Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

Charles Overby, a man who loved the sun, who just felt good with a ruddy complexion, now walked toward the Guzman Connection task-force room, deer-eye level in CBI headquarters, and wasn’t pleased at what he saw.

It was late afternoon and the shade outside turned the glass to a dim mirror. He looked vampiric, which if it wasn’t a word should be. Too stressed, too busy, too much shit. From Sacramento all the way to Mexico with their smarmy, law-breaking ally Commissioner Santos.

He stepped inside the room. Fisher and Lu, Steve and Steve Two were at one table, both on phones. DEA agent Carol Allerton sat at another, engrossed in her laptop. She seemed to prefer to play alone, Overby had noticed. She didn’t even see him, so lost was she in the emails scrolling past on her Samsung.

‘Greetings, all.’

Allerton glanced at him. ‘Getting reports on that truck left Compton a day ago, the warehouse near the Four-oh-five. The Nazim brothers. May have twenty ki’s. Meth.’ This truck, Allerton explained, had been spotted on Highway One.

Lu asked, ‘A semi? There? Jesus.’

The highway, between Santa Barbara and Half Moon, could be tricky to drive, even in a sports car. Narrow and winding.

‘That’s right. I want to follow it. No reason for ’em to be taking that route, unless they’re going someplace connected with Pipeline.’ Allerton said to Lu, ‘You free?’

Lu nodded. ‘Sure. Could use a hit of field.’ The slim man rose and stretched.

Foster was lost in his phone conversation. ‘Really?’ Impatient, sarcastic, moving his hand in a circle. Get to the point. ‘Let me be transparent. That’s not going to work.’ Foster hung up. A gesture to the phone. ‘CIs. Jesus. There’s gotta be a union.’ He turned to Allerton and Lu. His moustache drooped asymmetrically. ‘Where’re you going?’

Allerton explained about the mysterious truck on Highway One.

‘Contraband on One? Is there a transfer hub along that way we don’t know about?’ Foster seemed interested in this.

‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’

‘Hope that one pans out.’

Overby said to Foster, ‘Can you and Al Stemple check out Pedro Escalanza?’

‘Who?’

‘The lead to Serrano. Tia Alonzo mentioned him, remember?’

Foster’s frown said, no, he didn’t. ‘Where is this Escalanza?’

‘Sandy Crest Motel.’ Overby explained it was a cheap tourist spot, about five miles north of Monterey.

‘I guess.’

‘TJ ran Escalanza’s sheet. Minor stuff but he’s facing a couple in Lompac. We’ll work with him on that if he gives up any info that gets us to Serrano.’

Foster muttered, ‘A lead to a lead to a lead.’

‘What’s that?’ Overby asked.

Foster didn’t answer. He strode out of the door.

Outside CBI, Steve Foster looked over his new partner.

‘Just for the record, I’m playing along with you because...’ a slight pause ‘... the rest of the task force wanted it. I didn’t.’

Kathryn Dance said pleasantly, ‘It’s your case, Steve. I’m still Civ Div. I just want the chance to interview Escalanza, that’s all.’

He muttered, repeating, ‘The rest of the task force.’ Then looked her over as if he were about to tell her something important. Reveal a secret. But he said nothing.

She waved at Albert Stemple, plodding toward his pickup truck. His cowboy boots made gritty sounds on the asphalt. Stone-faced, he nodded back.

Stemple grumbled, ‘So. That lead to Serrano?’

‘That’s it,’ Foster said.

‘I’ll follow you. Brought the truck. Was supposed to be my day off.’ Got inside, started the engine. It growled.

Dance and Foster got into the CBI cruiser. She was behind the wheel.

She punched the motel’s address into her iPhone GPS and started the engine. They hit the highway, headed west. Soon the silence in the car seemed louder than the slipstream.

Foster, lost in his phone, read and sent some text messages. He didn’t seem to mind that she was driving — some men would have made an issue of piloting. And he might have, given that Dance really wasn’t a great driver. She didn’t enjoy vehicles, didn’t blend with the road the way Michael O’Neil did.

Thinking of him now, his arms around her at the stampede in Global Adventure World. And their fight after they’d returned.

Tapped that thought away fast. Concentrate.

She turned music on. Foster didn’t seem to enjoy it but neither did the sound seem to bother him. She’d reflected that while everyone else in the task force had congratulated her on nailing the Solitude Creek unsub Foster had said nothing. It was as if he hadn’t even been aware of the other case.

Twenty minutes later, she turned off the highway and made her way down a long, winding road, Stemple’s truck bouncing along behind. From time to time they could see north and south — along the coast, misting away to Santa Cruz, the sky split by the incongruous power-plant smokestacks. A shame, those. The vista was one that Ansel Adams might have recorded, using his trademark small aperture to bring the whole scene into crystal detail.

Foster’s hand slipped out and he turned down the volume.

So maybe he was a music-hater.

But that wasn’t it at all. While the big man’s eyes were on the vista, Foster said, ‘I have a son.’

‘Do you?’ Dance asked.

‘He’s thirteen.’ The man’s tone was different now. A flipped switch.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Embry.’

‘Unusual. Nice.’

‘Family name. My grandmother’s maiden name. A few years ago I was with our LA office. We were living in the Valley.’

The nic for San Fernando. That complex, diverse region north of the Los Angeles Basin — everything from hovels to mansions.

‘There was a drive-by. Pacoima Flats Boyz had pissed off the Cedros Bloods, who knows why?’

Dance could see what was coming. Oh, no. She asked, ‘What happened, Steve?’

‘He was hanging with some kids after school. There was crossfire.’ Foster cleared his throat. ‘Hit in the temple. Vegetative state.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I know I’m a prick,’ Foster said, his eyes on the road. ‘Something like that happens...’ He sighed.

‘I can’t even imagine.’

‘No, you can’t. And I don’t mean that half as shitty as it sounds. I know I’ve been riding you. And I shouldn’t. I just keep thinking, Serrano got away, and what if he takes out somebody else? He can fucking waste all of his own crew if he wants. But it’s the kid in between the muzzle and the target that bothers me, keeps me up all night. And it’s my fault as much as yours. I was there too, at the interview. I could’ve done something, could’ve asked some questions.’

‘We’ll get him,’ Dance said sincerely. ‘We’ll get Serrano.’

Foster nodded. ‘You should’ve told me I’m a dick.’

‘I thought it.’

His silver mustache rose as he gave the first smile she’d seen since the task force had been put together.

Soon they arrived at the motel, which was in the hills about three miles east of the ocean. It was on the eastern side, so there was no view of the water. Now the place was shrouded in shade, surrounded by brush and scrub oak. The first thing that Dance thought of was the Solitude Creek roadhouse, a similar setting — some human-built structure surrounded by quiet, persistent California flora.

The inn had a main office and about two dozen separate cabins. She found the one they sought and parked two buildings away. Stemple drove his truck into a space nearby. There was one car, an old Mazda sedan, faded blue, in front of the cabin. Dance consulted her phone, scrolled down the screen. ‘That’s his, Escalanza’s.’