Killer Swell

He ducked. “Where?”

“See Emily.”

“Jesus. Aren’t we the sexual deviant?”

“No,” I said, frowning, walking toward the door. “I need to set things straight.”

“Noah?”

I opened the door and turned back to him. “What?”

“Last night,” he said. “With Liz. Seriously. You feel good about it?”

“As good as I’ve felt about anything this week,” I said.

He nodded solemnly, cracked a small smile in my direction, then doubled over, retching loudly.

51

I pulled into Emily’s condo community in Del Mar and parked in front of her stairs. I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation, but I knew I needed to clear the air. The longer I let it go, the more difficult it would be for me to see her, something that was going to happen if I was going to figure out what happened to Kate.

I walked up the steps to her door and knocked. I waited a minute, then knocked again. Still no answer.

I ran back to my car, scribbled a quick note, and ran it up to her door. I knew that I was getting off easy, but I tried to convince myself that leaving a note was at least pushing the issue.

As I drove down PCH, the sun was starting to dip and I decided to pull off and walk the beach at Torrey Pines State Beach. I knew I couldn’t make it to Clairemont Square in time to talk with Carter’s friend about the key, and I’d found that walking the sand at dusk does wonders to organize my thoughts.

I’d walked a couple hundred yards to the south, just to the edge of the bluffs, and was kicking myself for not having my board in the rental car when I recognized a familiar face walking in my direction.

Emily smiled at me as we met. “Hey, stranger.”

“Hi. I was actually just up at your place.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Got that. I left a note.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Sounds serious.”

“Sort of,” I said, a mixture of relief and dread coursing through me in anticipation of our impending conversation.

She tugged on the hem of her gray T-shirt. “Noah, last night-”

I held up my hand. “Let’s not apologize or do any of that stuff. That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

She motioned toward the rocks at the base of the cliff, and we walked over to them and sat down.

“I didn’t know he was coming over,” she said before I could say anything. “I hadn’t seen him in a couple of months. Things just kind of went nuts.” She paused. “But I told him that last night was one night. That’s it.”

I nodded. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Em. Really.”

“I know. But it was awkward.”

“Yeah, it was.” We watched the water for a minute before I spoke again. “Emily, I just don’t think this is a good idea.”

She looked surprised. “What? You and me?”

I nodded. “There’s too much going on right now. With both of us.”

She bit her bottom lip, her gaze now riveted on the surf. “Okay.”

My stomach dropped further. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, Em. I really don’t. I’m trying to make Kate’s death a priority and starting a relationship with you at the same time…it just doesn’t feel right.”

“Fine,” she said, her voice a dull monotone.

“And we’re gonna be around each other,” I said before I lost the courage to keep talking about it. “I need to be able to talk to you without feeling weird around you. And if something’s going on with us, I don’t think that’s gonna work.”

“I get it,” she said, but still didn’t look at me.

We sat there in silence. The sun sunk further, turning the ocean from a dark blue to more of a metallic hue. The waves got smaller, long lines of foam washing easily to the shore.

“This feels like it’s about last night,” she said finally, hugging her knees to her chest.

“It’s not,” I said. “I promise. Maybe last night made it clearer to me. I don’t know. But this is about you and me-nothing else.”

She turned to look at me. No tears in her eyes. I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe a little anger, maybe a little sadness. But her expression was blank.

She brushed the blond hair from her face and stood. “Thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“For letting me know,” she said.

I stood. “Emily, I didn’t-”

It was her turn to hold up her hand. “I mean it. Thanks for letting me know where I stand.”

She walked past me, up the beach toward the parking lot, leaving me without anything else to say or anyone to say it to.

52

I spent the night wrestling with Emily’s reaction to me and new thoughts about Liz. I ended up getting about two hours of sleep. When I woke, I felt too sluggish to hit the water or take a run, so I took a long shower, read the paper, and watched a thick marine layer build over the coast. A day without sunshine.

I drove up to Clairemont about mid-morning to see Carter’s key guy. About twenty minutes from the beaches, the only notable thing about the area was that the high school with the same name was rumored to have been where Cameron Crowe did his undercover research for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The school did not put that on its enrollment materials.

Situated between the canyons, the area housed middle-class homes and lots of strip malls. Clairemont Square had undergone numerous renovations, trying to keep up with the changing retail times, but it never seemed to quite make it with each new face-lift. The giant theater that still loomed as the anchor of the outdoor plaza was the place to see movies when I was a kid. Now it ran films you could see at half price if you didn’t mind the grainy print quality or that it had already been out for a month.

I found the kiosk in the middle of the plaza. A guy with a long ponytail was lounging on a tall director’s chair, his feet up on the cart and a cigarette in his mouth. Long, skinny arms emerged from a grubby white tank top that matched the dirty jeans and work boots.

“You Charlie?” I asked, admiring the vast quantity of keys hanging in every possible place on the cart.

He pulled the cigarette from his lips and squinted at me. “Yeah. What can I do for you, man?”

“Got a question about a key.”

He spread his arms wide, grinning. “Well, you’ve found heaven then.”

I pulled the key out of the pocket of my shorts. “Carter Hamm sent me.”

He tapped the cigarette and ash fell to the ground. He cocked an eyebrow at me. “No shit? My good buddy Carter?”

“Yeah. Said you might be able to tell me what this belongs to.” I handed the key to him.

He jammed the cigarette back into his lips and turned the key over in his palm a couple of times. “Probably.” He grinned at me. “For the right price.”

“I said Carter sent me.”

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, tossed it to the ground, and stepped on it. “Exactly. That’s why it’ll only cost you twenty instead of forty.”

I extracted a twenty from my wallet and handed it to him. “What a deal.”