Capture

by Smith, Roger

  Exley feels his heart pound as he gets closer. Not Sunny. Of course not. But the resemblance is uncanny.

  The girl tenses when Exley approaches and grabs at her mother, burying her face in Dawn’s thick hair. Exley stops a safe distance away and kneels down in the sand, as if he’s about to propose marriage.

  “Brittany, I’m really sorry I frightened you.” One eye peeps at him and he holds out the little bear, trying to control the tremors in his hand. “This is Mr. Brown. He is very angry with me for making you scared. He wants to be your friend.”

  Both eyes looking at him now, blinking away tears, but staring at the soft toy. The child, slow as a sea anemone unfurling, frees one of her hands and reaches out and takes the bear by the arm, and there is the hint of a smile on her face as she brings it to her chest and hugs it close.

  “What do you say, Brittany?” Dawn asks.

  “Hullo, Mr. Brown.”

  Dawn has to fight back a grin. “No, what you say to Uncle Nick?”

  “Thank you, Uncle Nick.” The child looks white, but she has her mother’s guttural accent.

  “It’s a pleasure,” he says, and he sits down on the rock beside Dawn.

  The child hums something and whispers into the bear’s furry ear.

  “I’m truly sorry, Dawn,” Exley says.

  “Please, it’s okay. Really. I understand. You must feel terrible.” Dawn puts her hand on his. “I think maybe we should go.”

  “No,” he says, and he can hear the desperation in his voice. “Please don’t go. I’d really like the two of you to stay.” He looks at the girl. “What do you say, Brittany? We can swim and build sandcastles and get McD’s for lunch?”

  The child thinks for a moment, deciding whether he is to be trusted, consults the bear, whispering in his ear again, and then she nods. “Mr. Brown say it’s okay.”

  “Good. Excellent.” He stands. “Dawn, I need a shower in the worst way. Why don’t you and Brittany make yourself at home. Okay?”

  She looks uncertain, but she nods. Exley walks through the living room and sees that Vernon Saul is gone. He climbs the stairs, has a moment of light-headedness halfway up, then he composes himself and moves on. He stops in the doorway to Sunny’s room, but he doesn’t go in. He closes the door for the first time since she died and walks through to the shower.

  He strips and turns the shower to cold, letting the icy water pummel him into alertness, watching Sunny’s ashes drain from him and swirl down the plughole. Then he gets the water as hot as he can stand, before he cranks it back to cold. Repeats the process a few more times, gasping for breath.

  Exley feels something happening in his chest, the muscles spasming, and for a moment he’s sure he’s having a heart attack, then the tension is released and with it comes a flood of tears, hot and salty on his face, merging with the shower water.

  He sits down, with his back to the tiles, his arms dangling loose, and lets the pain and grief well up. When he can cry no more he stands and shuts off the shower. Dries himself. Finds some drops for the eyes that stare back at him from the mirror, a contour map of burst veins. He brushes his teeth and his tongue, shaves and combs his hair and dresses in a fresh T-shirt and baggy swimming shorts.

  Exley walks down the stairs, sure that Dawn has taken her kid and fled, but he sees her standing at the water’s edge, watching over the child who splashes in the surf wearing a pink swimsuit. His phone, lying on the living-room table, flashes and rings. Unknown caller.

  When he answers it he hears Vernon Saul’s voice. “You’re lucky. He’s gone. It’s over.”

  Exley ends the call. He thinks of the cop’s family. Then he puts that thought in a box with all the other things that fill him with terror and guilt and drops that box into the toxic waste dump that he stores deep inside himself. Stuff that’ll have to be dealt with, he knows.

  But not now.

  He walks into the studio and sees the room through fresh eyes.

  It is sordid. Despite the A/C the room stinks of days of madness and weed and booze and old sweat. The cremation urn stands open, its lid upturned beside the keyboard. Exley, filled with self-loathing, stares down into the urn and sees the dregs of his daughter’s ashes at the bottom. He replaces the lid and carries the container across to the steel cabinet and locks it away.

