Lying With Strangers

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Lying with Strangers

  Jonnie Jacobs

  Chapter 1

  Chloe closed her eyes and swayed to the beat of the music blasting from the car’s stereo. It was louder than she liked, but every time she turned the volume down, Trace turned it up again, higher than before. It was his car, he said, and he paid for the gas, so she didn’t have any right to complain. Chloe wasn’t in a complaining mood anyway. For the first time in her life—well, in a really long time—she felt almost happy.

  The late September sun beat through the old Camaro’s windows and warmed her skin. She stretched her legs out in front of her and tried to pretend she was at the beach, at a warm beach somewhere nice, like Hawaii or Tahiti. The only beach Chloe had ever been to was Ocean Beach in San Francisco and it was almost never warm there, even when the sun was out. Chloe’s dream—one of her many dreams—was to someday lie in the sun on a tropical beach. White sand, blue water, gentle breezes, and maybe one of those fancy drinks they served with a teensy umbrella. Chloe went to movies and she read books. She knew there was a whole world out there waiting for her if her luck ever changed.

  Trace slammed on the brakes and hit the horn. “Asshole,” he screamed as he swerved around the car in front of him and gave the driver the finger.

  Chloe gripped the armrest. “Slow down.”

  “Are you driving?” Trace shot back. He sped up.

  “Please, Trace.”

  “ ‘Please, Trace,’ “ he mimicked. “Pretty please with sugar on top.”

  “For the baby.” Chloe put her hand on her abdomen. There was a small rounded mound there that pleased her. Finally, she was beginning to show.

  “Hell, he’s gonna take after his old man and love going fast.” But Trace slowed to a mere seventy-five.

  “She,” Chloe whispered under her breath. If the fates were listening, she wanted to keep the odds even, maybe even tilt them in favor of a girl.

  Chloe closed her eyes again, but she’d left the beach behind. Just as well. No point wishing for what she’d never have. And she couldn’t really complain. She’d been scared to death to tell Trace she was pregnant. She knew he wouldn’t be happy about it, and he hadn’t been, but at least he hadn’t asked her to get rid of it. Well, once or twice, but only when he’d been drinking or was angry with her. And now he sometimes seemed almost tickled about having a kid. Chloe wasn’t sure Trace had any idea what having a baby was actually like, but he sure liked to boast about it with his buddies. It made him feel like a man.

  Not that Chloe knew any more about babies than Trace did. But one of her other dreams was of having a family of her own. A real family, not like the one she’d grown up in. A normal family with a normal life. And here she was now, expecting her own, sweet little girl. Okay, maybe it would be a boy. But they’d have a girl next.

  Trace slowed further and pulled off the freeway.

  “What are you doing?” Chloe asked, suddenly wrenched from the serenity of her dreams. They were nowhere near their apartment. They hadn’t even crossed the bridge into Oakland.

  “What I’m doing is driving the fucking car.”

  “I meant why are we getting off here? This isn’t the right exit.” It wasn’t even a good part of town. Chloe could tell by looking. A lot of the storefronts were boarded up and the rest had iron bars across the windows. The street reminded her of some of the pictures she’d seen from the Iraq war.

  “We’re just going to be a minute, okay? So shut up and sit tight.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Trace’s muscled arms tensed as he gripped the wheel. Then he looked over at her and patted her knee. “Everything’s cool.”

  He pulled into the QuickStop lot and parked. The storefront was covered in graffiti and the grimy windows were plastered with faded advertisements for booze and cigarettes.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he joked, getting out of the car.

  As if, Chloe thought. Where would she go? She might have her dreams, but her realities were pretty limited.

  A dark-haired man with a green gym bag slung over his shoulder came out of the store. He gave her a friendly nod, then got into the only other car in the lot, a shiny new Lexus. It seemed like an odd place for someone who could afford a Lexus to shop, but Chloe knew if she put her mind to it, she could come up with plenty of reasons why he might. If Trace was here they might have started a game of “Maybe.” Maybe he needed cigarettes, or a soft drink. Maybe he was the landlord. Maybe he was scouting out locations for a movie. The explanations usually got so preposterous that Chloe would wind up with the giggles. Without Trace, the game wasn’t the same.

