The Dirty Secrets Club (19 page)

She knew about the anonymous note. She knew about the club. But she claimed she could help him.

Could he let go of this weight? Could this be his chance?

He pressed the phone to his ear, hanging on to the Connection. This doctor could be his lifeline. If she wasn't lying. A shrink—she could be trying to mess with his head, play with him. But if she was right, if she could help him—maybe he could end this nightmare, nail Skunk and the boss man behind him. Maybe without his secret coming out. . .

Maybe. Just maybe, nobody would have to know the truth about him.

His heart lifted. Possibility. Was what she said really possible? He opened his eyes. Even if it was just a chance, didn't he have a duty to grab it?

"Mr. Southern. Please believe me," the doctor said.

He saw the water below, and it looked bright and soothing. He nodded to himself.

A beep sounded in his ear. He had an incoming call. He looked at the number.
Unknown caller.

His hopes crashed. That meant it was Skunk. "There's no time. He's coming."

"Scott, there's always something you can do. Always."

He squeezed his eyes shut. The doctor was a long shot, and it was too late to spend time finding out if she was telling the truth.

"Yeah, but not what you want. I'm sorry, I don't have a choice."

They
knew.
The reality rained down on him. No matter what he did, his secret was coming out. He was done.

And no matter what he did, Skunk would punish his family.

"I have to fix this. And there's only one way to do that, because I need it to be a sure thing." The incoming call beeped. The water below looked like sharpened glass. "Surer than a bullet."

He hung up.

"Dammit. He hung up. I thought I had him." Jo rubbed her fingers against her forehead. "We have to find him. Something's extremely wrong."

Tang snapped her phone shut. "How wrong?" "Death-threat wrong. He's under duress, and scared shitless."
Surer than a bullet.

Where was he? She thought about what she'd heard during their conversation. Stared at the bay, focusing. Heard the foghorn.

"The bridge." She grabbed Tang's elbow and pulled her toward the street. "Southern's on the Golden Gate Bridge."

"Get up to the vista point," Skunk said. "You're not thinking, Scott. Think of Tyler."

He was. Tyler and Kelly were all he was thinking of, all he could see in front of him.

"What do you think, this is hide-and-seek, you can play games and keep away from me? You're not from outer space. I know where you live," Skunk said.

Tyler. Melody. Life, he could save a life. "I'm on the bridge. East side, middle of the span."

"Get up here, dickwad, or I'll—"

"I have the names. I'm not handing them over at the vista point. People would see my Range Rover."

And doing it at the vista point would give Skunk a chance to pull something. Doing it here was the only way.

"You come here, Skunk, or I'll toss the list over. You can get it back when it blows to shore in San Jose."

He hung up. Skunk would come.

Jo revved the engine and tore away from the curb.

"You think this situation is that bad?" Tang said.

"Gut feeling—it's worse than bad. Do you want to take the chance that I'm wrong?"

"No. Go."

Jo squealed into traffic. "Got a gumball light in your pocket to stick on the top of the truck, so we can avoid all these cars?"

"Lean on the horn. I give you dispensation."

Jo jammed it into second, popped the clutch, and swerved out to pass the line of cars ahead of her. The engine revved. She saw Tang buckle her seat belt.

"Southern's terrified. When I said I was a doctor he immediately assumed his family was either hurt or in danger."

"What's he doing on the bridge?" Tang said.

"Meeting the man who's threatening him."

"Drive faster."

She honked and swerved around a station wagon. Took the corner while downshifting.

Why would Southern want to meet his contact on the bridge? Because it was public? Did that make it safe? Was he trying somehow to pull the rug out from under his tormentor? She didn't know. But the bridge raised a dark specter in the back of her mind.

She slowed for a stop sign. Tang waved her arm.

"Go," Tang said. "Run it. Run 'em all."

She got to Marina Boulevard, slaloming around cars, and turned the corner. The road straightened, the stoplights thinned, and she gunned it. Sailboat masts glinted in the sun to her right, a nautical forest. To her left, neat, expensive homes streaked by: In the distance, beyond the forested headlands of the Presidio, the bridge stretched across the mouth of the bay.

She checked the speedometer. Come on, truck, you can do better than eighty.

She poured through a light as it turned red. Tang was holding the dashboard with one hand, dialing her phone with the other.

"Calling the CHP. They patrol the bridge; maybe they can spot him."

In a few seconds they reached the 101. The Tacoma rattled and moaned, but Jo kept her foot down. Tang got through to the Highway Patrol. Described Southern, asked them to send a car to the bridge and be on the lookout for him. Not much to go on, Jo thought.

Going ninety, on little more than her own gut feeling.

Tang kept her phone to her ear, waiting for confirmation that the Highway Patrol was on the way, and glanced at Jo. "Will this truck hold together?"

Jo pushed it hard into a curve. "Yeah. But I really wish I'd won the lottery and bought the Lambo."

"You play the lottery?"

"Every time this truck breaks down."

"Don't. You have better odds of surviving Russian roulette."

Or of surviving a fall from two hundred feet. "You going to give me dispensation to stop on the bridge?"

"You think we'll need to?"

The bridge had six narrow lanes of swift traffic, no center divider, no shoulders. To stop was begging for a crash. "Yes."

Tang's mouth went flat. "Then do it, and let's hope the CHP gets there to keep some Winnebago from rear-ending us."

Trees rose on either side of the road, pines and groves of eucalyptus. Jo rounded a bend.

Tang jammed both hands against the dash. "Damn, damn—"

Red brake lights and motionless traffic greeted them. Jo slammed on the brakes. With the ABS shaking, they squealed to a stop.

