Zero response.
With his recourses drying up, he sent in a weapons and bomb team to check the doors and windows for booby traps. After giving an all-clear sign, Decker masked up and charged through the front door. A wave of intense heat girdled his body and strangled his gullet. He felt his feet rock, unsteady as he felt dizzy…his head swimming in stars. He forced himself to breathe slowly and regularly.
Not too deep, not too shallow.
Because he wore a mask, his nostrils and mouth being in a closed environment, he could hear every gasp he took. He sweated profusely as he prowled.
Visibility was nonexistent. Between the heavy mask, the darkness, and the smoke, Decker couldn’t see more than an inch in front of him. He turned on the flashlight, but all that did was turn the dark gray smoke into light gray smoke. He groped the wall for a light switch, but couldn’t feel anything. His feet stumbled over something as he crept along. Abruptly, his legs hit something immobile and bulky at knee level, causing him to pitch forward, the flashlight slipping from his grip. He caught his balance, then bent down to feel what he had crashed into. His palms sank into something soft and bouncy.
You open the door and walk straight into a bed.
He was feeling a mattress.
The flashlight had hit the floor, sending a murky beam straight up to the ceiling. The dust particles reflected the photons, casting the room in an eerie, postnuclear glow. He still couldn’t see much. His fingers walked over the lumps of bedding, patting the blankets and sheets.
And then he felt something solid.
His heart slammed against his chest as he bent down at the waist to see what it was, using his hands to ascertain a shape. He was touching a foot—still warm, but that was to be expected since it was sweltering inside. The foot was attached to a leg. He followed the leg upward and found it attached to a body. The nude body of a woman whose arms were tied to the bedposts. He bent over as far as he could, as close as he could, but smoke and smudge blurred the features. He could, however, smell the blood.
As he stood up, he felt his head go light, his balance begin to sway. He took a few moments to find his consciousness and professionalism, and when he did, he leaned over the body and pressed his fingers into the soft spots of her neck.
He felt for a pulse, and snapped into action when he found one—medic mode.
Stop the bleeding, treat ’em for shock, get ’em to a chopper.
Except this wasn’t Nam: this was L.A. in the twenty-first century.
They’ve got professionals for this, Decker.
He untied the bound wrists, picked up the mike, and called for an ambulance.
36
Hiding under the cloak of darkness, in a tangle of fauna, he was out there. Maybe he was nervous, reeking with the sweat of prey, or maybe he was smirking as he thought about the police spinning their wheels, traipsing over his chartered territory, playing a game of gingerbread man. Decker wasn’t optimistic about success even as helicopter beams swept over the dense terrain, even as the cops with their handy-dandy flashlights scoured through bush and brush. There were just too many empty pockets in the hillside.
Still, Decker had to put on a show, otherwise Holt would be a definite lost cause. Maybe the display of manpower would prevent him from running full tilt. In the morning, with the help of sunlight and a fresh crew, perhaps someone would pull the sucker out from under his rock.
He told his people two rules.
Rule one: Don’t get shot.
Rule two: Don’t shoot—even if shot at.
Because probability dictated that friendly rather than hostile fire would be the greater enemy. After he doled out the assignments, the positions, and the individual search grids, he rechecked his own equipment. Finding everything in working order, he decided to survey the territory on his own—a foolhardy as well as foolish resolution. Not more than an hour ago, he had insisted that his people forage the mountains in pairs, admonishing them to stick closely to one another, because backup was the elixir of survival. Furthermore, Decker hadn’t had to use his own endurance skills in over thirty years. But the voice of vengeance whispered its plaints: four human beings cut down by bullets, plus a girl beaten unconscious into a casserole of body parts.
He knew Martinez would have gladly gone with him. He knew that Bert—also a vet—had a good nose and a sixth sense for danger. But he didn’t want to be responsible for Bert’s welfare. Instead, he gave his detective temporary command of the operation. Martinez knew something was up.
“Where are you going?”
“Just having a look around. I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so.”
