Drowning in Amber (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 2) (17 page)

“He won’t let me do that,” Luke said, shaking his head like he’d never spoken a truer word in his life. “I’m never going to get out of there.”

“Hell, he can’t make you stay.” I laughed. “Just move out. What’s he going to do, arrest you?”

“Huh. Like I don’t think about that every day,” he muttered, and sat down at the end of Crank’s bench.

Crank gave him a glare, but I told him to lighten up, we’d be done in a bit.

“So why don’t you just do it?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I could do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s got friends everywhere. He’d find me and bring me back. I’ll never get away from him.” Luke closed his eyes, and I shuddered. He was so pale, he almost looked dead.

Then he opened his eyes and stared at me, and the pleading look on his face screamed junkie. “I just need something,” he said. “Something to take the edge off.”

“Something?” I asked, even though I knew what he meant. I didn’t want to hear it, though. He was the good one.

“Yeah.”

The need was so naked in his eyes that I looked away from him, out over the park and the rest of the junkies, all with that look. You get that look, and you’re never getting out.

“I can’t help you, man.”

“Why not?” He sounded devastated. As though I’d just stabbed him in the back or something.

I stood up. I had to walk away from him, because I wanted to hit him as hard as I could—and I was afraid it wouldn’t be hard enough. Nothing stops you, once you start down that road. “Just go home.”

“I can’t,” he whined. “He’s out of his mind! I can’t take it anymore!”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “It’s just terrible, your old man giving you everything you want, so you can have a great life. That’s real shitty of him.” I felt a piece of a cracked tooth fall onto my tongue, and I spat. As I watched the decayed bit fly off and roll in the dusty grey grass of the park, I felt more anger at him than I ever had in my whole life. He was the good one!

“I got something for you, man,” Crank said, obviously thinking he could at least make some money as a reward for giving up part of his bench for so long.

“Fuck off, Crank,” I growled, pushing him away from Luke.

“Then get off my bench,” Crank growled back, glaring hard at me. “And take your friend with you.”

He said “friend” like it was a curse, and for a moment, it felt like it.

I grabbed Luke’s arm to pull him to the street, but he wrenched away from me. “I thought you were my friend, Eddie.”

“I am,” I said. “Just go home.”

He stared at me for a long time, his eyes pleading until I thought I’d scream. Then he left. That was the last time I saw him.

I STARED AT
the tree where I’d died and wondered. Really wondered, for the first time, if Luke’s dad had done this to me. Thinking about it made me tired. What difference did it make if he killed me or not? Knowing might bring closure or some such shit for my mother, and that would be a good thing, but for me—not so much.

I’d lived badly and died worse. It didn’t really matter who had done the final deed to me. That was beside the point. I was starting to understand that.

For a moment, I thought about going and getting high, but realized that getting high wasn’t what I needed. I needed something else. It wasn’t at the park. It was with Marie. She had the answers, no matter how bad she made me feel.

But when I got to the corner where I had to turn right to get to her office, I turned left instead and walked to the park.

Old habits die extremely hard. Being dead won’t stop them. I didn’t know what could.

SHOPPING WAS SO
nice, I can’t begin to explain just how nice it all was. We went to not one, but three different computer stores, and ended up with two nice little portables with all the bells and whistles. Then James took me out for lunch, and that was wonderful too.

Normal. All wonderfully normal. Exactly what I needed.

He dropped me off at the office. When I asked him where he was going, he mumbled something about paying bills.

“I thought you paid them already,” I replied.

“Not this one,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He pointed at the computer boxes in my arms. “Are you going to need help setting those up?”

“Are you kidding?” I laughed. “I can do this in my sleep.”

He drove away, and I spent the next couple of hours hooking everything up and reveling in the sound the computer made as it reconnected me with the outside world.

The first thing I did was check my email, to see if there was anything from Leary Millworks Inc., and felt a thrill of relief run down my back when I saw a big fat zero in the inbox.

That proved they hadn’t taken my resume seriously. Right?

And Honoria had not been in contact with either James or me since my late night visit, so I was almost certain she was going to keep her word about not saying anything to James about me. If I could just figure out who had really killed Eddie, she’d be off the hook, and then, so would I.

Then I called Jasmine. I hadn’t been home—if you can call couch surfing at a friend’s place home—in a couple of days, and I wanted to touch base. My life had been fairly exciting of late, and I didn’t want her afraid that I’d ended up back at the hospital or something. She had three kids and her own life. She didn’t need to worry about me, too.

She was happy to hear from me, which was nice, too.

“Glad you’ll be home,” she said. “I’ll make popcorn, and we can watch my show tonight. Does that sound good, or what?”

More normal. A quick painful lump formed in my throat. “Want me to bring anything?”

“Maybe some chocolate? To offset the saltiness of the popcorn?”

“Sounds great.” The lump was still there, making it hard to speak.

“Are you all right?” Her voice went a teeny bit hard. “You sound strange.”

“Oh, it’s just the idea of having a nice quiet night. I haven’t done that in a while.”

“Oh. James keeping you jumping?”

“Well, we have a new case—”

“Is this one going to pay?”

“I hope so!”

“Got it down in writing?”

“Just about.”

She chuckled. “You two need a secretary to keep you straight about that kind of stuff.”

I felt my face heat. Our first official case, which should have paid a whole pile of money, had fallen through because we hadn’t gotten the paperwork signed. Jasmine was right. James needed a real secretary. Not someone with as much baggage as me. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am. Now, tell me about James. Still as dreamy as always?”

