Vengeance (5 page)

V
al held the crude drawing of Chet's face up to the annoyed bartender. “You sure you don't recognize him? Young Hispanic guy, about five-foot-ten, goes by Chet. Loves lip gloss.”

Mickey, the bartender, set his port-colored mouth in a pout and raised a penciled eyebrow. “I said I don't know him. Accept it already.”

The last threads of Val's patience began to unravel. She'd spent the previous six hours visiting every gay bar and Chinese restaurant within walking distance of the spot Robby had been run down, and so far nobody would admit to knowing anyone who fit Chet's description. It was almost like they'd colluded and closed ranks.

“Look, I just want to talk to him. Chet's got a secret admirer—a very handsome millionaire—and I've been hired to track him down. Don't you want to help make a love connection?”

Mickey scoffed. “Bitch, please. It's not like all us queer people know each other, okay? And I don't give a shit about no love connection. You should've offered me money.”

A spike of rage shot through Val and she slammed her fist on the countertop. Mickey flinched and jerked backward, his painted eyes widening with fear.

“No amount of money,” she said through clenched teeth, “will make that lipstick look good on you.”

Val stalked out of the bar while Mickey yelled about all the ways she was a terrible person, in his colorful fashion. She trudged back to her car, got in, and checked her cell phone. One text from Stacey:
Nothing yet. Going home to change. C U at the service
.

The service—Robby's funeral. She should give up and go home to change, too. Just give up. As if her back had turned to jelly, her head fell forward onto the steering wheel and she sobbed.

Val dumped a bowl of warm meatballs onto a serving platter and took her time spearing each one with a toothpick. She glanced through her kitchen doorway at the crowd that meandered around the living room in their black suits and dresses. They made small talk and smiled as proof that life went on. Val tried to play along but she wasn't selling it well, and the effort exhausted her. After the heart-wrenching spectacle that was Robby's funeral, the only thing that kept her from collapsing into a puddle of tears was the faint hope that she might get a lead on Chet from one of the gay bars or Chinese restaurants in Seattle that she hadn't visited yet—only fifty-plus more establishments to go. Val hung her head and sighed at the futility of it all.

“Can I help you with that?”

Val looked up to see Robby's sister, Josephine, standing in the doorway and pointing at the plate of meatballs.

“Oh, uh, sure, thank you.”

Josephine walked over and put a hand on Val's shoulder. “You've done a great job today, with the funeral and wake, and gathering Robby's things for us. I know this must be hard for you, especially since you saw him…pass away. I can't thank you enough for everything you've done.”

All Val could do was nod. She could barely look Robby's family in the eyes after her ridiculous, and ultimately pointless, tryst with Dirty John two days ago. Her ass still ached.

Not to mention whatever had happened with Max. Thinking back on it, the strange incident seemed like part of a dream where one minute she was drowning and the next she was flying. Dreams faded, though. The
want
she'd irrationally felt for him lingered in the back of her mind, shitting all over Robby's memory and reminding her what a terrible person she was.

Josephine took the plate and gave Val a reassuring smile, so graceful in her pain that she put Val to shame. She passed her and Robby's father, Dean, on her way out, and touched his shoulder before disappearing into the living room. Dean was more in line with Val's style of mourning, quiet and internal, silent as he poured himself a glass of water from the kitchen's tap.

“Dean, I wanted to ask you something, if you don't mind,” she said.

He looked at her with sunken eyes, face thinner than it had been when she last saw him a couple weeks ago. “Go ahead.”

She tried to proceed delicately, unsure what his reaction would be. “I've been thinking about what happened to Robby. It seems strange to me that he would be hit by a car right as he was about to talk to someone with information on the Max Carressa case. Since I was there, I can tell you that the car that hit him didn't even try to stop, and it had tinted windows so I couldn't see who was driving. Do you know if Max Carressa has enemies who might want to see him go to jail, or anyone who might have wanted to silence Robby before he could hear what the informant had to say? Or, I don't know, did Robby have any enemies at all that you know of?”

Dean's lips tightened and he turned even paler than he already was. “Robby died in an accidental hit-and-run, Valentine. The answer to all your questions is no. Why can't you let him rest in peace?” He slammed his cup on the countertop. “Not everything is a goddamn case to solve. I just buried my son today. I'm trying to figure out how I'll get on with my life. Maybe you should, too, and stop chasing shadows.”

