Come Twilight (26 page)

“It’s just a car,” I said.

At home, I showered and got ready for dinner with Julia, all the while worrying about what she wanted to talk about. I figured this had to be it. She’d seen the real me at Buskerfest. Now she was going to end it. What else could she have meant by
We should talk
?

You’re just being foolish,
I told myself. She was a social worker. She led support groups for veterans from Iraq. She’d get it. I’d just be honest and open and ask for her understanding and forgiveness. Besides, there was more to her message.
Worried about you,
she’d written. I was jumping to conclusions. It would be all right.

But when I stood on the porch, my hand was shaking so much it took three tries to get the key into the deadbolt.

I texted her.
Had to meet with Patrick about the case. Won’t be able to make dinner. Tomorrow?
I read it twice to be sure I hadn’t actually lied, then hit “Send.”

Back inside, there was still a third of the bottle of Glenlivet on the coffee table. I went into the kitchen for the Grey Goose instead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ASHES ON YOUR EYES

When Joseph Polson came into the squad room on Monday morning, he seemed lighthearted and even happy. He’d shaved off his soul patch. Patrick had been monitoring his phone. There had been no unexpected calls and no indication he’d had contact with anyone who might have had information about Avram’s arrest.

“Detective Beckett,” he said to me. “I’m so sorry to hear about your injury. I hope you’re all right.”

“I am, thank you. I’m sorry we had to reassign your case. I know Detective Glenn is doing a very thorough job.”

“He seems very professional,” Joe said. He realized too late that I might take it to mean he thought I hadn’t been. “I didn’t mean that you—”

“It’s okay,” I said with a friendly chuckle. “I didn’t think you were implying anything. How’s Lucinda holding up?”

“She’s doing a bit better. But it’s still hard, you know.”

“I do,” I said. “Detective Glenn is on the way. He had something he needed to follow up on, but he should be here any minute. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

“No, thank you.”

I led him up the hall to the interview room. “Go ahead and have a seat. It’ll just be a minute or two.”

Just down the hall and around the corner was the door to the observation room. I opened the door and found Patrick, Jen, and Lauren inside watching Joe on the monitor.

We assumed Lucinda would have told him about her interview—how she’d been led into the interview room only to be retrieved by Jen and taken to the much more relaxing conference room. On the monitor, Joe was looking around at the room. He didn’t look nervous, not yet, but he seemed curious about why he was in the box when his wife had been in the bigger room with a window and much more comfortable furniture.

“How’d it go?” Patrick asked me.

“Just like you planned,” I said. When he’d asked me earlier to be the one to greet Joe, I was hesitant. I didn’t want to cross any lines that would make Ruiz unhappy. Patrick told me it needed to be me because Joe had to see that I’d been out of commission and that I was uninvolved with the case at this point. We didn’t know how much he knew about what happened to me, but on the chance that he knew everything, Patrick wanted him to think that the abduction had worked, that I’d been effectively removed from the case, that I had, in fact, “stayed away from her” as I’d been told to do. I argued that it didn’t matter because Jen went right ahead and interviewed Lucinda anyway, but it was Patrick’s case now, so I followed his direction.

“How long are you going to make him wait?”

“For a while yet. Let him stew.” He told Jen and Lauren and me that we could go back to work and he’d let us know when he was going to start.

Thirty-five minutes later we were all back in the observation room and Patrick went in to join Joe.

For more than an hour Patrick threw softballs at Joe, taking his time, building a rapport. It looked and sounded a lot like Jen’s interview with Lucinda and took a similar line. Everything seemed to be focused on his father-in-law, but bit by bit, Joe was getting closer and closer to talking about himself. It was so gradual that when Patrick started to drop the hammer we wouldn’t have noticed it if we hadn’t known what we were watching for.

“Just a few more questions and then we can wrap it up,” Patrick said.

Joe had been calm and comfortable, but when Patrick said that, there was a hint of relief in Joe’s eyes.

Patrick thumbed through his notes as if he wanted to make sure they’d covered everything. “And when was the last time you saw Bill again?”

“The day before he died.”

“So that was Wednesday. You stopped by his apartment and hung out and had a drink, right?”

“Yes.”

“Special occasion?”

“No. I was just in the neighborhood.”

“You had the Glenlivet? Man, I love that stuff.”

“Bill did, too,” Joe said.

Patrick jotted something down on the yellow pad, then consulted his notes again. “Okay, so that’s—wait a second. You said Wednesday, the day before?”

“Yes,” Joe said. “That’s right.”

“Not the day of?”

Joe shook his head.

Patrick went back to his notes and dug through them again, a puzzled look on his face. “You’re sure about the day?”

Joe said, “Yes.”

Patrick tapped the point of his pen on the pad. “This is weird. There’s this sales record from BevMo? You didn’t buy the bottle of Glenlivet until Thursday morning.”

He looked at Joe.

For just a moment, I thought Joe might not crack, but then he blinked three times in rapid succession and looked down at the table. Patrick had him. I turned to Jen and whispered, “Winter is here.”

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I sent the call to my voice mail without looking at the screen.

“Here’s the thing I don’t get,” Patrick said. “Remember those fingerprints Detectives Beckett and Tanaka took the day after Bill died?”

Joe nodded.

