Текст книги "Liquid Smoke"

Автор книги: Jeff Shelby

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

FORTY-FOUR

When it rains in Southern California, we drive as though we’ve never seen rain before. We go about ten miles an hour, jam on the brakes at every opportunity, and try to rearend as many other cars as possible.

That’s why the normally twenty-minute drive back to Mission Beach took me over an hour on the wet freeway.

I walked up the boardwalk to my house. Storms had a way of wreaking havoc on most everything else, but they stirred up the ocean in a good way. The swells rose up with a little more intensity than on sunny days, their usually unspectacular waves coming in higher and heavier, crashing with an attitude.

I was thinking about pulling my full wetsuit from the closet when I walked into my place and found Miranda straddling Carter on the living room floor, his arms pinned above his head and his eyes full of fear.

“I told you you’d go down like a rag doll,” she said to him. Carter’s eyes shifted to me. “Help.”

Miranda turned around. “He bet me I couldn’t throw him to the floor.”

“Good bet,” I said.

Miranda slid off him, and he jumped to his feet like nothing had happened.

“Lucky,” he said.

Miranda grunted and pushed some of the black hair away from her face. “How’d it go?”

“Awesome,” I replied, making a face. “You two learn anything?”

“I learned Magilla Gorilla isn’t that tough,” she said, glancing at Carter.

Carter looked like a child whose favorite toy had been taken from him by a bully. “Whatever.” He looked at me. “It was Keene who was down here.”

“Positive?” I asked, unsurprised.

“Pretty positive,” he said. “We talked to about thirty people. Houses on the walk and a couple in the alleys. We got several descriptions that match the guy.”

“The night before Darcy was found?”

Miranda nodded. “Yeah, and one guy who swears he saw him two days before.”

I looked at Carter. “Who?”

“Dude up on Cohassett. Said he saw him at Roberto’s and on the beach.”

“Believable?”

“Complete stoner, but he seemed somewhat lucid when we talked to him.”

Two days prior. Which meant Keene had been keeping tabs on me. Again, not a surprise, but not something I was thrilled to hear either.

Miranda looked at Carter. “You owe me a meal.” Carter grimaced. “I know.” “I want it. Now.”

“So order a pizza. It’s almost lunchtime. I’ll pay.” She shook her head. “Not a chance.” She turned to me. “Where’s an expensive place down here?”

“Lamont Street Grill is good,” I said. Carter gave me the finger.

Miranda turned back to him. “That’s where we’re going.” “Have fun,” I said, walking into the kitchen. “You’re not coming?” Carter asked, both curious and hopeful. “Don’t want to ruin your date,” I said. “And I’m not in the mood.”

“Why not?” Miranda asked.

There were a lot of reasons, but I didn’t feel the need to get into them at that moment. I needed to clear my head.

“I’m tired,” I said. “Go. I’ll fill you guys in later.”

“On what?” Carter asked.

I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure.

FORTY-FIVE

Call it maturity. Call it good decision making. Call it whatever you want, but I’d come to the decision that no matter how badly I wanted Keene myself, I wouldn’t be able to do much with him. The smart course of action was to talk to Klimes and tell him what I’d learned.

It took a sandwich and two beers before arriving at that conclusion. Keene wasn’t going to be phased by any more threats I made. There wasn’t any guarantee that Klimes would help me out, but I thought he’d at least be honest with me about whether he could do anything.

Dispatch patched me through to his cell. “Klimes.” “Klimes, it’s Noah Braddock. Am I catching you at a bad time?” I heard paper crumple through the line. “Nope. Just finishing a shitty lunch. What’s up?”

“Remember that name I asked you to check? Keene?”

“Sure.”

“He’s your guy.” “On the dead girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me.”

I started with what Simington told me at the prison, including Keene and the smuggling, and ended with Carter and Miranda’s door-to-door.

“We didn’t get anybody to give those IDs when we asked,” Klimes said, annoyed.

“What can I tell you? Tight-knit group down here. They know Carter. They don’t know you. And Zanella’s an asshole.”

He chuckled. “I suppose. Gonna need to talk to those folks your friends talked to, though.”

