Reckoning and Ruin (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-five

I made Trey drive. He handled the Camaro as well as he did the Ferrari. Already his brain was absorbing the map of the city, the squares and one-ways, the road work and closed lanes. Soon he'd be better at navigating my own hometown than I was.

“Two missing people, one body, and a bunch of clues that make zero sense.”

His forehead did that wrinkly-thinky thing. “One clue makes sense.”

“And that is?”

“You said that John and Hope's trailer had been searched. Now we have one option as to what the searcher might have been searching for.”

“The quarter mil.”

“Yes.”

“Why would they think Hope or John had it?”

He shook his head, steered us into Billie's driveway. “I don't know. But that's a good question to start with.”

Billie's house was dark—Travis was still at work and she was at a baby shower—but she'd told me the code for the garage door. I got out of the car. “Wait here. I'll be quick. And then we can hit the business center at the hotel. We've got a lot more research to do, boyfriend.”

Trey got out anyway and took up position in the driveway, right under the yellow-tinged streetlight. I punched in the code and hurried inside. The empty house was thick with silence, broken only by the low hum of the appliances and electronics. Through the front window, I saw Trey standing sentinel. He was an oddly formal presence in the neighborhood, surrounded by the mundane noises and smells of suburbia—the jabber of somebody's television through an open window, the charred smoke of hamburgers on a grill, the hum of a golf cart as two teenagers tooled about. I smiled to myself and pushed open the door to the baby's room.

The figure waiting there shoved me against the wall in the hallway. I didn't have time to get my hands up or regain my balance before the next blow took me to the ground. I landed on my back, hard, and the air rushed out of me in a whoosh.

I tried to scream and couldn't. I rolled to my side, arched my back, trying to work the muscles that would let some breath back into me. It was all instinct, no rational thought. Footsteps pounded down the hall and out the back door. I sucked in a painful hitching breath, then another.

When I finally could, I put my head back and screamed, “Trey!”

***

They sent a patrol car to secure the scene. No lights, no siren. No need, my assailant having fled into the dark woods of Billie's backward, disappearing into the subdivision a block over.

Trey refused to budge from my side. He'd already checked me over once, head to toe, and then he'd gone through the whole house, the backyard too, making sure the coast was clear. This was not how one preserved a crime scene, but he didn't give a whomp about that. He was in pitbull mode.

It was not departmental procedure to let him hang out at my elbow, but the cop conducting my interview didn't protest. He wore a body camera, said it was part of a test program. I didn't much like that little lens staring at me, recording me. I felt violated enough.

“Any idea why someone would jump you?” he said.

Trey bristled. “She wasn't jumped, she was assaulted by an unknown perpetrator committing felony trespass. Which means—”

I put a hand on his arm. “S'okay. I got this.” I turned to the cop. “I'm pretty sure I interrupted a burglary.”

He checked his notes. “You're the same Teresa Ann Randolph who reported a burglary at the home of John Wilde and Hope Lyle on Monday, is that correct?”

“That was me, yes. Though I go by—”

“Tai. Yeah. I see that.” He hitched up his belt, adjusted the camera. “Do you think this incident is connected?”

“I don't know what's connected. All I know is that the second I showed up in Savannah, it's been a clusterfu…excuse me. It's been a mess.”

By this time, Billie's neighbors were surreptitiously hanging out on their porches and patios, pretending to be engrossed in the moon or the crickets or each other. I let them gawk. Everybody needed something to live for, and this was better than
Dancing with the Stars
. And then I saw the car I'd been dreading most.

Billie. She parked at the curb and came storming my way. The cop intercepted her, but she shook him off.

“What's happened? Are you okay?”

“Everybody's okay,” I said.

A tiny precise relief flared in her eyes, quickly smothered with anger. “I don't know what kind of trouble you decided to bring upon my house, but you'd better take it with you when you go!”

The cop stepped between us. “Ma'am, are you the resident?”

“I am.”

“Then if you'll kindly step with me to the car, I'll explain.”

For a second, I thought Billie wasn't going to comply. She was furious, one hand gripping her pocketbook, the other palming her belly. I'd upset her sanctuary, brought the ugly and the violent into the pastel world she was working so hard to make safe.

The cop went with her, shooting me a pointed look. “I'll be right back. Don't move.”

Trey was standing too close now. If a moth had tried to land on me, he would have crushed it into a dusty pulp.

“Trey?”

His eyes were in constant motion around the perimeter. “Yes?”

“Go see about Billie.”

“What?”

