Don't Leave Me Read online

  “What else?” Royce said.

  “It’s still fuzzy, dammit. I see shadows, but I can’t see their faces. I hear some words.”

  “Words?”

  “Something like words. Rush ten line.”

  “What is that?”

  “I don’t know!” Chuck hit the passenger window with his fist. At least give me pain and blood and I’ll be clear about that.

  “Wait a second,” Royce said. “Rushton. Maybe that’s it. Did you know a soldier named Rushton?”

  “I don’t remember anybody named Rushton.”

  “Let’s go see the doc, Chuck. This could be major.”

  “No.”

  “Come on––”

  “No!”

  “Okay,” Royce said. “That’s it. Let it go for now.”

  “I can’t get any closer.”

  “Okay, that’s all, Chuck. Take it easy.”

  “Drive me to Studio City.”

  “I thought you wanted––”

  “Somebody I need to see. Now.”

  Chapter 24

  “Hey,” Mooney said.

  Sandy looked up from her cubicle desk. “Nice greeting,” she said.

  “You talked to Samson without me?”

  “I was down there, they OR’d him,” Sandy said. “I took a shot.”

  “You don’t think to call?”

  “No time.” That was a half truth, maybe even a quarter. Sandy hadn’t wanted to call him because his presence and attitude put Samson off.

  “So he give you anything?” Mooney said.

  “Not really.”

  “Then it was something.” Mooney made wiggly fingers at her, like he was asking for money.

  “Nothing that helps with Nunn,” Sandy said.

  “What else?”

  Sandy swiveled in her chair, faced him. “You really don’t like this guy.”

  “Got nothing to do with it.”

  “I mean, you’re anxious about him.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” he said. His eyebrows creased downward. Then he did his Bogart voice. “He’s good. He’s very good.”

  Actually, it wasn’t a bad Bogart at all. Mooney could also do other oldies, like Edward G. Robinson. But it seemed like he would pick odd times to do them, like when he wanted to annoy her.

  “I don’t know that he’s good in that way,” Sandy said. “He seems conflicted and confused. He has PTSD.”

  “He was a chaplain. A man of the cloth. What’s he got to be PTSD’d about?”

  Sandy opened her file on Samson. “Doesn’t say. But that scar on his neck?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe that’s the reason.”

  Mooney cocked his head to look at the sheets. “Maybe we better find out.”

  “You want to question him again?”

  “Yeah I do.”

  “He’s got counsel. I don’t know that he’ll consent.”

  “You’re the charmer,” Mooney said. “Work your magic. But one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t ever talk to him without me being there, okay?”

  Sandy didn’t like the cold thrust of his words then, but decided to let it pass. He was right. He should be in on everything. She was, in a sense, training him after all. Should show him the right way.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Thanks, Shweet haht,” Bogart said.

  Chapter 25

  As Royce drove he said, “Let me get you together with a guy.”

  Chuck rested his head on the back of the seat. “What guy?”

  “Guy I know, uses hypnosis.”

  “I don’t buy that stuff.”

  “Now’s the time. I don’t want to have to drag you in.”

  “For mumbo jumbo?”

  “Exposure therapy, Einstein.”

  “What, I take my clothes off and run down the street?”

  Royce said, “Your normal memories are filed away in the right spots in your brain. And they don’t intrude on your day-to-day. But the traumatic memories aren’t filed at all. They’re scattered all around, and can pop up and go bam any time. So what this guy does is he brings the traumas up, helps you remember, has you look at what you can tolerate, face it, realize it’s not going to kill you. Then they can get filed away in the right places.”

  “Can we not talk about it now?”

  “You never want to talk about it. That’s part of the problem.”

  “Just drive, okay?” Chuck closed his eyes, wondering if he should go ahead and get hypnotized. What could it hurt? God had apparently chosen not to perform a miracle of healing. Maybe some Amazing Kreskin would do the trick, bring some order to the flashes that even now flooded in, piecemeal. The . . .

  .

  . . . Marine Expeditionary Unit to which he was assigned was launching an operation to enhance security for the citizens of the Garmsir District of Helmland Province. Garmsir was a planning, staging and logistics hub of the neo-Taliban.

  By the fourth week Chuck was settling into his duties—conducting chapel, counseling, caring for the wounded, honoring the dead with memorial services (and making sure the commanding general was at each one). Then came the night before the day it all, literally, exploded.

  A gunnery sergeant named Dylan Bly came to see him. Needed to talk. He was going out on security patrol the next day, and wanted Chuck to know something. That part of the memory was clear. Dylan Bly’s eyes were full of both fury and fear, or at least that’s how Chuck remembered it.

  And he also remembered going out on patrol with Bly, in a second Humvee. It was a chance for Chuck to get to another outpost to conduct some services. Also, he wanted to be near Bly. For some reason, he felt Dylan Bly needed him at that moment.

  The Humvees turned into a dry river bed, often used in lieu of roads in this part of Afghanistan. Chuck remembered looking out at the sky and the mountains and then hearing the explosion. Later, he would learn it was an IED—improvised explosive device—so common in this theater of operations.

