by Ellery Kane
Clare kept her lips pressed tight together so nothing could slip out. But in her mind, she thrust a knife right to the center of his throat.
McKinnon offered another sympathetic smile. “I understand your frustration, Lieutenant. It must be difficult to accept that this happened here, right under your nose. But, I assure you, I am more than capable of getting to the truth.” She didn’t wait for a reply. The recorder whirred back to life. And Clare squashed the urge to hug her.
“There are serious penalties for the sorts of things you’ve described, Clare. However, I think I speak for everyone here when I say no one wants to see you behind bars.” For once, Bonner bit his tongue, and Clare relished knowing how hard it must have been for him, how that would keep him up at night. “You’re not the one to blame. This is Cullen’s m.o. He manipulates women better than the best of them. Doesn’t he?” Clare couldn’t make herself agree, so she said nothing. “Would you be willing to help us catch our man?”
“Will I be charged with anything?”
“Not if you assist in his successful apprehension. It’s likely you’ll face other consequences though. The revocation of your license, for example. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about that.”
“I understand.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything else we should know? Anyone else we should investigate?” Neal warned her this would come. Be smart, Clare, he’d said, and her heart swelled. After every foolish mistake she’d made, he still thought she was capable of being smart. The EME, the NF, these gangs are powerful. Ruthless. They know where you live. Just keep your mouth shut. When she opened her mouth to argue, he silenced her with three words. Remember that canary.
Clare turned her head slowly, deliberately toward Bonner, letting her silence speak for her. She watched his face until the ghost of fear passed across it and a little longer still, until Neal nudged her. “I don’t want this on tape.” McKinnon clicked the recorder off again and nodded at Clare. “Arturo Ramirez. He runs drugs for the EME.”
Cullen arrived outside Clare’s office at fifteen till seven just like they’d planned. By the time Ramirez’s men went looking for him in the laundry closet, he’d be clear of San Quentin, beelining for her car in the lot, keys in hand. Ready to drive to Muir Woods and unearth their future. Taking his place and ready for battle, Torres and the NF. McKinnon didn’t know about that. The gang fight Clare had set in motion. McKinnon didn’t know about a lot of things.
Cullen’s shadow appeared in the beveled glass, and Clare caught her breath. He stood there a moment before he knocked, and she wished she could read his thoughts. Not that it mattered. It was too late now anyway.
“Hi,” he said, peeking in as she cracked the door. His boyish grin nearly broke her heart in two.
Say something, Clare. But she feared something would give her away, so she pulled him inside, backing up until she felt the edge of the desk behind her thighs. Then she kissed him like it was the last time. And Cullen kissed her back like the first. The gentle, reserved way he touched her face, chock-full of promise and possibility. She tugged and grabbed and held on like there was nothing beyond this and it needed to count for something. He separated first, taking a full step away from her. Her face flushed. She could feel it burning.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “The officer will be here any minute. We have to stop.”
“I didn’t call the officer.” Clare paid close attention to his eyes. Part hurt, part hope, part confusion. That’s what she found there. The look he’d give later—the one she wouldn’t see—when he’d realize she had sent him to his doom. “It’s okay,” she said, and the dull blue brightened again. “I’ve got something better, easier. And we don’t have to hurt anybody.” She pointed to the bag in the corner, where she’d stashed the uniform and ID badge Bonner gave her. They belonged to Officer Swanson, a rookie. “I swiped it,” she lied.
“From where?”
“This bar in town. All the officers go there after work. They’ll be drinking all night. He won’t miss it until the morning. And we’ll be halfway to Mexico by then.”
Cullen didn’t say anything, and Clare felt certain she’d been caught. The most important lie, and she managed to mess it up. Maybe she didn’t want to get it right after all. “I wasn’t going to hurt anybody, Clare. I told you. I could’ve just tied him up.”
“I know, but I—”
“I just don’t want you taking risks like that. If you get caught . . . ”
“But I didn’t.” He dropped it with a single nod that implied they’d talk about it later, that there would be a lifetime to talk about it. Or maybe that’s only what he wanted her to believe. She’d come to accept she couldn’t tell the difference. Then he stripped out of his prison blues and tossed them aside, with a smile as wide as she’d ever seen. She wanted that feeling. Coveted it. The release of leaving an entire self behind and starting again. Even if it was only make-believe.
