I brought it to her. “The shells are all over the place. And I don’t see the other earbud.”
“Forget it, this is the main thing.” She clasped her treasure to her chest. “Thank God.”
“Stay here, I’ll get the car.”
“I can walk.”
By then I knew better than to argue.
Chapter 14
Back in Swann’s Flat, Shasta navigated me westward.
“Where were you riding from?” I asked.
“Blackberry Junction.”
“Wow. That’s no joke.”
“The hills are murder. But it’s great for conditioning.”
“Are you training for something?”
“I race triathlon.”
“Cool. Well. I hope you can get back to it soon.”
“Thanks. I don’t know.” She rubbed the rooster pendant between her fingers. “Maybe this is the universe telling me I need a break. Next left.”
With a jolt I grasped our destination.
Beachcomber Boulevard, and its mansions.
I glanced at her.
Who was this person?
More to the point, who were her parents?
Even more to the point, who was their lawyer?
We passed the first mansion and kept going.
At the second mansion, the biggest, she said, “This is me.”
I pulled into the driveway and helped her out, and we headed up the walk between beds of salt-loving plants. The wind thumped at our backs. Her cycling cleat knocked on the porch steps, setting off a torrent of barks inside. Normal barks, not the bloodlust of Al Bock’s monster.
The doormat read Clancy.
“Do you have a key?” I asked.
“It’s open.”
Before I could try the door it swung inward. A woman swept over the threshold.
“Thought you went for a ri — oh my God.”
Her face recapitulated Shasta’s in the instant prior to the crash: the same almond-shaped eyes rounding into terror, skin stretched taut over high cheekbones. Her hair had been dyed a deeper red. A long blue caftan dress trailed behind her like fire as she rushed forward.
“Oh my God.”
“I’m fine,” Shasta said.
“You’re not fine, look at you, you’re bleeding.”
A huge hairy sheepdog burst through the doorway and ran berserk circles around us, jumping and pawing at my back.
Shasta said, “Down, Bowie.”
“Get inside, now,” the redheaded woman said to either Shasta or the dog.
“Bowie. Down.”
“Jason,” the woman shouted into the house. “I need you.”
“Mom, please,” Shasta said. “Can you just... Bowie.”
Her mother dragged the dog by its collar while it leapt and yelped and strained. Shasta and I came through the foyer into a generous living room, done in mid-nineties green and apricot. To the east, sliding glass doors gave onto a patio with outdoor furniture. Perforated sunshades muted the ocean-facing windows. One doorway led to the kitchen, another to the dining room, a third to a back corridor. A glass-sided staircase corkscrewed up and out of sight.
“Jason. I need you now.”
While her mother hauled the dog down the hall and out of sight, Shasta and I straggled into the kitchen. Generous, well-appointed, dated.
I eased her onto a banquette and brought a chair to prop her leg.
“Can you get me some ice, please? There’s bags in that drawer.”
I filled a baggie from the refrigerator ice maker, wrapped it in a dish towel. “What else?”
“Thank you,” she said. “Maybe some—”
Shasta’s mother entered. I could hear the dog’s muffled howls.
“Let me see.”
Reluctantly Shasta removed the ice pack.
Her mother untied the T-shirt binding and recoiled. The blood had slowed to a trickle.
“Uch.”
“It looks worse than it is,” Shasta said.
“How do you know that? Are you a doctor?”
“Leonie?” A man ambled in. Rangy and tan, with a close-cropped beard and a crew cut, wearing flip-flops, jeans, a rumpled navy polo shirt. “Were you ca — oh shit.”
“Call Maggie,” Leonie said.
“What happened?”
“Jason. Did you hear me?”
“Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.” He took a cordless phone from the counter and dialed.
Shasta said, “It was an accident.”
“Hi, Maggie. It’s Jason.”
Leonie waved him into the living room. He went, saying Sorry to disturb you so early...
“Start again,” Leonie said. “From the beginning.”
“I went for a ride,” Shasta said.
“Where.”
“How I always go. I was on my way home. I had my music on and wasn’t paying attention.”
“I was coming around a bend, in the opposite direction,” I said. “I didn’t see her till it was too late.”
Leonie blinked, bewildered, as if registering my existence for the first time. Oblique light etched the lines on her face. There weren’t many; she didn’t look much older than Shasta. You could take them for siblings, though Leonie was shorter, and slight, as if she might shatter upon impact.
“You hit her?”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Shasta said.
“I’m not asking you, I’m asking him.”
“We both swerved,” I said. “I clipped her rear wheel.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Shasta said again.
“Can you be quiet,” Leonie said.
“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” I said.
“You should be.”
“Mom,” Shasta said.
“The bike is in my car,” I said.
“I don’t care about that,” Leonie said.
“Mom. You’re not listening.”
“What, what is it, what?”
“I need some Advil.”
Leonie strode over to a cabinet by the microwave and grabbed a bottle.
“Ma’am,” I said. “You shouldn’t give her that.”
Leonie stared at me. Her chin was trembling. “Why not.”
“It can cause bleeding. Tylenol’s okay.”
She swapped bottles and filled a glass of water, twisting her fingers as Shasta swallowed the pills. “Does it hurt?”
“Not that bad,” Shasta said.
“It’s going to scar.”
Shasta rolled her eyes.
Jason reappeared and set the phone in its cradle. “She’s on her way.”
“Thank God,” Leonie said.
He crouched by Shasta. He, too, was on the young side. “How you feeling, kitten?”
“Fine. It’s a scratch.”
Leonie snorted.
Jason stood up and faced me uncertainly. “Hi.”
I raised a hand.
“This is Clay,” Shasta said. “He brought me home.”
“After hitting her,” Leonie said.
“It was an accident,” Shasta said.
Leonie walked stiffly to a window and watched the street. Jason looked back and forth between the women, trying to decide whom to believe and how to regard me.
He settled on a tepid smile. “Thanks for bringing her.”
“Did she say how long she’d be?” Leonie said.
Shasta said, “Mom. Relax. She’s literally two minutes away.”
Two long minutes.
A car pulled up outside.
“That’s her,” Leonie said and ran out.
I could hear her voice (Take her to Eureka...) as she reentered with Maggie Penrose, dressed in skirt and sweater and carrying an old-school black leather doctor’s bag. No headlamp.