Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(51)

June drove in a slow spiral, closing in on her apartment. But Peter saw nothing unusual.

Maybe they were clean.

Or maybe the hunters were very good.

June lived on a residential street in a converted three-car garage behind a big clapboard Victorian. Peter’s father had always called those houses “painted ladies” because of the elaborate, multicolored decorative trim. As June pulled into the driveway, Peter counted six different colors, bright tones that made the house seem to glow in the soft rainy light.

She’d told him in the car that she had an unusual arrangement. She paid the rent for her little studio in cash, and there were no utilities in her name. It was unusual because, after decades of pretending these illegal apartments didn’t exist, Seattle now encouraged these “mother-in-law” units as a way to improve density in the urban sprawl, and also make the city more affordable for young people. But Leo Boyle, her landlord, hadn’t registered the place with the city, although he’d given June several different explanations why. Sometimes he said he was afraid that his taxes might go up. Sometimes he told her that he didn’t want his name in the database. It didn’t quite add up, but she liked the apartment.

Peter stood stretching in the driveway, tight from the long car ride, while June unlocked the door to her apartment.

His phone rang. It was Lewis.

“Jarhead. You alone right now?”

“If you ask me what I’m wearing, I’m hanging up.”

“Man, you really should be open to new experiences,” said Lewis. Peter could hear the man’s tilted grin. “But that ain’t why I’m calling. Like you asked, I spent a little time looking up that woman who died, Hazel Cassidy.”

June stood in the doorway, a question on her face. He covered the mouthpiece. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said. “It’s Lewis.”

She went inside, leaving the door open.

Peter said, “What’d you find?”

“Mostly nothing. Did a little reading online. Found her obituary. Well respected in her field, smart as hell.” Lewis was enjoying himself.

“You said mostly.”

“You like things complicated, don’t you?”

Peter’s platoon once had spent the better part of a week caught between two rebel militias who were also fighting each other. As it turned out, the militia leaders were brothers, and one had stolen the other man’s wife. So Peter knew that people usually killed each other for reasons that were, at their root, personal. And complicated.

“Spit it out, Lewis. What did you learn?”

“She had a restraining order against her ex-husband. For six years.”

“Okay, good. Something to grab onto. Who’s the ex-husband?”

“No idea.”

“What do you mean, no idea?”

“The name on the restraining order is ‘S. Kolodny.’ No address. You have any idea how many S. Kolodnys there are out there?”

Peter smiled. “Can’t be more than a few.”

“The software I got lists over a thousand people named Kolodny on the West Coast alone. But you’re really gonna like this. The restraining order form has a physical description. This guy is six feet eight and weighs two-eighty. A real beast.”

“Weren’t you going to buy a plane ticket today? I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

“You know I bruise easy. I’m thinking I might sit this one out. On the plus side, S. Kolodny’s in his late fifties now. So you can probably take him by yourself.”

“Maybe with a baseball bat.”

“I always been partial to a shotgun,” said Lewis. “Anyway, you want me to find out more about this guy, you gotta narrow it down. I need a first name and a location.”

“I’ll work on it,” said Peter. “Call you later.”

“Listen,” said Lewis. “About the money.”

Peter sighed. “We’ve already had this conversation.”

“I looked at the accounts, Jarhead. You haven’t touched the money. It’s like you’re embarrassed.”

“Well,” said Peter. “We did steal it.”

“Yeah, from a guy who stole it first. And he never would have gotten caught, ’cause if you can’t prove the conspiracy, his part wasn’t even fucking illegal. And everyone else was dead.”

“Lewis.”

“You don’t think we earned it, what we did?”

“You earned it. It wasn’t your fight. For me, it was personal.”

“Well, hell,” said Lewis. “Come down to it, I wasn’t in it for the money, either. I was in it for Dinah. But whatever the reason, we took a big fucking risk. The money just came with it, otherwise it’d be lost in that numbered account until the end of time. So you got nothing to apologize for.”

“I’m not apologizing,” said Peter. “But that doesn’t mean I’d want to explain it to my parents.”

Long silence. Then Lewis said, “I’m so glad we had this talk.”





23





June had left her boots on the mat. Peter stood in the doorway, the drizzle cold on the back of his neck, and looked inside her apartment.

It was basically one big room, not exactly neat, but definitely comfortable. He saw a pair of cheap modern couches, a beat-up dining table that served as her work area, and tall, fully stocked bookshelves doing double-duty as partitions for the bedroom. Slate tiles were laid over the old garage floor, and June had covered them with a giant threadbare Persian rug in the living area. The roll-up garage doors had been replaced with wide sliding glass units that let in plenty of the watery spring light.