The Crooked Street

by Brian Freeman

  As CEO of Zelyx, Filko was in the process of relocating the company’s headquarters to a new high-rise under construction in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco. A joint press release from the mayor’s office and the Zelyx board this morning promised that Filko’s death would have no impact on the relocation, which the statement called “a highly strategic move that is in the best interests of Zelyx and the people of San Francisco . . .”

  Frost stopped reading.

  Herb whistled in surprise. “Well, well, well. Apparently, Mr. Filko outlived his usefulness.”

  “Apparently so,” Frost agreed, his lips pushed together in thought.

  “Another gesture of goodwill?” Herb asked.

  “Murder isn’t exactly goodwill, no matter who the victim is.”

  “Well, in this case, I can’t say I’m sorry. Based on everything you told me, Mr. Filko had to go. The mayor and the city still get the Zelyx jobs but none of the awful baggage of its CEO. Everybody wins.”

  Frost read the article again, and he could hear Prisha’s voice in his head. I know it’s not the choice you’d make, but it’s the best thing for everyone.

  “So this was the deal they made,” Frost said.

  Herb’s eyebrow cocked. “What?”

  “Prisha and Zara paid Lombard to get rid of Martin Filko once and for all. As you say, with Filko gone, everybody wins. Fawn gets her revenge. That’s also why Prisha wasn’t worried about Lombard coming after them. They have as much to lose as he does if Lombard gets caught. They’d wind up in prison for murder.”

  Herb frowned. “Is it brave or foolish to get in bed with the devil?”

  “It never ends well,” Frost replied.

  “No, I can’t say I approve of their methods,” Herb agreed, “even if their hearts were in the right place. It’s a dangerous thing to assume the ends justify the means. However, I’m not going to cry over the loss of Mr. Filko.”

  Frost shook his head. “Except for every Martin Filko, there’s also Trent Gorham. And Mr. Jin. And Carla and Denny and who knows how many others? This man is a monster. He has to be stopped.”

  Frost stared at the crowd again. His eyes went from face to face, wondering if Lombard was right there, looking back at him. He’d made a promise in the Bugatti, and sooner or later, he’d keep it. It didn’t matter how long it took. The two of them would meet again. He knew when they did, only one of them would walk away alive.

  Herb had the look of a man who could read his mind and didn’t like what he saw. “I’ve lived long enough to be sure of one thing, Frost, although you may not want to hear it.”

  “What’s that?” Frost asked.

  His friend took him by the shoulder. “Sometimes the road to justice is a crooked street.”

  47

  When Frost got home to his house on Russian Hill after dark, he walked inside to the briny aroma of shellfish and the thump of Twenty One Pilots singing “Stressed Out” on his speakers. That could only mean one thing.

  Duane.

  He found his brother in the kitchen. Duane still wore his white chef’s coat, with his long black hair tied up in a ridiculous man bun. Below the coat, he wore khakis and Crocs. The patio door was open, letting warm air into the downstairs. The city’s spring heat wave continued with no end in sight. Shack sat on the counter, supervising the cooking process and getting the occasional nibble of crab as Duane made a stir-fry.

  His brother’s shoulders bobbed to the song. The volume was loud enough that Duane didn’t even notice Frost until he was standing next to him. He acted as if it were no big deal to be here in Frost’s house, and any other time, it wouldn’t be. Duane pointed at a blender half-filled with thick orange slush.

  “Carrot juice?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Frost replied. He went to retrieve a beer.

  After he opened a bottle of Sierra Nevada, Frost examined the damage to his brother’s face. The rainbow colors around Duane’s eyes had begun to fade, but he still wore a bandage over most of his nose.

  “What did you do to yourself?” Frost asked. “Walk into a door?”

  Duane shot him a sideways glance. “Something like that.”

  “You should be more careful.”

  “Uh-huh. You look like you’ve seen better days, too.”

  “I have definitely seen better days,” Frost agreed.

  He sat on a stool at the kitchen island as Duane worked. They didn’t say anything for a while. Shack hopped over to the island and climbed onto Frost’s shoulder. A chunk of crab in an Asian marinade flew off the grill, and Frost ate it before Shack could grab it for himself. It was delicious, because everything Duane cooked was delicious.

  The music shifted from Twenty One Pilots to Tove Lo.

  “So did Mom call you?” Frost asked finally.

  “Yup. You?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “She fights much better than we do,” Duane said.

  “She sure does.”

  Duane finished off the stir-fry and scooped the crab and noodles into bowls. “You hungry?”

  “Not really,” Frost said.

  His brother shrugged. “Yeah, me neither.”

  Duane covered the bowls with plastic wrap and stored them in the refrigerator. He found a tulip dish in one of the cabinets and made up a bowl for Shack. Then the two brothers took their drinks and headed out to the patio. The cool fog hadn’t overtaken the heat of the day, and they sat around the table in the darkness, both of them sweating. Duane sipped carrot juice. Frost played with the bottle of beer between his fingers. Shack wandered out to the patio and sprawled on the table between them.