He stalked out of the kitchen, leaving Val breathless and sick to her stomach. She didn't think he'd get that defensive about it. Almost too defensive. Another shadow to chase.

Two hours later the mourners were gone, and only Stacey remained to help Val clean up. Her friend tossed paper plates into an open-topped trash can while Val sat at the kitchen table next to her own stack of used plates. She stared out the back window at the setting sun. Stacey picked up Val's trash and threw it away for her.

“I guess that's that,” Stacey said. “Tomorrow we can hit a few of the Chinese places east of the highway, narrow down the list.”

“Why bother?” Val said, still staring out the window. “Whoever murdered Robby is probably long gone by now—if Robby was actually murdered.”

Stacey stopped cleaning and sat next to Val. “Do you think it might've been an accident after all?”

“I don't know!” Tears flooded Val's eyes. “I can't stand not knowing. If I could just talk to that bastard Chet and find out if what he had to tell Robby was worth Robby's life, then I could drop it and move on. But I can't let it go until I'm sure. And I might never be sure.”

Stacey pulled Val into a hug, and she sobbed into her friend's chest for she didn't know how long. If she could've pushed her sorrow out through tears, by the time she took a breath and lifted her head, every mote of it would've been gone. But of course she couldn't, and when she finally met Stacey's eyes, her chest still overflowed with pain to a degree she hadn't endured since her sister died. Her friend's pretty almond-shaped eyes, familiar and safe, stared back at her, radiating a reservoir of comfort that trickled into Val, then streamed, until her starving soul began gulping it down in feverish desperation.

Seduced by their sudden intense connection, Stacey touched Val's face like she used to, and Val did what she used to do, what once made her feel good, and kissed Stacey. Her friend's lips, warm and inviting, tasted like she remembered, and responded like she remembered. Though a voice in the back of her mind begged her to stop and listed off all the ways she was making a terrible mistake and ruining a valuable friendship, the salve felt too good, and Val gave in to her most basic impulses.

In a frenzy of nostalgia, Val ripped off her ugly mourning dress while Stacey did the same. They fell into each other's arms, onto the floor, and back in time. Val found herself in a dream with Stacey's hand between her legs, their breasts pressed together, mouths fluttering like fairy's wings on each other's lips. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the fantasy, fetishizing the past, until for a few seconds the pleasure consumed her pain and her body melted—

Val gasped as her ceiling replaced the vision of Chet entering his apartment. “I saw him!” She sat straight up, the image still so clear in her mind she thought she could stand and walk into his apartment right then. “I know where he lives!”

“Great,” Stacey said as her fingers tickled Val's thigh. “We'll go there tomorrow and see what he has to say.”

Val looked down at Stacey and blinked. What the hell were they doing naked on the floor of the kitchen? Then reality came flooding back.

Oh shit.

“Uh, no, I have to go now.” Val sprang up from the floor and flew up the stairs to her bedroom. She threw on her clothes, then took her pistol and its holster out of the safe in her closet and strapped them on.

When Val came back down, Stacey wore her dress again and sat at the kitchen table, arms folded, her afterglow replaced by a scowl.

“
Excuse
me, I thought we were a team,” Stacey said. “And we just had sex, in case you forgot that part.”

“I didn't forget. Of course we're a team. I just…We just…”

What the hell had she been thinking? Why had she risked losing her best friend over a stupid, impulsive act? How could she fix this? Her chest tightened again, this time overflowing with panic.

“You just wish it hadn't happened,” Stacey said.

“No, no, no, it's not like that,” Val said, even though it was exactly like that.

“Then stay and talk to me!”

“I don't want to lose Chet again. I'll be back as soon as possible, I promise. Then we can talk.” Val kissed Stacey on the forehead and forced a smile, then realized she'd made a serious tactical error when Stacey's frown somehow grew deeper.

“Listen, I—uh…” Val turned away and hurried out the door, ran down the stairs, and jumped in her car, fleeing the scene of the shit storm she'd kicked up. “Goddammit,” she muttered as she backed up.

Why did she sleep with her best friend and open up that long-sealed can of worms? She'd warned herself not to, and ignored the angel on her shoulder yet again. She should go back in there and talk to her. They were both adults. They'd had a post–junior high school fling before, though in that case Val had pretended to want to get back together to save Stacey's life. This time, she'd simply lost her mind for a few minutes in an irrational attempt to escape into the past so she could avoid the present. Stacey would think Val used her for a vision and then tossed her aside. It wasn't like that, though…was it?

