Matt hadn’t been wrong, she had to admit. She wasn’t late for his speech, but she’d gotten there right before it was supposed to start. He wouldn’t have had the time he claimed to have wanted to meet with constituents.
Of course, if he didn’t raise enough money to compete in this election, he wouldn’t be able to meet with his constituents at all.
Lindsey crossed the parking lot and made her way past the food trucks, breathing in the scent of frying onions and meat from the taco truck, thinking maybe she’d have a couple of tacos after the speech, just relax for a little while. Maybe she and Matt could slip away for an hour or two, go have a drink together and some time to themselves. Not talk about the campaign. Just be together. They hadn’t had enough of that in the last couple of years, not at all. Maybe if they made some time for each other, things could be better again.
When she was close enough to the little stage to see Matt, she almost laughed at her own stupidity.
There he was, a big smile on his face, standing next to that girl, Sarah, the palm of one hand resting for a moment on her shoulder and giving it the slightest of rubs. Sarah was smiling too, her cheeks suffused with the rosy glow of sexual attraction. Don’t try to tell me that’s not what it is, Lindsey thought.
This was what he’d wanted. Not time to meet with his constituents. Oh no. Just time to hang out with this girl with big tits who gazed up at him with her worshipful smile.
“Fuck this,” Lindsey said. She turned on her heels and walked away. He could fucking do this without her.
Ben was right. Matt dousing the flames was going to make an awesome GIF.
The firemen had turned the gas up high, so the flames were big. White shirtsleeves rolled up, sporting comfortably worn khaki chinos and a mustard yellow and brown Padres hat that shaded his eyes but didn’t hide his grin, Matt swept the nozzle of the fire extinguisher back and forth, dousing the gas flames with bursts of white foam.
It was a great visual. She was glad Ben had decided to come along and get it from another angle.
“Definitely, you should try it!” Matt told a teenage girl. “It’s a good thing to know how to do.” He handed her the fire extinguisher. Then he turned to Sarah.
“How was it?” he asked, moving close to her so he wouldn’t be overheard.
She tensed. She couldn’t help it. She could feel the solid presence of his body next to her. She wanted to feel relaxed and confident around him, a grownup woman he’d respect, but instead she was more awkward than the girl who was now wielding the fire extinguisher, laughing as she snuffed out the gas flames.
“It was great,” she said. “I already posted a GIF.”
The way he looked at her, the way she felt around him, it was like being enveloped in a great, buzzing electrical field.
You can’t even think about that, she told herself. It would be a disaster.
But the way she felt … she hadn’t felt that way for a long time. Like he’d turned a key and unlocked something inside of her.
Don’t, she told herself. Just don’t.
“Ready for the speech?” Matt asked Sarah.
She smiled. “Sure,” she said.
The speech was short. Matt presented official commendations to fire and EMS personnel up on stage, thanking them for their courage and dedication to the safety of the city. Then he paused. He’d taken off his cap at the beginning of the speech. You could see his eyes clearly now. They were glistening. Not exactly teary, and maybe it was just from the glare of the sun.
“I just want to say what an honor it has been for me to serve this community. You know, I’ve been a lot of places in my life, and I can honestly say that there isn’t a better spot in the world than right here. And it’s not just because of our weather. Or our beer.”
A few chuckles.
“It’s because of you. All of you. Your tolerance and your strength. Your willingness to come together as a community as a response to a horrible, criminal tragedy.”
Sarah wondered how the community had actually “come together.” Was there any real evidence of that? What did it even mean?
It sounded good, though, and he delivered it well.
“You stared at the face of intolerance and hate, and hate blinked,” Matt continued. He waited a moment, then smiled. “I’m here for the next hour or so to talk to you about your concerns, your ideas, what you’d like to see from me in Washington and how we can all continue to create positive change in our city, together. We don’t have to agree on everything. But let’s keep talking.” He waved toward the booth from the district office. “Hope to see you over there, maybe after you’ve had some tacos and fresh-squeezed lemonade!”
Ben fell alongside of Matt and Sarah as they made their way to the booth. “Pretty sure we have an oppo tracker,” he said in a low voice, pointing to their right, at a young white man wearing a polo shirt and neat khaki shorts who carried a small video camera. “I spotted him during the speech.”
Matt snorted. “Let’s see them make something of that.”
“I’m guessing he’s more interested in the meet and greets. Better chance of something going south.”
Matt lifted one hand in a Boy Scout salute. “I promise to be on my best behavior. Sarah here will keep me on track. Right, Sarah?”
She could feel herself blush. “I’ll do my best.”
It would have been so awesome if he could have completed the mission while that motherfucking traitor was up on stage. Right in the middle of his stupid speech. It would have looked so fucking cool, like a scene from a movie.
But it would have been stupid. He needed to get closer.
And this would be even better, in a way. Let that asshole alpha shit and the stupid little cunt hanging all over him see who he was, look him in the eye, before he did it.
Tegan’s tracker wasn’t even trying to hide it. He stood right there in his polo shirt and Top-Siders recording the meet and greet by the district office booth. “You have any questions?” Matt said, giving him a big smile. “I’d love to hear from you.”
