Let Me Go (6 page)

“Whatever,” Claire said. “It's been two months. Have I met her? No. If Henry hadn't seen her with his own eyes, I'd wonder if she was your imaginary friend.”

“Susan met her this morning,” Archie said.

“How'd that go?” Henry asked, lifting his glass to his lips.

“Could have gone better,” Archie said.

“Susan hated her, didn't she?” Claire asked, beaming.

Archie picked up his glass and took a drink from it. He wondered how long Susan would be pissed at him. Probably weeks. “Yep,” he said.

“I want to meet her anyway,” Claire said. She didn't wait for a response, which was good because Archie wasn't prepared to make any promises. Claire picked up Henry's wrist and looked at his watch. Her eyes widened. “We have reservations,” she said to Archie. Even with the high heels she had to lift herself up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Happy birthday,” she said. “We love you. Despite all your obvious problems and weird proclivities.”

“Thanks a lot,” Archie said.

She dragged Henry out the door. Henry caught Archie's eye as Claire pulled the door shut behind them. “Call me tomorrow,” Henry said. “Twenty-four hours.”

Archie stood in his apartment alone. The cloud cover out the window was the color of ash. The Willamette River looked like molten silver. Archie finished his drink and then called Rachel. He got her voice mail.

“Something's come up,” Archie said. “I have to work.” With someone else he might have had to apologize or explain more, but he and Rachel had different rules. “But,” Archie added, “I'm hoping I can get a rain check on that birthday present.”

He ended the call and put the phone in his pocket. Then he loaded his gun and clipped the holster to the waistband of his pants. He smiled to himself.
Now
he looked like James Bond.

Lastly, Archie headed into the bathroom. He opened his medicine chest and pulled out a large amber prescription bottle marked
PRILOSEC
and tapped out ten Vicodin into his palm. He'd been clean, more or less, for a year, and while he'd been in rehab, Henry had done a banner job rooting through Archie's apartment and disposing of every pain pill he could find. But the one place that people never looked was right in plain sight. All Archie had done was switch out the pills. If his stomach ever started burning and he needed a Prilosec he was screwed.

He didn't use the pills. He just liked knowing they were there. Now he gently transferred the Vicodin into his old brass pillbox. It had been a long time since he'd carried that thing around in his pocket, but if he was going to play the role of the self-destructive detective, he needed the right props.

Archie gave the pillbox a shake. The familiar sound of the pills rattling against the metal confines of the box made his mouth water. But he swallowed hard and tucked the pillbox in the pocket of his tux.

He glanced at his watch. He'd been forty-two years old for seven minutes now.

So far, so good.

 

CHAPTER

8

 

Susan's mother didn't
allow her to smoke in the house. Marijuana was fine. Bliss kept her bong right out in the open on the coffee table like a decorative sculpture. Incense? No problem. Bliss bought it by the case, filling the whole house with a thick cherry-flavored smog. But when Susan wanted to smoke a cigarette, she had to do it on the porch.

Susan got it. Weed was natural; cigarettes were cancer. Incense smelled nice; cigarettes didn't. Plus, it was Bliss's house, so she got to make the rules. Susan may have grown up in the dilapidated Victorian, but it wasn't like her name was on the mortgage. She had moved back in with her mother while she was saving up to buy a place, then she had lost her job at the
Herald
. The freelancing gigs were too unpredictable to sign any kind of lease. And her credit report wasn't exactly star renter material.

So here she was. Getting cancer on her mother's porch. Bliss was at work, dyeing someone's Mohawk pink or something. Only in Portland, Oregon, did punk rockers go in for a root touch-up and a blow-out. Bliss was the go-to stylist for the rage-against-the-machine set. It made for interesting hours.

Susan tapped her cigarette ash into the jack-o'-lantern on the top porch step. The jack-o'-lantern had squinty eyes and a round, surprised mouth. Susan's jack-o'-lanterns never turned out as spooky as she intended. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up and checked her phone to see if Leo had texted her back yet. He hadn't.

She heard the car pull in front of the house and looked up. It was black and sleek and official-looking, like one of those town cars rich people hire to take them to the airport instead of just getting a cab like everyone else.

