By Sunday morning, I had a short and meaningless list of words and names. None of it meant anything to me, and I tried to stifle the desperation that threatened to drown me on the way to the Galleria to call Detective Castillo. I probably could have called him from the hotel, but I was still being extra careful. If he hadn’t found Cormac in Seattle, who’s to say that he wouldn’t experience a sudden reversal of his “I don’t like what they did to you” routine?
I took the stairs to the top of the parking garage and dialed his cell phone number. He answered after the first ring.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Grace. How are you?”
“I’m . . . fine. What did you find out about Seattle?” Nice guy or not, I didn’t want to stay on the phone any longer than I had to.
“It’s not good news. The woman? Miranda Mayer? Said Cormac left last week. Said they went to the theater and his daughter was gone when they got home. The next day, he was gone too. My contact in Seattle asked around, but as of now, there’s been no trace of him.”
The hope that had been building inside me dissipated all at once, leaving me deflated and tired. I should have known. No way would Cormac stay put, a sitting duck, while someone who knew where he was went rogue.
“Any idea where he might have gone?” Detective Castillo asked.
“None.” The time for mincing words was over.
I heard him sigh into the phone, could almost see him run a tired hand over his face the way he’d done a couple of times in P.F. Chang’s. “Did you come up with anything on your end?”
I took out the folded piece of paper where I’d written my list. “Just a bunch of stuff that doesn’t make sense.”
“Like what?”
I hesitated. If I gave him what I had, ridiculous as it was, and any of it turned into a real lead, would Parker and I get credit for it? Would I still be able to use it to get him out of jail?
“I want to know what kind of deal I can get for Parker before I say anything else,” I said.
“Grace . . . I can’t promise you anything. Not without something solid. Do you have something solid?”
I looked down at the piece of paper.
Raymundo (Phoenix)
Geneva (Chicago—IDs?)
Morenovich (sp?)
Jeffries (money?)
Royal (DC/Baltimore)
The names and words had been said in passing between Cormac and Renee.
Did you call Raymundo?
Morenovich should have that data by tomorrow.
I have to drive out to Geneva tonight.
But I hadn’t been paying attention at the time. I’d been too firmly ensconced in my belief that I was safe, that the carefully orchestrated details of our life were in such good hands that I didn’t need to worry, let alone ask about any of it.
“I wouldn’t say solid,” I finally said in answer to Detective Castillo’s question.
“Can you give me an idea what we’re talking about here?” he asked.
“It’s just . . . I don’t know. Names and stuff,” I said.
“First and last names?” he asked.
I was surprised by the bitter laughter that escaped my lips. It sounded strange and foreign. “I wish.”
There was silence on the line between us. “Listen, Grace. I could tell you that I can get you a deal. And then I could take what you have and hope to get something out of it. If we do, it may or may not help Parker. But the truth is, you have a better shot if you come to the DA with something solid, especially with Fletcher on the case.”
I chewed my lip. “What would you consider solid?”
“The names and addresses of the people helping Cormac and Renee, the people giving them information they need to pull jobs like the one at the Fairchild place. And if you can get a better line on Cormac’s whereabouts—or Renee’s—so much the better.”
“Fat chance of that,” I muttered into the phone. Cormac was a pro. When he wanted to stay gone, he stayed gone. And Renee might as well have been a ghost. I wouldn’t even know where to start looking for her.
“There is one more option,” he said.
“What is it?”
“You could turn yourself in. Throw yourself on the mercy of the prosecutor, back up Parker’s allegation that the two of you were just kids following orders from the only parents you’d ever known.”
“What would happen then?” I asked.
There was a beat of silence before he spoke again. “Hard to say. You might do a little time in a juvenile correctional facility—I think we could argue that would be best given your age—and Parker might get a little less time than he would otherwise get. But there are never any guarantees.”
Parker and me in jail—Detective Castillo could call it a “juvenile correctional facility,” but everyone knew that was just another word for jail—was not what I’d had in mind when I’d come back to LA. We’d have records for life, records that would make it hard to get jobs or credit, things we would need if we were going to live straight.
“I can’t risk it,” I finally said.
“Grace . . . I’m worried about you. A young girl on her own isn’t a good thing in this world.”
I looked at my phone. I’d been on the line for almost three minutes. “I’ve been alone a long time,” I said, preparing to disconnect the call. “I just didn’t know it.”
Eleven
The next afternoon, I was back on the bus to Playa Hermosa. I’d spent the night before counting my money and rehashing the conversation with Detective Castillo, which led me to the same inevitable conclusion: I was at a dead end.
I had no idea how to use the little information I had to help Parker, but I couldn’t keep blowing a hundred and twenty dollars a day on a hotel. I toyed briefly with the idea of taking to the streets, sleeping outside. It was warm enough. But then I realized how easy it would be for the cops to pick me up—or for something even worse to happen to me—while I was asleep on a park bench. The thought of approaching Selena, of facing her after what I’d done, made me feel like screaming inside, but I was out of options. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed help.
