“We’ll get them,” Caroline said, resisting the urge to point out that Amy had just made the same suggestion. “We filed suit three days ago. Once we get discovery responses from Oasis, we can make a run at getting bank records.”
Obtaining bank records would be hard, Caroline knew. But it was possible. Once she had Oasis’s document production, she’d look for a justification for seeking the banks’ records. She’d build her case. Brick by brick. Step by step.
“Speaking of filing suit, that Oasis service agent dude was creepy,” Amy said, wrinkling her nose.
“Creepy?” Caroline echoed.
“He looked like a vampire. Pale and stringy and tall and weird. He was a dick, too. Just yanked the complaint out of my hand and slammed his door on me.”
“Thanks for handling it,” Caroline said. No one liked being served with legal papers. Getting a door slammed was probably one of the best available outcomes for a process server.
A waiter stopped at the table, pad and pen in hand.
His businesslike expression transformed into a smile when he saw Caroline.
“Hey there, stranger. I see you brought some friends down to try the new menu.”
“Yep,” Caroline answered, even though it wasn’t true. Her reason for choosing Horus’s Egyptian Café had nothing to do with the new menu. Horus’s happened to be two miles from her apartment—the perfect distance to get a short run in on the way to meet with Amy and Hector. After the last week’s unsettled happenings, she needed to burn off some of her nervous energy.
“Can I get something for you?” the waiter asked.
Caroline quickly scanned the menu. The owner’s son harbored hopes of turning his family’s restaurant into a gastropub, but the reality was now spread out in front of her in hipster sans serif font on oversize white bond paper, and it was a little depressing. Ra fries. Bess burgers. Anubis wings. My, how the Egyptian gods had fallen.
“Just some fries,” she said. Hopefully those were still palatable.
“Sure thing,” said the waiter before heading off.
Hector took another sip of his macchiato then fixed Caroline with his gaze.
“I can’t promise anything,” he said, “but I’ll see what’s what once you send me your complete files on everything you’ve found. The process of writing an investigative piece is different for each journalist, but mine requires extensive organization and deep focus. I’ve got a system for filtering information. It’s one of the best systems there is.”
Caroline fought not to roll her eyes.
“I’ll get everything to you as soon as I get home,” she said instead.
Hector began to stand up but sank down again, tapping his pen against his pretentious Moleskine. “You know, I’d have to check our research files, but Oasis did come across my desk once before. It was the last election cycle, and I was slammed, but I did some preliminary digging.”
“But then you stopped?” Caroline asked.
Hector didn’t have to answer. The answer was obvious.
“What was the story about? Nursing homes? The homeless?”
“That’s the thing, it was going to be about unions and a fight with the developers of some city projects downtown. The union went on strike, and the scabs the developers brought in raised some hackles. But both projects came in under budget, and the developers and the officials who lobbied for the permits all came out looking like heroes.”
“Let me guess,” Caroline said, “the scabs were guys who came out of the Oasis program.”
“Correct,” said Hector. “At first I thought I had an angle there, but it turned out the city had passed a special resolution to allow nonunion workers on projects designed to aid the homeless.”
“Do you remember the name of the developer? Was it Greenleaf Development?” Caroline asked.
“Could’ve been,” Hector said. “I’d have to check my notes. When the story didn’t come together, I moved on to other things. You know how it is.”
He stood up and ran his hands down his shirt to dislodge any crumbs from his muffin.
“If I can find my notes, I’m sure I can find you some leads before Amy and I head up to Arrowhead,” he said, giving a reassuring smile.
Caroline wasn’t reassured. Her review of Hector’s clips told her that his newspaper hadn’t trusted him with any major assignments. Traffic accidents and potholes. Not exactly heavy-hitting journalism. He freelanced some features—in Sunset and Powder. But he’d never done any serious reporting. Never anything requiring real courage or grit. And even when he’d had the chance to do something interesting that took some tenacity, he’d backed down.
