Promises I Made (3 page)

“The mall is fine.” I didn't need the memories of the ocean, and I didn't want to risk running into Logan or any of the guys. They usually surfed at the Cove, but I'd heard them mention moving north to Torrance or Redondo Beach when the swells were better there.

We continued up Hawthorne Boulevard, past the Galleria mall, where Selena and I went shopping on the day we really became friends. Other than Parker, she was the only
person I'd ever gotten close to, the only person I'd really let in. I wondered what she had done with my betrayal. If she replayed our time together, searching for clues, blaming herself for not seeing it sooner. I hoped not. It wasn't her fault. No one ever saw us coming. That was why Cormac and Renee needed Parker and me so much. We made them look normal, allowed them to hide behind the façade of a picture-perfect family.

“How's that?” the driver said, tipping her head at an Econo Lodge on the corner. “Close to everything, probably cheap.”

“Great, thanks,” I said.

The car dipped as she pulled into the hotel parking lot. I looked at the meter and dug in my bag for money, then passed it over the seat with an extra five dollars when she stopped in front of the lobby. Five dollars was on the low end of fair for a tip, but perfectly appropriate for someone my age. I didn't want to stand out as some kind of teenage high roller.

“Have a great time in Mexico,” Meg said as I opened the door. “But keep your wits about you. It can be as dangerous as it is beautiful.”

I watched her go, the words ringing in my ears.

I walked about a half a mile before I saw a Motel 6. I could have stayed at the Econo Lodge, but I didn't want to risk some kind of belated recognition on the part of the taxi driver. The streets were empty except for the traffic whizzing past in both directions, but I wasn't afraid here. I could smell the ocean even from Hawthorne Boulevard, feel the briny weight of it, and I felt safe against all reason.

The hotel was comfortingly nondescript, the white tile floors polished to an antiseptic shine, the walls filled with generic prints of the ocean. It was after three in the morning, and the only person in the lobby was a guy in his twenties, clean-cut and wearing a name tag that read
Brad
, who was manning the front desk. I told him I was a light sleeper and requested a room at the end of the hall. Then I handed over my Seattle ID and paid for two nights.

I took an elevator to the second floor and followed the brass placards pointing toward my room number. Being at the end of the hall would serve more than one purpose: I would be able to get out fast if the situation called for it, and I could use the stairwell instead of the elevator without having to walk past a bunch of different rooms. All of which meant less exposure, fewer people who could identity me if things went bad.

I used my key card to enter the room and locked the door, finishing with the brass bar at the top. Turning on the lights, I scanned the room. Closet just outside the bathroom on my immediate left, dresser with TV and mini coffeemaker, bed, two nightstands, small table and chairs by the window.

I dropped my backpack on the bed and crossed the room. Pulling back the curtain, I wasn't surprised to see that the window didn't open. That was standard for hotel rooms, whose parent companies didn't want to be sued when people got drunk or careless. The same was true for balconies, which Cormac had told me most hotels used to have but which were now all but obsolete.

I looked past the parking lot at the sparse traffic moving below, the ocean a blank space beyond the city. Exhaustion, heavy and suffocating, fell over me like a wet blanket. I hadn't slept well on the train, and the last time I'd been in a bed had been at the crappy motel in Seattle two nights ago. There were things I needed to do, but I wouldn't be able to deal with any of them if I didn't get some sleep.

I pulled the curtains closed and headed for the bathroom,
where I took a long, hot shower. I threw on the only pajamas I'd brought, a pair of loose boxer shorts and a tank top, and stared at my face in the mirror as I combed through my short, choppy hair. Usually, my blue eyes were the one thing that brought me back to myself. I might change my hair for the con, and I often changed the kind of clothes I wore to fit in with our mark. But my eyes were the one thing that always stayed the same. Now I hardly recognized myself in them. They were still blue, but there was a deadness there I hadn't seen before. Or maybe, like so many things, I'd just never looked hard enough to notice.

I turned away from the mirror. Then I shut off the light and fell into bed.

The curtains in the hotel room blocked out everything so that I was only dimly aware of the passing of time. I woke up to go to the bathroom, and once to guzzle from one of the water bottles I still had in my backpack. The room was always dark, although at some point I woke to find a sliver of gold shining through a crack in the curtains, the only indication of daylight outside the room. My limbs felt heavy, like I was moving underwater, and while I knew I needed to wake up, to do something, I could never do more than fall back into the pillowy hotel bed. For a while, nothing seemed to exist outside of the bland room, and I twice turned away knocks for housekeeping. I didn't want to leave my sleep-fueled delirium. Everything was so much easier when all you had to worry about was going to the bathroom or getting a drink of water.

