Never Fear

by Scott Frost

  The monitor flickered for a moment, then settled on the image of the empty street and the entrance to the garage. A time code in the corner of the frame counted out the minutes and seconds.

  “Can you speed it up?” I asked.

  The operator nodded and typed in another command. The minutes sped past like home video on fast-forward, though with no frame of reference, the image appeared static. Ten minutes in, a couple stopped directly in front of the camera and kissed, then walked on. A jogger passed three minutes later. A white sedan exited the garage and drove into the night, its taillights burning streaks of white into the image.

  “What are you looking for?” the captain asked.

  More seconds flashed by.

  “Luck,” I said.

  Twenty minutes passed unchanged. There was a blur of a car on the street at twenty-three minutes. Twenty-four, twenty-five. Another car.

  “Stop,” Harrison said.

  He stared intently at the monitor for a moment. “There was something.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” I said.

  Harrison looked at the screen and nodded. “Take it back thirty seconds.”

  The operator reversed it. Thirty, twenty, fifteen seconds.

  “There,” Harrison said.

  The operator shook his head. “I didn’t see anything. ”

  “I didn’t, either,” I said.

  The security captain nodded in agreement.

  “Take it back another ten seconds, then play it forward at normal speed,” Harrison said.

  The operator took it back and started it again.

  “Can you freeze an image?”

  “Yes.”

  I stared at the empty image of the street, waiting for it to change, but it didn’t.

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  Harrison leaned in toward the monitor. “There.”

  I still missed it.

  “Reverse it slowly.”

  The operator reversed it.

  “Freeze it,” Harrison said.

  I looked at the monitor for a moment without seeing any change.

  “The top of the screen,” Harrison said.

  In the top right corner of the image were two dark shapes that at first were unrecognizable.

  “Socks,” I whispered.

  Harrison nodded. “He was crossing the street and ran through the corner of the image.”

  I stared at the screen for a moment, then closed my eyes and I was there. His breathing would have been out of control, the asphalt jarring every bone in his body, but he didn’t feel it. There was only escape, a voice in his head saying, Run. Until he saw the yellow sign glowing in the darkness and he thought of me.

  “If he was being followed at this point, the car should pass within a minute, two at the most,” Harrison said.

  I stared at the image of my brother’s socks and couldn’t escape the other horrible truth. Was our father running him down? A game of hide-and-seek, as if he were a child running through the backyard in his socks.

  “Play it forward now, normal speed,” I said.

  The operator hit play and John was gone in two steps. Thirty seconds passed with no car. Another ten, then twenty.

  The headlight momentarily burned a white hole into the screen, then a white sedan cut across the top of the frame, only the left side visible.

  “Back it up and freeze it when it’s in frame,” Harrison said.

  The operator reversed it until the car was centered across the top of the picture.

  “It doesn’t show the plate,” Harrison said.

  Half of the passenger window was visible, but the reflected light made it impossible to see into the car.

  “Can you tell what make it is?” I said.

  Harrison shook his head.

  “Looks like a Buick,” the captain said. "LeSabre, I think.”

  The operator pointed to the corner of the windshield. “That’s something.”

  “Move in on it,” Harrison said.

  The operator zoomed in on the windshield.

  “Can you enhance it?” I asked.

  The captain shook his head.

  I stared at the corner of the windshield. There was something beyond it, a dull light shape in the darkness of the interior, but nothing more distinguishable than that.

  “The best I can do is put it on disk,” the captain said.

  “We can take it to Caltech,” Harrison said.

  The image of my brother’s socks on the pavement appeared again on the monitor.

  “Would you like this image saved also?” the captain said.

  I turned away and shook my head.

  29

  Andi James’s address was a stark, gray, six-story warehouse three blocks from the river. There were no people on the streets here. No trendy bars. A small residential hotel sat on the corner a block away, its faded sign and red door looking like the grim make-believe of a Hopper painting.

  We stepped out into the wind and crossed the street. The sound of a saxophone playing somewhere in the darkness drifted in and out with the gusts. James lived on the fourth floor. The windows in the building were all dark except for a few that flickered with dull light several floors up—candlelight.

  “The wind took out the power,” Harrison said.

  In the darkness a trash can rolling in the wind was gathering speed, coming right toward us, and then it stopped.

  The entrance to the building was a heavy reinforced door with two glass panels. A two-by-four was stuck in the jamb, propping the door open. The security buzzer for each loft would have been knocked out by the power failure. There were sixteen lofts on each floor. James was in 414.

  We stepped into the lobby and I turned on the flashlight. In the darkness I could hear muted voices from one of the lofts. The air held the odor of a homeless man who must have sought shelter from the wind.

  We followed the wall down the center of the building to the stairs and started up. Somewhere above, a door opened and footsteps began falling on the metal stairs, coming down, getting louder. Then another door opened and the footsteps were gone. James’s loft was in the northwest corner of the building overlooking the street, secured by a heavy industrial steel door.

