Broken (12 page)

I couldn’t
look directly at him. The carpet was much less judgmental. I looked at it
instead.

“You
know what, Nevada? He beat you. Fine. He beat you and I know he hurt you very
badly. I don’t blame you for losing it for a while. God knows I probably would
have, too, if I’d been in your place.” He leaned forward. “You know what’s
great about people, sweetheart? We get better. We get sick, and then we get
better. It’s time for you to get back on your feet.”

I could
feel Jean-Paul hovering just beyond the entryway to the next room, waiting
until Scott finished with me before he came in. It was sweet of him to let me
have that little bit of dignity.

“I’m
trying,” I said to Scott.

“
Try
harder
.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”
He sighed. “Jean-Paul? We’re done.”

Jean-Paul
came back into the living room, carrying a small wicker basket filled with bottles.
“For you, dear,” he said gently. I looked inside and saw he’d assembled a
collection of shampoos and conditioners, a few bars of soap, and other things I
didn’t recognize. I’d never been much of a girly-girl. “Give me a call,”
Jean-Paul said, stroking my hair again. “I could do wonders with this.”

“Thanks,”
I said quietly. I didn’t want to look at him, or at anyone else, ever again.

Jean-Paul
sat down next to Scott and squeezed his hand. Scott smiled weakly at him. I
could see his eyes were wet. It seemed like I made every man that knew me cry
these days.

“You’ll
call me?” I asked Scott.

“Of
course not,” he snapped. “You’ll be contacted.”

In a way
that could never be traced back to him, no doubt. I stood up. “Thanks for
seeing me.”

He
looked up at me. “I meant what I said. Do we understand each other?”

“Getting
back on my feet,” I said. “You got it.” But I didn’t believe it, and I knew he
didn’t, either.

Chapter 18

Back in my
car, I put my hands on the steering wheel and cried for a good five minutes.

The
disappointment and anger Scott had expressed in me had been too much to take.
And the worst part of it was that he was right. I had failed. The Laughing Man
had knocked me down and I hadn’t gotten back up. I’d surrendered. I’d spent the
last three years destroying myself, finishing the job he had started for him.
How many times had I wished he’d killed me? He could have done it easily
enough. It would have been so simple for him to cut me up and pose me in the
still-life he had created out of what was left of those two little girls I’d
been trying to save.

But it
had been a game to him. Like checkers, or maybe chess, and a chess game didn’t
usually end with the winner murdering the loser. He’d wanted to savor his
victory, and he’d wanted me to be alive while he did it. He’d wanted me to live
with the knowledge that he’d won our game.

God, I
needed a drink.

I drove
home, stopping at a liquor store along the way for two bottles of vodka and a
packaged ham sandwich. I opened one of the bottles in my car and took a long
drink out of it, then stashed them under the passenger seat for the drive home.

The ham
sandwich was awful, but I needed food. I ate it as I drove, flinging the stale
crusts out the window onto the freeway. If someone wanted to report me for
throwing bread at them, they could go ahead and do it. Good luck finding the
evidence later.

Back
home I poured a tumbler full of vodka and downed half of it. Then I went to
find the business card Davies had given me. Once I had it in hand I dialed his
number from the house phone.

He
answered on the second ring. “You have her?”

One more
person I was about to disappoint tonight. “No,” I said. “I was wondering if
Chandler had found anything on that Swiss bank account.”

“Chandler
is on his way to Switzerland right now.”

I
blinked. “Really?”

“He took
two of my best people and got on a plane. I told him I don’t care what he has
to do as long as he gets me some answers.”

“Okay,”
I said. That wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I’d thought if I could get Emerson
on the phone I could trick some information out of him, maybe even get an idea
of who he was working for. But if he was flying to Switzerland, well, he sure
as hell didn’t have Anna with him.

“Are you
making any progress?” Davies asked.

“Not
yet,” I said, “but I’m working on a lead.”

“What is
it?”

“Just
trying to figure out who would be fool enough to kidnap your family,” I said.
“It’s not a smart play for a lot of reasons.” I didn’t think he needed to know
I hadn’t worked that out until I’d gone to an A.A. meeting.

“No,” he
said. “Someone is going to die for this.”

