Death's Last Run (24 page)

RICHIE

“Step right up,” Richie said to Norris inside his pristine white condo. “I have the deal of a lifetime, a one-of-a-kind offer. And the price is right. A mere ten thousand dollars.”

Richie didn't like this part of his job, but when someone had to be pushed around, you couldn't shy away from it. In his pocket, Richie's phone was recording.

“Would you like to see what's on this
TV
? Would you like to know what can be yours for this low, low price?”

Norris' voice was calmer than his trembling body betrayed. “Why the hell are you talking like a carnie?”

Richie didn't know. His best guess was nerves. He continued his patter: “I have exclusive video footage taken from inside a teddy bear. That's right, never-been-seen-before footage from a bear. And this can be yours for a mere ten thousand dollars.”

“I don't have ten thousand dollars.”

“Of course you do.” Richie dropped the act. “Me and Chopper gave you exactly ten grand two days ago.”

“I wired that money to a colleague in exchange for the
FBI
agent's name.”

Richie's hand brushed the outside of the pocket where his phone was. Norris' last line was choice material for the recording.

“Show me what you have, Lebar.”

“Nah,” Richie said. “I think I'll sell this footage to someone else. Or maybe just donate it. The
RCMP
might be interested. Or the
FBI
.” Richie put a finger on his chin. “Maybe even the
DEA
.”

Norris stomped across Richie's white carpet. At the club chair, he turned to face Richie with more distance. “We both know you're not climbing into bed with any of those organizations. Why are you making this a fight?”

Richie shrugged. “I'm pissed off. I didn't like the way you extorted my cash the other day. Chopper said to go along with it, but I don't think it's cool.”

“I agree,” Norris said. “It wasn't cool. I'm sorry.”

“Come again.” Richie wasn't ready for that one.

Norris' top lip was quivering. “Can you just show me the footage? I'm assuming this is Sacha's documentary. Chopper told me. I'll get you your money back somehow.”

Fuck, Richie actually felt bad for him. He frowned gently at Norris. “How about you don't owe me the money, and I take it out in trade?”

Norris sank down on Richie's couch, his body seeming to shrink into the big white cushions. “What kind of trade?”

“Make this run to the States.”

Norris eyed Richie pleadingly. “Anything but that.”

Richie kissed his lips. Maybe Norris would change his tune once he saw the first clip Richie had selected.

Richie pressed a button on his computer and Sacha's face came alive on the fifty-four-inch screen.

Sacha looked at the camera, lifted one corner of her mouth. “Hi, Jules. You ready for a boring few hours? We're going into my boss's office. We're going to listen to some conversations. Actually,
you're
going to listen. I'm going to drop you off and make myself scarce for the night.”

Richie pressed fast-forward for about a minute. Sacha left, and Wade came in, followed by Norris. Richie could see the offscreen Norris biting his lip as he turned the recording back to regular play speed.

Onscreen, Wade pulled an envelope from his top drawer. “This is for you. Eight grand this week.”

Norris smirked. “I could quit my day job on the cash we're pulling. Too bad it's my day job that makes it all possible.”

“Drink?” Wade pulled a whiskey bottle from his bottom drawer, along with two tumblers. “This is nicer than what I have out there on the shelf.”

Richie froze the frame on Wade and Norris clinking glasses. “You want me to keep going? Or you get the gist?”

On Richie's couch, Norris seemed frozen in place — frozen and shaking.

Richie was going in harder. “What I also have — now, this is just for posterity, I don't expect to have to use it — is the three of us on tape in Chopper's cabin. I had my phone recording the whole time we were talking.”

“Why?” Norris' mouth hung open. “Aren't we . . . on the same side?”

“We are.” Fuck, Richie hated strong-arming. “But you haven't been playing your end so nice. I need you to take the Snow across the border. You do that for me, I'll not only forget about the ten grand and pay you the fifty we talked about, I'll give you all of Sacha's recordings. As far as I know, I have the sole, exclusive footage. I'm assuming you've gone through her computer.”

