Brandy’s jaw set. Angel looked at her, looked at Nina, and shrugged. “That’s the deal,” she said. “We’ll be careful.”
They looked unbudgeable. “My investigator, Paul van Wagoner, will pick you both up at your beauty salon at ten tomorrow morning,” Nina said.
“Okay,” Angel and Brandy said together.
“Give me Maria’s address and phone number.”
“No offense,” Brandy said, “but you’ve already got my mobile phone number.”
Only after they left did Nina realize what she meant. They didn’t feel safe entrusting her with the information. They didn’t, in fact, want to pay much attention to her advice at all.
She had lost her credibility with them and they were spending another night on the road. She could only hope they wouldn’t look back and find Cody’s motorcycle on their tail.
10
A T FOUR-THIRTY that Monday afternoon, while stumbling toward the rental car with the large gift she had just picked up for Matt’s wife Andrea’s party that night, Nina saw Officer Jean Scholl in the parking lot outside her office. The policewoman stood by while Nina strained to open the trunk of the rental car and ended up dumping the big gift box on the asphalt while she fooled with her key.
Scholl watched, detached, while Nina stuffed the present into the trunk, adjusting it into several positions before it would fit. Only then did Scholl say, “We found your truck. Let’s go get it.” She led the way to her patrol car, clanking and clinking all the way.
Behind a chain-link fence, the pockmarked, lava-colored sea of asphalt that constituted South Lake Tahoe’s impound lot was not far from the police station and courthouse. Officer Scholl, driving Nina in her patrol car, waved to the security man on duty, got out, and used a key to unlock the gate.
“Where did you find it?”
“In the Heavenly parking lot.” Heavenly Resort was only a few miles away, straight uphill from where they stood at the foot of a ten-thousand-foot mountain, the highest ski resort this side of the Rockies.
“I spotted it in a nicely painted parking spot at the base of the World Cup run, not that anyone’s skiing this time of year. Lots of hikers and gondola riders leave their cars up there. Logical place to dump a joyride if you don’t drive it straight out of town. And then it’s pretty easy to catch a ride down Ski Run Boulevard back to town. Or just walk. It’s only a mile or so.”
The big, dirty SUV looked foreign to her, but the Hawaiian-print seat covers told her that the Bronco was her old familiar mountain buggy.
“Not too much harm done,” Scholl said, her finger inserted into a long scratch on the left bumper. “That’s old.” She reached into her pocket and tossed Nina the metal key. “We found it on the front seat.” She sounded bored as ever, but Nina sniffed out the contempt in her words. Officer Scholl didn’t bother to conceal her antipathy.
Nina walked around the Bronco, noting the nicks and scratches.
“Any new dings?” Scholl asked.
Her truck led a visibly hard life. Nina couldn’t distinguish new dings from old. “I don’t know. Can I get in?”
“It’s your truck, or so the registration says.” She opened the driver’s-side door.
“You didn’t lock it?”
“The barn door’s already open.”
I’ll say, Nina thought. She climbed in, bent toward the backseat, and began to hunt.
Scholl let her look awhile, then said, “No briefcase, if that’s what you’re hoping.”
Nina sat up, disappointed, rubbing her forehead. “My files?”
“No sign of them.”
“Did you dust for fingerprints?”
“We did our jobs.”
Nina straightened up wearily.
“What I wonder is, were they ever even in the truck?” Scholl said.
“I told you they were. What do you mean?”
“Maybe you lost the files some way you don’t want to talk about. Maybe they’ve been lost awhile. Maybe one of your crook clients took them from your office and you invented this cute cover story.” She came over to Nina, looking down at her through those anachronistic reflective sunglasses, and said, “Maybe you’re lying.”
“I resent that. I told you the absolute truth,” Nina said.
“Yeah, like you tell the judge the absolute truth about your clients.”
“Like you never exaggerated a word in your police reports. You seem to have a problem with me, Officer,” Nina said. “But whatever you think of my work as a lawyer, what’s happened here is that my truck was stolen and I’m grateful to you for finding it.”
Scholl didn’t answer. The police radio blasted out a call and she went to answer it.
“I represent police officers, too,” Nina called after her.
Nina called Sandy. “No files in the Bronco. But the truck’s okay.”
“So the files have been stolen,” Sandy said. “I never would have believed it. The briefcase?”
“Gone. Thanks for staying late tonight.”
“I would sure like to know what is going on,” Sandy said. “Wish is coming in tomorrow morning. I cleared the decks for an hour.”
