by Sean Black
He lit a fresh cigarette and lowered the window, enjoying the breeze. He glanced back at the gun on the passenger seat next to him. He doubted he would need it. But it was always best to be prepared, especially when you were a stranger in a strange land.
12
Lock, Ty and Li had gathered in the living room to watch the last thirty-six hours of security footage on a sixty-inch display mounted on the living-room wall. The screen was divided into sections. Each showed the output from a single camera.
Lock was still struggling with Li’s assertion that he hadn’t seen any of this before he’d called them. If he was lying, and the recording showed them what had happened to Emily and Charlie, Lock was certain Li’s reaction, or lack of one, would give him away.
Ty held the Creston remote control. He was busy fast -forwarding through the early part of the footage. They had reached the timestamp for the previous evening. An internal camera had caught Emily and Charlie together in the kitchen. Then they had walked up the stairs, presumably to go to bed.
That had been a little after midnight. So far there was nothing out of the ordinary.
The footage rolled on at sixteen times normal speed. Lock leaned forward in the armchair, elbows on his knees.
“Okay, what’s that?” he said.
Ty hit the pause button and pulled the footage back.
“Where?” asked Li.
“Top right,” said Lock.
He had noticed a sudden change in brightness in the footage from the outside camera that covered the garage area. Now, even as Ty rewound, Lock could see movement. He side-eyed Li, who was sitting a few feet away on the couch.
“Who are they?” said Li.
It was always hard to tell if someone you had only just met was genuine or faking, but Li’s surprise seemed to Lock like the real deal.
Ty tapped the remote display. The view from the garage camera filled one half of the screen. The other displayed the recording of the other cameras.
Lock’s eyes narrowed. He’d assumed the sudden brightness had been a motion-activated security light switching on. Depending upon the sensitivity level it had been set to, the light could be triggered by something as small and innocuous as a domestic cat walking past. Coyotes, possums and raccoons were favorite culprits.
The light hadn’t come from the bulb mounted above the garage door.
On screen, car headlights splashed out from inside the garage. It looked like someone was taking one of the vehicles for a late-night drive. They had watched both Emily and Charlie heading upstairs, which didn’t mean that one or both of them hadn’t snuck back down.
Before Lock could prompt him, Ty pulled back the footage, and checked the inside of the house. There was a door that led from a pantry next to the kitchen directly into the garage. But to reach the kitchen you would have to come down the stairs and walk across the hallway.
Lock kept one eye on the screen, and the other on Li as the hallway area stayed the same. There was no sign of either Emily, Charlie, or anyone else.
“Okay,” said Lock. “Keep it rolling.”
They watched as the front of the Lamborghini inched forward out of the garage, the high, fixed angle of the security camera making it impossible to see who was at the wheel.
“We have sound on any of these?” asked Lock.
“Nope,” said Ty. “Just a visual.”
The Lamborghini inched a little further out of the garage. The hesitant, stop-start way it pulled out suggested to Lock that whoever was behind the wheel was unfamiliar with the vehicle. Had Emily ever driven it? Could she have found a way into the garage that avoided the hallway camera? It seemed unlikely. If she had decided to take it for a spin she wouldn’t have worried about a camera catching her.
Now lots of things happened all at once. Outside the garage, two figures appeared from the edge of the frame and rushed towards the Lamborghini as its high-mounted brake lights lit up.
Ty paused the footage again. Lock got up from the armchair and walked toward the screen, studying the figures. They wore sneakers, baggy jeans and equally baggy shirts. Bandanas covered the lower part of their faces. Baseball caps took care of the rest, leaving only the area around their eyes visible.
Li had also stood up and was standing next to Lock. Again, his reaction seemed one of complete and genuine shock. “What the hell?” he said to Lock.
He could be acting, Lock reminded himself, but something told him that he wasn’t.
It was a fine process of calibration, but it was also one that Lock was adept at. He could usually spot a liar at six hundred paces: even if their words were consistent, their body language betrayed them. The only exception Lock had found were individuals with socio- or psychopathic personalities and ice water for blood.
That was a possibility that he could not dismiss. So far Li had been extremely focused and business-like. This reaction could simply be a mirroring of what he knew to be a normal human being’s reaction.
“Who are they? How did they get into the garage?” said Li.
“I can tell you what they are,” said Lock. “It’s a little early for the who and the how.”
“They’re gang members,” said Ty. “Come to jack that sweet ride of your boy’s.”
“I tried to tell them that car was a bad idea,” said Li, coming off like he was making a final plea to a jury. It was a little too strident for Lock’s liking.
In his head Lock circled back to Li having waited until now to find out what had happened when it was playing out in front of them. “Half speed,” he instructed Ty.
Ty hit play, then slowed it down to one half of real-time replay. He tapped between screens, blowing up the ones with signs of activity and shrinking the others.
Presumably alerted by the roar of the Lamborghini, Charlie came tearing down the stairs. Outside the garage, a third gang member had appeared on the forecourt. There had to be one driving inside the car, and possibly a second riding shotgun.