  “Unless she opens it, we’re not getting in here,” Harrison said.

  “If she had wanted to talk to us, she would have already,” I said. “She doesn’t know who to trust.”

  I took out my phone and dialed her number. From inside we heard her phone ringing. On the fifth ring a machine picked up. I recognized the voice as that of the woman I’d met in my brother’s apartment.

  “This is Lieutenant Delillo,” I said. “It’s time we talk. I’ll meet you at your loft in ten minutes.”

  I hung up and Harrison leaned in close against the door and listened.

  “Footsteps . . . I think you got her attention.”

  Harrison stepped back as the lights of the building began to flicker on. On the other side of the door I heard the jangling of keys and then the dead bolt sliding in the lock. As the door opened James caught a glimpse of me and began to react.

  “It’s all right—” I started to say, but she was already rushing back into the loft in terror.

  Harrison pushed the door the rest of the way open.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, stepping inside.

  A bank of windows lined the wall looking out to the north of downtown. In the flickering light I tried to locate her in the large open room but I couldn’t.

  “I need your help,” I said.

  Harrison motioned to a door against the far wall. I stepped over.

  “I can protect you,” I said.

  From inside I could hear her rapid breathing—the cadence of fear.

  “Who is that with you?” James said, barely managing to put words together.

  “My partner.”

  “How do I know?”

  “You’re the one who found Dana Courson dead, aren’t you? And called me to set
up that meeting so I would find her. You trusted me enough to call me. Trust me now.”

  There was silence on the other side of the door, then it slowly swung open.

  She stepped into the room as the lights stopped flickering and stayed on. From the look on her face I doubted she had slept more than ten minutes in the last four days. The same revolver I had seen at my brother’s apartment was clenched in both hands at waist level.

  Instinctively she looked around the room to make sure there wasn’t another threat before stepping away from the security of the door. When she was satisfied that she was safe, she sat on the couch, placed the gun on the coffee table in front of her, and drew her legs in tight around her.

  “How did you find me?” she finally asked.

  “The Iliad Apartments. We traced you to Sloan.”

  Panic began to rise again in her eyes.

  “Had anyone else asked Sloan about me?”

  I shook my head.

  “Are you sure?” she demanded.

  “Yes.”

  The panic in her eyes began to pass.

  “I need to know who you were working for.”

  James took a breath and closed her eyes. “I think I was working for a killer.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at me but couldn’t hold contact. “I think people are dead because of what I did.”

  “I need a name,” I said.

  “I don’t know. We never met. I never even talked to him, but from the way he wrote, the words he used, I think he was a cop.”

  “How did you deliver information?”

  “A Hotmail address. I sent the last information the day your brother died.”

  “Have you tried it since then?”

  She nodded. “It’s gone. The account was closed.” She took a slow, ragged breath.

  “Tell me about the job. Were you hired to follow my brother?” I asked.

  James shook her head. “I was following Gavin.”

  “The lawyer.”

  She nodded.

  “For how long?”

  “A little over a week.”

  Harrison looked at me. “The date of the last newspaper in the Iliad apartment would place it just before that.”

  “You were following them the day they died?”

  She nodded.

  “Until the hospital. I lost John when he left.”

  “You know who they saw the day they both died?”

  James shook her head. “Just addresses of where they went.”

  “Do you still have them?”

  She nodded, then got up and walked over to the small kitchen and opened the refrigerator and took out a carton of milk. She poured it into the sink and removed a piece of paper sealed in a plastic bag. She walked back to the couch and handed me the list. “The ones where I think they met someone are highlighted.”

  There were four addresses. Two meant nothing to me, but the last two I knew. I handed the paper to Harrison and he studied it for a moment.

  “A Chatsworth address. And Eagle Rock.”

  I nodded. “Hazzard and the actress Candice Fleming. ”

  “You’re certain of these?” I asked.

  James nodded.

  “And the others?” I asked.

  “They were both buildings downtown, but I think they were about something else.”

  “How did you find the Iliad Apartments?”

  “Gavin found it. I think he met the man in three-oh-six. ”

  “Just once?”

  She nodded. “I found out his name was Lewis Powell from the property company, but I still don’t know who he is. I couldn’t find any record of a Lewis Powell. It’s like he didn’t exist. And after your brother was killed, I stopped looking.”

  “How did you know the things you knew when I met you in my brother’s apartment?” I said.

  “I followed John and Gavin to a bar one night. After Gavin left I let John buy me a drink, flirted just enough to ask him about his work . . . family . . . I liked him.” She let the rest go.

  I stepped over to the window and looked out toward the San Gabriels in the east. A small line of orange flame cut through the darkness where a new fire had erupted. Harrison stepped up next to me and stared at the dark line of the mountains.

  “Why didn’t Hazzard tell us about this meeting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I turned and looked back at James. “I don’t think you should stay here. We can find you a safe place.”

