B007GFGTIY EBOK (4 page)

Hayden felt the tension leave the room, so he decided it was safe to approach his friend, cautiously. He made his movements deliberate and nonthreatening. Shane’s muscles remained tight, but he didn’t strike out or shrink back. Hayden came up behind him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, Shane,” Hayden whispered as he leaned in to take the knife. “Let’s see what we can work out.”

Hayden’s hand was within an inch of the knife when Shane finally tipped the balance. He yelled out as if Hayden had stabbed him and snapped his arm back. Shane’s elbow smashed Hayden in the face, connecting with his eyebrow. Hayden’s head snapped back and dots of light that burned with thousand-watt intensity burst across his vision. A wave of nausea hit, leaving him light-headed. He staggered back, clipped the mattress, and went down hard on his back, cracking his head against a wall.

Shane yanked the knife out of the box spring and fled the bedroom.

Hayden jerked himself up, triggering an explosion inside his skull that ensured he remained supine. He needed a moment for the pain to pass.

A crash came from somewhere in the house. The noise cleaved Hayden’s injured brain in two. He heard Shane curse, then the whine of the garage door opening.

“Shit,” Hayden murmured.

He rolled over and climbed to his feet, using the wall for support. The nausea returned and he steadied himself before staggering through the bedroom doorway. He clambered down the stairs and felt every jarring footfall inside his skull.

A car engine roared to life. Hayden yanked the front door open in time to see Shane’s Infiniti sedan reverse out of his garage and come to a messy halt in the middle of the street. He called out to Shane, but Shane stomped on the gas and sped away.

“Jesus Christ, Shane.”

Shane was no longer just a danger to himself or Hayden. He was now a high-speed weapon.

Hayden bottled his pain and charged across the lawn to his car. He threw himself behind the wheel.

Shane’s complaining neighbor emerged from his home and stood in his driveway. The security light lit up his angry expression.

Hayden gunned the engine to his Mitsubishi Eclipse and pulled a fast U-turn using the angry neighbor’s driveway. The neighbor jumped back when Hayden drove straight toward him.

“I’m calling the cops,” he yelled.

“Good,” Hayden yelled back. He wanted the cops to catch him. If the cops caught him, they caught Shane. He gave the angry neighbor enough time to get his license plate before stamping on the gas.

Shane had a four-block jump on Hayden and extended it. Recklessness was his advantage. He didn’t care for his or anyone else’s welfare. There weren’t many people on the road, but he elbowed other vehicles aside, drove in the oncoming lane, and failed to stop for lights or signs. Only self-preservation on the part of the other drivers prevented a wreck.

Hayden wasn’t about to adopt Shane’s recklessness, and he had no option but to watch Shane’s lead stretch and stretch. As long as he kept visual contact with Shane, he didn’t care about his lead. He might not be able to prevent him from getting to where he wanted, but he could stop him from doing whatever he planned to do when he got there.

Shane took the surface roads and picked up Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. He went west toward San Anselmo. The road was narrow and slow through town. Hayden cut into Shane’s lead, but that advantage disappeared once Shane passed through neighboring Fairfax. The road opened up and Shane disappeared into the distance.

Hayden couldn’t lose him now. He got his cell out and called Shane’s number. “Please have your cell,” he murmured as the phone rang.

Hayden didn’t have a clue where Shane was going. It had to be important, but not much existed beyond Fairfax—just some unincorporated townships and parklands. Of course, in Shane’s current state of mind, he could be chasing after anything. Hayden didn’t care what Shane was chasing, as long as he stopped.

Hayden had just about given up hope when Shane answered the phone. “Stop following me.”

“I can’t. I want to help.”

“It’s too late for that.”

Hayden eyed his speedometer. His speed had dropped since Shane answered the phone. Multitasking wasn’t possible at breakneck speeds. Something had to give. He just hoped talking was slowing Shane down, too.

“Shane, where are you going?”

“Far away.”

“You can’t outrun your problems.”

“Who says I’m running?”

Hayden didn’t like Shane’s tone. The craziness he’d witnessed at his friend’s house was gone, replaced by a robotic cool. The calmness did nothing to settle his nerves. The quantum personality shifts didn’t bode well.

