“Definitely. But no lights, no problem, right?”
I exhaled. No lights, no problem. Still, it was just us and him. Two dots separated by the blank canvas of the early morning highway. Surely no coincidence. And that’s when I saw it. A kaleidoscope of blue and red staining the dash. I sucked in a gulp of air. “Lights. Problem.”
Levi cursed under his breath, slowing the car to a crawl until we reached the section of bridge with a narrow shoulder. “If we don’t get out of this, just say it was my idea. All of it.” He lowered the window, and the cold crept inside until I felt it crawl under my skin.
“It was your idea.” Outside, a door closed with a soft thud. A simple sound—ordinary—but in the absence of any others, it took on its own life, critical and foreboding.
“And I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sam.”
“Wait—what?” Boots struck the ground with the kind of authority no one questioned. And Levi’s fingers drummed on the wheel. The air hummed electric between us, fraying my already ragged nerves, and I sat still waiting for the lightning strike.
“Step out of the vehicle. Both of you.” It was the sort of voice I expected from a police officer. I didn’t turn to see his face, but I imagined it anyway. The hard set of his jaw. The ice in his eyes, a thin layer of cold to cover his fear. He would shoot me—small-town girl—if it came to that.
“Go ahead,” Levi urged. “Do what he says.”
“What’re you going to do?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer. Fearing he might. One step, then another, and the pavement, wet with dew, shimmered under my feet.
The officer addressed me, but I couldn’t look up. “Put your hands on the side of the vehicle, ma’am, where I can see them. I wished for my letterman jacket to remind me of who I was. I couldn’t remember Samantha Bronwyn anymore. I’d left her behind somewhere.
“Sir, step out of the vehicle. Now.” Levi’s fingers kept drumming. He didn’t seem afraid, even when the man raised his gun, but I wondered if his tap-tap-tapping marked the frenetic beat of his heart.
“Levi … please … ”
Three things happened then. Not one—two—three—like a line of dominoes cascading. But all at once. Onetwothree. I couldn’t say which came first. Levi spinning his tires, wheels shrieking as he put his foot to the gas, leaving burnt rubber marks on the road and me standing alone, exposed. Another engine revving like thunder building over the horizon. Or a spray of bullets … and the one that found a mark.
Next came the scream. Different than Ginny’s. Unforgettable. The scream of a grown man who had known ordinary fear, but never this. The kind of animal scream you’d imagine would come if death himself could lock eyes with you before sucking out your soul. The officer’s legs folded beneath him as I watched. His mouth contorted in surprise, then pain. It wasn’t the face I’d imagined at all—stoic and chiseled in ice. His cheeks were full, doughy, rough with acne scars. And his eyes were fawn brown.
A bullet buzzed in the air in front of me, and I ducked. Sprinted to the police car and took cover alongside it. Another shot pinged off the door, and I winced as if it had gone through my flesh. I stared at the clean wound in the sheet metal no different than the hole in the officer’s chest. And I gagged on the warm, bitter bile rising in my throat.
“Sam! Get in!” Until I heard Levi’s voice, I’d been convinced he wanted me dead. Those bullets were his. They were meant for me. Meant to end me as he sped down the freeway toward his revenge. And that’s why he’d been sorry.
My mother’s rental car steamrolled toward me in reverse, Levi yelling out the window. “C’mon!” I willed my legs to run, to dodge bullets. Where were they coming from? I willed my hand to open the door and fling myself inside, curling against the seat like a snail in a shell. I willed myself to turn my head over my shoulder, to glimpse through the shattered rear glass. “EME,” Levi said, shifting into drive and screeching away. “Are you hit?”
Hit. That word took its time. Was I? Hit? My hand bled. I saw that now. Cut by a shard of glass from the exploded windshield. But as far as I could tell, the rest of me remained intact. “No,” I answered, flinching with each pop-pop-pop.
