Icon

by J. Carson Black

  Chapter Forty-Six

  TESS DIDN’T GET on the road until midafternoon, driving up I-17 in the direction of the Desert Oasis Healing Center. She’d had a lot to do, what with two crime scenes in Bajada County and Pat being shorthanded. Fortunately, they’d had some help from DPS, which had enlarged its investigation beyond the accident on the I-17 access road.

  Earlier today, Tess had caught the local news on TV. The story had shifted from Max Conroy sightings to a warning to watch out for a woman who had been involved in a car accident with a Bajada County sheriff’s detective the day before. Tess had sat down with a police artist earlier today. The woman’s face was indelible in Tess’s mind, and that transferred to the artist’s likeness of her. The resemblance was chilling.

  The woman was a person of interest in six deaths. She was considered armed and dangerous, and citizens were cautioned not to approach her under any circumstances.

  Tess was halfway through the two-hour drive to Jerome when she spotted a vehicle flashing past on the freeway coming from the other direction, a truck pulling a cargo trailer—the kind you’d haul motorcycles with. She saw it for only a moment, but knew immediately who it belonged to. The logos on the trailer and on the truck door were identical to the logo above the door of a fabricated metal shop in LA: Luna Vintage Motorcycles. Tess had seen the sign in the People article on Max Conroy. Max and his best friend from boyhood, Dave Finley, had posed before the building. Max wore a white undershirt, and Dave wore a black one. Their arms had been crossed—just a couple of toughs. The photo had been taken at an angle so they seemed to tower over the viewer in grainy black and white. Max was shorter and leaner than Dave. Dave’s face was fuller and he wore sideburns. They could almost be twins. They could definitely be brothers.

  The truck and trailer hurtled down the freeway in the opposite direction. The same sign: Luna Vintage Motorcycles. A Ouija board sun on one side and a Ouija board moon on the other, and underneath the name of the shop, the word “good-bye.” Silver letters on black.

  Was Max in that truck?

  Tess turned off at the next exit and got back on the freeway going the other direction. She roared up on him, toggled her wigwag lights, and hit the siren.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  MAX KEPT THAT burning green fire in his mind and in his heart until he was fished out of the isolation tank. For a moment, as he hit the air, terror gripped him. It was a nightmarish feeling. He felt lost. Familiar, after his days in the isolation tank the last time. Everything was gray, unrelentingly uniform, opaque—except for the freak show of horror puppets that had jumped out at him suddenly—birds of prey screeching in to pick him up in their talons; holes opening up in the earth; dogs eating him alive. He knew they weren’t real, so he tried, mentally, to stave them off. He lay on his back, immobile. The sharp burst of adrenaline left him weak, his extremities cold. He was aware of being shoved onto something and tried to figure out what it was. It jerked him forward, and then he knew what it was: a golf cart. From there, he was carried like a duffel and dumped on some kind of soft surface, laid out on his back and strapped in. Whatever he was strapped onto jiggled. It seemed to collapse under him, and he was shoved across an expanse—maybe a floor, maybe something else, his head and upper body leading the way.

  He still couldn’t hear—he must still be in earmuffs—and he was blindfolded. Still insulated in the cocoon, except he was moving.

  Fear kited up inside. He tried to speak. Maybe he was speaking.

  Hold onto the green fire, he thought. Hold onto the deputy-turned-detective with the calm eyes.

  Bide your time.

  If I can, he thought, if I ever get the chance—they’re not gonna know what hit them.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  BY THE TIME Shaun made it back up to the road, the sun was low in the sky. She took stock of her surroundings. It would be a long walk into town.

  Shaun heard the car coming before she saw it. She flagged down an older green sedan. Just the one man. Good.

  Her appearance clearly shocked him.

  “There’s been an accident,” she said.

  The man got out of the car, shoving his keys into his pocket. He followed her around the guardrail and looked down.

