The Given

by Vicki Pettersson

  Barbara put on an innocent mien that almost worked, due to her age and sex combined. The sharpened gaze, though, kept the innocence from truly reaching her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m old, honey. I can’t remember shit.”

  Disgusted, Kit threw down her business card and enough money for the drinks. “Call me if you ever really want to talk.”

  But she wouldn’t hold her breath.

  “Hey. Hey!” Kit didn’t stop at first. She didn’t want to watch this woman’s painted mouth curving up to tell more lies. “You sure it’s him? Shaw?”

  Hand on hip, Kit turned. “Dead sure.”

  Barbara tilted her head. “And he’s still sweet on Evie?”

  Kit forced a shrug. “He’s been searching for her for fifty years.”

  Barbara’s whole face seemed to turn inward at that, and she shuddered down to the base of her spine. But then she remembered Kit standing there, and instead of giving an admiring nod, she shook her head. “Some P.I.”

  Kit couldn’t stand it anymore. She whirled and left Barbara there, a small woman in a red velvet booth contemplating a love that was epic and enduring and true . . . and one she’d clearly never known in the entire length and breadth of her mean and bitter life.

  You did something to her,” Kit told Grif as they sailed from the casino’s parking garage back onto Vegas’s main drag. Kit had actually allowed Grif to take the wheel of her beloved Duetto, a testament to how much she trusted him . . . and to how much vodka she’d downed due to nervousness and shock. Besides, she was still working through her thoughts on Grif’s abrupt return to her life. It seemed like a magic trick to her. There, gone, then back again. Poof.

  “Hand to God,” Grif said, lifting his palms to the sky, and Kit pointed, directing them back to the steering wheel. “I never met any Barbara McCoy.”

  “Her name used to be Barbara DiMartino.”

  Grif jerked his head. “Sal was married to a woman named Theresa when I was alive. Barbara came . . . after.”

  No she hadn’t, Kit thought, turning away, watching as the neon glare of the Strip was snuffed out in her rearview mirror. Barbara had married the old mobster only months after Theresa’s death, and Kit would bet the car she was sitting in that Barbara had been lurking around before then. “What if she was part of the reason you were killed? After all, someone spread the rumor that you hurt”—raped—“the twelve-year-old niece of a mobster.”

  They’d discovered that nugget of information last summer. It was a ludicrous lie . . . but one that’d gotten him killed.

  Grif hummed, considering it. “I only worked that one case for the DiMartinos. Beyond returning little Mary Margaret unharmed, and getting dry-gulched for the effort, I had no dealings with that family whatsoever.”

  Kit said nothing, because she hadn’t been there . . . but she did know women. She could read them inside and out, and Barbara had all the markings of one who’d been scorned. A woman didn’t hate a man in the way she hated Grif unless he’d all but crushed her.

  There was more to consider, more to ask, but it was late, and Kit was exhausted. Grif was, too. She saw it in the slump of his wide shoulders, and the circles stamped beneath his eyes, though she could tell from his frown that he was still stewing over Barbara. That’s why she was surprised when he asked, “We going home?”

  Silence swelled in the car.

  He’d said it without thinking, his tired brain lagging behind his mouth. Kit ignored the slip, knowing that if they were going to work together there were bound to be others—home and honey and Kitty-Cat—all the things that had once marked him as hers, and vice versa. Swallowing hard, she told herself she’d take them as they came. She’d also protect herself this time, and surround herself with people and places that did the same . . . but for Kit that meant home. She nodded, and silence reigned from there on out.

  Kit lived in Paradise Palms, a mid-century neighborhood in the middle of Las Vegas, and situated behind the city’s oldest existing mall, the Boulevard. Though Paradise Palms had few rivals for its retro-style homes and spacious streets, it was no longer the crown jewel of the Las Vegas Valley. The brick facades were crumbling at the edges, and the once sweeping lawns were dustier as the desert attempted to reclaim its territory. Its central location also made it a favorite of both gang and police patrols.

