Look, Im a cop, okay? Im a detective, and a damn good one. Ive seen bruises like the ones youre wearing, and they dont come from car crashes. Im guessing youre worried about your friend because somebody hit you, most likely with a fist. If not Carlos, then who?
She closed her eyes and let go a breath, soft with defeat. When the letter came-Sam Malones letter-I read it and signed for it while one of Carloss guards stood there and watched me. What could he do-short of killing the messenger, I guess. But of course, as soon as the messenger left, he went to tell Carlos. Carlos demanded that I give him the letter, and when I refused, he went ballistic. He, um She cleared her throat and swallowed hard.
Watching her struggle with it, J.J. felt a wave of a familiar emotion that was more anger than sympathy. What was it about women whod been beaten up, that they so often seemed humiliated? As if it was somehow their fault.
After a moment, Rachel pulled herself together and continued matter-of-factly, I knew he wouldnt kill me or beat me badly enough to risk harming the baby. He really wanted the baby. Nicholass son. She paused, but J.J. just watched her, keeping his face expressionless, his feelings to himself.
She shrugged and went on. So Izzy came, we switched clothes and I left in Izzys car. Shed left some money for me in the car-I couldnt take anything with me-no cell phone, no ID, to make it harder for Carlos to find me, you know? The only thing I took with me was the letter. She looked helplessly at J.J and he saw tears flood into her eyes again. She finished in a whisper, AndI left her there.
She paused then, gazing at him, it seemed to him, as if awaiting his judgment. He had none to give her, not even absolution, and wasnt sure why.
Taking refuge in action, he spoke to his hands-free car phone, instructing it to connect him with Katie. He turned back to Rachel to ask for her friends address and cell phone number and the address of the clinic where she worked. She gave him the information, then turned in her seat to gaze at her baby, still sleeping soundly in his carrier in the seat behind hers, while he passed it on and told Katie what to do with it.
And all the while he was doing that, for some reason he was thinking about that morning, when Katie had arrived at his trailer with her arms full of clothes for Rachel and stuff for the baby. Thered been some laughter and hugs and a few tears on the part of both women, and J.J. had watched it all from across a gender divide that at times seemed to him both unfathomable and unbridgeable. And what he felt then, more than anything-besides frustration, maybe-was envy. Here were two women, strangers until yesterday, now beginning a friendship, sharing emotions, tears and hugs, and it was all so simple and trusting, truthful and joyous, nothing hidden, nothing held back.
He couldnt even imagine being that way with a woman. Not even with this one. Why was that? he wondered. Okay, so there was the fact that she had trust issues, and he had ulterior motives. So why wasnt there something so simple as the cop-slash-protected-witness relationship between them? Okay, so hed also delivered her baby and saved her life and maybe shed formed some kind of dependence on him that she was fighting
It was making his brain hurt, trying to figure it out. Why, he wondered, did relationships between men and women have to be so damn complicated?
She turned to face him as he broke the phone connection and put the idling pickup truck into drive. He could feel her ink-black eyes on him but given the nature of his thoughts, was trying his best to avoid them. So, without looking at her, he glanced in the rearview mirror and pulled onto the blacktop highway.
Okay, S.B.C.S.D.-uhthats San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department-is going to ask L.A.P.D. to check on your friend. Theyll let us know as soon as they know anything. He flicked a glance at her as he brought the truck up to speed. Okay?
She nodded and murmured, Thank you.
Her voice sounded remote, a little subdued, and he thought, Damn. Now Ive probably wounded her.
She probably thought he was making judgments about her and the abuse shed suffered.
He suddenly wished it was easier to talk to her about things likewell, things he felt deeply about. He wished he could explain to her how he felt about people who preyed on the vulnerable and weak. Bullies. Hed already told her about going off on that child killer, and sure, hed had an ulterior motive for doing that, hoping to get her to open up to him in return. But maybe someday he would tell her about the time his dad had backhanded him for talking trash to his mother, and how later hed found his dad weeping out in the front yard. How hed tried to slink away, but his dad had seen him and beckoned to him, saying Come on over here, son, I want to tell you something. And I dont want you ever to forget it. And his dad had laid his big, hard hand on his shoulder and said with tears in his eyes, May the Lord strike me dead if I ever lay a hand on you again, and may He do the same to you if you ever raise your hand to someone who aint big and strong enough to hit you back. Because He didnt make me a man to bully the weak. Its only animals that do that. You hear me, son? We got to do better than that if we want to call ourselves men.
