Oh. Shit.
Candy wheeled Tristan into the room.
He made an instant eye-connect with Tristan; he wasn’t sure who looked more stunned, him or her.
“He’s been here since you first arrived,” Candy said, kneeling down, locking the wheels on Tristan’s chair. She stood, beaming at Patrick. “We all think he’s terrific.”
Tristan didn’t appear to be feeling the love.
The nurse went on, “You’re so lucky to have him.”
Tristan wasn’t feeling that, either.
In fact, Patrick wasn’t sure what she was feeling behind her expressionless gaze. All he could do was envision security guards rushing into the room, grabbing him by each arm, and dragging him out—that and the newspaper headlines about the hospital lunatic posing as a patient’s brother, unflattering mug shot and all.
Tristan kept her eyes locked on his and said nothing for a good five seconds. For Patrick, it felt like an eternity. When she spoke, her voice rang flat, a slender shade of hostility trolling just beneath the surface. “It’s so good to see you.”
Candy glowed.
Patrick wanted to crawl under the bed and hide.
“I’ll leave you two alone now,” Candy said, loving every minute of this bastard family reunion. “I’m sure you two have lots of catching up to do.”
Tristan was still looking at him funny.
Patrick glanced at the window: there was still time to escape.
“Oh, one more thing,” Tristan said to Candy as she was heading out.
The nurse turned around.
“Would you mind closing the door when you leave? My brother and I have so much to talk about. We could really use some privacy.”
Patrick wanted nothing of the sort.
“Oh, of course! Absolutely!” Candy said, gently closing the door behind her.
Patrick returned his jittery attention to Tristan and found her regarding him in loaded silence, her gaze like a high-powered telescope. On the warmth-meter, she was banging in at subzero.
He cleared his throat, offered her a thin smile.
“My brother?”
“I can explain—”
“Oh, trust me, you will.” She reached for the call button, held it up, her finger wavering over it.
“Don’t do that!”
She lowered it slightly, shaking her head and smiling her warning. “Dude, this better be really good.”
“I had to!” he said, nervously eyeing the call button as if speaking to it. “There was no choice. It was the only way they’d let me be here.”
“And the reason you had to be here?”
“Well, no one else was exactly lining up outside.”
She raised the button, moved her finger over it again.
Patrick stood straight up. “Stop that!”
“Let’s try this again, okay? Only this time we act nice.”
“Okay…” He took a deep breath, trying to gather his thoughts. “I didn’t want you to be here all by yourself.” He looked down at his clenched fists, then up at her. “I just couldn’t do that.”
Her expression relaxed a little.
“I made a promise to myself… that I was going to see you through this. You were fighting for your life, for God’s sake. I wanted you to make it. I wanted it more than anything, and I didn’t want you to have to do it alone, so I did it with you. I did it as best as I could.”
Tristan stared at him with something that might have looked like amazement, might have even looked like the slightest hint of admiration. Then she said, “You did all that?”
Patrick nodded quickly.
“All this time?”
He nodded faster.
“All for little old me?” Her tone was ironic.
“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t for the engaging conversation or the fabulous food.”
She looked away, rolling her tongue inside her cheek. Then she looked at him again.
And smiled.
“That was pretty fucking cool of you,” she said.
Chapter Thirty
From the moment Tristan came out of her coma, she came out fighting, and doctors were stunned by her rapid progress. The damage appeared to be minimal. All in all, they were calling it nothing short of a miracle.
But the more Patrick got to know her, the less he was surprised. The woman was a firebrand on wheels. There wasn’t much that could hold her down.
Now that she was in a regular ward, he could make longer visits. He sat with his laptop and worked while she dozed or ate a meal.
“You don’t have to stay here anymore, you know,” she said late the second evening through a groggy, drawn-out yawn.
Patrick stopped typing and looked at her. “I know. I want to.” He brought his attention back to the screen but could still feel her gaze on him. He tried to ignore it.
She said, “So what’s your story, Bannister?”
“My story?”
“Just what I asked.”
He looked up again with a tolerant grin. “If you mean what I do for a living, you already know I’m a reporter.”
She shrugged. “What do you report?”
“News.”
“For who?”
“A magazine… or I did.”
“Not anymore?”
He shook his head. “I’m not really sure.”
“Not really sure,” she repeated, scratching her nose. “It would seem to me that being employed is kind of like being dead. Either you are or you aren’t.”
He smiled. “Witty.”
“I try,” she said, with an expression he’d learned to recognize as her version of inner amusement. “So were you shitcanned or what?”
“Let’s just say I hit a rough spot.”
She didn’t appear satisfied by that but moved on anyway, nodding toward the laptop. “So then what are you working on?”
He went back to typing. “A story.”
She spoke with slow, exaggerated patience. “And what’s the story about?”
He looked up at her; he felt an exigent headache coming on. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”
“I know. What’s it about?”
He sighed. “The Clark case.”
“The who?”
