Keep Her Safe Page 2

  She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out as she stares at me, her blue eyes—the same cornflower shade as mine—cast with a haunted shadow. I wait for her to explain herself.

  Finally she flicks her lighter, letting the tiny flame dance for a moment before pulling her thumb away to extinguish it. “Go on to bed, and let sleeping dogs lie. They’re less likely to bite.” She chuckles. “He always liked that saying, every time I pushed him, every time I told him they were up to no good.”

  As if I could sleep after this. “Mom . . .”

  “You remember Hal Fulcher?”

  “Your lawyer?”

  “Make sure you pay him a visit. Don’t wait too long. They don’t have much time.”

  What? Why?

  “Go and grab that shower.” She finishes the first glass of water, then chugs the second. I’m not going to get any coherent answers from her tonight. This conversation will have to continue in the morning, though I can’t imagine how to start it.

  I lean down to place a kiss on her forehead, and she reaches up, her palm cupping my stubbled jaw in an affectionate gesture. “I love you so much. Always remember that.”

  “Love you, too. And if you’re not in bed by the time I’m done, I’ll throw you over my shoulder.” She knows it’s not an idle threat. I’ve done it before.

  She responds with hollow laughter, then turns up the dial on the police radio, her eyes beginning to shutter. Another five minutes and she’ll be passed out, right there on the table.

  The dispatcher’s voice doesn’t quite muffle her heavy sigh. “You’re gonna be fine.”

  * * *

  I peel off my clothes and throw them in a corner. I’ll deal with them later. Just like I’ll deal with the scruff covering my jaw. Or not. We’re going to Rainey Street tomorrow night for drinks and Jenson’s girlfriend is bringing her friend Dana, the one I hooked up with last week. I forgot to shave then, too, and she seemed to like it.

  I simply stand under the hot stream of water for a moment, letting it rivulet over my skin, hoping it’ll melt away the unease that’s settled onto my shoulders. Mom was acting different tonight. Almost . . . crazy. The fact that she brought up Abe has thrown me for a loop. She took his death hard. That’s when she started really drinking the first time.

  And what the hell was all that talk of carrots and sticks and selling her soul?

  I inhale the spicy scent of my shampoo as I scrub away at my scalp. Fucking dramatic drunken rambling. I can’t imagine what my mother thinks she’s guilty of. She’s a highly decorated police chief. She’s well respected in the community. She’s smart and funny. When she’s not drunk.

  She’s my mom.

  The blast of a gunshot tears through the house.

  CHAPTER 2

  Noah

  My uncle Silas walks with a limp.

  I was five when I first recognized that he didn’t walk like everyone else, when I mentioned his funny gait. He pulled me onto his knee and asked me if I knew what a ninja was. I laughed at him and held up my Raphael Ninja Turtle figurine. That’s when he told me how he once fought a real ninja. He said he won, but in its last moments, the ninja gouged his leg with a blade. He rolled up his pant leg and showed me the five-inch scar to prove it.

  Every time we visited, I would ask him to tell me the story again and he would, each version more detailed and far-fetched than the last. He told it so convincingly that I believed him, consuming every grand detail with a stupid grin on my face.

  I got older. Soon, I was too big to be pulled onto his lap and too wise to buy into the tall tale. I’d still ask, though, with the smart-ass tone and that doubtful gaze of a boy growing into adolescence. But he’d hold fast to his story of the ninja’s blade, capping it off with a wink.

  I was nine when my mom finally told me the truth—that twelve-year-old Silas fell out of a tree while saving her from falling, and suffered a bad break that never set properly. My grandmother refused to let the doctors rebreak the bone, leaving her son with a mild limp.

  Even though I had already figured out that the ninja story wasn’t real, I remember feeling completely disenchanted. I guess that tiny flame of childhood hope for the impossible had still been burning, buried somewhere deep.

  Now, I watch the silhouette of a man with a limp approach the front porch where I sit, his face obscured by the night and countless flashing lights that fill our cul-de-sac, and all I want is for him to tell me another story.