Finally I opened my eyes and knew that I was awake, really awake, for the first time in days. Hunger gnawed at my stomach, and my lips were chapped from the air conditioner.

I picked up the complimentary newspaper outside my door and looked at the date. May thirteenth. I'd been asleep for two whole days. Two days that Parker had been in jail. Two days when I'd done nothing to get him out.

The thought mobilized me. I took another shower and put on cargo capris and a tank top. They had once been part of my uniform in Playa Hermosa, but I'd had to ditch them for the black jeans and dark sweaters that became part of my Seattle persona. I felt exposed in my California clothes, the antithesis of the rocker hair and dark eyeliner I'd been wearing since Christmas, but I didn't want to stand out too much while I was here.

When I was dressed, I packed everything into my backpack and left the room. I couldn't risk leaving my stuff just in case someone discovered my whereabouts while I was out. I had to be mobile, ready to run and hide, at all times.

I stopped at the front desk and paid for one more night, trying not to stress as I peeled another hundred and twenty dollars from the stack of bills I'd stolen from Cormac. Then I walked to the Denny's next door and chose a seat in the back, as far from the windows as I could get.

I ordered a giant breakfast of blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and black coffee before taking my notebook out of my bag and starting the lists I would need
to organize the next phase of my mission. The first one was easy.
Things I Need:
a track phone, a prepaid credit card, a new ID, sunglasses, laundry soap, a few toiletries.

The next one was a lot harder.

I wrote
WICDTHP
at the top of the second page. It stood for
What I Can Do to Help Parker
, but I didn't dare spell it out in case I was caught by the police.

I was still staring at the blank page when the waitress brought my food. I closed my notebook and leaned back in the booth while she set all the plates and a carafe of coffee on the table. The tag on her uniform said her name was Ashley, and she wasn't much older than me. Her hair was blond, almost the exact shade mine had been when we were in Playa Hermosa. Her face was bright and open, the face of someone who'd never had to hide anything important. I wondered about her. Was she working her way through college? Saving for a gap year? What would it be like to have a life where you could wake up with your own name? Where you didn't have to look over your shoulder all the time?

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

“No, thanks.”

I devoured the eggs, bacon, and toast before pulling the plate of pancakes toward me. Then I opened my notebook and shoveled bites into my mouth while I studied the blank page, my mind turning over the possibilities. It didn't take me long to realize the list of things I could to do help Parker was short: I could break him out of jail or I could turn myself in.

Breaking him out of jail was basically out of the question. I might as well just turn myself in and save everyone the trouble, because there was no way I could get someone out of the LA County Jail system. And even if I could, it would take time and planning. A lot of time and planning. I would need resources way beyond the ones I had. At some point, Parker would go to trial. After that, my chance to help him would be gone, and I couldn't let that happen. Parker wouldn't survive a long sentence. Not because he wasn't tough; he was one of the toughest people I'd ever met. But he had a wild heart. Even with Cormac and Renee, Parker would slink off into the dark, disappearing for hours and sometimes even days without a word. Being in a cage would kill him.

Which brought me back to turning myself in. Could I trade myself for Parker? Would they go easier on him if I stepped forward and corroborated his story, that he and I had been adopted by Cormac and Renee to further their cons? That we'd had little choice but to follow the lead of the only parents we had? They were truths I'd avoided for a long time, but that time was past. I had to be honest now—starting with myself—because I was finally beginning to understand that those were the most dangerous lies of all.

Would an attorney be able to tell me if turning myself in was an option? I was pretty sure they couldn't rat me out if I paid them something. Then I would be their client, and they were obligated by law to keep the confidence of a client. At least, I thought that was how it worked.

I did some quick math on the next page of my notebook. I
still had a little over twenty-four hundred dollars. It sounded like a lot, but at a hundred and twenty dollars a night, the hotel would eat through my money fast, and that wasn't counting the cost of food and transportation. At my current spending rate, I guessed I had enough money for a couple of weeks. I might be able to find a slightly cheaper hotel, but nothing was really cheap in the neighborhoods surrounding Playa Hermosa, and a less expensive hotel would buy me an extra week or two at most. I didn't know how long it would take to help Parker, but I was pretty sure it would be longer than that.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and toyed with the possibility of renting a room or studio apartment. I quickly discarded the idea. By the time I paid first and last months' rent, plus a security deposit—something I knew was required from all the places Cormac and Renee had rented for us—it would be a wash. Definitely not worth the extra exposure.

I watched as Ashley came back and cleared the dishes from the table. I could get a job. Maybe. But then I'd need a new Social Security card and ID, both of which would take time and connections. And there was the exposure problem again. Bosses and coworkers and customers. No good.

I'd known I was going into my rescue mission unprepared, but I'd expected to have more money at least. More money meant more time to figure things out. Now I was short on both.

