South by Southeast (17 page)

And I felt exiled from my one place of rest—April. Yes, she would listen and give me good advice, but every word I spoke would only reinforce her worst fears about me. I wanted to put off that final day of reckoning as long as I could. How could I tell her I was being drawn into another murder case? Or that she'd been right all along when she warned me that I couldn't save Chela
from her damaged past by hiding her and pretending we were a family?

If I'd been a crying man, I'd have spent my night in tears.

My first impulse in the face of catastrophe is to find a way to fix it, but no ideas came. I didn't have any cop sources in Miami. I couldn't let Chela stay in Miami now, much less use her as a tour guide through Maria's world. And any connection to
Freaknik,
no matter how far-fetched, was beside the point; I would be banned from the set unless I crawled back to Escobar. I could humiliate myself if I knew it would lead somewhere, but over wild speculation?

“This ends tonight,” I said to the empty room. I didn't recognize my own voice.

First thing in the morning, I would send Chela back to L.A. Dad and Marcela could keep the suite through the end of the week for a honeymoon, but my business in Miami was finished. I would try to find a police source to use Chela's hard-won information, but from a healthy distance. Maria had created enough destruction in my life. I wanted to raise that girl from the dead just to slap her face.

I thought I felt better by two in the morning, when I made my decision, but instead of going to bed, I went to the kitchen and opened the cabinet where we'd stashed the leftover booze from Marcela's party. I drink beer or a few glasses of wine now and then, but I'm not a drinking man. I don't like the headaches, dehydration, and judgment lapses alcohol brings. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been anything close to drunk.

But that night, I poured a glass of rum and splashed it with stale Coke. When that one was finished, I poured another. Maybe I wanted to make sure I slept, but I was wide awake. The walls of the hotel suite seemed to close in on me, blurry blandness, so I decided to go outside.

I needed a swim. In my hurry, I didn't bring bathing trunks or a
towel. I was so drunk that I would have been weaving if I'd climbed into my car. But I could walk to the beach.

South Beach never truly shuts down for the night, but by two, it had gone from a boil to a simmer. Traffic on Ocean Drive was at a steady pace, no longer clogged, so I dodged honking drivers while I reeled toward the sand. Saltwater perfumed the night air. Wind whipped sand granules across my cheeks as storm clouds hid the fat moon.

On the beach, the precious solitude of a night swim. Not a single person was in sight. Despite whatever hazards lay in the dark—beached jellyfish balloons, broken glass, even a shark fin gliding in the distance—the peace was worth the risk.

One of my loafers came off in a clump of damp sand near the shoreline. I flung off the other without slowing my pace, too drunk to care if I found either later. I stumbled out of my pants next, racing the rainclouds. My abandoned T-shirt turned invisible on the sand behind me. I splashed into the water, wearing only my briefs.

Cool water embraced my bare ankles. The Pacific had taught me to expect a shock of cold every time I waded into water, but I could handle the Atlantic. I barely noticed the chill. I closed my eyes and sank to my knees, up to my neck in water.

I wouldn't call what I did swimming. It was more some groggy kind of surrender. I floated on my back, only stroking when the waves upset my balance or plugged my nose. For all I know, I might have dozed. Half-formed thoughts and images about Chela broke through, dogging me.

The wind picked up, matching my mood.

The ocean floor rose as I approached a sand bar concealed beneath the water to the right of me. I was ready to swim to the sand bar to give myself a rest when the rip current hit me.

Every time I get drunk, I remember why I don't like to drink.

If I'd been sober, I would have paid more attention to the wind conditions and noticed the telltale swirling of the current near the
sand bar—the perfect recipe for rip currents. But I wasn't sober. I was so drunk that I'd barely been able to walk straight, and I was a long way from walking anywhere.

We forget how mighty nature can be. That current pulled me like a tractor towing a log.

Instead of snapping to alertness, my mind went blank with surprise. Instinct made me open my mouth wide and yell. Big mistake. I drank in so much saltwater that my throat and nose burned. The alcohol haze lifted, stripped.

Ten, you're in trouble,
a calm voice inside me said. I'd heard that voice before, and that voice was always right.

Under the best of circumstances, I'm not a great swimmer, just a good one. Drunk, I wasn't even that. I flailed and splashed, making the classic swimmer's mistake in the face of a rip current. As the current swept me out to sea, I tried to swim against it, toward the lights of shore. A few useless strokes were enough to remind me that I was no match for the ocean. But instincts are strong, and my eyes told me I would be safe if I swam away from the void.

Parallel!
the voice said, no longer calm.
Swim parallel to shore, across the rip!

I tried to change direction, struggling to judge my bearings through stinging eyes. By then, I could barely swim at all. My arms were filled with lead, and a bear of a cramp seized my right leg. I was coughing instead of breathing, craning to keep my head above the water's surface, still being swept away from shore with horrifying speed.

A wave devoured me, stealing my light and air, and the world went black. The certainty that I was about to die wasn't new, but the feeling never got easier. The ocean wasn't Spider, whose arrogance had cost him his life; the ocean didn't get tired, feel pity, or make mistakes. Its size was incomprehensible, and I have never felt more alone.

