Now he and Tin Man meandered down Trabuco Ridge into the flats of orange and avocado groves, down a firebreak that separated the wilderness from the landscaped green of the El Paraiso housing tract. He hadn’t intended to ride here. Or maybe he had. But here he was, and he and the horse rode the break until he passed the crime scene and found himself parked on the edge of Wakeland’s backyard.
All the windows were shut, light illuminating every pane of glass, two backyard floods spotlighting the patio and the small kidney-shaped pool. Ben sat in the darkness, cut off from the yard by a firebreak and an irrigation ditch, and watched Wakeland, looking small from this distance, sitting on the couch with his son and daughter, watching television. His daughter, who couldn’t have been older than seven, sat between Wakeland’s legs, leaning against his stomach. His son, who was nine or ten, sat Indian style on the couch, a few inches from Wakeland’s knee. Wakeland’s wife sat on a chair opposite, reading a magazine, its pages fluttering in the wind of the fan oscillating in the corner. She was a beautiful woman, long-limbed, her chestnut hair tucked behind her right ear. She had a ballerina neck, and even in the chair she sat gracefully rigid, as though she were about to plié. She was the kind of woman men were jealous to have, and Ben felt that envy like a hot coal pressed to the back of his throat. How did a man like Wakeland stay married, while Ben was out here alone?
Ben pulled his father’s Browning from the saddle holster and put the scope to his eye. Suddenly Wakeland was close enough to touch, his forehead filling the scope sight. Ben watched him for a moment and then estimated the distance: sixty yards, seventy. There were times in life when you realized how truly vulnerable you were. Life into death could be crossed over in a half second. You lived so close to it; it was a like a shadow cast behind you. The walls of a house, the glass in the windows, were nothing. You lived or died because someone chose one way or the other. You considered that too long, you’d lose your mind. You considered that too long, you were paralyzed with fear or you came out on the other side of it—like the killer did—and realized you could be death.
—
NATASHA PULLED UP to Ben’s house around 11:30 the next morning, two foam cups of coffee in her hands.
She had been up most of the night in her kitchen, thinking about Ben and Tucker, thinking about the dead child Lucero. She was hurt for them, of course, but she was angry with them, too—their silence, their sense of helplessness, as though this horrible thing had only happened to them. She was most angry with Ben, though. Women expected to live in a world where they could be overpowered. You didn’t walk down a dark street alone late at night. You didn’t leave the door to your apartment unlocked. You didn’t agree to meet someone at their place on a first date. Just being alone with a man in an elevator could be enough to make you sweat. But Ben was a cop; Ben’s job was to protect people—her, if she should be attacked; his daughter, Emma; and the Wakeland boys—and he had the power to do so, physically and by the authority of the law. How could he not use it? How could he live in this town, knowing what he knew about Wakeland, and do nothing?
By the time she made it to the porch, Ben was standing on his threshold, half hidden behind the cracked-open screen door.
“Can I come in?” Natasha said.
For a moment he didn’t move, but then he pushed open the screen.
It was cool inside—all the windows slid open, the wind billowing the thin curtains across the wooden dining table—but you could feel the heat starting to come off the walls. Outside, framed in the window, the hills rose, browning in the white sun. She set the coffees on the table. He stood a moment longer, dressed in jeans and a Viper fins T-shirt, his hair ragged and mussed, before taking a seat.
“I hear we have a genuine posse up here in the hills,” Natasha said.
“Something like that,” he said. “Back on it tonight.”
“You get any sleep?”
“A few hours,” he said. “One eye open, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“I was drunk the other night,” he said.
“Is that an apology?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
They sat together, watching the wind bow the eucalyptus, listening to the helicopters that were circling the wilderness, looking for the killer.
“This business or pleasure?” Ben said.
“Neither,” she said. “I’m here because I want to tell you something.”
And then she told him—about being a stupid nineteen-year-old girl, about the party, about being drunk, about Signal Hill and the submarine races, about the police who did nothing, about the months studying alone until she pulled herself together. She told him and watched a police helicopter outside the window turning elliptical arcs above the hills.
“I’ve never told you because there was never any reason to,” she said. “There is now.”
He studied her, his eyes pooled with some kind of emotion she couldn’t quite read. He was like that—full of emotion you could never nail down. What did she expect? That he’d break down and let her in, that he’d tell her, too? I showed you mine; you show me yours?
“Why are you telling me now?” he said, his voice guarded.
“Because you don’t really know me without knowing that,” she said, hesitating. “And I want you to know me.”
He stared at her for a long time, his green eyes confused, it seemed, and then he set his right hand on hers and they sat like that for a few moments at the table in front of the window overlooking the wilderness.
“I know what happened to you,” she said quietly.
He let go of her hand.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You were a child.”
He pushed the chair back from the table and stood at the window.
“Nothing happened to me,” he said.
“You won’t tell anyone because you’re afraid it makes you look weak,” she said. “I know how you all think. I’ve been around police and their macho bullshit long enough.”
“You expecting me to make something up so you can feel better about yourself?”
She stood and grabbed his hand. “Don’t do that,” she said. “You won’t push me away. I’m not that soft.”
He wanted to tell her, she could see it in his eyes. He was six foot two, two hundred pounds, his arms and chest still strapped with muscle, but he was trapped inside his body with his childhood self and the man who’d taken advantage of him and he didn’t know how to get out.
He yanked his hand away. “You should go,” he said.
“Listen to me, Ben,” she said. “This isn’t just about you. That’s what you don’t seem to understand.” She held on to his wrist, but he wouldn’t look at her. “You always tell me you don’t know what happened to your marriage, but you know.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Talk about ulterior motives.”
“How many nights did you sleep alone?” she said. “How many nights did you stay out in that barn? That’s because of Wakeland, right?”
He went to the refrigerator, pulled out a Coors, and popped open the can.
“You need to go,” he said again.