Nichols kept Sherry on the phone until his battery ticked down to its last 10 percent; he didn’t want her sitting out there alone with the shock and grief, the goddamn boomeranging PTSD—and besides, he was hoping that if she calmed down enough, she might remember something about where the hell she was. Sherry hadn’t been paying attention to the drive, just the driver. Didn’t know which highway they’d been on, whether it led north or east or west.
Nichols ran through a mental list of scenic overviews and make-out spots he remembered from high school, matched them against the size of the town Sherry said she was staring down at, the amount of time she guessed it had taken to get there. And for once in his life, Nichols was smart enough to get lucky, or lucky enough to look smart: he found Sherry in the first place he looked, pulled on to the scene a mere thirty-three minutes after his phone rang.
Larry Bird’s jersey number. Or Jesus’s life span, if you preferred. Nichols did not.
This was gonna be a shit show, he thought as the cruiser powered up the final incline. He shouldn’t even be here—this was a textbook recuse-yourself situation if there ever was one, but who the fuck was Nichols going to send in his stead?
And besides, it was a little late to play anything by the book where Jess Galvan was concerned.
Nichols wasn’t proud of it, but he felt calm and strong right now, like he owned the moment. A crime scene always did that: you spun yellow tape around it, cordoned it, gave it parameters. And then you went to work. You brought logic to bear, you comforted survivors, questioned witnesses and imposed order on chaos, stabilized the world right before the eyes of the traumatized. You made them feel that whatever horrible thing had just happened, it was only an aberration. A blip. A tiny blemish on the smooth skin of civilization.
Sometimes you made yourself believe it, too.
Nichols was pretty goddamn sure this wasn’t one of those times.
The car crested the hilltop, and there was Sherry, caught in the high beams, turning toward him, her face tear streaked, hugging herself for comfort or warmth. She ran toward him without uncrossing her arms, and Nichols cut the engine, stepped out just in time to enfold her against his chest.
Sherry’s sobs were huge, convulsive.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, splaying a hand across her back and rubbing. “It’s all right.”
The things we say for no damn reason at all.
He shut his trap and let the sadness run its course. Everybody stopped crying eventually, and if you tried to rush them through, the tears just welled back up, interrupted the conversation you’d been so impatient to have.
It took Sherry a couple of minutes to compose herself. That wasn’t much bounce-back time; the bar on tragedy had been set pretty fucking high for the poor girl. She stepped away, wiped her face with her palms, and blinked up at him, expectant.
“You cold?” Nichols asked. “You wanna warm up in the car, while I have a look around?”
She shook her head, crossed her arms again, gave an involuntary shudder. “I’m okay.”
He reached into the backseat and handed her his jacket. She slipped into it, the size of the thing transforming her instantly into a little girl.
“Look,” he said, leaning back against the driver’s door. “I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to help. This is Nichols the sheriff, not Nichols the guy sitting around watching baseball in his bathrobe, okay?”
That got the grudging tick of a smile he’d been hoping for.
“Okay. So. Who was he, and how long had you been seeing him?”
And why didn’t you tell us?
Sherry sniffled, swallowed, gazed off into the darkness.
“Not long. His name was Alex.”
“And he was from here? He went to your school?”
She shook her head. “He was from all over.” She looked him in the eye. “He was nineteen. Just passing through. And now—”
Her voice caught in her throat, and Sherry shook her head. Covered her mouth with both hands to trap the sob.
“Walk me through it again,” Nichols said after a moment. “When you’re ready. Everything that happened. You were in the car . . .”
But Sherry was staring off now, in the direction of the cliff, the wreckage down below. Nichols had glimpsed it on a switchback—not close, but close enough to know it was gruesome.
“He’s still in there,” she said, the tears leaking with the words. “Shouldn’t you— I mean, what if—”
“We’ll get to that,” Nichols assured her. “My backup is on the way. Right now, I need to understand what happened. Why your father . . . did what you say he did.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, slowly at first, then faster and faster. “We were just sitting in the car, watching the sun set. And then out of nowhere, the window shattered, and there’s my— there’s Galvan. He must’ve followed me from work.”
“And how did he seem?”
“How did he seem? He seemed crazy. He’s out of his fucking mind.” She let out a shuddery sigh. “He grabbed Alex and started asking all this crazy stuff—who sent him, how he knew his name—”
“How Alex knew your father’s name?”
“Yeah. He called him Mr. Galvan.”
“And did you tell him your father’s last name?”
Sherry scowled and shrugged further into the jacket. “I guess I must have.”
Nichols felt his cop brain whirring to life, like a computer booting.
“Are you absolutely sure, Sherry? How would it come up—and if it had, wouldn’t you remember? And why would he remember, when he’s sitting there scared to death?”
Nichols dropped his hands to his hips. “Look, Sherry. I’m gonna level with you. I owe you that, after everything we’ve been through. And because I love you. Okay?”
She looked scared, but she nodded.
“Okay. Your father is real fucked up right now, just like the rest of us and probably more so. But I don’t think he’s crazy. And I don’t think he’d have done this without a solid reason. Or what he considered one.”
She threw him a look so cold Nichols actually shivered, and when Sherry spoke, her voice was just as frosty.
“A reason. To kill my boyfriend. Who he’s never even met.”
Nichols held her gaze. “Like keeping you safe.”
“Bullshit. Fuck him, and fuck you too.”
