Two bowls of cereal later, Lyra was back on the sofa with her laptop. She reread what she’d written last night and no longer thought it was brilliant. She tried a couple of other versions and finally was satisfied. She’d probably hate it in the afternoon, but for now it worked.
Sam came into the living room as she was typing. He was prepared to tell her that the new bodyguard didn’t work out and that he was determined to make certain that she would be safe when he left her—all of which was true—but Lyra didn’t ask why he was still there. She just smiled at him and went back to what she was doing.
“Lyra, do you want to go for a run before it gets too hot?” he asked.
“I ate two bowls of cereal.”
“How long ago?” he asked, walking toward her.
She looked at the clock on the computer screen. “A little over an hour.”
“Then let’s go.”
Lyra decided a run might get rid of some of the tension she was feeling. She hurried upstairs, put on shorts and a tank top, zipped her cell phone into a back pocket, and tied her running shoes.
Sam was waiting at the door. He watched her pull her hair back into a ponytail. Was there anything wrong with her? Perfect body, perfect smile, perfect … everything.
Lyra needed to run, to wear herself out so she would be too tired to worry about anything. It worked for a while. By the end of her three and a half miles, her mind was clearer. When she got into the shower, the water relaxed the rest of her. She stepped out of it energized.
She looked across the hall and saw Sam sitting on the bed, still sweaty from his run. She closed her bedroom door and hurriedly dressed. When she heard his shower running, she raced downstairs. As ridiculous as it was to admit, Lyra was hiding from him. She was determined to keep her distance.
Her cell phone rang. It was Detective O’Malley. “Where’s Agent Kincaid?” he asked after the preliminary how-are-you’s were finished. “I tried to call him, but it went to his voice mail.”
“He’s coming down the stairs now,” she told him. “Sam, Detective O’Malley’s on the phone.”
He took the phone and dropped down on the sofa next to her. After a minute of listening, Sam said, “Hey, you know I’d like to help, but I gave you a list to check out, and so far I haven’t heard a word—”
“Look,” O’Malley said on the other end of the line, “I’ve been swamped. You’ve got the entire FBI you could ask.”
Sam wasn’t quite so nice when he responded. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I get some agents in there to take over the case? I’ll call them right now.”
“Sam, it’s not your jurisdiction,” O’Malley argued.
“Now it is.” Cursing, he ended the call and put Lyra’s phone on the coffee table.
Lyra was stunned by the anger she’d heard in his voice. “Tell me what happened.”
“I’m tired of waiting. They’re dragging their feet on this.”
She touched his hand. “Didn’t you notice how crowded the station was? This is L.A. The police are underpaid and overworked. They have other investigations, and maybe I’m not a priority because I already have an FBI agent protecting me.”
“Screw it,” he snapped. “There was a bomb under the car. That alone makes it a priority. I’m getting a couple of agents in there to get copies of their reports. I’m not waiting any longer.”
“You’re frustrated because you’re not actively investigating. You’re babysitting me.”
He didn’t respond to her statement of fact.
“What list were you talking about?” she asked.
“I gave O’Malley some names I wanted checked out.”
“And he didn’t?”
“Right.”
“Why wouldn’t you ask your associates?”
“I did last night. Agent Trapp’s on it.”
She sat up. “Then why are you all over O’Malley?”
“He didn’t do what he said he’d do.”
“Who did you send the pictures to last night?”
“Trapp,” he answered.
“What about O’Malley?”
“No.”
Lyra was right; he was frustrated. She calmed him down and he didn’t even realize it. He watched her for a while as she sat engrossed in the research on her children’s film. Every now and then she would smile. He mentioned it to her.
“I had no idea how much I would enjoy this,” she said. “Even if my script doesn’t make it into the top five, I kind of think I’d like to do more of this sort of work.”
“Maybe a career is born.”
AGENT TRAPP CALLED SAM that afternoon. “You gave us an early Christmas present, Kincaid.”
“How’s that?”