“What do you mean look around? You’re not going up there by yourself?”
But Decker was already gone, one hundred feet away, and pretending not to hear. He had his radio, his cell phone, a loaded gun, and a flashlight. Like a good Boy Scout, he was prepared.
The midnight air was saturated with the aroma of wet wood, and mosquitoes. He fanned his face, redirecting a funnel of gnats as he swung the flashlight’s parabolic beam over the forest floor. Each footstep announced his arrival with a crunch as the soles of his shoes turned fallen leaves into organic rot. At first, he could hear the other cops, but as he drifted away, delving deeper into a black fog of copse, the voices receded…the spots from their flashlights flitting like fireflies. Walking farther along…five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. The ambient sounds came from insects, a nocturnal conversation of tweets and clicks and clacks with an occasional nighttime birdcall cutting through the timbre. Far off, Decker thought he might have even heard toads croaking, something that hadn’t reached his ears in a very long time. Noisy, but reassuring because utter silence is reserved for those in cemeteries.
Away from the prescribed perimeter, away from the action and the people, his mind raced in many directions.
In Nam, he had mostly done the pickup after Charlie had done primary damage. But there were a few times, mostly at the end of the tour when there was nothing but virgin recruits, where he had been elected point man. He had seen enough trailblazers come back with stumps for legs, and he didn’t want to join the ranks, but what could he do? Leaving it up to the virgins would have guaranteed nails in the coffins. Panic had enveloped him, though he had tried hard not to show it. Thinking back, he guessed that he had achieved some success. Either that or the men under his command had been too scared to notice how out of control their leader had been.
Taking the men from point A to point B as Charlie tried to pick them off. Trying to clear the roads so troops could go through. The snipers were badasses, but they were not nearly as terrifying as the land mines. Something primal about an explosion in the vicinity of one’s balls.
He realized he was sweating. Weird because the air had turned cooler, everything damp and slimy. Still, the mist felt good on his cheeks, washing the grime from the smoke-choked shack off of his face and neck.
Images dancing in his brain.
After they cleaned the blood off of Ruby’s face, Decker could make out intact bone structure. Her cheekbones seemed whole, her mandible as well, although it was impossible to assess hairline cracks on physical inspection. Her upper jaw seemed all right except for a few cracked teeth. Her nose had been broken, her lip was split, and her eyes had been swollen shut. She’d be hurting for a while, but with time and painkillers, she’d heal and heal well if her parents’ money hired the right doctor. Los Angeles was the capital of plastic surgery: capped teeth and rhinoplasty being so common as to be registered as mundane.
Her body had also suffered. The whip marks were visible as crimson snakes sidling through her back and abdomen. Welts and bruises had made a crazy quilt out of her thighs and chest. Her wrists and ankles had been bound when he had found her. Her hands had seemed okay, and although her fingertips had suffered from lack of circulation—pinkish white flesh holding nails polished glossy black—they’d probably recover. Her ankles had been tied with a thicker rope and her feet were b
luish gray when Decker had loosened the restraints, but they had taken on a little color as they loaded her onto the gurney—a good sign.
As Decker swiped his forehead with the back of his hand, grit scratched his skin.
She was oozing semen and trickling blood from between her legs, suggestive of being penetrated by more than just a penis. As soon as the smoke thinned, the shack would be gone over, bit by bit, floorboard by floorboard. Lord only knew what they’d find. He thought of Jacob losing his virginity in that hellhole, and anger knotted his stomach. How could such a brilliant kid be so stupid!
Of course, intelligence was irrelevant when the groin was doing the thinking. And how common was that? There was never a man alive—gay or straight—whose dick hadn’t gotten the better of him. Sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing. His dick had led him to Rina. Still, it was his heart that had kept him there, blithely accepting things—like religion, car pools, and soppy movies—without rancor.
A sudden snap brought him back to planet Earth. His heart drummed against his chest, and his senses returned to high alert. With self-contempt, he recognized that his mind had been wandering. Now how idiotic was that?
