by Paul Draker
“Veronica Ross grew up in San Francisco’s Sunset district,” Julian said in a cheery voice. “As a teen, she had frequent run-ins with the law and spent time in several juvenile detention facilities.”
“…about which the court records were sealed. Making this illegal.” Veronica’s voice sounded calm, but her hands were trembling. She stared at the floor and raised her knees to her chest.
Jordan reached over and gripped one of Veronica’s hands. She squeezed back but didn’t look up as Julian continued.
“Unlike many troubled teens, Veronica was able to turn her life around. She found stable employment and built a life for herself, studying toward her nursing degree at night.”
The picture changed to show a waitress in her early twenties taking an order outside a sidewalk café: Camilla recognized the North Beach location. Veronica’s hair was dark blond—her natural color, probably—and her waitress dress was short, showing off her toned legs. Her smile looked genuine.
“Veronica’s first marriage, to Dominic Taylor, was not a happy one.” The monitor showed Veronica in a white wedding dress, standing next to a handsome, dark-haired man in a tuxedo. “Local police found themselves frequent visitors to the Taylor household. Hospitalized twice in what was clearly a pattern of domestic violence, Veronica always refused to press charges.
“One January night in 1998, following a Super Bowl party at the Taylors’, things took a tragic turn. Police officers, summoned by a neighbor’s complaint, found Dominic dead of multiple wounds sustained from a kitchen knife. Veronica required hospitalization for her own extensive injuries and was taken into custody after treatment.” An arrest photo showed Veronica’s bruised face, one eye swollen shut, stitches extending below her hairline. She held the traditional mortarboard with booking number and department information.
“Given the history of abuse that officers could attest to, the judge was very sympathetic to her case. Veronica was charged with involuntary manslaughter. She performed extensive community service at a local women’s shelter and her sentence was suspended.
“There was one happy outcome from her terrible experience. Over the course of the trial, she and one of the police officers from her case became very close. A year later, the young widow married SFPD rising star Leo Cannetti.” A second wedding photo showed a laughing Veronica in a stunning wedding dress, hair longer now, smearing cake into the face of her grinning groom.
Veronica sat watching herself on the screen. She wore a distant, icy expression, but it looked as though she was struggling hard to hold her composure. Tendons stood out on her arms and in her neck, and the hand that Jordan wasn’t holding trembled in her lap.
Despite the way Veronica had treated her yesterday, Camilla hated to see her suffer this way. Julian’s mocking tone was so cruel, making fun of her personal tragedy. This was as bad as Brent’s profile had been, and they were all just sitting here letting it happen.
“I’m turning this off,” Camilla said, standing up.
“Leo and Veronica were married for ten years,” Julian continued. “The life of a police officer is a stressful one, and sometimes that can spill over into family life, but the couple seemed very happy together. It was not to last, however.”
Camilla crossed the room with rapid strides. She inspected the frame of the monitor, but there wasn’t an obvious off switch. Reaching up, she ran her hands along the top and sides but found nothing there, either.
“In December 2010, Leo was killed in the line of duty,” Julian said. “Following up a lead in a current case, he visited a confidential informant after hours. What transpired is unclear, but Leo and his informant were each struck by several shots fired at close range by an unknown assailant. Leo died at San Francisco General without regaining consciousness, and Veronica found herself a widow again. To this day, the case remains unsolved.”
Grabbing the corner of the monitor to yank it down from the wall, Camilla realized she was too late. Julian’s voice trailed off into silence and the screen went dark, so she dropped her arms and faced her teammates once again.
Veronica let out the breath she had been holding. She stared at the blank screen, avoiding everyone’s eyes. Jordan put her other hand on Veronica’s shoulder.
Brent sat staring with a stony expression, his hands in his vest pockets. Camilla was sorry now that she hadn’t supported him yesterday. This was obscene.
“We can’t let Julian treat us like this,” she said. “It has to stop. We need to stand up for each other and tell him—”
There was a loud static pop behind her, and the monitor lit up again.
The scene it now showed was the luxurious salon of the megayacht. Camilla could see herself and the other contestants sitting around the long table, smiling, laughing, joking with one another. The sight jarred her, seeing the excitement and anticipation on all their faces, on her own face grinning wide-eyed from the screen. Everyone looked so happy. Only three days ago, but it already seemed like a distant memory, impossible to reconcile with the depression and misery that weighed her heart now.
The scene shifted to a different view of the same room. Juan and Jordan filled the foreground now, standing next to the bar, dressed in their dinner-party clothes. In the background fifty feet away, Camilla could see herself and everyone else at the table. Juan’s voice was low, but the hidden microphone had amplified the sound well.
“Okay, ready?” he said on-screen. “Let’s make this look good.”
Camilla’s jaw dropped.
The on-screen Jordan giggled quietly, a hand over her mouth. Then she composed her face into an angry expression and put her hands on her hips.
Juan held up a finger and looked toward the table where they all were gathered. A grin was visible on his face, too. Then he turned back and raised his hands.
