by Meg Gardiner
Now I had other worries.
In my ear the phone rang one more time and a message clicked on saying the call was being diverted. A new ring-tone sounded. My father answered.
“Kit? What’s up, honey?”
Four words and I felt safe. Time had added gravel to his voice, and the prairie rhythms had deepened. Nobody made gruffness sound more welcome than Philip James Delaney, captain USN, retired.
“I’ve been hit with a wild pitch. The thing is, I think it’s aimed at you.”
“Sounds serious. Does it involve your cousin Taylor?”
That made me smile. I hopped up and sat on the kitchen counter. “You don’t want to know about Taylor. This is something else.”
“Shoot.”
“Project South Star.”
On his end I heard a television burbling theme music. Four bars, six, eight.
“Dad?”
“Are you on a land line?”
Ting. I felt a cold drip on the back of my neck. “My cell. At Jesse’s.”
“Hang up.”
I set my phone on the granite counter, feeling the chill seep down my spine. He wanted me off the cell.
Jesse’s phone rang. He turned toward it, but I jumped off the counter. “That’s Dad calling back.”
I picked it up from the coffee table in the living room. The brusqueness in my father’s voice no longer sounded protective.
“Who’s dredging up South Star?”
“Nobody you know.”
“Whoever it is has an agenda. Probably seeking publicity for himself. Whatever they’ve told you, just forget it. Drop the whole matter.”
“Publicity is not the issue.”
“Then why’d they throw this at a journalist? Who is it, a politician? Or one of those activists who thinks the government kills puppies for oil?”
“Dad, tell me about the project.”
“I can’t. It’s classified.”
I exhaled. Across the room Jesse watched me, trying to assess the conversation.
Dad’s voice sharpened. “Somebody’s yanking your chain, Evan. South Star is dead, and you don’t need to know any more than that.”
“Yes, I do. The murders in China Lake may relate back to South Star.”
A beat. “Murders?”
“You don’t know?”
Hesitation again. “I’ve been traveling. Kit, what murders?”
“Two people from my graduating class, at the reunion this weekend. Kelly Colfax and Ceci Lezak.” I sat down on the sofa.
“Wait—at your reunion? You were in China Lake this weekend?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Now will you listen to me?”
I summarized what Jax had told me about Project South Star: that it was a black project, outside the navy’s purview, possibly shut down when the research caused unpredictable results.
“Dad, what’s the deal? A dead project from twenty years ago shouldn’t make you concerned about cell phone interception.”
“What else have you been told?” he said.
“About Coyote.”
“What’s that?”
“Not what. Who.” I pulled my feet up under me on the couch. I felt cold. “He may be the killer.”
I filled him in. When I finished, he spoke slowly.
“Listen carefully. I don’t know what’s going on. But you need to back away from this immediately.”
“I can’t.”
“Kathleen Evan—” He caught himself. After a second he spoke with strained calm. “If thirty-three years of being your father have taught me anything, it’s that you will always question authority. But this once, please do exactly as I say without debate.”
The chill fingered down my back again.
“Don’t talk about this to anybody else. Don’t dig into it. Will you be at home later?”
“I’m staying with Jesse for a few days.”
“Good. Keep that to yourself.”
That was when fear began bug-crawling across my skin. “Dad, I’ve already talked to the China Lake police. And they’re contacting the FBI.”
I could hear the TV behind him, applause and new music. “Put Jesse on.”
Disconcerted, I stood and beckoned to him. When I held out the phone he looked wary. He’d met my dad once, talked to him maybe two other times. He put the phone to his ear.
“Mr. Delaney?” A nod. “All right—Phil.”
He listened, gazing past me. I bit my thumbnail.
“I do.” Nodding. “Always.” He rubbed his leg. “I understand.”
He handed the phone back to me. I scowled and mouthed, What was that? but he shook his head and angled around into the kitchen.
I got back on the line. “What did you say to Jesse?”
“I explained about being careful right now.”
“Dad, what does a government-trained killer want with two members of the Bassett High reunion committee?”
Jesse opened a kitchen drawer and began rustling around. I put a finger in my ear, but TV music was still coming from my dad’s end.
Hang on. The TV music sounded familiar. “Is that The Tonight Show?”
The Tonight Show came on at eleven thirty, which meant it had long since finished in Key West, but was just starting here in California. I thought back to the way my call to him had been diverted before he picked up.
“Where are you?” I said.
“On travel, honey. I’m up north.”
“North as in San Francisco?” I pulled the phone from my ear to glance at the display. Number withheld. “Are you at Mom’s?”
“Where I am is beside the point. I’m going to double-check a couple of things. I want you to keep your head down.”
I heard metallic sounds in the kitchen. Glanced over. The Glock lay on the counter, and in his hand Jesse held a box of nine-millimeter ammunition. Shit.
“Dad.”
“This may be absolutely nothing. A wild-goose chase. But I want you to play things safe. Jesse knows what to do.”
“He’s loading rounds in a spare clip.”
“Good.”
“Why? You think one clip won’t be enough?”
His voice dropped another notch. “Lie low. I mean it. I’ll talk to you as soon as I know anything.”