Standing stock-still…waiting it out. Sweat poured off his forehead and down his face. Without being conscious of the act, he had released his gun from his holster and had turned off his flashlight. The seconds passed. Turning his head slowly, his eyes scanned the shadowed area. Finally, he spotted it, a pair of fire-yellow orbs that were sizing him up. They looked to be bigger than those of an alley cat. Decker pegged the animal to be a large opossum or maybe a small coyote. The eyes retreated and disappeared.
He counted to sixty, stowed his gun back in its harness, turned on the flashlight, then resumed walking. The ground began to slope upward and, walking off-balance, he wished he had worn better shoes. Although they were rubber-soled, the upper portions were leather, not nearly as flexible as his New Balance high-tops. The search team’s flashlights had receded to pinpoints of illumination as small as the stars above.
Although tense, he wasn’t as nervous as he should have been, considering that he was basically lost. He had a compass. He had a radio. He could find his way back. But he had no desire to return to the fray, because the walk was restorative, helping him sort out his thoughts. He was careful where he trod, not because of land mines but because each step gave away his position. The abrupt sound had put him in attack mode. He had to be the hunter, Holt the prey. Any slipup could turn it the other way around. He waved his flashlight, the beam cutting a wide swath over the ground. He searched for recent footprints, a pile of leaves or clumps of dirt that might have been depressed or disturbed…a clue as to where Holt might be.
A good idea, but it was leading nowhere.
He continued hiking up the mountain.
His mind leaped back to Holt’s childhood, how truly frightening it must have been for Darrell to lose his baby brother, the preschooler discarded like old clothes. If Philip Holt had been of stronger mettle, he could have adopted the infant as his own. Decker had raised Rina’s sons as diligently as he had raised—or was still raising—his own daughters. Of course, her boys weren’t products from an adulterous union, a living, breathing reminder that your wife had fucked another man. After Decker had found out about Jan, they had spoken briefly about reconciliation. Dead conversation—both saying things that neither believed. The bitterness that had followed surprised him. They had talked a good case about being adult, when in reality they had acted like children for many years. Even now, he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her.
He hiked another few minutes, then stopped. He was buried within the thicket, and he was alone. Picking up his handheld mike, he decided to call in to civilization, find out about the progress of the investigation…and that’s when he heard it.
In an eye blink, Decker had gone into a crouching position behind a wall of brush.
He froze.
It was a low-pitched growl, so completely without tone that it sounded like a series of rapid clicks. Instantly, the air became stifling as perspiration shot out from his pores. For just a moment, everything went quiet and still. The seconds ticked on, and then a few brave crickets dared to chirp. But within moments, they were silenced.
Because there it was again—a menacing admonition.
I’m here. I belong and you don’t. Don’t fuck with me!
As hard as he tried, Decker couldn’t see anything—no shape or form, just gray, blurry space. His quadriceps tightened from his awkward posture, immobilized halfway between kneeling and standing. He knew that within minutes, his muscles would start cramping. He resisted the urge to squirm, to adjust to a more comfortable position. Things that go bump in the night were very perceptive creatures.
Of all the things to run up against. But then why not? He was in their territory. He had trespassed and now someone was pissed. He considered the options. Wolves hunted in packs, but cats were solitary animals. The growl that had pricked his ears wasn’t from anything canine, so let’s hear it for the evenly stacked odds. This was going to be a game of one on one.
Ten seconds…twenty…thirty and forty. A full minute passed with time moving verrrry slowly, as if on TST—treadmill standard time. Minutes were always protracted when jogging on that god-awful contraption, working up a sweat by going nowhere. (Wasn’t that an apt metaphor for life?) Just the opposite happened in sex: the clock ran at warp speed.
Why was life so unfair?
It felt like an hour had elapsed although it was probably not more than a minute. Wild cats were naturally reclusive, and this mountain lion was no exception.
At least, he hoped there was only one mountain lion.
Because that’s what was out there: a mountain lion, or a puma, or a cougar…take your pick. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the official name. It was something savage. It was something with sharp claws and glinty teeth. It was a goddamn, motherfucking big cat, and it sounded goddamn hungry.