  Yet the function and form of the neighborhood was solid, hearkening back to a simpler time. Butterfly rooftops, sleek lines, and large glass panes—Kit could practically see the mid-century scrawl of the signage that had once flanked the neighborhood’s entry. THE FUTURE IS NOW, TOMORROW HAS ARRIVED.

  The phone rang just as they pulled into the restored carport.

  “Oh, yeah.” Grif dug it from his pocket. “I grabbed your phone before leaving Barbara’s.”

  Kit just looked at it. Then she lifted her identical one from the center console. “Mine.”

  “Then whose—?”

  Gasping, Kit lunged for the device but fumbled it, so it fell in the footwell. By the time Grif located it again, the ring had gone silent. “Shit!”

  She snatched Barbara’s phone from his hands and lifted it so she could see the lighted screen. She pushed a series of buttons, then sighed. “It’s password-protected. We’ll have to wait until someone—”

  And the phone rang again. Kit answered before she could even think what she was doing. There was a moment of silence after she put the phone to her ear, when Grif and she both held their breaths, and Kit was trying to work out how the irascible Barbara McCoy would answer the call. She finally answered with a terse, “What?”

  Silence, and Kit’s eyes flashed on Grif’s. She’d blown it.

  “Hello?” came the tentative response. Male, Kit mouthed to Grif.

  “Yeah?” Kit said immediately, pitching her voice lower than her normal tone. Grif shot her a dead-eyed stare, as if to say, That’s what she sounded like? Kit just shrugged.

  “Is it done?”

  Kit just bit her lip. Barbara was dead, though, so something had definitely been “done.”

  “Barbara, I asked if it was done. It’s been crickets over here. I’m going crazy.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kit said, wordlessly trying to draw more out of the caller.

  But apparently Barbara hadn’t been a reticent woman. A long silence passed, then the man’s voice dropped low as well. “Who is this?”

  Slapping a hand to her forehead, Kit tried to think fast, but the line went dead before she opened her mouth, and her answer swerved into a growl. Squinting at the phone, she began pushing more buttons.

  “What are you doing?” Grif asked.

  “Working the home button before the screen times out. She’s got it set so you can’t get into this thing after you hang up, but once a call is answered you can work the functions.” The first thing Kit did was remove the password protection. Then she clicked over to the contacts. It was growing chilly in the car, but both the cold and her fatigue were well-forgotten. “Still carry your Moleskine with you?”

  Grif pulled the notebook from his inner suit pocket.

  “Okay, we’re going to write down every number in her contacts just in case we can’t get into this thing again, starting with our mysterious caller.” There was no name displayed on the incoming screen, just an uppercase X, but Kit rattled it off anyway, then did the same with the rest. Grif scribbled fast, but was barely keeping up until she paused. “How the hell did Loony Uncle Al get in Barbara McCoy’s address book?”

  Grif’s pencil fell still. “That’s what she named her contact?”

  “Nope. But that was his pet name around the paper back when he was chasing bylines.” She flashed Grif the screen long enough to show the name, and this time Grif jolted in his seat.

  “Al Zicaro,” he said, suddenly wide-eyed as well. He circled the name and number after writing them down on his pad. “How does Barbara know that old newshound?”

  Zicaro had worked at Kit’s paper in the sixties and seventies, even though an
y mid-century bookie worth his salt would’ve laid odds on Zicaro getting rubbed out before Grif. The man had covered the crime beat, and was a thorn in the side of the boys, including and especially the DiMartinos. Kit had combed through the archives and knew he’d even tried to intimate that Grif was made after he’d brought back Sal DiMartino’s niece, but it wasn’t anything that would stick. Especially once Grif disappeared shortly after.

  “God knows he was around,” Kit said now. “And he certainly had his hands in the DiMartinos’ affairs.”

  But why keep up with Barbara after all this time? The boys’ time in this valley had long passed.

  Kit rubbed her eyes. “Your past is beginning to resemble a thousand-piece puzzle.”

  Grif snorted. “And we’re missing all the corners.”

