I owed him, to say the least.
“Preliminary ballistics matches the bullet in Charlotte Truman to a gun we found in Randall’s rental car,” Liz continued.
Liz had arrived at the scene to find Carter sprawled in the dirt and me lying prone on the clifftop. She thought that I’d been shot. I didn’t ask her how that made her feel because I figured the chances were fifty-fifty that I’d like her response.
“Her prints will probably be on the letter you found,” Liz concluded. “That should close the deal.” She looked at me. “We’ll need to get a formal statement from you this afternoon. Probably take a couple of hours.”
I glanced at her and nodded. “I’ll come down.”
She looked at Carter. “And if you’ll get that howitzer you call a handgun registered this week, I’ll pretend it was registered when you used it last night.” She gave him an I’ve-been-waiting-for-this-forever kind of smile. “And I promise not to tell the guys downtown that you fell down and broke your arm while shooting a gun.”
“I was taking cover,” he said, making a face. “It could happen to anyone.”
“No,” she said. “Just to you.” She turned to me. “Can I see you outside for a second?”
I nodded, and we both stood. She looked back at Carter.
“I’m glad you are okay, Carter,” she said. “And I’m glad you realized that your jackass of a friend was going to need some help.”
“He is a jackass,” Carter concurred, pulling at the sling on his newly broken arm.
Liz and I walked out into the hallway. She leaned back against the door to Carter’s room, her eyes hard and sharp. She started to say something, then stopped.
“What?” I asked.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes. “Nothing. Just a lot to think about.”
“I know,” I said. “I can’t believe she killed her sister. And Randall and Charlotte.”
“That,” she said, opening her eyes, “I can believe.”
I looked at her, not understanding.
“What I can’t believe is that you almost died last night.” The corners of her eyes twitched. “You didn’t listen to me. Again. You went to see Randall. You didn’t wait for help. You nearly screwed up the whole thing.” She paused. “Same old, same old.”
I knew that my anger had gotten the better of me, but I wasn’t sure how rehashing my mistakes was going to improve the situation.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Liz.”
She stared at me for a moment, chewing carefully on her bottom lip. Her eyes were looking for something and apparently weren’t finding it.
“I don’t know either,” she said finally.
She walked down the hall and disappeared around a corner.
I watched her go, unsure of what to do. I knew that I’d disappointed her. Maybe she thought that what had happened between us in the last couple of days was going to change me. I knew that it wouldn’t, and yet I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with that.
I walked back into the room.
“Is she really gonna tell them I fell?” Carter asked, frowning.
“What does it matter?” I asked, walking over to the window.
“My reputation will be shattered,” he said, sounding like a child who lost his favorite toy. “All that work to establish myself as a badass. Gone.”
“You’ll recover.”
I felt his eyes on my back. “How are you?”
I stared out the window. The view was to the north, and I could see both Torrey Pines State Beach and the condos up on the hill where Emily had lived in the distance. “Fine.”
“Really?”
“No. But I will be.”
I knew that I would be, eventually. But death has a way of screwing you up. And not just the deaths of those around you, but the possibility of your own. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find that sense of normalcy again.
“We should go do something,” Carter said.
I turned back to him and looked at his cast and sling. “I don’t know that you’re in any kind of shape to be doing anything.”
“They’re gonna let me outta here tonight,” he said. “But I mean doing something like getting out of town. Away from all this crap.”
I liked that idea. “Okay. Where?”
He grinned. “I was thinking Cabo.”
I nodded, again liking the idea. “Good choice.”
“No Ice Queen,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Just me and you.”
“No problem,” I told him, thinking about what had happened out in the hallway with Liz. “Just me and you. And the trip’s on me.”
“As it should be,” he said, the grin returning. “A little food, a lot of alcohol, and a lot of surfing.”
“Your arm gonna be up for getting in the water?”
He made a face at the cast. “It’ll be fine.” He looked back at me. “Yeah. Cabo. Food, booze, and we’ll surf until we’re dead in the water.”
I hadn’t been to Cabo San Lucas in a couple of years. There was a strong right break known as Zippers just up the road from the resorts, on the Sea of Cortez side of the point, that produced solid waves and took a lot out of you on a good afternoon. I pictured the azure colors of the water, paddling out to the lineup, and leaving a lot of things out on those waves.
I was already looking forward to it.