Emerald City by Chris Nickson

out.”
    â€œAnd you live a normal life?”
    â€œUntil I make a mistake somewhere or it all gets too much for my body. It’ll happen one of these days.” He gave an eloquent shrug. “That’s life. But I’ll tell you this, the feeling when I’m floating is worth it all. There’s nothing in life like it. No other drug you can take that comes close, no thrill you can have, no love as strong. You get that and you keep craving it.”
    â€œWorth all you’ve gone through?”
    â€œOh yeah,” he said with certainty. “Worth every fucking thing in the world.”

Ten
    I needed somewhere to digest everything Jay had told me, to see how it fitted with what I’d learned about Craig.
    But there weren’t too many quiet places in Seattle any more. Downtown bustled all day and evening and even the neighborhoods seemed as if they’d received jolts of energy from all the people moving here. The only peaceful place that came to mind was Gasworks Park, up at the north end of Lake Union. I couldn’t quite see my apartment from there, but Queen Anne Hill loomed large, rising abruptly from the western edge of the water. Boats and seaplanes were busy on the lake, and a few people were taking advantage of the breeze, flying kites high and colorful, running and laughing over the grass. Joggers pounded the trail, and mothers pushed babies around, admiring the ducks that came demanding food.
    I found an empty area down by the shore and sat. Off in the distance were all the skyscrapers, this tower and that one all clustered together in this modern emerald city, the futuristic black glass spire of Columbia Center dwarfing them all. The gasworks that gave the park its name was now rusty and unused, but I’d liked this place since my dad brought me here as a kid. I could stare out at the lake, a working zone full of places processingfish and fixing boats, piers of houseboats dotted around here and there, little bohemian communities with their own identities, where some of the vessels were as large and luxurious as mansions, many run down and homey, a few little more than floating wrecks.
    I felt comfortable here. It was a place that connected me to the Seattle of my childhood, back when my parents brought me down here for picnics; and to the history of the city. It was also good for thinking, with the soft lapping of the water at my feet and the wind soughing lightly through the branches of the trees that grew nearby.
    From everything Jay had said, on the surface Craig’s death still looked like an overdose, one of those small tragedies of everyday life, something to put a stain on a date that a family could never forget.
    I’d have believed that if it hadn’t been for the phone calls. That made it seem very much like murder.
    I still hadn’t talked to the one person who could shine a light on everything. Sandy. I knew she was grieving but I really needed her for the article to work. I’d managed to fill in the background, now I needed all the fine detail she could offer and I wondered if there was anything I could do to bring her out of her darkness and encourage her to talk. So much had happened so fast that it was hard to believe that fewer than seven days had passed since Craig put that needle in his arm.
    It might take weeks or even months for her to begin to face the world again. The paper would run the story when it was ready, however long it took – but the impact would be strongest when Craig was still fresh in everyone’s memory.
    Then I hated myself for thinking that way.
    And I needed to keep digging away until I found out what my caller was hiding. It was there, somewhere.
    I picked up some pebbles and tossed them one by one out into the water, watching the ripples move lazily outwards, letting the surface calm each time before I threw the next one. Slowly the stress left my shoulders and I began to relax. Finally I walked slowly back to