by Tyler Dilts
Two, opt for the equivalent model from Honda, which every car writer and their mother said was the far superior choice. It had been on Car and Driver’s ten-best list for like a hundred years. But that equivalent was the Accord, and I was fairly certain that all the white Accords I had imagined were following me in the last week had caused me to develop a conditioned stress response to the model. I might be okay with it, though, if I never looked at it over my shoulder or in a mirror.
Three, the Subaru Legacy. It wasn’t quite as popular with the auto-magazine staffers as the Honda, but the customer-loyalty numbers were through the roof. And while it didn’t impress the Road & Track crowd very much, the Consumer Reports guys were keen enough on it to make it their midsized sedan “Top Pick.” I was also pretty sure it came with granola and a kayak, both of which would probably be good for me. And Julia had a Subaru. Hers was a Forester, though, and I’ve never been much of an SUV guy. But I couldn’t buy the same model as her anyway because that would just be weird.
When I explained the situation to Lauren in the car on the way home and asked what she thought I should do, she looked at me like I’d just asked for advice about which knitting needles would be best to use to make some booties for my grandbabies. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m glad there won’t be another Camaro in the parking garage.”
When we got back to Jen’s house, I was surprised to see a Sheriff’s Department Yukon parked in front. There was a K-9 insignia on the side.
Lauren went first up the driveway, calling out “Hello, anyone here?” loudly enough for anyone in the backyard to hear. As I followed her up the driveway, my foot slipped off the edge of the concrete and I nearly stumbled onto the lawn.
Around the corner came Steven Gonzales, the bomb-squad deputy who’d swept my duplex for explosives last week, with a dog at his heel. God, had it really only been a week?
“Beckett?” he said, spotting me behind Lauren. “Heard you might show up while I was here.”
Patrick must have told him. And asked him to check the house, too. I introduced him to Lauren. He held her hand too long and said, “Call me Steve.”
She waited for him to let go while looking directly at the scar on his face. “What happened?” she asked.
“Iraq,” he said, releasing her hand.
“It sure left a mark,” she said.
“That’s not the only one.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at some ink on his bicep that extended below the cuff of his short-sleeved uniform shirt. I wondered if the LASD still had their no-visible-tattoos policy.
Gonzales said, “That’s my Explosive Ordinance Disposal badge.”
“The scars weren’t enough of a reminder?” she asked, touching the tattoo. “Are those wings?”
“It’s a wreath,” he said. I think I saw him flexing a bit.
I gave them a few seconds in case either one of them wanted to engage in any more flirtatious banter. Neither did, so I said, “Is the house going to explode?”
Gonzales looked down at the dog as if to confirm his assessment and said, “I don’t think so, but if you’ll let us inside, we’ll make sure.”
He and the dog walked through the house, then the garage and Lauren’s place in back. After he’d cleared them all, I walked out to the SUV at the curb with him. “I’ll let Glenn know everything’s secure,” he said, opening the back door and letting the dog in.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I knew what he was going to ask.
“What’s the deal with Terrones?” At least he pronounced her name right, all three syllables. He even got the Spanish inflection that I could never manage to.
“She’s a good cop.”
He nodded. “You think she might want to—”
“I’ll ask her,” I said.
“Thanks, man.”
He drove away and I went back inside and found Lauren in the kitchen. “I thought you had a girlfriend,” I said.
“I do.”
“Gonzales wanted me to give you his number. You want it?”
“Not really,” she said, surveying the open refrigerator in front of her. “But why don’t you text it to me so you won’t have to lie when he asks.”
Julia came over again. Honestly, I was embarrassed that we had to keep seeing each other at Jen’s house. I suggested we hold off for the night, but she wouldn’t hear of it. It felt like being in high school again—sitting on someone else’s couch with a girl and hoping not to get caught. At least I’d convinced Lauren that we’d be okay with her out back in her own place. She’d told me that it didn’t feel right hanging out at home while she was technically on the clock. Especially after Jen had texted her saying she’d be home late and that Lauren should keep an eye on me. Eventually I’d worn her down and convinced her to give Julia and me some privacy.
When I complained to Julia about feeling awkward, she said, “I think you’re overreacting.”
“I don’t think I am.” We were sitting on the couch again, but hadn’t turned the TV on.
“How’s your head feeling?”
“Still have a headache.”
“Any other symptoms? Have you felt dizzy at all or nauseous? Confused or sluggish?”
“No, I feel okay except for the headache. The doctor said I should expect that for a few days.”
“When do you go back to see him?”
“Not until the end of the week, unless I have a problem. Why?”
“You seem more irritable than usual.”
