me, and they don’t like guys like Little Jimmy any more than we do, but they have to tolerate him if they’re going to live here.”
Gonzalez tilted her head. “The real question is how will they tolerate us?”
Faz shrugged. “Don’t expect them to roll out the red carpet, or offer you a cold drink, but they’ll largely stay out of our way. And chances are, if Lopez is even still here, he’ll tell us he didn’t see or hear anything, and if he refuses to let us look around, we’ll thank him and leave. Once we know he still lives here, we’ll get a search warrant.”
Faz pushed open the car door and stepped out into a gusting wind. The dark clouds that had hovered on the eastern horizon now filled the sky, coloring it a darkening gray.
Gonzalez came around the back of the car, raising her voice to be heard above a rush of wind. “If locusts start falling from the sky, you’re on your own.”
At the building entrance, Gonzalez pulled the door handle without a pause and the door opened, despite a black box mounted on the wall indicating the door was supposed to lock by a security latch.
“Saw this a lot in LA,” she said as they stepped inside. “The residents lose their keys so often the supervisor gets tired of being called at all hours of the day and night to open the door. They just disengage the automatic lock.”
The interior lobby was austere, as in empty. Not a chair, sofa, or potted plant to be found on the well-worn tile. Small interior mailboxes lined the far wall—some open, others missing doors altogether. Those with doors had slots for the name of the tenant, but all were blank. “Saw this also,” Gonzalez said. “The tenants protect their anonymity. The less you know about anyone else, the less they know about you.”
Gonzalez hit the elevator call button as a stairwell door to their right flung open and a Hispanic man stepped into the lobby, moving quickly. He eyed them but kept walking, pushing out the front door and looking back over his shoulder with a practiced, hardened stare.
The elevator pinged and the doors pulled apart. Gonzalez took a step inside and quickly retreated, a horrified look on her face. Faz didn’t have to ask why. The pungent odor of urine swept over him like a wave of toxic gas.
When she could speak, Gonzalez said, “Let’s take the stairs.”
“Five flights? I don’t think so.” Faz removed a handkerchief from his pocket, covered his mouth and nose, and stepped inside. Chivalry would have to take a backseat to self-preservation. “You coming?”
Gonzalez took a deep breath and pulled her jacket over her nose and mouth, grimacing as if fighting a massive headache or the urge to puke. Not surprisingly, the elevator didn’t stop to pick up any passengers as it ascended.
“Now we know why that guy took the stairs,” Faz said, voice muffled by the handkerchief.
When the doors pulled apart they hurried off onto the fifth floor, gasping as if they’d been holding their breath. Faz took a moment to assess their situation. They stood at the south end of the building, the cracked linoleum lit by the fading ambient light through windows at each end of the hallway. The deepening gray should have been more than enough to trigger the light sensors, but none were on.
“They steal the lightbulbs.” Gonzalez pointed at a light fixture missing both bulbs, just two bare sockets where the lights should have been. “The landlord finally gives up buying new bulbs.”
“Saw a lot of that in LA too?” Faz asked.
The hallway smelled of mildew, the walls scarred and nicked. Lopez lived in apartment 511, which they determined to be the last apartment at the oth
er end of the hall. As they approached, a blue-white flash sparked. Seconds later, thunder detonated, rattling the aluminum-framed windows.
“Told you,” Faz said. “Thunderstorms in July.”
“Without the rain. That’s just crazy,” Gonzalez said.
“Oh, you’ll get plenty of rain. That starts in a couple of months. Still think this place is nirvana?”
As they neared apartment 511, they stopped talking and took up positions on either side of the apartment door. Faz faced the southern window. Gonzalez faced the long hall they’d just walked. He gave her a slight nod and she reached to knock on Lopez’s apartment door, but just as quickly, Faz grabbed her arm and raised a finger to his lips. He thought he’d heard a faint voice through the paper-thin walls. They both listened. Faz heard the voice again and this time Gonzalez nodded. She’d also heard it. It was a male, speaking Spanish.