“There’s nothing much to tell,” I muttered, hoping she’d let it go. “Both of us, just working. You know. Working on the case.”

“Yeah. Sure. I believe you.” She laughed, and after a second, I joined her, hoping it sounded real. “You can tell me all the juicy details tonight.”

“There aren’t any.”

“Sure. Like I said, I believe you.” She laughed again, harder this time. I did not join in. “I’ll see you tonight,” she finally said. “Remember the chocolate.”

She hung up, and I went to double-check the paperwork on our only case, just to make sure I hadn’t screwed it up. I felt relief when I pulled out the contract. All legal, no loopholes. James just had to get Honoria to sign it, and he would be paid for this one.

But that was if we could pull some actual evidence together. I turned to the computer with a small sigh of satisfaction. This was something I could do. I could check out the people that we knew were involved. That might give us a lead.

I stared at the screen, then punched in the name “Angus Stewart.”

“I’ll start with him,” I muttered. “Just to eliminate him.”

No matter what I said, I had the feeling he would not be so easily eliminated. He creeped me out. And as I plowed through all the information I found on him, I realized there was a reason I was creeped out. He was one creepy guy.

Elimination was not an option. He was in this. Up to his neck.

JAMES CAME BACK
two hours later, just as I was printing out the last of my research on Angus Stewart, the drug cop who scared the heck out of Dead Eddie.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked. “I’m assuming you jumped on the research wagon as soon as you had the computer set up.”

“You know me too well,” I said. “Give me a second, and I’ll print it out for you.”

“Great,” he replied, and grabbed a cup of coffee. He grimaced when he tasted it. “How old is this?”

“A couple of hours,” I replied. “Want me to make more?”

“No. I’ll do it.”

As he made a fresh pot, I re-checked my email to see if I had received any reply about the job inquiry with Leary Millworks.

I’d been checking every fifteen minutes, compulsively, and knew what I should be doing was letting them know I was no longer looking for a job. But for some reason, I didn’t do that. It was like I thought that if I actually reached out and contacted them, it would make what I’d done to James that much more real.

“So what are you looking for?” I jumped almost out of my skin when I realized James was looking over my shoulder at my email account.

“Nothing,” I said, and clicked it closed. “Just some information I thought would be in. It’s not.”

He walked back to the front of the desk, and sat down opposite me. “So, tell me what you found out about Honoria Lowe,” he said.

“I—this isn’t about Honoria,” I stuttered.

James frowned. “Why not? We need to know she’s telling the truth. Don’t we?”

“I didn’t mean I won’t check her out,” I said quickly. “I just meant this report isn’t about her.”

“Why isn’t it?” James’s mouth was set in a tight line, and I had this horrible feeling we were going to argue. Again.

“Because I decided to start with someone else.” I pulled the sheets of paper from the printer, and held them out to him.

“This is more important, I think. It’s about the cop, Angus Stewart. Want to read it?”

James said something, but just at that moment, I was distracted by a leg materializing through the door. It was quickly followed by a body, and then Eddie’s head popped into view. I stared at him as he walked up behind James, and pointed at him.

“Your buddy here is a fucking moron,” he said.

“What?” The word escaped my mouth before I could stop it.

“What what?” James replied. “I said, ‘Why Angus Stewart?’”

“Moron,” Eddie said again, shaking his head. “Ask him where he went. I dare you.”

“Ah, yes, Angus Stewart,” I replied, trying to ignore Eddie and focus on James. But it was hard. “I decided to check him out, just to eliminate him, know what I mean? Because he creeped me out at the park. But I don’t think we can. Eliminate him, I mean. I think he’s in this, up to his neck.”

“Why?” James asked, then shook his head. “Give me the gist.”

“Angus Stewart. Married, with one kid. Wife dead. He was on track to take a big chair—maybe even Chief of Police, until six months ago. Then his kid died. As far as I can tell, it was a drug overdose—but it could have been bad drugs. Nothing in the newspaper articles ever actually cleared that up. After that, he transferred out of Economic Crimes to Drugs. That’s when the suspicious deaths started on the street, but nothing that could ever be linked to him, exactly. Just a lot of talk about the cops using way too much force. A couple of guys even said they’d been tortured for information—but they disappeared before they could actually give a formal complaint.”

“I told you,” Eddie said. “That guy is evil.”

I tried not to stare at him, because at the same time he made that announcement, James frowned and asked, “And how does this tie into Edward Hansen’s death?”

Now, I couldn’t tell him that Eddie had told me about being best friends with Stewart’s son, could I?

“I told you before, I had a feeling about the guy,” I muttered. “I wanted to check him out.”

“Best plan you’ve had,” Eddie said.

“I think you’re going in the wrong direction,” James said.

“What the hell do you know?” Eddie cried.

“Well, who do you think is responsible?” I spoke calmly, even though I wanted desperately to echo Eddie’s words. “And why do you think I’m wrong?”

James shrugged. “I think it’s the drug dealer, Ambrose Welch.”

“Yeah, you would pick on the drug dealer,” Eddie said sarcastically. Then he turned to me. “Ask him what he did. Where he went, before he showed up here.”

“Why do you think it was him?” I asked, desperately wanting to ask Eddie’s question.

“Because he was the one who got those thugs to break into our office—”

“Thugs! What a fucking word!” Eddie cried.