Ghosts

by Matt Rogers

  ‘Are you helping me or kidnapping me?’

  ‘A bit of both.’

  Ward sighed. He was pale, his hair was matted to his forehead, and his lips were red with his own blood. The massive adrenaline dump was beginning to subside. The pain was becoming increasingly noticeable. He started shaking.

  He looked from King to Slater and back again.

  Something seemed to click.

  He said, ‘She said there were others. Is that you two?’

  Slater braked so hard it threw Ward against the back of King’s seat. The cop bounced off it, crumpled across the rear seats, and curled into the foetal position. By that point Slater had pulled to the shoulder, burying the Bentley in the long shadows cast by the late afternoon sun.

  He twisted in his seat, his eyes aflame. ‘She?!’

  Ward moaned. ‘I’m sorry if I—’

  Slater picked up his own SIG and reached into the back to press it against Ward’s collarbone. The man winced and came out of his shell.

  Slater said, ‘Tell us everything. Now.’

  He did.

  It all came streaming out, from his first encounter with Alexis to her subsequent abduction, all the way up until he shot Keith Ray in the chest and hightailed it out of the warehouse, running for his life.

  Slater kept everything he wanted to say locked deep inside. He could sense King right next to him, terrified that Slater would pull the trigger out of impulsive rage.

  He didn’t.

  He quashed his anger until the time was right to let it out.

  Slater said, ‘Ray’s not dead.’

  ‘I shot him on the left side,’ Ward said. ‘In the heart.’

  ‘You were semi-conscious when those guys were standing over you, weren’t you?’ Slater said.

  ‘What guys?’

  Slater could see Ward’s head spinning. So much had happened so fast.

  ‘One of those goons flat out told you you didn’t kill him,’ Slater said. ‘Ray was wearing a vest.’

  ‘Those guys back there?’ Ward said. ‘They ran straight after me. They don’t know. They were making it up.’

  ‘There are these things called phones,’ King said. ‘Someone invented them a while back.’

  Ward went quiet.

  Slater said, ‘You have no idea how bad I want to pull this trigger.’

  Ward suppressed a gulp. ‘I’m sorry, man. Is she your girlfriend? Wife?’

  ‘Don’t say a goddamn word about her unless I tell you to.’

  Ward got the message and shut his mouth.

  Then he seemed to remember something and got brave again. An inkling of the adrenaline, still lingering. Steeling his nerves.

  He said, ‘I was telling the truth about my grandmother. I love that woman. I was going to protect Alexis as best I could, I swear. Then Ray found out I left that key fob on her, and … I know Ray’s rep. I know more than I told Alexis. He suppressed so many cases. He let so many people stay on the street that shouldn’t have been there. Witnesses disappeared. Some of them were found, tortured and killed. I knew it was him. Just from what other cops told me.’

  King said, ‘He’s not lying. There’s no way he would have done something so drastic otherwise. If we weren’t here, those guys would have killed him.’

  ‘I would have got away.’

  ‘No,’ King said. ‘You wouldn’t have.’

  ‘You left her there,’ Slater said. ‘You left her there to die.’

  ‘I panicked.’

  Slater understood.

  And he didn’t blame the man. The only way to dissipate anger is to be objective and think rationally, and he did both. Ward was a junior officer, green to the force, overwhelmed by insipid corruption under the surface, far bigger than he could comprehend. There was nothing he could have done to get her out of there, not when it was twelve or thirteen against one and there were seconds to spare before Ray’s goons shot him to pieces as he reached for Alexis.

  There were few on earth who had Slater and King’s experience.

  Slater made to turn the Bentley around.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ward said.

  King was quiet.

  Slater said, ‘You tell us where that warehouse is.’

  ‘Ray’s alive,’ Ward said. ‘And he’s coked to the eyeballs.’

  King bowed his head. ‘Christ. Him too?’

  Ward didn’t answer. He was confused.

  King said, ‘The man Ray’s in a war with is just as unhinged.’