Gonzalez mouthed the word. “Spanish.”
Faz looked at the door to apartment 511, then looked over his shoulder at the door to the adjacent apartment, 509. He pointed to door 509 and said softly. “This one?”
Gonzalez shrugged. “Can’t tell,” she whispered.
Faz unclipped his gun and rested his hand on the grip. Gonzalez did the same. The walls, thin enough to transmit soft whispers, weren’t about to stop bullets if someone started shooting, but there was nowhere to take cover in the cramped hall. Gonzalez raised her fist to knock. Faz heard the voice again, this time definitely coming from the adjacent door. At that same moment he heard the door pull open.
Gonzalez’s eyes shifted to a spot over Faz’s left shoulder, then widened in surprise—or fear. She stepped toward him as she unholstered and raised her weapon, shoving him off balance.
“Gun!”
When Aditi typed in the Apple username and password she and Kavita had shared, the Find My iPhone app produced a blinking blue dot in the southwest corner of the state park. It was roughly in the same location as the last known longitude and latitude pinpointed by the service provider. Tracy and Pryor thanked Aditi and quickly left, telling her they would let her know what, if anything, they found.
As Tracy drove the exterior of the park, taking in its immenseness while trying to find access, her sense of foreboding deepened.
“You’d think somebody would have found a body, wouldn’t you?” Pryor asked in a quiet voice. “With as much foot traffic as this park gets?”
Tracy did, but she didn’t say it. They had not discussed the ramifications of the blue dot while inside the Dasgupta home. Both knew what that blinking blue light meant—either Mukherjee’s phone had been discarded in the park, or she had.
Kavita drove with a new sense of purpose. Move forward. Do not stagnate. Have a plan. Execute it. She turned into the parking lot, which was empty but for one other car, likely a runner using the trails. She stepped from her car to the familiar smell of trees and plants, and it transported her back to a simpler time, when everything she had needed—family, friends, and school—was located right here, in this neighborhood.
She moved quickly to the trailhead but stopped and considered her flats—which she’d worn to avoid accentuating her height during her date. She had not brought another pair of shoes, as she had not planned to come to the park. Undeterred, she started up the slope. The sun had dipped below the canopy of trees, filtering through the branches in wedges and shafts of soft light. Kavita had walked the park’s trails so many times, knew the trail signs so well, she could find her way blindfolded. After several hundred yards, the trail forked and Kavita took the Trillium Trail, a 1.7-mile loop that circled the interior of the park. Within minutes of breathing in the park’s familiar odors she felt better. She contemplated her dilemma and, more important, how to resolve it.
First, she had to determine whether or not to stay in the apartment, at least until she left for medical school. She didn’t want Aditi’s charity any more than Aditi wanted hers. Now that Aditi had made her choice, Kavita could use a portion of the money she’d earned to pay the rent until she found a new roommate, a graduate student, she decided. It might be difficult to find a roommate in the summer, but in the fall, when the students returned, the apartment would be in high demand for its proximity to the campus. Problem solved.
Next, Kavita would pick up additional hours working at the clothing store so as not to dip too far into her nest egg. The owner liked her. He would give her an additional shift. Being at work more would also help her ward off loneliness, especially at night, when she and Aditi had hung out. To this end, Kavita decided she would also enroll in a night course to study for her MCAT, the medical college application test. Presuming she did well on the test, she’d apply to a select number of medical school programs for admittance the following fall—schools where everything was new and no one knew her. She would start fresh, away from her family. Away from everything.
The thought was, at the same time, liberating and terrifying. She would be leaving everything she had ever known, everyone she had loved.
She got choked up at the thought of leaving her little brother, Sam, and her father. It would feel like a death, not seeing them.
Her sobs came in a rush, unexpected and powerful. She stopped beneath the branches, weeping. After several minutes, she chastised herself and went back to her new mantra. Move forward. She needed to move forward.
