Page 67 of Break Away
She could never accuse him of beingoblivious. She hitched a shoulder.
“Can I come in?”
She paused, then pulled the door openwider.
He walked in, and when he raised a hand as ifto touch her, she stepped back.
He dropped his hand. “What’s going on?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I’m a mess. I’ll letyou know when I figure it out.”
“You’re not a mess. You’re dealing with alot, so cut yourself some slack.”
And here he was acting all understanding.
With another shrug, because that was aboutall she could come up with, she turned to the kitchen where she putthe kettle on to heat water for tea and set the container from thecafé in the microwave. She retrieved two bowls from the cupboard.Lucy rested her chin on the counter.
Zoey glanced at the dog dish. It looked likeit had been sucked clean by a vacuum. “Out, Lucy.” Zoey pointed tothe living room. “Go lie down.” When Lucy trudged to her spot infront of the fireplace, Zoey turned to Levi. “I’m heating soup,which I’ll share with you, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t want you reading anything intoit.”
There was that hand through the hair thingthat he did whenever he was agitated. He’d be an awful pokerplayer. “Jesus, Zoey. I have no idea where I stand with you, andI’m not a playing games kind of guy.”
“Are you a shooting an unarmed black man kindof guy?” She slapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to saythat. She’d meant to ask him what had happened, to let himexplain.
He jerked back, then his face went carefullyblank. “What do you think you know about it?”
“Not what you told me, because I’ve asked youwhy you left Oakland, and you didn’t share anything about ashooting.”
“And you’ve jumped to conclusions.”
“Which I wouldn’t have done if you’d told meyourself. What happened?”
“It sounds like you’ve already got thatfigured out. Who told you about it?”
“Maddy, but she didn’t explain what happened.She said I should talk to you.”
He narrowed his gaze. “But that’s not whatyou did. You search it online? Did you read reports about meshooting an unarmed man and decide I was guilty of murder? Thesethings are tried in the court of social media, truth be damned.”The words came out in a staccato burst of sound.
“If you had told me, I wouldn’t have had tosearch online.”
“So there’s nothing more to be said, isthere?” His eyes turned an ice blue. “I came by to tell you that wesearched Clauson’s self-storage unit in Bishop this afternoon.”
Zoey wrapped her arms around herself as achill skittered down her spine. She tried to focus on Levi’s words,and not that she’d made a big mistake. “And?”
“He’d been there ahead of us. The securitycamera from Saturday morning showed him carrying out two long gunsin cases.”
“So it was him shooting at me today.”
“Could have been. Did he ever spout off, vowrevenge against you, complain that you’d ruined his life, or somesuch crap?” He might have been any cop requesting information in adispassionate tone, emotional distance clearly marked.
“Not to me, but you can talk with my mom. Hemight have said something to her. If he did, she didn’t pass it onto me. Are you going to arrest him again?”
“When we find him. He wasn’t at his house andis in violation of the conditions of his bond. Do you remember ifhe had friends he hung out with when he lived here, someone whomight give him a place to hide out?”
She shook her head. “From what I remember,his friends were all cops.”
