Hostage

by Robert Crais

  PART FIVE

  • • •

  THE AVOCADO ORCHARD

  29

  • • •

  Sunday, 2:16 P.M.

  Two weeks later

  TALLEY

  The fantasy was always the same: On the days that Jeff Talley visited the avocado orchard, he imagined Brendan Malik playing in the trees. He saw the boy laughing, kicking up dust as he ran, then climbing into the branches where he swung by his knees. Brendan was always happy and laughing in these daydreams, even with his skin mottled in death and blood pulsing from his neck. Talley had never been able to imagine the boy any other way.

  Jane said, “What are you thinking?”

  The two of them were slouched down in the front seat of his patrol car, watching red-tailed hawks float above the trees. Amanda had stayed in Los Angeles, but Jane had come up for the weekend.

  “Brendan Malik. Remember? That boy.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Talley realized that he had never told her. He had not mentioned Brendan Malik to anyone after that night he left the boy’s house, not even the police psychologist.

  “I guess I never told you.”

  “Who was he?”

  “A victim in one of the negotiations. It’s not important anymore.”

  Jane took his hand. She turned sideways so that she faced him.

  “It’s important if you’re thinking about it.”

  Talley considered that.

  “He was a little boy, nine, ten, something like that. About Thomas’s age. I think about him sometimes.”

  “You’ve never mentioned him.”

  “I guess not.”

  Talley found himself telling her about the night with Brendan Malik, of holding the boy’s hand, of staring into his eyes as the little boy died, of the overwhelming feelings of failure and shame.

  Listening, she cried, and he cried, too.

  “I was trying to see his face right now, but I can’t. I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad about that. You think that’s bad?”

  Jane squeezed his hand.

  “I think it’s good we’re talking about these things. It’s a sign that you’re healing.”

  Talley shrugged, then smiled at her.

  “About goddamned time.”

  Jane smiled in that way she had, the smile that was encouraging and pleased.

  “Did you find out about Thomas?”

  “I tried, but they won’t tell me anything. I guess it’s best this way.”

  Walter Smith and his family had entered the U.S. Marshals’ witness protection program. They had simply vanished; one day here, the next gone, hidden by the system. Talley hoped that Thomas would one day contact him, but he didn’t think it likely. It was safer that way.

  Jane said, “How much time before you have to get back?”

  “I’ve got time. I’m the Chief.”

  Jane smiled wider.

  “Let’s walk.”

  They walked from sunlight to shade to sun, bees swirling sluggishly around them, lazy in the midday heat. It was good to walk. It was peaceful. Talley had been away for a very long time, hiding inside himself, but now he was back. He was on the way back.

  The orchard, as always, was as still as a church.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Jane.”

  Jane squeezed his hand. Talley knew, then, that though a church was a place to bury the dead, it was also a place to celebrate the living. Their lives could begin again.

  If you enjoyed Robert Crais’s Hostage, you won’t want to miss his new novel

  THE LAST DETECTIVE

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  THE LAST DETECTIVE….

  A silence filled the canyon below my house that fall; no hawks floated overhead, the coyotes did not sing, the owl that lived in the tall pine outside my door no longer asked my name. I’ll bet the damned thing died. A smarter person would have taken these things as a warning, but the air was chill and clear in that magnified way it can be in the winter, letting me see down into the houses that sprinkled the hillsides below and into the lives of the people within those houses and all the way out of the canyon into the great basin city of Los Angeles. On days like those when you can see so far you often forget to look at what is right in front of you, what is next to you, what is so close that it is part of you.

  I said, “How many people has she killed?”

  Grunts, curses, and the snap of punches came from the next room.

  Ben Chenier shouted, “What?”

  “How many people has she killed?”

  We were twenty feet apart, me in the kitchen and Ben in the living room, shouting at the tops of our lungs; Ben Chenier, aged ten, also known as my girlfriend’s only son, and me, aged whatever, also known as Elvis Cole, the World’s Greatest Detective and Ben’s babysitter for the past three days.

  “What?”

  Nothing like having a civil conversation.

  I went to the door.

  “Is there a volume control on that thing?”

  Ben was so involved with something called a Game Freak that he did not look up. You held the Game Freak like a pistol with one hand and worked the controls with the other while you watched the action on a built-in computer screen. The salesman told me that it was a hot seller with boys ages ten to fourteen. He hadn’t told me that it was louder than a downtown shootout at rush hour. Since I had given it to Ben sixteen hours ago, he had not stopped playing.

  I waved to catch his eye and shouted again.

  “Are we having fun yet?”

  Ben disappeared back into the game.

  “Come see, dude. This is really cool.” Dude.

  I went over and dropped onto the couch next to him. I have a little A-frame house perched in the hills above Hollywood. Ben liked my house with its curious steep roof, the glass wall overlooking the canyon, and the deck from which he could dangle his feet. He told me once that when he looked at my house from the walnut trees on the slope below, the house reminded him of a castle in Lord of the Rings or the Shannara books. That was pretty cool, too. Dude.

  Ben nodded at the game.

  “Check it out.”

  A young Asian woman with spikey hair, breasts the size of casaba melons, and an angry snarl jumped over a Dumpster to face three musclebound steroid-juicers in what appeared to be a devastated urban landscape.

  Her voice growled electronically from the Game Freak’s little speaker: “You’re my toilet!”

  She let loose with a martial arts sidekick that spun the first attacker into the air.

  I grunted in appreciation.

  “Wow. Some woman.”

  “She’s the Queen of Blame. A bad guy named Modus sold her sister into slavery, and her sister died. Now the Queen of Blame is going to make Modus pay the ultimate price.”

