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“And what is that?”
“A ruthless businessman with very little patience for faults of any kind.”
“Did Elizabeth have one club that she preferred to frequent?”
“The Mousetrap,” Toni doesn’t hesitate to reply. “On Los Angeles Street.”
I feel Mani’s quiet groan in my very soul. The Mousetrap isn’t just a dive. It’s seedy. And dangerous. A place where cops don’t go unless it’s a raid and they have weapons and backup. “Thank you.”
Antoinette doesn’t reply. She takes a step backward out of the bedroom. “I’ll wait out here in case you need me.”
It takes the team another two hours to search Elizabeth’s belongings, bagging and tagging any evidence that may be useful. I keep a running inventory in my head: Two-hundred thousand dollars in cash, hydrocodone,Nembutal,Xanax,Ambien, eszopiclone, approximately six ounces of marijuana, approximately one ounce of cocaine, aCobra Firearms Derringertwenty-two pistol with custom pink grips and a chrome barrel, and a week’s worth of dirty laundry in case we can pull DNA from some of her johns.
Needing to get back to the office, I set up a time to have a second interview with Antoinette and leave Mani and Sade to wrap up.
It is only when I leave the house and see Catherine sitting on the porch swing outside, her feet tucked up underneath her, that I realize I was looking for her. She doesn’t turn to me when I approach. “Miss Beauchamp.”There is no reply, no glinting amusement now. “Do you mind?” I point to the space on the swing next to her.
“No.”
I take a seat, keeping my body as far away as possible. I don’t want to intimidate her, but I also don’t trust myself around her.
There’s a total of two and a half feet between us.
It’s too close.
I can smell the sweet floral perfume she’s wearing; it courses through my system like adrenaline, honing my instincts—sight, smell, and sound—to her. If touch and taste are there, they’re figments of an imagination best left unexplored. Needing reprieve, needing to stop the flood, I take out a cigarette and light it. I don’t smoke it, just let the smoke drift in front of my face. “I would like to apologize,” I say, the moment my mind is lucid again.
“You don’t have to.” When she looks at me, it’s not anger or hatred directed at me that’s painted on her face, it’s understanding. “I’ve been an addict for a long time. Ten years, almost.” She rocks herself a little, her body weight too slight to even budge the swing, so I give it a subtle push with my foot, sending it into a smooth back and forth. “Ten years,” she repeats as if surprised by the time.
“You don’t understand,” I say.
“You’re a square peg, Lieutenant. What you see is what you get.”
I think over the label for a moment before asking, “Is that so bad? That people look at me and know who I am?”
“No.” Raising her knees higher, she wraps her arms around them, resting her chin in the gap as she stares out at the front yard. Her hair spills down her back in fiery ringlets.
Leaning my elbows on my knees, the cigarette still smoldering, I try to explain. “I forgot.” It costs me to admit it. Details are, after all, most of my job description.
“Excuse me?”
“When I asked you if you knew where Elizabeth got her drugs from…I didn’t ask you because I knew you were an addict. I asked you because, when I look at you, that’s not what I see. At all. I’ve read your file. I know your background.” I shrug. “But I forgot. When I look at you, Catherine, your past is the furthest thing from my mind.”
“Am.”
“Mmhm?”
“Iaman addict. You saidwere.”
“Rehab taught you that?”
“I never went to rehab.”
Sensing that I’m not getting anywhere, I push to a stand. “I won’t take up more of your time. But I am sorry for hurting you. It was not my intention.”
I walk down the front steps.
“What do you see?”