“She's upset and freaked out, and I don't blame her. She's not accustomed to criminals busting up the peace.”

He looked confused. “But I don't know what to say to her.”

“Don't say anything. Just stand there and let her unload on you. It's a very calming thing, it really is. Trust me on this.”

He did as I asked, reluctantly. Billie lit into him the second he got to her side, but I knew she'd spend her outrage pretty fast. And then he'd answer her questions, make assurances. Sure enough, I watched him cast his protective presence around her. She folded her arms above her swollen belly and cursed a blue streak, but I could see her calming down. Soon she'd be anxious, which was a harder horse to ride than anger, and then she'd be rational. Eventually. She cut a look at me, and it was hard as quartz.

Mea culpa
, I thought.

I tried to listen as the officer explained to her what would happen next, just in case there was some new wrinkle. But my head was pounding, and I was exhausted. Which is why I wasn't sure I saw what I saw, not at first. I had to shield my eyes from the police car headlights and squint. But it was her, what was her name, the lawyer's PI, only now she wore a baseball cap and a denim jacket. When she saw me looking, she pulled the cap down lower and ducked behind a garbage can.

I didn't even think. I took off after her.

She bolted, heading for the playground. I bolted too. I heard the cop yelling, Trey and Billie as well, but all I could think was, the bitch did it, and I'm going to catch her, and I'm going to pummel her into the ground until she confesses.

She'd gotten a good head start, though, and by the time I reached the swingsets, she'd vanished. I stopped, sucked in air. Damn it, where'd she gone? To the left was the construction site with the bulldozers and dump bins, to the right another patch of undeveloped woods. I spun a slow circle and listened, but my world was a jumble of the shouting behind me, the stitch in my side, the blurry haze of not enough oxygen.

To the woods, I thought. I spun to my right…

And ran right into Trey. We collided with a wallop, and I scrambled to keep my footing.

“Which way did she go?”

“Who?”

“Finn Hudson! Never mind, you go left, I'll go right.”

He stayed planted. I tried to duck around him, but he caught me around the waist and plopped me back in front of him. I ducked the other way, managing to block and evade this time, at which point he snagged me again. I shoved at his chest, but it was like shoving at a wall.

“Let me go, damn it!”

He grabbed my wrists. “Tai! Stop this right now!”

I yanked my wrists free. A side sweep to his calf almost took him down, but he caught his balance and grabbed me as I lunged past. He pulled my back against his chest, then wrapped both arms around me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides. I pulled and wrenched and stomped and screamed. I let fly a donkey kick right at his shins, connecting solidly. He sucked in a sharp breath, tightening his hold, but he didn't let go.

“She's getting away!” I screamed.

“The officer is in pursuit!”

“I don't care, I…I…”

I was out of breath, frenzied, weak. And mad, sizzling mad. I felt it coming like a thunderstorm, riding low, the pressure wave of it building. I tried to control it, but it crushed me, and what came out of my mouth was a gasp, and then a moan, and then my knees went out from under me. I stopped fighting. I was panting, crying, sobbing.

“I can't…I can't…”

My knees collapsed, and I went down, with Trey right behind me. He still held me tight against his chest, but it was no longer a restraint.

“Breathe,” he said.

“I don't know how to do this, I don't know what to do, how am I supposed to, how am I—”

“Breathe, Tai. With me. Just breathe.”

I heard more shouting behind us, back-up cops on the scene. Lights and sirens now, strobing against the gunmetal sky. I pressed my face into his shirt and cried. Ugly crying, the kind with heaving and mucous and blotches on his white shirt. But he held me. And he told me to breathe. And I did.

Chapter Thirty-six

Next morning, every muscle in my body ached. Trey had warned me about such, explaining that it was a side effect of the adrenalin crash. Before I'd gone to bed, he'd dosed me with ibuprofen and some of Gabriella's anti-inflammatory herbs, which tasted like grass clippings and dirt, then made me soak in Epsom salts. And still I hurt like I'd been beaten with a meat mallet.

I sat on the edge of the bed, utterly spent. If I'd had a white flag, I would have flown it.

Trey came out of the bathroom with a roll of gauze and a tube of antibacterial ointment. He favored his left leg, and I felt heavy with guilt. I'd pulled no punches the night before. Kicks either.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

I did. He uncurled my fingers and examined my palm. The scrape flared red, but not as angry as the night before when he'd picked out pieces of gravel. He daubed ointment on the wound, his touch delicate.

