I can’t believe we ate it all.” Tory stared at the four empty pint-sized cartons of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream spread over the table in the ICU waiting room. Unable to sleep, Brie had decided to come to the hospital.
“I can,” Eliot said. “I can feel my arteries clogging as I sit here.”
“Oh, please,” Tory said. “Carlos says ice cream fixes everything.”
“I know,” Brie said, choking up. “That’s why I brought it.” She couldn’t count how many ice cream runs she and Carlos had made when they lived in the same apartment complex. They’d truly been best friends, turning to each other, because neither of them had anyone else.
As happy as Brie had been when Carlos met Tory, she missed the times they’d shared when they were both single.
Brie hung out at the hospital until eleven, then after giving out hugs, she headed out. Keys in hand, she’d just walked out of the automatic doors when her phone rang. On the screen, the name DAVID MILES flashed.
Why was he calling her? And this late?
“Yeah?” she answered as she continued walking to her car. Only a few cars filled the lot, but no one seemed to be out. His voice sounded garbled. Then the line went dead. She hugged her leather coat tighter, as the night air brought a chill.
The dark sky above seemed to hang low. One of the lights on a post in the parking lot buzzed, as if about to blow. She kept walking, but her steps suddenly seemed too loud and the night too quiet. The hair on the back of her neck began dancing.
Reaching into her coat, she put her hand on her Glock. Senses heightened, she stopped and did a full circle. Nothing. Nobody.
She started walking again but couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Clicking her doors open, she slid behind the wheel, locked the car, and sat there, staring out into the night. She checked and rechecked every shadow.
After a few minutes, Miles called her again.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Why?” Was he here?
“I need to talk to you.”
“What about?” A dark shadow darted between a car and a truck.
“I think I know who Olvera saw in Willowcreek.”
“Who?” Brie leaned into the steering wheel, staring toward the truck.
“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”
She pulled her gun from her holster. The cold weight of it against her palm sent a chill through her.
“Brie? Are you listening?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I know they’re going to blame me. I look guilty, but I didn’t do it.”
The inside light of the car parked beside the truck came on. A woman appeared, and got inside.
Brie exhaled. “Who’s gonna blame you?”
“The detectives.”
“Why?” He didn’t answer, so she tossed another question out. “Who do you think Carlos met?”
“Not over the phone. I’m at your apartment. I’m coming up.”
“I’m not…Wait. How do you know where I live?”
“I followed you earlier.”
Did he also follow me to the Black Diamond?
“I’m not home. There’s a Denny’s two blocks from the hospital. On Pebble and Green Street. Meet me there.”
Brie hung up and drove straight to Denny’s. But she pulled into a spot next door, where she could watch and wait for Miles to arrive. Make sure he came alone.
With her gun still in hand, she waited. Fifteen minutes later, a Toyota pulled into the parking lot. She watched him walk inside.
Did she trust him?
No. But she didn’t think he was stupid enough to try something in public. Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he did know who Carlos had met. And maybe it behooved her to know why he thought the detectives were going to suspect him.
Pretending she wasn’t afraid, she went to meet him.
He sat in a back booth.
She moved in. “How about I take your gun?”
“You think I’d shoot you?” he asked.
“Just do it.”
For one second, she thought he was going to argue. Her hold on her piece tightened. “Fine.” He handed her his gun. “You want to pat me down to make sure I’m not carrying a second piece?”
She almost said yes, but suddenly she believed him. It hurt to suspect him when less than five months ago she’d been working by his side.
She dropped into the booth, then set both guns beside her on the seat, pulled off her jacket, and covered them up.
“Now. Start talking.”
He started to respond just as the waitress walked over. They ordered coffee and when she left, he leaned in. “They contacted my mom, didn’t they?”
“They?”
“The detectives.”
“Why would they…?”
“They checked my financial records, didn’t they? But it’s not what they think. I have a problem. A gambling problem. I’d stopped, but this last year…I’m getting help. I haven’t gambled in three months. This could cost me my job. But I can prove that’s all this is. You’re in tight with them. If you—”
“So you lied to get me here? You said you knew who Carlos met with.”
“No. I wasn’t lying.” The conversation halted as the waitress dropped off their coffees.
Once she’d left, Brie asked, “Who did Carlos meet?”
“Are they handing the report over to Agent Calvin?”
“I don’t know.” But she suspected they would. “Who did Carlos meet?”
“Ask your cop friend to give me a chance to prove what I’m telling you is true, before he takes what he learned to Calvin. He can tell him, just let me get ahead of this first. I’ll go to personnel Monday morning. That way, I might salvage my job.”
“I’ll talk to them, but I can’t make any promises. Now tell me who you think Carlos met with.”
He nodded. “The day before Olvera came here, he stayed at the office late, I overheard him talking…He said the name Rosaria.”