  The lead vehicle, the one with Dylan Bly in it, was on fire.

  What happened next Chuck had to learn from a report. His own memory of it was a series of kaleidoscopic colors and shapes, very little making sense.

  They were attacked. Small arms fire from all around. Dylan Bly was lying out on the dirt, exposed. Apparently Chuck ran out to help him, tried to drag him to safety behind the flaming Humvee. But then what may have been an RPG—a rocket propelled grenade—blew up somewhere near him, the concussive effect knocking Chuck clean out.

  He was literally in the dark after that. The shadow figures appeared sometime in there, when they’d cut his throat after an interrogation. Just before the rescue squad came.

  Chuck learned later he’d been left for dead at a villa belonging to a local warlord named Abdul Asad Sajadi.

  Shipped back to the states, and debriefed, he could not remember any more than this. It was also the time Julia started to feel like a stranger.

  Chapter 26

  “You sure you don’t want me to wait?” Royce said. He’d pulled up in front of the squat, two-story office building on Ventura, just east of Coldwater Canyon.

  “I’ll take the bus,” Chuck said. “I may be awhile.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Thanks for coming to court.”

  “Always happy to help the criminal element,” Royce said.

  Chuck tried to smile.

  “Call me if you need me,” Royce said.

  Chuck nodded, got out and went through the glass double doors. The offices of LAEye were on the second floor. Chuck took the elevator and went to the secure door. It was open. Some security. In the reception area was a desk with no one behind it.

  Even better security. Why not just put a neon sign out in front that said Drifters Welcome?

  There was a door to the inner sanctum, also unlocked. Chuck went through. He’d been here a couple of times before. It was a typical hive of cubicles, with the sound of k
eyboards and a slight hum from the ceiling lights. Julia had worked at a cubicle in the back, next to Octavia Butler. Chuck walked back, getting hardly a look from the staff, thinking how easy it would be to wipe this place out.

  Octavia was at her monitor, back to him.

  “Clinton did have sex with that woman,” Chuck said.

  She spun around in her chair. “Chuck!” She stood and hugged him. “How long’s it been?”

  “Since the funeral, I guess.”

  “That’s right.” She had soft brown eyes. Her skin was smooth café au lait, her hair plaited. Chuck always thought she’d have made a good model. But all she wanted to do was be an investigative journalist, like Julia.

  “How’s that novel coming?” Chuck said.

  Octavia smiled. “Still trying to work out the middle. Writing a novel’d be easy if you only had to do the beginning and end.”

  “Life too,” Chuck said.

  “Can we go out for coffee or something?”

  “This isn’t really a social visit, Octavia. I need to ask you something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Julia was working on a story when she was killed.”

  Octavia hesitated. She looked at the floor as if trying to remember. “Something about alligators.”

  “Did she give you any details about this story?”

  “Not really. In fact, she didn’t say much of anything at all. It was kind of strange.”

  “Why strange?”

  “She usually talked to me a lot about her stories. This one she was kind of tightlipped about. I figured she just didn’t want to say anything, but I remember thinking at the time that was a little odd for Julia.”

  A surge of electricity went through him. “Octavia, I really need you to help me think this through. Is there anything that you remember about this period in her life that raises any questions?”

  “Questions like what?”

  “Anything.”

  She bit her lower lip and sat on the edge of her desk. “I’m really trying to think here, Chuck.”

  That, or trying not to say something. Chuck had the impression she was defensive.

  “When was the very last time you saw her?” he asked.

  “I remember that. It was the day before she was killed. I saw her in the office.”

  “What time?”

  “Afternoon, maybe around three or four o’clock.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Just a normal Hi, how you doing? Nothing more than that. I was working on something too. I remember when she left she leaned over my desk and gave me one of these.” Octavia made a bye-bye motion with one hand.

  “And then?”

  Octavia said nothing, but Chuck thought he saw a desire in her expression, like words were on the edge, wanting to get out.

  “What is it?” he said.

  Octavia turned her head.

  “Tell me,” Chuck said.

  “Chuck . . .”

  “Come on.”

  “Dammit, why’d you have to surprise me like this?”

  “Octavia!” The voice came from a doorway halfway across the room.

  “The boss,” Octavia said.

  “He can wait.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Chuck put a hand on her arm, hard. “Tell me.”

  “Don’t do this,” she said.

  “Please.”

  She looked at him and the pain in her eyes was palpable.

  Behind him, the voice said, “Hey.”

  He was late twenties, with shag-thick black hair. He wore Ivy League style glasses, and a white shirt with tie and blue jeans.

  “Van, this is a friend,” Octavia said.

  “How’d he get in?” Van asked.

  “Mind giving us a minute?” Chuck said.

  “Yeah, I do,” Van said. “We got work to do here.”

  “Five minutes.”

  “No. Good-bye.”

  Chuck wanted to grab the guy’s shirt and explain in journalistic detail to his face everything that was happening, and then shake him into silent compliance.

