Death's Last Run (16 page)

MARTHA

Martha sliced the yellow utility knife through six-year-old moving tape. Is this what surgeons felt like, slicing into someone's stomach? She peeled back the cardboard flaps — or cracked the ribs and separated them — to open the box on which Sacha had written
PRIVATE
before sticking it in storage and leaving for university.

Was it private even now? Sacha would have to forgive her.

There was six years' worth of storage room dust. Martha's hands felt filthy. But she forgot all about hygiene when she saw Lorenzo.

She picked up the photograph: a dirty, dusty road with a skinny ten-year-old boy. The boy was smiling in that brave yet forlorn way the Christian aid photographers liked their poster children to pose. The sun was high and the child's shirt was torn at one shoulder.

Lorenzo Barilla. This was how she knew the name.

When she was eight, Sacha had sponsored a ten-year-old boy in Central America. After watching one of those horrible commercials (the kind that made Martha wish she had a weaker stomach so she could vomit to display her disgust), Sacha asked Martha to sponsor a child “for less than the price of a cup of coffee a day, Mom! You're trying to drink less coffee anyway.”

Martha explained that these organizations were corrupt, that only five cents on the dollar really went to the children. Sacha hadn't believed her; she'd committed nearly all of her small weekly allowance to Lorenzo, convinced that her few dollars per week was enough to feed his whole family, buy Lorenzo's clothes, and send him to school.

For two years, Sacha had walked to the post office each Friday to send letters to El Salvador — via the aid organization. Sacha seemed happy enough with the correspondence she got back: quarterly packages with a photo Martha was sure went to a few more sponsors than Sacha, and a letter she was sure had been typed in an office somewhere in Kansas.

Martha had always assumed that Sacha had given Lorenzo up — abandoned him innocently, like her Cabbage Patch Doll and every other childhood toy except Jules. But as she leafed through the papers, Martha was shocked to see that Lorenzo had started writing back real letters — not packaged school photos with the Christian Aid logo in the corner, but letters from a teenager, complete with broken English, discontent, and foul language.

Lorenzo Barilla was the blogger who had interviewed her at LaGuardia. He'd said his name slowly, like it was supposed to mean something to Martha. It meant something now . . . but what?

She studied the photograph. The child looked darker than the man she'd met at the airport. Also, the blogger's accent wasn't nearly as strong as it should be — not like someone who had grown up in Latin America. She'd heard of people hiring voice coaches, practicing hard to eradicate an accent, to blend into a new culture. But why would he want to?

Martha looked at the clock. If she didn't get moving, she'd be late for the Women of Influence luncheon she'd agreed to attend — an educational session where 120 of Manhattan's brightest female high school students were invited to mingle with women in so-called powerful positions. When the invitation had come several months earlier, Martha had deemed it a worthwhile cause. Now, she felt like the privileged princesses — most of whom would no doubt be from private schools — could do without the added insider advice about their futures. It was the youth in Harlem and Alphabet City who needed these sessions.

But she'd agreed to go.

Martha put the letters back into the moving box and closed it, feeling like she was leaving Sacha inside.

CLARE

Clare woke up and wondered where she was. The green curtains looked familiar. So did the brown plaid comforter. Traveling for work so much, she was used to waking up disoriented. And as Noah would note, being a slut should make that feeling even more familiar.

She wanted Noah's arms around her, if only so she could wrestle them off and tell him what a jerk he was.

Not like Chopper, who was actually nice to her — and whose bedroom Clare slowly realized she was in. Upstairs in his groovy mountain cabin. Man, that sled ride had been fun — once Clare had dropped the illusion that she'd been about to die. She really had to figure out how to not inhale.

Some thermal socks and sweats were folded on a wooden chair beside the bed. A piece of paper on top said
Wear me
in scratchy male handwriting. Clare put on Chopper's clothes, which pretty much drowned her, and descended the twisty staircase down to the main floor.

Chopper was facing the stove, pushing a spatula around in a pan. The smell of vegetables and spice made Clare's stomach growl. “That smells amazing.”

