I got to my feet and paced. “This can’t be true. This isn’t true, Arie. This is nuts, fucking nuts.”
No response.
“Arie, you believe me, right? Tell me you believe me, or I’m hanging up this phone right now, goddammit!” I jabbed a finger toward the floor and felt the echo of my booming voice in my chest. Just then, the dogs loped into the bedroom, followed by Mackenzie, who still had on her pajamas. There were pictures of small puppies on her pajamas. She was definitely a puppy person.
She wrapped her arms around my waist. “Dad, is everything okay?”
I put a hand over the phone. “I’m fine, sweetie. How about you feed the dogs, and then you can get some cereal and fruit?”
“Can I watch TV at the same time?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Father-of-the-Year material, I am. But Mackenzie’s presence had dropped my tension down a couple of notches.
“I’m back, Arie.”
“Ozzie, I believe you. I know you’re not capable of killing anyone, or masterminding some plan to kill anyone. I know you love Nicole, but I also know you two have had your ups and downs…”
It sounded as though he had more to say. But I think he was waiting for me to end the sentence for him.
“I told Valentine the truth, Arie. Hell, he basically knew my life story, at least the high-level stuff. But killing Nicole?”
Emotion rippled through my body. My mind replayed the snippets of audio and video from the last moments I had been on the phone with Nicole. They had a fun-loving tone to them, like just about every time Nicole and I spoke. And then, in just a few seconds, everything about my life was thrown to the wayside. The man approached her, assaulted her, possibly cut off her finger, maybe shot her three times, and then she fell or was pushed off the bridge.
Fuck! And they think I was behind this? “How, Arie? I don’t get it. I’m just…” Tears flooded my tired eyes. I went into the bathroom and splashed water on my face; then I put my lips to the spout and took a few gulps.
“You’re upset. I’m sorry, Ozzie. Your father, if he was still here, would take that DA’s office and rip them apart.”
Another reminder of death delivering a punch to my kidney. “Dad isn’t here, Arie. I wish he was, but I can’t rely on him to help me.”
“I guess that’s one of the reasons I called. Your father would want me to do this. I want to represent you.”
I tried to think for a moment. “That’s fine. I wouldn’t know who else to trust.”
“Good. I need to use this old brain of mine for something.”
“So, what’s next?” I asked.
“I don’t want Valentine showing up to arrest you before you find someone to take care of Mackenzie.”
Arrest me. I’d used terms such as “arrest,” “booked,” “charged,” “out on bail,” “pre-trial hearings,” on and on for years. I’d heard my dad say them even more than I had. But it was always about someone else. Not me. How could it be me?
“Arie, this so-called ‘evidence.’ It’s not true.”
“I hear you.”
“But do you believe me?”
“You already asked me that. Yes, I believe you. But that, as you know, matters very little. What matters is the evidence they have that identifies you as the person who hired someone to kill Nicole.”
“I want to see the emails.”
“So, as far as you know, you didn’t joke around with a buddy and say something like, ‘Oh, I could kill her for that.’”
I momentarily closed my eyes, tried to recall all of my interactions with people via text and email. Why I even bothered with the exercise, I wasn’t sure. I knew the answer. “Arie, that’s just not me. I’ve never joked about killing Nicole.”
“Not even when, you know…”
“You can say it out loud. When I found out about Calvin Drake. I was crushed, no doubt about it. And as I learned more about who Drake was, and ultimately what he and his goon squad did to Nicole, I wanted to hurt him, maybe even—”
“Don’t say it. I understand. But nothing about Nicole. You never said anything to anyone about hurting her, just out of resentment or sheer emotional anger?”
“No. Nothing. That’s not how I think, not about her.”
“Good. Well, now I know for certain that this email is bogus.”
A sense of relief washed over me. I’d convinced one person, but he was my dad’s best friend, his old golf buddy, my former colleague, and now my lawyer. So, like he’d said, his belief in me didn’t mean much. “We need to see this evidence.”
