Sandra Brown - Lethal

He slithered from his hiding place and walked a few blocks to a commercial area where several bars and restaurants were still open. He spotted a car in a dark and unattended lot and used it to drive himself to within a mile of his home, where he walked away from it, knowing that within minutes urban predators would have it stripped down to the wheels.

He went the rest of the way on foot and let himself into his building without turning on a light. He didn’t make a sound as he entered his underground living quarters. For once, Isobel was sleeping free of bad dreams. Her face was peaceful.

Diego wasn’t at peace and he didn’t sleep.

He sat gazing at Isobel’s serene face and puzzling over why The Bookkeeper had assigned a talent like him to such a Mickey Mouse job as “keeping an eye on” Bonnell Wallace.

“I don’t know.”

Honor’s voice had grown hoarse from repeating those three words. For two hours, Coburn, who was seemingly inexhaustible, had been hammering her with questions about Eddie’s life, going back as far as his early teenage years.

“I didn’t even know him then,” she argued wearily.

“You grew up here. He grew up here.”

“He was three classes ahead of me. We didn’t notice each other until he was a senior, I was a freshman.”

He wanted to know about every aspect of Eddie’s life. “When did his mother die? How did she die? Does she have family he was close to?”

“Nineteen ninety-eight. She was on chemotherapy for breast cancer. Her system was weakened by the treatments, and she died of pneumonia. She had one surviving sister. Eddie’s aunt.”

“Where does she live?”

“She doesn’t. She died in 2002, I think it was. What does she, or any of this, have to do with what you’re looking for?”

“He left something with someone. He put something somewhere. A file. Record book. Diary. Key.”

“Coburn, we’ve been through this. If such a thing exists, I don’t know what it is, much less where to look for it. I’m tired. Please, can’t we wait until morning and pick this up again then?”

“We may be dead in the morning.”

“Right, I may die of exhaustion. In which case, what’s the point?”

He dragged his hand over the lower half of his face. He stared at her long and hard through the darkness, and she thought he was about to relent, when he said, “You or his dad. One of you has to have it.”

“Why not another cop? Fred or Doral? Besides Stan and me, Eddie was closest to the twins.”

“Because whatever it is, it surely implicates them. If they had it, they would have destroyed it. They wouldn’t have been hovering around you for two years.”

“Waiting for me to produce it?”

“Or just to make certain that you never did.” While he thought, he repeatedly socked his fist into his opposite palm. “Who ruled Eddie’s car wreck an accident?”

“The investigating officer.”

He stopped the hand motions. “Let me guess. Fred Hawkins.”

“No. Another cop. He happened upon the wreckage. Eddie was already dead when he arrived.”

“What’s this officer’s name?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to know how he happened upon the wreckage.”

Honor stood up quickly and went out onto the deck but stayed near the exterior wall of the wheelhouse so the slender overhang of the roof would protect her from the rain.

Coburn followed her. “What?”

“Nothing. I needed some air.”

“My ass. What?”

She slumped against the wall, too tired to argue with him. “The officer who investigated Eddie’s car crash was found floating in a bayou a few weeks later. He’d been stabbed.”

“Suspects?”

“No.”

“Unsolved homicide.”

“I suppose. I never heard any more about it.”

“Thorough sons of bitches, aren’t they?” He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, staring out at the rain. “What did Eddie like to do? Bowl? Golf? What?”

“All that. He was a good athlete. He liked to hunt and fish. I’ve told you that.”

“Where’s his fishing and hunting gear?”

“At Stan’s.”

“Golf bag?”

“At Stan’s. And so are his bowling ball and the bow-and-arrow set he got for his twelfth birthday.” She said it with asperity, but he nodded thoughtfully.

“Sooner or later, I’m gonna have to pay Stan a visit.” Before she could address that, he asked her to describe Eddie.

“You’ve seen his picture.”

“I mean personality-wise. Was he serious and studious? Lighthearted? Moody? Funny?”

“Even-tempered. Conscientious. Serious when called for, but he liked to have a good time. Loved telling jokes. Liked to dance.”

“Liked making love.”

She figured he was trying to get a rise out of her, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Looking him straight in the eye, she said, “Very much.”

“Was he faithful?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“You can’t be positive.”

“He was faithful.”

“Were you?”

She glared at him.

He shrugged. “Okay, so you were faithful.”

“We had a good marriage. I didn’t keep secrets, and neither did Eddie.”

“He kept one.” He paused in order to give the statement significance, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Everybody keeps secrets, Honor.”

“Oh really? Tell me one of yours.”

A corner of his mouth tilted up. “Everybody but me. I don’t have any secrets.”

“Absurd thing to say. You’re wrapped up in secrets.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Ask away.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Idaho. Near the state line with Wyoming. In the shadow of the Tetons.”

That surprised her. She didn’t know what she had expected, but not that. He didn’t look like her image of a mountain man. Of course, he could very well be lying, inventing an unlikely past to protect his cover. But she went along. “What did your father do?”

“Drank. Mostly. When he worked, it was as a mechanic at a car dealership. He drove a snowplow in the winter.”

“He’s deceased?”

“For years now.”

She looked at him inquisitively. He didn’t respond to the silent question for so long that she didn’t think he would.

Finally he said, “He had this old horse that he kept in a corral behind our house. I named it, but I never heard him call it anything. He rarely rode it. Rarely fed it. But one day he saddled it and rode off. The horse came back. He didn’t. They never found his body. Of course they didn’t look very hard.”

Honor wondered if the bitterness lacing his voice was aimed at his alcoholic father or at the searchers who had given up on finding his remains.

“Dad had ridden that horse near to death, so I shot it.” His folded arms dropped back to his sides. He stared out into the rain. “No great loss. It wasn’t much of a horse.”

Honor let a full minute pass before she asked about his mother.

“She was French Canadian. Tempestuous by nature. When riled, she would launch into French, which she never bothered to teach me, so half the time I didn’t understand what she was screaming at me. Nothing good, I’m sure.

“Anyhow, she and I parted ways after I graduated high school. I attended two years of college, decided it wasn’t for me, joined the Marines. My first tour of duty, I got word that she’d died. I flew to Idaho. Buried her. End of story.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

His facial expression was as devoid of feeling as his life had been devoid of love from any source.

“No cousins, aunts, uncles, nobody,” he said. “When I die, ‘Taps’ won’t be played. There’ll be no twenty-one-gun salute, and there won’t be anyone there to get a folded flag. I’ll just be history, and nobody will give a shit. Especially me.”