“We’ve already talked about it. She has a meeting with a counselor this week. I’m going with her.”
“That’s good.”
“But I can’t help wondering if Roy’s going to show up again, drag her back down with him.”
“Not this time,” Crissa said.
* * *
She stowed her bag in the trunk of the rental, looked up the driveway to where Haley sat on a flat rock by the creek. She’d watched Crissa getting ready, packing her bag. Then she’d taken her iPod out to the creek, and hadn’t come back.
Claudette came out of the house, over to the car. “Is this it? Are you going?”
Crissa shut the trunk. “You know how to reach me. If something comes up, I’ll get back down here as soon as I can.”
“You can stay, you know.”
Crissa looked at her.
“As long as you want,” Claudette said. “Nancy and I talked about it. It might be a good thing for all of us. You, too.”
“Thanks, but I have places I need to be.”
“Where?”
Crissa didn’t answer.
“I’m not sure where you’re going,” Claudette said, “or exactly who you are, to be honest. But I want you to know that whatever happens, whatever trouble you run into, you’ll always be welcome here.”
Crissa nodded, looked up at the creek. Haley hadn’t moved.
“Thanks for that,” Crissa said. “I guess I’ll say my good-byes, get going.”
She walked up the driveway, Claudette watching her. Haley was throwing pebbles into the water. She wore the Mickey Mouse T-shirt Crissa had bought her.
“Hey, angel.”
Haley didn’t turn.
Crissa sat beside her. “I wanted to say—”
Haley got up, walked fast to the house, ran the last few feet. Crissa watched her go. The screen door closed behind her.
I don’t blame you, Crissa thought. Hold on to that anger. You’ll need it.
She went back to the car, got behind the wheel, started the engine.
Backing down the driveway, she saw Haley at the front door, looking through the screen, Claudette behind her.
She braked. The screen door flew open, and Haley came out running. Claudette stayed in the doorway.
Crissa got out of the car just as Haley reached the end of the path. She held her arms out, and Haley flew into them, hugged her, squeezing hard. Crissa squeezed back, felt her warmth, smelled her hair. She held her for a long time, neither of them speaking. Claudette stood behind the screen door, watching.
“Okay, angel,” Crissa said. “Time for you to go back inside.” Haley held her tighter.
Crissa reached behind, gently loosened her grip. “Your mom’s waiting for you.”
Haley let go, looked up, and Crissa waited for the question to follow. Instead, she turned away, started back up the path to the house. Claudette held the screen door open. Haley went inside, and Claudette looked back at Crissa, then followed her in. The door shut behind them.
Crissa got in the car, backed out onto the road, stopped there, looking at the house. Haley hadn’t been crying. That little girl, she thought, is tougher than you think.
She headed up the coast road to I-95. She’d return the car in Jacksonville, take Amtrak from there. In a little more than a day, she’d be home.
She drove on, took her sunglasses from the rearview, put them on. But it didn’t help the stinging in her eyes.
TWENTY-FIVE
“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Walt Rathka said.
She set the two Whole Foods bags on the floor by his desk. She could hear the traffic on Fifth Avenue, twelve stories below.
“Thought your diet could use a little improvement,” she said. “More natural foods, less processed.”
There were fruit and vegetables in both bags. Beneath them, a sheet of newspaper, then neat stacks of banded bills.
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said. He was in his late fifties, wore a dark suit with a blue club tie and suspenders. “Thanks for thinking of me. How natural?”
She took the seat opposite his desk, tapped her left ear.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Things have calmed down a bit. And I’m having this place swept once a week now. It’s expensive, but you can’t put a price on peace of mind, can you?”
“No,” she said. “You can’t.” She nodded at the bags. “One-sixty. Give or take.”
He gave a low whistle. “In two weeks? I hope that didn’t involve any unnecessary risk.”
“Unexpected,” she said. “But not unnecessary.”
“Cryptic as always. And how fresh would these provisions be?”
“Very. Raw, actually. They could use a good washing.”
“Ah,” he said. “That’s good to know. You have a preference as to the method?”
“Whatever needs topping off. But I want you to set up something else, too, another offshore account, with a monthly payout to a name and address I’ll give you.”
“Another one? How much?”
“Five hundred a month. For now.”
“Five hundred,” he said. “That adds up. You’re being generous.”
“But you can do it?”
“Take me a couple weeks, but I think I can get it going for you. How are things besides that?”
“Good enough,” she said.
“That’s not very convincing.”
“It is what it is.”
“Money to spend but nothing to spend it on?” he said.
“Something like that.”
“Well, you’re very practical-minded, I know. But if someday you’re interested in entering the world of fine art acquisition, let me know. I could make some suggestions.”
She smiled. “I don’t think so. It would be wasted on me. I wouldn’t know the good from the bad.”
“Who does? It’s not about good and bad. Anyway, that’s all relative.”