Now, he hurried out of the café with his laptop bag slung over his shoulder.
Watching him go, Caroline considered whether he’d be any use at all.
“I know you think he’s kind of a douche,” Amy said to Caroline when he’d gone.
“I don’t,” protested Caroline. She didn’t dislike Amy’s boyfriend. She just didn’t think there was much to him. Just a pair of expensive shoes and a fashionably untucked shirt.
The waiter returned with the french fries and a round metal tray with a single sheet of white paper positioned on it, holding twelve glistening hot wings.
“They’re on the house,” the waiter said. “Omar insists.”
“Please thank him,” Caroline said, eyeing the virulent red mound of meat. She’d avoided most of Omar’s spice experiments, but now, apparently, she was going to have to try one of them.
The waiter lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They’re kind of hot. You sure I can’t get you ladies anything from the bar?”
“Nothing for me,” Caroline said without even a glance at the bar menu.
In a show of solidarity, Amy waved the bar menu away, too. “At least you got those boring, solid Auden genes from your dad,” she offered once the waiter had left the table. “Speaking of your dad,” she continued, “I bet I know a way you could get those bank records.”
“I’m not asking my dad,” Caroline said.
“He’s handling cybersecurity for a bank client, for god’s sake,” Amy said. “Those bank records would tell us how many times Oasis has gotten money from old people.”
“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” Caroline snapped at her assistant, then regretted it. “I’m sorry,” she quickly apologized. “I just don’t want to call him.”
It wasn’t the fact that her father had left her mother that bothered Caroline. Not really. She understood the reasons he’d left—Joanne Auden’s volatile brain chemistry created a roller coaster that made living with her difficult. Caroline knew that. She didn’t fault him for deciding he’d had enough. What she faulted him for was how normal his life now seemed. She begrudged him his camping trips and barbecues. She resented his quiet nights and safety. She knew it wasn’t fair. He had every right to find happiness. But it felt sometimes as if she was standing outside a window, watching another family opening her Christmas gifts.
“Is it your stepmom?” Amy asked.
“That’s part of it.” Caroline knew Lily didn’t trust her. Perhaps she suspected her stepdaughter had something to do with her husband’s brush with the law for hacking. Or maybe she wondered why Caroline had lasted only a month at a prestigious law firm. Whatever the reason, her interactions with Caroline had been cordial at best, frosty at worst.
“Isn’t like you’d be asking your dad for money,” Amy said, misconstruing Caroline’s misgivings. “He could do this so easily. He could just run a search and send us the results.”
When Caroline didn’t bite, Amy raised a mischievous eyebrow.
“You know . . . the bank’s security isn’t impossible. I bet you could—”
“I’m not hacking a bank,” Caroline cut her off. “We’ll serve discovery on Oasis and see what happens.”
“Fine.” Amy exhaled a huff of air. She pointed with her chin toward the mound of hot wings growing cold on the metal tray in the
center of the table. “You gonna try one? Sounds like the owner’s son might be bummed if we don’t, and I’m a vegetarian, so it’s all on you.”
“Fine,” Caroline said, grabbing a hot wing.
As promised, it was hot. Blazingly, irrationally, stupidly hot.
Caroline’s eyes began to tear up.
She picked up her plastic cup of water with the palms of her hands, her stained, sticky chicken-wing fingers exposed. She drank it down in a few gasping gulps.
While Caroline bounced her knees in agony, Amy paid the check. Then she gestured for Caroline to follow her.
“Come see the new car?” Amy asked.
Without waiting for an answer, Amy continued, “Actually, you should let me give you a ride home. It’s getting dark, and you don’t look like you’re up for running anywhere.”
Unable to protest verbally, Caroline followed Amy to the parking lot.
The cars in the parking lot were mostly hybrids. Priuses and Volts and Escapes. Other than a couple of late-model luxury cars—a white Mercedes, a black BMW, and a silver Lexus—the only other vehicle in the lot was a bright-red convertible.