  Slater muttered under his breath, ‘And we started this.’

  He didn’t follow up with the inevitable, but he saw King understood.

  We’re responsible. We need to finish it.

  Ward said, ‘Man, I’m telling you. You storm that warehouse and your girlfriend is dead. Ray has half a dozen guys left who are indoctrinated enough to die for him, and they only need to keep you at bay for seconds. He’s probably calling more people in as we speak. Ray will kill her the moment he thinks things are going south. He’s not going to be rational about it. He’ll clean house before you can touch him.’

  Slater didn’t turn the wheel.

  But he kept his hands on it.

  Indecision plagued him.

  King said, ‘He’s right.’

  Silence.

  King said, ‘Think logically.’

  Slater did.

  He looked over at King, who saw the pain in his eyes.

  Slater said, ‘She can’t die. I can’t let it happen. Not her, too.’

  Ruby Nazarian resurfaced in his memories.

  He knew he’d never be able to handle another loss of that magnitude. Not after everything they’d been through. Not after they’d wiped the slate clean, escaped the government, started anew.

  King said, ‘Her best chance of survival is for us to be smart.’

  Slater didn’t respond.

  King said, ‘I know how to play this.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘We have someone Ray needs. He has someone we need.’

  Slater raised an eyebrow.

  King said, ‘We trade Kerr.’

  ‘You have the DA?!’ Ward spluttered from the back seat. He curled up again. ‘What am I involved in?’

  King didn’t answer.

  Ward said, ‘This is too big. You’ve started something you can’t stop. If this thing gets exposed, the city’s going to get thrown into turmoil. There’s going to be a crisis.’

  ‘The cat’s not out of the bag yet,’ King said. ‘No one even knows Kerr is missing. She’s neck-deep in this world, and she doesn’t want it to get out either. This gives her an out, and it gives us a chance to get Alexis.’

  Slater said, ‘And then they all get away with it.’

  ‘No,’ King said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘As soon as we get Alexis out of the crossfire, we get every single one of them. However long it takes.’

  Slater liked the sound of that.

  He said, ‘Okay.’

  He twisted in his seat again. ‘You know how to contact Ray?’

  Ward nodded reluctantly.

  Slater made up his mind.

  He put the car in gear and headed back for the estate.

  Trying not to think about what Ray was doing to the woman he loved.

  45

  Violetta knew exactly where Keith Ray and all his thugs were hiding out.

  It hadn’t taken her long to track the commotion unfolding in plain sight across Vegas. Ray was in Arden, occupying a warehouse abandoned by its tenants three months previously. He’d probably put in a few calls to make sure the place remained untouched.

  From what she could gather, there’d been barely an inkling of official police response. Either the entire department were slacking on the job, or Ray still had friends in high places. She was coming down on the side of the latter.

  She looked up from her laptop on the kitchen island when King and Slater stormed into the house, dragging a bloodied junior officer behin
d them. The guy was shellshocked, and she didn’t blame him. He was a herbivore in a jungle of predators. When he’d woken up this morning, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d expected this was how the day would unfold.

  Slater roughhoused the cop over to the island and pushed him down on one of the stools. His hands were cable-tied behind his back, but Violetta figured even that was unnecessary. The guy wasn’t going anywhere. Defeat and dark thoughts clouded his face. He didn’t know if he’d live to see the sun rise the next morning.

  Outside, the sky darkened. Early evening had come quickly — the day had passed like a speeding bullet train. Everything that had happened since they’d stepped out of the house that morning, everything they’d uncovered…

  She couldn’t comprehend it herself.

  She looked at King. ‘Is this Alan Ward?’

  ‘The one and only,’ King said.

  Ward didn’t entertain a response. He stared at the countertop, his eyes glazed over, wanting to be anywhere else.

  Slater said, ‘He took Alexis.’

  Violetta’s face darkened. ‘You’re sure?’

