Keeper (14 page)

I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Amidst this and the noise of the ER came another sound, a mob of cameras and flashbulbs, and the sounds of the press being restrained. A door had opened, then closed again.

Natalie spoke in my ear. “We need to move her.”

I nodded, not wanting to say anything.

Natalie spoke softly to Dale, telling him to find a route out and get a cab, have it waiting by the loading dock. He moved out of my periphery, and as he did so more movement caught my eye, Rubin coming in closer and something more.

“Sir, I want you to leave,” I heard Fowler say. “Leave, now, or I’ll have you brought in for harassment.”

“I came to express my condolences,” said Crowell.

My first instinct was to go for my gun, and my hand was halfway back before I remembered Rubin had it. Felice was turning, looking up at the sound of the voice, and I let her go to see him, standing inside the doors from the Walk-In Clinic, the eyes of the media pressed against the glass staring in. Crowell was wearing a light suit similar to the one I’d first seen him in, drab linen pants and a white shirt with a tan tie, holding his jacket over his arm like a butler waiting to dress his master. Fowler was approaching, Lozano and another officer with him, and as they did so the blond man beside Crowell took two steps forward. He did it with the air and posture of a bully.

It felt like I moved forward easily, as if I stepped on the air and not the ground, and as I moved I told Crowell what I was going to do to him, and why I was going to do it, but to recall the exact words is more than I can honestly do now. I wanted his blood and was going to get it, until Fowler grabbed me and Rubin grabbed me and Lozano grabbed me and everyone told me to calm down, to calm the fuck down.

Not that I didn’t feel calm. I didn’t feel anything but an almost arousing thrill at the terror in Jonathan Crowell’s face as he backed up, slipping behind the other man.

“Atticus, stop it,” said Rubin. “Stop it.” He slipped in front of me, put both hands on my chest, and pushed back hard, and I stopped resisting but he didn’t move me back.

“Scared?” I asked Crowell. “Terrified?”

“Stop it.”

“Fucking coward,” I said. “Your goon there can’t protect you, Jonathan,” I said. “You’re a marked man. Your time is running out. You’re going to die, and nothing you can do will stop that. You happy? You like what you’ve created? You took a life today, a young woman who could never hurt anyone. Are you proud? How can you fucking sleep at night?”

“Atticus, that’s enough.” Rubin pushed harder, once, sending me back off his hands until we separated, and I caught my balance, straightened.

“Yeah, that’s enough,” I said.

Crowell was behind his man, looking out from around the other’s blond hair. The blond looked like a beaten pit bull, ready to put the bite on someone, and although I knew it wouldn’t happen here, I desperately wanted it to be me. Crowell wasn’t saying anything, and Lozano was approaching him, speaking softly, saying that he had some questions that Crowell and Mr. Rich should answer.

“This is not what I have ever been about,” Crowell told Lozano. “I am for life and have always been opposed to murder. This is a tragedy.

“I wanted to express my condolences,” he said again.

Dr. Romero said: “You wanted to do nothing of the sort. You’re here for the reporters, trying to make yourself look big.” She walked toward him, Natalie right on her, and for a moment the division seemed perfect, everybody else incidental. Crowell and Rich on one side, Romero and Natalie on the other.

“You’re not big. You’re nothing,” Felice said softly. “You killed my daughter, and you claim to work in the name of God. You did all of this to be big, and all you are is small and narrow and scared. So don’t pretend you care what happened to me today, and don’t pretend to care about my daughter. Because I hold you responsible. Kodiak is right, you’re a murderer and you’re scared. Hide behind your speeches, lie as best you can, but you know the truth, and you know this is your work.

“Tiny little man, nothing little man. You call me a butcher and you took a true life today. How can you even compare the two? Go away, little man. Go away and try to make yourself big again.”

