Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(43)

“It’s been going on for a long time. Something just isn’t right. Believe me when I tell you, Darren, I’ve been around these wars for a long time, and something stinks here. You’re not going to get to these guys using informants and wiretaps.”

“So what, then?” I said. “Should I just start killing people?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

I paused for a long minute before responding. This woman was different from Grace. Far different.

She changed the subject by saying, “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

Her grandfather, Senator Roger Tate, was flying into Knoxville to make a personal appearance with me at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium.

“Will anyone be there besides us?” I said.

“I’ve told you, Darren, it will be packed. People will come from hundreds of miles around just to see my grandfather, to shake his hand, to hear him speak. He’s brought billions of dollars into this state through the appropriations committee, people genuinely like him—or at least most of them do—and they’ll want to make a connection. They won’t care much about you at first—no offense—but when Senator Roger Tate tells them he’s flown all the way from Washington because he has such strong feelings about you and what a good job you’ll do as district attorney general, people will pay attention. The story about Morris’s wife slapping the teacher in the face is going to hit the streets in the morning, and then we’ll have the rally tomorrow night. We’ll cruise from here, and then you’ll be in a position to deal with Morris and the sheriff and to find Brewer.”

Claire had been pretty much spot-on with everything she’d told me up to that point, so I decided to trust her.

“How about dinner tonight?” I said. “We can talk about tomorrow and plot against Morris and the sheriff.”

“Where?”

“My place. I’m a good cook.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Claire said.

“C’mon, I’m not going to hit on you. We’re doing this very unusual thing together. You’ve been a huge help to me, and I’d like to cook dinner for you. I don’t see why we can’t at least be friends.”

She paused for several seconds.

“What are you going to cook? I’m a vegan.” I thought I detected a hint of pain in her voice, as though I’d perhaps hurt her feelings when I said I wasn’t going to hit on her.

“Figures,” I said. “What would you like?”

“I don’t know, maybe some kind of roasted brussels sprout skewer with a dipping sauce?”

Brussels sprouts. There wasn’t a dipping sauce in the world that would make brussels sprouts appealing to me. My stomach turned at the thought.

“Sounds great,” I said. “What time?”

“Seven thirty?”

“Wine?”

“I’ll bring the wine,” Claire said.

“Perfect. See you tonight.”





CHAPTER 23

Claire showed up right on time, looking chic in designer jeans and boots and a peach silk blouse. The more I was around her, the more I noticed how striking she was. She turned the heads of both men and women everywhere we went, and she carried herself with an air of confidence that was just shy of haughty. She had a beautiful smile, though, which I was seeing more and more of, and she was relaxing around me more often. We joked with each other, made wisecracks. I liked her sense of humor.

I’d found a recipe for roasted brussels sprouts with a lemon-thyme dipping sauce and had done a test run before she came to the apartment. The texture seemed fine, but to me, the taste was disgusting. But one of the first things she said when she walked in the door was, “Something smells divine.”

“Really?” I said. “You think that’s divine?”

“You don’t like brussels sprouts?” she said.

“I’d rather eat canned cat food.”

“Well, I hope you’re not going to. It won’t go very well with the wine I brought.”

I’d made some Chicken Marsala for myself, and since she was a vegan, I’d mixed some prosciutto in with it just to taunt her. It turned out really well, and I was hungry. I gave her a corkscrew, she opened the wine while I plated the food, and then we sat down to eat.

“You haven’t told me much about Grace,” she said about a minute into the meal.

The sound of Grace’s name surprised me, and I stopped chewing for a second.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “If it’s too painful, just forget I mentioned it.”

“No, no, it isn’t that. I just hadn’t heard anyone say her name in a while. When she first died, I thought I’d die, too, but something unusual happened. She came to me in a dream—it was like it was real—and she told me she was disappointed in me. She basically said goodbye, she slipped through this veil of mist, and I haven’t dreamed of her since. I don’t feel her presence; I don’t feel as though she’s watching over me. I feel guilty about it, but to be honest, I’ve thought very little about her. I can barely remember her voice. I have some photos, but I put them away. I just don’t want to look at her every day and revisit all of it, and if she’s abandoned or given up on me, which I think she has, then there isn’t much point in torturing myself.”