Cold Shot to the Heart (9 page)

“Don't start this again.”

“Worry about yourself. And that little girl.”

“We've been partners a long time—”

“And most of that, I was in here.”

“—and that's an investment. Too much to just give up.”

“Sometimes it's the smart thing to do. Cut your losses. Walk away. Ain't nothing in this world getting any younger. Me included.”

“You're not old.”

“Old enough. Too old for you. And by the time I get out of here, not much use to anyone. Don't waste your life waiting on me, Red. That would hurt me worse than anything.”

He looked over his shoulder, gestured to the guard. This was always the way he ended it, before their time was up. Not letting the moment be decided by someone else.

She stood with him, fingers still entwined in his. The security door buzzed and opened, the guard waiting beside it.

He let go of her hand.

“Keep it between the ditches, Red. And think about what I said.”

*   *   *

She pulled the Chrysler to the curb, powered down the window, and looked at the house across the street. Sprinklers spun in the yard, rainbow patterns in the water. The lawn was neatly trimmed, deep green despite the heat. Cutout Christmas decorations in the big front window, Santa Claus with sleigh, a snowman in a top hat, candy canes. A Ford Explorer was in the driveway.

She looked at her watch. One o'clock.

As if on signal, the front door of the house opened, and Maddie bounded down the steps. She wore jeans and a pink T-shirt, her strawberry blond hair braided into pigtails. Only six months since Crissa had last seen her, but she seemed a foot taller. Crissa felt something pull inside her.

Her cousin Leah came out next, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, her arms toned, black hair cut short, a new look. They'd been close growing up, only a year's difference between them, then gone their separate ways. The week that Leah graduated high school with honors, Crissa was already on the run, in the first of a trio of doomed relationships marked by petty crime and casual violence. She'd taken beatings from those men, thought of it as a kind of love, a sign of the intensity with which they lived the lives they'd chosen, something Leah would never understand. Then she'd met Wayne, and he'd shown her a different world, a different way to live. Nothing had ever been the same again.

As she watched, Leah unlocked the Explorer with a keypad, Maddie climbing up into the passenger side. When Leah got behind the wheel, she looked across at Crissa for a moment, nodded. She nodded back. The Explorer backed out of the driveway.

She followed them a half mile to a playground beside a redbrick community center. As soon as the Explorer pulled to the curb, Maddie was out of it, joining the dozen or so kids shouting and laughing on the slides and swings.

Crissa parked behind the Explorer, shut off the engine, watched Maddie climb the ladder of a yellow plastic slide and pause at the top, a look of concentration on her face. She pushed off, slid down into the sand, ran back around to the ladder.

Leah got out, walked to the Chrysler. “Right on time.”

“She's getting big,” Crissa said.

“She is that.” They watched her go down the slide again. “Got her braces last week. I think she's finally getting used to them.”

She handed Crissa a CD in a clear plastic case. “Those pictures you wanted.”

“Thanks. I have something for you, too.” She tapped the newspaper on the seat beside her, the manila envelope under it.

Leah looked back at the playground. Maddie was at the whirlaround now, pushing while other kids rode, then hopping on after them.

“She's got a lot of energy,” Crissa said.

“Wish I had half of it. It's hard for us to keep up.” She nodded at the CD. “Those photos are all new. There's some class pictures, too.”

“How's she doing there?”

“Fine. She loves school, loves to read. Always got her nose in a book.”

“That's good.”

Maddie leaped from the whirlaround while it was in motion, tumbled into the dirt. Leah started toward the playground, and Crissa felt for the door latch. In the next instant, Maddie was up again and laughing, running to climb back on.

Leah came back to the car. “Like I said, she keeps us busy.”

“What else does she like to do?”

“Earl takes her fishing up to Belton Lake every once in a while. She loves that. She's the most patient child I've ever known. Good with her little sister, too.”

