Come Twilight (20 page)

When I complained to Julia about feeling awkward, she said, “I think you’re overreacting.”

“I don’t think I am.” We were sitting on the couch again, but hadn’t turned the TV on.

“How’s your head feeling?”

“Still have a headache.”

“Any other symptoms? Have you felt dizzy at all or nauseous? Confused or sluggish?”

“No, I feel okay except for the headache. The doctor said I should expect that for a few days.”

“When do you go back to see him?”

“Not until the end of the week, unless I have a problem. Why?”

“You seem more irritable than usual.”

“They took my case away. I’m on desk duty for, shit, I don’t even know how long. So yeah, I’m irritable.”

“Are you angry at me?”

“No,” I said, surprised. “Does it sound like I am?”

“A little bit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She slid closer to me and lifted my arm up so I’d put it around her, and she put her head on my shoulder. “Let’s watch season two. See how Mr. Bates and Anna are doing.”

I fumbled around with the two remotes until I got the show to start streaming on the big flat-screen across the room.

But even as the opening credits rolled, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that irritability and behavior changes were two of the things the neurologist told me to be on the lookout for.

It was after ten when Jen came home. Julia had already gone, and I was in the kitchen looking for something stronger than cabernet and not finding anything. I heard voices outside and looked out the window to see her conferring with Lauren just inside the gate on the side of the house, their faces illuminated from below by the pathway lighting along the edge of the driveway.

Jen came inside and said, “Lauren says things are under control.”

“Yeah, it’s been quiet. Julia just went home a little while ago.”

“Sorry I missed her. She holding up okay?”

“Pretty well, I think.”

She studied my eyes while we talked.

“You nailed the interview with Lucinda,” I said.

She reached to the wall behind the sink and flipped a light switch. A recessed fixture in the ceiling directly over our heads lit up. Holding her extended index finger in front of my face, she said, “Watch.” I stared at her fingertip as she moved it back and forth horizontally across my field of vision. When she was satisfied, she flipped the light off.

I stopped myself from making a joke about standing on one foot, or doing a walk-and-turn. A joke about field sobriety tests wouldn’t help me.

“What were you and Patrick working on?”

“Cross-referencing cell-phone records.” She opened the refrigerator and took out a plastic container of premixed greens.

“You hungry?” she asked, dumping salad in a bowl and adding diced chicken and shredded cheese.

“No, I ate.”

She tossed some sunflower seeds and vinaigrette into the salad with a fork and sat down at the table to eat. “I used your notes.”

“What?” I said.

She forked some lettuce and chicken into her mouth and chewed before she spoke. “For the interview with Lucinda.”

“I wondered.”

“It was a good prep.”

“Thanks.”

Another bite.

Then another.

I wanted to apologize again. To tell her how sorry I was and ask for her forgiveness. But she seemed to be going out of her way to let me know that she wasn’t interested in talking, so I didn’t. “I guess I’ll turn in,” I said.

She looked up from her salad and gave what someone who didn’t know her as well as I did might mistake for a smile. “Good night.”

After I brushed my teeth and went into the bedroom, I could see that there was a light breeze outside, just strong enough to make the shadows from the tree in the yard dance on the translucent window shade. I turned my head on the pillow while I listened to P.J. Soles from
Halloween
talk about getting killed by Michael Myers.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHITHER MUST I WANDER

I was at my desk when Harold Craig called me.

“How are you doing, Harold?” I asked.

“All right, I guess.” He didn’t sound all right, but I couldn’t remember him ever sounding that way.

“What can I help you with?”

“Well, last night I heard someone outside knocking on Kobe’s door, so I peeked out the window and saw that it was a young lady.”

“Can you describe her?”

“Yes. She was young, Kobe’s age. Thin, with blonde hair.”

“Did you notice anything else about her?”

“Well, I was nervous,” he said. “But I opened the door.”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “Did you talk to her?”

“Yes. She said she needed to talk to Kobe.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her that he hadn’t been home for several days.”

“How did she take that?”

“Well, she’d already looked worried, but when I said that, she said ‘oh’ very quietly, and she got very anxious.” He paused for a few seconds. “I can tell when someone’s anxious,” he said. “I can see the signs.”

I know you can, Harold, I know.
“What happened then?”

“She started to go, but I stopped her. Asked her to wait. Then I went back inside and wrote your phone number down, so I could give her the card you left me.”

“And she took it?”

“Yes. I told her she should call you, that you could help. That you were kind.”

“Did you tell her that Kobe was dead?”

“No. She was so upset that I thought it might be too much for her.”

“That was a good call, Harold. What happened next?”

“Nothing. She just went downstairs, took her bike from where she’d left it leaning up against the wall, and went out the back gate into the alley.”

“She had a bike?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you very much, Harold. This is going to help us out a lot. You did the right thing.”

“I did?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

I was just about to end the call when I heard his voice again.

“Detective Beckett?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, could I get another one of your cards? I gave the one I had to the young lady.”

“Sure, Harold. It’s no trouble at all.”

As soon as I disconnected, I called Patrick.

“That happened last night?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You think she’ll call?”

“I hope so. Could be the break we need.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I’d used “we” instead of “you.”

Patrick didn’t catch it, or just decided to let it go. “You’ll call me if you hear from her?”

“The second it happens,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “This is good.” He seemed to be talking to himself as much as he was to me.

I ended the call, put my phone down in the middle of my desk, and stared at it, willing it to ring.

The phone didn’t ring. Well, it did, but not with the call we were hoping for from the mysterious young woman. It had only taken a few days of not being able to leave my desk to turn me into a clock watcher. When Lauren came to pick me up, I already had my messenger bag packed and ready to go and had been watching the second hand on the old clock on the wall, above the window to Ruiz’s office, for two minutes.