She stopped in his face, looking up at him, tear tracks shimmering on her and power roaring in her, and nobody could say anything. Crowell’s mouth was open as he looked at her, but he didn’t even seem to be breathing. Then Natalie took Dr. Romero’s arm and turned her, coming eye to eye with Rich, brushing him with an elbow, and the two women walked out of the room.

Rubin and I followed, heading out the door and back to the loading dock.

She was standing in the hall, just beyond the door, facing us. She had raven black hair about her shoulders, almost blue where the light caught it, accentuating the paleness of her skin. She was at least as tall as I, and slim, with strength in her shoulders and a beautiful oval face, strong-jawed with a narrow chin and a small mouth with full lips, and very blue eyes. Both her ears were pierced several times, small hoops and studs, with one hoop high in the cartilage on her left ear. Another hoop, thinner than the rest, was through her left nostril.

Not a reporter, I thought.

Her leather biker jacket was open, and she had a white tank top on beneath it, tucked into faded blue jeans. Her feet were in a pair of well-worn Doc Martens.

Definitely not a reporter, I thought.

The blue eyes flicked over each of us, then settled on me, and she said, “Kodiak?”

“Not now,” I said, and continued down the hall.

“Natalie, tell him who I am,” she said.

Natalie said, “This is a bad time, Bridgett.”

Bridgett said, “This won’t sit.”

“Later.”

“I’ll come with you,” Bridgett said.

“Like hell,” I said.

She fell into step with us, on my right. “I’m a PI,” Bridgett said to me. “I’ve been hired to help you, to investigate the threats.”

“By who?” I asked.

Natalie answered that one. “Dr. Faisall wanted an investigator, asked me for a recommendation.”

“And I appreciate it,” Bridgett said, moving up in front of me and neatly cutting my peripheral vision. “I need to talk to you about Crowell.”

“If you don’t stop blocking my vision, I’ll break your arm,” I said.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I assume somebody was blocking your vision this morning, too?”

On my left, Natalie visibly flinched.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I said.

“Bridgett Logan,” she said, pulling her wallet and holding it out in front of me. “I’m with Agra and Donnovan Investigations. My PI license, see? Want to know what’s on my driver’s license, too? It says I’m twenty-eight, six feet one, my birthday’s November ninth, and my eyes are blue.”

I said to Natalie, “Keep going, I’ll catch up. Keep your radio on.” Then I stopped and put a bloodstained arm out to block Logan’s progress, and we faced each other for a few seconds while I stood her against the wall. I got a whiff of shampoo and mint off her.

“I need to talk to you about Crowell,” she said.

“Not now.”

“Then I’ll come with you,” she said. “I’m working for the clinic.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “And I don’t care if you were hired by the whole governing board of NARAL. I’ve got a grieving principal to secure and people to debrief, and I can’t do it if I’m playing Q and A with private eyes.” 

“Then I’ll come with you and we can do it after,” Logan said.

The frustration and rage I felt at that moment were almost unbearable. Here was this woman showing up and implying it was negligence on my part that Katie was dead, having the gall to do it in front of Felice. And she just stood in front of me, eyes met to mine, no sign of backing off. The light caught on the niobium ring through her nostril, reflecting blue.

“They’ll leave without us,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

She shook her head, then reached in a pocket for a roll of Life Savers. She pulled one into her mouth with her teeth, never taking her eyes from mine, then offered me the roll. Pep-O-Mint. “Have a sweet, stud,” Logan said. “Lighten up.”

I ignored the roll. “Why don’t you just scurry on home, or something, and I’ll contact you when I’m ready.”

She straightened her back a little more, drawing up to her full height. “Scurry?” she said softly.

I figured that the cab had left by then, so I moved my arm and turned my back to her, started walking to the loading dock. She fell in on my right and asked, “Where’d they take the doctor?”

“I don’t know.”

“Some bodyguard,” Logan said. “At this rate, you’ll lose both of them.”

I stopped again, and went face-to-face with her, angry enough that it showed. Her jaw tightened.

