The Dangerous Edge of Things

CHAPTER 16

Garrity proved to be a swift instinctive driver. The nighttime sky loomed gunmetal and dense, like the inside of a helmet, and the view through the windshield of his sedan was dotted with the streaky blur of oncoming headlights. Only a few blocks over, the raucous Buckhead party crowd was grinding into high gear, roaming like drunken gypsies from Pharr Road to East Paces Ferry.

But not me. No, I was cruising with the APD. And the APD was not in a good mood. In fact, the APD was shooting me serious cop looks, and I was starting to regret ever getting in the car with him.

“You’re mad,” I said.

“I’m not mad.”

“Then you’re not telling me something, I can tell. You’re all squinchy around the mouth. That’s either holding back or mad.”

Garrity kept his eyes on the road.

“What is it, something about Eliza? Something about my brother? Just tell me, I can take it.”

“This isn’t my case. I don’t know enough about it to hold anything back.”

The streetlights flared the car from bright to dark, intermittent slices of illumination followed by darkness. Atlanta had such a gorgeous skyline, even if it was always dotted with cranes and holes and veering half-finished angles. The Ritz-Carlton lay just around the final turn. I could see the brightness of the entrance, dazzling, rich with spotlights. Garrity pulled under the awning and flashed his badge at the valet, who backed away.

“Go to your room,” he said. “And stay there. I’ll call you in the morning.”

I wanted to ask Garrity so many questions—what had Trey been like before, was he going to get better?—but the doorman was holding the door. So I got out of the car.

I crossed my heart and held up three fingers. “On my honor, Detective.”

***

I was true to my word. Sort of. I didn’t exactly go to my room, so technically I didn’t leave it either. Instead, I took my tote bag full of research to the business center. The beige room was deserted, so I dumped my collection onto the counter. I hadn’t realized I’d gathered so much information—the Beaumonts, Phoenix, Senator Adams, and now the disreputable Dylan Flint made a messy mix. Rico always warned that this was the danger of research. He said that it was less about finding stuff and more about knowing what you’re looking at, what matters and what doesn’t.

I understood. Putting together tours was the same way—too much history would avalanche on you and bore your customers. I always approached the gig like telling a story. You find out the arc, the plot line that’s driving all the facts in front of you. The who and why and how come naturally after that.

I typed “Dylan Flint” into the search engine. Just as I expected, twelve thousand hits, most of them referencing the infamous videotape along with other, umm, interesting words. I added the word “Atlanta” and tried again. This time the first entry was for a business, a local one, on Luckie Street next to Centennial Park.

I clicked the link. It was a photography studio—Snoopshots. The images on the home page looked startlingly familiar, with their eccentric composition and off-kilter focus. It was the same nervous energy that I’d seen in the photos Mark Beaumont brought to Phoenix, the ones Charley had taken such an instant dislike to and confiscated.

“Oh yes,” I said. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

Dylan had a blog linked to his site—also called Snoopshots—which featured a running commentary of Atlanta nightlife. Lots of seen-about-town photos sprinkled with random fashion don’ts. His most recent post was a photo of Charley Beaumont from the Mardi Gras Ball, her eyes wide, her mouth half open. It was entirely unflattering, and I suspected the entire Beaumont PR machine would roll out first thing in the morning to eliminate it from the blogosphere.

So the same guy who was following us in the Explorer was also the erratic photographer at the Mardi Gras party? But why was he taking pictures of me and Trey in the Ferrari? And even though he was seen on Phoenix property when the security cameras were destroyed, what possible reason could he have for doing such a thing? It made no sense.

I was scrolling though his blog when my cell phone rang—a local number, one I didn’t recognize. When I answered, I heard the muted echo of traffic in the background.

“Rico?”

“Look,” said a female voice, “I don’t know who you are, but I am telling you, do not trust those people, especially not that a*shole manager. Or that bitch Janie, do not believe a word that comes out of that crazy redneck’s mouth.”

Who was Janie? And which cop guy, which manager? Garrity? Jake?

“Who is this? How did you get this number?”

“Listen, I’m not playin’ here. This is for real, you hear what I’m saying?”

“I can’t help you unless—”

“Shit, baby, I’m trying to help you, so you’d best listen—don’t trust nobody, don’t believe nobody. I’ll let you know what you need to know when you need to know it.”

A loud fading honk, like a semi passing close by, then the click of the connection being broken. I stared at the phone, utterly at a loss. This was the kind of crap that only happened to people who knew what to do about it. Nice innocent people like me didn’t get “trust no one” phone calls at midnight.

Besides, this midnight warning didn’t make sense; I only knew of one cop guy—Garrity. Hmm…What did I really know about him? Quickly, I typed “Dan Garrity” into the search box.

The first entries were the usual APD stuff. Some articles about his recent promotion, a press release or two about his work with computer fraud. Nothing personal, no blogs or weird fan fiction sites, just a slew of professional accomplishments.

And then a series of articles with a familiar name paired with it—Trey Seaver. I clicked on the first entry, an archived Journal-Constitution from almost two years before.

And that’s when I saw the word “fatal.”

It’s a hard word to move beyond. But there was Garrity’s name, highlighted in blue, and the text of an article that I assumed at first to be about Trey’s collision with the eighteen-wheeler.

But when I saw my brother’s name, I looked twice. And I saw that the word after “fatal” wasn’t “accident” or “crash.”

It was “shooting.” And I knew what it was that Garrity had been hiding from me.