From the office next door, a muffled sound harder than a footstep startled them both, and Clare fought to control the jolt of adrenaline that told her to run. “What was that?” Cullen asked, edgy. He slid into the officer’s jumpsuit in a hurry and shoved his feet into black boots.
“I didn’t hear anything. Fitzpatrick’s not working today. Maybe it’s the janitor.”
“Should you check?” She nodded and opened the door to the hallway, walking out halfway, pretending to be wary. McKinnon insisted they be close by in case anything went wrong. That was FBI speak for in case he tries to kill you.
“No one,” she said. “We’re clear.”
He chuckled softly. “I’m getting jumpy, aren’t I? It’s just, we’re so close. I don’t want to blow it now.”
“You won’t.” I already did. “You remember how to get there?”
“Of course.”
“I drew you a map in case you forget. It’s hidden under the mat.” Another thing McKinnon didn’t know. Clare wasn’t about to give up Muir Woods. She’d buried too much of herself there. It belonged to her and nobody else. “There’s a change of clothes too.”
He nodded. “When will you be there?” Never.
“As soon as I can. I’ll wait for a while. When I’m sure you’re clear, I’ll call a taxi to take me to Rodney’s. Then we’ll pick you up at the cabin.” You’ll be in cuffs before you reach the parking lot.
“Clare . . . ” His voice lowered, dark and serious, and Clare knew he was about to make this harder. “If I don’t make it out of here, if they catch me—”
Oh God. “Don’t say that.”
“I want you to know I’ll never give you up. Not any of it. I’ll take it all to my grave.”
She couldn’t stand to be in her own skin. She wanted to shed it and slither away. But Cullen seemed to expect nothing in return. He didn’t even look at her. He’d already buttoned the jumpsuit and clipped the ID to his pocket. “How do I look?”
She tried to choose words she wouldn’t regret. Words that wouldn’t haunt her. When that proved impossible, she picked the words he wanted to hear instead. “Like a free man.”
29
DRAGON
Levi crouched next to me, eyeing the door.
“Were those guys EME too?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. The EME don’t like your mom.”
I started to agree, to ask him what next, to brush at the grass stuck in my hair, but I never got the chance.
The sky erupted. A few days ago, I would’ve expected to see an explosion worthy of the random bursts of color that lit the Bellwether football field every Fourth of July. Now, I knew better. I hit the ground again and huddled like an animal in the weeds. Bullets pinged the buildings, tore through metal. Somewhere glass exploded. The EME! It had to be. They’d come for my mother, guns blazing. Two of them, but in the haze of gunfire, I couldn’t tell them apart. They moved together—one sinewy dragon, spitting fire from its mouth, shouting its bat
tle cry.
“Stay down,” Levi told me. “We’ve got to get better cover. We won’t last here.” I hugged tight to my knees, making myself as small as I could behind the row of discarded seat backs. A gash already ripped through the top of one, the foam falling like snow around me. Levi shot as he ran, taking cover alongside the building. The men fired back at him, and the shot glanced off the sheet metal.
“Sam!” I peered up out of my cocoon, and Levi motioned to me with his hand. “C’mon. I’ll shoot. You run.” Another round of gunfire sent Levi darting backward.
Uh, no. I shook my head. “I can’t,” I yelled.
Levi stuck his hand around the corner and fired again. One half of the dragon went down, stunned. Somehow still alive, even with a bullet-sized hole torn in the front of his T-shirt. His face, familiar to me like a demon from a nightmare I couldn’t shake.
“Yes, you can. You have to. Just like in the hotel. Remember?”
And I did. I remembered. The big bad wolf of a man with oil-slick hair who pounded his way in, the tattoo like a garrote around his neck. He’d returned to finish the job. “Quién es ese?” he asked, struggling to his feet.
His partner shrugged, keeping the eye of his gun trained on Levi’s spot. “No es Cullen. Leave it for now.”
