Apparently, I’m comfortable with guns.
That didn’t mean anything, really. Lots of people were. Still, there was something ominous in the situation. Waking with, what, amnesia, some sort of fugue? And in the glove box of his expensive car, a high-quality semiautomatic pistol.
He raised the Glock to his nose, sniffed it. It smelled of carbon. It’s been fired. Fired and not cleaned since.
How long ago? No way to say. It might have been nothing, just a trip to the range. Or it might have been used in an interstate crime spree. What if he had the gun because he was in danger? Or because he was dangerous?
I don’t feel dangerous.
But the police might disagree. Until he knew what was going on, who he’d been and what he’d done, talking to them was a huge risk.
Which left Los Angeles. There had to be answers waiting there. And yet the thought of returning to California prompted a swell of guilt and shame and horror. He couldn’t say why, but the feeling was unshakable. Like waking up with a hangover, dead certain that he’d made an ass of himself during his blackout hours. For some reason, home scared the hell out of him.
So what, you want to just hide?
He set the Glock on the nightstand, thought better of it, pulled out the drawer, and set it atop the Gideon bible. Rubbed at his eyes.
Here’s the plan. You already paid for the room. Stay. Get some rest. Stress and exhaustion have to be part of the problem. So take it easy today.
Tomorrow, act like a man.
D
eputy Chris Dundridge was raised by NYPD Blue.
Everyone said his father had been a lovable guy, quick with a joke, always up for another round of Dewar’s, a hell of a baseball player. Of course, Dad had vanished right around the time Chris was starting tee ball, so his own memories were faded photographs. The two of them sitting on the end of a dock, the waves spitting white and green around the pilings. The smell of tobacco and Aqua Velva. That good almost-sick feeling in his belly when Dad tossed him high.
There hadn’t been any fights, no screaming or beatings. Dad had just ruffled his hair, boarded a fishing boat, and never come home. No accident, no storm, no letter, just on at Port Clyde and off somewhere else.
So Mom had taken a second job, and Chris had started watching a lot of television. The old shows that ran in syndication after school, Miami Vice, 21 Jump Street, even CHiPs. After high school, he’d gone to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, watching cop shows all the while. He loved The Shield, he loved The Wire, he even watched CSI, piece of shit that was. Chris was ready to be a world-weary lawman with a weapon on his hip. He wanted to catch bad guys. He wanted to work big cases, stare darkness in the face and not blink.
Problem was, he lived in Washington County, Maine. They didn’t make cop shows about places like Washington County. Not unless you counted Andy Griffith.
He steered the cruiser with one hand, popped the last of his bologna sandwich in his mouth with the other, then brushed the crumbs off his uniform. Cherryfield Hardware slid past, and the owner stopped locking up long enough to raise a hand at him. Chris threw back a halfhearted salute.
He had feelers out all over the country, but it was your classic catch-22. Without having worked a high crime area, he didn’t have the qualifications to work a high crime area. Which left him where?
“Fucked,” Chris muttered. “Fucked, fucked, fucked.” “Say again?” his radio squawked.
Shit. He grabbed the radio, saw the button had stuck again.
“Sorry about that, Doreen, my mic.”
“I hear that language again, I’m going to wash your mouth out.” Chris grinned. “What? I said ‘trucks.’ ”
“Yeah, trucked, trucked, trucked.”
“Anything happening?”
“All quiet in our little corner of heaven.”
“Spectacular,” he said.
Maybe he needed to shake things up some. A tour in the army,
he’d be able to write his ticket. It would mean dodging RPGs for a couple years. But that might be better than writing drunk tickets till his eyesight gave, or hanging at the Ten Pin, watching the same girls get older. Chasing jihadis might not be the same as chasing criminals, but it beat the hell out of the alternative.
They’d post him in Afghanistan or Iraq, of course. But what the hell. Get out, see the world. Hear a muezzin’s call. Fire a fifty-caliber. Learn Arabic. Maybe even be an MP. Police work with military technology, ooh-rah. Not that he wanted to chase American soldiers, but he’d be after the ones who went crazy, the kind in the news stories, the ones who raped girls or killed innocent shopkeepers . . .
Chris Dundridge was halfway through his nightly tour of imaginary duty when he spotted the silver BMW parked at the Pines Motel.
5
EXT. ABBOT KINNEY STREET—EVENING
Loud POP MUSIC plays. Architectural Digest homes nestle next to ra mshackle teardow ns. Wet suits are draped over balcony railings.
A convertible rips down the street, turns at the corner.
INT. MADDY’S CONVERTIBLE—CONTINUOUS
The music is coming from MADDY SWEET’s stereo. It cuts off mid-lyric as she pulls halfway into a parking spot and jumps out of the car. Her red hair flies behind her.
EXT. CANDY GIRLS HOUSE—CONTINUOUS
EMILY SWEET stands at the end of the porch, facing away.
MADDY (O.S.)
Em?
Emily stiffens, but doesn’t turn. Maddy climbs, pauses, then walks behind her sister and puts a hand on her arm.
MADDY (CONT’D)
Talk to me.
EMILY
What do you want me to say? MADDY
You could call Tara something that rhymes with “runt.”
Emily snorts a laugh. She faces her sister. EMILY
You heard, huh?
MADDY
Everybody heard, honey.
(catches herself)
That’s not what—I just mean that it— EMILY
It’s okay.
(it’s clearly not)
MADDY
Tara’s never been concerned about her karma.
EMILY
Not her. Jake. Why would he tank my audition?
MADDY
It wasn’t Jake. The director, he and Tara . . .