“It's a tofu omelette. Didn't know if you were a vegan or not — so many chicks in Whistler are vegans or vegetarians — but I had some tofu in the fridge, so I figured I'd get creative instead of waking you up to find out.”

“I'm not a vegan.” Clare hoped she never had to go undercover as one, either. “But if their freaky food can smell like that, I'll gladly eat it.”

Clare sat at the kitchen table — a long wooden slab that looked both homemade and designer. “Do you make your own furniture?”

“The wooden stuff, yeah.”

“You ever sell it?”

“No way. I'm not interested in hearing some yuppie couple ooh and aah then tell me how they want theirs done custom.”

Clare wondered if Chopper had already smoked a joint that morning or if the smell still clung to the air from the night before. “Why are you called Chopper?”

“My summer job in high school. I was an arborist, like my dad. Chopping trees down for rich homeowners who want a nicer view.”

“What's your real name?”

“You have to sleep with me three times before I tell you.”

Clare liked watching him cook. His shoulders were massive; the guy was made of muscle.

He'd been good in bed, too. They'd clicked well. Clare recalled the flick of his tongue as it made her writhe in pleasure while sun had begun to filter through the curtains. She was tempted to get up and lure him back into bed for another round, but her coffee tasted too good. She also felt kind of hollow — like maybe fucking around freely wasn't who she was at heart. She wished Noah were there, so she could squeeze his hand and feel him squeeze hers back.

Clare said as casually as she could, “I feel like getting high today.”

Chopper turned quickly. Something green flew off his spatula and onto the counter. “You want to smoke before breakfast?”

“I don't mean pot,” Clare said. “I mean something to take me out of my head. Shrooms or X would be awesome. Or are you all earthy Nature Boy — nary an artificial chemical can enter your body?”

Chopper sprinkled a green herb onto his tofu concoction. “I'm not big on X unless I know the source. Shrooms are always fun. But my drug of choice when I have eight hours to spare? Hands down,
LSD
.”

“Seriously?” Clare leaned back in her chair. “Jana said the same thing. Is it still 1970 in Whistler?”

“Pretty much. Yuppies have built this town up into their very own clapboard paradise, but when you have nature as pure as this, it's gonna draw the free loving, free-thinking crowd, too. If that's what you mean by 1970.”

Clare rolled her eyes. She couldn't help it.

“You're not into free love or free thought?”

“Of course I am. But I don't need to create a lifestyle around it.”

Chopper scratched his chin, which had a couple days' stubble. “The acid I have is beautiful. It will stone you and make you see clear at the same time. You working today?”

“No.”

“Let's drop after breakfast. Day-tripping is sick.” Chopper checked his watch. “As we're coming down, we can grab the last gondola to the top of Whistler or Blackcomb. We'll be sober enough by then, shredding won't be dangerous — but the drug will still be tingly enough in our system to make for a sick ride.”

It did sound fun — in a world where there wasn't a killer. But Clare had to get to Amanda's place so they could listen to the recording from the bar. She eyed her ski jacket on the hook by the door, with the memory stick hidden inside. She couldn't believe she'd made such a stupid move, leaving such a damning piece of evidence unguarded overnight.

Chopper pulled two plates from the cupboard and started dishing his steaming faux-omelette onto them. “Lucy, how come you're not on Facebook?”

Clare's eyes focused on the plate of food Chopper set in front of her. It was a good question. Bert had been talking about creating a database of social media identities to add depth to their cover roles. The problem was that if a suspicious person started to explore the friends and family, they'd quickly find a group of people who only existed in ether. The other option was making all the cover identities friends with each other, but that was even more dangerous — once one identity was made, it would be easy to identify all the rest as bogus. So for now, no Facebook.

“I think social media is stupid,” Clare said. “It's for narcissists and people with something to sell. Are you on Facebook?”

Chopper laughed. “Yeah, I am. Enjoy your breakfast.”

