SATISH
“Dammit, AnnaSophia, listen to me.” Mind stuttering, Satish braced the phone between his shoulder and ear and slipped his bare feet into the Guccis next to his chair. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Do you know my address?”
“Give it to me.” He clamped his mouth shut. No longer a cop with a reason to know her address, the truth made him look like a damn stalker. He yanked a jacket from his closet, holstered his Glock, repeated, “I’m calling the po—”
“Do. Not. Move.” She said something else inaudible. A beat later, she gave him the address he already knew, adding, “Don’t waste time calling the police. Just get here.”
“Are you in danger?” He stuffed car keys and wallet into his rear pocket and jogged for the bedroom door.
Her high-pierced laugh rabbit punched his solar plexus. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Don’t do anything stupid. Stay on the phone. Talk.” He sprinted down the short hall. His stride faltered as he passed the bedroom where his mother slept.
She won’t even know you’re gone.
His rationalization propelled him into the garage, but a part of his mind plunged into quicksand. He and Mère were on a collision course. Sooner or later, the smoldering ashes of their mother-son—Hindi mother-Hindi son—relationship would ignite into flames.
The whine of the garage door refocused him. “I’m in the car, AnnaSophia.”
“There shouldn’t be any traffic.” Her voice steadied on this fragile thread of the mundane.
“I agree.” He backed into the cul-de-sac where the six other houses sat dark and silent. Silent for the next four hours. His next-door neighbor would rise before the sun to beat rush-hour traffic to Intel—less than fifteen miles away in Santa Clara. The other five hotshots would zoom off as the sun rose over Google or LinkedIn or Facebook or the newest tech start-up.
Another part of his mind—the part that didn’t sound like a DMV waiting room—sifted, sorted, selected words and sentences he could use with AnnaSophia in the let’s-not-do-anything-we’ll-regret tone hostage negotiators used under siege.
“I’m on my way.”
“Hurry. Sit down, Alexandra.” A new quaver in her voice raised the hairs on his neck, but she spoke in a strong, no-nonsense tone. “Come in through the garage.”
“All right. Is the door up?”
“I’ll give you the security code. You need a second one for the door into the kitchen. Can you remember them?”
His ears burned. Pissed at her implication—stupid since she had no idea how much of his brain he’d pickled the past year—he slid through the stop sign at El Monte and Rose. “Give me the codes.”
She rattled off a series of numbers just as he made the Mountain View cruiser parked in the shadows.
“Sonuva—” His breath reeked of gin. Legally drunk, he’d just run a stop sign. And … he was carrying a concealed weapon.
“What’s wrong?” AnnaSophia demanded.
“Nothing. Hold on. I’m laying the phone down for a minute.”
“What’s wrong?” An undercurrent of panic rode the question.
“Hold on.” He rolled down his window. Idiot. Moron. Fool. A young female cop he didn’t recognize approached. She directed a Maglite an inch over his head so the beam didn’t blind him but let her assess if he was carrying passengers.
Jaw locked, he kept both hands on the steering wheel. How the hell do I play this?
“Morning, Mr. Patel.” Dark circles under her narrowed blue eyes testified to sleep deprivation—a chronic condition cops shared without exception.
“Morning. I have no excuse for running that sign.” Except I’ve drunk too much and slept too little and lost my mind.
“There’s a refreshing remark.” She made no move to take out her ticket book. “Ex-cops should know better than to go with the BS.”
“I’m an ex-cop. Not sure if I know better.” But he should’ve known she’d run his plates in the black-and-white and discover his ex status.
“Where’s the fire?”
Whenever possible, go with the truth. Words from his favorite expert on how to lie to a suspect during interrogation. “A friend’s in trouble.”
“Trouble that requires a cop?”
“A friend.” He met and held her gaze. She was too old to be a rookie so she’d know about Michael Romanov.
“Does the friend have a name? Like the Alibi Bar and Lounge?”
“For what it’s worth, I’m not headed for the Alibi.” Several of his former brothers and sisters in blue thought his promotion for handling the Romanov case smelled. Rumors swirled. He’d gotten too close to Mrs. Romanov. Everyone knew she’d killed her super-wealthy husband. Satish had looked the other way.
He didn’t blame his fellow cops. None of them knew Michael Romanov, the psychopath.
And none of them had grieved Satish’s resignation four months after he closed the case without an arrest. Or more important—
The cop at his car window lasered him with the cop-stare—unnerving even though ten years on the Mountain View force had made him immune. “I let you go, you’re not gonna make me sorry, are you, Mr. Patel?”