With no instruction, Levi passed me his gun. Like it was a basketball, and I’d know exactly what to do with it. I’d only ever shot at a paper target. Never point your weapon at anything you’re not willing to destroy. That’s what I remembered as I stuck my arm out the window and pulled the trigger. That’s when I knew Samantha Bronwyn was dead. A self, my whole self, shed like an old skin.
chapter
twenty-three
what's already gone
I couldn’t stop shaking. Even after Levi pulled the car to the shoulder, took the gun from me, and folded both of his hands over mine. “Is it over?” I asked. Each word took effort.
He nodded. His eyes were right there. Bright and alive. “We’ve gotta go.”
I cracked the car door and got out, testing my legs like a newborn foal. Strange, but I thought of Cullen and his first steps back into the free world. It must have felt like this. A change so complete it can’t be quantified or named. Levi followed me, hoisting his duffel bag over his shoulder and jogging toward the intersection of bridge and highway.
“Don’t look,” he called back to me. I hadn’t planned on it, but his warning issued an invitation. I snuck a glance. Then I couldn’t look away. Behind us, the EME’s sedan had caught fire. Its front end had folded in like a cardboard box. A man’s body lay motionless on the hood—half in, half out of the smashed front windshield.
“Did I kill those men?” I asked. There had been two of them. I was sure of it.
“I told you not to look.” Levi stopped, turned around, frowned at me. “You really don’t remember?”
I shook my head. The flames licked the sky, where the sun had just begun its slow rise. The heat reached me, and I stepped back.
“They were chasing us. You shot out a tire, and they lost control. Smashed right into the guardrail.”
I did that? I did that. The car creaked and groaned in response to my admission, the fire spreading. “How did they find us?”
“Hell if I know. But I don’t trust McKinnon or the Feds. They’ve got their own agenda. And I’m sure that cop blasted our location all over the radio. Any yahoo with a police scanner could’ve tracked us down.” Levi grabbed my arm and tugged me toward him. I relented, letting myself be dragged, but my eyes were stuck on that body protruding from the car’s mouth. Through the smoke, his arms had life, wriggling like the legs of an upturned insect.
“Should we help him? I think he’s still alive.”
“He’s not. And we can’t. Look.” I followed Levi’s finger past the wreckage to the harsh glare of approaching headlights. I tried to imagine how the scene must look to an outsider. How it would’ve looked to me two days ago. Unreal. “They’ll call for help. But if we stay … ”
“Don’t you mean if you stay? I haven’t forgotten you were going to leave me. You did leave me. Again.” The screech of those tires had sounded a lot like betrayal. This time even worse than the first because I hadn’t expected it.
“For your own good. You’re safer with the cops than you are with me. I tried to tell you that back at the cabin.”
“But you are a cop.”
“Yeah, you keep reminding me.”
“Well, somebody has to.”
Levi started running again, and I matched his pace. By the time we reached the bottom of the bridge, sirens cut the quiet, and there was no going back. “Over here,” he said, ducking into the trees near the tollbooths. “I’m not a cop right now. Right now, I’m no better than Cullen. No better than my dad. I’ve got nothing to lose.” An 18-wheeler barreled through the pay station, briefly spotlighting our hiding place. Levi reached for my hand, then my elbow, until we were nearly pressed together and out of sight.
�
�You have things to lose.” It sounded lame, and it made my chest ache that I needed to say it at all. He was so close, I only breathed the words against him, and I wondered if he heard me.
“Like what?”
I hadn’t expected that. I wanted to look at him, but I buried my face in his T-shirt instead. It was damp with sweat. His warm hand closed around my head, cocooning it against him. “Your job. Your sister. The family who adopted you.”
“I let all of those people down. You can’t lose what’s already gone.”
Finally, I summoned the courage to meet his eyes. In them, the answer to a question I hadn’t been able to ask even to myself. “Those pills in your backpack … your plan … were you going to … ?”
He didn’t deny it. “I set my sister up, Sam. I wanted her to get caught. I thought it would kill two birds, you know? She’d get off the streets for a while, get the help she needed in jail, and I’d get the info on Cullen. I swear I didn’t know she had drugs on her that night. They charged her with felony possession. That means prison time. I did that. And everybody knows it.”
“What I said earlier, the why is important, Levi. The why matters.”
“Yeah, well my why sucks. I was just being selfish.”