“That’s not what I meant at all,” he said in a loud voice. “It’s not what I was saying. You didn’t let me finish.” He reached to take Jordan’s arm. “Stop overreacting.”
On the monitor, she shook his hand off violently. “Get your fucking hands off me, asshole! You’re on your own.” She stormed away, toward the table.
The monitor went blank.
Veronica abruptly jerked her hand out of Jordan’s. She didn’t take her eyes off the screen, but her mouth pulled into a thin line. Her nostrils flared. Camilla was afraid of what she might do next if that icy control gave way.
Jordan got up slowly, and Camilla turned to stare at her. Her friend—no, a friend would never do this—the blonde woman met her eyes. Jordan looked just as shocked as Camilla felt. A rushing noise rose in her ears, drowning out the sound of Mason’s laughter. She had been stupid, stupid, stupid. So trusting, so gullible.
The scoreboard reappeared.
Jordan’s eyes flitted from face to face.
“Guys,” she said softly, “I think I’m going to go upstairs now.”
“You’re not welcome here anymore,” Camilla said. “Get your bag and leave.”
Brent’s voice was milder. “I do think it would be best if you found somewhere else to stay from now on, Jordan.”
“Guys,” Jordan said. “Listen…”
Veronica’s eyes were still fixed on the blank monitor, but her voice was jagged with broken glass and razor blades.
“Get out.”
CHAPTER 77
Juan was on his feet. So were JT and Lauren. He faced the two of them, watching their expressions but aware of their hands, too. He had to be careful here.
Lauren’s hands bunched into fists, opened, and clenched again.
“I am trying really hard, Juan,” she said. “Real hard. But I can’t come up with an innocent explanation for what we just saw. Maybe you can help us out here? Because you gotta admit, it looks pretty bad.”
JT stared with eerie calmness, his features frozen in a mask of mild curiosity, as if he was waiting for Juan to explain something that puzzled him. It was quite scary, actually, because of the way veins bulged on JT’s n
eck and forehead.
“All day long,” Lauren said. “Back and forth, you and that Barbie-doll bitch racking up the points with your bullshit grudge match. I guess we should have caught on sooner, but hey, we were all a little preoccupied.”
JT shifted positions. Juan watched his shoulders, readying himself to move fast. They were angry, and angry people were unpredictable.
“Tell me,” Lauren asked, “is Travis a part of your little charade, too?”
Without relaxing his guard, he shook his head.
“Don’t say a word.” She pointed at the door. “You want to leave right now, Juan. Before JT kills you.” Her voice cracked. “Or before I do.”
• • •
Juan walked out the front door of the red team’s house, carrying his duffel bag in one hand and his jug of water in the other, with the case containing the EPIRB beacon tucked under his arm. Squinting into the late afternoon brightness, he spotted Jordan waiting in the middle of the yard, her travel bag and a jug at her feet. She raised a hand to shade her eyes, then struck a hipshot pose and stuck out her thumb like a hitchhiker.
Juan grinned.
“Come on,” he said. “I know where we can stay.”
She laughed out loud. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
He led her over the seal barricade and past the three warehouse buildings and ruined catchment basin with its dome, to the small concrete blockhouse that stood isolated from the other buildings. The steel door had a solid latch and a heavy padlock. He fished a key from his pocket. Then he stopped and looked at her, thinking.
She raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“Give me a minute,” he said.
Unlocking the blockhouse, he stepped inside, pulling the padlock out of the latch as he went by. Why take an unnecessary chance?
Leaving Jordan outside, he swung the door shut. The windowless blockhouse was dark, but it had been even darker the last time, at night. He had memorized the layout.
He slid his hand along the rough wood cabinet top until his fingers closed around the hilt of a dive knife. Feeling along the rough wood, he located a handle and crouched to open the cabinets below.
The dive knife had a flat chisel tip instead of a point. Working by touch alone, Juan used it to pry up one of the cabinet’s floorboards. He probed the six-inch gap between the cabinet’s base and the concrete floor, finding enough space for what he needed.
Still working blind, he opened other cabinets, feeling around inside. He stashed everything he found within the hiding space he had made.
Another thought occurred to him. He crossed the blockhouse and crouched near the wall, sweeping his hands along the ground until he located the pile he remembered. Sorting through the things his fingers brushed against, he collected an armful of soft, rubbery objects and slipped these inside the hiding place as well. Then he lowered the cabinet floorboard into place again, using the pommel of the dive knife to hammer it until it was wedged tight, and closed the cabinet doors.
Jordan would be getting impatient by now.
He walked to the door and swung it open, letting light into the blockhouse.
Jordan strolled in, pulling her travel bag. She stopped in the center of the room and turned in a complete circle, almost twirling.
“The presidential suite, I see. You take me to all the nicest places.”
Juan reached outside for his duffel and dropped it inside the door. He slid the EPIRB beacon case onto the cabinet top. The countertop work surface ran the length of one wall, its rough cabinets painted an ugly green. A flimsy yellow tube-steel-and-formica table stood against the wall, surrounded by three lightweight plastic chairs. A pair of wooden cots anchored the blockhouse’s far corners—makeshift wooden frames covered by threadbare blankets. Closer to the door, a pair of sawhorses supported a ten-foot board: a drying rack. Several black wet suits hung from the rack above a pile of equipment on the floor: dive fins, gloves, dive knives in scabbards, collection bags, a speargun.
