Killer Swell nb-1

by Jeff Shelby

  Emily was sitting on one of the lounge chairs.

  “Emily?”

  She turned in my direction and stood up. “Noah.” She looked at the gun. “Did I do something wrong?”

  I ducked back in the house, replaced the safety, and set it on the dining room table, then joined Emily outside.

  “No, sorry,” I said. “Just being careful.”

  She studied me for a second. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  A braid of long blond hair hung over her shoulder. She wore a red T-shirt and white walking shorts. White leather sandals matched the shorts. She stuck her hands in her pockets. “Should I not be here?”

  A good question that I was having trouble finding the answer to.

  “It’s fine,” I told her. I pointed to the chair she’d been sitting in when I’d arrived. “I’m sorry. Sit.”

  She did, not taking her eyes off me.

  “Carter’s in the hospital,” I said, sitting in the chair next to her.

  Her mouth tightened. “What happened?”

  I told her.

  When I was through, she asked, “Is this because of Kate?”

  “I think so.”

  She leaned back into her chair, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. I’m so sorry.”

  I nodded, as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and set it on the small resin table. I stared at it for a moment, wondering what I would hear when it eventually rang.

  “Can I do anything?” Emily asked.

  “No. The hospital will call when they have something to tell me. Just have to wait.” I stared out at the horizon, the sun a faint yellow smudge hovering over the water.

  She reached over and touched my arm. “He’ll be okay.”

  I tried to smile. “Probably.” I changed the subject. “What’s up? Why are you here?”

  A reluctant smile emerged. “No reason, really. Just thought I’d come see you. I mean, after last night and everything.”

  Last night seemed like last year.

  “Uh, yeah,” I mumbled, at a loss for what to say.

  She tugged gently on her braid. “Weird, huh?”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “But good,” she said, her eyes searching my face.

  “But good.”

  We watched the smudge disappear completely, tucking in behind the blue of the water.

  “So now what?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  “I’m not sure,” Emily said. “I was thinking we could talk about it, but now, with Carter…it doesn’t seem like the best time.”

  I agreed, never being one for those kinds of discussions even when my best friend wasn’t in the hospital. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “You want me to leave?”

  I shifted in the chair. “Em, I’m not sure about this whole you-and-me thing yet. There’s so much going on right now that I need to go slow.”

  “I didn’t mean should I stay so we can sleep together again,” she said, staring at me. “I’m all for the slow thing, too.” She paused for a moment and glanced toward the water. “All I could think about today was Kate. I felt like…I don’t know. Every time I thought of you today, about last night, I felt guilty.” She looked back at me. “So all I meant was that I wondered if maybe you wanted to be by yourself.”

  My assumption made me feel silly, and I felt better that we were thinking along the same lines. I stood up, walked inside, grabbed the carton of beer, and brought it out to the patio with a bottle opener. I opened two and handed her one.

  “Company would be good,” I said. “Stay for a while.”

  So she did.

  29

  Emily left around midnight, and my cell phone rang at six the next morning.

  I fumbled around on the nightstand but couldn’t find it. I sat up and realized it wasn’t in the room. I found the phone on the dining room table next to my gun.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Braddock?”

  “Yeah, who’s this?”

  “This is Beth from UCSD Trauma. The chart said to call this number if there was any status change with Patient Hamm.”

  My stomach tightened. “Right. How is he?”

  “He’s awake.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  I skipped my morning session on the lonely water and made the drive to UCSD in twenty-five minutes. Beth directed me to Carter’s room and told me I only had fifteen minutes to talk with him.

  His head rolled in my direction when I entered. He was stretched out on an uncomfortable-looking bed, a pale blue blanket pulled up to his waist. A tube snaked its way into his bare chest, an IV line making its way into each of his arms. His skin was pale, his eyes bloodshot. An oxygen tube curled into his nostrils.

  He tried to smile anyway. “Dude.”

  I pulled a chair from under the window over next to the bed. “Dude yourself.”

  His eyes did a slow take around the room and then landed back on me. “This sucks.”

  “I’ll say.”

  He swallowed hard. “Doctor said I’m going back to surgery this morning.”

  “Why?”

  “Bullets and shit still in me.”

  “I’m sorry, Carter.”

  He stared at me for a second, his eyes trying to focus. “Why? Did you shoot me?”

  “No. But I got you into this.”

  He swallowed again and grunted. “Shut up, dude. You didn’t do anything.”

  “You knew Costilla was bad news. Liz told me stay away. I didn’t listen to either of you.”

  Carter looked at each of his arms, then the tube in his chest. “I look like a giant slurpee, bunch of fucking straws in me.”

  “Carter, I’m sorry,” I said, a mixture of worry and guilt churning inside of me.

  He wheezed a little and looked at me again. “Noah?”

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  I figured I could badger him with my guilt another time. “Okay.”

  He shut his eyes. “Know who it was yet?”

  “No. Liz was here last night. They have the one I hit, but nobody else yet.”