Next to him, Ben snorted.
A good crowd had gathered around Matt, who stood in front of the booth, shaking hands. Sarah stood off to one side so she could record him too. He was so good at this, so comfortable, making eye contact, smiling in a way that looked real. And he listened.
She decided to just let the video roll, see what she got. She held up her phone and touched Record. People came and went. Asked questions about more federal funds for the trolley, about cleaning up the bay, about what to do about a run-down house on the block and airplane noise from Miramar. Nothing special.
A man pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Twenties. Shaved head. Black T-shirt and sagging cargo shorts, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. “Hey! You! You’re supposed to be a big hero? Well fuck you. All you’ve done is shit all over real Americans!”
Matt’s posture changed. He let go of the hand he was shaking. Stepped forward. Held up his hands in a way that was both a signal to calm down and back off, legs slightly bent, like he was ready to fight if he had to. “Okay,” he said. “Why don’t we talk about it? Tell me what your problems are. Let’s see what we can do about them.”
The man stood there, breathing hard. Sarah could smell alcohol fumes coming off him in waves, carried in his breath, in his sweat. “I’m a vet, like you,” he said. “I came home to no fucking job. I can’t even get a job at a fucking McDonald’s. You let Mexicans and rag-heads into this country instead of taking care of our own first. What the fuck, man?”
The crowd scattered back a few feet, leaving the man facing Matt in an empty circle.
Sarah glanced around. Saw an event security guard talking into his radio. Another came trotting over. Matt lifted a hand in warning. Stop.
She’d seen an SDPD squad car in the parking lot. Had they called the police? If s
he moved, would that just set the guy off?
She kept recording.
“I know it’s hard when you come home,” Matt said. “You’re on the other side of the world where things are so different, and your head’s on a swivel all the time. Then you get back here, in just a few hours. To this. Where everything’s the same, but you’re not.” He gestured at the park. At the bouncy castle. You could hear the children, laughing and screaming, guitar chords as the next band warmed up. “People are out here, having a great day, having fun, and it makes no fucking sense to you. You’re still on alert. And you don’t get how these two places can even exist at the same time.”
The man was still breathing hard. He nodded, fractionally.
“I know it can be infuriating, the red tape and the bullshit and having to wait to have some bureaucrat tell you to stand in another fucking line and fill out another goddamn form. I get it. I dealt with some of the same shit when I came home. But I had people in my corner. And I want you to know, you do too. I’m going to put you in touch with someone from my office who can help you, okay? We’ll get your information, and I’m going to tell them who you are, and we’re going to see what we can do. No promises I can find you a job. But I promise we’re going to do our best to help you.”
The man’s shoulders slumped. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him. “Okay,” he said.
A light tap on the shoulder. It was Ben, who’d moved alongside her. “You getting this?” he mouthed. She nodded.
Matt stretched out his hand. After a moment, the man took it. Matt placed his left hand on top of the man’s. Grasped it. Said something so quietly that Sarah couldn’t hear it. The man nodded, face tilted down, staring at his shoes. He might have been crying.
They stood there, the two of them, like there was no one else around.
Matt looked up. Met Sarah’s eyes. One brow lifted fractionally—a half a smile. Almost a wink, like, Can you believe this?
Like it was their own private joke.
“Congressman?”
Sarah looked over and saw a young man in a black windbreaker. Stocky. Sunglasses. That was all she saw, before the gun.
16
Shit! He’d had a clear shot, and then that crazy asshole got in the way, and he couldn’t wait any longer, rent-a-cops were already here, and a real cop heading this way at a run.
Now or never.
Now.
Shots. Someone, something, slammed into her and she fell, and there were more shots, and screams, and then the shots stopped and the screams continued, someone was lying next to her, moaning, and she opened her eyes and saw Matt, blood covering his face like a mask, his fist driving into the face of a man on the ground, over and over. She thought she heard a snap of bone, like when you cracked a chicken wing, as blood gushed from the man’s nose, his mouth, she could hear him choking on his own blood, and Matt kept hitting him, his eyes wild, his lips drawn back in a snarl.
17
She went running. That was one of the only things Lindsey could think of to do when she felt like this. Well, one of the only things that wasn’t stupidly self-destructive.
It was just after two o’clock. She generally liked running earlier in the morning or right around sunset, but the weather was good now: partly cloudy, with a cool breeze, enough humidity to make the air feel soothing on her skin.
Slow down, she told herself. If she started out too fast, she would burn out before she even got going, and the way she was feeling now, she needed to run a good long time. Just exhaust herself. Sweat it all out, the rage, the hurt, until she stopped feeling anything, just her feet hitting the sidewalk, her muscles carrying her along, the cool air on her skin, filling her lungs. In and out.
Goddamn it. What the fuck was she going to do? This … she couldn’t keep doing this. They’d been together twelve years, maybe that was long enough. She could still have a kid, if she wanted one. Well, maybe. Thirty-six years old, that didn’t leave much time. But not with him. He was so fucking unplugged, it was like they existed in parallel orbits, never really connecting.
