ELLIE WAS SENT straight to the hospital—not that she had asked, and not that there was any need. Physically, she was okay, everything in working order. What she needed was to go home, take a long, hot shower, and then change into comfortable clothes, go sit out on the back deck with a glass of Irish whiskey, and enjoy the peace and quiet, take some time to process everything that had happened. No more talking, and answering the same questions over and over again.
Her plans, though, would have to wait until later. The procedures in place after a shooting were specific and nonnegotiable: she had to go to the hospital whether she wanted to or not, and get a full examination, everything documented in writing so she couldn’t turn around later and try to milk a disability claim, maybe even sue the department down the road for some injury she suffered while on the job.
Riding shotgun in the patrol car, she stared out the side window and wondered if there had ever been a time in human history when people had simply done their jobs without trying to game the system.
“We’re here,” the patrolwoman said, pulling into the parking lot of St. Michael’s Hospital. Her name was Toni Vickers. She was somewhere in her fifties and had white hair and smooth brown skin and a round, comforting face.
Vickers had said something. Ellie couldn’t recall it. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked if you’re okay to walk, or would you like assistance? I can go inside, wheel out a chair, and—”
“I walked into the car by myself,” Ellie snapped. “I sure as hell can walk out of it.”
Vickers nodded somberly, lips pressed tight.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie sighed. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just that . . . I’m not the victim here. Everyone is talking to me in this patronizing way, acting like I’m going to explode into a million little pieces. That’s not going to happen, okay? I just want to get this over with.”
The ER waiting room was packed to capacity. When Vickers returned from the check-in area with a young, plump nurse with rosy, cherublike cheeks, the woman led them down a series of halls and into an exam room.
The nurse handed her a neatly folded dressing gown. Ellie stared at it, the fabric thin and rough against her fingers. While computers and medicine had advanced and kept making breakthroughs, some things never changed—remained a constant—like the drab examination smock a patient had to wear backward.
The nurse left, but the room felt claustrophobic because Vickers, by no means a small woman, with her ample hips, remained. She stood against the wall, underneath a pair of taped sheets of paper advocating the importance of the HPV vaccine and handwashing.
“Let’s bag your clothes,” Vickers said.
“My clothes?”
Vickers nodded. “We need to collect each item of clothing separately.”
“What? Why?”
“Honey,” Vickers said in a soothing voice, “you’re covered in blood.”
Ellie stared down at her clothes, as if seeing them for the first time. She was covered in blood—not hers, but Danny’s. It was smeared across the dark fabric of her pants and shirtsleeves. There were splashes on her chest.
“Strip down to your bra and panties,” Vickers said gently. “The doctor will collect those.”
Of course. I’m covered in blood, Ellie thought. She had performed CPR on Danny. Danny was dead—she had failed to find a pulse—but she had still kept blowing her breath down into his lungs, kept using her hands on his chest to get his dead heart to start beating.
“Don’t worry,” Vickers said. “I have someone bringing a fresh set of clothes from your locker.”
Ellie’s gaze drifted to the landline phone sitting on the counter.
“You can’t talk to anyone yet,” Vickers said. “But he knows. I spoke with Cody and assured him you were—”
“Samantha.”
Vickers, frowning, took out her pocket notebook and removed the pen threaded inside the spiral. “Is she a family member? Friend?”
“Danny’s mother. Her name is Samantha. Have you spoken to her yet?”
“I’m sure someone—”
“She won’t answer her phone unless Danny is calling. You can’t leave her a message saying what happened. You can’t do that to her.”
Vickers nodded in understanding, smiled patiently. “I can assure you that won’t happen. Why don’t—”
“Today’s Friday, right? Yes. Yes, it’s Friday.” Ellie felt clammy all over. Her mind raced and her heart banged so hard against her rib cage, she thought it might shoot out of her chest like a bullet. “Danny’s mother will be at her sister’s today—she spends every Friday with her, Danny told me. I don’t know the phone number or the address, though.”
“Ellie,” Vickers began.
“If Danny had told me, I would have written down her number or put it in my phone. I should have asked. I should have been more prepared.”
Vickers stepped up next to her. Ellie felt the woman’s hand on her back.
“You’ve been through a terrible ordeal,” Vickers said.
Ellie kept her attention on the HPV poster but wasn’t really looking at it but through it, thinking of Danny zipped up inside a rubber bag and stuffed inside a refrigerated drawer while his mother was getting ready for her afternoon out with her sister, followed by the early-bird special at the Continental, the woman having no idea that her youngest child was dead.
