Headlights(19)

“Daniel?” Josie calls from the hall.

I swear again. Outside, the dizziness hits me even harder, and my bare feet crunch through the grass, dry and full of burrs because we’ve never landscaped back here.

“Daniel!” Josie calls from her office. “What the fuck are you doing?”

I run, trip, the too-bright rising sun in my eyes. Around the side of the house and through the front yard to the street. The front door creaks open, and Josie says, “Daniel, come back.”

I keep walking, can’t run anymore, am too dizzy. But I walk until my feet hit the asphalt.

“Daniel, you’ve got ketamine in your system, they gave you a shot. Jack said you freaked out,” she says. “I have your stuff!”

I ignore her. Though the confirmation that there’s a drug in my system is a bit of comfort.

“Daniel, your shoes!”

I’m not looking back. Not going to see Josie in my house with another guy.

Orange-yellow-red leaves litter everything, pile up in front lawns and sail through the air. I don’t recognize half the houses. Every neighborhood in all the world getting gentrified or expanded or upgraded, one at a time.

Then there is the hand on my shoulder, and I turn to her. Josie drops my boots on the ground, holds out a plastic grocery bag. “Phone, wallet, keys.” She looks me over. “I can’t believe you had to go back there. I’m so sorry. If there’s…” She trails off, concern in her eyes.

“I didn’t know it was still there,” I say.

“I didn’t either. But … Dan. Mama Tried, and then that motel. I mean, is someone trying to…?” Trying to get to you is what she doesn’t say. Trying to involve you. Of course I’m thinking the same thing. Of course I fucking am. Of course if anyone at the office does even a little digging into the motel’s history, I’ll be off the case in a second. I’m beyond compromised.

Not that I’m on this case. Not that I’m staying.

They don’t print kids’ names in the press for murder cases. And I was adopted so fast after it happened, my name changed almost immediately. As far as I’ve found in all my years, there’s nothing official besides the foster care and adoption agency’s records tying me anywhere to Rose and Calvin Keller of the Happy Inn murder. And the adoption agency’s since gone out of business, and things slip through the cracks in foster care all the time. But if someone were to start digging, someone with all our resources looking specifically into that murder in that motel room, what would they find?

I’m not staying. This isn’t my life anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time.

The motel. The Happy Inn.

The woman. The look in her eyes. Who was she? And how is she a part of this?

And why did she … Why did I feel, looking at her …

Josie reaches out, her hands on my shoulders. She wraps her arms around me, pulls me into a hug. That citrus scent of her. I need to try to resist, need to resist falling back into this life. Josie understands, as much as anyone can. She knows. This love and respect between us, support. What made us great, when we were great. Even if it wasn’t enough in the end. Even if it, like everything else, slipped through the cracks made by the case. The cracks I made. I open my eyes, hadn’t realized I closed them. See my old street, my old house, my old life. I see, from Josie’s arms.

Nat Tillman standing on my front porch holding a mug I bought.

I close my eyes again, take a breath. I push away from Josie.

Down the road, I pull on my boots, shake my phone out of the plastic bag, and call Jack.

“They’re keeping her at the hospital another day, said no visitors yet,” Jack says before I say anything. “They’re worried about her kidney levels, may have been without water more than two days. We’ve got Everett Brown in custody. No ID on the girl yet. Take a beat. Get yourself together.”

“Jack. I passed out at a crime scene.”

“You passed out, then tried to slug the paramedics lookin’ at you.”

I swear. “That explains the drugs I guess.”

“Look, you haven’t been out in the field in a while. Salt Lake said you’ve been requesting desk duty, which I can understand. You’re just getting your sea legs again.”

“I think … I think I have to go, Jack. I think I can’t be on this one.”

“When they go big, we’re one step away from catching them, you know that.”

“I think…” The killers are getting personal, personal with me, and it seems very likely that whoever is orchestrating all this is trying to get to me. Only Josie knows.

I have to tell him.

One of Jack’s kids yells something in the background. Jack puts his hand over the phone, says something back.

People are dead. Lives ruined. Because someone wants to get to me? Because the killer wants me rattled? Who have I ever pissed off so much? Unless … Unless it’s because I couldn’t solve it before. Unless someone is taunting me now, or trying to get even. Because I couldn’t do it? One of the former victims’ friends or family? Or …

“Trying to get everyone out the door,” Jack says. “Always something with kids.” In the background, doors slamming, voices overlapping. “Okay. Stansfield, what were you saying?”