“You don’t know that,” Lena argued.
“I do know that. I’ve never come first in anyone’s life. Not even my mother’s because Tori was always there even when she wasn’t. Sam will get bored or lonely or something cuz it’s always something.
“And what kind of future is that, Lee? Always waiting for the shoe to drop because it will drop. It always drops. Say Sam and I or whoever he is have a family, and I achieve Normal. I’ll be home with the kids, and one day, out of the blue, I find myself praying that he shows up for the piano recital this time, knowing that he won’t. And then I have to explain to the kids that Daddy has to work late. Or break the news that Daddy won’t ever come home again.”
“Lou, he’s not—”
“My father?” I chuckled. “My ex? Your ex? I’m tired of seeing the backs of men.”
“My dad didn’t leave,” she pointed out. “Neither did Sy’s. Many men stay. You just got unlucky.” She offered a sympathetic smile, then drained her martini glass. “Stop being the skeptic all the time. Sounds exhausting. Think good things sometimes. Ignore evil at least three hours a day.”
“That’s a long time,” I said, slumping in my chair.
“I watched you at dinner the other night,” Lena said, “when Colin and I barged in on you and Sam—”
My phone chattered with the Ewoks ringtone.
“What does Gregory want?” Lena said, lip curled.
“We were supposed to meet today to talk about house stuff.”
“You believe that?”
I smirked. “Of course not.”
She stared at me without speaking.
I avoided her eyes and took the olive skewer out of her martini glass. “As you were saying about dinner?”
“You’re … lighter with Sam,” she said. “You shine brighter with him. So different than when you were with him.” She pointed at my phone.
I sighed. “Serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.”
“Stop channeling Dorothy Parker, all right? Zach. Sam. Any man other than Gregory. It’s okay to play the field. Just be happy doing it.”
“And then I, too, will have thirty dick pics in my Gmail?”
“You’ll never have more than me, ma chère. You’re too scared of hell and Jesus and your mother.”
I threw my head back and laughed.
“Seriously,” she said, “in your best optimism, what do you want from Sam? Speak it into the universe.”
I let my head fall back again, and I stared at the smooth belly of the Virgin Air jetliner passing over us. “I want the assurance that he’ll always be there for me.” I straightened in my chair to look at my friend. “Now, what’s supposed to happen? When will the universe respond?”
She shrugged. “No clue.”
“You’re useless.”
“Call Syeeda now.”
“No.”
“I talked to the professor today,” she said, not missing a beat. “He wants me to fly back to New York for his retirement party.”
I popped an olive into my mouth. “Will there be mimes and foie gras and Josephine Bakers wearing banana skirts and James Baldwin impersonators reading passages from ‘Blues for Mister Charlie’?”
She giggled. “Is it some reverse-oedipal daddy thing that I want a man like him?”
“A man who adores you, who is amused by you, a man who is willing to spoil you all the days of your life?” I shook my head. “Nah.”
She glanced at the clock on her phone. “The time has come, ma chère.”
I slowly inhaled, then exhaled. “I don’t wanna do this. Why am I doing this? Too much free time. And nature abhors a vacuum.”
Lena grabbed her bag from the chair. “I’m glad you called me—I worry that you’re gonna stroke out sometimes. All stress and no canoodling makes Lou a dull girl.”
“Fine.”
“Don’t call Greg.”
“Why not?”
“He’s your Kryptonite.”
“Okay.”
“Call Sam instead.”
“Why?”
“Cuz he’s…”
“The rays of the sun?” I asked, smiling.
Lena blinked at me, ignorant of the source of Superman’s superpowers. “I was gonna say, ‘cuz he’s fine as hell and deserves your consideration.’ But sun rays are also a good answer. Really, Elouise. Be more receptive—people come into your life for a reason.”
“Yes. Thank you. So, with everything going on between me and Sy right now,” I said, “can I live at the beach with you for the moment?”
Lena lifted an eyebrow. “If I say no, where will you stay?”