The car sat there for a minute. The windows were tinted and Susan couldn't see inside. She stared at it anyway. Maybe Johnny Depp was inside.

Finally, the driver's-side door opened and a huge man climbed out and started up the walk toward Susan. He was carrying a bouquet of pink roses, and was very definitely not Johnny Depp.

Susan continued to stare. He led with his chest when he walked, and moved at a quick, confident clip, his huge arms at his side. His long dark gray hair flapped at the shoulders of his dark leather jacket.

She recognized him. She didn't know him. She had never been introduced to him. But she had seen him around. He was one of several men who always seemed at the periphery when she went out with Leo. He'd be at a nearby table, or at a club. Occasionally he'd appear and say something in Leo's ear and the two of them would vanish for a while.

She didn't know who he was. But she didn't like him.

She took a drag of her cigarette and didn't stand up.

The man got to the porch steps and proffered the bouquet like it was the head of a dragon he'd just slain for her pleasure. Susan took the flowers, but was careful not to look too enthusiastic about it. She gave them a brief inspection and then laid them next to her on the porch. There wasn't a note. “Did Leo send you?” she asked skeptically. Leo had wooed her with flowers back when she'd worked at the
Herald
. But these weren't his style.

Up close the man's face was thickened with scars. They made his pale features blurry and uneven. “He'd like you to come to a party,” he said. His voice was hoarse, like he had a cold, but Susan had the feeling it always sounded that way. He made a florid gesture like a footman welcoming someone on board a carriage.

Mr. Gallant.

Susan looked at the town car and then at him. “When?” she asked. “Now?” She laughed nervously and shook her head. “No. No way. He can't just ignore me all day and then send me flowers and expect me to drop everything at his beck and call.”

The man swallowed and his jaw tightened. She could tell he was someone who was not used to being told no. The corners of his mouth turned up, revealing a set of stained crowded teeth. “It would really mean a lot to him if you could come,” he said.

“What's your name?” Susan asked, flicking ash from her cigarette into the herb garden.

“Cooper,” the man said.

“Let me tell you something, Cooper.” She picked up the bouquet and looked down at the plump pink blooms. “The chemicals they use on roses are some of the worst in the world,” she said, holding the flowers out so Cooper could see them. “Twenty percent of the pesticides they use on roses in Colombia are illegal in the U.S. Roses require a lot of fertilization. Do you know how much fossil fuel is needed to make fertilizer?” Cooper stared back blankly. “One kilogram of nitrogen-containing fertilizer takes two liters of oil,” Susan said. “Irrigation puts pressure on local water supplies, and results in salinization of local farmlands. That's not even getting into the wage inequality endemic to most of the large corporations that dominate the global rose market.” Susan shook her head. “Don't get my mother started on roses,” she said. She put the bouquet down and leveled her gaze at Cooper. “Leo knows my mother. And Leo would never send roses to me at her house, because he knows he would never hear the end of it. So I'm thinking Leo didn't send these flowers, and he didn't send you.”

Cooper's smile was gone. It was probably for the best. It definitely didn't make him look friendlier. “His old man sent me,” Cooper said. “He's hosting a rather extravagant fete this evening. Leo will be there, and his father would like you to join them.”

Susan
did
want to see Leo. “Like a Halloween party?” she asked.

“More like a masquerade ball,” Cooper said.

“Seriously?”

Cooper shrugged. “Rich people,” he said.

Susan considered her options. Jack Reynolds was a criminal—a wealthy and socially prominent criminal, granted. She had met him once, through Archie, the same day she had met Leo. Jack had been rather charming, considering they were there to grill him about a murder. He had a private island. He probably had really good parties. Then there was her supposed boyfriend. Leo had gone off the grid before, but this was different. She hadn't been entirely honest with Archie. The truth was that she had been the one to storm off last night, outside the club. She had blown up at Leo for making them miss the musical production of
Road House
and she'd called a cab. But really she'd just been mad about the lap dance he'd bought Archie. Now she was pissed that he wasn't returning her calls. She wanted to see him, if only to read him the riot act. Susan stubbed her cigarette out, dropped it into the jack-o'-lantern, and stood up to go into the house. Cooper was up the stairs in one step. He didn't touch her, but she stopped cold.

