It’s freeing, the loss of human emotions and concerns. Maybe Jacob and Mike will be found and killed—that’s okay. Death is fleeting. I don’t even remember dying. I drank a drug-laced latte and I slept. According to what the police are telling Mike, Sam is likely the one who killed me, and isn’t that amusing? I’m not sure if it was that latte, or if the pills came a little later, but all I remember is the delicious taste of cinnamon and pumpkin ... and sleeping. Like I said, not a bad way to go.
I do think ...
I faded for a moment, and now Jacob is on a plane and I’m looking down on Los Angeles and wondering whether my funeral has already occurred. Is it now? Soon? Funny, I put so much thought and importance into obituaries for so long, and I couldn’t care less what mine says. Still, maybe, I should write one last one, for me.
Or maybe I will just go. I’ll just close my eyes and float away ...
CHAPTER 75
LENNY
The funeral was canceled. I guess the husband organized all sorts of things, but then he disappeared and the funeral home was left with their thumbs up their asses.
I made sure that she got a nice casket—he had prepaid for that—and she was brought here to Angelus Rosedale for her burial. We lower her into the ground using the same crane that was used on Marcella’s small casket, and as the glossy mahogany box hits the dirt, I bawl, just like I did at Marcella’s burial—only this time, Lillian isn’t here to stand beside me. This time, I am alone, and I have to find a reason to keep living because standing at her grave, I was ready to give up.
There is a possibility on the horizon, in the unlikely form of Gersh. He’s called me every day since the raid, and is trying to talk me into coming back on the force. Not as a detective, just a desk job, but it’ll give me a reason to get out of bed, and not drink, and say goodbye to this place and its daily reminder of Marcella’s death.
I do miss the camaraderie. The good fight against the bad. The games of finding clues and sniffing out lies. Even just being on the sidelines of that—it would be nice, and give me health benefits. I could get this damn molar fixed.
I posted the details of the burial online, but only a handful of people showed up. There was Rosa from across the street. Fran from Lillian’s work. David Laurent, who had finally revealed that he’d been investigating Mike Smith and had targeted Lillian to get close to him. Her mother was also there, along with a handful of others.
Most notably absent: Sam Knight and Mike and Jacob Smith. I know where Mike and Jacob are—en route to their new home, with new identities and all the other benefits that witness protection affords. On the edges of the cemetery are plainclothes officers, curious to see if Sam will risk showing up, but I know better. He’s hiding somewhere. Maybe here in the city, maybe not, but there’s a warrant out for his arrest, so he won’t show, not even for her burial.
Sam Knight is, if I look back at the criminals I have encountered, one of the smarter ones. Her body didn’t have any clues or an ounce of discernible DNA evidence; neither did the crime scene. While his presence in the basement hinted at his involvement with the Los Colima cartel, there wasn’t enough evidence to hold him for longer than twenty-four hours. Mike Smith, who had pointed fingers and given the names of at least a dozen key cartel members, had insisted the real estate broker was oblivious to the illegal source of the funds and was there under duress, same as Jacob Smith, so he’d been released.
The path to his warrant had been a cumbersome one, which had rewarded good old police work. A home-security cam from a beach house a quarter mile down the Pacific coast road had recorded 442 vehicles that had passed between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m.—which were the body drop times, according to lividity and the tide patterns on the beach. Of those 442 cars, only fourteen made a return trip within an hour of their passing. The camera was angled down the road, which gave a clear view of the tag numbers. Fourteen vehicle owners were researched, none with any direct connection to Lillian or Mike Smith or a motive, but one owner of a black ChevroletTahoe—a Tricia D’nario—had purchased her home with Sam Knight. When Gersh reached out to her, she was in France, at her second home, and professed to have not driven that vehicle, which was parked in her LA garage, in three months. When asked if anyone had access to her home, she provided three names, one of which was Sam Knight.
Now, it still wasn’t a slam dunk. The bastard had gone out of his way to avoid any traffic-cam intersections near Lillian Smith’s house, and they still hadn’t tracked down the Starbucks where he’d purchased the latte she drank, but he’d certainly paid cash for it. Forensics had gone over the Tahoe with a fine-tooth comb and hadn’t found a hair or fingerprint from him. Same for Tricia D’nario’s home.
Lillian’s DNA had been all over the passenger side and back seat of the car. No blood, but plenty of hair and prints. That and the camera footage had been enough for a warrant against Sam, though the evidence probably was too circumstantial to hold up in court.
His guilt was cemented, at least in my mind, when he ran. Just disappeared from his multimillion-dollar mansion and his expensive car. Left artwork and furniture, even his pet eels.
Eels.That should have been Lillian’s first sign that the guy was a psychopath.
Everyone left quickly after the grave was filled, but I take my time in laying the sod over the plot and arranging the sprays of flowers. I plant a small rosebush beside the stone, then sit on the hill and watch the first sunset over her grave.
LILLIAN SMITH
MOTHER. DAUGHTER. WIFE.
MAY YOUR LAUGHTER AND SMILE CARRY YOU INTO HEAVEN.
The last line was my suggestion, and Lillian’s own words, which we had also used on Marcella’s stone. It fit Marcella a lot better than Lillian,but I thought that she would like that link. Maybe she wouldn’t, but we make the best decisions we can with what we have.
Once the sun is fully hidden, and the mosquitoes are out, I grab my shovel and bucket and make my way back to the caretaker’s shed.
Now, alone in the shed, I sit down, turn on the lamp, and do my best with her obituary.
CHAPTER 76
SAM
Here’s the thing about $400 million: it lets you do whatever the fuck you want to do. And oh, it stretches. The interest on my new nest egg is fifteen mil a year. That’s forty-two grand per day. I’ve been shelling out money right and left, purchasing anything I see and want, and the balance doesn’t change. Yesterday I bought a vintage Patek Philippe. Today I gave the pool attendant five grand as a tip. Everyone at this resort knows who I am, the type of drink I want, and the car I drive—which, by the way, is a 1957 Pininfarina.
I roll onto my stomach and adjust the face cradle, letting out a long and controlled breath as the masseuse’s strong fingers strum along the tight muscles of my neck. The ocean wind rustles the silky sheet against the sides of my arms, and I focus on the soft sounds of the waves crashing into the rocks, then subsiding. Crash, withdraw.
Crash, withdraw.
A bird softly caws, and from the pool, there is the strum of a ukulele.
Next week my identification and passport will come in, and I’ll officially be a new man. Nicholas Delph. I’ve been working on my backstory and researching the ideal place to live. I’ll have several homes, of course, but I figure I’ll try out one country at a time. Right now, I’min Venezuela, but with my passport, I’m thinking a château in France or a mountain range outside Mont-Tremblant.
I’m still healing over Mike. It was a bitter cocktail of love and hate, and I think I was addicted to the roller coaster. I feed on drama, I know that. The danger of his job, his secrets, the mental games I played with Lillian—there’s a hole in my heart that all that used to fill. I’ll find some rugged backpacker or a sandy beach god to distract my heart, but in the meantime, I have four hundred million reasons to be appreciative of Mike, and of his lies to the police—lies that allowed me to walk free after that basement fiasco.
“Mr.Knight?” I turn my head to one side and see a man in dark jeans and a sweater.
I start to respond, start to turn my body for a better look, but then there is a gun pressed against the back of my head, and I realize that this vacation, this new life ... is already over.