The Grid (22 page)

- CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE -

Sarah watches the man get out of bed.

He is in his twenties and naked. Fit as only someone that age can be. A flat belly, muscular arms ringed with tattoos that look like barbed wire, hair thick and brown.

“Damn, lady.” He picks up his underwear from the floor. “You fuck like Jenna Jameson.”

“You ever done it with a porn star?”

He shakes his head. “But I’ve seen her plenty on the Internet.”

Sarah crooks her index finger at him. “Come back to bed.”

“I got work to do.” He steps into his boxer shorts.

“I’ll give you the day off.” She giggles. “Then I’ll get you off.”

The young man’s name is Ronnie or Donny; she can’t remember which. He’s an assistant manager for the landscape company Sarah’s husband has hired to redo one of the side yards.

It is midmorning and they are in the master suite of the house on Strait Lane.

Other than Walden, Sarah has never had an encounter at home before. But since the death of her brother and the closing of the investigation into the murder of the deputy—the man she knew briefly as RockyRoad35—she has loosened her rules.

She is SarahSmiles after all. She is invincible.

And more than a little tipsy, she realizes as she swings her legs out of the bed and picks up a hand mirror on the nightstand. A small mound of cocaine rests in the center of the mirror.

She holds out the drugs. “You want one for the road?”

The man stares at the coke, face indecisive. Finally he shakes his head.

“That’s bad shit,” he says. “A little goes a long way.”

Sarah chops up a line with her American Express Black Card, just a short one. She snorts it with a cocktail straw. A moment later, everything hums pleasantly.

She puts the mirror down. Snakes one hand up the leg of Ronnie/Donny’s underwear, cups his balls.

“You sure you don’t want to come back to bed?” She pouts.

The man closes his eyes, sways a little.

Sarah can feel him grow erect again. She smiles.

After a moment, he pushes her hand away and steps back, reaching for his clothes on the sofa.

“I told you. I gotta get back to work.”

The AC is turned down low, and there’s a fire in the fireplace despite the temperature outside. The glow from the flames provides the only illumination in the room.

Sarah stands. She is naked. In the mirror across the room, she sees her body glistening in the dim light.

The yellowish-purple bruise on her arm from where the dyke hit her with the tire iron is nearly healed. She looks good and she knows it.

“Aw, c’mon, Donny.” She steps toward him. “Just one more time. Then you can go back to work.”

The man slips into his pants. “My name is Ronnie.”

“Whatever.” Sarah rubs her nose. “Just get back in bed.”

Ronnie puts on his shirt. Grabs shoes and socks from the floor.

Sarah is incensed. The coke burns the back of her throat, and her stomach feels upset from the bottle of wine she’s had this morning.

“If you don’t get back in bed, Ronnie/Donny or whatever the fuck your name is, I’ll have your ass fired so fast you’ll end up in another time zone.”

Ronnie backs away from her, shoes in hand.

Sarah is shaking. Anger clouds her vision. People don’t tell her no. She is her grandfather’s offspring; this lesson was learned at his knee.

She flings open the drawer of her nightstand, grabs the Ruger.

Ronnie says, “W-what the hell are you doing?”

Sarah aims the gun at his chest but doesn’t answer. What is her plan? Is she going to rob him? Or just make him taste the fear?

The young man jerks open the bedroom door and dashes out on bare feet, his shirt half buttoned.

Sarah runs after him, naked, gun in hand.

He disappears around a corner. Footsteps echo through the cavernous living room.

Sarah stops. At the end of the hall, by the archway leading to the rest of the house, stand Rosa and Walden.

Rosa is carrying a stack of towels. Walden is empty-handed. They both stare at her, mouths agape.

Sarah lowers the Ruger. “What the hell are you two looking at?”

Her voice is ragged, hoarse.

Neither of her employees speaks.

Sarah realizes she is completely naked. Her body is coated in sweat. She tastes blood in the back of her throat.

She staggers back into the bedroom, slams the door and locks it.

There’s more wine and more coke waiting for her, lots more.

Fuck Rosa and fuck Walden and fuck Ronnie/Donny. She doesn’t need them or anybody. She is SarahSmiles. She sits on the bed and chops up another line, ignoring the tears streaming down her cheeks and the blood dripping from her nose.

- CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO -

Harris, his FBI colleague, and their video-camera operator left.

The doctor came in a few minutes later and said that if I promised to take it easy, he would release me. I promised and went to take a shower.

