Gathering Dark, Candice Fox [inspirational books for students .TXT] 📗

can you start me the paperwork on a stolen phone? Some asshole nabbed my cell while I was attending to that 11–82, over.”

“Oh, man, Marcus, are you serious? Over.”

“Yeah. Right out of my cruiser. I’ve checked the surrounding CCTV but I was parked in a blind spot. Witnesses saw a fat blonde woman.”

“Tough ride.”

“You said it.”

“Marcus, while I’ve got you, go show your face at the Mesa, would you? Ronnie’s over there trying to steal bottles from the dumpsters again. In progress.”

“Be there in five. Over.”

I drove with Sneak to the Mesa Inn, a tiny dive bar nestled in a strip mall between an insurance salesman’s storefront and a pawn shop. The lettering on the front of the building looked reused from a cinema; green block letters on white racks. I parked a good distance from Lemon’s cruiser, knowing that he would recognize the Gangstermobile from the earlier crash if he spotted me in the street. We sat watching as he negotiated the release of a burlap sack full of beer bottles from a man standing in the street behind the bar. Lemon’s manner was gentle. His hands were out, open, appealing. I thought about his voice, warm and encouraging, as he guided my car back onto the road after issuing me a reckless driving caution with much professed reluctance. Sneak was leaning wide out her window, squinting in the sun.

“We need binoculars,” she said.

“Police radio. Binoculars. Some GPS trackers. You could get yourself fully set up as a private investigator. Get a license and start charging for this stuff.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Why not? You’re good at it.”

“I’m never gonna leave the life,” she confessed. “The street. I was made for it. For falling down over and over. That’s my destiny.”

“What bullshit.”

Sneak laughed and looked at me.

“I’m serious,” I said. “You could change your destiny right now. Change it back to what it was originally, before the accident that wiped you out of the Olympics. You were on track for great things.”

“So was Dayly.” She shrugged. “And now look. Something’s turned her down the dark path. Maybe it’s genetic. A family curse. I knew a guy once who was cursed. Ex-girlfriend put it on him. He was killed by a pelican.”

“We don’t know what’s happened to Dayly.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “Sure, it doesn’t look good, but she might come out of this okay.”

“They say all that stuff in rehab, you know,” Sneak said. “‘You can change your destiny right now,’ that kind of thing. They’re all about their quotes. Affirmations. They’ve got them painted all over the walls in pretty colors. Sometimes they put them on bracelets and T-shirts, wear them around. Believe in yourself. Be grateful for every moment. Make a plan and stick to it. Trust the process. Problem is, they’re not from anybody, those quotes. They’re not tried and tested in real life.”

“Have you got a quote you live by that’s tried and tested, then?” I asked.

“Yeah. Mike Tyson,” she said, watching Lemon return to his vehicle. “‘Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’”

I thought about that. About how many wonderful plans I’d had for Jamie and myself before a set of handcuffs snapped shut on my wrists for the first time. Until life itself punched me in the mouth. Sneak righted herself in her seat and flicked a hand in Lemon’s direction.

“Let’s follow him for a while,” she said.

JESSICA

Jessica didn’t take backup to the neat little house on Hill Street in Walnut Park. She parked under a street sign that read, ominously, Bumps ahead and watched the house, waiting for the object of Mariana’s warning to reveal itself, but it did not. The business address of Scream Inc. was a pretty stucco place with arched windows and low palm trees in the front yard, a red hummingbird feeder hanging from a rail near a door inlaid with stained glass. She went and knocked, waited, listening to the sound of footsteps on stairs. The woman who opened the door was younger than Jessica expected, squat and round, her hair dyed a blue-black that was stark against her pale and ginger-speckled skin.

“Jessica Sanchez?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m Tania Austen,” the woman said, and smiled. A strong southern accent. “Come on in.”

The house was as classically tidy and ordinary inside as it was on the outside. Persian rugs on hardwood floors, a rack on the wall for coats or bags that was emblazoned with the word Family. Jessica guessed the young woman lived with her parents. A stirring feeling had begun in her stomach as soon as she passed the threshold, a feeling at odds with her pretty surrounds. She followed Tania to a door off the kitchen and watched the woman fish for the right key from a bundle she extracted from her hoodie pocket.

“So you didn’t say on the phone which item you were interested in,” Tania said, slipping the key into a heavy padlock on the door. Jessica hadn’t said much on the phone at all, only that she wanted to speak to Tania about a purchase she had made the previous month. Sometimes Jessica found cases unraveled themselves much more easily when she just showed up, not announcing her presence as a cop, not trying to dig too deeply into the situation in which she was about to find herself. Too many questions would make doors start blowing shut. As she followed Tania down a set of narrow basement stairs, the woman ahead of her didn’t know Jessica was armed, that she technically required a warrant to enter the premises.

“I’m here to talk to you about Dayly Lawlor,” Jessica said vaguely.

“Ah, right,” Tania said with a smirk. “I’m not surprised. I haven’t even put those letters up on the site yet. But word gets around, doesn’t it?”

A rigidly organized basement. Jessica stood before a wide rosewood desk and looked at the shelves around her, custom-built display cabinets that were packed with labeled items. There were