The OC

by D P Lyle

  “Got it.”

  “I’m curious,” I asked. “Did the warrant go through?”

  “No, the judge said we didn’t have enough probable cause.”

  “We got all the probable cause we need now,” Pancake said.

  “You did before,” Mills said. “I suspect the judge will agree now that we’re dealing with an abduction. I’ll get things rolling on this end.”

  Ray ended the call and handed me my phone. He lifted the canvas bag from the rear seat and zipped it open. He tugged out a pair of Glocks, handing one to Pancake.

  It still seemed odd to me that Ray could fly with handguns. He did it all the time. So did Pancake. They, of course, possessed all the proper credentials, and licenses, and whatever was required. I guessed US Marshals and FBI agents and others of their ilk did so also, but it still seemed strange for Ray and Pancake to do so. I didn’t have such problems. I only traveled with baseballs.

  Ray then tugged out a small zipper bag that held half a dozen communication mic/earpiece combos. He fitted each of us with one and we tested them. All good.

  Ray led us up the hill to the crest. The trail then gently descended to a stucco house. Dingy and dirty, the sun reflected off its metal roof. No car was visible.

  “It’s there,” Pancake said. “Signal is five by five. Must be hidden behind the structure.”

  Ray scanned the area, his gaze finally settling on the hill that rose twenty feet above us to the left.

  “Wait here,” Ray said.

  He climbed the hill, weaving through the brush and around a few boulder-sized rocks. We lost sight of him for a few minutes, then he reappeared.

  “It’s there.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So Megan’s in the house. What’s the plan?”

  CHAPTER 54

  MEGAN FOUND HERSELF alone and securely attached to the bed by coarse, abrasive ropes that bound each ankle and wrist to the metal frame. She tested them but found no play. Helpless didn’t quite cover what she felt.

  Abby and the man came into the room, Abby walking to the bedside, the man leaning against the doorjamb, a beer in one hand. Each appeared relaxed and casual as if this were a daily occurrence. Or at least not a new experience. She guessed Salt Lake City and Henderson, Nevada proved that.

  Abby reached for her. She recoiled as best she could.

  “Relax,” Abby said. She then ripped the tape from her mouth. “Better?” She waded the tape into a ball and tossed it toward the corner of the room. “Don’t even think about screaming. No one will hear you out here anyway, but Greg finds it annoying.” She smiled. “You don’t want him annoyed.”

  Megan glanced at the man. He tipped his beer bottle toward her as if to say, that’s a fact. She returned her gaze to Abby.

  “Why are you doing this?” Megan asked.

  “I think you know.”

  “No. I don’t.” Even to Megan, her voice sounded foreign. It came out pitched too high and stretched too tight, betraying the fact that she was on the cusp of full panic.

  “Because it’s fun.” Abby laughed. She glanced toward the man. “Isn’t it, bro?”

  He again tilted his beer.

  “Meet my brother, Greg. He thinks this’s fun, too.” She laughed. “Almost as much as me.”

  “Are you insane?” Megan said. “Look, Abby, you don’t have to do this. Let me go. I won’t say a word.”

  Abby sat on the edge of the bed. “Oh, trust me, I know you won’t say a word.” She smiled. “Oh, and my name isn’t Abby. It’s Stacy.”

  “What?”

  “You’re so freaking gullible. By far the easiest person to fool we’ve run across.” She rubbed Megan’s arm. “So nice, so trusting. Sure as hell made all this easier.”

  “Though shorter than we had hoped,” the Greg dude said.

  “Yeah. Your friends fucked it all up. We had a another couple of weeks of fun planned before we got to this point.” She shrugged. “But, then again, here we are.”

  “You won’t get away with this.”

  Greg dragged a chair over and sat near the opposite side of the bed from his sister. “Looks like we already did.”

  “Not yet.” Megan glared at him.

  “I love this part,” he said. “When all the threatening and blustering goes on.”

  “Followed by the whining and begging and pleading and bargaining,” Stacy said.

