Death's Last Run (9 page)

CLARE

Clare shimmied into the shapeless black skirt of her new Avalanche work uniform. The skirt was slightly used, and it fit Clare well — she suspected it had been Sacha's.

On the cheap pine dresser, Clare's phone buzzed with a text. She picked it up.

It's Nate
, said the message from a Toronto number.
Call when u can talk privately.

That was weird. It was clearly Noah. Nate was the cover name he'd been using when Clare had met him, playing in the Canadian Classic Poker Tour on an assignment. But why the Toronto phone number?

Before phoning him, Clare double-checked that Jana had already left the apartment for her shift.

“Hey, Clare.” Noah's voice was soft, like he was trying to be quiet.

“Are you alone?” Clare slid her arms through the holes of the black golf shirt with the white mountain that was Avalanche's logo. The shirt was two sizes too big and felt new — if that starchy, never-washed, almost abrasive poly-cotton feel was anything to go by. She popped her head through the top and frowned at herself in Sacha's mirror. There was no way this look would earn her tips. Which technically didn't matter, but Lucy would care. Maybe Clare could shrink the shirt in the dryer before her next shift.

“Yeah, I'm alone,” Noah said. “But the night's still young.”

“Hilarious. Why are you calling from a Toronto number?”

“In case someone sees your phone. Bert's not taking any chances with your cover.”

“Good, because the
RCMP
is doing their best to blow it.”

Clare left Sacha's bedroom and glanced at the front door. Still locked tight. She glanced the other way, toward Jana's room, and walked toward it.

“How's that going?” Noah asked. “You and your old handler?”

“It's not my favorite.” Clare opened Jana's bedroom door. A jumble of jeans and snow clothes and thermal gear was piled around Jana's dresser, where three of the four drawers were partially open, a black bra strap hanging out from the top one. The bedsheets looked like they'd been torn around violently, maybe in a nightmare. Or maybe Jana just never made her bed. The chaos reminded Clare of her own tiny East Village apartment.

“Amanda knows what she's doing, though,” Clare told Noah. “She was smart to land me Jana as a roommate.”

“What's Jana like?” Noah sounded more than casually interested. Clare wondered if he was working the case, too. She hoped not.

“She's obsessed with Sacha.” Clare opened Jana's bedside drawer to see a big purple vibrator with rabbit ears. Her eyebrows lifted — that was one thing she'd never tried — but she knew exactly what the
KY
his-and-hers was for. She grinned, wishing Noah was closer, and closed that drawer.

“So are you, like, high all the time since you got there?”

Clare laughed. She opened the next drawer down, which was filled mainly with loose photographs. “We smoked up last night. Which apparently loosened Jana's tongue. She came right out and told me that Sacha moved to Whistler from New York to chase this mountain
LSD
.”

“We think Sacha was doing more than just using the drug,” Noah said.

Clare let the photograph in her hand — of Jana and what looked like her family, a happy, if conventional crew of dirty blonds with their arms around each other at the Grand Canyon — flutter back into its drawer. “Who's we?”

Noah hesitated before saying, “Bert has me on background stuff.”

“Sorry,” Clare said. “Must be boring as hell.”

Clare leafed through for a photo of Jana and Sacha. She found one: Jana had one arm wrapped around Sacha, squeezing tight and grinning. Sacha was smiling, too, but she looked bored.

“I'm digging the office routine,” Noah said. “I grab a coffee and a donut on the way in, I get to answer to my own name, which is refreshing . . . Anyway, we're pretty sure Sacha was involved in a smuggling ring to bring the
LSD
into the States.”

Clare's fingers gripped the edges of the photo. She set it down so she wouldn't accidentally tear it. “Does Amanda know?”

“I'm sure she'll tell you if and when you need to know.” Noah sounded irritatingly amused. “You have to learn to trust your handlers. They can't have your back unless you let them.”

“Noah, stop talking to me like you're fifty and I'm ten.” Clare sank onto Jana's bed. “And why are we fighting?”

“You're the only one fighting.”

“Yeah, but you're baiting me. Being condescending.”

“Sorry.” Noah clucked his tongue. “I miss you, and I'm frustrated.”

“Why are
you
frustrated?”

“I want you, you want freedom. Kind of a no-win situation.”

“You don't think an ideal relationship gives both partners
more
freedom?”

“Yeah, philosophically. Not the freedom to fuck around.”

