by Sean Black
He needed to get away – and fast. But he also wanted to make sure that what the deputy had said was correct, that there was definitely no one inside the house.
With this thought in mind, he jogged northwards towards a beach-access gate, which lay about fourteen houses further down.
He took the steps two at a time and started back along the beach in the direction he’d just come. Two houses short of the beach house, he stopped, blowing hard from the running and the wisps of smoke that had caught in his lungs. Bent forward, palms pressed to his knees, he tried to catch his breath.
The front of the house was almost perfectly intact, which lent a surreal air to what he’d just witnessed from the highway. Looking up he could pick out a couple of details. He couldn’t get far enough back without going into the ocean to see the top deck, but the glass door leading to the lower deck seemed open. He knew Carrie wouldn’t have left without locking it, which told him she’d gone in a hurry.
The beach would have been the obvious escape route, not just because of the water but because the belly of the fire lay near the road side of the house. He clung to the thought. He’d start walking back north first, trying Carrie’s cell phone as he did so, even though it was still switched off.
He walked close to the shoreline so that he could get a view into some of the houses in case Carrie had sought refuge with one of the neighbors. As he walked, the tide rushed in behind him, erasing his footprints.
Two hundred yards down the beach, the smell of the cloying smoke began to abate and the sirens drifted away to a whisper, snatched away by a hot south-easterly Santa Ana. Looking north, the chaos that lay behind him seemed almost impossible. Up ahead he could see a dog, head down, wandering back and forth in the surf.
Angel.
The realization hit him like a slap. He’d forgotten about her. He broke into a run, wet sand making it hard, his thighs and calves stinging as he reached her. She trotted up to him, tail wagging but with her head down. He knelt down to stroke her head and she defaulted to her usual position, lying on her back, legs akimbo, waiting for him to rub her belly.
It was the first ray of light he’d had so far. There was no way Carrie would have left Angel in a burning building or vice versa. For one of them to be safe meant both had to be.
Lock’s cell phone chirped and relief swept over him as he saw Carrie’s name flash on the display. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘You had me worried sick. Are you okay? Where are you?’
There was a moment of silence, then a man’s voice: ‘She’s fine. Now, here’s my offer. I’ll trade you. Your bitch for mine.’
Sixty
Fear descended slowly over Carrie, settling on her like a shroud. She’d struggled on the journey out until she’d felt a horrific jolt of pain in her lower back, which had almost lifted her off the floor. At first she thought he had stabbed her with the knife. It was only a few moments later that she realized he had Tasered her. The knife had been there to scare her, the fifty thousand volts of the Taser to gain her compliance.
He had set the fire using a can of petrol he’d found in the garage. Then they had left. He had given her a clown mask to wear as they crossed the street, thus shielding her face from any passing commuters. It would be like they were a couple goofing around on Hallowe’en.
It had worked. They had attracted a few strange looks, but this was LA, after all, a city where strange behavior was the default setting.
Now she was bound and gagged, trussed up on a couch in a living room that smelt of dried semen and stale, ten-day-old laundry. Her hands had been tied in front of her and her legs bound quite tightly together. A third rope linked the two and meant that if she attempted to stand up she would fall forward on to her face. She knew this because she had already tried it – twice. The second time the man had walked in on her. He was still wearing the clown mask, which she took to be a good sign.
Lock must have mentioned in passing that kidnappers who hid their identity usually didn’t want a surviving victim identifying them. If you were kidnapped by someone who had no such reservations then the chances were far higher that you were going to die.
Hauling her back on to the couch, the man had run his hands over her body. He’d unbuttoned her blouse and slid a hand inside her bra.
In the end, a phone had rung in the small kitchen off the living room and he’d withdrawn his hand to go and answer it, leaving Carrie on the couch, her heart thumping with fear.
She could hear him talking a few feet away but had to strain to pick out any words. She thought she heard her own name, then Raven’s, but the rest was muffled.
Then he was back, sitting next to her on the couch, a lecherous hand sliding to her knee. The horrible clown mask tilted towards her at an angle that made the face, which hadn’t changed, of course, seem inquisitive, as if Carrie was a specimen pinned to a high-school science-lab table, ready to be dissected.
‘Now, where were we?’ he said.
Sixty-one
Ty had stashed his purple Continental at Burbank airport and hired them a fresh ride, a new model Ford F-150 truck. It had been selected via phone by Lock because there was a near identical one (same model, same color) parked three doors away from where he and Ty were now.
Outside Raven’s house two Cadillac SRX SUVs were parked up, the only visible outward evidence of her new security team, who were already inside. Four men, all of them ex-law enforcement, though thankfully not LAPD.
Lock looked across to Ty. ‘You do realize that if we mess this up we’re going to prison, right?’
Ty clenched his right fist and held it out for Lock to bump. ‘Then let’s make sure we don’t mess it up.’
It had taken Lock less than five minutes after the phone call to decide what had to be done. He could have called the cops and laid the whole thing out for them, but he would have lost any control over what happened to Carrie. And after the stunt they’d pulled with Clayton Mills earlier that day, and the betrayal with the bodyguard, he couldn’t trust them to do this right.