Jordan dragged her bag over to one of the cots and sat down. She rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin on her hands, facing him, kicking her ankles up behind her. Her feet were bleeding again, he noticed.
“They forgot to put the champagne on ice,” she said.
“The Four Seasons it’s not.”
“How did you know this was here?”
“The night after we cleaned out the houses, I did some exploring.”
A hopeful look crossed her face. “Did you find some food?”
Juan shook his head.
Suddenly, she was crying. “Oh my god, Juan. I’m so hungry. I’m dizzy and my head hurts. What am I going to do?” Tears streamed down her cheeks. She pointed in the direction of the warehouse buildings. “I’m sure Julian wants me to go pound on his door and beg, but I won’t do it. I can’t quit, especially now.”
Her eyes were so green. Juan liked looking at them. He didn’t say anything.
Just as abruptly as she had started crying, Jordan stopped. She regarded him curiously.
“O-kay, then,” she said.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes.
Jordan looked at the wet suits. “Can you catch me a fish?”
He thought about it, watching her face.
Her mouth curled into a smile. “Any time now, my chivalrous knight.”
“No air tanks,” he said. “And no fish close to shore, because of all the seals.”
“Crabs? Lobster?”
Juan shook his head again. He walked over to the wet suits and picked up something from the floor. Time to find out how badly she wanted this.
“I’ll get you something to eat,” he said. “But don’t expect it to be pleasant.”
Her eyes widened as he slid a narrow stainless-steel shaft into the long barrel of the speargun. Sunlight glinted on the sharp point with its vicious barbs. He stepped into the doorway.
“No,” she said in a small voice. She shook her head. “Oh, no, I don’t think so.”
“You’ve got to eat. It’s been three days. Wait here for me.”
Jordan stood up, and the color drained from her face. She walked across the room and put her hands on the counter. Her back was to him, but he could read the tension in her arms and shoulders. Throwing her head back, she stood there for a long moment, arms trembling. Her breath hitched.
Moment of truth, he thought. Let’s find out who you really are.
Then she was coming toward him fast, stopping in the doorway next to him. One slim hand wrapped the barrel of the speargun, and she raised her chin, thrusting her face toward his.
From inches away, Jordan’s eyes held his. Cool and arrogant. Unsmiling green steel.
“Give me that and get out of my way,” she said. “I’ll do it myself.”
CHAPTER 78
Travis stood in the darkened hallway, rubbing his wrists. He stayed in the shadows, watching Lauren through the archway. Half-Chinese bull dyke was just sitting there, with her head in her hands. JT moved across his field of view, pacing. Big black dude looked pumped, pissed off—but not half as pissed as Travis was.
His hands still tingled—the duct tape around his arms had cut off the blood flow for hours. It had taken most of the day to work free, scraping himself against the rock.
Staying hidden, he watched his former teammates. He knew that Natalie was in there with the others, hiding in the corner. He had heard the shouting earlier and seen Juan exit, so it was just the three of them in there. Travis wasn’t entirely clear on why they had kicked Juan out. But it would make things easier, because he knew one other little Judas who had also turned against her own team—and who was now keeping quiet about what she had done.
He remembered how the little bitch’s eyes had followed him as Mason rolled him off the bluff. No expression, as if she were watching Mason drop a bag of garbage into a dumpster. She had said nothing to the rest of the team while Travis lay trussed and helpless in the cave’s darkness for hours.
He shiv
ered, rubbing his arms. Being tied up like that had brought back unpleasant memories. His mind had drifted away for a while, and he was back in the narrow darkness behind Cell Block 4’s laundry machines. The noise of the washers had been very loud, thudding and rattling next to his head. They had masked the sounds of violence, the laughter and grunts, and Travis’s screams. The guards had known exactly what was happening, but they waited several hours before pretending to discover him, bleeding and half dead. The prison infirmary was not equipped to deal with the extent of his internal injuries, so they had rushed him to an outside hospital for surgery—almost too late to save his life.
But after he had healed, inside and out, he had gotten payback. If there was one thing Travis believed in, it was payback. One at a time, he had gotten to all of them, paid them back with interest. Always when they were alone, not expecting it.
He had put Deacon in a wheelchair for life. Angel had lost both hands in the machine shop while Travis whispered into his ear. The bleach had torn DelRay’s insides apart. And Plug now spent his days in a low-security ward, staring sightlessly out the window and drooling. Nothing could be proved, but word got around, and nobody had messed with Travis after that.
After making parole, he had tracked down Lyle, the shift guard, too. He wouldn’t be rattling any more cell bars with his baton. Lyle’s baton was buried in the mud at the bottom of the Sacramento Delta now, wedged inside Lyle himself.
Travis thought of Natalie. That little bitch, he knew exactly what to do with. He’d take his time with her. She might even enjoy it.