“Whatever.” Clare shut the photograph drawer and pulled the bottom drawer open. A Bible, all on its own, like at a hotel. Jana didn't seem religious. Clare opened the top drawer and found the family photo again. She looked closer: everyone in Jana's family was wearing a gold cross. Clare was pretty sure Jana didn't wear one now.

“We've said all this before,” she told Noah.

Noah was silent for a moment. Then, “Roberta's been trying to reach you.”

“Great.” Roberta wasn't family, but she was the closest thing to an aunt or an older sister Clare had known. This would be about Clare's dad. He might be dead, but worse — he might be clinging to life one more fucking time, and Clare would be a cold bitch for not dropping everything — her career included — and rushing to his side. “Did she say why she was calling?”

Noah sighed. “No. But you should call her. What if your dad dies and you haven't made peace with him?”

Clare grabbed a corner of her work shirt and twisted it fiercely around her fingers. She tried to focus on where to look next in Jana's room. Her father always did this — had a health crisis right when she was busy. “I have peace. I accept that my dad wants to die, and I love him too much not to give him that freedom.”

“I'm sure he doesn't want to die.”

“Nobody with emphysema smokes if they're looking for fifty more years of health.”

The closet? Clare opened it to see clothes and shoes. Mostly super-casual, but good names, like Timberland and Burton.

“Addiction's complicated,” Noah said. “Hey, you think you could get me a phone number?”

“Whose?” Clare stood on tiptoes to see the top shelf. She reached to pull a shoebox forward and it tumbled down onto the floor.
Shit.
More photos, now spread all over the carpet. And under that, wedged into the bottom of the box, several pieces of white paper.

“Wade Harrison's. He owns the bar where you're working.”

“Of course I can get Wade's number.” Clare started pulling photos up, placing them back in the box. They were all of Sacha. “What do you want it for?”

“Bert wants me to ask Wade some questions. But he doesn't want you asking, because he doesn't want to threaten your cover.”

“Oh, so you're not only doing paperwork.”

“No, it's a bit more engaging. Maybe if things go well, I'll end up in
Casino Royale
with you.”

Clare snorted. “Because I'll really want someone along to cramp my style. Nice talking to you.”

“Clare, I —”

“Don't worry. I'll get you that number you want.”

Clare pressed Off on her new phone.

What was wrong with her? She couldn't go to her sick father, she couldn't be nice to the man she was in love with. Her best relationships were phony. Because it was easy to be warm when your time with a person had a shelf life?

Maybe that's why she and Noah had clicked so hard, so fast — they were both undercover when they met, and Clare felt free to be herself behind the shield of a second persona. But a year of real life had been chipping away at that honesty.

Clare gripped her phone tightly, glared at it. She wanted to call Noah back, but she'd wait until she had something to say.

She pried the papers from the bottom of the box. There were three or four documents that Jana clearly wanted hidden, about U.S. drug policy. Clare didn't understand their significance — looked like bureaucratic jargon about being tough on crime — but Martha Westlake's name was all over them.

Clare took pictures with her phone. She made sure the images were clear before emailing them to Amanda. She wanted to delete the photos from her phone — and the sent mail history along with them — but she should make sure they'd been received first.

Clare was still annoyed that Amanda hadn't looped her into the possible smuggling, but she bit her pride and dialed Amanda's number as she replaced the papers in the bottom of the shoebox and began to gather the scattered photos from the floor. Hopefully Jana's slobbery extended to her mementos and she wouldn't notice that the contents of the box were wildly out of place.

“Lucy.” Amanda's voice was clipped.

“Can't talk.” Clare matched Amanda's short tone — better to pretend she was busy than to let her anger show. “Just sent you some files — can you confirm receipt before I delete them from my phone?”

“Um . . .” A beat while Amanda checked. “Yup. Received. Wait . . . yup, the images are good. Go ahead and delete. Talk tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Clare ruffled the comforter so it didn't look like she'd been sitting on the bed, reached on her tiptoes to replace the shoebox in Jana's closet, and left the apartment for work.

RICHIE

Richie sliced his snowboard's edge to a hard stop outside the chalet. He smiled at the neighboring mountains in the Coast range, snow-covered and wild-looking. The air smelled best on powder days. The fresh snow had a sweet, clean scent. Richie could see why so many laundry detergents tried to replicate the outdoors. You couldn't see the village from the peak, but you could feel that it was down there. Down there to be conquered.

Once Richie owned a piece of Whistler — a respectable bar like Avalanche, no less — he'd be that much further from Scarborough. The concrete jungle of apartment blocks and sirens at all hours couldn't reach out and grab him back into its fold.

