Lost and Found

by Allison Brennan

  “No, I have to get back to work,” she said.

  Sherry walked in from the kitchen. “Of course you’re staying the night,” she said. “It’s a five-hour drive back to Newport Beach. We have plenty of room.”

  Scarlet didn’t want to stay under the same roof as Gabe… not knowing what she knew. Yet… Sherry and kids were practically family. It had been more than three years since she’d seen them, but it might as well have been yesterday. She hadn’t realized she’d missed them—not specifically Sherry and Abby, but the sense of family. She loved her dad and brother, but being raised with two guys after her mother walked out when she was eight wasn’t the same thing.

  “If you don’t think Gabe would mind…”

  Sherry laughed again, as was her way, but there wasn’t as much humor. She glanced at Scarlet out of the corner of her eye, a bit confused. Did she suspect something? Scarlet was usually a pretty good actress when she needed to be. But the emotions surrounding this case had her guts inside out.

  “You’re staying,” Sherry said. “It’s settled.”

  “Daddy! Look who’s here!”

  Scarlet heard Abby’s voice at the same time she caught an odd expression on Sherry’s face.

  Slowly, Scarlet pivoted on the stool and saw Gabe walking in through the side door. He wasn’t looking at anyone else, just her.

  And she saw the truth in his eyes.

  Guilt.

  Remorse.

  Fear.

  Sherry stepped forward, drying her hands on a dishtowel, astute enough to know there was something else going on between Gabe and Scarlet. “Gabe, Scarlet and I had a wonderful afternoon. We went to that pub you like, had burgers. I’m still stuffed, but Lizzy has rehearsal, so I made stew in the crock pot.”

  Of course there was something bizarre. Scarlet hadn’t called, visited, emailed in three and a half years. The only contact was a birthday card and present she’d sent to Abby every July. She probably should have sent presents to Joey and Lizzy as well, but she felt a kinship with the youngest Stone. Maybe that was why it took her this long to believe Abby’s father—the man who cried at his daughter’s birth—could have set Scarlet up.

  Gabe walked over and kissed Sherry on the cheek. Then he nodded to Scarlet. “Good to see you.”

  Well don’t sound so enthusiastic.

  “I was in town,” she said. God, that sounded lame. He knew damn well why she was here. “I don’t want to impose any more than I have. If I can just have a few minutes, I’ll be off.”

  “No,” Sherry said, almost barking out the command. “I invited you to stay the night, and you will.” She looked at Gabe, eyebrows raised, as if daring him to contradict her.

  “Of course,” Gabe said, his voice quiet. “Please, stay.”

  “I—” She began. Then stopped. Gabe was scared more than anything. She might have just put a target on his family. But no one knew she was here. No one except Krista and R.J.

  Gabe walked over and hugged her. He whispered in her ear, “You should have called me first.” He stepped back. “I’m going to get changed, then let’s sit out back with a couple of beers. Catch up.”

  Scarlet nodded, but couldn’t force herself to smile. Sherry watched as Gabe left, then said, “Scarlet, as I implied over lunch, Gabe had a hard time after you were shot. Guilt, even unjustified, isn’t easy to shake.”

  Scarlet almost snapped. What about justified guilt? Did you know that Gabe lied about sending me to that warehouse?

  “It’s okay, Sherry.”

  “Rudeness is never okay. I’m serious. You are staying here tonight, no excuses. I’m going to pack up dinner for the kids. Joey is going out with friends. I’ll take Abby with me to Lizzy’s play rehearsal.”

  “No, Mom!” Abby protested. “I want to stay and talk to Scarlet. She was just about to tell me about Adam Brock, you know, the actor? She met him!”

  “It’s not up for discussion,” Sherry said. “Scarlet will be here when we get back.”

  “Mooommmm,” Abby said.

  She glanced at Scarlet as if she doubted her mom’s words, and Scarlet said, “I won’t leave before you get back, I promise.”

  Abby scrunched her nose and stomped down the hall. Lizzy ran into the room, changed from school. “Mom, we have to pick up Diana.”