“Maybe
you don’t want to tell me that.”

“I guess
not,” he said. “Well, keep at it. I meant what I said before. Give me my daughter
and I’ll give you anything you want.”

The
truth was I wanted a lot of things, but the only one he could really provide me
with was money. That would have to be good enough.

I said
good night and hung up the phone. I could have told him Emerson was somehow involved,
of course, but if he reacted by pulling the lawyer’s head off, it was a death
sentence for his daughter. I had a better chance of keeping her alive if I kept
quiet for now. It was too early in the game to show all of my cards.

Game
?

It was
getting late but I wasn’t tired. I seemed to be getting more manic, and the
vodka wasn’t shutting me down the way it usually did. I switched on the
television, remembered I hadn’t paid my cable bill, and shut it off. I needed
something to do.

Of
course. I would finally find my cell phone.

Half an
hour later I had not found my cell phone. After looking in every drawer and
cabinet in the house I’d found nothing but dirty laundry and garbage. A search
under my couch cushions yielded nothing more but some loose change,
horrifically decomposed food, and a motorcycle magazine I’d bought two years
ago.

In the
kitchen I dispensed with the glass and took a long drink of vodka directly from
the open bottle. I could feel the heat of the alcohol finally spreading throughout
my body, down my arms and legs, and my head had the familiar fuzziness I’d been
craving. That was it. Now I’d be able to sleep tonight.

I sat
back down on my couch and watched the blank television screen for a while. The
vodka was rapidly overtaking my brain now, coming on like a tidal wave. I’d had
too much of it too fast, but I didn’t care. Pretty soon I’d be…

Chapter 19

The sun
was just starting to go down when I came to. I blinked once against the sunlight
coming in through the window and thought about that. It had been late at night
when I’d gotten home and started drinking. Or continued drinking, anyway. How
long had I been out?

I’d
changed clothes in the interim. I didn’t remember that. I’d been in a blackout,
then. I’d been up and active, but the part of my brain that recorded memories
had been turned off. It was a much more dangerous state than just drinking too
much and passing out. Asleep I’d have been harmless. Awake and without the
ability to form memories? Who knew what I’d done?

My mouth
was dry. I went into the kitchen to pour myself a drink. I was surprised to
find a third bottle on the counter that hadn’t been there the night before.
That was a bad sign. It meant I’d been out of the house. It wasn’t unusual for
me to buy more alcohol during a blackout, but it also meant there were plenty
of things that could have gone wrong on the way to the store and back.

My front
door was closed and locked. So at least I’d done that much right.

I looked
out the window to the street, expecting to see my car parked there. It wasn’t. Uh-oh.

I
stepped outside and looked up and down the street. The car was nowhere in view.
I finally spotted it when I turned around and saw it parked in my open garage.
Something didn’t look quite right, though. I got closer and saw that at some
point I’d driven the car into the back wall of the garage. There didn’t appear
to be much damage, but the impact had been enough to set off the car’s airbags.
I wasn’t going to be driving it for a while.

The keys
were still in the ignition. I took them out and stuck them in my pocket,
cursing my own stupidity as I did so. I needed the damn car. Why had I gotten
so drunk last night? Because Scott had called me out on my own bullshit? That
had to be the worst excuse of all time.

I ran my
fingers through my hair and my hands came out covered with what looked like
chalk. It must have been left there when the airbags went off. That was
probably why I’d changed my clothes, but I hadn’t bothered to shower. I’d get
around to that.

I hit
the switch to close the garage door and went back into the house. Back in the
kitchen I poured half an inch of vodka into a glass and sipped it slowly, then
put the bottle I’d obtained during the blackout away. This was a sign I needed
to take it easy on the stuff, obviously. I was going to have to call a damn tow
truck to get the car to the shop, and new airbags would be expensive. It was a good
thing I had a rich gangster client.

Good
god. Was this really what my life had come to?

The wind
chimes rang and this time I remembered immediately that that was the sound of my
doorbell. Had someone come to check on me? I headed for the door, but my body
started shaking and my legs went out from under me halfway there. I fell to the
ground and retched once, then leaned forward and vomited on the carpet, unable
to control myself.

