Deep in the floating city, Gibb had lain sleepless.
A Navy SEAL was trained to endure things that he once would have thought he could not survive. And if he could not sustain physically and mentally and emotionally through the worst shitstorms of war with his confidence intact, he needed to get out of spec ops and become a mall cop or a librarian, or whatever the hell. As a SEAL, you saw—and confronted—things no one should have to see, horrors that would leave most people in need of therapy for years, but you could not let what you saw make you cynical, diminish you, or in any way corrupt you. Once you bought into valor, it was your residence forever; you could neither sell it like a house nor remodel it into something less grand, and if the day came when you refused to live there anymore, you would also be unable to live any longer with yourself.
Nevertheless, SEALs were of course afraid at times, and like everyone else, they had bad dreams. That first night after taking out Abdullah al-Ghazali and his crew, in a four-bunk cabin aboard ship, Pax Thorpe had muttered and exclaimed in his dreams. Having plunged rather than fallen into sleep, Perry and Danny had not been disturbed by their lead petty officer’s brief and mostly quiet outbursts.
Gibb and Pax were in the lower bunks, a narrow aisle separating them. Although exhausted from the mission, Gibb had been for a while unable to sleep, and he had listened to Pax’s peculiar outbursts, committing some of them to memory.
In the morning, over breakfast, he had said, “Pax, you sounded like you were at a Hitchcock triple feature last night. Who threw acid in whose face?”
Pax had gone pale as he looked up from his mess tray. “Damnedest dream. Crazy bits and pieces, none of it connected, but way vivid.”
“Was it Hitler raped his mother,” Gibb asked, “and whose fingers did he cut off? Man, when you give up spec ops, you should get a job writing for one of the crazier cable-TV shows.”
In Laguna Beach, the murder house stood three stories tall on a steep street, inland of Coast Highway, where the residences faced either north or south, in both cases lacking ocean views but still expensive. There were enormous old trees, shallow front yards, and an eclectic mix of architectural styles, some poorly conceived. The house where Beth Faulkner had died was moderne, slabs of stucco and smooth teak decks piled like the layers of a wedding cake baked for a bloodless bride and groom as romantic as carrots.
At that hour of a weekday, Dr. Solange St. Croix would most likely be at the university, guarding the standards of contemporary American fiction and dispiriting young writers. Bibi parked across the street and watched the house for half an hour. No one appeared on any of the decks or in any of the rooms beyond the expansive windows.
The fog was somewhat thinner than it had been in Newport, though still thick enough to backdrop an urban version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. And of hounds there was no shortage, a parade of Lagunans walking a dog show’s worth of breeds uphill and down. No one seemed to find it odd that a woman in a baseball cap and sunglasses should be slouching in a junker, conducting surveillance. Laguna prided itself on being an artist’s colony that accepted all classes and cultures, not merely tolerating eccentrics but delighting in them.
After taking off the cap and sunglasses, Bibi proceeded boldly to St. Croix’s front door. When no one responded to the bell, she moseyed to the back of the residence with the practiced nonchalance of an experienced housebreaker. The doors and windows were locked, though the rear door to the garage was secured by a flimsy lockset. Even if the house had an alarm, the garage was not likely to be on the system. She could have slipped the latch by sliding a credit card between door and jamb; but she had left her purse in the car.
When she considered returning to the Honda to get her Visa card, something snapped in Bibi. Not a big snap. Not like the thick trunk of her psychology splitting all the way through and toppling. But not the subtle crack of a twig, either. Her resentment at the disruption of her life, the anxiety and frustration and bewilderment arising from the frightening events of the past eighteen hours, had stressed her to the point that something had to give. Just one branch broke, one branch in the elaborate tree that was Bibi, and it was labeled CAUTION. To hell with her Visa card. She didn’t need no stinkin’ Visa card. She kicked the door. She didn’t regret the noise. She liked the noise. She was accomplishing something at last. She kicked again. With the third kick, the latch gave. The dark garage welcomed her.
She found the light switch. No vehicles. She pulled shut the door behind her.