“I just wish you’d called me before you spoke to the police.”
“Arie, I had no idea. I just wanted the cops to find my wife.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Let me talk to my source, then I’ll formally contact the DA’s office and let them know they need to talk to me before they talk to you about anything. I’ll be nice and professional. I don’t want to make enemies right now. We don’t want any surprises.”
He said he’d reach out to me at this number no later than noon, and we ended the call. I fell onto the bed and started thinking about what could happen over the next few days, maybe even hours. Rational thoughts actually made their way through my sluggish mind. Once I heard back from Arie, I’d have to make some tough decisions—the ones I could control. I had to face a hard truth: the result of these decisions could impact the little person eating cereal in the other room. And her well-being had to be my top priority.
7
I’d told Mackenzie she could stay home and just be with me, but she said she wanted some normalcy, to hang out with friends. I didn’t take it personally. Everyone had their own way of dealing with these types of things. She had a strength about her that amazed me; still, I would watch her for any signs of emotional struggle and be there for her when she needed me. Anyway, I’d obliged and taken her to school, which left me alone in the apartment with two sleeping dogs.
I’d taken a shower and was pacing in the living room, awaiting a call back from Arie. It was now two in the afternoon. He was late calling me back. I didn’t have a computer or a cell phone. I had no way of accessing my own email account to search for this phantom email where I apparently had hired a person to kill Nicole.
Me hiring a hitman to kill Nicole? It’s unfathomable. Fucking crazy is more like it.
“Dammit, I wish Brook was here,” I said out loud. I’d been talking to myself throughout the day. Baxter and Rainbow would occasionally open their eyes and acknowledge my presence. Then, they’d yawn and fall back into their slumber.
Brook and I had grown close over the last few months. She’d worked the original investigation into my father’s death. Initially, doctors had believed he’d suffered a fatal heart attack. But in my gut, I believed something else had happened, especially when he’d cryptically said something about a mystery client. He died before I got all the details. Through Brook’s hard work, and me pushing her every step of the way, we learned that he’d been murdered by his long-time administrative assistant, someone I’d known since I was a little kid, who I thought was a friend of the family.
Those days were tough, for sure. But this recent series of events seemed exponentially worse.
I had to remind myself to breathe as I paced the living room, throwing theories against the wall. None stuck. Nothing made sense. I needed to see this so-called “evidence.”
The phone rang, and I clicked the green button. “Arie?”
“It’s me, Ozzie.” His voice was somber. Not a good sign.
“Talk to me.”
A loud sigh. “They’re going to charge you with conspiracy to commit murder.”
The room started spinning. I bumped into the coffee table, bounced off, and hit the TV stand. I was reeling. It was as though someone had pushed a button to tilt the floor dramatically one way and then the other. A test of my balance. A test of my sanity. I found a wall and found some stability. Pressing my fingers into the corners of my eyes, I said,
“So, this email is real? I mean, I know it’s not real because I didn’t create it and/or send it. But…you’ve seen it?”
“They’ll show it to me once you turn yourself in. You have until seven o’clock tonight.”
“Seven o’clock,” I repeated. Five hours.
Still leaning against the wall, my mind zipped through a loop of images. The day I first saw Nicole on campus at Cal-Berkley, drinking hot cocoa by a roaring fire, and seeing the twinkle in her honey eyes, the way she bit her lower lip, and, oh, her smile that set off fireworks in my heart. Her quick mind and adventurous soul. Like when she’d helped me on a case regarding a cheating husband…and like when she’d jumped into Barton Springs pool in fifty-degree weather without any clothes on just to shock me, which she certainly had. How we’d talked about our relationship; her admitting that she’d screwed up, that she had been weak and lured by the glamorous gifts. How her personal strength in making such an admission had caused me to do the same with myself—admit my weak points. How she had helped me to grow as a human being, a husband, a father.
And now this. A painful but strange thought came to mind: the only person who could help me get through this was dead, lying at the bottom of the lake.