  “He talking?”

  “Not as of last night. But Ken Crier told me a few things.”

  He opened his eyes and shifted his head in my direction. “Like what?”

  I told him about the heroin and Randall.

  “Jesus,” he said when I finished. “Kate was moving in different circles, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  “You gonna go see Randall?”

  “Yup,” I said, his name lighting a fire in my gut.

  “Can’t it wait till I’m out?” he said, trying to smile. “I’d love to get a piece of that guy.”

  “You know me,” I told him. “I’m impatient. And little pieces might be all that’s left when I’m done with him.”

  He started to laugh, changed it to a grunt, suddenly looking exhausted.

  The door to the room opened and a nurse informed us that it was time for me to go, as Carter needed to be prepped for surgery.

  I stood. “I’ll be back this afternoon.”

  “Good. Bring me some beer and a burrito.”

  I glanced at the nurse by the door, the stern look on her face saying not a chance.

  I looked back at Carter. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I headed toward the door.

  “Noah?”

  I stopped. “Yeah?”

  He squeezed one eye shut, kept the other bloodshot eye on me. “Kick his ass.”

  30

  I called the La Valencia Hotel from my cell phone, but got no answer at Randall’s hotel room. I drove into La Jolla, parked on Ivanhoe, grabbed a bagel from a deli, and sat on the curb across the street from the hotel.

  I kept running my conversation with Ken over in my head, trying to put the pieces together so that they fit a little more snugly. The biggest missing piece was figuring out why Kate would cover for Randall. I
couldn’t find a reason to take a hit like that for someone, particularly if their marriage was already imploding.

  The other question that bothered me was where Kate had gone after the DEA lost her in Tijuana. She’d been missing for seventy-two hours when I’d found her. What had Costilla’s men done with her in that time? It was simple to assume that Costilla’s men had killed her. But the one thing that stuck in my head was that leaving her body in Mexico would have been much easier, and harder to find. Why bring her back over to the United States?

  I finished the bagel and tugged on that thought until Randall appeared, walking up the other side of Prospect. His plaid short-sleeve button down, white shorts, and tan boat shoes were standard issue if you were going for a walk in La Jolla.

  I crossed the street quickly and cut him off before he reached the hotel.

  He didn’t look happy to see me. “What the hell do you want?”

  “A small bag of heroin. Got any on you?”

  The blood drained from his face, and he took a step back.

  “Guess not,” I said. “Then I guess a private conversation with you will have to do for now.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” he said, trying to regain his composure.

  I slipped my gun out of the back of my shorts and held it casually in front of me. “Then I’m going to shoot you.”

  He took another step back, but I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him toward me, jamming the barrel of the gun into his stomach.

  “Choose,” I said, our faces inches apart. “Right now. Talk or get shot.”

  Randall was a big guy who I’d managed to reduce to a little puddle of fear. I hated him for it.

  “Okay,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Talk. I’ll talk.”

  I slipped the gun back into my waistband, and we walked into the hotel and took the elevator up to his room. He pressed himself up against the far wall of the enclosed space as we rode. I stared at him.

  His room was at the top, a magnificent view of the ocean out his window and balcony. The room was bright and large. A wet bar stood in one corner, and Randall went over to it.

  “Drink?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, standing in front of the doors to the balcony in case he wanted to throw himself over it. If he got any wild ideas, like trying to charge at me, I knew I had enough space between us to draw my gun.

  He dropped some ice cubes into a glass and poured four fingers of Scotch over the ice. He sucked half of it down immediately, then took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “Why did Kate take the hit for you?” I asked.

  He swirled the ice and alcohol in his glass. “What hit?”

  I grabbed the small digital clock off the nightstand, ripped the plug out of the wall, and fired it at him.

  He ducked and it sailed over his left shoulder, smashing against the wall.

  He came up, flushed. “Jesus!”

  “I talked to Ken,” I said, the anger and frustration pouring out of me. “He explained to me exactly what kind of piece of shit you are.” I walked toward him. “You wanna drag this out? Fine. I will keep throwing things at you until you tell me what the hell was going on.”

  He took a step back and bumped into the counter behind him. His eyes were twitchy and he looked like he was trying to make a decision.

  He set his drink down. “Kate covered for me.”

  “I know that. Why?”

  “Because I made her.”

  We stood there, staring at one another, his words hanging in the air between us.

  “How?” I asked, resisting the urge to hit Randall as hard as I could.

  Randall took a deep breath, looking nervous and pale. “I’d already had a run-in with…the police. I couldn’t afford another. I’m sure Ken told you that.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “She was using again,” he said, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left. “Not enough for others to catch on, but just enough to stay in the groove. I told her if she didn’t cover for me, I’d tell Ken and Marilyn that she was off the wagon.”

  I just looked at him, wondering what Kate had ever seen in him.

  “She didn’t want them to know,” he said. “Disappointing them was always her biggest fear.” He smirked over the glass at me. “I think you learned that firsthand, though, didn’t you?”

