Page 48

CHAPTER 48

ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, I walked up the steps of 101 Waterway Street as though I were in a dream. I was aware but unquestioning of my curious surroundings: The weed-smothered front yard. The big security camera above the porch, its lens spray-painted black. Behind the screen door, an extremely familiar-looking enormous black dog started up a hellish clamor at my arrival, which Baby silenced with a single word. I drifted into the old, creaky house and sat at a big kitchen island. Baby took the stool on the other side, and a small, elderly man with thinning white hair sat at the table.

The story poured out of me. Telling it emptied my mind, which was what I needed. As I shook it off, I gently woke up to my surroundings. I was drawn out of my sadness for Daisy and my hopelessness for Troy and into the puzzle of the circumstances I had just walked into. As Baby took in the information I’d given her, I realized her shoulder was bandaged, and the big dog snoring loudly in the corner was a beast I’d encountered before.

“Why didn’t Troy just call you when he found the note?” Baby said through gritted teeth. “If there ever was a note, it’s long gone now.”

“Baby,” I said, glancing at the man at the table who’d been listening quietly to everything I’d said without comment. “What the hell is going on here?”

Baby tried to buy herself time. She cleared some bloody tissues and gauze from the kitchen island in front of me and swept them into a trash can she produced from under the sink. She was clearly familiar with the house. Her silence was making the temperature under my collar rise.

“Baby.”

“What?”

“I asked you a question.”

“This is Arthur.” Baby gestured at the old man. “He’s being harassed and threatened by psychopaths from a megacorporation who want to buy up the whole neighborhood and are trying to squeeze him out. It’s possible they killed his wife, and there’s no doubt they tried to kill him. I’m halfway to solving the problem but I hit a snag last night when I got into it with a dumbass from Fullerton and his gun-toting grandma. I’m fine. I wasn’t shot, it’s just glass from a door that exploded.”

She rubbed her bandaged shoulder, looked around, spotted the dog on the floor. “And, uh, yeah. That’s the dog from the pet-nappers’ apartment. We took him, Arthur and I. For protection. I’ve named him Mouse. Anything else you want to know?”

Some minutes passed; I don’t know how many. I sat silently reviewing what I had heard, mulling it over, examining it. I turned on my stool and looked at the man, then the dog, then the kitchen in the rickety old house. I put what I had heard together with what I’d just learned about the Daisy Hansen case. Tried to connect the scenarios. Then I gently placed my hands on the kitchen island.

“Baby,” I said. “This is a joke, right?”

“It’s — ”

“You’re out of your mind,” I said. My voice rose quickly to an earsplitting volume. “You’re out of your goddamn mind!”

Baby sighed, folded her arms, dropped a hip.

“What are you thinking, getting involved in something like this?” I roared. “You took this whole thing on by yourself? You confronted a murder suspect by yourself ?”

“She wasn’t by herself,” Arthur said.

“Oh, don’t you start.” I whirled around, stabbed a finger at him. “I’ve got nothing but flaming contempt for the kind of guy who would let a teenager get mixed up in a mess like this!”

Arthur was unrattled by my tirade. “Lady,” he said. “You’re the one who needs her head examined here.”

“What!” I yelled.

“You’re handlin’ this kid all wrong.” He gestured at Baby. “You’re basing everything you do with her on how many years she’s been running around the earth, not on what she’s been through and what she knows. Keep doing that and you’re gonna end up wondering what in the world you were thinking.”

I gripped the kitchen island to keep myself from punching someone.

“Barbara hadn’t been in this house five minutes before she saved my ass — stopped me from being fried to death in my own damn kitchen.” Arthur pointed at Baby. “Took her a single day to figure out that someone’s trying to kill me, who that person is, and what she plans to do about it. I was impressed enough with that. But just now, I learned she’s been doing all that stuff while also trying to track down a serial killer or whatever the hell it is you were just saying.” He waved a dismissive hand at me. “Seems to me that you ought to cut the kid some slack.”

“She’s my kid!” I shouted, tapping my chest. “Did she tell you that? I’m all the family she’s got in the world. If some ... some psychopaths from a megacorporation kill her and bury her in the concrete foundations of the eco-tech-village they plan to build here, it’ll be my fault.”

“Sure.” Arthur shrugged. “But maybe that won’t happen. Maybe instead she’ll run off on you. She’ll get tired of you not seeing what she’s worth and disappear on you in a different way. She’s already flown the coop, right?”

I looked at Baby, caught her watching the old man in a way that made my heart ache. She was smiling. Blushing. I’d spent a lot of my teenage years in that same state — basking in the fantasy of fatherly connection with men who were not my father but who for whatever reason took on a paternal role. Earl Bird had run out on me when I was thirteen. He’d packed his things, and I’d never seen him again. For a long time, I’d gotten a fix when older men encouraged me, saw my potential, provided an ear, said they were proud of me. I felt for Baby now. Because this man, Arthur, was not her father, and eventually the spell she was under would be shattered. She would realize what I had realized — that she could never have Earl back. And the more men she sought for her fatherly fix, the sooner she’d run into one who would use it against her.

I walked out of the house. Baby followed. She slid into the Chevy next to me.

“I am going to help Arthur,” she said. Her tone was firm. “I’m not dropping his case.”

“It doesn’t sound like my approval matters,” I said. “But even if it did, this wasn’t the way to get it.”

“Why?”

“The secrecy.” I gestured to the house. “The sneaking around. The lies. That doesn’t fly with me.”

She looked at me. I could tell she was surprised that my calm tone matched hers, that I’d collected myself so fast. I felt a tickle of self-pride in my chest. Maybe I was getting better at this whole parenting thing.

“I think what you’re doing is dangerous.” I held her eyes. “I think you’re going to fall. I hope that doesn’t happen, believe me. And maybe it won’t. You’re smart, and you’re capable, and you’ve got good instincts.”

Her eyes shimmered. She swiped at them, hid the emotion.

“But, Baby, it’s my job to catch you when you fall.” I tapped my chest. “And I can’t do that if I don’t know you’re out on the ledge in the first place.”

“Okay,” she said. “I get it.”

“Can this wait?” I nodded at the house. “Is he safe in there until tonight?”

“I think so. I’m running all the cams to my phone. And the dog is there.”

“Good, because right now, Troy Hansen is likely on his way to the county jail.” I looked at my watch.

“You still want to help him? You believe him?” Baby was incredulous. “He just led police directly to his wife’s body. His story about finding a random note in his house is ... is ... ”

“It’s hard to believe.” I nodded. “But I don’t turn away from stuff because it’s too hard. Text our favorite tech nerd, Jamie. Tell him to run the number Daisy was texting on her secret phone. I want to speak to her lover.”