Cold truth

Chapter 15

The Meltdown was a bar on the western edge of the 39th Street strip, covering a corner at the intersection with State Line Road, the street separating Missouri and Kansas. The University of Kansas Medical Center was on the other side of State Line, ensuring a steady flow of sleep-deprived medical students across its threshold. The neo-docs in their white jackets and stethoscopes mingled with the street traffic the bar attracted with its reputation for showcasing local hard-rock bands.

Mason and Abby stood inside the door to the bar, their eyes adjusting to the weak light and heavy smoke. It was close to midnight and people were jammed hip-to-pelvis across the crowded floor, jostling to the music.

"Herd dancing," Mason said. "My favorite."

"Be thankful the herd is not in mating season," Abby shouted over the lead guitarist, who was having an affair with his distortion pedal, slamming the crowd with punishing chords as he wailed into the mike.

They pushed into the crowd, weaving and twisting between people as they got closer to the stage. Jordan was sharing a table with two other girls next to a stack of speakers, ignoring each other and the music. Mason guessed each was a girlfriend of one of the boys in the band. They'd heard the music too many times to pay attention anymore.

Jordan looked up as Mason broke through a wall of people, bolting from her table, knocking her chair over, darting around the speakers. Mason would have yelled for her to stop, but realized she couldn't hear him and wouldn't stop if she had.

He vaulted Jordan's chair, trusting Abby to keep up. The bar was small and the stage made it smaller, leaving a narrow passage behind leading to a back door that was still closing when Mason reached it. He banged into the door, skidding to a stop in the alley behind the bar where Blues was waiting, his arms wrapped around Jordan. The more she thrashed, the tighter Blues held her until she wore herself out.

"Okay," she wheezed. "Okay. Let me go."

Mason nodded and Blues opened his arms. "We need to talk," Mason told her.

"I'm not going back to Sanctuary," Jordan said. "You can't make me."

"You didn't complain in court today when Centurion offered to take you back there. What happened?" Mason asked.

"I changed my mind."

"People out on bail on a murder charge don't get to change their minds," Mason told her. "And they don't get to steal cars either."

"I didn't steal anything."

"How did you get back to town?" Mason asked.

"I borrowed Centurion's car. I was going to call him tomorrow and tell him where I left it."

Mason said to Abby and Blues, "Pull the car around. We'll catch up to you."

"Aren't you afraid I'll run away again?" Jordan asked.

"Right now, I'm your best and only friend. You want to run, run. Next time, I'll let the cops find you and you'll get a real public defender buried under a stack of hopeless hard cases who needs directions to the courthouse."

Jordan scuffed the pavement with the toe of her shoe. "I'm not going back," she said again.

"Tell me why."

"Everything I tell you is confidential, isn't it? That's why you made the others leave."

"That's right."

The alley was as poorly lighted as the bar, the only illumination coming from a black-light bug zapper and a bare yellow bulb mounted above the bar's back door. The light favored neither of them, bringing out the purple and yellow stains of Mason's fading black eye and the washed-out, hollow cheeks that flattened Jordan's face.

"I saw something I shouldn't have seen," she said.

"What?"

"Cocaine. A lot of cocaine."

"Where?"

"In Centurion's apartment. He's got the third floor of the house."

"What were you doing in his apartment?" Mason asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

"He said I owed him for getting me out of jail. I didn't know what to do. He said he wanted to take a shower first. I was looking for his car keys and I found the cocaine in a drawer, probably six bags. I grabbed the keys and split."

"How did you have time to pack all your clothes? Centurion said you took everything with you."

"I didn't have much. Everything fit in my backpack. Centurion had it brought to his apartment, like I was moving in with him."

"Does Centurion know you found the drugs?"

"I don't know. I wasn't going to wait around to find out. So I split."

"Why did you leave the Mercedes on Quality Hill?"

"No reason. I had to leave it somewhere. I called my ex-boyfriend-he's the drummer-and he picked me up."

"Aren't you leaving something out?" Mason asked her.

"Like what?" she asked, looking around but not at him.

"Like going into the Cable Depot. Someone saw you."

"So what. My father owns the building and I've got a key. Is that a crime?"

"Jordan," Mason said. "Look at me. I know about Trent. The police want to talk to you. Tell me what happened."

Blues pulled his SUV up to the mouth of the alley and Abby got out, walking slowly toward them. Mason stepped closer to Jordan, his hand on her chin, guiding her eyes to his. "Tell me," he said.

Jordan held Mason's wrist, keeping his hand on her face to collect the pieces as she crumbled. Her lips quivered, then parted. Her eyes pooled, then overflowed, as she began to shake. Mason pulled her head to his shoulder, his arms around her, as she dissolved.

