by Robin Spano
“I wouldn’t expect you to share an understanding of classical music.”
“Hey, no disrespect, Norris, but Chopper and I pay you to protect us from prison. This ten grand is yours to pay.”
“You pay me not to arrest your asses.”
Richie liked that line. He wished he was recording this conversation.
“I’ll talk to Chopper,” Richie said, keeping his voice even despite the rage that was beginning to boil just below the surface. “If nothing else, maybe he can better explain to you how our arrangement is supposed to work.”
“Don’t forget which one of us will look better in court. Me in my tailored suit, you in lovely orange coveralls . . .” Norris tossed this out with a smile, but you couldn’t say a thing like that without meaning it at least a little.
“Come on, man. You’re threatening me?”
“Of course not. No disrespect, Richie. I’m just reminding you how things lie.”
Richie was tempted to put Norris in his place, but the cop worked better if he thought he was the man in control.
FIFTEEN
MARTHA
The heavy apartment door opened to reveal a tall blond in gray yoga pants that she must have had painted onto her legs. Daisy’s pregnancy was early — barely past the three-month safety mark — so she didn’t have much of a bump. If anything, her body only looked more luscious.
“Can you nurse from silicone?” Martha said. “Or will you have to use formula?”
Daisy frowned. “Are you meeting Fraser for something? I thought he was at work.”
“He probably is.” Martha pushed past Daisy and left the younger woman standing with one hand on the door. “I’ve just left him in the financial district.”
Daisy remained in the doorway. She nodded to the two Secret Service men in the hallway. “Are they coming in?”
“No,” Martha said. “I’ve told them it’s not necessary. You’re not planning to kill me, correct?”
After Martha stood staring at her for a long moment, Daisy shut the door slowly and asked, “Did you, um, want a cup of tea?”
“Coffee would be better.”
“Oh. Well. Fraser drinks the coffee. I’m not even sure how to work the machine. But I’ve just boiled the kettle.”
Martha stared. No wonder things hadn’t worked between her and Fraser. Clearly he’d been lusting after geniuses the whole time. “I can work the coffee machine.”
Daisy’s top lip curved slightly over her bottom one. She looked like she was trying to find an alternative to inviting Martha into her kitchen. After a few seconds, when apparently no inspired solution came to her, Daisy pushed through the swinging kitchen door. Martha followed.
“You must be gutted.” Daisy pulled grounds down from a high shelf. Martha would have needed a stool. “About Sacha and everything.”
“Yes. Fraser mentioned you were psychoanalyzing my grief.”
“Um. I know I’m supposed to be an expert in psychology by now. And I have learned a lot of stuff — like did you know that our minds and our bodies are connected? For example, if you get the flu, it’s probably because you’re stressed, not because you’ve been around a virus?”
Martha wondered how Ebola patients would respond to this sage observation.
“But — and please don’t tell Fraser; he’s spent a fortune on these courses — I feel like the lessons never prepared me for Sacha’s death. The stuff in the textbooks is too simple for all the complicated emotions floating around right now.”
“That’s the most intelligent thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“It is?” Daisy brightened, turned to face Martha, and frowned again. “Oh, you mean because you think I’m really dumb.”
Martha slid the filter drawer out from the side of Fraser’s coffee maker. It was a funny machine — it had taken Martha awhile to figure out, the first time she’d used it.
“I meant to ask, how long are you staying?”
“Is that what you asked Sacha? How long she planned to stay? In Fraser’s life, that is.”
“Oh.” Daisy took a seat at the round wooden table that Martha had found at a Connecticut craft fair. “You want to have this conversation.”
“I didn’t come to learn about the human brain.”
Daisy twirled curly blond hair around her finger. “Sacha would have been welcome in our home anytime as a guest. She could have kept her key.”
“Oh good. A tiny metal key would compensate for taking away Sacha’s sense of belonging.”
“I didn’t drive Sacha to suicide. You can’t make this my fault.” Daisy pulled a sparkle-covered phone from her pocket and glanced at it. “I have to meet a friend in SoHo. And I need to change clothes — I’m not pregnant enough that I can get away with bad fashion. So, um . . . I guess I’ll see you out?”
Martha started the coffee machine and sat at the round table with Daisy. “You might want to cancel with your friend.”
“You can’t tell me to cancel my social life. You’re not senator of this apartment.”
“Sure I am. This apartment is in New York, no?”
Daisy’s shoulders fell. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you’re the only person I know who visited Sacha in Whistler, who saw firsthand what her life was like leading up to . . .” Martha felt her words begin to falter. Stupidly, she felt closer to tears in this horrible kitchen than she had in the past eleven days. But she steeled herself. “Leading up to her death.”
Daisy reached a hand toward Martha and touched her arm. “I guess that’s a fair question. You want to piece together why she killed herself. But it had nothing to do with family. Sacha’s life in Whistler was complicated.”
“Sacha did not kill herself.” Martha lifted Daisy’s hand from her arm and placed it gently on the table. “But how was her life complicated?”
“I don’t want to betray her friends’ confidence.”
