“Tall Pines Security is renowned for their skill at managing public venues,” she said. “Also, sweeping for explosives is a specialty. I’ve already considered the risks, believe me, and so have they. Everything is under control.”
The bathroom door swung open. A short, tow-headed man in a black suit poked his head out, toting an aluminum briefcase.
“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, you’re all clear—”
He froze. So did I. Seabrook’s world may have been under control, but mine spun right out from under me in a dizzying lurch. I knew her hired help. It had been over twenty years since we’d spoken, but I knew him.
You don’t forget your brother’s face.
“Um, that—that is—” Teddy stammered, eyes fixed on me while his cheeks went pale.
Seabrook glanced between us. “Do you know each other?”
“No,” I said, hoping he could get his act together and follow my lead. “Sometimes people think they recognize me, until they look closer. I’ve just got that kind of face.”
“Sorry, I’ll get out of your way.” Teddy hustled to the door. “I’ll be outside.”
That was more for me than for her. I slid my hands down below Seabrook’s line of sight and squeezed my legs to keep myself steady. I couldn’t let myself get distracted, couldn’t let myself care right now. We were alone. Time to tackle the elephant in the room.
“One other thing,” I said. “About Metro.”
“Your colleague suggested the possibility that the man who sold that tainted ink is…in a position of public trust.”
“We’re looking into it now,” I said.
Seabrook pushed her chair back. She walked to the credenza, her back turned as she prepared a fresh pot of coffee. Her hands worked slowly, deliberate, every movement precise.
“Earl is loyal to his men, to a fault. And he doesn’t believe in extra-judicial measures.”
“I understand that,” I replied. “But the people we’re dealing with…they can’t be fought by legal means. And if we do uncover a mole in uniform—or several of them—conventional methods of questioning aren’t going to yield results.”
She didn’t answer at first. The office fell silent save for the muted clinking of her coffee pot, the burble of fresh water flooding a chamber of glass.
“Earl won’t get on board with that,” she finally replied. “Which is why, if you need to take aggressive action, you will cover your tracks in a manner that doesn’t point back to you. Or to my office.”
Green light.
I finished my mug and pushed my chair back. “Thank you, Mrs. Mayor. We’ll be in touch.”
She didn’t say goodbye. I’d earned coffee, not pleasantries. And we weren’t friends. I let myself out, nodded to the two bruisers at the door, and made my way back out through the corridors of power.
My brother was waiting for me on the steps outside, just like I knew he would be.
28.
Out in the desert sunshine, Teddy rushed toward me. Then back two steps, bouncing like an overexcited terrier. The look on his face was somewhere between wonder and panic.
“Dan—”
I stopped him, fast, and shot a glance over my shoulder.
“Emerson. My name is Paul Emerson. Understand?”
He understood. I walked down the steps and followed the sidewalk at the edge of the parking lot, getting out of the path of foot traffic. He trailed me.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said.
I took him in, now that I could think clearly enough to see. He was fit, his broad shoulders holding up more muscle than flab. He’d spent a few bucks on his suit, but not too many, and his shoes were department-store leather.
I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at his face. That’s where all the bad memories were hiding.
“I don’t know either,” I said. “I guess I’m sorry. For not keeping in touch.”
“Me too.”
Silence fell, as if that was all we had to say to each other. It felt more like I had this torrent of words shoved down in my belly, a giant balloon stuffed with them, jammed up and twisted and knotted, too many to get a single one of them out.
“I tried to reach out once,” I managed to say. “You were in the military, I guess? Navy?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, sheepish, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Did a couple of tours to pay for college. Overseas. I would have been hard to reach.”
“Yeah.” I looked for something to add to that. “Were you on a ship?”
“Big one. I signed up to learn electronics. Got a little of that, but mostly I got really good at painting and cleaning.” He ducked his head, still looking at me like maybe I wasn’t really there. “Got married when I came home. We spent a few years out in Fort Collins; the company just transferred me to Vegas last month. You, uh…you have a niece. She’s six years old. You want to see a picture?”
I had a niece. I didn’t expect to get gut-punched out of nowhere, but that did the trick.
“I’d like that,” I told him.
He tugged a photo from his wallet. She was gap-toothed with blond pigtails, riding a tire swing and grinning like a loon.
“Cute kid,” I said. Hell with that. She was perfect. She was family.
“I gotta ask,” he said.
“Sure.”
“I tried to reach out to you, too. Couple of times. You were beyond off the grid. It took me a while, but eventually I figured out you wanted it that way. Then I found this guy, Jud Pankow. He told me his granddaughter had been murdered and you…fixed it for him.”
“People say a lot of things.”
“Then I tried again, and—” Teddy paused. He looked behind him, then hustled a little farther along the sidewalk, waving me close. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Dan, you were in prison. And then they said you were dead, that you died in that riot. Do you know you have a tombstone, in a potter’s field? I left flowers there.”
“Hence the new name. And it’s really, really important that you keep the old one out of your mouth, all right?”
“Sure. Right. Of course.” He stared at my shoes. “I never knew you even tried looking for me. I didn’t expect you to.”
“What? Because of what went down? Teddy, c’mon. I never blamed you for that.”
He met my gaze then. I could see him forcing himself to do it. His neck muscles strained like steel cables.
“I sold you out. I lied.”
“You were a scared kid, and Dad’s lawyer told you that you were going home with him at the end of the day, no matter what you said on the stand.”
Teddy’s cheeks tightened in disgust. “Didn’t understand until years later that he was full of shit, just trying to scare me into backing Dad’s story. I could have saved you if I’d told the truth. I could have saved us both.”
“Exactly. You didn’t know, you didn’t understand, and you were eight years old. You were never in my bad books. If you need me to say I forgive you…Teddy, I forgive you. It happened. We survived.”
I took a breath and sighed it out one side of my mouth. There are some things you don’t want to know, but you have to ask.
“Dad?”
“Seven years ago,” Teddy said.
“Cirrhosis?”
“Pneumonia. Can you believe it? The booze didn’t get him, a bad flu did.”
I took that in. My father was dead.
I’d known he had to be, realistically, statistically, given the way the man lived from drink to drink. Maybe that was why I never went looking. Or maybe I was afraid I’d find out he was still alive, and then I’d start feeling like I had to do something about it.
But my father was dead, and he’d been in the ground for seven years now. I wondered if violent schizophrenics went to hell, if whatever machinery governed the cosmos held them responsible for their crimes, or if the bad wiring in their brains gave them a get-out-of-damnation-free card. Maybe I’d ask Caitlin sometime. Maybe I’d be happier not knowing.
“We buried him up at Colewood,” my brother said. “Five people came to the funeral, and nobody really wanted to be there.”
My face went hot. “Colewood? Jesus, Teddy.”
“The plot and the headstone were already paid for—”