Kiss Page 20

  “It’s in my room.”

  “And what a perfect place for it. Why don’t you set it out on the table for Beeson to find?”

  His condescension stung. She stared at him.

  “Go get it,” he said. Then he stormed into the house.

  Shauna stumbled up the steps after him, thinking through how to retrieve the phone without also showing him the camera.

  What was she going to do with the camera?

  Wayne took his laptop into his room first, giving Shauna just enough time to grab a tissue and get the phone out of the WalMart bag that she’d hidden on the floor in the back of her closet. She rushed out her bedroom door, right into Wayne’s chest.

  She held the phone out to him, wrapped in the tissue. He evaluated this, then took it from her while looking her in the eye.

  “You’re smarter than a lot of folks give you credit for, Shauna.”

  She was too afraid to be insulted.

  He leaned in to her and placed a cold kiss on her forehead.

  “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll make some calls.”

  He returned to his room and closed the door.

  Shauna moved immediately. She had only minutes, if not seconds. She rushed to her closet, collected the camera, and burst into Khai’s room through their shared bathroom without knocking.

  “Khai, I need your help.”

  Khai was putting clean linens on the bed. Shauna shoved Corbin’s bundled camera into the woman’s hands.

  “This camera belonged to Corbin Smith. I need you to take it to a detective at the police department for me.”

  “How did you—”

  “I found it in Wayne’s truck. I don’t have time to explain, but I need you to take this down now. Do not tell Wayne.”

  Khai lifted her eyebrows but didn’t ask.

  “The detective is Beeson. Tell him that I found this in Wayne’s truck. Tell him what you told me about how Corbin was helping you, that the pictures on it might connect some dots—” And in that split second, some dots connected in Shauna’s own mind. “What was Corbin helping you to investigate?”

  “I volunteered him to help the organization document a suspected human trafficking ring in Houston. He was working with police up there.”

  “Human trafficking?” Shauna murmured. “What had he found out?”

  “I never knew. It’s only been a couple weeks. We didn’t talk much.”

  A dozen new possibilities opened to Shauna regarding those pictures of Wayne at the shipyard, but there was no time to process them. She would have to do that on the road. She had to leave. Now.

  “Just tell Beeson that Corbin’s pictures might shed some light on his murder.”

  “Why can’t you?” Khai followed Shauna back into her room. She grabbed her purse, her cell phone, the keys to Rudy’s car.

  “Because he thinks I did it. And because I won’t be able to find out the truth if I’m in jail.”

  23

  For the second time in two days, Shauna pointed the little MG south toward Victoria, wondering how long it would be before Wayne figured out that she was no longer home. That she’d driven away without his noticing was remarkable.

  She needed to call Uncle Trent.

  “Shauna, sweetheart! To what do I owe this unexpected phone call?”

  “Uncle Trent, they’re looking at me for Corbin Smith’s murder.”

  For several long seconds, Trent didn’t reply.

  “Uncle Trent?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “I will explain everything, but first I need your help.”

  “Anything. Tell me what you need.”

  “Wayne doesn’t know I’m gone yet. When he figures it out, I expect he’ll call you. He knows you’re the first person I would go to.”

  “As you should. Come here to River Oaks, Shauna. I can take care of you here.”

  “Houston is the first place he’d look for me if he wanted to find me.”

  “And why will Wayne want to find you?”

  “He thinks I know . . . more than I do.”

  “You are going to have to fill me in, sweetheart.”

  “I think he was behind my accident.”

  “Behind it?”

  “I think he might have staged it.”

  Trent whistled. “Now that’s going to take some explanation, and some pondering, honey. But if it’s true, I’ll be the first to—”

  “I can’t prove it. Yet.”

  “Where are you going, if not Houston?”

  “I’m headed . . .” That would take too long to explain. “Can you meet me in Corpus Christi tonight?”

  “Absolutely. Where do you want me to come?”

  “I’ll let you know when I get there.”

  “Do you want me to call your father?”

  “No. No. I don’t see the point of involving him now.”

  “Whatever you say. I’ll be on the next flight to Corpus Christi. You let me know when you get there.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you too, honey.”

  She shut off her phone and turned her mind toward Miguel Lopez. If the man didn’t care about helping her, he might at least still have a heart for his best friend, and for bringing the man who killed him to justice.

  That would be good enough for her.

  Shauna turned onto Miguel’s street in time to see him, on foot, turn left at the next cross street. Should she wait at the house for him to return?

  She chose to follow him instead, and he led her into a park less than four blocks away. Miguel turned left onto the gravel pathway that ran the perimeter of the open space. Shauna parked and evaluated the setting.

  The path was, by Shauna’s very rough estimation, maybe half a mile around the park, but it was not entirely visible to her from the parking lot. Opposite where she stood was a modest grove of trees on the downward slope. She cut across the grass toward it in hopes of crossing Miguel’s path rather than chasing it.

