Part 19 (2/2)
”You'll come to the hearing?”
”I'll be there.”
Clint sighed with relief.
”Did you think I wouldn't?”
”You're a cop, bro. One of them.”
”Listen to me, Clint. I didn't have anything to do with your arrest. You did all that by yourself. I'll help you now, but by G.o.d, if you get involved in drugs again, I'm out. I'll turn you in myself.”
”I know,” Clint said. ”Believe me, I've learned my lesson.” He gave Gage that crooked smile again.
But Gage had stopped believing it years ago. He'd believed Clint too many times. He wasn't going to offer him money. A place to live if he stayed clean, yes. He would help find him a job. He would pay tuition for college. But he knew he wasn't going to give Clint money.
”I'm going to make it,” Clint said.
Gage merely nodded.
”You still on internal affairs?”
”Public Integrity,” Gage corrected. ”No. I've been transferred to homicide.”
”That's good, isn't it? For you, I mean.”
”That's very good.”
”I'm glad then.”
”You still getting grief here because I'm a cop?”
”Nothing I can't manage. You got a girl yet?”
”Nope.”
”I appreciate your offer to stay with you, but I don't want to cramp your style.”
”Nothing to worry about there,” Gage said wryly.
”You still canoeing?”
”When I can.”
”Maybe we can go together.”
”You never used to be interested.”
”I've gained a new appreciation of the outdoors.” Clint was talking about parole as if it were a natural conclusion.
Gage warned, ”Don't be disappointed if the parole doesn't happen, Clint.”
”I won't,” he said. ”But you have to have hope in here.”
They talked a few moments longer, mostly about acquaintances they knew. Unfortunately, most of Clint's were either dead or in prison. He had gotten involved with drugs when he was sixteen and had never been able to overcome them. He'd turned to burglary to pay for his habit, as well as selling drugs himself. Small amounts, but enough to get him a long sentence on his second offense. A fight during his first year had sent him from a medium-security inst.i.tution to Angola.
Gage finally rose from his seat. ”I have to get back.”
”Have a big case?”
”Just got on the squad,” he said.
Clint rose, too, and held out his hand. ”Thanks for the books. And for coming.”
”I'll see you at the hearing.”
Gage left, not quite sure how he felt. He wanted freedom for Clint, yet he was afraid to hope. To trust. There had been too many promises in the past.
The sun was hot. The sky cloudless.
He drove faster than usual. He wanted to get back to New Orleans, where he had some control, where he wouldn't feel so much a failure. He wanted to make sure Meredith Rawson was safe despite Morris's a.s.surances that she was. She had purchased a pistol. She'd had no more attacks. The police were driving by her home every few hours.
It was all they could do. He knew it. The police department was understaffed, like police departments across the country, and Morris had promised to keep an eye on her. At any rate, it was no longer his business. She had made that clear. So had Morris.
Yet something kept p.r.i.c.kling him about the break-in and the attack on her in the garage. Something wasn't quite right.
It hadn't been mere anger. It was too well-planned. The destruction had been methodical. There had been purpose behind it.
'Was' it simply revenge?
Or could it be something else? A hunt for information, disguised by the destruction? Or an attempt to distract her?
Then the question would be, Distraction from what?
He pressed his foot on the gas pedal.
'NEW ORLEANS'.
Meredith started dialing numbers she'd found for those members of her mother's cla.s.s that she could identify.
Machines answered at two of them. She didn't want to leave a message. Her errand was too personal. She was luckier on the third call.
Mrs. Robert Laxton, formerly Pamela Cannon, answered on the second ring.
Once Meredith had identified herself, she related part of her errand. ”My mother is very ill,” she said. ”I want to notify her old friends but I'm not sure who they are, and she's too ill to give me a list. I understand you two were friends. I was hoping you could help me.”
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