by Elin Barnes
Blake remembered covering his mouth with both hands when Ethan had shot the man. He hadn’t expected this. A simple kidnapping—that was the plan. Then he was suddenly sucked into the rabbit hole, and his world completely changed.
Before he could say, “What the fuck, man?,” which was what he was thinking, Ethan handed him a latex glove and the gun. Blake didn’t move. None of this was on the video. The image he was staring at showed the woman wailing over the dead man, and the others probably fearing the worst for themselves.
“Take it,” Ethan had said to him.
“No. Why?” Blake had asked. He took a step back, as if trying to prevent contamination from some virus.
“Put on this glove and take the gun,” Ethan said, shoving the items closer to him.
Blake looked at the other men, seeking help, but got no eye contact, no response. He then looked back at Ethan, who still held the gun and the glove.
He took another step back but stopped when he heard one of Ethan’s men move behind him, blocking his escape route in case he dared trying. He looked at the glove. It was black. He looked at the Beretta. It was also black. He’d had firearms training when he was at the Marines boot camp and was no stranger to guns. He took a deep breath and grabbed the glove. After he put it on, he took the gun.
Ethan pointed at the woman who was on the floor, still mourning her husband’s death, and said, “Shoot her.”
“What, a woman?” Blake asked. “No way. Not a woman.”
His eyes darted toward the men. Carlos was hyperventilating. There was another fat man, who looked as if he was about to pass out.
“Okay then. You choose,” Ethan said.
“This is not necessary,” Blake said, still pointing the gun to the ground.
Ethan nodded very slowly. “Unless you know how you can prevent them from talking, there is no other way.”
“Right.”
“You don’t have to kill us for that. We won’t talk,” Belle, his date, pled.
Ethan looked at her. Blake did too. Her eyes moved from one to the other.
“Come on, I’m no genius, but I bet we’ve seen enough to understand that we need to keep our mouths shut forever, or we’ll end up dead anyway.” She looked around. Several people nodded in agreement. “I wouldn’t risk it.” Her baby-doll barely covered her breasts and pubic area.
“She’s pretty smart, this one,” Ethan said to Blake, ignoring Belle. “Come on, we don’t have all night.”
Blake aimed the gun at the man’s chest and wrapped his finger around the trigger. He started to squeeze. He knew his brain was sending contradictory commands and wondered which one would win. Before he was able to fire, Ethan’s index finger moved the barrel up to aim at the head.
“Consistency,” he said.
Blake felt the kick lift the Beretta and shut his eyes. When he opened them a split second later, he saw the man gasping for air on the sofa, unharmed. The sound of the shot was still ringing in his ears when Ethan spoke again.
“You’re going to have to do it a second time.” His voice was cold as black ice.
Blake reaimed the gun and saw it shake at the end of his hand. Then he heard a shot. The man fell backward with a clean hole in the middle of his forehead.
He remembered looking back at Ethan. He felt an exhilaration he’d never felt before. He had just ended a man’s life. He remembered smiling, feeling a bit like God, and then he turned and puked his guts out.
Of course, that wasn’t on the video. Ethan’s men had wiped the entire house to ensure they were leaving absolutely no trace evidence. What wasn’t on the video either was that he hadn’t been the one killing the man. He never fired the second shot. One of Ethan’s men did. The video, however, ended with the man dying on the sofa and a close-up of Blake’s smile, with a crazy look in his eyes.
He was fucked. Ethan had framed him, and he didn’t really understand why. Was this his insurance policy, or was he trying to get more money out of him?
Chapter 75
Friday
Ethan talked to Carlos de la Rosa while he removed the ligatures that held him to the bed. As he undid each one, he explained what he was doing, like a surgeon describing a medical procedure.
“This one’s the last one holding your torso. After this, I’m going to move to your right leg,” Ethan said.
De la Rosa was still gagged, and only whimpered and nodded here and there. His body was covered in a myriad of wounds, and his chest was a large blister. Ethan paused when he got to the ankle strap. He focused on the toes. They were red and inflamed where the nails had been, but at least he wasn’t bleeding anymore. He had taken care of that with the torch.
“When you stand up, you will feel weak, and you may need to support yourself. You will also have a hard time planting your feet on the floor, and you won’t be able to walk very well.” Ethan had moved to the other side of the table and was removing the left leg’s ligatures.
“I want you to hold on to me, okay? I will help you.” Ethan only derived pleasure from the actual torture, not the aftermath.
When de la Rosa was finally free, Ethan helped him sit and then handed him some clothes. “They should fit. My dad was about your size.”
De la Rosa nodded; he still had the gag in his mouth. It was a simple piece of cloth secured in place by duct tape. After de la Rosa had put on the T-shirt, Ethan went to his side and helped him slide off the table so he could pull his sweatpants up. As soon as the man planted his feet on the ground, a shriek of pain reverberated in the soundproof room, and de la Rosa almost collapsed onto the floor.
“Carlos, I warned you about this.” Ethan held him and made sure he was steady. When he was ready, they began to walk. De la Rosa whimpered with each step.
“You should be happy. I’m taking you home.”
