It had been a gift from an old friend who’d thought he’d finally found a way to turn my “no” into a “yes.” The Birkin was a rare and precious thing crafted from deep-red ostrich leather. At $10,000, it would carry whatever the hell I deemed necessary.
Two bags in hand, I took the elevator down to the garage. The air was heavy, and those fluorescent lights were still blinking. No lost Norwegians followed me this time, but a black Dodge Challenger had blocked in my Escalade.
I stopped mid-step as the ground rolled beneath me.
The driver’s side door opened. A husky white dude wearing a gray T-shirt and clean jeans climbed from behind the steering wheel. He had a salt and pepper buzz cut and the scratchy ease of an undercover cop. He said, “Hey.”
Sparks shot from my chest, down my left arm and to my fingertips. I said, “Umm…”
“Wait a minute,” a woman shouted from behind me.
The voice belonged to an Asian chick with two long, shellacked ponytails. She scampered past me, and said, “I’m Leah,” to the white guy.
He said, “Airport?”
She said, “Uh-huh,” then whispered, “Sorry,” to me before sliding into the Charger’s backseat.
The driver shrugged. “My bad. Have a good night.” He dipped back behind the steering wheel. The tires squelched against the concrete as the car rolled out of the garage.
I stood there, shaking.
Was this now my life? Being terrified and breathless all day?
Was “losing my freakin’ mind” my new normal?
If so, then…
Crap.
Chapter 25
I couldn’t lose my mind. I needed to ignore the constriction in my chest, ignore all that pressure building up. Because surrendering to the crazy would mean the end of life as I knew it. No condo. No parties. No freedom.
The good guys had left Melissa’s house in a state similar to homes battered by tornadoes. A fine, black dust covered nearly every flat surface, and it seemed like the house had paled, its soul stolen by the forensic tech’s flash photography.
Melissa looked like a survivor in the wreckage, wearing a funky UCLA sweatshirt. “Please don’t hate me,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just want what’s best for Jonah.”
My face flushed—how could I argue with that?
She now pushed her hair back from her face, then said, “Wanna help me clean up?”
I shook my head. “That’s okay.”
She laughed. “Don’t blame you.”
“Why don’t you go take a shower? I’ll get started on…this.” My eyes skittered over the scattered envelopes on the floor, the coffee table books also on the floor, and the magazines scattered throughout. “Couch cushions are a great place to start. Incredibly do-able.”
I grabbed the first pillow: brocaded, yellow, and now with a man’s heel in its center. I tossed it back on the couch. “See? The living room’s already looking better.” I stayed busy placing cords of firewood back into the leather holder. I fixed pictures, and arranged clay jars from Mazatlán, Belize, and New Mexico just so. The spot on the carpet where Kirk had lain dying was stained and smelled like soiled diapers—I’d let Melissa handle that.
But she was now squeezing the bridge of her nose. “Kirk and I, we should’ve never been together. I should’ve listened to you. I should’ve listened to that tiny voice in my head. I didn’t, and now I’m gonna be arrested for killing him. Either way, I’m losing Jonah.”
I stared at the pillow in my hand: brocaded, green, footprint. “You didn’t shoot him.”
Melissa snatched magazines from the floor. “Tell that to Detective Elliott. He’s just waiting for DNA evidence to come back in, and then…”
“He’s trying to scare you into a confession.” I tossed the pillow on the couch, then took my phone from my pocket. “And he’s working with old information. If he tore his eyes away from you for just one second, he’d solve the case.”
Melissa stepped toward me. “You sound more confident than usual.”
I told her about Sophia Acevedo’s early-morning visit, then played the recorded conversation. “Detective Anthony listened to this, too. Seriously, every time Sophia sends either a crazy text message or makes a house call, she’s one step closer to a cell in San Quentin. And throw in her lipstick, sunglasses, and panties they found on Kirk…It all points away from you and it points away from us. She’s gonna throw him under the bus in order to save herself. We can’t control what she says.”
“And the Oakleys?”
