No Footprints (25 page)

‟I have my sources.”

Kristi? Did I misjudge her that much?
‟Which are? Come on, we're not in the station now! How'd you know about it?”

‟Background checks. It's what detectives do. Have sources they check out. Now give!”

‟I thought you didn't background Tessa.”

‟I didn't. Now give!”

‟Tessa called him from the Mark Hopkins, the night before she tried to kill herself.”

He nodded.

‟You knew that?”

‟What?”

‟That this is the same guy she was calling from the copy shop?”

‟Yeah.”

‟I don't believe you.”

He shrugged just as I had. ‟The number?”

I gave it to him. ‟Wait for me in Raleigh.”

The cockroach laughed.

If Serrano didn't background Tessa—no reason for him to lie about that—why did he care about her boyfr—

Oh shit!
The roach didn't background
her
. The guy on the phone
wasn't
her boyfriend. So, then, who was he? I needed to buy a winter jacket and some not-scuzzy clothes before I got on a plane, but, once again, that'd have to wait. I called Mike.

My call went to voicemail.

In five minutes I had new black pants, sweater, and jacket and was ordering one of those burgers that have more calories than the average gorilla's daily intake, and a latte—a single, so I could sleep on the plane—and redialed. ‟You were talking to someone else?”

‟Hey, you turned off your phone!”

That was another thing we'd never done to each other. ‟Sorry. But the cockroach—he's headed to Raleigh.”

‟After Adamé.” It wasn't even a question, and hearing it aloud from Mike confirmed all my fears.

‟Mike, Serrano didn't have the number . . . till I gave it to him.” My food arrived, but now I didn't feel much like eating.

‟Oh. And now he can get the address,” Mike said in a resigned tone that echoed my own.

‟Maybe. But, listen, Tessa's
got
to be all right!”

He let a beat pass before he said, ‟Because you want her to be?”

Wanting something doesn't make it so.
I had to get a grip. I needed time to sit zazen, to step back from the desperation of my thoughts, to see life as it is. To remind myself that hope is an illusion. But here I was in the airport with a table full of food I couldn't face and a latte. All I could do was take a deep breath and try to not ‟look through my own eyes,” as my old teacher in New York had told me years ago. I tried to see objectively. I took a sip of the coffee. ‟Two women,” I said. ‟Sunday, one of them would have flown to Miami, the other would've jumped off the bridge. That was the plan. The
contract
. But the flight got canceled.”

‟And you pulled the other woman back.”

‟The woman on the bridge—my woman—which one is she? She'd used Varine Adamé's credit card. The woman on the plane carried Tessa Jurovik's ID . . . ?”

‟Yeah . . .”

‟Okay, so one thing's clear: Tessa Jurovik is
not
an alias for Varine,” I said just to hear it out loud. ‟Tessa is not an alternate life Varine created. There were two women, who looked a lot alike.”

‟Enough to pass for each other to people who didn't know them?”

‟Right. I saw a picture of Varine in the Adamés' house.”

‟You sure it was her? That Adamé didn't have Tessa pose?”

That threw me for a moment. ‟No, it was a picture of his wife, on display in his house. Adamé didn't know I was coming. I just arrived at his door. He wasn't out of my sight the whole time I was there.”

‟Makes sense. Anything else'd be a big stretch. But, Darce, I've been thinking about this. You said Tessa's been arrested for shoplifting, so if she lifted Varine Adamé's ID—”

‟Cockroach! That came from Serrano! One of his probably fishy tales of how he met her.”

‟But—”

I lifted my cup, then put it down. ‟Wait, we've got this backward, thinking Tessa took Varine's ID. But Varine using Tessa's ID, that's a whole different world.”

‟How so?” Mike's words were suddenly sharper, faster,
into-it
in a way I hadn't heard since he'd come home. I could almost see him leaning forward. ‟Start with the woman on the bridge. Who was she?”

