Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (152 page)

Students, I thought. There was more than one internship?

She paused for added suspense.

“Congratulations, Miguel Berasategui and Allison Peterson.”

There were more cheers.

I found Miguel sitting in the front and gave him a thumbs up. He deserved it. They both did.

As people shuffled out, I went up to him and patted him on the back.

“Awesome,” I said, smiling.

“Thanks. I’m just sorry you won’t be there with me.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it. I’m really happy for you, Miguel.”

But after we said goodbye, something started to surface. It wasn’t jealousy exactly, more like disappointment. Disappointment in myself.

Chef Dubois was still packing her things in the front and I thought about leaving but then went over to her.

“Chef?” I said quietly.

“
Oui?
Ah,
Mademoiselle
Craig.”

“I, uh, just wanted to thank you. It was a great class and I learned a lot. The techniques and everything… Well, I’ll always remember this.”

“
Merci
.”

I smiled awkwardly and turned to leave.

“
Mademoiselle
Craig.”

She took a few steps toward me.

“You have the talent. And I think, this you know. But the work ethic.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “This
is
the problem. If being a chef is truly your desire, I feel it could be there for you. However you must give more of yourself.”

Her words hurt a little. They would have hurt more except I knew she was right. I hadn’t missed any classes, but I hadn’t always been present. I could offer up excuses, to her and myself, but in the end excuses didn’t get the job done.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you again.
Au revoir
.”

She smiled.

“
Au revoir
.”

I had lacked conviction. Like a striker who hangs back or holds the ball too long or is always looking to make a back pass instead of doing her job, going for goal. There were plenty of people who played like that, who gave up when they got tired or scared or before they even took the field.

I had never been one of them.

Until now.

CHAPTER 47

I checked my messages when I got out of class and saw that David had called. I called him back but there was no answer. I finally got ahold of him a few hours later, during my break at the restaurant.

“There you are, Abby Craig. Did you hear what happened to Mo?”

“No, what?”

“She got attacked.”

“What? What do you mean, attacked?”

“It happened last night when she was walking home from a bar. She says this guy came out of the bushes and attacked her.”

“Is she okay?”

“She wasn’t raped, thank God. But she’s got a broken rib and a black eye.”

I bit my lip hard. I could taste blood.

“Is she in the hospital?”

“Hello! We’re talking about Mo here. They took her to emergency against her will, and they patched her up. They wanted to keep her longer but she got a prescription and walked out. She even wanted to work her shift tonight, but Mike told her no way. He made her stay home.”

I couldn’t believe it.

“Did they catch the guy?” I said.

“They’re still looking. It was dark and, you know, she didn’t get a good look at him. She said he was tall, though. It made the news. They put up a sketch, but it was basically a tall stick figure. ”

My stomach sank. The tattoo man was tall.

“You still there, Abby Craig?”

I didn’t answer right away.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. I was just thinking. What did he want? Did he take her money?”

“No, they don’t know what the guy’s motive was,” David said. “I don’t think he said anything to her. He just started whaling on her before she managed to fight him off.”

I was quiet again.

“What are you thinking, Abby Craig? Because if it’s what I think you’re thinking…”

“It could have been him, David,” I said, my voice cracking.

He didn’t say anything.

“David?”

“I didn’t want to be the first one to say it, but I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

“He told me to back off. And there I was at his motel. Maybe he did see me and then went after Mo to show me he meant what he said when he told me to leave it alone.”

“But wait, Abby Craig, it could have been a tweaker or some lunatic who escaped from a padded cell somewhere or…”

He was saying all the right things, but I wasn’t buying any of it. I could tell by the strain in his voice that he was trying to convince himself as much as me.

I spit out some of the blood from my lip, but I couldn’t get rid of the bad taste in my mouth.

CHAPTER 48

I stopped at the store and thought about getting flowers, but then thought better of it. Mo would hate that. I got some chocolate milk and ice cream and a magazine instead and picked up
Gravity
at Redbox.

I started driving to her place but then realized I didn’t know where she lived except that it was somewhere near the river. I pulled over and called David. He didn’t know the actual address either, but he gave me directions.

“Go down Delaware and then turn left on Jefferson. Halfway down the street there’s a green house with a… Oh, sorry, I forgot you can’t see that. Okay, there’s a house with a really tall juniper tree. That’s not it. It’s the one directly across the street. There’s a cracked flower pot by the front door. You can’t miss it.”

“Okay, gotta go,” I said. “Thanks.”

A few minutes later I found the large juniper tree and then the flower pot. I parked and walked up to the door.

“Craig,” Mo said, opening it up a crack. “What the fu—”

“I just wanted to check on you.”

She shook her head and walked away, leaving the door open and I took it as an invitation and followed her into the living room. She winced when she lowered herself onto the sofa. In the weak light coming from the lamp behind her head, I could still see that the bastard had done a pretty good number on her eye. It was swollen shut, the skin below it black.

“What, did David tell you I was on my deathbed or something?”

“No, I was just worried about you. I brought you a few things,” I said, holding up the ice cream and the DVD and handing her the
Rolling Stone.
“I figured this is too mainstream for your tastes but, you know.”

She took the magazine and flipped through it.

“I wish I had had time to bake you something.”

“Stand down, Chef. What flavor?”

“Dulce de Leche with Sea Salt.”

She closed her good eye and nodded.

“You all caught up on your pills?”

“What time is it?”

“Almost 10:30,” I said.

“Close enough,” she said.

She leaned forward toward the coffee table and winced again.

“Here, let me,” I said, grabbing the pills. “How many?”

She held up two fingers.

“Can I get you some chocolate milk with that?”

“Chocolate milk? What am I, like nine?”