  “Grab another Tupperware. I’m sure her mom is still at work and Diana probably filled up on junk.”

  Joey walked in, car keys jingling in his hand. “I won’t be late, Mom.” He kissed her cheek. “See ya, Scarlet.” And he was gone.

  “I really came at the wrong time,” Scarlet said. “You’re busy.”

  “Nonsense—it’s like this every day. Now, the fall was truly busy with Lizzy playing volleyball and Abby playing soccer and Gabe coaching football. Now? A breeze.” She finished stacking small Tupperware filled with stew into a large, sturdy, insulated bag with big black-and-white flowers. She expertly sliced up an entire loaf of French bread, slid it into a large Ziploc bag, and put it on top. Then added spoons and napkins.

  “Abby!” Sherry called down the hall.

  “We’re going to be late, Mom,” Lizzy said. “You should let me just drive myself.”

  “Then you wouldn’t be able to pick up Diana, would you?” Sherry said. “And you know how I feel about you driving at night. You just got your license last month.”

  Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Abby!” she practically screamed.

  Abby was already walking down the hall, her backpack over her shoulder, a frown on her lips. “It’s not fair. I hate sitting around for hours and hours doing nothing.”

  “Get in the car,” Sherry said, ignoring the comment. She hugged Scarlet. “I put fresh sheets on the day bed in the den. There are towels as well. The hall bathroom is right next to the den; relax, take a shower, talk to Gabe. Work things out.” She squeezed her arms. “We’ll be back by nine.”

  Thirty seconds later, they were gone. Silence filled the house. For a split second, Scarlet wondered if Gabe had fled out the back. She seriously considered leaving. What had she hoped to accomplish? Did she actually think Gabe would tell her the truth?

  She heard a faint sound in the hall, turned and saw Gabe standing at the far end, looking all the way down to where she stood in the center of the family room. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized Gabe could kill her if he wanted. Tell Sherry that she’d left—make up any reason he wanted. They were in the middle of the desert; there must be a hundred places to dump her body where it would never be found. Scavengers—scorpions, snakes, coyotes, vultures—eating her rotting flesh, scattering her bones. By the time anyone found her remains, no one would care about the ambush three and a half years ago.

  And the Vartarians would win.

  Gabe walked toward her, not taking his eyes from hers. She resisted the urge to reach for her gun holstered in the small of her back. She’d been a cop for twelve years, after all—she’d been to the range monthly while a cop, and weekly since she quit. She knew the drill. She knew how to read the suspect. When they were scared or a threat; when they were bluffing or serious.

  Which was why the ambush had taken her by surprise. She hadn’t seen the shooter. Hadn’t realized there were two shooters until she’d been shot twice, from two different directions. She needed answers, and Gabe had them. If she was going to truly put the past behind her, she needed to find the truth.

  Or die searching for it.

  Gabe was ten feet away before he said a word. “Fuck the beer.” He walked across the family room to a bar in the corner and pulled a bottle Jack Daniels from the cabinet. He grabbed two glasses and opened the sliding glass door to the back patio.

  Scarlet hesitated only a moment before following him out.

  It was after five-thirty, and the sun had already dipped below the horizon. The result was a breathtaking display of color beyond the infinity pool. There were no houses behind Gabe—they were farther down the hillside—so the sunset was unobstructed.

  Du
ring the entire five-hour drive to Peoria—when Scarlet wasn’t thinking about Alex and his secrets—she’d considered how she would approach Gabe. She’d gone through a variety of scenarios, from lying to subtle interrogation to slapping him. Now, she was at a loss for words. So she followed Gabe to a glass patio table and sat across from him, facing the setting sun, and accepted the double shot of Jack that he poured. But she didn’t drink. She watched as he downed his glass, his eyes watering, whether from the alcohol or the fact his life had changed the minute he laid eyes on her.

  No. His life changed the minute he agreed to make the call that sent her to the warehouse.

  “Why?” she asked, her voice cracking. She swallowed and coughed, then sipped her own drink. It burned going down and she wished she’d taken a beer from the fridge. She sipped again.

  “What do you think you know?”

