I settled into my familiar corner of the floor since there were no more chairs and gloated in my small triumph. At this point I’d take any little victory I could grab because the alternative was to start thinking of home and Drake and wondering what was going on. Were they looking for me? Did they have any leads?
I knew I couldn’t count on a rescue. Drake would be here in a flash if he knew where I was, but I just didn’t see how that could be possible. No, I would have to work my own way out of this mess.
Chapter 15
The producer pulled a photo from the leather over-shoulder bag he carried. Cristina Cross could be Charlie’s sister. Drake felt a pain jab through his heart.
Kingston kept his cool. “What, exactly, did you say to the caller?”
The producer, who introduced himself as Darren Stein (although it was spelled DeRon on his business card), had followed Kingston to the squad room, with Drake and Ron trailing along.
“I guess I just sputtered some nonsense,” Stein said. “The demand completely took me by surprise. We’ve finished shooting Cristina’s parts in the film and she took a couple weeks off to visit an aunt in London. The crew’s just here wrapping up the second unit footage.”
Kingston by now had everyone seated at a table and he was making notes on a small notepad. He’d gotten the basics about what time the call came in and the fact that the number came up as anonymous on Stein’s cell phone.
“The guy rattled off a demand, said he’d call again and that I better have the money ready to deliver. He hung up so fast I was still standing there with my mouth open.”
He shifted in his seat, looking like he wished he’d not gotten tied up in all the hoopla.
Welcome to the club, thought Drake. How many times had he wondered what he’d be doing right now if Charlie had only arrived at the bank fifteen minutes later.
“Look, I don’t know how I can help,” Stein said. “Cristina’s a nice girl, really a sweetie to work with, you know. But there’s no way she’s worth five million dollars to the studio. She’s had one TV series, a half dozen bit parts in films. The one we’re doing now is probably her biggest and it’s just a supporting role. She shows up in People often enough because she’s got a good publicist.” He shrugged. “I’d like to help you out here but it’s gonna come out pretty soon that she’s alive and well in London.”
Kingston set his pen down and clasped his hands in front of him. “That can’t happen.”
The Hollywood guy looked like he wanted to play some kind of importance game but at Kingston’s stern gaze he settled back into his seat.
“We’re not asking you to come up with the money. The Bureau knows how to handle those things. We’re just asking that you contact Miss Cross and tell her to stay put in London, to stay low-key, and to keep her publicist from releasing any stories about her being there.”
“She’s promot—”
“It’s a request at this point, Mr. Stein, but it would only take a word from me to have you detained and to round up that publicist and tie up a whole lot of his or her time, as well. And Miss Cross might find it somewhat uncomfortable to be extradited in cuffs and held in an underground interrogation room somewhere. You described her as a ‘sweetie’ I think. So I’m guessing that a bad-girl image really doesn’t fit, huh?” He stared at the producer until the younger guy blinked.
“It’s only for a few days, Mr. Stein. These bad dudes want their money quickly. They’ll call back any time now, we’ll stage a drop for the money, get our hostage out of their hands . . . You’ll go back to making your movie and your little star can show up and pose for the cameras all she wants. Are we good with that?”
“What do I have to do?” Stein asked, barely masking the twitch of impatience that flicked across his mouth.
“I can keep you almost entirely out of it if you’ll work with me.”
Stein nodded.
“How well-known are you? I mean, your face, your voice. You do a lot of interviews, or those extras on DVDs, that talking-head stuff?”
DeRon didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t quite that important. He shrugged nonchalantly. “Not much, some.”
“I’m thinking one of us can pose as you to handle all the contact work. If there’s no chance that the robbers would know they’re being scammed, we can keep you totally out of it.”
Drake couldn’t stop himself. “Hey, they think Charlie is this Cross woman. They can’t be all that up on their Hollywood trivia.”
He received a nod from Kingston and a glower from Stein.
“Okay,” said Kingston. “I’m pretty good with voices. You said you didn’t speak much during the ransom call?”
“That’s right.”
Kingston repeated Stein’s last few comments, doing a credible job of imitating the younger man’s voice.
“We’ll need his cell phone, won’t we?” Gonzales asked. “It’s probably the only number the perps have.”
Stein acted like they’d asked for his right leg. He sputtered about all his contacts and how many calls he took each day.
“Get a technician on it,” Kingston suggested. “We can probably clone the number, monitor everything and pass along the non-related calls.”
Stein screamed ‘lawyer’ until Kingston informed him that if he wanted it that way, the phone was now being seized as material evidence. The producer calmed down and grumbled that he supposed he could work with them.
“Come with me,” Kingston said. “I want to record your voice so I can practice it.”
Drake and Ron watched as Stein followed the FBI agent off to another room. The photo of Cristina Cross still lay on the table.
“Strong resemblance,” Dave Gonzales said.
“Uncanny,” Ron agreed.
Drake stared at it. Cross was a glossier version of Charlie, who almost never wore makeup and was more likely to have her long hair up in a ponytail than those waves that fell around Cross’s shoulders. But the shape of the face, hair color, eye color—yes, it was a little too close for comfort.