“You’re going to go through a variety of emotions and mood swings,” Vickers said gently. “You may also experience survivor’s guilt. The important thing is to allow yourself to experience these feelings, to talk about them, because in these situations, victims—”
Vickers stopped talking when Ellie stepped away, straightening. She blinked back the tears and said, “Yes, you’re right—I need to deal with this.” She began unbuttoning her shirt, her hands trembling. “I understand,” she said. “I understand now.”
The vast majority of the LAPD—not the elite brass or the top-level pencil pushers and executives but the actual cops who worked the streets and cases—couldn’t afford to live in Los Angeles. Last year, almost 85 percent of the LAPD lived outside of the city. By the end of this year, that figure, Ellie had been told, would be closer to 90 percent, thanks to a salary cap and another round of budget cuts.
Which was why a lot of cops now lived in Simi Valley, in Ventura County. It was thirty miles from downtown LA, right next door to Santa Barbara, surrounded by the Santa Susana mountain range. The biggest selling point was that it was cheap. “You should check out the Clara Anna Woods Mobile Home Park,” one of her academy instructors had told her. “It’s real affordable.”
Ellie had lived her entire life in small, cramped apartments. Moving into a trailer wasn’t exactly a step up in the world. She had checked out several apartments in Simi Valley, and at the last minute decided to drive by the mobile home park. She was glad she did.
The Clara Anna Woods Mobile Home Park consisted of actual homes, not trailers, each unit a tiny yellow house with white trim and tandem parking for up to three cars. The little village—and that was what she considered it—was flat and open and had fresh, clean air and she had a wonderful view of the mountains from her back porch. Most important, for the first time in her life, she had privacy. It surprised her how badly she wanted it.
It was coming up on nine when the cruiser pulled up against the curb. Ellie wished she could have driven home herself, but regulations dictated that an officer involved in a shooting wasn’t allowed to get behind the wheel. Her car, she’d been told, would probably be delivered to her tomorrow, Sunday at the latest.
It didn’t really matter. She was on a mandatory five-day paid leave.
Cody’s black Ford F-150 truck wasn’t there—which surprised her. Maybe it was just as well. This was the first moment she had when she didn’t have to talk, to answer questions. Now she had the opportunity to just be, and see what happened.
The last of the sunlight was still visible over the mountains when the patrol car pulled away. A gold and purplish color washed across the lemon tree planted in her front yard and the crushed white stones she had instead of a lawn. Ellie, dressed in the gray hoodie, sweats, and flip-flops brought from her locker to the hospital, forced herself to take in the beauty around her—the sunset and mountains. All it did, though, was make her feel small and insignificant.
She knew why. The reason she was standing here right now and breathing this air and enjoying this view and listening to Claire Leddy’s yellow Lab, Greta, barking three doors down was simply because today she had gotten lucky. That was it, no other reason. Sparing her life wasn’t a part of some divine grand plan. Things in life didn’t happen for a reason or because you were good or bad or indifferent or all of the above. It all came down to luck, and didn’t you know that was out of your control, and trying to sit with that knowledge and accept it, well, that was a hard thing to do when you believed you did, in fact, control every single aspect of your life.
She wished Cody were here. Cody, who was rock-solid, his viewpoints on life and marriage and family as unshakable as his faith in God and the greater good. Cody, who loved her unconditionally despite her best efforts to push him away at times because, deep down—let’s face it—didn’t she at times feel unworthy of his type of love? And wasn’t that because she had deliberately chosen not to share a certain particular burden with him?
Thinking about that burden made a part of her feel glad he wasn’t here. Relieved. That part of her said, Call and tell him not to come. The LAPD had confiscated her phone. She couldn’t call him unless she borrowed a phone from someone.
She wanted to call him and yet didn’t want to call him. Why couldn’t she make a decision? Why am I so confused?
You’ve been through a terrible ordeal, Vickers had said to her. In these situations, victims—
“I’m not a victim,” Ellie whispered into the fading sunlight. Her hands balled into fists and she shook uncontrollably. “I am not a victim.”
Ellie marched into her house and headed upstairs. She stood in the shower until the hot water ran out. She felt scrubbed clean but cold all over, even after she got dressed.
Two glasses of bourbon fixed the problem.