I canted my head. “If I say, ‘over at the Dark Side,’ what will you say?”
“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll do anything to keep you from Greg. Oh!” She dug in her bag and pulled out a packet of watermelon Pop Rocks. “Use these next time you and Sam are together.”
I stared at the packet. “Really?”
She winked at me. “I know you’re the Altoids type, but switch up. Remember: don’t sprinkle them inside. We don’t want you in the ER.”
I said, “Umm … Okay.”
We walked arm in arm to the lobby.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Lena said. “I promise.”
“Yep. And now go put some clothes on.”
She grinned. “Only if you take some off.”
We hugged again before she clickety-clacked back to her Range Rover.
51
Misty rain now fell from lilac-colored clouds. A helicopter buzzed a few blocks east, and then sirens wailed—like thunder and lightning, those two.
After taking several breaths, I returned to a lobby that resembled every Radisson hotel lobby in the world. Generic prints of sailboats and wine bottles, fake and real potted plants, and brass fixtures. Businessmen wore their neckties loose, their cocktail glasses high, and their gazes tight on the basketball game or on the cocktail waitress’s freckled cleavage.
Victor Starr sat at a small table near the elevator bank. He had trimmed his gray hair since I’d seen him on Friday. His wool coat lay across his lap, and a Kangol cap hung on his knee. He was staring at the bouquet of white Peruvian lilies near his beer mug.
My heart pounded as I stood before him. “Hello.”
He gazed up at me and tried to smile. “Appreciate you seeing me before I flew back home.” He handed me the lilies. “These are for you.”
Didn’t want to, but I took the bouquet.
“I also got you a little something…” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small jewelry box. “This is for you, too.”
I stared at the royal-blue case, refusing to take it.
He sighed, then opened the top: a diamond-encrusted pony with sapphire eyes sat on a small white pillow. “When you were about five or six, you used to always say, ‘Daddy, buy me a pony. Please, Daddy, just a little one.’” He puffed out his chest and grinned. “Took me some time, but … Here’s your little pony.”
I rolled my eyes and stomped out of the bar to the poolside lounge. No one sat in the padded chaises beneath the cabanas, but a black cat perched at the pool’s lip.
Victor Starr had followed me. He had pulled on his coat and put on his hat and still clutched the jewelry box. “Lulu, just let me—”
I stopped in my step and whirled around to face him. “Do you know that Tori was kidnapped and murdered and then buried in the basement of that liquor store on Santa Rosalia and that we finally found her bones back in June?”
His eyes darkened, and his facial muscles twitched. Finally, he took a breath and nodded.
“Why did you leave?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Because on that day, on that Sunday, I was mad and I was weak, and when I got into the car to get the paper, I drove and … I just kept driving, and when I stopped, I was so … far away. So far away. By then, it was late—hours had gone by, and I was too scared, too tired, to drive back. And I knew that you and your mom
and your sister would be okay. And you were.” He smiled. “You made it, Lulu. You were always my strong girl.”
“Your strong girl?” I pointed at him. “You have nothing and everything to do with me being so-called strong.”
He blinked and searched for words to say. “I-I wasn’t good enough—”
“For who?”
“For all of you,” he shouted. “You think I wanted us living there, barely getting by?”
“You were supposed to do three things.” I held up three fingers. “Provide, nurture, and guide. And ‘provide’ didn’t mean diamonds, Maseratis, and prime rib and shit. That didn’t mean a big house up on the hill. It didn’t mean vacations in Tahiti. We ate every night. You took me to see ponies in Griffith Park. You taught me how to ride a bike.” I shook my head and crossed my arms. “You left us because that wasn’t enough for you. You wanted to leave. You broke us.”
He stared into the pool water. “No. Your mother was strong. I knew she could do it without me. She told me all the time that she could do it without me.”
I chuckled without humor. “Oh, so it’s her fault?”