  “Good Lord—”

  Two to the back of the head: phut-phut. He crumpled to the dirt. Shaun fished out the keys to the sedan and pocketed them. She pushed the man down the embankment until he took over from her and rolled. He came to rest about fifteen yards down the slope. She went down and rolled him a little more, into the trees that looked like bushes.

  The car was old but OK. She opened the glove compartment. A Glock 9 mm sat atop the driver’s manual. She checked the magazine—it was full. Good. Somewhere along the way, in one of the two car accidents, she’d lost her .45, and she needed more firepower than the .22.

  The bad news: the bullets were full metal jackets. Shaun didn’t like FMJs. Many times FMJs resulted in through-and-through shots, which lessened the chance of killing someone with the first round.

  But, she thought, the Lord provides.

  Shaun didn’t believe in God, but she believed in coincidence, and finding this gun was a good sign. And she liked the words, “the Lord provides.”

  She cruised through Jerome and took Highway 89A to the Desert Oasis Healing Center. She drove up to the gate and spoke into the speaker. The gate rolled open and she drove through.

  ON THE FREEWAY, Tess unsnapped her holster and approached the truck from behind and to the left, outside the range of the side-view mirror. The driver buzzed down his window.

  “Keep your hands on the wheel where I can see them,” she said.

  “What did I—”

  “Hands on the wheel,” she repeated.

  The man peered into the side-view mirror. Max Conroy.

  No. Not Max. The other guy. Dave Finley, who owned the motorcycle shop. She had him hand her his license.

  Tess cuffed him, settled him in the back of her car, and leaned in to talk to him.

  It didn’t take long.

  Finley told her he didn’t know where Max Conroy was now, but he knew where he would be later this evening.

  “What time?” she asked.

  “I think they said six o’clock.”

  “Where?”

  “The Conquistador Outlet Mall.”

  Tess remembered seeing that mall, but it was a way out of her territory. “Is it outside Cottonwood?” She found the mall on her phone, Google Earth view. “You said Diane von Furstenberg?” she asked.

  “The middle store. But the back entrance.”

  “What are they doing there? Who else is with him?”

  He hesitated. He’d been cooperative until now, although he’d tried to sound clueless. Clearly, he knew a lot more than he was saying.

  “Sir?”

  “They’re shooting a scene for a movie.”

  “Can you tell me who else will be there?”

  “Gordon White Eagle of the Desert Oasis Healing Center. His brother, Jerry Gold. A woman and her daughter.”

  “Do you know the names of the woman and her daughter?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know the nature of the movie they’re shooting?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can you describe whatever vehicles they might be driving?”

  He shrugged.

  “You don’t know what vehicles they might have?”

  “I have nothing to do with it. What I’m telling you is just what I heard.”

  She tried to get more out of him, but he shifted to mono-syllables.

  In the end, she let him go on his way with a warning that the right brake light on his trailer was out. She said if he called anyone to warn them, she would nail him for obstruction of justice.

  He seemed to believe her.

  SHAUN PARKED THE car and walked into the Desert Oasis Healing Center. There were few people, but she registered their shocked faces. The guy at the desk half-rose from h
is chair. “Ma’am?”

  “Where is Gordon White Eagle?” she said.

  “Uh…” She saw his right shoulder dip. Shaun knew there was a button, an alarm. She knew because she’d overseen the installation of it.

  “Where’s Gordon?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know. Let me see if I can ring through.”

  “Where’s Gordon?”

  “He asked not to be disturbed, he—” The young man stared into the barrel of Shaun’s .22. “He’s at the outlet mall in Verde Valley.”

  “Is Max Conroy with him?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Max Conroy—the actor. Is he with him?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  She kept the .22 concealed from any passersby with her body. “Are you sure Conroy’s with him?”

  “Yes. Yes!”

  “Thanks.”

  Two to the forehead:

  Phut-phut.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  GORDON, JERRY, AND Talia arrived at the outlet mall a half hour early. The tall wall behind the defunct Diane von Furstenberg store hid the box truck, which had first been driven up to the loading dock to deposit its contents (Max Conroy).