Caroline easily guessed which car belonged to Amy.
Red as an apple shined by an obsessive-compulsive on speed, the small convertible was much nicer than Caroline’s Mustang GT, which had recently started to smell like old socks.
“Sweet,” Caroline managed, still coughing from the hot wings.
When Caroline had settled into the passenger seat, Amy gunned the engine and headed out of the lot. She drove north on San Pedro, past the homeless encampment.
In the fading light of dusk, dark shapes moved among stained tents and tarps strung up on the sides of buildings. Caroline knew that somewhere close by in a similar encampment, Uncle Hitch was preparing for bed. Or to eat. Or maybe he was sleeping off a hangover in a doorway. Wherever he was, it was a world away from a sleek red convertible.
Coughing across her still burning throat, Caroline had an idea.
“Drop me off at Il Centro Paletería. I can just walk the rest of the way home.”
“How cute, you want a Popsicle,” Amy said.
She turned the corner onto Crocker and stopped across the street from the popular paletería.
Caroline climbed out.
“Will you be okay?” Amy asked.
Caroline nodded and smiled, because talking was painful. She’d only have to walk six blocks to get home. The canister of Mace in her pocket ensured she’d make it.
She waved as Amy sped off down the street, then she entered the shop.
It wouldn’t have surprised Caroline if she’d learned the owner of Il Centro Paletería had sold her soul to the Devil for the secret of how to transform fresh fruit into a frozen bar that tasted more like the fruit than the fruit itself. The place was addictive, as evidenced by the fact that Caroline found herself standing at the counter at least twice a week.
The proprietress was a morbidly obese woman with tired eyes but a ready smile.
“Qué le gustaría?”
“Una paleta de sandia,” Caroline answered. Same order every time.
The shop’s owner fished a watermelon paleta from the freezer, a gasp of liquid nitrogen swirling up around her thick hand as she shut the door.
Caroline attacked the paleta.
As the blaze in her throat subsided, she gave silent thanks that the paletería stayed open late and that she lived in a neighborhood of culinary riches. She had grown up in a world of prepackaged American-food blandness. Mac and cheese. Take-out pizza. Hot dogs prepared in a microwave. The intense flavors of her adopted neighborhood—Salvadoran, Oaxacan, Korean—were the antithesis and antidote to that childhood wasteland.
Caroline exited the paletería at a stroll.
Behind her, she heard the door of the shop close as the owner shut down for the day.
Even without the sun, the residual heat in the air warmed Caroline’s skin.
She decided on a route home that would take fifteen minutes. Twenty if she really lollygagged. She wanted time to think.
Hopefully her conversation with Hector had rekindled his interest in Oasis. At the very least, perhaps Amy would find his investigation notes. If Hector wasn’t going to pursue his leads, she and Amy could. Unlike Hector, tenacity wasn’t something she lacked.
Across the street, another source of light caught Caroline’s eye. A car. The dark BMW sat parked on the side of the road thirty yards ahead, its shape etched against the rough backdrop of brick buildings, its shiny black paint reflecting light like a beetle’s carapace.
There was movement in the driver’s seat as a shadow detached itself from the headrest, shifting slightly. Humanly.
A shiver skittered down Caroline’s arms.
There was someone there. In the car. Watching.
No. Caroline stopped the arc of her thoughts. This was the same irrational fear she’d experienced on the fire escape. She’d fought it then, and she needed to fight it now. And if she couldn’t, she needed to see a doctor about some meds.
Despite her efforts, her back tickled with the sensation of someone’s eyes. Someone’s attention, like electricity across the surface of her skin.
And then a quiet but insistent voice spoke to her. A whisper from the infallible part of her soul that noticed small things of great significance reminded her: she’d seen the car before.
The knowledge hit her almost immediately: the parking lot at Horus’s Egyptian Café. There had been a black BMW there, too.
Caroline’s heartbeat kept time with her quickening pace.