  She slammed her glass down on the table. Whiskey sloshed over the sides. “No lies. No fucking games. You made that call to me three and a half years ago. You, Gabe. I trusted you. Then you lied about it to I.A. and for too long I believed I was either half-crazy or hearing things or someone I knew well—who could make their voice sound like you—had pretended to be you. I never wanted to believe that you’d do anything like that—to anyone, let alone me.” She took a deep breath. “I thought I could put it behind me, and I did for years, but I started putting together pieces of the puzzle and realized that what happened to me was just one small part of a bigger whole. So I dug around, bribed who I had to, begged, pleaded, threatened—anything I needed to do to get the truth.”

  “Scarlet—””

  She cut him off. “Last September, Jason Jones—a cop—was framed by Tony Mercer for murder. A bunch of shit happened, but what really matter was in the end, Craig Franklin was arrested as part of Mercer’s conspiracy.”

  Gabe’s face fell. He didn’t look at her; maybe he couldn’t look at her. She continued, emboldened. “Franklin didn’t say one word, but I dug around and learned that he’d been your partner when we were split up. If I knew at the time, I didn’t realize it, but now? It’s clear. I know how Mercer and his people operate—they get dirt on cops. The good cops they blackmail or threaten. The bad cops they turn to work for them. Why did you send me to that warehouse, Gabe? What did they have on you?“

  Gabe didn’t say anything for a minute. He stared out at the disappearing sun, then poured himself another double.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s too late for sorry.” The simmering anger she’d felt for years reached the boiling point. “Why was I targeted? Why did someone try to kill me? Why did you set me up? Were you a part of it? Did they threaten your family? Or maybe you just didn’t like me enough to give me a fucking warning that I was going to be shot in the back!”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “I said no lies!”

  He stopped. “I didn’t want to know,” he whispered. “I decided to believe what they said—that they were going to scare you into silence.”

  “I don’t scare easily and you damn well know that.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “For three and a half years, I’ve gone over everything in my files and in my head,” Scarlet said. “I had no big cases that month. You and I had wrapped everything up before they reassigned us to the pair of rookies. Still, I looked at all my cases with you and everyone else I partnered with over the previous year, and nothing jumped out at me. So I figured someone thought I knew something or saw something and tried to kill me. It’s what happened to Officer Gina Perez. She was killed because she found out her boss, Tony Mercer, was corrupt when she learned that Diana Vartarian’s brother-in-law was beating up underage hookers. Right before that, she and her partner—my lifelong friend, Jason Jones—were split up and assigned to train rookies. Just like you and me. But unlike you, Jason didn’t know what was going on.” She paused, breathing hard. Gabe still refused to look at her. Bastard.

  “I’m going to take these people down,” she said.

  “You can’t. They’re everywhere. You’ll be dead before you can do anything.”

  “Don’t underestimate me.”

  “Scarlet—” Now he looked at her, his eyes moist. “I made a mistake.”

  “I nearly died but you made a mistake?” She got up because she couldn’t sit anymore.

  “Do you remember when you went to the National Academy for six weeks?”

  It took her a minute to change focus. “That was years ago.”

  “Do you know who I was assigned while you were gone?”

  She had never asked. She assumed someone in the detective pool.

  “Rick Sykes.”

  Her stomach tensed. “He’s in jail. He and his partner nearly killed a witness Krista was hired to find last September.”

  “I heard.”

  Gabe sipped, put his glass down. Stared at the darkening sky. She wanted to hit him. Scream. But she didn’t feel sorry for him. Did that make her cold? Maybe. But this man—her mentor, her friend—had betrayed her.

  “It took me years to realize what Sykes did—I mean, I screwed up—but he set it up. A test, maybe, and I failed. We had a call, couple of punks spraying graffiti at the Metro station. It was late. We were doing a double shift because half the force was out with the flu. Tired, thinking I was coming down with that damn bug as well. Graffiti call should have been easy, either they run and we save the taxpayers clean-up money, or we grab them and spend the last hour or two of our shift processing them.

  “They ran, but one tripped, fell, we grabbed him. He had a wad of cash on him. Sykes grabs it and the graffiti cans, tells the kid to beat it.”