De la Rosa’s eyes bulged, and he looked at Ethan. His face was a mixture of disbelief and hope, contorted by the terry-cloth fabric stuffing his mouth. But his face turned ashen, and he almost pulled himself away from Ethan when he caught the ghastly stare in his captor’s eyes.
A shriek from the other side of the room made Ethan look back. The woman tied to the ceiling by the metallic restraints pled with him to let her go home too. The shackles rattled, and Ethan smiled, knowing that fresh blood would soon be sliding off her wrists down her ivory skin.
Almost by the door, Ethan looked over his shoulder and said, “Babe, I’ll come back later and let you down again. Then you can have some more of your favorite smoothie.”
The last thing Ethan heard before he shut the door to his playroom was a faint moan that sounded more defeated than sad.
Chapter 76
Ethan didn’t hide de la Rosa in the backseat. They’d had too many close calls with random police stops to risk it. So he sedated him enough to make sure he wouldn’t be making any noise and put him in the truck bed. It was cold out, so Ethan covered him with a blanket and secured the cover that hinged around the borders.
Carmel wasn’t that far away, and they went against traffic. Most of the way was uneventful, until they got to the last leg of Highway 1, which had only one lane each way. For some reason it was bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the last twenty miles took longer than the previous sixty.
They finally reached their destination. As soon as he pulled into the driveway, he saw Curtis come out of a brand-new Acura parked on the other side of the street.
Ethan unlocked the front door and walked inside, disarming the alarm by entering the code de la Rosa had given him. He walked to the garage and hit the button to open the door. As soon as it was high enough Curtis ducked in.
“Nice car,” Ethan said when he joined him.
“I figured it was better to use something that blended a little in this neighborhood.” Curtis looked at the Bentley to his right and added, “I guess I should have aimed higher.”
“Yep,” Ethan said, and flashed him a smile. He got into the truck and parked it next to the Bentley. Curtis closed
the garage door.
“He can’t walk very well, so help him out,” Ethan instructed Curtis. “All he has to do is call his gofer to dismiss the case. Make sure he’s always on speaker and that you have a full view of his computer screen at all times.”
Both men helped Carlos into the living room. Ethan followed the directions his host had given him earlier and went looking for the office. A few minutes later he came back carrying a laptop.
“Call me when it’s done,” Ethan said to Curtis. Addressing Carlos, he added, “Remember what we’ve talked about. Your toenails will grow back, but if you ever say anything to anybody, I’ll find you and do the same thing again. But next time, I won’t stop there.”
Carlos’s cheeks jiggled as he nodded, demonstrating his full understanding.
“Very well,” Ethan said, as if he were training a puppy to shake.
Chapter 77
Darcy had spent the whole night with Saffron. She’d come out of surgery right after he got to the hospital. He’d sat by her, holding her hand, stroking it until dawn. She hadn’t woken up yet. The doctor said that she was in a very critical condition and they would have to see how the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours went. It didn’t sound very reassuring, but it was all he had.
At seven thirty they’d let him take a shower in the staff quarters, but he had put on the same clothes he had worn the day before. He went back to the room after getting a coffee refill. Saffron was still sleeping. She had a gash on her cheek that was already healing and a nasty black eye. But she was still so beautiful.
His cell phone vibrated on the bed. He checked it but didn’t recognize the number.
“Detective Lynch.”
“Leon Brantley here. You told me to let you know if I heard from Carlos de la Rosa . . .”
“Yeah. Is he at the office?”
“No. But I just got a call from him. He said he’d been at his brother’s house in Carmel this whole time.”
“What was he doing there?”
“Working. But that’s the thing. He asked me to redraft the paperwork of the latest lawsuit we were about to file. He wanted to remove several patents we were going to contest.”
“Is that odd?”
“Yeah. Off the record, de la Rosa is like a rabid dog. He always pushes us to overreach. I’ve worked with him for almost fifteen years, and I’ve never seen him remove a patent from any potential lawsuits before. In fact, he always asks us what else can we add, as if he’s sure we’ve missed something.”
“Do you know the address?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Did he say anything else?” Darcy asked.
“No. Just told me to call him as soon as the paperwork was redrafted.”
“How long does it take?”
“A few hours,” Brantley said.
“Stall until you hear back from me.” Before Brantley could protest, Darcy added, “This is very helpful. Thank you.”
He immediately called Sorensen and asked him to pick him up at the hospital and bring the last shirt he still had in his drawer.
Ten minutes later Darcy met him downstairs. “At least I would have brought you coffee,” Darcy said, getting into the car. “You’re a shitty partner.”
“I brought you your shirt,” Sorensen said, pointing to the backseat. “And fed your fish and let your dog out. Man, she really needed to go.”
Darcy grabbed it and took off the old one. “Thank you.”
“Hey, hey. No striptease in my car.”
“Where do you want me to change? At a rest area?”
“Good point. Okay, I won’t look,” Sorensen said, blocking the view with his open palm. “You have the address?”
“Yeah, Jon texted it to me right before you came. Once you hit Carmel, I’ll give you directions.”
“Have you tried calling him?”
“His cell is in Evidence,” Darcy said. “We found it at his house. Apparently the brother doesn’t have a landline. De la Rosa called Brantley from a blocked number.”
