Beware Beware (32 page)

My eyes stung. “Why? I didn't help you. You didn't need me to get everything to fall in place.”

She looked down and spoke slowly, with care but without apology. “I needed someone to keep me posted.” She paused, then added, “I needed you to tell me when to run.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, already knowing.

“I'm in your hands, Song. You decide what happens to me. If you tell everything to the police, I just want you to give me a head start.”

“And you'd do what?”

“I'm not going to jail for this. My life is all mine now, and it's just beginning. I'll start over if I have to. I'll disappear, shed my history, build a new one from scratch.”

“From scratch? Oh, Daph. You think you can shed a murder? You couldn't even shed Lanya.”

“I was close enough,” she said. “I can do it again if I have to.”

“And what about me? Do you expect me to help you?”

“No,” she said. “I don't need your help.”

“If you don't need my help, why are you still here? Why stick around until you're in a position to get caught?”

“It's a fair question,” she said coolly. “I could have taken off days ago. I made all the arrangements before I left New York. I came here knowing I might never go back.”

“So why didn't you leave?”

“Because I knew I might not have to.” She said this so breezily that I almost wanted to shake her.

“Oh? And why not?”

“There was always a chance, a pretty good one, that I'd get caught. In that case, I had you to let me know when that might happen. But there was a chance, too, that no one would ever find out.”

“Was?”

“There's still a chance, I think. A good one.”

I stared at her, trying to determine whether there was a threat between the lines. “Didn't you tell me the other day, how freeing it was to become someone new? Why not take off, have that clean start?”

“I wasn't lying,” she said. “It was incredibly freeing. But back then, I hated who I was. I was a nobody from nowhere, nothing at all but a victim. It's not like that anymore. I'm twenty-seven now. Still young, maybe, but an adult, with a place in the world that I've earned for myself, that it'd be pretty damn hard to recreate. I'm not asking you to feel sorry for me, Song, but you know what I've been through. I deserve to keep what I've earned.”

“You deserve to get away with murder?”

“I deserved revenge.”

“So, what, you think I'll let you walk out of love for you?”

She winced, and I almost felt bad for the bite in my tone. “In part, I would hope. But no.”

“What then?”

“Taejin Chung. Lori's uncle. He's something to you, isn't he?”

It took me a second to process what she was saying—I hadn't expected to hear that name from her lips, and the non sequitur threw me. When I did I blinked hard at her, then made my gaze cold. “Are you threatening him?”

She shook her head quickly, almost laughing, like we'd had the most benign misunderstanding. “No, I would never do that.”

I wondered about the sort of thing Daphne Freamon would never do. She'd crossed the bridge on deceit, betrayal, and murder. She'd thrown away every decent notion of sex and love in the name of revenge. She was angry, burning and dangerous.

And yet as soon as she said it, I knew she would never hurt Taejin, who had never hurt her. I knew, and had known all along, that she would never hurt me. She scared me, but it was her immensity that did it. I feared her like an insomniac fears the death of the sun.

I softened my tone. “What about him, then?”

“He's in trouble, isn't he?”

I gave her a tentative nod. I wanted to see where she was going.

“If you let me be, and—listen, because this is more important—if you let Cole be, then no one will go near Taejin ever again. Cole can guarantee that.” She bit her lip and added, “And that goes for Lori, too.”

It wasn't a threat, but an offer of protection, a provision of something I hadn't had before. Until recently I'd thought I could be Lori's whole shelter. But I knew now that I had no power—that if Daphne hadn't removed Winfred, he would have done all he could to coerce her into being his possession.

“You're asking me to cover up murder.”

“Joe Tilley, Winfred Park—these guys didn't deserve anything better.”

“You forgot about Donnie. He was an idiot, but he didn't deserve to be executed.”

She shifted her eyes. “No,” she said. “I didn't know about him. Cole killed him for his own reasons. Those reasons have nothing to do with me, or you.”