“Okay. I’ll make it work.”

“And I had Keene on my short list.”

“How’s that?”

“Son, you asked me to run a name and then gave me a bullshit story about it. I may be fat and ugly, but I’m not dumb. I did my own, more extensive check. I tied some loose ends together with him and Simington.”

“You talk to him?”

“Not yet. Elusive little fella.”

“You have an address?”

“A bad one. And if I had a good one, I wouldn’t give it to you. You’re a bit too close to all this, Noah.”

He was right. Having Keene’s address would probably be too much temptation for me.

“That’s fine. I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks. Get me the names of your neighbors. ASAP.”

I told him I would and hung up.

A cannon of thunder boomed outside. The thrashing ocean looked like a giant bathtub beneath the storm. It should have been a great time to hit the water.

Stupid rain.

FORTY-SIX

Ringing.

In the distance.

I forced my eyes open. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. And the phone was ringing.

I scrambled around in the dark living room and found the phone on the dining room table. “Hello?”

“Well, I decided I’m not the patient type,” Landon Keene said.

The fogginess from sleep lifted immediately, and I gripped the phone tighter.

“Kid, you listening?” he said.

“Fuck you.”

“Good, good,” he said. “Like I said, I’m not good with patience. Decided I couldn’t leave it to you to make the right decision. Know what I mean?”

My fingers tingled. “No.”

“You seem a little stubborn. Just like your old man. Couldn’t risk that you’d do something dumb. Like repeating what he told you.”

“You better run, asshole,” I said. “I’ve already told the cops about your operation. They’re coming for you. And I hope they have to shoot you to catch you.”

“That right?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Guess I made the right decision then.”

My skin went cold and I couldn’t find any words.

The line buzzed. The room lit up for a moment as lightning struck in the distance. He knew he had me.

“The look in her eyes,” he said, a soft laugh drifting through the phone. “She was so surprised to see me.”

The room hollowed out. My heart rate accelerated like someone had pushed a button. Spots started flashing between my eyes. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Carolina and left her alone.

“If you—”

“I did. Maybe now you’ll get it.” He hung up.

FORTY-SEVEN

I dialed Carolina’s number twice as I sped from Mission Beach to Bay Park. No answer.

I called Carter. He answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?” I yelled.

“Driving around,” he said. “I’m showing—”

“Get to my mother’s! Now!”

“Ten minutes,” he said and hung up.

I threw the phone at the floor of the Jeep, so angry for listening to her and letting her convince me she could take care of herself. Not taking Keene seriously enough.

I’d fucked up.

The Jeep hydroplaned through the puddles on Morena, spraying water like giant rooster tails. People were honking and flashing their brights at me as I swerved around them.

I slammed on the brakes in front of Carolina’s house, sliding nearly twenty feet before coming to a crooked stop. Carter’s Ram Charger did the same on the opposite side of the street.

“What happened?” Carter yelled through the rain.

“Tell her to stay in the car,” I yelled back, gesturing at Miranda as I drew my gun.

He yelled something to her and produced his own gun.

I sprinted up the walk and saw a light on through the front window. I felt Carter right on my heels.

I hit the front door with my shoulder at full speed, and it collapsed like cardboard. I went down with it and somersaulted into the living room.

There was a clatter in the kitchen, and when I looked up, Carolina was aiming her own gun at us.

FORTY-EIGHT

“Noah?” Carolina said, lowering the gun and looking at us like we’d lost our minds. “Carter? What are you doing?”

I got to my feet, the blood pulsing in my ears, and scanned the room. Everything looked fine.

“I’m not sure, Ms. B.,” Carter said, his gun still up. “Noah told me to meet him here. I followed him in.”

I kept my gun level, moving it back and forth. “You didn’t answer your phone.”

“I ran to the store,” she said, bewildered. “Noah, what is going on?”

I moved into the back of the house and checked the other rooms.

Was Keene screwing with me?

“He wasn’t here?” I asked when I came back out.

“Who?” Carolina asked, still looking at me like I was crazy.

“Keene.”

She blinked several times. “No. I was home all day. I ran to the store to get eggs. I haven’t seen him.”