I gritted my teeth. “It was her, you know. Finn Hudson. I wasn't hallucinating.”

“I know.”

“And she was up to something. That cop had no right to yell at me—”

“He had every right. You disobeyed his direct orders. He could have arrested you for that alone.”

Trey had managed to talk him out of that, thank goodness. I'd heard the muted conversation, which involved another flashing of his AMMO card.

“Are they going to arrest her?”

“They are going to talk to her.”

“Good.”

He focused on winding the gauze around my hand. If there was anything he'd learned during a year with me, it was how to apply first aid. Having him wrap a bandage felt as intimate as a goodnight kiss.

“I'm sorry about last night,” I said, “especially the part where I kicked you. And elbowed you. And wrenched your shoulder.”

“That's okay, I was expecting you to defend.” He arched an eyebrow. “I wasn't expecting you to go for a throw, however. That was beyond our training.”

“I've been practicing without you.”

“Oh.”

“A lot.”

I tried to meet his eyes, but he fastened them on the bandage. Wrap and tuck, tighten and neaten.

I kept talking. “Garrity's seen more of you than I have lately. So has Marisa. And your trainer. Getting stalked has been the most attention I've gotten from you in a very long time.”

Trey flinched, but continued rolling the gauze. “I've been busy.”

“Very busy. Busy to the point of perseveration.”

“I realize that now and have made the necessary corrections.” He taped the gauze in place and examined his handiwork. “I'm not convinced that you have done the same.”

“I have. Last night was crash and burn. This morning I'm on my own two feet again.”

“But—”

“No buts. You don't like it when I second-guess you about your okay-ness or not-okay-ness. Extend me the same courtesy.”

His eyes flicked up to mine. “Point taken. That courtesy, however, does not extend to your smoking cigarettes while I'm in the shower.”

Damn it. I should have known I couldn't defeat his nose. Like a bloodhound, that man. And I'd been so careful, closing the balcony door tight behind me, standing upwind, taking only three delicate puffs before dropping the cigarette half-smoked and sizzling into an old water bottle.

“Momentary lapse. Won't happen again.”

“I hope not. Because—”

The buzz of my phone interrupted him. I leaned over and checked the number. Another one I didn't recognize. I shrugged at the question in Trey's eyes and answered it anyway.

The voice at the other end of the line was testy. “I've been blamed for a lot of things, but this is the first time I've been accused of assault.”

I sat straight up. “Finn?”

“Yes, Finn. Calling you from the police station, where I have just finished being questioned, thanks to you.”

“Don't blame me, you were the one lurking.”

An exasperated huff of breath. “I was following you, which is perfectly legal in Georgia, well within the scope of my professional investigation. But I didn't assault you.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“You want me to explain? Meet me out front, alone.”

“No, you come here. Whatever you've got to say to me, you can—”

“There's no way I'm coming into that hotel and getting my face on the security cameras. If you want to talk, we do it down here, and we do it alone.” A pause. “Come to the median in front of the hotel, next to whatever-the-hell monument that is.”

“You mean the Rotary wheel?”

“Yeah. That thing. I'll be there for fifteen minutes.”

She hung up on me. Trey saw the look on my face. “What's going on? Who was that?”

I shoved myself to my feet. “That was Finn. As for what's going on, I'm about to find out.”

***

I spotted Finn standing exactly where she said she'd be, next to the bronze sculpture in the median, with Liberty Street traffic flowing on both sides of her. Instead of khaki or denim, she now wore a pale yellow sorority girl frock over black leggings. With her hair clipped to the side in a rhinestone bobby pin and rainbow bangles on her wrist, she looked barely twenty, fresh and glowing and entitled, a carbon copy of every cheerleader I'd gone to high school with.

I jaywalked out to meet her, the low hum of passing cars in my ears. I had to admit, the landscaped strip of grass and foliage made a good meet site—glaringly public, but hard to document with either camera or recorder.

I stood next to her under the low branches of the live oak. “Aren't you the chameleon?”

“Part of the job description.”

She sipped at her drink, a slushed up pink thing. On either side of us, people walked the sidewalks, posing for selfies, leaving footprints in the pollen. The sky above us had a bruised, swollen quality. Rain coming, and soon.

“Where's Trey?” she said.

“You told me to come alone.”

“Yes, but I know he's watching. He was a sniper once. Watching is what he does best.” She jabbed her straw up and down. “Next to sniping, of course.”