“We looked at the pictures you sent us, and then went out to that park and hauled that safe in. You wouldn’t know about the case, local, happened over a year ago. An office was robbed, and the owner went out the window. Only thing of importance that was taken was his safe. The same safe we picked up today, thanks to your pictures. Owner’s name was engraved on it, too deep to file off. We ran the license plate of the van. It’s registered to a Charles Brody.”
“Did you get the other two?”
“Yes. All we had to do was follow good ol’ Charlie. He led us to Frank Merriam. He’s the one in the suit. Lou Stack’s the other one.”
“Merriam,” Sam said. “I know that name. He’s connected with a guy named Rooney.”
“That’s right. A murder/suicide. Rooney worked with Merriam. They each had their own company, but they did a lot of bad deals together. We never had enough to put ‘em away.”
“When are you picking them up?”
“Waiting on a warrant now. They say a picture is worth a thousand words? Those pictures of the three of them being so careful not to touch the safe, and after they drop it, Merriam looks up at the camera.” Trapp sounded giddy. “Priceless,” he crooned. “We’re finally getting Merriam with a picture.”
“This isn’t locking together the way it should,” Sam cautioned.
“What do you mean?”
“How did Merriam know about Paraiso Park? All of these pieces should fit together. Merriam knows Rooney. Rooney’s wife has a yard sale. Lyra takes some books, DVDs, and a few CDs. And what about Flynn? How is he involved?”
“They’ve looked through every book, watched every movie, and listened to every CD.”
Not all of them, Sam realized. “Let me call you back.”
Sam looked around the room. “Lyra, where is that DVD and the CD I found in your car?”
She could hear the urgency in his tone. “On top of the television.” She closed her laptop and got up. “Do you want to watch it now or after dinner?”
Sam found them. He opened the CD, saw the label, then opened the DVD case. No label. Bingo.
“We’re going to watch it now.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “Do you want some popcorn or a drink?”
“If I’m right, this isn’t The African Queen.”
She folded her arms and stood in front of the television while Sam inserted the disk. He pulled her back to the sofa and sat down next to her.
The camera was focused on a heavyset man. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand. The back of a man’s head was visible in the corner and he was talking.
“That’s the man at the park yesterday,” Lyra said in amazement.
“His name’s Frank Merriam. He’s the one Bill Rooney worked with.”
“But how …” she began, confused.
“Just listen,” Sam told her as he propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward.
“How did you ever manage to push him out of the window?” the man asked Merriam.
Merriam chuckled. “You should’ve been there, Rooney. He never saw it coming. I’m only sorry I couldn’t get more out of him.” He took a sip of his whiskey and reached in his breast pocket for a cigar. “He opened the safe for me. After I took everything out, I decided it was a nice safe.” He shrugged. “I should have looked closer. Anyway, Charlie and Stack got a dolly from the basement and rolled it out to my car. The thing was so heavy, I thought it was going to pop my tires.”
“What did you do about—” Rooney started to ask.
“Bernie? Oh, that was easy. I went back up to the twentieth floor, opened the window, and tossed him out. He was just coming to as I shoved him over the sill.”
“What about Tunney?” Rooney continued.
Lyra was mesmerized. Rooney brought up three different “accidents” to Merriam as he poured glass after glass of whiskey.
“He has absolutely no guilt,” she said.
“It’s a business to him,” Sam replied.
Merriam talked about shaking down men and women who had borrowed money from him at an exorbitant rate.
When the screen went black, Sam ejected the disk and said, “I want to get this to Trapp.”
“You should make a copy in case something happens to this one.”
“They’ll do it down at the field office,” he assured her.
“So that’s what all of this has been about. The disk is what they were looking for. I told you it had something to do with that yard sale.”
“Rooney must have taped it as blackmail. Merriam had to be desperate. He knew he’d go away for life if this DVD ever got out.”
Lyra looked up at Sam with tremendous relief. “I can’t believe this. It’s finally over.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
WAKING UP WITHOUT HIM BESIDE HER FELT STRANGE. Lyra looked in the other bedroom just to be certain he was gone, and there wasn’t even a hint that he had been there.
