“I told you not to come back here. Not if you’re going through with it.”
“I don’t have a choice. Of all people, I thought you’d understand. Besides, I’ve got a lead.”
“And you brought a gun here. You know I’m on parole.”
“What was I supposed to do with it?”
“Dammit, Levi. Didn’t you learn anything from your daddy? From me? You always have a choice. And I’m making mine. I don’t want to be involved.”
“Then why did you tell me?”
“Closure. Resolution. Peace of mind. Believe me, I regret it. Besides, it was just a hunch, a possibility … “
“I thought you said everybody—”
“There had been some talk on the yard, and he hadn’t ever denied it. Not that I know of anyway. I told you before, I wasn’t even there when it happened. I wished I’d kept my big mouth shut. First, Katie, and now, you’ve got her in the middle of it. Think about what you’re doing. You’re an officer of the law. Supposed to be anyway. Your father would be ashamed of you.”
I thought that would end it. Surely, Levi would storm out, taking the flimsy curtain along with him. But he didn’t. For a few minutes, the only sound I heard was the rehearsed voice of Dr. Drake Abbott, pondering the fate of his comatose wife.
“At least tell me why the Mexican Mafia is after her.”
“The EME? Jesus Christ, Levi. Is that how she got hurt? You’re in way over your head here.”
“Are you gonna tell me or not?”
Dr. Abbott started crying, head down on his wife’s limp shoulder, until a buxom nurse consoled him. I strained to hear Snip’s voice over the doctor’s sobbing.
“If she is who you say she is, they’re probably trying to settle a score. Cullen wasn’t short on enemies. There were rumors they greenlighted him.” Greenlighted?
“But after all this time? It must’ve been some beef.”
“Yeah, well, Cullen was some SOB.”
Dr. Abbott locked lips with the nurse, moaning with pleasure, as his wife suddenly opened her eyes.
“You need to tell her. Now. All of it. Or I will.”
Levi might’ve replied. But I don’t know, because I stopped hearing everything when my mother’s panicked face appeared on the TV screen, replacing Dr. Abbott’s perfectly chiseled jaw. Beneath her, the ticker rolled across the screen:
BREAKING NEWS … TEENAGE GIRL KIDNAPPED FROM HOTEL.
DISGRACED POLICE OFFICER IDENTIFIED AS PERSON OF INTEREST.
I found my voice balled in a tight fist at the base of my throat. It croaked on the way out. “Levi?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you should come in here.” The answer came with footsteps and a swishing curtain. “It’s my mom.” She stood behind a podium flanked by two police officers. I watched her twist the ruby ring on her finger—the one my father gave her—the way she always did when she was upset.
“Earlier this morning, my daughter, Samantha, was taken—kidnapped—from the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, after a gang of armed men broke into her room. I am asking, pleading, for anyone with information on her whereabouts to contact the San Francisco Police Department or FBI tip line immediately. Even the smallest piece of information could help lead to her safe return. To the person or people who have her, please let her go. I’m begging you. She hasn’t done anything to deserve this. It’s all my—” The sentenced dissolved, along with the rest of her, her shoulders shaking under the weight of it all.
“I’ll be damned,” Snip muttered. “It’s her. In the flesh.” I stared down the front of a steam engine barreling straight for me. A long time coming and too late to get out of the way now. “Dr. Keely.”
chapter
twelve
butterflies
I sat on the edge of Snip’s bed. There was a permanent dip in the mattress where he slept, and the walls were painted a sickly green. Still, I could see why he liked it here. Across the hardwood floors, a large window offered a perfect view of Dragon’s Gate. The telephone stared at me from his nightstand. Its position next to a well-worn Bible seemed fitting. I held the receiver in my lap, hand poised above the dial. But my fingers resisted until a persistent beep-beep-beep mocked me.
“Do you want me to talk to her?” Levi asked from the doorway.
I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I wiped my eyes again on my shirtsleeve, glad Snip’s only mirror was cloudy, damaged by age. “I just … I can’t believe she lied to me about who she is. Was. And you’ve been lying to me too. Again. I overheard you with Snip.”
Levi didn’t seem surprised by my accusation. “I guess that bedsheet wasn’t as soundproof as I thought.” His smile dimmed when he saw I didn’t laugh. “People lie for lots of reasons, Sam. I’m sure your mom was trying to protect you.”
“And you? Why are you lying?”
He sat next to me, palms on his knees, his long legs dwarfing the twin-sized bed. “To protect myself.” His sigh made me want to be close to him. But I barely knew him. I felt all mixed-up inside. Butterflies. Ginny’s go-to diagnosis. I’d felt those before. Never like this. Levi reached across me and hung up the receiver, the authoritative click momentarily settling my nerves. He took my hand in his and looked up at me with such tenderness, I thought he might kiss me. For real this time. “My dad was in prison for murder. Snip was his cellmate. That’s how I know about Cullen.”
“And Cullen was a greenlight?”
Levi chuckled to himself. “He was greenlighted. It means the EME put him on a hit list.”
“I guess I’m greenlighted too then.”
“Recent events would certainly seem to suggest that.”
