He’d scribbled a signature under the last four words. No forwarding address. She could try his cell, but what were the odds he’d answer? She tore the note into little pieces before she started to cry.
XX
“Been a while since the Strangler did anybody,” Gabe Sanchez remarked. “Not since the supervolcano went. Maybe he was at Yellowstone when it blew.”
“Too much to hope for,” Colin said. All the same, he imagined the son of a bitch watching Old Faithful when everything for miles around fell down onto the magma. Yes, he knew that was ridiculous. The area around Old Faithful had been off-limits for months before the big eruption. All the same… “Less than he deserves, too, you know.”
“Oh, yeah. Lethal injection!” Gabe snorted contempt. “If we ever do drop on him, here’s hoping some of the big, muscle-bound studs at San Quentin get some action with him. Let him find out about some of what he gave the old ladies.”
“That’d be nice,” Colin agreed. Before he could go on, his phone rang. He picked it up. “Lieutenant Ferguson.”
“Hello, Colin.” His former wife had been calling this number since before either of them had a cell phone. No doubt she did it now from force of habit.
“What’s up, Louise?” he asked. Whatever if was, it wasn’t good. She sounded as if she’d just watched a cement mixer run over her puppy.
“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone,” she said. “Could you pick me up here at the ramen office for lunch?”
“Okay.” He tried to hide his astonishment. Since she left him, she’d made a point of not wanting to see him. “What time?… Twelve straight up? All right, I’ll be there… Yes, of course I know where it is. ’Bye.”
“Your ex?” Gabe knew the variations on this theme, too-probably better than Colin did. His kids were young enough to live with their mother most of the time, so he had to keep dealing with her. However painful it was, Colin’s break was clean. Or it had been, till now.
“Yeah, that was her. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what yet, but I’ll find out at lunch,” Colin said.
“Lucky you.” Sanchez rolled his eyes. “What’ll you do to help?”
“Damfino.” Colin shook his head. “Have to see what it is first. I don’t aim to buy a pig in a poke. Things aren’t the way they were right after she trotted out the door.”
“Nope. You found somebody else.” Gabe didn’t sound-very-jealous. He’d dated a double handful of women since his breakup. Nothing lasted long.
“Uh-huh. If she thinks she can walk back in the same way she walked out…” Colin shook his head again. If Louise had wanted to do that a few months after she left, chances were he would have dumped Kelly to get his old life back. Now? The train had rolled on.
He thought it had, anyhow.
“Luck,” Gabe told him.
“Thanks a lot.” For the rest of the morning, Colin went through the motions at his desk. He went through the emotions inside his head. When the time came, he drove north up Hesperus Avenue to Braxton Bragg, then hung a right to the ramen place. He shook his head when he turned in to the lot. He hadn’t remembered how heavily fortified the perimeter was. One more sign of San Atanasio’s changes-not for the better.
Louise came out at twelve on the dot, a couple of minutes after he got there. She looked the way she always looked-which is to say, she looked good to him. But no, not quite the way she always looked: she was pale and she’d been crying.
“Thanks,” she said as she got into the Taurus.
“It’s okay. Where do you want to go?”
“How about that Carrows on Reynoso Drive?”
“You got it.” Colin nodded. “Want to tell me about it now or after we get there?” Colin pulled back onto the street. He noted the way the armed guard kept an eye on him till he did. If that guy wasn’t a vet, and likely a combat vet, he’d eat his shoes.
“Teo left me yesterday,” Louise said. “He skipped. He’s gone. He took his things and he bailed. I have no idea where he is.”
“Okay.” Colin didn’t say anything more until he got into the left-turn lane that would put him back on Hesperus. Then he asked, “Did he… hurt you before he left? Am I looking at a domestic-violence case? Last time I talked to you, you said everything was fine with you guys.”
“The last time we talked, everything was fine.” Louise laughto the sttterly. A moment later, she yawned and covered her mouth with her hand. “I keep doing that,” she said, as if annoyed at herself. “No, he didn’t hurt me, not the way you mean. Not so you could bust him for it.”
“Then what do you want from me?” He tried to sound patient, not pissed off. “If you need a shoulder to cry on, I’m not your number-one candidate any more. I’m sorry, but I’m not. When I called you, you know, it was to tell you I’m gonna marry Kelly.” Louise was the kind of person who could forget things like that when forgetting them looked convenient.
“Colin, I’m going to have a baby. That’s why he ran out on me.”
It was a good thing traffic on Hesperus was light, with no cars anywhere close to his. The Taurus jerked out of its lane for a split second. He had to haul it back over the yellow stripes. He hadn’t been so surprised since-since the day she walked out on him.
He started to ask if she was kidding, but he swallowed that question. She wasn’t. She’d never hurt him for the sake of hurting him-if anybody in the family enjoyed pulling wings off flies, it was Vanessa. He asked something else instead: “Are you sure?”
“Oh, you betcha,” Louise said. “The home pregnancy tests they have nowadays are just about as good as the ones doctors use. It says I am. And I feel like I am. I know what it’s like, even if it’s been a while. You don’t forget.”
“If you say so.” Colin hung a right on Reynoso Drive. “Do you, ah, know what you’re going to do about it?”
“No. Teo wanted me to get rid of it right away. I may, but I’m not going to do it like that-” She snapped her fingers. “I didn’t mean to get pregnant, but I may have it anyway.”
The Carrows was on the south side of the street. He waited in the center lane till he could turn left against the eastbound traffic without getting creamed. Most of the shops and eateries in the little center catered to Japanese. The lot was crowded. He finally found a space and slid in. He and Louise walked to the restaurant a few inches farther apart than they would have before they broke up.
He didn’t say anything till they were seated at a table that gave them a fine view of the cars going back and forth on Reynoso Beach. “What exactly do you want me to do about all this?” he asked then, picking his words with great care.
“Are you ready to order?” The waitress couldn’t have been more than twenty, and sounded as if she had not a care in the world. That was what twenty was for. Too goddamn bad it didn’t last.
“I’ll have the BLT,” Louise said.
Colin ordered a cheeseburger. The waitress went away. He repeated the question.
“I heard you the first time,” Louise said sharply. “Can you find out where he’s gone? Phone records or his plastic or whatever? His parents don’t know or they won’t say-I’ve already tried them.”
“Maybe,” Colin said. “If he’s left the county, I don’t have so many contacts. If he’s out of state, it gets a good bit harder. I can try, I guess. Where does he have relatives?”
“Some down in San Diego. Some in Mexico, too.” Louise looked rueful. “If he’s south of the border, it’s impossible, isn’t it?”
“Pretty close,” Colin agreed. “Nobody down there would get excited about that kind of case.” Not many people up here would, either, although he might be able to call in some favors. On the other hand, he might not. The supervolcano and its disruptions made small stuff too small to worry about. And if Teo felt like disappearing into a refugee camp, he might not surface for years, if he ever did.
The food came then, interrupting his gloomy thoughts. The cheeseburger was… a cheeseburger. Better than fast food or Denny’s, nothing to jump up and down about even so. The way Louise demolished her sandwich said morning sickness hadn’t kicked in yet.