“Did he call you?” I said, hearing the frustration in my voice. “No. There was nothing on the machine.”

Keene had made a point of mentioning Carolina at the airport. He wanted me to know he was watching me. She was so surprised to see me. Keene didn’t strike me as the type to tease. “Noah,” Carter said. “What’s going on? You’re freaking us out.” The room hollowed out again. My stomach dropped. Keene wasn’t the type to tease. You should’ve seen her.

He knew every move I was making. Every place I’d been. Every person I’d talked to.

He’d used Carolina’s name. He hadn’t used Liz’s. But he knew.

FORTY-NINE

“Wellton!” I screamed into the phone as Carter and I flew down the freeway in his car. We’d left Miranda with my mother. “Tell me you know where she is.”

I’d called her home and her cell and the station. She was nowhere to be found. Wellton was my last shot.

“Braddock?” he said, confused. “What the hell—”

“Liz! Is she with you?”

“No, man. Haven’t seen her since this afternoon. She said—” “Get someone to her house! Now!”

“What’s going on?” he said, his tone sharper now, on alert.

“Just do it! Please.”

“I’m on it,” he said and clicked off.

I clutched the phone, feeling like it could shatter against the bones in my hand.

“Come on, come on,” I said, rocking back and forth in the passenger seat.

We were halfway over the bridge now, and Carter was doing ninety.

“She can handle herself, Noah,” he said, laying on the horn as we came up on the bumper of a truck. The truck moved over quickly, and Carter accelerated. “She’s a cop.”

“Why didn’t she answer?” I asked. “Why? Fuck!”

We came to the bottom of the bridge, and he swung the huge car to the right, the rear fishtailing behind us.

“Your mom was at the store,” he said, not sounding confident. “Maybe she’s out.”

His argument was rational. She could have been out anywhere without her phone. A five-minute trip to the store or the beach.

But it didn’t feel right.

He hit the brakes, and I was out of the car before it stopped in front of her place, tumbling to the wet street, the rain stinging my face. I jumped up and ran to the house.

No lights.

I hit her door the same way I’d hit Carolina’s and pain radiated through my shoulder. Liz’s much heavier door fought me a little more, but landed on the floor with a thud, and I stumbled in on top of it.

I stood still for a moment. The room was black and quiet. All I could hear was Carter’s and my breathing and the rain spanking the pavement outside.

“Liz?” I yelled.

Nothing.

“I got upstairs,” Carter said, moving past me, his gun up and ready. “You get the kitchen?”

I took a deep breath, bent my knees, and stepped quickly from the living room into the kitchen. I rotated my gun through the room. Dishes in the sink. A napkin on the table. Lightning flashed outside the window.

No one.

I stood up and took another deep breath, trying to gain control. Maybe Keene had just played me, messed with my head. Trying to show me he was in control. He’d gotten in my head at the airport. He’d seen it, and now he was seeing what he could do to me.

I walked out of the kitchen and Carter was at the top of the stairs. He took one step down, his entire body lethargic and heavy. When I saw the expression on his face, an expression I’d never seen before—disbelief, confusion—I knew.

FIFTY

She was on the bed and, in the dark, appeared to be sleeping. I moved closer and felt my gun slip out of my hand and fall to the floor.

Her eyes were open and her arms outstretched, like she’d been reaching for something. A deep, red circle on her chest half a foot in diameter had stained the T-shirt she was wearing and bled into the sheet.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and touched her hand. It was still warm, and I laced my fingers with hers, squeezing hard, as though I could transfer my life to hers.

But I knew that I couldn’t.

I heard sirens in the distance and shouts downstairs, but they seemed further away.

I reached out and covered her eyes, gently pushing her lids down.

The tears fell off my face onto hers, and in the murky, rainy moonlight, it looked like it was Liz who was crying rather than me.

FIFTY-ONE

Commotion.

People were coming and going. Carter sat next to me on the sofa in Liz’s living room. I was vaguely aware of all this, yet completely removed from it. I wasn’t numb; I could feel a dull pain in my stomach that pulsed with each breath. It was more like I was trying to wake up and couldn’t clear my head.