  Ten minutes later, Duane said, “So you and me, we’re pretty different.”

  “That we are,” Frost said.

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. Did Mom drop you on your head or something?”

  “Weird, I was going to ask you that,” Duane said.

  They both chuckled. The ice broke a little between them, which it was bound to do in the heat.

  “You know, I try hard not to be a bad person,” Frost said, “but I guess sometimes I fall short.”

  “Why on earth would you say that?” Duane asked him. “You are the best person I know.”

  “I hit you. I hit my brother.”

  “Well, I hit you, too. Don’t forget that. You may be better at it, but I got in the first punch.”

  “I should have taken it and walked away,” Frost said. “After all, you were right. I broke the two of you up. I never, ever meant to do that, but I guess I did. And I am really sorry, Duane.”

  His brother looked away at the city below them. His lips were pinched with unhappiness, which was a rare thing for Duane. His brother was almost always happy. It was something Frost envied about him. And yet maybe he was content because, on most days, Duane lacked a capacity for self-reflection. He lived every second as it happened to him, whereas Frost spent every second thinking about the next one. They both lived in traps of their own making.

  “You didn’t break us up,” his brother replied. “People change. Tabby changed. That’s not your fault.”

  “No, I was in the middle. Just like you said.”

  “I’m trying to give you an out, bro. Work with me here.”

  Frost smiled. “Okay.”

  “I went to see her,” Duane went on. “Not to get her back. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Actually, I told her she was right. I was pretending, just like her. Things weren’t working between us. I wasn’t putting her first. My life is in the kitchen, period. Sooner or later, if we’d stayed together, I would have screwed it up.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Oh, sure I do, and you know it, too. I probably would have banged another sous chef.”

  “Not Raymonde, I hope,” Frost said.

  “No. I think I’m safe with him.” Duane paused and then added, “She admitted it to me, you know.”

  “Admitted what?”

&n
bsp; “Come on, bro. Don’t be dense. Tabby’s in love with you.”

  Frost opened his mouth to say something, but what was there to say? He shrugged and drank his beer.

  “She told me she came to see you,” Duane continued. “She said she told you how she felt and that you all but admitted that you were in love with her, too. Except you made it clear that you were never going to do anything about it, no matter how you felt. Because of me.”

  Frost stared back at his brother. “She’s right about that.”

  Duane shook his head. “Well, that is pretty damn stupid.”

  “Maybe, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Come on, Frost. Given that you’re in love with her and she’s in love with you, that makes absolutely no sense. I want you to be happy, too. Do I need to spell it out for you? I hereby free you from screwing up your life in the name of fraternal loyalty. I state now, for the record, with Shack as a witness, that I will hold no grudge if my brother chooses to date my ex-fiancée.”

  “That sounds like the carrot juice talking,” Frost said.

  “I’m serious,” Duane replied.

  “You? You’re never serious.”

  “Well, at this one moment of my life, I am,” his brother said. He leaned across the table next to Shack, and he and the cat both studied Frost with the same intense stare. “So are you going to go talk to her, or what?”

  The windows in Tabby’s apartment were open, and so was the door, but there was still no air moving on the stifling night. She lived in a fourth-floor studio on Fillmore not far from the painted ladies of Alamo Square. A seafood restaurant occupied the street level, making the building smell like bouillabaisse.

  Frost stood in the apartment doorway, watching her and not saying a word. Her back was to him. She had music on as she chopped vegetables for a cool salad on a hot evening. She wore white nylon shorts and a pink tank top that clung to her skin in the humid apartment.

  “You really shouldn’t leave your door open,” Frost said after a while. “Anyone could walk in.”

  Tabby turned around in shock at the sound of his voice. She almost dropped the knife in her hand. He could see emotions passing across her face like fast-moving clouds. Anger. Hope. Desire. Frustration. Fear.

  “Frost.” Her voice was cool. “What are you doing here?”

  “I needed to see you.”

  Tabby pushed away the preparations of her salad. She wiped her hands on a towel and walked out of the kitchen. “Why? I thought you’d said everything you needed to say already. You didn’t want me in your life.”

  “That’s not what I said at all.”

  “Well, that’s what I heard.”

  Frost felt tongue-tied. He didn’t know how to make it right between them. He put down Shack’s carrier on the floor and opened the door. The cat wandered out into the strange place to explore. When he spotted Tabby, he padded to her immediately.

  “Shack wanted to see you, too,” Frost said.

  Tabby picked up Shack and softly kissed his head, and then she put him down and let him rummage through her apartment. Frost hadn’t moved. Her white sofa sat between them like a barrier they couldn’t cross.

  “So what do you want, Frost?” she asked.

  “I want to stop hiding what I feel for you.”

  “You told me we couldn’t be together. Now or ever.”

  “I know I did. But I can’t live with that.”

  Tabby stared down at the floor. Her hair fell across her face. “What about Duane?”

  “He said if I’m in love with you, then I’m an idiot to let you go.”

  “Really? He said that?”

  “He did.”