Clare took a bite. It was delicious, but something about Chopper's question had made her nervous. She pushed her plate away. “Sorry — I'm not really a breakfast person. The coffee's great, though.”

WADE

Wade pushed his ugly black boots through the fresh snow that had fallen overnight. Tourists were frolicking through the village like it was fabulous, knocking each other over and tossing snowballs like kids. Did they not have real world problems? But no, of course they didn't — they had the money to play in Canada's most expensive outdoor playground.

In his pocket, his phone rang. Wade fished it out and answered.

A young male voice. “Is this Wade Harrison?”

Another collection agent, no doubt. How they kept getting his cell number, Wade had no clue.

“I'm sorry,” Wade said. “You must have the wrong number.”

“I'm looking for the owner of a bar called Avalanche.”

“Definitely the wrong number.” Wade ducked to avoid a snowball — which cleared him by several feet, but he glared at the group of kids who threw it, because that wasn't the point.

“Look, I'm sure you've been getting hammered with phone calls since your waitress died. But this isn't like other interviews. I want to know why Sacha died.”

“Sacha who?”

“Sacha Westlake. Even if this were a wrong number, you must have heard about her death.”

“Right,” Wade said. “The Whistler suicide.”

“Okay, well, I obviously have the wrong number. I guess I'll go try to find the real Wade Harrison, so I can try to help him save his bar.”

Wade pulled the phone away from his ear, glanced at the screen. The caller's number was blocked. “Who are you?”

“Call me an interested party. I got a tip-off that your landlords are about to foreclose.”

“From who?”

“Sorry . . . are you or aren't you Wade Harrison?”

Fuck this guy. He was almost definitely a collection agent for one of Wade's maxed-out, unpaid credit cards. There was no low those assholes wouldn't sink to. But what if he was for real? “I'm Wade.”

A chuckle. “That's what I thought.”

“Who are you?”

“I'm a reporter. But before you hang up, I really do want to help save your bar. And find Sacha's killer.”

Wade sighed. “Sacha killed herself.”

“Was that because she was in love with you?”

Fuck.
“Can you identify yourself please? Who do you write for?”

“It must have been horrible for her. Young girl, away from home, in love with someone she can't have. You had no plans to leave your wife, right? Still don't?”

Wade didn't have anything to say. And yet he couldn't hang up.

“What was Georgia doing, the afternoon Sacha died?”

“She was at work. In Vancouver.” Wade at least knew the answer to that.

“Hm. Well, for her sake, I hope she was in meetings. Or somewhere people remember having seen her.”

“My wife is not a killer.”

“Don't worry, I won't breathe a word. About your affair, I mean.”

Before Wade could think of a smart way to deny the charge, he had to scoot around yet another pack of rowdy twentysomethings decked out in the latest Lycra fashions. They were blocking nearly half of the wide cobblestone pathway, with no concern for people who might have to be somewhere.

The caller must have taken Wade's silence for affirmation, because he said, “What I type, on the other hand . . . that depends upon how forthcoming you are about other things.”

“Like what?”

“My next article is going to be ‘A Day in the Life.' I want to recreate a typical day in Sacha's Whistler experience.” The reporter's voice seemed accented — maybe French or Spanish.

Wade arrived at Avalanche. He dug his keys from his pocket with one hand and let himself in. He went to press his alarm code into the pad by the door, and stopped — the monitoring company had canceled his account the previous week for non-payment.

“What was Sacha like in bed?” the reporter asked. “I swear, this is just between you and me.”

Wade grabbed a glass from behind the bar and poured himself a thick finger of vodka before taking his coat off. “What do you think? She was phenomenal.” He shouldn't be talking like this — and certainly not to the press. But short of seeing Sacha — holding her, feeling her — talking about her was all Wade wanted to do.

“How was she involved in the money you were laundering?”

Shit.
“I think someone has been sadly misinforming you.”

“Okay. So it's fine for your wife to read that you were sleeping with your waitress?”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Who are you already?”

“My name is Lorenzo Barilla. I have a blog you may be familiar with.”