Kill the Messenger (35 page)

                        
      56

Jace sat in a chair on the roof of the Chens’ building, watching Tyler and Grandfather Chen play with a pair of remote-control cars. Both the old man and the boy were laughing and grinning and chattering at each other in Mandarin as they worked the controls, and the cars careened around in a mad race. For the first time in what seemed like forever, an easy smile spread across Jace’s face.

It was a perfect Saturday morning. The sun was already warm and felt good on his body. After several days of rest, the aches had begun to subside, and some of the tension had left him. It was difficult to justify sweating over life’s details when he was so very aware he was lucky to have a life.

Parker had taken him to the Robbery-Homicide offices in Parker Center the day before so Jace could give his statement of everything that transpired in those few very long days. Jace hadn’t wanted to go, the old suspicions and fears hanging on with talons. He’d held his breath practically the whole time, waiting for someone to ask him about Tyler and the Chens, but it hadn’t happened.

Parker had told him the cops wouldn’t be interested in his private life. LAPD had enough on its agenda without dabbling in social services. And Social Services was too entangled in its own tentacles to go sniffing around LAPD. The system at work. Besides, Parker had said, if Jace really was nineteen or twenty-one, or any of the ages he chose to tell people, he was legally an adult, and entitled to custody of his brother.

The focus of the interview had been narrow and on point. What had happened and when it had happened. Just the facts.

Parker had stayed right there with him the whole time, asking some questions himself, but also interjecting bits of humor here and there, helping Jace stay calm and focused. Parker was a good man, maybe even someone Jace thought he could want to know and trust.

Afterward, Parker had taken him out to lunch, and filled him in on where the case was. Eddie Davis was being charged with four counts of murder, beginning with the murder-for-hire of Tricia Crowne-Cole. A one-man crime spree, fueled by greed and the sheer joy of taking lives.

The fact was, three of those lives, including Eta’s, could have been spared if Assistant District Attorney Anthony Giradello had pushed to have Eddie Davis picked up immediately after Abby Lowell had called and tipped him off regarding Davis’s involvement in the Crowne murder.

An investigation was under way.

The most important thing to Jace was that he was out of it, and his odd little patchwork family was safe. Family—he liked the sound of that. He thought he might actually try to open up to the idea.

Where he would go from here, he wasn’t sure. The broken rib and his other injuries would keep him quiet for another few days. He wouldn’t go back to being a messenger. The stress would be too much for Tyler, wondering every five seconds if his brother was being run down in the street, or chased by someone like Eddie Davis.

Jace probably should have been anxious about what the future would hold, but for the time being, he was content to watch his little brother being a kid. He was content to think that they had a home, and a family, and to know that family didn’t have much to do with blood, but had everything to do with heart.

Parker turned the green vintage racing Jag down the alley and parked behind the Chens’, in the slot where Madame Chen’s Mini Cooper had sat the first time he had come here. Madame Chen emerged from her office in pristine white cotton slacks and a black silk twin set, her hair perfectly coiffed.

“You are replacing my car, Detective Parker,” she said with a sly smile. “How kind of you.”

“I
will
replace your car, Madame Chen,” he said.

“And when will this miraculous thing happen? Before I am as old as my father-in-law and too blind to drive on the streets?”

“Today,” he promised. “The Hollywood police are finished with your car. I called them personally to have them bring it back to you today.”

She pretended to pout. “But now I like this car better. You will trade perhaps?”

Parker laughed. “You have an appreciation for fine things, Madame Chen.”

“Of course,” she said, her dark eyes twinkling. “My tastes are very simple, Detective. I like only the best.”

“Then you’ll say yes if I ask you to be my girlfriend?”

A blush tinted the apples of her cheeks. “I will say no such thing . . . until you take me for a ride in that car.”

Parker put his arms around her and gave her a hug. She protested and chattered at him in Chinese, but when he stood back, she was blushing and trying not to giggle like a schoolgirl.

“I’ll take you for a drive up the coast one day,” he promised. “We’ll have lunch and I’ll try to ply you with wine and charm. I’m full of charm, you know.”

She gave him a look. “You are certainly full of something, Detective Parker.”

“Kev!”

Tyler’s shout came over the side of the roof. Half a second later, the boy came bursting out the door.

“Wow! Cool car!”

“You think?” Parker said. “I came to take you and your brother for a ride.”

“Excellent!”

Ten minutes later they were on the road, the Jag growling beneath them, the wind in their hair, Tyler and Jace squished together in the passenger’s seat, sharing one seat belt.

“Isn’t this illegal?” Tyler yelled.

