“Do you think they ran because they knew we were getting close?”
“It’s possible.” Kingston shrugged. “But I don’t know how. We made sure that no local lawmen approached this place. We coordinated everything, watched from a distance . . .”
“So are there any leads on the car, the one they stole from the dead woman?” Drake paced a few feet away, then back. “I can’t just sit around here. Do you get that? I’m not the kind of guy who can wait and do nothing.”
“Drake, calm down. Just what do you think you could do?”
Kingston looked patient enough to wait calmly for the apocalypse, but it wasn’t his wife out there in the hands of desperate criminals.
“Every law enforcement agency in the Southwest has a description of the vehicle and the subjects. If they are on the road they will be spotted.”
“And what happens when some small town cop pulls them over and Stringer comes out shooting? Or Mohler holds a gun to Charlie’s head while a guy barely out of school fumbles to figure out what to do next?” Drake felt his blood pressure rise and wanted to put his fist through something.
“Listen, Drake. I can send you home right this minute and cut you out of the investigation altogether. You could be sitting in your living room right now, just praying for the phone to ring. That’s what happens with most families in your situation. You think you feel helpless now? Well, it could be a whole lot worse.” Kingston blew out a sharp breath and tamped down his temper. “We are doing the best that we can. We can’t predict every possibility.”
Drake felt the muscles in his jaw twitch. The lawman was right, of course, but it didn’t make him feel a whole lot better.
“I know. I just feel so damn useless.”
“In a way, we all do. I wish it was like they show in the movies. I wish I had the budget and equipment to track every movement of their vehicle. At this point I’d settle for a clue on where that vehicle is right now.” He checked his watch, as if that would make something happen.
“You can stay with us if you like. I’ll admit that your helicopter might come in handy when we do finally get a lead. I’m about to call in all the men. We’ll stay in town tonight. We’re online, we’ll have access to the latest information. I’ve got Stein’s phone, the one they’ll most likely call.”
* * *
It was dark by the time they finished dinner at a small diner in Alamosa. Drake hardly tasted the chicken fried steak he’d ordered, managing only a few bites. He’d noticed that his pants were already looser at the waist. He and Kingston walked back toward the motel where they’d set up a command post in one room and procured sleeping quarters for the team. The JetRanger was tied down securely at the airport, waiting for the moment she’d be needed again.
“Get a little sleep, Drake,” Kingston said. He patted his pocket. “For the moment, all we can do is wait for another call. These guys think Charlie is worth a lot of money to them. They’ll treat her okay, for that reason alone. They’re probably more impatient than we are to get this thing going. They want to make the call and get the money.”
Drake felt only marginally better. He stopped by the room where the computers were set up, with three agents monitoring everything. The guy Kingston had left in charge shook his head slowly when he spotted Drake. No news.
The agent was right. Drake should try to rest. He went to his room and stretched out on the bed, removing only his boots, certain that he wouldn’t sleep. But at least the pillow felt good and the place was quiet.
He was startled to see daylight at the window when someone knocked at the door. He leaped up too fast and got lightheaded. One of the black-clad agents stood at the door.
“What’s happening?” Drake said breathlessly.
“They’ve found the car. Agent Kingston thought you’d want to know.”
“I’m coming.” He shoved his feet into his boots again, barely taking time to lace them, and ran toward the command room. Outside, the sky was the pale blue of early morning.
“Is she there?” he asked. “Is Charlie with the car?”
Kingston pursed his lips. “Afraid not. No one is.”
Drake felt his elation take a dive.
“But it’s a solid lead. It was at a motel near Holbrook, Arizona. Right near Interstate 40.” The agent at the computer pointed to a map he’d brought up on his screen.
“From there, they could head back to Albuquerque. Do you think that’s their plan?” Drake asked.
“No way to know,” Kingston said. “They could also go west—Flagstaff, maybe. Maybe all the way to California. The good news is that I-40 is major. Plenty of law enforcement to keep a watch for them.”
“But how? Do you know what they’re driving now?”
“I’ve ordered that all reports of stolen or missing vehicles be reported to me. So far, we haven’t heard of any, but I don’t think it will take that long. I’ve alerted Arizona DPS and Navajo County Sheriffs Department about the situation. They’re holding the abandoned car for us and a Bureau forensics team is on the way to pick it up. They’ll comb through it for every scrap of evidence.”
Kingston’s jacket rang and he grabbed a cell phone from one of the pockets. “Okay, thanks,” he said before clicking off the call.
“Sorry, thought that might be our ransom call. Other phone. Our guys have arrived and taken the Toyota into evidence.”
The agent stepped toward Drake. “I’ve got a good feeling about this. They’re starting to make mistakes. Leaving the car in a motel lot wasn’t smart. We’ll get more information soon.”
Drake wanted to believe the agent’s reassurances. It was just that so many things could go wrong along the way.
Chapter 22
My ears rang and I could still see the muzzle-flash, a floating bright spot in front of my eyes. The Explorer’s interior reeked of gunpowder. I realized that my hands were over my ears. I may have screamed. It was all one of those instantaneous blurs.
