She whirled.
Bennett smiled at her. He wore the same nondescript clothes as
before, the same bland expression, but in one hand he held an ice
cream cone, a scoop of pink perched atop one of white. “How—what are you—”
“Last time I was in your house I went through your bank records.
Terrible habit of mine. I saw you had a safe deposit box, and thought
you might have stowed my necklace there.” He bit a chunk out of
the ice cream.
“No.” Her skin was cold despite the sunlight. The gun bit into
her belly. “I thought Daniel might have. But it’s not.”
“Want a lick?” Bennett held the cone out to her. When she just
stared at him, he shrugged, pursed his lips around it, rounding and
smoothing the portion he’d bitten.
“I need more time,” she said.
“We all need more time, sister.”
“I’m trying. But I don’t know where it is.”
“Daniel does.”
“Look, his memory, I told you—”
“And I told you,” Bennett wiped a drip of pink off his chin, “I
don’t care. Daniel knows. Go to work on our boy.” He took another
bite of the ice cream, then tossed the cone sideways. It landed in the
street with a splat. He brushed his hands off. “Or I will.” Bennett turned and walked away. She stared at him, his back to
her. It would be so simple. Pull the pistol from her belt. Aim carefully, the way she had practiced. Squeeze the trigger—
Yeah. Shoot him in broad daylight in front of a bank on Wilshire
Boulevard. Excellent plan.
She grit her teeth until her jaw ached.
Then she started walking.
“L
os Angeles Sheriff’s Department.”
“Hello hello. Did you miss me, brother?”
“Damn it,” a rustling sound over the receiver, and the voice dropped, “I told you never to call me again.”
“You did. That’s true.”
“So what the—”
“I need another favor.”
“No. No more.”
Five, four, three, two . . .
“What is it?”
“I need an address.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know. I have a phone number, need you to run a reverse lookup.”
“What am I, your computer guy? Use the damn Internet.”
“It’s unlisted.”
“Then call one of your connections.”
“That’s what I’m doing.” A pause to let that sink in. “You don’t have to like me, brother. I can stand the rejection. But do you really want me to share what I know, just to avoid pressing a few keys on your fancy cop software?”
“I’m not going to let you do this forever. Be careful you don’t push too far. People disappear all the time.”
“Wow. That was scary. Seriously, I’ve got chills.”
“Listen, you cockroach—”
“No, you listen. I vanish, a whole lot of secrets get revealed. Including yours. Do you really want that?” A pause. “One of the things you learn, my line of work, is the real weight of a debt. I still have credit left on this one, and you know it. So stop wasting time and run the reverse for me.”
A sigh. “What’s the phone number?”
D
aniel was in a concrete canyon.
Again. Back in a concrete canyon.
Water trickled. The bleeding sun stained everything crimson. Ahead, a tunnel, tall and broad. The mouth of it was perfect black shadow, but he knew that something waited in that darkness. Waited and watched.
Something terrible.
It was clearer this time, the dream. There were buildings beyond the canyon, a skyline of mute towers framed black against the red sky, windows glowing like eyes. In the fading light of day, the buildings loomed like hooded figures of judgment.
His hand was heavy.
From the darkness of the tunnel, a faint rasping. A movement sound, but indistinct and wrong, snakes squirming across one another in dark pits, the slow inhale of some huge beast. His fear was childlike in its perfection. It seized him completely. He wanted to run.
What’s there?
Why am I here?
He took a step forward, dread lighting up his spine. He had the vague and drifting feeling of being near the edge of waking. He couldn’t control the action, but he could nudge it, could float suggestions, and yet he knew it was a dream. Familiar, though, and maybe not just from having dreamed it before. And yet what was a dream but a mash-up of memory and imagination and worry? The mouth of the tunnel was perfect black. Preternatural darkness. Light died when it crossed that boundary.
In that blackness, something waited. Watching him. Staring.
Judging.
As much as fear, there was guilt, that overwhelming sense of horror and shame.
A dusty breeze tugged at his clothing.
His hand was heavy.
He took a step forward. And another. He was almost to the tunnel—
“Daniel?”
Eyes snapping open, he jerked his head back, cracked it against the wooden headboard. He grunted, blinked. “Wha? I’m here.”
The tunnel was gone, replaced by the hotel room. How had he fallen asleep? After Laney left, he’d stood on the balcony and watched the street. Paced ruts in the carpet. Finally, he’d decided to distract himself with the news. When it had gone to a commercial, the braying of the sales voice had bothered him, and he’d muted it, leaned back, closed his burning eyes just for a second . . .
Laney said, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Grimacing, he rubbed at the back of his skull, then swung his legs off the bed, leaned on his knees. He had never been a napper. It sounded nice in principle, but he always woke up wooden and confused, feeling worse than when he lay down. “Sorry. I guess I drifted off.” There’d been no real sleep in a week, not since he woke on the beach. He blinked, then looked up at her. “How about you? You okay?”
She nodded, pulled a chair from the desk, flopped into it.