South Of Hell lk-9

by P J Parrish

  “She slapped me,” he said. “Then she started hitting me in the chest, so hysterical she could barely stay on her feet. Finally, she just stopped and looked at me and said, ‘Fine, I’ll just get rid of it.’”

  “What did you say?” Joe asked.

  “I said, ‘Go ahead.’”

  Joe lowered her eyes. His found the exit sign over her bowed head and stayed there. The bar was quiet, not a sound, not even the clink of glasses. He wanted to look back at Joe, but he couldn’t. He was afraid if he did, something would different. Something would be gone.

  Then Joe touched his hand, and he looked at her. “You’re a different man now,” she said. Her fingers laced themselves through his. “Which is probably a good thing. I could never fall in love with that other guy.”

  Louis found a wry smile. “Yeah, well, that other guy gets worse,” he said. “A few days later, I borrowed a couple hundred dollars from my roommate and sent it to her to pay for the abortion.”

  “You ever think much about why you reacted the way you did?”

  Louis sat back, withdrawing his hand. “Fear,” he said. “Fear of being trapped, fear of being nothing.”

  “Do you think you should go talk to her?” Joe asked.

  “And say what?”

  “Sometimes ‘I’m sorry’ is enough.”

  Louis shook his head.

  “Her husband must have had an eye on you since you got here,” Joe said. “That tells me she told him about you. Women don’t tell their men about other men in their past unless it was bad. You can apologize. Whether she accepts it or not is up to her.”

  Louis was turning his empty bottle in circles on the scarred table.

  “I have another thought to throw out at you,” Joe said.

  “What?”

  “Why do you think Channing even bothered to stop us and tell us who he was?”

  “He didn’t want me anywhere near Kyla.”

  “She hates you. You’re no threat to his marriage.”

  “What are you getting at?” Louis asked.

  “Maybe it’s not Kyla he wants you to stay away from.”

  He knew exactly what Joe was suggesting, and the thought settled over his skin with an eerie tingle. Still, it took him a second to reshape it into any kind of real possibility.

  “What if she didn’t have the abortion, Louis?” Joe asked.

  But the question was in his head before Joe had even said it. And with it came the realization that the question had always been there inside him.

  Chapter Nine

  Some people spend the present doing nothing but revisiting the past. Louis thought his foster parents were often like that, always talking about past Christmases or trips up north. His friend Dodie was like that, too. Beer bottle in hand and a setting Florida sun behind him, his favorite opening to a conversation was, “When I was young…”

  Louis had never seen the point. Good or bad, whatever it was, it was over. Why keep reliving something you couldn’t change? Or get back?

  He wasn’t sure he felt that way anymore. Maybe it was because now he was making memories worth remembering. It had been different before. He had been different before. Before he had started spending time with twelve-year-old Ben Outlaw, who was teaching him the fine art of how much glue to put on a model spaceship. And before Joe, who was teaching him just how little glue it took to hold two people together.

  He blew out a breath and stared at the house.

  It was a two-story frame house on Catherine Street, painted a pale blue, with old-fashioned white shutters. A thicket of dormant rose bushes buffered the small porch. The blooms were probably beautiful in the summer. Colorful, like her.

  He had found the address in a phone book. Not under Eric Channing, which was to be expected. He didn’t know any cop who listed a phone or address. Then he looked under Kyla and K. Channing but found nothing there, either. It was only when he was closing the book and feeling a guilty pang of relief that he decided to try once more and look under Brown.

  There had been two K. Browns listed, one out near Ypsi and one here in Ann Arbor. He figured the Ann Arbor cops still had to live in the city, so this was where he had come first.

  His heart was kicking up, and he looked around, trying to relax, hoping to spot something that would tell him if this was her home.

  There was a newspaper lying on the narrow walk and a pair of rain boots sitting on the top step. Next to them was a cardboard box with halo hats stamped on the side in big black letters and a UPS invoice taped on top. There was no mailbox on the curb and no car in the drive.

  And no toys anywhere.

  He walked to the porch and drew a breath as he lifted his hand to rap on the screen door. Before he could, the door swung open.

  Kyla.

  She wore a cream-colored suit with eyelets around the collar. The eye shadow and red lipstick were there but tempered with age and sophistication, the red more burgundy, the silver more charcoal. She had stopped straightening her hair, and it formed a short black cap of soft curls around her round face.

  Her eyes fired with contempt. “Go away,” she said.

  “Please,” Louis said. “I just want five minutes.”

  She started to close the door, but to his surprise, she paused. “That’s all I wanted from you ten years ago,” she said.

  “I know.”

  She dropped her hand from the door and waited, again surprising him with her decision to stand there and hear him out. He had no idea where to begin, so he started with the simplest of thoughts.

  “I’m sorry, Kyla.”

  She said nothing. Nothing from her but that stare.

  “I was a selfish sonofabitch,” he said. “I said some terrible things. You deserved better from me.”

  Still nothing but that steely stare.

