Midnight Caller

by Leslie Tentler

  “Thought I’d beat that attitude out of you a long time ago.”

  Brian gripped Trevor’s shoulder. “Don’t bring this down to his level. Let’s just get Annabelle and Haley and go.”

  “And what about you?” James turned on Brian, sneering. “I’ve seen you around with your swishy boyfriend. Are you the husband or the wife? You disgust me. You’re an embarrassment to the family name!”

  “That’s rich coming from you, Dad,” Brian murmured.

  Trevor placed his hand on his holstered gun. “I don’t know what this is about, but I don’t have time to waste with you. I’m giving you the chance to walk away before this gets ugly.”

  A drop of perspiration trailed down James’s flaccid neck before soaking into his plaid cotton shirt. Sweat had created dark circles under his arms, and he hitched up the belt that was barely visible under his protruding gut. He stared hatefully at Trevor. “I should’ve finished the job I started on you. That’s my regret.”

  Trevor felt a nerve jump along his jaw, but he didn’t look away. His father’s eyes held a cruel gleam.

  “You gotta ask yourself where your family was when you needed ’em, Trev. They had no problem shipping you off when you woke up with an addled brain—”

  “Shut up,” Brian said.

  “But here you are, making out like the perfect family. Guess you really can forgive. As long as you’re in City Park, maybe y’all should have a picnic.”

  Years of hurt and anger tore at Trevor, but he held his ground.

  “You always despised me, Dad, because I stood up to you.” He stepped forward, his face directly in front of his father’s. “I knew you for what you were. A bully and an on-the-take cop. Now you’re just a pathetic drunk who has to stoop to tricks to get his children to even look at him. You’re old and alone. You got everything you deserve.”

  James clenched his fist and pulled it back, but Trevor caught his arm. “I’m telling you one more time to go, before I arrest you myself. Don’t come near Annabelle or Haley again.”

  A charged silence hung between the two men. Then James wrung himself free. His face flushed persimmon.

  “To hell with both of you.” Staggering away, he halted when he reached the crushed-shell path. “Oh, yeah. Almost forgot.”

  He fumbled in his shirt pocket and threw something on the ground at Trevor’s feet. White gold glinted against the dewy grass.

  “What’s that?” Brian asked, looking at his father as Trevor picked up the object.

  James shrugged. He wedged a cigarette between his lips and patted his trousers for a lighter. “I’m just the messenger. He said you’d know what it meant.”

  The delicate serpentine chain pooled in Trevor’s palm as he stared at the amethyst pendant. His lungs felt incapable of taking in air. She’d been wearing it the night of Brian’s opening, then again when they’d made the trip to the Ascension. The unlit cigarette fell to the ground as Trevor launched forward and grabbed his father’s shirt collar. Taken by surprise, James held on to his son’s forearms to keep from falling.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  James sputtered as he tried to dislodge Trevor’s hands. “Jesus! A man came by the bar!”

  “Trevor!” Brian tried to get between the two men. “He’s not worth it—”

  “What man?” Trevor gave James a hard shake. “Answer me!”

  For the first time, his father looked more nervous than cocky. His face appeared heavily lined in the sunlight that filtered through the tree boughs overhead. “He said you’d been messing with his girlfriend! That you gave her that necklace, and he wanted to send it back to you with a warning—”

  “A warning?” Brian repeated, confused. A buzzing built in Trevor’s ears that competed with the voice in his head, telling him he’d been a fool. It wasn’t a warning, but a subterfuge.

  “Use your cell to call Annabelle’s house,” Trevor ordered Brian. “Right now!”

  He dragged James to the bench and shoved him onto it. Cursing, James swung wildly. But his father’s inebriated state gave Trevor the advantage. Pulling handcuffs from his pocket, he managed to snap one of the bracelets around James’s large-boned wrist. He closed the other over the bench’s wrought-iron armrest.

  “You can’t do this!” The handcuffs clanked loudly, drawing the attention of passersby like a town crier’s bell. “I haven’t done anything!”

  Trevor’s knees felt weak. “Try accessory to kid napping!”