“Okay, pause,” said Lock. “Go back to Charlie. What’s he holding there?”
The frame froze. Charlie was mid-step, three steps from the bottom. He had something in his right hand. A pistol. It was either a Glock, or a SIG, almost certainly the former from the finer details and shape.
“You know he had a gun?” Lock asked Li.
“No idea.”
He was lying. Lock was certain of it. He let it go. For now.
“Does Charlie have any kind of training?”
Li shook his head.
Lock’s stomach sank a little. A gun for home defense wasn’t the worst idea but only if you knew what you were doing with it. If you didn’t, it could quickly become a liability. Time at the gun range with an instructor did two things. It taught you how to hit a target. But, more importantly, it helped make trigger-pull a habit that wasn’t overridden by uncertainty.
There was no point in having a gun in your hand, and aiming the end of the barrel at a bad guy, if you didn’t have what it took to squeeze off a shot.
Ty hit play but kept it on half speed. Charlie disappeared frame left. He was headed towards the kitchen and in the direction of the garage.
A few seconds later, the gang members standing outside seemed to react. Two of them ran down the side of the Lamborghini and towards the open garage.
Back in the hallway, Emily was coming down the stairs, still in her pajamas. She appeared hesitant. At one point, she seemed to turn back. Even though he knew she wasn’t here, part of Lock was willing her to run back up the stairs, lock herself into a bathroom and call the cops. That would have been the smart thing to do.
He made a mental note to discuss panic-room installation with the family, if they resolved this mess. It was nuts that someone could drop this kind of cash on a trophy home and a trophy car without even a basic panic room to hole up in while they waited for the cavalry to crest the hill.
On the street, in your car or in your home, if the bad guy couldn’t get to you, you were safe. That was ru
le number one. It was hard for anything bad to happen to someone who was sitting behind a blast-proof door.
At the bottom of the stairs, they all watched helplessly as Emily headed in the same direction Charlie had moments before. Her mouth opened and shut. She appeared to be shouting. Then she, too, exited the frame.
Back outside, two of the gang members had disappeared into the garage. One stayed next to the Lamborghini. Its brake lights still flared.
Lock sensed what he would see next before it unfolded on the screen. Not even sensed. He knew. What was missing and what was present from the house told him.
Ty let the next brief section play in real time before slowing the footage again as the two gang members reappeared, dragging Charlie between them. He was no longer holding the handgun. But one of the gang members was holding what looked awfully like a Glock. He held it by the barrel and smashed the butt into Charlie’s face. Over and over. At least four heavy blows to his face and then the back of his head as he crumpled.
The third gang member skipped over to join the beating. Lock motioned for Ty to pause the footage.
“What is it?” Ty asked him.
Lock walked up close to the screen, and jabbed a finger at the third gang member. A mass of long black curly hair spilled down their back.
“That’s a girl?” said Li.
“It’s not exactly unheard of,” said Lock.
“Or it’s a guy with long hair,” offered Ty.
Lock shook his head, and tapped the screen. “Not unless he’s had breast implants too.”
“Fair point,” said Ty.
The footage resumed. Charlie was thrown to the ground. The girl swung a kick, full force, at his head. Even Lock winced. Li’s hand covered his mouth.
“You don’t have to watch the rest of this if you don’t want to,” Lock offered.
The question was loaded.
If you didn’t know what happened next, no matter how shaken you were, you’d want to see it. If you did know, you might try to over-think how a regular person would react.
“No, I’m good,” said Li.
Now the gang members were dancing about in front of Charlie. One leaned in and spoke to whoever was at the wheel of the Lamborghini. They seemed uncertain of their next move, like this hadn’t been in the plan.
No doubt they had figured that if anyone interrupted them it would be the cops, not a fresh-off-the-boat rich kid, who’d spent his life having his ass wiped for him. As assumptions went, it was reasonable. Make entry to the garage, steal a quarter-million dollars’ worth of supercar, and get the hell out of Dodge. Not a bad evening’s work for a bunch of street rats. Lock was certain that had been the plan. Especially as they looked down at Charlie writhing in agony on the ground in front of them, like they had no clue as to what should happen next.
The smart money would have been on a hasty escape. Lock knew that hadn’t been the call.
Two seconds later, his heart sank further as Emily stepped to the back of the car. She was agitated, hopping from one foot to the other. She had something in her right hand. When he saw what it was, Lock’s agitation came close to matching hers.
13
On screen, Emily stood in front of the three bandana-masked gang members, waving a kitchen knife. It was the kind used to chop vegetables. A big black handle. A six-inch blade.
In Lock’s mind, pulling a knife on someone, especially when you didn’t know how to use it, was almost as dumb as pulling a gun. A gun, you could pull the trigger and get lucky. A gun gave you a better shot at fending someone off. Pull a knife and you’d better have the physical power and fighting skills to deploy it.
Stabbing someone took a colder heart than shooting them. It was more intimate, more physical. It required a deeper level of rage.