  The mouse is tacky to the touch when he clicks open the Sunny folder and deletes all the information in it. The motion-capture data. The reference photographs and the texture maps. The model that has obsessed him. As the hard drive churns, wiping all trace of his daughter’s digital doppelgänger from its memory, Exley closes his eyes, an aurora of afterimages swirling then fading to nothing. He powers down the work station and hears it sigh itself into silence.

  Dousing the lights, he leaves the studio and slides the door closed.

  He crosses the living room and goes out into the sun, still dizzy, still torn around the edges, still an approximation of a man. But lighter, now.

  Exley walks across the sand toward the woman and the child at the water’s edge. Not his wife. Not his daughter. But they’re alive. And they’re real. And they’re here.

  Chapter 44

  You don’t fall in love, not if you’re Dawn Cupido. You love your kid, okay, and you love things—shoes, nice clothes and stupidly expensive face lotions—and maybe, just maybe, you have a bit of a kitschy soft spot for puppy dogs. But men? Never. Men are the enemy, to be preyed upon before they prey on you.

  Just how it works.

  But sitting here on the beach, in the shade of the rocks, Brittany splashing happily in the shallows, Dawn looks down at the sleeping face of Nick Exley and she can imagine somebody falling for him. Not her, of course. Never. His face, as he lies sprawled on the sand, snoring softly, has relaxed, those stress creases have smoothed out, and he looks gentle and sweet. She hates herself for what she did this morning.

  Hates herself for sticking around here, too. Much as she tries to con herself into believing it’s because she feels sorry for him, she knows the truth: she’s desperate for a new life for her and Britt, and Nick Exley, screwed up and vulnerable as he is, could be their ticket out.

  He’s worked hard through the day to win Brittany’s trust. Doing it in a cool way, not pushing. Just bringing a few toys out of the house—a beach ball, a bucket and spade—leaving them for her on the sand. Making sure she has a supply of fizzy drinks. Handling her the way only a parent of a small girl could. Heartbreaking to watch.

  A fly buzzes in and lands on Nick’s cheek and he twitches. Dawn waves the fly away, her hand still hovering over him when his eyes open and he looks startled, blinking. Dawn pulls her hand back and he sits up.

  “I wasn’t trying to smack you,” she says. “There was a fly.”

  “Thanks. Okay. Shit, how long was I out for?”

  “Maybe an hour. It’s fine. You needed it.”

  He reaches for a bottle of beer and takes a drink; it’s warm and he pulls a face. Runs a hand through his hair, his eyes on Brittany. “Looks like she’s having fun.”

  “Man, you’ll never know what a treat this is for her.”

  “She’s beautiful,” he says.

  “Ja, she is.” Dawn catches his eye and laughs. “Come on, Nick, ask the question.”

  “What question?”

  “The one about how a brown chickie like me gets to have a white kid like that.”

  “That was the last thing on my mind,” he says.

  “You’re lying.”

  He smiles. “Okay. So, how?”

  Dawn lights a smoke, speaking softly, even though Brittany is playing in the water, singing. “The father was white, so there’s a lot of milk in the coffee.”

  “Where is he? The father?”

  “Out the picture. He was just a sperm donor.” She shrugs. “Truth be told, he was never in the flipping picture.”

  “Then he’s an idiot.”

  “He never even knew, Nick.” She should shut her mouth but she doesn�
�t. Something in his eyes, the pain and hurt that live there—and how she added more—make her want to confess. “I was hooking. He was a john. I was doing a lot of drugs back then. I don’t even remember him, but looking at Britt I know he had to be a whitey.”

  There’s no shock on Nick’s face. Not even surprise. He just nods. “Well, she’s a gift.”

  “Ja, she is. Almost makes me believe in God again.” She laughs and grinds her cigarette dead in the sand. Then she’s serious. “I don’t do it no more, Nick, the hooking. Or the drugs. Okay, shit, maybe a bit of weed now and then, but that don’t count, hey?”

  “No,” Nick says, “it doesn’t. Dawn, we’ve all screwed up. Christ knows I have.” He looks away over the ocean, then he shrugs and smiles at her. “Don’t you want to swim?”

  “I forgot to bring my swimming things, I was so busy getting madam’s stuff together.”

