High-Caliber Concealer (27 page)

“Oh, my God,” said Jane finally. “Worst hack
ever.”

“Really awesome security?” asked Ellen.

“No, really shitty technology from like
1996. It’s so slow and glitchy. How do they even use this software?
It’s heinous.” She poked angrily at her screen again.

“Hitting the computer harder won’t make it
go any faster,” said Ellen.

“Are you sure? Because it feels like I could
just—” Jane’s finger hit the screen in a staccato burst of fury.
“Gah!” She threw the tablet on the table.

“Room seventeen. Don’t ask me to go back in
there. It was horrible.”

Nikki laughed. “Thanks. I won’t. OK, I’m
going to run out there before anybody gets up.”

“Your grandma’s already up,” pointed out
Jane. “I heard her head out to the orchard hours ago.”

“Yes, thank you. Before anyone else gets up
and comes downstairs.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” asked
Ellen.

“Mm, no. I don’t want to freak her out or
feel ganged up on. I just need her to get in the car and come with
me.”

“And if she won’t get in the car?” asked
Ellen.

“I’ll knock her out and put her in the car.
Problem solved.” Nikki put down her juice and looked around for her
keys and shoes. She thought longingly of her gun, but it was
stashed in the bottom of her bag where Z’ev wouldn’t see it.

“OK, wish me luck,” she said collecting her
purse and sliding into her running shoes.

“Good luck!” said Jane, rebounding back to
her normal cheery self.

Nikki started up the Impala and was about to
pull away from the house when the passenger side door opened and
her mother landed in the seat.

“Oh good, I caught you,” she said smiling.
“Ellen said you were going into town. I want to stop at the grocery
store.”

“I’m not really, uh ... I was going to pop
in on a friend,” said Nikki.

“That’s fine. I can wait in the car.”

“Uh.” Nikki thought about aborting the
mission. Then she thought about the scared look on Ylina’s face the
night before. “OK, we can make that work.”

“Mm, it smells like Chanel in here. Did you
start wearing Chanel? I thought you hated Chanel. Didn’t you say it
smelled like dead flowers?”

“It is Chanel,” said Nikki. “The car used to
belong to my old partner, Val. I think she spilled a bottle in here
one time. The scent comes out every time I warm up the car.”

“Your old partner? You sound like a cop. Do
project managers really have partners?”

“Can you open the gate, Mom?” Nikki stopped
the car, idling it in front of the gate to the road. Nell looked
annoyed. Farm etiquette dictated that the passenger opened and
closed the gate. Personal belief held that Nell didn’t do that kind
of work. Nikki could see the conflict in her face. Eventually, the
years of farm living won out. She got out of the car and opened the
gate. Nikki pulled through and waited while she closed the gate.
She thought briefly about pushing on the gas pedal and leaving her
mother behind, but she didn’t follow through. Things with her
mother were actually better than they had been in years. But for a
moment, the urge to run had been overwhelming.

Nell got back in the car, slamming it closed
with a loud bang.

“OK, can we go now?”

“Sure,” said Nikki.

The ride into town was silent and awkward.
Nell seemed constantly on the verge of saying something, but never
did. It was the conversational equivalent of almost sneezing, but
having the sneeze dissipate at the last moment.

Nikki pulled up in front of the motel. Run
down seemed too polite a term for the mega-crap show that was this
motel. It didn’t even have a name—the neon sign out front just read
“otel.” The M was burnt out and didn’t look likely to be replaced.
There was a cop car in the parking lot, but that didn’t seem like
much of a surprise.

“What are we doing here?” asked Nell looking
around.

“I have a friend who got into a little bit
of trouble,” said Nikki. “I’m going to pick her up and take her
back to the farm.”

“She needs to tell the guy to man up and
marry her,” said Nell.

“What? No, Mom. Not that kind of trouble.
She just needs a place to stay for a day or so until Donny can help
her straighten things out. Anyway, stay in the car. I’ll be right
back.”

