Michael Prescott: Last Breath

“And his spiders,” Walsh said.

Silence for a few moments, broken by Cellini.

“The car he got away in-at first we thought it was stolen. Turns out it’s his. He registered it under a phony name. His getaway wheels. Know what we found in the trunk?”

“Let me guess. Fake ID, cash, a disguise?”

“Right on the money. He would have become Mr. Allan Holt. New social security number, birth certificate, driver’s license-a New Mexico license, by the way. Two grand in bills of various denominations. Hair coloring kit, glasses, change of clothes in a carry-on bag.”

“So he could have made a clean break, started over.”

Walsh nodded, picking up the story. “If you hadn’t gone home that night, he might have decided to book. We wouldn’t have caught him. He’d be killing again. You saved a lot of lives, C.J. You were right to take the risk, and I was wrong to try to talk you out of it.”

“Thanks. But I wasn’t as altruistic as you think. I did it for myself. I had to finish things. I’d lived with the fear too long. I had to get rid of it-exorcise it-once and for all.”

They didn’t say much after that. The check came, and Walsh paid, insisting that it was his prerogative as the highest-ranking officer present, the oldest person among them, and most important, the only man at the table. Cellini and C.J. reaffirmed their earlier vote, but they let Walsh pay anyway.

Then Walsh and Cellini drove off in a department-issue Caprice, and C.J. crossed the street to walk in Palisades Park.

The day was clear, and leaning on the railing at the edge of the high bluff, she could see Santa Monica Pier to the south, the haze of Malibu to the north, and before her, a wide spread of blue sea. It was a great distance she had traveled-from the Mojave to the Pacific, from childhood to adulthood-yet Gavin Treat had found her.

She’d noticed that neither Walsh nor Cellini asked if her exorcism had worked, if the fear was gone now. Well, of course they hadn’t asked. Like her, they were cops-and they knew that while an old fear might fade, there would always be a new fear to take its place.

The world was full of darkness-they saw it every night and day-and where there was one Adam Nolan, one Gavin Treat, there would be others. The crawl space was always there, just below the surface of things, and this pleasant day, with its blue sky and sea breeze, was only a thin subfloor over a darker place.

She would be in the dark again-tomorrow perhaps, or next week or next year. There was no way to know.

But not today, she thought.

She lifted her head to the sun, holding that thought as a shield against all the unknowns in her future, against all the things she knew enough to fear. They were out there still, and they would find her.

Let them come, but not today.