Leah and Earl had given up on having children, had been told they never would. Then, four years after they'd agreed to take Maddie, Leah had gotten pregnant out of the blue, and Jenny had come along.

Crissa folded the newspaper around the envelope, handed it out. “That's an extra five thousand. You can put it toward the dentist bill.”

Leah tucked the paper under her arm. Crissa sensed her nervousness. Still scared of you after all this time, she thought. Scared of what you've done. Of what you might do.

“How's that new account working out?” Crissa said.

“No problems. Just like before. Money's in there the first of every month, right on time.”

“You need to take some of that, put it to the mortgage or whatever, go ahead.”

“We wouldn't do that. That's Maddie's money.”

“I'm saying, if you had to, I'd understand.”

“I'll tell Earl.”

“Where is he?”

“He's got Jenny with him. They're over to the Super S, picking up some groceries. I told him you'd called. Figured it would be better this way, just me and Maddie.”

“It bother him when I come down here?”

“I wouldn't know. He doesn't say.”

“It bother you?”

Leah didn't answer. She looked to the playground, raised a hand to shade her eyes. Maddie and three other kids were playing tag, racing back and forth.

“You worried I'm going to show up some day,” Crissa said, “take her away? You can stop worrying.”

“I guess we just wonder what exactly it is you want, coming around the way you do.”

“Just to look in on her from time to time. That's all.”

From the playground, Maddie yelled, “Mom!”

Crissa looked up.

“One second, honey,” Leah called back. “Stay put, I'll be right there.” She looked at Crissa. “I have to go.”

Crissa watched her go back to the Explorer, put the newspaper inside. Maddie ran to her and wrapped arms around her legs, knocking her back. Leah hoisted her, turned her upside down, dangled her for a moment, Maddie squealing with laughter. Then she set her down and took her hand, and they walked back toward the swings.

Maddie turned, looked back. She's going to ask her mother who that lady is, Crissa thought. And Leah's going to tell her never mind, honey. It's nobody you know.

Maddie climbed on a swing, scuffed her heels in the sand. Leah got behind her to push.

This is what you came all this way to do, Crissa thought. Spy on your own daughter for ten minutes, like some kidnapper. Get a glimpse of the life you can never have.

She started the engine. Leah looked over at her, Maddie swinging high. Crissa nodded at her, pulled away from the curb. She watched them in the rearview until they were out of sight.

*   *   *

On the drive back, the sky grew dark, lightning flashing on the horizon. Soon the rain came pouring down, the traffic slowing. She put her lights and wipers on. Thunder boomed above her, and then she heard the click of hail hitting the car, watched it bounce off the blacktop ahead of her.

It took her almost three hours to get back to San Antonio. She checked into a Best Western south of the city. Her flight was in the morning, so she'd spend the night here, get an early start tomorrow.

She watched television in her room, thunder sounding outside, but couldn't concentrate. At six, she sprinted through the rain to the restaurant across the parking lot.

Her steak was undercooked, oozed pink when she cut into it. She ate only half, had a second glass of wine after the waitress took her plate away. She watched rain sluice down the big windows, lightning split the dark sky.

Back in the room, exhaustion settled on her, her limbs like lead. She peeled off her wet clothes, climbed into the shower. As the steam rose around her, she closed her eyes, turned her face to the water.

She thought about Maddie on the swing, laughing and running with the other kids, calling for her mother. Thought about Wayne limping back to his cell, the clang of heavy doors shutting behind him.

After a while, she sat in the tub, legs pulled up, arms around them. She lowered her head, the hot water beating down on her, and began to cry.

TEN

The third time they drove past the hotel, Crissa said, “Pull over.”

Chance guided the rental Chevy into the parking lot of a seafood restaurant. He drove to the far end of the lot, parked beneath a palm tree.

From this angle, they had a clear view of the hotel across the street, could see the blue of the ocean beyond. Cars sped by on Seabreeze Boulevard. He shut the engine off, powered down his window.

