“They’re hunting you? Now you’ve lost me.”
“Please, just listen. . . .” You try to keep your voice even, but your throat is tight. You can’t seem unsure. You can’t seem desperate. “I think I’m a target. Like . . . prey. I think they dropped me in the middle of Los Angeles and that they set me up so I couldn’t go to the police, not even after a woman came after me with a gun. I think Ivan tracked me and delivered my location to both hunters, first the woman, then the other hunter who came after me today. Ivan wasn’t supposed to kill the woman; that wasn’t part of the plan. It was when she tried to kill me that he understood what the game was about, and tried to stop it.”
The detective is silent. You feel like all the air has left the room. He puts the pen back on the paper, scribbling a few lines you can’t quite decipher.
You go on, explaining everything: the woman’s medallion, the man who pursued you, the map and the symbols on the wall of the house. You mention the island, even if it’s impossible to be certain what it means. The men referred to their clients, and now it makes perfect sense, the service they provided. They allow people to buy entry into the ultimate high-stakes game.
The detective writes it down, sometimes interrupting with questions or to clarify a point. You lose track of time, but you keep going, not wanting to leave anything out. You finally pull the notepad from your back pocket, flipping through the pages to show him the details you’ve copied down. You know what it must sound like to someone on the outside. But it doesn’t matter now. The truth is all you have left.
The detective is writing down a few last notes when a woman comes in. She sets two scraps of paper down on the other side of the desk, where you can’t see them. She points to something she’s written there, and then she’s gone. She doesn’t even look at you.
The detective—was his name Powers? Or Paulson?—studies it, turns it over. “Thank you for being so thorough. Anything else you want to include before we wrap up?”
The walls of the room are covered in some sort of soundproof padding. You suddenly feel shut in, closed off. It felt good to say everything out loud, as if that confirmed it actually happened. And you’ve done your best to include everything—all of it—but now you’re convinced you’ve missed something, that there’s some specific thing on that piece of paper that you haven’t shared and he is testing you.
“I think that’s it.”
He pockets one piece of paper and then he pushes the other piece forward. Ben, it says. Then the number. It’s the receipt from the first day you met.
“So who’s Ben? You never mentioned him.”
You try to fix your expression, try not to let your breath catch in your chest. “I didn’t mention him . . . because I don’t know him.”
“You don’t know this person? Then why do you have his number?”
It’s possible they called him already. But you hedge your bets—it is not even six in the morning and you doubt he’d be awake, though it’s not impossible. He could’ve thought it was you on the other line. He could’ve picked up just to see.
“He was just some guy I met at the supermarket. He tried to pick me up.”
“Why did you keep his number?”
“I didn’t realize I did. . . .”
You wait a breath, knowing that it’s not the complete truth if it doesn’t include Ben, but no one—not even the police—can know he’s helped you. He has to remain separate from everything else. The night at the beach . . . the party . . . the kiss you shared. You have to keep it all away from tonight, from Ivan and the men and this police station, this exhausted room with its cheery, flickering lighting.
“I hope that’s the truth, because we’re going to call it. . . .”
“I’m not lying.”
When you meet his eyes you can tell you’re losing him. His face reveals the hours you’ve been in this room, the story you told—the ludicrousness of what you claimed. You told him you were being hunted, like prey, by multiple people in the middle of a bustling city, sometimes in broad daylight. Can you blame him for questioning you? If someone told you this story, would you believe them?
But now you need him—to believe you, to protect you, to find Ivan—and he is glancing at the corner of the room, to where the camera is. Do they think you’re lying? What was written on the woman’s note?
“I know this sounds insane, and I feel insane,” you say. “But I wouldn’t have come here if I wasn’t desperate. You took my fingerprints and I’ll go to the hospital and I’ll take whatever tests you want. You can question me again but I need you to help me. I don’t know how I got into this but now I’m stuck. I can’t get out.”
The detective gathers the papers and turns, heading for the door. “I’ll be back. Just wait here.”
The door falls shut behind him and you are alone again. You tuck the notepad back into your pocket. You think of Ben, of the receipt, trying to estimate how long it’ll be before you get to a phone to call him. He needs to tell them the same story you told them. He needs to explain the number away.
The security camera in the corner is still watching you, and as ten minutes pass, then ten more, you’re concerned. It’s the longest they’ve left you alone since you came in. You stand, pacing the length of the small room, wondering if it makes you look guilty. She’s restless, they’ll say. She’s nervous.
You’re asking people to believe you didn’t do something you’re on tape doing. You’re asking them to believe that somewhere out there, a group of people are hunting humans for sport. You, possibly others. Then, besides that, you’re only coming in now, after watching a woman die and being pursued by a man with a gun. You hear the detective’s voice: Why didn’t you come to us sooner?
