by J. R. Rain
I set the phone in my lap, confirmed it was on, and realized that my brain was spinning, looping over the same things again and again. As soon as I set the phone in my lap, I wanted to pick it up again, and try her cell phone. Again.
Again and again.
Deep breaths, Sam.
Yes, I could have used Kingsley’s help. Hell, I could use Fang’s help, too. And Knighthorse’s and Aaron King’s and anyone else I’d ever come across.
Deep breaths, Sam.
She’s not far. Ten-year-old girls eventually get picked up by the police—
Or picked up by other people. Scumbags. Dirt bags. Killers. Child molesters.
Now I was panicking all over again and stomping the gas and whipping through suburban Fullerton as if it was my own private race course.
I ended up at home, which was about three miles from my sister’s home. I parked the van at an angle in front of the house, dashed out, hurdled the chain-link fence that surrounded the property, and plunged inside my house, calling her name.
No response.
I quickly scoured every room. My hope had been that she simply returned to her own home, her own room, her own bed. Still, I called her name repeatedly, searching everywhere and anywhere, even out in the garage. I moved quickly through the house. I sped around supernaturally quickly. The rooms and walls and carpet were a blur. Pictures were a blur. My head was spinning.
I caught myself on a wall.
I gasped, chest heaving. Having a full-blown panic attack wouldn’t help anyone, least of all, my daughter. I knew this. I had cautioned parents of this very thing many times in the past, when searching for their own runaways.
Deep breaths, Sam. Calm down.
Fuck calming down. I want my daughter.
Shaking, I stood straight, hands on hips, thinking hard. Or trying to think hard. Truth was, my brain still hadn’t entirely kicked into gear. Night was coming, but was not here yet.
I hated what I was sometimes. Hated it. Here I needed to find my daughter, and I needed to think clearly, but I couldn’t push past the fog.
I paced and checked the time on my cell. One more hour until sundown. Then I would think clearly. Perhaps even get a psychic hit or two.
Except one hour might be too late.
My phone rang. I gasped, and nearly dropped it. Kingsley. Again. The asshole. The fucker. How dare he call me when he knew I was waiting to hear news about my daughter.
I ignored it. He tried one more time. I ignored that, too, hating him more and more.
I had tried her closest friends. Sherbet was cruising the streets with his patrol officers. Spinoza was hitting any and all shops within a reasonable radius.
How much money did she have?
I thought hard, forcing my mind to go back a few days, before my trip to Vegas. Yes, I had given her and Anthony $20 each. A twenty wasn’t much.
I gripped my keys and turned for the door, nodding to myself. Twenty bucks was just enough for—
My phone rang again.
It was Spinoza.
I paused and clicked on, pressing the touch screen so hard I nearly cracked it. “Any news?” I asked. Or tried to ask. My voice cracked and sounded funny, even to my ears.
“Very good news, Sam,” he said gently. “I’ve got someone here you might be interested in seeing.”
“Oh, God,” I said and sank to my knees.
“She’s with me, Sam. Safe and sound. We’re at the bus station in Buena Park. Do you know the one?”
I buried my face in my hands, pressing the phone against my ear. “Yes.”
“We’ll be here waiting.”
I clicked off and let the tears flow, sitting there on my knees, my face in my hands.
Chapter Seventeen
They were eating ice cream together on a bus bench.
Buena Park’s Park and Ride was a big station, perhaps the biggest in north Orange County, too big for a little girl to be sitting alone.
I parked just behind the benches, where I could see Tammy and Spinoza, both happily munching on their ice creams. Tammy was swinging her legs. I could just make out Mary Lou’s gym bag sitting next to her.
With the 5 Freeway roaring above, choked with rush hour traffic, and Orangethorpe Avenue opposite, nearly as busy, no one would have noticed a screaming girl being yanked into someone’s car, never to be seen or heard from again.
I inhaled slowly, deeply.
But there she was, safely eating ice cream with Spinoza as if she knew the man. She didn’t, of course. She had never met the investigator, and yet, there she was eating ice cream with him. So trusting. So innocent. He could have been anyone. Someone dangerous. Someone with not very good intentions. He wasn’t dangerous, of course. He was a damn fine investigator. But she didn’t know that.
Spinoza turned and saw me sitting in my van. Perhaps he was psychic himself. He waved, holding his ice cream. There was a vending machine nearby. No doubt it had been the source of the frozen dessert.
I sat in my car and waited for my heart to calm down, for my breathing to calm down, and, as I waited, never once did I take my eyes off my daughter.
* * *
Spinoza got up and pulled me aside as I approached.
“You know the drill,” said Spinoza quietly. He was only a few inches taller than me. His height always surprised me. My memory of him was always as a bigger man.
I nodded, knowing where this was going.
The evening was giving way to dusk, and the lights in the bus stop were turning on. Tammy kicked her feet...and looked away. So far, she hadn’t made eye contact with me. She was dressed in jeans and T-shirt. She had on a pink belt. She was too damn cute to be alone at a bus station.
“She thinks you’re going to be mad at her,” he said.
I nodded. It’s the same speech I gave parents myself, after finding their own runaways.
