man she hasn't seen before- intense, focused. It's admirable, but also a little frightening.
“You're not going to push it off a cliff, are you?” she asks.
“Not planning on it.”
She digs into her purse and hands him the keys.
“Thanks,” Boone says. “I'll get it back to you.”
“I'm taking that to mean,” Petra says, “that you don't want me to go with you.”
He looks at her with seriousness that, again, she hasn't seen in him before, and again, that simultaneously scares and excites her.
“Look,” he says, “there are some things you have to do alone. Can you dig that?”
“I can.”
“I'm going to make this all right.”
“I know you are.”
He leans down and kisses her lightly on the cheek, then turns and walks away with a stride that she can only describe to herself as “purposeful.”
She gets it.
Thinks, You have a few things to make right, yourself.
Petra calls a cab and tells the driver to take her to The Sundowner.
108
Boone drives to Tammy's place.
She won't be home-Danny will have whisked her away somewhere by now. He parks Petra's car right out front, takes the stairs up to Tammy's place, and picks the lock.
The apartment's the usual usual. He heads right for the bedroom because that's where people keep their secrets, there or in the bathroom. Tammy's bedroom looks a lot like Angela's, right down to the same framed picture of the two of them on top of the bureau.
And you're an idiot, Boone thinks. You look at her in those pictures, she hasn't changed a bit. Teddy didn't do any work on her, so what's up between them?
He goes into the bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet. Nothing on the shelves of any interest, but a small wallet-size photo is carefully wedged into the seam between the glass and the frame on the lower left corner of the inside of the cabinet door.
It's a face shot of a young girl. The picture was taken outdoors, but the background is indistinct due to low light and the close-up on the face, but The girl from the strawberry fields, the reeds.
The girl in the motel room with Teddy.
Probably Latina, judging from the brown skin, long, straight black hair, and dark eyes. But she could be Native American, hard to tell. What she definitely is, is a very pretty, sweet-looking little girl with a shy, hesitant smile, wearing a cross on a thin silver chain.
The same cross and chain that Dan Silver took out of his pocket just before Tammy flipped on her testimony.
So it was no setup, Boone thinks, at least not on Tammy's part. She was responding to a threat. Silver has the girl, whoever she is, and he was letting Tammy know that the right words had better come out of her mouth.
Boone takes the picture out and looks on the back. A child's handwriting.
Te amo,
Luce
Well, at least we have a name now, Boone thinks. At least the kid has a name.
But who is she? Boone wonders. And why is her picture on the inside of a medicine cabinet door? Why do you hide a picture but want to be reminded of it every day? How does a stripper meet a mojada girl? And why does she care?
Think, think, he tells himself, trying to fight through the fatigue that's smacking at him as the adrenaline drains. Tammy left Mick and went to Teddy. Why?
Go back to your cop days, he thinks. Chronology. Do the time line. Tammy leaves Mick just after the fire at Danny's warehouse. She becomes obsessed with making money; she spends her time with Angela; she goes to Teddy.
Teddy and she start going up to Oceanside. But if they're not having sex, what are they doing? Teddy knew right where to go to find the girl. Right down into the reeds by the old Sakagawa strawberry fields. Obviously, he'd been there before… with Tammy.
And not just once, but lots of times between the fire and… the arson trial.
At which Tammy does a 180.
If you'd seen what I've seen.
What, Tammy, what did you see?
109
Sunny takes a moment to watch the sun go down.
A bright red ball today, painting the sea a carmine red. Beautiful, dramatic, but somehow a little ominous. Tonight is the last night of your old life sort of thing. Indeed, the ocean's kicking it up. Getting it into gear. She can feel it in the air, in her blood. It makes her heart pound.
She watches it for a few moments and then starts to walk to her house. Chuck wanted her to work a double, but she wants to go home and get some rest before the big day tomorrow. She's walking home along the boardwalk when Petra catches up with her.
“Could I have a word with you?”
“Depends on the word,” Sunny says without stopping or even slowing down. Petra has to struggle to keep up with her long-legged stride.
“Please?”
“That always worked when I was a kid,” Sunny says. She stops and turns to look at Petra. “What do you want?”
Her subtext is clear to Petra: What do you want now? You already have the man I love. Sunny Day is a beautiful woman, Petra thinks, even more beautiful in the soft dusk that casts a glow on her face. Even clad in old jeans and a thick sweatshirt, and not wearing a bit of makeup, the woman is simply lovely.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Petra says, “that what you saw at Boone's cottage wasn't truly indicative of the reality of the situation.”
“In English?”
“Boone and I haven't been together. Sexually.”
“Well, yippee for you, Girl Scout,” Sunny says. “But don't let me stop you.”
She starts to walk away again.
Petra reaches out and grabs her elbow.
“If you want to keep that hand…” Sunny says.
“Oh, stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“The tough-girl act.”
“You're going to find out it's no act,” Sunny says, “if you don't let go of my arm.”
Petra gives up. She drops her hand and says, “I just came to tell you something about Boone.”
She turns away. She's a few steps down the boardwalk when she hears Sunny call after her, “Hey, flatland babe? You don't have anything to tell me about Boone.”
