by Kaylea Cross
“Where did you get these?” he asked Carla loudly enough for the whole table to hear him.
“That wasn’t one I gave him,” she said and looked back up to the picture behind them.
The last frame appeared as the music ended. Dr. Brownlee and Dr. Dolan were cutting a light purple ribbon tied around the front door of their little non-profit clinic, with the distinctive purple sign affixed to the top of the building. The logo was filled with painted flowers blooming on green lacy vines. A small group of pregnant teenage girls was sitting to the right on freshly painted wooden steps.
Libby curled her finger and Cooper lent his ear. “After his daughter’s death, he wanted to do something for the young unmarried women of San Diego County. My dad helped him acquire this building and get the clinic started. Dad got the investors together.”
Coop nodded in understanding.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Three years ago, when we opened, I was given this award,” Dr. Dolan began. “I suggested Austin receive it, but he turned it down. Turned it down!” Dolan leaned back on his heels as the white screen rose with a faint mechanical buzzing noise. The lights had been turned up on the raised platform, but the gallery was still dark.
Dr. Dolan spoke again. “He took his name off the nomination list two more times, ladies and gentlemen. Always selfless. Always thinking about the other guy, aren’t you, Austin?”
Libby noticed how her dad squirmed and was breathing hard. He was bouncing his right knee until Carla laid her hand on it to stop the motion.
The floodlights gave Dr. Dolan a ghastly pale coloring. Libby noticed how his skin had aged, red veins and lines scarring his fleshy jowls. Sweat dripped from his jaw line onto his white shirt. Under vacant dark eyes were caverns of pain. He had a twitch she had never noticed before.
“He’s one in a million, ladies and gentlemen. The last of the really good men. So without further ado, I give you Lavender House’s 2012 Jewel of the Bay, Dr. Austin Mercer Brownlee.”
The crowd erupted in applause. Libby could see flashes from the dark gallery and glitter of jewelry here and there. Dark bodies were silhouetted against the lighting in the lobby of the hotel beyond. The table votive candles did little to help her see the faces of the audience.
Cooper was at full attention. She could smell sweat soaking into his blue suit. He had beads of perspiration on his upper lip. His breathing was full and raspy.
As Dr. Brownlee stood to address the group shrouded in darkness, Libby saw the deep crease on her father’s forehead, punctuated by raised eyebrows. He didn’t look like a man happy to receive an honor.
He looked like prey.
Chapter Thirty
Detective Clark Riverton watched the crowd from a corner in the ballroom, back in the shadows. These people always made him nervous. Movers and shakers and people who could end his career with a phone call, and nothing the union could do would save him because they were in bed with them, too.
He’d watched Libby dance with the guy she was definitely involved with. It didn’t take a detective’s eye to see the comfortable way in which their bodies glided across the dance floor. She was a gushing young bride, if he wasn’t mistaken. He’d have to talk to them again about cavorting with someone who was a suspect. He thought he’d made himself pretty clear earlier.
Hormones.
He’d seen girls fall for these sailors before. His sister had been one of them. Thought she’d snagged a SEAL, but in the end he’d been killed in Afghanistan. She was left with a broken heart and a little girl she had to raise on her own.
The SEAL married her in spite of the fact that they didn’t love each other, but at least the guy tried to be a good dad. Give him credit for trying to do the right thing. Clark knew his sister made the young man’s life hell. The guy asked Riverton to be his best man, but he declined. He always felt a little bad about that.
Riverton’s legs were tired, but he didn’t want to go expose himself sitting out in the open at one of the tables, and he didn’t want to hang out with the wait staff or dirty dishes. He grabbed an unused chair and kept to the shadows.
The women were lovely. If he were a younger man, he’d be interested. He had convenience girlfriends to take care of his needs. He didn’t do long term relationships. Saw too many ones that proved destructive. Besides, he knew a lot of the people here were not nearly as happy as they made out to be.
Demons. Everyone has demons.
His sister’s kid was a sweet girl, a little shy. But then, living with his sister wouldn’t be the easiest. And now his sister was obsessed with doing all kinds of new husband interviews. Riverton knew she was entertaining men at her house overnight, and there was something just wrong about that. Her attempts to find a replacement daddy for his niece were bound to be hard on the little girl. Wasn’t a good thing for a seven-year-old to witness. Besides, his niece was the one who had loved her daddy more than anyone else. Of course the kid would be shy. She probably still missed her dad.
He thought about the tats his brother-in-law had, just like the ones Coop and his buddies had. Maybe they’d served with him.
Now he knew many of the SEALs got the same tats. So that meant the perp hounding the Brownlee family was a SEAL. More than likely ex-SEAL, since it didn’t make sense otherwise. It definitely was someone who had a big beef with someone.
It was way too personal.
Brownlee? His daughter? Based on what the guy had done so far, it didn’t make sense that his beef was with the Navy.
A group of very large women decked out in sequined dresses that made them look like drag queens sauntered by him on their way out to the lobby. One of them dropped him a look.
Sheesh. This store’s been closed for a long time, sweetheart.
