“Carl, you’re losing your mind.”
“I have to know if the police know yet about the affair.”
Holding my tote bag in front of me like a shield, I backed up in the direction of my car, taking it slow, as if backing up from a rabid dog. The stairwell was much closer, but Carl could easily jump me as I tried to go down the flights of stairs. “Are you involved in this mess in other ways, too?” I asked him.
“Odelia, I can do things for you if you cooperate. I can save your job. Pay you cash. Anything to keep this under wraps and away from my wife.”
His wife, Louise, was a nice woman and not someone I wanted to hurt, but it was too late, and keeping her in the dark was not in my job description. Neither was taking bribes to cover an infidelity. It quickly occurred to me that Carl seemed only concerned with his wife finding out about him and Erica. It indicated to me that he didn’t have anything to do with the murders or whatever Erica and her sister were involved with, only indiscretion. Of course, I could be wrong, especially considering I was more intent at the moment in saving my hide.
“You don’t understand, Odelia.” He took a step towards me. I took another two steps back. As I hugged my big bag closer, my fingers felt something familiar through the leather of the side pocket.
“Louise and I are going through a bad patch. It happens. It’s going to happen to you and Greg one day, trust me. We’ve even talked divorce. But if we divorce under these circumstances, she could ruin me and my relationship with my children, and you know how important my children are to me. Keep me out of this, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
Keeping my eyes on Carl, I slipped my fingers in the side pocket of my tote bag and eased out the pepper spray. He was so hell-bent on his mission, he didn’t seem to notice. When I took another step back, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure I was still on track to reach my car, wishing that today I had parked closer to the other vehicles. In that split second, Carl stepped close enough for me to smell his lunch—something spicy.
“Stay back, Carl,” I warned. “You’re scaring me.”
“Odelia, I’m desperate. Please tell me where I stand in this mess.”
He lunged to grab my shoulders again, but this time he wasn’t successful. Just as one of his large hands touched my shoulder, I pulled out the pepper spray, leaned back, and hit the plunger. The stream hit him on his nose, but enough of the mist shot upward into his eyes to be effective. Carl howled and grabbed his face.
I took the opportunity to make for my car, but I didn’t get far. Carl, in his rage and frantic struggle to see, had reached out with one hand and grabbed my sweater. I twisted and turned to free myself, but he had a good grip and was reeling me in like a tuna. Changing my course, I turned to face him again, the pepper spray ready to go, when he went limp in my arms and slid to the ground.
I stared down at my fallen boss as a red stain grew across the white, crisp back of his expensive shirt. I heard a scream, but it took a few seconds before I realized the cry had come from my mouth. I started to scream again, but the sound was cut short as a bullet struck the concrete wall to my left, sending tiny shards into the air. Both times I never heard the shots and couldn’t tell where they were coming from.
I didn’t want to leave Carl. I didn’t even know if he was alive or dead, but I couldn’t help him if I was also down. Staying low, I dashed for the garbage can and hunkered down behind it just as another shot exploded into the wall again. I was torn: should I make a run for the stairwell or my car? The stairwell was closer, but my phone was in my car. I also didn’t know from which direction the shots were coming. And if the shooter chased me into the stairwell, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Peeking out from behind the can, I tried to scan the parking garage, but all I saw were vehicles parked for the day while their owners toiled inside the connected high-rise office building. Visitors never parked on the higher levels. Considering it was just mid-afternoon, it might be a while before anyone came to retrieve their ride. That was both good and bad news. The last thing I wanted was unsuspecting office workers walking into a sniper situation, but it also meant no help was on the way. And if I didn’t hear the shots, neither did parking security. For the time being, I was on my own with nowhere to go. The shooter was probably using some sort of silencer, which made me think contract killer. Mother may have turned down the job, but it was just a matter of time before another hired gun would take the opportunity to make a buck. The only good thing was that Lily was safe.
