Afraid to Die (26 page)

Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Afraid to Die

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Chapter 24

“Y
ou're Selena Alvarez,” the kid said. His hands shook a little as he held them over his head. “My mother, right?”

Oh, God.
She was thrown back in time to the austere hospital and the feeling of sheer terror that held her, the pain of the birth, the bright lights, the doctor's voice and the fear of the unknown of what would happen to her as she delivered the perfect little baby. She remembered his red face, the shock of black hair and his first squall, a sound that nearly broke her heart. Tears had flowed from her eyes and she had gasped for breath, torn between wanting to hold him and not wanting to see him at all.

What she caught was just a glimpse of a tiny face that seemed to stare straight into her soul before he was whisked away forever.

Now she stood, frozen, the weapon still pointed at him. “I don't know,” she admitted, lowering her pistol, then putting it into its holster again and all the while feeling as if she'd been kicked in the gut, as if this surreal situation couldn't possibly be happening. Not to her. “I think ... yes, maybe.” Oh, Lord, was she beginning to cry? Were hot tears filling her eyes? That would never do! She sniffed them back. “Gabriel Reeve, right?” But she knew it was he, had from the second her gaze found him; she was reminded of her cousin at that age, handsome in that gawky way of a boy becoming a man. Yes, this teenager more than resembled her cousin; Gabriel Reeve was the spitting image of the prick who had spawned him.

Before she knew what to say to him, he shot to his feet. “You have to help me,” he said again. “I'm in really big trouble.”

“I know that.”

“I'm innocent!” He seemed suddenly frantic. “That gun, the one my dad found, it was planted in my backpack. I swear.”

If he didn't believe what he was saying, he was a damned good liar. She'd seen more than her share.

“I didn't know how to get rid of it, or even what to do with it. So I didn't do anything ... and then ... then I ...”

“Ran,” she supplied.

“Yeah. No one was gonna believe me. They never do.”

“So you came here because you thought I could help you?”

“Yeah. I came once before, but some guy was following me so I left.”

“Where have you been ever since?”

“By the falls. There's some shacks down there. Empty. Cold. And the restaurant. Wild Bill's.”

“Will's.”

“Yeah, that's it. There's always scraps.”

She told herself not to be taken in by him; he could well be a con man or even a hardened criminal.

Or he could be telling the truth and is a boy on the run, falsely accused, having nowhere to turn ...

“Where's my dog?”

“What?”

“Roscoe.” She pointed to the empty crate. “He was gone.”

“There was no dog.”

“Of course there was.”

Shaking his head violently, Gabe insisted, “There was no dog here, I swear. I saw the cat, yeah, but no dog.”

“Maybe you let him out by mistakeâ”

“I'm telling you! I did
not
see any damned dog. Okay? I know what a dog looks like! That pen thing,” he said, hitching his chin at the crate, “that was open, I think, but I didn't take time to look around. The guy was chasing me. He's ... he's my mom's cousin, I think. I met him a couple of times, but now he's like ... like a Dog the Bounty Hunterâtype of guy on TV!”

“Not quite,” she said, and despite the raw emotion pulsing through the house, she almost laughed aloud to think of O'Keefe compared to Duane “Dog” Chapman, the TV bounty hunter.

“Anyway, I finally lost him so I came back. Here. For you to help me.”

“And you thought I would do that, why?”

“Because you're my mom. You owe me.”

“Whoa ... I don't think ... I mean I'm not sure either of us owes anyone anything,” she said, trying to get a grip while her own emotions were stretched thin. She wanted to reach out to him but didn't dare and then kicked herself for being afraid. Of what? Losing him again. “And the jewelry, you took that?”

“You think I stole your jewelry? Why would I do that?”

“To pawn.”

“No, I just wanted out.”

“There was some money.”

“Twenty bucks! That's all!”

“And you took it.”

He hesitated.

“With the jewelry.”

“No! Damn it! I did
not
take any of your fucâyour jewelry. But, yeahâ” His jaw set, again reminding her of Emilio, and he said, almost inaudibly, “I might have picked up the money.”

There was no “might have” about it. “I don't care about it.”

“You don't?” His eyes narrowed, as if he didn't believe a word that she said.

“Well, yes, of course, but, no. Not right now.” She was sounding as confused as he looked. Holding up a hand, as if she expected him to interrupt, she said, “Okay! Don't worry about the money. At least for now. Why don't you go into the bathroom and clean up and I'll get you something to eat? You must be starved. I've got some leftover pizza in the refrigerator.”

“I ate it. The good kind. Not that kind with the squash on it!”

“The zucchini?”

“Whatever! It was nasty.” He shuddered for effect as she walked into the kitchen and saw the evidence, the empty pizza boxes, a few wrinkled vegetables scraped onto the oil-soaked ridges of the cardboard that lined the boxes. He said from the other room, “I'm ... I'm okay. Don't need a shower or nothing. Look, you just gotta help me.”

“I'm a cop.”

“I
know
that. That's one of the reasons I came here!” He was getting agitated, a little frantic. “Look, I've got nowhere else to go and ... and I figure you might want to help me.”