  He realized later he might have done it, but Octavia said, “Wait for me downstairs. I’ll take a break in a few.”

  .

  It wasn’t a few. In fact, it was half an hour, and Chuck’s rear end went through several iterations of numb on an iron bench outside the front doors. When Octavia finally came down, she looked frazzled.

  “Your boss is a real law-and-order type,” Chuck said.

  She took his arm.

  There was a walkway between buildings. The warm-bake smells from the pizza place next door filled the space. It made Chuck hungry and sick at the same time. He couldn’t eat until he knew what Octavia was holding onto.

  “Sorry about what happened,” she said. “Van’s a little intense.”

  “What about Julia?”

  Octavia got a pained look on her face. “Chuck, how are you getting along?”

  “What?”

  “You and your brother.”

  “Why are you asking—”

  “You still teaching at that school?”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She looked at the sky. “Chuck, I’m a journalist. I’m supposed to report facts. I have no facts for you.”

  “Opinion then?”

  “What does it matter what I think? The thing is you and Julia were together, and now you move on.”

  “I don’t need a Dr. Phil moment. Tell me what you think, and tell me now.”

  “That’s just it,” she said. “I don’t know. I only saw him once.”

  “Who?”

  “Chuck––”

  “Tell me!”

  “She was seeing someone!”

  The force of the words cut the air, leaving a momentary silence in its wake. Chuck took in a deep breath. “What do you mean seeing?”

  “You know what I mean,” Octavia said. “Why’d you have to ask me, Chuck?”

  He had no answer. His insides were tearing a jagged line from heart to throat. The bile-taste of betrayal burned in him. Never had he suspected anything like that. Not from Julia.

  He had never lied to her, not once. He’d been many things—difficult, distant, withholding. But he had never deceived. He thought that was at least one thing he and Julia had in common at the end. But what if it wasn’t?

  Octavia’s words came from a distance. “Chuck, I didn’t want to tell you. Ever. Why couldn’t you just leave it the way it was?”

  He took Octavia by the shoulders. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Let go,” she said.

  “Please.”

  Octavia shook out of his grasp. “Like I said, I only saw him once. He was kind of a big guy, long hair, shoulder length. I didn’t see his face. I saw his back. He wore a black vest with a big sun on it.”

  “A sun?”

  “Big yellow sun. And Julia got on the back of his motorcycle. It was a Harley. I know that sound. When I casually asked her about it the next day, she told me it was nothing, just an old friend.”

  “How do you know she was seeing him?”

  “I wish you hadn’t come here.”

  “Just tell me!” His mind was playing tricks on him now, a face of Julia was laughing in a distant corner of his brain, his own face next to it, melting like candle wax under a flame.

  “Chuck, come on, I—”

  “You’re no friend of mine.”

  “That hurts, Chuck.”

  “What about me? You think this is cotton candy?”

  “All right,” she said quietly, looking at the ground. “I don’t have anything else to tell you but that, and when I asked her about it she got a look on her face, and there are just some things one woman knows about another woman, that’s all. She was telling me to leave it alone and I did.”

  Chuck ran his fingers through his hair, hard, like a kid digging for sand crabs at the beach. “Did Julia leave any notes? Any computer files?”

 
“I think you got all that. You still have them?”

  “Whatever I had is now toast.”

  “What?”

  “My house burned down.”

  “Oh, Chuck . . .”

  “Octavia, will you try to think? Think who might know who this guy was? Maybe some other staff writers or something?”

  “I can ask around if you want me to.”

  “I want you to. Please.”

  She looked at him a long time then, her brown eyes at once sympathetic and foreign. Then she put her arms around his neck and rested hear head on his shoulder. “Chuck, why’d it have to happen?”

  Chapter 27

  “He does not act as we did,” Steven Kovak said. “He does not think things through.”

  “It’s America,” Zepkic said. “It corrupts everything, but nothing so much as clear thinking. Do you know this is not taught even in the universities?”

  The two men sat on a bench near the waterfall at Disney’s California Adventure. The sound of these waters always comforted Kovak. It reminded him of some of his happiest days, as a boy with his father at the Sopotnica falls in Serbia.

  It also masked talk should anyone want to listen in on his conversations.

  Kovak said, “I pray on my knees each day, but I find no peace where my son is concerned.”

  “What is it they say here? Kids today.”

  Kovak was glad he had one friend in whom to confide. He could tell Zepkic anything. They had killed men, women, and children together, and such bonds were not lightly broken. Zepkic was very much like the bear-shaped rock that overlooked them—strong, dependable.

  “I was in the shop the other day,” Zepkic said. “A young girl walked in. She was a pretty thing. If I had been twenty-one and living in Vienna, I would have asked her to go to the opera with me. I would have spent all my wages to buy her flowers and a bottle of champagne and for the tickets to the opera. That was how pretty she was. But when she opened her mouth, the worst sound came out. A high pitched whine, a nasal abomination, and every other word from her was like. 'Like, do you have any, like, old vinyl records? My boyfriend like, likes them.’ This is the youth of America.”