“This is the wrong time to be pushing me,” I said quietly. “The absolute wrong time. My client just lost her daughter, and if you think that means business as usual to me, you’re walking with the wrong crowd.” I pointed back to the ER. “Crowell’s that way, maybe you’d be happier working for him. Otherwise, go away, now. I’ll contact you when I am ready. Not a moment before.”

I turned from Bridgett Logan and headed down the hall.

The rest of the morning was a confusion after I rendezvoused with the others—a ragged collage of statements given to the police and the Feds, of movement and more movement, trying to find Felice a safe place to grieve. Rubin finally suggested using his studio, and by one that afternoon we had settled Dr. Romero in.

The studio Rubin used was a joint venture with some other artists he knew, an attempt to find work space without having to pay Manhattan’s ridiculous prices for privacy. Each artist paid a quarter of the rent, they all had open access, and they all respected each other’s space. It was nothing more than a large loft in Chelsea, broken into four roughly equal quadrants. On the north side of the room were four large windows that looked out over the street, and Dale immediately went to those to doublecheck our security.

The room had an adjoining bathroom and kitchenette, but that was the extent of the space. Dr. Romero moved to Rubin’s comer, spiritless and disinterested in what we were doing. After our departure from the hospital she had crumbled again, ignoring us, returning to the pain inside.

I helped her settle, spreading the army blanket that Rubin kept with his equipment. If she wanted to lie down, at least she could be almost comfortable.

“I want to go home,” Felice said.

“We can’t,” I told her. “It isn’t secure.” Her apartment would have to be cleaned up, I knew, and she shouldn’t have to be the one to do it. The bloodstains would probably never come out of the carpet.

“It’s my home,” she said.

“I know, Felice. I’m sorry.”

She turned, looked at me for the first time since we left the hospital. “What did you say?” she asked.

“We can’t take you home. I’m sorry.”

The blow came up so fast I didn’t even think about moving, and then my head was ringing and she was drawing her right hand back again. Her voice was as smooth and cold as a sheet of arctic ice.

“You bastard,” Felice said, slapping me again. “You bastard, you’re sorry?” Her hand flew again, and I didn’t flinch, just felt the blow echo inside my head, and then she was timing her slaps to the words, each one hitting for punctuation, emphasis, and a terrible anger. “You liar, you bastard liar, you said you’d keep us safe, you said—” Natalie was between us suddenly, and I stepped back, feeling my left cheek bum and blood leak into my mouth. Felice tried to push past Natalie, explaining deliberately that I was a liar, that I had lied, that I had killed her baby. Natalie took her by the shoulders and told Felice to stop.

“Bastard,” Felice said, and then pulled away from Natalie. She sat on a stool, looking at the wall Rubin had painted with spray-painted scenes, cops and Latin Kings and life on the mean streets.

Natalie turned to me. She said, “Sentinel has a safe apartment. We can send Dale to get the car and then move her. You want me to call my father?”

Felice was smoking, and that was the only way I could tell she was breathing.

“Atticus? You want me to call my father?”

I nodded, starting to move toward Felice. Natalie put up an arm and shook her head and I stopped. When she was sure I wouldn’t move, she went to the phone and started dialing, drawing her red hair back to place the receiver against her ear.

My cheek still burned, and I touched it again, looking at each of my people. Ostensibly, we seemed to be holding up all right, keeping our grief separate from the work at hand.

But Dale was checking the window over and over again, and he’s not the nervous type. And Rubin was now sitting on a stool, staring at his bloody hands. And Natalie was trying hard to keep her voice under control while she spoke to her father.

Little things.

“Rubin,” I said. “Go get cleaned up.”

He kept looking at his hands. Then he nodded, slowly found some spare clothes under one of his palettes, and went into the bathroom. I heard the shower start.

Natalie hung up the phone. “Somebody’s already using it,” she said. “Some damn brat from Saudi Arabia, and my father won’t move him. We can get it sometime tomorrow.”