But then she reminded herself that the person in the car might’ve, like her, developed a hankering for Il Centro Paletería. In a city of millions, more than a few owned black BMWs. Some were bound to be brave enough to seek out the best paleta in town, never mind the time of day. Or the neighborhood.
Taking a calming breath, Caroline forced her feet to slow.
A man in a car eating a Popsicle was no cause for alarm.
But then she heard a soft mechanical growl as the BMW’s engine turned over.
She felt rather than saw the headlights sweep over her as the car began moving down the street. Slowly. Keeping pace with her.
She turned a quick corner, and then another.
Behind her, the car followed, turning each corner, remaining far enough back to avoid coming parallel with her, but pacing close enough to keep her in sight.
Caroline’s mind cast around for a refuge. A police car. An open store. Anything.
Dropping the paleta on the sidewalk, she reached into her pocket to grab the canister of pepper spray. She flipped the safety off the top. She wasn’t going down without a fight.
But then, up ahead, she heard the clang and whine of a trash truck. The sound echoed down one of the small, snaking side streets that crisscrossed the Arts District.
She hurried toward the cacophony.
Soon she saw the truck, blocking the road, its hazard lights blinking, casting amber strobes across the seedy surroundings. Groaning, the trash truck lifted a stinking dumpster up from beside a warehouse. With a reverberant crash, the dumpster reached the apex of the truck’s arm’s arc, and a cascade of foul-smelling refuse tumbled down into the open top of the truck.
Hurrying until she was beside the truck, Caroline squeezed past the warehouse’s stained metal siding. There was just enough room for her to fit, the grease of the truck smearing onto her tank top.
Once she was through, she ran. Until the trash truck moved, the BMW would not be able to follow. But that didn’t mean the driver couldn’t ditch the car and follow on foot.
Fueled by terror, she sprinted the last four blocks home.
Before entering her building, she risked a glance behind her.
No BMW. No one on foot. No sounds beyond the ambient hum of the city.
Still, she slammed the key into the lock so hard she feared she might break the tumblers.
The metal door clicked op
en.
She slid inside the entryway then pulled the door closed behind her.
CHAPTER 8
“How was it?” Amy asked from her desk. She wore a peasant blouse and jeans. The splay of red roses that had covered the office floor were now corralled into a glass vase that glittered on her desk in the morning sunlight.
Amy’s words reached Caroline as if across an alpine crevasse.
“How was what?” Caroline asked.
“My code,” Amy clarified. “Did you look at it?”
“Oh. Yeah. It was great.” Caroline dug in her purse for the ninja thumb drive.
She handed it to Amy before continuing her zombielike walk to her office.
She could feel Amy’s gaze on her back. She imagined the wrinkle forming between Amy’s eyebrows, deepening with concern that the assistant had done something to anger her boss.
But it couldn’t be helped. Not now.
Sitting down in her chair, Caroline closed her eyes. She allowed the hum of the traffic outside to calm her. Even the stir of activity in the suites next door registered as comforting, like cavemen rustling in a shared cave, telling her she was safe now. In her own domain.
She’d stayed up late the night before. Again and again, she’d run through the cascade of events that had caused her to run from the BMW. And still, she couldn’t decide if her terror had been warranted or if she’d been running from another imagined ghost.
She’d tried to relax with meditation exercises and worry beads. And when that had failed, she’d turned to research. She’d poured her restlessness into her laptop until morning light had tinged the sky.
Unfortunately, the anemic leads she’d followed for hours and hours had resolved nothing. Reputable organizations like the Red Cross regularly trained caregivers to work at nursing homes or home-care agencies. Other good charities used homeless people and ex–gang member labor to build public-private projects. None of these other charities had any blight of scandal. All served the public good.
After a full night of research, Caroline still didn’t know what was real. She was just tired. Really damn tired.
At the tap on her office door, Caroline opened her eyes.
Proof (Caroline Auden Book 2) Page 9