“Don’t,” I said. “They know better than you do when you’re ready to go home.” I pulled the paper Liz had given me out of my pocket. “Here’s something to keep you occupied.” I handed it to him.
He let it rest in his palm. “I get shot and this is what you bring me?”
“Shut up. Liz gave it to me.”
He raised an eyebrow, surprised. “The Ice Queen gave you something other than the finger?”
“We made peace.”
He looked back at the paper. “‘Charlotte.’ The city?”
“What about the T?”
“I don’t know. Where’d Liz get it?”
“The car they found Kate in.”
“The ‘T’ could be an initial,” he said, running his finger over the paper, trying to smooth it out.
“A last name,” I said. “That’s my guess.”
“What does Liz think it is?”
I shook my head. “She’s not sure. That’s why she gave it to me.”
He handed it back. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
I told him what she’d said about finding Kate’s killer.
“Still,” Carter said. “Doesn’t sound like Liz.”
“I think the guilt is working her over pretty good.”
“I suppose,” he said. “But a crappy piece of paper that may have been just trash isn’t much.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not. But at least it’s something.”
The door to the room opened, and an older nurse with a gray afro stuck her head in. “Visiting hours end in five minutes, gentlemen.”
I waved at her, and Carter made a face.
She smiled and shut the door.
I stood up. “I’m gonna head out. I’ll come see you in the morning.”
“Okay. Don’t knock yourself out over this, Noah,” he said, a note of caution in his voice.
“What? The paper?”
“That and everything else. It’s not worth getting the shit kicked out of you. Again.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, tugging at the blankets that barely covered his long frame. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to see Costilla.”
I turned toward the door.
“Even if you figure this out,” Carter continued, “what’s gonna happen? Ken and Marilyn are going to give you a fat check? I know you could care less about that. Kate’s not gonna be able to say thank you. No matter what you find out.” He paused. “It won’t bring her back.”
I waved at him and left.
42
Carter’s words stung me.
I didn’t think I was doing this to make amends for Kate, but maybe I was fooling myself. The police and the government didn’t want it solved. In all likelihood, even if Kate’s murder was solved, it was going to be done quietly. They would prefer that Costilla did it because it gave them one more thing to hang on him. I still wasn’t convinced, and I kept turning everything over in my mind until I pulled up to Emily’s.
I wasn’t quite sure why I’d gone to her place. I tried telling myself that it was because I wanted to ask her more about her sister and Randall and also to see if she knew anything about the piece of paper Liz had given me. But, somewhere, in the recesses of my brain, I knew it was because I needed to settle whatever had happened between us.
I parked my car in front of her garage and walked up the stairs. I was getting used to the stiffness and soreness that permeated my body. I tried to pretend it was from a really difficult workout. And if that workout had included being used as a heavy bag, maybe my body would’ve bought it.
I pressed the illuminated button next to her door. After a moment, I heard her muffled voice, then footsteps. The door opened, and she stuck her head out. “Noah.”
“Hey.”
She opened the door enough for her to step into the opening. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“I didn’t either. I was just at the hospital and thought I’d come by.”
She tried to smile, but it came off as more nervous. Her hair was tousled and her cheeks flushed. She blinked several times. “Oh, um, how’s Carter?”
I became keenly aware that she was not inviting me in. “He’s okay. Better anyway.”
She almost glanced over her shoulder, then caught herself, the look on her face telling me what I had already guessed.
“Bad timing,” I said.
“Uh, yeah,” she said, laughing quickly. “You could say that.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
I held up my hand. “Nothing to be sorry about. I should’ve called.”
“No,” she said. “It’s just…I don’t know. I’m not getting this out.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, backing up. “I’m on my way.”
She opened the door wider. I could see she was wearing a man’s dress shirt over a pair of khaki shorts. She must’ve noticed me looking at her clothes because she looked at herself and blushed.
“Noah,” she said, then stopped. “It’s my ex. The almost husband.”
“Em, you don’t owe me an explanation,” I said, feeling the warmth in my cheeks now.
She started to say something, then looked harder at me. “What happened to your face?”
I waved a hand. “Nothing. I’ll tell you later.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else, then stopped. “Okay. I’ll call you.”
I hustled down the stairs and waved at her over my shoulder so she couldn’t see the rising tide of embarrassment on my face.
43
I managed not to squeal the tires of the Blazer as I left Emily’s condo, but when I turned out onto Camino Del Mar, I floored it.
It wasn’t that I felt that Emily and I had established some sort of relationship. We hadn’t. I had avoided any discussion of a relationship on purpose, and our guilt had prevented us from doing anything else.
Seeing her, flustered and embarrassed, had rattled me, but not in the way that I would’ve predicted. I wasn’t upset or jealous, which is what I would’ve expected. Instead, I was relieved. Emily and I didn’t belong together, and our awkward meeting had confirmed that. Maybe I’d been trying to replace Kate with her, which was screwed up on so many levels that I didn’t even want to think about it. She didn’t deserve that.
And as I sped through the dark curves on Torrey Pines Road and down into La Jolla Shores, something that had been riding around in my head started to get a whole lot clearer.
I stopped at a bar in PB, already packed with an early-evening crowd, and downed a beer and a shot of tequila in about fifteen minutes. I stood at the bar, listening to Tristan Prettyman’s soft voice coming from the speakers in the wall, contemplating doing something that I couldn’t believe I was even giving serious thought to. I didn’t want to go home and be alone. I felt like I’d been on my own all day. Before I could talk myself out of it, I left the bar and drove south.
Coronado is a small island west of the downtown area, dominated by the Naval Station and the expensive beachfront hotels, most notably the red-roofed Hotel del Coronado. Most of the families that live on Coronado have