“You can never be too old for chocolate milk,” I said. “They say it’s the perfect food.”

“Okay, sure, whatever. Hit me.”

I found the kitchen and poured her a glass and scooped some of the ice cream into a bowl.

“Yeah, not bad,” she said after a few gulps.

I moved off some of her stuff and took a seat.

“I’m sorry, Mo,” I said. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“Yeah, well, I gave as good as I got. He was a big asshole, but I held my own. Shit, I would have kicked his ass back to whatever rock he crawled out from under, but the whole time I was protecting my strum hand.”

I smiled.

“And you didn’t get a good look at him?” I said.

“It was dark, Craig. This cop keeps bugging me to look at mug shots, but that would be a huge waste of time. Other than that he was tall and strong, I can’t…”

But then she stopped.

“What is it?” I said.

She was staring out into space, and I figured it must have been the painkillers. But then she looked over at me with a strange expression. 

“I just got a flashback or something. I remember his hair. He had short dreadlocks.”

Dreadlocks. That was one thing I was sure of. The tattoo man didn’t have dreadlocks.

“Really? You sure?”

She gave me an extra dirty look.

“That’s great,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Oh, no, nothing,” I said. “You ready to watch the movie?”

She held up a thumb. I put in the DVD and hit play.

Halfway through the previews, Mo and her chocolate milk mustache were sound asleep.

CHAPTER 49

I was at the track early the next morning. The sun was still behind Awbrey Butte and although the air was chilly at least there wasn’t a breeze. It wasn’t too bad.

What I did feel a little bad about was that I had dragged David out here, too. It was his turn to play bodyguard.

“I’m just going to hang here if that’s all right,” he said with one eyed closed when I parked the Jeep.

I had the place to myself. It was good to be running outside for a change. It felt right, the way my feet met the ground and the cool air hit my face. I had left my iPod and watch at home on purpose and was just running to run with no predetermined time or distance in mind.

I told myself that my speed didn’t matter. That was for another time. All that mattered right now was being out here, my legs and lungs getting a workout, my mind enjoying some quiet time. I was going to run until I couldn’t any longer, whether that was for three miles or ten. I would keep going until I got tired.

At first I had to force myself not to pay attention to which number lap I was on, but after a while I began to let it go and got into a rhythm. My thoughts began to run, too. But not in the manic way they sometimes had recently. It was more relaxed, more natural.

I thought about what Mo had said about the dreadlocks. I was sorry that she had gotten hurt, but at least it wasn’t my fault. And if the tattoo man hadn’t attacked her, maybe I wasn’t in as much danger as Charlie Modine had suggested. If he thought I had stopped following him around, maybe that would be enough to satisfy him.

I wondered what Charlie Modine was up to. I still hadn’t told him about the Lone Pine Motel. I reminded myself that ghosts don’t go around wearing watches and that they usually can’t just materialize at will. He would come around sooner or later.

I thought again about what Father Grady had said. Even though I felt he was focusing on the wrong thing, I had to admit that he knew more about these kinds of things than I did. If he was so adamant about Charlie confessing, he had to have a good reason.

A distant buzz pulled me back to the present. Too early for mosquitos. It was my phone.

“Hi, Kate,” I said, breathing hard.

“Hey, Abby. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No, I just finished my run. You talk while I suck in some air.”

“Okay, I’ve got a couple of things I wanted to pass on. I was able to give the tattoo sketch to a contact of mine in the FBI and he ran it through their database. He didn’t get any hits. That means your guy probably isn’t part of a known terrorist group, gang, or other criminal organization.”

“Nothing, huh?”

“No. But keep in mind that the data base is a work in progress. They keep adding to it but it’s not totally comprehensive. This tattoo could be from a new organization, or one that isn’t yet categorized.”

“I didn’t even realize that the FBI collected tattoos.”

“Yeah, tattoos are like fingerprints. They’ve been gathering this information and pictures for a few years now.”

Another dead end.

“So you said a couple of things. What’s the other one?”

“It’s not a big deal, but after I read one of the old articles, I found a few quotes from Sarah Modine’s sister. I went ahead and tracked her down and talked to her for a few minutes. She agrees with your ghost. She thinks her sister was murdered, although she doesn’t seem to buy into his big conspiracy theory. After the cops gave up on the case, she hired a PI but he wasn’t able to turn up anything substantial.”

“Huh,” I said.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

“Hey, I didn’t give you much to work with.”

“Any luck on a name yet?”

“No, not yet. Thanks for trying, Kate.”

“I have a call into the PI. He hasn’t gotten back to me, but maybe he has a list of names of some of the men she had helped put behind bars. The sister told me they included a few mob types and one powerful city official. Guys like that can have a long reach.”

Kate had done some good research, but it still left me fumbling in the dark.

“Well, I’m off to Seattle in a few minutes to check out the pot laws up there,” she said. “This story keeps taking me higher and higher.”

I laughed.

“Hey, when do you think you’ll get some time off?” I said. “I haven’t seen you since Christmas.”

“I think I can get a few days off in April.”

“April sounds nice,” I said. “Okay, safe travels, Kate.”

“You stay safe too, Abby.”

After we hung up, I thought about continuing my run but then had a better idea.

***

I raced home with David snoring in the passenger seat, took a shower, packed up a few things, hit the store, and went over to Ty’s.

It was a late Valentine’s present, but one I thought he would like. A hearty beef stew that I imagined he might have had back in Montana. I quickly threw the ingredients into the crockpot and set the timer.

But there was more to the present than food.

After dinner I would make him close his eyes, lead him to the bedroom, and show him something that would really make him happy.

I unzipped my soccer bag and took out my sweatshirts and socks and placed them in the empty drawer.