Domestic violence calls were the same, but different. You always went in assuming something really bad was going to happen. Even Angie, who was drawn to confrontation, hated rolling out on a battery call. The men always tried to push her around. The women always lied. The kids always cried, and in the end, all Angie could do was arrest the guy, write up the report, and wait until she got another call to go to the same house over and over and over again.
Jo didn’t have any obvious bruises or scars. Her face was perfect. She walked with an even stride, not in the bent-over posture of a woman who’d gotten the hell beaten out of her.
But still, Angie could tell that her daughter was being abused.
The way she never looked at her husband. The way she stayed glued to his side, never talking to anybody, never daring to raise her eyes above the floor. The way she never left home except to go to the elementary school, the grocery store or the dry cleaner. The obedient air she assumed around her husband, as if she was not a person but an appendage.
Two nights ago, when Kip was convening a meeting about Jo being a problem, Reuben Figaroa was being flown by private jet to an undisclosed location, where the best orthopedist in the world would perform micro-surgery on his knee. That was all the information Angie could get out of Laslo. An injured player was the kind of news that could tilt the shape of the upcoming basketball season. Jo had stayed at home because things had to look normal. She had to take the kid to school. She had to make people believe that nothing was wrong with her husband.
Angie didn’t give a shit about Reuben’s surgery. What she cared about was what his absence was doing to her daughter.
Jo was terrified. That was clear. Angie held the evidence in her own two hands.
When Jo said, ‘Do you see?’ what she meant was, ‘Do you see where I am? Exactly where you told me to be.’
When she said, ‘I understand,’ what she meant was, ‘I understand you are in charge and that I can’t do anything about it.’
When she said, ‘I will,’ she meant ‘I will do exactly what you just told me to do, exactly how you want me to do it.’
The worst part was at the end of the video. Tears slid down Jo’s jaw, her neck. Her fingers trembled around the mic. Still she said, ‘Thank you.’
Reuben Figaroa. Angie could clearly see him on Jo’s iPhone when she turned the camera to show him the almost empty coffee shop.
Kip had said that Jo was getting too close to Marcus. Maybe that was by design. Jo had known Marcus in junior high. Obviously they were still friends. He was rich. She was desperate. If Marcus was Jo’s parachute, then the plan wasn’t a bad one. The most life-threatening time for a battered woman was when she tried to leave her abuser. The only thing that shifted the odds was having another man around to protect her. If Jo was getting close to Marcus, it was only because she was pulling away from Reuben. This was what Angie had abandoned her daughter to: a lifetime of being nothing more than a kept woman.
Angie tossed her phone back into her purse. She wiped her eyes. The juice from Starbucks must have gone bad. Her hands were sweating. Her stomach cramped.
Back in her early twenties, Angie had been with a guy who slapped her around. And then punched her around. And then did other things that she thought meant he was desperately in love with her. The violence worked like a magnet. That, and seeing a big, giant man cry like a baby because he was so fucking sorry that he’d hurt you and he was never, ever going to do it again.
Until he did it again.
‘Jesus,’ Angie whispered. What was the point of staying out of Jo’s life? First the pill problem, and now this. Jo had inherited all of Angie’s bad choices. ‘Fuck!’ She banged her hand against the steering wheel, but not because of Jo. She had missed the turn into the parking lot.
Angie struggled with the shifter, trying to force the gear into reverse. The clutch tensed. She heard the gears grinding. Her stomach was still cramping.
‘Fuck!’ she screamed again. ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ She banged her fists on the steering wheel until the pain shot into her back and shoulders.
She stopped. This was crazy. She had lost it over a stupid missed turn.
Finger by finger, she wrapped her hands around the wheel. She took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could.
Carefully Angie forced the gear into first. She drove to the end of the street, then did a wide U-turn. She had the gear in third by the time she coasted into an abandoned parking lot. She flipped into reverse just to prove that she could and backed into one of the lined parking spaces.
Angie flexed her hand. Banging the steering wheel hadn’t been her smartest move. The side of her fist already felt bruised.
Nothing she could do about that now.
Angie looked up at the massive concrete block that was Marcus Rippy’s nightclub. The building resembled a mummified robot’s head. A cleaning crew was supposed to spiff it up next week, but Angie wasn’t sure how they were going to manage it. Weeds shot up from the broken asphalt. Graffiti was everywhere. She had no idea why Dale always wanted to meet here. He must have been a terrible cop. All he wanted was routine. Maybe that’s what happened when you got older. Or maybe it was because it didn’t matter if Dale kept showing up in the same place over and over again. He’d stopped dialysis a week ago. If what Angie had read on the internet was true, he had a week, maybe two at the most, which meant he’d be dead before anyone figured out the pattern.
Could be he was already dead. Angie looked at the time on her phone. Dale was fifteen minutes late. Sam Vera, his electronics guy, wasn’t here either. Why was it that she was the only person who ran on time anymore?
She flipped down her visor and checked her make-up in the mirror. Her eyeliner was melting. Her lips could use a touch-up. She found Sara’s lipstick in her purse. Angie twisted the gold case. There was a scratch down the side. You’d think for sixty bucks the thing would be plated in real gold.
Angie looked at the flattened lipstick. She had cut off the tip. She might be a dangerous stalker, but she wasn’t unhygienic.
Was she really dangerous?
A few notes left on a car window never hurt anybody. Going through Sara’s shit was weird, but that hadn’t been on purpose. Or not by design, anyway. Angie had gone to Will’s house because she wanted to see him. Not talk to him, but just see him. As usual, he was at Sara’s. This had happened many times before. She had used the key Will left on the ledge over the back door. The first thing Angie had seen was his stupid little dog. Betty wouldn’t stop yapping. Angie had used her foot to slide her into the spare bedroom and shut the door. She was passing the bathroom when she saw Sara’s make-up strewn across the sink.
Angie’s first thought was: Will’s not going to like that.
Her second thought was: What the hell is Sara Linton doing leaving her shit here?
Here.
Will’s bathroom. Will’s bedroom. Will’s house.
Angie’s husband.
Angie flipped the sun visor closed. She didn’t need a mirror to apply lipstick. She’d been wearing it since she was twelve years old. Her hand knew the motion by heart. Still, she leaned up and checked herself in the rear-view mirror. She had to admit that the stuff was worth it. The color didn’t bleed. It lasted all day. Rose cashmere didn’t exactly suit her, but then again it didn’t exactly suit Sara, either.