“And what exactly would be selfless about suicide?” He shrugged, and I felt the weight of his shoulders, the burden there. “Are you still thinking of doing that? I mean, is that still your plan? I think I deserve to know.”
“Well, Plan A got blown to hell, remember? I’m on to Plan B now.” He laughed a little, a small, comforting sound like creek water running over a rock bed. And I wondered how something so fragile could stand up to the harshness of the world. How did anything good survive?
“I’m scared too, you know. Even before all this. Sometimes, I don’t know if I can make it on my own next year.” Baylor seemed to belong to someone else now, a made-up person.
“Think about it. If you can survive the EME and Cutthroat Cullen, college will be a major letdown. A real snoozefest. Just promise me you’ll invite me to a game—assuming I’m not in jail, of course. I need to see Samantha Bronwyn, basketball phenom, in action.”
I don’t know what came over me then. Some strange potion of giddiness, relief, and terror. Whatever it was, it must have been potent stuff to make me as bold as Ginny. I tilted my head up to him, slid my hand around his neck, and brought his lips to mine.
****
“That was unexpected.” Levi leaned back against the tree trunk and raised his eyebrows. “You surprised me.” Good surprise or bad surprise, he didn’t specify. And I didn’t ask. But his not-quite smile hinted more good than bad. He’d surprised me too in the tentative way he kissed back, not like the other boys who groped me as if their pants were on fire. Keyword boys, I thought. Levi was different. He took his time, held something back, like he knew I was breakable.
Taken aback by my own boldness, I felt suddenly exposed. Shivering, I folded both arms across my chest. “Now we’re even.”
His mouth twisted to one side, considering. “I don’t know about that. I think I might owe you one.” I turned my face away, hiding it from the soft glow of the dawn, and grinned.
“To be fair I did warn you,” I said.
“I know. Texas girls.” Levi pointed to the building adjacent to the toll plaza. “Well, Miss Texas, how do you feel about borrowing a car?”
“Borrowing?”
He shrugged. “Okay, stealing.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not if you’re coming with me.” He assumed my answer, walking toward the sparse parking lot dotted with a few cars and utility vehicles. “That Honda looks promising.”
“Don’t you need tools or something?” Levi dropped the duffel at his boots and reached inside, producing a small screwdriver. “You certainly came prepared. Did they teach you that as a junior officer?”
“How do you think I got to Muir Woods? The bus? Every policeman worth his salt knows how to steal a car.”
“But they don’t go around doing it.” My stomach flip-flopped at the thought of all the other things he would be willing to do. Had already done. The things I’d done. The things I would do to get my mom back. Maybe Levi was right. It didn’t matter why. Lines were lines. And murder was murder. “Is it really worth all this? Killing Cullen? Have you ever murdered somebody, Levi? Are you prepared to live with that?”
Silence. “I guess I wasn’t planning on living with it.” I pretended to ignore his hard swallow, the water in his eyes that seemed to well from nowhere. “I’ve always had a one-track mind, you know. When I was a kid, all I could dream about was getting my badge. Like it was my talisman, my lucky rabbit’s foot. I thought that badge pinned to my chest would solve everything. And I got it, but … I was still me, still Levi with the same old demons. And my sister was still messed up. It didn’t change anything. Then Snip got out, and he told me what he suspected about Cullen, all the talk on the yard. Ever since, I’ve been hell-bent on avenging my dad. The truth is I didn’t even know him.”
“And now?”
“You want to find your mom, right?” I nodded, holding back the dark fear that Clare Bronwyn was gone for good. Bermuda Triangle unfindable. “So it’s not just about Cullen anymore. You were right. It does matter why. And the why is I want to help you. So yes—long answer—it’s worth it.”
“Okay.” I sounded calmer than I felt. “Let’s borrow a car then.”
****
It took forty-six minutes to drive our stolen Honda to 75th Avenue. And I spent every single one of those forty-six minutes looking behind us. Waiting for the lines we’d crossed to catch up. But they never did. Not even when I convinced—okay, begged—Levi to stop at a gas station and buy a prepaid phone so I could call Ginny. I’d counted the seconds he spent inside, certain each tick was one closer to our reckoning. Slunk down in the passenger seat, two blocks from Green River Trucking, I began to wonder if that was the very reason for my existence—a string of crossed lines.