‟Tessa, wearing Varine's jacket. So, the camera on the bridge saw ‛Varine Adamé' try to jump. If Adamé said his wife was depressed—which he did—and missing—which he did—no one would question it. Even acquaintances, people she only met at affairs like the City Hall deal, knew she loathed the life she had.”

‟And the Mark Hopkins?”

‟Again, Tessa using Varine's ID! For a last fling before she had to go to the bridge and jump.”

‟Fling? From what you've said about Tessa, she's not the fling type.”

‟Point taken.”

‟But someone—”

‟Right! Mike, Tessa was still doubling as Varine at that point. So she was showing the world Varine Adamé spending a night apart from her husband, in the Presidential Suite, an escapade bound to raise eyebrows when it came out.”

‟Hot night with the bellman? All the better, eh?”

‟Those desperate phone calls Tessa made the day before, phone calls to her boyf—No, wait, the guy on the phone knew she was going to the Presidential Suite. That was the plan. She wasn't calling a lover, she was
trying to get out of jumping! That's why she was calling! Oh, God, poor Tessa! Then on the bridge you drove up, you beeped, she hoped that at that last moment he'd changed his mind. That she wouldn't have to die after all.”

Mike was silent, too. I just sat, wrung out from losing Tessa, then getting her back. Maybe. I so desperately wanted her to be alive and safe.

But she wasn't, not safe, not relieved, maybe not even alive. Had I saved her just so she could be bludgeoned and dumped in a ratty garage? I felt so awful, so empty, so angry, so miserable that all I could do was go stiff against the emotion and narrow my focus to what Mike was saying.

‟Look, I've been in tight spots these last years. I've made deals with the devil. If you knew about them you'd wonder if I was the kid you grew up with. But jumping off the Golden Gate, that's so far out it's . . . it's just wacko. Tessa had to have a huge carrot or an enormous stick to make her do something as extreme as that. She made some deal. After you saved her, are you saying that deal was voided when the airline canceled Varine's flight Sunday? How could that—”

‟I don't know. Things change. That's what I'm saying: Things change.”

Announcements came over the PA system. I'd been ignoring them. I looked toward my gate. People were grabbing their coats and carry-ons and wedging themselves into line. I walked toward the gate.

I swallowed hard. ‟I'm pretty sure why she did it, but my flight's starting to board. Right now I need to think about the other side—Varine. Why have it appear that Varine Adamé killed herself?”

‟To cover her getaway,” he said as if it was too obvious to put into words. ‟So, what's she escaping from?”

What
was
Varine Adamé running away from? That was a no-brainer. ‟The cockroach, who else?” I couldn't keep from saying it in exactly the same tone. But now I was talking to myself as much as him. ‟Serrano's
after Adamé big time. So, Varine books a flight to Miami, gateway to points Caribbean. It gets canceled. Then why didn't she reschedule for Miami?”

‟Because she's dead.” Had he said that or had I? I went on, ‟Why did Tessa Jurovik fly to Raleigh last night? Why is Adamé flying to Raleigh? Did his wife—”

‟—find out?” my brother mused. ‟And Adamé has to murder her to cover his own escape?”

‟The line's moving, Mike. I've got to pay attention; I'm on standby. I'll call you.”

I'm a city girl. I used to have a serious—and seriously humiliating—fear of forests. I'm better now; I can walk under leaves and fronds without going queasy, but dark green overhead blocking out the light is never likely to be a favorite with me. It was going to be dark when I arrived, but that was hardly going to make things better. In the meantime, I employed one of my great talents: I can sleep anywhere. I put my new warm, water-resistant protect-all jacket over my head and didn't come up for air till Nashville. But sometimes sleep isn't just sleep. Not exactly dreams, either. Like meditation, it skims off the surface of flurry and drops you into a great formless pool of common sense. As the plane descended toward Nashville I wondered: Can I just wait and let Serrano go and collect Aaron Adamé? Facing down miscreants and murderers, it's what he does. He's got the phone number, plus a serious lead on me. Why not? See Adamé behind bars? No one hotter was for that than the cockroach. And snag the money Adamé'd made off with? Ditto.