“Of course he did.” Sorensen shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“Neither do I.”
“He’s been coerced, blackmailed, or paid off to drop the case,” Sorensen said, as if thinking out loud.
“Why the killings, though? If all they wanted was this guy, why kill all of those people?” Darcy looked out the window.
“Leave no witnesses?” Sorensen took the exit for Highway 85 south.
“A little extreme, don’t you think?”
“One of the first lessons my TO taught me after the academy was that a hit to kill is much cheaper than an assault. Witnesses talk, and corpses don’t.”
“Good point,” Darcy said. “That’s why they left the guns at the scene. That way we won’t find one on a schmuck and connect the dots to the crime.”
When he could, Sorensen sped up to 80 mph, reaching CA-156 in less than an hour. Later they merged onto Highway 1, and Darcy navigated for another twenty-five minutes until they reached de la Rosa’s brother’s house. They parked half a block away and watched it for a few minutes. There was nothing especially suspicious.
“Okay, let’s do it.” Darcy double-checked that his extra magazine was full and got out of the car.
“The vests are in the trunk,” Sorensen said.
Darcy stopped. “We’re just going to talk to the guy.”
Sorensen cursed and put his on. “That’s why you checked your magazine?” He left the back door open. Once they both had their vests on, they walked to the house.
Darcy went to the front door but just stood to the side, while Sorensen went around the perimeter.
A minute later he was back. “I can’t see anything. All the blinds are drawn. I couldn’t hear anything either.”
“Okay, let’s find out,” Darcy said, knocking on the door.
There was no response. He pounded harder.
Darcy tightened his fingers around the grip of his Glock as footsteps got closer to the entrance. They moved to opposite sides of the frame. Darcy fanned his fingers around the grip one more time, making sure he had a strong hold on it.
The door opened, and a short linebacker with long sideburns peeked his head out.
“Mr. de la Rosa?” Sorensen asked, knowing it wasn’t him.
“No. I’m his nephew.”
The two detectives exchanged glances. They were both Hispanic, but otherwise they couldn’t have looked more different.
The man eyed the drawn guns. “What’s this about?”
“Detectives Lynch and Sorensen. We need to speak with him right now,” Darcy said.
“I’m sorry, he’s not here.”
“We have information to the contrary.” Sorensen inched toward the open sliver.
“He’s not feeling well. I think it’s better if you come back another time.” He started to close the door.
Sorensen pushed his foot in before the “nephew” could close it all the way. “I think it’s better if we talk to him right now.”
“Okay,” he said, reopening the door. “But please put your guns away. You won’t be needing them.” He moved away from the door and led them to the living room.
Neither detective holstered his weapon.
The man they met sitting on the sofa was a shadow of his DMV photo. Carlos de la Rosa was very white, and his eyes were bloodshot and wide open, showing the terror he felt. A three-day salt-and-pepper beard covered his face, and he seemed ten or fifteen years older than his age. He was wearing baggy sweats with a gray T-shirt, and he looked as if he hadn’t showered in several days.
“Mr. Carlos de la Rosa?”
Sorensen walked toward him. Darcy stayed behind, his back to the wall, eyeing the “nephew,” who stood only a couple feet from him right by the door.
“Yes.” His response sounded more like a question than a statement. His voice quivered, and he kept looking back at the young man.
“Is everything okay?” Sorensen asked him.
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“Yes.” He paused, looking back at the “nephew” again. “Why are you here?”
“Are you aware of what happened at your house on Tuesday night?”
De la Rosa looked past Sorensen, who followed his gaze. Darcy did too.
“Can you move over there, sir,” Darcy said to the “nephew,” pointing at the sofa where de la Rosa was sitting.
The man met Darcy’s eyes. In a split second, he dropped his shoulder and closed the distance between them, driving his entire weight into Darcy’s solar plexus. Before Darcy could regain his breath, the “nephew” scurried through the door, and the sound of two muffled shots made Darcy focus back to the room.
He yelled to Sorensen. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but de la Rosa’s hit.”
“I’m going after him. You got this?” Darcy was already in the hallway to the front door.
“Yeah, catch that asshole.”
Darcy hurried out of the house and looked down the street. He saw the man running west. He was surprisingly fast for someone so short. At the cross street, the “nephew” took a left on Carmelo. Darcy ran faster. As he reached the intersection, he saw the perp taking a right on Thirteenth. He was going to lose him. Darcy took the corner and, looking up the street, he saw him almost two blocks away, taking a left on Scenic Road.
Maybe Darcy had just caught a break. Unless the man got onto the beach, he would have to run straight for a while. Darcy raced forward, trying to get to him before he had a chance to hide.
Darcy reached Scenic Route but didn’t see him.
“Shit,” he said, wheezing, and stopped running. The perp must have gone into a house or hidden in a backyard.
As he approached each residence, he stopped to clear it, checking the lush front yards and the long driveways. He didn’t see anything in the first few homes.
He pulled his phone and called Sorensen to let him know where he was.
“De la Rosa didn’t make it.”
“Call for backup. I don’t know where this guy is.”