“OK, if you’re not running, can I come with you?”

“No.”

“Goddamn it, Shane. Where are you going?”

“Somewhere good.”

Hayden raced past a sign for the Samuel P. Taylor State Park. Forestry land closed in around the road, shrouding it from the night sky. A creek snaked alongside the road, occasionally crossing under, then back across. The road coiled up into a series of twists and turns. Shane had been out of sight for some time, but he hadn’t left this road. There was nowhere to turn off.

“Tell me about the attachment. What is it?”

“Delete it. Forget it. It can’t help anyone.”

“Then tell me about it.”

“I should hang up now.”

“No. Don’t. I’m your friend and you’re treating me like an outsider. Is that fair—to either of us?”

That gave Shane pause. Hayden listened to Shane’s engine slow, then rev up as it worked the curves in the road. He couldn’t be that far ahead. Hayden powered down his window and listened. Nothing but wind noise poured through the open window.

“Yes, you are my friend,” Shane answered. “You deserve answers, but it’s too late for that.”

“It’s not. While I care, it’s never too late.”

“I’m sorry, it is.”

The sound of Shane’s car coming to a fast stop on dirt followed by the pinging of the open-door sensor came down the line. Hayden cursed. Shane had beaten him to his destination. Hayden floored the gas pedal.

“This is where I say good-bye.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is,” Shane said and hung up.

Hayden tossed his phone down and put everything into his driving. He threw the Mitsubishi into the switchbacks. The coupe slewed across the road but maintained its speed. He tried to imagine how far Shane would be getting on foot. Not far compared to the frightening speed registered on Hayden’s speedometer. There was still a chance he’d catch up with him.

He threw his car into a blind right bend and his heart stopped.

The road stretched ahead before it disappeared around another bend. Before the bend, a wooden-truss bridge built for pedestrians crossed low over the road and high over a creek. Shane had climbed to the top of the bridge. A rope trailed from his neck to the wooden beam.

Hayden stamped on the brakes. His front wheel slid off the roadway and onto the dirt. The Mitsubishi threatened to send him off the road and into the creek, but the other three wheels averted tragedy. He came to a messy stop in the middle of the road as his cell rang. He recovered it from the passenger foot well. Shane’s name lit up the small screen.

“Stay where you are or I’ll jump.”

“Shane, climb back down.” Hayden didn’t ask. He instructed. The time for pandering was over. “We’ll go home and deal with this. I’ll get you help—anything you need—but you get down from there.”

“It’s too late for help.”

Hayden’s mouth went dry to the point where he couldn’t swallow.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I didn’t. You followed. I’m doing this for me.”

How could Shane be this far gone? A week ago they’d been laughing and joking. Reconnecting after years lost. Now Shane wasn’t just threatening suicide, he intended on carrying it out.

“You are right about one thing,” Shane said. “You are my friend.”

“Then you know if you do anything stupid here, you’ll hurt me.”

“Yes.” There was a finality to his answer.

“A friend wouldn’t do this to another friend.”

Shane didn’t answer for a long time. “Then I’m a shitty friend.”

Hayden was frightened—truly petrified. Shane was calling the shots, reducing Hayden to a spectator. Pressure built in Hayden’s chest, cutting off his breath. He let out a sob. He hoped Shane wouldn’t hear, but he did.

“I’m sorry, Hayden, but you don’t understand what they’ve done. What I’ve done. It’s terrible. I’m going to hurt you and so many others, but I have to do it.”

“Shane, I don’t get this. Explain it to me.”

Hayden stalled for time. He hoped and feared for another motorist to change the dynamic.

“Maybe another time.”

There was a smile in Shane’s reply. It felt like punch in the heart to Hayden. Shane sounded human again. His insanity had been pushed aside to let a moment of clarity shine through, but the clarity was flawed. No sane man had a conversation while he had a rope around his neck.

“Please, Shane. Don’t.” Hayden was spent. It was everything he could muster.

From across the distance, picked out in the moonlight penetrating the trees and in Hayden’s headlights, Shane shook his head and tossed the phone away.