The sun had broken through the marine layer when I got off at the Town Center and began walking up the winding hills toward Selena’s house. The air was moister and heavier than usual, and I was grateful for the canopy of trees that offered me shade every few feet.
I had turned the corner onto Selena’s street and was heading for my hiding place under the arbor when I spotted a peacock standing in the middle of the road. It was so still it could have been fake. A moment later, it blinked, its eyes never leaving my face.
I slowed down, totally exposed, the cover of the arbor forgotten as I stared at the bird. I’d forgotten how magnificent they were up close. Pictures never really did them justice. On paper they were just two-dimensional objects that hardly seemed real. But in real life their plumage was enormous, the green and blue tail feathers vibrant and iridescent, standing a good two feet above their regal heads or dragging four feet or more behind them. Their eyes were deep brown, wise and knowing, and they never seemed in a hurry to get anywhere, even when the cars on the peninsula honked and people screamed out their windows at them to move.
“Hello,” I said softly. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the same bird that had wandered Camino Jardin in front of the house we’d rented while working the Fairchild con. It didn’t make sense—Camino Jardin was at least a mile farther up the peninsula—but I felt a strange kind of kinship with the animal, set loose in a foreign land and forced to make its way around people who didn’t want it there, because it had nowhere else to go.
The sound of my voice seemed to waken it from its reverie, and it started to move, strolling calmly across the street and disappearing around the corner like it knew exactly where it was going.
I stared after it, feeling something tug at the hollow place in my chest. Then a car backed out of one of the driveways, and I hurried forward, head do
wn, making my way to the arbor that had shielded me on my last failed trip to see Selena.
I glanced down at my phone, trying to look busy as the car continued down the road. When it was out of sight, I tucked myself back into the arbor and took stock of the situation on Selena’s street.
The house I was standing in front of looked as empty as it had the first time I’d been there. The street was empty too, except for the same blue Range Rover. The sight of it there, in the same place it had been a few days earlier, rang the alarm on my instincts. It was just a car—and an empty one at that—but I’d been trained to notice things that were out of the ordinary.
I glanced up and down the street, looking for the car’s owner, wondering why they hadn’t parked in the driveway. Then again, maybe they were visiting someone. Maybe they were hired to clean house or dog sit while one of the homeowners on Selena’s street was at work. It’s not like someone was sitting inside the car with binoculars trained my way.
I was pulled from my paranoia by a flash of movement at the corner. At first I thought it was the peacock, but when I turned toward it I realized it was Selena, alone again and heading for her house.
She was wearing capris and a drapey tank top, her hair pulled back into a thick curly ponytail. She didn’t look like herself, something I hadn’t been able to see when she’d been covered almost head to toe in her raincoat. When we’d run from Playa Hermosa just before Christmas, Selena had been curvy and lush, her skin as creamy as caramel. Now her arms seemed pale and thin, and her pants hung low and loose on jutting hip bones. More than that, her face wore an unfamiliar expression, her eyes blank, her mouth downturned as she walked. Where was the Selena I’d known? The one with light in her eyes and an aura of expectation, like the next good thing was right around the corner, something she seemed to believe even when she’d seen bad things happen up close and personal?
I took a step forward as she turned onto the walkway leading to her house. I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, to cross the street, to continue up the pathway behind her. I’d never really be ready, and while her dad was probably at work, I couldn’t risk ringing the doorbell once she was inside. I had no idea what she would say or do if she saw me through the peephole on the big front door, if she would have time to get to the phone and call the cops.
She was digging around in her bag, probably looking for her key, when she froze. I was just a few feet behind her, my heart flapping like a wild bird. I almost wondered if she could hear it.
She slowly turned to face me, and all the words I’d planned flew from my mind. We looked at each other for a long minute before she spoke.
“You better come inside.”
Twelve
I stepped into the foyer and looked around, wondering how a place that had once felt like home could feel so foreign, so changed. Then I realized it wasn’t Selena’s house that had changed; it was me. I wondered suddenly how all the things I’d done in my life would look if I were to revisit them, if all the choices that had seemed so clear to me then would look different through the lens of everything that had happened, everything I’d done.
“My dad’s not here,” Selena said, watching me look around the foyer. She dropped her book bag on a bench near the door. “Come on.”
I looked nervously around as she started down the hall. It was hard to imagine Selena betraying me, telling me no one was home so her dad would see me and call the police, but I didn’t deserve the old consideration of our friendship, and I knew it. I wouldn’t blame her if she turned me in. Still, I had no choice but to follow her to the kitchen.
The room was neat and modest, a stark contrast to the gourmet kitchens, loaded with commercial-grade appliances and designer granite, that were standard for most of the houses in Playa Hermosa. I used to love sitting here with Selena, drinking iced tea and talking about life and school.