I wasn’t
surprised to see there was no food in what came up. I was surprised by the
amount of yellow liquid, given that I drank vodka almost exclusively. Had I
gotten my hands on tequila at some point? Or was that…
bile
? Jesus
fucking
Christ. When this was over I’d definitely have to think about seeing a
doctor. I knew I’d never go through with it, but maybe if I thought about it
really
hard
it would help.

My
shaking didn’t seem to be subsiding but it wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t
get to the door. Hopefully it would be Scott with the information I needed. If
Dan or Sarah saw me in this condition I was going to have to talk my way out of
a trip to the hospital.

When I
opened the door I was surprised to see a handsome young man standing there with
a messenger bag. He didn’t have the beauty Jean-Paul had dazzled me with, but I
could have believed he’d also stepped off the pages of a catalog, although
something a little more budget. Behind him another equally handsome young man
was waiting next to a red convertible.

“Are you
Abercrombie or Fitch?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of me. I suddenly had
the chills, even though it was a warm night.

“Good
evening,” he said, ignoring my clever quip.

“Good
evening.” I squinted at the receding sun. “What time is it?”

He
nodded understandingly. “Scott said you might be needing this.” He took a brown
paper sack out of the messenger bag and handed it to me.

“What is
this?” I asked. “Booze?” Had Scott known I’d need some maintenance?

“Vitamins,”
the young man replied.

I opened
the bag and peered inside. It held several bottles that looked like they’d come
from GNC. There was a multivitamin and separate bottles of B-complex, D-3, and
milk thistle. The last one was an herb I recognized. It was supposed to be good
for your liver.

“Oh,” I
said. “Tell him I said thanks.”

“He said
you can shove your thanks up your ass, take the goddamn vitamins.”

I
blinked. “Is he…” I looked around. “Is he
listening
right now?”

“No. He
anticipated what you’d say. He also had a response for the Abercrombie &
Fitch joke he knew you’d make, but I didn’t think it was worth repeating.”

“Oh.
Okay. Thanks.”

“You’re
welcome.”

“Do you
have a name?”

“No,”
the young man said. He knelt down and removed a thin laptop computer from the
messenger bag, along with its power supply. He carefully put the power supply
on top of the laptop and handed them both to me.

I took
them. “I already have a computer.”

“Your
computer is shit.”

“Okay.
He told you to say that?”

“He did,
but I probably would have said it anyway. Compared to that one, most computers
are shit.”

“Great,”
I said. “Well, you’re fun.”

The
young man ignored me and removed a flash drive from the messenger bag. He held
it up for me to see. “This contains the information you’re looking for.”

I
reached for it but he pulled it away. “Wait,” he said. “This drive contains a
virus that will cause it to self-destruct two hours after the first time you
plug it in. It will do this whether it is plugged in at the time or not. It
doesn’t matter.”

“What,
it’s going to explode?”

He
looked at me like I’d asked if it was going to turn into a pumpkin. “Of course
not. It will irreversibly encrypt and then corrupt itself.”

“Okay.
Good to know.”

“Yes, it
is. Two hours is more time than you need, but it is important that you be…fully
awake…when you begin.”

“He told
you to say
sober
, didn’t he?”

The
young man nodded. “I assumed you would take my meaning.”

“I did.”

“When it
is finished you should smash the drive with a hammer and dispose of its pieces
in at least four different locations, none of which should be within a mile of
here, or each other.”

“Now
you’re just fucking with me,” I said. He stared back at me impassively. “Okay, I
guess you’re not. Got it. Anything else?”

“Don’t
forget to take the vitamins. And, good luck.” With that, the young man picked
up his bag, nodded once at me, and started back down my walk. When he reached
the other young man they kissed once, then got in the convertible and drove
away together, perhaps heading off to play beach volleyball or cuddle puppies.
Whatever it was Abercrombie & Fitch models did on their days off.

I took the computer back inside and sat
it down on my dining room table. I’d have time for that in a minute. A more pressing
concern was the mess I’d just made in the living room. I found a clean
dishtowel in the kitchen and laid it out over the spot where I’d vomited on the
carpet. I didn’t have the energy to clean it up, and the smell would likely
make me vomit again. I was content to let it dry for now.

