Carter’s cheeks reddened. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing that before.
“As long as you keep your cauldron and broom away from me,” he said, trying to save a little face.
She sauntered around the table toward him. He pressed himself further into the wall, which only made it easier for Miranda to corner him.
She looked him up and down, then placed her index finger on his chest. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. I’ve got other plans for you.” His eyes widened.
She let her finger fall down to his stomach, gave a short, harsh laugh, and disappeared into my bedroom.
THIRTY-FIVE
I caught an early-evening flight to San Francisco, and by the time I’d landed in the mist and fog, Miranda had left a message on my cell phone telling me that she arranged a visit with Simington the next morning at nine. No word on how she and Carter were getting along.
After renting a car, I spent the night at a hotel near the airport, watching TV in between useless fits of sleep. The anxiety of the entire situation was doing its best to wrestle me to the ground, and I was doing a poor job of fighting it off.
I crawled out of bed at six and did an hour of running on the treadmill in the hotel’s fitness room. I showered, dressed, checked out, and made the drive up to San Quentin under a wet, gray sky.
The guard at the gate found my name on the visitation list and seated me at the same window as before. Simington appeared in the yellow coveralls, his hair damp and slicked back, the glasses gone from his face this time.
“Surprised you’re back,” he said as he sat down.
I saw the letters of my name tattooed on his wrist again, snagging me like a piece of cloth on a nail. I ripped my eyes away.
“You and Landon Keene worked together,” I said. “I’m not sure how. My guess is you worked for him. He handled the money and the business.” I paused. “You handled the killing.”
Laughter drifted in from somewhere behind me. It seemed heavy and awkward and out of place.
Simington didn’t move. His expression didn’t change.
“Am I right?” I asked.
“Does it matter?” he responded.
“You were the one who threw his name out there,” I said. “You wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t matter.”
Simington looked away. I knew I was right. I hadn’t said it to Liz when she’d asked me why I was doing this, but I felt like there had to be a reason for Simington to have thrown Keene’s name out to me. He could have said nothing and let me walk away. But he chose to give me a crumb.
Simington let his gaze come back to me. “You meet Keene?”
I nodded.
“You tell him who you were?” “Does it matter?” I said.
The corners of his mouth tightened. It was as much emotion as I’d seen from him in either visit. But I could tell he was agitated. And I took some juvenile pride in having splintered his exterior.
“Did you tell him who you were?” he repeated.
“I didn’t know it was him when I met him,” I said. “But I got the sense he knew who I was.”
The corners tightened again and the green in his eyes went a little darker. “Where did you meet him?”
“Bareva Casino. I met the casino operator, Ben Moffitt, too.”
Simington folded his hands together and several of his knuckles cracked. He brought his eyes back to me.
“Don’t go back there,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
I leaned forward, my face close to the window, the anger washing through me like a dam had burst.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said. “Because you said so?” My neck burned, the blood working its way up my body. “Don’t ever speak to me like you’re my father again. Ever. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
We stared at each other through the plexiglass. I realized I was breathing like I’d just run a five-minute mile. I pulled back and tried to catch my breath.
Simington looked cool and collected. He unfolded his hands, seemed unsure of what to do with them, and then put them back together.
“I shouldn’t have given you his name,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Why?” I asked, my breathing returning to a normal cadence. “Because I learned what you did with him? You think I thought you were in here for littering?”
“Nothing good is going to come from messing with Keene,” he said.
“Surprise. What about Moffitt?”
Simington licked his lips slowly, then shook his head. “Him either.”
“But you gave me Keene’s name, I found him, and now I’m here. You owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything, Noah,” he said. “Remember? We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
Throwing my words back in my face. Clever. And effective. “Darcy’s dead,” I said, trying a different path. “The lawyer?” I nodded.
His eyes shifted away for a moment, and he glanced down at his hands. He pulled them apart, laid them flat on the small overhang in front of him, and looked at me. “That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “She didn’t deserve it. She was trying to help you.”
“I didn’t want her help.”
“And, yet, she tried anyway. So maybe you don’t owe me. But you at least owe her.”
A guard appeared behind Simington. He stood there for a moment, just checking to make sure things were okay. We both watched him until he moved on.
“I figured Keene would be dead,” Simington said.
“What?”
“When I gave you his name. I figured he’d be dead by now,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Why?”
“Because he’s a piece of shit, and I thought someone would’ve punched his ticket by now. I wanted to make sure he was in the ground.” He took his hand away from his face. “You’re in danger.”
“I can handle myself.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You think because you have a PI license you’re tough? Because maybe you get in a few scrapes here and there? That makes you tough?” Simington leaned closer to the window. “Keene is a different kind of tough, Noah. Not your kind.”
I shifted in the seat, uncomfortable under his hard watch. “You still haven’t explained your relationship with Keene.”
He grunted, pushing back from the window. “You got it right. I worked for him. I killed those two men in the desert because he told me to.”
“Why?”
Simington stared at me like he was trying to make a decision. Sitting under his look was uncomfortable, but I didn’t turn away. I refused to be the one who blinked. And in that hard, unflinching stare, I could see it—all the years of what he’d done and the time in prison. There wasn’t much that could reach or scare Russell Simington.
“Why?” I repeated.
And then a tiny crack appeared in his expression, his hardened features softening for just a moment.
“Because if I hadn’t,” he said, “you and Carolina were going to die.”
THIRTY-SIX
Simington rubbed a finger over the tattoo of my name on his wrist. “Your mother was smart to tell me to get lost when she did. I wasn’t a complete disaster when you were born, but I was heading in that direction.”
I took a deep breath. I knew I was about to hear some things I’d wondered about my whole life. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he said, an empty smile on his face. “I was never into anything good. It was just varying degrees of bad. Didn’t know any different. And I was good at what I did.”
“Which was?”
“I enforced.” He laughed, shaking his head. “I always liked that word. Almost made it sound legit. I was hired muscle. Threatened, intimidated, beat the shit out of people.” He paused. “Sometimes more.”