“Paul and I will be there. He’s driving up from Carmel as we speak.”
“Bring doughnuts. Cinnamon-sugar and glazed. Good for thinking.”
“Anything else?”
“There’s a Minute Order in the Cruz case.”
Much too fast. It should have taken ten days for the judge to rule. “Damn,” Nina said. “Physical custody to the mother?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Damn,” Nina said again. Defeat struck hard. “I’ll call Kevin.”
“Call later. Andrea called. She says it’s okay to come late. You go on over and visit with your family.”
A compulsive demon took hold of Nina. After finishing her call, she stopped at the first gas station she saw to fill the almost-empty tank, then ran the truck through the automatic carwash twice. When she got back to the office, she transferred the big box from her rental car to the Bronco. Sandy arranged to get the white subcompact back to the rental agency while Nina drove to Raley’s for cleaning supplies.
After removing the seat covers and tossing them into the back for laundering, she used an entire roll of paper towels and nearly a bottle of ammonia-laden cleaner on the interior. Sandy left for home.
Nina was exhausted, but the Bronco was hers again. Dark descended, and the parking lot emptied. Dinner would be waiting, and she would sit on the old couch and visit with Matt and Andrea and the kids, and gather the strength to call Kevin-who dashed her plans to procrastinate by driving up in an unmarked police car just as she completed this thought.
“Hey,” he said, leaning out the window. “Lisa called me to crow. I can’t stand this. What can we do now? Where can we talk? Listen, let me treat you to something at that Mexican place across the street. It’s true, isn’t it? I lost?”
“It’s true. I’m so sorry, Kevin, but I have to be somewhere. Of course we’ll talk. I’ll call you at about ten tonight.”
“Just a drink,” he pleaded.
“I’m sorry-people are waiting.”
“Sure wish I could say the same for my son and daughter.”
He had just had the worst news of his life. “I have ten minutes, Kevin,” she said.
They crossed the busy highway together, Kevin’s long legs in khakis progressing two steps ahead for every one of hers. Taking a booth by a window facing a side road with a glimpse of mountains, they were both silent for a moment. Kevin’s emotional hell had hollowed his usually blunt, fleshy face. “I have to hit the head,” he said suddenly and left.
She leaned back against the upholstery of the booth and drifted back to an afternoon she and Paul had spent across from his office in Carmel at the Club Jalapeno. He had work to do but blew it off in favor of a long lunch, later walking her down to the beach, removing her shoes, and spreading a blanket on the sand at sunset. She licked the salty rim of her margarita, remembering Paul’s kisses, thinking she would see him in just a few minutes. Right now, she wanted him fiercely.
Anything to stop thinking about the files. And the loss in court.
“Bottoms up,” Kevin said, returning. He downed half his beer in a gulp. She snapped back to attention. No way could she make this easy on him. “Kevin, I’m sorry. It’s true, what Lisa told you. The judge awarded Lisa temporary physical custody of Heather and Joey.”
Kevin leaned forward and jabbed a finger into her face. “There has been a huge mistake here,” he said. “I mean, huge. They can’t get away with it. I’m starting to figure out exactly how I have been abused by Lisa. And I won’t be abused. Not by her and not by her stinking lawyer. You know, there is absolutely no justice in this stinkin’ world.”
“It’s very hard, I know, but remember this was a hearing about temporary custody. The permanent-custody hearing is another opportunity.”
“That doesn’t happen for months. I already waited nine months for the temporary hearing. We both know how the system works. Mom gets temporary custody, the kids get used to her place, they get comfortable, they don’t want to live with their dad anymore. They tell the county investigator they want to stay with Mom and the investigator sees, yeah, it’s working okay. So now they have a known quantity, the kids are doing all right living with Mom, leave ’em alone, they don’t need another move. I’ve lost, and it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Now I don’t have anything.”
She patted his hand. But he spoke the truth. “I am also very concerned-” she said, then stopped.
“About the file you left in the Bronco? Yeah, I talked to Jean Scholl at the station today. She found your vehicle, no files.”
“Yes.” Nina looked at the tablecloth.
“You shouldn’t have left them there. Easy to lift. Hey. We all make mistakes. I made my own mistakes in my time.” He looked to the side, shook his head.
“That’s very kind of you to say, Kevin.”
“But my kids mean everything to me. You understand?”
“I know how hard it is for you. We’ll make sure you get plenty of time with them, I promise. Kevin, I’m going to ask you to do something for me. You should know this could be risky, considering
