Night Passenger

by David Stanley

  Blake detached the camera from the tripod and moved in tight on Kate's face. Her eyes opened and she looked into the lens. It was no longer the look she had directed at Blake moments earlier. It was pure, loving. She knew who would see the recording, this look was for him. A message. Thorne could feel her inside him, squeezing his heart. She still loved him, he was certain of it. The camera drifted down to her right leg. Thorne glanced at the progress bar. Nine seconds left. The picture became shaky. He thought Blake was hunting for the stop button when his fist slammed down, leaving an ice pick buried in Kate's calf. The image of the handle sticking out her leg froze on screen as the clip came to an end.

  “Motherfucker!” Thorne shouted, jumping to his feet.

  Without thinking, he turned and punched the mirror, destroying it. Pain shot up his arm, but it wasn't enough to cut through the rage and frustration. He roared. The sound didn't seem to be part of him, it was as if a creature were escaping from his body that could no longer be contained. When he was done he slumped back in the chair, exhausted. He put his head in his hands and concentrated on his breathing. Kate's alive, he thought, focus on that. Before watching the video he would've given anything to know this simple fact, but now he needed more. Something had happened to him when she'd looked into the camera that last time. He'd realized, finally, what she meant to him, and what he'd lost.

  “Chris.”

  His head jerked around.

  James Ashcroft stood in the doorway. He was white as a sheet.

  “How long have you been standing there?” Thorne asked.

  “Long enough.”

  “You saw the video?”

  “I saw.”

  Thorne sighed. “That's too bad.”

  “What do they want, Chris?”

  “Same thing they've always wanted. The painting.”

  “I thought so. What are you going to do?”

  “I'm giving it to them. They have Kate.”

  Ashcroft was silent for a moment. “All right.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Don't get me wrong. That painting means a lot to me, but it's not worth any of this crazy shit. Besides, I think we both know that if you don't give them the Picasso now, it’ll only be a matter of time before Lauren is sitting in that chair and I'm faced with the same decision. First we rescue your girlfriend, then, and only then, will we worry about the painting.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Do me a favor. Don't tell Lauren about that video, she's freaked out enough as it is. She thought you’d gone back to L.A., she went crazy. I had to give her an Ambien.”

  “Sorry.”

  Ashcroft paused in the doorway, looking him up and down.

  “Clean yourself up before you join us. You’re a mess.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  It was over an hour before Thorne remembered the activity on his cell phone he’d noticed outside Jocelyn Cooper’s hotel room. He looked at the text messages first, on the basis that he could deal with them faster than voice messages. There were now 182, according to the balloon over the app. He opened it up and looked at the list of names or numbers. There were 19 different senders and he recognized almost all of them. Friends, co-workers, even a couple of neighbors from his apartment building. Their messages were predictably trite, but supportive. There were 32 messages from his agent, a woman called Carli Stahl, who landed him the role on Night Passenger before apparently losing his number.

  That left two unknowns.

  The first claimed to be from an executive at Marvel Studios telling him to check his goddamn messages. The second, with remarkably similar wording, was from a Detective Burrows of the Santa Monica Police Department. No part of Thorne believed that Marvel were interested in him as an actor. It was a prank call, just like many others he’d had before. Pranksters only seemed to know the name of one movie studio, which made it a lot easier to screen them out. He had no idea at all how genuine Marvel executives got anyone to answer their calls. That left the cop. He sighed. Like he needed another cop in his life. Thorne decided to skip tracking down the right voice message and just call the detective direct. The call was answered on the third ring.

  “Burrows.”

  “This is Christopher Thorne returning your call.”

  “You’re a hard man to get hold of, Mr Thorne.”

  “I don’t have much to say to anyone anymore, Detective.”

  “I have good news and bad news on that front. Are you sitting down?”

  Thorne parked on Beach Street, just down the road from Jocelyn Cooper’s hotel. It was only a matter of hours since he’d been there, and everything had changed. After five minutes, he saw her appear in the car's tiny door mirror. Her hair was pinned up in a bun like it was when she was on TV. He wondered if she’d been on-air again since he last saw her. Anything was possible; Blake’s murder of the deputy and Cabot’s star witness, followed by his dramatic escape from the hospital had re-energized the story. Once again, people wanted updates. The news cycle was relentless and required constant feeding, and Blake was only too willing to provide. Jocelyn drew level with the car and he popped open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk next to her. She looked up at him and smiled.

  “Wow, nice car.”

  “A gift from Senator Ashcroft for saving his life.”

  “Awkward.”

  Thorne nodded. He clicked the remote and the doors locked. Jocelyn’s face fell as she realized she wasn’t getting into the car, but that was too bad. He didn’t want the smell of her perfume lingering around for Lauren to notice, he had enough problems. A gap appeared in the traffic and they crossed over to the beach side of the street. They walked a short distance in silence until they reached the boardwalk, where he stopped and leaned on the rail and looked out to sea. It brought his head close to hers in a way that looked natural to passers-by. Jocelyn studied him, her face caught between confusion and amusement. She looked good. There was something between them like an electrical charge. It was the reason he’d asked to meet here and not back at the hotel.