From his private security work, Lock knew that kidnappings were far more common than you would realize from watching the news. There was a simple reason for that. People were kidnapped. Demands were made. Demands were met. People were freed. It was a black market of criminality that operated under the cops’ and the federal authority’s radar. Kidnap and ransom insurance, usually abbreviated to K&R, and the attendant specialized security companies to which they subcontracted extractions, were big business.
This meant there was a straight line here. There might be kinks in it, and Lock would have to deal with those, but essentially it was straightforward. Lock kidnapped Raven and handed her over in return for Carrie. There was a part beyond that too, but for now that was the equation.
He could only hope for one thing: that Raven hadn’t yet heard that Carrie had been taken.
He looked from the front of Raven’s house back to Ty. ‘Let’s do this.’
He got out of the car while Ty stayed in the driver’s seat. He could feel the weight of Ty’s SIG Sauer 226 pressing against the small of his back as he tucked it inside his waistband. A properly held concealed-carry permit seemed suddenly redundant and almost comical in light of what he and Ty were about to do. Regardless of the extenuating circumstances, kidnapping was hard time for a long period. Let Carrie die and he’d be good with the law. Try to save her and he’d be on the wrong side. There was only one way to go.
Lock walked down the path to the front door of Raven’s house and rang the bell.
There was no surprise when the door opened. A shaven-headed guy, big but with a paunch, glared at him. ‘Can I help you?’
He was typical of most private security contractors. To an outsider he might have looked the part but Lock knew that, when it came down to it, he’d be about as much use as a glass trampoline. Lock smiled at him, burying any residual anxiety he was experiencing. ‘I’d like to speak to Ms Lane. I’m—’
‘I know who you are,�
�� the guy said.
‘Can you tell her I’m here? If she says she’s busy or doesn’t want to see me, give her this.’ He handed the guy a blank white envelope, which held the key to the mailbox that he’d taken from Raven’s purse.
The guy took it and the door closed.
A minute later it opened again and Raven stood on the threshold. The envelope had been opened and she was pale but doing her usually good job of holding things together. She stared at Lock.
‘The key must have fallen when I pushed you out of the car,’ he told her.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m sorry. You were right – back there in the car, I mean. Things were a little confused. I was a little confused as well.’
If Carrie wasn’t being held God knew where, Lock would have laughed. ‘You were wasted in adult movies, Raven,’ he said, pulling a single sheet of paper from his pocket, the top sheet of one of her many prison letters.
She took it. ‘So? Lots of people write me. You know that.’
‘I found the other mailbox, Raven. I know everything,’ he said.
Her expression didn’t shift but her pupils flared wide. Lock sensed one of her new escorts in the hallway behind them. He jerked his head in that direction. ‘You might not want to be overheard.’
Raven stepped outside and began to close the door, but Lock put up a hand to stop her. ‘Let’s go for a drive. We have a lot to talk about.’
‘And what if I don’t want to talk? Those letters don’t prove anything.’
‘They can go away. I can get rid of them, if you like.’
She glanced back inside the hallway. ‘I’ll just be a second,’ she called, then pulled the door all the way closed. Lock noticed that her feet were bare, and her usually perfectly painted toenails were chipped at the edges.
‘What do you mean you can make them go away? Are you trying to blackmail me?’ she asked, her hand still on the door handle.
Lock grabbed her arm while, at the same time, reaching round for the gun, making sure that she saw a flash of it before he jammed it back under his jacket. ‘If only it were that simple. He has Carrie, and that means you’re coming with me even if I have to kill everyone in that house. Your brother too.’
That Lock had mentioned Kevin, never mind threatened his life, seemed to register with Raven. He felt it as her violet eyes turned black. The truth was he would never have touched Kevin. But he had shifted something in Raven’s mind and that was all he needed. Raven might have craved a protector but she understood much more keenly, on the most base level, the behavior of a predator.
‘You understand me?’ he asked her, his tone low and level, his eyes never leaving hers.
She nodded.
‘Good.’ He smiled, aware that they might be being watched. ‘Now tell them you’ll be back in an hour. If I even suspect you’ve tipped anyone off, I’ll make good on my promise.’
She started back inside and he made a point of stepping in with her. Once the front door was closed his chance would be gone for ever.
The guy who had answered the door said nothing as Raven threw on a pair of sneakers, and gathered her jacket and bag.
‘I’ll only be an hour,’ she said.
‘One of us should come with you,’ the guy said.
‘He’s a bodyguard. I’ll be safe. Isn’t that right, Ryan?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do I have time to say goodbye to Kevin?’ she asked.
Lock squared his shoulders. ‘He won’t even know you’re gone.’
They left together, the door closing behind them. Lock had no idea if she would see her brother again. But he had no idea if he would see Carrie again either. At least in one regard they were even.
Halfway down the path, Raven stopped and turned to him. ‘I’m sorry about Carrie,’ she said, her eyes watery.
Twenty-four hours ago, he might have bought the line. Now he knew better.