“Isn’t everything?” she said.
* * *
The man in the guayabera shirt put on his reading glasses, looked at the sheet of paper Crissa had given him. They were in the back office of a storefront insurance company in Jersey City. All the signs in the front window were in Spanish.
“I’ll need another picture, of course,” he said. “You want to take it now?”
“No. I’ll come back tomorrow. I need to make some alterations first.”
She set the thick manila envelope on the desk. “Same as last time. Half now, half when it’s ready.”
He sat back, took off his glasses. “Señora, I have no problem taking your money, you know that. And I’ll always be grateful to my cousin Hector”—he crossed himself—“for introducing us. But I have to ask: The other two aren’t good enough? You need a third?”
“You’re an artist, Emilio. The best. But this one I want for a specific purpose, and one purpose only. And no passport this time, just a driver’s license, birth certificate, and credit card. They need to hold up to a general background check, though, so they have to be solid.”
He picked up the paper again. “I don’t even know what a Texas license looks like. I’ll have to do some research.”
“I’m sure you can work it out.”
He set his glasses on the desk. “I’ve never thought of you as a customer, señora. More as a colleague.”
“Likewise.”
“But I can’t help be concerned. Every time I take on one of these, it increases our risk.”
“That’s what the money’s for.”
“Si. But it’s not just about the money. When I worked for the DMV in Newark, I could run off licenses all day. No one cared as long as the supervisors got their cut. But these days, no one looks the other way. It’s a federal thing. Prison, maybe.”
“Risks we take.”
“And you’re only going to use it for one thing?”
“And one thing only,” she said. “Four times a year. Five at most. Only one or two people will ever see it. I just need to keep
it separate from the others. Those are for emergencies.”
He nodded. “I’ll do the best I can for you, Miss…” He looked at the paper. “Patrick?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Shana Patrick, from Austin, Texas. That’s a good Anglo name. I like that name.”
“Let’s hope it’s a lucky one,” she said.
TWENTY-SIX
The line moved slowly, the guard at the door checking IDs against the clipboard he held. There would be two more inside, a man and a woman, to do the pat-downs, search the strollers. She was tired from the flight, the drive down from San Antonio, and as the line moved forward, she felt the knot in her stomach tighten.
The blacktop was soft under her feet, the heat coming up through her sneakers. In front of her, a black girl barely out of her teens rocked the child she was holding. It was a little girl, maybe a year old, pink bows in her hair. She looked over her mother’s shoulder at Crissa, reached. Crissa put out her hand, let the girl take her finger, squeeze. The mother patted the girl’s back, turned to look at Crissa and smiled, and then the line was moving again.
When Crissa reached the guard, she handed over her driver’s license without being asked. He took it, matched it against the names on the approved visitors sheet, said, “Cap and sunglasses.”
She took off the baseball cap, stuck it in the back pocket of her jeans. Her hair was cut short, dyed black. When she removed her sunglasses, the guard held the license up to her face, looked at both, and handed the license back to her without a word.
Inside, a female guard patted her down, pointed to a Plexiglas window with a metal shelf. There was a desk beyond the glass, a black woman there talking on the phone. On the shelf was the spiral ledger that served as the visitors log. There was a cheap plastic pen beside it, taped to a piece of string tied to one of the spirals.
The room was already half full. Mostly women, mostly black or Hispanic, small children in tow. Black and white checkered floor, vending machines against one wall. Cameras high in every corner. Two guards at the door and two more standing around, watching.
She signed the log the way she’d practiced. A guard pointed her to an empty table in a corner. The table and benches were all bolted down. She sat with her back to the wall, facing the security door on the other side of the room. Sunlight came through the window above and behind her, lit dust motes in the air. She put her sunglasses back on, closed her eyes.
She tried to slow her breathing, listened to the noises around her. The security door opening and closing, soft conversations in Spanish, babies crying. But she was drifting. In her mind was the glow of a fire in night woods, muzzle flashes in a dark kitchen.
She heard the security door buzz open, felt him before she saw him. She opened her eyes, and he was standing there in front of her, black hair combed back, streaked with silver, more than she remembered, a lopsided grin. She took off her sunglasses.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said.
ALSO BY WALLACE STROBY
Kings of Midnight
Cold Shot to the Heart
Gone ’til November
The Heartbreak Lounge
The Barbed-Wire Kiss
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wallace Stroby is an award-winning journalist and a former editor at The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey. This is his sixth novel, following the acclaimed Kings of Midnight. He lives in New Jersey. The Crissa Stone novels are in development for a TV series by Showtime.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SHOOT THE WOMAN FIRST. Copyright © 2013 by Wallace Stroby. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photographs: Detroit at night © Matthew Minucci; woman by Steve Gardner
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-00038-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02247-9 (e-book)
e-ISBN 978125022479
First Edition: December 2013
Shoot the Woman First Page 20
