No Footprints (27 page)

‟How'd you meet Mike?” I asked.

‟Don't remember. It amused me to play him.”

My breath caught. ‟Well, you can stop trying to play me—or is that your entire view of social intercourse?”

‟Play or get played?” He paused. ‟Yeah, guess so.”

‟Mike?” I insisted. ‟Did you pick him up—”

‟Didn't pick him up at all.”

‟Then . . . ?”

‟Kid walked into my office. Told me he was Lott's brother up front, said he wanted to see the city through the eyes of the cockroach.”

‟He used that term?” That made me smile: It had to be true.

‟Oh yeah. First time I heard it! I was so—maybe that's why I bothered with his challenge.”

‟What'd he do for you?”

‟Undercover. A natural at slipping himself in. Amazing for a guy with as good of looks as you. Great actor. Lousy enforcer.”

My every pore sighed with relief. ‟He wasn't willing to hurt people.”

‟Nah. Not that. Just that he didn't care. Enforcing's too blunt. No challenge.” He turned to me. ‟By the time he was eighteen he knew my entire operation. Guys on the street trusted him more than me. They confided in him. Come to it, he could've caused me big problems. Big enough that I wrote a friend in Massachusetts who had an in with the senator for a letter to the college for him. I wanted him on the other side of the continent.”

I said nothing. It was all I could do to cover my gasp. But I remembered Mike in that easy disguise when I got off the bridge Sunday, and I didn't doubt what I was hearing. ‟And then?”

‟Nothing. Never saw him when he came home from school, if he did.”

‟And when he was missing?”

‟Nah.” He turned toward me. ‟Maybe you don't know this about him. You should. You all should. But he's what you Zen people call ‛in the moment'. He's a hundred percent in what he's doing; then he turns and that's gone. He's the same hundred into the next thing. He does care about some people—He wouldn't have left. But when the opportunity came he was glad to grab it, believe me.”

‟I don't.”

‟Why,” he said, ‟you left for years.”

I didn't bother wondering how he knew that. It was all I could do to block the stings of the truths, about Mike, about me, to try to see past my illusions, to spot the illusions he was trying to create. I said, ‟You're lying.”

‟You think so? There's a shocker.”

‟You'd never let some kid get a handle on your whole operation. Even Mike. So what's the real truth? You helped him get in college?”

‟You want me to tell you I just wanted him gone?”

I glanced at the odometer. ‟Which senator?”

‟Kennedy.”

‟Odd. Mike went to school in Vermont.”

‟You're missing the point.”

‟Point is you're lying.”

He shrugged.

‟End justifies the means?”

He shrugged again and if I could've made out his expression in the dark I'd've seen disdain. The end here was keeping me from getting any other law to the scene before him. And maybe, I'd be a loss leader to distract Adamé for a few minutes. Whatever Serrano'd told me was no more than the means.
Big surprise.

The car was rattling forward on the pockmarked pavement. I unlocked my door. Serrano didn't appear to notice.

Ahead, the pavement widened for the final turnoff, the one that veered back. Easy to miss. I could let him go on and—

I drank from the bottle, jostled it putting it back, and unsnapped my seat belt. Again he didn't react, although the noise had been louder. ‟Slow down,” I said to cover it. ‟Take that left.”

He slowed.

My hand was on the door release. In a minute I'd be out and calling the locals.

He was even with the side road.

I eased in the release, bracing my feet to push.

He floored the gas, yanked the wheel so abruptly the wheels flew off the pavement. The car spun to the right, scraped the brush. He pulled the wheel harder, caught it with his knees, freed his hands, and reached between the seats.

I saw his hand come back up, saw the silver metal.

I hit the door release, shoved hard with my feet, and grabbed for the upright doorjamb. I swung out and slammed against the back window of the car. The force knocked the air out. My grip released and I fell.

Just as I heard the shot roar from his gun
. Jesus!