The logic was flimsy and self-serving, and I realized my moral core was still too weakened to fight it. I was picturing a life without shadows approaching just beyond the horizon, of a lasting, comfortable peace for me and mine.

“Never mind,” I said. “Cole is a killer, and there's no sense pretending he's some vigilante bringing evil men to justice. You're offering me something I can't buy anywhere else. The price is a piece of my good character, low as all hell in the scheme of things. No need to sugarcoat that.”

I walked to the sink, feeling Daphne's eyes on my back. I drank water out of the dirty cup of my hand. I splashed my face and stood in silence, squeezing hard at my temples.

I opened the refrigerator on an idle impulse. It was a full fridge, the first I'd lived with since reaching adulthood. I stared at the stacked containers of kimchi fried rice; Lori's cooking, my nourishment. I paced around the apartment, taking in the shared totality of the place where I lived. My home.

It was the first home I'd had in almost ten years that amounted to more than a few plain walls and a roof over my head. I hadn't lived with family or anyone else since my sister committed suicide. My mom was good for a phone call now and then, for occasional spoonfuls of love ladled with guilt she couldn't handle. I knew better than to demand any more than that. Lori was my family now. She was the sister who remained among the living, the only one I could count on, and who continued to count on me.

I sat back down and Daphne waited for me to speak.

“It's a deal, okay? No one goes near Taejin, no one even breathes in Lori's direction, and I won't say a true word about you or Colson from this moment on.”

She pushed forward out of her seat and threw her arms around me. Her lips grazed my cheek. “Thank you, Song. You're a good friend.”

“Just promise me I'll never see you again.”

I accepted the embrace, and it filled me with shame and remorse.

*   *   *

She went back to Lori's bedroom and emerged with Jamie a minute later. He was fully dressed and had a rumpled, mournful look, his back curved and his head hung low. I stared at him as he walked across the room. He couldn't meet my eyes. None of us said a word, and when they left I walked to the door and locked it decisively behind them.

 

Eighteen

I spent the rest of the day in a funk of misery, self-loathing, rage, and denial. Lori came home at some point, having dismissed Isaac to speed to my side. She trailed me around the apartment like an obsequious dog, refusing to let me alone. To be fair, I never asked her to leave, and I didn't much want her to, either.

She sat with me while I drank myself stupid, and she fed me when she thought I should eat. It was obvious enough that she was waiting for me to talk to her, but I found I couldn't trust myself to say anything at all.

I didn't like having secrets: They festered, gangrenous, and diminished my relationships with the people I valued. Lori had a right to know what had happened to Winfred, and about the dubious agreement I'd struck with Daphne. She would have had an opinion, might have urged me to do the right thing. But as she ran circles around me, attending to my every need with such tenderness I thought, many times, I might cry, I came to an easy decision. Lori didn't need to know any of it, and I would never tell her.

I'd lived twenty-seven years as an honest person, but that phase of my life was over. I was part of the nastiness now, another cheap asshole willing to shoulder her share of corruption. I had no illusions of martyrdom, but I'd gone to a place where I couldn't take anyone without transmitting the taint of my sin. Lori's uninfected innocence was worth more than my peace of mind. I would bear this criminal's cross alone.

*   *   *

I was asleep by nine o'clock, and I stayed that way for over twelve hours. When I woke up, I felt for a long moment that I had only the vaguest idea of where, or who, I was.

The phone was ringing, a sound I remembered from the other side of consciousness. I picked it up almost on reflex, mumbled a sleep-drenched greeting.

“It's Veronica Sanchez,” she said. “I'm sorry to say this, but Jamie Landon is dead.”

The news woke me up like a bucket of water. I sat up and gripped my forehead, willed my mouth to shape itself around a word. “What?” I asked after a long silence. “When? Where? How?”

“Last night, it looks like. Roommates found him in his room this morning. Looks like an overdose, but that's about all the detail I've got so far.”

“Accidental?”

“Unclear,” she said.

