CHAPTER NINE

Ambrose added a packet of sugar to the paper cup of coffee and took a sip, relaxing his shoulders as the hot liquid slid down his throat. The case files for the crime they’d been at two days before, including the two similar cases involving the dead men and woman who’d once lived on the streets, were sitting in the center of his desk. He didn’t want to appear too eager to read them. He set them aside as he put his cup down in front of him and took a seat.

He and Lennon had driven over to Geary Boulevard after leaving the youth drop-in center. But there had only been a couple of bedraggled prostitutes, and they’d both snatched up the money Lennon had offered, looked at the photo of the woman named Cherish, shook their heads, and turned away. Maybe he’d go back later on his own, once the nightlife started and the line of cars with men looking for a quick-and-dirty hookup started forming.

If nothing panned out there, he’d head over to the Cellar, where women let others use them to play their perverted games. The TL was a fantasyland for sickos looking to take advantage of those dissociated from their bodies. What easy victims they were. The same could be said of many other neighborhoods throughout the country. And the world too. He’d been all over at this point, and perverts came in all colors and creeds.

He pulled the case files toward him, flipped open the top one, and began reading through the evidence. Twenty minutes later, he had a more detailed picture of the first two crime scenes.

At the first scene, three months before, hallucinogens had been found in the abandoned building, next to the bodies of a man and a woman who were almost certainly homeless. Those two had gone at each other with their fists and fingernails, and at first glance, it appeared that the bloody scene was simply a case of a bad drug trip that had caused them to claw each other’s faces and then stab each other to death. And though there had been plenty of blood on both victims’ hands, no murder weapons had been found. Originally, it was surmised that perhaps another individual had come along and stolen the murder weapon or weapons. But it was strange that the drugs hadn’t also been stolen.

Then again, Ambrose thought, if the person who came upon a scene like that had any wits about them, they’d want no part of a substance that made you behave the way those two had.

The second case, a month ago, was similar to the first. Two homeless men had been found in a clearing in a park, the weird concoction of hallucinogens on the ground next to their bloody bodies. The medical examiner had determined they’d likely used a knife, or knives, on each other. But again, no weapons were found.

In both cases, no IDs had been made. Four people who had once frequented the streets in one neighborhood or another had disappeared, and no one had even noticed.

A heaviness pressed on his chest. The crimes described in the case files in front of him and the one he’d been at two days before had happened in three different neighborhoods, miles apart. And yet, the case had still come back to the TL. He wasn’t completely surprised. Something inside had known, hadn’t it? That’s why he was here. But he was even more unsettled than he’d been before. He— they —had to figure out what was going on. And if it was related to what he thought it was, they’d need to take care of it in whatever way necessary.

But he had a few leads, and he had the case files, so he’d acquired what he’d come here for. He could leave now, or he could stay and potentially collect even more. Because he had a strong feeling that whatever was going on had just gotten started.

Lennon came back into the room, where their desks sat next to each other, holding her own cup of coffee and sipping it as she walked slowly toward him.

She stopped to chat with a woman police inspector, bending forward slightly as she laughed. He didn’t like lying to her. He didn’t like lying in general, but especially to her. She acted sort of tough, but there was something vulnerable about her, something that told him maybe she’d been hurt. It was in the way she’d gazed at the people they’d passed, who were obviously suffering, on the streets of San Francisco. She was empathetic. She cared about others. Then again, maybe that didn’t have anything to do with something from her past. Maybe some people just came by that naturally.

Every once in a while, he still questioned his own assumptions, questioned what was innate under natural circumstances and what had to be learned in most. Practice knowing, a wise man had once told him. Everything you need to know is inside of you, he’d said, tapping Ambrose’s chest as though all life’s knowledge, his path, from beginning to end, were written on scrolls contained between his ribs. Or at least that’s what Ambrose liked to picture. It was all there, just inside, pressed against the underside of his skin. It’s just been covered up for a long time. So it will take practice. But it’s a worthwhile effort. Practice knowing.

And so he did. And one of those scrolls had told him that the crimes being committed here had everything to do with people he loved. Those imagined scrolls told him before he arrived that someone knew things they shouldn’t know, and now he had the evidence to back it up.

“Hey, Mars,” he heard from behind him and turned around. Lieutenant Byrd stood there, jacket on, briefcase in hand, obviously on his way out of the station. “I haven’t received your paperwork yet.”

Shit. His time here was ticking, and fast. “Really? Okay, I’ll call over and see what the holdup is.”

Byrd gave a nod and then raised his hand at the rest of the people working nearby and disappeared around the corner. Ambrose let out a long breath.

Lennon sat down in her chair as two officers came in, one stopping in front of the desk of the same female inspector Lennon had just been talking to. The other officer took a seat at an empty desk and bent his neck one way and then another.

“What’s up with you, Brymer?” Lennon asked.