  “I was stupid,” he said. “All I could see was my future going down the drain, and I panicked.”

  Her eyes dipped to his jeans and sneakers. “That law degree you wanted so much,” she said. “Did you ever get it?”

  “No.”

  “What did you become?”

  The fact that she didn’t know told him Channing hadn’t shared his traffic stop with her or any of the background information he had gathered. Made sense. It had been Channing’s intent to bully Louis into keeping his distance.

  “I became a cop when I got out of school,” he said. “Now I’m a private investigator.”

  Her expression went from surprise when he said “cop” to scorn at “private investigator.” She ran a red-manicured finger through her hair, her anger waning to annoyance.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. “Are you in some kind of twelve-step program and on the part where you’re supposed to say you’re sorry?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m in town on business, and… it’s hard being back here without remembering. I know there’s nothing I can do to change a thing, but I wanted to tell you that I know how much I hurt you.”

  “You expect my forgiveness?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t expect a thing,” he said. “I just needed to say it.”

  Kyla looked away, blinking back a glimmer of tears. Her hatred for him was still radiating off her in waves, but there was something else going on inside her, too. Something that was softening everything else.

  “You’ve said what you needed to,” she said. “And I’ve given you more time than you gave me. Now, please go away, and don’t come back.”

  She started to close the door again. He put a hand to the screen.

  “Kyla, wait, please,” he said. “I need to ask you something else.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Did you have the abortion?”

  Without so much as a blink, she answered him. “Yes.”

  The door closed.

  Joe let the curtain fall and turned to face the dingy room. The clock on the nightstand told her it was only nine-thirty, but it felt later.

  Where the hell was he?

>   He had dropped her off at the motel and sped off in the Bronco. He had asked her first, asked her if she minded. She had said no, she didn’t. But she did. As much as she knew he needed to go see Kyla, as sure as she was of his love, she had felt something shift. Maybe it was his eyes when he had looked at her over the table in the bar earlier. Maybe it was his voice when he said he was going to see Kyla. Whatever it was, it told her that things were never going to be the same between them again.

  She kicked off her shoes, went to the bed, and sat down, cross-legged, her back against the flimsy wood headboard. She picked up the remote, clicked the TV on, and then clicked it off again. Her eyes went to the small plastic coffee maker on the dresser and then to the empty spot below where a mini-bar should have been.

  Damn, she wanted a drink. But she didn’t want to chance going out and missing his call.

  Why the hell hadn’t he called? He had been gone four hours.

  She switched on the TV again, punching the button and half watching the images flip by. A cop harassing a gang member on Knightwatch. Dan Rather looking dour on 48 Hours.

  She stopped clicking. Clair Huxtable in a turquoise power suit and perfect hair, sitting in her pretty living room with her button-cute daughter Rudy in the crook of her arm.

  Joe watched the show until a commercial jarred her back to the motel room. She sat there, the remote in her lap, staring blankly at the TV.

  She was pretty. Had to be.

  She was younger. Younger than he was, probably.

  She was black. No matter what he said, it had to matter.

  And a child…

  Maybe they had a child together.

  Joe shut her eyes.

  Where the hell was he?

  The phone rang. She pounced on it. “Louis?”

  “Hello, Joe.”

  It wasn’t him; the voice was too deep. It took a moment for it to register. She turned off the TV. “Mel?”

  “I wasn’t going to give you a third guess. It would have been insulting.”

  She smiled. “I’m sorry, I was just waiting for Louis to call. He’s been out all night.”

  “On the case?”

  “No. It’s a personal thing he had to take care of.”

  “An old college friend?”

  “You could say that.”

  Mel was quiet for a long time. “He went and saw Kyla, didn’t he?”

  “You know about her?”

  “Yeah.”

  Joe let out a big sigh.

  “What was that for?” Mel asked.

  “He told you about her, but somehow he just couldn’t quite bring himself to tell me until today.”

  “He’s like that. You know that.”

  She was quiet.

  “Why are you worried about this, Joe?”

  “I didn’t say I was.”

  “I know you too well. Don’t lie to me.”

  She shifted the receiver to her other ear and leaned her head back against the headboard. Mel did know her, maybe better than anyone — except her mother. Mel had been there for her right from the start. The day she walked into the Miami Police Department wearing the new uniform, he had been the only man to say welcome. They had started seeing each other two years later, on the quiet because he was a detective and she was just a patrolman. She had been only twenty-five. He was ten years older. She was in love with him. But three years in, he broke it off. She could still remember the night — sitting in the dark of his car in the lighthouse park on the tip of Key Biscayne. Him telling her he was slowly going blind.

  I’m not going to let you be stuck taking care of an old asshole like me, Joe.

  Neither of them had ever mentioned marriage, but he had somehow sensed she was expecting it. She was so angry at him. It took her years to see that it was for her own good. He knew that the only thing she really loved was her work.

  Four years later, she made detective. They were put on a case together. He was at the end of his career. She was just getting to the best part. They became partners, and she helped him keep his blindness a secret as long as he could. Even after Mel moved to Fort Myers, they stayed in touch. They had a history together, after all.

