by Meg Gardiner
Tim had spirited me away from bad men lurking outside the house, but was sending Jesse inside?
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said.
“Bloody hell.” He hit the power button, shoved the phone back into my hands, and fired up the car. “The Mercury just started up and drove past Jesse.”
He threw the BMW into gear. We leaped away from the curb and roared down Pedregosa.
“Why didn’t you tell him to watch out?” I said.
The street bled by. I started to turn the phone back on. Before I could flinch, Tim slapped it from my hand.
“Presume they can intercept or triangulate any calls you make,” he said.
Hand stinging, I stared at him. “He doesn’t know there’s trouble. We have to go back to my house.”
In answer, he gunned the car around a corner onto a side street heading toward the Old Mission.
“What are you doing? You’re going to leave Jesse to face—”
“They’re not after Jesse. They’re after you.”
He poured straight through a stop sign. The street was narrow, cars lining the curbs, live oaks hanging overhead. He powered around another corner.
He didn’t know where he was going.
“Tim, the streets only get tighter this way. You have to get out of this neighborhood or we’ll get stuck in a dead end.”
He shifted again, pushing the car to sixty. His face was set, his eyes bouncing between road and rearview mirror.
“How?” he said.
I fumbled for my seat belt and buckled up. “Left at the corner.”
He kept his foot down and we half slid around.
“Jesus.” I threw myself back and jammed my feet against the floor as if braking.
Dead ahead a garbage truck was stopped in the middle of the road. Yellow lights flashed on the roof of the cab. Two crewmen were jogging toward it, pulling trash cans. Tim slammed on the brakes, snapping me forward as we shrieked to a stop. The crew bolted for the sidewalk.
We couldn’t get around the truck. Tim tossed the car into reverse and screeched back up the street through scorched rubber and the shouts of the garbagemen. At the corner he threw the wheel, spun us around ninety degrees, and barreled off in another direction.
“Get off this street,” I said.
“Where? Get me out of this labyrinth.”
We were heading downhill back toward my house. Laguna Street would work, and if we could hit Anacapa, it would be a four-minute drive to the police station.
“Second left.”
Tim downshifted and swung wide, preparing to shave the corner.
Ahead, a white car came into view, heading for the intersection from the right. Maybe not, I thought, maybe that’s not the car—
Tim hissed and spun the wheel. The BMW snapped into a power slide. We swung around and I hit the door. Ahead, the white car stopped in the intersection, blocking us, and all at once I found myself in a movie where you know what’s coming next, except that at the theater I could stand up, walk out, throw popcorn at the screen, and say, “This is bullshit—”
The BMW plowed over the curb onto a front lawn. Green turf thudded into the air and across the windows and hood of the car. The car clipped a fire hydrant with a huge clanging sound and bounced to a stop.
The white Mercury was directly ahead of us. In front of it stood a pale man with a black goatee, long hair flying in the wind. In the stormy light, I saw a dark object in his right hand. He raised his arm.
Every hair on my body stood up. He was going to shoot us.
Hands out, I screamed, “Don’t!” Tim shouted, “Get down!” and gunned the engine, spinning the wheel. The back of the BMW pinwheeled, and as I ducked I saw a flash erupt from the muzzle of the gun. Above my head the window shattered. Below the roar of the engine, the report came like a pop.
Clenching my arms over my head, I tried to hide but had no place to go. I heard metal drumming into the front of the car. Jesus, more gunfire. The car kept doing a doughnut, and whang, we hit something solid and stopped dead. I heard a spewing sound, and the sky seemed to cut loose with rain.
I felt paralyzed with fear. If I moved, the gunman would see me. But the car wasn’t rolling, and if I didn’t move I was a stationary target, and I knew I had to move, had to get out of this car. I turned my head, trying to see what to do.
“Stay down,” Tim said.
He was above me, leaning across to the passenger side. Outside the window a shadow appeared. Pure, bright terror flew through me. The gunman was right there.