She dropped her head and ran, feeling every pebble in the path through the soles of her flats. When she came to where the trail split again, she took the Coyote Trail, running deeper into the park. She pushed herself through her sorrow, until fatigue set in and she had to stop and catch her breath. She walked in circles, her head thrown back, her lungs and chest aching, sucking in air. The daylight had nearly extinguished, the forest now an ever-deepening gray. It was time to go home.
Something moved. She turned.
Something in the brush. She turned again, then a third time. Something circling her.
She turned yet again, but saw only the trees, straight and tall, like darkened sentries. She fought to hold her breath, struggling to listen. The crickets clicked and the unseen insects buzzed. A light breeze caught the limbs of the trees, causing them to moan and creak. A bullfrog croaked.
She took another deep breath, exhaled, and turned to leave.
The weather quickly worsened. Dark clouds had rolled over the Cascade mountain range, and pushed west, toward Seattle. It had all the makings of a violent thunderstorm.
“Could just be her phone,” Pryor said again, sounding nervous as Tracy turned onto 116th Avenue NE. “She could have lost it, or gotten rid of it.”
Maybe, Tracy thought, though it didn’t answer a more fundamental question: What was Kavita doing this close to home, in a state park that clearly had some sentimental value? Tracy couldn’t help but wonder if the young woman, overwrought with sadness, had come to a place she knew, and had taken her own life. But even as that thought entered her mind, Tracy dismissed it as contrary to the determined young woman Aditi had described.
“You don’t think so, do you?” Pryor asked. “You don’t think it could just be her phone.”
“I’m trying to remain optimistic but . . . no, I don’t think so.” Tracy no longer could ignore reason and common sense for something so fleeting as hope. “There doesn’t seem to be a good reason she’d discard it, not in a park. If it’s just a phone, it’s more likely someone else discarded it, and that still leaves questions like, Why? And where is she?”
Tracy slowed at brown signs designating the park entrance. One bore the image of a hiker with a walking staff, the other a cowboy on horseback. She drove into a parking lot and parked beside three cars facing towering trees and thick brush. When she shut off the engine and pushed out into a stiffening breeze, she heard the rush and hum of cars on the 405 freeway a hundred yards to the west.
“Let’s photograph the license plates of the parked cars,” she said. “I doubt it matters, but let’s do it anyway. We can run them later.”
&n
bsp; Pryor took the photographs as Tracy retrieved the go bag she used to process crime scenes and kept in the storage space behind her seat. She pulled out an SPD hat and threaded her hair through the opening. Then she slipped on a black windbreaker with the same white SPD initials across the back. She removed a flashlight, directed the beam of light at the ground, and handed it to Pryor when she came around the bed of the truck.
A gust of wind rattled the tree branches, causing them to shimmer and shake.
“You remember the lightning storm last July?” Pryor asked.
“Hard to forget. Let’s go before it’s on top of us and we lose what little daylight we have left.”
Pryor considered her phone. “The signal is due east.”
They took a well-defined dirt trail, climbing a slope for the first hundred yards. Horse droppings and tiny acorns littered the ground. At the top of the slope, the trail flattened and forked. A stake in the ground indicated it was the trailhead for two different paths. Tracy stopped and Pryor checked the phone again. The Trillium Trail, perhaps six feet wide, proceeded more or less straight, which was also the general direction of the flashing blue dot.
“This way,” she said.
As Tracy and Pryor followed the trail, the forest canopy grew thicker, and what ambient light existed faded to shadows. Tracy’s father had taught her and Sarah about forests when she and her sister were growing up in a town in the North Cascades. She recognized the heftiest trees to be second-growth western red cedar, perhaps a hundred years old and two hundred feet high. The gaps were filled in by smaller hemlock, Douglas fir, and a few maple and cottonwood trees. The ground cover was dense and consisted of rotting tree trunks, ferns, salal, red elderberry, Indian plum, and low Oregon grape bushes. Though it hadn’t rained, the park smelled damp from the abundant ferns. The wind howled, sometimes in gusts that caused the tree trunks to sway and the branches to creak and moan.
A Steep Price (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 6) Page 15