The girl gang member was the first to react. Reaching back, she magicked up her own pistol from where it had been tucked into the waistband under her shirt. She aimed it squarely at Emily, who was shifting her weight from side to side. The girl was perfectly calm. She took a step towards Emily, who retreated.
Lock glanced back at Li. He seemed utterly transfixed by the nightmare unfolding on the screen directly in front of them. The moment had a surreal quality to it. Here they were, standing less than a hundred feet from where two totally different worlds had smashed together, and everything looked like the maid had just been in to tidy up and change the floral arrangements.
“Was there any blood?” Lock said to Li.
The question seemed to snap Li out of his reverie. “What?”
“Outside the garage, or inside. Did you see any blood?” repeated Lock.
“No.”
They watched as Emily crouched down, placing the knife on the ground. The girl stepped towards her. She bent down, picked up the knife and tucked it down her pants, seemingly unworried about the unsheathed blade.
Lock braced himself for Emily to get the same treatment that Charlie had had. It didn’t happen. Instead, the girl reached out and took her hand, as firmly but gently as a kindergarten teacher taking charge of an errant toddler.
One of the gang members flitted past them. Seconds later the Audi reversed out of the garage. Charlie was helped to his feet and, along with Emily, escorted to the Audi. There was some kind of conversation between Emily and the girl, who opened the driver’s door. A gang member got out. Emily took his place behind the wheel.
The girl opened the rear passenger door on the opposite side from the driver. Charlie was pushed in. A gang member climbed in beside him. It took off down the drive, disappearing beyond the reach of the security camera’s lens. They watched as Emily turned the Audi on the motorcourt and followed it down the driveway into the night. Final destination unknown.
Everything remained still, even as Ty hit fast forward. The screens flickered but didn’t change.
Lock didn’t move or say anything. He was thinking.
Cars gone. People gone. No obvious signs of a struggle. Nothing disturbed inside the mansion, save a blade missing from the knife block on the marble counter in the kitchen.
Suddenly, with less than three minutes of moving images, it made sense. For the most part anyway.
Questions remained unanswered. But, as with any investigation, it was better to know what you were dealing with than not.
“I need to make a call,” said Li.
“Who to?” Lock was done with niceties. This situation was critical enough that they had no place now.
“My boss.”
Lock fixed Li with a stare. “That’ll be the second call you make,” he told him. He had already pulled out his own cell phone. He handed it to Li. “First you’re calling the cops.”
Li stared at Lock’s cell phone, like it was a stick of dynamite.
Lock tapped in 911. “Okay, I’ll do it. But it will look better coming from you. First person the cops look at in something like this will be you.”
“What do you mean?” said Li. “I wasn’t in on that,” he said, with a wave at the screen that was still showing the perfectly quiet house.
“You could have set them up,” said Ty, stepping easily into the role of suspicious cop. “They have what you want. Didn’t work for it. That could make any reasonable person a little jealous.”
“Oh, come on,” protested Li.
Ty turned to Lock. “He seem kind of touchy to you?”
“He does,” said Lock, poker-faced.
An operator had come on the line. Lock held the phone to Li’s face. “I need to speak with the Arcadia Police Department,” said Li.
14
“You think he’s involved?” Ty asked Lock, as they stood in the cavernous front hallway waiting for the cops to arrive.
Li was in the kitchen doorway, breaking the worsening news to his boss in China. It was one call that Lock was grateful he hadn’t had to make. If he knew anything about very wealthy self-made men, Li should count himself fortunate that he had an ocean between himself and his employer.
Ty�
�s question was a good one. It had been at the front of Lock’s mind even before they had seen Emily and Charlie being jacked and driven off in their own car.
As Li’s conversation with Emily’s father grew increasingly agitated Lock nudged his partner. “We should get this on camera.”
“Already on it,” said Ty, who had his cell phone held casually down by his side, the lens tilted toward Li.
“He knows something, and he’s not sharing it. But I don’t know what that is.” Lock shrugged.
“Or we’re reading too much into it?”
“That’s possible too,” said Lock.
Assumptions were dangerous. At any time, but especially this early on. They could send you hurtling down blind alleys and smashing into dead ends without you even realizing it. They ate up valuable time. And in cases like this time was the enemy. The longer Charlie and Emily were gone, the more likely it was that bad things would happen.
“Why did he wait to watch what was on the cameras?” said Ty.
“We need to press him on that.”
“Or let the cops?” ventured Ty.
“No, we need to do it. The cops aren’t going to share anything with us,” said Lock.
“Not with me, you mean,” said Ty.
Ty’s recent intervention in the armed siege in Long Beach hadn’t exactly enamored him to law enforcement. It was understandable.
Despite that, Lock was certain he had made the right call. A crime had been committed and law enforcement had the proper power and resources to deal with it. He and Ty could run something in parallel. Lock was still figuring out what that would entail, if anything.
There was an argument that they had done precisely what they should have done. Perhaps it was enough to work out what had happened and hand it over. It wouldn’t pay the bills, but doing the right thing rarely did.
“We should stick around until they get here,” said Lock. “We can bring them up to speed. Then I guess it’s up to our client here to decide if we stay onboard.”