Because you were scared. Because you were certain they’d arrest you, that now, days later, it’s still impossible to know how guilty you are. Because you can’t tell them anything about yourself—even your own name. You’re trying to think of all the reasons, to understand it, when the door opens again. The detective comes in with a police officer. Her hair is pulled back in a low bun, her lips stained with a burgundy gloss.
She’s holding something at her side just behind the detective, where you can’t see. A wave of panic rises in your chest, and you wonder if there was anything else, if you’ve betrayed yourself in some other way. Are they arresting you?
She sets a cup down on the table and slides it over. It’s tea. The tiny string hangs over the side of the paper rim, steam coming off the top. It’s so innocuous you almost want to laugh. Then the detective hands you a map. “See if you can show us where the house is,” he says, pointing to a green section of the map labeled Griffith Park. “Do you know which direction you went when you turned out of here?”
The pin on the woman’s breast pocket reads ALVAREZ. She hands you a red pen. “We went right,” you say, marking the paper. “And I followed them for a few miles. Eventually I was on Hollywood Boulevard.” You trace down the road you think you exited out of, moving past the streets you know. Western, Gower, La Brea. You stop soon after. You went farther, but on the map all the side streets look the same. It’s hard to tell where the turn was.
“You turned left off this road?”
The pen hovers over the paper, and you’re not sure what this proves. Do they still think you’re guilty? Do they think you’re making this up?
“I don’t know. It was dark and the cross streets are a blur. If I saw the turn I could tell you. It was after a gray-and-pink motel.”
The detective and the officer look at each other, and it’s a long while before the woman finally says anything. “You’d recognize it?”
“Definitely. You just have to take me there.”
The detective nods, and it’s all you need. The officer doesn’t handcuff you. She doesn’t say anything, just motions for the door.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
................................................
..................
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“WHAT ABOUT THIS one?” the officer, Celia, asks. She can’t be going more than ten miles an hour, the police car pulling around the block so slowly every neighbor seems to notice. A white-haired woman in a robe ducks inside, calling to someone behind the gated door.
“This isn’t the street. . . .” You lean forward, your face just inches from the metal grate that separates you from the front seat. When she opened the back door you couldn’t help but use it to measure how much they believed your story. I trust you enough to follow this lead, but not enough to let you sit beside me.
“But that restaurant I told you about—the one with the flower on the sign. That was just a little bit away,” you add. “It has to be around here.”
“It doesn’t seem like it is.”
The air conditioning is blasting, but you still feel like your skin is on fire. “We’re close—it can’t be much longer.”
She glances at you over her shoulder, and there’s something kinder in her expression. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she says. “If we don’t have a crime scene we don’t have much to go on. They didn’t find anything at the park . . . not even the knife.”
She points to some of the houses on the side of the road, another motel, a gated lot. She keeps pointing as if to say, What about this? Does this look familiar? Do you remember this?
The street was dark last night, your headlights off, and you were more concerned with remaining unseen. You only know what you know. But you’re starting to feel like you have to turn up something, that there’s no going back without some proof.
Her phone breaks the silence. She pulls over, answers. “Not yet,” she says. “She thinks we’re close.”
Then there is a series of “yeses” and “nos.” You strain to hear the voice on the other end of the line, but between the radio station and the traffic outside, it’s hard to make out anything.
“I’ll let you know,” Celia says before hanging up. She tucks the phone in her breast pocket and pulls away from the curb. As she glances over her shoulder, merging into traffic, you look where she looks. Across two lanes of cars, you can just see a yellow house. It’s set in from the corner.
“Wait,” you say. “Take the next left. Try circling around.”
She does, but she drives just as slowly as before. You circle back to the previous block. A low tree branch stretches over the road, a few leaves grazing the car’s roof. You pass underneath it and suddenly things are familiar.
“This is it,” you say. “It’s up on the left.”
“The one on the end?” Celia asks, her voice uncertain.
As you get closer, you see why. The tarp is still covering half the house, but beyond it the facade is burned black. There are two fire trucks at the curb. A few firemen move supplies from the garage to a pile outside. “That’s the place.”
She parks at the back of the house, where you have a clear view. The windows on the bottom floor are broken and black. The fire is out, but soot streaks the sides of the house, trailing up to the second floor. Through the doorway, you catch glimpses of the house’s charred insides, the walls eaten away by flames. Your stomach sinks as you take in the destruction. The fire can’t have been random. They’re covering their tracks.
Celia opens all the windows a crack. Then she turns off the engine. It’s only when she gets out, clicking the locks shut, that you realize she’s leaving you there. Your hand automatically goes to the door handle, as if trying it twice might open it.
Behind her, most of the firemen have gone back inside the house. One lingers by the truck, loading a tank into a compartment above. She approaches him and says something you can’t hear. “Looks like a party,” he says. “There’s a bunch of broken bottles, some syringes. Probably just some junkies.”
Celia disappears inside the house. When she returns, she’s confused—it’s all over her face. She turns back, looking around the back of the house, seeing what you saw. The place is exactly what you described to the detective. The house is the same color, the bars and roof the same. There’s even the same broken patio furniture—two wooden chairs and a rotten table in a pile in the yard.