  “That little girl’s my grandchild!”

  “I’m not talking about Haley!”

  Brian paced in front of the bench with his phone to his ear. “No one’s answering. Trevor, what’s going on?”

  “Stay with him until I can get the cops to pick him up.” Trevor tried not to let the fear show in his face. “Then take a taxi back to the house with Annabelle and Haley. I need your car keys.”

  Brian didn’t ask questions. He handed them over and Trevor took off at a run.

  “This is FBI agent Trevor Rivette, badge number JTF0171012. I need a patch to the officer assigned to 1211 Lucerne Street!”

  His cell phone pressed against his ear, Trevor reached the parking lot and flung himself into the Audi. He started the ignition and whipped the vehicle onto St. Bernard Avenue heading back to Faubourg Marigny. Within a minute, the radio’s crackle came through the phone’s receiver.

  “Agent Rivette? We’ve had some trouble at this location. I’ve got an ambulance here and additional units combing the area.”

  “How many hurt?”

  “Just one. Hispanic male, mid-forties.”

  “What about the woman?”

  There was a brief pause. “Sorry, Agent. There’s no one else here.”

  Trevor disconnected the call and threw the phone onto the seat as he accelerated the car.

  Turning onto Annabelle’s street minutes later, his heart slammed inside his chest. An ambulance and three NOPD squad cars sat in front of the house with their lights flashing. A gaggle of police officers stood on the porch, and curious neighbors were gathered outside the yard’s fence.

  Leaving the car in the middle of the street, Trevor flashed his shield at an officer who attempted to block his path on the sidewalk. “This is my sister’s house. What can you tell me?”

  “Officer Defillo’s inside, Agent. He’s the one who called for assistance. You should talk to him.”

  Trevor raced up the porch and into the parlor. The officer was a stocky, Italian-looking man who’d responded to Haley’s disappearance earlier that morning. He stood outside the kitchen doorway.

  “What the hell happened?” Trevor asked as he approached.

  “Looks like the intruder came in through a window in back.” Defillo gestured down the hall where Annabelle’s bedroom was located. “The screen’s been pried off and it was left open. Whatever happened, it went down before I got back here this morning.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Nine twenty-two.”

  Trevor worked to keep his composure. Barely five minutes had passed between his departure and the officer’s arrival, but it had given Dante all the time he needed. He’d been watching and waiting somewhere nearby for his opportunity.

  “Has anyone spoken with the neighbors?”

  “The lady next door heard a woman screaming,” Defillo recounted as he checked the notes he’d scribbled into a writing tablet. “Said she looked outside and saw a black SUV pulling away. She’s not sure of the make and she didn’t get a license plate, but she noticed the vehicle had some fancy wheels. Probably chrome-aluminum rims.”

  “I’m going to want to talk to her.” Trevor strode into the kitchen, then came to a halt at the scene. Alex lay on the floor. Two paramedics were securing a stabilizing collar around his neck so he could be lifted onto a gurney. Blood oozed through the white gauze on the side of his head.

  Trevor knelt next to him. Alex’s eyes were closed, and an oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth. Its plastic f
ogged with his shallow breathing.

  “Alex, can you hear me?” When he received no response, he looked at the paramedics. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “He took a pretty hard hit,” one of them replied. “They’ll know more after a cranial CT scan.”

  Trevor stood as Alex was placed on the gurney. His eyes followed the paramedics’ path as they rolled him outside, and then he did his best to take an objective look around the room.

  Rain’s denim bag and cell phone were on the table. Brown liquid pooled from an overturned coffee mug, soaking into the cloth place mats. One of the chairs was on its side, wedged against the refrigerator. A heavy bookend from the parlor lay on the floor—it was more than likely the object that had been used to strike Alex. Rubbing his closed eyes with his fingertips, Trevor tried to clear his head.

  He had to stay focused. It was the only chance Rain had.

  The sound of a throat being cleared came from the doorway, and Trevor turned to see McGrath. He had on his standard detective’s uniform of trousers, short-sleeved dress shirt and tie. His gold shield hung on a chain around his neck.