“They’ll turn their anger on where it belongs—with Sophia. You just have to amp up your grieving widow act a little more. Say only good things about the asshole you married.”
She nodded. “I can do that.”
I grabbed another pillow from the carpet—quilted, purple, too busy-looking for the sofa. “Does this one go on the armchair?”
Melissa didn’t answer. Her face had twisted more than the curtains hanging over the windows.
My lungs pinched in my chest. “What’s wrong, Mel?”
She took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “I need to tell you something.”
Chapter 26
Parties weren’t meant to last, Dani.
My skin prickled across my chin and cheeks. “I don’t think I can handle anything else.” I forced myself to chuckle even as I crumbled inside.
Melissa covered her mouth with a trembling hand.
I offered the fakest smile in the history of fake smiles. “I’m joking. What’s up?”
Her eyebrows crumpled. “Before you came over on Sunday night…” She twisted the cuff of her sweatshirt. “I planted all of that…everything on him.”
The clock on the mantel ticked, and kept time with my pounding heart.
“Planted all of what? On who?”
“It’s easier if I just show you.” She headed toward the staircase. “I should’ve told you sooner but I couldn’t really talk with Detective Elliott hanging around.”
I barely felt my feet as I followed Melissa down a hallway that looked too slick and too bright to be real. My phone vibrated in my hand—Ian’s number brightened the screen.
“Hey,” I said, forcing light into my voice. “You just finished dreaming about me?”
“Umhmm.” He sounded loose and lazy, just like I’d left him hours ago. “Where are you?”
“At my sister’s. Helping her upright the chiffarobe y’all knocked over when you were looking for the bloody candlestick holder.”
He chuckled. “Call me later?”
“Certainly,” I said, and ended the call.
Melissa was gawking at me. “Who was that?”
“I, too, didn’t have time to tell you something. Ian—Detective Anthony—and I were at Santa Cruz together. We lived in the same dorm during our second year. Small world, huh?”
“Are you…? You and him…?”
“This is a very good thing.” I paused, then added, “It’s best that you don’t ask any questions.” I reached out to close her mouth. “What did you want to show me?”
The master bedroom was in disarray, just like the rest of the house. The down comforter that cost a fortune lay on the ground and had been trampled. The pillows were stripped from their cases. Drawers were bleeding clothes. That fine black dust dirtied every surface. The wedding picture of Kirk and Melissa that had lived on the nightstand had fallen to the carpet. There was another footprint on the glass but the glass hadn’t cracked. Of course it hadn’t.
I pointed at the bed. “You’re getting rid of that as soon as possible.”
She nodded. “Trust me: I’d rather sleep on shark teeth than sleep on that thing again.”
I rolled my eyes. She’d said that before. Piranha teeth that time. And she’d stayed.
We entered the walk-in closet. Classic Talbots in no particular order hung on Melissa’s side. Kirk’s side was color-coded, with most of the space dedicated to his collection of baseball caps and athletic shoes. There were
also two small bureaus in the closet.
“Remember when I told you that I’d found packs of Ecstasy and some of Sophia’s things in here?” Melissa pulled open the bottom drawer of the bureau on Kirk’s side, then removed a box from beneath a pile of jeans.
Among the collection: panties, body oil, pictures of naked women.
She plucked two pairs of panties—blue lace and pink satin. She lay both pair on the carpet. The blue lace panties were twice as big as the pink satin. “Two different sizes,” she said. Next, she pulled a B-cup bra from the pile, then found a bra with cups bigger than my head.
My face was now completely numb because I saw. “These—”
“Belong to two different women, at least. Not just from Sophia.”
I groaned and sank to the carpet. I hid my face in my knees. “Oh, Mel…”
“I was angry, Dani. I wasn’t thinking. I just started grabbing things.”
I looked at her with tired eyes. “You should’ve warned me.”
Her face darkened. “When? And don’t take that tone with me.”