Parker cut him a quick glance. “What are you? A cop?”

“Uh-huh. I have a badge now.”

Parker had given the boy an honorary junior detective’s badge in appreciation for his exemplary service the night they had nailed Eddie Davis.

He found he liked playing uncle very much. Tyler Damon was a terrific little person. And Jace was something too. Brave and good. Both of them were damned amazing, considering the tough lives they’d had.

Parker suspected Jace had been born an adult. At nineteen he had a larger sense of duty and responsibility than ninety percent of the people Parker knew. Jace had geared his life to raising and protecting his little brother, doing what he had to do for Tyler to have a better life. Working two jobs and taking the train to Pasadena City College a couple of times a week to work toward getting a degree.

It seemed to Parker that no one deserved a break more than Jace Damon did. And he was about to give him one.

He turned the Jag in at the entrance to the Paramount lot and pulled up at the guard shack.

“Hey, Mr. Parker. Good to see you.”

“You too, Bill. My young friends and I are here to see Mr. Connors.”

“Who’s Mr. Connors?” Tyler asked.

“A buddy of mine,” Parker said. “Matt Connors. I do a little work for him on the side.”

Jace looked over at him, suspicious. “Matt Connors the movie director?”

“Writer, director, producer. Matt wears a lot of hats.”

“What kind of work do you do for him?”

“I . . . consult,” Parker hedged. “I was talking with him last night. He’s anxious to meet you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve got a hell of a story to tell, kid,” Parker said. “And you might as well tell it to Matt Connors.”

He parked the Jag and they all piled out. Having been alerted by Bill at the gate, Connors met them at the car.

Matt Connors was good-looking in a younger Paul Newman kind of way—forty-five, handsome enough to work in front of the camera, but smart enough not to. On the list of successful people in Hollywood, Connors’s name was not far down the list from people like Spielberg.

“Kev Parker, my long-lost friend and script savior!” Connors rejoiced, throwing his arms around Parker. Then he stepped back and said, “Where the hell are your notes on
Prior Bad Acts
?”

“I’ve been a little busy saving the city from violence and corruption,” Parker said.

Connors rolled his eyes. “Oh,
that.
Are these your deputies?” he asked, looking at Jace and Tyler.

“More like secret undercover agents,” Parker said. “This is Jace Damon and his brother, Tyler. I was telling you about them.”

“Right,” Connors said, sizing them up as if he was already casting their roles in his head.

The three of them shook hands. Jace looked suspicious of the whole setup. Tyler was wide-eyed.

“Can we see somebody doing special effects on a computer?” Tyler asked. “I’ve been reading all about the latest technology in computer animation, and . . .”

The boy rattled on like an audio encyclopedia.

“Tyler has an IQ of one sixty-eight,” Parker remarked.

Connors’s brows went up. “Wow. That’s more than you and me put together.”

“So we get to look around?” Jace asked. He was already looking, Parker noticed, and trying very hard not to appear excited about it.

Connors spread his arms wide. “Matt Connors, personal tour guide, at your service, gentlemen. Let’s take a walk. I’ll show you where all the magic happens.”

They started down the lot, Parker and Connors flanked by the two boys, the California sun spilling over them like molten gold, the world of dreams spread out before them.

“So, Kev,” Connors said. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

Parker put a hand on Connors’s shoulder and said, “My friend, have we got a story for you. And for a generous price that would put him through college and graduate school, I’m guessing Jace here would be happy to tell it to you.”

Connors nodded, turned to Jace, and said, “How about it, kid? You want to be in the movie business?”

Jace stared at him, his brain stalling out. “A movie? About me? About what just happened?”

“Right,” Connors said. “I already have the perfect title. We’ll call it
Kill the Messenger
. . . .”

BANTAM BOOKS
BY TAMI HOAG
                  

Ask your bookseller for titles you may have missed

Kill the Messenger

Dark Horse

Dust to Dust

Ashes to Ashes

A Thin Dark Line

Guilty as Sin

Night Sins

Dark Paradise

Cry Wolf

Still Waters

Lucky's Lady

KILL THE MESSENGER

A Bantam Book / July 2004

Published by

Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2004 by Indelible Ink, Inc.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Visit our website at
www.bantamdell.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hoag, Tami.

Kill the messenger / Tami Hoag.

p. cm.

1. Police—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 2. Lawyers—Crimes against—Fiction.

3. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. 4. Bicycle messengers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3558.O333K55 2004

813'.54—dc22

2004047612

Published simultaneously in Canada

eISBN: 978-0-553-89875-0

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