He considered shining the flashlight in the sucker’s eyes, but nixed the idea. It might spook rather than scare the kitty.
Just wait it out.
Except that his thighs were starting to ache real badly.
The growl resurfaced a third time. Then a faint rustle, like it was nosing through the detritus. Decker tried to home in on the sound—in front of him but somewhat off to the left. With great caution, he lowered the handheld two-way radio to the ground, then managed to free up his gun.
Stooped over and shaking, with a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, he scrolled back to his childhood, specifically his uncle who had taught him how to hunt. Something about how animals detected an object in motion a lot easier than an object at rest. Something about animals not being exactly color-blind, but not seeing too well. So if you blended, you’d be okay.
He remembered his first kill. It had been a deer—a small buck whose newly forming antlers were still covered with fur. His uncle and father had slapped him on the back, but it hadn’t sat well with him. And even though he pretended to be thrilled, and had eaten every bite of campfire-roasted venison, Decker never went hunting again. His baby brother, Randy, hadn’t liked hunting either, although Randy was an avid bass fisherman. Everyone in Florida fished bass. Like the Dolphins, the Marlins, and insanity, bass fishing was a state pastime.
As Decker’s eyes adjusted to the dark, his respiration slowed to a fast trot. With great care, he lowered the flashlight, then took the gun in a standard two-handed grip.
He held tight and waited.
More moments passed. He heard another murmur…the soft brush of leaves underfoot. Barely audible…whispered in an undertone. Then another growl, this one closer to a purr. This sucker sounded content. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. A couple of counts passed, then Decker heard padded footsteps moving very deliberately. He could decipher them—cla-clomp, cla-clomp. Something walking on all fours.
Then nothing.
Moments passed, then a mi
nute.
Where the hell was the motherfucker?
Decker’s lips were dry, his throat was sawdust. A violent urge to cough shot through his gullet, but he forced it back down, his eyes watering as he managed an arid swallow.
More sounds, but not footsteps. Decker strained to decipher them.
Something between lapping and slurping. The animal was drinking, though God only knew where it had found water. The ground underneath was hard and dusty; the foliage was kindling. Though the air was damp, it hadn’t rained in months.
The lapping stopped, and in its wake came that dreaded silence. He had nothing but his breathing for company.
A sudden snap crackled through the air, sending a shiver down Decker’s spine. Then a distinct crunching sound, jaws crushing hard matter, pulverizing it to powder. Snap, crackle, pop, but it sure as hell wasn’t Rice Krispies.
He had interrupted someone’s meal.
His thoughts went back to the pair of eyes, what he had thought was an opossum. Okay, that made sense. A big wild animal had made dinner out of a smaller wild animal. That was the natural order of things. Let the feline sate itself, because then it would move on. And then he could move on.
More gnawing…chewing…gnashing.
Another loud snap that startled him.
Just hang in there, Deck.
Lap, lap…slurp, slurp…lap, lap.
It was drinking blood…an awful lot of blood coming from an opossum.
More chomps.
An awful lot of eating, too.
Maybe it was a bigger kill. There were loads of deer in these parts. Stray dogs and wolves…coyotes.
The noises abruptly stopped.
The gait…cla-clomp, cla-clomp. Leaves and twigs broke underfoot.
Two flaming orbs peered out from the bush. A thin sliver of moonlight allowed Decker to catch a flicker of white fangs.
Don’t make me do it, Kitty. I’m a dead-on shot!
Talking to himself and talking hype at that. He couldn’t see anything well except the eyes. Wounding a wild animal was a course of last resort. Scaring it off was preferable. Without changing his carriage, he lowered one hand down to the ground, then finger walked until he felt the handle of his flashlight. Sweaty fingers gripped the metal, the moisture from his hands making it slippery in his hold. He placed it back on the ground, then coated his palm with dirt from the forest floor. He picked up the handle again…played with it until he had a firm grasp.
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