“No note?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Written confession would've been nice. We don't really get that lucky.”

“Do you think it was suicide?”

“Could've been, sure. He was in a tight spot, and he had the means.” She sighed. “It's too bad. It's not like he would've gotten the death penalty, even if he were convicted.”

I found myself nodding to the rhythm of her voice.

“Are you there?”

“I'm here.”

“I'm sorry. I know you liked him.”

“I did, yeah,” I said. “Thanks for getting in touch. Very decent of you.”

“You're taking it okay, huh?”

The shock had dispersed into a detached appreciation of loss that must have come through in my voice. I recognized that I would have been much more distraught just the day before. “I'm just stunned, I guess. Were you hoping to comfort me?”

“You're too butch for my tastes, Juniper Song.” She let out a loose laugh, somber enough for the occasion.

I lay back down with my free arm flung across my forehead. “So, what happens now?”

There was a long pause followed by a quick exhale. “Well,” she said. “I guess we all go home.”

*   *   *

I stayed in bed for another hour, examining the texture of the ceiling. I had a lot to process.

Jamie Landon was dead. Suicide was plausible, as was a fatal disregard for the act of staying alive. I found I didn't care much, one way or another. I was even a little surprised at the extent of my callousness.

But one train of thought kept passing through my head: Jamie's death was almost too perfect to have been unplotted.

Daphne's plan had been a good one, but Jamie's death gave it a lasting, imperturbable elegance. His shame had been her insurance, but his death was clearly stronger. She was free, free, free. He could never speak against her now.

There was neatness and symmetry, too, that didn't exist with Jamie alive. The facts supported a universal rule: Daphne's rapists didn't live long.

I wondered if she and Young King could have pulled it off. Found Jamie home alone, forced him to snort enough coke to make sure his heart stopped. I wondered if it were possible, and whether she would have cared to try. My brain tied itself into knots, wondering and wondering.

So I stopped. Jamie was dead, and Daphne, after branding me, was out of my life for good. I would never know all the answers, and what would I do with them anyway? I got out of bed and went to work.

*   *   *

I practiced lying to Chaz on my way to the office. I kept the radio off and sounded out my sentences, crafting them around crutches of truth, listening for telltale notes of hollowness. I had never lied to him before. I had never even been tempted.

He was in his office and he seemed to be waiting for me when I came in.

“Sit down,” he said.

“Have you heard?” I asked. “Jamie's dead.”

“What? Jesus H. Christ.”

“I guess the news isn't out yet. Detective Sanchez called me this morning.”

“How did it happen?”

“Cocaine overdose. No call on whether it was accidental or not. Either way seems plausible, given his position.”

He nodded and rubbed at his chin. “How're you holding up? I know you had some affection for the guy.”

“Thanks. I'm okay,” I said. “I guess I might be in shock or something.”

“What happens with the Tilley investigation?”

“I don't know,” I said. “But it sounds probable that this is the end of it. The prime suspect is dead. There aren't any others on the table.”

“What do you think? Do you think Jamie Landon murdered Joe Tilley after all?”

My heart grew unruly, and I tried my best to ignore it. “Yeah, I do,” I said.

“Really? What changed your mind?”

I shrugged. “He looks guilty, doesn't he? He's out of jail for five minutes and he ODs? That doesn't seem like the righteous action of a wrongfully accused man.”

“So, why would he have wanted to hire you?”

“I asked you that same question two days ago and you said something about OJ. Are you suddenly set on his innocence?”

“I found something interesting,” he said.

“What is it?” I spoke too eagerly, overcompensating for my sense of dread.

“Do you remember he had a little notch on his college record?”

“Vaguely,” I said. “I think it was just some kind of reprimand.”

“Well, I did some digging. Found out what it was about.”

My mouth went dry. His school record had come up on InvestiGate, but I hadn't thought to explore it. I would have followed up on a suspension, maybe, but the reprimand had seemed too trivial.