“She’s also angry.”
I snapped my head around. “Angry?”
Spinoza gave me a wry smile. “Life’s unfair and all that. You know, typical girl stuff.”
I nodded, relieved, although I wasn’t sure about that “girl stuff” comment.
He continued, “Sherbet’s on his way, too, so you’ll have a few minutes alone with her. I tried to call him off, but he has to follow up, access the situation, finalize a report, and call off the hounds, so to speak.”
I nodded, looked at Spinoza. “How did you know she was here?”
“A hunch. I listen to them.”
I suddenly gave him a hug which, I think, surprised the hell out of him, although it shouldn’t have. He was lucky I didn’t give him a smooch, too.
“I do, too,” I said, releasing him. “Except this time I couldn’t think straight.”
“Hard to think straight when your kid’s gone,” he said, and now there was no mistaking the sorrow in his voice. I knew his own kid was gone. Long gone. He nodded toward Tammy. “Talk to her, Sam. Gently.”
I said I would. He smiled and nodded and touched my elbow awkwardly, then slipped out into the night.
I turned to Tammy.
Chapter Eighteen
“Hey, booger butt,” I said, sliding next to her.
She turned her face away. “I’m not a booger butt.”
The hem of her jeans were rolled up, exposing her pink socks and cute tennis shoes. She was wearing a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. The purse sitting next to the handbag was also Hello Kitty. The gym bag was my sister’s. She continued kicking feet that didn’t quite touch the gum-covered cement ground.
“Then what are you?” I asked, knowing it was a leading question.
“A young lady. A woman.”
“A woman?” I said and it was all I could do to not laugh. She looked at me sharply and I literally swallowed my laughter as surely as if I’d swallowed food. Liquid food, of course.
“Yes, a woman,” she said, sticking her chin out. A sharp chin. Danny’s chin.
“I see. Well, I thought women were, in the ve
ry least, teenagers.”
“No, Mom. That’s why they’re called teenagers.”
It was all I could do not to point out that she herself was still three years shy of being a teenager. I said, “So, you’re a young lady now.”
“Yes.”
“More mature than even teenagers.”
She made a sort of “as if” noise. That my daughter considered herself superior to teenagers told me a lot about her. It also told me that she was a handful.
I said, “Mature enough to travel alone?”
She shrugged. She still hadn’t looked at me. “It’s just a bus. Kids take buses every day to school.”
“A bus to where?” I asked. I was part amused, part horrified. Jesus, what if she had actually gotten on board the bus? Maybe nothing, actually. Bus drivers were trained not to let kids on board alone, unless Tammy came up with a really good story. She was, after all, a gifted storyteller. I often thought I might have a little writer on my hands.
After all, Tammy was the creator of Lady Tamtam, a crime-fighting superhero mom who could fly and shoot lasers from her eyes.
Lady Tamtam, I was certain, was based on me. And maybe a little bit of Lady Gaga, too. Except Lady Tamtam fought crime, while Lady Gaga, apparently, had sex with it.
Of course, Lady Tamtam shot lasers from her eyes, which I doubted I could. Only one way to see. I focused on an empty Cheetos bag sticking out from a nearby trash can. Nope, no lasers.
Tammy didn’t know her mother’s super-secret identity. Unless Anthony had spilled the beans. But I didn’t think he had. He would have told me. Or I would have heard about it before this.
No, there was something else going on here.
“Tammy,” I said, reaching out to her and taking her hand. She resisted at first, but then let me take it. She still wouldn’t look at me. “Tammy. Why did you run away?”
I sat like that for a second or two, unmoving, holding her hand. She sat unmoving, too, although she bit her lower lip. A sure sign that she was thinking hard. Finally, she turned and looked at me for the first time, and there were tears in her eyes.
“Because I’m horrible, Mommy.”
I squeezed her hand. “Why would you say that?”
Now her lower lip was trembling. “Because I hate Anthony.”
“Why do you hate your little brother?”
She shrugged and lowered her head.
“Out with it, young lady.”
“He’s just such a jerk.”
“A jerk, how?”
“I dunno.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I just hate him.”
“Yeah, you said that. He’s your little brother. You can’t hate your little brother. I forbid it.”
She stuck out her bottom lip. Anthony did the same thing, a habit he picked up from his older sister. A sister he idolized growing up. A sister he followed tirelessly.
I waited for her to sort out her thoughts and feelings. And since I couldn’t dip into her thoughts, I had to wait just like any other mama.
“He’s...different somehow,” she finally said.
“So that’s why you hate him? Because he’s different?”
“No. Not really. Well, kind of.”
“Tammy...”
“Everyone talks about him, Mommy. I mean everyone. I’m so damn tired of it.”
“Watch your mouth, young lady.”
“Sorry.”
“Who talks about him, Tammy?”
“Everyone. Everyone at school. Everyone at home. You, dad. Teachers, doctors. I’m just so sick of it.”
“So you don’t really hate your brother. You’re just tired of people talking about him.”
“No, I hate him.”
“What did he do to you?”
“He’s just a butthead.”