  Joe heard the click of a lighter as Mel fired up a cigarette.

  “It was a long time ago, Joe. He doesn’t love her,” Mel said.

  “It’s not her I’m worried about,” she said.

  “The man loves you, Joe.”

  She shut her eyes. “I’m worried about what will happen to us if there is a child. Because I know Louis well enough to know that this will change him. And I don’t know if I want him to change.”

  A pause on the other end of the line. Joe could almost see Mel sitting in the dark of his apartment. “Have you told him this?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You should.”

  She was quiet.

  “Well, maybe you’re worrying for nothing,” he said. “Maybe there’s no kid.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said softly. She pushed her hair back from her face. “I have to go, Mel,” she said.

  Another pause. “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

  “No, no, I just don’t want to talk right now.”

  “Okay. I’ll back off. But you know where to find me when you do.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Night, Joe.”

  “Mel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “What are friends for?”

  She hung up and sat back in the bed, staring at the TV. Perfect Strangers was on now. She hit the off button, tossed the remote aside, and swung her legs off the bed. Shrugging out of her clothes, she went into the bathroom to take a shower.

  She was just wrapping a towel around her wet hair when she heard the door. She hurried out to the bedroom and drew up short.

  Louis was standing there. No, not standing. Wavering.

  His eyes took a long time to find her, and when they finally did, they were glazed. She could smell the alcohol from six feet away.

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  “Stopped for a drink.” He moved away, peeling off his jacket and throwing it to a chair. It missed and fell to the floor. He ignored it.

  “You could have called,” she said.

  He didn’t answer. He dropped onto the edge of the bed and started tugging at his shoes.

  “Did you see Kyla?” she asked. It was a struggle to say her name and to keep her voice even.

  Louis didn’t look up. He dropped one sneaker to the floor and started working on the other.

  “Louis, talk to me,” Joe said.

  The other shoe fell with a thud. He sat there, his back to her, hands on his knees, face down.

  “Louis-”

  “Joe, just leave me alone, okay?” he said quietly.

  She started toward him. “No, I won’t leave you alone. Did you see Kyla? Did you ask her-”

  His face swung up to her. “There’s no baby, okay?”

  She stopped cold, the harshness of his voice like a slap.

  He brought up a shaky hand. “I just want to go to sleep,” he said softly. He turned away, his fingers clumsily working on the buttons of his shirt.

  She went into the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was burning, but she was as white as the tile walls, almost as if she were fading into them. Snatching her crumpled jeans and shirt from the floor, she yanked on her clothes. She ran a quick comb through her wet hair and went back into the bedroom.

  “I’m going down to get something to-”

  Louis was sprawled on the bed, clothes still on, eyes closed.

  She grabbed her purse and left.

  Chapter Ten

  The woman behind the glass arched her brow in annoyance. She wore a blue Ann Arbor PD uniform, but her name tag said she was an administrative assistant.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kincaid, Detective Shockey did not leave us your name,” she said. “And you are not on the approved visitors li
st. I can’t let you back into the squad room without authorization.”

  “Then call him,” Louis said. “Tell him I want to see him now.”

  He felt Joe’s hand on his arm, tugging him away from the window. He resisted, then followed her. The stale alcohol was still trickling through his veins, creating a swell of nausea, and he put a hand on the wall to steady himself. He could hear Joe calmly talking to the woman behind the glass.

  “I’m Undersheriff Frye from Leelanau County. It’s important we talk to Detective Shockey. I’m sure he’ll see us.”

  He heard the woman pick up a phone and say there was an undersheriff from up north and an agitated man waiting for Detective Shockey in the lobby.

  Louis took a drink from the water fountain and walked to the glass doors to look outside. The sunlight was making his eyes water. The floor felt like it was moving.

  “You okay?” Joe asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s not the first time I’ve been hungover.”

  “It’s a first for me,” she said. “I’ve got to call Mike.”

  He watched her walk away to the pay phone nearby. He had awoken this morning still wearing his clothes. His shoes were in the corner, and he guessed Joe had been the one who had removed them. He sure as hell had no memory of it. Or much of anything from last night. Joe had been quiet all morning, and he knew she was pissed. He knew this wasn’t the time to try to mend anything, though. He could barely think right now.

  He heard heavy footsteps and turned. Shockey was coming toward him like an unblocked linebacker. He grabbed Louis’s arm and pushed him out through the front doors. Louis was standing on the walk before he could make his mind work enough to react.

  He jerked away from Shockey. “Don’t you ever grab me again.”

  “I asked you not to come here.”

  “And I asked you to tell me everything you knew about Jean Brandt,” Louis said. “Why didn’t you tell me Jean had a kid?”

  Shockey blinked. “What?”

  “A kid,” Louis said. “There’s a toy wagon out at the farm. It has amy painted on the side. Who is Amy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Stop lying to me, you sorry piece-”