I was very careful to keep my eyes on her and not flick them to where Trey watched, from the bookstore across the street, which he'd pronounced an adequate surveillance site. Too much straight-on morning sun for his taste, but the clouds had remedied that situation. Most importantly, it was a quick dash across the two lanes if he decided I needed saving.

“Why are you stalking me?” I said.

“Surveilling. Surely Trey taught you the difference.”

“Nonetheless. Explain.”

She stirred her drink some more. “Look, it's nothing personal. Mr. Lovett asked for background. I'm delivering.”

“You delivering him a witness too?”

She shook her head. “Excuse me?”

“I saw Shane Cook getting into Lovett's car on Tuesday. At the detention center.”

This was a bluff, but it paid handsomely. Finn shrugged. “We offered you an interview, in writing. You declined. Mr. Cook didn't.”

“He offer to sell you his testimony?”

“Heavens, no.” She batted her eyes in mock affront. “Did he offer such to you?”

“Let's just say he is free with his charms.”

“Such charms are never free. But that's not how Mr. Lovett works.”

The valets were doing a brisk business this morning, and constant streams of cars and people flowed around us. I could smell exhaust and coffee and the odor of warm mammal as a horse-drawn carriage clip-clopped down Bull Street, the tour guide telling stories in an exaggerated Southern drawl.

Finn sipped her drink. “You must understand this about Mr. Lovett—he's on a mission.”

“Missionaries don't usually pull six figures.”

“Mr. Lovett has no trouble saving the world and getting stupid rich at the same time. He sees Jasper Boone's case as the perfect opportunity to exercise his fervent belief in justice for all.”

“All the scum of the earth, apparently.”

“Mr. Lovett looks to the big picture. In Jasper Boone's case, it's that the entirety of the blame is being laid on him, an uneducated backwater redneck, while the real perpetrators, those rogue cops, are getting lesser sentences.”

“So your boss is playing dirty to serve some inflated sense of justice?”

“He's not my boss.” There was a flicker of annoyance in her tone, which she immediately smoothed. “And he could no more play dirty than Mother Theresa. He's got big ideals, sometimes too big to see around.”

“I'd like to kick him in the ideals.”

Finn smiled around her straw. “I understand. That's why I'm here talking to you, risking my job. His ideals are becoming problematic in this case.”

“How so?”

“Jasper Boone is painting bull's eyes everywhere, drawing attention away from whatever it is he doesn't want anyone to see. And I don't know what it is. But I've seen enough to know it's probably mad, bad, and dangerous.”

“So why tell me?”

“Because Mr. Lovett's primary goal has always been helping clients avoid mandatory sentencing, not freeing them. But the way this case is shaking out, Jasper could walk. And I know the things he did, the things he will do. That man doesn't need to be breathing free air.”

She wouldn't look directly at me when she talked, preferring to stare over my shoulder, at the passing traffic, up at the clouds. Anywhere but in my eyes.

“What did you do with Hope?” I said.

“What makes you think I've—”

“Don't.”

Her expression stayed neutral, but I saw a cagey reassessment in her eyes. “Fine. But she's the one who called us, in Atlanta, so don't suggest we're being suddenly nefarious. I promised we'd keep her safe, which we have. And that I'd look for her husband, which I am.”

I tried to keep my expression as blank as hers. “Does Lovett know you're hiding the star witness against his client?”

“It was his idea. Like I keep telling you, he's a man of ideals.”

“Plus if Hope turned up dead, it would look terrible for his client.”

Finn shrugged. “I never said he wasn't strategic.”

“Where is she?”

“That's one secret I do need to keep.” She looked at me from under her lashes, almost flirtatious. “Are you going to rat me out?”

“To Trey? Of course.”

“No, not Trey. Lovett.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

She smiled. “That's what I was hoping you'd say. Because that means we can still help each other.”

“How?”

She pulled a flyer from her bag and handed it to me. It was a photocopied announcement from a storage facility in Thunderbolt, right behind the marina.

“Jasper rents a unit there,” she said. “He stopped paying for it months ago, so it's being auctioned at noon. If you want to dig through his secrets, I'd get there before some junk hound snaps it up. I would go myself, but Lovett's got me chasing something else.” She held out her business card. “And if you're feeling generous, a call letting me know what you found would be appreciated.”

I took the card. Couldn't help trying to reconcile the fake image on her website with the woman across from me, a woman who never looked the same twice. A woman I definitely didn't trust.

She inhaled briskly. “Well. It's been lovely, but I have to go. Don't worry, I'll keep in touch.”

She waggled her fingers in a little wave, then flip-flopped her way across the street.