I asked her to stop at Gelson’s, even though it was out of our way, to pick up something to grill, fresh vegetables for a salad, and a good bottle of wine.

At Jen’s house, I lit the barbecue and turned the heat low to warm it up. I wasn’t much for cooking, but I knew my way around a grill well enough. Once it was going, I went into the kitchen, got out a big steel bowl, tossed some baby spinach in with the bagged salad, and added some cherry tomatoes and sunflower seeds on top.

Jen didn’t let me know when she was on the way. I hadn’t expected her to. But when she sent a text message to Lauren, I turned up the heat and put the chicken and beef skewers I’d bought on the grill and went back inside to finish the salad.

“What are you doing?” Lauren asked.

“Making dinner.”

She raised her eyebrows and said, “You okay?”

“Why does everybody keep asking me that?”

“Because you had a major concussion a couple of days ago and you’re acting weird.”

“Making dinner isn’t weird.”

“It is for you.”

I stopped what I was doing and looked her in the eye. “I’m okay.”

“You think if you make a nice dinner one time, everything’s going to go back to normal and Jen’s going to forgive you?”

The timer on my phone started chiming. It was time to turn the skewers. I picked it up and silenced it.

She sighed and said, “It’s not about her forgiving you. She’s still blaming herself for letting it happen.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Then you should understand it.”

“You know you’re on the clock, right?” I meant it to sound light and funny, but it came out bitter and hard and I felt like an asshole.

“My apologies, sir. I best get back to work, then.”

She went outside and I expected her to head to her place, but she didn’t. After pacing to the far end of the yard and back again, she took up position with her back against one of the support posts for the pergola and gazed out past the gate and down the driveway. It was a solid sentry post.

Her eye never wavered when I went outside to turn the skewers.

Jen and I ate mostly in silence. She gave me a truncated progress report of the day’s work that didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

“Thanks,” she said when she finished the last piece of chicken on her plate. “That was good.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “It’s the least I could do after you’ve put me up for so long.”

She drank the last of the wine in her glass. I reached for the bottle to pour her some more, but she stopped me by raising her hand a few inches off the table and showing me her palm. “I’m good.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.

“Don’t even start.”

“I feel like shit,” I said, looking down at the paper napkin I’d balled up in my fist. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.” The bland evenness of her voice cut me deeper than any shout or cry could have. She looked me in the eye and I could see her recognize the pain I was feeling. “Be patient, all right? It’ll get better.”

She picked up her plate and mine, took them inside, and put them in the sink. In the years we’d been partners, we’d had many disagreements and I’d frustrated her in more ways than I could even come close to remembering, but I’d never felt this kind of distance before. I’d never felt her pulling away the way she seemed to be doing.

All I could think was,
But what if it doesn’t?

It was lunchtime the next day when the call came. Jen had another afternoon in court and Patrick was in the valley conferring again with the ATF. Everybody else was out of the squad room, either working or eating.

My phone was on the desk, but the woman Harold had given my card to still hadn’t called, and I figured the window of time was closing. She’d had my number for more than a day and a half. If she was going to call, I thought, she probably already would have.

Still, though, when the phone started vibrating on the desk and the screen lit up with a number I didn’t recognize, I felt a welcome tingle of anticipation in my stomach.

“Detective Beckett,” I said.

“Uh, hello?” Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.

“Hi, what can I do for you?”

“I think I need some help?” She was afraid of something. I couldn’t be sure if it was me or something else.

“Is this Kobe’s friend?”

“Kobe?” she said uncertainly. “Oh, you mean Ryan?”

I wrote the name down, even though I knew I wouldn’t forget it. “Yes, Ryan. Tell me how I can help you.”

“There’s someone following me. A man.”

“Where are you? Are you in danger right now?”

“No,” she whispered. “Not right this minute. I’m in the bathroom at Viento y Agua. It’s a coffee—”

“I know it. The man who’s following you. Is he in the shop or outside?”

“In the shop.”

“Do you think he knows you’re aware of him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Kayla.”

“Kayla, I’m Danny. Stay in the bathroom for now. I need to make another call to get you some help. Don’t hang up. I’m going to be right here listening. You just say my name if you need me, okay?”

“Yes.”

I switched her call to the speaker and put the cell down on my desk. She needed help immediately, but I didn’t want to spook her tail. I called the watch commander and quickly explained the situation. She’d send a patrol unit to Viento, but it would remain out of sight unless needed.

“Kayla? You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe the man to me?”

“Uh, he’s kind of average-looking.”

“Young? Old?”

“Thirties, maybe?”

“What’s he wearing?

“Shorts, I think, with a light-blue shirt. The sleeves are rolled up.”

“Is he white?”

“I think so, but dark hair, kind of tan. He looks like the kind of guy you see coming to coffee shops to work.”

“That’s good. Hang on for a minute. I need to make another call.”

“All right.”

I put the cell back down on the desk and picked up the landline.

Jen was in court, but I tried her anyway. The call went straight to her voice mail. I didn’t want to take the time to leave a message, so I disconnected. Patrick was at least an hour away, probably longer with the traffic. I didn’t have a car and it would take too long to check one out of the motor pool.

Lauren answered on the second ring.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Home. Why?” She could hear the urgency in my voice.

“How fast can you get to Viento y Agua?”

“Ten minutes.”

She was already in her car by the time I finished explaining.

I hung up and called the watch commander and told her I needed a ride and I’d be there in two minutes. She was still talking when I put the phone down, picked up my cell and earbuds, and headed downstairs.

There was a patrol officer waiting for me and we rolled out Code Three. I kept Kayla talking on the phone, but it was hard to hear her over the siren. I killed it when we turned left on the red at Junipero and cut up to Fourth Street.