Never Fear (6 page)

The sound of the door opening and the flood of light from the hallway snapped me back to the moment. The dark shadow of a figure in the doorway reached into the room and seemed to envelop me. I grabbed for my weapon, then remembered that it had been knocked from my hand. I was helpless. I stared at the shadow, waiting for it to close on me, waiting for another blow, but it didn't come.

As I started to turn toward the door, numbness began to spread the length of my arms and into my hands. I took a shallow breath, then another and another, then slowly turned to the door. A small child, a boy, maybe five years old, was staring at me.

“Police,” I managed to say.

The child stared in wonder at me, and I felt myself beginning to drift again and tumble back toward the darkness.

“Police,” I whispered. “Pol . . .”

7

It was nearly 2 A.M. when LAPD Robbery Homicide detectives released me from the scene. The first uniforms to arrive at the apartment put me in cuffs for several minutes, thinking I was Williams's killer. Even after the detectives had cleared me, the look of suspicion that I was somehow responsible for Williams's death accompanied every glance my way. In LAPD minds I was an amateur, a woman who had gotten one of their own killed.

The chief of Pasadena police, Ed Chavez, and Harrison were waiting for me as I stepped out of the paramedics' truck. EMT had done their best to wash Detective Williams's blood off me with saline, but it still clung to my pants and stained the skin on my legs. The bandage around my ribs where Hector Lopez had hit me with the baseball bat had softened the searing pain, but each breath was still accompanied by a dull, lingering ache.

Lacy's big Latino godfather, the tough ex-marine, took one look at me and began to fume.

“Goddamn LAPD,” Chavez said.

I looked into his big brown eyes and shook my head. He had spent much of his career protecting me, even when I didn't need it. The thought that LAPD would have put me in cuffs for even a second was enough to ignite his fuse.

“I really need a bath,” I said.

He softened, if just a little.

“They wouldn't even let me take a look at the scene,” Chavez said.

The image of Williams's dark glistening wound and the severed pearl-white windpipe flashed in my mind.

“I could have done without seeing it,” I said.

They each took an arm and began walking me to my car. There were more than two dozen LAPD units, a SWAT truck, crime-scene investigators, and a mobile command center surrounding the apartment building now. A secure perimeter had been set up in a two-block square. Most of the residents of the building were still out on the street awaiting questioning or because they were afraid to go back inside, thinking a madman was loose in the building.

We crossed the street and stopped at my car. The smell of smoke was stronger now. Tiny flakes of ash were drifting on the wind, covering windshields like a dusting of snow.

“What do I need to know that can't wait until tomorrow?” Chavez asked.

I took a careful breath, easing the air past my damaged ribs.

“He didn't do this,” I said.

Chavez looked at me, not understanding.

“I think the wrong man has a target on his back right now,” I said.

“Lopez?”

I nodded. “He told me he didn't do it.”

“Right after he whacked you with a baseball bat,” Chavez said. “Innocent people don't whack cops with baseball bats.”

I glanced at Harrison and saw in his eyes that he understood.

“There was no reason for him to let you live if he killed Williams,” Harrison said. “He had nothing to gain, not the way Williams died.”

Chavez chewed on that for a second, then looked over toward the members of SWAT walking by dressed in tactical black and carrying Mac-10 machine guns.

“LAPD has a different opinion,” he said. “We would be doing the same thing if we lost one of our own.”

“That doesn't change the fact that Lopez isn't a killer,” I said.

“So what is he?”

“He's the only person who can ID the man who took the surveillance tape,” Harrison said.

I started to nod, then realized that might not be entirely accurate.

“There may be someone else. Dana Courson, my . . . Manning's girlfriend may have seen him.”

“If so, she could be in danger,” Harrison said.

“She said she sensed something was wrong and told him she lived down the hall. He may not know who she is.”

“He found Lopez,” Harrison said.

“And he killed Williams by mistake.”

Chavez looked at me for a moment. “You think the killer thought he was murdering Lopez?”

I nodded. “At least until it was already over, then it was too late.”

“And Lopez walked in and found a dead cop on his floor,” Chavez said.

“I'll need an address for a Dana Courson in the public defender's office. She's a paralegal,” I said.

“I'll get it,” Chavez said. He took a breath and looked up toward the ash falling out of the darkness. “I could ask what the hell is going on, but I don't like feeling foolish in front of two of my officers.”

He leveled his big eyes on me. “Is it true Manning was your brother?”

I nodded. “Half brother.”

“And you're sure it wasn't suicide?” Chavez asked.

I looked down at the blood staining my pants. “I am now.”

Chavez thought about it for a beat.

“This is all about a fax?” he asked.

“That's the starting point,” I said. “I don't know what it's about.”

The chief looked across the street at the small army of LAPD personnel that had taken over much of the block.

“We have to make this look like it's entirely about your brother,” Chavez said. “Any hint that we're interfering with the investigation of Williams's murder, LAPD is not going to be happy.”

I nodded.

“I'll need to find out what Williams knew so far,” I said.

“I'll see what I can do,” Chavez answered. “And I'll find Dana Courson and have a squad watch her. I want a doctor to take a look at those ribs, and then Harrison will take you home.”

He opened the passenger door, helped me gently into the seat, and wrapped my seat belt around me.

“Worrying about you is turning me into an old man,” he said with a half smile.

“You were an old man even when you were young,” I said.

He looked at me with his big eyes that seemed to take on more sadness with every day on the job.

“I'm sorry about your brother,” Chavez said.

We looked at each other for a moment.

“I'm sorry I didn't know him,” I answered.

I touched his cheek, and he closed the door and walked back toward the crime scene. I stared at the coroner's van for a moment.