  She closed her eyes but the magic dreaminess was gone. The building blocked the sun, and besides, she felt uncomfortable sitting in a car alone in this neighborhood. It wasn’t like their own block was so great, but it was a whole lot better than this.

  Chloe was thirsty anyway. She grabbed her purse and headed into the store. The man in the Lexus was sitting in his car, looking at a map spread out against his steering wheel. He had to have been really lost to end up in this part of town.

  The door triggered a little bell that jangled as she entered. Both Trace and the clerk jumped and turned toward her.

  Trace glared. “I told you to stay in the car.”

  He hadn’t, not really, but Chloe wasn’t about to argue. “I’m thirsty.” She spotted the refrigerator case across the store. “I’m going to get a soda.”

  “Get the hell out of here, Chloe.”

  She turned. She hadn’t seen the gun in Trace’s hand until now. Her body went cold. She hadn’t even known he owned a gun.

  “Go on,” he ordered. “Get out.”

  She felt suddenly lightheaded and shaky. Her chest was pounding. Slowly, she began to back away.

  Just then the door chime jangled again. The man Chloe had seen getting into the Lexus moments earlier entered the store, his gym bag still slung over his shoulder. Trace spun around just as the man reached to remove his sunglasses.

  “Say, I can’t find—”

  The man’s words were cut short by a sharp crack from Trace’s gun. It wasn’t a loud sound. In fact it took Chloe several seconds to figure out what had happened. The man, too, looked puzzled. Then he grabbed his chest and sank slowly to the floor. Blood pooled next to him, spreading in odd directions like a child’s painting.

  Chloe choked back a scream. “Oh God, you shot him!”

  “It’s his own fault.” Trace was breathing hard. “He shouldn’t have come back in.”

  “Oh my God, my God.” Chloe’s heart was beating so fast she thought it might fly right out of her chest.

  “Hey, man,” the clerk said in a tight, warbly voice. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

  Trace snapped, “You think I fucking don’t know that?”

  The clerk, a slender, young Hispanic guy, shook his head and fists. “I don’t want no part—”

  Trace raised the arm with the gun and pointed it at the clerk.

  This time Chloe did scream. Trace glanced in her direction. “Shut up.”

  From somewhere under the counter, the clerk had found a gun of his own. It was in his hand before Chloe could see how it got there.

  She screamed again, a shrill gasp of terror that was drowned out by more shots. The clerk’s body fell forward over the counter, then slowly slid down onto the floor. It landed with a muffled thump.

  Trace held his shoulder, his face drained of color.

  “Get the man’s wallet,” he ordered between clenched teeth. “I’m going to clean out the cash register.”

  The clerk groaned and Trace went behind the counter and shot him again. Two sharp cracks that made Chloe’s ears ring.

  She ci
rcled her arms across her chest. Nausea rose in her throat. Slowly, she approached the man on the floor.

  “Hurry up,” Trace said. “We haven’t got all day.” Blood was beginning to seep through the fingers holding his injured shoulder.

  Chloe took one more step toward the man. She swallowed hard, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t step into that pool of blood and she couldn’t reach her hand into the man’s pocket. She just couldn’t.

  And then she saw one of his eyelids flutter.

  The man was alive. Oh, God, what now?

  Chloe knew if she told Trace he’d shoot the man again like he had the clerk. And she knew she should tell him. If the man lived, he might be able to identify them. But she couldn’t do it. That would be as bad as pulling the trigger herself.

  “Fucking cash register’s locked,” Trace yelled, pounding it with the butt of his gun. “Come on, get the guy’s wallet and let’s get out of here.”

  Half closing her eyes, the way she did when she watched a scary movie, Chloe stepped toward the man’s body and grabbed his gym bag.

