Follow Her Home (31 page)

I stood up and kept the gun trained on Yujin as I backed away from her and Cook's body. From the corner of my eye I saw Chaz come to his feet. I'd forgotten he was there.

We were halfway to the front door when I heard her speak in a spectral whisper. “Tell Lori I am sorry,” she said. “I only wanted to give her the kind of life I never had when I was young.” Suddenly, she sounded like every first-generation Korean mother that I had ever known. “And you will not understand this, but I thought she could love him like a father. Now she has no one.”

I took one last look at this woman, one unwilling glance at Luke's dead father beside her, and left the Cook mansion behind me.

 

Seventeen

For the first time in days, I was, in a sense, safe. The thought entered my head hot and pointed and taunting. I had witnessed a murder. All the bodies that had fallen around me, the deaths of those I loved most—none of that had prepared me for the actual sight of one person taking the life of another. And yet here I was, safe from the people who had tried to put me away just hours before. The murder, the shock of blood, had been my means of escape.

I wiped the gun down with my shirt and discarded it in a rose bush on the front lawn. It was now a confirmed murder weapon, and I never wanted to see it again.

Chaz didn't say a word until we were in the car, until the heavy, dark gate of the Cook mansion let us out.

He gave me his phone. His hairy hand was shaking. “Call them. Now.”

I dialed 911 and reported a gunshot at Cook's address and left it at that. Chaz scowled at me, his eyes red and wet. “Will you tell me what the fuck just happened in there?”

I told him. “It's nothing I won't take to the police later.”

“When?”

“I need to see Luke. I need to tell him that his father is dead.”

“We just witnessed a murder. We got other things to do.”

“Please, Chaz.”

He continued to glower, but I thought I saw him start to soften. At this moment, at least, I was grateful that I was a woman. Marlowe could never count on the kindness of strangers, and he never bothered to try. But Marlowe had other methods, too.

“There's two hundred dollars in it for you if you'll just make this detour.” He started to protest but I didn't let him. “Nothing illegal. It's just a delay. Please.”

We drove downhill in silence. After a minute Chaz asked, “Where's Luke?”

“You've been there today. Marlowe Apartments. Rossmore and Beverly.”

We made the trip to the Marlowe in half an hour. Chaz talked most of the way, and I answered his questions and listened to his scolding. Exhaustion still pulled at me, ate at me from inside, but I could no more fall asleep than I could turn back time. This was the last stretch. I had Chaz pull up to the back of the Marlowe and asked him to wait for me.

I made my way to the gate and buzzed Luke's apartment. I was half surprised when he let me in. He didn't even ask who I was.

*   *   *

The door opened when I was still a good ten feet away. Luke was in the same clothes, conscious, bounding to me, sobbing.

He caught me in a painful hug, arms low on my waist, squeezing. The wheezing came at first like whispers, then burst through, braying, dry, and percussive, like coughs in still air. They pulled at the last of my heartstrings until they snapped.

I lifted a hand to the back of his head, hovering next to mine. It was wet, with blood or sweat, it was hard to tell. I swallowed.

We separated and made our way to the open door. I closed it behind us and we sat on the couch.

“Song, I was so scared. I've never been so scared. Not in my entire life.”

“Me neither.” I couldn't look at him.

“What happened? How'd you get away? Tell me everything.” He looked at me with genuine relief lightening his features. He hadn't heard about his dad, and I knew I couldn't tell him until I found out what I needed to know.

“He put me in handcuffs and we went for a drive. He was driving me downtown, I'm guessing he was taking me to where he killed Diego. It was my car, and it was as I'd left it, if you ignored the stack of Diego-related memorabilia in the backseat.”

“What memorabilia?”

“Old letters and pictures, mostly.” I realized with a quick pang that I might lose some of those last traces of Diego. I hoped I could recover them from the backseat.

“Where'd he find your car? And your stuff?”