The report was deafening, incredible noise right above my ear. I screamed again. The tang of cordite filled my nose.
A heavy weight landed on me. Oh, God, Tim had fallen over. Was he hit?
But he hadn’t collapsed; he was climbing over me, shoving open the passenger door, and lurching out into the street. The rain thundered, a waterfall. Deep in my gut, admiration told me that Tim had put himself between me and the gunman. I moved, feeling abject mortification that it had taken this to free me from my paralysis. I was covered in glass. Unbuckling my seat belt, I peered out.
Water was cascading onto the car, obscuring the view out the rear window. The fire hydrant was geysering.
Through the door frame I saw Tim standing in the street. In his right hand he held a pistol aimed at the ground. Gingerly I pulled myself up, glass nicking my palms.
The gunman lay wounded on his back in the road, staring up past the barrel of the pistol into Tim’s eyes.
Tim kicked the man’s own gun from his hand. “Where’s my wife?”
Water from the fire hydrant sluiced down on the roof of the car. The man’s reply was inaudible.
“Fuck money. I don’t want money. Where’s my wife?”
Mist flew from the edges of the hydrant geyser, spinning into rainbow. Blood flowed from beneath the gunman’s back, mixed with the water, and ran toward the gutter.
He raised a hand, feebly, palm out to ward Tim off. “ . . . don’t know.”
“Where?” Tim said.
“I don’t know.” His hand hovered in front of his face.
Tim stared down at him, heedless of the water raining on his shoulders.
He blew the man’s brains out.
6
Water continued spewing from the fire hydrant. In the street, blood pooled under the gunman. From beneath his head a revolting spatter fanned out.
Tim kicked a lifeless arm off the man’s chest, the arm that three seconds earlier had been raised to fend him off, and bent to rifle through his pockets. He took the man’s phone and wallet. Stepping back from the body, he glanced around at the asphalt. He picked up a shiny object from the road, searched some more, and picked up a second one. He was collecting the spent brass from the cartridges he’d fired, getting rid of the evidence.
He looked up at me. His face was emotionless, his eyes analytical.
I scrambled like a wildcat across the gearshift and driver’s seat and shoved open the driver’s door and stumbled out of the car. Water from the busted fire hydrant cascaded over me. I bolted, eyes on the far end of the street, thinking, Get there, and not even pausing to breathe. Ten yards, twenty, sprinting like hell.
Footsteps closed on me from behind. Tim grabbed my wrist. I shouted, just shrieking, and tried to pull away. He got his other hand around my waist. The gun was in his right hand.
“Let go. Let me go, let go, God—”
“Shut up and get back in the car.”
I fought him, writhing, but instead of stopping me he kept running, swinging me around with his momentum and angling back toward the BMW.
Toward the body of the man he had just executed. I dug my heels into the road.
“Bloody idiot, if you want to get out of here, get in the car. The other one’s still out there.”
My mind wasn’t working linearly; my feet were still digging in. Damn, damn. “The second man?”
“Will be coming on foot.”
I stoppe
d fighting. Hanging onto me, Tim rushed back and bundled me into the BMW. I scanned the scene.
“What if he’s at my place? What if he went after Jesse?”
He jumped in and turned the key in the ignition. “I’m not going back to find out.” The car didn’t start. He tried again. “Come on.”
My phone was on the floor. I grabbed it and turned it on. Tim tossed me the wallet and phone he’d taken from the gunman.
“See who he is.” The engine struggled to catch. “Start, you piece of German scheisse.”
Up the street a front door opened and someone peered out. Down the road, traffic had stopped. One car was turning around, bugging out of here. I pushed speed dial, put my phone to my ear, and fumbled the wallet open. The engine caught. I heard Jesse’s cell phone ringing.
Tim yanked the phone from my hand. “I told you to shut that off.”
He smashed it against the dashboard. I recoiled. He tossed the phone on the floor, jammed the car in gear, and gunned the engine. The tires spun in the mud.