“Go, Sam!” Levi shouted, and my feet took off, sprinting through the weeds toward him. A bullet sliced the air just behind me, and I dove the rest of the way, landing with a thud in the dirt.
I forced the words out, my lungs burning. “It’s the guy from the Westin.”
Levi nodded. “EME. They’re wearing vests.”
“As in?” The sun shining right at me, I felt cold.
“Yep. Bulletproof.”
A vicious chop of a boot pounded against the door, and I jumped. Levi leaned around the corner, fired, and snapped back, dodging another pop-pop-pop of bullets.
“Doc-tora Clare? Doc-tora Puta? We know you’re in there with your boyfriend.” The man’s voice singsong, his accent heavy, the intent clear. Abject terror. “Don’t make us come inside.” He kicked again, just rattling her cage. The door nothing but a formality. With a gun that merciless, he could go in anytime he wanted. Take anything. Do whatever. I tried to imagine my mother on the other side, but I couldn’t. The mother I knew had no place here. She stayed behind in Bellwether, sipping iced tea on our front porch and counting fireflies.
I’m trembling again, I thought as the side of the building shook beneath my hand.
A soft rumble built to a steady roar, and I thought, thunderstorm. Then, earthquake, when all I could see opened up around me. The garage door crumpled in on itself like paper, and the head of a beast—an 18-wheeler—pushed its way through, blasting back at the EME with a hail of gunfire from the cab.
I covered my ears as the EME shot back. Levi too. Until thin white smoke rose up like fog. The truck kept moving, slow and labored in its death march, even after the windshield bloodied and shattered. The man with the N tattooed on his hand took a last gasp, dropped toward the steering wheel, and tumbled out the door. His partner jumped from the passenger seat, fired one last round, and collapsed a few feet from us. One of the EME lay crushed beneath the truck. My mother and Cullen nowhere. The only sign of life, el lobo feroz. Not so big and bad anymore—a wound in his leg left a red trail behind him—but still a wolf. A wolf with a weapon.
“NF,” Levi whispered, eyeing the dead man’s tattoos from our hiding place behind a hunk of twisted metal. “Nuestra Familia. It’s another gang. A rival.” A gang on my mother’s side apparently.
As the wolf stalked around, dazed, the door of the main building opened, and Agent McKinnon strutted out, gun drawn. “What’s going on here?” Her bark demanded answers.
I let out a breath of relief and started to call her, but Levi’s hand held me like an anchor to the earth. Then, she fired. A shot to the flank and the wolf went down. My own legs went numb and folded beneath me. No chance of getting up now. I stopped breathing, stopped looking, when McKinnon aimed again. This time, after, he made no sound.
“Clare! Clare Bronwyn! It’s Agent McKinnon.” Just like that, her tone became concerned and imploring. “Are you in there?”
“Clare can’t come out right now,” Cullen announced, stepping from the truck’s backside, an assault rifle in his hand. He pointed it at McKinnon. She pointed hers back. “She’s a little tied up, as they say. But what do you care? Clare didn’t want to believe it when I told her, but I know what you’ve been up to.” He waved his free hand wildly, gesturing to the chaos around him. “The game you’ve been running. And now, you’re here to kill us both, aren’t you?”
McKinnon didn’t answer him. “Clare, it’s going to be okay. I’ve got backup on the way.”
“I’ll bet you do. More of Ramirez’s scraps sent here to do your dirty work.”
When McKinnon spoke again, her bark had bite. “Here’s the problem with being a criminal, Cutthroat. When you finally decide to speak the truth, nobody believes you. And before you can convince them, you’re already dead.”
“I believe him.” Levi advanced toward them, his own gun aimed at McKinnon. In the other hand, he waved the top-secret pages like a flag of surrender. “I believe you shared classified information with the EME to help them smuggle cocaine across the Mexican border. I believe you used Rodney Taylor’s business as a front for illegal activity. And I’m guessing you might have known about his penchant for little girls. Is that what you held over him? Is that how you convinced him to sell his soul?”
