Luckily, I had a six-pack in the fridge. And I drank it, Gray sitting cautiously across the room as I did, and got to sleep sometime before eight. Seth woke me up with a phone call at about 2:00 in the afternoon. He told me not to do anything until he’d checked a few things out and urged me, this time, to listen to him. I’ll think about it, I thought silently, and responded, as convincingly as I could, and probably not very, “Sure, no problem.”

I made coffee, of which I managed to drink a cup and a half, had a glass of orange juice, then grabbed my board and took off for the beach, trying to shake off an itchy, gray hangover. It was amazing what started to come back to me on only my second time out after so many years away, and after a couple of hours at it, I felt clean enough to eat. I stopped at the little stand outside the Sunshine for fish tacos and rice and beans and tried to shed the feeling that my little beach town had somehow been swallowed up by something evil, covered over with a thick layer of ooze that creeps into your skin and turns you cold. I resisted the urge to begin trying to rub the filth out of me with some beer, took one last bite of yellow rice and beans, then grabbed my board and began heading back home.

“Hey, Blue’s back!”

I turned my head back toward the familiar voice from the seawall.

“Hey, Blue! Someone told me they thought they’d seen you back out, but I didn’t believe it!” It was Jimmy, a lifeguard from the old days, now a district attorney. I’d run into him from time to time at the Courthouse.

“Day off?” I asked, trying to shake off the years with Sara, like a sheep dog shaking off rainwater, and failing.

“Some guys play golf,” he answered, smiling. “I come here.”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, smiling and not believing that I was. “It seems so strange. I almost can’t believe I left. But then, a lot of things have been strange lately…”

“Just keep on coming back out. It’ll work out,” he said genuinely. Then reaching out his hand to shake, he added, “Good to see you back. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Thanks…Jim. It’s good to be back,” I answered, grateful for his genuine benevolence. Though there’s probably nothing anyone can do, I thought silently, as I grasped his hand, still smiling. And as I walked away south down the seawall, I thought to myself, I loved you Sara, but I never should have given this up.

When I got home, Gray was perched ceremoniously on top of the answering machine, and there was a message from Hope. She was back in town and wanted to know if we could get coffee. I thought this was strange, but decided not to push it. I hosed off my board, took a shower, and called the shop. She was finishing up with a client and couldn’t talk, but we made a date for Jungle Java the next morning. I wondered just as I hung up if meeting in town where it would be easy to spy on us was smart. But seeming deliberately elusive wouldn’t be smart either. When you’re on a big wave, there’s no quick and easy way out. You’ve just got to ride it. I went out to pick up another six-pack and grabbed a frozen pizza for dinner. When I got back there was a grocery bag with something in it waiting on my doorstep. I kicked it, gently, and out poked a DVD. Beer opened, and pizza in the oven, I popped the disc in the machine, pretty sure I already knew what it was. I fast-forwarded past the scene of me and Hope on her couch to see if anything else might be on it, and was grateful to find out I hadn’t been afforded the privilege of the other video. Then I was suddenly sorry. That would have been something I could go to the cops with. But which cops? The image of the house last night, me snorting meth, Seth’s angry glare, all flashed into my head again. I took a long swallow on my beer and went to check on my pizza.

I stayed up late trying to think how I was going to handle Hope after seeing the videos, and what I was going to say to her. When I set out to meet her just before 10 the next morning, I had a plan. I tried to give Seth a call before I left, just to check in with him, but he didn’t pick up. I was on my own. My plan was to play it cool-- do what Seth told me. Not to push anything. Put the brakes on it a bit. I needed to give Seth time to work his end. I told myself that’s what I’d do. I didn’t believe it.

When I showed up at the little garden spot, an outdoor coffee shop just up from the beach on the left, I was happy to see from a quick survey that none of the goons were about. Maybe they had decided that I was handled, which was good for me. The late February San Diego sun was out and already burning the night’s chill up to a pleasant sixty. My revolver holstered securely under my lightweight, I settled in with my latte at a table in the back, and waited for Hope. She showed up just after 10:15, and as she walked from the covered area of the barista out into the open back and the morning light just caught a strand of her hair, I saw for a moment the young, light Hope whose death had been forever captured on the Ocean Beach Neighborhood Watch video project. She had been a sunny, beautiful young woman, filled with her namesake for the world. Then it passed, and the curtain of filth fell back over the scene, her jet-black hair framing piercings, and a new blue, geometric, tattoo above her right collarbone.

She smiled through her dark guise, and it was still beautiful, but pale, and we touched arms, and she kissed my cheek, so I did the same to her. Warmth, lust, love, anger, hatred, as I touched her. God, it was a mistake. I felt it surge through me and knew that I was gone.

“New tattoo?” I asked, attempting to be casual, and failing, nodding toward her bare shoulder above a loose-hanging dark blue sweater that revealed just the straps of a tie-dyed blue halter.

“Yes,’ she answered with a knowing smile. “It’s a sapphire. Do you like it?”

“I guess I do,” I answered, completely disarmed and knowing it. “I guess I better.” She smiled and sipped her drink, apparently happy to be there with me in that peaceful little Eden spot. And I fell, from purity, from grace, from innocence – no one there to catch me.

“So,” I went on after a moment, wanting to push this little spark of intimacy, and knowing it was completely off of the plan, and not caring, “Tell me more about how you got into tattoos.”

“Oh,” she answered coolly, the moment over, in spite of my best efforts, "It was the subject of my doctoral thesis. I studied primitive body art.”

Stupid to ask her about her past, I thought, and then searched for a way to shift the tone back to light, and failed, like trying to turn back into a wave that’s already past you. “Oh yeah. Where was that?”

“Up at La Jolla – UCSD,” she answered, an unintentional distance in her voice.

“Oh,” I said, and falling, falling fast. Then I decided to try and catch myself, completely gone, my plan utterly abandoned. “Listen,” I leaned in close and quietly, and stupidly, and desperately, and still falling, “We’re working on it. I can’t tell you what’s going on, but we’re working on it. I probably shouldn’t have even said that.” Then I added, looking into her eyes like a stray hungry dog, and hoping to find something, but not expecting to, “but I wanted you to know.” The tube of the wave about to collapse all around me, I desperately searched my mind for a way to relight the flame. I saw the expression on her face. Crash landing.

“Let’s not talk about it, then” she replied quietly, once again the simultaneously hot and cold queen of dark I’d met in Willow’s shop weeks before. I took a gulp from the bottom of my mocha, the sweetness only tasting sour, and cursed my taste buds, though they weren’t to blame.

And then she said, and I couldn’t believe it, “I’ve got a big job at work today. I’ve got to get going. But,” she added, brushing a lock of jet black hair away from her face, completely revealing the almost glowing blue sapphire, “Some people are getting together later. You could come if you want.”

And there it was. I’m surprised I didn’t drool. Maybe I did, a bit. I’m not sure. I need to stay close to her for the case, I told myself, lying. And knowing it. I had hit rock bottom and was apparently very happy to be there. I asked for the time and place.

Chapter 13 coming 10/1 (or so…)!!!