“The wallet,” he said.
Dazed, I opened it.
Tim muttered under his breath. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
I looked up. From the far corner of the intersection a man was running toward us. He was young and sleek, dressed in a black coat and sweater and jeans, dark hair swirling in the wind. He caught sight of the mayhem in the street and windmilled to a stop.
Tim gunned the engine again. The car clawed its way out of the mud, jerked over the curb, and leaped forward. The man in black stared openmouthed at the gunman’s body. Tim aimed the BMW straight at him.
For a second the man continued staring. Snapping out of it, he reached to the small of his back and drew a gun. Tim aimed the car at the sidewalk, putting the man dead in his sights.
The man broke, sprinting out of our way across a lawn and around the corner of a house. Tim sped past. Looking back, I saw a black coat disappear through somebody’s gate. A horn blared. Tim swerved and careered down the street. Things were collapsing, my heart shrinking in my chest.
Tim’s voice cut through the wool in my head. “Who was he?”
Trees and houses and parked cars streaked by. I looked again at the wallet. Inside I saw the face of the dead gunman, glowering from his official photograph. I saw the badge, with the acronym ICE and the golden eagle atop the U.S. government seal.
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” I said. “You killed a federal agent.”
When he hit the top of the hill Christian glanced back down at the neighborhood. Cop cars everywhere, and Boyd with his head sprayed across the intersection. He kept running, getting it straight in his mind. When he neared the hotel he made the call. Hearing the number ring, he slowed to a walk, grinding his teeth.
“Christian? What is the status?”
She was impatient; he heard the tone.
“Christian?”
He put a hand to his stomach. “Boyd Davies is dead.”
He strode into the grounds of the hotel, waiting for the eruption. It didn’t come.
“Tell me,” she said.
He talked, making sure to describe his part, how he chased the Delaney woman on foot, catching up too late.
“Davies was dead when I got there,” he said.
“Does Bliss have the Delaney girl?”
Steady, he had to be rock steady. “I sent Bliss back to L.A. beforehand. It was just Boyd and me.”
Silence throbbed from the phone, but the lid stayed on. He strode across the grounds. “Bliss installed the tracking program on Boyd’s phone. She thought that would be enough for her to stay on his trail if—”
“So the Delaney girl got away.”
And instantly he felt four feet tall, ten years old, standing in the middle of the room in a puddle of his own urine, grown-ups staring at him.
“You let her escape. Our best chance to get the information.”
“This BMW nearly ran me down. I had to dive out of the way. Rio, she tried to kill me.”
“Did she hurt you?” She went quiet. “You sound winded. Christian, sit down; take your pulse.”
“No, I’m fine. Rio, she was with a man. White guy, ugly. And there was another guy, outside her house. In a wheelchair.”
He crossed the hotel grounds to his villa. Manicured lawns spilled down the hillside, and middle-aged bikinis lounged around the pool, all Botox and mimosas sipped through tiny straws—El Encanto had the whole quiet-money thing going on.
Her voice stayed level. “Forget the men. We don’t have the Delaney girl. We have to go to our fallback.”
He knew already; she didn’t have to tell him. Get Evan Delaney and use her as leverage to force Phil to give up the information. But now that was blown. The glossy sunlight irked him.
“Christian, we cannot miss again. Do I have to remind you what is at stake? What she and her family owe us?”
“We’re owed a death. And we’ll get it.” He unlocked the door to his villa. “What do you want me to do?”
“I will take care of it. Get out of Santa Barbara.”
The villa felt chilly. Its adobe walls were good and thick; you could screw at top volume all night long, service the Santa Barbara polo team or whoever stayed here. Rotate two or three of the girls in and out—ten-thousand-dollar night if you worked it right. He tossed his hair out of his eyes.
“If Boyd is dead,” she said, “the police will be after her. We must get the information as soon as possible. Every hour that passes gives them time to shut this down.”