But I kept up my strokes, kicking despite my cramp, praying
that I was swimming in the right direction even while my lungs were aflame, promising me a fiery death in the depths.

Then I popped free of the current, as if it had gotten bored and spat me away. In all, less than a minute had passed, the longest seconds of my life.

By the time I reached shore, I was so tired from my struggle that I let out a choked yell of frustration to the empty beach before my feet finally touched the ocean floor. I crawled to shore, coughing. I vomited brine. My arms and legs trembled from adrenaline. My heart thrashed, punishing me for my stupidity. I hadn't been that scared in a long time.

I imagined what Maria's last moments had been like, her lungs afire, a terrified young woman at the ocean's mercy. Anyone could drown—anyone. Like me, she could have been drunk and foolish.

But what if her death had been worse than that? What if someone had held her in the water while she struggled for life? The idea of it made me vomit again.

The clouds broke, and the moon lit up the sand in ghostly blue-gray as far as I could see in either direction. The current had swept me so far from my origin that I had no hope of finding my clothes and shoes, but I had my briefs. Ocean Drive's party was still under way to the west, but the beach was deserted. I could have yelled out at the top of my lungs all night, and no one would have heard me.

The beach didn't fit the story. Maria hadn't survived the streets for years without wisdom. According to Chela, she didn't swim. Was afraid of water. Maybe Chela was right: the police just didn't give a shit, were ignoring evidence.
Hell, they're just strolling sperm banks.
Suddenly, it seemed obvious.

Chela's friend hadn't drowned accidentally; someone had killed her.

The killer might be someone Chela had met. Someone hiding in plain sight.

That dark knowledge weighed down my weary bones as I trudged barefoot on the sand back toward the lights.

Walking barefoot on Ocean Drive for three blocks in soggy underwear in the middle of the night doesn't turn as many heads as one might think.

Luckily, I'd had the sense to leave my phone waiting on the kitchen counter. I'd missed three calls and a text while I'd been gone. Once I'd rinsed the sand out of my hair in the kitchen sink and wrapped myself in a robe, I checked the screen. The message was from Len:

REPORT TO SET A.M.

GUS SEZ HE WAS A PRICK,

& HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE.

FORGIVE ME?

Even if I'd been holding a grudge, the ocean had reminded me not to be petty. Len should have stood up for me, taking my side until he had evidence that he shouldn't, but I could understand why Len's trust in me was frayed. His message on my phone lightened my heart, almost making me smile.

I would be staying in Miami after all.

USUALLY, I PASSED
the hours in the makeup chair listening to Walter Mosley or Michael Connelly audio books, but now I had a mission that couldn't wait for my hangover headache to subside. The search for Maria's killer would be the easy part. First, the hard part.

I caught April by phone at barely 7:00
A.M
. her time, so she was still in bed. After I told April what I needed from her, the sleep shook from her voice. “You want me to what?”

“It's just for a few days, maybe till the end of the week. I have to keep working, and I can't leave her here. We had a breach of trust.” I left it at that. I would tell April more if I needed to, but I knew Chela wouldn't want me to share too much. Besides, I didn't want to tell April I was working on another case. I'd almost been killed at least three times since we'd met, and she didn't want that life of worry.

“Did you get sunstroke?” April said. “Chela can't stand me.”

“That's not true. She's warmed up to you. She'll do what I ask her to do.”

“Since when?”

Touché. But I had leverage over Chela—she wanted me to look into her friend's death, and I wouldn't agree to do that unless she agreed to leave Miami and stay with April. Period.

“Since now, April.”

April sighed. “She's eighteen, Ten. Can't she just stay at your house?”

I'd thought about that but decided against it. I didn't know what kind of emotional impact Chela's night out would have on her, and I didn't want her to be alone. April would give her someone to report to, at least in theory. “It's better if she's with you.”

“Better for whom?” April said, irritated. “This isn't a fair position to put me in. You know how Chela feels about me, and now I'm supposed to be some kind of . . . den mother?”

“Chela told me she hopes she can find a relationship like ours.”

April stopped in mid-rant. “She said that?”

“Yeah, I was telling her how honest I've been with you, how you've been there for me. She thinks you're good for me. And you don't have to watch over her every minute. She'll have her car, she'll hang out with her boyfriend. She's grown now. I just want her to have someone I trust to go home to.”

I hadn't told April a thing, and I'd already said too much.

“Ten . . . is Chela in danger?” she said.

“She got mixed up with some bad elements down here, an old friend from the streets. I think it'll be fine, but I want her back in L.A.”

“Chela knows we're not still . . . ?”

Invisible cymbals crashed against my temples. It was my fault for bringing up our relationship, but I hated the reminder. “She knows,” I said. “We're just friends.” Friends who slept together at every opportunity, but I didn't nitpick. I hadn't been able to give April what she wanted when I had my chance, and now I was stuck with her rules.

April sighed. She probably suspected I hadn't told her everything, or she'd heard enough. Either way, that sigh told me she would let Chela stay with her.