  As Gordon emerged from his car, he glanced around. “Where’s the Cadillac?” he asked.

  “Dave must still be on the road,” Jerry said.

  Gordon placed a call to Dave’s number and got his voice mail.

  They went in through the back. The soundstage looked pretty convincing. There was a green screen along one wall, a couple of cameras, lights, a boom, and a few other pieces of equipment. The equipment cases littered the edge of the set, and Gordon almost tripped over one. He told Jerry to move them.

  Just window dressing, obviously, but enough, Gordon hoped, to confuse Max and fool the mother and the daughter. “There’s no car,” he said to Jerry.

  “That’s OK. It’s all illusion.”

  “But the mother and kid might think something’s up.”

  “There was no way to get a car in here,” Jerry said, in that annoyingly patient voice he reserved for children.

  Gordon looked at Max, lying on the gurney. “Time to get him on his feet,” he said.

  MAX HEARD THE exchange. He had no idea what they were talking about until he remembered the script. It was difficult to concentrate, but he needed to. In the script, there was a woman and her daughter. There was a killer, threatening them. Max was the hero in the scene.

  He knew it was all made up. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond, but he knew that this was something planted in the back of his mind. He knew they were manipulating him, treating him like Pavlov’s dog.

  Freeze!

  He steeled himself against the word. In his mind, “Freeze” meant move. It meant that he should fight back. And he would.

  He was lifted off the gurney. It was a struggle to get him off. His feet skated under him for a moment before gaining traction. His blindfold was stripped away like a Band-Aid. The earmuffs jerked away. The light was so bright. He knew they were actually fluorescents, and dim. The lights that had been brought to the set weren’t turned on yet. But after all the time in the darkness, anything was too bright. He squeezed his eyes shut. Whatever he’d been bundled up in came off. Hands pulling, unsnapping, ripping. He felt like a mannequin. It was hard to move.

  Steel yourself.

  He did. He gritted his teeth. He tensed up his body. Contracted every muscle group. Made himself as rigid as a board. He held the energy inside him, then let go. Everything flowed out. It left him empty. He waited for energy to fill him back up again, but felt like a deflated balloon.

  No reserves, a voice cried in the darkness of his mind. You have no reserves left.

  He tensed up again. Gritted his teeth. Tightened his muscles like a fist.

  Heard Talia saying, “What’s he doing?”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of stroke or something.”

  He could hear them. He could see. His eyes were adjusting to the light. He stayed tensed up. Ground his teeth. Held his breath.

  When he couldn’t wait another moment, he let go again.

  This time, he felt the power. The power seemed to flow into him, filling every nook and cranny.

  Hatred.

  Channel it.

  THE CONQUISTADOR OUTLET Mall was located on Interstate 17 in Camp Verde, just off the exit for Distantdrums RV Park. The outlet mall had gone under. The anchor store, the Diane von Furstenberg outlet, was the largest in square footage; Tess estimated it at between ten thousand and fifteen thousand square feet.

  The empty parking lot was enormous. Scattered here and there throughout, were sickly looking mesquite trees, all of them saplings tied down like small airplanes, offering sketchy shade in the summer.

  Tess approached the Conquistador Outlet Mall from the front and saw nothing. The parking lot was empty. She drove around to the other side to get the lay of the land. She came in from the direction where she was able to see down the loading ramp to the anchor store. Sure enough, there were cars there.

  She would check out the back entrance, but first she would make another sweep around. When she did, she saw a car turn off the freeway and cruise along Middle Verde Road. Tess was just at the edge of the farthest shop, the defunct shoe store. She thought it unlikely she’d been seen, since one of the trees blocked part of the view.

  The car slowed and turned in to the parking lot. It was a green sedan, which matched the description of a car that had been stolen from a forty-eight-year-old man named Marvin Crowley, who had been found shot execution-style in the bushes below the Jerome-Prescott road. DPS and Yavapai County were at the scene, investigating not only the death of Crowley, but the burned truck down in the gorge.