  Kit nodded. They’d had few leads on his cold case: first, Mary Margaret, the child he’d once saved, now a recovering addict in her sixties. She’d given them the Barbara lead, now a literal dead end.

  But then there’d been Zicaro.

  “He’s gotta be, what? Seventy-six years old?”

  “Around there. He’s been at the Sunset Retirement Community for years,” she recalled. It was knowledge she’d let slip away after Grif had disappeared from her life. Unfortunately, as they both knew, ignoring wasn’t forgetting. “Last I heard he was still scribbling far-fetched pieces about alien abductions and conspiracy theories and pasting them around the old folks’ home.”

  Kit flipped screens on Barbara’s phone, leaving the address book to dip into the voice mails. Grif’s gaze was steady on her as she scrolled, but he remained silent until she sat up straight. “What?”

  “Bingo.” Flashing him the screen, Kit then flipped it back around and pushed the speaker button. Seconds later, a shaky, reedy voice sounded in the cold shell of Kit’s car.

  “Barbara, it’s Zicaro. I don’t know what the big idea is showing up here like that, but you’re going to get me killed. You don’t fool no one with that fake name either, so don’t give me that bullcrap. Once a DiMartino, always a DiMartino.”

  Kit locked eyes with Grif.

  “I don’t know why you’re back, but listen good. Stay away from Sunset and stay away from me. I ain’t lasted all these years just to get rubbed on your account. Besides, whatever you’re into, whatever you want, I ain’t got it. You lived the life, remember? I just reported it.”

  The message cut off, and Kit immediately brought up the address for the Sunset Retirement Community.

  “When was that call made?” Grif asked, voice no more than a whisper.

  “Friday.”

  “So Barbara visited Zicaro the day before she died.”

  “Which is what we’ll be doing first thing in the morning,” Kit said, and flashed him Zicaro’s address. He began writing again without another word, and they emptied out the rest of the phone book as well. When they’d finished, it was with a start that Kit looked up and realized they were still seated in her car. Just like the old days, she thought. Working together, finishing each other’s sentences, losing track of place and time. Kit reached for the handle.

  Grif didn’t move.

  She glanced back. “You coming?”

  “I’m waiting to be invited.”

  Invited where? Kit swallowed hard, but Grif was gazing at the front of the home they’d shared . . . briefly but passionately.

  “And if not,” he said, refocusing on her with the same intensity, “I’ll sleep outside.”

  “You think I’m in danger.” She’d already seen it in the way he studied the bushes and pockets of darkness the streetlights didn’t reach. He just shrugged, confirming it.

  Fine, she thought, narrowing her eyes. You keep your secrets. I’ll keep mine.

  “Come on,” she said, breaking the silence and the stare. She’d allow him in her house because the best chance to get through this individually was by working together. But that was all.

  Because even if working together felt right, they’d be doing so for a future they would never share. Kit had walked this world in love with Griffin Shaw for six whole months—and they’d solved two major crimes along the way—but then she’d spent another six trying to forget that he’d ever lived. After all of that, Kit thought, she’d learned to hold a little of herself back. She now knew how to hold herself together.

  And she knew exactly what she could and could not survive.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It turned out the Sunset Retirement Community was aptly named. Not just a nirvana for those living out their golden years playing golf and cards, the facility was set up for end-of-life needs. It provided medication and full-time nursing care, and for most residents, these were the last walls they’d ever call home.

  Of course, Kit and Grif didn’t learn this until Kit’d pulled her pretty, purring convertible into the front parking lot, and she used her smart phone to research more while they waited another twenty-five minutes for visiting hours to begin. The late-morning hours gave the caregivers a jump start on the daily grooming and medical needs of the residents before breakfast, and time to get them settled again after. So even though it was Sunday for the rest of the world, it was just another day for the Sunset residents.