Hayden lifted his foot off the clutch and stamped on the gas. The car leaped forward, accelerating hard. A hundred yards wasn’t a large distance to travel. Sprinters covered it in less than ten seconds. If he could position his car under the bridge, Shane wouldn’t have anywhere to jump.

But a hundred yards didn’t measure up to the speed of gravity and the length of rope around Shane’s neck. He jumped, coming to the end of the tough drop in the blink of an eye. Hayden was nowhere near saving Shane when his neck snapped.

Hayden didn’t rush from the car. There was no point. He just sat in stunned silence, watching Shane’s limp body rock slowly back and forth in the night.

D
etective Ruben Santiago was dressed and waiting when Deputy Mark Rice called him on his cell. The call from the Marin County Sheriff’s Department watch commander had awoken his wife, then him when she drove an elbow into his ribs. Santiago let himself out of his house without reawakening his family. Rice sat parked on the street in an unmarked unit.

Under normal circumstances, he would have worked the call alone, but Rice was on trial with the detectives’ unit and paired with a senior detective. Rice was an OK guy in Santiago’s book. He was ex-navy and keen to get ahead in law enforcement. If he wanted to get ahead, then there was no reason he shouldn’t get woken up in the middle of the night, too.

Santiago jogged across his front lawn to Rice’s vehicle. The moment his butt connected with the seat, Rice stepped on the gas.

Santiago glanced over his shoulder at his home, dark and quiet. It had gotten quieter since his son, Alex, had joined the marines and quieter still since he’d been deployed. Not a moment slipped by without his thoughts turning to Alex’s safety. Rice gave him hope. He’d survived his time on active duty. Alex would, too. He returned his gaze to the road ahead.

“So, what do we know?” he asked.

“Nothing that makes a whole lot of sense. A little over an hour ago, Shane Fallon, twenty-eight, left his home in San Rafael, drove out to the Sam Taylor Park, and hanged himself from a bridge.”

Another suicide, Santiago thought. He hoped it wasn’t the beginning of a hot new trend in Marin. He hadn’t even finished with the paperwork on Sundip Chaudhary’s death yet.

“Witnesses?”

“One,” Rice answered. “Hayden Duke, a friend of Fallon’s.”

“A friend? What were these guys doing there at one a.m.? Sightseeing?”

“Duke claims Fallon was tweaking and he took off. Duke followed, and when he caught up, Fallon was standing on top of the bridge with a rope around his neck. Before he could stop him, he jumped.”

“Tweaking,” Santiago echoed with disdain. Suddenly, this simple suicide had gotten complicated. “Are we sure Fallon wasn’t pushed?”

“It sounds solid, but those are the limitations of a single-witness account.”

Rice cut through residential streets to pick up Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. He wound up the speed and swept through the sleeping towns with his lights on but siren off. Santiago gripped the sides of his seat. He hated fast driving. Rice’s breakneck speeds didn’t last long. The road coiled up when they entered the state park, forcing him to slow.

Red and blue lights spilling from between the trees told Santiago they’d reached their destination. Rice slowed for a sharp bend, and organized chaos came into view. Deputies had closed the road down to one lane. Two Marin Sheriff’s units hemmed in an ambulance, an Infiniti sedan, and Mitsubishi coupe. Rice stopped the car, joining the end of the daisy chain of vehicles.

A rope dangled from the bridge, but no body hung from its end. Santiago counted his blessings at not being faced with a corpse, and he and Rice slipped from the car.

The canopy of trees retained all remnants of the previous day’s heat. That and the scent of pine took the unpleasant edge off the night’s duties.

The deputy minding the store jogged over to them and officially offloaded the case onto Santiago. He wouldn’t have minded so much if the guy hadn’t looked so damn happy about it. The deputy ran through the facts, which didn’t go any further than the potted history Rice had given him already. Santiago thanked the deputy by giving him the traffic-control duties.

“I want statements from you and your partner by the end of your shift.”

The deputy nodded. “You’ll have them.”

Santiago didn’t have to ask for the body’s location. He spotted the yellow shock blanket covering a corpse at the edge of the road. One of the deputies had been smart enough to park his cruiser in front of the body to block it from prying eyes.

“Coroner’s investigator?” Santiago asked.