“Rosaria Altura?” Pablo’s girlfriend. The one Brie suspected had been killed.
“Yeah. That’s why I said he might have been in on this.”
“He was trying to find answers. He wasn’t…Are you sure you heard right?”
“He called her by her name. And he asked where she’d been all this time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“Maybe I would have if you hadn’t told me to get out.”
She sat trying to digest the information.
“Look, this afternoon I ran all of her family through the database again. I found out she has a sister who just moved to Texas. She lives right outside of Willowcreek. She recently married a José Hernandez.”
José Hernandez? The name from Carlos’s burner phone.
“I have an address.” He pulled a paper from his front pocket and pushed it over.
“Who else knows about this?”
“Knows about what?”
“Do Agents Bara and Calvin know about the call? About you giving me the address?”
“About me coming here and finding the address, no. But I mentioned hearing Carlos talking to Rosaria when we found out he’d been shot. And…if I found this address, either one of them could have as well.”
* * *
After Connor left Brie’s apartment, he’d gone home and crashed. He’d slept hard for four hours, then had woken up and couldn’t go back to sleep. He thought about how Brie looked at him when she insisted he leave. He thought about the other women Brie thought were missing and wondered if they were still alive. He even thought about the baby and wondered if whoever was taking care of her was doing a better job than the CPS worker.
How fucking hard would it have been to bounce her?
Frustrated, he got up, got dressed, and went to the diner. As he walked in, he grabbed a newspaper someone had left on the counter and sat at a table in Flora’s section. For some reason, Brie’s words filled his head: grief and guilt can fit into the same pocket. She was right. He still grieved for his mom, for his partner, and for Flora’s son. He grieved for the man he used to be before that god-awful night changed everything. And he felt guilty for it all.
Flora stopped at his table and tapped her pencil on her pad. “You really have no lady friend to keep you company?”
“I’m too big a bastard,” he told her, only half-joking.
“All men are bastards, until the right woman changes them.”
He smiled. “That seems like a big burden on you women.”
“It can be,” she said. “Same order?”
“Yup.”
“Hey, I need a refill!” a man yelled out from a booth.
Flora flinched and frowned. Connor looked back at the guy as he banged his cup on the table. With him, slumped over, was another man.
Leaning in, Flora whispered, “Of course, some men aren’t worth saving.” She left, grabbed a coffeepot, and went to refill the drunk’s cup.
Connor moved to the other side of the booth, where he could keep an eye on the potential problem.
In a few minutes, Flora set a coffee and some creams in front of him. “You agree?”
“Huh?” he asked.
She pointed to the newspaper. He looked at the article and read the headline. DOES A MARIJUANA CONVICT DESERVE A SECOND CHANCE?
“Oh. I haven’t read it.”
“Do you believe in second chances?”
He picked up one of the creamers, pulled back the top, emptied it into his coffee, and considered her question. And the irony of the person who was asking.
Without looking at her, he answered, “I think some people deserve a second chance and some don’t.” Picking up a spoon, he stirred the cream into his cup, watching the dark brew turn lighter. When she didn’t leave, he finally looked up. “What do you think?”
“The same. Some do. Some don’t. The hard part is knowing which is which.”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s the hard part.”
She nodded somberly and left. He stared at the paper without reading it. In a few minutes, a plate of food was set in front of him. “Thank you.”
She hesitated, as if wanting to say something. Then she walked away.
He was almost finished eating when the drunk in the other booth yelled out, “You cheated me, bitch. You owe me five dollars!”
Connor set his fork down and watched Flora hesitantly walk over to the man. “No, sir. I gave you the correct change.”
“Liar!” He pounded his fist on the booth. “You owe me five bucks.”
Flora flinched. “Fine!” She reached into her apron.
Connor stood up. “She said she gave you what you were owed.”
“Stay out of it,” the bozo said to Connor.
“I’ll just give it to him,” Flora said, her accent thickening under the stress.
“Who is she to you? The old lady suck your dick or something? If she wants to, she can suck mine instead of giving me five dollars.”
Connor leaned down and placed both of his palms on the table. “Apologize.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Connor straightened, pulled back his jacket, and showed the guy his badge. “Apologize.”
“Just ’cause you’re a cop doesn’t mean you—”
“I’ll just give him the money,” Flora said again.
Connor ignored her. “I said apologize.”
The man and his friend stood up. Connor moved in. “You aren’t leaving until you apologize.”
“You can’t make me.”
“But I can arrest you.” He pulled his handcuffs off his belt, and his phone from his pocket.
“For what?” Spittle came out of his mouth. “Not apologizing?”
“For public intoxication.” He punched in a number. “This is Detective Pierce. I need a patrol car.”
Connor was so focused on the perp in front of him, he didn’t see the guy’s friend throw a punch.
Then again, Connor wasn’t famous for seeing a fight coming. But he was famous for ending them.