“I need to change,” she explained. She pulled at her hoodie. Her black tights had a hole in the knee. “I don't have anything to wear. I need makeup.” That was all true. But she also wanted to go inside and call Archie.

“We'll take care of all that,” Cooper said. “What are you? A size four?”

Susan nodded, and fidgeted some more with her hoodie. She didn't like that he was looking at her that closely.

Cooper studied her for a moment and then something seemed to dawn on him. “You're scared,” he said. “You're scared of me.” His eyebrows lifted awkwardly, like he was trying to seem amiable. “If Jack Reynolds ever wants you dead, lady, he won't send me and a car to get you,” he said. “Too many neighbors. People see shit. They remember more than you'd think. Look behind me,” he said.

Susan looked over his shoulder and saw their across-the-street neighbor, Bill, standing in the street by the curb with a rake.

“You see that guy pulling leaves out of the storm drain?” Cooper asked. He turned and gave Bill a friendly wave. Bill waved back. Cooper turned back to Susan. “That guy's a witness,” he said. “The lady who passed us with the dog?” Susan hadn't even seen a woman with a dog. “She lives in the neighborhood,” Cooper said. “So she knows you. The cops come by later, start asking questions, she's seen me and the car—she's a witness.” Cooper nodded at her. “If Jack Reynolds ever wants you dead, you won't see me.
They
won't see me.” He smiled at her, seemingly pleased at the excellence of his explanation. “This isn't how we do it. So you've got nothing to be afraid of.”

Susan's spine was as rigid as a board. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked.

“It's a party,” Cooper said, his eyes pleading. “You want me to put a glass slipper on your foot?”

Susan didn't know what to do. She looked across the street at Bill. He was wearing rubber rain boots and jabbing the wrong end of the rake into the sludge of dead leaves that filled the storm drain. “Hey, Bill!” she shouted. Bill looked up. Cooper was right about one thing, Bill noticed everything that went on in that neighborhood—she had no doubt he'd made note of her visitor and his car. So she'd just make sure it stuck. “I'm going to a party at my boyfriend's house!” Susan called. “His dad sent this guy Cooper to drive me! Tell my mom, okay?” Bill flashed her a peace sign.

Susan looked at Cooper. He appeared vexed again.

“Let's go,” Susan said. She left the flowers on the porch next to the jack-o'-lantern and started down the porch steps for the car. “Do you have a minibar in that thing?”

 

CHAPTER

9

 

Pay attention. It
was one of the tenets of journalism. Susan fixed her gaze out the tinted window as the car went over the gated stone bridge to Jack Reynolds's island and tried to take in as much as she could. The bridge was lined with lit torches that sent threads of black smoke snaking into the dusky sky. Traffic was already backed up, awaiting instruction from men in suits wearing earpieces and carrying clipboards and barking orders at hired valets in red jackets. Cooper ignored the line and went over the bridge in the wrong lane. Once they'd made it the two hundred feet to the other side, he bypassed what appeared to be the main drop-off point. Susan could see partygoers up ahead, people in tuxedos and evening gowns, walking up the trails through the manicured grounds to Jack Reynolds's neo-Tudor estate. They were all wearing masks—some elaborately festooned with feathers and gems, some basic black. Cooper hadn't been kidding. This wasn't just a ball; it was a masked ball. As social anxiety instigators went, masked balls were pretty near the top of Susan's list, right after playing team sports and giving speeches to old people (the old people always fell asleep and Susan never knew if it was the speech or just their normal nap cycle). But people in masks were always assholes. It was a scientific law. Give someone anonymity and all social niceties break down. The Internet had proven that. By ten o'clock the couples would be fighting and the single people would be hooking up with people they wouldn't be able to recognize in the morning. This was how masked balls went. This was what made them dangerous. Susan sank glumly in her seat as Cooper continued winding along a private lane that led around the side of the main house.