Vengeance (2 page)

“Creepy-ass clowns,” Val said. “I saw one in a vision, spray-painted on the side of a building somewhere in Seattle. I need to find out where it is and take Robby there tonight to meet an informant.”

“Some kind of gang symbol?”

“Maybe.” Val searched for “Seattle clowns,” then “Seattle clown gangs,” “clown gang symbols,” “Seattle area gangs with clown symbols.” Nothing.

“Dammit, the Internet has let me down.” She sighed. “I'm going to have to ask Sten.”

Stacey cringed. “Ew. Good luck.”

V
al avoided making eye contact with the mayoral campaign volunteers lurking next to the Seattle Police Department entrance, but one waylaid her anyway on her way inside.

“Vote for Norman Barrister for mayor of Seattle!” A plump-faced college kid in a red T-shirt jumped in front of Val, waving a flyer and red plastic button in her face. “Change you can
believe
in!”

Another college kid in a blue T-shirt, wielding a blue button, appeared to Val's right. “Charles Brest is best! Don't mess with success!”

Sighing, Val took both their buttons, the penance she had to pay so they'd get out of her way. The college kids glared at each other but thankfully parted to let Val pass without any further harassment. Inside the station, she glanced at the buttons and winced at Norman Barrister's name emblazoned on the red one. What a sad coincidence that retired Colonel Norman Barrister, Val's old battalion commander, just happened to be from Seattle, and also had political aspirations. The idiot couldn't lead his units out of a paper bag, but while they died in one bloody Afghan skirmish after another, he racked up awards and medals that served well the myth of his “strong leadership abilities” that was the cornerstone of his campaign. He'd duped the district into electing him to the state's House of Representatives, so why not mayor? Hell, why not president? God knew if you had enough money, it wasn't that hard. Val dumped both buttons in the trash and walked into the heart of the station.

The place hummed with activity, a cacophony of voices talking, phones ringing, keyboards clacking. The police officers set up shop in a large open space, each manning an oak desk covered in paperwork. Val snaked her way through the desks, past Homicide and Special Victims, until she reached Vice. She spotted Detective Sten Ander in the far corner, leaning back in his chair, hands held casually behind his head as he conversed with a strung-out woman in a puffy leopard-print coat and ripped nylons underneath a black miniskirt. Val wasn't close enough to hear the details of their conversation, but after a minute of talking he waved a hand and two uniformed officers swooped in and cuffed the woman.

“I want my lawyer!” the woman shrieked as they led her past Val and through a door to the cells. Sten smirked at the woman's back until she disappeared, then cut his gaze to Val. He didn't bother sitting up as Val took the chair across from him.

“Ah, Shepherd,” Sten said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Val suppressed an eye roll at his use of her last name. They'd known each other since they'd both joined the Army right out of high school, even dated for a short time while stationed together at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Now that he was a man of the law, he addressed her by her last name only, like he starred in a crime procedural TV show. He even looked a bit like a Scandinavian version of Jeremy Renner.

Sten sipped coffee as he eyed Val over the rim of a ceramic mug adorned with Norman Barrister's smiling face.

“I never pegged you for a Republican,” Val said. “I would've thought you'd be more of a Guns and Dope Party kind of guy.”

“Still waters run deep,” he said. He licked coffee off the caterpillar attached to his face that he called a mustache, then propped his feet on his desk. “Let me guess—drunk sorority girl fucked some frat boy and is now pretending like her drink was spiked so her parents won't think she's a slut? Or someone sent dick pics to the PTA again?”

Val gritted her teeth. It'd been almost ten years since she'd broken up with Sten, but the asshole still held a grudge. He'd been cooperative enough when she'd first approached him for inside police information at the onset of her PI business. She'd assumed that he'd buried the hatchet in the name of justice, but soon realized his real motivation was the opportunity to play mind games with her. Val considered cutting him from her roster of contacts on many occasions, but just before her last straw, he'd cough up a piece of valuable info and buy himself a reprieve. At least he didn't demand money or sexual favors; apparently toying with her was payment enough.

“I am always amazed at what a big heart you have,” Val said through a tight smile. “Always looking out for the”—she held up her thumb and forefinger, and narrowed the gap between them to an inch—“
little
guys.”

Sten clanked his coffee mug down on a ceramic coaster. “What do you want, Shepherd? I've got places to be.”

“Well, I wouldn't want to make you late for your men's rights rally.” She pulled her notebook from her tote and flipped to the clown drawing. “Have you seen this picture before, maybe as gang graffiti?”

