INFORMANT (22 page)

Day Seventy-Nine

Morning

Brad Morris, my scientific ethics professor, doesn’t keep regular office hours. I’ve sent him a text asking him to meet me to discuss a paper I’m working on. He said he’d be here by nine, but he’s late. It’s already nine-thirty and I’m pacing outside the door to his basement-level office at SFSU.

Finally he shows up. I’m guessing that I’m his first appointment of the day, because he looks like he just stepped out of the shower. His golden blond hair is damp (but expertly coiffed and swept back), and the scent of aftershave clings to his cheeks. He’s wearing a trench coat from Wilkes Bashford, a signature Nordstrom’s button down dress shirt, a Hermes tie, and perfectly pressed wool gabardine slacks. If I were attracted to extremely handsome men with a high sense of style and absolutely no moral compass, this would be my guy. I’d probably be drooling. Fortunately, however, he’s definitely not my type.

He glances at his Rolex as he hustles past me to unlock his office door. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Porter.” He flips on the overhead fluorescent lights and gestures for me to enter.  As he settles behind his desk he lifts the paper Starbucks cup he carries.

“Can I offer you something to drink? It’s no trouble. They’ll bring it down from the café upstairs.”

“No, thanks.” I don’t need any caffeine. I’m jittery enough as it is. I’m also too nervous to sit down. This meeting has to work.
It has to.
Brad’s my best shot.

“So,” he says. “You wanted to talk to me about a paper?”

I meet his gaze head-on. “Julio Juarez,” I say. “Tell me what you heard.”

He tilts back his cushy leather office chair, steeples his fingers, and gives me a coy smile. “Well,” he says. “Well, well. My morning just got a whole lot more interesting.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Maybe I don’t understand the question.”

“Then let me spell it out. You claim you’ve got connections in this city. People who know people—especially people who operate on the questionable side of the law. This is a test, professor. Nothing’s gone public yet, so I want to see how good your sources are. Where and when was the body of Julio Juarez discovered?”

“I assume there will be something in this for me if I answer.”

“If you answer correctly, yes.”

His gaze rakes me over. It’s a typical San Francisco December day, so I’m pretty well bundled up. I’m wearing a dark plum wool pea coat, turtleneck sweater, knee-length black skirt and black boots. Despite that, his look is so blatantly leering it feels as though I’m naked.

“What’s the matter?” he says. “Have things cooled off with your Latin lover? You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“This isn’t about Ricco.”

“Oh?”

“Never mind. Forget it. It was idiotic of me to come here.” I spin around and reach for his office door. Brad Morris’s voice stops me.

“Juarez’s body washed up early yesterday morning outside a meat-packing plant in Oakland,” he says. He waits for me to turn around. When I do, his eyes lock on mine. “Is that the answer you’re looking for, Miss Porter, or do you want graphic details as to the injuries he sustained prior to his death?”

A chill runs through me. He’s the real deal, I realize. Despite his golden good looks, he’s as dark as they come. Not only could he give me those details, he’d probably enjoy relating them.

“No,” I say. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

“So I pass your little test?” he says with a smirk.

“Yeah. You pass the test.”

“Oh, my. How exciting.”

Smarmy guy. No wonder that career as a prosecuting attorney was so brief. But next month, when he hangs a shingle as a high-priced defense attorney? What a perfect fit. Sleazy attorney who likes to get his picture in the paper joins forces with high-powered criminals who’ve run afoul of the law. That’s golden. As natural as snakes and slither.

“What do you know about Sun Yee’s operation?” I ask.

Brad chokes on his fat-free decaf mochaccino (his drink order is scrawled on the side of his cup). He swallows, wipes his mouth, and gives his head a disbelieving shake. “Excuse me?”

“Sun Yee. I assume you’ve heard of him.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him.” His small, mirthless smile returns. He studies me for a long moment, as though calculating odds. “Would it be fair to assume you had something to do with a certain meeting that took place yesterday afternoon at the Palace of Fine Arts?”

Very good, Professor. Another hit. “I might have,” I reply.

Brad leans forward abruptly, all business. “What’s this about?”

“I need information.”

“What kind of information?”

“Sun Yee has a shipment coming in eight days from now. Two containers from China will be arriving at a pier south of the city. I need to know exactly where.”

“A shipment?”

“I’m not talking about restaurant supplies.”

He gives a low chuckle and shakes his head. “You’re quite an intriguing young woman. I believe I may have underestimated you.”

“That would be a mistake.”