He paced over to the windows, stared out. Hours had passed since he woke up this morning and he felt almost no closer to finding Charlie. The sun was already past the midday point.
His attention was drawn back to the table when Kingston returned. Ron had brought along the printouts he’d done from the internet pages of Melinda Davies, and he was in the midst of going over again with Kingston the relationships he’d figured out.
Kingston pulled a mug shot from the folder in front of him, a folder, Drake noticed, that seemed to be getting thicker by the hour.
“Leon Mohler. I recognize him,” Ron said.
“Right. Bad dude. Lot of drug and prostitution busts on his sheet.”
Drake felt himself go cold. Again, the urge to dash off, to simply get out there and do something. He stared out across the city.
A few minutes passed—or maybe an hour—the low hum of background noises barely registering until a familiar voice intruded.
“Cliff, got a second?” It was Dave Gonzales. Standing beside him, a young officer in jeans and an APD T-shirt. Above the pocket: Simpson, Crime Lab.
“This is Mitch from the lab. He’s our best techie on site and he’s got a break for us.”
The mood at the table went up by about twelve beats. Drake stepped over to the table where Ron sat with Cliff Kingston.
“Uh, yeah,” said Mitch Simpson. “Well, I cloned Mr. Stein’s phone like you asked. And Detective Gonzales asked me to look at the call that came in this morning and get as much data about it as I could? So, anyway, the phone records show the number the call came from. That’s common, even though the number didn’t register on the caller ID because this number isn’t in Mr. Stein’s contact list?”
Kingston looked a little impatient. Drake felt like shaking the young guy to speed up the explanation.
“Uh, okay, so this is the number and the name of the phone’s owner.”
“Leon Stringer,” said Kingston.
“I figured as much.” He looked at the note Mitch handed him.
“The best news is that with a little more data I was able to find out the location—”
“Bottom line!” Kingston probably didn’t mean to shout but his voice came out pretty strong.
“In or near Alamosa, Colorado.”
“What? That’s a surprise.”
Clearly, what the FBI man didn’t want to say was that they’d had no clue the gang could have gotten so far away.
“Do we know where in Alamosa?”
“Can’t really say, sir. It’s a small town and I haven’t been able to narrow the grid just yet.”
“Keep trying. Pinpoint it as closely as you can, Mitch.”
“Yessir.”
“I’m flying up there,” Drake said.
“Not yet, you aren’t.” Kingston stood up and Drake had a momentary flash of the heavier agent trying to take him down.
“It’s where they were this morning. I can be there in a little more than an hour.”
“And then what? You’ve got a town with a population of—I don’t know—several thousand folks. A lot of motels and shopping centers. You going to just hover around and hope these guys’ll hear you and come out with their hands raised?”
When he said it that way, Drake realized the futility of acting on his own.
“Let’s get more data. Find out if there’s a connection to any of the men in the gang, some particular place they’d go to hide out. Could be they just passed through Alamosa and stopped long enough to make the phone call. Once we have more information we’ll organize a team, involve local law enforcement if that seems prudent. I know what you’re wanting, Drake, but we have to be organized about it. Your wife’s life is literally on the line. These are bad guys and they are armed. We cannot take the chance of spooking them.”
Drake felt as deflated as a day-old party balloon. He dropped to a chair.
“Look, there’s not a lot you can do here,” Kingston was saying. “It would be better if you go on home.”
Better in what way, Drake wondered. Face an empty house where every stick of furniture in every room would remind him of Charlie? Where he’d be tempted to break into the booze and dull the pain?
“I know you’re not a guy who can just sit around. You’re used to being in the middle of the action. I get that.” Kingston genuinely seemed regretful. “But can you see my side of it too? I can’t let you endanger yourself or your wife. I’m afraid that’s an order. If you do something on your own, you will be arrested for interfering with an ongoing investigation.”
Ron stepped over and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get out for awhile. Get some fresh air or something.”
“I need to be here. If another ransom call comes in—”
“We’ll call you,” Kingston said.
“But I need to see her. Make them send a picture showing that she’s okay. I need to see that.”
“We will. We need to see that too. Meanwhile, I’m making arrangements for some cash. These guys obviously have no clue that five million dollars won’t fit into some kind of bag they can carry. But we’ll come up with something convincing enough to get their attention. When the moment comes, we want the bait ready.”
“Drake—” Ron’s voice was quiet, thoughtful. He turned to Kingston. “We’ll come back later, if that’s okay?”
The agent nodded.
Drake had the distinct impression that the police and FBI would rather that he stayed completely away, just waiting at home for a call. But at least they realized that wasn’t going to happen.
Down in the parking garage, Ron took charge. “Give me your keys, man. You’re too upset to drive.”
It was true but Drake drew himself up. “I manage to stay in control of an aircraft, even when there’s fire below me, injured people in the back, and my own life at stake. I can handle the truck. Just tell me where you want to go.”
Ron gave him a tentative smile, the first either of them had managed all day. “We may not be able to run up to Alamosa, and we may not be able to tell the police how to do their jobs, but we can still be doing something. Let’s grab a burger or something and go back to the office.”
