Mission Canyon (28 page)

‘‘Anything else? You’d damn well better say no. Or tell me, right this minute.’’

I forced myself to look at his face. He was pale, hunched, abject.

‘‘Evan, Harley’s your friend. To have all this come out now, right before the wedding . . . I couldn’t handle it. I don’t know, I panicked. I’m massively stupid. Please forgive me.’’

And I almost believed him. But then I scrolled down into the e-mail message. There was more than just photography on display. There was a credit card bill from Jesse’s account. For dinner, gifts. They were dated the summer we met.

‘‘You were seeing her then? You were doing us both?’’

‘‘No, I broke it off with her. I’m telling you the truth. That summer I broke it off.’’

Things were becoming clear to me. Things I knew, things I should have understood. I remembered when we first got together, my feeling that he had been let down by a college sweetheart. I was right, and wrong. He was the college sweetheart. He had just broken up with Harley when we met.

‘‘I was a rebound? I was a consolation prize?’’

‘‘Never.’’

I felt a crushing in my chest. ‘‘Are you still seeing her?’’

‘‘No.’’

I slammed the screen down on the computer, just missing his hand, and stood up. Grabbed my car keys and started for the door.

‘‘Wait,’’ he said.

I kept going. I heard the crutches banging against the table as he got up. Still I didn’t stop, and even then I felt the first squirm of shame at the bald fact that I could outrun him.

‘‘Stop, please, Evan.’’

I opened the front door.

‘‘Don’t do this,’’ he said. ‘‘You always do this.’’

Now I turned on him. ‘‘Do what?’’

‘‘Walk out when you get mad.’’

‘‘Sticking around would not be good for your health, cowboy.’’

He walked toward me. ‘‘I don’t care. I love you.’’

‘‘Save it,’’ I said, and headed for my car.

I left him standing in the driveway, watching me spin the tires as I drove away.

‘‘Evan, give me a chance to talk about this.’’

I ignored the phone message, the frailty in Jesse’s voice on the answering machine. I felt unable to speak to him.

Four thirty in the morning, staring out the window at unknown stars, I felt my charbroiled heart, hardened and hurting. It was illogical. Jealousy, that’s what it was, this possessive and hateful feeling.

Before he met me, Jesse had a girlfriend. I couldn’t begrudge him that. And yet I couldn’t stop seeing the photo, Harley pulling him down on top of her. . . .

She had tried to tell me.
This incestuous town
. The sexual metaphor was a message to me. Everybody doing it to one another. Now I knew why Harley was concerned about Jesse’s dreams. She worried that he might mention her name in his sleep.

I threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. In the living room I turned on the television and huddled on the sofa in the dark, watching MTV. An *NSYNC retrospective; I was in a bad state. Things made sense now, and that scared me.

Kenny Rudenski making snide intimations about the affair? How did he know? He was too tuned in for comfort. How close was he to Harley?

And the photos. Who took them? Why?

Jesse and Harley. My stomach turned. I changed the channel. Evan, you’re being a baby.

The photos. No, there was only one reason that made sense. Blackmail—i-heist was blackmailing Harley. And they were forcing her to launder money for them. She was indeed one of their portals.

I got up and phoned Jesse.

No answer.

The sun came up, summer light turning the grass outside my doors emerald, the hibiscus exploding, red, bloody mouths. I felt like a husk. I didn’t call Jesse again. He could listen to the message I’d left earlier. If he was there.

I sure as hell didn’t call Harley.

I worked all day and then drove over to Santa Barbara High and ran intervals on the track. A pyramid workout: two hundred, four hundred, six hundred, and back down. It felt purifying, like hitting myself on the foot with a hammer over and over. On the way home I stopped at a flower stand and bought a bouquet for Nikki, to thank her for hosting the bridal shower. I was raising my hand to knock on her door when she pulled it open.

‘‘Perfect timing,’’ she said. Thea was bouncing on her hip.

I handed her the flowers and thanked her.

‘‘You’re more than welcome, sweetie. It’s an experience I wouldn’t repeat if you promised me eternal youth, but I was happy to do it in your honor. Here, trade.’’

She gave me the baby. I followed her into the kitchen.