I hung up. Jesse’s eyes were cool. I watched him slide cartridges into the clip, feeling scared.
Also pissed off. My father was being evasive. Both he and Jesse were treating me as too fragile to watch out for myself. Of course, Jesse sometimes complained that this was how I treated him, and man, did this helping of my own medicine taste sour in my mouth.
He set the spare clip on the counter. “I’m simply being cautious.”
“Right. I know drag racers who are more cautious than you.”
He picked up the Glock. “Then consider this another form of stress management.”
“This is not reducing my anxiety. Not in the least.”
“Tomorrow we’ll go to the firing range. Target practice is an excellent relaxation technique. Focus, breathe, fire. Very centering.”
“Blackburn, sometimes you seriously give me a stomachache.”
“Cool down. You want an antianxiety mechanism, I’ve got the best.” He looked at the gun. “Stopping power.”
7
By midnight the moon was up, conjuring white light on the Monterey pines outside the plate-glass windows. I was wide-awake, but Jesse turned off the table lamp and held out a hand.
“Let’s try to get some sleep.”
I stood up. He went to the kitchen and took a couple of painkillers. I shut down the stereo, noticing that he planned to skip the trazodone that fought his insomnia.
“Jess?”
“Not tonight.”
“Nothing’s going to happen tonight. Don’t mess with your meds.”
A few months back, messing with his meds had gotten him cruising toward a diazepam addiction.
“Call your doc in the morning, but tonight stick to the r
egimen. Please, babe.”
He scrunched his mouth. “Yes, nurse.”
I tried to smile with relief, but he was watching me clench and unclench my hands. I relaxed my fingers and changed tack, sticking out a hip.
“To play nurse I need a little white uniform and those sexy medical tights.”
“No.” He mock shivered. “Hospitals and sexiness—in my mind those don’t mix.”
I dropped the pose. “Could you ever imagine me in photos? Dressed in lingerie?”
He was at the sink filling a water glass. He looked at me over his shoulder.
“Does this have to do with Cousin Tater?” he said.
“Glossy shots. Me, in lace and latex.”
His lips parted. The water reached the rim of the glass and spilled out, running over his hand.
“So that’s a yes,” I said. “What should I wear?”
“French maid.”
“No, seriously. I was thinking more a—”
“Dead serious. French maid.”
Hands on my hips. “You mean with an apron and a microminiskirt and black stockings?”
“That go way up your thighs.” The water was running down his arm now. “And stilettos.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“Four-inch stilettos. And yeah, red panties. Did I mention French maid?”
I walked toward him. “Time-out. Since when did you develop a cleaning fetish?”
“Petticoats. Garter belt. Those legs. So when you bend down to, like, polish something, ah, I mean stretching way, way over, you—”
Finally noticing the water, he turned off the faucet.
I came closer. “What if I were riding a motorcycle?”
“Stay on topic. Your hair’s up but strands are falling in your face. You have a smudge on your cheek, near your lips. . . .”
His gaze flowed over me. How that made me feel searing hot, I can’t explain. I swear my jeans unzipped themselves. They shimmied down to my ankles and got kicked across the floor.
“A smudge,” I said.
He nodded. He was tan and his hair was sun-bleached from swimming. He looked so handsome that I was about to have a seizure.
“Because I’ve been getting dirty,” I said.
His voice dropped. “Doing—”
“You.”
He was still holding the water glass. He splashed himself in the face with it.
I laughed. He shook his head, flinging water. And we both knew we were whistling past the graveyard, and didn’t care.
I put my hands on his shoulders, and he set down the glass, pulled me onto his lap, and snaked his arms around me. My blouse had come unbuttoned, I realized. His hands ran across my bare skin, and his mouth brushed my collarbone. I began working his shirt up his chest, but he murmured, “You first,” and spun with me to wheel us into the living room. At the sofa he half tossed me off his lap.
“On your back,” he said.
I lay down on the sofa and pulled one foot up. Then he was sitting between my knees and skating his hands up the inside of my legs. Way up, and I hupped a breath and tried to stop my foot from bouncing.
He traced the edge of my panties. “This isn’t scary. Why are your teeth chattering?”
“The hell it’s not scary. I could burst into flame.”
His fingers teased past the lace and kept going. I looked at the ceiling. He leaned down and I felt his lips on my knee, and then on my thigh.
“Holy cow,” I said.
“En français, dirty maid.”
I felt his breath and his warm mouth on my hip, and on—
“God. Whoa. Jeepers creepers.”
That’s a paraphrase. My actual words involved blasphemy and animal sounds.
So at two a.m. I was wide-, wide-awake.
Through the shutters I watched clouds shred across the Milky Way. Beside me Jesse lay deep asleep, one arm tossed over his eyes. He wouldn’t stir unless I poked him with an ice pick.
I got out of bed. In the living room I turned on the Sci Fi Channel and booted up my computer. I propped it on my lap and went online, looking for South Star.
I found everything except what I was looking for. South Star Plumbing. South Star Travel. Native American folklore: In Pawnee mythology South Star was the god of the underworld, magical and feared.