Thick silence settles between us. As Brad regards me, his eyes narrow and the expression on his face darkens. He isn’t half as handsome as I thought he was just minutes earlier. “I could get killed just for asking.”

“Not if you have the right contacts,” I reply, playing to his ego. “Especially if you’re smart enough to know who to ask and how to word the question.”

“Still. That’s an expensive question.”

Naturally. “How expensive?”

“Fifty thousand. Up front.”

Holy shit. I have exactly ten thousand cash—every penny the DEA has paid me, plus my savings from working at the Karma. The rest of the money I made has been funneled off to help Ronnie and Jess buy the garage. So much for my ill gotten gains.

I dig into my backpack, remove a thick envelope, and set it on his desk. “Ten thousand up front,” I say. “You’ll get the rest when I get my answer.”

Brad reaches for the envelope and thumbs through the bills. His satisfied smirk returns. “Congratulations,” he says. “You’ve just retained the services of a first-rate attorney.”

“I assume that means client privilege exists here. Anything we discuss cannot be used against me in a court of law.”

Brad waves that away. “No need for pleonasm, Miss Porter.”

“Pardon me?”

“Pleonasm—that’s Greek for stating something that’s painfully obvious. Round circle. Burning fire. Wet rain. That sort of thing.” He tucks the money into his desk drawer and smiles. His teeth are so white they actually glisten. “Don’t worry. You can trust me completely.”

Day Seventy-Nine

Afternoon

Time to say good-bye. My sister, mother, and nephew are leaving, heading out of town. Jess has Dally strapped and buckled into his infant carrier in the back seat. My mom is riding shotgun. Their bags are loaded into the trunk and the engine is running. It’s just not safe for them to be here—at least, not for the next week or so. After Sun Yee’s shipment arrives, well, maybe then they can come back. We’ll see. Nothing is certain anymore.

You might be wondering how my mom, a Walmart employee for over twenty years, managed to take time off in the middle of Christmas season. Here’s what we told her: Dally’s been diagnosed with intestinal issues and needs to have stomach surgery. She thinks they are on their way to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in LA for him to receive emergency treatment.

So yeah, another despicable lie added to my list. I hate lying to my mom. I hate worrying her. I hate how tangled and ugly this has all become. But that was the only thing I could come up with to get the three of them safely out of town.

Here’s something else to consider—my mom’s not stupid. She senses the tension that surrounds us. She knows something’s up. She’s going to be pissed as hell when Jess tells her the real reason for their trip, but at least the three of them will be long gone when all hell breaks loose.

They are going south, but not to LA. And since Dally is perfectly healthy, they definitely won’t be visiting a children’s hospital. They’re actually staying with a friend of Jess’s who has a condo in San Diego. No matter what happens next, they’ll be safe—or at least out of reach. That’s all that matters.

Before they go, Ronnie pulls Jess to him, locks his arms around her, and smothers her in his embrace. They hold each other as though they might never see each other again. I don’t want to acknowledge the awful truth of that, but neither can I deny it.

At last Ronnie lets her go and takes a step back. Tears stream down Jess’s cheeks. She clumsily swipes them away. “You could come, too,” she says. “Right now. Both of you could come. We could all leave together.”

I bite back a sigh. We’ve been through this. That won’t work—at least not yet. I’m in too deep and so is Ronnie. We’ve got to stick to the plan. Take this step by step. If we panic and run right now, our lives won’t be worth anything. We’ll spend the rest of our days hunted, constantly looking over our shoulders. What if someone decides to target Dally again? A shudder runs through me. No. Absolutely not. We need to end this now.

Ronnie gives my sister one last kiss, assures her that everything’s going to work out, and then it’s time for them to go. He tucks Jess into his Crown Vic and slams the door. I swallow past the thick lump that forms in my throat and blink back tears of my own. I’ll screw everything up if I fall apart, so I don’t. Instead, Ronnie and I stand shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk in front of the garage, watching the tail lights fade away as Jess drives down Noriega Street and disappears around the corner.

Then they’re gone. Now it’s just me and Ronnie.

We stand there for a long moment, neither of us moving. The fog is just starting to roll in, as thick and heavy as it always is in the Sunset. It feels as though we’re the only human beings left in the entire city. I glance around just to make sure we’re alone. No neighbors walking dogs, no customers waiting for their oil changes to be finished, no kids skateboarding up and down the street.

Just me and Ronnie. After all the years we’ve spent engaged in petty battles and pointless bickering, who would have guessed he and I would ever team up? That our fates would be so inextricably bound? Irrefutable proof that God really does have a sense of humor.

