Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries) (14 page)

“Jumping
through windows.”

I
pointed at my stitches. “I’m still doing shit that makes me look like this, and
it’s not like I’m going to stop. I’m just not. But maybe…” I thought about it.
“Maybe if I wasn’t here. If I was sitting on a beach somewhere, maybe I could
be normal for a while.”

“You
know,” Dan said. “I think that’s a really good idea. Maybe you should head out
to Hawaii for a few weeks. Sit on the beach and look at the waves.”

“I could
learn to surf,” I said. I was joking, but it didn’t really sound that bad once
I thought about it.

“Why
not?” he said. “You’ve got the money. I don’t know what you’ve been paid for
your off-the-books work, but I’m sure it’s a lot.”

“It is.”

“So it’s
really not such a bad idea, is it? Get out of here for a while, get your head
in a good place, and then come back and start fresh.”

“It does
sound pretty good,” I admitted.

“All
right,” Dan said. “So we’re agreed. Now if I let you out of here, will you be
good?”

“Does it
matter what I say?” I asked. “You know you can’t actually charge me with
anything, and you’re too much a stickler for the rules to hold me here illegally.”

The side
of his mouth turned up in a half-grin. “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember
that,” he said. He patted his suit pocket. “I’m going to hold on to the badge,”
he said. “After your vacation, let’s talk about putting it back where it
belongs.”

“Sure,”
I said. “Maybe I’ll feel differently.” Well, I knew that wasn’t really true,
but telling him what he wanted to hear now was probably the wisest course of
action.

“I hope
so,” he said. He handed me the manila envelope that held the items that had been
taken from me. I didn’t care much about my wallet, and seeing my phone was
nice, but putting my hand back on my Glock was like reconnecting with a
long-lost friend. I had to resist the urge to kiss it.

Dan
walked me to the jail’s front door after a guard let us out of the cell. “Take
care of yourself, Nevada,” he said. “Let me know what you decide to do. I
really think Hawaii might be…”

“Yeah,”
I said quickly. “I will.” But I knew if I left, it wasn’t going to be to go to
Hawaii. And I really didn’t know if I’d ever come back.

Chapter 20

Dan
offered to have a couple patrol cops drive me home, but I decided I didn’t feel
like sitting in the back of a police car again. I called a taxi, instead. While
I was waiting for it to arrive my cell phone buzzed. It wasn’t a call; it was
an alert from my home security system. Someone had rung my doorbell. That
wasn’t an unusual thing, but I pulled up a screen to activate a small camera
set above my front door. A woman I didn’t recognize was standing there. She was
young, maybe in her twenties, but it was hard to make out much more than that.
After a moment she rang the bell again, and after waiting for a minute or so she
walked away. Maybe it had been another Jehovah’s Witness stopping by to offer
me some reading material. The camera clicked itself off when nothing else
happened. I decided not to worry about it. If one of the interior alarms was
tripped I’d know about it in a hurry. That didn’t happen, though. Five minutes
passed with no more activity, so I put the phone back in my pocket and went
back to waiting.

It was
getting near rush hour and Ocean Beach had traffic problems, so it was nearly
6:00 pm when I finally reached my house. I’d decided to wait an hour or so and
then head back to Samantha’s place. If she was home she’d have lights on, and
it would be harder to hide from me.

As I
neared my front door I noticed a blue Celica parked nearby. Its driver’s side
door opened and the woman I’d seen on my security camera before got out. She
was blonde, pretty, and wore blue jeans and a grey sweater. I still didn’t
recognize her, but she didn’t strike me as a Jehovah’s Witness. They usually
dressed up a little when they made the rounds. Had to look good to represent
God, you know?

My Glock
was under my leather jacket, but she didn’t look particularly threatening so I
didn’t reach for it as she took an unsteady step toward me. Was she drunk? I’d
used to walk like that all the time. “Can I help you?” I called.

She took
a long look at me. “You’re Nevada James,” she said. Her eyes were glassy. I knew
that look, too. She was half in the bag. Had she driven here like that? She’d
been lucky not to get pulled over, then.

“The one
and only,” I said. “Do we know each other?”

“No,”
she said. She reached into the purse she carried at her side and took out a
small handgun. I shook my head. That had been careless of me. There was no way
she’d have ever outdrawn me if she was as trashed as I thought she was, but I
hadn’t been expecting it.

“I have
a gun,” she announced, as if I somehow hadn’t seen it. She didn’t point it at
me; she just sort of held it in my direction as if she wanted to make a point.