“Williams apparently was a better cop than we realized, ” I said. “That could just as easily have been me in there.”

Harrison let the silence swallow the thought for a moment and looked back across the street.

“It wasn't, though.”

8

The X-rays showed cracks in the fourth and fifth ribs on my left side, but they remained in one piece and hadn't punctured a lung. The doctor rewrapped them, suggested as little movement as possible for several days, and gave me some pain meds to get me through the next twenty-four hours. He offered me hospital scrubs to replace my bloodstained slacks for the ride home, but I refused them. I didn't want it to be easy to distance myself from what had happened in the apartment. Williams deserved at least that much, and I wanted to remind myself that I was only alive because Lopez wasn't a killer.

The winds were blowing harder up in the hills above Pasadena, where I lived. We pulled onto Mariposa and drove up to the end of the block where my house sat on the edge of the San Gabriels. Smoke from the fires in the Verdugo hills was west of us. The air was clear here. The glow of the flames was just visible above the ridgeline in the distance.

Harrison pulled the car up to the top of the driveway and stopped. I reached for the buckle on the seat belt and a spasm of pain shot through my chest. It took a moment to catch my breath.

Harrison reached over and unbuckled the belt, then got out, walked around, and opened the door. He took my arm and gently helped me to my feet. I looked into his eyes for a moment and felt my breath come up short but it wasn't because of any pain, or at least not the kind a pill can dull.

“I think I'll need some help inside,” I said. “I don't think I can get into the tub.”

He reached up and carefully pushed several strands of hair off my face and smiled.

“You want me to call Traver?” Harrison said.

I shook my head.

“Don't worry about it,” he said.

Harrison put his arm around me and walked me inside, placing me on a stool in the kitchen while he went into the bathroom and ran the water in the tub. A minute or two later he walked back out.

“I found bath oils. I put some in.”

He took my hand and eased me off the stool, then slowly walked me down the hallway to the bathroom. The scent of eucalyptus oil drifted out of the water as he helped me into the bathroom and closed the door. A candle was burning at the foot of the tub, softly illuminating the room.

“I thought you might want to soak for a while,” Harrison said.

I stared at the water for a moment, then reached for the first button on my shirt. Even the simple movement of raising my arm sent shock waves of pain through my chest.

“Let me do that,” Harrison said, stepping around me. “I have done this before, you know.”

I looked into his eyes.

“Not with me,” I said.

He reached down and gently pulled my shirt out of my slacks, then undid the buttons until my shirt fell open. He slipped it off my shoulders, then carefully folded it and walked around behind me, placing it on the vanity.

“I'll rewrap the bandage after the bath,” he said, and began to unravel the bandage around my ribs.

“Does that hurt?” he asked as he eased the last wrap of the bandage off.

I tried to say something but could only manage to shake my head. He placed his hand softly on my back between my shoulders.

“Breathe,” Harrison said.

I took a shallow breath and then another. He undid the hooks on my bra and let it slip off my shoulders into his hands. He laid it next to my shirt and I nervously began to fumble with the button on my slacks but my fingers didn't seem to want to cooperate.

Harrison stepped around from behind me and turned the water off in the tub, and then tested the temperature with his hand. I managed to just get the button on my slacks undone, but couldn't bend enough at the waist to slide them down.

“I can't bend at the waist,” I said.

Harrison turned and knelt in front of me.

“Put your hand on my shoulder so you don't lose your balance.”

I reached out to take hold of his shoulder and realized my hand was trembling. I tightly gripped his shoulder to mask the trembling as he slid the zipper down. My heart was pounding against my chest so hard each beat caused a jolt of pain to shoot out from my cracked ribs. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as he undid the zipper, then reached up and carefully slid my pants and underwear over my hips and down my legs.

“God,” I said quietly without realizing it.

“Just step out of them now, one at a time,” Harrison said.

I stepped out of my clothes, then he lifted each foot and slipped my socks off. I tried to take a breath but couldn't. I was beginning to tremble.

“Breathe,” he said.

“I can't.”

Harrison reached out and placed his hand on my leg just behind the knee. I looked down and saw that he was examining the bloodstains that covered my legs from ankle to knee. My stomach began to turn and I felt myself beginning to gag.

“I'm going to wash the blood off your legs before you get in the bath,” he said.

Harrison looked up into my eyes and I nodded.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Any self-consciousness or vulnerability I had felt standing in front of him vanished. I was safer at that moment than I had felt with a man for longer than I could remember. Harrison had once saved my life by putting his own at considerable risk. I didn't think anyone would be capable of giving more than that, but I was wrong. He was doing it now. Fully clothed he was as naked as I was, sharing a trust I didn't know could exist between two people. I had lost that ability to trust as a five-year-old girl when my father walked out of my life. Harrison lost it the day his young wife was murdered.

Harrison took a washcloth and dipped it into the warm bathwater. He lifted my foot and placed it on his thigh, and he gently began to wipe away the blood in long, careful strokes down my leg.

When my first leg had been washed he set my foot back on the floor and rinsed out the washcloth in the sink, then repeated the process, cleaning away the stains of violence stroke by stroke.

He set the cloth in the sink, then stepped up behind me.

“Hold on to my arms and I'll lower you in.”

I stepped into the water and let my weight sink into his arms as he lowered me into the warm bath. I lay back and let the water swallow me up. I took as deep a breath as my cracked ribs would allow, breathing in the strong earthy aroma of eucalyptus.

“I'll wait outside,” Harrison said.

I looked up at him. In the candlelight, the scars on his face from Gabriel's explosion softened, and he appeared to be transformed into the blond beach boy of his youth.