When I was finished, I put on a robe and exited the bathroom.

The first thing I saw was the Texas Ranger, Moreno, sitting on the foot of my bed and holding Elizabeth, my daughter.

“Crap,” I said. “The hallucinations are back.”

“What are you talking about?” Piper was on the far side of the room.

I blinked several times, swung my head back and forth between her and the child.

“Your wife and I met in the hallway,” Moreno said.

“We’re not married.” Piper stared out the window.

Moreno patted my daughter’s knee. “Cute little kid you’ve got here.”

“Yes, she is.” I took the child from Moreno’s lap, held her close. A feeling of peace and well-being came over me. Elizabeth squirmed and tried to grab my nose.

“I got you some clothes.” Piper turned around, held up a paper sack. “And a gun.”

My duty weapon was with the crime-scene techs investigating the shooting at the lake house.

“You were here earlier,” I said. “I thought that was a dream. How’d you get past the guards?”

“Really?” Piper rolled her eyes. “You’d ask me that?”

I didn’t say anything. I should have known better.

Piper Westlake was the most self-sufficient person I had ever met. She’d knowingly walked into firefights that would have left a Navy SEAL running the other way. Getting into a guarded hospital room was nothing, a stretching exercise before a race.

She tossed the sack on the bed, and I handed her Elizabeth.

“Cleo Fain,” Moreno said. “You know who that is?”

“The serial killer.” I nodded.

“She liked sorority girls, if I remember right,” Piper said. “There were a bunch of BOLOs out on her in the last year or so.”

“You’re a cop, too?” Moreno said.

“Dallas PD most recently.” Piper paused. “It’s complicated.”

“What about Cleo Fain?” I said.

“She’s in custody, a hospital in Dallas. Wants to make a deal in exchange for info on a woman who assaulted her on the side of the highway.”

“Can’t imagine she’s in any position to be doing any horse trading,” I said.

“The woman who attacked her was driving an old Monte Carlo,” Moreno said. “Lime green.”

I walked to the window, stared outside. The parking lot for Bed Bath & Beyond was about half full.

“I’ve got to be in Sweetwater in the morning.” Moreno stood. “A triple homicide. Can’t throw any more time at a closed case.”

I turned around. “What hospital is she in?”

“Parkland. Up in Dallas. I e-mailed you the information.” Moreno headed to the door. “Nice to meet you both.”

She left.

Piper and I were alone with our child. We stared at each other for a few moments. I was filled with questions: Where Piper had been. The murder of my deputy. The fallout from the attack. I didn’t know where to start.

So I said, “Why’d you cut your hair?”

She didn’t answer.

“You planning to stick around?” I opened the sack.

She’d been raised an orphan, a succession of foster homes. She preferred to be off the grid and could disappear in the time it took for the dinner check to arrive, going completely underground, using false names and ID cards that would put a secret agent to shame.

“That Texas Ranger explained to me what’s been going on,” she said.

I got dressed. Piper knew my sizes and tastes. Wranglers and a white cotton button-down shirt. Low-heeled boots. A Glock .40 caliber, three full magazines, an inside-the-waistband holster.

“You’re gonna go after this SarahSmiles person, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you?” I jammed one of the mags into the Glock.

A member of my department had been murdered. No one was going to answer for that unless I pressed on.

She nodded.

“Why’d you come back?” I put on the boots. They fit perfectly.

“I heard you were injured.”

“That almost sounds like you care whether I live or die.”

“Don’t make me out to be a coldhearted bitch, Jon. If I was going to be with anyone, it would be you. We’ve been over this before.”

Elizabeth started to cry. Piper shushed her, stroked her head.

I headed to the door. I wanted to see the hallway, to be in motion. The room felt claustrophobic all of a sudden. Sitting in its narrow confines made me think about missed opportunities and roads not taken.

Piper said, “Wait.”

I stopped, a hand on the knob.

“I’m moving to Mexico.” Her voice was soft.

Breath caught in my throat.

“There’s a company that needs a security chief for their CEO in Latin America.”

I didn’t reply.

“The CEO is a woman, a few years older than me. The money’s good, and they’ll provide child care and benefits out the ass.”

“Where in Mexico?” My voice sounded hoarse.

Silence.

“Don’t try to find me,” Piper said. “It’s better this way.”

“Elizabeth is my child, too. I have a right to know.”