  Her feet hit the concrete on the other side and she turned in the direction she expected Miguel to come. The path took a sharp downturn into the trees and then followed a winding route through the shade. She went about fifty yards and stepped off into the lower branches of an especially leafy tree. She felt some uncertainty regarding how he would respond to seeing her here, having been quite clear what he expected her to do—or not do, rather—just yesterday.

  She waited for several minutes, hoping she hadn’t misjudged his route.

  “I asked you not to come back.”

  She spun. A branch whipped her cheek and scraped her soft skin. Miguel Lopez stood ten feet behind her. How had he come up on her so quietly? How had he seen her, known she would be here?

  She placed her hand over her heart.

  “You scared me.”

  “You should be terrified to be here. What are you doing?”

  “Helping someone.”

  “That would be Wayne?”

  She matched his biting tone. “Corbin.”

  “And what do you think you can do for a dead man?”

  “Why are you so cold toward me? What did I ever do to you?”

  She watched him wish his remark back into his mouth, considered the way his eyes dropped to the dirt. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his light jacket.

  Miguel had cleaned up in comparison to his fresh-out-of-bed appearance yesterday. His beard was trimmed, his hair in order, his clothes clean and pressed. He looked naturally good.

  She stepped toward him and let the loose branch snap back behind her.

  “Did Corbin talk to you about the projects he was working on?”

  Miguel’s manner softened. “There was a time. But not recently.”

  “Did he ever mention a human trafficking story he was working on?”

  Miguel shook his head. “He probably was partnered with another journalist.”

  “What abo
ut Wayne Spade?”

  “What about him?”

  “Any connection to something like human trafficking?”

  Miguel’s eyes narrowed. “Wayne Spade is connected to your father’s multibillion-dollar corporation. If he’s also connected to trafficking, that would be bad for you.”

  “Me? What does he have to do with me?”

  Miguel sighed. “I was referring to your family in general.”

  “And yet Wayne seems to have taken a personal interest in me. Do you have any idea why?” Miguel set his mouth in a line. “Let me rephrase that,” Shauna said. “Tell me why Wayne is so angry at me.”

  “Angry at you? You think he is angry?”

  “Then what is he?”

  “If I did know, what good would it do you? Isn’t it enough for you to stay out of his way?”

  “Is it enough? Because I don’t know, Miguel. Will he chase me down? Do I need to change my name? Will I be able to lead a normal life?”

  “I, I, I. Listen to yourself. What is going on is so much bigger than you, Shauna. When did you become so self-centered?”

  “I came here to connect Wayne to Corbin’s murder, Miguel. Maybe my motives are selfish. But if you care an ounce about Corbin, you could at least stop trying to push me away.”

  Miguel averted his eyes.

  “What is ‘so much bigger’?” she asked.

  Miguel shook his head. “I never thought I’d be pushing you away.”

  The remark derailed Shauna onto an unexpected trail of thoughts. What did he think he would be doing? But the idea of them took her mind back to the e-mails they had exchanged before her accident.

  “What does Sabueso mean?”

  “Bloodhound.”

  “What were we sniffing out, bloodhound?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing that matters now.”

  “What matters now? What do you write about?” She came close enough to touch him if she reached out her hand, and he didn’t back away.

  “I haven’t written in more than a month.”

  “So that is what matters, then: you are a journalist who has given up writing. For ‘greener pastures,’ you said. What do you do with your days now?”

  “I think.”

  Shauna blinked. She lost track of where this conversation was headed. Did he think of her, of the work they had done together, of something that once mattered? She shifted her weight.

  “Sabueso has become a philosopher then. What do you think about?”

  When his silence filled long seconds, Shauna caught his eye.

  “I believe you think about the past,” she said.

  He was looking at her, and his eyes were not as silent as his lips. He seemed to read her face like a poem, tenderly. Her boldness turned to dust.

  He finally asked, “Did he hurt you?”

  “Who?”

  “Wayne.”

  “Do you mean since the accident?”

  Miguel took her hand in his. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For not being able to stop what happened.”

  “But you can tell me what happened.” She felt more hopeful than she had in days.

  He shook his head.

  “I realize how serious this is. I’ve been spending all my energy trying to remember. I’ve thought, if I can remember, I can make everything right somehow. I can get back to where I was. I can find what I lost. You are my last connection to truth, Miguel. I was really hoping that you . . . is there anything that you could tell me”—she was grasping now—“anything that would make sense to me?”

  Miguel studied her hand. “There’s very little that makes sense to me, either. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk—”

  Angry now, she moved her fingers to release his hand, but he held on. He pulled her as close to him as they had stood in his kitchen, and she had the fleeting thought that her attraction to Miguel Lopez was far stronger than anything she had ever felt toward Wayne.

  “Today, I can’t,” he said. “Maybe even tomorrow I won’t be able to. But I will make you a promise. I will promise to start turning my thinking into a plan that will end this. Your coming here yesterday made me think that maybe I can find a way. And then I can tell you everything.”

  She shook her head. She needed answers today, not tomorrow or in the next century. What good were promises to her, to Uncle Trent, to Detective Beeson, to Corbin?

  “I can’t wait.”

  “It’s a small favor.”