  One where my mother is still alive.

  Silas is fifty-seven and anything but an old man, yet he climbs the steps like one, his movements slow and wooden, his shoulders hunched, his hand on the wrought-iron rail to support him to the landing. I’m guessing he’s stuck in the same surreal fog as I am.

  He sounds out of breath by the time he reaches the landing. “I had my phone on silent. And Judy must have turned off the ringer to the house line while she was dusting today.”

  “It’s okay.” I tried calling his numbers three times each before the cops dispatched a car to his place.

  He hovers near the front door.

  “They might not let you inside,” I warn him, my voice hollow. He’s the district attorney for Travis County, but he’s also the deceased’s brother. What is the protocol in situations like this?

  “I don’t want to go inside.” He fumbles absently with a set of keys inside his cardigan pocket. All he has on underneath is a white V-neck T-shirt, the kind you wear as an undershirt. The kind you pick out of the hamper at one in the morning, when the police have woken you to tell you that your little sister shot herself in the head.

  I can’t remember the last time I saw Silas looking so disheveled, but I’m not one to comment. Up until an hour ago I was wearing nothing but a blood-soaked towel hastily wrapped around my hips. My hair is still coated with shampoo suds.

  Taking a deep breath, he mutters, “Give me a minute.” And he disappears inside, leaving me to stare out at the chaos. They must have every available officer on site, the dead-end street filled with cruisers. Our neighbors are standing on their porches in various states of dress, watching quietly. At least we live in a secluded area, where there are only six houses’ worth of people to witness this. The police barrier around the corner keeps the gawkers at a safe distance. Apparently there’s a crowd over there.

  Silas emerges two minutes later. Or maybe twenty minutes. His face is drawn and pale. He eases into the porch swing next to me, pausing for a moment to take in the dried blood covering my hands. I knew I shouldn’t touch her, even as my fingers reached for her neck and her wrist, searching in vain for a pulse. “What the hell happened, Noah?”

  All I can do is shake my head. The cops told me to stay put and not make calls or otherwise talk to anyone, but no one’s stopping Silas from being here, so I guess he doesn’t count.

  “Noah . . .” he pushes.

  “The kitchen window was open. Someone could have climbed in.”

  “Perhaps.” I can tell Silas is saying that to appease me.

  As fast as I flew down those stairs, no one would have had time to climb back out the window and reset the screen without my notice. Plus, why not use the door? But the doors were locked, and the alarm was set.

  “Walk me through it.”

  “You’re gonna be fine.”

  Those were her last words to me. Jesus . . . Those were her last words and I left her there.

  Silas rests his hand on my knee, pulling me back from my guilt-laden thoughts.

  I tell him what I told the emergency dispatcher and the cops—that I was upstairs for no more than twenty minutes. That I was in the shower when I heard the gunshot and I came down to find her facedown in a pool of blood at the kitchen table, the gun gripped in her hand.

  “And before that?”

  Before that . . . “She was into the whiskey.”

  “Just tonight?”

  I hesitate, and then shake my head.

  He takes a deep breath. “How long?�
�

  “A few weeks.” I lower my voice. “She was saying all kinds of crazy shit tonight, Silas.”

  “Oh?” He leans back, shifting closer to me. “Like what?”

  “Like how she didn’t deserve her job, and didn’t earn it.”

  He pauses to consider that. “Too many bullheaded bastards telling her a woman doesn’t belong as chief. Maybe it got to her head finally.”

  “I don’t think that’s it.” I lower my voice even further, to a whisper. “She was talkin’ about Abe tonight. She made it sound like he was set up. And like she was involved.”

  “She said that? Those exact words?”

  “Not exactly, but—”

  “She had nothing to do with that mess.” He shakes his head decisively. “Nothing.”

  “She seems to think otherwise. Seemed to,” I correct myself, softly.

  “Believe me when I say this, Noah: that investigation was the most thorough I’ve seen. There were no two ways about it, that man was guilty.” His eyes search mine. “Did she tell you why she thought otherwise?”

