South by Southeast (39 page)

Screw it.

Chela rushed to the wine racks and pulled open the narrow door to the safe room. She'd promised herself she wouldn't be a baby and hide in there the whole time Ten was gone, especially since she'd been stuck in there for hours when she first met Ten because the cops searched his house. Cops always hassled Ten.

But they had never found her in the safe room, so Escobar might not, either. By the time Chela had locked the deadbolt, she
was breathing fast, with tears in her eyes. She never used to cry, and now she cried all the time. Her whole face hurt. Everything hurt.

Was that a sound outside the door? Footsteps? Chela smothered a gasp in her throat.

Chela was about to dial Ten's number when her iPhone vibrated in her hand. The screen said
PRIVATE NUMBER
, but she knew it was Ten's new phone.

“What's wrong?” Ten said. He must have heard her tears in her breathing.

“I'm—” Chela stopped, struggling with the pain of a simple word. Her sudden sob sounded like a Chihuahua's pathetic bark. “I'm scared. I keep thinking I hear noises.”

“I'm ten minutes away. Are you hidden?”

“Yes.”

“Then stay that way. Don't worry, Chela. I'm almost there.”

When Chela hung up, her sobs came harder and faster.

The depression stage had arrived, right on schedule.

WHEN I RETURNED
home, an unmarked gray sedan was parked halfway down the block with two men inside pretending to read the newspaper. Classic stakeout pose. If I'd been tailed through the day, I'd missed the signs. I waved to the cops as I walked up my cactus-lined driveway, and the driver stuck his arm out the window to flip me his middle finger.

Fuck you, too,
I thought in Mother's voice. The extra eyes meant I was still a suspect in her murder, but I was glad those cops were there, if only for Chela's sake. Until those detectives banged on my door to arrest me, I wasn't in a position to be picky.

While Chela cooked up frozen Chinese stir-fry, I sat on the living-room sofa and stared at the blank TV screen, a mirror for my empty head. I couldn't wait for Escobar's next move—I had to plan mine—but I didn't know where to begin. I've rarely felt paralysis like it.

I found myself thinking about one of my last outings with Alice, when she'd insisted on going whitewater rafting on the Rogue River outside of Portland. I didn't know it then, but the excursion was probably on her bucket list. She never told me she was sick.

We'd had separate rafts, following the river's powerful whims,
and Alice had screamed with laughter at first. But as the afternoon wore on, each of us paddling furiously to steer clear of towering boulders while our guide shouted warnings, I noticed that Alice wasn't smiling anymore. Her screams came without laughter. She wasn't having fun, but there was no turning back. The river's current only ran one way.

“Almost done!” I'd called to her, and she'd nodded like a little girl.

I had never been rafting, but I kept paddling even through the unexpected jolts by the current. As I'd watched Alice's energy drain, I'd remembered how much older she was, and I'd wished I could paddle for her.

We turned one last bend, and the rushing water and bubbling white foam signaled strong currents ahead. I turned to glance beside my raft, and I'll never forget the defeated, helpless look on Alice's face. She'd pressed on with the promise of rest soon, but she hadn't expected such a challenge before the end. Instead of digging in for the fight, she'd stopped paddling.

I shouted encouragement, but Alice's raft whirled toward the first pair of large rocks as if she'd been tethered to them. By the time she started paddling with fervor, her raft had flipped.

One of the guides jumped in to help her before I could steer my raft anywhere close to her. The water was shallow, and we were wearing life preservers, so Alice only suffered plugged ears and a scraped elbow. But whatever lesson she'd hoped to learn on the rapids that day, the rocks had won the battle. The rocks had convinced her that she was too old, or that she wasn't strong enough, or some other unspoken message. I saw Alice only two or three times after that incident. She was never the same. Two years later, I heard she was dead.

Maybe we all meet a boulder with our name on it one day. I knew the name on mine.

As Chela filled my house with thin smoke from her overcooked
stir-fry, I understood why Alice's shoulders had slumped and her face had lost its light. While Chela sat next to me on the sofa, flipping through TV channels, I dozed off, dreaming about the Rogue River rapids.

Dad was the person in the doomed raft beside me, so shrunken and frail.

Then Dad turned into April.

I woke up with a jolt. The room was dark except for the blue light from the TV screen showing a reality show I didn't recognize. Chela was still sitting next to me, head bent as she played Angry Birds on her iPad.

“What?” she said, not looking up.

I checked the old-fashioned, silenced grandfather clock Alice had left standing in the corner. It was eight thirty. I'd slept for nearly ninety minutes, my longest stretch of sleep in a while, but I felt more tired than before.

Had I asked April to call me when she got home? I couldn't remember. I hadn't heard from her since I dropped her off at her car at Whole Foods. I'd been so busy trying to track down Louise Cannon that I hadn't checked on April.

“Have you talked to April?” I asked Chela.

“Not since we dropped her off.”

I sat up and grabbed my phone from the coffee table. My call to April's number went to voice mail without ringing. Her phone wasn't on; that wasn't like April at all. I told myself she was only on another call, probably for work, but I was considering other possibilities.

“It's me,” I said to her voice mail. “Call me as soon as you get this.”

My heart was pounding to life, and adrenaline drove sleep from my brain. Why had I sent her back home? Maybe I had been pushing her away.

I pulled my original cell phone out of the drawer where I'd buried
it, plugging it in to charge. My voice mailbox had filled up two weeks before. My world had narrowed to only six people I wanted to hear from or talk to. I searched through the contacts on my old phone until I found the number for Nia, April's roommate.

I held my breath until Nia picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

“Is April around?”