Sten leaned across his desk and eyed the illustration. A glimmer of recognition flickered in his gaze. “Why do you ask?”

“A client's daughter ran off with her gang member boyfriend. The mom says the boyfriend had this picture tattooed on his arm. She wants me to bring her daughter home.”

Sten sat back again, picked up his mug, and took a long slurp. “Remember when you used to blow me in my dorm room before retreat?”

A trickle of bile rose up Val's throat.
Here we go with the mind games.
“I've repressed most of those memories, but yes.”

“You were really good at sucking dick, did I ever tell you that? I guess practice makes perfect.”

Val drummed her fingers on the side of her chair to occupy her hands. It was all she could do to keep from punching his smug face. She gave him a bored look and waited.

Sten took another long drink of coffee, relishing the moment. Finally, he said, “The Diamond Gang pride themselves on running ‘high-class' hookers for low-class needs. Entrepreneurial sorts, despite their stupid clown logo. They hang out west of the I-5, around South Washington Street. Charge fifty dollars a pop.” He shoved a thumb in his mouth and jerked it out with a popping sound. “A small fortune for a junkie, but their girls are pros.
Practice makes perfect.
” His thick mustache curled into a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

A shiver ran up Val's spine. She knew Sten had an edge when they'd dated—she'd always liked the edgy guys, though she knew she shouldn't—but only recently had she realized just how much he liked to see her squirm—like a sociopath. With a police badge. She forced out a “thanks” and stood to leave. In the end his words were harmless, and his idiosyncrasies worked to her benefit.

“Hey, Shepherd,” Sten called after her as she walked away, “You find that poor girl and bring her home, to safety.” He smiled again, and Val was struck with the image of a snake's mouth just before it swallowed its prey.

Val watched the rain smear the world through her windshield as she sat in her Corolla, idling in front of the Bombay and Price Law Offices sign outside Robby's work. After a few minutes of staring out the window, she saw him emerge from the glass building and trot through the puddles to her car. He tossed a gym bag with his suit shoved in it into the back, then hopped into the passenger's seat.

“Did you find Chuckles the Creepy Clown?” he asked, brushing water off his jeans.

“You know it,” Val said. “I narrowed it down to South Washington Street, near the waterfront, then drove around the seediest areas until I found the graffiti with the right background that matched what I saw in the vision.” She pulled away from the curb and began driving to Chet's future location.

“You're too good for me,” Robby said.

Val knew the opposite was true. She needed him a lot more than he needed her. Robby's lawyer gig paid most of the bills, not to mention the stabilizing influence he had on her visions. They weren't as bad when she was with him, though she didn't know why. She'd have given up on love a long time ago if it hadn't been for Robby.

He looked at his watch. “How much time do we have to catch Chet?”

“The sun was setting in my vision, so we have about an hour, I think.”

Val drove along the back streets through Seattle's underbelly to avoid highway traffic. She knew the streets well, explored every inch of them while growing up, looking for adventure, until her dad dragged her and her sister to the suburbs. They should've stayed in the city. Val loved her life with Robby in their two-story house with its white picket fence and stand-alone mailbox, but reminders of her sister's fate often bubbled at the edges of her suburban bliss, and she'd get the urge to burn it all down.

Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. She should let the past go, but then Valentine Investigations wouldn't exist, and she'd be another mindless peon floating through life, ignoring the rot that threatened to consume the world just outside of view from polite society. She'd rather have her sister's life back, but since that wasn't possible, punishing assholes who'd slipped through cracks in the justice system would have to do.

She parked the car along the curb of South Washington Street, on the opposite side of the road from the naked clown puking up the word she now recognized as “Diamonds.” She killed the engine, and they watched the street where Chet was destined to appear at any moment as raindrops plinked against the roof.

“Talk to Max Carressa today?” she asked Robby.

“Yeah, we actually went to his house on Mercer Island,” he said. “We walked him through the case as it stands now. It's all circumstantial. The police don't have enough to charge him with anything yet, but who knows when that'll change. He showed us where his dad fell over the balcony of the deck that extends off the study. It's got a gorgeous view of Lake Washington, and a sheer drop down a cliff. I almost got vertigo looking down, it was wild.”

“Did you ask Max about Chet?”

“Not yet. I want to hear what Chet has to say before bringing it up. We've gotten fake information before. Guess that comes with working a local celebrity case.” He grinned, then nudged Val. “My dad asked me about our wedding date again.”