In the ornate gilded mirror over the fireplace, he saw stress lines around his mouth. His eyes looked wan. He needed to redye his eyelashes.
“Evan Delaney is our one chance to get what we need. What you need. We cannot miss again.”
The threat was behind her words. Always: or else. His reflection seemed to flatten, as if he were transparent. His hands were cold. His hematocrit was dropping.
“Christian, I know you want to handle Phil Delaney yourself. But get the prize, and he will die knowing that everything he fought to protect is ruined.” Her tone lifted. “This is our future, the Sanger name. I’m counting on you being at my side.”
He breathed out. “I understand.”
“Excellent. Hurry back, Christian. I love you.”
There was lint on his sweater. Seven-hundred-dollar cashmere, the thing should repel lint. He picked it off and flicked it away as if it were larval.
“I love you too, Mom.”
Wind poured through the shattered window of the BMW, whipping my hair against my face. Outside, an upscale neighborhood blurred by, the white walls of Spanish-style homes dappled with stormy light. The noise of the engine drilled through my head. I wanted to be sick.
Tim drove with one hand on the wheel, one on the stick, eyes dead. “What’s the quickest way to Bautista Street?”
My thought processes seemed to be coagulating into a gelatinous mass. I stared at the badge in my hand, the photo of the federal agent whose head Tim had emptied onto the road.
“Bautista. Evan, for fucksake.”
His tone brought my eyes up. He was sweating.
“Left. At the corner, and down three blocks.” Thinking: We need to get to the police station. “Why Bautista?”
“Dump this car.”
With that, I snapped. “Dump this car? It’s not enough you just murdered a man—now you want to commit grand theft auto?”
He took the corner hard, grimacing.
“Why stop there? How about committing some other felonies? Maybe arson? Bribery? Robbery? Wait, I forgot—you already robbed the corpse of the man you shot in the head.”
I hit him in the shoulder with the wallet. Over and over.
He reached out and shoved me by the face toward the shattered window.
“Get this through your brain. That was no cop on duty, performing an arrest. Mr.”—he snatched the wallet and glanced at the name—“Boyd Davies was two seconds from putting a round through your tem
ple.”
“You executed him.”
“He was working with the people who ambushed your father. That tells you the kind of cop he was.”
The wind whistled around me. My clothes were wet, cold, and studded with glass. I needed help, needed somehow to pull out of this catastrophe. I had to get to the police.
Tim would never do that. I had to get away from him.
He heaved the BMW around the corner onto Bautista, swinging wide and overcorrecting sharply. The road was winding and empty of traffic. Two hundred yards along he swerved to the curb behind a parked red SUV.
He turned off the engine. “Get out. Bring everything.”
I stuffed the dossiers inside the manila envelope and put Davies’s phone and wallet, along with my own smashed phone, in the backpack. The spent cartridges rattled in Tim’s pocket. Distantly I heard sirens.
“And so you know,” he said, “I’m not going to add auto theft to the list.”
“No?”
“No. I already stole this BMW.”
I put the heel of my palm to my forehead. He opened his door, turned to look at me, and sank back against his seat.
“You want to go to the police?” He jerked his head in the direction of the sirens. “They’re on the scene. Go ahead. Get arrested.”
“You want me to keep your name out of it?”
His gaze had a serrated edge. “Boyd Davies was a U.S. special agent. Nothing else will—” He looked around, frowning. “What’s that sound?”
Inside my backpack, a phone was ringing.
“I told you to turn the bloody thing off; they’re probably triangulating the—”
“It’s not mine.” I opened the pack. “It’s his.”
I took out Davies’s phone. The display said PRIVATE CALL. Tim and I exchanged a glance.
“Answer it,” he said.
With trepidation I flipped it open. “Yes?”
“If you let this situation run out of control, things will go badly. Your father isn’t feeling well, and if you lose it again, he’ll die.”