  “Just so you know,” Greg said. “This isn’t our first rodeo.”

  Stacy laughed. “Not even close.”

  Megan felt a chill ripple through her. “What does that mean?”

  “This is my favorite part,” Stacy said. “Story time.”

  Megan looked at her, glanced at Greg, then back to Stacy. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The part where we enlighten you as to who we really are. What we need. What we’ve done.” She grabbed Megan’s hand and squeezed. Hard. “The fun part is that we get to watch the fear eat you up.” She laughed. “For me, that’s really the payoff.”

  Greg took a gulp of beer. “I like the hammer better.”

  “You would.”

  “What are you talking about?” Megan asked. Tears now gathered in her eyes.

  “Let’s not get the cart before the horse,” Stacy said. She looked at her brother. “You want to start off story time?”

  “Sure.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook one up, and lit it with a cheap red service station lighter. “Let’s go back to the beginning. I was a junior in high school, Stacy in the eighth grade. There was this girl.”

  “Sally Whitmire.”

  “Yeah, dear old Sally. I didn’t really know her. Well, until the end anyway. But she was a real bitch.”

  Stacy/Abby nodded. “Rich, haughty, and the prettiest girl in the school. She knew it and acted like it. Like she was so much better than everyone else.”

  “She had her little clique, which didn’t include Stacy.”

  “Didn’t include anyone that wasn’t in her little self-admiration club,” Stacy said. “They thought they were so fucking special.”

  Greg took a drag and let the smoke tumble from his mouth and nose as he spoke. “Sally, the ringleader, needed a lesson in manners.” He shrugged. “We gave her one.”

  “Did we ever,” Stacy said. “I can still see her. Crying, begging, even apologizing for being such a bitch. Can you imagine that? How wonderful it felt to see her that way?”

  “What did you do to her?” Megan asked.

  “Let’s see,” Greg said. “We tied her to a tree and stoned her to death.”

  Megan gasped. Stoned to death? He said it so flat and unemotional as if that were normal behavior.

  Stacy smiled. “Yeah. Big old rocks. Took a half an hour for that bitch to die.”

  “We took our time,” Greg said.

  “She was a whore,” Stacy said. “So we treated her like a medieval whore. Isn’t that what they did to whores and witches back then?”

  “We dumped her body in an isolated cave,” Greg said. “Way in the woods. They never found her. So you might say we were good at this from the beginning.”

  Megan began to whimper.

  Stacy squeezed her hand. “That’s my girl. Let it out.”

  “You’re a monster,” Megan said. “How could you?”

  “Very easily. The bonus was that we discovered something about ourselves.” She smiled, raised an eyebrow. “We liked it. Really, really liked it.”

  “Next up were our parents,” Greg said. “They weren’t all that good at the parenting thing anyway, so it was no great loss.”

  “Not to mention the money,” Stacy said. “Lots of money.”

  “We don’t really count those though,” Greg said. “Sally and our parents. Sally was pure revenge and our parents we did for the money.”

  “Maybe partly for revenge,” Stacy said. “For being such douches. They were too stupid to live.”

  “Hard to argue with that,” Greg said. “Still,
not like the other seven and a half. Those were for fun.”

  Stacy must have sensed the question behind Megan’s eyes. “The half was for the one that got away. That bitch in Nevada. We only got to have half the fun with her.”

  “You’ve killed that many people?” Megan asked.

  Stacy patted her hand. “So far.”

  Greg took a final puff from his cigarette. “I feel like breaking something. Where’re my hammers.”

  He leaned over and stubbed out his cigarette on Megan’s foot.

  She wailed, tried to twist from her restraints.

  Stacy laughed. “Now we’re talking.”

  CHAPTER 55

  RAY’S PLAN WAS simple and, as he always said, fluid. It could change on the fly.