  I took another step forward and Randall nearly dropped his glass. It wasn’t as good as punching him, but it would have to do for the moment.

  “She knew they’d insist on rehab again and there was no way she was gonna do that crap again,” Randall said after a moment, his cocky bravado still there, but toned down a bit. “It was either help me or deal with her parents. I knew she’d choose me.”

  “So you blackmailed her,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as taking advantage of the situation, but you’re probably right.” Randall emptied his drink and poured another. “She always helped me out of my problems.”

  I tried to stay under control. “She didn’t at the hospital.”

  He smiled at the glass. “No, that was one she couldn’t fix. That was all mine.”

  I stayed quiet, not letting him off the hook.

  “I went to the hospital, coming off a weekend binge,” he said, settling back against the counter. “It was a mistake. We’d been high all weekend. Almost operated on a patient before somebody stepped in.”

  “Shouldn’t you have been arrested?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “No doubt. At the very least, fired. But I have a great attorney. Hospitals and insurance groups are very frightened of good attorneys.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly that it couldn’t have been a lie.

  “I was admonished,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Written up. Warned that if it happened again, I was done.” He paused, looking like he was trying to remember the scene. “When she got stopped, she didn’t know it was in the car. So I gave her the choice. Take the blame and tell your parents the truth, that it was mine. Or tell the cops the truth and deal with everything I would tell Ken and Marilyn.”

  I tried to picture Kate and what she might’ve been thinking. Maybe it was a last-ditch attempt to save her marriage, no matter how perverse in its thinking. As I stood in the room with her husband, I became certain that he was nowhere near worth the effort she had made.

  Or perhaps she simply couldn’t stomach the thought of disappointing her parents again.

  “Ken set the deal up,” he continued. “I wasn’t implicated. It seemed like it would work out fine.”

  “Sending your wife into a foreign country with the guy who controls the drug corridors between the U.S. and Mexico seemed fine?” I asked, my voice rising. “You seriously thought that?”

  He finished off the second drink and set the empty glass on the counter. “They assured us she would be completely protected. The DA, the police, the DEA agents all told us that she wouldn’t be in any danger.”

  “Famous last words.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “They made it sound like she’d never be alone, never without protection.” He paused. “Kate wasn’t afraid.”

  That I believed. The Kate I had known was fearless. Try anything once. Live for the moment.

  “After the first time, we relaxed,” he said, his voice straining a bit. “She said it was fairly easy. Everyone was friendly. There were guns, but she said it was like being in a bank. A little security, but very professional.”

  “What did she say about Costilla?” I asked.

  “Not much. Polite, friendly, somewhat intimidating, but nothing like what she expected. She said he looked like a rich businessman.”

  I remembered Costilla in the empty storefront in San Ysidro. Until the shooting started, I probably could have agreed with that description.

  “When did you realize she was missing?” I asked.

  “When the DEA called me,” Randall said, his face sagging slightly. “They thought she migh
t be with me.” He stopped and rubbed his chin. “Obviously, she wasn’t.”

  “Obviously?” I asked.

  He refocused on me. “What?”

  “You didn’t see her after she disappeared?”

  A fire started to burn in his eyes. “No, I didn’t see her. And I don’t think I like the implication.”

  I laughed. I had to. The way rich people talk can be amusing. I’m not sure that I had ever used the word “implication” in a sentence before.

  “You don’t, huh?” I said. “Well, let me tell you what I don’t like. I don’t like the fact that you are a junkie. I don’t like the fact that you pulled Kate into that life with you.”

  “Now wait a second…” he said, trying to defend himself.

  “I don’t like the fact that you cheated on Kate,” I continued, ignoring him. “I don’t like the fact that you hung her out to dry because you were too much of a pussy to face it yourself. I don’t like the fact that I found Kate in a car trunk. And what I really don’t like, Randall, is that all of this, all of this shit, keeps curling back to you.”

  He stood there, his jaw set, unsure of what to say. He walked around to the bar and over to the balcony. I didn’t move and he had to turn to the side to slide by me.

  I turned around and watched him stand there for a moment, looking out the window. Part of me wished he would jump.

  “I didn’t kill Kate,” he said quietly.

  My head hurt. I didn’t know who to believe. Randall was a manipulator and no matter how much of what he’d told me was true, I would never trust him. He’d given me no reason to.

  “When Marilyn said she was hiring you,” he said, turning around to face me, “she said you’d find her. She had no doubt.”

  “Why’s that?”

  A thin smile creased his lips. “She said you’d probably never gotten over her and that you’d jump at a chance to get back in touch with her.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Jump was a strong word. I had tried to resist taking the job, knowing that working for the Criers was something that would complicate my life. But, in the end, the chance to possibly see Kate again had been enough to coerce me. I hated the fact that Marilyn had been right.

  “I guess this isn’t what you expected,” Randall said, shaking his head.