The way he looked at that girl … for all she knew he was already fucking her. He was always looking. Looking for someone younger, someone prettier, someone more exotic, more dangerous, someone different. That was the main thing. The novelty. That he could turn it on and take what he wanted. If he wanted to. That was the other thing. She wasn’t sure he even followed through anymore. It was enough that he knew he could.
She decided to run up into the Western Hills, the section of Clairemont above Bay Park. The hills were punishing, but she was in the mood for that. Which was stupid. Why should she punish herself? What had she done wrong?
Still, the hills were a good way to push herself. Just focus on getting up the hill. One foot after another. Stop thinking about all this shit.
She jogged up Milton, passing the back of the car dealership off Morena. That car dealership had long irritated her. It thrust into a residential neighborhood, the huge lot where new cars were parked cutting off direct routes to the other side of it for blocks. You’d try to get through the neighborhood, and if you calculated wrong, you’d run into a literal brick wall. Dead-ends.
Tegan’s husband owned car dealerships. That was where her money came from. Not this one, she didn’t think. Too bad. She’d love to hammer them on the negative impact poor planning like this had on neighborhoods. The city of San Diego had an ambitious climate action plan that was supposed to encourage walking, biking, alternative forms of transportation, to get people out of their cars. And here you were, forced to go blocks out of your way because of a huge car lot where the cars weren’t even moving. Just sitting there.
When she got to the top of Milton, she paused to catch her breath and take a long drink of water. The views were beautiful up here. She could see the bay straight ahead, Fiesta Island, the Strand, the marine layer nestled against the ocean beyond, waiting to roll in as the sun went down. If she ran another block or two, she could see the harbor and Point Loma. On a clear day, the Coronado Islands.
She felt calmer now. Exhaustion would do that. Hang tough for the campaign, she told herself. Wait till the election is over before you do anything. You owe him that.
But did she, really? When he wasn’t willing to do the work that needed to be done?
You owe the country, then, she thought. God knows Matt, for all his faults, was a better choice to represent the district than Kimberly Tegan.
Which way now?
North was a small park with trails where she sometimes liked to run. The only real problem with it was no bathroom. South was Tecolote Park, which would be a longer run. But there were bathrooms, and if they were locked, there were restaurants and breweries close by where she could stop in if need be. Maybe she’d have a drink at the bar down on Morena where she and Matt used to go. The High Dive specialized in craft beer (of course), and it was a friendly place, with burgers and tacos, old-school pinball games and Tiki decor. They’d hang out there, split a plate of happy hour Gorgonzola fries, drink a few beers, play some pinball.
We used to have fun together, Lindsey thought. She started running south.
The route took her down and then up a hill and into a canyon. It was an odd neighborhood, a mix of newer tracts, expensive homes, and older houses and apartments, some of which were really run-down, the kind of thing you expected to see in a slum. Clairemont was like that, though. It varied from block to block, sometimes from house to house.
This particular canyon seemed almost cut off from the larger neighborhood. The houses here were oddly spaced and mismatched, not part of any planned development. There were mature trees, RVs parked on vacant corners, a couple of junked cars. The canyon walls left much of the area in shade. It was quiet down here too. You could hear muffled traffic from the freeway, but only if you listened. No children playing. Just a distant leaf blower.
Lindsey stopped for more water. Across the street was a large house, two stories with a balcony. Gray streaks ran down the white stucco walls. The big gravel driveway yard was parked up with vehicles: two new Beemers, a Jeep, an ATV, a vintage Indian motorcycle, and a powerboat on a trailer. Two German shepherds patrolled the large front yard, which was mostly patchy grass interwoven with weeds.
Weird, Lindsey thought. The slightly run-down, overly large house, like a stucco plantation, and all the expensive cars.
A blond woman came out the front door wearing a white blazer and a bright orange blouse. Thin, in decent shape, Lindsey thought. A few years older than she was.
Shit, was that Kimberly Tegan?
Lindsey ran through the facts that she had in her head, and realized that, yes, Kim Tegan lived in this neighborhood, and yes, that absolutely could be her.
She tucked her water bottle back in her fanny pack. The last thing she wanted was for the opposition candidate to think she’d been spying on her.
The woman was walking toward one of the Mercedes when she looked up and saw Lindsey. Her face changed. It was hard to identify her expression behind the sunglasses. It was more the tilt of her head, a kind of wariness. Then, something else. A decision made.
Tegan strode across the street, closing the distance quickly. “Aren’t you Lindsey Cason?”
“I … yes.”
“I think you know who I am, right?”
“I … well, I don’t think we’ve actually met. You’re Kim Tegan?” Lindsey waved toward the street she’d jogged down. “I was just out running.” Stupid thing to say, but it was true, and the optics on this weren’t great.
She couldn’t place Tegan’s expression. The sunglasses Tegan wore blocked access to her eyes.
Tegan seemed to shake herself for a moment, like a dog or cat who’d gotten unexpectedly wet. “I guess … you haven’t heard?”
Black Swan Rising Page 12