"He raped me," she said, sobbing. "He raped me and they let him and they said I was a liar and a whore and I'm not and they let him."

The tremors reached her legs and Mason couldn't hold her up. He eased them both to the ground, cradling her. "Tell me," Mason said again, softly, like a prayer.

Jordan buried her face against Mason's neck, clinging to him, her tears running down his collar. "He was dead. There was blood everywhere." She lifted her head. "It wasn't me, but I wasn't sorry. Do you understand me? I wasn't sorry."

Abby crouched down alongside them, stroking Jordan's back as Mason held her. No one spoke until Jordan's breathing settled and she sat up on her own, the three of them in a ring on the floor of the alley.

"We can't take her back to Sanctuary," Mason said.

"You can stay with me," Abby told her.

"Who are you?" Jordan asked, wiping her nose with her T-shirt.

"My name is Abby. I'm a friend."

"This is a bad idea for a whole lot of reasons," Mason told Abby two hours later.

Jordan was asleep on Abby's sofa. Mason and Abby were back on the roof. She had furnished it with a queen-sized inflated air mattress. They were lying on their backs, arms intertwined.

"You said she couldn't go back to Sanctuary," Abby said.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. You're setting yourself up for a terrible disappointment. If Jordan isn't your daughter, you'll feel like you've lost her all over again. If she is your daughter, it's not going to be the glorious reunion you want. The girl is a mess, to say nothing of the likelihood that she's going to be charged with another murder."

"She said she didn't kill Gina and that she didn't kill Trent."

"Wrong. She said she did kill Gina but changed her mind on that one. So far, she's sticking to her story on Trent."

Abby propped herself on her elbow and thumped Mason on his chest. "You're her lawyer. You're supposed to believe her. If you don't, what chance does she have?"

Mason rolled on his side, facing her. "You're right. That's what I tell Mickey all the time. I'm not allowed to doubt."

"Good. I'm glad we settled that. I have something else to tell you. I found Jordan's driver's license while she was taking a shower."

"You mean you went through her purse?" Mason teased.

"Stop it. You stole a car. I can look in a purse. Jordan was born the same day as my baby."

Mason sat up, rocking them both on the air mattress. "What hospital were you at when you delivered?"

"Caulfield Medical Center in St. Louis."

"I don't suppose you had time to ask Jordan where she was born?"

"I was trying to get her to relax, open up a little," Abby said, not fighting the catch in her throat.

"Same hospital?" Mason asked.

Abby nodded, tears brimming and catching on her smile. Mason opened his arms and she filled them. They lay down, wrapped in each other and the impossibility of the moment.

"You said there was magic and miracles on my roof. I guess you were right," Abby said.

"And you said you were holding my reservation for late arrival. Then you gave my room away."

"Will you take an upgrade to the penthouse?" she asked as she unbuttoned her blouse. "Room service is included."

"Do I get frequent-guest points?" he asked as they fumbled with each other's clothes.

"Depends on how many times you come," she said.

Mason left before dawn. His clothes were damp with morning dew, but he didn't notice. His last image of Abby had been of her standing in her doorway. She was wearing her shirt and nothing else, making it very hard for him to leave. They had laughed at the circles embedded on their bodies by the air mattress, dressing with the ease of old lovers.

It was that ease, that immediate intimacy they had felt when he first took her hand that enthralled him. He was pushing forty, too old to be deceived by his hormones. Abby had invaded his heart. Whether it was magic or a miracle didn't matter. It was enough that it had happened.

The early morning air was moist with the promise of a warm day. His clothes dried out by the time he got home, courtesy of the top-down ride. Tuffy greeted him when he walked inside, sniffing and nudging, puzzled by the latent scents of rotweiller and woman Mason carried.

He left again at 7:30 to pick up Jordan, focusing more on the day ahead than the night just past. He had cautioned Abby about the unlikely odds of Jordan being her daughter and the mixed blessing it could prove to be if she were. Centurion, though, was the greater danger for Abby and Jordan.

Centurion might forget Jordan's sexual snub, knowing that he could replace her easily enough. Should she complain of his crude effort, he would deny it, relying on his greater credibility and her admitted unreliability as a defense. If he suspected that Jordan found the cocaine, he wouldn't forget that. Even if he cleaned house well enough that a drug-sniffing dog would hyperventilate before finding anything, Centurion couldn't tolerate the allegation or the scrutiny. That meant Jordan was in danger, as was anyone protecting her, including Abby.

Mason decided not to raise this problem with Abby or Jordan until after he talked with Samantha Greer and Centurion. Both demanded that he bring Jordan to them. He would do it for Samantha but not Centurion. Centurion wouldn't believe any explanation Mason would give him except the truth, and that was the last thing Mason would tell him.