Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

Chris stared over Olivia’s shoulder at a photograph of Lucia Causey. His daughter was right. Lucia was pretty and not just for being old. She was probably in her mid-forties at the time the photograph was taken. She had jet-black hair, a hawk nose, and a big, teasing smile. Her features were slim and elegant. ‘She reminds me of Sophia Loren,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Never mind. I thought you had to be friends with her to see anything.’

‘That depends on your privacy settings. Most people don’t have a clue what’s out there for strangers to see. You can usually find out where people live, what they like, who their friends are, that kind of thing.’ Olivia’s fingers flashed on the keys. ‘Wow, she really liked Las Vegas. Tons of photos of the Strip. She stayed at the Bellagio and the Wynn.’

‘One of the guys on the chat site said she’d had gambling problems.’

‘Yeah, looks like she was a blackjack fiend. There are links to some sites about card-counting strategies and links to Atlantic City, Jackson, and a bunch of Indian casinos. She was pretty into it. Kinda weird for a brainiac, huh?’

‘Everybody has their weaknesses.’

‘Let’s see how bad it got,’ Olivia said. She typed again. ‘Here’s her address in Cupertino. Nice that she’s got a unique name. You can’t miss Lucia Causey, huh? She didn’t bother with unlisted numbers either. Anyway, let me get the county records for her house.’

‘I know how to do that, too, you know,’ Chris said defensively.

Olivia opened up a window with a maze of legal filings for the California property. ‘So what does this all mean?’

Chris studied the records. ‘It means she was on the verge of losing her home three years ago. The lender initiated foreclosure proceedings.’

‘And then?’

‘Then the loan was satisfied. The lien was removed.’

‘You mean it got paid off?’

Chris nodded. ‘Yup.’

‘She was so far behind they were going to take her house, and then she paid off her mortgage?’

‘You got it.’

‘Any idea how much?’

Chris reached across her to the keyboard and clicked on the lien satisfaction. ‘One point six million dollars.’

‘Son of a bitch!’ Olivia clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, you got it right.’

‘Where’d she get the money?’

‘I’d like to know,’ Chris said, but it wasn’t hard to guess the truth. The payoff had occurred only weeks after the Mondamin litigation was dismissed on summary judgment.

Olivia opened up another window. ‘I can’t believe this woman killed herself. I wouldn’t kill myself if someone dropped a million bucks in my lap.’

‘Ashlynn thought she was murdered.’

His daughter frowned as she typed. ‘Well, the police sure don’t think so. They say she committed suicide a year ago in her garage. One year ago today, in fact. Can you fake it so that it looks like someone sucked a tailpipe?’

‘That’s not exactly my line of work,’ Chris said. ‘I suppose people who do that sort of thing can make anything look convincing.’

‘So why would Ashlynn think it wasn’t suicide?’

‘I don’t know. Unless she found something in her father’s files.’

‘’fraid I can’t help you with that, Dad.’

‘Yeah.’ He kissed her again. ‘Thanks for your help, kiddo.’

Olivia clicked back to Lucia Causey’s Facebook profile and opened up a listing of her fan pages. ‘Hey, here’s a reason to kill yourself. She liked Real Housewives of Beverly Hills . Yikes.’

Chris laughed. ‘I prefer NCIS .’

‘Uh huh, but you’re also about a hundred years old, Dad. Let’s see, she also liked Keeping the House by Ellen Baker, Six Feet Under , the Bay to Breakers race, Luciano Pavarotti, Pink Ribbons Against Breast Cancer, sausage and peppers from Chiaramonte’s, the Geico gecko, wonder bras from Victoria’s Secret, and the Sunol Regional Wilderness.’

He pushed himself off the floor and headed for the bedroom doorway. ‘I kind of like that stupid gecko, too.’

‘Yeah, and I bet you’re okay with those wonder bras, Dad.’

Chris chuckled. He was out of the bedroom and halfway down the dark hallway when he stopped dead in his tracks. Cold air breathed up the back of his body, from his heels to his neck, as if he’d found his path blocked by a ghost. Maybe he had. Maybe Ashlynn was with him in the house, whispering in his ear. He spun around and marched back to the bedroom, gripping the door frame with both hands.

‘What did you say?’ he asked Olivia.

‘Wonder bras?’

‘No, no, before that. Something about a delicatessen that Lucia liked?’

Olivia checked the screen. ‘Sausage and peppers from Chiaramonte’s. Why, are you hungry?’

Chris didn’t answer. He knew. Ashlynn knew, too; it would have been simple for her to discover the truth. It had been laid out in front of him since the moment he arrived in town. Every conversation with his friend, his philosopher, should have told him what was going on. He’d been looking for a vast conspiracy, and the reality was so much simpler. The reality was about love and loss.

Is it better to do nothing in the face of injustice or do the wrong thing?

Aquarius had made his choice.

Chris realized Olivia had found something else, too, something that he had failed to notice as he ran searches in his car in the rain. Something terrible and important. ‘Did you say that Lucia Causey committed suicide one year ago today ?’

‘Today,’ she repeated.

He didn’t say anything. He turned and ran.

48

Florian did as he was instructed; he told no one about his rendezvous with Aquarius. If he brought the police, Julia died. He went alone, but he didn’t go without protection. The Ruger that he normally kept in his glove apartment was buried in the pocket of his wool coat. It was a cold day. He would keep his hands in his pockets, the way anyone would. All he needed was an opportunity to pull the trigger.

He didn’t know who this man was, or what he knew, but he had no intention of letting him leave their meeting alive. This game ended today. Aquarius would be gone.

He listened to Brahms on the car stereo as he drove. The sound was so rich and vivid, it was as if the pianist were with him in the car, fingers meticulously unlocking the puzzle of the music. It calmed him. He remembered how much Ashlynn had loved this concerto as a girl. She’d acquired his taste for the classics at a young age. She would close her eyes and pretend to play, and when it was over, she would bow, as if the audience were silently cheering her.

Ashlynn.

He wondered if it was true that she’d turned against him. He wondered how much she knew before she died. He hated to think that, in her last days of life, she would have hated him for what he’d done.

Florian passed the headquarters of Mondamin on the river as he drove north, but he didn’t stop. The guards at the gate recognized his car; they waved at him. He tooted his horn in salute. The facility operated 24/7; it was never empty, never idle. A decade earlier, there had been nothing on that land. He’d built it all from his own sweat, his own vision. People’s livelihoods depended on him. If Mondamin was at risk, if it was under threat, he was sworn to defend it. That was his job.

Ashlynn, try to understand.

If only she’d come to him and given him a chance to explain.

He continued into the dense wilderness. The meeting-ground wasn’t far. Trees on both sides leaned over the road, and he caught glimpses of the river winking in and out of the forest. For three miles, the highway was like a tunnel crossing from one world to the next, and when he finally burst into the open, he was at the county gateway. The Spirit Dam muscled across the water. The thick trees gave way to swaths of dormant park land tracking the giant lake. Ribbons of charcoal clouds stretched overhead in dark layers.