  “I could get you one of my wife’s swimsuits. Or is that kind of creepy?”

  “No. It’s cool. I’d like that, thanks.”

  He disappears into the house and returns carrying a dark blue one-piece Speedo. It’s unused, still has a price tag dangling from the fabric. “Caroline wasn’t much of a swimmer,” he says.

  Dawn stands and takes the Speedo. “I’ll go change.” She calls across to Britt, who doesn’t hear, busy dumping sand from the bucket, laughing as a low wave collapses the mound.

  “I’ll watch her,” Nick says.

  Dawn squints at him. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She nods and crosses the sand and walks up onto the deck, looking back to see Nick standing over Brittany.

  Dawn takes the stairs to the bathroom and cuts the price tag off the swimsuit with a pair of nail scissors lying on the basin. Wonders if they were the dead wife’s, too. Trying not to look at the few cleansers and cosmetics lined up on the tiled surface, because they’ll drain away the happy feeling that’s crept up on her.

  Dawn strips and pulls on the Speedo, checking herself in the mirror. It’s crazy, her laying her goods out for sleazy bastards to view every night, but she feels exposed. Thank God the suit, even though it’s a size too small, is as modest as can be, like something a girl swimmer would wear at the Olympics.

  She walks down the stairs and pauses on the deck. Nick’s in the ocean. He’s kind of skinny, with the flat, unmuscled body of a teenage boy, the waves gently lapping at his belly. What amazes Dawn is that Brittany is in with him, and he’s holding her, cradling her in his arms, keeping her afloat, both of them laughing.

  Dawn goes to the water, tugging the swimsuit out of her ass-crack. Nick sees her coming and he looks at her—really looks at her—and she feels stupid and shy and is relieved to let the sea swallow her up, even though it’s cold enough to freeze her tits off.

  Exley, standing at the open refrigerator, the cool air soothing his sunburned skin, can’t bear the thought of Dawn and Brittany leaving. The day, even though it started as a waking nightmare, has been an unexpected boon.

  He takes out a couple of beers, opens one and stands at the kitchen window, watching mother and daughter down on the beach. Dawn, unaware of his gaze, walks out of the water, adjusting the Speedo where it cuts into her groin. Brittany, looking for sea shells, says something that makes Dawn laugh as she lifts a red towel and dries her hair, then bends forward at the waist with her legs spread wide apart—he can see the swell of her breasts against the wet Lycra—and shakes the last moisture from her curls. She straightens, her hair falling across her face, and she drops her head back and sweeps her hair behind her neck, shouting something to Brittany, her voice lost in the chatter of the seagulls.

  Exley rests the cold bottle against his forehead and shuts his eyes. He’s not drunk, but he’s been drinking beer steadily all day. A kind of mildly alcoholic infusion to keep him calm and offset the hallucinogenic that’s still messing with his serotonin receptors, feeding him little flashbacks that fry his synapses. Afraid if he sobers up completely his nervous system will rebel and the weight of his actions over the last days will plunge him into a state of frenzy and terror.

  A sharp knock on the kitchen door startles him and he sees the pallid Sniper technician—Dave? Don?—standing out on the deck with a lightweight aluminum stepladder on his shoulder, a bag of tools hanging from a belt at his waist.

  “I’m finished, Mr. Exby.”

  Exley nods, doesn’t bother to correct him.

  The guy arrived earlier, announcing that he wanted to mount another surveillance camera to cover the deck and the beach, removing the blind spot. Exley, reluctant to have his time with Dawn and her child interrupted, had almost told him to get lost, but he’d shrugged and let the man do his drilling and his cabling.

  Exley walks the technician to the front door and buzzes him out. He grabs the beers in the kitchen and steps down onto the sand. Dawn, standing with the late sun golden on her face, her skin still dripping water, smiles at him and takes one of the bottles.

  “Thanks, Nick,” she says.

  He says, “Cheers,” and drinks.

  Brittany holds up a shell and calls to her mother and Dawn walks over, drinking from the bottle. She bends to look at what the child shows her, presenting a view of her ass that takes Exley’s breath away. He feels a rush of desire, his cock stirring in his shorts, and he crouches to hide this sudden tumescence.

