Black Widow (16 page)

39

On his way home, Stanton swung by Heather Rousseau’s condo. The attendant was gone and both mechanical arms were down. He parked on the street and ducked underneath the arm as he walked into the complex.

Noise was coming from the community pool and hot tub, and he saw several men and women drinking booze and jumping around the pool. One of the women lifted her top and flashed him. He smiled as he continued on to Heather’s condo.

Youth had a vibrancy about it that he had never had. When he was their age, he was already a cop working one of the toughest beats in San Diego. Before that, he was a lost soul wandering from beach to beach, without work and without support. He had never had that enthusiasm or ability to cut loose and forget.

The lights in Heather’s condo were off. He stood at the bottom of the stairs a moment and then climbed them. He got to the top and stood in front of her door. Raising his hand to knock, he stopped and lowered it. He turned around and went back to his jeep.

As he went to plug his iPhone into the stereo, he saw he had a text message he’d missed. It was from Heidi and just said,
What are you doing tonight?

Nothing

Want to meet up?

Sure. Where?

Beach by my house. I’ll have a picnic prepared.

Stanton drove to Heidi’s after calling Mathew and letting him know he’d be a little late, and to put Johnny to bed. Heidi’s house was dark. As he got out of the jeep, he saw her on the beach. A
blanket was laid out with candles and paper plates.

“Hey,” he said, coming up.

“Hey yourself.” She looked out over the water. The moon was full and no clouds were in the sky. A type of open, clear sky that could only come after a couple days of storm. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? I lived in some big cities and you could never see the sky like this. It was almost like just another street lamp or something. You missed its… I don’t know the word.”

“Majesty,” Stanton said, slipping off his shoes and sitting down.

“Yes, majesty.” She paused. “So what happened?”

“I followed her a little while and then lost her.”

“Are you still meeting her tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

She nodded and took some plastic containers out of a picnic basket before retrieving some plastic forks from the same basket.

“Turkey curry salad,” she said. “You’ll love it.”

Stanton waited until she served some to him on the plate and then took a bite. The turkey mixed with the sweetness of raisins and the bite of the curry. “It’s delicious.”

“Thanks. I made dessert, too. I had a perfect wine, but I know you don’t drink.”

“What’s that pin?”

She thumbed a red and white pin on her shirt. “Oh, something from work. I forgot that was on there.” She took it off and slipped it into her pocket. “It’s a Florence Nightingale pin. Something I got when I was in London during a volunteer stint. Just a trinket.”

He took another bite. “How was work?” he asked.

“Oh, you know, same old. I did have one child, a four-year-old, who cut their head open. We cleaned and glued the wound, and she was so happy she said she’s naming her doll after me.”

He grinned. “Your job has to have some fulfilling moments.”

“Yeah… but there’s bad ones, too. The children who come in abused, with parents saying they fell down some stairs or crashed their bikes. The infants who are blind for life from being shaken. The sexual abuse is the hardest, though. I can always tell, even without a kit. The children are just so terrified that they might let something slip.” She was silent a moment. “I read somewhere that one in three girls and one in five boys are sexually molested or raped in the United States. Is that true?”

Stanton nodded.

“At some point that number’s going to go up,” she said. “And what happens when the next
generation is made up of girls that started life raped? What’s going to happen to us as a country?”

“You can’t look at it like that. It’s too big. If you’re out on the waves and you think about the ocean, you’ll eat it. You have to concentrate on your wave. The one that’s propelling you. Everything else is outside your power.”

She looked up to the moon. “I’d like you to stay the night with me tonight.”

Every cell in his body told him to say yes. To stay and sleep with this woman and experience what would no doubt be a night of pleasure unlike any he had ever had. But a small voice in his head told him that it wouldn’t lead to anything good. That he had made certain vows to God when he had been baptized.

And then another voice told him that he had no idea whether anything in his faith was true, and that this life might be all he had. To enjoy it fully and not worry about anything else.