Sixty-two
The doors sealed with a muffled thunk as Lock made sure that Raven sat in the front of the truck, wedged between him and Ty. He glanced at his watch. It was just as well that Raven had put up little resistance. In five minutes the man who had said he had Carrie was going to call back, and if he didn’t hear Raven’s voice, he’d promised that Carrie would be dead by the time the call ended. He’d also said that Lock could listen to this if he wanted, maybe even say a last goodbye. After all, he knew what it was to love someone too.
Ty was driving with no particular destination in mind. That would come with the phone call. Lock told him to head for the intersection of the Santa Monica-10 and the San Diego-405 freeways, which ran east to west and north to south respectively. At least moving forward gave them something to do and made them more difficult to track.
Raven had been silent since they’d got into the truck but now she spoke. ‘You have to understand, I never meant for anything like this to happen. For it to go so far.’
‘You know,’ Lock said, staring out through a windshield that was dotted with raindrops, the first he’d seen since he’d arrived in California, ‘it was Carrie’s idea that I look after you, and that you and Kevin came to us. She made the call to get Fay Liepowitz to represent you too.’
Raven’s hand went to her mouth and stayed there. ‘What do they want?’
Ty glanced over and Lock stared at her. ‘They?’
‘It’s an expression.’
‘Not the way you said it,’ Lock said. ‘Are you saying there’s more than one person involved in this?’
‘I don’t know.’
Lock motioned for Ty to pull over by the side of the road. ‘Pick somewhere quiet.’
Ty pulled tight to the curb at a spot equidistant between two streetlights. ‘Ryan, take it easy,’ he said.
Lock’s jaw tightened until his teeth were grinding against each other, then he pulled out the SIG and pressed the barrel to Raven’s face. ‘How many are there? How many lunatics do you have out there doing your dirty work for you?’
Raven swallowed hard. ‘I think there are two. Clayton and this other guy.’
Lock’s cell phone rang. Breathing hard, he lowered the gun, and passed it to Ty. He poked a finger into Raven’s chest. ‘Stay quiet if you know what’s good for you. You understand me?’ He clicked the answer button on his cell phone. ‘Lock.’
‘I have some information on that prisoner for you, Mr Lock,’ the voice on the other end of the line said. It was Marquez, the warden from Pelican Bay.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Reardon Galt was here all right. He was released on probation about six months ago. You want me to tell you what this gentleman was serving time for?’
‘Sure.’
There was a shuffling of papers at the other end of the line. ‘Let’s see what we got here now.’
Lock closed his eyes, the phone cradled between chin and shoulder.
‘Huh, this is slightly unusual. Usually he would have gone to at least a lower-level facility first but we had him in the Transitional Management Unit right up until release day.’
Lock knew that was where they usually kept prisoners who would be under threat from those in the general population, most notably prisoners who were leaving one of the prison gangs, an act that carried with it an automatic death sentence on the yard. ‘Do you know where he was from originally?’
‘An inmate’s hometown isn’t the kind of information we have,’ the warden said. Then there was more rustling of papers. ‘Wait. I do have something in here about him having committed a felony or two in Arizona.’
Arizona was where Larry Johns was killed although this might have been coincidence. So Galt had been out for six months – just in time for the rampage to start.
‘So what was Galt inside for? The jacket tell you that?’ He was watching Raven, checking for any reaction to the name. He was not disappointed. She visibly stiffened, her back as rigid as an ironing board.
The warden sighed. ‘You’ll want to keep a real close eye on this lady
you’re watching out for.’
It was Lock’s turn to tense as he thought of Carrie. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Lord only knows why he wasn’t serving life without parole. Must have had himself a good lawyer or a liberal judge.’
‘Warden?’ Lock prompted.
‘He was in for abduction and rape. Kidnapped some woman from right inside her own home while her kids were asleep upstairs. Drove her across the border into California from Tempe and – well, you can guess the rest.’
Lock’s blood ran cold. ‘One more thing.’
‘Go for it.’
‘You wouldn’t happen to have a name for Galt’s cell mate before he was released, would you?’
There was the sound of more papers being shuffled. ‘In fact I do. The guy got out a few days ago too. Crazier rap sheet than Galt had. Lots of violence too.’
‘What was his name?’ Lock asked, as a cold bead of sweat worked its way down his spine and into the small of his back.
‘Oh, yeah, here it is. The inmate’s name was Clayton Mills.’
Sixty-three
They were parked on South Sepulveda, across the street from a drug store, waiting for the phone call from the kidnapper, which should come at any minute. Raven was sandwiched between Lock and Ty, shifting in her seat.
Heavy drops of rain spattered the windshield, exploding on contact with the glass and trailing down like tears towards the lashing wiper blades. Overhead, the sky had darkened, heavy banks of grey cloud folded under each other in every direction. A nearby storm drain was already backed up, water flooding on to the street causing a couple of drivers coming towards the truck to aquaplane.
Marquez, the warden from Pelican Bay, had given Lock a description of Reardon Galt, wished him luck and then hung up. Again Lock thought about calling Levon Hill.