“What?” she asked. “How do you figure that?”

“You gave me away!”

That much was true, and she wanted to help him, but not more than she did any other teenager in trouble.

Are you kidding? Trying to balm your own sense of guilt? He's right. You have a responsibility to him, one that goes beyond just being a cop trying to help a troubled kid and bring him to justice. He could be your son, damn it, Selena!

“So ... what
exactly
do you expect me to do?” she asked, trying to stay calm when she felt as if her entire world was turned inside out.

“Find out who planted the gun on me.”

“One of your friends?”

“No!” he said quickly. Too quickly. His gaze skittered away and around the room, as if he were searching for the right answer. Or a place to hide. “Not my friend. No way. But, maybe one of his friends ... those guys ... I, uh, don't know ... We were hanging with some people Joey knew that night.”

“Joey?”

“Lizard.”

“That's his nickname?”

“No!” She saw it, he nearly rolled his eyes but held back, probably was too scared. Or too smart. Was he playing her? How would she know? Gabe cleared things up a little, at least in his mind, by adding, “Joey's last name is Lizard. But, yeah, sometimes we, like, call him Lizard.”

She knew that fact, of course; was just checking, trying to figure out how much of the truth she was getting and how much of what he said was just plain BS. Gabe had come to her, so she expected he wouldn't lie, at least not too much. If he had any brains at all, which he obviously did, then he'd know she'd already have some of the information on him. He just didn't know how much.

Joseph Peter Lizard's name had been all over the information O'Keefe had accumulated as well as on the original police report, which, of course, Alvarez had read. Lizard's “friends,” Donovan Vale and Lincoln “Line” Holmes, had been listed along with Joseph Lizard and Gabriel Reeve, who were both underage and whose names had not been given to the press.

Not that they weren't guilty. Just young.

She said, “Tell me about Lizard's friends.”

“Like, they're older.”

“How much?”

“I dunno, around twenty or so, I think.” He appeared to be thinking, hard, trying to come up with the right answer, or maybe just a plausible one.

So far, though, so good.

“What was the plan?”

“There wasn't really a plan. They just wanted to break into the judge's house and mess it up, I guess.”

“Vandalize it?”

He shrugged, then stopped, as if sensing he might be digging himself in too deep.

“Why?” she asked. “Why mess it up?”

Another lift of the shoulders, but he did say, “I think, like, cuz the judge, he sent one of them's girlfriend to jail or something.”

“Ramsey, he was the sentencing judge for the girlfriend? Is that what you're saying? Judge Victor Ramsey.”

“Yeah, he was the guy.” Worrying his lip, he added, “I guess.”

“Not âthe guy.' Judge Ramsey, in this case, was the victim,” she repeated, to clarify. “And his daughter, she's in your class at St. Francis's Academy in Helena?”

“You know this already, don't you?” he charged. “Crap! Then why are you asking me?”

Because that's what I do. This is my job. And you might be my son as well as a suspect.
Oh, God, she wasn't handling this right. She wasn't arresting him, wasn't reading him his rights, wasn't even treating him as she would another juvenile offender, but she couldn't stop. “Clara, right? Clara Ramsey goes to your school?”

“Yeah ...” He was wary, still edging toward the door that she'd left ajar. Any second he could bolt! She had to keep him here. Had to work this out. To connect with him.

And arrest him.

“I dunno. Yeah. I guess. I just didn't know that they were gonna rob the guy, and we, Joey and me, we were supposed to be the lookouts. But I didn't even know there was a gun until I heard the shots and then ... we ran ... and then it ends up in my backpack.” He shook his head and glanced at the ceiling as if he couldn't believe his bad luck.

“With your fingerprints on it?”

“I picked it up when I found it in the pocket of the backpack! Wouldn't you? I mean, I didn't know how it got there. But I never shot it. I swear! You have to believe me!”

“So who put it there?”

He was still shaking his head. “Dunno.”

“Joey?”

“What? I don't think so. Nah, he wouldn't.” He looked at her through the fringe of the hair falling over his forehead and she recognized the fear in those eyes that reminded her so much of Emilio. He was pleading with her, and she believed he was scared out of his mind.

Good.

So was she.

Usually she was calm, a levelheaded cop, aside from the one mistake in San Bernardino, but this, dealing with her own flesh and blood, her son, was new and had her second-guessing herself.

“You have to turn yourself in, you know.”

“What?” He freaked. His expression turned to panic. “No!”

“Of course you do, but I'll be there. With you. And your mother, Aggie; she and your dad will be there, too. She's worried sick about you.”

“You don't even know her.”

“True. But I know she wants you to do the right thing.”

“Which is turn myself in? No way!” He wasn't buying it.

As a cop, Alvarez believed in the system, trusted that truth and justice would win out, but he, of course, did not.

“Uh-uh. They'll put this all on me. No one will believe me!”

“I believe you, Gabe.”

“You have to!”

“No, I don't.”
Stay calm. Don't lose him.

Angry now, Gabe looked as if he was about to turn and run, flee out the door and into the cold, dark night.