“Lori's mom. I hadn't seen my car, my keys, my phone, nothing since I showed up at her doorstep and got myself drugged up.” I laughed. It was quiet, but I could hear the scary timber of cracking sanity in the sound. “You know what I have on me now? Nothing but my clothes and around half the person I was before this weekend.”

He looked down. “So how'd you get away?”

I told him, up to the part where I went to his father's house.

“I don't know whether your uncle is dead or alive, but he's in somebody else's hands now.”

Luke's eyes went fuzzy and his lips separated, making a parched sound in the silence of the room.

“You still want me to believe you didn't know who was after me until today?”

His pupils flitted, unlocking and sliding away from mine.

I waited.

“Look, I didn't know for sure, Song. For a while, I didn't know my dad was involved in any of this. I didn't want to believe it. So maybe I was playing dumb for you, but I was playing dumb for me, too.”

“Tell me something.” I felt rage build like a storm cloud behind my eyes. “Why didn't I know about him? Why didn't I know he existed?”

He was quiet, and his mouth barely opened to a murmur. “I don't like that I'm from this family of crazy people. I know everyone has a crazy family, but mine—look, my mom is so gone in her own world that she's off God-knows-where for the twentieth time this year. My dad is the sane one, you know? Or, I mean,” he laughed, squinting and sardonic, “I thought he was. But then he had a psycho brother and, I don't know, I never wanted to talk about him. I kept him at a distance. It wasn't hard, either. I wasn't lying when I told you he hates me.”

I waited for the retort, the accusation that I kept my family problems locked away from him. It didn't come. “Okay. I get it. But make me understand something else. You didn't flinch when I said your uncle killed Diego.”

His pallor grew paler. “When he came for you—”

“Luke … Luke.” I closed my eyes and wished we were different people in a different place.

“I thought he was going to kill you, Junie.” He reached for my head and took it in his hands. He kissed my eyelids and brows.

The only person who ever called me Junie was dead now, and I still had yet to bury him.

I stood up. “You have no right.”

“What?”

“You're a bastard, Luke.”

“Because I didn't tell you about John? Because of my dad? I'm not proud of these people, I'm sorry. I'm glad you came back instead of him.”

“No, Luke. Because you were there.”

His face turned a sickly oatmeal and his green eyes the flat dead color of old bills. “I don't—what?”

My eyes were hot and they leaked tears while I spoke. “He knew about Diego's baby, Luke. And he didn't just know about the baby, he wanted me to know that you told him. He was fucking smug about it. Because he knew more than I did. Because I figured out that Diego was tailing him before he died, but I didn't get to the part where you were in John's front seat.”

I stayed standing. Luke held his hands together between his knees. He looked at his hands, then he looked around the room, but he kept his eyes below the level of mine. I didn't move, and the minutes swam by.

“Diego is dead and you were there when it happened. You could've stopped it. You've broken my heart, Luke. Tell me. You owe it to me.”

He was looking at the floor and his shoulders swelled and bumped like ocean waves at a quiet hour. I saw the top of his head bob like he was praying and he lifted his face to meet my gaze with the pleading of a sinner searching for the wafer.

“I'm sorry.”

“Tell it to me. Give it to me in one piece.”

He lowered his head again and panned the room. “When you were in the bathroom at the Red Palace, I got a call from John. He said to meet him at my apartment in ten minutes if I wanted him to leave you alone. I thought it might be an empty threat, but I didn't know for sure until right then that he was the guy who'd been tormenting you. So I went.

“I should've known better, should've known he was— God!” The name in vain, phlegm-choked, aspirated. “When I got there, he was sitting in his car in the garage and he told me to get in. I did. When we came out to the street, I saw what he brought me out for. I saw Diego.” His hands and legs shook as he spoke. “He was idling in his car just across the street and a few feet back from the garage. If he had any intention of staying hidden, he sure didn't act on it. According to John, Diego had been following him around for a couple hours. They ran into each other at Park La Brea. Diego must've been worried about you. He drove over and recognized John in the parking lot.”