‘‘We should be back by ten. The Brahms is thunderous, but not long.’’ She handed me a diaper bag. ‘‘It’s loaded. Pampers, wipes, snacks, the full arsenal.’’

I stopped still. Thea patted my arm, saying, ‘‘Een.’’ What was Nikki talking about?

‘‘She didn’t nap this afternoon, so she may go to sleep early. Thanks for watching her. You’re a pal.’’

From the front hallway, Carl said, ‘‘Let’s go.’’ Nikki chucked Thea under the chin and trotted away. I scratched my head.

Back at my house, I set Thea on the rug. If I’d forgotten about babysitting, what else had I forgotten? I checked my desk calendar.

I groaned. It was five after.

Part of me, the nail-his-privates-to-the-deck-of-a-sinking-ship part, said, Blow it off. But the rest of me wasn’t ready to do that yet. I grabbed Thea and my car keys. Remembered I didn’t have a baby car seat in my Explorer. I found Thea’s stroller on the back porch at the Vincents’ house, piled her into it, and started chugging up the street to the church.

Thea looked up at me. ‘‘Ma,’’ she said. ‘‘Doon.’’

She squirmed, shut her eyes against the evening sun, and put her thumb in her mouth. The walk was uphill, toward mountains burnished green by the light. When we got there I was sweating. The parking lot was empty, the willows swaying in the shadow of the church. I didn’t see anybody around. Had the organist given up and left?

I reached for Thea. ‘‘Come on, girl.’’

She was tucked into a corner of the stroller, asleep. I hoisted her out, resting her head on my shoulder.

The stairs to the choir loft were in the south bell tower, long flights that corkscrewed up the walls. I hurried up, pressing Thea to my chest. My footsteps echoed on the concrete. Two flights up, a landing led into the loft. Nobody was there, but the organ console was open and a cup of coffee sat on the top. The power was on too—I could hear air blowing through the organ pipes.

I peered over the wooden railing. The floor of the church below was sinking into dusk. It looked empty, but I heard heels clicking on the stone.

‘‘Hello, Miss Gould?’’ I called. ‘‘I’m up here.’’

The footsteps stopped. The person was out of sight beneath the loft. I heard scuffing below, heels on stone. Two sets of shoes, from the sound. And voices murmuring, the undertones of a male voice.

Worry needled me. Seemingly without anchor to anything, but I stepped back from the railing, listening. Thea stirred and settled again, nestling her soft face against my chest.

It wasn’t the organist. Perhaps it was tourists, or parishioners come to pray in solitude. I held still, listening, and heard the footsteps heading in the direction of the stairs to the loft. For a second I stood wondering if I was being paranoid. And I thought: You aren’t paranoid if they’re really out to get you.

It was time to go home.

I was on the landing when I heard feet starting up the stairs below, and two voices whispering. Then a new, brisk set of heels came clicking, and a woman said brightly, ‘‘Can I help you?’’

No response.

The bright voice said, ‘‘I’m the organist. I’m sorry, but the choir loft isn’t open to the public.’’

And then came a frightening sound: a stunned, animal groan. I heard a thud and a clatter, as if a person had fallen and dropped an armful of books. I pulled back from the stairway.

In the gloom below me, a man muttered, ‘‘It’s not her.’’

‘‘Shit.’’ A woman.

‘‘You idiot. She told you she was the organist. What did you zap her for?’’

‘‘Get off my case. Delaney has to be in the loft.’’

It was Win Utley and Cherry Lopez. Their footsteps came fast now up the staircase, almost as fast as my heart was beating. They were coming after me. Yago’s twenty-four hour deadline had expired and they were going to make me pay. . . . I turned back toward the choir loft. There was no place to hide in there, just that low railing and a long drop to the stone floor below. With Nikki’s little girl asleep in my arms.

Utley, out of breath, said, ‘‘How long does that thing take to recharge?’’

‘‘It’s ready to go. Come on; you’re slowing down.’’

I looked around, frantic. What could I do? Could I brazen it out—charge down the stairs and make it past them? With Cherry jamming her shock baton and maybe hitting Thea? No.

I had to surrender. I’d beg them to let me put Thea in the stroller, take her home, and then they could have at me.

Utley said, ‘‘How many volts you say that thing delivers? ’’

‘‘Three hundred thousand.’’