Nikki jogged up the stairs to the second
floor landing, trying not to touch the rickety Rat Pack era railing
that looked nearly rusted through. The motel was shaped like an “L”
and as she counted down the numbers on the doors, she realized that
room seventeen would be near the bend in the “L”. She looked down
the length of walkway and felt her stomach sink. The door straight
ahead of her was already open. Nikki stretched out her stride,
trying to hurry without running. She slowed down as she approached,
missing her gun again. The room had been tossed, the mattress was
off the bed and cut open, the picture with its sad, faded rural
scene had been ripped from the wall. Clothes were scattered
everywhere. And by the bed lay Ylina. Her hair was wet and lay in
dark strands across her wide-open eyes. Nikki stopped and stared at
the body, trying to decide what to do next. Her eyes flitted around
the room, trying to avoid Ylina’s accusing stare, but always
returning to it. Her pants were dry, but her top was wet. There
were bruises on her neck. She was missing a shoe. Nikki didn’t see
the shoe in the debris.

There was a sound from within the room and
Nikki tensed, reaching for a gun that wasn’t there. Then the
sheriff stepped out of the bathroom. For a second he froze, clearly
surprised to see her.

“Miss Lanier, what are you doing here?”

“I was looking for Ylina,” said Nikki.

“Apparently, someone else found her first,”
said the sheriff, gesturing to the body. “Strangled her, and
drowned her in the bathtub last night.”

Nikki looked at the body again and then
around the room. She didn’t see the duffel bag that Ylina had been
holding at the junkyard.

“How long have you been here?”

“I don’t see how that is in any of your
business. Just what’s your interest here, Miss Lanier? You seem
mighty interested in some girl you bumped into at a bar.”

“Nikki, what’s taking so long? Tell your
friend not to pack anything, because we’re only going to want to
burn it after it’s been here.”

Nikki turned around, trying to block her
mother from seeing the body, but it was too late. Nell’s hands flew
to her mouth, holding in a scream, and her eyes went wide.

“Well, hello, Nell,” said the sheriff.

Nikki watched her mother’s eyes drift from
the body up to the sheriff. She was surprised at how quickly their
expression shifted from horror to hatred.

“This is a surprise. I’m investigating a
crime,” said Merv, his eyes flicking from Nell to Nikki and back.
“That’s my job, after all. But the question I’d like answered is:
what are you and your daughter doing here?

“You stay away from my daughter,” said Nell.
“Or so help me I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” asked the sheriff quietly as
he took a step closer.

Nell backed up.

“Maybe you should tell your daughter to go
back to LA where she belongs. Now I suggest both of you leave
before I arrest you for interfering in a police investigation.”

The sheriff slammed the door in their faces
and Nell immediately turned and headed for the car, pulling Nikki
with her.

Nikki drove until her mother held up her
hands as if signaling surrender. “Pull over. Pull over. Pull
over.”

Nikki did as she was told, and Nell dashed
from the car into the long grass in the drainage ditch and
upchucked her breakfast. Nikki sat on the hood and waited for Nell
to finish. When Nell began to stagger back in her direction, Nikki
fished in the glove compartment and pulled out the pack of wet
wipes and the flask of vodka. The car had come to her that way, and
Nikki had seen no reason to discontinue stocking Val’s emergency
kit.

Nell wiped her face and socked back a long
gulp of vodka. “That girl was really dead.”

“Yes.”

“How can you be so calm about it?” demanded
Nell, her fist crumpling the wet wipes.

“Well, as you used to say, crying won’t fix
the situation.”

Nell gaped at her. “That’s not what—I didn’t
mean it about things like this.”

Nikki shrugged. “It’s still true.”

“No, no it’s not. That girl—someone killed
that girl. Someone snuffed out her life like it was nothing. You’re
supposed to get upset about things like that, Nikki!” Nell dropped
the flask and wipes and grabbed Nikki’s shoulders, shaking her.

Nikki removed her mother’s hands, holding
her by the wrists. “I don’t get to be upset, Mom. I have to think
of what to do next.”

Nell stepped back, seemingly bereft for
words. “Sometimes I don’t think I even know you anymore.”

Nikki let out an exasperated sigh. “Mom, I
think the real question is, did you ever know me?”

“Yes, yes I did! We used to be close.”