  His child is dead. His wife—dead by his hand—is barely cold. He’s a cop killer. But here he is in the grip of lust, made all the more intense by how inappropriate it is.

  Dawn is back beside him, and he can smell her, a hot saltiness, and her arm touches his as she sits and he feels like a high school kid getting a boner in class.

  “We haven’t done any work,” she says.

  “On a day like this, who the hell can think of work?” She smiles but he knows he’s being a thoughtless asshole. She’s an unemployed single mother, for Christ’s sake. “Dawn, we can do some capturing tomorrow, okay?”

  She nods and says, “Sure,” as if he’s fobbing her off.

  “I mean it. Why don’t you and Brittany stay and we’ll do some work in the morning?”

  She looks at him. “Sleep over, you mean?”

  “Yes. Britt can sleep in Sunny’s room. You can take the guest bedroom.”

  “No, Nick, I couldn’t put you out like that.”

  “You wouldn’t be putting me out.”

  “Anyways, Vernon’s going to be here soon. To take us back.”

  Exley sees this opportunity slipping away. “Dawn, I’ve really enjoyed having you and Britt here.”

  “Us too.” She rests her fingertips on his arm for a moment.

  “Please stay,” he says. Something in his voice makes her stare at him and her eyes narrow and she blinks and looks away, maybe spooked by the weight of his need. “Please,” he says again.

  She plants her beer bottle in the sand and gets to her feet and he knows he’s blown it. But she shouts, “Hey, Britt, you wanna have a sleepover?”

  The child, kneeling on the wet sand, nods. “Only if I can sleep with Mr. Brown.”

  “Ja, I’m sure he’ll be okay with that.” She turns back to Exley and smiles down at him. “Nick, looks like you got you some lady guests.”

  Exley realizes he’s been holding his breath and he releases it, in time to hear Vernon Saul’s ridiculous car burping to a halt in the street. By the time Exley stands the buzzer sounds inside the house.

  Dawn’s smile evaporates. “That’s Vernon. I don’t think he’s gonna be too thrilled.”

  “I’ll handle him,” Exley says, with a confidence he doesn’t feel.

  The skinny whitey, all pink in the face, barefoot, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, comes out to the front gate, instead of buzzing Vernon in.

  “Somebody upstairs is looking out for you, buddy,” Vernon says, jerking a thumb up at the sky.

  Exley shoots him a blank look. “Meaning?”

  “Darky down in Mandela Park tried
to sell Erasmus’s cell phone. Cops arrested him a few hours back and the stupid bastard was wearing Dino’s watch, all nicely engraved by his wife.” Exley is still looking blank. “Jesus, Nick, join the dots, my brother. You took Erasmus’s service pistol and wallet. Then this darky comes along and swipes his phone and watch. Cops are going after this guy for murder and robbery. Seems he’s already done time for assault.”

  Exley’s nodding now. “Shit. Okay.”

  “Cops want this thing to go away as quick as possible.”

  “What about the prosecutor Erasmus was working with?”

  “Already moved on, believe me. They’ll give Dino a nice funeral and his widow’ll get death compensation and a pension and that’ll be that.”

  Exley shrugs. “A lucky break, I guess.”

  “For fucken sure.” Vernon looks toward the house. “So, Nick, where’s the girls?”

  “Inside.” Battling to hold eye contact. “We need to finish the motion-capture in the morning, so they’re staying the night.”

  “Ja?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me speak to Dawn,” pushing past Exley but the little shrimp blocks him and puts a hand on his body armor. Vernon laughs. “And now? You gonna stop me from going inside?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Nick, fuck it, man, I just wanna talk to Dawn, now get out my way.”

  “Don’t make me call Sniper, Vernon.”

  “So that’s how it is?” Vernon staring down at him, ready to snap him like a twig.

  “Yes, that’s how it is.”

  Vernon pulls himself away from the edge, putting a lid on his rage. Even forces a smile that hurts his face as he steps back and holds up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, Nick. Chill, my man. Things are getting to you.”