“But why? Because my mom was his therapist?” The idea of Dr. Clare Keely still seemed ludicrous to me. When I told her Ginny’s parents were in couples counseling, my mother guffawed. They should just throw their money on a pile and burn it. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Levi’s mouth twisted, like it held something in, and he went silent until I squeezed his hand. “I don’t know for sure. But she kept all this from you for a reason.”
“Does your dad know Cullen too?”
Levi released my hand, making me regret the question. “He did. But he’s been gone a long time.” Rising to his feet, he backpedaled toward the curtain and pointed at the phone. “Now call your mom.”
****
As soon as the ringing stopped, I started talking. “Mom.” I didn’t get any further than that. After that word, the only one I could be sure of, I didn’t know what to say.
“Is this Samantha?” The voice was a woman’s, but not my mother’s. “Samantha, this is Special Agent Gretchen McKinnon with the FBI. Are you okay?” Those letters—FBI—dropped like boulders in the pit of my stomach.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Where are you? Is Officer Beckett with you?”
“Can I talk to my mother, please?”
“Hold on. Let me get her. Don’t hang up, Samantha.” Levi told me they would trace our location. He didn’t seem worried that the Internet had branded him a kidnapper.
“Is it really you? Samantha?” My mother sounded breathless, like she’d just returned from one of her long runs.
“Yes, it’s me, Mom.” She made a noise, part gasp, part sob, and my eyes welled. “Stop crying. I’m okay. Levi—uh, Officer Beckett—didn’t do anything wrong. He was just helping me find Ginny. Then these guys starting banging on our door. They were yelling things … ” La hija de puta. “ … and shooting at us.” My mother whimpered, and I lost my nerve. “You can call off the troops, okay? We’ll meet you wherever you want.”
“What if those men are still looking? Let us come to you.”
“Right. And your showing up here with the cavalry won’t tip them off.”
She groaned in
frustration, sounding like herself again. “Okay. The Tenderloin Police Station in twenty minutes. If you’re not here by then—”
“We’ll be there.”
“Samantha,” I heard her gathering strength, a storm of anger brewing. “Why didn’t you just stay in the room like I asked? They have you on video leaving at some ungodly hour. What were you thinking?”
“Ginny. I was thinking about Ginny.”
“Me too, honey. We’re looking for her too. Her parents can’t get here until their cruise ship docks at the next port. They’re worried sick.” After a pause so long I thought the line disconnected, she added, “The police found her phone in your hotel room. We really need to talk.”
Levi told me it would be best to wait, to save Clare Keely for a face-to-face, but I blurted it out anyway. “Mom … I know. I know about your big secret.” I hung up the phone before she could reply.
october 28, 1996
Neal called again last night. Just to talk. That’s what he said. But Clare knew better. He’d always finesse his way back with persistence and polish. Remember that day we drove to Muir Beach? Of course she did. Neal’s idea, she’d spent half the morning trying to change his mind. The rest of the day, she held her breath waiting for it to be over. It wasn’t logical, not at all, but she kept thinking he would drive to the spot, the secret one. Tell her the jig was up. That he’d figured out what she really was. A monster with a hole where her heart should be. That was one of my favorite days ever, Clare. Mine too, she’d answered, hoping the quiver in her voice didn’t give her away.
She pinched her leg, another trick she’d learned to bring herself back to the present. The now. Because now was 9:29 a.m. and Cullen would be here any minute. After their last session, the discussion about erotic transference, Clare had to be on her toes.
Cullen arrived right on time, an eager grin on his face. She liked the way he smiled at her, like she was in on the joke.
“I hope we can pick up where we left off last time,” she said. “Worse things than murder … ”
“Not taking notes today?” She silently cursed him for being more observant than she’d given him credit for.
“I want to focus on you.”
He gave a quick up-down, up-down of eyebrows. “Really?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t make me have the transference conversation again.” She realized mid-sentence her scolding tone came out more flirtatious than she intended, and she suddenly wished she had her notebook to hide behind.
“Not the dreaded transference conversation,” he joked, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Anything but that.”
She forced a straight face. “Okay. Last week, you said that betrayal and humiliation were worse than taking a life. What did you mean by that?”
“To answer your question, Doc, I have to tell you about the first woman who destroyed me. My mother.” Clare practically squealed with excitement. Cullen had quashed all prior attempts to discuss his parents, and the file was—per the usual—vague. “Truth is, I can’t even call her that with a straight face. Half the time, she was a spineless jellyfish. A worm. The other half, she was a heartless bitch. I only wish I would’ve killed her instead.” A shot of cold water down her back, Clare was awake.
“Go on.” That was all she could manage.
“She slept with anything that moved. Drunk, married, pedophile. Hell, she didn’t care. The more messed up, the better. And most of those losers beat her like a rag doll.”
“Is that something you witnessed?”
“Witnessed? Who do you think was there to clean up the blood, put her in bed, doctor her bruises? And that wasn’t the worst of it. When they started using me as a punching bag, she let it happen. Like I deserved it.”
“How did that make you feel?” Typical therapist lingo. But it had to be asked, not assumed.