They were beginning the ceremony and the house lights were turned down. A colleague of Dr. Brownlee’s was speaking, his face bright red and his veins protruding at the sides of his neck. Riverton could see them from where he sat at the back of the room. The guy was stuffed into his suit and shirt like he was poured into it.
Riverton went over and snagged a bottle of coke from the hosted bar, flashing his badge. He popped open the top and guzzled half of it down. His throat was on fire.
He replaced the plastic top and watched the program, wondering what his life would have been like if he’d made different choices. What if his sister didn’t drink so much? He hoped she’d find someone good and be quick about it. Her downward spiral was not pretty to watch.
It was a shame, really, his brother-in-law checking out like that, just when Riverton was beginning to let down his guard and get to know the kid.
No, nothing was as it seemed. Heroes weren’t invincible. They did stupid things just like the rest of us, he thought. It was all in the fixing their mistakes that made more of a difference, like his brother-in-law. Dr. Brownlee had let some pretty colossal killers off with his reasoned approach to their treatment and incarceration. The doc liked to play God and thought he could tell a good guy from a bad guy. That’s what most these psychiatrists thought. Still, Brownlee did help out more than half the time, and Riverton was grateful for his expertise. Sometimes that was the only break he had in solving some of these gruesome cases.
Brownlee was good for the community too. And Carla had really helped out when his sister was making plans to bury her husband. Thank God for his military pension the little one would get until she was of age. All the health care they needed. Free college. That part had been a good deal. Even in death he was a good provider.
Except his little niece didn’t have a daddy, and his sister was a tramp. He vowed to spend more time with the girl, try to help out if he could. He owed the SEAL that, at least.
That kid he’d watched tonight on the dance floor with Libby sure was a big guy. Riverton had been miffed to see they didn’t take his advice and remove themselves from a known suspect, but then, did he expect Brownlee could stop his daughter? No more than Riverton could stop his sister. There was somet
hing there that he trusted, in spite of his police training. Well, maybe it was part of his police training.
Coop was intimidating. But he looked like a good kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t look hard like some of the guys who stayed in too long. He was just a dumb young sailor having the time of his life blowing shit up and putting his body in dangerous spots. Letting the ladies rub off all the rough parts.
What a life.
Cooper’s liaison, Chief Petty Officer Timmons, had vouched for him earlier today, and also verified the story about the sailor’s family. Riverton had to ask if he thought Cooper was okay in the head. Could he handle it, that sort of thing?
“Most of that crazy shit we drill out of them before they get through Hell Week,” Timmons had told him. “We aren’t looking for the proud and the few. We’re looking for those that will not think about how they feel, they’ll just jump off a three story building and not question it.”
Had his brother-in-law had some of that and he just missed seeing it? Maybe he was too cynical for his own damn good.
Timmons told him to go look up Detective Mayfield in the downtown precinct. Said he’d worked with the man last year when some San Diego gang members, trying to coerce their cooperation in getting guns and equipment for them, had kidnapped one of the SEALs and his sister. He said Mayfield could vouch for Cooper too.
Well, maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Riverton looked up at the screen again. Boy, there were a lot of slides. They went on and on. And the doctor who had introduced the program was in every one of them. Who’s banquet was it, anyway?
He sipped on his coke. He didn’t look forward to the conversation he was going to have to have with Brownlee and his daughter. But he had to.
The bevy of bejeweled rotund ladies returned, and they weren’t graceful as they sashayed between chairs that didn’t leave enough space for their large frames. They sparkled a hell of a lot, though. Was kind of funny to watch, in a sick sort of way.
Riverton felt old. He knew years ago there was no sense getting married and trying for the happily ever after. That time was long gone. Besides, he spent too much time trying to fix the rest of his family.
He could understand how Brownlee would want to proactively protect his daughter, without worrying about himself, and could very well get in the police’s way. If he had a daughter, he’d do the same. But he didn’t.
No use going there.
All during the slide show he looked up on the screen at a life he barely knew about. Brownlee was as much a stranger to him now as he had been twenty years ago when they had first met at the scene of a homicide. No one had a life like that, at least no one on the force. It was all destruction and decay, everywhere he looked. He’d done his time in the Army, and then police work was the only thing he felt suited for when he got home.
Some of his buddies went to college. Riverton’s parents were sick most of their lives, and when it was time for college his mom was heading into her first rehab. It had used up the last of the equity in their family home. There was no money for college. And he had to get a steady job with benefits so he could help them, since his sister was still at home, in grammar school.
He finished off the coke and left it standing next to the chair.
Night school had suited him fine. He came alive at night. The day was for people that believed in sunshine and love, true love. Happy endings.
No, if he could just get this one last creep out of everyone’s hair, he’d be satisfied. That was the only happy ending he wanted. Just one more bad guy behind bars, then perhaps he’d put in for retirement. Maybe take a job in a dusty small town in the middle of nowhere. Or, get himself lost in a Mexican fishing village and just check out.
The lights came on after Brownlee took the crystal bowl back to his table. There he was, with his beautiful wife and daughter. A good man, not perfect, but a good one. Living a life Riverton could never have.
Because he was too tired to fight anymore.
