“You can make it go away,” Wakeland said. “You could make that happen, couldn’t you?” Wakeland put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “It could go away, and Rachel and Emma would never have to know.”
Ben grabbed Wakeland by the throat. It was the man’s touch, his hand on him again, that set him loose. They fell together onto the couch, Ben’s thumbs digging into Wakeland’s jugular notch. Ben could feel Wakeland’s heart beating against his palms, erratic, terrified. He slapped Ben’s wrists, dug his nails into Ben’s forearm, but Ben was stronger, his limbs electrified with his strength. He buried Wakeland’s head in the cushions of the couch, and a memory flashed in his mind, the night he and Wakeland ate lengua in the Mexican restaurant, Wakeland forcing him to forgive himself for leaving his father in the ditch. When Ben said it then, he felt the relief of the words, but the relief didn’t last. He’d have to say it out loud over and over again, a thousand times and a thousand times more for that feeling to stick. “I forgive myself,” Ben remembered his thirteen-year-old self saying under the bright fluorescent lights of the restaurant. “Say it again.”
—
HE DIDN’T REMEMBER stumbling out into the greenbelt. He didn’t remember firing up the cruiser. He came to himself when he nearly ran a red light on Margarita Avenue, skidding to a stop at the last second. His hands, already sore, gripped the steering wheel, the flexor muscle that connected his thumb and forefinger cramping up. Shit, what have I done?
Ben U-turned it at the next intersection and gunned the car back toward the hills. He needed to get back up into the darkness, into the wilderness on patrol. He was nearly to the turnout when the call came through on the radio. “Possible 921, 19786 Corazon. Man seen climbing through open window. White male, approximately five foot six, wearing dark pants and dark shirt.” Corazon was Rachel’s street in the Puente Madera apartment complex.
Ben hit the lights, spun the cruiser around again, and gunned it across town, riding the emergency lane before finally four-wheeling it through the dust and mud of a construction zone. At the complex, he jolted to a stop, threw open the door, and slid along the side of the apartment walls, pistol drawn. Three apartments down, curtains blew through an open window. He crept through shrubs and barrel cactus to the edge of the window frame. When the curtains billowed, he glimpsed a woman’s legs kicking the tile floor. The wind caught the curtain again, and he saw the man bent over her, one hand on her throat and the other slapping at her pedaling legs. He was no bigger than a twelve-year-old, his face contorted, a malformed thing.
Ben couldn’t shoot. It was too risky; the curtains sagged, the pantry door was swung open and blocked a straight shot. The curtains sailed again: The woman was scratching at the killer’s face. The killer ripped his hand from her throat, a hoarse roar leaping from her larynx, and crushed her nose with his fist. Ben could hear sirens wailing, the rev of cruiser engines racing down the street. The killer heard them, too, and he sprang to his feet, running for the sliding glass door at the back of the apartment.
Ben hoisted himself through the window and popped off a shot at the killer, who kept running. Blood streaming from her broken nose, the woman grabbed Ben, swung her arms at him, pounded her fists against his shoulders, pummeled his chest.
“I’m a cop,” Ben said. “He’s gone.” She threw up then, blood and mucus slicking the tile floor.
The uniforms burst through the front door.
“Call in an ambulance,” Ben said.
Then he was burning the cruiser down Corazon, the light bar spinning circles; miraculously, he hit a green light at Mirador Road. Ben buzzed into dispatch. “10-80, Puente Madera, heading toward Laguna Canyon on Mirador.” Dispatch squawked out his location. “Black Tercel,” Ben said, clicking back in. “Registered to Ricardo Martinez.” Two units were already in pursuit. “Suspect’s turned south on East Arroyo,” one of the patrols called out over the scanner. Ben floored the cruiser down Mirador, the traffic in front of him clearing to the side with the sound of his siren. He got on the Motorola. Rachel’s phone rang and rang until the machine picked up.
Shit. He called it into dispatch.
“Get someone over to my wife’s place,” he said, “306 Corazon.”
Ben slipped the cruiser down the bike lane, his hubcaps riding the curb. He was about to skid left onto Alta—he’d cut the killer off at Arroyo—but as he hit the intersection, a Mercedes spun through the box, popped the curb, and folded around the stoplight pole. Then, just behind the Mercedes, the black Tercel barreled through the intersection, two black-and-whites riding his ass. Ben cut the wheel across three lanes and spun into the intersection, flooring the V-8, closing the gap between them. They were pushing 65 when the intersection light turned red. The Tercel swung across the lanes, hopping the curb and gunning down the bike lane that ran along the cement drainage. The patrols, too close to react, slammed their brakes to avoid taking out the line of idling cars, but Ben, still twenty yards behind them, stomped the brakes and fishtailed it over the curb.
The Tercel was thirty yards ahead of him, the driving lights off now, a shadow riding the edge of the drainage. The bike path ended at Serrano Canyon Road. At the end of the path the killer would find a metal pole cemented into the ground to keep cars out and a closed emergency-vehicle access gate. Without headlights the killer would slam into the pole, likely pushing the engine block into his lap.
But the Tercel swerved and took out the access fence, sparks crackling in the undercarriage as the car bounced onto Serrano Canyon. Ben floored the cruiser, sped through the busted gate, and jerked the car onto Serrano Canyon, too, heading toward the Santa Ana Freeway. Shit. He could see the cars from here, backed up, a parking lot of taillights.