  “He ripped-off some punk? And you didn’t say anything. What’s that, Gabe, a slap on the wrist?”

  “It was six thousand bucks. Sykes gave me half. I shouldn’t have—but, hell, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Suspended, thirty days. Ding on your record.” There was more. There had to be.

  “Three days later, that kid ended up dead. Narcotics had the case—executed by his drug dealer for losing the profits of the night. Used as an example.” Gabe downed his Jack. “The kid was sixteen.”

  “Sykes played on your guilt… used it… and then again you made the wrong decision.” She shook her head. “You trained me. Never in my life would I have thought you, of all people, would skim from a perp. That even if you did, that you would allow your own mistake to take down your partner. Because that’s what I thought we were, Gabe—partners. Friends.”

  “I’m sorry. The money, the cover-up, the fact that Sykes framed another cop for skimming… I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t know then that Sykes was part of a bigger problem. He never asked me to do anything. I thought it was forgotten. Then he came to me. The day before we were assigned the rookies. Told me to do what I was told or he’d destroy me. Even then… it wasn’t until Franklin told me to call you, off channel, and send you to that warehouse.”

  “And I can thank a rookie for getting the evidence on you. You know how all vehicle stops are recorded? Well my new partner flipped the recorder on. It wasn’t on purpose—I was teaching her about the new system. The dash camera was archived. No one thought to pull it because we hadn’t made a traffic stop. I finally got it. I didn’t even know they kept archives this long, but a dispatcher owed me a favor, and I have a great computer guy who was able to enhance the audio.”

  She took out her phone, played the call she’d listened to ad nauseam once she’d found it.

  “Scar, it’s me. How’s the rookie?”

  “Green. Yours?”

  “Putrid.” He laughed.

  In retrospect his laugh was forced, nervous, or maybe that was just the tinny recording.

  “What’s up?”

  “Can you check out a warehouse in Van Nuys for me? A favor for a friend in Vice, and I’m stuck down in Westwood. Just scope it out, see who’s hanging around.”

  “Sure, what’s the address?”
/>   And he’d given it to her. She’d written it down on her hand, told Krista to head over to the place because they’d just finished a call and had the time. Routine. Casual. Favor for a friend. She called in their dinner break. Didn’t call in the unauthorized stop.

  Favor for a friend. We do it all the time.

  “You turned on me to keep yourself out of trouble,” she said.

  “It was bad, Scarlet. That three thousand dollars snowballed into a disaster. I could have lost everything. My pension. My marriage. My kids—I just had to make the call, then deny ever making it. I didn’t know they planned to kill you. I thought—I really thought they wanted to scare you. When I heard you were shot—in surgery—” His voice caught. “I couldn’t live with myself. That’s why I quit, that’s why I moved here.”

  “So I know why you were a prick, but I still don’t know why they wanted me dead.” She faced him. It was nearly dark, but she could still see his expression. She didn’t want to see the pain or the guilt. He didn’t deserve to feel bad. Her life had been turned upside down and inside out and he lived in this half-million-dollar house on a hill with a pool and four bedrooms and a wife and kids who loved him.

  “I don’t know why.”

  “Don’t lie to me!”

  “I don’t know the specifics. I—really, Scarlet, you don’t want to do this.”

  “Tell me everyone you know. Tell me right now or I tell Sherry everything. I will play her that recording so she can hear you sending me to my own execution!”

  “No.” Anguish cut through his voice. “Please.”

  “You’re a bastard.” Scarlet poured herself another drink. “Why didn’t they kill you? You cut your losses and ran… I’ve been learning a lot about these people—Tony Mercer, Franklin—they don’t let people walk away.”

  “They had something on me, I had something on them.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t—my family, Scarlet.”

  “Tell me!”

  “I don’t care about me, but you can’t expect me to risk Sherry and the kids!”

  “Send them away. I’m going to take these people down.” She paused. She didn’t want anything to happen to his family, but the pain inside—that he was willing to sacrifice her to protect himself and the ones he loved—cut her deep.