No, it definitely wasn't. She should go back in the house and tell Stacey that. Endure her best friend's hurt and explain her feelings.

But shit, that could take hours.

She'd do it later. After she nailed Robby's killer.

T
he acrid smell of stale urine hit Val first when she walked into Chet's apartment building, followed by the echoes of salsa music from the second floor. Residents with shifty eyes loitered in the hallways and stared at her as she passed them on her way up the stairs. She was too white to be a local, too casual to be a cop. Whatever they thought she was, they were content to let her pass without a confrontation, for which Val breathed a sigh of relief.

She reached apartment 353 and rapped on the door. A moment later she heard footsteps, then saw the door shift as a body pressed against it to look through the peephole.

“Chet?” Val asked.

“Maybe,” he said without opening the door. “Who're you?”

“My name's Valentine Shepherd. I'm a friend of Robby Price's, the guy you saw get hit by a car a few days ago. Can I come in and talk to you, please?”

Val heard the snap of a deadbolt sliding away and the rattle of a chain lock being disengaged before the door swung open. Chet waved her inside, then looked up and down his hallway before shutting the door and putting the locks back in place.

“That poor boy,” Chet said, his wide, dark eyes and lanky brown limbs reminding Val of a frightened antelope. “I can't believe they ran him down like that. Did the cops get the killers yet?”

“They think it was an accident, so they're not really looking.” Val glanced around his tiny living room, walls covered in colorful paintings he likely made himself given the easel in the corner. Teenagers sang from his TV. “Can we sit down?”

“Oh yeah, sure, sure.” Chet showed Val through a beaded curtain to his cramped kitchen off the apartment's single bedroom. From Chet's kitchen window Val could see into the neighboring building's apartments, miniature theaters of people eating dinner, watching television, arguing.

“You want something to drink?” Chet asked as he closed the window blinds.

“No, thank you.” Val took a seat at his kitchen table.

Chet cracked open a beer and sat across from her. “God, I can't get the image of him getting hit by that car out of my head. I didn't know he was Robby Price until I saw it on the news.” He took a long swig from his beer, then looked at Val. “Hey, were you that chick with him?”

“Yeah, that was me. I can't get it out of my head, either.”

“But I wasn't supposed to meet him until later, so I dunno what he was doing there. I've been telling myself it was just a weird coincidence. Do you think someone killed him because he was gonna meet with me?”

“That might be true.”

Chet's gaze darted about the kitchen, an antelope scanning the tall grass for a lion. “Oh God.”

“I'm trying to figure out why someone would want Robby dead. What were you going to tell him about the Max Carressa case?”

Chet took another swig, his hands shaking. “So, about six months ago I started volunteering for Norman Barrister's campaign for mayor. Handing out flyers in poor black and Latino communities, trying to get the vote out. I thought I was doing good, and earning community college credits. A month in, I met Norman at a rally and got a gay vibe from him.”

Val's eyebrows rose. “Norman Barrister is gay?”

Chet shrugged. “He says he's not gay, but he sure seemed to like it when I stuck my dick in his ass in his hotel room after the rally.”

Val's mouth fell open. Retired Colonel Norman Barrister, former battalion commander, decorated Army soldier, and noted opponent of the “Don't Ask Don't Tell” repeal was himself one of the queers he feared would ruin the military? She should have guessed. Then again, all she had was Chet's crude account of their alleged affair.

Chet went on, “We started seeing each other regularly after that. He'd have some kind of event, I'd meet him there, and we'd go at it afterwards, either in a car or a back room of wherever he was. He was good at losing his posse and picking spots where we wouldn't get caught—a military skill, I guess. At first he seemed like an okay guy, older and more uptight than my usual boys, but I love me some manly man once in a while. When I started pressing him to come out, he turned into rough trade, all ‘I'm not gay,' and ‘If you tell anyone, I'll kill you.' He even slammed me into a wall once. Bastard.”

“That's some, well, shocking information,” Val said. “But why out Barrister to Robby? What does it have to do with Carressa?”

“I wasn't gonna out Norman—I mean, not specifically. It's not cool to force people out of the closet, even douchebags like him. Goes against gay code. The thing is, about six weeks ago, during one of our meet-ups before I quit his campaign, I heard Norman talking on the phone all secret-like about the death of Lester Carressa, like it had already happened. But this was
two weeks before Lester actually died
.” Chet leaned toward Val like he was afraid to be overheard in his own apartment. “How could he know that Lester was gonna die before he died? Norman must have something to do with it. Which means that Max must
not
have anything to do with it, because why plot with other people to murder your father in the family mansion where you're bound to be the prime suspect?”