“I thought she was with you. I was about to remind her she's supposed to give me a ride to work tomorrow,” Nia said, already wary. “What's going on?”

I remembered racing up the stairs at the Fontainebleau. My heart pumped ice, but I kept my voice calm and told her to ask April to call me if she heard from her.

I went to my front stoop to check my mailbox, and I was relieved when I found only the usual junk. No cryptic message. I checked the video camera I'd mounted the day before to monitor the door and the the mailbox, and it had not been tampered with. Down the street, the unmarked car still spied on me.

I dialed April again. Nothing. I called her workplace extension, but that went to voice mail, too. April might be a dozen places. It wasn't even nine o'clock. She might have decided to see a movie or to go out to dinner with someone.
Chill, man,
I told myself.

But I couldn't.

“Come on,” I called to Chela. “I have to go out.” Cops outside or not, I wouldn't leave Chela in the house alone after dark.

“Where are we going?”

“April's house.”

Chela didn't complain or ask me why. She looked up at me with perceptive eyes, grabbing her sweatshirt to face the cool night.

Chela usually commandeered the radio as soon as we climbed into any vehicle, breaking my Driver Is Deejay rule, but she made no move to turn on any music. I checked my rearview mirror; the gray sedan eased behind me, flipping on the headlights to follow at
a leisurely distance. Chela turned to look over her shoulder, nervous when she noticed our tail.

“Cops,” I told her. “It's not him.”

Chela looked only slightly relieved, settling back in her seat. “Oh.” She raised her knees to her chest in the oversized seat, wrapping her arms around herself.

I was careful about my speed and every turn signal, hoping I wouldn't get pulled over and hauled to lockup. Every detail leaped to bright vividness: the shimmering stoplights, the glowing neon at the strip malls, random words on painted signs. My mind was preparing for the worst. At the stoplight, I handed Chela my lawyer's business card.

“Anything comes up with those cops, call Melanie,” I told Chela. “Stay with her.”

“Thanks, but I'll call Bernard.” Chela was ready to start taking care of herself.

After fifteen minutes of virtual silence while I drove, we pulled up in front of April's house. The driveway was empty, but April's street was busy even at night, with cars speeding past quiet homes while residents walked their dogs by lamplight. Still, April wasn't used to being vigilant, watching strangers' every move. April had grown up in Tallahassee, and she'd once told me that she occasionally forgot to lock her front door, and she rarely carried a key.

April wouldn't have been ready for Escobar. He could have worn a costume and grabbed her before anyone noticed.

Our police escort pulled up, parking a discreet distance away.

“Coming with me?” I asked Chela as the car idled. “Or hanging with the babysitters?”

“Yeah, right,” Chela said, opening her door.

Nia flipped on her porch light and opened her front door before we had a chance to knock. She'd seen us through her window. Nia and April often left their front shutters half-open even after dark, a peep show to anyone who wanted to see them eating dinner or
watching TV. I remembered my exposure with April as we'd made love in the kitchen, and I cursed myself again. How could I have been so stupid?

Nia was so thin that I'd once asked April if she ever ate. She was about Chela's height, with a severe jaw that looked masculine when she clenched it. Nia's polite smile for Chela died when she looked at me, arms folded. I didn't have to guess what Nia thought of me lately.

Nia didn't move to invite us in. “I don't like you showing up here like this.”

“I'm a bodyguard. I can't help being careful. Did you get any strange mail today?”

She shrugged. “Bills. Flyers. Strange how?”

“An envelope with no return address? Weird message?”

Nia lowered her chin to change her stare, losing her patience. “What's up, Ten?”

“Can I take a peek in your mailbox?”

She gave a frustrated sigh, but she nodded. April's mailbox, like mine, was beside the front door. An engraved detail from the black paint jumped out at me as I opened it: a cherub blowing a trumpet. I reached inside and checked for loose paper. None. At the bottom, my fingertips brushed a spare key.

I almost cursed out loud. I fished out the key and gave it to her. “You two should know better,” I said. “That's the first place someone would look.”

Nia sharpened her
you ain't my daddy
stare. Unlike April, who had been raised a hothouse flower, Nia was a foster kid who had fought her way from Compton to USC film school. Nia and I had gotten along fine once upon a time, but those days were gone.

I sighed. “Until I see a body, I'm not sure that bastard is dead,” I said. “Feel me?”

The resentment in Nia's face melted away. She clutched the key in her fist. “Wait—you think he's still out there?”

I shrugged. “April said she was going home to work from here, and you say she hasn't shown up or called. It makes the back of my neck tingle, that's all. So keep your blinds closed, lock your door, and don't keep a key out like an invitation.”

Nia nodded, contrite. She glanced toward Chela, hesitating before she went on. “There's no keeping April away from you, so don't string her along. Step up or step the hell off, Ten.”

“I will,” I said. “First, let's track her down. Tell her to call me.”

I was planning to head to Whole Foods next, to make sure her car wasn't still in the parking lot where I'd left her. But as Chela and I turned to step off the front stoop, I noticed a bright white sliver beneath the welcome mat I'd missed without the porch light.

“Wait,” I said before Nia could close the door. I pointed. “What's that?”

Nia and I bent low to examine it together: it looked like the edge of a standard envelope, nestled at the bottom center of the mat, hidden except for half an inch. Even less.

“Hadn't seen that—” Nia said, reaching down, but I gently blocked her wrist.

“Let me,” I said.

I don't know how I kept my fingers from trembling as I lifted that welcome mat, hoping I was wrong about what I would find. The concrete under the mat was stained nearly black with mildew, but a fresh white envelope lay waiting.