4 P.A. Brown
“More like the Indy 500. Better call a tow truck.” David shook his head and did his best not to think about it. “Get a warrant for that thing, too.”
He put his hand on the still warm hood of their city-owned junk heap. He climbed in behind the wheel. “Might be time to trade this thing in, too. Call the motor pool. See if we can’t get this one put out to pasture.” He slotted the key in and fired it up.
It grunted but fired on the first try. Barely. He met his partner’s gaze. “Ever think it might be time to hang it up yourself?”
“What? And give up all the excitement? Not to mention the respect and love we get.”
“You left out the fabulous pay check.”
“I guess I did kind of forget that. Come on. Let’s go down and book these mutts. At least earn some of those big bucks.”
A second black and white rolled onto the lot and Sokun was loaded into it. The two shops rolled back out onto Rigali, followed by David and his grinning partner.
“Another fine day on the force.”
“Hey,” Martinez said. “We’ll look back on this someday and remember all the fun we had.”
Saturday, 1:35pm, Cove Avenue, Silverlake, Los Angeles
The doorbell jerked Christopher Bellamere out of an online conversation with a client about a new network setup he wanted.
The sound unleashed a volley of barking from Sergeant, their five-year-old Doberman. With a muttered “Damn” he IM’d
hold
on
and hurried to the front door. He saw the UPS truck before he even threw the door open to greet the brown-suited delivery woman.
Sergeant tried to dart past him to check out the visitor, earning a wide-eyed “holy shit” look from the startled woman.
Chris lunged for the dog’s collar.
“Don’t worry, he’s harmless.”
Funny, no one believed him when he said that. “Down, Sergeant,” he snapped and the dog dropped to the floor. This only modified the woman’s look from one of stark terror to surly distrust. Not a dog lover. “Now,” he said to bring her attention back to him. “Can I help you?”
“Package for a David E. Laine.”
So it was. The package was a business letter-sized piece that Chris took from the still wary woman. He signed for it, nodded thanks and hauled the dog back inside.
Once there he examined the unexpected delivery. It had been sent locally, from Long Beach, as far as he could tell. Who did David know in Long Beach?
Wishing he could open it, knowing he wouldn’t, he returned to his home office and finished up his business, all the while the sealed package burning into his awareness. Once he was able to, he snatched up his BlackBerry and called David.
“You coming home soon?”
6 P.A. Brown
“Yeah,” David said, using his gruff, I-can’t-talk-I’m-with-other-people voice. “Why?”
“Got a UPS package for you.”
“From who?”
“You know anyone in Long Beach?”
“No. Just hang onto it. I’ll be home soon as I can. I hope you’re not working too hard. You know the doctor said you still needed to rest.”
“I’m fine,” Chris said. It had been over a week since he’d been flat on his back from flu and on his last medical check up the doctor told him he was on his way to full recovery, but he still needed to take it easy. David had taken that advice all too closely to heart and bugged Chris at least half a dozen times every day to make sure he was doing just that.
“Don’t spend all day sitting in that damn office. Get outside, relax in the sun. Go out and play with the dog.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t start.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Chris.”
“Then come home soon, and you can make sure I’m resting.
You can even put me to bed.”
David ignored his playful flirting. Instead he said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can get away.”
Knowing it was the most he’d get out of his husband at this time, Chris disconnected and went back to taking care of his business of monitoring and protecting a number of computer networks throughout the city.
Finally he heard a car door clink shut and he checked the clock on his laptop. David had managed to get away early; he must be as curious as Chris about what was in the mystery package.
He logged out of his laptop, closing the connection to the client’s server he had been working on. He hurried out of his BeRMudA heAt
7
home office and headed toward the front of the house. Soft light poured onto the rag-painted kitchen walls he had done himself in one of his more creative moments, and reflected off the Aegean rose tile floor. The front door opened and David’s feet scuffed on the marble foyer floor as he kicked his shoes off.