“Can I get you some fresh coffee?” Ashley asked.

I shook my head. “Just the check, thanks.”

She reached into the apron at her waist and withdrew my ticket. “Have a great day.”

“You too,” I said. I wondered what she would do after her shift. Go to the gym? Meet up with friends at the beach?

I paid the check and headed for a Rite Aid two blocks down. It was almost noon, but the temperature was mild, the sun hiding behind the marine layer blowing in off the beach. The coastal eddy, I think they called it. Selena had once told me that it didn't get really hot and sunny in the South Bay until late July. Before then, a heavy layer of clouds rolled in off the ocean, draping itself over the area like a soggy blanket. It kept the temperatures mild and sometimes even cool, the antithesis of the stereotypical Southern California climate.

I forced myself to be vigilant as I walked, watching for signs that I'd been made: nondescript cars with more than one person hiding behind sunglasses or a newspaper, windowless vans that could be hiding surveillance equipment, an unusual number of clean-cut guys in an area known for hippies and surfers. But everything was cool, the sidewalks basically empty. This was the Southern California suburbs; no one walked anywhere when they could drive instead.

At Rite Aid I picked up the stuff from my list and started back for the hotel. I entered through the front doors first and took the elevator up, but instead of stopping at the door to my room, I continued on to the stairwell, wanting to make sure no one was waiting there. I'd heard too many
of Cormac's raid stories—accounts of fellow grifters who'd been caught—to be careless so close to Playa Hermosa. According to Cormac, SWAT teams hid on fire escapes and in adjoining apartments, in stairwells and in work vans. Sometimes someone would come to the door disguised as a delivery person, asking for a signature to make sure they got the right person before the rest of the team swooped in. Other times a group of them would come in full force so the suspect wouldn't have time to plan an escape.

I took the stairs to the first floor, confirmed that the stairwell was empty, and headed back upstairs to let myself into the room. Housekeeping had come while I was gone, and the room looked exactly like it had when I'd checked in two days before.

I put my backpack down on the bed and set my laptop up on the little table by the window. I used my new prepaid credit card to access the Wi-Fi for the next twenty-four hours, then signed up for an account on a VPN to mask my activity.

I started by looking up attorney-client privilege. According to Wikipedia, privilege existed as long as the communication happens between a client and his or her attorney for the sake of securing legal advice. I read through the list of exceptions, my gaze snagging on the third one:
the communication is made for the purpose of committing a crime
. I wasn't planning to commit a crime. Was I? Did it count that I was willing to do anything to get Parker out of jail? What if I talked to the attorney and then decided that committing another crime was the only way to do it? Would the possible
logistics of my situation—like getting a new fake ID—count as committing a crime?

I didn't know, and I wasn't willing to risk finding out. I filed the option away for later consideration and went back over the newspaper articles about the Fairchild con and Parker's arrest.

I typed the name of Parker's attorney into the search bar, then clicked Images. A severe-looking woman blossomed in several photographs across the screen. Her face was smooth and unlined, her red hair pulled back into a tight bun. Once I had a picture of her in my mind, I searched for information about her other cases, hoping she had experience with at least one high-profile case like Parker's. But the closest she'd come was a robbery gone bad in Hawthorne. The suspect had been seventeen and coerced into the theft by his older brother, a well-known gangbanger. The younger brother was convicted as an adult and sentenced to ten years for accessory to murder. Not exactly promising.

I read through articles on the Fairchild theft chronologically, starting with the ones that appeared right after we'd stolen the gold. There were stock photos of Warren, commanding in a suit and tie, obviously some kind of promotional photo for the billion-dollar company owned by his father. The picture held no trace of the Warren I knew, the mentally ill man who'd stockpiled gold in a bunker under his carriage house, security against an unknown threat that only he saw coming. There were a few pictures of Parker, too, and my heart leaped into my throat at the defiant lift of his chin, the stubborn shine in his eyes. His face was more
familiar to me than my own, and I suddenly missed him with a force that almost brought me to my knees.

I clicked on more of the results, skimming the articles for something, anything, I could use.

. . . Detective Castillo said the investigation is ongoing.

A press release issued by lead detective Raul Castillo claimed that . . .

. . . questions into the investigation, led by Detective Castillo . . .

It didn't sound like they had much. Parker wasn't talking. I knew it was because of me. He didn't care about the grifter code. If he could have sold Cormac and Renee down the river to save himself, he would have. And I didn't blame him. But he knew I'd gotten away, and he had no idea what had happened with Renee. He probably thought I was still with her and Cormac, and he would never do anything to put me in danger.

My stomach twisted. I needed to get word to him that I was in town. That I was going to help him. But first I needed to figure out what to do.

I looked at the name on my screen. Raul Castillo.