  Slowly, Ward nodded. ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Violetta swivelled the laptop screen around. ‘I know where Ray is keeping her. You two should—’

  ‘We know,’ Slater said. ‘Ward was just there. He told us where she is.’

  Violetta paused. ‘Then why aren’t you—?’

  King said, ‘Keith Ray’s a heavier coke addict than Armando Gates. He’s not interested in playing this smart. If he hears a single hostile bullet he’ll cut his losses and put a bullet in Alexis’ head to get her out of the way.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Violetta said. ‘If you hit it fast and hard—’

  ‘Violetta,’ Slater said, silencing her.

  She looked at him.

  His eyes told her so much.

  He said, ‘It’s not the right call. You don’t know what it took for me to agree to that.’

  She said nothing.

  He said, ‘What Ray might be doing to her right now. What she might be going through. It’s better than getting her killed.’

  She nodded.

  He said, ‘It can’t happen again.’

  Silence.

  She thought of Ruby.

  He said, ‘It can’t.’

  She said, ‘I understand.’

  No one spoke.

  She said, ‘So what now?’

  ‘We have two people Ray would very much like to get his hands on,’ King said. ‘One for preservation, and one for revenge.’

  Kerr.

  Ward.

  Violetta looked at the junior officer. He had his head bowed, and he was stifling sobs. She said, ‘You’re not going to hand this guy over to get tortured and killed.’

  Ward looked up.

  A twinge of hope.

  She said, ‘I’m sure his family was threatened. He doesn’t deserve it.’

  ‘They were,’ Slater said. ‘Ray was going to kill his grandmother unless he delivered Alexis to him.’

  Violetta stared at him. ‘You can’t be aware of that and still be comfortable handing him—’

  ‘I’m not,’ Slater said. ‘Don’t you get it?’

  She thought about it.

  She understood.

  She said, ‘The swap doesn’t actually have to go through. You just have to get into a position where Alexis is right there, out in the open. Not locked in a back room where Ray can execute her as soon as you show up.’

  King nodded. ‘We bring Kerr and Ward. We feign to hand them over. Ray feigns to hand Alexis over.’

  A pause.

  King said, ‘That’s when we kill everyone.’

  Ward bowed his head again.

  Slater sat down in the stool next to Ward. He let the silence draw out until the cop got uncomfortable and lifted his face to meet Slater’s gaze.

  Ward said, ‘I’m sorry about what I did. Really, I am.’

  Slater said, ‘I know. That’s why you’re not in the “kill everyone” plan.’

  Ward hesitated.

  He didn’t believe it.

  Slater said, ‘What good would it do? Killing you for something you saw no way out of?’

  Ward said, ‘Please don’t give me hope.’

  ‘I’m giving you the truth.’

  Silence.

  Slater said, ‘I’m asking you to trust us.’

  Ward thought it over.

  Slater said, ‘You take our side, or you take the side of a degenerate drug addict.’

  Ward said, ‘Of course I know what the right decision is. But…’

  He trailed off.

  King said, ‘But?’

  Ward looked up, wracked by indecision. ‘I’ve trusted everyone today. I’ve been blindsided over and over. I keep doing what people tell me to do, and it put me here. I don’t want any part of this. If I agree to help you, there’s no guarantee you’ll stick to your word. I don’t know anything about any of you. Who are you? Vigilantes or something?’

  ‘Let’s leave it at vigilantes,’ Slater said. ‘But we do the right thing. Always.’

  ‘I watched you kill four people.’

  ‘Sometimes the law doesn’t lead to the right thing,’ Slater said. ‘You’ve seen that first-hand.’

  They all saw Ward flash back.

  Disappeared witnesses.

  Suppressed cases.

  Complaint after complaint from the distraught parents of exploited girls, all of them falling on deaf ears.

  Ward said, ‘Okay.’

  King said, ‘You have Ray’s number?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll call from your phone.’

