Slowly I came out of my corner. I stuck close to the wall, though, just in case. Something strange was happening here. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I’d better be prepared for who knew what to leap out at me from somewhere.
I sidled along the wall, the rough stucco scraping against my back. I came to the first of three windows on that side of the house. It was just as tightly curtained as the one in front. The fence I had jumped over was easily seven feet high. Why bother pulling the curtains on a window that no one could see in? I shrugged and moved on. Maybe it was a bedroom and the person liked to sleep late. Or had migraines. Or was allergic to the sun.
I checked my sense again but still didn’t catch the familiar hum of anything of the other realms. If whatever was in there was allergic to the sun, it was a real allergy, not a characteristic of their supernatural nature.
The situation was the same at the next window and the next. Not a pinpoint of light coming out or going in.
As I peered around the corner of the house, I spotted the generator in the backyard. It wasn’t exactly a feat of sleuthing. The thing was huge and red and noisy as hell. But it was neatly hidden away inside a little structure, which muffled the racket down to a hum.
I could see a system of wires and pipes coming from the generator shed, leading to the other side of the house. I hesitated before I went to follow it, though. In California, most houses like this one opened onto the backyard. That was where the pool was for family playtime and the patio for family barbecues and the swing set for kiddie play-dates. Usually the back side of the house featured a lot of glass—sliding glass doors and big picture windows—to unify the indoors and the outdoors. At least, that’s how Aunt Kitty always put it.
This backyard didn’t exactly look played in. The pool had been drained and was being used as a garbage pit by whoever lived here. No barbecue, no swing set. Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone sitting inside the house looking out the window and admiring the generator.
I sidled around the corner, careful to check sight lines. So far I didn’t see anyone, and the windows on the back side of the house were as completely covered as all the others. I crept a little farther, stopping every step or two to listen for any sign of human occupation.
There wasn’t any. Nothing I could see or hear at least, and the blasted skunk smell masked anything I might pick up with my nose.
I crept farther, back flat against the wall. I reached the edge of the wall. I braced myself and took a quick peek around the corner.
More curtains.
I took a deep breath and relaxed a little. Whoever lived here—if anybody was actually living here—sure did value privacy.
I made my way across the backyard. I didn’t exactly saunter, but I wasn’t creeping along the walls like a spider anymore. I followed the pipes and wires from the generator to the other side of the house. Surprise, surprise. That was where the meter was.
I am not an electrician. That hasn’t been one of the areas that Mae felt I needed education in. Nevertheless, I looked at that mess of wires and black plastic and knew with certainty that Pacific Gas and Electric had nothing to do with the way the generator in the backyard was wired into the house.
Something was so definitely not right here, yet I really wasn’t sure what it was. I was pretty sure, however, that it was time to go. I took my running steps back and prepared to bounce over the fence again.
That’s when I noticed the security cameras.
IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO KICK ONE’S OWN ASS FROM ONE SIDE OF town to the other, that is precisely what I did. There was a huge fence. There were tightly curtained windows. Would it have killed me to look up for a security camera? I was reasonably sure I had been out of the camera sight lines for most of my trip around the house. I’d stuck pretty close to the walls and would have had the scratches on my back from the stucco to prove it, but they’d already healed, leaving a prickly sensation across my back, but no blood.
I was pretty sure, however, that I’d been right in the line of sight of the last camera before I cleared the wall and that I’d looked right up into it, giving anyone who might be watching a very clear view of my face.
On the bright side, I didn’t have a lot of identifying marks. No moles. No scars. No tattoos with my name and birth date on my neck. My car had been parked blocks away. If someone had been watching—and that struck me now as a pretty big if since no one had come charging out with guns blazing or hopping out ready to eat my flesh with undead glee—how would they figure out who I was?
The fact that they’d followed me to Aldo’s and taken the envelope from me left me feeling uneasy, but it was possible that they still didn’t know who—or what—I was.
By the time I reached I-5, I was breathing normally and my heart no longer pounded in a hummingbird kind of cadence.
I did, however, damn near pee my pants when my cell phone rang. The number was restricted, but I jammed the earbud of my headset into my ear and answered anyway. “Hello?”
“Are you driving?”
I recognized the voice instantly, even without the scent of cinnamon. Although oddly, I thought I could smell snickerdoodles once Ted Goodnight started talking to me, even over the phone. “I am.”
“Are you using a hands-free device?”
I smiled. Boy, he was bossy. Good thing he was so cute, even if he was a ’Dane. “I am, as a matter of fact.”
“Good.”
He didn’t say anything for a second.
“Is that why you called? To make sure I was obeying the cell phone law?” I finally asked. “I’m not texting or drinking either, in case you were worried about me breaking those laws, too. I did change lanes in an intersection earlier. I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of Goody Two-shoes.”
“I don’t think that, and I didn’t call to check to see if you were breaking laws.” Another pause.
“So you called for another reason?” I prompted. Conversation was not going to be this guy’s strong point, obviously, which was probably okay since I can pretty much talk the hind leg off a donkey when I’m nervous and this guy definitely made me a little antsy.
I heard the breath of his sigh from the other end of the phone. “I had a crappy day and I suddenly wanted to hear your voice. What time do you get off work?”
I mentally took back the crack about him being a lousy conversationalist. Those two sentences pretty much melted my hard little heart. I glanced in my rearview mirror. For a second, I could have sworn I’d seen a black SUV behind me. Either it changed lanes or was a figment of my somewhat paranoid imagination. After I saw
I Am Legend
, I spent two weeks convinced there were undead vampire dogs around every corner. I turned my attention back to Ted. “Seven tomorrow morning. I work the night shift.”
“Oh.” His disappointment was palpable. Then in a brighter tone, he said, “How about breakfast?”