“En route.”

“How’d you get him down?” Rice asked.

“We didn’t. The witness did.”

Interesting, Santiago thought. Maybe there was more to the story after all. “Really? Where is he? I’d like to ask him why he did that.”

“With the paramedics. Fallon worked him over before his swan dive.”

Santiago and Rice went over to the ambulance, where a female paramedic crouched in front of Hayden. She applied the finishing touches to him while he sat on the ambulance’s bumper. She placed a Band-Aid on Hayden’s forehead.

Despite the signs of assault, Hayden Duke was a clean-cut-looking guy. He was slim, with brown eyes and hair, and still had the fresh face of youth. Judging from the way he dressed, he was a Dockers catalog gold-star member. He wasn’t quite the person Santiago had pictured under the circumstances.

Santiago got introductions out of the way, then asked the paramedic, “How is he?”

“Nothing too serious. Abrasions.” She pointed to where Shane had caught him with the blade. “A nasty contusion on the back of the head. Maybe a slight concussion.”

“And a killer headache,” Hayden added.

The paramedic smiled. “And a killer headache, apparently.”

Without being told, the paramedic left them to their business.

“Can we talk, Mr. Duke?” Santiago asked.

“Sure.”

“Let’s get out of these bright lights,” Rice said.

They walked Hayden over to the turnout overlooking the creek. Santiago positioned himself facing the bridge, forcing Hayden to keep his back to where Shane had jumped. There was a time when the sight of the severed rope dangling from the bridge would help to open the witness up.

“I’ve been apprised of events, but I have some questions for you,” Santiago said. “You’re OK answering them?”

“Sure.”

“Did you know Shane well?”

“We were college friends.”

“Is there any next of kin we should contact?”

“He has a sister, Rebecca. She lives in LA.”

“You live in Fairfield. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a long way from home on a school night,” Santiago said.

“I work with Shane at Marin Design Engineering. I’m on contract with them.”

“So you commute?” Santiago asked.

“No. I work from home.”

“OK. I think I understand. Why the late-night call to Mr. Fallon? Eleven thirty is a little late for a business call.”

“MDE is under a tight deadline and they’re working around the clock on this one. Shane’s my contact for questions and I had a question, so I contacted him.”

“What was the question?”

Hayden reeled off some technobabble Santiago didn’t understand. His response sounded solid enough, but Santiago saw the lie. Hayden looked up and away—a classic liar’s reflex. Santiago sighed inside. He didn’t like it when witnesses lied. It never worked out well.

“OK,” Santiago said. “It says here you drove from Fairfield to San Rafael, some fifty miles, just because Shane didn’t sound like himself.”

“Yes.”

Santiago cocked his head. “Excuse me, but that sounds a little overzealous.”

Hayden glanced over in Shane’s direction. “Considering my friend is dead, I wouldn’t say that.”

Santiago tapped the report. “You told the deputy that Shane claimed to have done something terrible. Any idea what that terrible thing could be?”

“No.”

Hayden didn’t look up and away this time.

“But you’re good friends. You must have some idea.”

“We are, but we’d lost touch until last week.”

“How long were you out of touch?”

“Three years.”

“You said Shane seemed high.”

“It seemed that way. He was delusional. He trashed his home looking for bugs that weren’t there. I don’t think he really knew who I was.”

“Is that why he tried to stab you?”

“He didn’t stab me.”

Santiago pointed at the bloodstained holes in Hayden’s shirt. “Didn’t he? Whether you like it or not, your friend assaulted you.”

Santiago watched Hayden gear up to say something but then bite it back. He wished Hayden hadn’t. He might let something slip if he lost his temper. Santiago decided to push a little harder.

“Do you know what drugs Shane used?”

“He didn’t use drugs,” Hayden snapped.

“But you hadn’t seen him in three years. You don’t know what he was into.”

The remark took the fight out of Hayden. “I know my friend. He wasn’t an addict. He wasn’t the type.”

“Do you think we’ll find drugs in his system?”

“Yes,” Hayden conceded.

Rice brought out his iPhone and after a minute of fussing with it held the screen up for Santiago to see. It was Hayden Duke’s rap sheet. He had drug possession and dealing charges against his name, but the charges looked to have been dropped.