I’d instinctively thrown myself down across the seat, right over the spot where Billy had been sitting moments before. Behind me, I knew String still had the pistol. I peeked, dreading that he might now be aiming it at me.
But he’d jerked Mole out of the car by the neck of his shirt and held the muzzle at the larger man’s chin. String’s eyes were wild with fury. Mole’s whole face was squinted up tight, awaiting the inevitable.
Why he didn’t fire, I’ll never know. But he didn’t.
He growled something through gritted teeth and shoved Mole, bouncing him off the rear quarter panel of the SUV. He turned the gun toward Ollie who was having a true deer-in-the-headlights moment.
“You gonna try anything?” he snarled.
Ollie shook his head, without a word.
String glared at Mole once more. I couldn’t see the other man’s face but his stance had already become submissive.
A pair of lights appeared in the distance.
“Make sure they don’t see nothin,” String ordered.
Mole rounded the back of the Explorer. Billy’s body lay in a heap at the door, his legs still inside, very near my head.
Mole stooped down, as if he were checking the rear tire, until the other car roared by. I pushed myself upright, wanting more than anything to be at least a hundred miles away from here. I caught myself shaking. String was staring at me.
“Don’t make a move,” he said in a voice that let me know he was deadly serious.
I watched him, the way a kicked dog watches the guy wearing the heavy boots. His attention went back to the other two men.
“Get it out of sight,” he said, “out there somewheres.”
The ‘it’ I realized was Billy. I stared, horrified, as Ollie and Mole grabbed their partner’s arms and legs and carried his body over the embankment.
“What! You’re just going to leave him out here?” I felt disbelief surge through my chest.
“Well I ain’t driving down the road with no stiff in the back seat,” String said pragmatically. Another c
ar zoomed by and he sent an evil stare toward me. “Don’t worry, this heat, the vultures will be all over it by noon.”
Bile rose in my throat. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.
The other two men came out of the darkness and got back into the SUV, Mole riding up front again. Ollie climbed into Billy’s former spot. At least I didn’t have to sit there with his blood on the doorjamb beside me. I edged into the seat directly behind String.
He pulled out the familiar pill bottle and tapped a small white one into his palm, then handed it back to Ollie. “Make her take this.”
I eyed the pill, which now had the germs of two contaminated hands on it, and only made the briefest effort to make Ollie think I had swallowed it. I kept it tucked in my hand. He didn’t say anything.
Another pill bottle came out and String dumped three yellow tablets into it and popped them into his mouth.
“There. I’m ready to drive forever,” he said.
He started the Explorer and gunned the engine, jammed the gearshift lever into Drive and roared onto the highway between two eighteen-wheelers. I held my breath but we soon became part of the sparse nighttime flow of traffic.
After a few minutes my raw nerves had settled somewhat. It felt like life would never be normal again, but I had a feeling this was as close as it would come for awhile. I eyed Ollie in the corner of my vision. In a moment when he turned to stare out the window on his side I stuck the new sleeping pill into my pocket.
Eventually, the pain and horror dimmed and I sank into my seat, leaning against the door and trying to make the men believe that the sleeping pill had worked. But I couldn’t get my mind off Billy, that basic, chubby guy who’d worked at a pizza place, the only one in the group who’d shown me a few small considerations. I’d never given him credit for much in the intelligence department, and I certainly never figured out his value to the gang. But he’d been decent enough. And somewhere out there was probably a family who might never know what happened to him. If I got out of this alive, I would try to find them. Try to give them some kind of comforting words by which to remember their son or brother.
I actually dozed for a short while, I think. String’s voice woke me. I did the under-eyelash gaze again, scoping out the situation.
Mole slouched sullenly in the front passenger seat, giving String the occasional grunt, not exactly cooperative but I didn’t sense there was a rebellion in the making either. Across the seat from me, Ollie seemed asleep. Once again, I got the feeling this was a kid who’d been shuffled around a lot and was used to doing things without question.
String, whose medication had obviously kicked in, kept up an animated chatter from the driver’s seat. Road noise kept me from getting all of it, but I caught enough to figure out that we were heading for California—no surprise, considering his desperate actions to have it this way—where he thought Cristina Cross’s family and/or production company would be happy to hand over the money.
Apparently, he was still set on getting five million dollars for her. Each time I thought of what would happen when he realized that he didn’t have a real movie star on his hands, I got a tingling fear in my guts. The picture of Billy’s bloodied body being carried out into the desert haunted me.
I tried to allay the jitters by watching for mileage signs and by trying to come up with a plan for what I would do when we stopped again. The former was a lot easier than the latter.
“You going to use that cell phone?”
The question had come from Mole, directed to String. I didn’t catch the response.
“Cause you better only use it one time. Once they trace the number you better have a new phone for the next time, man.”
Ollie had come awake. “Yeah, I think so too. I saw it on CSI. They got this map on their computers and the cell phone makes a little blinking dot, and they, like, know right where you are.”