I skidded across the pavement on one hip, slammed into brush and trees. Dirt filled my eyes, sand strafed my face, nettles ripped at my skin. I scrambled and ran into the woods.

The car slowed, then, suddenly screeched off down the side road toward the Adamé place.

I waited a moment, stunned. Then I made my way back to the road.

The sound of the car grew softer, as he drove away.

I reached into my pocket for my phone.

My pocket was empty.

Clouds floated over the moon. Branches quivered in the wind, leaves scraped, the November night air iced the sweat on my skin. He would have shot me! Now, in the aftermath, it seemed insane that I'd imagined anything else, and yet, even now, it was impossible to connect the Serrano bantering in the car with the Serrano pulling the trigger. Why hadn't he just—

Because he didn't
just.
That's why he was who he was.

He lies all the time.
Lies in not merely words.

I could be crumpled by the side of the road bleeding to death.

Like Varine? Like Tessa?

Tessa!

My phone, which had been in my pocket, was nowhere in sight. Finding it would be a colossal stroke of luck, and my luck account was already overdrawn. The house a mile and a half up the road. I started to run. My hip caught, my foot hit the pavement wrong. But I was still enough in shock to ignore pain.

I'd be there in fifteen minutes.

What would Serrano do in that time? He'd ease the car to a stop along the road, open the door silently, slide out, and start to move toward his goal. He still wouldn't know what awaited him.

He wouldn't be stopping to make sure the car was locked.

I ran harder, the ache in my hip throbbing, my ankle silently screaming, and dread closing in. My every step rustled leaves, ruffled grasses, sent unseen little animals scampering, flying. My fear mixed with their fear. Their cries pushed me faster. All I could think about now was Tessa.

He couldn't leave me behind at the airport to lead the posse here.

I hung on to hope.

The guy'll do anything—
anything
—for power.

I spotted the car.

I stopped. There was no sound but my own panting and the flutter of leaves in the night wind. I cupped a hand over my mouth, scanned the brush on both sides of the road, then eased the car slowly, carefully open. There was no overhead light. No phone on the seat. None in the glove box. Zip.

Still no sound but the leaves and the scrape of sand. Serrano'd been here fifteen, twenty minutes, time to
do
and get away.

But here sat his car.

The guy'll do anything—
anything
—for power.

The air was thick with the smell of pine and ocean. Gravel had been dumped onto the two ruts of the driveway. It looked new, not worn in. I made my way, as Serrano must have done, being careful not to step on it. The moon was bright, startlingly so by city standards, but the trees and shrubs were dark. Leaves flickered, shapes behind them shifted.
Only that!
I told myself. No way could anyone be walking through that underbrush and me not hear them.

I stopped, held my breath, tried to name noises. Nothing but rustling. I moved again, careful to place each foot on the grassy cover, not the gravel.

Ahead was a clearing. Beyond it a low building. A house? Dark.

Dark? But empty? That was the question.

I crept to the edge of the clearing. I could never get across it without announcing myself like blinking neon.

The house was twenty yards ahead, an outbuilding to my right, and in front of it a pick-up that could shield me from sight till I figured how to get nearer.

A cloud covered the moon. Taking advantage of the sudden dimness, I slipped behind the truck bed.

The cloud passed, the moonlight lit the yard. It shone on the truck . . . and on the body in the truck bed.

The head was bashed and bloody . . . and bald. I stared for a ridiculously long time before I could make myself understand that the dead man in a pick-up truck in rural North Carolina was Declan Serrano, the cockroach of San Francisco.

Declan Serrano, who'd worked both sides for two decades, who'd survived gang wars and internal affairs investigations, who'd walked my city's streets with impunity, was dead!

Bludgeoned, like the body in my garage back in San Francisco.

Suddenly, I was terrified. The hell with any questions. I needed to get out of here now.

I turned, and gasped.

Her dark hair hung to her chin, her eyes were wide. I could've been back on the bridge.