If Adamé and Tessa are in this together and she gets away? Not my problem! Not at all!

But if Tessa got caught in the cross fire? Would Serrano care? Maybe. If saving her meant losing Adamé? Not likely.

What about Tessa? She'd made the deal for Ginger, but once the check cleared and I'd pulled her back, then what? Why didn't she get away? That was the question that I'd always be asking.

Was she even Tessa? I didn't know that. Only Serrano knew.

As I headed for the next gate, I turned on my phone. The message icon danced. I dialed.

‟Listen, Darce,” Mike said, without letting me speak, ‟maybe you don't realize what scum the cockroach is.”

‟I believe I do. I've heard about him for years and—”

‟That's family chat. There's stuff John's not saying at dinner.”

‟I can read between the lines.”

‟Maybe. But I know Serrano. Know him better than you think. You know that call I got Sunday—”

‟The one that was
not
from Mom? Yeah, Mike, I do know.”

‟I could hardly tell you it was from him, not then, right after the bridge, when you—”

‟I know you know him. He told me.”

‟He told you what?”

Knew your brother when he was running smack.
‟Not over the phone.”

‟Listen—”

‟That's my boarding call.”

‟Wait, Darce. Serrano lies. Remember that. Guy lies all the time. But here's the truth, the guy'll do anything—
anything
—for power. Did he give you that righteous rant about how safe he keeps the Mission? You think he cares whether girls can walk home from clubs without being raped? Power and money, that's it! He . . . ”

‟Seriously, I gotta go!” I clicked off.

The pre-boards rolled and hauled down the chute, and the A pass holders picked up their carry-ons. I was not an A, or a B.

Mike wasn't telling me anything I didn't know, just what he thought I didn't know. And Declan Serrano already had over an hour lead on me.

Still, Mike's call made me nervous and when the phone rang again I checked the number and steeled myself. I barely got out hello when my brother John started in. ‟Don't you think SFPD is onto Adamé? Why do you think Adamé ran, Darcy, tell me that, will you? We've got an agent in Miami Dade right now. We're working with the department there. We've alerted border control. Do you think SFPD is a nursery school? We've been working this case for close to a year now. We're ready to snap it. Serrano's not on that case. He's rogue. Rogue! Guy figures he sees what no one else does. Thinks he walks a wild side we don't know exists. An egomaniac. Department should've sacked him years ago—”

‟Why didn't it, then?”

The pause was so long I thought he'd driven out of range. ‟Because sometimes he delivers.”

‟So, tomorrow he could be dragging Adamé into the mayor's office and stepping out of there with a promotion?”

‟What I'm saying is you are way, way over your head. You've got no business with him. Where are you?”

‟Nashville.”

‟Turn around. Get on a plane home.”

‟Fat chance! It was only Serrano pulling strings that got me on this flight.”

He sounded like he was choking.

‟My plane's boarding. To Raleigh. Serrano's already—”

‟I'll have someone meet your flight there. You can brief them. They'll deal with this business. I'll get you a flight home. Call me then.”

‟What? What? . . . you're breaking up.”

‟I'm telling you—”

I clicked off. I was fuming, not because of what he'd said, though maybe I should have been, but because Mike had ratted me out to him. We'd had a compact, Mike and I: No matter what, we had never ever ratted out the other.

Was Mike
that
worried? About Serrano?

Or maybe things really had changed between us. Enough, anyway, that when he called back I didn't pick up.

Despite my sleep trick on the next leg, I was still edgy when I walked off the plane in Raleigh.

My first surprise was that there was no local law in sight. No county, state, or feds. There could be a dozen reasons, not the least of which was John was not as well connected as he thought. Or else this case wasn't as high a priority as he thought. Or who knows what?

But I didn't have time to find out, because my second surprise was Serrano, standing there.

‟How come you're still here?”

‟Don't want you out there driving around in the woods.”

‟Boy, you've got more concern than a lot of guys I know give you credit for.”