“She did it, though. She raised you and look at how good—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I gawked at him. “Tori is dead. We are less one person today, or does that type of math not exist in the land in which you live? I’d like to go to that place, where being dead and being left behind and being scarred is doing good.”
He squared his shoulders. “Are we gonna have a civil discussion or not?”
“Not.” I took a step closer to him, frown chiseled so deep in me that my toes were bleeding. “You didn’t have to drive back that night for my mother.” I jabbed my finger at his chest. “You should’ve drove back that night for me. You should’ve come back for Tori.”
Tears shone in his eyes, and his chin quivered.
“Were you okay being without us, Victor?” I held up a trembling hand. “Don’t answer that—I know the answer. Cuz other than your weight loss from your recent health woes, you look great. You have a livery and a big house in Vegas. So why are you here?”
“Your mother and I,” he said, “we had a deep, deep love. And even though I’m with someone, I’ll always love Georgia. And I know that she’ll always love me.”
The world brightened—I’d see the face of Jesus soon if we kept going in this direction.
He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it to a picture.
It was a faded shot of Victoria and me, ages nine and five, sitting on a porch swing. We wore sundresses and ate oranges. “I look at this picture every day,” Victor Starr said. “And I’m here because I want us to be a family again. I want you to meet my wife and my stepson and—”
“You want?” I cocked my head. “I’m not interested in what you want. I’m not interested in meeting your family. I have a mother and I have a sister whose ashes are now drifting over Kansas. I have friends and a lover and coworkers and people who need me, people who want to be with me and have never left my side. I don’t need you anymore cuz I’ve done the hard part.
“That means I don’t wanna see your fancy house or your fancy cars or your wife’s fancy purses or stand in your air-conditioned living room or eat your prime rib from Wagyu cows. I don’t want to experience anything you deprived my family of when you abandoned us.” Spent, I inhaled cool air, then slowly let it out.
“Is that it, then?” he whispered, his gaze on that picture of girls who no longer existed.
Well, is it? I thought a moment, then dropped the bouquet of lilies on the closest table. I turned on my heel and left him there at the pool with that black cat.
Yeah. That was it.
As I stomped back to the parking lot, my phone rang.
“You gotta stop her,” the woman caller shouted.
I stopped in my step. “Who is—?”
“Brandi, Nicole’s mother. You gotta stop her.”
“From what?”
“She’s trying to catch Mr. Bishop herself,” Brandi said. “I think she’s gonna try and tape him, tape them…” She let a sob escape and cried, “Oh Lord, my baby.”
Cold clutched my heart as I ran to my car. “Where is she now?”
“I got the phone locater on,” she said. “She’s at the school.”
52
“Nikki’s not answering,” I said, phone to my ear.
Colin eased the Crown Vic past Madison Middle School. Pepe, in a Taurus station wagon, had parked across the street from the main entrance. Luke’s Impala was parked at the entrance to the teacher’s parking lot. Radio cars slowly patrolled the neighborhood.
Students now dribbled out of the front gates. By the slump in their shoulders and shouts of “Fuck Wright,” I could tell that Madison had lost the game. The girls traveled in packs, with most of them wearing short skirts or tight skinny jeans. The boys wore baggy chinos and oversize white T-shirts.
No rain, but the storm gathering in my stomach intensified the longer we sat here.
Brandi Washington had remained at the station with Lieutenant Rodriguez.
I keyed the mic on the car radio. “Luke, did she get in over there?”
“Nope. But the rabbit’s exiting over by you.”
Where was Nicole?
“I’ll call in a BOLO.” After finding Payton Bishop’s car registration for his Prius and for his wife’s Mini Cooper, I grabbed the radio and issued a “be on the lookout” for both cars.
My phone rang.
“I’m looking at the app,” Brandi Washington said, “and the little dot is moving.”
“To where?” I asked.
“Like … on La Cienega.”
Colin turned left onto King Boulevard.
Soon, we sped past the Baldwin Hills mall.
“She’s still on La Cienega,” Brandi said.
“Think they’re going to the park?” Colin whispered.
