Under the Gun (25 page)

“What’s that?”

“You don’t recognize it?”

I got a little closer and poked at the stack with a single finger. “No, I really don’t.”
I looked him in the eye. “Honestly. I’ve never seen any of those papers before.”

“They’re from Mort’s place.”

“What?”

“I told you, I wasn’t about to get pinned in his pile of crap and have nothing to
show for it. I left them in my car after the emergency room. They slipped under the
console; I didn’t go through them until tonight.”

“The expired Enfamil coupons.”

Alex wasn’t fazed. “I got lucky. A few of them were of use.”

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “But I don’t know what any of these are. I don’t recognize
any of them. Should I? Are they mine or something?”

He immediately looked away from me and grabbed a few sheets, shoving them under my
nose. “I thought these were kind of interesting.”

I looked down at the gridded sheets. “What are they?”

“I’m assuming pages from Mort’s calendar. See? Doctor appointment, shit delivery.”

I reluctantly took the pages. “Okay . . .”

Alex looked at me, the rage radiating off him in waves.

“I don’t see what you want me to—” I stopped, my chest suddenly tightening.

A few of the boxes were marred with Mort’s messy scribbles, but only one box had writing
on it that was legible and in color: a big red circle and the word
Sampson
. The calendar date was the exact day that Sampson appeared at my front door. “Oh
my God.”

“How come I had to find out from Hoarder Mort about Sampson, Lawson?”

“I—I—” The words were truly caught in my throat.

“I asked you point blank and you lied to my face. Multiple times. You’ve held up our
investigation. Now another person is dead.”

I looked up, narrowing my eyes. “Oh, no. Don’t you put that on me. I didn’t kill anyone.
I was trying to
protect
someone.”

“I wasn’t accusing you. If you feel guilty for something, that’s all you. I’m just
trying to clarify what our relationship was.”

“Was?”

“Are we just friends? Colleagues? Were you using me to let your pals at the UDA get
one over on us?”

“Friends?” I said to my lap. “We’re more than friends.”

Alex tucked a finger under my chin and tilted my head up to face him. “Are we?”

He let the question hang between us and I could feel the tension in the air.

Alex pulled a tiny silver key from his pocket and held it up for me to see. Silently,
he pushed it into the keyhole and the cuffs clicked open.

“I’m not using you, Alex. I wasn’t trying to get one over on you.”

“But you didn’t feel like you could trust me enough to tell me about Sampson. Even
when I asked.”

I swallowed hard, the tears rimming my eyes mirrored in his hard ones. “Sampson asked
me not to tell anyone.”

“I asked you to tell me. We could have saved a lot of time.”

“Time?” I straightened. “You mean because Sampson is responsible for all these murders.”

Alex shrugged, noncommittal. “Look at the calendar, Lawson. The dates match up.”

“But it’s not true! And I have proof it’s not. There’s another werewolf. The one we
saw in North Beach!”

“You know that for a fact?”

“You saw him, Alex.”

“I saw a werewolf, Lawson. I have no idea if it was or wasn’t Sampson.”

“It wasn’t,” I said, my voice sounding small.

Alex’s eyebrows rose. “Did he tell you that?”

I nodded, suddenly slightly less certain.

“Was it also Sampson who told you to go see Mort?”

I didn’t answer and Alex hung his head. “I’m just looking at the evidence, Lawson.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you!” I stood up so fast my chair went sputtering back,
bouncing off the wall a second time. “Because you’d rush to judgment.”

Alex shook his head. “We’d treat Sampson like any other person of interest.”

“Don’t you mean ‘suspect’? And you would not treat Sampson like anyone else because
you know what he is.”

“So do you.”

I jabbed myself in the chest. “I also know
who
he is. He’s being framed, Alex, I’m almost sure of it. Or another wolf is tailing
him and he’s the one responsible. It’s not Sampson. It’s not.”

“Where is he, Lawson?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, teeth gritted. “I’m not turning him in.”

Ice settled over Alex’s face. “If you don’t tell me, I can charge you with obstruction
of justice.”

I hardened my expression, too. “Do it.”

Challenge.

