'You tell me. You were there. Tess was living with that asshole out in Simi Valley. I didn't see you blazing any trails to their door.'
Kaitlin's bearing stayed combative-sad and combative-but for once she wasn't ready with a quick response. He took her sudden silence to mean that she knew she was overloading her charges. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. 'We had a shot with this biotech company. Gene therapy or something. They even used Sammy in one of their commercials.'
'The new refrigerator.'
'What? Oh-that's right. The commercial bought them that and took a bite out of Sammy's medical bills. Tess's paycheck barely kept them afloat. We're hardly in the money now, but at least we can eat. And if we time our checks right, we can keep the bills from going to collection.'
'Memories of my childhood.'
'Memories of our present tense.' She rubbed her eyes. 'Goddamned health companies bleed you dry. When Tess got Sammy on the trial list for this gene thing, it was like they'd hit the lottery. It was gonna be free, too. He should be in line still to get the treatment-it comes available in a week or two. But the study was oversubscribed, and they dropped him. Just like that.' Her hand bobbed, and he heard the snap. 'It might cost him his…' She made a sound like a hiccup, and Walker realized it was the start of a sob that had caught her off guard. She pressed her hand to her mouth, and he gave her the silence until her cheeks stopped quivering. 'I guess Tess couldn't take it.'
'Tess could take a lot.'
Kaitlin shoved a wrist across her eyes. 'I'm not sure I can.' It was unclear whether she wanted comfort and unclearer yet if he remembered how to lend any.
They waited out an awkward silence, and then she laughed like she'd remembered something amusing, thumbed her pager, and approximated a Pollyanna voice: 'Back to the liver. We wait. And pray.'
'I never got much mileage outta prayer.'
'It's about all we have left. I just don't want him to get scared. Anything else, I think I can take. But not scared. All the doctors. Needles. I get him a present for after each visit.'
Walker glanced at the gift on the coffee table. Used but repackaged. The bow was creased from where it had been removed from another gift and restuck. 'You got the kid a label gun?'
'It's what he wanted. I don't know. It was eight bucks on eBay.'
'Was Tess in some kind of trouble?'
'I see the conversation I was having no longer interests you.'
'New guy, something like that?'
'I don't know. We weren't real close.'
'Why are you raising her kid, then?'
'You mean your nephew?' She waited, displeased with his silence, then said, 'Because I have weak boundaries and a compulsion to take care of people so I can bitch a lot.'
'Was she in touch with her ex?'
'You tell me. She was your sister.'
'She stopped talking to me. After I went in the second time.'
He saw in Kaitlin's face that Tess hadn't confided that to her, and he also saw that Kaitlin had a good handle on what that would've meant to him. The empathetic lines over her eyebrows lasted only a moment before merging in an angry dip. 'Smart girl.'
'I'd say so.'
'Her ex is in Lompoc, where he's been the past four years. Smalltime embezzling or something. I don't think they've been in touch since Sam was a baby.'
'Is my mom dead?'
'What? No, she's at the Valley Glen Retirement Home.'
'How 'bout my dad? Where's he?'
'He's the one oughta be dead.'
'Ah. A boundary.'
Her mouth tensed at the edges, but instead of smiling she said, 'You got a place?'
'No.'
'Money?'
'No.'
'Anything?' She met his uncomfortable gaze, then strode into the kitchen and returned, prying the lid off a coffee tin. She teased out a wad of singles, but he held up his hand. 'Come on,' she said brusquely. 'It's the emergency fund. I think this qualifies.'
'Keep it for you and the kid.'
'We've survived without your looking out for us this far, thanks. Besides, I get paid in a few hours. What's your plan?' She kept the cash extended toward his unmoving hand until the scene felt childish. 'Take it, goddamn it! It's forty bucks. Get a meal and a shower.'
Reluctantly, he reached up and took the money.
She studied him with her hard, gray eyes. 'What's your deal, Walk? What are you doing here?'
'Unfinished business.'
'Whose?'
'Tess's.'
'Tess finished her own business.'
He looked down, worked the inside of his lip between his teeth.
She seemed to grasp what he wasn't saying. 'So you're what? Honoring her memory by breaking out of prison and rolling some heads?'
'Something like that.'
'Whose?'
He didn't answer.
'Why don't you honor your sister in a way that would mean something to her?'
A spark of indignation charged his voice. 'You don't know Tess. You weren't there. You weren't there in the B-'
'The Buick. Right. The winter you guys lived in a car by Griffith Park. Get over it. She did. She pulled it together. And for what? To give you opportunities?'
'I took them. That worked out well. Fighting Dick Cheney's war for him.'
'So you didn't get a fair shake. Guess what? You're not entitled to one. People like us don't get a fair fucking shake. Not you, not Tess, not me, sure as shit not Sammy. And there's nothing you can do about it.'
'Oh,' Walker said, 'there's something.'
'As I figured, it's not about Tess aft-' The telephone rang, and Kaitlin broke off her pronouncement and her stare, hurried into the kitchen, and leaned over the caller ID screen. 'Damn it. It's Sammy's insurance. They call at ungodly hours so they can leave messages. I need to grab this.'
Walker pointed down the dark hall to the closed door opposite the converted den where Kaitlin slept. 'That where she died?'
Kaitlin nodded. 'Don't go anywhere.' Ring. 'I haven't decided if I'm gonna shoot you yet.' She picked up, her nervously polite tone following him into the hall. He passed a door through which emanated the exaggerated sounds of video-game bloodshed, and paused outside Tess's room. Squares of bare wood marked either side of the jamb where the crime-scene tape had pulled up the paint. He turned the handle and paused, collecting himself.
The smells hit him first and strongest. The curtains remained drawn, and day after day of sunlight had baked the air of the closed room to a choking staleness. Bleach. Cleanser. And barely lingering beneath the chemicals, an express lane back to his childhood, the comforting scent of Jean Nate. There it was on the bureau, the yellow bottle with its curious cursive scrawl. He popped the cap and inhaled. The scent covering the sun-faded smell of the Buick's maroon crushed velour bench seat that had served as his bed for two months when he was eight. Sleeping cuddled into Tess for warmth. Her veil at her all-wrong wedding dinner in the back room of the Olive Garden as he'd leaned to kiss her cheek, struggling and failing to come up with something meaningful to say. What was there to say? After what Tess had risked for him? With their mother furloughed to another dry-out of questionable sincerity