“You okay?” she said.

“Fine… Um, I don’t think I can.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not you. I have to believe that things I have faith in are true. Whether they are true or not, I guess I’ll know when I die. But I have to believe them while I’m still alive. They hold me in place. Without them, I think the darkness would swallow me up.”

“I understand. But why don’t you stay anyway. We don’t need to… I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

Stanton took her hand. He moved his plate aside, and they lay down on the blanket and kissed a long time. He looked up to the sky. Some of her hair drifted over his face, and his heart was pounding. He kissed her again, and a rush of excitement built in him. He wanted to be inside her more than anything else he had ever wanted. He began arguing with himself when his phone vibrated. It was Matt.

“Hey,” he said.

“Dad, I can’t get Netflix to work. It keeps saying there’s a user error.”

“Yeah, just log out and log back in.”

“I tried that.”

He watched Heidi’s face. The contours were perfect, like they had been carved from marble. But they weren’t his to enjoy. Not yet. “I’ll be home in a minute. You’ll survive.”

“Fine.”

He replaced the phone in his pocket and looked back to Heidi. Her hair in the bright light of
the moon looked white and her eyes had a sheen to them.

“I know,” she said. “You have to leave.”

He sat up. “I’ll be busy tomorrow night. But the day after, I’d like to take you surfing.”

“Surfing?” she said with a grin. “Is that where you take all the girls?”

“Not all the girls… just you.”

They kissed again and he rose. As he was walking away, she said, “Jon?”

“Yeah.”

“I would love to go surfing with you.”

He grinned. “I’ll call you.”

As Stanton drove home, he received another text. He thought it would be Heidi, but it was an unknown number. All it said was,
Meet at Kaimaia Resort for your date
.
Thanks. - BDC.

He got butterflies in his stomach and immediately called Kai.

40

The next morning, Stanton went into work early for the briefing. Kai, Jones, and four other detectives were sitting around the conference room eating powdered pastries. Someone from SWAT stood up after Stanton was seated and gave the tactical breakdown at the front of the room. Behind him was an aerial photograph of Kaimaia Resort and the restaurant parking lot. Something taken off Google Earth.

The operation was simple. Stanton would be
miked, with detectives monitoring from a nearby SUV. As soon as Stanton gave the go-ahead, he would end dinner and take the target outside. The takedown would occur in the parking lot. SWAT would be stationed there among the cars, and the detectives would have the exits covered.

“When you
gonna call it, Jon?” Jones asked.

“I want to see what I can get from her first. She might incriminate herself. So I’m going to spend some time in there. I think I’ll hit her up after the meal, around dessert. After that, I’ll give the cue, and we’ll walk out. And just so everyone is clear, I won’t be armed.”

The tactical commander said, “I highly advise against that.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t want a gunfight in the middle of a restaurant. Plus, she might see it and run. She has no reason to suspect anything. I’ll be fine.”

The commander ran through a few more protocols—gear, safe words, contingency plans, etc.—and then said, “And remember to Mirandize her after the arrest. That last thing we need is her statements thrown out ’cause you didn’t take ten seconds to read ’em to her.”

As the rest of the detectives filed out, Stanton waited behind. Kai had a look that said he wanted to speak with him. When they were alone, Kai wiped his lips and took a drink of something out of a
styrofoam cup.

“You sure about this, Jon?”

“Yeah.”

“You been under in a while?”

“This is hardly under, Kai. It’s one dinner. I’m not infiltrating the Hell’s Angels.”

He shrugged. “If she really the one that did all this, she’s dangerous. You could get hurt.”

“I appreciate your concern. But I’ll be fine.”

Kai rose with a groan, as if he were doing heavy squats. He closed up a box of pastries and tossed them in the trash bin. “I seen
some’a my friends die for this job. I don’t wanna see that with you, too. I brought you out here. You’re my responsibility.”