Val rolled her eyes. “God, what's his rush? It'll happen when it happens.”

“He says if Mom was still alive, she'd want grandkids by now.”

“I thought those little white fluffy dogs were supposed to be grandchildren substitutes.”

“Why don't we just pick a date?”

“Because…” Val sighed. “I don't want to rush things—there's Chet!”

Thank God for Chet, loping down the street in his slicker and swinging his bike helmet at his side. She hated this conversation. Every time she imagined herself walking down the aisle, it'd be followed by an image of herself running away from the altar, out of the church and over the horizon. She needed Robby and loved him, but…she didn't know. Val guessed there was some sort of deep psychological reason for her reluctance that involved her superego and freak-of-nature status and past traumas and all that, but she preferred not to think too hard about it and hoped it would go away on its own.

They tracked Chet as he walked, oblivious to their presence. He stopped in front of the alley between two buildings, next to the clown graffiti. He leaned down to fish a rock out of his shoe. Traffic parted. They lost sight of any other pedestrians.

“Now!” Val said to Robby.

With his eyes locked on Chet, Robby jumped out of the car and began to jog across the street. Val heard the sedan's wheels screech before she saw it out of the corner of her eye, a blur of movement that seized her heart and crushed it before the rest of her brain could even register what she was seeing.

She had no time to react before the sedan slammed into Robby. He catapulted through the air like a ragdoll until he hit the pavement with a wet thud. Without slowing down, the car hung a hard right at the next intersection and disappeared. A piercing noise caught her attention; she realized it was her screams.

Val burst out of the car and ran to where Robby lay still on the ground. She knelt next to his broken body, unable to breathe, afraid to touch him.

“Holy shit,” she heard Chet say, followed by his receding footfalls as he fled.

“Robby, oh God, Robby,” she said, her voice shrill and panicked, willing for him to live with every part of her being.

His eyelids fluttered and he looked at her, then he looked through her at nothing. Rain wet his unblinking eyes.

A wail ripped from Val's chest as she sobbed over his body, only vaguely aware of the newly arrived traffic around her that stopped to gawk and offer useless assistance.

V
al gripped the sides of the police station chair until her knuckles turned white, but her body wouldn't stop shaking. She swept a continuous flow of tears from her eyes as a detective handed her a Styrofoam cup of water.

“We can't find another witness to the hit-and-run,” the detective, Johnson, said. He sat down across from Val. “But we'll keep canvasing the neighborhood and see if any security cameras in the area picked something up.”

“Chet saw it happen,” Val said, her voice hoarse. With a trembling hand, she set the cup down on Johnson's desk, water untouched. “Chet can confirm that Robby was murdered. Find Chet.”

“A first name and a vague physical description aren't enough to go on.”

“Then get the phone records from his office! Chet called Robby's work phone two days ago to say he had information about the Carressa case. Robby works”—she swallowed hard—“
worked
at Bombay and Price. His father is one of the partners. Trace the call back to Chet's phone. Do I really have to tell you how to do your fucking job?” God, did Robby's father know yet? She couldn't imagine calling him with the news. She couldn't…

Sten ambled over from where he'd been watching off to the side. He leaned against the wall next to Johnson and looked down at Val. “Slow your roll, Shepherd. South Washington Street is crawling with junkies and gang bangers. People get shot and run over and stabbed there all the time. Robby Price was probably mowed down by some crack whore high off her ass. He wouldn't be the first. In fact, he wouldn't even be the first
this month
.”

Val slammed her fist down on Johnson's desk, causing water to slop out of the foam cup. “Robby was murdered. There's no way it's a coincidence that Robby was run down right as he was about to talk to someone with important information about the death of Max Carressa's father. Someone didn't want that meeting to happen. Someone—”

Someone who knew exactly when and where Robby and Chet would meet that evening, something only Robby and Val knew. She'd told Sten about the clown—maybe he'd somehow pieced together what was happening and lain in wait for the right moment to run Robby down? But why? To Val's knowledge, Sten wasn't involved in the investigation into Lester Carressa's death. And Val had seen multiple images of the creepy clown spray painted on buildings around the Seattle waterfront. There was no way he could've known which specific image she was looking for.

And why hadn't she seen Robby die? She might have been able to stop it if she'd known. Val put a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that jumped up her throat.

“I'm very sorry for your loss,” Johnson said. “We'll do everything we can to find who did this.”

