Kill the Messenger

53

Parker left the building and just stood for a while in the night air. It was closer to morning than to midnight. The empty streets were shiny black, wet with sea mist. No one was around. He wondered what would happen if he just walked away and never came back.

The thought was fleeting. He wasn’t the type to walk away from anything, God help him. He could only be thankful that for now all he could feel was numbness.

Andi Kelly was curled in the passenger seat of his car, huddled in a microfleece jacket he kept in the backseat. She jumped awake like a jack-in-the-box as Parker unlocked the doors and let himself in.

“As a car thief,” he said, “you’re a very good writer.”

“I stole your little plastic emergency key earlier. It let me in the door, but it wouldn’t start the engine.”

She turned sideways on the seat and just stared at him for a moment. Parker started the engine and turned on the heater. The dash lights glowed green.

“How are you doing, Kev?”

“No comment.”

“Off the record.”

“No comment. I can’t talk about this, Andi. Not now. It’s too raw.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I just wanted to offer. I’m a good listener.”

“How can that be?” he teased gently. “You never shut up.”

“I’m multitalented. I can juggle a little bit too.”

“Well, you’ll always have something to fall back on.”

“Diane Nicholson is a friend?” she asked carefully.

Parker nodded. He focused his stare on the odometer—something mundane, unimportant—in the hopes that the tide of emotion rising inside him would recede a bit. He hurt. For Diane, and because of her.

“I’m really sorry, Kev.”

He nodded again, a pressure building in his head, behind his eyes.

Andi picked up her bag from the floor of the car, rummaged through it, pulled out a flask, and offered it to him. “Have a wee nip, as my grandfather used to say to us as children. Hell of a baby-sitter, Granddad. He taught us how to play poker so he could cheat us out of our allowance money.”

Parker managed a chuckle, took the flask, and poured a shot of very good scotch down his throat.

“Eddie Davis is conscious and talking,” Andi said. “Your pal Metheny was right—he really wasn’t using that frontal lobe after all. Brains are miraculous little globs of gross, disgusting goo. Unnamed hospital sources say he’ll be released in a matter of days.”

“That sucks,” Parker said. “He’s not worth the powder to blow him up, and he walks away from getting shot in the head. Rob Cole fucks up people’s lives right and left, and he’ll walk out of jail tomorrow, a free man.”

“Well, it turns out he didn’t kill anybody,” Andi said.

That wasn’t exactly true, Parker thought, but he didn’t say it.

“You know he’ll sell his story for a movie of the week and insist on playing himself.”

“Stop. You’re making me wish I’d gotten shot in the head,” Parker said. “Any word on Abby Lowell?”

“She’s stable. They won’t know until the swelling goes down around the spinal cord whether she has any permanent damage. A day or two.”

They were quiet for a moment. Diana Krall’s smoky voice drifted from the stereo speakers, reflective and sad. The perfect sound track for the night.

“I feel like the whole damn world has blown apart, and we’ll each drift on our own little rock and scatter like dust in the wind,” Parker said.

“That’s not true. You’re not alone, Kev,” Andi said. “None of us is.”

“I’m not convinced that’s a good thing.”

“You’re done in. Go home. Sleep for a couple of days. Call if you decide you want company,” she said, and waggled her eyebrows.

Parker smiled reluctantly. “I’m glad we found each other again, Andi.”

“Me too.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I’m right here,” she said, gesturing to a silver Miata, the next car down.

She leaned over and kissed his cheek, and gave him a hug around the shoulders. “Take care of yourself, Kevin.”

He nodded. But as he drove the deserted streets home to Chinatown, he found himself thinking that he wished he didn’t have to take care of himself. He had won the battle and lost the war. This was a night for a soft place to fall, but the person he most wanted to share his victory with was gone. Lost to him. Lost to herself. Forever. And there was nothing to do but mourn.