“We have. It's clean.”

“You also might want to check out Sacha's laptop. Currently in use as Jana's laptop. That information is free, but please don't tell Jana I told you.”

Norris stood and walked over to Richie. He kicked the white carpet with his shoe, leaving a gray mark. “I'm going to need to confiscate your phone.”

Richie chuckled. He was mad about the gray mark. “Yeah.”

CLARE

“Where are you?” Clare asked Noah. She was sitting against a tree with her snowboard on just off a ski run.

“I'm at home.”

“What's that banging sound?” Clare watched a family skiing by. The father leading the way, kind of dweebishly. Two little kids with earnest looks on their faces — the taller one confident, the smaller one snowplowing and frowning. The mother, in all the right gear including a perky ponytail poking out from under her helmet, keeping up the rear.

“Huh?” Noah said. “Oh, that's Stacy. She's making popcorn. On the stove — retro, huh?”

Retro
wasn't the word that leapt to Clare's mind. “Who's Stacy?”

“My ex.”

“Oh.” Clare had heard about Stacy. She was one of those Upper East Side girls who'd been going for pedicures with girlfriends since junior high. Noah said he didn't dig manicured princesses, that he found them too high-maintenance. But Clare wasn't sure she could trust a word Noah said anymore.

“She's bummed because her boyfriend dumped her. I invited her over to watch chick flicks.”

“You never watch chick flicks with me.”

“Because you hate romantic comedy. Rambo is too soft for you.”

That didn't feel like a compliment. Clare wondered if Noah would prefer to be dating Tiffany, the girly cover role she'd been playing when they'd met on the poker tour.

“I guess you can't talk, then, about your end of the job.” Clare looked out onto the snow-capped panorama and wished she could stay in Whistler longer. It was a clear day, which sucked for the snow because it made the hill hard and kind of icy, but the glistening sun made the mountains in the distance dance with a beauty Clare wanted to reach out and touch. She suddenly didn't miss New York at all. The buildings were too gray and the pace was too hurried. How could anyone even catch their breath in a place like that?

“I could take a walk,” Noah said. “You okay?”

“I'm fine,” Clare said. “I mean, no, I'm not fine at all, but what do you care?”

“You are such hard work.” Noah sighed. “Hey, Stacy, I've got to take this work call. I'll be back in, like, ten minutes. Don't start the movie without me.”

A female voice said something, and Clare heard Noah's thin apartment door shut behind him.

“Okay, I'm in my stairwell, walking down to street level so the elevator doesn't cut off the call. You going to tell me what's up?”

Clare slid her snowboard edge back and forth across a patch of snow. “I dropped acid last night and I'm probably being sent home.”

Noah laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, and before you get all judgy, the situation called for it.”

“I'm sure it did. It's just — you won't even smoke a joint with me.”

“Because it messes up my head. Acid's different, though. It's like . . . you can see so much more of the world.”

“Oh yeah? Are you Timothy Leary now? You planning to come home and drop every weekend?”

Clare smirked. “Once was enough. It's, like, such a downer the next day. I feel like slitting my wrists.”

“Like Sacha.”

“Shit. Yeah. Bad metaphor.”

Through the phone, Clare heard a car horn honking — most likely an impatient cab — and suddenly she missed New York again.

Noah was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “You think it could have been suicide, then?”

“No.” Clare told Noah about the video she'd seen. “Sacha thought someone wanted to kill her.”

“She say who?”

“No. But honestly, it could be anyone here. She told her stepmother she was smuggling drugs — and her friends here knew she'd opened her mouth. Chopper, Richie, or Norris might have wanted to silence her permanently. That blogger could release a new suspect interview every day for a week, and they'd all be good candidates in my eye.”

“So the blog's hit Whistler, huh?”

“Um, yeah.” Clare found the segue strange, but answered anyway. “Everyone reads it. Have you thought about finding this Lorenzo guy? Or do we already know where he lives?”