  “I can’t find a wallet, but I’ve got his gym bag. Let’s go.”

  Chloe held the door for Trace and they raced to the car. He tossed her the keys. “You drive.”

  Chloe dumped the canvas bag into the back seat and started the engine. She was shaking so badly she didn’t think she’d be able to steer in a straight line. Gripping the wheel, she pulled slowly out of the parking lot.

  “Speed it up, Chloe. We got to get out of here.”

  She didn’t drive much. Trace had taught her how but he hardly ever let her use the car. She pressed down on the accelerator, and the car lurched forward.

  “You need a hospital,” Chloe said, fighting a rising tide of anxiety that made it difficult to think. “I don’t know where the closest one is.”

  “Yeah, right, hospital and then straight to jail. No fucking way.”

  She took her eyes off the road long enough to look over at Trace. He was leaning back in the seat, his eyes closed tight and his mouth clenched. The hand holding his left shoulder was now drenched in blood. It ran in rivulets down his shirt and onto his pants.

  “Trace, please. You’re hurt.”

  “Yeah, Sherlock, I’m aware of that. Just shut up and drive.”

  “To where?”

  “Home, where else? You were maybe thinking an afternoon at the mall?”

  “You don’t have to be mean.”

  “My shoulder burns like hell, Chloe. I don’t feel like making nice.”

  She bit her lip. Tears clouded her sight. Trace couldn’t die. Please don’t let him die, she prayed. Without Trace, she’d be all alone.

  “Maybe a doctor,” she suggested. “There’s a clinic near—”

  “Shut up, Chloe. You’ve caused enough trouble already.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “I told you to stay in the fucking car!”

  He hadn’t. Not really. And she couldn’t see that her being in the car would have made any difference. But she didn’t argue.

  She slid her arms from the new, peach-colored cardigan she wore and handed it to Trace. “Here, press this against your shoulder. We need to stop the bleeding.”

  And then she concentrated on driving them home.

  Chapter 2

  Diana Walker paced the perimeter of her desk. She rolled her shoulders, stretched, and took a deep breath. She wasn’t used to feeling angry, especially at Roy. But he’d been wrong this morning, and it had been bothering her all day that she hadn’t succeeded in making him understand that.

  He was a good father, really. Truly devoted to Jeremy. But lately, he’d been so . . . so off. And Diana didn’t know why.

  When Roy came back home this evening, she’d try again. She’d probably been too quick to criticize, too sharp with her choice of words. Roy was a reasonable man, but even reasonable men bristled when they felt attacked.

  That settled, Diana sat back down at the desk and again turned her attention to the computer screen. A simple twice-a-week column for the local paper. Nothing heavy or profound, just personal ramblings on a variety of life’s lighter issues. How hard could it be?

  Always harder than she thought.

  The ideas and words that rolled so freely through her mind when she was busy with other things faded like skywriting in the wind once she sat down at the computer. Today, she was having a particularly difficult time.

  She’d started with the intention of writing about friction in marriage but found herself veering off to the argument she’d had with Roy that morning—the incident which had given rise to the idea for the column. She was irritated that Roy had chosen golf over an afternoon with his son, and further annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t understand why she was upset. The tone of what she’d written was wrong, though, and the slant much too personal.

  Diana read the two short paragraphs over once again, then scooted her chair closer to the keyboard and hit delete. She took a breath and started fresh. A column on the marital balancing act could wait for another day.

  Food shopping, she wrote instead, is no feat for the timid. Variety may be the spice of life, but it can be a real stumbling block in the grocery aisle. Gone are the days of simple choices—Shredded Wheat or Cheerios? Tide or Cheer? White or wheat? Today there are enough combinations and permutations to make my head spin. I can’t even buy canned tomatoes without digging my reading glasses out of my purse, where they’ve invariably found their way to the bottom.

  Yuck. Diana hit delete again and closed out of her word-processing program. Roy would be home soon, and she needed to start dinner. Maybe she’d find inspiration over a pot of pasta sauce.