Chris grabbed the last bottle of Peller Estates Merlot from the wine rack and decanted it. David dumped his keys at the front door and stripped off his LAPD gold shield and his Smith
& Wesson .40 handgun, securing them in the hall closet lock box. Chris heard the safe door slam shut. He poured two glasses of Merlot, pausing to run stiff fingers through his spiked blond hair in the reflection of the brushed steel fridge. He set the letter down on the carved Santa Fe table and sat. David kissed him before sitting across from Chris.
David studied Chris’s face and Chris knew he was looking for signs of tiredness. He did his best to look spry.
“I really am getting better, you know,” he said. “You don’t need to mother hen me all the time.”
“I know you’re getting there. I just don’t want a relapse.”
“Fine, no relapse. Now aren’t you dying to find out what’s in there?” He looked at the envelope on the kitchen table. Chris had put the letter opener beside it.
David gingerly picked up the envelope. He studied the front of it, then flipped it over to look at the back. “So this is the big mystery.” He waved away the wine. “I have to go back.”
“Coffee then?”
David nodded and Chris went to put it on.
Oprah, the little tortoiseshell cat David had rescued the year before, appeared out of nowhere. With the recent death of Sweeney, David’s old Siamese, Oprah was now the only cat in the house. She had quickly assumed the position of queen of the house.
The package had been sent from Long Beach. As far as Chris knew David didn’t know anyone in the southern beach
8 P.A. Brown
community. Oprah jumped into David’s lap and he stroked the purring cat, an absent look on his swarthy face.
“Well, open it,” Chris said.
David sipped his coffee, then opened the shipping package and drew out a thick brown envelope. He used the letter opener to slit open the flap and slid out four sheets of paper. He grunted when he opened the first one. “It’s from a Walter Dodson, California P.I.”
“What does he want with you?”
David scanned the rest of the first letter. He scowled, the flesh of his normally dark face going a little pale. “He says he’s enclosing a letter from my father…”
It was Chris’s turn to frown. The only “father” David had was his stepfather, Graham Laine, living back in New Hampshire with David’s mother. Chris had heard the story often enough; David’s biological father had died in Vietnam before he’d been born. Graham had adopted him right after marrying his mother when David was barely three years old.
“He says my father is still alive.”
When David slid the letter across to Chris and focused on the second letter, Chris scanned the contents of the first. Dodson had been hired by a Joel “Joey” Cameron in Bermuda in regards to his son, David Eric Cameron, born of Barbara Willerton in San Francisco on April 18, 1970. David’s birthday. The rest matched, too. Except, instead of his father being dead, apparently Joel had been told David had died. Chris felt a chill march across his arms.
David read the second letter, the one purportedly from his father. His face grew more ashen.
“David?”
“She lied,” David said. “All this time she lied. She lied to both of us.”
Chris had never heard such coldness in his husband’s voice before. He wanted to say they both knew what a bitch his mother was, but knew David wouldn’t like it if he did. David had always BeRMudA heAt
9
been more tolerant of her than Chris could ever be. Even when she had refused to attend their wedding or even acknowledge it, David hadn’t turned away from her.
“What? She told the guy you were dead?” Chris muttered.
“That’s creepy.” Deep down Chris knew that David still loved his mother and hoped to get her approval one day. Like that was ever going to happen in this lifetime, or the next for that matter.
“Does he say what made him suspicious?”
“No, he doesn’t,” David said. “I guess if I want an answer to that, I’ll have to meet him.”
David glanced at the letter again. Chris could see it was handwritten in small, tight script which filled the whole page.
“He says he’s sorry and he wants to meet me.” David scowled, his mouth pursing and his teeth worrying his lips. “He says to bring you along too, he’d love to meet you. Apparently he knows all about us.” He flipped the letter from the P.I. over, then slid it back to Chris. He held up the two other things he had taken from the envelope. Chris saw they were Delta e-tickets.
“He wants us—you—to go there?” he asked.
“Both of us,” David said.
“To Bermuda?”
David nodded. He still looked shell-shocked. Chris rose and circled around to his side, crouching down beside him. Oprah meowed forlornly when Chris put her on the floor. The cat wound around their feet. Sergeant sensed the tension and slid his wedge-shaped head against Chris’s leg. Chris ignored the dog and took both of David’s hands in his, wishing he could erase the worry lines now creasing his husband’s face.