“Here I am, trying to pin this shit on Sophia, and now, you’re telling me that Lorraine from Kentucky could be the rightful owner of those panties in his pocket? You’re telling me this but you’re concerned about my tone?” I ran my hands over my face. “Anything else you didn’t have a chance to tell me?”
Melissa swallowed, then nodded. “About Jonah’s bag…”
Chapter 27
I sighed. “What about Jonah’s bag?”
“It’s easier if—”
“You just show me, yeah,” I interrupted, shaking my head.
Melissa led me back to the kitchen, glinting with scattered cutlery and displaced dishes. The Elmo bag sat on the breakfast counter. Melissa placed Jonah’s extra clothes near the sink, remembering to keep the wine bottle wrapped in the sweatshirt. She tossed the last bag of Cheerios into the snack bowl, then sat his Tonka trucks on the windowsill.
“I told you,” I whispered, “the teddy bear—”
“There’s something else. Look.” She pointed inside the bag.
There was a zipper in the gray lining—a zipper I hadn’t noticed until she tugged at it. The lining separated, and brushed gold metal caught the kitchen’s light.
I whispered, “I’m scared to guess what that is.”
She pulled out her mini iPad.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Again: scared to guess.”
She offered me the device. “Go to my search history.”
The iPad’s wallpaper was a picture of Kirk and Jonah sitting behind home plate back in August at Dodgers Stadium. Peace fingers and big smiles, Dodger caps turned backward.
I tapped the browser icon, then selected History from the menu.
• POISONING—4 days ago
• DIVORCE—4 days ago
• ECSTASY OVERDOSE—4 days ago
• MANSLAUGHTER VS MURDER—a week ago
• COUNTRIES NO EXTRADITION—a week ago
Drums pounded in my head. “So it wasn’t spur of the moment, you dumping…?”
“Ecstasy in the wine? Kind of. But killing him in general?” She took the device from my hands. “I’d been thinking about it for a while. Only because I knew that he’d never go, and that I’d never let him go. I knew he was planning shit with Sophia and that they were close…”
Cold dread crackled over me, and I placed my forehead against the granite countertop. “This isn’t good, Mel.”
She laughed. “No shit. So now, the cops can’t find this.” She pointed to the iPad. “I didn’t shoot Kirk, but if they saw this history, they wouldn’t believe me. It’s obvious that I wanted him dead. And I knew they would turn the house upside down trying to prove that. That’s why I hid it in Jonah’s bag.” She swiped at the iPad’s screen.
“Stop.” I grabbed her hand. “What are you about to do?”
“Clear the search history.”
“No.” I tightened my grip. “You can’t. Nothing’s ever truly erased in search histories. You’ll only look guiltier if you clear it.”
Melissa’s eyes bugged. “It can’t just stay there. What am I gonna do?”
“We’ll figure out the internet stuff. They’d need a warrant anyway to look at IP addresses and all that. But this—” I pointed at the iPad. “We have to get rid of this, like, right now.”
The kitchen was silent until the refrigerator’s icemaker rumbled.
Finally, Melissa said, “You know, and I know that they’re watching me. I can’t get rid of it.”
“Yeah.” My stomach cramped from the icicles now growing there. I lay my forehead against the cool countertop again, then sighed. “Fine. I’ll handle it, then.”
Chapter 28
I’ll handle it.
As though I knew about dumping murder-plotting iPads and laced wine bottles. Hell, I’d never smoked a joint, had never taken Ecstasy, and sometimes blessed my food before I ate, but now, here I was, an effin’ heroine in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Handling it.
With a brick in my belly, I sped away from Melissa’s house and down the hill.
Crenshaw Boulevard and Leimert Park were a hot mess. The new subway construction had brought endless concrete barriers and posted traffic signs that prohibited turning, speeding, and just about everything else. Heavy steel plates covered open trenches—sometimes. Drivers now avoided this stretch of street, where big trucks ferrying metal crap dropped metal crap that banged up your car, shattered your windshield, and punctured a tire or two.