Stanton could tell he meant it. There was no duplicitous motive behind his statements. No trying to get Stanton comfortable so he could stick a knife in his back later on. Kai had genuine concern for him. It wasn’t something Stanton had ever had in a CO.

“I don’t think she’s that type of killer,” Stanton said. “She’ll run, not fight. Not unless she’s cornered. If she picks up on anything, I’ll let her run and SWAT can take her down.”

Kai nodded. He had something else to say and his face was bunched up like a bulldog. But he just shook his head and said, “Good luck,” and left.

Kai still refused to give him any other work, so after the briefing Stanton decided he’d go for a quick surf. There were over one hundred beaches around Honolulu. Some of them were the top stops in the surfing world.

Hawaii was the most isolated landmass on the planet. In some ways, it was lonely and cut off from the rest of the world. Nature seemed to pick up on this and pounded on the islands with groundswell. Because of this isolation, the Pacific was constantly throwing violent storms at the islands. The result was some of the best waves people could hope to surf.

Three of the best beaches in the world were less than a half-hour away from Stanton. Of the three, his favorite was Sunset Beach.

Many beaches in Hawaii were surfed by natives, who fiercely protected their turf. For a Caucasian transplant, the beaches were dangerous. But Sunset was known throughout the world and couldn’t be fought over.

Stanton went to Sunset and suited up. He paddled out farther than anyone else. The waves were high and violent. They turned quickly and were hollow, but the bowls were solid on some. He cut across one, and a spit of water slammed into his face as the ocean closed up around him. The wave swallowed him and sucked him under.

Even though the sun was bright, the waves spun him under so quickly he couldn’t tell if he was up or down. All he saw was darkness and the tightening pressure of the surf closing in. And then in an instant, he was back at the surface.

Stanton ate it at least half a dozen times. Even wiping out had its place and its sense of enjoyment. But he knew every muscle in his body would be sore tomorrow.

As he climbed back onto the beach, he collapsed onto his towel and put his arm over his eyes. He drifted off to sleep for a while, but when he woke the sun didn’t look like it had moved. His sleep must have just been a couple of minutes.

He rose and skipped on the shower and went home. The drive was pleasant, and he still had that dull euphoria in his system from the passionate ocean. He wanted to go running or lift weights but knew he would just collapse from exhaustion a short while in. Instead, he parked in his driveway and sat on his porch.

The neighbors were all pleasant enough and one of them, a man in a visor, came over and began speaking to Stanton about the scores in some bowl game for college football. Stanton had never been interested in sports, other than running and surfing, and couldn’t relate to anything the man was saying. But he smiled and nodded where he needed to. The man said he would see him soon and went back to his house.

Stanton took out his cell phone and dialed Heidi’s number.

“I was wondering when you’d call,” she said by way of greeting.

“I hope I’m not bothering you at work.”

“It’s fine. I was just eating something. What’s going on?”

Stanton put his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the fierce sun. “I wanted to apologize about last night. I hope you don’t take it as any kind of insult. I really like you, Heidi. I don’t know why, and I can’t explain how the two of us can mesh like we do. But I feel it.”

“I feel it, too.”

His heart fluttered like he was in sixth grade and someone just gave him a Valentine’s card. “Tomorrow night, then?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Stanton hung up and couldn’t suppress a grin. With all the joys and pleasures of the world, after all these millennia of evolution, nothing got to a man like a woman.

Stanton checked the clock on his phone and saw that he had to meet tactical in two hours to
place the microphone. He went inside and had a quick shower and chose his clothes carefully. Scanning through his closet, he found a black and white Hawaiian shirt and shorts. He’d wear that with Italian loafers without socks. He wanted to look like a tourist. He debated wearing a fanny pack but thought that was too much. He opted instead for a Calvin Klein watch.