It was better this way, she thought. Watching him leave would have been too stressful.
Vick, the new bodyguard, was in his late forties. He was stocky and had a thick mustache. He was polite but didn’t engage in conversation, and he was very serious about his job. Lyra knew he would do his best to keep her safe, and she appreciated that he left her alone to work.
Detective O’Malley called her in the afternoon. “Watch the evening news. The three men in the pictures you took are in custody. The man in the suit was Frank Merriam. The two guys who worked for him are already talking, trying to make a deal.”
“What about Michael Flynn?” she asked. “Has he been arrested?”
“Not yet, but soon,” he promised. “Merriam won’t talk until he gets a deal.”
“Will he get it?”
“Oh, yes. If he can hand over Flynn … that would be a real coup. Merriam might hold out awhile, but the D.A. will sit down with him and his attorney real soon.”
They talked for a few minutes, then O’Malley said, “Kincaid was right to get angry. He gave me that list of names and I didn’t look into all of them. Might have caught Merriam sooner if I had.”
“He’s locked up now,” she said.
“You can breathe easy, Lyra. Just let us wrap up a few things on our end, and you should be able to get back to your routine in no time at all.”
That evening, all the local news channels reported the arrest of Merriam and his two accomplices for the alleged murder of Bernie Jaworski. The police weren’t releasing any of the details of the case, but they stated that they planned to expand their investigation to include Merriam’s possible involvement in other criminal activity. Lyra switched back and forth among the various channels to see if one offered more detail than the other, but they all said and showed the same thing: Merriam in handcuffs being led into the police station. His head was down and he said nothing as reporters pointed their microphones at him and pressed for a comment.
Agent Trapp stepped in front of the microphones to represent the FBI. He talked about the collaborative effort of the FBI and the L.A. Police Department in bringing Merriam to justice. He singled out the work of Detective O’Malley and promised that they would continue to work together until everyone involved was arrested.
Lyra watched the reports and listened carefully to the interviews, but she was just as intent on scanning the faces of the people in the background. Was Sam there? She didn’t see him, but she wondered if he was involved with the case. Or had he moved on? Maybe he had delivered the disk to Agent Trapp and resumed his regular duties, which meant that, after he presented his last two lectures in California, he would be returning to D.C. Lyra switched off the TV and reached for her laptop. She needed to keep busy so that any thoughts of Sam would stay out of her head. Nothing good would come from wondering about him.
———
LYRA WASN’T ALLOWED TO go home for two more days. She assumed the detectives and Agent Trapp were wrapping up the case and wanted her out of the way. She had spent as much time as she could on her project, researching children’s psychology, reading articles about play and the development of the imagination, and she was anxious to begin filming. Once she’d finished all of her research and had outlined the specifics of her project, she gathered her work, printed it out, and got it in the mail before the deadline.
Vick drove her back to her apartment and then left for another job. Without a car, she felt trapped. She called the service department at the dealership to find out when her car would be ready and got more bad news. The manager gave her a rough estimate which was outrageous, so Lyra called her friend Lucy and asked her to drive her over to the SUV dealership. She paid for the repairs that had already been made, then drove to the BMW dealership, traded in her clunker, and purchased a brand-new car.
The first night back in her apartment, she was all alone. Sidney had gone back east to stay with her family for a few days and wouldn’t be coming home until tomorrow. Lyra unpacked her things and went to the kitchen to find something for dinner. The refrigerator was bare, except for a carton of milk, a block of cheese, and two bottles of beer. The expiration date on the milk had come and gone days ago, so she poured it into the sink and tossed the carton in the trash. She grabbed the cheese and a bottle of beer, found a box of saltines in the cabinet, and took them into the living room. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back against the sofa, she ate her meager meal.
The quiet made her uncomfortable. She had been alone in her apartment hundreds of times, but she’d never felt this emptiness before. She was used to having a guard. Maybe that’s why she was feeling lonely now. She had grown accustomed to having someone around. No, not someone, she finally admitted to herself … Sam.