  “I can’t.” She tightened her grip on his fingers and took hold of his other hand as well. “I’m sorry for this, but I can’t.” She closed her eyes and put her mind squarely on his nickname, Sabueso, and on the first e-mail message from him to her that popped into her mind.

  The problem is in the profit-sharing structure.

  She centered her mind. She blocked out all images except the expression Miguel wore when he opened his front door and saw her for the first time yesterday. The one expression that conveyed half a dozen conflicting emotions. The expression that would tell her the most.

  And this time, Miguel’s memory unfolded for her more vividly, more completely than any she’d had so far. It swallowed her whole.

  24

  Shauna chose the space in Miguel’s mind that grew brighter in pulsating bursts of light. The light of this memory expanded rhythmically until it became the fluorescent lighting of a predictable corporate-office hall.

  Gray industrial carpeting butted up against artless gray walls, stubby gray cubicles, and towering picture windows at one end. Silence filled the empty after-hours space. Beyond the windows, city lights poked holes in the darkness.

  This was the view from the top floor of McAllister MediVista, a small perk afforded to the senior-level administrators who served the executive suite. Shauna had been here many times over the course of her life, first as an impressionable child and later as a cynical adult visiting her father and her favorite uncle.

  There was no such association in Miguel’s memory, however, only seething hatred propelled by fury and grief.

  Grief for Shauna.

  The unexpected power of the emotion nearly snapped Shauna out of the moment. She had never experienced grief of this nature, grief driven by severed passion, not even when her mother died or when she discovered her culpability in Rudy’s present condition. There was no guilt in this grief, no sense of being abandoned, no fear of being lost. Only a yawning, earsplitting pain, the scream of pressure valves blown wide open.

  Grief for her.

  Love. For her.

  Outside her mind, confusion tipped Shauna sideways. How could someone who had felt this way toward her be so cold now? Had she hurt him somehow? She gripped his hand harder and tried to hold on to her focus.

  Miguel strode down the hall to the windows, steps heavy and quick, then turned into a long corridor. Industrial gray fluorescence gave way to cherry-wood and warm recessed lighting. In one sweaty fist he gripped a slick object the size of a domino. A flash drive.

  The corridor opened onto a round room, at the center of which was a receptionist’s desk. Living plants and trees lined the cherry walls on the entry side, growing long toward the atrium skylight. The carpet was the color and scent of glazed almonds.

  On the opposite side of the room, behind the receptionist’s desk, a glass wall exposed three offices designed more for form than function, and through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the offices, a spectacular panorama of Houston, its office buildings twinkling in the rising sun, looking up at McAllister MediVista like needy serfs.

  Etchings in each of four glass doors in the glass wall identified the occupants: To the far right, Chief Operating Officer Leon Chalise. Next to that, President Landon McAllister. To the far left, Chief Financial Officer Wayne Spade. And back toward the center, sharing a wall with her father, CEO Trent Wilde.

  Inside Leon’s office, just beyond the reach of the light, the COO’s shadowy form, an obese Hitchcock silhouette, moved against th
e cityscape. Miguel blazed a trail into the man’s office. The heavy door sprang inward under the weight of his body.

  “You are dogs,” Miguel bellowed, moving around the desk in the dark. Leon registered Miguel’s presence without the slightest surprise, even when the journalist shoved him toward the window.

  Leon’s body smacked the thick glass. He barked out a laugh as if it had been forced by the impact.

  “Think twice, bloodhound,” he said.

  Miguel punched him in the stomach with the fist surrounding the flash drive. The man doubled over, but not because he was injured. Miguel’s fist had made no impact at all.

  Miguel’s knee came up into Leon’s chin, and his teeth cracked together.

  Miguel dropped his fist between the soft shoulder blades, and Leon drove forward, lifting the wider, more athletic Miguel at the hips onto the desk and shoving him over, clearing the surface. A clock of crystal and engraved brass plunged to the floor and cracked in two. Miguel’s body hit the clients’ chairs on the other side of the desk and then flopped onto the carpet.

  Not at all disoriented, Miguel grabbed one half of the clock, sleek and broken like a split rock, grappled with the chairs, then stood, facing Leon, the desk between them. The skin beneath Leon’s lip had split open, and he dabbed at it with his fingers, smiling, as if still in possession of the upper hand.

  Miguel held up the clock in one fist and threw the flash drive at him with his other hand.

  “Take it.”

  The drive bounced off Leon’s chest. He didn’t even look at it.

  “A week ago, that might have helped your cause,” Leon said, not even winded. “But now . . .”

  Miguel threw the clock piece at Leon’s head. This time the businessman ducked, and the crystal hit the window with the sound of a gunshot.

  In the precise moment that the crystal and tempered glass met, a rocket of pain exploded through Miguel’s thigh, dropping him to the floor. His arms failed to break his fall, and he crashed into one of the nearby chairs, breaking a finger, he thought, as he landed on top of his right arm. Fire licked at every muscle, consumed his blood like fuel, kissed every skin cell.

  He groaned but couldn’t move, then started to hyperventilate as if oxygen were anesthesia.