  The house sat at the end of the trail, surrounded by a circle that had been cleared of brush. Maybe a hundred feet in diameter. Nicole and I would veer off the dirt drive to the right and wind our way through the brush and rocks, staying out of sight, and approach the front of the house. The plan was to get within a hundred or so feet and then hunker down and wait for Ray’s commands. Ray and Pancake would go left, circle to the back, and hopefully get close enough to see what the interior layout was and where all the players were. The hope was to isolate Greg and neutralize—Ray’s word—him first, and then deal with Stacy.

  Seemed vague to me, but I didn’t have anything clever to offer so off Nicole and I went. We worked our way into the scruffy vegetation. It grabbed at our clothes and scratched our arms. By the time we got into a position where we could see the front of the house, I looked like I’d been in a fight with a bobcat. Nicole on the other hand was pristine. Like she’d been walking through a park. How did she manage that?

  We squatted behind a bolder that had a pathetic bit of shrub glommed to its side. I lifted the binoculars Ray had given me and scanned the two windows that faced us. One with closed curtains, while the other looked into what seemed to be an empty living room. I zoomed in and now saw a chair and the very top of what appeared to be a sofa. Beyond, I saw light coming through a windowed door. To its right sat a refrigerator. Obviously the kitchen.

  “In position?” It was Ray’s voice in my left ear.

  “All set,” I said.

  “Got anything?”

  “Looks quiet from here. Two windows. One has closed curtains. The other seems to look into the living room.”

  “Same here,” Ray said. “A window to the kitchen area. Another window with curtains. I suspect that’s a bedroom. Maybe where Megan is being held. Hold your position and keep your eyes open. We’re going to work a little closer.”

  I kept scanning the windows. No movement that I could see.

  Nicole was getting antsy. She wanted to do something. I’d seen this before. Once she even tackled a guy who had a gun. Another time she Krav Maga-ed an armed guy in the throat. She had that coiled posture right now.

  “Relax,” I said.

  “I am.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “We should do something.”

  “You should stay where you are,” Ray said. “We’ve made it to the car. Still don’t see anyone.”

  “Us either.”

  “Pancake flattened two tires just in case they get a chance to run for it.”

  “What if they had another car?” Nicole said. “Dumped this one and took off.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Probably should have but I hadn’t.

  “Could be,” Pancake said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “Based on?” Nicole asked.

  “Gut feeling.”

  That was good enough for me.

  Apparently not for Nicole. “What if your gut’s wrong?”

  “It ain’t.”

  Then I saw something. Movement through the living room window. “Got something,” I said.

  “I see it,” Ray said.

  A man came into view, bent over the sofa, and seemed to be messing with something. When he stood and turned, he had an object in his hand. Took me a microsecond to recognize it. A hammer.

  “He’s got a hammer,” I said.

  “Okay,” Ray said. “Phase two in motion.”

  Phase two of Ray’s plan was to take place once we were in position and knew where the players were. We weren’t completely there, but the hammer changed things. I flashed on what had happened to Dana Roderick in Salt Lake.

  “All set,” I said.

  “Do what you do best.”

  Ray designed phase two as a distraction and an assault.

  The first part was to hopefully bring Greg out front and separate him from Megan and give Ray and Pancake a chance to take him down. I had collected several fist-sized, more or less round rocks as we pushed through the brush.

  I stood, made a best guess as to the distance and trajectory, and hurled one high in the air toward the house. It seemed to hang against the clear blue sky as if defying gravity and then plummeted. It struck the corrugated metal roof with an explosive bang. I released a second one. Same result.

  Greg appeared again. This time he stood near the window, half hidden, peering around the molding. I watched him, concealed by the scrap of brush that sprouted from our rocky hiding place. He eased out of sight. Then I saw him move toward the back, into the kitchen area.

  “Coming your way,” I said.

  “Got him,” Ray said.

  “Lock, load, and fire,” Pancake said. “Something a little more dramatic. Draw him to the front again. I’m coming in the back. Time to put this boy down.”

  “You sure?”

  “Do it.”