A moan invaded my thoughts. It came from Carl. He was still alive, but there was no way I could drag him to the safety of either the stairwell or the car. I hoped he wouldn’t move too much and cause the shooter to aim better next time. Fish in a barrel be damned, I had to try the stairwell. The car was simply too far away. Leaving my bag behind the trash can, I dashed to the stairwell and grabbed the door handle. It twisted and turned in my hand, but the door was jammed. As a shot hit the wall next to me, I dove back to the precarious safety of the garbage can.
I had to head for the car and the phone. It was my only option. If I was lucky enough to reach it, maybe I could start up the car and use it to give cover to Carl before the killer moved in to finish us off.
Taking several deep breaths that I realized might be my last, I made ready to dash to my car. I knew I was a big target, but I had to try. Doing nothing meant certain death. I had taken only a few steps, bracing myself against a bullet I was sure would find its mark, when the back door of my car flew open and a man shot out of it at the speed of a human bullet train. It was Mark Baker. In his hand was a gun, and he was headed straight for me.
I staggered backward until I fell next to Carl. I froze where I was, waiting for the inevitable, for Mark to gun me down—paralegal to paralegal. Either he was involved in the same mess as the Holts or he really wanted to keep his job. As I scooted back on my butt, my leg hit something. It was the pepper spray canister I’d dropped when Carl slumped into my arms. I grabbed for it, clutching it like life itself, and aimed it at Mark. He saw it and turned his head, raising an arm against the burning spray just before tackling me and sending me flat on my back on the greasy concrete floor. At the same time, a couple of bullets flew over our heads. Once again I didn’t hear the shots, just a high-pitched whizz followed by the sharp sounds of concrete being struck.
I struggled to push Mark off of me.
He held me down. “I’m not the one shooting at you, you fool.” He got off of me. “Come on,” he ordered.
Before I was even halfway to my feet, Mark was pushing me back towards the garbage can while he shot his gun towards an unseen target. One of his bullets struck the back window of a parked car, the sound of shattering glass singing backup to the blast.
“Wait here,” he barked. “Help’s on the way.”
“But Carl.” I started to go back to the fallen attorney, but Mark stopped me with a hard jerk to my arm.
“Keep directly behind this can and give thanks that whoever that is can’t shoot worth a damn.”
Following his order, I hugged the garbage can to me like a long-lost love. Mark covered me from behind, his chest pressed hard against my back. I could feel his head bobbing side to side, his gun at the ready, as he kept watch of both vulnerable sides.
What paralegal certification program did he learn this from?
I heard sirens—not close but closing in—and hoped they were heading this way and would arrive in time to save us. A few more bullets whizzed by, one hitting the garbage can close to my hand. I yanked it back, my heart in my throat. The shots were followed by the sound of footsteps hitting the pavement at a fast clip, then the roar of an engine. A white van pulled nosefirst out of a parking slot at the far end of the parking structure close to the exit ramp. Instead of leaving, it headed our way.
Mark ran forward to meet it. After taking cover behind a parked car, he took shots at the windshield. It exploded. The van swerved and clipped the back ends of a
couple cars to its left. The air filled with the sound of gun blasts, breaking glass, and mangled metal. I slapped my hands over my ears. The van slowed down but kept coming. From the passenger’s side, a man took aim at Mark. As the van got closer, I recognized Gary Allen. Driving the van was Alyce.
Mark held his gun steady with both hands and shot at the tires, hitting one. Alyce fought to keep control of the van as it neared us, but the van tipped and swayed like a drunk. I could hear Gary yelling to her. Through the broken windshield I saw him grab for the steering wheel.
As the van passed Mark, it lunged far to its right. Both Gary and Alyce were trying to wrangle the heavy vehicle around the end of the aisle and keep it upright. Thankfully, it was now heading away from us. Just as the van cleared the end of the aisle, it tipped onto its right side and slid across the concrete until it smashed into the only parked car in the area—my car.
