"Since I know where you're going to be," she said quietly, "you can get me at that number."
My stare forced her to continue. "Claire Shipley lied. Reynaldo Reyez was alive when she got there that day. He's alive today."
I remembered how the old woman had told Caroline that grief made you forget the rules you used to play by, and how her words had formed a strange and sudden connection between the two of them.
"I told him everything you did," she said. "I told him we had to watch out for you. He said that's fine. He thinks you're a brave man. As for Corey, he said we are not the product of what is done to us—we are the product of our response to it. A little spiritual for an assassin, don't you think?"
"Corey never made contact with him?"
"No," she answered. "Claire made sure of that. When I told him what Corey had done, he wasn't pleased."
I noted her use of the old woman's first name as if she had become a friend. I had not doubted Claire Shipley's story for a second. I had believed that she had buried Reynaldo Reyez to keep Corey's attention on his dying grandmother.
"She raised him," I said. "She trained him."
Caroline gave me a faint smile and a nod. "She says an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
That's why she taught him to cut off their legs." A hard edge had crept into her voice. It sent a chill through me. "You going to keep that number, or are you going to throw it away as soon as I'm gone?" she asked. "If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to need it."
I slid the matchbook in my front pocket and felt her lips brush against my cheek. When I looked up, she was already heading across the park. Her head was bowed and her shoulders were hunched as she merged with the shadows.
Later that night, Nate and I drove up Laurel Canyon beneath a sky cleared of its stars by the city's glare. I had dropped Everett's chain in a trash can on Santa Monica Boulevard, but the matchbook with Caroline's phone number was still in my pants pocket. It pressed against the inside of my thigh like a small finger, an invitation to violence and bloodshed like the kind that still tortured my sleep.
As we entered the backyard, I saw the door to Jimmy's office standing open, heard the cadence of his fingers flying across the keyboard. I clutched the matchbook advertising a place called Atwell's Bar and Grill in my fist and waited for him to notice my presence. He didn't, so I didn't tell him about my strange visit from a woman named Caroline Hughes. I wasn't sure if I would ever tell him.
According to Jimmy, my memory could drive me blind, so as I walked back toward the main house I took in every quiet detail as if it had been rendered by an artist who was desperate for my approval. In the guest bedroom, I found Nate sitting on the foot of the bed, his arms bent behind him, his breaths heavy and slightly strained, his lips parted and his brow furrowed in an expression of vulnerability that was surprising given his history.
"Can I stay?" he asked.
He arched his back beneath my weight and I tried to study every part of his body I touched as he wrapped his legs around my back and I accepted an invitation to assume a role with which I was not familiar. But when I parted his hairless thighs, my vision expanded to include a red-haired woman driving up a rutted mountain road beneath a canopy of fanned pine boughs. With a certainty I possess only in dreams, I knew that there were shadows awaiting her arrival at the road's end, and that as soon as she got there, they would step forward and repeat their promise to guide her through the pulsing radiance that continued to strobe her vision long after the flash of light before day that had stolen her mother.
Before Caroline Hughes could reach her destination, I pulled Nate's body against mine with the force of one arm and drove sounds out of him that lost all traces of human will or resistance. I whispered words in his ear that Corey McCormick could never have spoken to me.
Acknowledgments
Light Before Day was initially inspired by a special report by the McClatchy Company's California Newspapers on the methamphetamine trade in California's Central Valley. Journalists writing for the Fresno, Modesto, and Sacramento Bee have compiled their outstanding reporting into one of the most authoritative and brutally compelling documents we have on the scope and horror of this epidemic. As of this writing, their brilliant work can be found at
tmvw.valleymeth.org. Additional insight into the experiences of children raised in meth homes was provided by Deputy Tom Salisbury at the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. Deputy Salisbury coordinates the Drug Endangered Children program in Riverside County and is just one shining example of the great strides being made by the State of California in caring for the children affected by this epidemic. Thanks also go to Julie Garza, MSW, with the Riverside Child Assessment Team.