Wellton was standing in front of me. “Did you hear me?”

I looked up. “What?”

His eyes were blazing in the dark room. “I asked when you last spoke to her.”

“Oh. I … um … this morning. I was here. Then I left.” “Where’d you go?” he asked.

I’d walked out of the house. Told her I’d do the right thing. That I wouldn’t let her down.

“Where did you go?” Wellton repeated, his voice seared with anger.

“I … home, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Easy,” Carter said.

Wellton pointed at Carter. “Shut the hell up. My partner is dead, and I want to know why.”

Carter stood and started yelling at him, but his words faded in the air.

I’d told her I wouldn’t let her down.

But I had.

Why had I even left her? Why hadn’t I seen it?

The ache in my stomach pulsed like a strobe. My arms and legs felt light, like they were attached but I couldn’t control them.

Two officers grabbed Carter and pulled him away from Wellton, and the words in the room exploded back into my head.

“Leave him alone!” Carter was yelling. “He found her! How do you think he feels?”

“She was my partner!” Wellton was screaming back, his hands now on Carter’s shirt.

“And she was more to him!” Carter yelled back, straining against the grasp of the two officers.

I knew they were talking about me, but I couldn’t engage.

I felt Liz’s hands on my face. We were standing in her doorway. Her eyes were right in front of me. I could smell her hair, her skin, feel her breath against my skin, her lips against mine.

Don’t worry about letting me down. Just do what you need to do.

I’d let her down.

I hadn’t done what I needed to do. And now she was gone.

FIFTY-TWO

I don’t know how long we stayed at Liz’s. I know that I tried to answer more of Wellton’s questions. I know that he and Carter continued to yell at each other. I know that Klimes and Zanella showed up at some point. And I know I saw her body come down on a stretcher beneath a white sheet.

That, for sure, I know.

At some point, Carter took me home. The rain was still pounding against the streets and his car as we drove. “We’ll find him,” Carter said.

I didn’t know who he meant, and I didn’t ask. My mouth was sealed shut, like someone had filled it with cement. My eyes stung. Something throbbed in my ears.

Carter was talking, but I was only hearing bits and pieces.

“… I don’t know where …”

A chill rattled my body. I looked across the bay as we neared Mission Beach and saw Liz standing in the water. “… and no one will …” I closed my eyes, trying to abate the stinging. “… don’t let it …”

I leaned my head against the glass, the cold window sticking against my cheek. The car was spinning.

I felt Carter’s hand on my shoulder. “Hey. Are you alright?”

My head fell forward in something resembling a nod.

I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them we were in the alley next to my place. I shoved the door open and slid out, my legs feeling awkward and stiff beneath me. I looked up, letting the rain pelt my face.

Carter appeared next to me and held out a hand to help steady me.

I waved him off and forced myself to walk toward the house. I got the door open. It was pitch black inside. I heard Carter come in behind me.

I didn’t stop until I found my bed. I collapsed into it, shut my eyes, and wished for nothing else than to never wake up.

FIFTY-THREE

Flashbulbs kept going off in my head, showing me snapshots I didn’t know I’d taken.

Liz and me in high school, talking in the hallway. She was a year older than me. She was telling me she wanted to interview me for the paper. I said okay.

Then she was yelling at me. We were in a parking lot. She was furious with me, and I was yelling back at her.

We were in her office. She was pointing a finger at me.

We were sitting on her deck, drinking beer. I could see her legs in the dark.

I was driving the Jeep. Liz was sitting next to me. We were on the 101, the sun setting to our left.

We were in her bed. She was on top of me, sweating, our eyes locked as we moved together.

Then we were in the ocean. I was yelling something across the water to her. My voice was coming out of my mouth, but I couldn’t make out what I was saying. She was coming toward me, the water splashing around her legs as she got closer.

I was still talking, but I couldn’t hear the words.

And then she was gone, and I was standing in the ocean by myself, still saying whatever I’d been saying, turning around in circles, looking for her.

FIFTY-FOUR

My eyes opened, and the daylight forced me to squeeze them shut again.