Alex slid his hand in mine and pulled me near him. I felt the cool metal of the cuff
as it slid onto my wrist once more, locking with a terminal-sounding click.

Accepted.

I kept my eyes fix on Alex’s. The muscle at his jawline jumped. “You can still get
out of this, Lawson.”

He was right.

As he went for the second cuff I snatched my shoulder bag and bolted out of his office.
I speed-walked through the work floor, keeping my cuffed arm inside my bag. I took
a chance, thinking Alex wouldn’t follow me.

I couldn’t understand why, but by the time I busted out into the clear, ink-black
night, hot tears were rolling down my cheeks.

I cried all the way back to my apartment, hiccupping and sniffling until I parked
my car. I pulled down the lighted visor and blinked at myself in the reflection: what
remained of my hair was a wild, fuzzy, humid mess; red-rimmed eyes; bright red cheeks
crisscrossed by mascara-edged tears. I slapped the visor closed, smacking myself in
the face with my one dangling cuff.

“This better be worth it,” I mumbled, rubbing the reddening spot on my forehead.

 

 

I had my key in the door when it snapped open. Nina stood there, framed by brilliant
yellow light. Her hair was in a greasy topknot and her eyes were hooded and sunken
until she saw me.

“The hair was one thing, but . . .”

I pushed past her and dropped my shoulder bag on the couch, giving ChaCha a cursory
snuggle. She licked my chin and then must have been nipped by the cuffs because she
jumped out of my arms and went running down the hall.

“So much for an ever-faithful companion.”

“Sophie, you’re wearing a handcuff. Stabbed, bad hair, hand-cuff.” Nina counted on
her fingers. “I know I said the heat makes people do crazy things but, sweetie, I
think you may be taking it to extremes.”

Vlad’s pale head popped up from the other end of the coffee table. He was still shirtless
and his hair was still a disheveled mess, possibly rivaling mine. His eyebrows went
up and he nodded his head, impressed. “Cuffs. Cool. What’d you break out of?”

I felt myself go sheepish. “Police station.”

Nina raised an interested brow. “You and Alex getting into the harder stuff? I like.
. . .”

Vlad gagged. “Old people sex. Oh my God!”

“Look at me! Do I look like this was part of a BDSM sexcapade? Officer Romero
arrested
me!”

“What’d you do?” Vlad asked.

“Nothing!”

I got a double shot of vampiric “I don’t believe you” faces.

“I may have stolen some evidence. But it was nothing to cuff me over.”

“So how did you get out? Sampson bake a file into a chocolate cake?”

I looked down sadly at my cuffed hand. “No. Alex came in and let me go.”

“Seems like shoddy cop work if he left the cuff on.”

“Long story. I have to go across the hall.”

“Fine.” Nina flopped down on a chair I had never seen before. I don’t know how I would
have missed it, as it was an enormous leather monstrosity with buttons all over the
arms and our living room is the size of a bread box. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”
She nudged Vlad with her toe, flipped a switch, and started to vibrate.

I pointed. “When did we get that?”

“Today,” Nina said, closing her eyes as a low hum filled the room.

“Just like that?”

“UPS brought it. I ordered it from QVC. It’s Heaven.” She cracked open an eye. “Or
at least as close to Heaven as I’ll ever get.”

“Wha—” I was going to say something; I figured I should since our house had gone from
Ikea chic to the showroom at the crap factory. Open boxes were scattered everywhere,
strips of bubble wrap popping out. We had a massage chair and a hibachi, and our tasteful,
minimalist tchotchkes were being strangled by an army of fat cherubs, pig-tailed milkmaids,
and crystal(ish) animals with numbered certificates of authenticity.

But my shoulder ached, my scissor stab wound stung and my eyes went to the videotapes
stashed in my shoulder bag.

I could only tackle one crisis at a time.

 

 

My stomach and my heart fluttered as I stood outside Will’s door for what seemed like
the umpteenth time. I licked my lips and then rapped on his door, feeling the sweat
break out along my upper lip.

There was no answer.

I tried again, then paused, waited. Finally, I rolled up on my tiptoes and felt along
the top of the door frame. I felt no pleasure when my fingers fumbled across the spare
key that even Will didn’t know was still there.