Nikki laughed. “When? When was this mythical
time?”

“When you were younger. Before your father
left. We used to be best friends.”

“Yeah, you made it pretty clear to him that
it was just the two of us and then surprise! He left.”

“That isn’t what happened!”

“Really? Then tell me what happened. What
really happened to make Dad leave?” Nikki knew this wasn’t the time
for this conversation. Not that there had ever, in the history of
her life, been a right time for this conversation, but anything was
better than thinking about Ylina and her wide staring eyes.

Nell’s lips pursed in a way that made her
look surprisingly like Peg.

“Spit it out, Mom. Whatever it is you want
to say, just spit it out. I don’t really have time for this.” Nikki
waited, and Nell opened her mouth then closed it again. “Nothing?
There’s a shock.” Nikki turned to get into the car.

“He went to prison,” said Nell. Nikki
rotated back to look at her mother.

“What?”

“When we got pregnant with you we were broke
and his mother had disowned him for marrying me.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So we moved in with my parents, and he
liked it. But he knew I hated it. And we could never seem to save
up money to move. Every time we got cash together something would
happen—the car, the dentist, whatever. So he decided to do the one
thing he was really good at.” Nell’s words were tumbling out
rapidly now as if she was in a hurry to get them out and away from
her. Her hands clasped to each other, clenching and
unclenching.

“What was he really good at?” asked
Nikki.

“Smuggling,” said Nell. “He bought a car off
Crazy Cooter. Then he fixed it up with some sort of secret
compartment, drove it into Canada and picked up some pot. But after
the first couple of times he started to worry that he was getting
recognized. So then he started taking out some engine part and
having a tow truck drive it back, so that if the car got stopped at
the border he wouldn’t be there, but also the tow-truck driver
couldn’t be held accountable. He sold the pot and the car to a
biker gang in Oregon.

I wanted to move then. That was a lot of
money. But he said it was easy, and that if he did it a few more
times we could move without having to find jobs right away. And
then he said if we saved a little longer we could move and buy a
house straight away. And it was only pot, so I figured what harm
could it do?”

“He got caught?”

“Sort of,” said Nell, her nose wrinkling in
unhappiness. “He was starting to have to get creative. He’d drive
across the border in one location and have it brought back in
another. And he’d change up his hair style. Anything to keep the
border guards from noticing that he traveled back and forth a lot.
And then Merv Smalls started sniffing around. He was a Sheriff’s
Deputy then. He was certain your father was smuggling, but he
couldn’t ever figure out how he was doing it.”

“So what happened?” Nikki couldn’t believe
her ears. It was as though her mother was rewriting history with
every word, blotting out the past and redrafting it with a new and
entirely unfamiliar plot. At the same time, the new version
explained so many half-heard conversations and odd moments in her
childhood.

“One day, Merv pulled him over and arrested
him for having marijuana, just enough for intent to distribute and
prison time.”

“Merv planted the pot?” asked Nikki.

“He had to have,” said Nell. “Your father
never would have had that kind of crap pot on him.”

“So Dad didn’t leave. He went to prison. And
you just told me he left?”

“Well, what was I supposed to say?” asked
Nell, wringing her hands.

“I don’t know. How about the truth?”

“I couldn’t! Merv said I should leave town
because your father’s contacts might come looking for his money and
their pot. And I told him to go to hell and that your father was
innocent, but secretly I knew he was right. That gang he sold
to—they were not nice people. So I took the money and moved us to
Seattle and your father got extradited to a prison in Canada.”

“Oh, my God,” said Nikki. “How could you not
tell me this?”

“Well, I knew that if I told you, you’d only
want to go visit him and then you’d want to try to prove he was
innocent, which you know, technically he was, but not exactly. But
you would have wanted to solve the mystery. I let you read too much
Trixie Belden as a child. I think it went to your head. But if you
solved it, what would you have thought of your father then?”

“So instead you let me believe that dad left
us? You couldn’t say that he joined the Peace Corps or
something?”

“Oh. Well, no. I didn’t think of that.”

“When did he get out? He was there for
Grandma’s funeral. He must have been out by then. Why didn’t he
tell me at the funeral?”