nodded, all humor gone now. He knew what the last year had cost Brady. He said, “How was it?”
“About how you’d expect.”
Tom nodded. “What did she come back for?”
“She’s meeting Jason Briggs tonight.”
“Really,” Tom said, eyes narrowing. “I heard he got out of juvie. What’s she meeting him for?”
“He wanted to talk to her. Maybe you could keep your eyes open tonight just in case there’s trouble.”
“Where are they meeting? What time?”
“Don’t know, she won’t say.”
“You going to tail her?”
Brady shook his head. “She’d kill me if she found out I was butting into her business.”
“So?”
“So, she’s right.”
“But you want me to keep an eye out,” Tom said, a smile pulling at his lips.
Brady looked away.
“Don’t worry, buddy, I’ll mention it to Chief Dixon, too. He can tell anyone else he sees fit.”
Brady bit his tongue at this suggestion but said nothing as Tom drove off. He just hoped Lara never got wind that half the Riverport police force would soon know—thanks to him—that she had a meeting with Jason Briggs.
The thought occurred to Brady as he climbed on the Harley that Jason’s driver’s license had been yanked. Using a little deduction, that meant Lara would probably meet him in town. Like maybe at the teen center or the diner or even Lara’s mother’s house. He toyed with doing a little research but let the idea go.
Lara had made it clear she didn’t want him in her face. Tom was going to keep a sharp eye peeled just in case. That was enough.
He got to his place about five o’clock and ate a tuna sandwich while standing at the counter. It was a new place, about as nondescript as they come. He’d changed just about everything in the last year, including his residence. The old place had reminded him too much of Lara.
At first, after the shooting, he’d toyed around with leaving Riverport himself. Without his job on the force, without Lara, what was there to stay for? But then the Good Neighbors job came along and he admitted to himself that, for good or bad, Riverport was home. Garrett could move around the country all he wanted—Brady would stay here.
After dinner, he usually went back to the Good Neighbors house to map out the next day’s activities. No reason not to do so again tonight. He couldn’t sit in the impersonal apartment longing for a life he no longer had. He was too restless to read or watch television. If he couldn’t settle down at work, he’d take the Harley out to the river and use an evening swim to work out his anxiety.
He and Lara used to do that, most of the time on the spur of the moment after a movie or dinner out. He could still picture her in the scraps of satin and lace she called underwear, swimming in the river, honey-blond hair mingling with the darkening water, the summer smell of blackberries, the taste of her skin. She wore summer the way some women wore diamonds…
He’d go anyway. Despite all that.
It took him two hours to plan the next day’s work and finish up a few odd jobs. It was nearing nine o’clock by the time he started home. He went the long way in order to avoid the Kirk house. He wasn’t due there for over an hour and he didn’t want Lara catching sight of him and accusing him of spying.
He was driving down Main Street near the west end of town, undecided about the swim, when he spotted Tom talking to what appeared to be a high-school girl standing beside a little blue car. She’d probably been caught speeding. As usual, when Tom put on the charm, a scared kid relaxed. Brady knew he wouldn’t give her a ticket, he’d cut her some slack. Back in the day, Brady had actually talked to Tom about his live-and-let-live take on citing minors, questioning whether he was actually doing a kid much good by not holding them accountable for minor offenses. Tom had laughed him off.
And again, that ache of no longer belonging. He missed being out on the street, helping people, looking for miscreants, figuring things out. Sure, he was still alive, he still walked and talked and worked and occasionally, even laughed. But it all seemed brittle and hollow. His life, abandoned.
Not wanting to talk to Tom again, he took a side street that led to the industrial side of town. There was a smattering of bars along the street. No doubt his father was holding up a stool at the River Rat or the Crosshairs. Brady avoided even looking in the open doors.
That’s when he caught sight of a guy on a bicycle who looked familiar. Of course. Hair shorter, body a little bigger, but that was Jason Briggs.
For one long second, options flashed through Brady’s mind. Turn around and go the other way, pull over to the curb, find a cold drink and do nothing or…
Brady slowed way down, giving Jason a good lead. He waited until Jason had cleared the edge of town and disappeared around a corner before taking off, hanging back, trailing him but not close.
What was the harm of trailing Jason if Lara never knew?
It looked as though the kid was headed for the river. Maybe he just wanted a swim. Maybe Brady would join him—if Lara wasn’t there. Who knows what Jason might talk about while paddling around the river on a summer evening?
Traffic was light, so following Jason took skill. Brady left lots of room between them, uneasy with the inevitable times Jason disappeared around a curve. But Brady knew this road and there was only one place it really went—to the river. Unless the kid was headed over the bridge and on up to St. George.
Brady came around the latest hairpin curve to find the road ahead empty. This was where it branched, straight across the bridge, or an abrupt right on the south side of the river. The bridge had two cars on it but no bikes. That left the southern road and it appeared empty. Brady concluded Jason had ridden his bike into the turnout on this side of the bridge.
So, he wasn’t going to swim. The bank there was too steep, the river too deep thanks to the proximity of the bridge excavation. There was a far better spot just a quarter of a mile downstream where the river made a wide turn.
As the noisy motorcycle would ruin a stealthy approach, Brady steered the Harley behind a few trees, took off his helmet and started walking.
He found Jason still astride his bike, feet planted on the ground, facing the road. Waiting. He was wearing earphones attached to an iPod in his pocket. He was a lanky, fair-haired kid with shifty eyes, dressed in baggy shorts and flip-flops. Brady remembered the punches he’d thrown the night of the shooting, and his own advice to Jason: stop drinking. Well, they didn’t serve adult beverages in juvenile detention, so hopefully a little time away from temptation had been good for him.
Brady ducked behind some very dense Oregon grape bushes. He scooted along until an abandoned wooden pavilion provided cover from the road and the parking area. The downside of this position was he couldn’t see the road. The upside was twofold—he could, by contorting a bit, see the clearing and no one could see him.
Ten long minutes