“I know it’s hard to hear. But come on, Sherry. You barely knew this—”
“I barely knew this guy, so what? He deserves to be murdered, because my father has a bad dream?” She spun on her heel, stalked a few paces, and turned back. “I can’t believe this. Aren’t you supposed to be, like, the law?”
“He had a gun,” Nichols reminded her, filing that bit about the dream away for later. “Right? You said on the phone that he grabbed a gun from the glove compartment, or from somewhere, and fired a shot. Any idea why he had that gun, Sherry?”
She threw up her hands. “Because this is fucking Texas, Nichols.”
A car was approaching, and they both fell silent, squinting as the high beams found them.
It was Boggs. Nichols raised a hand in greeting, waited as the kid cut his engine and trotted over.
“Deputy Boggs, Sherry Richards. I want you to take her home, and keep watch on the house until I get there. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are you going?” Sherry demanded.
“To investigate.”
“Investigate what? Why don’t you go arrest my father?”
Nichols sighed. “I’d have to find him first, wouldn’t I? And since all you can tell me is that he ran off into the woods, that might take a little time. The important thing is to keep you safe while we figure this out, Sherry.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Safe from who? Because the most dangerous person I can think of is the one you don’t seem to have any interest in finding.”
“Just safe,” he said, and started to turn away.
Sherry reached out and grabbed his hand.
“He was the only good thing in my life, Nichols,” she said in a fierce whisper. “I’ve got nothing now.”
He studied her for a second, not sure whether she’d accept an embrace or kick him in the balls for trying.
“I’m sorry,” Nichols said at last, softly. And then, “Do you know if he had any family? Anyone we should notify?”
She shook her head, and her gaze dropped to the ground. “He didn’t. There’s no one. We just had each other.”
The anger had burned itself out, at least for now, and Nichols decided to glean what he could before it flared back up.
“Where was he staying?”
“Some motel.”
“You been there?”
She shook her head. “He said it was gross.”
Nichols clasped her hand between both of his, and the two of them stood that way for a moment before she let Boggs guide her to his cruiser.
Nichols watched him get her settled in the backseat, then ushered the deputy back.
“I’ll call the coroner’s office when I’m done here,” he said. “For the time being, this goes on the record as a car accident, you understand?”
“Whatever you say, Sheriff.”
Nichols pointed a finger at him. “Don’t let her or Ruth out of your sight for so much as a minute until I get back. I don’t care if aliens invade.”
Boggs yessed his head and took off. Nichols made his way down the hill, toward the smoldering remains of the car.
He’d seen his share of automotive disasters in his time on the force, scraped plenty of drunk teenagers and text-happy businessmen off the pavement, but this one took first place by a country mile. The car was top-down, smashed into the hillside like the forefinger of God had reached down and pressed.
The fire had burned out, the metal charred black, the air acrid, the tall brush littered with tiny glinting bits of windshield glass. No sign of the kid’s body; it was trapped beneath the mangled carcass of the car, and the extrication wasn’t going to be easy or pretty; he’d probably been squashed flat on impact and then burned to a crisp.
Nichols paced a wide perimeter around the crash site and finally found what he’d been hoping for: the license plate, wedged in among a stand of low-growing cacti. He slipped it under his arm, circled again in case the gun or any of the kid’s personal artifacts had managed to wing their way free, and then climbed his ass back to the overview, grabbing on to strong weeds to ease the way.
He threw himself behind the steering wheel, fired up the radio, and asked Gloria, the desk jockey who’d been working the night shift slathered in bright red lipstick since time immemorial, to run the plate.
She clicked and clacked as Nichols waited.
“It’s registered to a rental company. Guillermo’s Classic Cars, in Dallas,” Gloria reported, through the buzz of static. “You want a phone number?”
“Yeah.” He was down to 6 percent on his phone battery, and he hadn’t called Ruth yet, which meant she was going to be blindsided when Sherry showed up bleary eyed and inconsolable in Boggs’s car.
“Wait—no. Give me, uh . . . dammit, what’s that cop’s name in Dallas? The guy we worked with on that trafficking thing a couple years ago?”
Gloria didn’t even pretend to think, just waited to see if Nichols could dredge it up.
He snapped his fingers. “Sullinger. Edward Sullinger. It’s on my office Rolodex.”
Five percent left, by the time Sullinger picked up his cell, sounding halfway in the bag. Four by the time Nichols sweet-talked him into calling Guillermo’s Classic Cars, local heat always the warmest, telling them they had a piece of inventory smithereened five hundred miles south, and finding out whose name was on the rental.
Nichols was halfway home when Sullinger buzzed him with the info, straight from Guillermo himself. Nichols pulled over, flipped open his notepad, and scribbled down the name and billing address.
Lalo Albarra, twenty-five, of Fort Worth. Or so said his license.
If nothing else, the kid was a liar.
Nichols radioed Gloria, had her run the name.
It came back dirty as a motherfucker.
Lalo Albarra had spent half his short adult life in prison. Transporting minors across state lines. Coercion to prostitution. Possession of a type-A controlled substance. Domestic abuse.
It was the résumé of a pimp, a jackal, a pretty-boy hustler. Preying on young girls, filling their heads and hearts with dreams and promises and then turning them out.
Somebody had put him in motion, sent him after Sherry. That someone was still out there.
And so was Galvan.
Nichols floored the gas pedal. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew he had to get there fast.