As he drove down
Kaimaia Resort, he listened to Chris Isaak and let his mind drift. A type of free-association technique he’d picked up somewhere in a meditation class. Don’t filter any thought in the mind, let it make any connection or bring up any image it wanted to. Leave it alone and see where it takes you.

Stanton’s inevitably went back to Heidi.

He was falling for her. Though, objectively, he knew he had probably spent more time with his barber than he had with her. It was almost like a psychic energy linked them, and he knew she felt the same.

With the boys where they were now, he was open to another marriage. Mathew would be in college soon and Johnny was like a little Buddha: happy to go along with anything life threw at him. They would get along well with her.

And then the darker thoughts came to him. The life and baggage she brought with her. He would be putting himself and his family at risk if they couldn’t arrest Heather. And who knows what else there was? Heidi appeared like a woman with a lot of scars, and most of them weren’t even visible to her. Not to mention the scars Stanton had.

Kaimaia
Resort was like a structure out of Disneyland. White with spiraled corners, it looked like somewhere a princess in a fairytale might live. The building was surrounded by palm trees. The interior, Stanton found upon walking in, was just as grandiose. Signs were up for Swedish massages, and the ceiling, which was at least thirty feet above him, was painted with blue sky and white clouds, dappled with sparkling lights to give it an otherworldly feel.

The two detectives from tactical were there, dressed in horrible Bermuda shorts, and they waved to him. The men walked out without a word and went to a Suburban parked far out in the parking lot, almost to the edge of the property. They climbed in back and Stanton followed.

He lifted his shirt as they shaved a patch of his chest hair and then taped the mike. The two detectives didn’t speak other than one of them saying, “Don’t cross your arms. It muffles it.”

Once he was
miked, they tested it several times and Stanton was let out of the Suburban. They shut the doors and left him standing there. He glanced around the parking lot but didn’t see anyone else, so he went inside the resort. He sat on a couch against the wall and took out his phone. He checked Facebook and Twitter, and then put his phone away and leaned against the wall. The only thought that kept crossing his mind was,
what am I doing here?

For a good twenty minutes, Stanton watched people coming and going out of the resort. Everyone was finely dressed, or at least thought they were, and flashed gold and diamonds at every turn. He thought of Babylon before the fall, where everyone lived through the eyes of other people. Got their value from the esteem of other individuals.

Stanton had never thought much about Armageddon, other than scriptural and historical curiosity. But he wondered now whether it was possible that civilization could ever just be wiped away. If it ever was, it would have to rot first from within so badly, that the people couldn’t put up much of a fight. He didn’t know whether that was what was happening now or not.

Stanton’s phone rang; it was Suzanne.

“I was going to call you,” he said. “I didn’t like that last conversation.”

“It was my fault, Jon. I feel really embarrassed about it now. I just rushed things too quickly. I think I’m always doing that. I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the jerk.”

“Well, you can always make it up to me. A pizza from Belly’s ought to do it. As friends, of course.”

“You got it.”

“Hey, so I saw you weren’t home. I thought I’d run over and check on the boys.”

“I would really appreciate that.” A long, awkward silence. Stanton knew it was from his end. He was supposed to say something right now but couldn’t think of what it was.

“Well,” she finally said, “I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Thanks again, Suzanne.”

“You’re welcome.”

Stanton hung up and felt the tug of guilt in his stomach. Suzanne was a good woman, and he didn’t like the way he was treating her. But he didn’t know what else to do. How to act. It was difficult to know what to say to someone that had put themselves out there, told you they were attracted to you and cared about you, and you rejected them. It made him feel guilty every time he thought about her.

A woman walked through the entrance. She strode over and Stanton found he couldn’t say anything.

It was Heidi in every respect. Perhaps a little more wear and tear, and the hair was shorter and black. She wore glasses now, and a strand of her hair came down over her face. She smiled at him.

“I’m Heather.”

Stanton noted that she didn’t use Heidi’s name. He rose. “Jon.”

She placed her arm in the crook of his elbow, and they walked to a table.