Traffic was gridlocked.

"Get on the shoulder," Tang said. She rolled down the window, stuck out her arm, and flashed her badge to traffic.

Jo worked her way to the side of the road. She heard Tang on the phone with the CHP again. She eked her way to the shoulder of the highway and found to her dismay that it was too narrow. She gunned the right wheels of the pickup over the curb. Thinking,
Hang in there, truck,
she accelerated. They lurched forward, bouncing like a basketball.

Tang hung up. "Car pulling a trailer jackknifed—" They hit a rock, bottomed out, and kept going. "Now I see why this thing breaks down so often. Trailer's jackknifed a hundred yards out on the bridge. Tow truck's coming, but this jam will take time to clear."

"How long?"

"Too long." Tang's face was tight. "You fast on foot?"

"I'd better be."

They neared the exit for the visitor plaza. "Pull off here."

Scott waited. His stomach had clenched. In the distance, the familiar figure hunched toward him.

Moment of truth.

That's what this was. Not a cliche, but reality—his moment of truth. How many people got one?

He was at the point of no return. Skunk was within sight, coming to get the names of the people he and his boss were after, so they could eliminate them.

Scott clutched the sheets of paper. Three slim white sheets of pulp, and here was the truth: They were about life and death. Everybody named in them was going to exit this world. They were a eulogy, the end credits. But he had no choice.

Traffic was a roar. Back by the toll plaza it was snarled, but here it was a smear, static in his head. The day looked flat. The sun was cold. The city seemed nothing but a white layer of chalk poured across the hills.

He had never felt more certain, or more frightened. He had to do this right. He wouldn't get a second chance.

That's why he'd chosen this bridge. It was a sure thing. Ninety-eight percent accuracy rate, first time. Better than pills. Better than poison. Better than a bullet. This was the only place to do what he needed to.

He looked up at the north tower, pointing toward heaven. No hesitation, Southern. Do this thing; get it over with. This was the right decision. Tyler would be safe. Kelly would be safe. Things were going to be finished, once and for all.

No problem is insoluble.

He shook himself. Stop that. He couldn't let the phone call undermine his determination. Couldn't let the shrink's words eat at the edges of his certainty. He breathed out, and pushed the thought away. His stomach tightened.

Skunk walked toward him.

Skunk saw the guy in the middle of the span. Dude standing still when everybody else was walking and the traffic was a snake hissing past. The pussy was leaning against the railing.

Southern was wearing a red letterman's jacket and baseball cap. He had something in his hands, was worrying it. Skunk smiled.

Papers.

The pussy had got the names. Fucking A. He picked up his pace. Southern just stood there like the stupid side of beef he was, ready to hand them over.

Skunk's smile broadened. Southern thought once he handed over the names, this thing would be finished. Thought he was home Scott-free.

"Ha."

He stuck his hand in his pocket, feeling his lighter and the bottle. The only thing that was going to be finished was Scott Southern.

Jo jogged along the west sidewalk on the bridge. The Marin headlands were brown and sere ahead of her. Open ocean was to her left. The sun was stark in the west, the traffic a jarring roar. Though it was gridlocked on the bridge approach, out here six lanes of metal were rushing past a few feet away. Across the wide roadway, Amy Tang ran along the east sidewalk. Her spiky hair flicked back and forth. She looked grim, eyes on the hundreds of pedestrians strolling the bridge. She had spoken to the bridge control room. They had cameras on the sidewalks, but hadn't spotted Scott Southern.

Jo counted suspender cables as she ran. She and Tang were three hundred yards past the south tower, but the bridge was almost two miles long. People on bikes cycled past her. The water, immensely far below, shivered blue with whitecaps in the wind. She squinted against the sun, breathing hard.

Her phone rang. Tang sounded winded.

"I don't know about this."

"Let's keep going." Jo heard the harshness in her own breath.

She tried to focus. Across the road at the center of the span, amid the moving swirl of people, a tall man in a baseball cap and letter-man's jacket stood at the rail, looking at the bay. The jacket was red with gold lettering on the back.

She put her phone to her ear. "Dead ahead. Red jacket. Is that him?"

Tang stared hard. She didn't answer, but she seemed to be drawing into herself. Growing quieter. Like a gun cocking.

"What's the name of the guy Southern thought he was talking to?" Tang said.

"Skunk."

"Slow down," Tang said. "Don't spook them."

Jo dropped to a walk, trying to catch her breath. The man in the jacket turned from the rail. Another man was walking toward him, one hand jammed in his pocket. Jo couldn't make out his face, but he was strutting like he was about to . . .

. . . win the lottery. Beat Russian roulette. His whole attitude was a smirk.

"That's the guy," she said. "And something's not right."

Skunk walked toward Southern. "Whatever bug got up your ass, get it out. Hand over the names."

Southern stood there, sun on his face, looking pained. The papers were in his hands. Slowly, regretfully, he folded them in half. He reached into his letterman's jacket, took out a Ziploc bag, and dropped the papers in. He zipped it, checked the seal, and ran his hand over it a third time. Skunk looked at him quizzically.

"I don't need to freeze 'em like hot dogs. Just hand them over."

Southern shook his head. "Come and get them."

Jo closed to within a hundred yards of the two men. The taller man had an athlete's bearing, that sense of supreme self-possession that arises from physical prowess. With every step she took, the lettering on the back of his jacket came into clearer focus. USC.

"It's him, Amy," she said.

"Where? I don't have them in sight."

Jo glanced across the road. Tang was falling behind her, fighting her way through pedestrians on a much more crowded sidewalk.