Her little house, with its vaulted ceilings and clever use of space, felt like a mansion to her. After she fixed herself a fresh drink at the breakfast bar, she paced back and forth across the carpeted family room, her ice tinkling against the glass.
Her gaze kept drifting to the stairs.
Tonight wasn’t a good time to take a trip down memory lane. Cody, she was sure, would arrive at any minute to check on her—and besides, memory lane always led to the same dead end.
And yet it didn’t surprise her in the slightest when she stepped up to the refrigerator and pulled open the bottom drawer of the freezer and fished out the key she kept tucked underneath a carton of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. She didn’t fight the urge or question it when she carried her drink up to the second floor and used the key on the doorknob lock for the spare bedroom. It certainly didn’t surprise her when she flicked the light switch and felt a wave of relief wash through her. She had come home, back to the person she kept hidden from the rest of the world.
Cody had not stepped foot inside this room, thought she used it as a storage area for her mother’s old things and kept it locked because she said she was embarrassed by all the clutter. He would have been surprised if not outwardly shocked to discover that this boxy room, with its white walls and light beige carpeting, was just as neat and organized as the rest of her house. The shades were drawn, always, to block out wandering eyes, because if someone looked inside and saw what was in there, they might be inclined to call the police. The room looked like the lair of some diabolical serial killer.
The soft white light came from a cheap plastic lamp she had owned since childhood. The desk, made of heavy walnut, had been purchased at a yard sale by her mother. Ellie could remember that lazy Saturday afternoon in May when Kay Batista had returned home and, beaming with pride, said, I’ve got such a surprise for you. Ellie, also a proud veteran of yard sales and flea markets and thrift stores, had rescued two items left out as trash on a sidewalk in Van Nuys: a dented filing cabinet and a big wood-framed corkboard.
She opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet and took out the files for Jolie Simone and Alex Hernandez. She placed a red X on each tab and then moved the files to the bottom drawer—the drawer of the dead, she called it. Touching the paper, moving the files—it was tactile. Made the victims seem real to her and not just bits of information stored in the cloud or a database.
Now she turned her attention to the corkboard. Her main project.
A strip of masking tape ran down its center.
The left half of the corkboard contained an eight-by-ten photograph she had taken herself—not with her smartphone but with a professional Canon digital camera with a telescopic lens, the same rig the paparazzi used to capture female celebrities frolicking half-naked on the beach. She had taken the picture at night two months ago, on a street around the corner from a popular club in Los Angeles. In the photo, a tall, muscular guy dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting blue T-shirt leaned against the driver’s-side window of a Buick SUV, handing over the same kind of sticker device she’d seen earlier today at the Vargas house.
The man handing over the sticker was Anton Kuzmich, a Russian immigrant in his early thirties who owned a private security business that catered mostly to LA’s high-end nightclubs. He was also, she had discovered on her own time, heavily involved in the blood world.
The man seated behind the wheel was another matter. Despite her best efforts, no amount of digital enhancement or computer trickery could coax the driver’s face from the shadows, and she’d been unable to capture the license plate number.
What she did capture was the man’s left hand on the steering wheel. It was pale, the thick knuckles and forearm as hairy as an ape’s, and he wore a ring on his middle finger. The ring’s design had two lions circling each other, preparing to fight. That was the only detail she knew of him.
She assumed he was an important player in the blood world, given the fact that Anton Kuzmich had handed off the sticker to him, probably telling the man behind the wheel he had identified a carrier. That was how it was done these days, by a stickman, a task normally performed by a kid like the one she’d seen at the Vargas house—a homeless teenager who could run fast, get in and out in a hurry.
Ellie drank some more of her whiskey. After she put down the glass, she took in a deep, slow breath and, squaring her shoulders, turned her attention to the picture on the right half of the corkboard.
This one was a five-by-seven of a black-haired boy a few months shy of celebrating his sixth birthday. He wore dark blue footie pajamas and sat Indian-style on a hardwood floor desperately in need of refinishing. His expression was what always drew her to the picture—the way he stared in wide-eyed rapture at the Christmas presents arranged under a small artificial tree bursting with lights and handmade decorations.
The boy’s name was Jonathan Cullen. His mother called him Jonathan, always, but everyone else called him J.C., including Ellie. She had no idea if J.C. was still alive, what he might look like now. As she stared at his photograph, she hoped, as she had thousands and thousands of times over the years, that wherever J.C. was right now, he knew she still loved him and missed him and was still searching for him.
That his twin sister hadn’t given up, would never give up.