Civil Twilight (28 page)

My heart was thudding.

Ten feet.

The brakes screeched. Too late!

I leapt away. The front tires slid slowly over the edge, with me watching in horror.

Wrenching open the driver’s door, I yanked Claire out, threw her to the ground and fell on top of her. Then, as with the Titanic, the car sunk into the dark. I braced against the crash, but there was just a dull clunk, like it no longer mattered.

Claire was whimpering. I flipped her and jerked her arms behind. “Sonora trusted you. You took her by surprise here. You didn’t surprise me.”

“Screw you!”

“She gave you your life! She trusted you. You were the only one she would have come here with. Because she trusted you.
Because
you owed her!”

“Owed?
Owed!
She was going to send me to jail. I have a life now, finally, and she was going to ruin it all.”

I couldn’t believe it! “Sonora took the blame when you killed your aunt.”

“
She
killed her.”

“That’s crap!” I yanked her arms back. “You’re the one who hated her. You’re the one who’d lived under her thumb, was her slave for years! How often did you dream of killing her? It’s why you begged Sonora to keep coming back, isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer.

I pulled her arms tighter. “Isn’t it?” My head was starting to throb.

“Her fingerprint . . . it was on the knife.”

“She tried to pull it out, right?”

“Only
Sonora’s
print.” She sounded smug.

I could have throttled her. “Then, after she left, she bought you time, to wipe the rest of the prints, to come up with your story.”

She gulped for air, giving a sort of laugh. “No one’ll ever believe you! Just like no one would’ve believed her! Get off me!”

I dropped her on the cement. With every bit of control I had left, I stepped away and let her roll over.

Claire sat up and rubbed her forehead. “Now I’m going to look all bruised, because of you.”

Was she crazy? “Listen to me! Sonora’s
dead!
She let people believe she killed Madelyn—for you. She spent her life hiding out, to protect you. She cared about you. She was your”—the word caught in my throat—“friend! Your friend,” I repeated, my voice almost inaudible. “She didn’t have to, but she called you, warned you she was turning herself in, right?
Because
she thought she was your friend.”

“Friend! Big fucking deal! Big fucking magnanimous deal! She never suffered like me. I lived with—under!—that bitch my whole life! She had it coming.”

“But Sonora—”

“I was a slave. A goddamned slave!” She glared up at me. “Damn right I used to lie awake at night thinking of getting rid of her, how I’d do it, how I’d
love
doing it. When—finally,
finally
—the moment came and I drove that knife into her chest, it felt . . . so good!” She was smiling.

“Sonora—”

“She’d had it easy. Not like me! I killed that old bitch—and still I wasn’t free! I got carted off to the locked ward ‘for my own good.’ After that, all those god awful hours with smarmy therapists, me having to watch every word so I didn’t screw myself. Reporters badgering me. Always waiting. No one was my friend. I managed to kill her and get away with it, and nothing changed. Not till my book came out and things got better. For
the first time in my entire life things were good! And then out of nowhere, there’s Sonora, still trying to save someone. Saving some girls, it’s so all-important, she thinks it’s just fine to take away my whole life. Like my life was nothing.”

She sat there, glowering at me. In the dim light I could see that odd contradiction of her face: her mouth firm, almost smug, her brown eyes wild.

“She calls me to give me a ‘heads up’ . . . that she’s planning to ruin my life. Of course that’s not what she said. She was all high and mighty, noble, just like before. But what it really means is that suddenly, she’s got some other girls she’s all concerned about and so now I’m worth shit. The deal is I’m supposed to meet her there and chat, get reacquainted, buddy-buddy, whatever—before she throws away
my
life.”

“You got there early?”

She chuckled. “With my life on the line? Yeah, I got there
plenty
early. I was there for an hour, watching, waiting, planning, ready to jump in her car when she came. It was way too easy! She never suspected a thing!” She pushed herself up. “I’m done here. There’s no point in stopping me. No one’s going to believe you.”

Korematsu stepped out in front of her.

BY 10:00 A.M. FRIDAY, the fog had already burned off and the sun was warm. At Renzo’s Café, small white cups and saucers were on the table outside, with Duffy underneath it.

“You could’ve told me!” I glared at Gary.

“Privilege,” he muttered over the top of his cappuccino.

“Privilege be damned,” John grumbled.

“Right. You knew Karen and I’d run into John. Would it have killed you to let me in on that?”

“Or me! If you’d—”

“And you”—I looked hard at John—“would it have killed you to . . .” but I was feeling more kindly toward The Enforcer. “I mean, just to say, guys, that if you two had trusted me—”

“It wasn’t that . . .” they began, the one echoing the other, and stopped. Gary grinned sheepishly. John said, “We didn’t want you to be involved.”

I laughed.

“Any more involved, then.”

“I’m in better shape than either of you. I can go places you can’t, find out things no one’s going to tell you. Why can’t you just admit that I’m an adult? I’m not your
baby
sister—”

“But you are.” John looked so abashed that I reached over and patted his arm. You can’t teach an old brother new tricks.

Gary was making a show of stirring the foam back into his cappuccino, but there was a wistful look in his eyes. I wondered about him and Karen and what might have been. But I wasn’t going there. Instead, I turned to John. “So, Broder’s been arrested. You’ve been the flavor of the week. Mom’s dined on your glory for days. I’ve even heard rumors about the board of sups.”

Gary snorted. “Just the guy to be making compromises in city hall.”

No way to argue that. “You going to be chief then?”

They both laughed, surprisingly, the same kind of laugh. It was John who said, “Turning in your boss doesn’t make you popular.”

“Ask Korematsu.” Gary grinned.

No way was I going there either, not with both of them ready to pounce. “So you’re back on in detective division?”

“For the moment.”

“What does that mean?”

John hesitated before saying: “Don’t know.”

“That’s the much respected Zen reply,” I pointed out.

He shrugged it off. It was his kid sister’s comment, after all.

ONCE AGAIN, I am indebted to stunt coordinator and director Carolyn Day, to writer Linda Grant, and to my superb editor Michele Slung. And, as always, to my agent, Dominick Abel.

Copyright © 2009 by Susan Dunlap. All rights reserved under

International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Dunlap, Susan.
Civil twilight : a Darcy Lott mystery / Susan Dunlap.
p. cm.
1. Women stunt performers—Fiction. 2. Attorney and client—Fiction. 3. Murder—
Investigation—Fiction. 4. San Francisco (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.

 

PS3554.U46972C58 2009
813’.54—dc22
2008051632

 

eISBN : 978-1-582-43937-2

 

 

 

COUNTERPOINT
2117 Fourth Street
Suite D
Berkeley, CA 94710
www.counterpointpress.com

 

Distributed by Publishers Group West