Last shot

Chapter 44

Kaitlin looked up from the pot on the stove and started, dropping the wooden spoon.

Walker stood in the doorway. He said, "Sorry."

"You just-" She pointed to the front door.

"That's the guy?"

"Yeah. The one who-"

"Looks like me. Right." He ran a hand across his mouth, his palm rasping over the scruff. "You were right. I won't come back here anymore." He removed a disposable cell phone from his pocket and set it on the chipped table. "I want to leave this."

She stirred the sauce, pausing twice like she had something to say. Finally she cleared her throat, knuckled her nose awkwardly. "I'm sorry. What I said. About you never doing anything for anyone but yourself. I haven't forgotten the ways you were good to me."

He stepped once and hooked a hand behind her neck, pulled her forward on her tiptoes so their foreheads touched. She reached to press her hands to his chest but then didn't. They stayed like that for a moment, frozen, breathing the same air, her hands raised either to feel him or shove him away.

"I am Hrothgar of the Tree People! Fear my rat!" Sam guarded the hall, cracked plastic light saber raised, Viking helmet loose on his head.

Kaitlin settled back flat on her feet. "I think you mean 'wrath.'"

"Hrothgar of the Tree People might have a rat," Walker said.

Sam grabbed a plastic horn and shoved the oversize helmet back out of his eyes. His was an awkward face, years short of growing into itself, but something in his smile pulled his features into line, made the nose bow slightly, the chin firm. It made him, briefly, handsome.

"This is true," Kaitlin conceded.

Sam's stare still had not left Walker. "Why are you here?"

"To talk to you."

"I'm important today." Sam ran back down the hall, fending off imaginary villains with the Force.

Walker followed, finding him sitting on his bed, a lump beneath the comforter. A fluorescent length of light saber protruded like a tail. "The stuff that could've cured me is a syrup, like chocolate syrup," the lump said. "Except instead of chocolate, it's filled with the gene I need. I just had to take it in a shot once a month, and the other kids'd even be jealous because I got to have chocolate syrup and not them. But then they said I couldn't have it. The chocolate syrup. Why not?"

"Prob'ly because we can't pay for it."

"We?"

"Tess. Kaitlin. Whoever. It's too expensive's my guess. Look, I can't be here long and I need some answers."

Sam tugged at the comforter so it slid down over his head, leaving his hair mussed and his glasses pitched left. With a few wiggles of his cheeks and a nose scrunch, he righted the frames without raising his hands. "If I help you, can I get my gene?"

Walker looked away, but the kid's reflection was waiting in the mirrored closet door and then in the dark window. "Sure."

Sam's hopefulness forced a smile. "Promise?"

Walker said, "At the commercial shoot, you rode in a limo, right? Who was there?"

"Dolan, Chase, a bunch of camera guys. Oh-and that guy with the Magnum, P.I. shirts. Mr. Keating."

"What was the limo company called?"

Sam scrambled out of bed. "The driver gave me a card. He said I could call him if I ever needed a limousine." He dug in a drawer and handed a glossy card to Walker-ELITE CHAUFFEUR SERVICE, no driver name. "I was gonna call him for Mom's birthday. She was gonna be thirty-nine, you know, and…darn it…darn it." He returned to the mattress and pulled the comforter back over his head, and then Walker heard him snuffling.

"Take that thing off your head."

Sam tugged it off. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then wiped his nose on his shirt.

"Was your mom with you the whole time?"

"Except when she left once in the middle to get her jacket from the limo. I was nervous, but she said she'd be right back, but then she wasn't. Not until they smeared off the makeup and stuff from my face-not girl makeup but TV makeup that even guys are supposed to wear. Then she was all weird when she came back."

"Weird how?"

"On the drive home, I thought she'd be all happy, but she wasn't. She had her jacket on, zipped up all the way, but it was hot."

Walker felt his skin get taut, as in a cool breeze.

The words of Victor the incompetent waiter returned, now sharpened with meaning. I heard him say something about what happened in the limo at the shoot. He was sorta, I guess, apologetic without really being apologetic. I remember thinking, The problems these rich folks have, right?

"Come here." He walked out, Sam at his heels, and shoved open the door to Tess's room.

Walker reached the mass of clothes crowding the closet. Some of the items he recognized from his childhood. Tess had never been any good at giving away old clothes. Too many years being broke, too many times coming up short for a date, a job interview, an outing with a new friend. Some of her clothes from her teenage years had cycled back into style once or twice already, and some never would.

Walker turned, expecting Sam at his side, but Sam stood in the hall, two feet back from the threshold. "Come on. Come in here."

Sam's face was red, maybe from crying or maybe because he was going to again. He didn't move.

From the kitchen Kaitlin yelled, "Dinner in fifteen, Sammy!"

"Get over here," Walker said.

His lips trembling, Sam regarded the white patch of carpet, the neatly made bed. He took a cautious step forward, one shoulder raised nearly to his chin, half cowering. He kept his eyes on the floor and stepped quickly to Walker's side. His hand reached out and grabbed at one of the cargo pocket flaps on Walker's pants. He twisted, pulling at the fabric.

Walker pointed at the virtual wall of fabric. "What did she wear to the shoot?"

Sam raised a quaking hand and scratched his shoulder. "A yellow one, but it's not here."

Walker caught a haze of yellow through the window of a garment bag. He tugged the bag free, unzipped it, and laid it open, exposing a run of fabric. "This one?"

A nod.

"Okay. Get outta here."

Sam ran from the room. Walker pulled the sundress free. One thin cornflower blue strap had been torn. A rip extended the side slit.

Had Tess been raped in this dress? Just mauled? He thought of his sister, like all those skinny, scared kids hauled to Boss's cell.

The assailant had lent her the car to get home. Gentlemanly. She'd ridden away from the shoot, jacket zipped to her chin so Sam wouldn't know. And then, ever mindful, she'd stored the evidence, readying for a counterattack she hadn't lived to make.

Walker shouldered against one of the broken closet doors, clutching the puddle of fabric in both hands. His head hummed, the sound the power lines give off over a desert road where nobody lives important enough to complain.

He balled the dress and stuffed it back into the closet. It took his legs a moment to respond, and then he walked out.

For once Sam's TV was dark. He sat on the floor, knees poked up into his T-shirt like he was cold. Walker paused at his doorway. Looked back. Gave him a little nod.

Sam nodded back.