  He fished through Ward’s pockets and found a mangled iPhone, the screen sporting a spiderweb of cracks. He took a deep breath. ‘Any chance you know his number off by heart?’

  Ward shook his head. He looked like he might cry.

  King pressed the home button.

  Behind the cracks, the screen lit up.

  King said, ‘It’s your lucky day, Alan.’

  He got the passcode off the shaken cop, went to the contacts and found a contact added only hours earlier: RAY.

  King looked at it. ‘Did you know this man before today?’

  ‘No,’ Ward said.

  ‘Christ,’ King said. ‘It’s been a day for you, hasn’t it?’

  Ward said nothing.

  His battered, bloody, dishevelled state answered that question.

  King thumbed the name, ringing Ray’s phone.

  He switched it to speakerphone.

  46

  The time continued to blur.

  Alexis sat in darkness, back in the same endless thought loop, unable to contain her racing mind. She’d given up on stoicism. Maybe with more practice she’d master it, but this wasn’t the setting. She knew with full resignation that the next time that door opened, her aura of confidence would shatter. She’d kept it up for as long as she could. She’d spared herself a couple of hours, maybe. Enough time for Ray to establish a rapport with his temporary army of mercenaries and send them anyplace else.

  Then he’d come sauntering back in, happy as a pig in shit, ready for a good time at the expense of—

  The door opened.

  Light spilled in, but not as much. It was all artificial now, coming from the interspersed bulbs in the outside corridor instead of the sun beating in through the sunroof out in the warehouse. The silhouette of Keith Ray in the doorway was unmistakable. Just as big, just as vile.

  He said, ‘Still feeling brave?’

  She sucked in air.

  He said, ‘That’s more like it.’

  He stepped into the room, turned on the small desk lamp, and closed the door behind him. It was so cramped with them both in there, and the lamp did little to stem her fears. It cast shadow over him — his fat red face, his ruddy complexion, the unmasked lust in his eyes.

  ‘Please,’ she croaked. ‘You don’t have to do
this…’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do.’

  He dropped to his knees beside her. She sat cross-legged, hunched over, trying to protect herself. He loomed over her. He reached down and touched his fingers to her chin and tilted her face up to look at him. His fingertips were coated in perspiration. They were slimy against her skin.

  She said, ‘Keith.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you do this, you’re going to die. Slowly and painfully.’

  He almost laughed. ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m here in Vegas with a group of mercenaries,’ she said. ‘That’s how I knew your name when I met Alan. My friends — they’re ex-government. They worked black operations. They’re levels above you and your men. They’ll show mercy if you don’t touch me, but if you do anything to me, they’ll hunt you down and tear you apart piece by piece. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not lying. This isn’t something you want to do.’

  She stopped talking, and he let the office go dead quiet before he responded.

  ‘Even if any of that bullshit was true,’ he said, ‘I don’t see them here.’

  He looked left and right for dramatic effect, then he turned his revolting eyes back to her.

  ‘See?’ he said. ‘Just you and me.’

  ‘Keith…’

  ‘You’ve got no friends here. You should have kept my name out of your mouth. It’s your fault you ended up here.’

  She started to cry.

  He said, ‘But my oh my, I’m glad you did.’

  He took his fingers off her chin, and lowered them.

  Touching her neck.

  Her collarbones.

  Her—

  The blare of a cellphone ringing pierced the quiet. It came from Ray’s pocket, and she could see him thinking about flat-out ignoring it. He was hot and flustered and encapsulated by her, and he kept probing his fingers gently along her upper chest.

  She held her breath.

  She wanted to scream.

  Then a look passed over his face. Reconsidering, recalibrating. He grunted as he took his hand off her to work the phone out of his jeans.

  She thought she might pass out.

  Still on his knees, he turned the screen to face him and studied the contact name.

  He said, ‘You’re kidding.’

  He lurched to his feet, stormed out of the office, and slammed the door shut behind him, leaving the lamp on. The last flash she caught of him was as he swiped to answer and lifted the phone to his ear.