  “We heard on the scanner,” he said as he came into the room, carefully sidestepping the evidence. “They gave the home owner’s last name, and Tibbs remembered you had family here. We made the connection.”

  Trevor looked away from the detective. Through the kitchen window, he could see Thibodeaux standing on the side lawn and leaning against the fence as he spoke to a group of neighbors.

  “The woman who was taken. Was it your sister?”

  Trevor shook his head. “She was with me.”

  “Then who?”

  He swallowed. “Rain Sommers.”

  “Shit. What was she doing here?”

  “I had a family emergency. I thought she’d be safe until I could get a cop over here to watch her.”

  With heavy steps, Trevor went to stand in front of the sink. Turning on the faucet, he splashed cold water onto his face and let his head hang down briefly between his shoulders before reaching for a roll of paper towels. Dante’s obsession with Rain was the one thing that might keep her alive—at least for a while, he reasoned. He tried not to think about how scared she must be or what might be happening to her right now. Blotting his face with the towel, he dropped the wadded ball next to the basin.

  “You sleeping with her, Rivette?” McGrath had walked up beside him. When Trevor didn’t respond, he added, “I noticed how close you seemed with her at the hospital. If you ask me—”

  “I didn’t.”

  McGrath scratched his mustache with his index finger and lowered the volume of his words. “You’re not the first to get emotionally involved in a case. Just make sure it doesn’t get in the way of clear thinking. Otherwise, you need to recuse yourself now before things get any worse.”

  After a moment, he slid his hands into his pockets and took a few steps toward the doorway. “Let me know if Tibbs and I can do anything.”

  “McGrath?” Trevor’s voice halted the detective’s exit. He would have to alert the local FBI team about Rain’s abduction, get photos of her circulated and updates to the media as soon as possible. But he needed McGrath and Thibodeaux, as well. “There’s a collar being brought into your precinct. I need you to lean on him hard.”

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Obstruction of a federal investigation, possible accessory to kidnapping. He pulled me out to City Park on a prank, giving the killer enough time to move in here and abduct Dr. Sommers.”

  “What’re you saying? Dante has a partner?”

  “More of an unwitting accomplice,” Trevor tried to explain. “But he can give us a description, maybe more. At the least, we should be able to find out if Armand Baptiste and Dante are the same person.”

  McGrath peered at him. “You don’t want in on this?”

  “I’ll be watching through the two-way, but I need to keep my distance.”

  “Who’s the jerkoff?”

  Trevor took a measured breath and let it back out. “My father.”

  McGrath’s eyes bugged before he resumed his cop’s heard-it-all demeanor.

  “He’ll let you know up front he was previously on the job, which is why I want you to question him before I hand him over to the Bureau. He equates the FBI with me and he’ll shut down on them. I don’t have time for his garbage.”

  McGrath nodded. “We’ll get on it.”

  A full minute after the detective had left, Trevor still stood at the sink. He studied the bloodstain on the tiled floor where Alex had been lying and realized just how much could have gone wrong with Dante’s plan. It was a combination of blind luck and daring that had worked in his favor, enabling him to pull off the abduction in the short space of time Rain had been left without protection. It also wasn’t lost on him that Dante had used James Rivette as a pawn in his twisted game. That fact alone pointed back to Baptiste, since he’d already taken pleasure in revealing to Trevor that he knew about his family history.

  One thing was certain—whoever Dante was, he had what he wanted now.

  Reaching into his pocket, Trevor withdrew Rain’s necklace. He stared at the lavender stone and realized he should turn it in to evidence, but at this point it didn’t seem to matter. What did matter was how the killer had managed to obtain it. She hadn’t been wearing the necklace last night or this morning, which meant it had been taken previously. He thought of Rain’s patient, Oliver Carteris. The kid had a history of petty theft and until recently, a revolving door to her house. Rain had been trying to reach him by phone on the drive to Annabelle’s that morning. Was there a connection?

  Brian’s voice broke into Trevor’s thoughts. He was outside on the porch, arguing with the police.

