Mission Canyon (8 page)

‘‘So I’ll get a cup of coffee, and watch to see if the deputies put him back on the bus with the chain gang.’’

He nodded at Chris, idling up the street. ‘‘Just remember, his desk overlooks the courthouse. Stay out of his line of sight.’’

‘‘I thought he was on our side.’’

"Evan, the only people on our side are us. Count on it."

The coffee was a mistake.

I spent the afternoon parked across from the county jail in Goleta, sitting in the backseat of my Explorer, playing office. I caught up on phone calls, dug business receipts from my glove compartment, and ate a bag of peanut M&M’s for lunch. I outlined the seminar I planned to give at the writers’ conference: conflict. Ha, easy. Follow me, class. Observe, and take notes. And I worked on
Chromium Rain,
the chapter where the heroine escapes from the ruins of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. I kept an eye on the jail and the county sheriff’s headquarters next door to it. I didn’t want a curious deputy tapping on my window to ask why I was writing about blowing up NORAD.

And the coffee had run through me. I needed a bathroom. I looked at the jail, hoping that if Brand came out, it would be soon.

Did he plan to skip? I didn’t know. Despite Adam’s alarm, the idea of forfeiting $250,000 might deter a millionaire from running. Not to mention the thought of getting a bounty hunter after him. Moreover, I still believed Brand was in Santa Barbara on unfinished business.

By three o’clock I was squirming. I needed relief, but Adam hadn’t phoned. When my cell phone finally rang, I grabbed it and said, ‘‘Hello?’’

I think that’s what I said, but it may have come out as
Grrr
, because my brother said, ‘‘Well, aren’t you a bundle of sunshine.’’

"Brian." I fidgeted on the seat. ‘‘How’s D.C.?"

‘‘Humid. So sticky that to stand up I have to scrape my butt off the desk chair with a spatula.’’

He was at the Pentagon. It was a customary stop on a fighter pilot’s journey up the ranks in naval aviation, but he chafed at the desk job. The Pentagon could no longer be considered dull, safe duty, but it wasn’t an F/ A-18.

‘‘Listen, Ev, I’m calling to give you a heads-up. Company’s coming.’’

‘‘Really? Great, Bri, I can’t wait to see you and Luke—’’

‘‘Afraid it isn’t us. It’s Cousin Taylor.’’

My spirits, momentarily elevated, dropped. ‘‘You’re joking.’’

‘‘Sorry, sis. The Hard Talk Café is bringing her mouth to your town.’’

Across the street, a black Porsche Carrera pulled up at the jail. The driver got out, and I sat up straight. It was Kenny Rudenski.

Brian said, ‘‘I just talked to Mom. Taylor’s husband is being transferred. The oil company’s sending him to a rig in the Santa Barbara Channel.’’

Kenny smoothed his hair and went inside the jail. I scrambled over the gearshift into the front seat, feeling a ping from my bladder. Dropped into the driver’s seat, stuck the key in the ignition, and stopped.

‘‘Wait. Taylor is
moving
here?’’

‘‘There you go again, making that growling sound,’’ Brian said.

Kenny came out of the jail with Franklin Brand. I started my car. Even at this distance I could see that Brand didn’t seem cheerful. His face looked stiffer than a boxing glove. Wordlessly he and Kenny climbed into the Porsche.

‘‘I’ll call you back, Brian.’’

The Porsche pulled out. I let it go, waiting for a silver Mercedes SUV to pass before I fell in behind it, letting it screen me from Kenny’s view.

The Porsche got on the freeway and headed west into Goleta. When he pulled off so did I, keeping the Mercedes between us. The light was turning red but Kenny didn’t stop for it. The Porsche gunned onto Patterson. I braked, blocked by cars ahead in both lanes, peering past traffic to see which way Kenny was going. The Mercedes SUV was stopped next to me in the right lane, and I saw the driver and passenger doing the same thing I was.

Looking at the Porsche.

The passenger was a wiry young woman with whippet’s limbs and cropped black hair. She was craning her neck. The driver was a rotund man whose glasses nestled in skin the color of pancake batter. His double chin hung like a gourd below his beardlet. The woman pointed at Kenny’s car. The driver spun the wheel and maneuvered the Mercedes onto the shoulder, around the cars in front of him, and made the turn.