  “Coop, I’m not exactly sure what happened this morning.”

  “You don’t remember, or you don’t understand?”

  He sighed. “I guess the latter.”

  “It’s simple, Chris. You fucked me.”

  Thorne flinched. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “What then?”

  “Who does that? We just met.”

  “This is pretty much how it is in L.A. now. Nobody has time to meet people socially, go on dates, to the movies, all that. You like someone, you take the chance immediately because you might not see that person again. I give so much of myself to my career, I’m not going to give up on the stuff that makes life worth living. Does your heart need a movie and a pizza to know what it wants, or does it just know?”

  “I’ve been out of the game a long time.”

  “I did not get that impression.”

  Thorne felt his face go red and looked out to sea to hide it.

  “Hey,” she said. “Where are you? You know it’s what I wanted.”

  “I know that, Coop.”

  His mood darkened as he remembered why he was here. He straightened up and turned toward her. She was so small, her head had to tilt way back just to see his face.

  Jocelyn ran the tip of her index finger down his forehead.

  “This isn’t a happy face, Thorne. Are we about to have a conversation where you tell me this was a big mistake and it will never happen again?”

  “It’s not like that. Things got complicated after I left.”

  She sighed. “Just say it, man.”

  “It’s Kate. She’s still alive.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So who died in that fire?”

  “Elizabeth Warner, Kate’s stunt double on the show. They were friends, I guess she was staying the night. It wasn’t that unusual, she lived in Riverside and would often crash at ours after a night out.” Thorne pause
d as he remembered the murdered woman’s face. “Beth did the stunts that were too dangerous for Kate to do herself. They were really nothing alike, but with the right clothes and make-up she passed for Kate in a mid shot. I guess she was the right age, sex, and height for the person they expected to find in the apartment. Obviously the fire delayed identification.”

  Jocelyn nodded. “I’m with you.”

  He looked down. She’d put her hand on top of his and curled her fingers around into the palm. It felt good.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t know where you and I stand, I didn’t call you about that. I just wanted to give you the heads-up. The L.A. County Coroner is releasing this at 3 o’clock, so if you want the scoop you’ll have to hustle.”

  Her face brightened.

  “You’re taking my deal?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to think about it.”

  “Chris, if Kate wasn’t in the fire, where’s she been all this time?”

  “You know the answer to that as well as I do.”

  “They took her?”

  “You can’t say that, and there’s no way you can explain it if you do. The Santa Monica PD have issued a warrant for her arrest. She’s a person of interest now, not a victim. They think she killed her friend and set the fire as a forensic countermeasure. They think she’s a murderer. I need you to make this right, Coop. I can’t let them poison her name when they should be trying to find her.”

  Jocelyn said nothing. Either because she was thinking things over, or because she disagreed with his assessment.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ll do whatever you want. The deal, anything. She’s not a killer.”

  “I believe you. It’s just you said she’s alive, then that the police are looking for her. You knew they’d taken her, which means they’ve already sent you a video.”

  “I don’t have time for this. They’re threatening to cut her head off with a goddamn chainsaw. Are you going to help me or not?”

  She squeezed his hand.

  “I got this.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Thorne found Ashcroft in the kitchen holding a mug of coffee. They nodded at one another across the room. Another mug of coffee was on the breakfast bar, and Thorne sat silently behind it. He was wired already, he didn’t need any help from caffeine. He put his hands around the mug to warm his hands. The air crackled with things they weren’t talking about. Ever since he and Lauren had revealed their feelings for each other, all but the most transitory moments spent with James Ashcroft felt awkward and endless. The senator wasn’t drinking his coffee either and after a minute he put it down on the counter in front of him.

  “All right,” Ashcroft said. “Let’s do this.”

  Thorne stood and followed him out the room and down the hall. When Ashcroft got to the painting next to the Picasso, he stopped and stood in front of it. He ran his fingernail under the edge of the frame and the painting flipped out of the wall on a hinge. Behind it was a gray screen the size of a tablet computer. Ashcroft put his hand flat against the glass. A light passed over it and a small green LED came on. There was a heavy mechanical clunk, and the wooden panel on the wall between the two paintings popped out at an angle. Thorne smiled. A secret door. Ashcroft pulled the edge and it swung slowly open, like the door of a vault. A light came on and they walked inside. The space was about half the size of Thorne’s bedroom. There was a bookcase along one wall, a floor lamp, and a wingback leather chair straight out of a Sherlock Holmes movie. Against the other wall, was a small table with a wooden shipping case laid on top.

  Ashcroft saw him staring at the chair.

  “Lauren doesn’t know about this room. I come here sometimes to have time to myself. I read, sleep, whatever I feel like. Never any work; that’s the point I guess. I’ve not been here much since I got into the senate, I spend most of my time now in D.C.”

  Behind Ashcroft, he saw the edge of the door frame. The wall was six inch thick reinforced concrete, with a multi-point lock, and a milled stainless steel edge. It really was a vault. The man was married to a homecoming queen two decades younger than he was, and this was how he liked to spend time: in a sterile crypt, breathing chemical-flavored air through a vent in the wall.