She comes back to the car, leaning down to look at you. She’s about to say something when her cell phone rings. “We just got here,” she answers. “It’s the place she described. . . .”
You see now that she believes you, or at least believes that you believe it. Why would you turn yourself in if you were lying? How could you describe it in detail if you weren’t here?
She paces the concrete backyard, occasionally glancing at the narrow path that leads to the front of the house. Then her expression shifts. There are a few more “yeses,” “rights,” before she puts the phone back in her pocket.
She opens the car door. Her hand comes down on your wrist, pulling you to stand. She’s squeezing your arm so hard it momentarily stuns you.
“What are you doing?” you manage. “What did they say?”
“They ran your fingerprints. There’s a warrant for your arrest in San Francisco.”
You feel like someone has rearranged your insides. You have to remind yourself that you weren’t lying, that whatever she’s talking about—you didn’t know.
“Club Xenith? The arson you committed? How you bounced between juvenile halls? Any of this sounding familiar?”
“When? When was I in San Francisco?”
“Okay . . . spare me any more bullshit,” she says. This time her voice is colder, foreign, and you can tell she’s already back at the station, already thinking about bringing you in and telling everyone how stupid she was to believe you. She turns you around. When she reaches for the handcuffs at her waist you don’t initially resist. She nearly has them on you when you pull away, slipping from her grasp.
She looks surprised. As you spin back, heading toward the neighbor’s backyard, she grabs for her radio. You dig your toe into the chain-link fence, jumping it, and land hard on the other side. You expect her to come running after you, but when you turn back she’s still by the car. She’s still standing there, the radio to her lips, calling to someone on the other end.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHEN THE POLICE come to Ben’s door he’s still asleep, the bell sounding somewhere above, like some strange distant song. He twists on the couch, pulls the blanket to his neck. He keeps his eyes closed but then they knock several times, banging hard against the wood.
He’s up. Wiping the crust from his eyes, his legs feeling unsteady as he fumbles in the dark basement. He trips over his shoes. As he goes to the stairs the knocking is louder, barreling toward him down the long hall. He knows something’s wrong. He stands there in the foyer, his skin cold and clammy, wondering if it’s too late to run.
He stares through the peephole. Two uniformed men stare back.
The cop has his badge out already. He holds it in front of the peephole, waiting. “LAPD,” he says. They heard footsteps in the hall. The officers already know he’s there.
Ben turns back into the house, making a list of where everything is—the pound he has in the coffee table in the basement, the plastic boxes and scale in his closet. When he opens the door he still pretends to be half asleep, even though his heart is wild in his chest, his hands shaky. He’s in his boxers. He wipes his eyes again, wipes his nose. “Can I help you?”
It’s about his mom. They know he’s been selling pot. They caught him on camera with Sunny somewhere and now they’re here, looking for her. He doesn’t consider the other option. He won’t consider that someone could be dead.
“Morning . . . Ben Paxton?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Are your parents home?”
“No, my mom’s not here . . . why?”
“We were hoping to ask you some
questions. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, yeah.”
The first cop is older, with black hair that’s stiff with gel. He holds up a piece of paper. Ben takes it, turns it over, and studies the receipt before understanding what it is.
“Does that look familiar?”
“It’s my phone number,” Ben says. “I wrote it down for someone.”
“Who?” The younger officer is heavier, balding at his temples.
Ben doesn’t know whether to lie about her or to tell the truth. Where did they find this? What do they know? If they had any reason to think she’d stayed here he’d already be in trouble. Wouldn’t they be asking to come in?
“A girl I met at the supermarket.”
The officer plucks the receipt out of Ben’s hand, folds it, then puts it back in his pocket. “When did you meet her?”
“About a week ago. Why?”
“Did she call?” the older officer asks.
Do they know? Ben tries to figure out where Sunny called him from . . . the motel? Do they know she was there?
“No, she never called. Why, what happened?”
“We’re investigating a case she’s involved in.” Ben waits, wants the younger officer to say more, but he doesn’t. What case? Where is she? He wants to ask but he’s afraid he’ll give something away.
“Is she okay?” It’s all he can manage. The officer pauses, like he’s puzzling over the question, and Ben feels the need to say more, to explain. “When I met her she seemed kind of out of it. That’s why I gave her my number.”
“What do you mean, ‘out of it’?”
“Just, I don’t know. She had a cut on her arm.” It sounds so stupid when he says it out loud. Why would he care about a stranger? He should stop talking; he shouldn’t say anything else.
“If you hear from her, you’ll let us know.” It’s part question, part statement.
“Sure, yeah. I will.”
Ben’s afraid they might ask something else, that maybe they’ll want to come in, but those few simple answers seem to appease them. The older one turns to go first, the younger one following, and they whisper something to each other as they start down the front path. Ben watches them get into the car.