Selena gestured to the table and chairs in front of the big picture window. “Have a seat.” She was being polite, but her eyes were empty, her voice flat. “Want some iced tea?”
“Sure.”
She poured us each a glass and set mine down in front of me. Then she leaned against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. I knew body language—I’d studied it as part of our many cons—but Selena’s would have been readable even by an amateur. It screamed defensiveness, a big flashing sign that read STAY AWAY.
Silence sat heavy between us. Finally I said the only thing I could say.
“I’m sorry to come here.”
She studied me for a minute. “You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”
She shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Grace?”
I looked down at the table and blinked back the tears that sprang to my eyes. “Nothing. I just . . . well, first I want to say I’m sorry.”
“That’s it? You’re sorry?”
“I don’t know what else to say. What we did was fucked up, and I’m not making excuses, but—”
“But now you’re going to make excuses,” she said.
“It’s . . . more complicated than it seems.”
She took a drink of her tea and set the glass down a little too hard on the counter. “Did you or did you not lie to us—to me—about who you were, about why you were here?”
“I did,” I said softly. It was true, but I still hated admitting it out loud.
“Did you use what you learned from hanging out with us to steal from Logan’s family?”
I looked into her eye. “Not you, Selena. I never used anything you told me. You weren’t even supposed to be part of the plan.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What does that mean?”
“Just . . . I was assigned to get in with Logan and Rachel and the others, try to get information on Logan’s family. But I . . . well, I liked you. And I wanted to be your friend even when it seemed like a bad idea.”
“Well, I wish you’d listened to your gut, Grace. It would have been a lot easier for me.”
The words stung because they were true. It was something I hadn’t thought about at the time: that my friendship with Selena was completely self-serving. She’d never been part of the con. I’d pulled her into my web of lies because I’d needed her friendship, even when I knew it would be temporary. She hadn’t gotten anything but trouble out of the deal.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that,” she snapped. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“I know.”
“Why was it complicated?” she asked.
I looked up at her. “What?”
“You said it was complicated. Why?”
I shook my head. “You were right. It’s not complicated. I did what I did. The why of it doesn’t really matter.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “But I’d still like to know.”
Somewhere outside the window I thought I heard the caw of a parrot, and I turned my face to the glass, searching the trees for the flash of blue or red that would signal its presence. Like the peacocks, the parrots had been let loose here a long time ago. Now they were naturalized, as at home on the peninsula as if they’d been here for centuries, another mysterious resident of a place that never seemed quite real.
“I didn’t really know my mother,” I finally said, still looking out the window. “I was in foster care for a long time. I moved around a lot, had a lot of different families. Some of them were nice. Most of them weren’t.”
A host of people flashed through my mind. Harsh faces and blank stares, cold hands and dirty sheets.
“I was eleven when Cormac and Renee adopted me,” I continued. “They were heaven compared to the other people I’d been with. It was the first time I’d had a real family, one that couldn’t be taken away from me.”
“Did you know what they were going to do?” she asked.
“Not right away. And when it first started, it was small. Like a game.??
?
“A game?”
I heard the bitterness in her voice and shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not telling this right. They would teach me and Parker—”
“Parker was adopted by them at the same time?”
“No, he came later, and for a while it felt like we would be a normal family. Then they started teaching us little things. Sneaking into the movie theater, conning the bus driver into giving us a free ride, lifting wallets.” I shrugged. “I was twelve. It seemed like a game, a challenge. By the time the jobs got bigger, it just kind of seemed like that was normal.”
Her expression didn’t change. “But you had to know it was wrong when you got to the big stuff. You’re not a kid anymore.”
I swallowed around the shame that clogged in my throat. “I know. And you’re right: I did know—do know—that it was wrong. I just . . . I didn’t know how to get out of it. They were the only family I had.”
“Some family.”
The comment hit me where it hurt. They weren’t my family. Had never been my family. Except Parker. He probably would have bailed on Cormac and Renee long before the Fairchild con if he hadn’t felt responsible for me.
“Parker was in the same boat. He was already thirteen when Cormac and Renee adopted him, and he had a history of suicide attempts in foster care.” I hated telling Parker’s secrets, knew he’d hate me for using them to gain Selena’s sympathy. But I’d do anything to win his freedom, even if he wouldn’t. “It’s not right that he’s in jail while Cormac and Renee are free.”
“He committed a crime,” Selena said. “Someone died.”
“Parker didn’t kill that guard. Even the police know that. And he wasn’t at Logan’s . . . at the Fairchild house the night of the theft.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. He was part of it. An accessory.”
“So was I.” I said it softly, afraid to remind her of the fact in case she decided to call the cops.
“I know. And I should turn you in right now.”
“Why haven’t you?” I asked her.