I took in a sharp breath and then cleared my throat. Think rationally, Ozzie. “Let’s talk bail, Arie. They might question me all night and elongate the process, so I’ll need to get Mackenzie set up to spend the night at Ariel’s place or with Tito, but—”
“Hold on. More bad news.”
What the fuck now? “Yeah?”
“The assistant DA said she’s going to push for no bail.”
“No bail? No. Fucking. Bail? Is she crazy?” I pushed off from the wall and watched my free hand ball into a fist. I wanted to punch something, or someone. “This makes no sense, Arie. I’m not some five-time convicted felon, or someone who has the means to grab my passport and flee to another country that won’t extradite me. And I have a daughter here. There’s no way a judge will agree to this.”
I finally stopped and waited. Seconds ticked by.
“Arie?”
“Sorry, the wife was asking me to take out the trash.”
“While this is all crazy talk, I can see them asking for a high bail, and if that’s the case, I might have to call up Mom and ask if she can help out, but—”
“Look, Ozzie. Normally, I’d agree with you, that there is no way a judge would agree to no bail. But I haven’t seen this evidence. I’ll see it later when you turn yourself in. Honestly, though, Dana Larson wasn’t empathetic. She called this case a slam-dunk win.”
I rubbed a hand across my face. A fucking slam-dunk? No bail, though, would mean I couldn’t be with Mackenzie. And what if we couldn’t prove my innocence? I’d be sent off to prison for twenty, thirty years, maybe the rest of my life. What alternate universe had I been pulled into?
“I know this sounds like bad news, Ozzie.”
“This isn’t bad news, Arie. Bad news is losing my shirt on a stock deal or having my car stolen. This is the end of the fucking world. Nicole is dead, dammit!” Tears flooded my eyes. I gasped out three breaths, doing what I could to keep my emotions under control. “And now I can’t even grieve and plan a funeral or memorial service or whatever. I have to fucking defend myself because someone planted evidence to make it look like I killed my Nicole. We’ve got to find out who did this, Arie. Now. We can’t wait. I can’t sit in a jail cell and be away from Mackenzie.”
“I understand, Ozzie.”
That was it? “I understand”? Was Arie up for this fight? I had no idea. He knew people, but I needed a fucking bulldog on the outside if this was going to work.
“Do you want me to pick you up just before seven?” Arie asked.
A thousand thoughts pinged my mind, but with my pulse thumping like a rabbit’s foot, I couldn’t make sense of any of them. “Yeah, whatever.” My wandering eyes landed on the far wall, where we’d hung Mackenzie’s greatest gift to me, a painting she’d made of us at the beach with Rainbow, all of us laughing, having a great time. A lump formed in my throat. “Arie, I’ll come to you.”
“You want to leave your car at my house?”
“Is that a problem?”
“I guess not.”
“I might need to talk to my mom and brother about this, about helping out with Mackenzie if I’m going to be away for a while.” A while? I was in denial. I didn’t want to believe the reality that this could be far longer than a few days or even a few weeks. It might take six months or longer to get this to trial. Unless there was a way to prove my innocence before the trial ever started. And what if the trial ended with a guilty verdict?
“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” Arie said. “Be here no later than six forty. I don’t want to piss off the assistant DA. Maybe I can win her over or something.”
Quite a strategy. “Yeah, six forty. I’ll be there.”
I hung up and stared at Mackenzie’s painting of us on the beach, playing with Rainbow. I was sure she could add Baxter in there. This was her dream vacation—the water, the sand, Rainbow, and the two of us playing with all the freedom and silliness we could muster. Her dream was my dream. It had seemed so attainable twenty-four hours earlier and now appeared as distant as the ocean was vast.
I pushed out a shaky breath, raked my fingers through my hair. Who had done this to Nicole, and why? With this planted evidence, though, identifying me as the perpetrator, was I the ultimate target? Someone with a vendetta? I thought about all of the degenerates with whom I’d crossed paths in the last few months. They were either dead or in prison. Was it possible to mastermind something like this from behind the walls of a prison? Maybe, but it wouldn’t be easy.