He looks at me. I look at him. The fog that settles around us feels different somehow. For once, it’s not shrouding and obscuring anything. Instead, the cleansing mist feels as though it’s here to wipe everything clear. At last, clarity descends. It’s time for us to talk. To actually be straight with one another. I begin by asking the question that’s been burning through my brain for the past forty-eight hours.

“Ronnie,” I say. “What really happened to that half a million cash?”

Day Seventy-Nine

Night

“He’s baaack,” Shari says as she swings into the kitchen at the Karma. It’s closing time, and I’m in the kitchen with Jim tallying up my receipts. (Yes, he’s forgiven me for taking off with his car without asking. I told him it was a family emergency, which is actually true.)

“Who’s back?” I ask, glancing up from sorting my ones, fives, and tens.

She sends me a knowing grin. “That good-looking friend of yours.” She uses air quotes around the word friend.

My stomach constricts painfully. Ricco? Here? It’s too soon. I’m not ready to see him yet. I shoot a panicked glance through the portal window in the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the café.

Beckett. He’s there waiting for me. I freeze, momentarily concerned that he might have been seen by Ricco or one of Miguel’s men, but I push that thought away just as quickly. He’s too careful to allow that to happen. If Beckett’s here, it means it’s safe.
I’m safe.

I study his profile and warmth floods through me. My breath catches. I can’t stop the trembling smile that curves my lips, or the way my fingers ache just to touch him. We’ve only been apart for hours, not days, yet my joy at seeing him is absurd. Almost childlike in its intensity. Thomas Beckett Smith. My Beckett.

I look up to find Shari watching me. My emotions must be obvious. We’re thirty minutes shy of closing, but she emits a dramatic sigh and rolls her eyes. “Go,” she says, dismissing me with a smile.

“Really?”

“Really. Go.”

I slip off my apron and move toward him. His gaze rakes me over, and I belatedly realize that I’m still wearing my crown of daisies. My tie-dyed t-shirt. I must look ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing but hungry approval is reflected back at me.

“Hey,” he says. “I thought you might need a ride home.”

*    *    *

My sheets have begun to smell like Beckett. Or more accurately, like me and Beckett together. The scent of my skin mingled with the scent of his skin. I refuse to wash them. Not yet. Not until this is all over. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll wash away whatever it is that holds us together. Something will go wrong and I’ll loose him forever.

He’s in my bed with me now, stretched out beside me, both of us naked. We’ve fallen into a pattern after we make love. I like to rest my cheek against his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. He likes to drag his fingers through my hair as though he’s sifting sand, idly lifting it and watching it fall. I like to rub my toes against the arch of his foot.

We’ve been talking for nearly an hour. (That’s one perk of my mom being gone. I no longer have to push Beckett out the door the moment we’re done making love.)

He tilts his head down to look at me. “You sure that’s what you want to do?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Kylie, there’s no going back. Once we take that step...”

“I know.”

“And you’ll do everything exactly the way I say.”

“I will.”

His brows crease. I can tell what he’s thinking. He doesn’t have to say it. We both understand. A thousand things could—hell, probably
will
—go wrong. But retreat isn’t an option. Still, I can’t help but feel like an enormous clock is hanging over us. I picture it not with a pendulum, but with a deadly sickle that swings back and forth. An hourglass with the sand running out. A lit fuse racing toward a final massive explosion.

My mind is in a fog. I think of all the young lovers who meet tragic ends. Romeo and Juliet. Bonnie and Clyde. Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters.

“Swear to me that you’ll be careful,” he says.

“I will.”

He props himself up on one elbow, studying me. “Kylie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

My heart does a funny little somersault. I catch my lower lip in my teeth. One thick lock of dark hair is falling in Beckett’s eye. I brush it back, and then say, “Maybe just a little?”

He smiles slightly, then draws his fingers between my breasts, resting his hand over my heart. “Maybe more than that.”

His lips claim mine. It isn’t a gentle kiss, but one that is raw and real, and robs me of breath. My mouth opens under his, inviting him to taste and explore. He kisses me as though he is claiming me, marking me as his in some urgent, primitive way.

A spark of lust curls deep in my belly. I grab his shoulders, draw my nails down his back, clutch Beckett’s tight, male ass. He kisses my throat, traces his hand over my hip. And just like that, I’m swept away, all lucid thought and pressurized terror abruptly vanquished. Despite the insanity surrounding us, we still have each other. For the next fleeting, glorious hour, there’s no Miguel Diaz, no Sun Yee, no Agent Reardon.

It’s just me and Beckett and the sheets that smell so good.