“We already know,” Noah said.

“He must have really hated Sacha.”

“Lorenzo? Why?”

“Wouldn't you?” Clare thought the dynamic was obvious. “Some rich kid decides your life is so flawed she needs to send you her allowance?”

“Sacha didn't decide Lorenzo needed help. It was some Christian foundation.”

Clare pushed a strand of hair back under her helmet. It came loose again immediately. “You wouldn't get it. You went to private school, your dad's a surgeon — no one ever saw you as a charity case.”

“People saw you that way?” Noah sounded surprised.

“At school, they looked at us trailer kids like we were plotting to steal their lunch money.”

“So did you?”

“Fuck off.”

Noah laughed. “What's the big deal? You came out of the experience strong enough.”

“Exactly. And if a little rich girl had come along and tried to rescue me from my so-called poverty, pretty sure I would have punched her in the mouth before I took her charity.”

“Yeah, I can see you doing that. But Sacha's money wasn't buying Lorenzo new toys. It was for food, health care, education — things you Canadians take for granted as your god-given rights.”

“Most first-world countries consider those rights.” But Clare didn't feel like arguing politics.

“What's wrong, Clare?” As in, Noah didn't have all day; he had to go watch chick flicks with Stacy.

“I don't know. I'm feeling kind of lost.”

“Why?” Noah's voice became gentler.

“I guess I screwed up. Amanda hates me.”

“Do you care? I thought you didn't like Amanda.”

“I don't. Well, not really. I don't know why I feel lost. Maybe it's just drug aftermath.”

“Hey — did Amanda tell you, or maybe this came in after you talked to her — some interesting news on Norris.”

“I already know he's dirty.” Clare glanced at the trees to make sure no one was hiding there listening.

“But what if he isn't?”

“Huh?”

“Norris contacted the
RCMP
about half an hour ago with a detailed list of the criminal activity in town. The acid manufacturer, the drug dealer, the bar owner who's been laundering the cash. He detailed Sacha's involvement.”

“So? We already know all that. All this means is he's decided to sell out his friends.”

“He says he's been playing both sides. He forwarded correspondence he's been having with the
DEA
.”

Clare felt her shoulders sink. All this information made her feel like she was underwater, and her arms were too tired to swim. Maybe Amanda was right — maybe they shouldn't give her too much information. Still, she said, “If Norris had been playing both sides, someone else in the
RCMP
would have known about it.”

“Maybe,” Noah said. “There's a drug run on Monday that he's planning to make. He's looping in authorities because he thinks this will bust people from both sides of the border.”

“So can we talk to the
DEA
? Find out if he's for real?”

“Paul Worthington is on it now.”

“Big guns,” Clare said.

“Big case.”

“Hm. Well, you better get back to Stacy, I guess.”

“I wish I could be there with you. You sound like you need a hug.”

“Don't worry. I have someone here to take care of that.”
Damn
. Why did Clare ruin a good phone call with a single low blow? She missed Noah. But she was freaked out by what Amanda had told her, about the girl on the boat.

“You want me to say I'm happy for you?”

“No,” Clare said.

They were both quiet. Noah broke the silence, kind of. “Okay, well . . .”

“Yeah. Bye.”

Clare hung up and rode down the hill. She was awkward on her board. She fell a lot. The hard snow didn't help — it made falling much more painful. She started becoming afraid every time it got a little bit steep, so she stuck with the green runs and edged down as slowly as she could. She felt alone, abandoned, like if she were to ride off one of Whistler's many cliffs, no one on Earth would really miss her.

If Sacha had done enough of this drug, had enough
LSD
lingering in her system, maybe she felt an amplified version of this emotion that was gnawing at Clare. With all the real shit going on in Sacha's life, maybe the world did look bleak enough for her to want to leave it.

Maybe the killer Sacha feared, in her note and in her video, was herself.