They were following him, too. For a moment I felt a bizarre competitive urge, and I started to spin the wheel and follow. But cautious brain cells awoke and kept my foot on the brake.
Wait. Watch
.

The light changed and I turned onto Patterson. Ahead, the Porsche bounded around another corner and accelerated out of sight, the road bending beyond an avocado orchard. The Mercedes followed.

So did I, speeding past the orchard, a fire station, new houses going up on what had been farmland. I hit another intersection and played the odds, going straight, into a commercial strip of shops, motels, and restaurants. I saw neither Kenny nor the Mercedes. Anxiety balled in my belly. I couldn’t lose Brand again.

I stomped on the brake. There was the Porsche, under the portico at the Holiday Inn. The marquee out front announced, LOBSTER BUFFET $9.99, and WELCOME, GARCIA FAMILY REUNION. I turned in, parked, and watched the Porsche in the rearview mirror.

Brand got out, slammed the car door, and walked into the lobby of the motel. The Porsche drove off, engine revving.

I waited.

I didn’t see the Mercedes following the Porsche. I didn’t see it in the parking lot. I didn’t see the choppy-haired woman or the fat man strolling into the lobby.

Pulling on a baseball cap and sunglasses, I got out and headed for the lobby.

I pushed through the doors into the Holiday Inn. Brand was standing at the front desk talking to a clerk, his back to me. I walked past him.

He said, ‘‘Messages?’’

‘‘Your room number?’’

‘‘One twenty-seven.’’

Sometimes you get lucky. He was checked in. He was expecting messages. I walked over to a rack loaded with tourist brochures, picked one, and slipped a pen from my back pocket. I wrote
127
on the brochure.

I stood there for a few seconds longer. If I didn’t get to a bathroom, I would have a blowout. I glanced over my shoulder. Brand was standing at the desk reading message slips. The bathrooms were along a hallway to my left. I thought about it.

What if this was an elaborate ruse on Brand’s part? He could be planning a getaway. Perhaps Kenny Rudenski had only pretended to drive off. Perhaps he was circling the block, preparing to pick Brand up by the laundry bins.

And perhaps I should have read the skulking manual before following him. Page one: Pee,
then
tail.

I couldn’t wait any longer. Turning my face away from Brand, I hurried for the restroom. I pushed through the door and saw that rare ladies’ room jewel, the vacant stall. O frabjous day. I locked the stall door, jammed my bag on the coathook. My eyes were watering but I was about to burst into song, maybe rip loose with an aria from
Tosca
in joy.

Outside the stall came footsteps, and feet appeared, wearing Doc Martens. A woman’s hand reached over the top of the stall door, fumbled around, and grabbed my bag off the coathook.

I yelled, "Hey—"

But she was gone.

It was a classic bit of thievery. I hurried as best I could, zipped up, ran from the stall and out into the hallway.

Right into Brand.

I swallowed a gasp, feeling my pores open. He was solid, a big man marbled with weight beneath the cashmere sport coat. He smelled jail-sour and had shaved badly. Graying stubble patched his jowls.

His head snapped around. ‘‘Watch it.’’

His eyes were a strange calico green-and-brown, almost kaleidoscopic, and rank with anger. Brushing me aside, he headed out toward the pool.

My vision was thumping. Dumb seconds ticked off until I ran outside too, looking for the woman in Doc Martens. The motel was built around an interior courtyard, with a lawn and tall palm trees and a turquoise swimming pool. Kids were playing, sunlight flickering on the water. Brand walked toward the far side of the courtyard. He had a key card in his hand.

The woman wasn’t there.

Screw it. I ran back inside to the lobby and out the main door.

My bag was sitting in a planter, half-open. My wallet was nearby. I checked: All cash, my driver’s license, Social Security card, and credit cards were gone. So was my cell phone.

Out on the street, a silver Mercedes SUV roared away from the motel.

I went back into the lobby and told the desk clerk to call the police.

The manager came to the front desk, apoplectic with embarrassment.

She said, ‘‘We’re terribly sorry about this. Your stay will be complimentary, ma’am.’’

It was the thinnest of silver linings. ‘‘I was just about to register. The name’s Delaney,’’ I said. ‘‘Do you have anything near room one twenty-seven?’’