  “So it’s a panic room, for hiding from your wife?”

  “It’s weird when you say it out loud, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Thorne said, amused. “It’s perfect.”

  Ashcroft smiled and nodded, clearly pleased by Thorne’s reaction. After a beat the smile faltered as he remembered why they were here. The senator moved over to the wall beside the door. A rectangle was cut into the smooth concrete, and next to it was a keypad. They were on the other side of the Picasso. Ashcroft punched in four numbers to disable the alarm system, released two catches and the rectangle came out the wall with the painting attached. He lifted the painting off with one hand and passed it to Thorne. It was small and light, yet it felt strangely heavy. It made him uneasy to hold something so valuable and so fragile.

  He looked up and found Ashcroft watching him.

  “There’s something to it, isn’t there? A weight, like it knows its own value.”

  He nodded, then lay it on the shipping case before he broke it.

  “The two of us,” Ashcroft continued, “are probably the first two people to touch that painting without gloves in at least 25 years.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “We live in a strange world, Chris.”

  “You got that right.”

  Ashcroft picked up something that had been leaning against the wall. It was another painting. This had to be one that hung there while the Picasso was on show in Los Angeles. Thorne hadn’t thought about it, but a man like Ashcroft wouldn’t want an empty space on his wall for 11 months of the year, not even if most of that time was spent in Washington. Ashcroft attached the new painting to the rectangle, fitted the panel back through the wall, and punched in the code to arm the system.

  Thorne stepped out into the hallway and let Ashcroft pack the Picasso into the shipping case. The mood had changed. It changed the second they’d touched the painting. Neither of them wanted to give it to Blake. Thorne didn’t much like the picture, but he knew it was important, that it deserved respect. He glanced at his watch again. They had to go. Inside the room, Ashcroft had finished screwing the lid down. He stood in front of it running his fingertips over the rough wooden surface, like a silent prayer.

  They closed up the secret room and walked out the building. The senator’s Range Rover had a split tailgate, and he held the painting while Ashcroft opened both doors, then slid the Picasso into the trunk.

  “What will you tell Lauren when she sees it’s gone?”

  “I doubt she’ll notice. The Hopper’s there more often than the Picasso anyway. Art’s not her thing anymore; she’d rather be running or swimming. If I’m being honest, I rarely have time to look those paintings myself. Something I have come to understand about owning art, is that it’s there for the benefit of other people.”

  Thorne bristled. It was offensive to him that anyone should have so much money that they could afford to treat hundred million dollar paintings like a piece of wallpaper. He watched Ashcroft fold up the lower tailgate and activate the electronic close for the top. They stood back as the large door powered shut.

  It looked like Ashcroft was going to say something else; but nothing came. Instead, he sighed and they climbed wordlessly into the SUV. The interior was cold and Thorne felt the leather sucking the heat from his back. Ashcroft reversed slowly out the space and then took off down the drive. He knew what was bothering Ashcroft, it wasn’t rocket science. He was remembering his last encounter with Blake at the mall.

  Thorne watched the road go past. At night, it all looked the same. The blur of trees caught in the headlights, the twists and turns. Normally, he hated being a passenger but tonight he wanted to plan for what was coming without concerning himself with directions. As much as he appreciat
ed the senator’s help, there was something about it that didn’t ring true. He’d agreed to the swap far too easily. The video had shaken him, Thorne had seen it on his face, but that could only explain so much. A hundred million dollars was a hundred million dollars, no matter who you were. He knew Ashcroft’s actions could be explained by a belief he was doing the right thing, or the fear that Lauren would be taken next; but neither of these explained everything to his satisfaction.

  They were nearly there, just another couple of minutes.

  Now that he thought about it, something else was bothering him. At no time had Ashcroft suggested calling the police or the FBI. Don’t politicians usually have connections at law enforcement agencies they can reach out to for help? It felt like he was missing something important, and the last time he’d had the same feeling he’d been sitting next to Blake. Perhaps he’d lived too long in Los Angeles, but in his experience, this kind of thing never happened. There was always a personal angle that drove one person to help another. It had been greed and guilt that had got him here, and it would be fear and anger that would get him out. You always knew where you stood with people that were in it for themselves.

  He saw light roughly a quarter mile ahead of them. The roadhouse. He looked at his watch: 01:30. They were exactly half an hour early, just the way he wanted. Never operate to someone else’s timetable, always be early. He had to assume that Blake would also be early, preparing for his own part in the drama.

  “OK,” Thorne said. “This is close enough. I’ll walk from here.”

  Ashcroft pulled the SUV to the side of the road.

  “You sure about this?”

  “Yeah. We need to keep our options open, at least at the beginning. He won’t expect me to be on foot, he can’t prepare for it. You remember what I said? Give me a couple of minutes to get into place then park where you can see me.”

  “I remember,” Ashcroft said.

  “If this turns sour, get the hell out and don’t look back.”

  “It’s too bad that gun went missing.”