‘Do you know where Lauren was going the day she’—he nearly said died and then corrected himself—‘crashed?’
It didn’t make any difference what words he chose. The answer was the same.
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Last question. Do you have any idea why these people are looking for her?’
As the words left his mouth, he realized that, somehow, they were having a discussion that assumed Lauren was alive, ignoring for the moment, the tricky did she die, didn’t she die? question.
He got a head shake and a negative grunt back.
‘Could it have been to do with her job? I assume she worked.’
‘Yeah. She worked for her father’s old business partner. Her aunt kept in touch with the guy after Lauren’s father ran off. When Lauren was looking for a job, she put them in touch. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know sort of thing. She was the office manager. She did the books, secretarial work, that sort of stuff. Boring, everyday stuff. She used to complain like hell about it.’
‘But she stuck at it?’
Levi leaned back and stretched wearily. Evan got the impression he’d touched on a topic that had been another bone of contention between them.
‘She was hoping it would turn into something more. You remember I told you she was crazy about flying? Well, the business was something to do with aviation. I never really knew what. But she thought if she stuck at it, she might end up flying planes for a living.’
‘And you didn’t.’
Levi gave him a tight, you got it smile.
‘No. I thought the guy was stringing her along. Not only that, he wasn’t even paying her what he’d have had to pay anybody else to do that job. Because he knew she wouldn’t quit if he kept dangling the carrot. She couldn’t see it. Her daddy’s oldest, bestest friend wouldn’t do that to her. Even if her daddy was a bastard who ran off and abandoned her. Hey, who wants to be logical or consistent anyway?’
‘Do you—’
‘No, I can’t remember the name of the company or the bastard who owned it. Ask Auntie Eva.’
‘Did you argue about it a lot?’
Levi shook his head sadly.
‘All the time. But if you think she ran out on me because of anything to do with that, you’re way off.’
Evan got up to leave. He wasn’t going to get anything more out of Levi. The only thing he had got was the knowledge that Levi was holding something back. After getting so many don’t knows and can’t remembers in response to his questions, it was a shame he’d clammed up when something had crossed his mind so forcefully. He was sure he’d find out soon enough anyway. He just hoped it wouldn’t be as painful as finding out the thumb drive had been on the keyring all along.
Chapter 20
‘TELL BUCKLEY IF HE’D had the balls to ask me himself, I might have talked to him,’ Guillory said.
‘He said that?’
Evan slid onto his stool after getting back from putting Lindi Ortega on the jukebox. It was Friday night and the after-work crowd at the Jerusalem Tavern was filling out, the smell of sweat and women’s perfume and beer and unwinding anxiety in the air, noise levels rising steadily as laughter and conversation competed with the music and the crash of empty bottles thrown in a big plastic bucket under the bar.
She cocked her ear as the first bars of Run-Down Neighborhood started up, then nodded, not even trying to keep the smile off her lips or out of her eyes.
‘Word for word. Except he’s started calling you Buckshit now.’
He acted like he didn’t hear that last part over the noise.
‘I didn’t think you were going to ask for me.’
‘I wasn’t. He saw the file on my desk. He, um . . .’
‘Guessed you were running around after me?’
Her smile got wider, if that was possible.
‘You know, sometimes I think you and him are the same person. You both think the same, say the same things.’
He took a mouthful of his beer, pretended to look offended. Then he remembered what the Medical Examiner, Ivanovsky, said about Ryder.
‘What are you grinning at now?’ she said.
‘I drove over to see Ivanovsky today.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I took the Corvette for a blast—’
She snickered but was lady enough to not do a spit take. It was one of the things he liked about her.
‘Evan, you and the word blast do not sit well together in the same sentence. Cruise I can accept. Slow cruise is better. But, blast? No way.’
He waited patiently for her to finish, looked up and down the bar to see if there was somebody more interesting to talk to. He raised an eyebrow to check that she’d finished when he saw her lips stop moving, got a nod of confirmation.
‘I was going to ask you if you wanted to tag along, maybe get lunch somewhere nice. But you bit my head off. What now? I’m up to my ears.’
She mouthed the word work at him a couple times. If he squinted, it was as if she was blowing a kiss at him. Then something that looked like real world. He couldn’t be sure. The words didn’t mean anything to him.
‘Anyway, he remembered Donut—’
‘Don’t!’ she started, then gave up, saved her breath.
‘He didn’t like his attitude.’
She threw her head back and stared up at the ceiling. It made him want to bite her neck.
‘Oh boy. I bet you lapped that up.’
‘Yup. It gets better. He also said he’d like to see him on the slab. I can’t tell you how good that made me feel.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘You can’t.’
It went on like that for some time until she told him to shut up and buy her another beer. Once the bartender had brought them over, Evan decided to risk a small, serious interlude.
‘The reason the M.E. didn’t like him is because he questioned his judgement.’
‘I know. He told me.’
‘Really? What else did he tell you?’
‘That I shouldn’t waste my life spending time with you.’
‘About the case.’