  Tess had known immediately that the truck would be a Silverado 2500HD registered to Sandstone Adventures.

  The woman—the killer—was on the move.

  Tess called Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office for backup. She wanted them to come in fast, but silent. She wanted SWAT. This was an unusual request, especially from someone who had been a detective with a neighboring county for all of a day, and Tess understood the lieutenant’s queasiness. He told her they would send a car when available, but they were shorthanded and it would take time to pull someone from the accident-slash-crime scene on Highway 89A.

  Tess knew Yavapai County would be in touch with Bonny Bonneville. And she knew time was wasting. God only knew how much damage the woman could do in the meantime.

  So she drew her weapon and left her car, skirting the building and looking for the green car.

  SHAUN HAD DRIVEN to the Conquistador Outlet Mall parking lot and once there turned left, heading for the back entrance. She’d known exactly where to go, because Gordon had told her about the outlet mall store when the plan was for her to shoot Max Conroy.

  And she had come to kill Max Conroy, but she would do it her way. She would kill him slowly. She wanted him to beg for his life, and then, to beg for his death. Shaun’s stolen 9 mm had a full magazine. She would shoot both kneecaps. Both elbows. Then one to the stomach. She’d stand over and watch him die by inches.

  The kill shot—one in the ass.

  Anyone who got in the way would die too.

  Max Conroy had shot and killed her son. A silly movie actor, who wasn’t worthy to be in Jimmy’s presence. He wasn’t worthy to speak to him or look at him or breathe his air, and yet Conroy was alive and Jimmy was dead. Her boy. Her son. Jimmy was brave, intelligent, ruthless, and strong. She could not picture life without him, yet now he lay at the bottom of the canyon in the dark, the whiff of brimstone rising from the broken truck. And she’d had to leave him.

  The least she could do was avenge his death.

  Shaun felt different. She was usually cool under pressure. She feared nothing. She did her job. But now she felt as if the world were rushing at the speed of light underneath her feet. Everything sped up, going so fast, whipping by. She was one long line of hatred and ri
ghteous fury. Her body was bruised and battered, and she still wondered if there were internal injuries. But the need was so great, so overwhelming, the well of anger so deep, she could not rest until she had him. She would finish this now. The closer Shaun came to her quarry the stronger she felt. She could sniff him out, she could find him anywhere. That solid, unbreakable cable, thin but tensile, ran from her to him; her hatred for him reanimated her, kept her going. One foot in front of the other. She could smell her own hatred. It was rank like the smell of an animal, enveloping her. Pure need.

  He had killed her boy.

  And now he would beg for her to kill him.

  TESS STAYED CLOSE to the building and peered around the corner. It was almost full dark now, thanks to the thunderheads covering the last sliver of sunlight. She spotted the green car and could see a shape—thought she saw a shape—sitting in the driver’s seat. Just the sight of the old car, the sight of the silhouette in the car, touched something atavistic deep inside her—the urge to fight or flee. Tess could almost feel the woman planning, see the wheels in her head turning—the woman who had tried to kill her and tried to kill Max Conroy. Tess had dealt with many drug dealers, killers who made examples of enemies by torturing them and decapitating them. But she sensed this woman was worse.

  She strained her vision against the reddish gloom, looking for headlights, looking for Yavapai County cars. Tess punched in the number for Laura Cardinal at DPS. Hoping that she or some of her people would be in a position to respond.

  SHAUN WAS READY to move. She’d waited for full dark, waited to see who would come and go. She knew that there would be a woman and a child; she was supposed to kill them too. Whether they lived or died now was not the issue. If they got in the way, she would kill them. Otherwise, she cared about only one target—Max Conroy. She hunkered down to wait, keeping her eye fixed on the loading ramp, and saw a battered old rice-burner drive into the lot behind the store and park. A woman and a girl got out.