‘‘It makes a Chihuahua flip like a jumping bean; what do you think it’d do to a baby?’’ he said. And he giggled.

I squeezed Thea to my chest, my body needling with panic. I couldn’t go down, had to get away. Where? The bell tower kept going up, and so did the stairs, narrow and steep. I heard heavy breathing below me. In a second they’d turn the corner and climb high enough to see me here. I had nowhere else to go.

Pressing Thea close, I hurried up, past the bells hanging in open arches. The stairs turned. The setting sun caught my eyes. I saw hundred-year-old palm trees at eye level, felt the wind whining through the arches. They were screened, but I still felt exposed.

Listening, I heard them under me, paralleling my progress. I told myself to hold it together. If I could keep going at the same pace as them, they couldn’t see me directly above them. They would be expecting me one floor down. They would go into the loft, and when they did I would run back down the stairs, past them, and get away.

Another turn, and I climbed to the top of the bell tower. There was a small landing with a door out onto the roof of the church. I tucked myself back against the wall.

From below me came Utley’s voice. ‘‘Go in the loft and check. I’ll wait here on the landing.’’

No, no . . . if he stayed on the landing he would block my way back down.

It only took a few seconds. Lopez looked in the loft and returned, saying, ‘‘She’s not in there.’’

Go downstairs, go down.

Utley said, ‘‘Did she get by us?’’

‘‘She couldn’t have. The stroller’s outside the door downstairs.’’

There was a horrid quiet. I knew they were looking up.

I couldn’t let them catch me up here, on this thin landing. Oh, God, when I had to keep both my arms tight around the baby as it was. I tried the door to the roof, thinking, No roofs, nobody escapes onto a roof, and wondering why the hell I hadn’t listened to Taylor explain the trick. If Nikki saw me now, she’d tear me limb from limb. But I had nowhere else to go.

My hand trembled. I stepped outside and shut the door quietly.

The wind caught me. It funneled along the peaked roof of the church and between the bell towers, pushing me toward the drop. Thea squirmed and blinked and grabbed my shirt in her hand. She had to feel my heart jumping. I held her close and stroked her hair.

The view was dramatic, lawn sloping toward the rose garden and across red tile roofs all the way to the ocean. More dramatic was the drop straight down on the other side of the thin railing, a one-second ride to death. I pictured the headline—‘‘Church Plunge: Woman Is Victim of Fatal Irony.’’ I couldn’t stay here. In a few seconds Lopez and Utley would reach the top of the stairs and would come to the obvious conclusion: Stairs plus door equals she’s on the roof.

I looked around. There were crosses and stone statues along the front rampart, and a narrow flight of stairs leading up over the peak of the roof and down to the other bell tower.

No way. Not in this wind, not with Thea, squirming now.

I turned, looking along the length of the roof. In the church wall, just below the spot where the roof slanted up, was a small door. It looked as if it might lead to an electrical-equipment cupboard. I tried it.

It opened to darkness. Leaning inside, I saw space and a light switch. I ducked in, pulled the door closed, and flipped on the light.

This wasn’t a closet. I was on the ceiling of the church, in the rafters just under the roof. It was a long, close space, running a good seventy meters to the back wall of the church, stuffy and spooky. I held my breath and listened.

Lopez and Utley came puffing out onto the roof from the bell tower. I could hear them outside the door.

‘‘Where is she?’’ Utley said.

‘‘On the far side of the roof,’’ Lopez said. ‘‘Over those stairs.’’

‘‘Fuck more stairs. You go look.’’

‘‘You’re a sack of
mierda
, Win.’’

‘‘Shut up with the cracks about my weight. It’s genetic.’’

‘‘Right.’’ Her voice sounded distant now. ‘‘The deep-dish -pepperoni gene.’’

‘‘The thrifty gene, you bulimic twit. You know, if I stayed as cranked as you, I’d weigh twelve pounds.’’

I huddled against the wall, stroking Thea’s hair. My arms shook with fatigue. Who knew that babies were so heavy? She kept squirming, making a face like a crumpled piece of paper. I rocked her. Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. The air felt hot and dusty. Dust motes jinked in the light that came through dim ventilation windows farther down the church.

Heels clicked, running back over the peak of the roof. ‘‘Not there. Shit, she has to be up here somewhere.’’