The phone rang again in my pocket. This time I checked it. Julia’s name was on the screen. She knew I’d be watching the interview this morning, so she wouldn’t have called unless it was important. I stepped out into the hall and answered.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s up? I’m in the—”

“Beckett?” a man said.

“Who is this? Where’s Julia?”

“She’s here.” His voice was even and strangely calm. “I asked her to call you, but she wouldn’t.” I had heard his voice before but I couldn’t place it.

“What’s going on?” I said, my voice rising. “Put Julia on the phone.”

“No,” he said. “You need to come here right now.”

“Come where? Tell me what’s happening.” I struggled to maintain my composure. Something was very wrong.

“She’s all right,” he said. “So are the others. But they won’t be unless you come here right now.”

Julia was supposed to be teaching her workshop. Who were the others he was talking about? Her students? What was he planning to do?

Someone yelled something in the background. It sounded like “He has a bomb.”

“Shut up,” he shouted.

De-escalate,
I told myself.
De-escalate.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come. Tell me where.”

“The gallery,” he said. “You know which one.”

“I’m coming. Don’t do anything. Don’t hurt any—”

“Just you. No one else. Come now.”

“I need more information. How many people are with you? Are you armed?”

“You should have left her alone.”

A wave of nausea rose through me and before I could speak again, he ended the call.

I knew, that night on Signal Hill.

The first time I had been with Julia had ended with awkwardness and embarrassment. For me, at least. I hadn’t been in a serious relationship with anyone since Megan died. And apart from a few casual encounters, I hadn’t been with anyone at all. That first night, we’d only been together a few minutes when her hand found the premature wetness in my crotch and I fled as quickly as I could. I wanted nothing more than to forget the incident and move on, but Julia wouldn’t let me. She called the next day. And when I didn’t respond she called again. And again. When I finally agreed to meet her for lunch, I asked her why she kept calling. What made me special?

“Nothing,” she said. “But I couldn’t leave it like that. Let that be our last memory of each other.”

Those first weeks were tentative and hesitant. I felt like a child on a bicycle with training wheels. But she was there, her hand on my back, and gradually I came to understand she wouldn’t let me fall.

We were walking down Second Street on our way to dinner at Nick’s, and we came across an elderly homeless man near the Rite Aid. He was sitting on the sidewalk, a cup in front of him with a cardboard sign that said “PLEESE HELP.” I would have walked right past him, but Julia looked down at him and said, “Elliot?” He looked at her, but there was no recognition in his eyes, only fear and confusion. He tried to say something, but his speech was too slurred to understand.

She turned back to me and quietly and calmly said, “Call an ambulance.”

I took a few steps back and called 911.

She sat down next to him, took his dirty hand in hers, and, in the same soft and warm tone, began talking to him. She mentioned the VA and the support group they’d both apparently been a part of. She was still talking to him when I heard the siren in the distance. He didn’t seem to understand and his eyes were going in and out of focus, but she was calming him, easing his fear.

The paramedics loaded him in the back, and she told them she’d be riding with him. I followed in my Camry.

It was a stroke, they told us. As we waited for more news, she called the VA to arrange support services for him. She spent more than an hour and talked to six different people before she was satisfied. We sat in the waiting room for two hours until the doctor came out and told us he’d stabilized.

Instead of the expensive dinner we’d planned, we drove through the In-N-Out up on Signal Hill and ate Double-Doubles and fries well done, in the front seat of my car, while we looked out through the windshield at the city lights in the distance.

And I knew.

I parked around the corner on Linden where he wouldn’t be able to see me from the gallery. There was no way I could get a look inside without him also being able to see me.

Julia’s phone rang three times before he answered.

“Where are you?” he said.

“Outside.”

“Come in.”

“No. Not until you send everyone else out.” I positioned myself on the corner, in line with the storefront windows. Looking inside the gallery was still impossible, but I’d be able to see if anyone came out of the door.

“If I do that,” he said, “why would you come inside?”

“Because I say I will.”

He ended the call and soon half a dozen people ran out through the door and hurried down the side. Five women—none of them Julia—and Trev, the gallery owner. “This way!” I called out to them.

Trev recognized me and ran in my direction. He was panicked and rambling. I took him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Trev,” I said, as calmly as I could. “What’s going on in there?”

He was hyperventilating and his man-bun had come undone.

“Calm down,” I said. “Breathe slowly. You’re safe. It’s going to be all right.”

“He has a bomb,” he said. “A suicide bomb.”

“Who has a bomb?” I asked as calmly as I could.

“The man. He just came in. Out of nowhere.”

“What man?”

“From the photo.”

“What photo?”

“The photo!”

I didn’t know what he meant but I didn’t want to waste any more time. “Is Julia still inside?”

His head moved up and down in a vigorous nod.

“Go half a block up there.” I pointed north up Linden. “Wait there, okay?”

More nodding. I gave him a gentle push and he started moving.

Walking slowly toward the door of the gallery, I took my own advice and inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly. Then I did it again and again. A few steps in from the corner, I was finally able to see inside.

The lights were turned off, but I could see two shapes, shrouded in shadow, all the way back in the corner. As I looked, I was gradually able to make out more detail. The bomber was behind Julia. Still unable to get a good look at him, I moved toward the door. I took one last deep breath, reached for the handle, and went inside.