Martha inhaled deeply so she didn’t strangle Daisy. She could not understand the bond between her intelligent daughter and this trivial piece of fluff — and she didn’t want to admit that she cared. “These friends could be involved in her death. I would expect your loyalty to be with Sacha rather than with some Canadian snowboarding slackers.”
Daisy pushed her chest out even further than she normally did. “No wonder Sacha never shared private details of her life with you. All you do is criticize.”
Martha felt her cheeks tighten, maybe because her teeth were clenched inside them. “I want you to pretend for five seconds that you have one intelligent brain cell. Okay? Are you imagining that? I want you to use that one cell to analyze this situation: your stepdaughter is dead. You have information that might shed light onto why. Do you (a) use that information to help find her killer or do you (b) withhold the information to protect the identity of some degenerate ski bums?”
“For someone who wants information, you’re sure not asking very nicely.” Daisy leaned back in her chair and stuck out her chin. “I think I’m going to ask you to leave.”
Ugh. Martha was tired and the coffee was starting to smell good. “Forgive me. I know I should be nicer. This is not a normal week for me.”
“Yeah, but you’re not normally nice to me, either.” Daisy rested her hands on her tiny belly.
“Look, you’re right — I’ve never fully forgiven you for your affair with Fraser while he was married to me.”
“But you’ve forgiven Fraser.” Sharper than she looked, this one.
“We have a child together.”
“You don’t, though. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Look, Daisy, this isn’t about you and me. It’s about what we can both do for Sacha.”
“Sacha’s dead. We can’t do anything for her.”
The coffee machine was gurgling to say it was nearly ready,
and Martha sat quietly, listening to it. “Please, Daisy, tell me what my daughter was involved in.”
“Why? So you can tell the FBI? Fraser called me after his lunch with you.”
The table was big enough for four, but Martha felt suddenly claustrophobic. It was the same feeling she’d had earlier in the restaurant. She might be getting a fever — Daisy’s head seemed cartoonishly large. She wished she’d impressed the need for silence upon Fraser — as in please don’t tell your bimbo wife about the FBI involvement — but she’d thought it was obvious.
“That’s top secret information, Daisy. Fraser trusts you with it, clearly. But it’s vital that you don’t tell a soul about the FBI being in Whistler.”
Daisy smirked. “Or what?”
“Or Sacha’s killer might go free.”
“Oh. For a second I thought you were going to tell the truth and admit that it could ruin you politically.”
“For Sacha, can we not be on the same side?”
“If I tell you what I know, will you leave? I hate being late for appointments. It stresses me out and throws off the rest of my day.”
“Yes. I’ll gladly go back to the ten million other things I have to do if you tell me what you know.”
“Your daughter was running LSD across the British Columbia–Washington border. Now can you see why I didn’t want her influencing my baby?”
Martha rolled her eyes. “There is no way Sacha would get involved in drug smuggling.” And Sacha on crack would be a better influence on a baby than Daisy would sober, but Martha kept this thought to herself in order to get the rest of the information.
Daisy shrugged. “Believe what you want. She was really mad at you.”
“At me?”
“She thought you were a hypocrite. Your hard line on drugs especially. She figured if the system was corrupt, she might as well profit from it.”
Martha shook her head. “That’s not even logical.”
“Whatever. I’ve said what I know. You can leave now.”
“I want the names of her friends. I presume you hung out with them when you visited.” Martha drew out the words hung out very slightly, to imply that she thought of Daisy as little more than a teenage layabout.
Daisy either missed that or ignored it. “Do you think poking into this is smart? We can’t bring Sacha back, but if word got out about what she was doing, it could hurt your career.”
“I hope that when your child is born, you realize how stupid that sounds. There is no career that could possibly be more important than my daughter.”
“Really?” Daisy snorted. “Fraser said that when Sacha was a kid, you guys had nannies and didn’t usually make it home from work until well after she was asleep. He wants it to be different this time. He wants his real child to know real love.”
Martha pulled her briefcase toward her and pulled out her laptop. “Incredible how you can just bring your work with you anywhere these days. I could sit here for hours, and not worry one bit about missing something important.”
“Chopper,” Daisy said. “That’s the friend you want to look at.”
“Does Chopper have a last name?” Martha’s finger hovered above the power button. She was tempted to get up and pour herself a mug of coffee, but she hoped she’d be leaving too soon to have more than a sip or two — and besides, it was fun to make a point.
“I’m sure he does. But I don’t know it. He’s a snowboarding instructor and he makes LSD in some remote mountain lab. It sounds really cool, actually. Still, not something I want around my baby.”
Martha put her computer into her briefcase and stood up. “Thank you for the coffee.”
SIXTEEN
CLARE
Clare shimmied into the shapeless black skirt of her new Avalanche work uniform. The skirt was slightly used, and it fit Clare well — she suspected it had been Sacha’s.
On the cheap pine dresser, Clare’s phone buzzed with a text. She picked it up.
It’s Nate, said the message from a Toronto number. Call when u can talk privately.
That was weird. It was clearly Noah. Nate was the cover name he’d been using when Clare had met him, playing in the Canadian Classic Poker Tour on an assignment. But why the Toronto phone number?