But he couldnt tell her about that, and the way his dad had grown taller in his eyes that day, because it made him feel exposed and vulnerable to even think about it. He couldnt recall ever telling any woman about that-maybe not anyone, period, not even his mama. Even thinking about it now, at this moment, thinking he might want to tell this woman someday was a surprise to him. That he might consider letting this woman see him like thatwell, it was a puzzlement.
He cleared his throat and frowned at the empty road in his rearview mirror. Reason I did it that way is, I dont want anything to lead back to me, maybe give Carlos a clue which way you went. Just in case hes got your friends communications monitored. He tried a smile that didnt work. Not being paranoid, just careful.
She gave a soft snort. Youre not being paranoid, just realistic. Im telling you, Carlos has eyes and ears everywhere.
Youre pretty sure Carlos cant trace you to your grandfather? At least this felt like a safe subject to him.
Well, my grandmother didnt have anything to do with my grandfather during my lifetime. At least, not that I know about. And when she died I didnt find any contact information among her papers-no addresses or phone numbers, not even old ones. Thats why I thought the letter from Sam Malone might be a way out for me, because theres nothing to connect me to him.
Which probably wasnt true, of course, in this information age, but J.J. didnt point that out to her. The connection would be a matter of public record, it just might take a little while for a determined searcher to ferret it out. At the very most, he figured it would give them a little time to prepare. Because from what he knew of the mans reputation, it was only a matter of time before Carlos Delacorte came for his grandson.
Chapter 7
That must be it, I think-over there, J.J. said, pointing.
Rachel nodded but didnt say anything. He looked over at her, but she just sat gazing past him through the side window of his truck as they paused, idling, on the rutted and rocky dirt road. Across a hillside strewn with rocks and juniper trees, manzanita and sagebrush and pinon and bull pines, they could just make out a bit of red Spanish tile roof showing between guardian spires of tall evergreen and poplar trees.
She hadnt said more than two words since theyd left the desert behind, and he hadnt, either, content to let his navigation system tell him where to turn even though she had the map that had come with Sam Malones letter spread out across her lap. Except for the couple of times shed turned around to check on her baby, still sound asleep in his carrier, shed sat and stared out the windows. It seemed to J.J. there was something suspenseful about the way she gazed upon the passing scene. He could almost hear anticipation coursing through her body like a beating pulse.
Respectful of that tension in her and tied up in his own thoughts, hed offered no comment as the road wound up and over a mountain pass, then down into a fertile valley where fat cattle grazed in lush green pastures along the highway. Here and there the pastureland was broken by flat brown fields where sprinklers offered up lacy plumes of spray to the wind, or tractors crawled along through clouds of dust, carving furrows in the silt. Across the fields, following the curves of mountains lumpy with boulders and steep slopes splashed with the vivid orange of poppies, a thick line of trees marked a rivers course, the dense thicket of willows and cottonwoods just now showing variegated shades of spring green.
They passed farmhouses in various stages of disrepair and tracts of modest homes shaded by cottonwoods and evergreens. And a church, a simple rectangle of old-fashioned, white-painted clapboard with its spire pointing heavenward, that reminded J.J. of the game he and his sisters had played when they were kidsfingers interlaced, palms together, index fingers forming the steeple. Heres the church, heres the steeple, open the doors and see all the people
Just past the church, the breathy female voice of his navigation system instructed him to turn right, onto a paved road that arrowed across the fields and crossed the river-a mere creek by North Carolina standards, but not bad for Southern California, no doubt well fed by melting snow this time of spring-on a low wooden bridge before beginning the climb up into a canyon tucked away in those forbidding mountains.
Before long theyd left behind all other signs of human habitation and the pavement had petered out entirely, giving way to the track they were now on, which had led them up and over hills and down through boulder-clogged gulleys, negotiating switchbacks that meandered through fields of yet more boulders adrift in seas of wildflowers: lupine and poppy, owls clover and little yellow daisylike flowers J.J. didnt know the names of.
He thought now-grudgingly-as he gazed across the hillside at the deep dark evergreen trees standing guard over Spanish tile rooftops, that at least old Sam Malone had chosen a pretty nice spot in which to retire from the world. It beat the hell out of a Las Vegas hotel.