“Great,”
I said. “So do I.” I tapped my jacket. “Let me guess. You’re Samantha?”

She
nodded and waved the gun in the air. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.
“Just don’t try anything, okay?”

I
shrugged. “Yeah, whatever,” I said. “I doubt you could hit me, anyway. It’s
really not polite to start a conversation by drawing your gun, you know?” I
looked at the pistol. I didn’t recognize the model. “Is that a .32?”

The
question seemed to baffle her. “No.” She looked at the gun as if she was seeing
it for the first time. “It’s a nine millimeter.”

“Good
gun,” I said. “People say those don’t have much stopping power, but those
people have never been hit by one.”

She
nodded. “Okay.”

“So what
are you doing here, Samantha? I guess I should thank you for saving me the time
of finding you, but I’m not going to.”

She
waved the gun in the direction of my house. “Let’s go inside.”

I
thought about going for my gun, or maybe just rushing her, instead. I’d heard
once that the best thing to do if someone was shooting at you was to run
straight toward them. It’s intimidating and they tend to miss out of their own
fear. Adrenaline does a number on aiming. But I was tired. It had been a long
day. It had been a long couple of years, really, but who was counting? I wasn’t
in the mood for a fight, though, and I didn’t think Samantha was here for one,
either. “Fine,” I said. “Try not to shoot me on the way in.”

I
disabled my security system and opened the front door. Samantha followed along
behind me, her gun at her side. She was close enough that I could smell the
alcohol on her now. “How did you find me?” I asked.

“Your
house was a crime scene,” she said. “It was on the news.” Her eyes were wide. “The
Laughing Man killed someone in here.”

“Fair
enough,” I said. “It was the last house that was here, really, but I suppose
you’re right. Maybe I should have just built a 7-11 here and moved to La
Jolla.”

“What?”

“Never
mind.”

Once we
were inside Samantha took a look around my living room. “You don’t have any
furniture?” she asked.

“No.”

“Not
even chairs?”

“I live
a pretty simple life,” I said. “There are some chairs in the kitchen. And a
little table we could sit down at.”

“Let’s
go in there, then,” she said.

We went
into the kitchen and she sat down at the table there before I had a chance to.
I pushed my laptop aside and was about to sit down across from her when she
asked, “Do you have anything to drink?”

“Diet
soda or water.”

She
shook her head. “Alcohol. I know it said on the news you don’t drink anymore,
but maybe…” she trailed off.

I
thought about saying no, but I didn’t have the energy to lie. I went to the
cabinet and took down my bottle of Grey Goose. I’d been saving it for a rainy
day, after all. It wasn’t raining, but I guess this counted. I broke the seal
on it for the first time and poured two inches of it into a Dixie cup. I put it
down in front of her. “I don’t have any real glasses. Sorry.”

“It’s
fine,” she said. She sniffed the vodka, and then downed the entire thing,
making a face as she swallowed. “Oh, god,” she said. “That’s awful.”

“Not a
vodka drinker?” I asked. “That’s the good stuff.”

“I don’t
drink much,” she said. She gave me a curious look. “Join me?”

I
considered it as I sat the bottle down on the table. If I was ever going to
break my teetotaler ways, this was as good an excuse as any. But I put that
thought aside. “No,” I said.

“More
for me.” She poured another slug of vodka into her cup and downed it.

“So…” I
said. “I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here today.”

Samantha
made a wrinkled face as she thought that over. “What?”

“Sorry,”
I said. “I’ve just always wanted to say something like that. It would have been
a lot funnier if you weren’t so drunk.”

“I asked
you here.” She shook her head.

“Not
really,” I said. “You just sort of arrived.”

“Yeah.”
She nodded. “Are you wondering why?”

“Not
really,” I said. “I think I’ve got most of it figured out.”

She
nodded again. “They say you’re a great detective.”

“You
know what?” I asked. “I’m not. Not really. I’m not even being modest.” She gave
me a skeptical look. “I’m not. I just tend to be in the right place at the
right time. Or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at
it.”

“Oh.”

I leaned
forward. “You know how most crimes are solved? Really?”

“How?”

“People
talk. I mean, people just can’t keep their mouths shut. Someone robs a bank and
you want to know who, go to the nearest bar and sit there for an hour. Some
dumbass will be in there talking. Someone’s got money and is buying rounds for
the house when yesterday they couldn’t pay their rent. Someone wants to show
off their new car. Whatever.”

“You
solve a lot of crimes that way?” Samantha asked.