Back in the kitchen I went through the
vitamins and took one of each, washing them down with a good swallow of vodka.
That should take care of any vitamin deficiency I might have had and my shaking
in one move. The vodka nearly made me gag but I kept it down. I couldn’t afford
to overdo it. I had work to do, and I’d wasted too much time already. Most of
this day had been lost because I’d been in a blackout. On the other hand, I’d
probably be up all night tonight, so I had plenty of time to work.

The laptop Scott had sent over booted to
its home screen much faster than I’d ever seen a computer do before. I didn’t
recognize the operating system but it was something similar enough to the way a
Macintosh worked that using it was fairly intuitive. He’d been right. Compared
to this, my computer
was
shit.

I hesitated just a moment, then plugged
the flash drive into the side of the computer. Two hours. That should be plenty
of time.

Two clicks brought up the drive’s
contents, which consisted of one PDF file. I clicked it open and found myself
looking at a copy of Chandler Emerson’s driver’s license. It didn’t look like
someone had taken the license and run off a copy on a Xerox machine. This
appeared to have come directly from the DMV’s own system. Well, that wasn’t
really a surprise. Scott could probably hack the DMV with an old calculator, if
he really wanted to.

The next page was a full copy of
Emerson’s passport. He got around. He’d been to Thailand, Hong Kong, Grand
Cayman, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and all over Europe. I didn’t see Switzerland
among his passport stamps, but that wasn’t enough to vindicate him as far as I
was concerned. If he owned the Swiss account that Davies’s money was going to,
he wouldn’t necessarily have needed to go there personally to open it.

Next up were his tax returns. Davies
Holdings was listed as his only employer. I was a bit startled at the amount of
money he was making as a mob lawyer. He’d pulled in more last year than I’d
made in my entire career as a cop.

Emerson’s credit report was next. My jaw
dropped when I saw his credit score. I hadn’t known the numbers went up that
high.

The credit report was followed by six
months’ worth of bank statements. I sipped my vodka as I looked at what he
spent his money on. There were plenty of restaurant charges, and none from
grocery stores. He didn’t do a lot of cooking at home, then. He had a Netflix
subscription. I’d had one, once, back before I’d stopped paying them.

There was nothing odd in his deposits.
He received one lump sum every month from Davies Holdings. I couldn’t find a
single incoming transfer from any other location. He wasn’t getting money sent
to this account from any Swiss banks, or any other place as far as I could see.

  I went through the bank statements a
second time, sure I must have missed something. And I had, although it took me
a moment to notice what it was. Emerson had a sizeable mortgage payment he made
every month, but beginning three months ago he had begun making a second mortgage
payment to a different bank in Oceanside, a coastal city forty-five minutes
north of here.

 That didn’t make any sense. There was
no way Emerson was planning to move to Oceanside. It was a nice enough city,
but way too blue-collar for someone with his means and overinflated sense of
self-importance. He’d consider it beneath him, something akin to moving into a
homeless shelter.

I flipped through the PDF and found his
first mortgage statement. The address given was on an expensive street in La
Jolla. That would be his primary residence, then. That made sense.

The second mortgage statement was also
in the file. Someone had circled the address in black pen and written “REALLY?”
next to it in capital letters before scanning it into the file. So Scott had
noticed the oddity as well. He must have expected I’d have been pretty drunk if
he’d thought I’d miss that. Well, I’d shown him. I was only slightly drunk and
I hadn’t missed it.

I wrote down the address of the second
house and looked through the rest of the PDF, but there was nothing else I
could use in there. Scott had only had a day to come up with this, after all.
And he’d given me something interesting. There were plenty of reasons a wealthy
man might want to have a second house somewhere out of the way. To keep a
mistress, for example. It wasn’t unheard of, for people of sufficient means.

But a second house nobody else knew
about would also be a great place to hide a kidnapping victim. I was willing to
put money on Anna being in that house.

I drained my glass, feeling the vodka
warm in my stomach. I didn’t fill a second glass. I had enough alcohol in me to
keep me functional for a while, but hopefully not enough that I was in danger
of falling asleep. Besides, right now I needed to be able to keep my balance. It
was time to go to Oceanside, and I was pretty sure there was only one way I’d
be able to do it.