Despite myself, I laughed, and shortly, Tammy started giggling. I reached out and tickled her and she laughed even harder, and as we both laughed I saw a pair of headlights appear in the parking lot, then another and another. Three cop cars closed in, with Sherbet in the lead.
I looked at Tammy. “Sweetie, someday we need to talk about something very important.”
“I know, Mommy.”
I opened my mouth to speak but stopped. I tried again, changing directions. “You know what, baby?”
“About you.”
“You know what about me?”
“You’re special, Mommy.”
“Special how?”
She smiled sweetly and said, “You know, Mommy.”
As Sherbet appeared, looking red-faced and relieved, I thought of Lady Tamtam and her supernatural powers. The mother who could fly. The mother who fought crime. The mother who shot lasers from her eyes.
Still, two out of three weren’t bad.
Chapter Nineteen
Russell Baker and I were at a Starbucks in Fullerton.
It was the same Starbucks where I’d met the very creepy Robert Mason, one-time soap opera star, one-time owner of the Fullerton Playhouse, who was now a full-time resident of a jail cell.
My time here with Russell Baker was decidedly more pleasant.
The young boxer was wearing a loose tank top and shorts. He had just finished working out with Jacky. Jacky wasn’t his official trainer, but, like many young boxers, they sought his help and considered it an honor to work with the legendary Irishman.
More importantly, Russell looked good in a tank top. I suspected he would look good in just about anything. Of course, being in shape and looking good was expected from a professional boxer. Still, professional or not, sitting across from me was a very breathtaking man. Even for someone who doesn’t need much breath.
I said, “I spoke with Dr. Sculler in Las Vegas.”
“The medical examiner,” said Russell, sounding very un-boxer-like. He had a quick mind. I only hoped it wouldn’t be beaten out of him by the end of his career.
“Right,” I said. “The official cause of death is epidural hematoma.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve read the report. A dozen or so times.”
Russell was sipping from a bottle of water. Who goes to a Starbucks and orders a bottle of water? Then again, I looked down at my own bottle of water. Well, boxers in training and vampires, apparently. I wondered if we just might be the first two people in the history of Starbucks to only order two bottles of water.
Big picture, Sam.
I continued, “I’ll admit it. I thought I was going to come back here and tell you that you don’t have a case.”
He glanced up at me, blinking. He cocked his head a little. “You thought? What does that mean?”
“It means that it’s Dr. Sculler’s unofficial opinion that you could not have caused the kind of brain damage he saw in the autopsy.”
Russell sat up. I knew that this was the kind of news he was praying for. “I...” he paused, gathering his thoughts. “I don’t understand.”
“Officially, based on probable evidence, Caesar was killed in the ring. After all, he collapsed in front of the world.”
Russell nodded.
I went on, “But Dr. Sculler didn’t see enough evidence, based on what he saw of the fight, to warrant the scope of damage he saw in Caesar’s brain tissue.”
“Then why had he reported that it had?”
“Caesar was a boxer. He died of a brain hemorrhage. It’s a slam-dunk case for everyone involved. The evidence is obvious. Unless—”
“Unless you look deeper,” he finished.
Interesting. That was exactly how I was going to finish the sentence. I wondered again if I was somehow opening myself up to other people. How I was doing that, I didn’t know, but I made a mental note to learn to stop it. At any rate, Russell seemed oblivious to the fact that he might have gotten a sneak peek into my thoughts. Into the mind of a vampire. Maybe his oblivion was a good thing.
“Right,” I said. “Dr. Sculler also let it be known that he was by no means an expert in boxing-related brain trauma and coul
d not, therefore, give me a true expert’s opinion.”
“So, a non-expert declared that Caesar’s death was boxing related?”
“That’s about the extent of it.”
“Man, that shit ain’t right.” He turned away, swearing under his breath. He looked back at me. “I didn’t kill him, Sam. Caesar and I were amateurs together. We practiced a few times, sparred together in the early days. That guy could take a punch. That last fight...we were only feeling each other out. I landed maybe one solid punch. One. And even that wasn’t my best shot. Caesar could take dozens of those, maybe more.”
And that was the crux. How much could one man take before his brain finally gave? How much was too much before a guy collapsed in the ring, dead?
“There’s one other thing worth pointing out,” I said. “The doctor does not dispute that Caesar suffered an injury that could cause death.”
“Just that he didn’t think I caused it in the ring.”
“Right,” I said.
“So, if I didn’t hit him hard enough to kill him...”
“Then someone else did.”
Chapter Twenty
I was on my way to L.A.
With me was a list of names provided by Russell Baker. On the list were three names: Caesar Marquez’s trainer, cut-man and manager, all three of which would have been in Caesar’s locker room prior to the fight. And prior was key here.
After all, something had happened to Caesar before the fight, something that had directly led to his death. What it was remained to be seen.
As I followed behind an endless sea of red brake lights, my cell rang for perhaps the dozenth time that day. And for the dozenth time that day, I saw that it was Kingsley Fulcrum. This time, as the phone rang, a text message appeared. Virtually simultaneously. I guess the big oaf could multi-task.
The text message read: Sam, please pick up.