“Well,
that’s an oversimplified example,” I said. “It’s not really a practical one.
It’s more or less true, though. And sometimes you just follow a trail and find
somebody waiting at the end of it.” I nodded at her. “Of course, sometimes you
just come home and find someone pointing a gun at you, which makes things
really
easy. You’d be surprised how often that happens to me.”

Samantha
looked at the gun in her hand as if she had forgotten it was still there. “Oh,”
she said. “Sorry.” She put the gun down on the table and slid it across to me.

I looked
at the gun. “Well,” I said. “I have to admit
that’s
not what I was
expecting.”

She
squinted at me. “You thought I was going to shoot you?” Her speech was slurring
now. In another twenty minutes she probably wouldn’t be coherent.

“I thought
you might try,” I said. I took my Glock out of its holster and put it down on
the table in front of me. “You’d have only had one chance, though, and I doubt
you’re sober enough to aim.”

“I
needed to drink,” she said. “To do what I had to do.”

“To make
a confession?”

She
nodded. “I heard you were looking for me, and it was only going to be a matter
of time. But I wanted to explain to you…” She frowned. “I don’t know where to
start.”

“You
shot three men you thought were rapists who got away with it.”

She
blinked. “Oh,” she said. “You figured it out.”

“It
wasn’t rocket science.”

“Well,
yes,” she said. “That’s what happened.”

“But
that’s not all,” I said, “because you got one of them wrong. Same name,
different guy. You killed an innocent man.”

Tears
welled up in her eyes and she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

I
sighed. “Well,” I said, “I don’t know what to tell you. We could sit here and
have some philosophical conversation about the nature of justice and the place
of vigilantism and…I don’t know what else. At the end of the day we might find
some agreement. God knows I’ve been called a vigilante before, and there’s some
truth to it. The thing is, though…” I looked at her gun. “You killed the wrong
guy, Samantha. Even if I did agree with you about hunting down rapists and
killing them, even if I did go that far, it does pretty much hinge on you being
right about them. There’s no place for mistakes.”

“I
know,” she said. “I was so sure…”

“You got
sloppy.”

She
started to cry. Nobody had told me there would be crying. I wasn’t prepared for
this. “I should have been more careful,” she said. “You’re right. I know you’re
right.”

“Ah,” I
said. “I’m not…” She was still crying. “You want a Kleenex or something?” I
asked. I didn’t think I actually owned any Kleenex, but I could find her a
paper towel.

“No,”
she said. “I’m fine.” She wiped her face with her hands. “I just wanted to tell
you. I thought I was…”

“What?”

“She
said I was an angel,” Samantha said. “She said I was
her
angel.”

That was
the same thing Krystal had called me. “That’s another issue,” I said. “Krystal
was guilty of a lot of things, but she didn’t deserve what she got. Even if she
was trying to blackmail you, you didn’t have the right to kill her.”

Samantha
frowned. “Krystal?”

“Krystal
Harris.”

She considered
that. “I remember her,” she said. “She came in…a couple of times, I guess.” She
frowned at me. “She didn’t deserve what she got? She’s dead?”

Well,
shit. There was no way she was faking that reaction. I’d thought I’d been
dealing with one killer. Now I knew there was another. Just when I’d thought
this whole thing was going to be wrapped up with a neat little bow, it turned
out that wasn’t what was going to happen at all.

“Krystal’s
dead?” Samantha shook her head. “What happened to her?”

“Never
mind,” I said. “Who are you working with?”

“I was
the angel,” Samantha said. “I did it alone.”

“There
had to be…” I said. “You know what? I’ll figure it out. So what is it you want
me to do here? Call the police? Take you in myself? You’re obviously not here
to shut me up and I’m obviously not going to let you walk out of here.”

“No,”
she said. “I just thought…I remembered you from the news. You were brave. I
thought you’d understand me. I thought you might be a kindred spirit.”

I didn’t
particularly agree with any of that, but this wasn’t the time to start an
argument. “And?”

“And I
just thought you should know,” she said. Samantha’s head slumped forward and
she shut her eyes.

I waited
for a few moments for her to come around, but then it hit me. Samantha wasn’t
just drunk. I sprang out of my chair and grabbed her by the sides of her head,
turning her to face me. Her eyelids opened but I could only see the whites of
her eyes. “Samantha!” I yelled. She was unresponsive. “Samantha!” I slapped
her. “What did you take?”

I had to
slap her again before she answered me. “Everything,” she whispered. And then
she was out again.

I called
911.