“We leave in a week,” she said. “I thought maybe you and I could spend some time together before we go.”

A knock on the door.

I opened it.

Eric Faulkner stood in the hall. He wore what I assumed was his standard uniform, a plaid shirt and faded jeans. His face was gray and drawn like he hadn’t slept in a while. He was alone.

“I wanted to come before now,” he said. “Just to say thank you.”

“I was just doing my job,” I said.

He glanced over my shoulder. “I’m interrupting. Sorry.”

No one spoke.

His arrival wasn’t going to change anything. Piper and my daughter were leaving. I wanted to be with them while I could. But I also wanted to go to Dallas and interview Cleo Fain.

“Your family?” Faulkner nodded toward Piper and Elizabeth.

I hesitated for a moment before nodding back and introducing them.

“I’d like to invite you to my home,” he said. “All of you. We’re holding a small ceremony to honor Price Anderson.”

Elizabeth gurgled and clapped her hands.

“Given everything that’s happened,” he said, “I realize that throwing what amounts to a party might seem a little callous.”

“A man in your position,” I said. “You have to keep up appearances.” I hoped that didn’t sound too sarcastic.

“Exactly. Glad you understand.” He sighed heavily. “It’s a horrible thing, what’s happened. So many deaths. I think a little closure would be good for everybody.”

The last thing I wanted to do was spend time with Eric Faulkner. I needed to go to Dallas, to see Cleo Fain.

Piper came up beside me, Elizabeth on her hip. Eric Faulkner cooed at the child.

“Tomorrow afternoon.” He handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s my address.”

Faulkner lived in Dallas.

“We’ll be there.” I put the paper in my pocket. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about your colleague,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Agent Holbrook.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“You didn’t know?”

“Know what?” My voice was raspy.

“She died an hour ago.”

- CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE -

Parkland, the hospital where President Kennedy died, had moved.

The new facility, open only a few months, was across the street from the old one and resembled a huge gray set of Legos. Four or five blocky buildings attached to each other at right angles, forming an L shape around a massive parking garage.

I was in a waiting area on the fourth floor, in the wing used by the Dallas County jail.

Everything was white and bright—tile and plastic and metal—except for the chairs, which were upholstered in what appeared to be purple burlap.

Piper was next to me, bouncing Elizabeth on her lap.

Across from us sat a woman in her thirties who was missing several teeth and two fingers from her left hand. She smelled like an ashtray and looked like a stripper from Sturgis, wearing a sleeveless Harley T-shirt with no bra and leather chaps.

Piper said, “This is a great place to bring a child, Jon.”

It was early afternoon, the day after I’d been released from the hospital in Waco. We were due at Eric Faulkner’s home in a couple of hours.

“Maybe if we were a real couple,” I said, “we could have lined up a babysitter.”

“So this is my fault somehow?” Piper asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you were thinking it.”

Back together for less than twenty-four hours and we were already bickering. Why was it so hard to be together with the one that made you better than what you were alone?

Elizabeth began to cry. The Sturgis stripper moved to the other side of the room.

I opened the file in my lap and read the first few pages again.

That morning, Piper and I had contacted a number of people in our network of law-enforcement officers, courthouse rats, and private investigators, an unsavory group who’d given me several bits of information that might help in my upcoming interview.

On the far side of the waiting area were an elevator and a reception station for the jail’s hospital, a glass enclosure with a uniformed officer sitting behind a computer monitor.

I closed the file and waited.

A few minutes later, the elevators opened and two people exited.

The first was a man with muttonchops, wearing a brown plaid sport coat and square-toed cowboy boots. He was a Dallas PD homicide investigator.

The second person wore jeans and a beige linen jacket. This was Cleo Fain’s attorney, Stodghill, a lawyer perpetually on the edge of disbarment for a variety of ethical infractions.

I slid up behind them as they talked to the officer behind the bulletproof glass.

“Hello, Stodghill.” I smiled. “I didn’t realize you were taking court-appointed gigs these days.”

We’d had dealings in the past, none of them pleasant.

He looked at me and muttered under his breath. Then he said, “My retainer’s been paid—not that it’s any of your business.”

The homicide detective asked who I was. I flashed my FERC badge and said, “I’ll be sitting in on your interview with Cleo Fain.”

He protested, but there wasn’t much he could do. A federal badge trumped the local PD. I had no idea if my credentials were still in force, since the person who’d hired me was dead, a fact that bothered me more than I wanted to admit. But at this point, I didn’t really care if I was still a legitimate federal agent. As long as I had that badge, I intended to use it.

