Cold Springs(21)

Chadwick zigzagged across the intersection at Market. The streets glowed with fog and neon, the crosswalks swarming with Friday night crowds—commuters and prostitutes, transients and tourists, like schools of hungry fish mixing together.

“Hey!” Mallory shouted, pounding on the window, kicking the back of Chadwick's seat with her bound feet. “Hey, hey!”

Chadwick couldn't see what she was doing—probably showing off her handcuffs to somebody on the street. Someone she recognized. Or a policeman. There were few escape tactics Chadwick hadn't seen in his years as an escort.

Olsen was right. He shouldn't be doing this. They had all the papers signed. The plane left in two hours. There was no reason to torture himself, or Mallory, by visiting the school, seeing Ann in person. The whole idea of escorting was to remove the child from her environment as quickly and cleanly as possible. No detours. No stops on Memory Lane.

But Race Montrose's face stayed with him—that rust-colored hair, the lightning bolt jaw, the amber eyes. The more he envisioned that face, the more he wanted to punch it again.

He took Divisadero north, then California west, into the quieter streets of Pacific Heights. The night closed around them, making a deep purple aurora along the tops of the eucalyptus trees. Chadwick turned on Walnut and pulled in front of Laurel Heights School.

He had expected the place to look different, thanks to Ann's construction plans, but the outside was unchanged—redwood walls covered in ivy, peeling green trim, mossy stone chimney. From the roof of the school hung a long yellow banner—OUR CHILDREN'S DREAMS——MAKE THEM HAPPEN! A thermometer showed $30 million as the top temperature, the mercury painted red up to $27 million. Apparently, fund-raising had gone a little slower than expected.

Chadwick cut the engine. He turned to Mallory. “Tell me about Race.”

“Screw yourself,” Mallory said, but her heart wasn't in it. She had worn herself out screaming and kicking all the way across the Bay Bridge.

“He was your classmate,” Chadwick told her. “Your mother allowed him to go here.”

“You sound like my f**king father. Race made better grades than I did, Chadwick. Get over it.”

“You understand why I'm asking?”

Braids of her black-dyed hair had fallen in her face, so she seemed to glare at him through a cage of licorice. “Stop messing with me, okay? I know why you're here. This is some kind of chickenshit revenge for Katherine.”

“I'm here to help you.”

“Bullshit.”

Chadwick felt Olsen's eyes on him.

He stared up at the schoolhouse, butcher paper paintings hung along the fence to dry—a chain of smiling people in every skin color, including purple and green. “Mallory, why'd you run away?”

“My mom's a bitch. She found a gun in Race's locker.”

“Same gun he pointed at me today?”

“Fuck, no. They confiscated the one in his locker. Today was a different gun.”

“I see,” Chadwick said. “Another from his collection.”

Mallory shrugged, like that should be obvious. “My mom expelled him. Told me I couldn't see him anymore.”

“And you thought that was what—too harsh?”

“She had no right to look in his locker in the first place, or punish him, or anything. Race needs a gun.”

“Why?”

She was shivering now. He**in withdrawal pains, probably getting worse.

“Look, just let me go in and talk to her, okay?” She moderated her tone—going for the calm approach. Adults are idiots—speak to them softly. “I guess I got a little crazy on her. I'll apologize.”

“You attacked her with a hammer. You ran away to Race's house.”

“I didn't hurt anybody, okay? Neither did Race. I'm not going to a school for mental cases.”

“What happened to Race's mom?”

Her eyes slid away from his. “We— We didn't do shit. We were out all night, came back in the morning, and we just opened the door . . . And . . .”

Her voice broke. She brought her palms up into the light, as if looking for a reminder she might've written on her skin.

“Don't protect him,” Chadwick said. “Race is a drug dealer. His whole family is toxic.”

“He's not a goddamn dealer.”

Chadwick fanned the stack of money that had spilled from Mallory's coat pocket—$630 in crisp new bills. “Where'd you get the cash, Mallory?”

She twisted her wrists against the plastic cuffs. “Just keep it. All right, Chadwick? Keep it and let me go. Nobody has to know.”

He looked at Olsen. With her blond buzz cut and her denim, the tight set of her mouth, she could've passed for Mallory's peer. But there was fear in her eyes—a bright emptiness that had blossomed the moment Race Montrose pointed his gun at Chadwick's chest.

“I'll make this brief,” he promised.

“Hey,” she murmured. “Wait—”

He got out of the car, Olsen leaning across the roof, protesting. “Chadwick, what the hell . . .”

“Just a few minutes.”

“Mallory . . .”

“She'll be all right.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”