Chapter Thirty-one
The guests were leaving the grand ballroom. Cooper noticed Riverton as he filed out between Carla and Libby. He gave the detective a nod but no smile. He knew part of the reason Riverton was there was to watch him interact with the Brownlee family.
Everyone trying to play psychiatrist. Get inside my head. He saw the man disappear behind a potted plant and then reappear before they made it out on the driveway at valet parking.
“Where’s Austin?” Riverton asked Carla.
“Oh, he’s back there talking to a friend. He’ll be along. Asked us to get the car.”
Riverton gave a brief nod of recognition and then spoke to Carla again, ignoring Libby and Cooper. “Might I have a word with the two of you ladies? No offense, Cooper.”
Of course I take fucking offense. He wondered what Riverton was up to.
“I’ll go get your father, “ Cooper said to Libby as he kissed the top of her head and removed his arm from around her waist.
He tried not to make eye contact with the partygoers as he made his way across the floor. Women especially were trying to catch his attention. Big time. No doubt he’d been seen up on the dais with the Brownlee family.
I’m no fuckin’ rock star. The audience was dotted with young ladies who no doubt were former customers of the Lavender House. These were girls who had grown up a little too fast. He could spot them all right. They were all over his community and the SEAL bars.
Frog hogs.
He saw doctor Brownlee in a heated argument with the man who had introduced him, his former partner.
What’s his name? Doctor-I’m-a-fuckin’-good-sport. Cooper didn’t like the man, and suddenly he found himself more than a little concerned and protective about Libby’s dad.
“Look, I’m not trying to take any of your patients. I have more than a full load,” Brownlee was saying as Cooper came up beside him and waited.
The other doctor extended his hand to Cooper. “Hi there again, son. You enjoy yourself tonight?” he asked.
“It was his party. I’m just the escort,” Coop answered, and then wondered why he answered it with that sexual innuendo.
It did raise the doctor’s eyebrows.
Cooper shrugged his shoulders. “That came out wrong. Look, I’m a friend of Libby’s. Dr. Brownlee wanted his daughter to come, so that’s why I’m here.” Cooper hoped that ended the discussion.
Brownlee inserted himself in the conversation with his biting sarcasm. “As opposed to something else he wanted to do tonight,”
Brownlee’s colleague looked confused. Among the three of them, Cooper noticed there wasn’t an ounce of friendship anywhere.
“Call me tomorrow, Dolan. We’ll have coffee and hash this out. Let me see if there is someone from my schedule who might be better served working with you, okay?”
“I’m not interested in your rejects, Austin. And I don’t need your pity or your sloppy seconds.” Dr. Dolan was bright red. Cooper noticed something was not right about the man, who huffed off in the opposite direction.
Brownlee and Cooper sliced through the crowd that was thinning out.
“Sorry that you had to witness that, Cooper.”
“What’s gotten into him? You guys are partners.”
“Were. Very past tense. The man’s had a rough couple of years.”
“You think maybe you should tell Riverton?” Coop asked, trying to be helpful.
“Oh, hell, no. He’s going through a little rocky patch is all. Lost his wife two years ago. Lost his daughter about five years ago, too. A suicide. I’d just started to treat her, as a favor, of course.”
“You don’t think that’s important?”
Brownlee stopped, pointed his index finger at Cooper’s chest, and, lucky for him, did not touch Cooper. “Look, you do what you do best. Let me do what I do best. I know people, and I’ve known Dolan since before Libby was born, before Carla. So don’t tell me what to do, who to name and not name.”
“I understand,
” Cooper said as quietly as he could. “But even with all the training we have, you can’t always tell your enemies from your friends. There are only truly a handful of people you can ever trust.”
“Hmm.” Brownlee turned to head out through the doors to the parking area. Cooper grabbed his arm and stopped him in what could be a dangerous physical move, if Brownlee was another SEAL.
“You do understand this guy is not right?” Cooper said.
“Which guy? Dr. Dolan or the guy trying to scare my family?”
“Both. You ask yourself, doctor, could this be the same man?”
* * *
Libby noticed Cooper was not talkative all the way back to the Hotel Del. But neither was her father. Had the two men had a fight?
She wanted to tell him about the warning Riverton had given her and her mother.
“Surprised to see him here tonight,” Riverton had said. “Thought I told you not to have further contact, until I could rule him out as a suspect.”
“It was Austin’s idea,” Carla had said.
Cooper kept looking out his side window, facing away from her, which shouted he wanted to be left alone with his thoughts. Her mother was suspiciously watching her father too. She held the heavy crystal bowl in her lap almost like a burden. The whole evening seemed suddenly petty and ridiculous to Libby. Keeping up appearances. Her father and Cooper in some private war. Some creep in the shadows somewhere. Even taking up occupancy in the bridal suite at the Hotel Del seemed like a bad joke. A blanket of doom descended over all of them.
When they arrived at the hotel, Cooper did his usual thing, showing deference to her mother and letting her out of the car first, then leaning in and reaching for Libby’s hand. He wasn’t smiling as he carefully helped her out of the car. He was careful. And solemn.
Her dad finished with the valet and caught up with them as they walked inside to the lobby.