The detective and I handed over our pistols. A jailer opened a metal door and admitted the three of us into the secure area that smelled of rubbing alcohol and sweat. He led us to a room at the end of the hall where a woman with a bandage on her head was handcuffed to a bed.

We entered. Stodghill sat in a chair next to his client. The homicide detective and I stood at the foot of the bed. The detective pulled a set of pictures from his briefcase, grainy eight-by-tens of a woman in a store of some sort, maybe a tattoo parlor.

The woman bore a resemblance to the person I’d seen leaving the motel where my deputy had been murdered. My pulse ratcheted up a notch, but I didn’t say anything.

The detective asked Cleo if she recognized the person.

Stodghill shook his head. “Don’t answer that.”

“I thought you and the DA had worked something out,” the detective said.

“Our discussions with the district attorney’s office are not germane to this meeting,” Stodghill said. “My client will not be answering questions about that photo.”

“W-what?” Cleo Fain spoke for the first time. “I thought—”

“Shh.” Stodghill patted her hand. “Everything’s under control.”

I looked at the detective. “Give us a moment, will you?”

He shrugged and walked out.

When the door closed, I turned to Cleo Fain. “Did you recognize that woman?”

“Are you deaf, Cantrell?” Stodghill wagged his finger at me. “She’s not saying a word about that photo.”

Cleo looked at her attorney, a concerned expression on her face.

“Yes, she is,” I said. “Trust me.”

“This is a typical Jon Cantrell bluff.” Stodghill patted his client’s hand. “All hat, no cattle.”

I said, “She’s going to tell me everything she knows about that woman for three reasons.”

Neither of them spoke.

“First, it doesn’t sound like there’s any deal in the works with the DA.” I wondered but didn’t ask who’d paid Stodghill’s fee. Could it be so easy that he was connected somehow to SarahSmiles? Maybe, but it didn’t matter. I’d have to tear his spleen out before he’d tell me.

The attorney crossed his arms, a cocky expression on his face.

“Second,” I said, “everything we say will be off the record.”

Stodghill snorted.

“And third, Ms. Fain is going to talk to me because her attorney is going to tell her to as he leaves this room.”

“That’s not gonna happen.” Stodghill shook his head. “No way I’m leaving you alone with my client.”

Cleo Fain spoke for the second time. “I d-do what my lawyer says. P-period.”

Her voice was weak. Words stuttering.

“How’s your head feeling?” I asked.

“F-fuck you, f-fed.”

“I had a concussion a couple of days ago, too,” I said. “Hurt like a mofo.”

No one spoke. Stodghill’s face was granite, obviously figuring that he’d won.

I opened the file I’d brought with me and removed a single piece of paper, a picture of a young woman with large brown eyes and a scowl on her face. Across the bottom of the page were the words
W
ASHITA
C
OUNTY
J
AIL
.

I handed the picture to Stodghill. “You know who that is?”

He was silent for a moment. Then his face reddened. He tossed the paper at me.

“You son of a bitch. That’s my fiancée, Darcie.”

“Darcie Mullins?” I asked. “From Lawton, Oklahoma?”

He glared at me, nostrils flaring with each breath. After a moment, he nodded.

“You’re wrong, counselor. That’s not Darcie Mullins.”

He frowned, a confused expression on his face.

“That’s Darcie’s kid sister, Laverne. She’s been using her older sister’s ID.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Laverne is seventeen.”

Stodghill’s eyes grew wide, his skin pale.

“She’s underage,” I said. “And you’ve driven her across state lines.”

Stodghill took several deep breaths, flexed his fingers.

“What’s g-going on?” Cleo looked at her attorney.

“Give us the room, counselor.” I pointed to the door.

The attorney stood, mouth hanging open. He recovered and said, “Five minutes.”

“That’ll work.” I nodded.

“Wait.” Cleo sat up in bed. “What’s happening here?”

“Answer his questions.” Stodghill marched to the exit. “I’m gonna get a cup of coffee.”

The door shut behind him.

“It’s just you and me, Cleo.” I smiled.

“M-my attorney. Why isn’t he in here?”

I shrugged.

“I have rights.” She pointed a finger at me.

“Not today,” I said. “Today you get to tell me everything you remember about the woman who hit you.”

She looked at her wrist handcuffed to the bed. Then she began to talk.