Shakedown

Chapter Thirty-three

I lowered the windows in my car, releasing the heat that had built up since morning. The day caught up to me like jackhammers pounding me from my insides out before I could start the engine. I fought the tremors with stiff arms clamped to the steering wheel, finally letting go, only to be whipped against the seat back, grunting like I’d been kicked. A woman walking through the parking lot stopped in front of my car, staring, hand to her heart, asking “are you okay?” I nodded and waved her off, though I imagined it was hard for her to tell where the shaking stopped and the nodding started. It was for me.

I’d become a display piece, a street performer, an oddity belonging at the state fair along with the two-headed cow, the bearded lady, and the tattooed man. I wasn’t okay, but that wasn’t her problem. It was mine. I didn’t want her to ask me how I was doing. I wanted her to leave me alone. I wanted to be invisible.

I’d been off work for two days. Not long enough to take it easy even if I knew how. Not long enough either to know whether it would make a difference. Perhaps when I saw the doctor next week, I would find out whether this was the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end.

Ammara, Kate, and Troy were telling me the same thing. Walk away. Let someone else find out who killed those five people. They would say the same thing about Javy Ordonez’s killer. I had no illusions that I was the only one who could solve those cases, though I was certain I was the only one who could protect Wendy.

Though I’d yet to find any direct threat to her beyond Colby’s probable infidelity, I felt the threat as surely as I did the shakes. It didn’t matter that I might be overreacting because of what had happened to Kevin. Taking any chances with her was unthinkable. I would sacrifice anything, including myself, my job, Colby Hudson, or a guilty verdict against the killer, if it meant saving her.

I leaned against the headrest, spent. The shakes had stopped. It was as if they were conducting guerrilla warfare against me, attacking from the shadows and escaping before I could fight back.

There was much I had to do. Talk to Jill Rice and ask her why she was selling her car and house to Colby. Figure out how Colby could afford to buy them even at a discount. Figure out why Tom Rice was so afraid. Find Bodie Grant and ask him whether he was the last man standing. Find the man I thought that I’d seen running away two nights ago. Find Oleta Phillips or what was left of her. Catch the killers. Protect Wendy. Make it all make sense.

At the moment, I couldn’t do any of it. I was all over the place and I was no place. The shaking was adding ten rounds in the ring to my day. I raised my hands to my unseen opponent. No mas. Picking up the dog and going home was all I could do for now.

Ruby raced around the house, sniffing in the corners,?ying into the backyard where, to my amazement, she peed and pooped. Pete amp; Macs had me for life. Back in the house, she followed me from room to room, her eyes delirious with devotion.

The message light on my phone was?ashing red. I punched the play button and listened as Joy told me that since I had forgotten to call the radiologist’s office, she had done it for me, making an appointment at eight the next morning, ending with a reminder: “It’s time for you to learn to take care of yourself, Jack.”

I replayed the message, deciphering her voice, not the words. Joy wasn’t angry, frustrated, or annoyed that I’d forgotten to call. There was no touch of humor either, no gentle teasing, just sadness, her voice fading away at the end, like she was letting go.

I had buried our shared pain, stepped around our long silences, and ducked her wounded eyes until I was certain that our love had become another casualty of Kevin’s death. The truth, though, was in her voice.

Joy still cared, after all that had happened, after all that she had done and I had failed to do. She still cared. That’s why she’d come to the house. That’s why she’d made the doctor appointments. I listened to her message again, hearing, at last, the rest of it. She still cared, but that was no longer enough.

I retreated to my chair in the den, cross-examining myself in the soft shadow of the lone lamp about what had happened and what might still be possible. I wasn’t good at this. I was better at accepting the harsh reality of death, loss, and guilt, lowering my head and pushing on without looking back or wondering whether a second chance lay beneath the wreckage.

I closed my eyes and slept, dreaming that I was suspended in midair, Joy and Kate on either side, each extending a hand, one slipping away, the other reaching out, forcing me to choose. In that instant, a spasm shot through me, arching my back and neck, binding me as I shook, pulverizing my dream in a blast of blinding white light. I opened my eyes. Ruby was standing on my chest licking the tears from my cheeks.