The elevator came to a halt on the sixth floor and the doors opened, but the young man hesitated to get off. Peyton narrowed her eyes on him, trying to intimidate him. He blinked in surprise, then exited, the elevator door shutting behind him.
“It’s worth a look,” said Jake.
The elevator accelerated, then came to a halt at the next floor. Stepping out, they came to the glass door and waited for a blond nurse to buzz them inside.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for the D’Angelo family.”
She checked the monitor in front of her. “Only family members are allowed in the ICU, but you can go to the waiting room down the hall and I’ll let them know you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I show you where it is?”
“I know, but thank you,” said Peyton. She motioned Jake to follow her and headed down the hall where she’d been that morning.
Marco was sitting on the opposite side of the room across from the television and to Peyton’s surprise, Abe was sitting beside him. The television was off and they were the only ones there. Marco looked up as she entered. When he started to rise, she motioned him back down, taking a seat on his other side.
Reaching over, she took his hand. “Any news?”
“He’s out of surgery and in recovery.”
“Is that where everyone is?”
“Yeah. They limit the number of people who can go in.”
“Have you heard how Billy Miller is?”
“Same.”
Peyton tightened her hold on his hand. She really didn’t want to give him the information she had. Jake took a seat in the chair beneath the television, giving Abe a nod of greeting.
Marco shifted toward her. “Don’t stall, Brooks. Tell me what you found out. Did you get the police report?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“The cop estimates he was going about sixty. He came down 30th and was trying to turn right on Balboa when he lost control, crashing into the trees on the corner.”
Marco closed his eyes briefly. “Did you see the car?” He looked up at Jake.
Jake nodded.
“And?”
Peyton and Jake exchanged a look.
“Peyton, please. Whatever it is, tell me.”
Peyton exhaled. “Okay. Here’s everything.” She told him about the car, the white paint, the two skid marks, and the camera.
He listened without expression, then he tightened his hold on her hand. “Was he drinking, Peyton?”
Funny how she hated when he called her by her first name. He only did it when he was mad at her, or when something was wrong. The worst time was six months ago when he had a gun pointed at the back of his head and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
“He was below the legal limit.”
“There’s no legal limit for minors.”
“I know.”
Marco stared at her without speaking for a long time. She found it hard to meet the probe of his blue eyes. Then he released her and rose to his feet, stalking out the door. Peyton started to go after him, but Abe placed a hand on her arm.
“Let me,” he said.
Peyton watched him follow Marco outside, then she got up and eased to the door, peering out. Marco stood in front of the windows, his hands braced on the window sill. Abe leaned on the sill beside him.
“He’s going to need a lawyer, Angel’D.”
“I know.”
“I’ll bet Devan knows someone.”
“My brother and sister-in-law won’t be able to afford anyone Devan knows.”
Abe reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a check. He held it out to Marco. “Here.”
“What’s that?”
“A check.”
“I know it’s a check.”
“I wrote it out when I heard what happened.”
Marco faced him. “I’m not taking your money, Abe.”
Abe reached for his hand and pressed the check into it. “I make more money than I need cutting up dead bodies that died by other people’s hands. Let me do something good with that money, okay?”
Marco looked at the amount. “I can’t accept this.”
“You can and you will because your nephew needs a lawyer. In this, there is no pride. Take the money for Antonio and don’t argue with me.”
Marco’s fingers tightened around the check. “I don’t know what to say. I’ll find some way to repay you, Abe, I promise.”
Abe laughed. “Are you kidding me? Looking at your pretty face all these years is payment enough.”
Marco gave him a faint smile. “Thank you.”
Abe cupped a long fingered hand against his cheek and kissed the other one. “Anything for you, Angel.” Then he released him and went to Peyton, throwing his arms around her. “Take care of him,” he whispered in her ear. “And call me if you need me.”
She hugged him back. “Thank you.”
He kissed her as well and then waved to Jake as he took his long legs down the hallway and around the corner.
Peyton walked over to Marco and slipped her arm through his, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten anything all day.”
He laughed, folding the check and putting it in his pocket. “No.”
“Let’s find the cafeteria and get something, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Just let me give Jake my keys, so he can go home and take care of Pickles.”
When Marco nodded, she walked back into the waiting room, trying to shake off her own weariness. No matter how tired she was, she wasn’t leaving him sitting in that room by himself.
CHAPTER 11
He only had ten lines, then he would be blown away with a machine gun and he could leave. Ten lines. One of them was “I did it for love.” Cheesy as hell, just like this movie.
And yet, he couldn’t remember them. He couldn’t remember a single one. The director was getting pissed and he was one scary bastard. Whenever Joshua flubbed a line, he threw his hands in the air and shouted that he was a retard. The casting director would remind him that Joshua wasn’t there to act, but to provide the eye candy. Joshua didn’t know which term he found more insulting.