  She stood and wandered to the window overlooking the yard. Jeremy and Digger were playing a rough-and-tumble game of fetch. She wasn’t sure which was harder on her garden, the seven-year-old boy or the terrier-mix puppy Roy had insisted on buying Jeremy for his last birthday. She cringed when her eye caught the clump of newly trampled salvia.

  This was a phase, she reminded herself, a short segment of her life, and she’d been down this road before. A similar road, at any rate. She’d raised Emily alone for over half of her daughter’s eighteen years. A time marked by financial constraints and struggle. And seemingly endless battles. Money was no longer an issue, not a day-to-day issue anyway, but her relationship with Emily was as prickly as ever. At least now that Emily was off to college and living six hundred miles to the south in San Diego, her insults weren’t thrown into Diana’s face quite as often.

  Diana looked around the comfortably furnished family room and then again out into the garden, which despite the assaults of boy and dog still shimmered with the vibrant colors of late summer. Eight years into her second marriage, Diana considered herself very lucky.

  Not that Roy was always easy to live with. A person didn’t advance in the district attorney’s office the way Roy had by being accommodating. Still, she’d been surprised by the harshness in his tone this morning.

  Jeremy tossed a ball that sent Digger scurrying into the impatiens. Then Jeremy raced for the house, throwing open the French doors with a thunk.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” he exclaimed, tracking mud across the carpet.

  “Take your shoes off first.”

  “I can’t. I really need to go.”

  Diana sucked in a breath, equally amused and exasperated. She’d noticed this about herself lately. She seemed to be of two minds about a lot of things, like she was two different people occupying the same space.

  The phone rang, She hoped it would be Emily but knew it wasn’t. Calls from her daughter were as rare as summer snow.

  “Mrs. Walker?”

  “Yes.” She waited impatiently for the anonymous “How are you today?” which seemed to be the greeting favored by telemarketers.

  She was on the verge of hanging up when the caller said, “Roy Walker is your husband?”

&nb
sp; “Yes.” Diana’s skin prickled. A reporter? Someone with a beef against the DA’s office? The man didn’t sound like he was selling anything.

  “I’m Inspector Knowles from the San Francisco Police Department. I’m afraid I have some bad news about your husband.”

  Diana’s vision dimmed, as though a cloud had passed over the sun. “Bad news?”

  “He’s been wounded,” the detective explained. “A gunshot. He was taken to San Francisco General. He’s alive but I’m afraid his condition is critical.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Diana was having trouble processing what the man was saying. Why would they take Roy all the way to San Francisco? And how could he have been shot while playing golf?

  “There must be some mistake,” Diana said. “Roy is golfing in Oakland.”

  “No mistake, I’m afraid.”

  “But that makes no sense.”

  “I don’t want to be rude, ma’am, but I think you should get here as soon as possible.”

  *****

  After a frantic, garbled call to her friend Allison Miller, Diana hustled Jeremy into the car.

  “Daddy’s had a little accident, honey, and I have to go check on him. You’re going to stay with Allison for a bit, okay?”

  “Is Daddy hurt?”

  “That’s what I need to find out.” She worried she would need to reassure him, but Jeremy stayed with Allison often enough that he seemed to take it in stride.

  Five minutes later, Diana was on her way to the city. She pushed the speed limit, which was something she rarely did. Thank goodness the traffic wasn’t heavy. Sometimes the Bay Bridge was worse on weekends than on commute days. She tried not to think of anything but her driving. Tried to shut out the frightening visions that played in her mind. She worked on breathing and driving and saying Please God as a mantra.

  And then she was in the lobby of the hospital and she was suddenly, horribly afraid.

  *****

  Inspector Knowles was waiting for her. He was a tall, thin man with a face that looked as though it hadn’t cracked a smile in years.

  “Where’s Roy?” Diana asked. She realized she sounded every bit as frantic as she felt. “I need to see him.”