Cold Springs(61)

“You ain't frisking me, Juan Valdéz,” she said. “Just get over it.”

Apparently Pérez decided she wasn't worth the trouble.

“Walk,” he said. “Mr. Z's on the back deck. Go straight—”

“I remember,” Chadwick said.

They went through the kitchen, Pérez flanking them, putting himself at just the right angle to maximize Chadwick's discomfort. His presence brought back combat instincts Chadwick hadn't used in years—memories of hand-to-hand training at Lackland, waiting for a baton strike from any angle, trying to widen his peripheral vision.

“You want to not breathe on my cornrows?” Kindra told Pérez.

John Zedman stood on the back porch, talking on his cell phone, the Pacific Ocean glittering behind him. The wind coming up from the headlands smelled of sea foam and wet redwood. He registered their presence and held out his fingers, as if to catch a baseball.

“Yes,” he said into the phone. “Subdivided into twenty-acre lots. Correct.”

It was noon, but John still wore pajama pants, a linen dress shirt open over a tank top. He paced, barefoot, across the wooden slats of the deck. A coffee cup sat on the railing next to a plate of Eggo's.

His hair had thinned, gone gray at the temples. His face looked drawn, as if he'd been fighting the flu. He'd put on weight in the gut and his eyes were bloodshot. Chadwick had somehow anticipated that John would look better than he had in the early 1990s—that affluence would've oiled him up like a machine. But each year seemed to have been leeched out of John from a painful incision in a vein.

John hung up, punched some buttons on his cell phone, as if doing a calculation. He seemed in no hurry to speak.

“Tell your doorman to put away his pea-shooter,” Chadwick said at last.

“I don't think so,” John said. “Pérez has a pretty good sense of who's untrustworthy.”

“Twenty-seven million stolen from Laurel Heights, John—from the fund you set up.”

John set the phone down on the railing, picked up his coffee cup. “You've got some f**king nerve coming here. Ann embezzles, and you complain to me.”

“Stop playing games.”

John held his hand toward Pérez, who stood motionless in the doorway. “Am I playing any games, Emilio?”

“No, sir.”

“There you are then. Emilio is the most humorless man I've ever met. He would know if I was playing games.”

“Have you seen Samuel Montrose?” Chadwick asked. “I mean, actually seen him?”

John's reaction was immediate and negative—like a man with a severe food allergy. His face became blotchy. “Pérez—did you offer Chadwick any coffee? And Miss—”

“Jones,” she said. “No. Your man was too busy showing off his little gun.”

Chadwick kept his eyes on John. He wished Kindra had stayed in the car like he'd asked. He wished Pérez would go inside. John was too stage-conscious with other people around. Chadwick would never get a straight answer this way.

“How long has the blackmail been going on?” he asked.

“No. We're not going to have this conversation.”

“Your money has been putting Race Montrose through school. You arranged to buy Talia Montrose's house. Now you've stolen Laurel Heights' capital campaign money. I don't think you did it just to get back at Ann, or get custody of Mallory. I think your blackmailer put you up to it. What did he promise you, John—that he'd go away?”

“I had about three minutes to give you, Chadwick. I'm afraid you just used it all.”

“I'll keep Mallory safe,” Chadwick said. “I promise that.”

John laughed bitterly. “He can describe her day, Chadwick. He can tell me what she had for breakfast and where she slept and every punishment you put her through.”

The deck swayed under Chadwick's feet. “Who said this? When?”

“You meant a lot to me once. That's dead now. Get the f**k out of my house.”

“Talk to me, John.”

“Tell me one thing,” John said. “Straight to my face. Did you get any letters? Did Samuel contact you even once?”

“No.”

John looked away. “You should've lied, Chadwick. You should've told me yes.”

“I can help you. I understand—”

“You understand nothing. You ran, Chadwick. I stayed here. I've had to deal with your shit as if it were mine. So don't tell me you understand. You don't have the first f**king clue.”

“John, this is your daughter—”

“My daughter, Chadwick. Yours is dead, remember? Yours is dead, and you don't get a second chance with mine.”

Chadwick's body didn't belong to him anymore. His fingers gripped John's shirt, crumpling the fabric, lifting John as if forcing him to see Chadwick eye-to-eye.

“Hey, Chad.” Jones' voice, a half octave higher than usual. “Um—somebody wants to break in.”

Dimly Chadwick became aware of Pérez, the muzzle of his nine-millimeter an inch away from Chadwick's temple. Through the roar in his ears, he heard John say, “Emilio, back off.”

Pérez lowered the gun.