Page 12 of Concluded
Then the sensation suddenly ebbed and he dropped the stone into Ashley’s waiting palm.
Her pupils were wide and her face flushed, as if she shared Dee’s arousal, and she was licking her lips.“I wish it wouldpour,” she shouted.
For a few moments, nothing happened.Dee was both relieved and deeply disappointed.But then a bank of dark clouds appeared over the horizon.They rushed in, gathering moisture from the ocean as they went, until they swallowed the sun.The beachgoers all looked up and then started scurrying around to gather their belongings and reach the steps that led up to the parking lot.The temperature dropped sharply, making Dee shiver.
And then the rain began.
Just a drizzle at first, but within seconds it escalated to a shower and then a full-fledged downpour.Dee and Ashley were drenched, but she didn’t seem to care.She leapt up from the bench and danced around, face lifted skyward, her blonde hair turned wet-dark.
Although Dee was appalled—at himself, at Ashley, and at their results—he found himself laughing: guffaws and hoots that were audible even over the deluge and that felt good in his chest, as if his lungs had finally been released from tight bindings.He watched as families struggled to climb the stairs and as rivulets formed in the soil between the sidewalk and the small eroded bank leading down to the sand.The rivulets widened to small streams.Little chunks of dirt broke off at the edge, tumbling down and out of sight.On the road, cars splashed through deepening puddles.Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed.
“It’s beautiful!”Ashley yelled.
Dee found himself wondering how much more rain it would take to erode away the entire cliff and send nearby houses tumbling into the surf.To wash vehicles off the road.To?—
“Make it stop,” he whispered.Then he repeated it much more loudly: “Make it stop!”He didn’t know whether he was addressing Ashley, the gods, or himself.
Somebody listened.The torrent shut off abruptly, the clouds melted away like sugar on the tongue, and Dee and Ashley stood in the bright sunshine.He could see clouds of vapor as the moisture evaporated from their bodies and clothing.
“That was amazing!”Ashley skipped over to him, pulled him into a wet hug, and kissed his cheek.
He was shaking.“What are you?What am I?”
Instead of answering, she grabbed his hand and began towing him to the car.“We aredefinitelyinterested in you, baby!”
CHAPTER5
On the other end of the phone line, Henry sounded exasperated.“Wecan’tsend someone else, Achilles.Everyone’s out on assignment.HQ’s like a ghost town.I actually put in a call to East Coast HQ to see if we could borrow some people, but they’re maxed out too.”
Sitting in his rental car in Portland, Achilles groaned.“But somebody’s gotta go after him.I’m no Townsend, but my hunches are usually valid.And I have a feeling that something bad is going down with Dee Martell.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you.I’m saying I can’t do anything about it.Except tell you to find him.”
Someone was walking down the nighttime sidewalk with two dogs, both of them wearing glowing green collars.The dogs themselves were almost invisible in the darkness, so it looked as though the person was accompanied by a pair of tiny flying saucers.
“I was supposed to quit,” Achilles said.
“And I’m supposed to be furniture shopping with Dash.We’re redecorating the living room.But he’s in Hawaii and I’m here.”Henry sighed.“Look, Chief Grimes left me instructions about you.He said that if you ask for it, I should make sure you have whatever support you need.Except manpower.”
Had Grimes known that things would turn out this way, or had he simply prepared in case they did?It didn’t really matter, Achilles guessed.“Fine.Fine.I’m going to pad my expenses and nobody better complain.”
“You won’t hear a peep from me.”
Shit.How to even begin?Achilles felt a few moments of blank-minded panic before remembering that he was a detective—duh—with twenty years of experience.He’d tracked down all sorts of things over that time.“Can you get someone to put a trace on Martell’s phone?”Technically, this should require a warrant, but the Bureau generally seemed to find a way around that.
“Sure.I’ll ask Con to get on it, and one of us will call you when he’s successful.”
Achilles thanked Henry and ended the call.After procrastinating for a minute or two, he got out of the car and returned to the apartment, where he spent a while poking around.The only interesting items he found were a wooden box full of miscellaneous junk jewelry and other trinkets, and an unopened packet of THC gummies.Martell lived simply, it seemed.A few changes of casual clothing, a small assortment of thrift-store furniture, some basic groceries.
In addition to a small shelf of books, there was also a little stack beside the bed, all from the local library.Four of them were novels in a variety of genres, but one, surprisingly, was a book of poetry.Yeats.
Achilles took photos of everything.He really yearned to throw away the pizza and wash the dirty dishes, but for all he knew, this apartment could turn out to be a crime scene.He let them be.
Only when he gave a jaw-cracking yawn did he realize that he was exhausted.Today’s journey shouldn’t have taken that much out of him, but he was still recovering.He needed some food and a bed.
Henry had booked him a hotel downtown, the room a study in bland corporate pleasantness.There was an on-site restaurant off the lobby, so instead of exploring the local culinary offerings, Achilles went down and ate a giant burger and a lot of fries.When he returned to his room, he sat at the window and watched cars cross over the Willamette River.
The buzz of his phone startled him.