“Sore as hell. I’ve been directing traffic for six hours. A woman jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge this morning.” He resumed stretching for a moment. “Shit. Who wakes up and decides to jump off a fuckin’ bridge?” He ran his hand over his buzz cut. “I’ll tell you who. Someone fucked in the head. You agree with that, Mars?”

Ambrose’s eyes moved slowly to Brymer. The guy was hoping to rile him or annoy him or test him or whatever he was doing, for some reason that Ambrose wasn’t even going to try to figure out. Maybe the guy was bored. Maybe he was annoyed that he’d had to do a job he thought beneath him because someone had decided to end their life on his watch. “Fucked in the head seems like as good a diagnosis as any,” Ambrose said.

Brymer huffed out a laugh, assuming incorrectly that Ambrose agreed with him. “It’s gotta be attention, right? To wanna go that way? You can’t just off yourself in your bathroom, you gotta jam up traffic for hours, make a spectacle. A big, grand exit where a dozen people have a ringside seat.”

Ambrose glanced at Lennon to see her staring at Brymer. “Yeah, attention whores are the worst, aren’t they, Brymer?”

“Sure are,” Brymer said, either ignoring her sarcasm or missing it completely. “Gotta make everyone else suffer for your issues.”

“Shut up, dude,” the other cop snapped. The name on his name tag said C. K ENNEDY . “Those people are suffering. My take? It’s not about attention so much as certainty. You down a buncha pills or, hell, even cut your wrists and it might not work. Someone could find you, pump your stomach, bandage you up. But jumping off a bridge? You’re guaranteed to die, and quick.”

“Not true.” Several heads turned toward Ambrose, including Lennon’s. “Thirty-five people have survived that particular jump,” he said, his gaze meeting Lennon’s. “In 2000, there was a nineteen-year-old kid who attempted to commit suicide there.” He leaned back in his chair. “The second he went over that rail, he realized he’d made a horrible mistake.” Ambrose paused, looking at each of them in turn. “He hit the water headfirst at seventy-five miles per hour, four seconds later, shattering three sections of his vertebrae. He was alive, but he couldn’t move his legs. And in those four seconds, as he’d plunged toward the water, he’d realized he wanted to live.”

Lennon stared, lips parted as though she was semimesmerized. He liked that look on her face. Soft. It was soft. She’d lowered her guard completely, and all it had taken was a story. She cares. Her empathy is so obvious. And he liked that about her. It was rare. “What happened then?” she asked softly.

“He felt a bump beneath him,” Ambrose said. He bounced on his chair as though something were headbutting him from the seat, and Lennon gave a minuscule start. “Something was in the water.”

“Holy shit, a shark,” he heard Kennedy say.

Ambrose shook his head. “No. At first that’s what he thought, too, but it wasn’t a shark. It was a sea lion, and that sea lion bumped him again, and then again. It kept him afloat—kept him alive—by bumping him repeatedly so he didn’t go under, until a rescue boat showed up.”

Lennon tipped her head, her eyes still holding a vague sense of wonder. “Is that a true story?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’d you hear it?”

Ambrose shrugged. “I don’t remember. But it stayed with me. It reminds me that some things can’t be explained.”

Her eyes hung on his. “And you like that? For a man whose job it is to find answers, that’s somewhat surprising.”

“I think it’s important to be able to determine when answers are necessary and when they’re not.”

She appeared to think about that for a moment. “Anyway, it’s a good story.”

He gave her a half tilt of his lips. “In the end, all we have are stories.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she regarded him. “Tough ending on that bridge today,” she said after a moment.

“Yes,” he agreed, looking over at Brymer, who yawned and stood up. “It was.”

“Well,” Brymer said, “if story time is over, I’m gonna get back to work. See ya.”

The cops left the room, and Ambrose turned in his chair and pulled the case files toward him. He needed to find a moment when he could make copies of everything, so if he had to leave in a hurry, he’d have what the cops had. Those files were why he was here. The cops didn’t know to look for certain things. He did. The specifics about the pills. The swollen eyes. The silent screams.

“You’re a good storyteller,” Lennon said. He looked up to see her smiling at him.

“Thanks.”

Their gazes caught for a beat longer than he would have allowed his eyes to remain held to someone else’s, and he felt a small internal hiccup of concern. He was attracted to her, this homicide inspector who didn’t strike him as a cop of any rank. He’d told himself he wasn’t interested in romantic or even sexual relationships—simpler that way, fewer entanglements—but apparently his biology hadn’t quite gotten the memo. But it didn’t matter if he found her attractive. Nothing could happen between them. He broke eye contact and opened the files on his desk. From his peripheral vision, he saw her begin shuffling through her paperwork, too, the moment between them over.

And suddenly he wasn’t so concerned about the fact that his time here at this department was limited. Suddenly it seemed crucial that it end as soon as possible.