  “Let him in,” he called, feeling a headache pulse behind his eyes. Alex. The only other person who’d seen Dante was unconscious and on his way to the E.R. in an ambulance.

  Self-rebuke made it hard for him to breathe. How long did Rain have? Trevor closed his hand around the amethyst pendant, feeling its hard shape against his palm. He should have kept Rain with him. He shouldn’t have left her alone, not for a minute.

  Brian entered. His face paled when he saw the blood on the floor. Trevor didn’t pull any punches.

  “Alex is alive, but he’s hurt. They’ve taken him to All Saints. You need to get over there.”

  “Rain?” Brian managed to ask.

  Trevor shook his head.

  39

  They’d been traveling for over two hours. The Cadillac Escalade had gone through Morgan City a while earlier, then headed west into the quaint town of Jeanerette. From there, they’d driven past fields of young sugarcane before the pastoral setting eventually faded into verdant, isolated marshlands. As the SUV roared over a rusted, two-lane bridge, Rain stared into a sluggish inlet framed by gnarled cypress trees. She had been gagged until a short while ago, when Christian Carteris announced that they should talk. Her lips still stung from the duct tape he’d ripped from her mouth.

  “Where are we going?” she asked not for the first time.

  “I told you—patience, my dear,” he advised from the driver’s seat. “Why not enjoy the scenery? We’ll be there soon enough.”

  A peeling billboard loomed next to the rural highway, advertising Saturday-night cockfighting and cold beer at a local venue. Rain tried again to loosen the tape binding her wrists and wondered if Alex was still alive. Carteris had given her a choice—go with him, or watch him slit Alex’s throat as he lay unconscious on the floor of Annabelle’s kitchen. Her gaze shifted warily to the knife that now rested on the leather armrest between them.

  The SUV hurtled past a decaying building choked by kudzu vines. A stoop-shouldered gas pump stood out front, and a rusted metal sign under the roofline read LeBlanc’s Gas and Bait. Its windows were broken and the screened front door yawned open. The business looked as though it hadn’t been operational for years.

  “You’re a surgeon,” Rain choked out,
fighting her fear. “You’re supposed to save lives.”

  “I have.” Carteris looked at her through fashionable sunglasses. “The lives I’ve saved far exceed the ones I’ve taken.”

  “And that gives you the right?”

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he asked pleasantly, “Would you care for a bottled water? I’ve packed refreshments in the cooler in the backseat.”

  “I don’t want any water.”

  “Suit yourself. You don’t want to get dehydrated.” He consulted the Rolex on his wrist as if he had an appointment to keep, and Rain’s attention was again drawn to the ring on his hand. The serpent’s fangs were bared and sharp. She knew what it was—a bloodletting ring. Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she wouldn’t allow herself to cry. She had to stay calm. Rain stared out the windshield as up ahead an alligator slithered across the asphalt before disappearing into the foliage on the side of the road.

  “Why do you kill?” she asked finally, finding the silence more unnerving than conversation. “If it’s blood you need—”

  “Then why don’t I just get it at the office?” Carteris chuckled. “Really, do you want me to steal from the hospital’s blood supply?”

  She shook her head weakly, failing to understand his sense of humor. “What does any of this have to do with me? Or my mother?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand yet, but you will soon.”

  The air conditioner’s cold blast caused gooseflesh to rise on her bare arms and legs. She still wore running shorts, a tank top and sneakers.

  “I watched you leave your house with Agent Rivette this morning, heading out for a jog,” Carteris informed her. “Are you in love with him?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying.” He slowed the SUV, taking a left off the highway. “I’d really rather think you’re in love with him than just fucking him like a common slut.”

  The road they’d turned onto was little more than a gravel path. It ran alongside a stagnant pool filled with green algae and islands of water lilies. A trio of egrets fished in the shallow water, but the birds took flight when the SUV approached. As they drove deeper into the wooded bayou, the trees with their hanging garlands of Spanish moss nearly concealed the blue sky. The ground was pitted and rough, and the vehicle bounced over the terrain.