‟Help me!” she screamed.

‟He followed me! I thought I'd be safe here, but he followed me!” She was shivering in jeans and a short, fitted jacket too thin for the cold. Her dark hair hung to her chin, her eyes wide. I could've been back on the bridge. She looked like Tessa Jurovik—stunned, angry, frightened. She
could be
Tessa.

I so desperately wanted her to be Tessa, here, alive, not back in San Francisco—Was this the face I'd looked into for less than a minute, or was it one I'd never seen in the flesh? Everything froze: her, me, the moment. What could I see in her that would tell me?

Then the moment passed, and I realized I was coming at this backward. It didn't matter what I saw in her, because she didn't recognize me at all. Me, who'd pulled Tessa back from death, who'd been an inch from her face on the walkway, me, with my long red hair.

Tessa Jurovik was really dead.

Varine Adamé moved and the moon lit her face. She was so much like Tessa I felt like if I squeezed my eyes shut a couple times, my vision would clear and there Tessa'd be, not dead in a garage in the Mission district, or in a morgue drawer.

But it was Varine Adamé standing panicky by the truck.

I expected her to be asking who I was, but she'd moved on from the shock of my arrival and was focused on her own danger. ‟My husband's going to kill me! He killed this guy! We've got to get away!”

‟Why?”

She was looking anxiously at the driveway, the house, the woods, and back to the body in the truck. ‟You came with him. You—”

‟Not by choice.”

‟What? Never mind. You have a car? You? Him? You've got to have a car.”

I was staring at Serrano, too. ‟He had the keys. What about the truck?”

‟Needs gas. Aaron's gone to siphon some. He'll be back in any minute. Find the keys. I'll watch for him. Hurry!”

Wind rustled leaves, shadows fell black and vanished. I wanted to climb into the truck bed, grab the keys, and get the hell out of here. But, Varine? Was Adamé really going to kill her, too? ‟Why should I believe you?”

‟Not now! We've got to get out of here! The keys!”

‟Why is Aaron threatening
you?
”

‟Ask me questions later, when we're safe. There's no time to—”

‟I'm not going anywhere till I get answers. So, why?”

‟Because he
thinks
I know all about him. He's sure the cops could squeeze his secrets out of me. He doesn't dare leave me alive. He actually said that to me!”

‟And Tessa? What about her?”

‟Shh. Look!” She pointed to the driveway.

Automatically I turned and peered into the dark. But her husband wasn't going to be coming up from the road. If he'd been on the road I'd've seen him or at least heard him.

I'd peered a second too long.

‟Get up on the damn truck!” The fearful voice was gone. She had a gun.

The charade was over.

But she wasn't going to shoot me, not yet. ‟Answer me first. Tessa?”

She shifted the gun with ease. If I'd thought of her as a pampered artist, I sure wasn't now.

‟Come on! We're not pretending you're going to let me live. So, tell me. Who're you going to brag to if not me?”

She gave a sort of half-snort-half-laugh.

Dammit, I was not going to die without an answer. I prodded. ‟It was such a good plan, Varine, it must have seemed foolproof. She jumps off the bridge and you're scot-free. Who'd think anyone would come along and save her, cold and foggy as it was there at that time of night?”

She didn't bite. But she didn't stop me either.

‟And then your flight got canceled! Otherwise, you would have landed in Miami before she jumped. Varine Adamé'd be ‛dead' and you'd have yourself a whole new identity. Isn't that right?”

She so wanted to tell me, to relish, to savor, to—damn her—gloat.

I couldn't stand it. I hit her with, ‟It was a great plan of Aaron's.”

‟Fuck Aaron,” she screamed. ‟Aaron's! You think he planned it? Think again! You're like everyone else, you just don't see.”

I did see. But I wanted to hear the words from her.

‟
I
spotted Tessa.
I
found out what it'd take to buy her. I let her set the price; I didn't haggle. I made sure she wanted it to work.”