When the scraping of heavy metal on concrete stopped, it became eerily quiet, followed a few seconds later by the gut-wrenching screams of a woman from inside the van. Mark approached the van, keeping his gun steady on the vehicle.
I went to Carl just as I heard something crash against the door to the stairwell. The door caved, and officers dressed in flak gear burst through it, guns drawn. Some rushed past me towards the van. Two covered me.
Several police vehicles entered the parking level and raced towards us, sirens blaring. They came to a stop, blocking aisles and surrounding the fallen van. A plain sedan and two paramedic units followed. Fehring jumped out of the unmarked car. Mark no longer had his gun on the van but held it loosely aloft, both of his hands in the air, until he was unarmed by one of the cops.
Carl was still breathing, but barely. I held his hand, ignoring Fehring, until the paramedics took over. Once assured Carl Yates was in good hands, I went back to the garbage can, leaned over it, and threw up.
twenty-eight
The joint. The slammer. The clink.
I’d been down this road before, and it wasn’t any easier the second time around.
“You okay, Odelia?”
I looked up with surprise at Fehring. “You just called me Odelia, not Ms. Grey.”
Fehring offered a half smile of truce as she handed me a soda. She handed the one in her other hand to Seth, who once again was acting as my counsel. Greg was waiting outside the interrogation room, pacing in his wheelchair. The police had allowed Zee and Lily to go home with police protection.
This time I wasn’t being questioned about a dead body and my connection to it, but I had spent the past few hours being debriefed, sharing everything I had learned and knew with the police. In return, Fehring was bringing me up to speed, though I’m sure she wasn’t disclosing everything. But to be fair, neither was I. I had only said that my half brother, a former cop who now worked high-level security for the private sector, had run the prints. I left William Proctor out of everything.
I popped the top off the soda. It was my third, and I was feeling the buzz of the caffeine and the rush of the sugar. Fehring had brought me a sandwich earlier, but I was only able to nibble at it. Although I’d hardly eaten all day, I wasn’t hungry, just happy to be alive.
“I still can’t believe Alyce and Gary Allen are kidnappers.” After taking a drink, I looked up at Fehring with alarm. “Their own kids—what about them? Are they theirs or…” I let my words trail off.
“We’re looking into that,” Fehring told us. “The Allen woman claims they are hers by birth, but we’re not exactly taking her word for it without proof.” Fehring took a seat. “That’s why they tossed the Holt house. In addition to trying to find Connie Holt, they were looking for Lily’s adoption papers and birth certificate, knowing close scrutiny would show them to be fake.”
“Have you located them?”
“Not yet, but we’re hoping Erica Mayfield can help with that. According to Alyce, Erica knew Lily’s adoption was illegal, though she didn’t know or want to know where the child came from. She said Mayfield even went over the paperwork for her sister. My guess is it’s in a safe-deposit box somewhere.”
“If Erica knew about the illegal adoption,” Seth added, “she’s going to lose her law license, especially considering the child was kidnapped.”
I nodded in agreement. The California bar was going to have a field day with this. “Where’s Erica now?”
“Still out of the country. We’re trying to get her back here before she slips through our fingers and disappears.”
Fehring stretched. It was early evening, and like us, she’d been going over the mess for hours. “Seems the Allens ran a small but very lucrative black-market baby ring. Desperate but well-heeled couples would find their way to them through discreet referrals and put in an order for the type of child they wanted—things like eye and hair color, gender, even age up to a certain point. The Allens would look for a child that matched the description, generally somewhere far away from where the adoptive parents lived, and would snatch the candidate.”
I shuddered, and not for the first time in the past few hours. “Basically, the Allens were operating a child chop shop, like organized car thieves.”
“Basically,” Fehring agreed. “According to Alyce, they’ve been doing it for years and saw it as God’s work. They would remove a child from a poor or bad environment and relocate them to a well-to-do family where they would have the best education and opportunities.”
“You mean sell the child, don’t you?” My words were laced with disgust.