String shifted a little in his seat. “I got it taken care of. We’ll get more phones.”
Mole wanted to say something, I could tell, but he kept his mouth shut.
Ollie wasn’t quite so savvy. “Then there was this other time on CSI, and they had a beacon or something right on the guy’s car and they didn’t even have no helicopter or nothing. They just knew right where—”
“Shut up!”
I mentally seconded that. Hadn’t Ollie figured out that getting on the wrong side of this guy was not in his best interest? Privately, though, in some tiny corner of my mind I hoped that there was such a beacon on us right now. I could really be happy for this whole ordeal to be over.
Chapter 23
Drake spent a stomach-churning hour staying off to the side of the action. Phones rang, agents stared at computer screens and clicked away at their keyboards, but there was no breakthrough moment. Someone brought coffee. He downed two cups of it, which only added to the roiling in his stomach.
Kingston took a break and went to his own room for a shower. He emerged twenty minutes later looking amazingly refreshed. Drake ran a hand over the stubble on his own face. He should do the same. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave the command room.
“Sir,” one of the men at the table called out to Kingston. “This call might be of interest.”
Kingston took the phone and listened intently. It was apparently a law officer from somewhere else, giving a briefing on the situation. He fired off a couple of questions about Charlie then snapped the phone shut.
“Not much news, unfortunately,” he said, turning to Drake. “They’ve identified Leon Mohler as the man who rented two rooms with cash last night, at the same motel where the Toyota was found.”
“Ch—”
Kingston shook his head. “Couldn’t confirm whether there was a woman with them. The rooms were on the side of the building away from the office. The guy got busy and wasn’t paying attention to what car they drove or how many people were in the group. Sheriff’s men have been through the rooms but found nothing helpful. Clerk has no idea when they left. They paid cash for one night and were gone this morning.”
Drake pondered that, trying to put together a scenario.
“Boss? Another call,” said one of the agents.
Kingston took this one as well. He reached for a pen and jotted a few notes. “Excellent.”
He turned to Drake. “A break, I hope. At least it’s a strong lead. One of the vehicle reports that’s come in this morning is about a 2002 Ford Explorer. It was taken from the parking lot of the same motel in Holbrook. Like I said earlier, they’re starting to make mistakes.”
The agent handed the page with his hasty notes to one of the men at the table. “Get this information out as an APB to all law enforcement along the I-40 corridor. This is priority. If anyone spots that Explorer they are to keep visual contact but not to approach alone. Make sure they’re clear on the fact that a hostage is with these guys and that they are armed.”
The other agent nodded and began rapidly entering data into the computer.
Drake stared at the map someone had taped to the wall. If the gang headed west, the next fair-sized city they would come to would be Flagstaff. His mother lived there and Charlie might feel that was a safe place to make her move to get away. Should he call Catherine and warn her about what was going on, brief her to take Charlie in and keep her safe? He glanced at Kingston, who was still giving orders to the other officers. He could make the call privately if he used the excuse of going back to his room to clean up.
Kingston jerked and patted at a pocket. The clone of DeRon Stein’s cell phone had vibrated. The agent grabbed it and looked at the readout. His face said it all. This was the call.
He let it ring three times and then hit the Talk button.
Drake was at his side in a flash, listening but only catching ragged words delivered at a fast pace.
“Slow down, I can’t tell what you’re saying,” Kingston said, softening his voice to mimic that of the producer. He wagged a hand toward the agents on the computers, who were madl
y clicking away at their keyboards.
Some more fuzzy electronic voice noise.
“Why would you think that?”
Another bout of the same.
“You don’t want to do that. You’ll never get the money that way. The studio is insistent that I can’t bring you the money without seeing Miss Cross alive and well.”
Drake’s gut clenched.
“Where do I bring it?” But the line went dead. Kingston stared at the dark phone.
“It’ll take us another minute or two,” said the agent at the table.
“I think the caller was Stringer. Mohler has a slight Spanish accent and this one didn’t. Stringer is paranoid and I’d guess he’s on some kind of speed right now. His voice zips along at a mile a second. He says he knows he’s being followed, threatens to do away with Cristina Cross if he sees any cops.”
Drake gripped Kingston’s forearm. “Any cops? Charlie’s a goner if even some traffic cop sees them?”
“You heard what I told him. Made the point that he’ll never get any money if he hurts her.” He pried Drake’s fingers loose.
“Yeah, but—”
“He backtracked a bit then. Started talking about the money.”
“But he cut you off when you asked where . . .”
“He’ll call back. His reaction tells me that this is really all about the money.”
The guy at the computer spoke up. “The call came from a cell phone. They’re near Flagstaff.”
“My mother lives there. If Charlie gets a chance to get away, she’ll have a safe place to go.”
“Call your mother. Give her the minimum of information but let her know that if she hears from Charlie they both need to get to a safe place. Then she needs to call us.”
Kingston sent Drake a long stare.
“Under no circumstances should she have direct contact with these guys. Her life would be on the line too.”
Chapter 24
Stardom Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #12 Page 14