I opened them more carefully this time. Muted sunlight filtered into the room. The sheets on my bed were twisted around me like ribbons, and I struggled to pull myself out of them. I pushed up and sat on the edge of the mattress. My head ached, and it felt like an entire cotton field had grown inside my mouth. I stood and walked out to the living room.

Carter was on the sofa, watching the television with the sound turned down.

He turned around. “Hey.” He reached over, grabbed the remote, and shut off the TV.

I opened the fridge, found a bottle of water, and downed it in about four swallows.

“You alright?” he asked.

I threw the empty bottle in the sink. “Time is it?” My throat was tight and raw.

“About four o’clock.”

I looked out the window. The weak sunlight I’d seen in my room was about to disappear again behind clouds the color of steel. “You spend the night here?” I asked. He hesitated. “Both nights.” I looked at him. “Both?”

“You haven’t come out of your room for almost two days, man.” I nodded like I knew that. I grabbed another bottle of water out of the fridge and drank half of it. “Where’s Miranda?” “My place.”

The clouds swallowed the sun, and the rain started to fall. “Still raining?” I said.

“It’s barely stopped,” he said. “Wellton wants you—” “Don’t.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Not yet,” I said, watching the waves tumble outside.

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. I watched the water, and he watched me.

“There’s one thing, Noah,” he finally said. “I think you should know.”

I emptied the bottle, tossed it into the sink with the other, and took a deep breath. “What?”

“Tomorrow. Ten AM,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “Her funeral.”

I grabbed another bottle of water from the fridge and went back to my room.

WEEK THREE

FIFTY-FIVE

Police funerals are like parades.

Everyone gets dressed up. There is marching, speeches, and music. The dead are treated like heroes, as they should be.

I assume they did the same for Liz, but I didn’t go to watch it.

Carter and I—several times I’d told him I was fine, that he could leave me alone, but he never bought it and he was probably correct not to—waited for the pomp and circumstance to end and then drove out to the cemetery on Coronado. He dropped me off at the gate and said he’d be back in an hour.

I wandered through the park, headstones rising out of the muddy ground like dominoes, until I found the one I was looking for.

Elizabeth Shannon Santangelo.

I knelt down next to the freshly turned earth and ran my hand across the dirt, knowing she was somewhere beneath it.

I wasn’t sure what I believed when it came to the afterlife. Like most people, I hoped that there was something else, that in some way we lived on after our lives were extinguished here. But maybe that was just a concept, developed and perpetuated throughout time, meant to help us deal with the finality of death.

As I let the dirt fall through my fingers, I chose to believe that there was something else, because believing that this was the final stop for Liz was too much for me to bear.

The wind picked up and whistled across the cemetery, the rain taking a momentary respite.

I’d heard people say that when someone you care about dies unexpectedly, it doesn’t seem real.

That wasn’t the experience I was having.

Sitting in a cemetery, next to a headstone with her name engraved in elegant letters, made it very real.

I was surprised to see the headstone already in place, but the department arranged her funeral and I assumed that they expedited the creation and placement of the marker, not wanting one of their own to go anonymously into the earth.

I ran my index finger across the letters. The stone was cold, and it sent a chill through my arm, down my spine, and into my heart.

I wasn’t there to say goodbye. Maybe I’d be ready to do that another time, but not now.

I just wanted to be near her.

But as I sat there, knowing she wasn’t coming back, the chill in my body began to pulse, like someone was tapping my insides with a frozen hammer. Everything hurt.

I stared at her name on that headstone for a long time. There were no tears. I don’t know why. But they didn’t come. I knew they’d arrive later, at some unexpected and irrelevant point when I finally gave in to being without her.

The wind gathered speed and rain drops smacked the back of my neck.

I grabbed another handful of dirt. I folded my fingers around it and squeezed.

As the rain pelted me, I stood. I opened my hand, and it looked to me like some of the dirt had disappeared. It had probably just slipped out of my hand, but I liked the idea that it had forced its way into my skin, into my veins, and into my soul to stay with me forever.

I looked down at the earth, the rain matting it down like it was trying to put a protective seal over her.

“I’m sorry I let you down,” I told her, my voice cracking, as I backed away from Liz Santangelo’s grave. “But I will fix it.”