Darkness fell as they finished eating. Drake sat in Ron’s office watching his brother-in-law click away with his computer mouse. He’d taken the time to call their brother Paul in Phoenix and let him know the situation, cautioning him about letting any details get outside the family. If the story were to somehow get on the news . . . He thought of making a similar call to Elsa Higgins; their neighbor, closest person to a grandparent to Charlie, would be frantic if she knew . . . No, it was better to keep her out of it for now. Better to be able to deliver some good news later on.
“I’ll bet this is our place,” Ron said, interrupting Drake’s thoughts. “Take a look.”
He had a map up on his screen, a place with the tag Stringer Farms on it.
Chapter 16
I must have drifted off because the next thing I knew I received a little nudge to my rear end.
“Hey, princess. Time to go to bed.”
I looked up, dreading the implications of what that might mean. But it was Billy standing near me. String stood near the table, taking a slug from the whiskey bottle, finishing it off. Ollie appeared to be stacking the deck of cards, watching String warily.
Billy reached down and put a hand under my elbow to give me a boost to my feet. I felt like an ancient old woman, unable to move and creaking like a rusted hinge when I tried.
“Give her this,” said String, pulling out the pill bottle again. “She can sleep on the couch. Kid, you watch her tonight.”
He sent his trademark evil stare toward Billy, punishment, I guessed, for having fallen asleep on the job earlier. Ollie followed String to the living room door, probably so he could lay claim to the armchair before someone else got it.
Billy handed me my pill and I reminded him that I needed water. The second he turned his back I made sure the others weren’t facing me and jammed the pill out of sight, into the pocket with the others.
Billy handed me the glass and watched my credible act as I tipped my empty hand toward my mouth and took a long drink of the water.
Ollie waited in the living room, sprawled out on the armchair.
“String says for you to go upstairs,” he said to Billy. “Guess there’s a coupla bedrooms.”
Billy left me near the sofa and walked to the stairs that I’d noticed near the front door.
“Wait, help me with this,” Ollie said. He held up a full new roll of duct tape.
“Please,” I said. “Could you leave it off while I’m asleep? It’s really hard to get comfortable with my legs stuck together like that.”
String stepped out from another doorway, behind Ollie’s chair. “Forget it. I heard that. Tape her up.”
Billy gave me an apologetic look after String disappeared into the downstairs bedroom. Ollie seemed like the kind of guy who didn’t much analyze things—he simply followed orders. I’d noticed that when he was around the other men he puffed up and tried hard to be one of them. But he visibly relaxed whenever String and Mole were out of the room.
A long moment passed while Billy fumbled with the tape. Ollie shifted from one foot to the other, unsure how to go about asking me to sit down with my legs together. I seriously debated shoving one of them aside and making a run for the back door before they could get their act together.
But String’s bedroom was between me and the kitchen, and the door stood open. I could hear him milling around in there, and the distinctive clunk of his gun being placed on a wood surface got my attention.
Before I could give my escape further consideration, Billy was kneeling beside me and had two wraps of the tape around my jean-clad legs. The sound of the tape tearing away from the roll must have reassured String that the younger guys were doing their job. He closed the bedroom door.
I leaned into the sofa’s squashy cushions, not real
ly ready to go to sleep. Billy handed me the musty robe again to use as a blanket, then he took one of the flashlights and headed up the stairs. Ollie sat in the armchair, picking up an old gardening magazine, casting it aside.
“Can’t believe they got no TV here,” he muttered.
“Yeah. Looks like String’s grandmother didn’t go for a lot of modern stuff.” I shifted and pulled the robe around my shoulders.
The sweltering June temperatures in Albuquerque had not made it to this high mountain valley and I wasn’t dressed for nights that dipped into the forties.
“Bet you’re missing your TV and your girlfriend,” I said, mindful of the door behind which String lurked, keeping my voice low. “I heard you mention her.”
He nodded wistfully. “Yeah. You know. This seemed like somethin’ I could do, you know, for us. Get some money so’s we can get married, have a little house somewhere.”
“So, how is it you got in on the uh . . . bank job? You and String good friends or something?”
“Um, kinda related. His girlfriend, my aunt Sissy.” He shrugged as if that pretty well explained everything.
“Well, he must trust you a lot, giving you his car and expecting you to secure a hiding place and meet them. I mean, he didn’t ask the other guys to do anything that important.” Okay, Charlie, don’t lay it on too thick.
Ollie scoffed. “Ha! Yeah, some hideout I got. Woulda sat there two days and here they’d be, totally different place.”
I nodded as though I’d never realized how the rest of the gang tried to betray him.
“Yeah, that must have been pretty hard to—” My mouth clamped shut when the bedroom door flew open.
“Cut the chatter!” String ordered. “I gotta get me some sleep.”
He stared at me for a minute, weaving just slightly on his feet, then he went back inside and closed the door again.
I gave Ollie a little conspiratorial grin and raised my eyebrows. He blew out the candle on the coffee table as I settled onto the sofa, pulling the robe over me for warmth. I lay there with my eyes wide open.
Stardom Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #12 Page 10