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Levi said, side-eyeing the phone in my hand. Ignoring him, I dialed the number for Snip’s burner phone. “Just don’t tell anybody where we are.”
“I may be from the country, but I’m not that much of a novice. I’ve seen CSI, you know.”
Levi replied with a hard roll of his eyes. “Well, pardon me, Detective. I clearly underestimated you.”
After one ring, Ginny’s groggy voice answered, “Hello?”
“Ginny, it’s Sam. Are you okay?” Nothing. Then, “Samantha, this is Agent McKinnon. Where are you?”
“Hang up,” Levi mouthed.
“Is that Officer Beckett? Is he there with you? Levi, turn yourself in before you get hurt.”
“I want to know if Ginny’s okay,” I told her. “Then, I’ll answer your questions.”
“Ginny is fine. The wound was minor. She’s resting. Now—”
“Let me talk to her,” I demanded.
“Samantha, you’re way out of your depth here. This is a dangerous game you’re playing. And Officer Beckett can’t protect you. We need to know where you are. Please don’t be like your mother.”
That stung. Like my mother?
“It’s one thing to be a tramp. And another to be a fool. An utter fool.” I smashed the red button disconnecting the call and tossed the phone on the floorboard, staring at with contempt. Levi stared out the window.
“Go ahead. Say it.” He didn’t. “I told you so, Samantha,” I parroted, deepening my voice.
“Do I really sound like that? Like a drunk Santa Claus?”
“A little,” I said, grateful for the sound of his laughter.
****
Ten minutes later and nothing. The cheap burner phone lay lifeless at my feet. And outside, only the sparse grass lining the sidewalk moved, fluttering like strips of bur
nt paper in the breeze. “It’s still early,” Levi said when I groaned. “You can sleep if you want to. I’ll wake you at the first sign of life.”
“Not tired. Just thinking.” In truth, my body was exhausted, but my brain whirled like a hamster on a wheel, and it wouldn’t stop spinning. “Have you ever been attracted to a criminal?” Levi burst into short-lived laughter, stopping when he glimpsed my grim expression. He stayed quiet for a moment, and I stared past him to the row of ramshackle buildings lining the street. In the yard closest to us, a half-deflated basketball had cracked in the sun. It served as a dismal reminder of how far I was from who I’d been.
“That has to be one of the weirdest questions anybody has ever asked me.”
“Well, have you? To a person you were arresting? Or somebody in jail?”
“There have been a couple of lookers … ” He smirked. “Not my type though. I always fall for the good girls.” He nudged me with his elbow, and I almost smiled.
“I’m serious.”
He knew I was, and he raised his hands in surrender. “Honestly, no. But if you’re asking about your mom and Cullen—which I think you are—it’s completely different. A therapist gets close to you. Figures out how you tick. You trust her.”
“It sounds like you think my mom’s to blame for this.” And I didn’t entirely disagree.
“Your mom had a professional responsibility to her client. And that didn’t include sex.”
“Or escape,” I added, feeling like a traitor.
“But I know men like Cullen. They have ways of getting what they want from you, but making you feel like you were the one who wanted it all along. Have you ever heard that line … something like Blame is for God and small children? I guess that’s what I’m saying. Nobody’s innocent here.”
“Nobody,” I agreed, eyeing my own partial reflection in the window.
december 17, 1996
Clare couldn’t stop thinking about Tony Perez. Actually, it wasn’t Tony himself. He was nothing special. Compton born and bred. Incarcerated at seventeen. He’d mowed down two bystanders shooting at a rival gang in his neighborhood. A humdrum case by San Quentin standards. But, his tattoo. Those three inked letters—that’s what kept her up last night. It covered his whole neck, and she had tried not to stare at it. Thinking about it now, she couldn’t remember most of what he’d said. Something about feeling depressed after his last parole hearing ended with another denial. And there was this, Tony muttering with one foot out the door: I’ll be sure to knock next time.
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 23