There was nothing in Will’s apartment that would signify that Sampson was even there.

And tonight, it seemed, he wasn’t.

Will’s array of lawn furniture and video games was still artfully arranged. The teal
chintz curtains left over from the last owner looked ridiculous and out of place in
the half-empty apartment, but oddly seemed to match the cross-stitched
Home Sweet Home
pillow that warmed up the plastic chaise longue.

The kitchen counters were bare and a single glass glittered in the drying rack. Nothing
to signify that Sampson had stayed here at all—nothing to signify that anyone had.
I swallowed down a lump of fear and headed for the bedroom, hoping that there would
be something there—something to prove to me that my trust wasn’t misguided, that Sampson
was spending his evenings reading
Tuesdays with Morrie
rather than taking out his werewolf urges on innocent San Franciscans.

“Come on, Sampson,” I muttered to myself as I poked around the pristine room. “Prove
me right.”

“Soph?”

I spun and Sampson was behind me, dark hair dripping wet, bare chest exposed. He had
a towel wrapped around his waist and I was all at once hit with the heavy scent of
Will’s soap—plus a heap of guilt, angst, and inappropriate naked-man attraction.

“Oh, Mr. Sampson.” I looked at him, felt the hot blush wash my cheeks, and then looked
at the floor. “Sorry to catch you . . . naked.”

“You okay?”

“Can you put some pants on?”

I waited in the living room, doing my best to make myself comfortable in Will’s lawn
chair—it was one of those old-fashioned numbers that squeezed every bit of your thigh
and butt fat through its plastic slats. I was relieved when Sampson walked out, fully
dressed, fairly certain that five minutes more of squirming in that stupid chair and
I would be cursed with permanent slat butt.

“Sorry about that,” Sampson said, taking the chair across from me. “I didn’t expect
you.”

“I knocked,” I said in a feeble attempt to explain myself and the obvious. “You didn’t
answer so I let myself in.”

Mr. Sampson’s smile was easy, trusting—like a knife in my heart. “I’m sure you had
good reason. What’s going on?”

Good reason. Yes,
I wanted to say.
My good reason is that suddenly, after all you’ve done for me, I don’t trust you.
I think you’re lying.

I cleared my throat, then looked at my hands in my lap. “Mr. Sampson—” I hadn’t planned
out a speech in my head. I hadn’t planned anything out, but it didn’t seem to matter
anyway, because all the words I wanted to say were stuck behind my teeth.

Sampson chuckled and his eyes crinkled. He leaned back and crossed one leg over the
other, and if he wasn’t in a lawn chair, he wasn’t a werewolf, and I wasn’t about
to accuse him of murder, he’d look like a very Norman Rockwell father, about to bite
the end of a fat cigar.

I licked my lips and pushed the words out. “Do you know Tia Shively?”

“The woman who was murdered in Pacific Heights?”

He said it. He knew.

I felt all the color drain from my face. I felt my whole body congeal into a quivering
mass of terror and despair. Pete Sampson.
My
Pete Sampson. A murderer.

“I read about her in the paper this morning.” He plucked the folded paper from the
floor and offered it to me. I recoiled as if he were offering me a snake.

“I need to show you something.”

“What is it?”

I fished the tapes from my shoulder bag and approached Will’s mammoth wall of electronics,
feeding the tape into the dusty VCR.

“We’re watching a movie?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I took the remote, aimed it toward the television and pushed
play.

“Sophie, I—oh my God. Where did you get this?”

“It’s security footage from the Pacific Heights crime scene.” And then, slowly, “It
is—was—Tia Shively.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek while I watched Sampson watching the videotape.
He flinched when the “wolf ” crashed through the door and his eyes widened when Tia
Shively was snatched up. But other than two tiny reactions, there was nothing else;
no indication that he was—or wasn’t—familiar with what was going on. I couldn’t watch
the screen myself, but I could tell by the silvery flashes reflected back what was
going on.

I pressed PAUSE.

“Did you know her?” I whispered. “Was that you—changed—in the videotape?”