“They took my case away. I’m on desk duty for, shit, I don’t even know how long. So yeah, I’m irritable.”
“Are you angry at me?”
“No,” I said, surprised. “Does it sound like I am?”
“A little bit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She slid closer to me and lifted my arm up so I’d put it around her, and she put her head on my shoulder. “Let’s watch season two. See how Mr. Bates and Anna are doing.”
I fumbled around with the two remotes until I got the show to start streaming on the big flat-screen across the room.
But even as the opening credits rolled, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that irritability and behavior changes were two of the things the neurologist told me to be on the lookout for.
It was after ten when Jen came home. Julia had already gone, and I was in the kitchen looking for something stronger than cabernet and not finding anything. I heard voices outside and looked out the window to see her conferring with Lauren just inside the gate on the side of the house, their faces illuminated from below by the pathway lighting along the edge of the driveway.
Jen came inside and said, “Lauren says things are under control.”
“Yeah, it’s been quiet. Julia just went home a little while ago.”
“Sorry I missed her. She holding up okay?”
“Pretty well, I think.”
She studied my eyes while we talked.
“You nailed the interview with Lucinda,” I said.
She reached to the wall behind the sink and flipped a light switch. A recessed fixture in the ceiling directly over our heads lit up. Holding her extended index finger in front of my face, she said, “Watch.” I stared at her fingertip as she moved it back and forth horizontally across my field of vision. When she was satisfied, she flipped the light off.
I stopped myself from making a joke about standing on one foot, or doing a walk-and-turn. A joke about field sobriety tests wouldn’t help me.
“What were you and Patrick working on?”
“Cross-referencing cell-phone records.” She opened the refrigerator and took out a plastic container of premixed greens.
“You hungry?” she asked, dumping salad in a bowl and adding diced chicken and shredded cheese.
“No, I ate.”
She tossed some sunflower seeds and vinaigrette into the salad with a fork and sat dow
n at the table to eat. “I used your notes.”
“What?” I said.
She forked some lettuce and chicken into her mouth and chewed before she spoke. “For the interview with Lucinda.”
“I wondered.”
“It was a good prep.”
“Thanks.”
Another bite.
Then another.
I wanted to apologize again. To tell her how sorry I was and ask for her forgiveness. But she seemed to be going out of her way to let me know that she wasn’t interested in talking, so I didn’t. “I guess I’ll turn in,” I said.
She looked up from her salad and gave what someone who didn’t know her as well as I did might mistake for a smile. “Good night.”
After I brushed my teeth and went into the bedroom, I could see that there was a light breeze outside, just strong enough to make the shadows from the tree in the yard dance on the translucent window shade. I turned my head on the pillow while I listened to P.J. Soles from Halloween talk about getting killed by Michael Myers.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHITHER MUST I WANDER
I was at my desk when Harold Craig called me.
“How are you doing, Harold?” I asked.
“All right, I guess.” He didn’t sound all right, but I couldn’t remember him ever sounding that way.
“What can I help you with?”
“Well, last night I heard someone outside knocking on Kobe’s door, so I peeked out the window and saw that it was a young lady.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Yes. She was young, Kobe’s age. Thin, with blonde hair.”
“Did you notice anything else about her?”
“Well, I was nervous,” he said. “But I opened the door.”
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “Did you talk to her?”
“Yes. She said she needed to talk to Kobe.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her that he hadn’t been home for several days.”
“How did she take that?”
“Well, she’d already looked worried, but when I said that, she said ‘oh’ very quietly, and she got very anxious.” He paused for a few seconds. “I can tell when someone’s anxious,” he said. “I can see the signs.”
I know you can, Harold, I know. “What happened then?”
“She started to go, but I stopped her. Asked her to wait. Then I went back inside and wrote your phone number down, so I could give her the card you left me.”
“And she took it?”
“Yes. I told her she should call you, that you could help. That you were kind.”
“Did you tell her that Kobe was dead?”
“No. She was so upset that I thought it might be too much for her.”
“That was a good call, Harold. What happened next?”
“Nothing. She just went downstairs, took her bike from where she’d left it leaning up against the wall, and went out the back gate into the alley.”
“She had a bike?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you very much, Harold. This is going to help us out a lot. You did the right thing.”
“I did?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”
I was just about to end the call when I heard his voice again.
“Detective Beckett?”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, could I get another one of your cards? I gave the one I had to the young lady.”
“Sure, Harold. It’s no trouble at all.”
As soon as I disconnected, I called Patrick.
“That happened last night?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You think she’ll call?”
“I hope so. Could be the break we need.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I’d used “we” instead of “you.”