“A missing couple from Rancho Santa Fe.”
“What happened to them?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.”
She turned toward the window, her eyes appearing to follow a thought, and then, “Married?”
“Separated.”
“The dude kill her?”
That startled him. He wondered why she would automatically assume that. “I don’t know yet. Maybe.” Now he was curious. “So what’s your story?”
She averted her gaze out the window again, shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, no… I don’t think so.”
She shot him a curious stare. “What?”
“You don’t get to skate around your answer, not after you just grilled me for mine. Come on, cough it up.”
She stared at her lap and twisted a fold of blanket between her fingers.
Patrick waited. He’d gotten pretty good at that.
Then, almost defiantly, she said, “I’m a criminal.”
Patrick raised a wary brow.
“Not nearly as glamorous as being a reporter.”
“Sounds interesting,” he offered.
“Nice try.” She looked down again, resumed her blanket twirling.
“So… what kinds of crimes do you commit?”
“I steal stuff. Cash, cars. Information. Identities.”
Patrick nodded, trying his best to look unaffected but knowing he wasn’t doing a very good job.
“I already got your Social Security number,” she said.
He snorted… and then paused. She looked serious.
“And your date of birth. And your mother’s maiden name.”
He felt a swell of concern.
“And I drained your check
ing account and opened Macy’s and Amex cards in your name. Got me a big, fancy HDTV waiting at home. All while I was lying here comatose. I’m really good at my job.”
“All that and a flair for the sarcastic,” he said. “I’m impressed.”
She raised her brows, half-smiled. “Actually, I’m kind of like you right now. Unemployed in my chosen profession.”
“Didn’t know it was an actual job.”
“Was for me.”
“So who fired you?”
“The judge did.”
“Would that explain the visits to the shrink and the piss tests?”
Her smile mixed derision with scorn. “Court ordered.”
“So what exactly happened?”
“You know…” she said, her expression turning dimly combative, “I’m thinking that’s probably a conversation better suited for another day, maybe when you tell me why you were eighty-sixed from your job.”
“Touché.”
She looked down. “So now you think less of me, probably.”
He thought about it. “You know, oddly enough, I don’t.”
She looked genuinely surprised. “How come?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“ ’Cause I saved your life?”
“Well, there’s that.”
“And almost died?”
“That, too.”
More blanket twisting. “Well, you don’t owe me anything. I don’t like charity.”
“Good, because I already gave at the office… the one I no longer have.”
She snorted.
He said, “Can I ask you something, though?”
“Shoot.”
“What made you do it?”
“What the hell was I going to do, just stand there and let some lowlife slit your neck?”
“That’s not what I mean. Most people would have dialed 9-1-1, or yelled for help, or… What made you put yourself in danger?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know… It was like my body shifted into autopilot. I saw what he was about to do to you, and all I knew was that I had to stop it. Kind of like the ‘Baby and the Beetle.’ ”
“The what?”
“You know. Kid gets stuck under a Volkswagen and all of a sudden his mother finds the strength to lift the car off him. You see it on the news all the time. It happens. Maybe that’s what happened to me.”
He nodded.
“Or maybe it was something else…”
“Like what?”
“In the elevator that day. When you apologized to me. I felt bad after, like I didn’t really give you a chance.”
Man, she’d hit that one dead-on… and in reverse.
“Besides, the dude made me angry.”
“Angry, how?”
“I mean, I’m no angel. I’ve done some shitty stuff. But what he was going to do to you… that was something completely different. That’s from some other place.” She was intent on his face. “Know what I mean?”
Indeed, he did.
Chapter Thirty-One
Who Killed Charlene Clark, and Where is Wesley?
By Lucinda Santiago
Great questions.
And judging by the Courier’s banner headline and its front-page placement, Patrick wasn’t the only one growing impatient for answers. If investigators had them, they weren’t tipping their hand. Information was trickling out like a choked-off faucet during a Death Valley summer. The article also made it perfectly clear who was holding the cards:
Detective Steve Pike did not return calls from the Courier requesting an update on the case.
Shocker.
The story didn’t exactly name Wesley Clark as a suspect, but it also left no doubt he was a distinct possibility, along with something else:
A source has told the Courier that investigators may be looking into marital infidelities in the relationship as a possible motive for Charlene Clark’s murder.
On its face, Patrick didn’t find that shocking—Lilliana had already told him about the alleged affair between Wesley and Jocelyn—but it did make him curious as to whether there was more to this story. The article hadn’t elaborated on which one of the Clarks might have been doing the cheating, and Patrick was well aware that the circumstances surrounding homicides could often become very complex. Lilliana hadn’t mentioned anything about it, but he had to wonder if Charlene’s disappearance was a by-product of marital retaliation after she was caught carrying on with someone herself. It certainly wasn’t an unrealistic possibility—after all, Patrick had solid evidence that Charlene was no longer feeling the love for Wesley.