Curious but not useful. Next I hit the big conspiracy-minded sites. The China Lake project wasn’t even a whisper at trustnobody.com. I was going to have to look elsewhere. I slumped on the sofa, rubbing my eyes. Outside, the night sky closed in.
Hearing birds cawing overhead, I opened my eyes. Sea-gulls screeched outside in the sunrise, wheeling above the water. Getting up, I went to the kitchen, started the coffeepot, and picked up the phone. I used the landline.
When I said hello, my mother practically cheered. “Evan!”
Her voice sounded so much bigger than she was in real life. She was a hundred pounds dripping wet, with an elfin smile and a gunnery sergeant’s mouth. The zest in her voice was perfect for shouting at passengers to evacuate the 747, now. She’d been a flight attendant for twenty years. She worked in management for the airline, training new recruits.
“Honey, Lord, this is early for you.”
Six a.m.—yeah. The Glock stress-reduction method wasn’t working. “I’m too anxious to sleep.”
“Sweetheart, God. This bastard up in China Lake. I can’t believe it. Ceci and Kelly, I remember both those girls.”
“Mom, I think the killer was part of Project South Star.”
Blank silence on her end. Déjà vu.
Far too late, she cleared her throat. “Beg pardon?”
“The man who killed Kelly and Ceci may have worked on South Star. I’ve already talked to Dad about it.”
“Really.”
“Speaking of which, don’t let him oversleep.”
“Phil?”
“I know he’s in the Bay Area.”
“So you think he’s here with me?” She let out an exasperated noise. “That would violate our treaty.”
No overnights on American soil, apart from family weddings or the Oklahoma-Nebraska football game. I poured a cup of coffee.
“What did he tell you about South Star?” she said.
“Very little. I presume he’s told you much more. That’s why I’m calling.”
“And if he had, you think I would disclose it? You’re out of luck.”
Angie and Phil Delaney: married twenty-two years, divorced thirteen, bound as tightly as barbs in fence wire. They lived three thousand miles apart, spoke each other’s names with a dead chill, and every year took an exotic vacation together. Most recently they’d gone to South Africa. She could act ruthless toward my father, but God help anybody else who spoke ill of him.
“Phil would never break security to discuss a classified project. Not even with a priest in confession, much less with me.”
“So how did you get wind of South Star?” I said.
“I might ask you the same.”
“Why are you being evasive?”
Even as I said it, I had an inkling: fear. I was feeling it myself. Silence stretched across the phone line.
“Honey, I can’t talk about this now. I have a breakfast meeting and I need to hit the road.”
“Then call me when you get home tonight.”
“Sure. Just lie low. Promise.”
I promised.
And I knew she’d been talking to Dad. Lie low. Sure, Ma. It’s as easy as sin.
Coyote folded the newspaper. The story had gone big: front section of the Los Angeles Times. But that was inevitable. Small town rocked by murders; it was tailor-made for news whores.
He sipped the Starbucks coffee. The sun was pleasant. Traffic on Sunset was heavy, and the minimall was crowded. People were running into the dry cleaners or grabbing breakfast at Burger King. The Starbucks was busy with real estate agents talking deals and screenwriters worrying how to pitch their latest script. In a few minutes the kids f
rom Hollywood High would come streaming in on their way to school. Caffeine rush. Go juice. Everybody trying to wake up, rev up, feeling the sharp end of the day stabbing them in the head. Everybody weak with the need to stay conscious.
The newspaper article contained bare facts mixed with rank speculation. A madman on the loose. Peasants in the town grabbing pitchforks and wanting to burn the creature. Indistinguishable from planned disinformation, really. But the story had drawn reporters like flies to a carcass, so it had been time to withdraw from China Lake.
Picking at a poppy-seed muffin, Coyote booted up the laptop. Camouflage was the craft of making people see what they expected to see. And today they were seeing a guy at the corner table wearing glasses and a baggy button-down shirt open over a tee and khakis. An overgrown preppy with a baseball cap on his head and constipated anxiety on his face. Just another nebbish: a writer fretting over character arcs. Who noticed writers on Sunset Boulevard?
The Starbucks had wireless, and Coyote logged on to the banking site. The account was flush. It was time to get a hotel room and regroup for the next stage. Someplace tall, a room on the top floor overlooking the city. Not that sleep would come, but heights assisted thought.
The Bassett High artifacts were locked in the toolbox in the back of the truck. The yearbook, the Dog Days Update, the biopsy samples; he had recovered a good haul. Collecting the samples had been delicate work, at odds with the antemortem aspects of the project. Remembering, Coyote drew his lips back. The sodium hydrochloride in the Drano had burned deeper into Kelly Colfax’s thighs than expected. And he hadn’t yet clarified his understanding of the results on her viscera. He had much to do. Scanning the Lezak X-ray into digital form and uploading it would take time as well, and required privacy. He glanced out: The truck was secure. He could see the amulet hanging from the rearview mirror. It gleamed in the sunshine, all its energy, his invincibility, stored within. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, pulling it up to cover the tip of the scar, the dregs of the claw mark.