  I stood. I could see the shadow of Greg Morgan. Still in the kitchen, still gazing out the back. I gripped the next rock, automatically looking for a seam, finding a slight ridge. I then hurled an excellent fastball. Definitely a strikeout pitch. This time, directly through the front window. It shattered.

  Greg spun, ducked, scurried toward the front again. Low, peaking over the windowsill.

  Damn, this was fun. Or could be if Megan wasn’t in danger.

  Things happened quickly then.

  The kitchen door exploded. Greg stood, rotating that way. Nicole took off on a dead run toward the house. What the hell? I followed.

  Two shots exploded inside the house. I caught Nicole, dragged her down. She kicked me. In the shin. It hurt. She was back up and running toward the front door. I caught her just as she swung it open.

  Pancake stood in the middle of the room, his Glock to his side. Greg Morgan lay on his back, a red splotch dead center of his shirt, an amazingly clean round hole in his forehead. His lifeless eyes seemed to stare at the ceiling.

  “Greg.” Abby’s voice came from through the door near the corner of the living room. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Pancake moved that way. We followed. Ray appeared behind us.

  In the room, Megan was in four-point restraints on the bed. Abby/Stacy sat near her head, a large butcher knife at her throat.

  “Stay where you are,” she said. “I swear to God I’ll cut her fucking throat.”

  “I’ll shoot you in the head,” Pancake said.

  “Where’s my brother?”

  “Sorry,” Pancake said. “I did shoot him in the head.”

  “Put the knife down,” I said. “Let’s talk about this.”

  “Don’t see we have much to talk about.”

  “You haven’t harmed Megan yet. But if you do, things won’t go well for you.”

  “Right. Like you don’t know about the others.”

  Well, there was that.

  Nicole stepped toward her. “Abby, you don’t want to do this.”

  “Actually, I do. And I will.”

  Another step forward brought Nicole to the foot of the bed. “Give me the knife and let’s stop all this before it gets any worse.”

  “Ha.” It seemed to explode from her lungs. “Gets any worse? Are you an idiot? A fucking bubble-headed blond? Dumb as dirt like Megan here? How could it get any w
orse?”

  Another step forward. “Things can always get worse.”

  “Don’t take another step or Megan is done for.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nicole said. She took another step. This to her right, clearing the bed frame. She had a free run at Abby now. “I think you want to end all this.”

  “You don’t know shit. Now back the fuck up.”

  Stacy fisted the knife, raised it high, and set her shoulders to plunge it into Megan’s chest.

  Nicole moved, a single long stride. Stacy recoiled; her attention now diverted as Nicole closed on her.

  The explosion from Ray’s gun was deafening. Abby’s head jerked, and a black hole appeared just above her right eye. She shivered slightly, and then slumped forward.

  “Let me see your hands.”

  Two deputies stood in the doorway; weapons leveled at us.

  CHAPTER 56

  “LET ME GET this straight,” Detective Claire Mills said. “This duo killed a classmate, their parents, seven TV reporters, and failed at two others? Including Megan Weatherly?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “At least it looks that way.”

  Nicole and I were in Mills’ office. It was the morning after the fiasco out off the Ortega Highway. No, we didn’t get shot by the OC Sheriff’s deputies who burst in on us, but that surely looked like a possibility at the time. I mean, they had been dispatched to the location and were probably told something bad was going down. Even that small arms fire was possible. What did the two amped-up deputies find? Us. In an abandoned house with two corpses, Pancake and Ray with guns, Nicole with the knife she had snatched from Abby/Stacy’s dead hand and was using to cut Megan loose, and me with a rock. Okay, so I was severely underarmed. All that meant was that I would likely be the last one they’d shoot.

  “I’ve seen some crazy shit in my career but this is high on the list,” Mills said.

  “We wanted to drop by and thank you for your help,” Nicole said.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t do all that much.”

  “You sent the Sheriff’s department out.”

  And almost got us shot, I thought.

  “Ray said he’d let you know what else we uncovered,” I said.

  “Which is what so far?”