The East Beach Writers’ Conference was the official name, but the event should have been called the Fiction Smackdown. It was two days of controlled chaos, organized by a gang of writers who suppressed their neuroses and jealousy just long enough to book the hotel conference center. At noon the next day I arrived to give my seminar. The hotel looked out across Cabrillo Boulevard at beach volleyball courts, Stearns Wharf, and the pin-prick sparkle of the ocean. The sky flew above like a taut blue sail. I was already in a bad mood.

I had spent the morning canceling my credit cards and arranging to get a duplicate driver’s license. The bridal shop phoned to tell me they’d lost my measurements and I should come in for another fitting. And, the pièce de résistance, Jesse called with the news that Mari Vasquez Diamond was threatening to sue him, me, and Sanchez Marks for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

And I had stayed up most of the night, peeking through the curtains of my poolside room at the Holiday Inn, watching to see if Franklin Brand did anything. He didn’t. He kept the curtains drawn. He received no visitors. When I walked past his door I heard the television droning. The only activity along his wing of the motel was in the connecting room next to his, which I saw through the open door: Maintenance was working on a leak in the ceiling. After three a.m., espresso couldn’t keep me alert. Eventually fretting over who stole my things, and how the thieves were connected to Brand, couldn’t either.

Now Adam Sandoval was taking a turn on watch. I left him in the motel room looking grimly refreshed, working through coffee and a box of his brother’s mementos.

So, tired and crabby, I walked into the conference room to make my debut as a teacher. I wet my thumb before passing out a sheet of lecture points. Twelve people sat around the table, staring at me. They were a mix: women, men, tie-dye, pinstripes, slickness, reticence, looking for enlightenment, or at least craft, listening and interrupting and taking notes as I talked about story structure. To my surprise, I enjoyed it.

No, I loved it. At the end of two hours I found myself hoarse but invigorated. I could get used to this, I thought.

Gathering up my things, I noticed two students lingering in the doorway, a couple in their forties. The man offered his hand.

‘‘Tim North. Excellent seminar.’’

He had an English accent and a brisk handshake. He was trim, with cool eyes and a mutt’s face. From his carriage, I took him to be ex-military.

I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder. ‘‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. You didn’t say a word during the session. ’’

‘‘Observing and assimilating,’’ North said.

He was tightly wound, as if he were ready to spring. His accent was broad, his features . . . malleable. I got the feeling that he wasn’t among the usual aspirants.

He gestured to the woman. ‘‘My wife, Jakarta Rivera.’’

Her smile gleamed. ‘‘It was everything we hoped it would be.’’

Her voice was patently made in the USA. She was African-American, more stylishly dressed than the average Santa Barbaran, and had a ballerina’s physique: deceptive fragility covering pure muscle. She looked as sleek as a Maserati.

She reached into her bag for a copy of my novel
Lithium Sunset
. ‘‘We’re fans.’’

‘‘I’m flattered.’’

I led them through the door. I sensed that they wanted something—for me to read their screenplay, or to give them my agent’s name. We stepped onto a patio, where coffee and snacks were set up. The sun was intense. The tile floor radiated heat, and the potted plants throbbed. I took a peach from the snack table.

‘‘We have a proposal for you,’’ North said, and looked at his wife. ‘‘Jax?’’

She was selecting an apple, examining it for bruises. The diamond in her engagement ring looked as big as the grapes on the table. It matched the stud earrings she wore, and the solitaire stone in her necklace, all shatteringly brilliant.

She said, ‘‘We want to hire you.’’

Halfway through biting into the peach, I stopped. ‘‘To do what?’’

‘‘To ghostwrite our memoirs.’’

This was not what I was expecting, and she knew it. She regarded me with the cool and intense gaze of a cat. I felt pinned.

North said, ‘‘We’ll pay you far more than you’re earning in your current publishing contract.’’

‘‘Now I am truly flattered,’’ I said. ‘‘But I have no experience as a ghostwriter.’’

Rivera said, ‘‘You do journalism, though. You know how to interview people, and how to portray them insightfully. ’’

North said, ‘‘And frankly, you know how to write about men. A bloke wouldn’t mind having you put his thoughts on paper.’’

Rivera said, ‘‘And we do know a bit about you. We like what we’ve seen.’’

‘‘What’s that?’’

North said, ‘‘You stood up to that religious terror group last year. Really, you bloody well sorted them out. That impressed us.’’