The houses surrounding the park had been built in the 1930s and 1940s. Spanish-styles, many boasted ceramic-tiled roofs and neat front yards. Security bars hung on the windows of every third house—windows now aglow with lamp and television light.
Even with ongoing construction, Leimert Park still acted as a cultural center. It had a black bookstore, a performing arts theater, and community center—as well as homeless, the mentally ill, African drum circles, and vendors hawking sticks of incense, bootleg DVDs, and cheap t-shirts.
I rolled past it all, then made a U-turn at the beginning of a residential street to drive past it all again. No one cared—I didn’t stand out here. Just another black girl rolling in her black Caddy in South LA.
My phone rang, and for the second time that night, Ian was calling me. “Hey,” he said. “I have a crazy idea. How about you, me, late-night pizza, such and such?”
“Such and such?” I said. “Sounds intriguing. A little naughty, even. When?”
“Tonight. That is, if you’re not tired of me yet.”
I smiled. “I can’t tonight. Mel’s finally home and she doesn’t want to be alone, especially since the Oakleys have Jonah and you guys have yet to arrest Sophia.”
At the red light, a Camaro pulled beside me. The woman driving was smoking a cigarillo and singing along to Drake, now blasting from her stereo.
“Sounds like you’re driving,” Ian said.
Oops. “Yep. Just down the hill.” Phillips Barbecue sat to my left. A long line snaked from the order window to the parking lot. “Getting ribs for Melissa.”
Ian clucked his tongue. “I’m jealous—that sounds better than pizza.”
“Will the offer for such and such still be good for tomorrow? I’m getting home late from the gala and I’ll need to wind down. You could help with that.”
“Protect and serve,” he said. “And I enjoy serving you.”
Yes: I was losing my effin’ mind. No: I couldn’t help myself.
I slowly rolled through the dark streets around Leimert Park, passing barbershops, hair salons, car repair garages. At the beauty school, I found an empty diagonal parking slot between a Dodge truck and a Toyota Corolla. There was an open sewer grate below the curb. No streetlights burned except for one halfway down the block. Moths the size of pterodactyls banged against the orange bulb.
I slid the Cadillac into the empty space, then turned off the car. Even though I was parked, I gripped the steering wheel tight
enough to crack it in half.
And then, I listened.
To my pounding heartbeat…to the pounding at the drum circle…to trickling water…
A living sewer that ran to the Pacific Ocean?
I reached for the bag I’d hidden behind my seat and placed it on my lap. As I glanced in the rearview and side mirrors, I ran my fingers along the Birkin’s supple leather. Trembling, I peeked inside the bag. What I saw there made me dizzy.
Chapter 29
Previous Sunday
It was a little past nine o’clock and I sat in my Escalade one house down from my sister’s stately Colonial. Every twenty minutes, dog walkers tromped past my truck, pausing only to let their pups pee and poop on someone’s grass. Melissa’s tearful words from our telephone call still played in my mind. Her words were now a familiar song.
“We had a fight. A big one.”
“Kirk and Sophia, they’re sleeping together again.”
“I’m leaving him, for good this time.”
Earlier that afternoon, I’d fed private investigator Dominic Carducci a porterhouse steak, creamed spinach, and lobster mac and cheese. In return, he’d fed me more proof that Kirk was, indeed, planning to rip off my sister. And that Sophia was planning to rip off Kirk.
All of that proof had lived in an expandable file folder that sat on my passenger seat.
Photographs of Kirk and Sophia checking in at beachside hotels up and down the California coast. Kirk and Sophia standing in line at banks around the city and in Las Vegas. Mug shots, criminal arrest records, copies of Facebook posts. Those things that Dominic couldn’t do without a warrant, I did with my sister’s unspoken permission—from snooping around her house and putting a tracker on Kirk’s car, to downloading cell-phone records.
Sophia Acevedo’s red Mustang was parked in the driveway.
I was recording the scene with my cell phone as Kirk and Sophia stormed from the red front door and stomped over to the Mustang. Their voices carried in the quiet.