“Here's something I don't like,” he said. “Beach in back. Only way out is the front, right into all this.” He nodded at the traffic.

She took the digital camera from the floor. “Late enough, it might not be too bad.”

Chance sat back to stay out of frame. She raised the viewfinder to her eye, took a shot of the hotel. It was smaller than its neighbors, only twelve stories high, pink stucco. The portico out front read
LA PALOMA
. A U-shaped driveway curved beneath it, a cluster of palm trees shading the front entrance.

She took more shots, changing the angle each time.

“We'll need to get out on the beach, too,” she said. “Get a look at the back.”

A red Porsche pulled up in front of the hotel, a valet coming out to meet it. The driver got out, handed his keys over, was greeted by a uniformed doorman. The valet climbed in the car, pulled away, and turned down a ramp into an underground garage.

“Service entrance, left side of the building,” Chance said.

She twisted to find the right angle, took a shot of it. It was a recessed doorway semihidden by a concrete wall topped with flowers.

“Someone will need to take a look down there,” she said. “See what the setup is.”

“I might could do that.”

She tracked up the front of the hotel, the rows of windows, some with curtains drawn. Each room had a balcony, a sliding glass door. She took more shots.

It was almost dusk, the sky behind the hotel darkening to a deeper blue. A spotlight hidden in the palms out front flickered on, bathed the face of the hotel in pale blue light.

“The balconies,” she said.

“What about them?”

“If the beach side is the same, that's the way we'll go in.”

“How do we get up there?”

She lowered the camera. “Rappel maybe.”

“From the roof?”

“Or another balcony.”

“Hold on, no one said anything about that.”

“You scared of heights?”

“Scared of falling from them.”

“It's no big deal,” she said. “A half hour's practice with the equipment and you'll be fine.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

“Rock climbing. This will be easy compared to that.”

The valet came back up the ramp, sat in a folding chair by the front entrance.

“I used to do that,” Chance said.

“What?”

“Valet. At a high-rise condo in Seattle. I was nineteen. Wore a uniform and everything. It was a good gig, lots of tips. Then a resident caught me smoking a joint in the parking garage one night, got me fired.”

“Too bad.”

“Not really. I kept my uniform. A month later, I came back with a guy I knew. Middle of the night, we went in with masks, tied the valet and doorman up. For the next two hours, I stood outside in my uniform. Every car that came in, I drove two blocks away and onto a car carrier parked on a side street. Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes, a 'Vette. By the afternoon they were all on a container ship headed for Kuwait. I made a lot of money that night.”

“Pretty ambitious for a nineteen-year-old.”

“I had my moments.”

Darker now, stars showing in the blackness over the ocean. A worker in a blue jumpsuit with
NBS MAINTENANCE
stitched on the back came out of the service entrance, lit the row of tiki torches that lined the driveway. Oily smoke drifted up.

“Get some shots of that uniform,” Chance said.

She squinted through the viewfinder in the fading light, shot until the worker went back in the building, then lowered the camera.

“So far,” she said, “it's just the way he told us.”

“It is.”

“So what do you think?”

“It's doable.”

“In that time frame?”

“Maybe. If we can figure out a way to get in that doesn't include me climbing down the side of a building.”

They watched as another car pulled up in front of the hotel, the valet springing up to meet it.

“So tell me something,” Chance said.

“What?”

“What do you do with your money? I mean, when you work.”

“Lots of things.”

“Like what?”

“Construction projects. Strip malls. There are always people looking for loose cash to sink into an investment, give you a return on it you can legitimately claim.”

“You pay taxes?”

“Every year. You don't?”

He looked at the hotel, shook his head. “I'm off the grid.”

“You think you are,” she said. “Until they nail you.”

“I'm good so far.”

“Makes me wonder if it's all worth it, though.”

“What?”

“The money. What we get for what we do, the risks we take. How it balances out. Or doesn't.”