“I hate her,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “This is what she did to me.” He raised his chambray, prison-issued shirt and pointed to his stomach before she could spit out the words to stop him. His bare skin looked different, more vulnerable than that day in the prison yard when he was slick with sweat. She sickened at her urge to touch the raised scars across his abdomen. “I was her boyfriend’s personal ashtray.”
“Put your shirt down,” she told him, careful to be firm, but not admonishing.
“Sorry.” He tucked the shirt inside his pants as if nothing had happened, and she willed away the memory of Mr. Taylor doing the same. “I got carried away.”
“You wanted me to see the way your mother hurt you,” she said. “Why?”
“The same reason I showed Emily on our first date. I thought she was different, polar opposite of my mother. I wanted her to understand me, how I got to be me.”
“And?”
“Betrayal. She was exactly like that bitch. I knew it the second I caught her screwing that loser in her sociology class. That’s what I meant. Seeing that sweaty pig grunting on top of her was worse than anything I did to her.”
Clare nodded, but she was spinning, trying to keep her composure. Cullen never talked like this. So vulgar. She wondered if he wanted to rattle her. “It sounds like your view of women is fairly black and white. The virgin or the whore. There is a middle ground, you know.”
He tilted his head in contemplation. “No one’s ever put it to me like that before. You’re right. I guess I do idealize women … until I don’t.”
“Do you idealize me?” Clare felt a little thrill being so direct.
A smile curled half of his mouth, and the steely hardness in his eyes softened to a forget-me-not blue. “What do you think?”
****
“This is wrong, isn’t it?” Clare knew she was dreaming because Mr. Taylor had no face. Just a blur like a finger-smeared Polaroid. He cupped her breast in his hand, kissed her neck. Of course it was wrong. She knew that. But she liked feeling special. Was that wrong too?
He laughed at her, and she felt her face get hot. “It’s natural, Clarie. These are the things that happen between a man and a woman.”
“I’m not a woman though.”
“You’re fourteen years old. You get your period, right?” Her shame weighed so heavy she could barely nod her head. “That makes you a woman.” He kissed her mouth, shoving his tongue inside until she pushed him away.
“But I don’t want anybody to think I’m a slut.” Lizzie said there were worse things to be, but Clare wasn’t so sure. Besides, Lizzie didn’t have a clue about the things that happened in Mr. Taylor’s backseat. Not that she didn’t suspect. But Clare met all her questions with furious denial. And she planned to keep it that way.
Mr. Taylor sighed like he didn’t want to be bothered with her silly questions. After all, she was usually quiet. “Nobody knows, baby, but if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll make you a promise.”
“What kind of promise?”
“I won’t have sex with you. Believe me, there’s nothing I want more. That’s your fault, you know.” He rubbed his hand down the front of her. “It’s not wrong if we don’t go all the way. You’re still a virgin. My hot little virgin.” He ran his hand through her hair and twisted it in a knot around his fingers, pulling her lips to his. She let him do it. She owed him. This was her fault. When he released her, his face had changed. Taken form. A form she recognized.
She tugged him back toward her, moaning his name against his mouth. “Clive.”
Clare opened her eyes to the pitch black of her room and sheets that were soaked through with her own sweat. That dream seemed to last all night, but the clock read 11:13 p.m. Only seven more hours to go until morning. “Just another Manic Monday,” she whispered.
october 29, 1996
Clare marched back on the yard determined to show Ramirez she wasn’t afraid. She had no choice. Dumas refused to leave his cell that morning, and she was worried. H
e’s been skipping meals too, Fitzpatrick told her after his briefing with unit officers. Dumas needed her and she wasn’t going to let some too-big-for-his-britches gangbanger stand in her way. Ramirez had no idea what she was capable of, the dark things she could be pushed to do. All a part of the speech she used to psych herself up, standing at the opposite end of West Block with a long walk ahead of her. Robocop offered an escort, of course, but she politely declined. She had something to prove.
The fall air crisp, she felt tempted to pull her jacket tight around her, stuff her hands inside her pockets. But she didn’t. She wanted Ramirez to see her strength. She saw him squatting like a vulture atop the picnic table, surveying the yard as his cronies flocked around him. He locked eyes with Clare. She didn’t look away. Her Thursday, 3-o’clock client taught her a word for that. Mad-dogging. As in, “That guy at the bar was mad-dogging me, so I shot him.” Mad-dogging? she’d asked. “You know, staring me down all angry like one of them pit bulls.”
Clare thought of every hateful thing she could conjure. From the beginning with her father’s funeral. Seven years old and tugging at her dress, the hem unraveling, one button already discarded just underneath the church pew. Her mother, too busy chasing the next Mr. Right to be bothered. Rodney Fucking Taylor. The man who changed who she was or revealed her—she wasn’t sure which. The night he made that twisted promise. The night he broke it. And that’s where she settled, in the cold place where she could be as vicious as anyone. Even Ramirez.
“Good morning, Mr. Ramirez.” Later, she would curse herself for speaking at all. But right now, she celebrated the way the words rolled off of her tongue. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t stutter.
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