“You think Robby's death was a tragic accident, so excuse me if I think you're full of shit.”

“We're all sorry your boyfriend died,” Sten said, “but there's no reason to be rude.”

Val fixed him with a glare that could have melted glass.

“Want me to give you a ride home?” he asked.

The thought of Sten knowing where Val lived turned her stomach. “Screw you,” she said and shot up from her chair, knocking it over. She didn't know if Sten was involved in Robby's death, but she definitely didn't trust him.

“Call me if you want to talk about your feelings,” Sten said to her as she stormed out of the police station.

She thought she heard him snicker.

Val drove home in a daze, exhausted from the effort to keep her brain functioning enough to make the trip. Hands still shaking, she fumbled with the lock on the front door until it clicked open, then she stumbled over the threshold and up the stairs to their bedroom—just Val's bedroom now. She collapsed onto the bed and sobbed into Robby's pillow, still ripe with his smell.

Why hadn't she seen him die in her vision? She'd seen hundreds of people die, some people she knew and some she didn't. None of it she'd wanted to see, but she'd seen it nonetheless. The vast majority of it she couldn't change, but sometimes, very rarely, she could—she still felt a rush of anxiety every time Stacey mentioned getting on a boat for any reason. But like her poor sister's death, Val hadn't seen this coming. Maybe she hadn't wanted to see it. Maybe she hadn't seen him die because subconsciously she couldn't stand to know. Just like she'd done to her sister, she'd let him die because deep down she was a coward.

Val curled into a ball on her bed. She stayed there until the sky went dark and then light again, and didn't move even as her phone began to ring off the hook. At some point she heard a knock at the door, then a click as it opened, followed by Stacey's trembling voice.

“Val? Are you here?”

Val didn't answer. The stairs creaked as Stacey ascended them and appeared in the doorway to Val's bedroom.

“Oh my God, Val, I am so sorry.”

Stacey lay next to Val and hugged her. Val cried into her friend's chest until it seemed all the liquid in her body had escaped through her tears. The sky grew dark again, and finally Val couldn't ignore the call of nature. With the effort of a person half dead, she dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom. Stacey helped her undress and she took a long, hot shower, letting the water scald her skin as if it had the power to wash her guilt away. Afterward, she pulled on a pair of pajamas and fell into bed again. She heard Stacey talking on the phone to Val's father, then Robby's sister, then Stacey's girlfriend, until the house was once again cloaked in night.

Through a haze, Val awoke with the rising sun in her eyes. The gnaw of hunger pulled her out of bed, and she descended the staircase feeling like a popped balloon floating down through the clouds to the ground. Stacey sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, playing with her cell phone. Her head snapped up when she heard movement at the kitchen's entrance.

“Val,” Stacey said, and rose to hug her. “Are you hungry?”

“I don't know.” Val's throat felt like she'd spent the night swallowing sand. “I think so.”

“Sit down, I'll make you some toast.”

Val slouched into a chair and watched her friend shove a couple pieces of bread into the toaster oven. Stacey's phone vibrated against the tabletop and she scowled at it.

“Goddamn Natasha's going nuts,” Stacey said. “She doesn't understand this whole ‘friend in need' thing. Thinks I'm cheating on her and keeps calling. If she weren't smoking hot, I'd have dumped her crazy ass by now.”

Val's face twitched into a slight smile. “I am technically your ex.”

“She doesn't need to know that. She's jealous enough as it is.”

“And I thought your girlfriend's name was Kat.”

“That's the
other
one.”

“How am I supposed to keep track when their names change every couple months?”

“I use mnemonic devices. ‘At the coffee shop for a chat is where I met Kat.'”

The toaster dinged, and Stacey buttered the warm bread, put it on a plate, and placed it in front of Val.

“How are you?” Stacey asked in a hushed voice. She took a seat next to Val.

“Still alive.” Biting into a corner of the bread, she savored the melted butter that slid down her throat.

“What do you think happened?”

Val shook her head. “I don't know. In my vision, Robby crossed the street safely and talked to Chet. My visions don't always happen exactly like I see them, but I can't believe that of all the death I foretell, I didn't see his. Just like my sister.” Her eyes blurred with tears.

“This isn't your fault,” Stacey said, taking Val's hand.

“He wouldn't have been on South Washington Street if I didn't tell him to be there.”

“You can't save everyone. Sometimes the universe just decides it's your time.”

For a moment Val saw Stacey's face suspended in water, lifeless eyes wide open and mouth locked in a silent scream.