  I nodded.

  “Seems only right.”

  She did a jerky backflip, then punched a man three times her size with left and rights so fast that her hands blurred. Every time she hit him the Game Freak made a wet smacking sound—blat!, thwap!, krak! Blood and teeth flew everywhere. And they make this stuff for kids.

  Ben had stayed with me while his mother, Lucy Chenier, was in San Diego on business. I enjoyed spending time with the boy, but the time between us had sometimes been awkward. Not because of anything that happened between Ben and myself, but because of the tensions that existed between myself and his mother. I am a private investigator. I work jobs that bring me in contact with dangerous people, and early last summer, that danger rolled over my shores in a way that threatened Lucy and Ben. Lucy was having a tough time with that. Ben had heard the sharp words and seen the tightness of her manner, and it worried him.

  I liked this boy a lot. I loved him. He was the son I did not have. I said, “You getting hungry?”

  “Sure.”

  It was late afternoon. Lucy was driving back from San Diego today, and would be calling s
oon to give us an ETA.

  “Okay, here’s the plan: Mom’s going to get back soon. I figure we should clean the place so she doesn’t think we’re a couple of pigs, then we can get the grill ready so we’re good to go when she gets here. Burgers okay?”

  He stiffened when I mentioned his mother, but concentrated on the game as if he hadn’t heard me.

  I said, “I know that what’s going on between me and your mom is scary. I just want you to know that we’re going to get through this. Your mom and I love each other. We’re going to be fine.”

  He stared at the frozen screen for a little while longer, and then he looked at me.

  “Elvis?”

  “What?”

  “I had a really good time staying with you. I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

  “Me, too, pal. I’m glad you were here.”

  Ben smiled, and I smiled back just as the phone rang. It was Lucy.

  “Hey. Where are you?”

  “Long Beach. How are you guys holding up?”

  She was speaking too loudly, the way people do when they’re on the phone in their car.

  “We’re good. I’m getting hamburgers together, then we’re going to clean so you don’t think we’re pigs.’

  “Make sure the dancing girls are gone. That’s all I ask.”

  “You mean Kandi and Trixi?”

  “Funny. Ha-ha.”

  “Give me an ETA.”

  “I’ve got to swing by the office when I get into the city, so I’ll be another two hours.” I checked the time to fix in my head what time she would arrive. It was twenty-two minutes after four. I would remember that time.

  “Two hours. Got it. Kandi and Trixi are history.”

  We fell into a silence that lasted too long.

  Finally, she said, “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too. Will you stay here tonight?”

  “If you can find room.”

  I sighed, feeling as if coiled springs in my neck had suddenly relaxed.

  “I think we can find a bunk.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  I put down the phone and went out onto the deck, looking for Ben. The deck was empty. I went to the rail. Ben likes to play on the slope below my house and climb in the black walnut trees that grow farther down the hill. The deepest cuts in the canyon were just beginning to purple, but the light was still good. I didn’t see him.

  “Ben?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Hey. Buddy! Mom’s on her way!”

  He still didn’t answer.

  I checked the side of the house, then went back inside and called him again, thinking maybe he had gone to the guest room where he sleeps or the bathroom.

  “Yo, Ben! Where are you?”

  Nothing.

  I looked in the guest room and the downstairs bathroom, then went out the front door into the street.

  “Ben?”

  I didn’t see him. I went back inside the house and stood in the entry, listening. I was getting pissed off.

  “Ben! That was Mom on the phone!”

  I thought that might get an answer. The Mom Threat.

  “If you’re hiding, this is a problem. It’s not funny.”

  Nothing.

  I went upstairs to my loft, which is also my bedroom. I checked the master bath, my closet, and under my bed. I’m not sure why I thought he would be in any of these places, but I looked. I went downstairs again to the deck.

  “Ben!”

  I listened closely, but he did not answer. “Ben!”

  I went out onto the deck and looked down into the canyon again. The slope was not steep, but I grew worried that he had taken a tumble or fallen from a tree. That was the only way that Ben would not answer me. If he were injured.

  “Ben?” I left the deck and worked my way down the slope.

  “Ben! Are you down here?”

  The walnut trees twisted from the hillside like gnarled fingers, their trunks gray and as rough as corn cobs. The trees had dropped their leaves, leaving a skeleton of branches that clawed the sky. If Ben was up in one of the trees, he would have been easy to see. He wasn’t.

  I shouted his name again.

  The largest tree pushed out of the ground beyond the fence with five heavy trunks that spread like an opening hand.

  “Ben! Are you down here?” I listened hard. I took a deep breath, exhaled, then held my breath. I heard a voice.

  “Ben!”

  The voice was far away. I imagined him farther down the slope with a broken leg. Or worse.

  “I’m coming.”

  I hurried.

  I followed the voice through the trees and around a bulge in the finger, but as I cleared the hump I realized that the voice wasn’t his. The Game Freak was lying in the grass. Ben was not there.

  I called out as loudly as I could. “Ben?!”

  No answer came back. The only sounds in the canyon were my thundering heart and the Queen of Blame’s tinny voice. She had finally found Modus, a great fat giant of a man with a bullet head and pencil-point eyes. She launched kick after kick, punch after punch, screaming her vow of vengeance as the two of them fought through a blood-drenched room.

  “Now you die! Now you die! Now you die!”

  I picked up the Queen of Blame and carried her up the hill.

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2001 by Robert Crais

  This book contains and excerpt from The Last Detective by Robert Crais, published by Doubleday. Copyright © 2002 by Robert Crais

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-307-56769-7

  This edition published by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

  v3.0