He waved at Chopper, already on the patio with a pitcher of beer. Richie leaned his board into a holding slot and climbed the outside stairs to join Chopper at his table.

“I'm shocked, man,” Richie said as he sat down. “You, riding groomers — must be a powder day.”

Chopper leaned back in his chair, cast his glance around at the falling snow, thick and chunky. “Why go to the trouble of climbing into the back country when the lifts can drop me right into this sick shit? It's Monday, all the weekend warriors are gone. It'll take two days for this snow to get skiied out.”

“Hey, you don't need to convince me.” Richie hated having to skin up a hill. A gondola or chair was so much more civilized. But he wasn't meeting Chopper to talk sports. “We got a real big problem.”

“Yeah?” Chopper's eyebrows rose, but his shoulders stayed relaxed.

Richie glanced around to make sure no one was near enough to overhear. “Seattle. They want the Snow tomorrow or they'll only pay half-price.”

Chopper laughed. “And I want a time-traveling snowmobile. We'll ship them the batch when the heat clears. Full price.”

Richie shook his head. “This is how they roll. And it gets better: after next Monday, they're calling a default.”

“What's a default mean?” Chopper wasn't laughing anymore.

“It means we owe them a million bucks — which might sound crazy, but the Snow is worth two mil street value.” It still blew Richie's mind that they were dealing with such giant figures, but that was
LSD
— virtually cost-free production, tiny little squares of paper that were ten bucks a pop at street value. Stuff a travel backpack full of the shit, it added up quick.

“And if we can't pay?” Chopper asked.

“We deliver free product until we work it off.”

“Fuck that, I'm not their bitch.” Chopper shook his head, blond dreads sticking down straight like pipe cleaners. “This last batch of Mountain Snow tried to kill me.”

Richie frowned. “Did it come out bad?”

“Nah. Just had to adjust the cooking temperature by a couple degrees to allow for this sub-zero weather. I was rushing at first. I've been messed up since . . . you know.”

Richie knew. “You got everything put away okay? I'm hoping our
FBI
friend never makes it up your mountain, but
if
he came to your place, would he twig that you're running a factory?”

“Shouldn't,” Chopper said. “I dismantled the whole setup. Ingredients are locked away separately from each other — so not suspicious. I scattered the apparati so some of it looks like kitchen gadgets and other stuff like chemistry class nostalgia.”

“How'd you manage that?”

“It's packed in a box that says
High School.
” Chopper laughed. “With report cards and essays and the pinups of Alyssa Milano I used to keep in my locker.”

Richie's eyebrows lifted. “And the batch is good?” The last thing he needed was to risk his freedom bringing drugs across the border only to have the batch rejected on the receiving end.

“Beautiful. I tested the new batch last night; pure as it always is. Had a wicked cool vision of Sacha smiling out from a tree.”

“Good.” Richie didn't want to hear about it.

Chopper sipped his beer.

“You seen anyone new in town?” Richie asked.

“Just ten zillion tourists. Man, is it me, or is the gaper alert super-high right now?”

“Yeah, rental shops are booming,” Richie said. “Anyone asking questions?”

“Nah. But there's a new cutie I gave lessons to. She spent the first half of the lesson telling me how much she hates me, then she asks if I'm available for another lesson tomorrow.”

“You say yes?”

“Damn right.” Chopper flashed a broad grin. “Gonna take her on some hard runs. Piss her off.”

Richie poured himself half a glass of beer from Chopper's pitcher. “We got a second problem, too. Norris wants more money. Ten Gs. Allegedly to find out the name of this
FBI
agent.”

“You don't believe him?”

“I'm not sure.” Richie kissed his lips — a long, slow smacking sound that Jana said was ghetto, but felt too good to stop doing. “There's something true and something not.”

Chopper pulled a joint from his pocket and lit up. Right on the public patio — man, this town was good for the pot industry. Richie realized — too late — that he should have stuck with the drug that he knew. Or at least stuck to dealing locally. It was Sacha who had stirred up the idea about bringing the Mountain Snow south.

“I think we should pay,” Chopper said. “What's five grand each? Hardly painful.”

“Hardly painful when we're rolling in it. You forget our money supply is dry at the moment. Or is it because you and Norris are friends, you want to cave to his demands?”

“No, I think Norris is being a douche not to swallow this. But if we don't pay, we could be screwing ourselves out of protection while we need it. We can always punish him later.”

Richie could work with that: pay now, punish later. “You're right,” he said. “What's five grand?”