“So what went wrong?” I asked, standing up and brushing off my hands. Suddenly they felt filthy. Probably simply because I knew what the money had been used for. I knew where it had been.
“Rebecca,” he said. “It wasn’t enough anymore. I was starting to see a change in Sam. He was getting tougher or . . . or something. More like cold. So I went to her. I told her I was going to get her out just like she did for me. I had the money and I was going to somehow get it to her and help her leave L.A.”
“And someone saw you there.”
He nodded. “I was an old rival in their neighborhood. And a cop on top of it. Of course someone noticed me. Heriberto put out a hit. That’s all there was to it. I was so close to getting her out. So close to . . .” He trailed off, lost in thought.
“Chris?” He didn’t answer. I bent low and waved in his face. “What? So close to what?”
He didn’t answer, but quickly closed the flaps on the boxes and in just another motion, whipped up the garage door.
“Close to what?” I asked again, following him out, so confused I only barely registered how cool and fresh the air felt against my skin after being inside the locker. He slammed the door shut behind us and locked the padlock. “Hello, close to what?” I repeated.
He raced around to the driver’s side of his car and pushed a button to pop the trunk. He practically launched himself inside, brushing aside jumper cables and other pieces of equipment, and lifted up the carpet. Beneath, inside the well where the spare tire sat, was an envelope. He pulled it out, closed the trunk, and upturned the envelope so the items inside fell out. Photos.
“Close to busting them,” he said.
I riffled through the stack. Surveillance photos. Photos of Heriberto handing drugs off to kids. Photos through a window of Heriberto sitting at a kitchen table, counting money, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Photos of Heriberto cleaning a gun. Close-ups, albeit grainy, of the gun in his hands.
“That gun will match the bullets taken from a couple guys who were killed outside a convenience store last year,” he said. He slid the pictures around until he found one of Heriberto sitting on a porch rail. “Those shoes,” he said, “will match shoe prints taken at the scene. And we have an empty cigarette wrapper from the scene too. Same cigarettes.” He moved his finger to a close-up of Heriberto’s hand holding the cigarette. “The shoe prints and cigarette wrapper were okay evidence, but we needed more. I got more. I got a picture of him holding the gun. And I got Rebecca. She was going to testify.”
“No wonder they wanted you dead,” I whispered. The thought flashed through my mind that it could have been so much worse, what happened to him. Heriberto could have succeeded in killing him—getting rid of the cop who could take them down. I also became convinced of something else. Chris was right. There was no way they were going to leave him alone now. He had no choice; he had to finish what he’d started.
We heard the rattle of the gate opening. Nighttime had fallen on us while we were inside the locker, so technically Store4Cheap was closed. We both froze, then locked eyes, then worked together to stuff the photos back into their envelope.
“We should go,” Chris said.
I took the envelope and we hurried into his car, rolling out of the aisle just as the car that had come in started down our aisle at the other end. All I could see in the side mirror were headlights. But they were headlights that weren’t slowing.
Chris noticed it too and began driving faster, going over the speed bumps so hard I came up out of my seat. The headlights continued behind us, slow but picking up speed.
“Come on,” I whispered, as the gate, which had just closed, trundled open at a maddeningly slow pace. I glanced in the mirror again. The headlights were still coming. “Come on,” I repeated.
Finally, the gate was open enough for us to get out. We cut off a minivan in our haste. It swerved and honked, but Chris ignored them. I turned in my seat. The car behind us had gotten through the gate just in time. It nearly sideswiped the minivan, which honked again and slowed to a stop on the shoulder.
“Hold on,” Chris said. Calm. Rational. Deadly.
I wrapped my hand around the door handle and tensed my legs for leverage. Chris punched it and we took off like lightning.
The car behind us sped up too, but it wasn’t as fast as Chris’s car. Plus, Chris was a better driver. He darted in and out and around cars by what seemed like feel alone. There were honks and shouts and cars plunking off onto the shoulders, but Chris never stopped. Never touched another car with his. Just kept his eyes on the road, his foot planted all the way to the floor and his mouth pressed into a scowl.
I looked. The car was still there. It was back a little bit more now, but it was still there.
“Keep going,” I said, even though I knew it was useless for me to even speak. He would have kept going whether I had been in the car or not.
We hit a stretch of open boulevard and Chris zoomed ahead, the speed starting to make me feel woozy.
“He’s still there,” I reported.
“Hold on,” he said for a second time, as matter-of-factly as if he were telling me to hold his drink while he went to the bathroom.
I squeezed the handhold tighter, and he took a corner so fast we fishtailed. But he hardly slowed down as he took another corner and then a third. There was a bowling alley straight ahead and we bounced over the curb into its parking lot, my teeth clacking together from the jarring bump. I bit my tongue; I tasted blood. Chris immediately turned off his headlights and whipped the car into a parking space, blending us in with the other fifty cars that were in the lot.
“Duck,” he said. I didn’t move at first, so he put his hand on my head and pushed until I moved down in my seat. He moved down in his, too. It was only then, in the sudden silence, that I noticed he was breathing heavily. “Stay down.”
But I couldn’t help myself. I sat up just an inch or two so I could see through the back window. There were headlights coming down the street we’d just come from. I held my breath, ready to tell Chris to gun it again.
But instead of turning into the lot as we had, the car turned the other way and drove slowly away from us.
I watched as it passed under a streetlamp.
It was black, with the words Monte Carlo coming out at me in silver.
27
IT WAS ALMOST impossible to sleep after our little high-speed tour of the city. Chris had taken me back to my car and had followed me all the way home. I suspected that he even sat outside my house for an hour or so, just watching.
I puttered. I ate. I watched TV. I texted Dad, who was apparently on location in San Francisco. He responded: I would have told you I was leaving if you were ever home. It’s like living with a stranger. Anger. Well, back at you, Dad. I took a shower to calm myself and played around on social media for distraction, and petted Hue for at least half an hour, and next thing I knew it was late—like, super late—and I was turning pages in the journal I’d stolen from Pear Magic, because I had nothing else to do, and now that I knew the author was Peter Fairchild, I had a better idea of what I was looking for.
8:10 A.M. AWAKE
8:22 A.M. SHOWER, DOOR CLOSED
9:10 A.M. BREAKFAST, CEREAL, DRY, COFFEE, CREAM, SUGAR, DIDN’T FINISH
9:30 A.M. STUDYING, OPEN TEXTBOOK, GEOGRAPHY
9:56 A.M. CIGARETTE BREAK 1, COMPLETE TO FILTER, NO BRAND CHANGE, DISCARDED BUTT SAVED, RETRIEVED, AND LOGGED
There was something about the journal that had bugged me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I flipped through some more pages.
3:15 P.M. BRIEF TRIP OUTSIDE, RETRIEVES SOMETHING FROM CAR, GOES BACK INSIDE.
4:00 P.M. WATCHES TV, REALITY SHOW
4:30 P.M. ASLEEP ON COUCH
This didn’t make sense. Why would Peter Fairchild’s journal talk about studying for geography and watching reality TV?
I flipped through more pages:
3:04 P.M. PICKS UP GRADUATION CAP AND GOWN. TALKS TO PRINCIPAL.
3:20 P.M. IMPATIENT AS DAD TAKES PHOTO IN FRONT OF SCHOOL; ARGUMENT