“Yes,” Fehring said, “they would sell the children. Alyce is still in shock, but we’ve been getting pieces of information out of her all afternoon. Seems they’ve had several aliases and have moved around—no telling what we’re going to find once we start really digging. We’re working on her now about any records they might have kept on other children. We’re also going through their home with a fine-tooth comb.”
Alyce had been driving the van while Gary did the shooting. What the police had gleaned so far was that as soon as she saw me back in the office, Alyce had called Gary and alerted him to my whereabouts, then joined him to lie in wait for me in the garage. They had used Mother’s services to get rid of the Holts, but when she refused the job to finish me off, they decided to become do-it-yourselfers. It was as yet undetermined what they had planned for Lily. When the van tipped and crashed into my car, Gary had been crushed to death, leaving a shell-shocked Alyce to spill the story.
Seth shook his head, still as stunned as I was over everything. “How did the Allens get hooked up with the Holts, and why did it turn bad?”
“Apparently,” Fehring explained, “the Holts had been trying to adopt but were unsuccessful, something Alyce learned after coming to work for Erica. She and Gary approached them, and the Holts grabbed at the chance to become parents. According to Alyce, Hank Holt came to Gary several months ago with an idea to expand the operation. He wanted in as a partner, but Gary balked at the idea, believing he was doing the Lord’s work and not in the business of selling people for profit.”
“Talk about denial.” Seth took a deep breath of disbelief.
“Exactly,” said Fehring. “When Gary refused to let Hank in, Hank threatened to expose the operation. Gary Allen reciprocated by threatening the entire family, Lily included. Learning that, Connie Holt panicked.”
I ran the information around in my head. “So she left her daughter in Erica’s care and disappeared, hoping the Allens wouldn’t dare touch Lily if she were in the care of someone else.”
Fehring nodded. “That’s what we think, but can’t be sure. Although I doubt Connie expected Erica to bring Lily into the office, where Alyce had access to her.”
I ran a finger down the side of the cool soda can. “And since Erica knew the adoption was bogus, she worried about her own skin, dumped the kid on me, and took off. She never wanted any part of Lily. Maybe she hoped the Allens would take her and bump me off in the process—a twofer.”
“Could be,” Fehring a
greed with a nod of her head. “We also think Connie got hit when she came out of hiding to check on Lily.”
The three of us sat in silence a moment. Even seasoned Fehring seemed lost in the bizarre facts of the case.
“Your hunch was right, you know.” I looked across the table at Fehring when she spoke to me. “Lily was from Wisconsin. How’d you know?”
I felt my lips part in a small smile, even though I wasn’t feeling cheerful. “Cheesehead,” I explained. “Lily used the term cheesehead. At first I thought it was just a little kid’s imagination, then I realized she had to have learned it somewhere. It wasn’t a foolproof lead—she could have heard it on TV—but it gave you someplace to start.”
“We’ve contacted her parents. They’re on their way here now.”
Seth blew out some air, thinking, I’m sure, about his own kids. “They must be shell-shocked. I know I would be.”
Detective Fehring leaned forward. “Lily’s real name is Aurora, Aurora Sanger. Her parents are Pat and Kate Sanger. She also has two older brothers. At the time she was taken, her father’s business had gone under, and the family had lost their home. They were bunking with relatives, trying to rebuild their lives. It was exactly the type of situation the Allens looked for when shopping for kids. I’m happy to say the Sangers are back on their feet now.”
“I can’t imagine the pain the Sangers went through.” I took a drink of soda. “Do you have children, Detective Fehring?”
She hesitated, weighing how much of her personal life, if any, to share. She didn’t strike me as the chatty coffee-klatch type. “Yes. I have a daughter, Chelsea. She’s thirteen going on thirty-five. Some days I want to ship her off to Borneo, then something like this happens and I want to put her under lock and key to keep her safe.”
Hide and Snoop (The Odelia Grey Mysteries) Page 22