“Diego knew him?”

“They never met, but John would visit Stokel sometimes to meet with my dad. Diego could've seen him then and put things together.”

“And did John recognize Diego?”

He trembled. “Of course he did. It's why he called me. I fucking know it.”

“Did he say that?”

“No, he asked me if I recognized him. Asked if he was a friend of yours.”

“And you told him what?”

He swallowed. “I—I wasn't thinking. He started asking me all about Diego, about his relationship to you, his relationship to Greg Miller, all this stuff, question after question, real fast. And I was still putting the pieces together, trying to fit it so that my dad and my uncle weren't murderers, and he was getting excited and insistent, and I couldn't—I don't know, I didn't have time to think, time to be careful. I'm sorry.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I don't know, that he was one of my best friends, that we went to school together and he worked for Stokel now. That he barely knew Greg Miller and that he had nothing to do with any of this.”

“And about me and Diego?”

“I—” He sank into himself.

“He asked. Don't you dare tell me he didn't ask.”

“I told him that you dated in college and for how long. And I told him—well, he asked me if—he asked me if Diego could still be in love with you.”

I stepped back. I reached for words like I was reaching for books on a too-high shelf. When I found one, the rest came falling down after.

“You said yes.” My eyes were hot again. “And that's why Diego's dead. Because he showed up at my apartment like an idiot, like the caring, worried idiot he always was, and John decided he was a problem. But he went to you because he didn't know how big of a problem he was, and you—you told him—you, Luke? And why? We both know it isn't even true. He would've done the same thing for you, and you—”

“He didn't ask me if Diego was in love with you, he asked me if he could be. And I said yes because I wasn't thinking, and because we don't know. I don't know, and be real, Song, you don't either.”

I cleared my eyes with the heels of my hands and calmed myself with three deep breaths. “I'm not going to argue about this now. I need to know what happened next.”

“We drove, around and around, I don't know for how long. I kept asking him what we were doing, but he was evasive. But only in words, not in attitude. He was cheerful, and I don't know, I didn't think—I didn't think he was going to hurt him.“

“And then at some point you made it to Skid Row.”

“Right. But I thought—John lives downtown and I thought maybe we were just going home.”

“Until he parked.”

He nodded.

“And Diego parked.”

He nodded.

“And Diego got out of the car. Like an idiot. Because he knew you were there, and he would've followed you into any dark alley you chose.”

“He was coming towards the car, and at that point I saw that John was holding a gun. I panicked. I started begging. I told him about Jackie and the baby, I told him I'd never forgive him. When he ignored me, I got out and yelled to Diego to get back in his car.” He closed his eyes so hard I saw the strain ride up into his forehead. “I didn't have a chance. Every time I blink I see him drop. It was so quick, so quiet. I didn't even see the bullet. Just blood and gravity. I don't remember much after that.”

I shivered, shut my eyes, saw black. I sat down.

“And you still didn't want me to go to the police to protect myself. You thought you could save me like you tried to save Diego.”

“I tried. My God, Song, it was no good but I tried. But it was different with you. My dad didn't know about Diego, he promised me up and down that he would never have allowed it. But I told him that wasn't good enough. I swore to him that if anything happened to you, he would no longer have a son. And he believed me. He said he would make sure you were left alone.”

I drummed agitated fingers on my thighs.

“Well, Cook, I'm here in one piece, more or less.”

He took a few seconds to respond, hoarse and quiet. “What does that mean?”

“There's no use in disowning your father now. You were ready to stay his son when you knew what he did to Diego.” I meant to tell him what had happened, but instead I heard myself start to shout. “Diego had a wife and a kid. He was a good person, and we all needed him. Who the hell am I? What good am
I
doing for anyone? I have no people left, Luke. After tonight, I don't even have you.”

“It's only luck that you're alive. I'm not going—”