The lines should be so easy, but they made him begin shooting at 6:00AM and he played with Blazes until after midnight. The pills were clouding his concentration. The blue pills helped him get here at dawn, and the white pills let him catch a few hours of sleep. He was in a loop and he knew it, but no one seemed to give a damn. Phil had promised him a break around Christmas. Joshua had intended to get off the pills then, but this movie had come up ruining that plan. While James and Evan were home with their families, Joshua was here, shooting this crappy assed cop thriller.
Eva Sterling, the B-grade actress who was the star, came over to where he sat and grabbed the script from his hands. She tossed it on the table before him and then put her hand on his knee, stopping the bouncing of his leg. He stared at her hand. He hadn’t even been aware he was twitching until she touched him.
“You know how I learn lines?” she purred, her hand tightening as she sat down on the couch beside him.
Joshua looked up at her. She was beautiful, dark hair, hour-glass figure, but lines fanned out from her eyes. He knew she was at least twenty years older than he was. “How?”
“I get someone to run them with me. If you can picture it, it sticks in your mind better.”
Joshua didn’t think that was going to help. None of this movie was hard for him to picture, it was that stupid. His problem was the pills. “Thanks for the advice. I’m just not an actor.”
She smiled and her smile made her seem youthful. “It seems to me that when you’re in a movie, you have to pretend to be an actor and darlin’, you’re not pretending very well.”
He looked down at the script. She had a point.
She reached out and took his hand. “Come on. I can help.”
He let her pull him up
, then she grabbed the script off the table, tugging him after her. “Where are we going?”
“To study.”
The director turned as she moved across the sound stage behind him. “Eva?”
“We’re going to study,” she called theatrically.
A bunch of snickers followed in their wake.
Eva led him to her trailer. He hadn’t been given a trailer. He got a chair in make-up and that was it. She tossed the script on the couch and went to the little kitchenette, opening a cabinet overhead. She pulled down a bottle of scotch and two glasses.
“You need to relax. Let’s have a drink first.”
Joshua shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He was trying hard not to combine the pills with booze. He didn’t really want to wind up dead. That would kill his mother.
“Okay.” She poured herself a drink and sipped at it delicately as she studied him. “Why did you agree to this? You obviously hate it.”
“My manager said it would help the band.”
“I see.”
He looked around the trailer. It had seen better days. The fabric on the couch was circa-1960 and the paneling looked worse. Who the hell was going to see a movie this low budget?
“So, what are you taking?”
He glanced back at her. “What?”
“Drugs, darlin’. You’re obviously on something.” She looked pointedly at his leg.
“It’s like caffeine.”
She laughed. “Right. How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen. God, I hardly remember eighteen.” She set the drink on the counter and walked into the back. Joshua peered after her, trying to see where she went. She turned into a little room and opened a glass cabinet. The bathroom. Taking something from the cabinet, she walked back to him, holding up a bottle. “This is better than whatever you’re taking. I promise you, it’ll get rid of the shakes.”
He studied the bottle. Oxycodone. What the hell did that do?
She opened the cap and shook one into her hand. “Be careful with these, though. Only one at a time, darlin’.”
“What does it do?”
“It relaxes you.”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t need to relax. I need to stay awake.”
She placed the pill in his hand. “You need to relax. That’s why you can’t remember your lines. Just try it.” She reached back and grabbed the scotch, holding it out to him.
He stared at the oblong white pill. God, he wasn’t stupid. This was another step down the ladder and he knew it, but he had to get through this damn movie somehow. Lifting his hand, he tossed the pill into his mouth and reached for the scotch. It burned as it went down and he coughed, closing his eyes.
She took the glass from him and set it on the counter behind her. “You know what else helps a person to relax?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “What?”
The smile she gave him should have been another warning, but he ignored it as she reached for the buttons on his shirt.
* * *
Tuesday dawned bright and beautiful, spring in full regalia in San Francisco, but Peyton wasn’t enjoying it. She made it to the precinct on time after downing two cups of coffee before she left the house. Jake was already gone, said he wanted to get the pictures of the crash scene processed, then he wanted to take the tire treads to Forensics himself and see how they went about matching them up. She’d hung back a little to walk Pickles. The poor Yorkie was feeling abandoned.
She’d spent Monday at the hospital with the D’Angelos. Antonio slept most of the time, recovering from his surgery. He was in so much pain, he couldn’t talk with anyone. Late in the day, she and Marco had tried to see Billy Miller, but his parents refused a visit. The father, a tall handsome man with dark skin and weary eyes, had informed them he’d gotten a lawyer. Poor Marco looked so stunned, Peyton had led him away by the hand.
Jake was right. She was beginning to hate hospitals. They made you feel so helpless and useless. There was nothing you could do while you watched a loved one fight for his life. Jake thought they were an alternate reality because time just seemed to pass that much slower in a hospital than in the real world.
She took her seat at her desk and turned on the computer. Marco wasn’t coming in today, but she needed to get back on the Ravensong case. Devan was not going to be put off much longer. On Sunday night while she and Marco grabbed something in the cafeteria, she stepped outside and placed a call to the security guard at the condo building on Russian Hill. He led her to the elevator company. A few strings pulled and she got someone who agreed to get her a copy of the video from the day Terry died. It was the only thing that had worked out during this entire case.