I felt this itch in my mind, though, as if I was missing something more obvious.
Don’t look for the complicated; start with the simple.
Nicole’s past indiscretion gnawed at me. I hated myself for allowing it to enter my conscious mind. But it wasn’t the affair that took hold of my thoughts—it was more about this other life she’d lived without my knowledge. Still, back then, I could feel something different about her, almost to the day, when things had changed. But once she saw Drake for who he really was, she had admitted her faults and had been working to win me back ever since—not in a forceful, desperate way, but in a more self-reflective manner. With patience and kindness, and yes, a bit of that Nicole flirtation that was impossible to resist.
She was all about Team Novak, us buying this new home to start our lives anew, committing to us and our family on a level I’d never seen or experienced. And then she’d brought up wanting us to have kids. We both had this emotional maturity that didn’t exist a year ago. I knew that our family bond was the true American dream. Our dream.
I blinked my eyes and sighed, knowing I couldn’t constantly relive old memories or dwell on what could have been. Not now. I didn’t have the luxury of mourning at my own speed.
Start with the simple. Nicole had been in New York City for a marketing conference just three days earlier. The city that never sleeps.
And I wouldn’t sleep until I found her killer.
8
After taking a shot of whiskey—I needed something to calm my nerves—I dropped by Tito’s place. He had a paintbrush in his hand when he answered the door.
“Something’s wrong. I can see it in your face.” After he’d put away his paints and taken a seat at his kitchen table, I relayed what Arie had told me. He briefly removed his golf hat—this one was purple and gold—and scratched his thick, bald head.
“I don’t know what to say, Ozzie. I already lost one brother. I can’t see you go off to prison.”
His younger brother had died a few years back from gang violence.
“And you didn’t have anything to do with this. What is going on, man?”
“I wish I knew, Tito.”
He shook his head defiantly, a look I hadn’t seen in many years. He was pissed. While I appreciated the supp
ort, his anger couldn’t help me.
Suddenly, his eyes flipped right to me. “Mackenzie. And we don’t know how long you’ll be out of pocket.”
In prison, out of pocket. His term definitely had a softer vibe.
“I know, Tito. That’s why I’m here.”
He smacked his hand to the table. “Dude, if you need me to take care of her, I’ll do it. No questions asked.”
I’d thought about getting my mom and brother involved. But I knew they could deal with only so much. Raising a little girl for weeks, months, maybe years…I just couldn’t picture it with Mom or Tobin. My mom had shown almost zero grandparenting desire. And Mackenzie would not enjoy it. She needed to be close to people who cared for her. Tito and Luella, his girlfriend, adored Mackenzie. By staying at his loft, she’d still be close to Ariel’s place too.
“You sure this won’t be too tough on you?”
“It would be my honor, Ozzie. To you, to Nicole…God rest her soul. And I’ll figure out something with the dogs. Maybe they can stay at Luella’s house.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and fought like hell not to cry. “Good. Thank you. I owe you everything, Tito.”
“Don’t even say that. You’ll get through this. Arie will work to get this shit fixed. The truth will win out. I know it.”
I looked down for a second. “I want to believe that, Tito. I really do.”
“The power of positive thinking. Once you leave here, I’m going to call Mama. She’ll have the entire church in prayer for you before the night is over.”
“If only it were that simple.”
“Don’t give up, Ozzie. I know things seem bleak, but the truth is on your side. It might take some time, but it will work out. I know it. I believe it.”
I glanced around his loft and spotted the usual array of paintings, all of which had a Christmas theme. They were all so full of joy and hope—the antithesis of how I was feeling. I looked at my friend. We just stared at each other for a good minute. Neither of us said a word.
ON The Run (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 6) (Redemption Thriller Series 18) Page 4