Now it was my turn to pause. What exactly was I flirting with here? I mean, besides the obvious answer that I was flirting with a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped man with sun-kissed skin and hair that would make a supermodel weep? I was flirting with a cop. Oh, sure, we’d held hands and watched the sunrise together—another thing that was way too sweet to be real. He was still a cop and did all kinds of cop-type things, like arrest people. And lecture them about driving and talking on their cell phones. How long would it be until something happened that I wouldn’t be able to explain away? What would he do then? How would I be forced to respond? “Is this a date?” I asked.
“Breakfast doesn’t seem very datelike,” he said. “Could it just be, you know, breakfast?”
“Just, you know, breakfast sounds great.” It wasn’t a date. I could do that. I knew I was walking a dangerous line, but damn it, I love snickerdoodles. “So, as long as we’re chitchatting here on my hands-free device, hypothetically speaking, can you think of a reason why a house would have a generator in the backyard, a funny smell and a lot of security around it?”
He paused again. “Where is this house?” He didn’t sound all funny and tongue-tied anymore. He sounded a little angry and back to bossy. See? Cop stuff.
“Nowhere,” I lied. Lying comes very naturally to me. I’ve been doing it a long time. I don’t think it can be taught. It’s sort of a Zen thing. You have to be one with whatever untruth you’re putting out in the universe. “I was just curious.”
“That’s a pretty specific set of things to be curious about. Are you sure you didn’t see a house like that? Is it in your neighborhood? Or near the hospital?” Wow. He could get serious fast.
“I’m sure I haven’t seen a house like that,” I said. “It’s just a hypothetical question.”
“Hypothetically speaking, then,” he said after another pause, “I would say that a house like that was a grow house.”
There was a flash of black in my rearview mirror again. I glanced but didn’t see anything. “A what?”
“A grow house. A house where someone is growing marijuana, a lot of marijuana.”
I let my head fall back against the velour headrest. The skunky smell made sense now. Geez, was I ever an idiot. There was a reason they called it skunk weed.
I’ve got nothing against weed. If you ask me, they should legalize the damn stuff and then tax the holy hell out of it just like they do with booze. Think of the millions of dollars in revenue that could be generated, the school programs that could be supported, the highways that could be paved and the hospitals that could be built. That said, it isn’t legal now, and buying it and using it therefore demand that one associate with people who don’t mind breaking the law in bigger ways than lighting up the occasional doobie. Plus, if it was legal, they could regulate it a little better. It’s one thing if a forty-year-old wants to have a puff or two after a hard week. It’s an entirely different thing when a fourteen-year-old is lighting up behind the gym between classes. I realize plenty of underage kids drink. I just think there are a lot fewer of them than there would be if there was no regulation at all.
I was still a little confused. “Why would they grow it in a house?”
“Because we’ve been cracking down on outdoor cultivation and because they can grow it faster and stronger inside with hydroponics. Plus, with all the foreclosures, if they can get financing, they can snap up houses damn cheap right now.” I liked his voice. I’d spent so much time focusing on how good he smelled every time we’d been together that I hadn’t noticed his voice. I liked the little bit of a rumble it had. I bet it would feel great whispering in my ear when it wasn’t coming through a hands-free device.
“Who’s they?” What the hell had I stumbled on? A network of grow houses? What would marijuana farmers have to do with Chinese vampires?
“The usual suspects. Gangs. Mafia. Tongs.”
That was it. I was done. We had just gone outside my comfort zone. I pulled off the freeway and headed toward home. “That they.”
“Yeah, Melina. That they. A they you should seriously consider staying very far away from. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where you saw this house?”
“I’m telling you, there’s no house.” And I’m having cocktails with the Easter Bunny later today.
“Is it connected to the reason you were in the area at that gang fight?” he pressed.
“Nothing’s connected to that. It was a coincidence. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Geez, did he ever let go of anything? Were we going to be rocking on the porch in our golden years with him still asking me about that? Dear Lord, why was I thinking about rocking on a porch with him when I was an old lady?
He sighed again. “Right. We’ll talk more at breakfast, okay?”
Not really, but the idea of free pancakes won me over. “You betcha.”
11
DOREEN FLIPPED A WALLET ONTO MY DESK. “CAN YOU GET THIS guy’s paperwork started? I think everything you need is in there.”
“Is he truly hurt too much to sit in the chair?” I gestured with my chin at the rolling chair across the counter. I don’t like going through people’s wallets. First of all, you never know what might be lurking in one. People keep crazy shit in their wallets. Second, it makes them too human, too real. It’s a lot easier to do my job if the person is just an injury and a set of numbers. Once you’ve seen pictures of their grandkids or their membership card in PFLAG, they begin to become actual people. Way too many actual people come through the emergency room. Recognizing them as people makes my job harder and slower. It really does no one any good.
Doreen’s laugh was completely without mirth. “Way too bad. It looks like someone went after him with a machete.”
That made me shove my chair back and look up at her. “Who attacks someone with a machete?”
“You got me, girlfriend, but somebody hacked him up good. He’s going to lose one of his hands. I don’t see any way they can save it.”
We are not doctors. We are admitting clerks. Most of us have no medical training whatsoever, but after a year or two of watching people come through the emergency room, we begin to have a sense of who’s going to make it and who isn’t it. I cringed. “I’ll get him checked in.”
I picked up the wallet. It was leather and well-worn. My grandmother would have appreciated it and pointed out that if you buy something of quality, it lasts a long time. I would have pointed out that my attention span is short and I don’t want to carry the same wallet for my entire adult life. I flipped it open and pried the driver’s license out. That would give me most of the basic information I needed to start with like full name, address and all that.