Dr. Michael Chernoff helped to deepen my understanding of meth's toll on the gay community. He is a leader among the gay psychotherapists who are helping to find roads to recovery for the shockingly large number of gay men trapped in the grip of this drug. In his trail-blazing first person account, Life vs. Meth, writer and editor Kevin Koffler gave gay men everywhere an invaluable testimonial about what this drug is capable of doing to certain members of our community. As of this writing, Koffler's piece can be found atwww.poz.com,
where I hope it remains until further strides in battling this side of the epidemic have been made.
(The fact that its author shares a last name with one of the novel's more unsavory characters is pure coincidence.)
Generous members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department assisted me in other areas of this novel. As always, any deviations from reality belong solely to the author. Homicide Detective Elizabeth Smith gently advised me on issues of jurisdiction and procedure, as well as which storylines were too implausible to include. (I did not heed all of her advice on the latter.) At the West Hollywood substation, Sergeant Lewis of the Crime Impact Team along with Deputy Mosquera and Deputy Van Leeuwen provided invaluable insight into the inner workings of what is probably one of the most progressive law enforcement agencies in the country.
Sergeant Donald Mueller was also of valuable assistance. None of these individuals bear even the slightest resemblance to Dwight Zachary.
David Biancardi, at Audio, Video & Controls in New York City, endured ceaseless questions about wireless technologies. I hope he forgives me for being unable to include most of the invaluable information he provided. Light Before Day grew in part out of a short story I originally published in Genre magazine. Thanks go to then-editor Andy Towle for giving me the outlet to start growing this one. Some historical insight into the Great Central Valley came from an outstanding book called The King of California: JG Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire by Mark Arak and Rick Wartzman (Public Affairs Press).
For the third time, the outstanding team at Miramax Books gave me their absolute best, enduring a drastic last-minute change in projects and many extended deadlines due to my fathers illness. Jonathan Burnham puts the class in class act and David Groff remains a master wordsmith and gentle guide. Kristin Powers and Kathy Schneider continue to rock. Claire McKinney is a much welcome addition. Sad goodbyes go to Bruce Mason and the divine Hilary Bass. Thanks also go to Mitchell Ivers and Louise Burke at Pocket Books. Over at The Advocate, Bruce Steele was generous and understanding about my column deadlines when the pedal wasn't quite hitting the metal.
Blessed is Lynn Nesbit, even though an early draft of this novel almost landed her in a coma.
There are not enough thanks for Richard Green, my man at CAA. Both provided generous feedback on early drafts and continue to foot the bill at nice places, even though a Southern gentleman is always supposed to pay.
My writer pals provided various forms of support along the way they might not be aware of.
Thanks to John Morgan Wilson, Jan Burke, Denise Hamilton, Paula Woods, and DeLaune Michel. During my father's illness, my mother's support staff became family. Thanks to Ross Tafaro, Sue Q, Lucky Tebbe, Sandra, Yancy, both Joes, Scott Z., Linda—and yes—
even you, Amy. A big kiss to my tireless web mistress Heidi Mack. A moment of silence for Nicholai, probably the greatest Siberian cat to ever saunter across the earth.
As for the personals, I would be lost without my close friend, colleague, and confidante, Eric Shaw Quinn, who responded to my dark moments of doubt by advising me to shut the hell up and finish the damn novel so we could go out to lunch.
My mother has blessed me with a life of love, abundance, and clarity of heart that bears no resemblance to the one experienced by my fictional alter ego.
There is not enough gratitude in the world for my gifted and adorable partner in life, Brian David Orter. I will start by refraining from sharing his pet name with my readers.
Dad, your chant remains loud and clear.
Document Outline
Cover
Copyright
Dedication
Avenal, California
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Coalinga, California Same Night
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Central Coast Ranges Same Night
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Off Highway 178 Outside Bakersfield Same Night
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Central Coast Ranges West of Coalinga Morning
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgments
Light Before Day Page 38