The Detective

Chapter 13:

I know that plate.

Three states over. Dark blue sedan, the one Marcus keeps at the lake house for "business associates." He never drives it. He sends people in it.

"Kael—"

"I see it."

He's already moving. Not toward the car. Sideways, into the shadow of the hardware store's awning, and he's pulling me with him by the elbow and his hand's not rough, just fast, and he tucks me behind him against the wall.

"Don't move," he says.

"It's his."

"I know it's his."

"He keeps it at the—"

"Elara. Don't move."

The car rolls past.

Slow. Slower than before. There's a man driving and he's not looking at the road. He's looking at the buildings. Left, right, left, right, slow and patient like a man reading a book. He's got sunglasses on even though it's gray out, and a hat, and a jacket that's the color of nothing.

He passes us.

And then he stops.

Not a hard stop. Just the brake lights coming on, soft, and the car sitting there in the middle of the road like a man deciding something.

"He's stopping," I whisper.

"Yeah."

"What do we do?"

"Nothing."

"Kael—"

"Nothing." His hand is still on my arm. "You don't run from a man like this. Running tells him you're the thing he's looking for. You stand there and you're a woman in a shirt and a biker's jacket and you're somebody's old lady, and he's a man in a car who's about to be very confused."

The car door opens.

The man gets out. He's tall and thin and he's got a folder under his arm and he's got that folder turned so the front's against his chest, so I can't see anything on it.

He walks back up the sidewalk toward us.

I feel Kael's whole body change. Not tense. He goes loose. All the way loose, shoulders down, weight easy, like a man leaning on a wall on a Sunday.

The detective stops about six feet away.

"Afternoon," he says. His voice is mild. Unplaceable. The kind of voice a man uses so you'll forget it later.

"Afternoon," Kael says.

"You're the owner of the bar."

"I'm the owner of a lot of things."

"The Iron Vipers." The man smiles, small and tidy. "Nice town you got here. Quiet."

"It's quiet."

"I'm looking for a woman. Thought maybe you'd seen her." He opens the folder. "Wife of a friend of my employer's. Ran off three days ago. Family's real worried."

And he turns it around.

It's me.

A picture of me from — I know that day. It's from the garden. In the summer. I'm sitting on the stone bench in the white dress, and I'm not looking at the camera, I'm looking at something off to the side, and there's a bruise healing on my arm that the sleeves covered.

It's a photograph taken from inside my own house.

I hear myself make a small sound. It's out before I can stop it.

Kael doesn't look at me. Doesn't look at the picture. Just looks at the man.

"Never seen her," he says.

"Really." The man's eyes flick to me and then away. Mild. "She's about five foot four. Brown hair. She's got a mark on her neck."

"Lot of women got marks on their necks."

"Not in the same place." He turns the folder slightly. "You sure I can't show you again?"

"I'm sure."

The man looks at me now. All the way at me. And his smile changes — just a little, just at the corners — and I know. I know he knows. There's a wrongness in the way he's standing, a little too relaxed, and I realize he's already decided.

He's not asking us for information.

He's checking a box.

"That's a nice jacket," he says to me. "You in the club?"

I open my mouth.

"She's my Old Lady," Kael says. "So you can stop looking at her."

The man's eyebrows go up.

And then he says, mild as anything, "Mrs. Sterling. If you come with me now, I can have you home before dark. No trouble. No police. Your husband's a reasonable man."

The street goes very quiet.

"You got about four seconds," Kael says. "Get off my sidewalk."

"Mr. Vance—"

"One."

"I'm not here to—"

"Two."

The man sighs. Closes his folder. "Alright. Alright. No trouble."

He turns around.

And then he turns back and looks past us, down the alley, and I see it — a flash of something, a reflection. He's got his phone up. He took a picture. Or he's taking one.

"Three," Kael says.

The man's already walking.

He's walking, and Kael's letting him, and I think for one second we're done—

—and then Kael moves.

I don't even see it happen. There's a blur and the man's got his hand on the car door, and then he doesn't, because Kael's got his collar and the folder's on the ground and both of them are going into the alley mouth between the hardware store and the church.

"Kael!" I'm running. My new boots squeak. My feet hurt. "Kael, don't—"

The folder's on the sidewalk. Papers spilled out.

And on the top paper, face-up, there's a photograph of a house.

My house. My old house. My mama's cottage, before it burned. Except it's not burned in the picture. It's standing there with the blue door and the hanging pot of something she never remembered to water, and there's a date stamp in the corner.

Six months ago.

The picture was taken six months ago.

And underneath it there's another one, and it's me, and I'm getting out of the Honda at the gas station in Blackpine, and the date stamp says yesterday.

He was already here.

He was already here and he already took my picture.

I look up. Down the alley, Kael's got the man against the brick wall with one arm across his chest and the man's feet are off the ground and his sunglasses are hanging off one ear.

"Who sent you," Kael says.

"His lawyer—"

"Who sent you."

"His lawyer!"

"Where are you staying?"

"I'm not—" Kael moves his arm and the man makes a sound. "The motel! The one on the highway, three towns over! Room fourteen!"

"You been in this town before today?"

"Yes."

"When."

"Yesterday. I didn't — I didn't take anything, I didn't do anything, I just looked, that's all I do, I look—"

Kael hits him.

Just once. In the stomach. Not hard enough to break anything. Hard enough to end the conversation.

The man folds and slides down the brick and sits there in the puddle with his hands up.

"Phone," Kael says.

"What?"

"Your phone. Give it to me."

And I'm standing in the alley mouth with a folder of photographs in my hands and I hear my own voice come out of me, flat and clear.

"Don't."

Kael turns his head.

"I need the phone," I say. "Not you. Me."

"Elara."

"He's not going to give it to you. He'll give you a phone. He's got a phone in his pocket and a phone in his shoe and a phone in his folder. He's a detective. He's got six phones." I'm already walking toward them. "But there's one he can't throw away."

Kael frowns.

"The one with the pictures on it," I say.

I kneel down in the alley in my new jeans and my new boots and the cut on my shoulders, and I look into the man's face. He's got blood on his mouth and his sunglasses are gone and I look at him and I don't feel anything. That's the strangest part. I don't feel anything at all.

"What's your name," I say.

He coughs. "Hendricks."

"Hendricks." I hold out my hand. "Give me your phone."

"Mrs. Sterling—"

"Give me your phone."

He looks at Kael. Kael looks at me.

And then Kael shrugs and says, "You heard her."

Hendricks reaches into his jacket with a shaking hand and pulls out a phone.

Not the one in the folder. Not the one on his belt. The one in his jacket pocket — the good one, the real one, the one he's been using all morning.

I take it. It's warm from his body. I hold it in my hands and I look at the screen and I swipe and there's no lock, because he never thought a woman in a bar would be holding it.

And there's a text message. Right at the top. Sent three minutes ago.

FROM: M. STERLING

Is it her?

TO: M. STERLING

Yes. She's wearing his jacket. Standing next to him. I got her.

And under that, a voice message from him, from three days ago. I put it on speaker without thinking, and Marcus's voice fills the alley, and I hear Kael go very still.

"I don't care what it costs. She's mine and she's not leaving this state with my name still on her. You find her by Friday or you don't get paid."

The message ends.

The alley's quiet. I can hear the rain on a gutter somewhere. I can hear Hendricks breathing.

"He's been tracking me," I say. "Since the night I left. He put a man on my mama's house. He had me photographed in my own garden six months before I ran." My voice doesn't shake. That's the thing. It comes out flat and calm and it doesn't shake at all. "He knows I'm here. He knew before I did."

Chapter 13 Ends.