I nodded, then called Lieutenant Rodriguez to arrange backup to join us.
“They’re in the park,” Brandi shouted. “The dot ain’t moving no more.”
We headed to Bonner Park.
Colin switched off the Ford’s headlights and rolled past the park’s entry. Pepe and a black Yukon filled with Gino Walston and his Violent Criminal Apprehension Team followed us. Luke and a radio car blocked the entrance with pylons.
No one sat near the lake. No cars were parked in any of the lots. No lights shone in the community center. A pair of raccoons scuttled on the side of the road with leftover sandwiches in their mouths.
“He’s gone up farther,” Colin whispered.
We crept up the narrow road, passing parked tractors and pickup trucks.
Colin finally pulled over to the slight curb and parked. Shoulders tense, he slipped his Sig from its holster, then climbed out of the car. Glock in hand, I pushed open the passenger-side door. I tapped my torso—no give, all Kevlar.
Oil rigs, like dinosaurs in the dark, creaked as their heads swung up … down … The stink of sulfur mixed with skunk, both caught in the wet nighttime air. And big men dressed in black LAPD combat gear hoisted big guns—man-made and God-given—ready to rumble.
Gino Walston winked at me. “You cool?” A small camera had been bolted to his helmet.
I curtsied. “I’m cool.”
“We cool?”
“Of course. Always.” After Captain America, our heavy petting in the back of his Expedition had resulted in … absolutely nothing. He had called me for a second date, but I … didn’t see the need.
Pepe, Colin, and I followed the VCAT up the hill. Less than a mile away lay the trail where we’d found Chanita Lords.
Parked beneath a radio tower, the Prius glowed red. No one sat in the cabin.
“It matches,” Colin said, pointing to the car’s rear license plate.
I crept west, toward the grassy lawn, where visitors usually flew kites and tossed Frisbees. Gino led a group to the north end of the lawn.
I heard the
m before I saw them.
“It’s safe,” a man said. “We’ve all been baptized. Trust me: the feeling won’t last long.”
A girl giggled.
Nikki, I mouthed to Colin.
We moved closer to the line of eucalyptus trees.
“You’ve changed me,” the man claimed. “No, you have. My life is more exciting because of you. I don’t choose just any girl. I have to see that special something in her.”
We passed through the line of trees.
Payton Bishop and Nicole Brewer lay on a serape with a pack of Corona longnecks and a bag of cheese curls between them.
I turned to Gino and pointed to his helmet camera.
He nodded and gave a thumbs-up.
We all lifted our guns.
Bishop leaned over and kissed Nicole.
Strike 1.
And in this game, all you needed was one strike.
Nicole pulled back and giggled.
Right then, I wanted to squeeze the trigger and destroy this effin’ pervert-predator.
Bishop moved closer, then eased his hand beneath her pleated skirt.
She pushed his hand away, then giggled again.
He clenched her wrist. “Since when are you bashful?”
“And since when you in a hurry?” Nicole’s gaze darted around the landscape—and stopped once she spotted me.
Payton Bishop craned his head to see what had captured her attention.
Shit.
The counselor gasped.
“Police,” I shouted. “Don’t move.”
Bishop scrambled off the blanket. He grabbed Nicole’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
She fought him with each step. Finally, he pushed her, then darted across the lawn and into the grove of eucalyptus trees.
I ran after him. Legs burning, I didn’t stop even as my sneakers skidded across the grass.
Bishop also tried to sprint but failed horribly because of slippery leaves and holes the size of pumpkins. Instead, he ran in spurts.
I scurried after him. In the darkness, between spruce trees, fallen branches, and thick roots, ankles twisting from stepping on pinecones and rocks.
Bishop’s right foot skidded, but he regained control.
A helicopter thundered over the canopy, then circled back. A cone of white light from the bird above shone before us and lit upright trees, fallen trees, and peat moss. Branches and leaves snapped and crunched all around me—no help in the dark.
Trail of Echoes Page 28