Patrick didn’t catch it, or just decided to let it go. “You’ll call me if you hear from her?”
“The second it happens,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “This is good.” He seemed to be talking to himself as much as he was to me.
I ended the call, put my phone down in the middle of my desk, and stared at it, willing it to ring.
The phone didn’t ring. Well, it did, but not with the call we were hoping for from the mysterious young woman. It had only taken a few days of not being able to leave my desk to turn me into a clock watcher. When Lauren came to pick me up, I already had my messenger bag packed and ready to go and had been watching the second hand on the old clock on the wall, above the window to Ruiz’s office, for two minutes.
I asked her to stop at Gelson’s, even though it was out of our way, to pick up something to grill, fresh vegetables for a salad, and a good bottle of wine.
At Jen’s house, I lit the barbecue and turned the heat low to warm it up. I wasn’t much for cooking, but I knew my way around a grill well enough. Once it was going, I went into the kitchen, got out a big steel bowl, tossed some baby spinach in with the bagged salad, and added some cherry tomatoes and sunflower seeds on top.
Jen didn’t let me know when she was on the way. I hadn’t expected her to. But when she sent a text message to Lauren, I turned up the heat and put the chicken and beef skewers I’d bought on the grill and went back inside to finish the salad.
“What are you doing?” Lauren asked.
“Making dinner.”
She raised her eyebrows and said, “You okay?”
“Why does everybody keep asking me that?”
“Because you had a major concussion a couple of days ago and you’re acting weird.”
“Making dinner isn’t weird.”
“It is for you.”
I stopped what I was doing and looked her in the eye. “I’m okay.”
“You think if you make a nice dinner one time, everything’s going to go back to normal and Jen’s going to forgive you?”
The timer on my phone started chiming. It was time to turn the skewers. I picked it up and silenced it.
She sighed and said, “It’s not about her forgiving you. She’s still blaming herself for letting it happen.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Then you should understand it.”
“You know you’re on the clock, right?” I meant it to sound light and funny, but it came out bitter and hard and I felt like an asshole.
“My apologies, sir. I best get back to work, then.”
She went outside and I expected her to head to her place, but she didn’t. After pacing to the far end of the yard and back again, she took up position with her back against one of the support posts for the pergola and gazed out past the gate and down the driveway. It was a solid sentry post.
Her eye never wavered when I went outside to turn the skewers.
Jen and I ate mostly in silence. She gave me a truncated progress report of the day’s work that didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.
“Thanks,” she said when she finished the last piece of chicken on her plate. “That was good.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “It’s the least I could do after you’ve put me up for so long.”
She drank the last of the wine in her glass. I reached for the bottle to pour her some more, but she stopped me by raising her hand a few inches off the table and showing me her palm. “I’m good.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“Don’t even start.”
“I feel like shit,” I said, looking down at the paper napkin I’d balled up in my fist. “What can I do?”
“Nothing.” The bland evenness of her voice cut me deeper than any shout or cry could have. She looked me in the eye and I could see her recognize the pain I was feeling. “Be patient, all right? It’ll get better.”
She picked up her plate and mine, took them inside, and put them in the sink. In the years we’d been partners, we’d had many disagreements and I�
�d frustrated her in more ways than I could even come close to remembering, but I’d never felt this kind of distance before. I’d never felt her pulling away the way she seemed to be doing.
All I could think was, But what if it doesn’t?
It was lunchtime the next day when the call came. Jen had another afternoon in court and Patrick was in the valley conferring again with the ATF. Everybody else was out of the squad room, either working or eating.
My phone was on the desk, but the woman Harold had given my card to still hadn’t called, and I figured the window of time was closing. She’d had my number for more than a day and a half. If she was going to call, I thought, she probably already would have.
Still, though, when the phone started vibrating on the desk and the screen lit up with a number I didn’t recognize, I felt a welcome tingle of anticipation in my stomach.
“Detective Beckett,” I said.
“Uh, hello?” Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.
“Hi, what can I do for you?”
“I think I need some help?” She was afraid of something. I couldn’t be sure if it was me or something else.
“Is this Kobe’s friend?”
“Kobe?” she said uncertainly. “Oh, you mean Ryan?”
I wrote the name down, even though I knew I wouldn’t forget it. “Yes, Ryan. Tell me how I can help you.”
“There’s someone following me. A man.”
“Where are you? Are you in danger right now?”
“No,” she whispered. “Not right this minute. I’m in the bathroom at Viento y Agua. It’s a coffee—”
“I know it. The man who’s following you. Is he in the shop or outside?”
“In the shop.”
“Do you think he knows you’re aware of him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Kayla.”