“Officer Beckett—can I still call you that? You’re one to talk, dragging your sister into your pathetic little daddy detective story. Here’s a hint: It wasn’t Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with a candlestick. And as much as I’d like to pin it on Cutthroat, he didn’t have the cojones to fight back in prison. Not like that. Clare had him all soft and googly-eyed. But later on, he took the credit for it. Just like I knew he would. And who could blame him after the good doctor left him high and dry?”
My mother emerged then, and I gasped. Not tied, not gagged, not handcuffed. Free to do whatever she pleased. And her hands, bright red with somebody’s blood. On the ground at her feet, the dead NF’s rifle. I willed her to look at it. “Snip told me,” she said instead. “Twenty years ago, he’d told me Dumas saw something that spooked him. I thought he meant me and Cullen. I thought Cullen got jealous and . . . ” She hung her head, and I wanted to run to her. But I didn’t dare move.
“It’s always about you, isn’t it, Clare?” McKinnon chuckled to herself, but her grip stayed taut, finger poised on the trigger. “Dumas saw a drop go down in the kitchen. The EME don’t leave loose ends like that dangling for long. Bonner knew. That double-dealing low life had been running drugs with the NF and the EME for years. He sent his little kiss-ass, Briggs, to make sure it all went down without a hitch. I’d figured it out before the ink dried on your letter of resignation. You can’t blame me for taking advantage of his stupidity. And you, so predictable running away like that. Then. Now. But you couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You had to come here and muck it all up for me. You know, Cullen cried like a baby when we arrested him that day, halfway to your car. This time you and your daughter—his daughter—get to watch him die.”
Until then, I’d been convinced of my own invisibility. But now, exposed, I felt like a pawn on a chessboard. I wobbled to my feet to claim my place, to show I wouldn’t be sacrificed. Not for her.
In a slow-motion second, the whole game changed. Pieces shifted. The chessboard tumbled and cracked in two. McKinnon fired first, dropping Levi with a shot to his arm. He cried out and rolled onto his side. I lunged toward him, but he waved me back. Already dashing for the cab of the truck, Cullen shot back at McKinnon, narrowly missing. He shouted at my mother as he ran.
“Let’s go, Clare!” It sounded like an order, but my mother just stood there, her face indecipherable. “Get in.”
Cullen clung to the side mirror, ready to hoist h
imself into the driver’s seat. Ready to drive straight through the fence to freedom. But something pinned him, tethered him to my mother, and wouldn’t let him go. Time stilled, and I wondered if he would dissolve to sand like the old parable, unable to pry his eyes from the past.
From behind him, McKinnon lined up her shot. “Watch out!” I yelled, the words expelling themselves from a place I couldn’t name. And then, in the instant it took for a firefly to flicker and go out, my mother—Clare Keely—picked up the rifle and fired. And McKinnon fell.
The truck started to move, to pick up steam again, with Cullen imploring my mother. Practically begging. She watched him go, the same way she’d watch me leave her in the fall. Partly unwilling, partly unable to stop the inevitable.
Next to her, Levi propped himself onto his elbow and clutched his wound. His eyes narrowed with focus, Cullen fading from his sights. Not exactly the way he must’ve imagined it ending, but his forearm twitched with life, with a motive, of its own—to settle the score or to uphold the law, even now, I can’t be sure which—and he aimed for the tires.
Gently, my mother took his arm in her hands and lowered it, speaking a word so hushed I couldn’t quite make it out. Still, that word—whatever it was—broke him a little. And saved him. His face crumpled. “Don’t.” If I had to guess, that’s what she said.
January 17, 1996
Two pink lines. Two. Pink. Lines. Clare crouched over the toilet, dry heaving. She’d already thrown up breakfast. Four days in a row. Still, her stomach clenched and contracted with a life of its own, and she imagined an alien creature fighting its way out. Taking parts of her with it.
“Are you alright in there, Clare-Bear?” Lizzie’s voice came from right outside the door, sending Clare into a panic. She wrapped the white stick in tissue paper and shoved it to the bottom of the trash can. For a split second, she was sixteen again until she literally slapped herself out of it.