  “She didn’t give any details. But the way she was talking, she made it sound like she had a hand in it.”

  “Good Lord, Jackie,” he mutters. His eyes rove over the crowd and the officers coming in and out. A few of them I recognize, but most I don’t. “Did you tell APD any of that?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Maybe I can convince them to wait until tomorrow for your statement.”

  “They said they needed it tonight. At least a preliminary one.”

  Silas makes a sound of agreement. “Can’t blame them. She was the chief.” He drums his fingers against his knee. “They need to hurry it up, though.”

  “I’m sure they’ll take it as soon as they can.” Mom’s body is still cooling inside.

  “Did she say anything else to you?”

  “I don’t . . .” I try hard to focus on our conversation but it’s tough, in this fog. “Something about how it started off as being the right thing. And a wily fox, using something against her. Do you think she was being blackmailed?”

  “She never told me. I’d think she would, don’t you?”

  I shrug. Because who knows what my mother would do, given what she just did.

  Silas pauses. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do.” He leans in close to me, and I sense a plan coming into focus. That’s Silas—you give him your problem, and he’ll be formulating a solution within minutes. “They don’t need to know what all was said,” he mumbles, almost too low for even me to hear. “That’s between you two. Your mom was a great cop and chief, and we don’t need to give anyone ammunition to say otherwise. This is already going to be a hard pill to swallow for the city.”

  “But what am I supposed to tell the police? I can’t lie, Silas.”

  “Did she ask you about your day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell them about that. You came home, talked for bit, and went upstairs. She was having a few drinks, but you didn’t think anything of it. That’s all true, right?”

  “Right.” Had the thought that she’d shoot herself crossed my mind, I would never have left her side.

  “Then that’s all you tell them. Whatever your mother was saying about Abe . . . she was drunk. She rambles when she’s drunk. I’m sure it’s not what it sounded like. It wouldn’t be right to bring it up, not when she can’t defend herself.”

  This isn’t just my uncle telling me this. I’m getting the district attorney’s seal of approval to keep my mother’s crazy words to myself. Right or not, it’s what I need to hear. I nod, and a flicker of relief sparks deep within this overwhelming void gripping me.

  Silas and I fall into silence then, watching the parade of people stroll in and out with barely a glance in our direction.

  “. . . I don’t know. When would be good?” Boyd steps out of the house, his radio in hand. I’ve known him since preschool and, while we’ve never been best friends, twenty-one years has earned us the right to call each other up at any time. Like the time he called me to ask if my mom would write him a letter of recommendation, when he was applying to the APD.

  He was one of the first responders tonight.

  The porch floor creaks under the weight of another man, following closely behind him. He’s in plain clothes, but he must be a cop; otherwise they wouldn’t have let him inside. “How ’bout next Wednesday, after our game?”

  “Shit, does the season start next week? I’ll have to see if I can make—”

  “Officer, are you investigating your chief’s death or planning out your social calendar? Tell Towle that District Attorney Silas Reid wants to get his nephew out of here immediately,” Silas interrupts in a loud, annoyed voice.

  Boyd turns to look at me with a grim expression. No cop with half a brain would want to get on the DA’s bad side, and Boyd’s no idiot. “Yes, sir. We’re waiting for . . .” My attention drifts from whatever excuse he’s giving Silas to the other guy, whose dark gaze has settled on me. His expression is blank and yet menacing. It could just be his deep-set eyes and steep forehead, the steepest I’ve ever seen. The combination makes him look like a mean son of a bitch.

  “Noah?”

  Silas’s voice snaps me out of my daze. Boyd is standing in front of me, his notepad and pen out, sympathy on his face. “He’ll take your preliminary statement and then we can deal with the rest tomorrow.” Silas gives me a reassuring smile. “Are you ready?”

  Am I ready to tell half-truths? “Yes, sir.”

  Of course Mom wouldn’t have had anything to do with Abe’s death.