‘Oh, that.’ She shrugged. ‘Not a lot. I don’t think you’re going to get very far with it. I don’t mean talking to him. Pursuing that line of enquiry, I mean. So, unfortunately for you . . .’
He stared straight ahead, refused to look at her. Out of the corner of his eye he was aware of her making an hourglass shape in the air with her hands. She dug him in the ribs with her elbow as he took a mouthful of beer.
‘No follow-up interviews with’—she exaggerated the hourglass shape—‘Patrol Officer Martina Perez.’
‘Damn. But I thought she was married.’
‘So are you.’
This was getting out of hand. He wondered if she’d got in an hour before he arrived and hit the hard stuff. He pulled the bracelet he’d borrowed from Levi out of his pocket.
‘I want to ask you something,’ he said.
She stared at the bracelet and giggled.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
She took it out of his hand and hung it over her ring finger.
‘It’s too big.’
He ignored the pantomime going on beside him and got his phone out.
‘Aw,’ she said reading the inscription on the bracelet. ‘We loved with a love that was more than love. That’s so sweet.’
He showed her the photo of Lauren with her arms around the unknown man.
‘You think that’s the same bracelet.’
She leaned away, looked at him like he was crazy.
‘Evan. I’ve had a couple beers, we’re sitting in the semi-dark and you show me a photo of a blurry photo of two people in the rain.’ She pretended to look closely. ‘Yeah, sure, it’s the same one. Next question.’
He took the bracelet back which she was now swinging around her finger like a hula hoop. Any second, it was going to end up on the other side of the room or in somebody’s beer. And there wer
e plenty of guys in the bar who’d swallow it whole without noticing. He put it safely in his jacket pocket.
She leaned sideways against him and put her arm around his shoulders. He felt the heat from her body through his shirt as they stared at each other in the mirror behind the bar.
‘You really don’t know how to relax, do you?’
He didn’t answer, couldn’t argue with her, felt like saying you wanna show me? He shrugged softly, got a hard squeeze on the shoulder back. He saw her swallow in the mirror even though she tried to hide it.
‘On this, your last night of freedom.’
He twisted out from under her arm to look straight at her, not indirectly in the mirror. The woman behind her suddenly threw back her head and laughed loudly at something her boyfriend whispered in her ear so he missed what she said next. But he was getting pretty good at lip reading.
Before you tear yourself apart again.
‘What are you talking about now?’ he said.
Suddenly he knew what was coming next. Worse, he knew what was coming after that.
She smiled at him, a soft smile this time, one that made him take a deep breath followed by a long swallow of his beer. She was still smiling at him, all the way up to those denim-blue eyes, when he couldn’t fit any more in his mouth and had to put the bottle back on the bar.
‘They’re kicking Adamson loose,’ he said.
She nodded solemnly.
‘Tomorrow or the day after.’
‘At least I don’t have to worry about him waiting for me in some dark alley with a baseball bat.’
Her smile slipped a fraction, became a little more fixed, as she listened to him pretending he didn’t know what the real agenda was. Without warning, she stuffed her hand into his jacket pocket, came out with Lauren’s bracelet. She grinned at him.
‘Bet you’re wishing you put it in your pants pocket.’
He stuck out his hand, palm up.
‘Give it back and we’ll do it again if you like.’
There was a moment when neither of them knew which way it would go. But it was only a moment. She hooked the bracelet over her pinkie and twirled it. She pointed at her pinkie.
‘This is Adamson.’
He pointed at the twirling bracelet.
‘And this is Evan,’ they both sang together.
The bracelet slipped off her finger. He didn’t have to look in her eyes to know she did it deliberately. He wasn’t quick enough to catch it and she didn’t try. It hit the floor. She stepped on it before it rolled away, not hard enough to damage it, but hard enough to make her point. She kept her foot on top of it, twisting it from side to side as if she was trying to grind something into the dirt.
‘And this is how it’ll end up,’ she said.
She took her foot off it and scooped it up.
‘Twisted, bent out of shape . . .’
‘Damaged beyond repair,’ he suggested.
He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his body so he didn’t have to look at the wetness in her eyes. Inside him, something twisted and stretched its claws, and he felt a little tear in his heart. Sometimes he wondered what the hell was wrong with him.
Chapter 21
EVAN SAW THE DOORMAN standing outside the entrance to the jewelry store tense as he approached. Legs slightly apart, hands clasped loosely in front of him, his stance assured honest customers he was ready for anything, from an attempt on the President’s life to dealing with the shifty individual who looked like he was about to throw a brick through the store window.
Evan paused in front of the door. Reluctantly the doorman pulled it open, couldn’t quite get the word Sir through his gritted teeth as he said good morning. Evan nodded his thanks and went inside.
A young man in an expensive suit and an insincere smile oozed soundlessly across the thick red carpet. His name badge said Simon which seemed fitting. Slimy Simon.
‘I’m looking to get a replacement for this,’ Evan said.
He handed the bracelet to the Simon who looked at it like it was something that had come out of a Christmas cracker before it was dropped down the toilet. He took it carefully between his finger and thumb and led Evan across the room. For a moment Evan thought he was being led into the storeroom but then they stopped at a counter right at the back of the room.