But other than that, the rest of the article left Patrick feeling like he’d eaten a handful of Cheetos: nothing but empty calories and lots of air. Old facts, too many questions, and zero answers. Clearly, the paper hadn’t yet learned that Charlene Clark was living under an assumed name, which boosted Patrick’s confidence that he was miles ahead of them on the case. He was also confident that Pike knew about Charlene’s fake identity, but as usual, was keeping the flow of information blocked. He could only imagine what other evidence the detective had—there was likely plenty of it.
He glanced at his watch; it was five o’clock. The news was just starting. He reached for the remote and flicked the TV on to see if there were any new developments in the case.
Nothing. Just more depressing incidents. A man stabbed at a bar in City Heights. A missing kid. Crime rate up another two percent. The county Board of Supervisors deciding on whether to further slash funding to the sheriff’s department. Maybe they’d fire Pike, replace him with an actual human.
Patrick dragged his tired body off the couch, started pacing and thinking. Bullet watched him intently.
He stopped to glance at the dog. “Don’t worry. I’m not going crazy. I just look that way.” He resumed pacing.
Bullet sat straight up and barked, tail flipping in circles like the second hand on an overwound clock. It wasn’t concern he was expressing, Patrick realized; it was hunger. “Your love overwhelms me,” he said, heading for the kitchen. Bullet leaped from the couch and followed.
After feeding the dog, Patrick thought about feeding himself. It had been at least twelve hours since he’d last eaten. He stared into the fridge: nothing but greasy takeout leftovers from the past few days and a half-gallon of milk. He was scared to look at the expiration date. He closed the fridge door.
“We have breaking news in the case of a Rancho Santa Fe couple tonight. As you may recall, authorities believe Charlene Clark’s body was found in Tijuana more than a week ago, and her husband, Dr. Wesley Clark, is still missing.”
Patrick shot his attention to the TV.
“We’re going live now to Brad Fisher downtown, where it appears investigators have new evidence that might help crack the case wide open.”
Patrick bolted into the living room.
“Brad, what have you got for us?”
The video wiped from the studio to a reporter standing on the rooftop of a parking garage. He gave a solemn nod and said, “Sandra, I’m in the 2200 block of Kettner Boulevard, adjacent to the Park-a-lot.” The camera zoomed over the reporter’s shoulder to the other garage. “Now, we can’t see inside, but it appears detectives are very busy. They were called there this afternoon after a late-model Bentley Mulsanne was discovered abandoned. Sources close to News Seven tell us the car may belong to Dr. Wesley Clark. Authorities aren’t saying how they found…”
Patrick flipped the TV off, grabbed his jacket, and disappeared out the door.
Squad cars, flashing lights, and people everywhere, all in a heightened state of disarray, all wrapped around the garage like a skintight noose. A police officer stood on the street, directing traffic, waving off the curious. Patrick spotted a few TV news vans off to one side, their live equipment extended to full mast. He didn’t see many reporters outside or near their vehicles, so he assumed the cops were letting them onto the scene. Exactly how far, he wasn’t sure. He circled back a
few blocks, found a parking spot.
Inside the garage, two uniformed officers stood before a yellow and black sawhorse blocking access to the upper levels—both with arms crossed, both wearing stoic, don’t-even-try-it expressions. The press was corralled off to one side looking none too happy.
Patrick allowed his eyes to wander through the crowd. This story was no longer a local matter: he caught a CNN logo on the side of a video camera. He perused the group some more and stopped dead at one of the faces—one he knew well.
There’s no way.
Erika Jeffries spun around just in time to see Patrick coming her way. She gave him a surprised smile, which instantly deflated when she realized he wasn’t returning the expression.
“Patrick. Hi… Who are you covering this story for?”
He clamped a hand to his hip, cocked his head. “I suppose I could ask you the same question.” At her confused look, he added, “Who sent you here?”
“Julia did,” she said, her confusion now transmuting into uneasiness.
“I knew it.”
She shook her head. “Patrick… What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that I called Julia and pitched this story, told her I was working on it, and that I was making headway. I even gave her details on what I knew, and then she sends someone else.”
“Patrick, I’ve been on this since it started. I swear.”
He backed down from his anger some—what she was saying rang true. The story had been gaining momentum for weeks. It was naïve of him to think they weren’t already on it. Humiliation slid in and replaced his fury. He shook his head, flicked his gaze to the barricade. “I’m sorry, Erika. I had no right to—”
“It’s fine, Patrick, really. You had no way of knowing. Julia had told me you might be on this. I just figured you were covering it for someone else.”
“I was trying to cover it for National Monthly, but it’s pretty clear that’s no longer an option.”
She started to say something, then stopped, instead letting out a sigh of resignation.
“It’s fine,” he said, then changed the subject to cover his disappointment. “So, what’s going on with the blockade?”
She crossed her arms, looked at the barrier. “Nothing so far. We’ve been camped out here since this afternoon.”
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