  And no one needs to know she said otherwise.

  CHAPTER 3

  Grace

  Tucson, Arizona

  I toss a baby carrot to the sandy ground. “Don’t say I never shared.”

  Cyclops dives and devours it in one fell swoop, unbothered by the gritty coating. I’m not surprised. He’ll eat anything he can fit into his yappy mouth. I’ve caught him trotting by with a rat tail dangling from his jaws more than once.

  “Now go on.” It’s pointless; the mangy dog can smell the chicken taquitos I tucked away in my purse. He won’t be leaving my heels anytime soon. Persistence is how he’s survived this long. He doesn’t have an owner to feed him; he follows the trailer park’s inhabitants, hoping someone will pity him enough to throw him scraps. Usually that someone is me.

  I remember the day he showed up, limping from an infected cut on his hind paw, a chunk of his ear freshly torn out, long since missing his left eye. I had one hell of a time holding him down to clean and wrap that foot of his. That was three years ago, and he keeps coming back.

  Like many of the people who find their way to the Hollow.

  I stroll along the laneway, ignoring him. It’s two in the afternoon and Sleepy Hollow Trailer Park is practically a ghost town, as usual. Most everyone’s either sleeping off their midnight shift or out working a long day for shitty pay, so they can come back to this.

  I pass the Cortezes’. There are six people living in that trailer. It has a sheet of plywood covering a window because Mr. Cortez smashed it with his fist in a fit of rage last month and he doesn’t have the money to replace it yet. Management won’t say anything. Five hundred a month in rent doesn’t buy you much around here, besides a roof that leaks during monsoon season. The park runs out of water at least three times a week, and the smell of sewage lingers in the air more days than not.

  It looks like nobody’s home there, and I say a quick prayer of thanks for that because if the Cortezes are home, then no one’s getting any sleep. I was up at five for my shift at QuikTrip and I’m desperate for a nap before I have to bust my ass serving tables at Aunt Chilada’s tonight.

  Next to the Cortez family is the Sims trailer, where Kendrick Sims, his sister, her boyfriend, and their seven-year-old son live. While his sister and boyfriend work honest jobs, Kendrick has been in and out of prison more times than I can count. Currently he spends his days
hanging around their yard, shaking a lot of hands, and disappearing around corners. Everyone knows he’s dealing drugs.

  He lingers by the chain-link fence now, leering at me. But he won’t come sniffing around here. He tried eight years ago, when he waylaid me along the lane one night and started telling me how I should date him because he’s black and my daddy must have been black for me to look the way I do, and that he would teach me all that I need to know about my heritage. He was nineteen.

  I was twelve.

  No one has ever accused me of having a dull tongue. As scared shitless as I was, I let him have it before running home and digging out my mom’s switchblade from beneath her mattress. I carry it in my purse to this day.

  Next to the Simses is the Alves family. Vilma Alves waves from her spot in the crimson velvet armchair that sits outside her front door. It’s her throne; no one dares touch it. Her son brought it home years ago, a treasure from the curbside. It’s remained in that exact place, rain or shine. Mostly shine in Tucson.

  “iBuenas tardes!” she calls out in her reedy voice.

  “Hola.” I offer her a smile as I always do, because she’s ninety years old and she’s dropped off homemade enchiladas and mole at our door on many occasions, when she knew things were especially rough for me.

  She scowls at Cyclops, shooing him away with a wave of her hand and a hiss of, “iRabia!”

  I peer down at the scrappy mutt—part terrier, part Chihuahua, all parts annoying—and smirk. “He’s not foaming at the mouth yet.”

  She shrugs reluctantly. I’m not sure which is worse—my Spanish or her English. We always muddle past the language barrier, though.

  “Hasta luego.” With a lazy wave, I make to move on.

  “Un hombre visitó a tu mamá.”

  While my Spanish might be terrible, I know what that means. Or, more importantly, I know what it means when a man visits my mother while I’m at work.

  My stomach tightens. “How long ago? Time?” I tap my watchless wrist.