Before phoning him, Clare double-checked that Jana had already left the apartment for her shift.
“Hey, Clare.” Noah’s voice was soft, like he was trying to be quiet.
“Are you alone?” Clare slid her arms through the holes of the black golf shirt with the white mountain that was Avalanche’s logo. The shirt was two sizes too big and felt new — if that starchy, never-washed, almost abrasive poly-cotton feel was anything to go by. She popped her head through the top and frowned at herself in Sacha’s mirror. There was no way this look would earn her tips. Which technically didn’t matter, but Lucy would care. Maybe Clare could shrink the shirt in the dryer before her next shift.
“Yeah, I’m alone,” Noah said. “But the night’s still young.”
“Hilarious. Why are you calling from a Toronto number?”
“In case someone sees your phone. Bert’s not taking any chances with your cover.”
“Good, because the RCMP is doing their best to blow it.”
Clare left Sacha’s bedroom and glanced at the front door. Still locked tight. She glanced the other way, toward Jana’s room, and walked toward it.
“How’s that going?” Noah asked. “You and your old handler?”
“It’s not my favorite.” Clare opened Jana’s bedroom door. A jumble of jeans and snow clothes and thermal gear was piled around Jana’s dresser, where three of the four drawers were partially open, a black bra strap hanging out from the top one. The bedsheets looked like they’d been torn around violently, maybe in a nightmare. Or maybe Jana just never made her bed. The chaos reminded Clare of her own tiny East Village apartment.
“Amanda knows what she’s doing, though,” Clare told Noah. “She was smart to land me Jana as a roommate.”
“What’s Jana like?” Noah sounded more than casually interested. Clare wondered if he was working the case, too. She hoped not.
“She’s obsessed with Sacha.” Clare opened Jana’s bedside drawer to see a big purple vibrator with rabbit ears. Her eyebrows lifted — that was one thing she’d never tried — but she knew exactly what the KY his-and-hers was for. She grinned, wishing Noah was closer, and closed that drawer.
“So are you, like, high all the time since you got there?”
Clare laughed. She opened the next drawer down, which was filled mainly with loose photographs. “We smoked up last night. Which apparently loosened Jana’s tongue. She came right out and told me that Sacha moved to Whistler from New York to chase this mountain LSD.”
“We think Sacha was doing more than just using the drug,” Noah said.
Clare let the photograph in her hand — of Jana and what looked like her family, a happy, if conventional crew of dirty blonds with their arms around each other at the Grand Canyon — flutter back into its drawer. “Who’s we?”
Noah hesitated before saying, “Bert has me on background stuff.”
“Sorry,” Clare said. “Must be boring as hell.”
Clare leafed through for a photo of Jana and Sacha. She found one: Jana had one arm wrapped around Sacha, squeezing tight and grinning. Sacha was smiling, too, but she looked bored.
“I’m digging the office routine,” Noah said. “I grab a coffee and a donut on the way in, I get to answer to my own name, which is refreshing . . . Anyway, we’re pretty sure Sacha was involved in a smuggling ring to bring the LSD into the States.”
Clare’s fingers gripped the edges of the photo. She set it down so she wouldn’t accidentally tear it. “Does Amanda know?”
“I’m sure she’ll tell you if and when you need to know.” Noah sounded irritatingly a
mused. “You have to learn to trust your handlers. They can’t have your back unless you let them.”
“Noah, stop talking to me like you’re fifty and I’m ten.” Clare sank onto Jana’s bed. “And why are we fighting?”
“You’re the only one fighting.”
“Yeah, but you’re baiting me. Being condescending.”
“Sorry.” Noah clucked his tongue. “I miss you, and I’m frustrated.”
“Why are you frustrated?”
“I want you, you want freedom. Kind of a no-win situation.”
“You don’t think an ideal relationship gives both partners more freedom?”
“Yeah, philosophically. Not the freedom to fuck around.”
“Whatever.” Clare shut the photograph drawer and pulled the bottom drawer open. A Bible, all on its own, like at a hotel. Jana didn’t seem religious. Clare opened the top drawer and found the family photo again. She looked closer: everyone in Jana’s family was wearing a gold cross. Clare was pretty sure Jana didn’t wear one now.
“We’ve said all this before,” she told Noah.
Noah was silent for a moment. Then, “Roberta’s been trying to reach you.”
“Great.” Roberta wasn’t family, but she was the closest thing to an aunt or an older sister Clare had known. This would be about Clare’s dad. He might be dead, but worse — he might be clinging to life one more fucking time, and Clare would be a cold bitch for not dropping everything — her career included — and rushing to his side. “Did she say why she was calling?”
Noah sighed. “No. But you should call her. What if your dad dies and you haven’t made peace with him?”
Clare grabbed a corner of her work shirt and twisted it fiercely around her fingers. She tried to focus on where to look next in Jana’s room. Her father always did this — had a health crisis right when she was busy. “I have peace. I accept that my dad wants to die, and I love him too much not to give him that freedom.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t want to die.”
“Nobody with emphysema smokes if they’re looking for fifty more years of health.”