Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(48)

The old fry cook who rented the place had trashed the front porch with beer cans and lawn furniture. He’d desecrated the yard with his goddamn whirly bird decorations.

The idea of Mike Flume living here, sleeping in Lucia’s bedroom, always made Etch’s blood steam. Flume must’ve invited Maia Lee here to poke around for scraps of the past. God knew what else he’d told her. Etch should’ve taken care of him years ago, along with Jaime Santos. And as for Maia Lee . . .

“Hell of a shooter.” Kelsey pulled his trench coat tighter. “Lee sure knew how to stop a Volvo.”

Etch blinked. “Lee shot up the car?”

“Sorry, sir, I thought you knew. Witnesses up and down the block. Nice-looking Asian lady in a black BMW.”

“You mean—”

“The guy in the Volvo tried to kill her and she turned the tables. Chased after him, blew his car to hell.”

“She killed the guy?”

“No, sir. Took him out of the Volvo at gunpoint.” Kelsey shook his head in disgust. “They drove off together in her car. Neighbors thought she was a cop, taking the guy into custody.”

Etch’s mouth felt like sand.

Maia Lee, goddamn her, had taken Titus alive. And with a screwup like Titus—it wouldn’t be long before he gave up Etch’s name. What the hell had Etch been thinking, going to Roe?

“Lieutenant?” Kelsey asked.

“I’m all right,” he managed. “Been a long day.”

Kelsey’s eyes were as impersonal as microscope lenses. “You just come from the Santos case?”

Etch willed his hands not to clench.

The bastard was fishing, looking for a reaction.

“Yeah,” Etch said. “Alamo Heights PD is cooperating. Ballistics is still working the scene.”

“Tied to Ana’s shooting?”

“Doubtful. Couple of weeks ago, Santos reported some kids down in the basin—”

“I heard.” Kelsey’s tone made it clear he didn’t think much of the teenage sniper theory.

There was a loud, dull clunk. The tow crew lowered the Volvo onto their trailer.

“I got to sign for that.” Kelsey studied Etch, as if the lieutenant was a much more interesting wreck-in-progress. “If you’ll excuse me, sir.”

ETCH STEADIED HIMSELF AGAINST THE SIDE of his car.

His knees felt weak.

He stared up the sidewalk at Lucia’s porch.

The night of Frankie White’s murder, Lucia and he had sat on that porch after their shift, as they’d done so many times before. Three in the morning. Out of uniform. Etch insisted on making margaritas. They sat together on the porch swing and drank in silence like mourners at a wake.

“We need to talk about it,” Lucia said.

“No,” he told her. “We don’t.”

“Etch, I don’t want a lie between us.”

She wore nothing special—jeans, her Houston Rockets T-shirt. Her feet were bare. Her short curly hair retained the faint impression of her patrol hat. She looked more beautiful than ever—the way people look when they’re slipping away from you.

Etch set down his margarita. He slid off the porch swing and knelt in front of her, his arms circling her chest, his head resting between her br**sts. She ran her fingers through his hair. He could hear her heartbeat. Her skin smelled of clove.

“It was an accident,” he told her.

“It was murder. The nightstick—”

“Lucia, don’t. Please.”

He couldn’t make himself say what he’d planned. He couldn’t explain why he’d been late to the Pig Stand that evening. All he had wanted to do was help her, save her. He had planned everything so perfectly, gotten up his nerve for weeks, and now his best intentions were shredded.

She allowed him to kiss her.

Later they went inside, shed their clothes. Their lovemaking was clumsy and desperate.

She told him she loved him, but the hollowness had begun.

A hole had been bored in Lucia’s soul. The more Etch strove to patch it, the bigger it became, the further she slipped from his grasp.

In the years that followed, she kept up the facade of model officer. She pushed herself to confront the most dangerous situations. She got repeated commendations for bravery, but Etch began to see these incidents for what they were—suicide attempts, like the alcohol. Displays of contempt for her own life. He began to wonder if the shoot-out at the Pig Stand, years before, had really been about saving him, or if it had merely been her first flirtation with self-destruction.

He covered for her more reckless moments on the job, her drunk driving episodes. Her reputation on the force remained untarnished. They named a scholarship after her at the academy—a program for female recruits.

Seven years after Frankie died, Etch was at her bedside. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe she was dying. She refused to let him call the doctors.

I’ll be fine, she murmured. Just need some rest.

She convinced him to go home for the night, let her sleep off the alcohol.

Her last words, muttered half asleep as he closed her bedroom door: Ana, is that you?

Ana, the daughter who hadn’t visited her in over a year.

“LIEUTENANT?”

Etch forced himself back to the present.

Kelsey was folding up his cell phone, slipping it into his pocket. “Another report on Navarre and Arguello. Assault and battery, four-twenty this afternoon. Arguello, Navarre, some woman—they approached this guy at the Poco Mas, got him outside and beat the shit out of him. Seems they were looking for Johnny Shoes.”