Val's mind went to a dozen places at once. Assuming Chet told the truth and heard what he thought he heard, why would Barrister want Max's father dead? Why try to frame Max for the murder? If they knew where Chet and Robby would meet, why not kill Chet, the source of the incriminating information, rather than Robby?

Val knew of one other way to know when someone was going to die before it happened. But that wasn't possible…was it? If other people could do what Val could do, it would be a well-known phenomenon, studied and documented. She'd found no trace of anyone else with her abilities, despite searching for over half of her life. It couldn't be.

“Why didn't you go to the police?” Val asked.

“Gay code, remember? If I went to the police, I'd have to out Norman. Lawyers have confidentiality privilege and stuff. And you can't trust the cops. Impossible to tell who's clean or dirty. But I couldn't let such a pretty boy go to jail for a crime he didn't commit.”

As Val opened her mouth to ask another question, a heavy thump at the door announced another visitor.

“Oh, that's my friend Dookie,” Chet said as he rose and exited the kitchen.

Val's head still reeled from Chet's information—what should her next move be? Should
she
go to the police?—when she heard someone bellow, “Seattle PD drug raid! Open up!”

“
Hijo de puta
,” Chet said. “Again?”

She heard the locks release, the door open.

“Don't you guys have anything better to do than enforce racist stereotypes? No, I don't have any weed, just like I didn't have any two weeks ago.”

BOOM BOOM. Two gunshots tore through the apartment, followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor. Down the hallway, a woman screamed. Val slapped a hand over her mouth to contain her own, then launched from her chair and backpedaled into the wall, as far away as possible from the beaded curtain that separated the kitchen from the living room. The image she'd seen two days ago of Chet lying in a pool of his own blood, pawing at his chest as his life slipped away, came back to her then. She knew the image was Chet at that moment, his future caught up to him.

Val heard a resident yelling at the cops, demanding to know what was going on. His voice was joined by another as one of the policemen, or men posing as police, told everyone to stay in their homes. She took the opportunity to sidle into Chet's bedroom and delicately shut the door, clicking the flimsy lock in place. She ran to the window and tried to pull it open quietly, but the damn thing stuck like it hadn't been opened in years.

“Come on,” she whispered, strong-arming it open one inch at a time. It squeaked as she ratcheted it up. She had seconds before they noticed the noise. “Come on.
Come on.
”

Finally she forced the window open enough to squeeze through. With her heart pounding so hard her ribs hurt, Val pushed herself through the tiny opening as the bedroom's doorknob jiggled.

She stepped out onto a fire escape just as the bedroom door crashed open.

As fast as possible, she moved her arms and legs down the ladder, zigzagging the building's flank on rungs slick from the unending Seattle rain. On the final section she slipped and fell hard onto her back, knocking the wind out of her for a moment. She gasped for breath as she scrambled to her feet, then looked up in time to see a head poking out of Chet's window.

Sten. Fucking Sten. That son of a bitch. He
was
involved. And he was a murderer.

Val cried out when Sten stuck his gun out the window and fired at her. The fire escape prevented Sten from getting a clean shot, and the bullet clinked as it ricocheted. Val heard two more shots bank off the metal as she fled down the wet alleyway, then another that exploded the brick next to her head as she cut to the left, into another connecting alley.

Val sprinted down the narrow passage, crashing through mud puddles and leaping over bags of trash that littered her escape route. She followed the alley when it turned right, scanning her path for any opening into the street that might save her life. Before she found a way out, the alley dead-ended at a tarp-covered chain-link fence with barbed wire on top and a padlock trapping her inside.

“No!” Val yanked on the padlock. It didn't budge. She tried the only door in the alley, a metal behemoth flush with the brick—locked. “Goddammit, no!” She kicked the door, and it barely moved.

Val pulled out her pistol and pressed herself into the corner of the alley's dead end. She'd been in firefights before while in the military, though not against American citizens, and not alone. She didn't stand much of a chance against two armed cops when she had nowhere to hide and no cover for support. In all her visions she'd never seen her own death. There was no reason this couldn't be it.

But she'd be damned if she was going down without a fight.