“No,” Val said, wiping the image from her thoughts. “It wasn't random. Robby was murdered. I don't know how someone could have known exactly when and where he'd be in order to run him down, or why they'd want him dead, but I'm going to find out.”

Val finished her toast and realized she was hungry for more. With food in her belly and a sense of purpose came a newfound energy. The fog lifted from her mind.

“I'd like some time alone, Stacey.”

“Do you need help?” she asked with a hint of enthusiasm. Natasha would've flown into a rage if she knew Stacey meant the kind of help that might jumpstart a useful vision.

Val declined, and Stacey shrugged. “Okay, if you're sure,” she said like it was no big deal, though Val saw a hint of disappointment in her eyes. Their old intimate relationship was long dead, but it was hard not to idolize your first romantic experience. They'd almost rekindled it once before, and now Stacey held a candle for what could have been. It was Val's fault. At the time, it had been the only way to save Stacey's life without ruining it. But changing the future came with a price, and the consequences lingered.

“I need time to think,” Val said. “Thanks for everything you've done for me these last couple days. I don't think I'd be out of bed if it weren't for you.”

“That's a lie. You were always the strong one. You'll get through this.”

They hugged, and Stacey slipped out the door.

Val paced around the house for the rest of the day, watching TV and eating junk food, rebuilding her mental and physical energy. Finding Chet was her priority, but she had no leads on where he could be. She could try to backtrack from the clown graffiti to where Chet's bike had been stolen, ask around for him and hope someone was willing to talk, but that was a long shot. She knew what she had to do. She wasn't looking forward to it.

Val propped her laptop on her bedroom nightstand and stripped off her clothes. After rummaging through a box in the back of her closet, she found her old vibrator, confirmed the batteries still worked, and grabbed a tube of lube from the bathroom medicine cabinet. She worked hard to ignore Robby's toiletries, still propped next to the sink where he'd left them. Then she lay down on the bed and cued up a porno video on her computer,
Back Door Babes 3
—a little vulgar, but she wanted quick and dirty, to get it over with.

Val hit Play on the video, lubed up her vibrator, and turned it up to max. She touched the head to herself and rubbed it against her outer folds to the moans of the movie. Robby's caresses snuck into her thoughts, but she banished them. If she thought about Robby, she'd dissolve into a puddle of tears again, and she'd be no closer to finding his killer. No, she needed to pretend like she was someone else, one of the women in the video being rammed from behind by a hairy man with an eight-inch cock and loving every minute of it. She pushed the vibrator into herself and focused on the porn star's squeals of pleasure. She licked her lips and thrust the vibrator in time with the movie, imagining she was the one bent over, his thighs slapping into hers, rubbing her clitoris, begging him to fuck her harder in a relentless rush to the climax. Val writhed on the bed and felt herself at orgasm's sweet edge.

“Where are you, Chet?” she said with ragged breath as her body climaxed and her mind snapped away—

Val gasped and her vision cleared, back in her bedroom again. Funk music played as the porno movie credits rolled. Chet might live somewhere near a Chinese restaurant—there were several dozen in the Seattle area. He might frequent a gay nightclub—also dozens in the Seattle area. She'd seen nothing of value in her vision, nothing to get her closer to finding Chet, nothing to help her bring Robby's murderer to justice.

“Goddammit!” Val threw her vibrator across the room. It crashed into a picture on the wall and fell to the ground amid shattered glass. A wave of hopelessness consumed her, and she burst into tears again. Why had she been given this horrible ability? It was a curse—a curse that killed a good person, a kind and decent soul, the man she loved.

She wallowed in her pain until a harsh voice from the back of her mind scolded her for giving in to despair. Moping around the house and crying all day wasn't getting her any closer to finding Robby's killer. She had to pull herself together, if only for Robby's sake.

Val sat up in bed and took deep breaths until her tears abated and her mind focused like a keen blade on the real task at hand. She was a crack private investigator, dammit. Her visions were a convenient tool, but she didn't need them to do her job, or to find Chet.

Val rose and bathed, threw on jeans and a long-sleeved V-neck shirt, then slipped on her vintage brown leather jacket on her way out the door. A glimpse of herself in the mirror confirmed her eyes were still ringed with red and her cheeks hollow, but her gaze was sharp enough to demand answers when she started asking questions. Her only connection between Robby and Chet was Maxwell Carressa. If she couldn't find Chet, then she'd go to the source himself.