Santiago nodded at Rice and he put the phone away.

“Mr. Duke,” Santiago said. “Everyone has a skeleton or two in their closets and understandably they don’t want them aired to the world. Now, I’m not looking to trash Shane Fallon’s name. I just want to get to the heart of the matter. Mr. Fallon was disturbed. If drugs pushed him over the edge, I want to know. It’ll save a lot of time and embarrassment if I can get answers now.” He paused for Hayden to absorb the speech. “Now, did you provide Shane with the drugs he took tonight?”

“What kind of bullshit question is that?”

“Steady, Mr. Duke,” Rice said.

“Steady, my ass,” Hayden shot back. “I just saw my friend hang himself and now you’re looking to bust me for drugs?”

“You do have multiple drug charges on your record.”

“My record? I don’t have a record. You should check your facts. My college roommate, Paul Bishop, has the record. The son of a bitch was dealing weed and he planted it on me when our dorm got raided. I had to bust my ass to prove it was him and not me.”

Santiago let the vehement denial bounce off him. He’d seen this act a thousand times. He’d get Rice to dig a little deeper. Hayden could be clean, then again…

“OK, Mr. Duke. No offense intended. I do have to pursue every avenue.”

“Yeah, right.”

Time to switch gears, Santiago thought. “Why did you cut the body down?”

Hayden looked back at the bridge. “Shane was hanging over the road. Every passing vehicle would have clipped him. Cutting him down was the humane thing to do.”

Santiago stared at the low bridge. He doubted an 18-wheeler would make it underneath. “How’d you get him down?”

“I drove my car underneath him to support his body, climbed on the roof, cut the rope, and lowered him down onto the ground.”

“Couldn’t have been pleasant. Especially since he was a friend.”

“It wasn’t.”

“What did you cut Shane down with—the knife he used on you?”

“I have a box cutter in the car.”

“You’re very practical.”

Realization lit up Hayden’s eyes. Santiago had lost his element of surprise. Hayden knew he was being tested. He’d be wary now. It didn’t bother Santiago. Liars gave themselves away in other ways.

“Put it down to my engineering background.”

“I need to get this on the record,” Santiago said. “I’d like you to return to my office and make an official statement. Please follow us, Mr. Duke.”

Santiago and Rice walked Hayden back to his car before getting into their own. Rice led the two-car procession back to their home base at the Civic Center.

“You think he’s lying,” Rice said.

“He’s definitely holding something back,” Santiago said. “That’s for sure.”

“Do you think he pushed Fallon?”

“Don’t know. It may have been a drug party gone bad. I won’t know until I’ve squeezed Mr. Duke a little harder.”

It was still dark, but it no longer felt like night by the time Hayden left the sheriff’s office in San Rafael. The dashboard clock said it was 4:16 a.m. He’d be lucky if he got an hour’s sleep before he had to leave for work. That was if he could get to sleep at all. He felt like skipping work, but he knew that as a contractor it would be unprofessional for him to take a sick day.

The roads were clear and he tried pushing the speed but found he didn’t have the energy for it. Santiago and Rice had taken all he had to give. The interview had taken hours and Santiago had kept pressing the possible drug element because of that damn bogus drug arrest, instead of dealing with the situation at hand. He was supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but it was never that way with the cops. Guilt first and last, regardless of the facts.

The grilling took him back to when the campus cops had busted him. Once they found the drugs, it had been game over. There was no further investigation needed. He was guilty. It was an attitude shared by everyone at the school, except for Shane. He and Hayden had teamed up to prove his innocence by getting a video of Paul buying and selling drugs. Even with this cast-iron proof, the cops were reluctant to change their stance, but they did. Hayden had never trusted cops after that, and Santiago had done nothing to restore his faith in law enforcement.

Eventually, Santiago had backed off, let him sign his statement and go. Hayden took no comfort in the move. It felt like a trap. Santiago was giving him all the rope he needed to hang himself. It was a wasted tactic. There was no rope. He had no involvement in tonight’s tragedy other than being a witness. The only question that needed answering was why Shane killed himself, and no crime was attached to that tragedy.