Lifting her hand, she rubbed her eyes. She’d been staring at the computer screen for five minutes and realized she couldn’t remember her log-in. Last night Marco had made her leave about eight o’clock, but even then her sleep had been filled with dreams of cameras following her everywhere she went. The world was filled with cameras, recording every intimate detail of people’s lives, but right now, when she needed them, she didn’t have access.
Pushing away from the desk, she rose to her feet and walked to the break-room. Pulling open the refrigerator, she found half of a chocolate cake from someone’s birthday on Friday or Thursday, she couldn’t remember. Oh, shit, it had been Thursday, the last day Marco was here, for his birthday.
She pulled it out and carried it to the counter. It was probably stale, but she didn’t care. She opened the top of the box and grabbed a plate out of the cabinet, then she cut off a slice. She made sure to get one of the yellow roses decorating the edge. Carrying her cake to the coffee machine, she poured herself a mug, then automatically reached for the sugar. She hesitated a moment, studying the cake, then she dumped a tablespoon into the steaming liquid and stirred it. There, that was moderation.
Carrying both back to the table, she took a seat and reached for a plastic fork they kept in a Styrofoam coffee cup in the center of the table. Digging into the cake, she placed a huge bite in her mouth. The outside was a bit stale, but the inside was still moist, flooding her taste buds with chocolate bliss.
She’d wolfed down about half of it when Maria appeared in the doorway. Peyton stopped with a bite nearly in her mouth and lowered it. Reaching for a napkin, she wiped stray crumbs off her lips and sat back, picking up her mug and taking a sip. Bitter warred with sweet in her mouth and she grimaced.
Maria came forward and took a seat across from her, sliding an envelope over the table. Peyton lifted it and gave Maria a questioning look.
“From the elevator company,” she said.
Peyton laid the envelope on the table and flattened her hand on it. For some reason, now that she had it, she felt sick to her stomach. She pushed the cake away.
Maria followed her motion with her eyes. “How’s Marco?”
Peyton almost wished she’d make some comment about her getting fat, or her hair – her hair was always a target for Maria. “He’s…Marco. Tough Italian not willing to show his feelings, but he’s hurting inside.”
“Will his nephew be all right?”
“He’ll live, but his leg was mangled pretty bad. A football scholarship is out of the question now. He doesn’t remember what happened and they’ve been too afraid to tell him about his friend.”
“How is the friend?”
“Still in a medically induced coma. They performed an emergency operation on him when he got to the hospital to take pressure off his spine, but they don’t think he’ll ever walk again.”
“When I was in high school, some kids went to a party out in the Sunset.”
Peyton nodded.
“They were drinking, you know, and the cops broke it up. They ran out the back door. Four of them got in this car, Mustang or something big. Drove it right into the median on Highway 1. All four died.” Maria met Peyton’s eyes. “I was supposed to go with them, but my mama wouldn�
��t let me.” She gave a little laugh. “I hated her for that.”
Peyton pushed the fork against the cake, flaking off some crumbs. “We do stupid shit as teenagers, don’t we?”
“Yeah. I always thought about the kid who threw the party. I didn’t really know him, but I always wondered if he’s walking around carrying the guilt all these years.”
Peyton drove the fork into the center of the yellow flower. She’d thought about that a lot over the weekend – how would Tonio accept the guilt for crippling his friend?
“I was thinking we might start a fund or something for the two families? Do you know how we do that?”
Peyton looked up at her. This was probably the most she and Maria had ever talked. “Jake will know. He worked in a bank. Ask him.”
Maria nodded. “I’ll do that.”
“I think that would be really helpful, Maria.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t put lives back together, but it might help.”
“Yeah.”
Maria pointed to the envelope. “You afraid to look at that?”
Peyton sighed. “How’d you guess?”
“Because I’d be. What if he’s holding the murder weapon?”
“Exactly.”
“It’s hard to think of him as a murderer, isn’t it? He’s like the first love I ever had.”
“Tell me about it, sister.” And Maria hadn’t spent the night with him, trying to get him through withdrawal.
“Glad that’s your job, not mine.” She pushed herself to her feet, leaning over the table. “By the way, that one rose…” She pointed to the yellow bit of frosting. “…has about a million calories.”
“A million?”
“Yep, and it’s all made out of lard.” Maria tilted her head and a mischievous light twinkled in her eye. “But go ahead and scarf it down. When your ass is as big as a hippo’s, I’ll have something besides your hair to make fun of.”
And there it was. Peyton smiled, leaning back in her chair. “So you do watch my ass when I walk by, eh, Maria? I thought so.”
Maria’s lips tightened in frustration, then she turned away from the table. “Tell Marco Baby I send my love,” she called over her shoulder as she walked out the door.
Murder on Russian Hill (Peyton Brooks' Series Book 3) Page 18