A woman he hadn’t met yet leaned in the wide door. “The assistant chief is making a stop here in about thirty,” she said. “I hear it’s just a morale boost—and a nod to all you poor saps who have to work Thanksgiving.”

She saluted and turned as someone called out, “Is she even bringing us a turkey?”

“Why? Your mother won’t save you some meat?” the woman called back.

“There’s a sick joke in there somewhere,” one of the cops said. “But I’m too innocent to figure it out.”

Thanksgiving. He’d forgotten it was a holiday. Not only because they’d been working this morning and afternoon but because the places they’d visited had been open too. Now all the references to dinner made more sense. The fact that he’d forgotten made him feel sort of pitiful. He had zero plans. Not that any of his friends in town even knew he was here—he hadn’t contacted any of them yet. His family? They never cared. So what did it matter? It was just another day. He didn’t need a specific date to remember what he was thankful for.

Anyone from the chief’s office stopping by might be a problem, though. “I’m gonna get out of here,” he told Lennon, standing and putting on his jacket.

Her head came up. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. Me, too, actually. My parents are expecting me.” She tilted her head. “Are you staying with your family while you’re apartment hunting?”

“No, a hotel,” he answered.

“Ugh, apartment hunting. Good luck with that,” the woman inspector whose name he couldn’t remember said as she took a seat at her desk to his left. “The housing market here is a shit show. You’re better off commuting.” While Lennon was looking away, he slipped the files into his briefcase.

“She’s not wrong,” Lennon said with a sigh. “Where are you looking?”

“I don’t know yet.” He gave her a close-lipped smile. “Happy Thanksgiving, Lennon.”

She didn’t smile back. Instead her expression was mildly worried. “Happy Thanksgiving, Ambrose.”

“Dammit.” What the hell was going on with all the Ubers? He’d been around the corner from the station for thirty minutes now, trying to get a ride, and still none had come available. Did people like turkey that much?

He’d watched the assistant chief’s car, followed by several other city vehicles, drive by about five minutes before and heard them stop in front of the station. He’d expected to be long gone by now.

A raindrop hit his cheek, and he looked up at the cloudy sky, a few more splashing over his cheeks before they began to fall in earnest. Great. He brought his briefcase close to his body, and shielded his phone as he looked back down at his app. Still nothing.

Ambrose stepped backward into a doorway on the side of the building so he could search Google for a cab company, which he should have done fifteen minutes ago. The rainfall increased, splashing up from the sidewalk and hitting his khakis. A car slowed and then came to a stop at the curb in front of where he stood, and the passenger-side window rolled down. Lennon leaned over the seat, peering out at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he called. “I’m fine. Just ... no Ubers. I’m gonna call a cab. I’m good, really. Have a nice holiday.”

She nodded, sitting straight as the passenger-side window rolled up. She pulled away from the curb, and Ambrose watched as her brake lights went on and she reversed back to where she’d just been. She got out of her car, an umbrella blossoming over her as she splashed through the puddles to where he stood. She looked sort of hesitant and a little shy as she said, “You said you were from here, so I assumed your family still lives in the city? But you’re not staying with them, so maybe—”

“My family and I are . . . estranged, so . . .”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s for the best.”

She gave a single nod. “Do you have plans for dinner, Ambrose?”

He felt embarrassed and was tempted to lie to her, but he’d already told her too many lies, and he didn’t like it. And so he answered truthfully. “I was going to stop and get a pizza and bring it to my hotel room.”

“That sounds very sad.”

He laughed, but it quickly turned into a sigh. It did sound sad, but he’d experienced things much sadder than that, and so it didn’t bother him as much as it might have bothered her or anyone else who’d never spent a holiday alone. As for him? It was far from the first, and it wouldn’t be the last.

She glanced up the street and then back at him, and he had this weird feeling of déjà vu, standing on this rainy street with this woman, half under a doorway, the umbrella she was holding creating this strange feeling of intimacy that felt both electric and dreamlike. After a moment she blurted out, “Would you like to join me? At my parents’ house?” She held up her hand. “Before you answer, I have to warn you: my family, they’re a whole situation. You’d have to prepare yourself. My mom was a flower child in the seventies, and she never quite moved on. She’ll definitely find a reason to foist some herbal concoction on you. And my dad, well there’s this comet or something or another tonight, and so he’ll be nerding out with his microscope.”

“Telescope.”

“Telescope. Right. Yes. Well, there you go. He’ll consider you far more of an asset than me.”

She seemed to be breathing at an increased rate, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the number of words she’d just spoken. But the idea that she also might be nervous and feel that same dreamy electricity he did was what propelled him to say, “Yes. Thanks. I’d love to join you for dinner. But ... I don’t have anything to bring.”

“It’s okay. I already dropped off a couple of pies a few days ago, and my mom has plenty of food. Trust me, they’ll be thrilled by another guest. They used to live on a commune. For them, it’ll be like the good ol’ days.”

He laughed as they turned and ducked through the rain to her car.