  She walked up to the back of the sofa. “And do you? Love me?”

  He came to the other side of the sofa, until only the soft cushions separated them. “Tabby, you know I do.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe I’m not who you think I am.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I hurt Duane. I don’t want to hurt you, too. That’s the last thing I would ever want to do.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  She leaned forward over the edge of the sofa. He reached out and grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up and over until there was no barrier between them, and he set her on the floor directly in front of him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and held on and wouldn’t let go. Her skin was hot; so was his. Her face was wet. She pressed herself so tightly against him that their two bodies were like one. Her lips were next to his cheek, and she leaned up and kissed the lobe of his ear and whispered no louder than a breath, “I was hoping you’d come back.”

  He ran his fingers through her hair, separating the strands, feeling her do the same to him. With the back of his hand, he lifted her chin. Her lips were full and ready. Her eyes were a maze of emotions, but he only focused on the want he saw there. What came next, what was coming down the road didn’t matter. For that one moment of his life, there was nothing but joy in the sticky, still air of the apartment and in the dampness of their skin.

  Frost finally did what he’d dreamed about doing for months.

  He pulled her face to him.

  He kissed her without any guilt at all and felt her kiss him back.

  48

  Tabby’s eyes blinked open. The apartment around her was dark. It wasn’t dawn yet, but she was already awake.

  The night had finally cooled through the open window. She lay atop Frost as he slept. Their arms were wrapped around each other on her sofa. She felt the warmth of his face buried in her hair. They’d never undressed, never touched each other. They’d kissed, they’d talked, they’d kissed again, and they’d fallen asleep.

  She disentangled herself without waking him. Shack snored at the foot of the sofa, and the cat didn’t move, either. She slipped away to the bathroom, where she showered and stood for the longest time simply letting the hot water pour over her body. When she was done, she went back to the other room and stared down at Frost. She was naked and aroused, and she thought about waking him up so that he could make love to her for the first time. He’d asked her to wake him before she left.

  But she didn’t. It was easier this way.

  She found clothes in her closet, and she got dressed silently. She opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. She sipped it and then found a pad of paper so that she could leave Frost a note.

  She wrote,

  Breakfast meeting with a client.

  After a pause, she added beneath it,

  I love you.

  Tabby collected her wallet and keys and let herself out of the apartment and closed the door softly behind her. She took the steps slowly, as if dreading that she had to go into the world again. Outside, there was a faint pinkness in the sky, like the promise of another warm day. She was alone on Fillmore. She breathed in the air and studied the other buildings around her. There were only a few lights. Everyone else was sleeping. She watched the dark cars around her, the dark windows, the dark roofs. Her eyes went from one place to the next, all around her, with a strange unease. She listened to the rare silence, as if San Francisco were holding its breath.

  It was the kind of morning where you never wanted to die, but if you did, you would die happy. Except happiness was inside with Frost, and this, she remembered, was the other world.

  Tabby crossed the empty street. Her car was parked on the opposite side. She unlocked it and got inside and sat in the gloom. She slid in the key, but she didn’t turn on the motor or the radio. Not yet. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her chest and breathed in and out. She checked the mirror, which showed nothing behind her, and she studied her own green eyes as if they belonged to a stranger.

  A minute passed.

  Then two.

  She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to do it.

  Tabby reached under the front seat, took out a cell phone from its hiding place, and dialed the number.

  “Identification,” the woman o
n the other end answered in a cool, alert voice, as if she’d been awake for hours.

  “Van Ness,” Tabby said.

  “Password.”

  “35415.”

  “Status.”

  “Golden Gate.”

  “Report,” the woman inquired.

  “Tell Lombard I’m on the inside,” Tabby replied.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Thanks for reading the latest Frost Easton novel! If you like this novel, be sure to check out all my other thrillers, too. Visit my website at www.bfreemanbooks.com to join my mailing list, get book-club discussion questions, and find out more about me and my books.

  You can write to me with your feedback at brian@bfreemanbooks.com. I love to get e-mails from readers around the world, and yes, I reply personally. You can also “like” my official fan page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bfreemanfans or follow me on Twitter or Instagram using the handle bfreemanbooks. For a look at the fun side of the author’s life, you can also “like” the Facebook page of my wife, Marcia, at www.facebook.com/theauthorswife.

  Finally, if you enjoy my books, please post your reviews online at Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other sites for book lovers—and spread the word to your reader friends. Thanks!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I work with a great team of people to bring you my Frost Easton novels.

  Jessica Tribble at Thomas & Mercer led the way at every stage of making this book happen, from the initial proposal through the editorial work, production, and marketing strategies. She is what every author wants in an editor. It’s been a great pleasure working with Charlotte Herscher on all the Frost books. Charlotte has a special gift as a developmental editor for helping an author see exactly what works and what doesn’t in an early draft. Laura Petrella spots details as a copyeditor that no one else does. I’m a bit of a fanatic for turning in a clean book, but Laura always catches things I miss! The entire team at T & M are amazing professionals, and it’s a privilege to work with them.