‘I bought this for my wife four years ago for our anniversary,’ Evan said.
Simon’s smile got slimier. His eyes said, I think you found it in a dumpster.
Evan looked around the store, noticed the doorman on the inside of the door now, then leaned in towards Simon as if he had something to say he didn’t want anybody to overhear.
‘I hadn’t seen her wearing it recently. Then, the other day, I found it by accident hidden in a drawer. I don’t know what’s happened to it. It looks like it’s been in a fire.’
He waited while Simon picked it up and pretended to study it with a professional eye. He nodded vaguely as if to say, could be.
‘She obviously had some kind of accident and was too embarrassed to tell me. So’—he beamed at Simon to demonstrate what a great guy he was, the sort of guy who knew how to keep his marriage on course—‘instead of saying anything, I decided to get a replacement made. Our fifth anniversary is coming up and I thought it would be a nice surprise.’
Simon smiled back, a lot more enthusiastically this time. Evan knew it had more to do with the word replacement than any desire to help keep Evan’s marriage on track. He probably thought Evan had been about to slip him a twenty and ask him to give the old one a quick polish.
Simon turned the bracelet to get a better look at the inscription on the inside. They no doubt charged by the letter. For the spaces too.
‘We loved with a love that was more than love,’ Evan quoted, forcing a dreamy smile onto his face, deciding a hand on his breast would be overkill. ‘It’s from a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. You might have heard of him.’
He knew it was childish, but Simon’s snooty attitude was irritating him. Simon did a small, very professional double take. Evan reckoned he’d done a quick calculation on the price of the nice long inscription. Much better than a quick love ya, babe!
Simon cleared his throat, a polite ahem sound.
‘Yes, I recognize the words. And thank you for pointing out where they come from, very kind of you. But the main reason I recognize them is because we recently sold a bracelet exactly like this one with those same words engraved on it.’
Evan’s senses jangled as a buzz of excitement ripped through him. The sounds of the traffic outside, the cloying smell of a woman’s perfume behind him, the hideous color of Simon’s tie were suddenly too sharp, too overpowering. He forced himself to stay calm, let his jaw drop, put on a vacuous expression. It was a look Guillory said came naturally to him.
‘To a young lady,’ Simon said smugly, a glint of spitefulness in his eyes.
Evan worked harder on the vacuous look.
‘But that’s unbelievable. It’s too much of a coincidence.’
Simon worked equally hard on the smugness. That too came naturally.
‘Might it have been your wife, sir? Perhaps she replaced it without telling you.’
The tone of his voice, the unnecessary emphasis on the word telling, implied there were no doubt a lot of other things she got up to without telling him, expensive bracelet or not.
Evan shook his head.
‘No, it can’t be. Why would she keep this one’—he took the bracelet from Simon’s hands—‘if she’d already replaced it?’
Simon shrugged.
‘Maybe she simply forgot about it.’
That was the answer that implied Evan and his wife were well-off enough to be able to forget about an expensive item like the bracelet.
‘Or perhaps she planned on selling it for scrap at a later date.’
Simon smiled again, effectively indicating which explanation he favored.
It was time for vacuous to make way for indigna
nt. Evan shook his head firmly.
‘No. It must be a coincidence. I’m sure she didn’t even know where I bought it.’
Simon’s face took on an incredulous cast.
Didn’t you give it to her in one of our bags?
‘Do you have a picture of your wife, sir?’
Evan gave himself a mental slap on the back, resisted the temptation to do a little dance around the room. He got out his phone and found the image of Lauren with her arms around the unknown man. He handed it to Simon.
‘Sorry, it’s a bit blurred.’
Simon held the phone closer.
‘That’s definitely her, sir. I served her myself. I have an excellent memory for faces.’ He gave another smile, this one more smarmy than smug. ‘Especially for ladies as attractive as your wife, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
Evan waved it off, not at all.
‘You’re absolutely sure?’
He was tempted to say, because this particular lady supposedly died five years ago. Let’s see how you smarm your way out of that.
Simon nodded.
‘Absolutely.’
‘How long ago would this have been?’
Simon’s face creased in concentration.
‘Within the last three months, definitely. That’s how long I’ve been working here. I can find the exact date if you like.’
Evan told him it didn’t matter, within three months was good enough. Which it was, in reality as well as in his assumed persona of Lauren’s husband.
Simon was about to pass the phone back to Evan when he noticed the bracelet on Lauren’s arm.
‘Isn’t that . . . do you mind if I zoom in?’
‘Go ahead.’
It seemed Simon wasn’t much good with a smartphone. Inside of using two fingers to zoom, he used one and swiped to the side. The second image appeared on the screen, the one showing Lauren’s companion’s face as they sheltered under his umbrella.
‘Oops, sorry.’
He was about to swipe back again when he paused, then nodded.
‘That confirms it.’
‘Confirms what?’ Evan said, the buzz in his gut intensifying.
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