The Silent Widow

As if that weren’t enough of a bombshell, she carried on.

‘If Williams was right about a corrupt cop helping the cartels, then it has to be Johnson. I know you don’t want to believe it. But it fits. He asked for this case, he’s senior, he’s ex-drug squad, and he’s deliberately mishandled the investigation into these murders, trying to make me the scapegoat. He’s deflecting and he’s succeeding.’

There was a lot of paranoia in Nikki’s note, shot through with micro-threads of truth, but perhaps that was to be expected, given her frazzled state of mind, especially since Williams’ murder. But it was the last part of the email that troubled him much more.

‘Watch Johnson, Lou. I don’t think you’re safe around him, and I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t think I’m safe either, so I’ll be gone for a while, off grid.

Try not to worry.

Take care. NR.’

Goodman felt his pulse quicken.

How long was ‘a while’? And what the hell was ‘off-grid’ supposed to mean?

He’d already rung her twice since the note landed in his inbox, in addition to sending a brief email reply, but all her devices were switched off. Off grid.

Not good.

As for the rest of Nikki’s suspicions about Johnson, without evidence there was little Goodman could do to pursue them. And in the meantime the two men were supposed to be a team.

‘Jesus,’ Johnson grumbled, shuffling back to the table clutching his distended belly. ‘What the hell do they put in their coffee in this joint? I feel like I just gave birth.’

Goodman put away his phone, wrinkling his nose in distaste. ‘Too much information, dude. Shall we go?’

‘Ready when you are,’ said Johnson. ‘I hope forensics have got something concrete. Because that son of a bitch had so many enemies, half of Los Angeles might have taken him out. Hell, I had half a mind to do it myself!’

Goodman followed his partner to the car, trying to shake the feeling that Derek Williams’ ghost had just walked over his grave.

Setting her bag down on the bed at the San Miguel Hacienda in Palm Springs, Nikki felt a surreal sense of déjà vu.

The last time she’d stayed here had been with Doug, five years ago, for their wedding anniversary. The small, intimate guesthouse had been built as a family home in the Moorish style, with warm tiled floors and ornate stone fountains and rooms that opened onto secret, sun-drenched courtyards, overgrown with bougainvillea. There was no air conditioning, astonishingly for a hotel out in the desert, and yet somehow the whitewashed walls and ceiling fans and the shade from the desert palm trees that surrounded the property ensured that guests were always comfortably cool inside. And outside, an old-fashioned, kidney-shaped pool, sparkling sapphire blue, provided frequent cooling relief from the punishing afternoon sun.

The Hacienda was intrinsically romantic. Even now, Nikki could still remember her delight walking in here, and Doug’s pride and satisfaction that his surprise discovery had worked out so well. That he’d pleased her.

‘One of Haddon’s rich patients came back raving about this place,’ Doug said, slipping his hands around Nikki’s waist and pulling her towards him greedily. ‘And I know how you hate those big corporate joints. So you like it?’

‘I love it,’ Nikki said, tossing her bag on to the white linen bed and floating into the simple bathroom, barefoot and

happy and carefree in a way that seemed so alien to her now, she could hardly believe she was the same person.

Perhaps I’m not the same person, she thought, turning her phone back on and sitting soberly on the end of the bed beside her overnight case, the same one she’d brought to the SLS for her meeting with Derek Williams, the one that never happened.

Williams had told her to disappear to somewhere neutral and anonymous, ‘somewhere nobody knows you’. The Hacienda was hardly that. But something had drawn her here. A half-remembered feeling of safety, perhaps, or of happiness? As if her soul were reaching subconsciously for the last vestiges of the life she’d lost.

Or maybe it was Doug again, pulling her strings from beyond the grave? She’d felt that last night, when Anne showed up. When she’d been ready to end it all, to screw up her courage and turn off the noise and the pain forever.

Was that really only last night? Less than twenty-four hours ago?

Nikki’s phone began pinging with messages. Goodman. Goodman. Gretchen. Goodman. Ignoring them all, she pushed it to one side. With a faint knock, Señora Marchesa, the proprietress, stuck her smiling, heavily wrinkled face round the door of Nikki’s room.

‘How long you staying with us this time, Dr Roberts?’ she asked. ‘You know the room is free right through the end of June if you want it. Summer’s pretty quiet up here.’

‘I’m not sure yet, señora,’ Nikki told her, returning the smile. ‘Can we say a few days, and then I’ll let you know?’

‘Of course,’ the older woman said, touching Nikki gently on the shoulder. ‘You look tired. Try to rest.’

Nikki waited till she’d gone to drop the smile, suddenly and totally, like a too heavy weight. The pretense of happiness was too hard now, even for a few seconds. Inside her chest was a burned-out shell where her heart should have been, a scorched wasteland still smoldering with anger, white-hot to the touch.