  “Dana is dead, and she didn’t know anything. How are you going to keep me safe?”

  I started to answer but stopped myself. I couldn’t protect her any more than I had protected Lopez. Who was I kidding?

  “I have a place to go—no one will find me there, no one knows it.”

  Harrison started toward the door and I followed.

  “Lieutenant,” James said.

  I stopped.

  “There was someone else following Gavin and your brother.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yeah, and John knew it. He was trying to lose the other car when he had the accident.”

  I took out the xeroxed copy of my father’s New York driver’s license.

  “Could it have been this man?”

  She stared at the picture for a moment before placing him.

  “The man from the Iliad Apartments?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s possible, but I couldn’t swear to it. I only caught glimpses of him.”

  She looked at the picture again, then handed it back to me.

  “You know him, don’t you?” James asked.

  I nodded. “What make of car was following them?”

  “A Buick. I didn’t get a plate.”

  Harrison and I exchanged looks. The lights began to flicker again.

  “I think I’ll disappear for a while,” James said.

  Outside the wind had freshened and carried a faint trace of smoke. Harrison and I walked back to the car but didn’t get in.

  “Every step we take seems to bring me back to him,” I said.

  I glanced back at the warehouse and could make out the silhouette of James in her window watching us.

  “I lied to her. I don’t know who he is. . . . I’ll drop you back in Pasadena and you can get started on the disk, and the addresses on that list.”

  I looked over the top of the car toward the orange glow in the sky above the mountains.

  “Where are you going?” Harrison asked.

  “Back in time.”

  30

  I dropped Harrison in Pasadena, then took the 2 and began the climb toward the San Gabriel Valley. Tumbleweeds were flying across the freeway, piling up against the median until enough had gathered so the wind would take them all at once like a wave cresting a jetty.

  A faint glow was visible just over the rise of the Glendale hills to the east where a new fire had started. The darkness occasionally lit up with a glowing ember streaking past the windshield.

  Topping the rise leaving Glendale, the flashing lights of CHP and fire trucks blocked the road ahead. A flare was burning in the left lane next to a large deer that had been struck and now lay twisted on the road. Twenty yards ahead a truck lay upside down on top of the median, its load of thousands of oranges spread across the pavement.

  A yellow fire department tarp covered the crushed truck cab where the driver had died. As I passed on the right shoulder, oranges began popping under my tires, and the smoky air filled with the sweet scent of orange juice for an instant before the wind took it away.

  At Foothill I turned west and drove into La Crescenta. A mile on I turned right. The homes lining the streets were modest, part of the first subdivisions to climb toward the mountains after the war. I took another left and then a right. At the corner of Carlotta I pulled over and stopped.

  I had no memory of driving here before, but I had found it without even glancing at the map. Nothing looked familiar except that the ranch houses and split-levels loo
ked exactly like hundreds of other neighborhoods that spread out across Los Angeles.

  But I hadn’t missed a turn. I knew that 3829 was two blocks straight up the hill on the right, and that there was a dry wash behind it, and that when the wind blew out of the mountains as it did now, the house would be filled with the scent of chaparral and eucalyptus. It was where we had lived with my father.

  I pulled away from the curb and drove around the block to come at the house from the cross street. As I came back to Carlotta I switched off my lights and coasted to a stop as the house came into view.

  The house was dark, not even a light by the front door. A FOR SALE sign was stuck in the small front yard where the ivy-covered hill sloped down to Carlotta. I opened the car door and stepped out. The air was filled with the scent of eucalyptus, as I remembered. At the edge of my vision I could see their dark shapes swaying in the wind next to the wash behind the house.

  I walked across the street and stopped at the foot of the driveway. Details that I hadn’t been able to see from across the street began to emerge. The house had shingled siding painted light green with white trim. There were no drapes on the front windows, as if the house were inviting me to come inside. I walked up the stepping-stones that led to the front door. Flyers advertising yard work were stuck under the mat. A Realtor’s lockbox hung from the door handle. The house was unoccupied. The lockbox was broken. I turned the handle and the door swung open. I started to take a step but stopped when I heard the sound of my mother’s voice.

  “Be a good girl,” she whispered.

  I spun around, but there was no one there. It was memory I was hearing. I turned back and looked into the front hallway, then stepped inside. The air held the scent of cleaning products now, but what I remembered was something else. I took a step toward the empty dining room and stopped. It was perfume. My mother had worn it. I looked out into the living room and the fieldstone fireplace that rose to the ceiling. I reached out and flipped a light switch but it didn’t come on. The power had been turned off.

  I took a step and the scent of perfume returned. For an instant I wanted to turn and run out the door. My heart began to race, then a flash of memory lit the room and I saw her standing there looking out the window with her back to me. She was wearing tight stirrup slacks and a matching sweater. Her dark hair swept up on top of her head like an astronaut’s wife.