“Hey,” Chris said. “It’s okay. Look on the bright side—your dad’s alive. That’s good news, right? Let’s meet him before you condemn him. Your mother always said he was a loser. But if she told so many lies, maybe that wasn’t true, either. Maybe he’s not the bad guy, after all. Besides,” he added with a teasing smile. “I hear it’s beautiful there.”
“You think?” David muttered. “In case you hadn’t noticed,
10 P.A. Brown
we have jobs, bills to pay, plans already made. We can’t just go jaunting off to God knows where on a whim.”
Chris took the tickets out of his hands. They were from Delta.
Economy class. He would change that fast enough if David actually wanted to do this. Suddenly Chris wanted to go. His curiosity was killing him. Surely it must be doing the same to David.
“It’s hardly a whim. Think of it as a genealogical study.
Haven’t you always said you wished you knew about your dad’s side of the family? Maybe you’ve got cousins or uncles.” Feeling mischievous, Chris wheedled. “Or maybe even brothers and sisters. Besides, we’re due for a holiday. What could be nicer, beaches and little pink houses?”
“John Mellencamp?”
“Nah, I don’t think he lives there. Though I hear Michael Douglas does.”
“You don’t get enough celebrities here?” The faint ghost of a smile lightened David’s normally dour, pock-marked face. His green-flecked brown eyes crinkled. Some of his color returned.
“You really want to go?”
“Don’t you? This is your
father
.”
“The father who abandoned me. The one who apparently couldn’t stick around to do the job.”
“Not really,” Chris said. “If he thought you were dead…
So why
did
your mother lie? She didn’t want you to know he abandoned you? Knowing your mother, I’ll bet you there’s a lot more to it than that. You need to hear the story from him and find out for yourself.”
“You know, I always worry when you start sounding logical.
You’re thinking too much.”
“What kind of clothes do they wear in Bermuda? God, I hope it’s not all Bermuda shorts. Even I’d look geeky in those things.”
David toyed with the pepper mill on the table. Suddenly the room filled with the sharp odor of fresh ground pepper. Sergeant BeRMudA heAt
11
sneezed and gave him a malevolent look.
“You don’t look geeky in anything,” he said, but it was clear his mind wasn’t on the banter. He set the pepper mill down on the engraved tabletop and brushed pepper onto the floor.
“Maybe we should go. I’ll have to set it up at work. I’m due some holidays—”
“Yeah, because you never take them,” Chris said. It was a long-standing argument between them. They were both workaholics, except Chris’s work was with computer systems and never involved violence, and David’s was dealing on a daily basis with Los Angeles’ lowest forms of life. Every day he went to work, Chris worried about him. And it didn’t do any good to tell David that. He’d patiently explain that it was his job. He also reminded him that detectives were mostly desk jockeys, not front line cops.
At which point Chris always countered with the reminder that David’s partner had died and it hadn’t been behind a desk.
“First things first,” David muttered. He picked up the letter from Joel. “He included a phone number. So let’s talk to the guy.”
Saturday, 5:45pm, Cove Avenue, Silverlake, Los Angeles
David grabbed his coffee and slipped into the living room, settling on the white leather couch. Chris curled up beside him, legs tucked under him. He rested his hand on David’s knee.
David took a deep breath and picked up the handset.
He punched in the 4-4-1 area code and the number. It rang six times and he was going to hang up when a breathless female voice answered.
“Hello?”
David glanced over at Chris, who offered him a tentative smile.
12 P.A. Brown
“Hello, is Mr. Joel Cameron there?”
“Sure, Dad’s right here—”
“Who is this?” David blurted. He didn’t know how to be subtle in circumstances like this.
“Imani,” the all too sultry voice said. “Imani Cameron. Who’s this?”
“This is David Laine. I—”
“Oh my God, David!” She squealed, all pretense of maturity gone beneath a girlish outburst. David smiled. His little sister.
His other little sister. “David! You called. Please tell me you’re going to come to Bermuda. You must. Dad is so thrilled—”