  “Maybe Zicaro had an abrupt decline in health,” said Kit, while they waited. “Maybe Barbara just—”

  “What? Stopped in to say good-bye?” Grif scoffed, and they fell silent, watching as a caregiver in all white pushed a wheelchair-bound resident on a path along the building’s side. The crisp blue sky did nothing to actually warm the day, and the resident had a blanket over her lap, while her caregiver remained careful to keep to the thin, straining sunlight.

  Grif just rubbed his eyes. He might have been tucked into a place like this by now . . . if he hadn’t been killed first. It made him realize that no one was Surface-bound for long.

  “This may require a new plan,” he said, and held out his hand for Kit’s smart phone. They had one—after another ten minutes and the use of the device’s map application—and when they finally climbed out of the car, Grif headed to the main entrance alone.

  The double doors eased open like he was expected. He emerged directly into an open office area decorated with blue and yellow flowers so vibrant they were without parallel in the natural world, their plastic vases filled with clear marbles instead of water. A corkboard was splayed across the wall directly in front of him, community activities and photos displayed atop bright construction paper more suited to an elementary school than a nursing home. A sitting area with two chairs and a settee was anchored with a side table and yet more fake foliage. Two residents sat there but didn’t talk, and while one stared expectantly at Grif, the other didn’t notice him at all. A faint antiseptic smell permeated the whole place, and if Kit hadn’t told him he was in a building offering full-time health care, the scent alone would’ve done so.

  “Good morning!” The cheerful voice rang from behind him and a woman emerged from a side office, moving smoothly behind the L-shaped desk. “How can I help you?”

  Grif shoved his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat. “I’m here to see Mr. Zicaro.”

  The receptionist’s name tag said ERIN, and she sat, giving Grif an ample shot of her full bosoms bursting beneath a low-cut sweater. “Family or friend?”

  “Old friend.”

  Erin gestured to the guest book, which Grif dutifully signed, catching sight of a surveillance camera over Erin’s left shoulder. They were everywhere these days; not like his first go-round on this mudflat. Too bad all they could reveal were actions and not motives.

  Though in this case that might be a good thing, Grif thought, as Erin picked up the phone to ring Zicaro’s room.

  “That’s okay,” Grif said, motioning for her to put the phone down. “I called earlier and he said to go on back. Room 128, right?” He took a few steps, like he was already on his way.

  “No, um . . . room 238 actually, but you can’t go back yourself. All guests must
be accompanied by a staff member.” She studied Grif, her bubblegum gloss momentarily fading, but smiled again when he just shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  His view while he waited was that of a common area, obviously where the entire community gathered for their meals—three squares a day, if the notice on the bulletin board was correct. More lumpy chairs and a sofa clustered around a large television on the right, and a bank of curved windows sat beyond that, acting as a sunroom for the tropical plants scattered among dark wood chips along the wall.

  Spotting a flash of stocking-clad legs outside the windows, Grif moved to block them, and looked behind him to see if Erin had noticed Kit, too. The woman just beamed at him, and held up a finger as she spoke into the receiver, mistaking his glance for impatience.

  Grif turned back around. The rest of the room held dining tables, each spaced widely enough to allow wheelchair and walker access, while a wall to the left hid what was obviously the kitchen. Breakfast was over, but a lone woman sat at a table, her back rounded and chin down as she stared, unblinking, at the orange tablecloth before her. Grif waited for her to move, but she didn’t, and as he glanced around the empty space, despair carved a pit into his stomach.

  Could Evie be in a place like this?

  He’d once had a dream of her, a vision where she’d lamented being alone and that nobody came to visit. What if it hadn’t been a simple dream? The veil between this world and the Everlast was thin. What if she’d been calling out to him in her dreams, begging for help in the only way she could?

  The image of Evie—blond and bright and dancing, her head thrown back and her red-tinted lips wide with laughter—blew through Grif’s mind. He actually jerked his head, unable to imagine her stripped of all that color, sitting in a home with fake rubber plants and food that likely tasted the same.

  Grif gave the lone woman one last look, then returned to the reception area to gaze out the window. Kit’s Duetto sat silver and gleaming in the sun, and he used it like a lodestar to anchor his attention and settle his mind.