He stared at her for several long seconds, and then he shook his head, pulled open the glass door, and walked inside. Sydney stood there for a bit, alone in the parking lot, feeling the rain start up again, wondering what she should do, what she could do. She wanted things to be right with her mother and with Jake. She wanted things to be like they were yesterday, before she’d opened her mouth about going to San Quentin. Maybe if she apologized to her mother, found the right words to say… But as Sydney opened the glass doors, looked inside, it was just as Angie discovered her father’s arrival, and she skated off the floor to give him an excited hug. He embraced her, lifted her from the ground to give her a kiss, and Sydney glanced over at her mother, who was watching her husband and young daughter with a smile, her disappointment in her older daughter momentarily forgotten.
Sydney backed out, unseen, feeling a bit of envy, thinking that it all seemed so… normal, that if she went back in right now, the daughter of a murdered man that her mother had tried to forget, it would change things. Everyone would somehow discover that the world her mother had built around herself, her young daughter-and her older-was only a facade.
The rain let up by the time she got home, but her mood was still dark, especially when she had to double-park, knock on the next-door neighbor’s house, asking the sullen teen who answered the door to have his friend move his car from her driveway, so she could pull into her garage. She waited by her car, while the lanky friend exited the house next door, sauntered to his car, got in, revved the engine. He rolled down his window, flipped her off, then sped away, doing his best to lay some rubber on the wet pavement.
“Slow down!”
Like that helped. His car fishtailed around the corner, tires squealing. She pulled into her driveway, parked in the garage, wanting to forget this day had ever occurred. She trudged upstairs, unlocked her door, and Topper was there to greet her, not caring that she’d gone to some prison, or might have upset anyone else. And just in case Topper’s presence wasn’t enough to remind her that she was watching him for a day or two, there was now a very large bag of dog kibble set inside her door. The big red bow stuck to the top of the kibble bag was a nice touch, but not as nice as the note taped to it, telling her to look inside the fridge. Not one but two dishes therein. One was cheesecake, with a note taped to the plastic wrap, and she pulled it off to read: Cheesecake does not count as one of the four essential food groups. Look in the casserole dish. Love you, Arturo. P.S., don’t give any to Topper.
As if, she thought, lifting the lid on the casserole dish, and discovering enough lasagna to last her the week. A girl could get used to this.
Topper, however, wasn’t about to let her sit down and relax. He nudged his snout against her thigh, then turned and walked toward the door, waiting with baleful eyes. A very orderly canine. She liked that in him.
“You ready for a walk?”
He wagged his tail, then pranced by the door. When she picked up the leash, she caught sight of the envelope McKnight had sent. She knew she should look at it, try to figure out what it meant, but Topper whined. She’d get to the damned thing later. First things first.
“Sit.”
Topper sat as well as his wiggling tail would allow. She clipped on the leash, then off they went. The pair circled the block in companionable silence, Sydney lost in her own thoughts until they turned the corner that led back up the hill to the house, and Topper stopped at his favorite fire hydrant just a few doors down. Suddenly he started growling. Sydney gripped the leash tighter, figuring Topper was defending the neighborhood from whatever cat was straying nearby. She glanced up, saw a sedan cruising down the hill, slowing in the vicinity of her house, its headlights keeping her from seeing who was driving.
“With my luck, it’s probably Scotty.”
Topper gave a sharp bark, then resumed his growling.
“Where were you when I met the guy? Hmm?” She gave a tug on the leash. “Let’s go see what he wants.”
They started up the hill, but as they neared, the car’s engine revved, its high beams came on, blinding her. The screech of tires on the wet pavement echoed off the houses.
And the car headed straight toward them.
8
Sydney’s heart slammed in her chest as she yanked Topper’s leash, forcing him from the curb and away from danger. She fell back, knocking over a garbage can, and Topper barked as the car sped past them down the hill, then turned the corner, tires screaming across the wet pavement. A car started up at the bottom of the hill, took off, but she paid it little attention.
The cold air smelled of rain and wet wood, and she sat there a moment before assessing the damage, nothing more than scraped hands and a soaked bottom from the puddle she’d landed in. Topper came up, shoved his wet nose into her face, and she stood. “You okay?”
He wagged his tail.
She glanced down the hill, her senses on high alert as she tried to figure out what had just happened. Clearly it wasn’t Scotty, which begged the question, who was it? And were they really trying to run her down, or was it her imagination that she was being targeted at all? Shaken, she brushed the dirt from her hands, then noticed one of the juvenile delinquent next-door neighbors standing in front of his house, his face lit by the glow of a cigarette as he inhaled. The explanation for it all hit her. No doubt one of his drag-racing buddies showing off, maybe even the one she’d had to evict from her driveway earlier. She marched up the hill to confront the kid.
He eyed her, apparently unconcerned.
“That one of your friends who just left?”
“I don’t keep time cards on my friends, see who’s leaving when.”
“You didn’t see the car that just sped down the hill?” “Like I just walked out here,” he said, then tossed the cigarette into the wet gutter. It landed with a hiss, and Topper lunged toward it to investigate.
Sydney pulled the dog back, then looked at the boy, noted his glassy eyes, the heavy lids. “Tell your friends to slow down, would you?”
“Yeah, whatever.” She walked away. Just as she started up the steps, she heard him call out, “Why don’t you check one of those satellites you guys use to spy on people, see who it was?”
“Because they don’t work nearly as well as the devices we implant in your brains.”
“Yeah…” He gave a hesitant laugh, turned around, went back into the house.
Sydney waited until she heard the door close behind him, then looked up and down the street. The neighborhood was blissfully quiet, though, and finally she and Topper trudged up the steps. Once inside, the door locked behind them, she sat, tried to relax, and finally opened the envelope, looked again at the contents, the letter in her father’s writing. Except for the reference to her father’s boat, it still meant nothing. And what of the photo? She could almost understand if it showed the men doing something, but they were merely standing there in front of some nondescript army building, and there was nothing in the background that told her anything. She shoved the photo back into the envelope, and it occurred to her that what she really needed after a day like this was a good stiff drink. Several of them. But even if she had something decent in the house, drinking wasn’t an option, since she needed to be in court in the morning. There 70 Robin Burcell was, however, one thing she could do that would calm her, and her gaze fell on the easel in her kitchen, on the jet black canvas.
She stared into depths of the black background, then picked out her paints. Normally this helped soothe her soul, but as she painted the colors onto the canvas in long sharp strokes, colors of burnt sienna, bright orange, yellow ocher, all on that sea of black, she was anything but comforted. Taking a step back, she eyed the sharp points of color, trying to figure out what they were.