Fatal Error

by J. A. Jance

  Maybe she’s dead, Mina thought. Considering how much Versed Mina had plugged into Brenda’s system, death by overdose would have been a likely outcome. Parking at the pumps, Mina stood for a moment listening. When there was no sound from the trunk, she hurried into the gas station, where she used the restroom and paid cash for her fuel as well as for bottled water and a collection of energy bars.

  Back outside, there was still no sound from the trunk as Mina filled the gas tank and drove away. Once she was on I-5 heading south, Mina kept herself awake by thinking about Richard Lowensdale.

  When Mina waved the hammer in front of Richard’s face, he must have known that it wasn’t an empty threat. He had fallen still and silent just as Mina had known he would. That was what most people did when they were faced with an unanticipated threat: they complied.

  That was exactly what Mina’s family had done all those years earlier when a gang of marauding Serbs had invaded their home in Bosnia. In hopes of surviving, they too had done exactly what they’d been told. Not imagining that people who had once been their neighbors would turn against them, Ermina’s family had allowed themselves to be herded into the living room, where a gang of armed thugs had opened fire and gunned them down.

  That was the first defining moment of thirteen-year-old Ermina Vlasic’s life. Hidden in the stone cellar under the barn with her flickering candle and her precious books, she had heard the arriving vehicles first and then the shouting and finally the gunfire. Staying hidden was the only thing that saved her life that day. And only later, long after silence returned and as the sun set, she finally crept out of the cellar and went in search of her family.

  She had found them, slaughtered in a bloody heap in the darkened living room, all of them riddled with bullets. Crumpled and dead, they had been left where they’d fallen to send a message to other Croats in the neighborhood—leave or die. It was a scene that was forever indelibly inked in her consciousness, and standing there in the carnage she had made the first decision of her new life: she decided to leave.

  Leaving her loved ones where they lay, Mina went to her room, packed a bag with a few clothes and as many books as she could carry, and went in search of help. It was a group of Bosnian Serbs who had murdered her family. Ironically, it was another group of Serbs, a family whose farm was just down the country road, who took her in, cared for her, and who finally took her to the orphanage that had eventually led her to her adoptive home in Jefferson City, Missouri.

  Mina had always supposed that was the difference between her and people like Richard Lowensdale and Mark Blaylock. She was tough. But for the first time in as long as Mina had known Richard, he had surprised her. He had stood up to her. She had thought he would cave, but he hadn’t. In the grand scheme of things, the fifty thousand dollars she had paid Richard was chump change, but it was Mina’s chump change.

  Had she been able to keep on looking, Mina probably could have found Richard’s stash, but by then Mina’s other guest, treated with a hefty dose of Versed and bound with the same transparent packing tape she had used on Richard, had been left alone in the trunk of her parked Lincoln on a city street for far longer than she should have been. Still Mina waited until it was over, until Richard’s pitiful struggles ceased completely, before she rose from the chair and walked away.

  And even though she walked away without her money, Ermina Blaylock had left Grass Valley with something unexpected—a grudging respect for Richard Lowensdale.

  There was very little traffic as she made her way up and over the Grapevine, but by the time she hit L.A., rush hour was starting. Just past eight o’clock in the morning, Mina pulled into the shipping/receiving bay of Rutherford International in Clairemont Mesa Business Park and closed the rolling garage door behind her.

  She had given Mark a strict set of instructions. Once he finished installing the programming fix, she had told him to pack the UAVs in shipping containers and put them in the shipping/receiving bay. When they weren’t there, Mina’s heart went to her throat.

  What if Mark had betrayed her? What if he had unloaded the UAVs to someone else?

  Then she turned on the lights in the assembly area. Much to Mina’s relief, the UAVs were there, locked in the parts cage. They appeared to be properly boxed and labeled, so maybe moving them to the shipping bay was the only part of Mark’s to-do list that he had ignored.

  Luckily Mina had her own cage key on her key ring. It was inconvenient for her to have to do all the moving and lifting herself, but she finally managed to lug all the boxed UAVs into the shipping bay. When she popped open the trunk of the Lincoln, a cloud of urine-permeated air rose up out of the trunk. It struck her as funny that she had cut off Richard’s fingers without a qualm but the smell of Brenda’s having wet herself made Mina want to gag.

  Brenda was still asleep. After donning her gloves, Mina used a box cutter to slice through the tape imprisoning Brenda’s ankles, although she left her wrists firmly bound. Then, after removing the tape from Brenda’s mouth, Mina shook the unconscious woman’s shoulder.

  “Wake up!” Mina ordered. “We need to get you out of there.”

  Brenda’s eyes popped open. She looked around fearfully. “Where am I?” she rasped. “What’s happening?”

  “I need you to walk with me,” Mina said. “It’s not far. Let me help you.”

  She reached into the trunk, grabbed Brenda’s shoulder and wrestled her into a semi-sitting position.

  “Please,” Brenda begged. “Not so fast. I’m dizzy.”

  The slight pause seemed to bring more clarity to her thought processes. “Wait. I remember now. We went to lunch. That’s the last thing I remember. What are you doing?”

  “Tying up a loose end is all,” Mina said. “Now come on.”

  Eventually she was able to lever Brenda up and onto the edge of the trunk. Leaving Brenda’s arms taped behind her, Mina walked her prisoner from shipping/receiving into the assembly room, where she shoved her into an old desk chair they hadn’t managed to unload with the rest of the furniture. Mina used that to wheel Brenda the rest of the way into the cage.

  “Let me go,” Brenda said.

  “No. That’s not possible.”

  “I’ll scream.”

  “Go right ahead,” Mina said. “Be my guest. No one will hear you.”

  She turned and walked away. Brenda was screaming after her as she left, but Mina paid no attention. After locking the cage, she set the alarm, turned off the lights, and let herself out. She was weary, almost to the point of exhaustion, but she didn’t linger. Instead, she headed for the cabin in Salton City with every intention of giving Mark Blaylock a piece of her mind.

  17

  Sedona, Arizona

  On Saturday morning, the Sugarloaf Café was an absolute zoo. By eight a.m. there were people standing outside in the cold because there was no room to wait for a table inside. By ten o’clock they were on the last tray of that morning’s sweet rolls, and Ali’s feet were killing her. Things had lightened up a little and she was finally grabbing a cup of coffee when her cell phone rang.

  Hoping it might be B. cut loose from his morning conference sessions, she answered without glancing at the caller ID.

  “Is this Ali Reynolds?”

  She didn’t recognize the man’s voice and she wondered how he’d gained access to her cell phone number. “Yes, it is,” Ali said. “Who’s calling, please, and who gave you this number?”

  “My name is Camilla Gastellum. I’m Brenda Riley’s mother. Have you seen her or heard from her?”

  Obviously the gravelly voice that sounded like a man’s wasn’t.

  “No,” Ali said. “The last time I saw Brenda in person or spoke to her was months ago, right at the end of August.”

  “Yes,” Camilla said. “She was on her way home from seeing you when she wrecked her car. She landed in jail in Barstow charged with driving under the influence.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ali said. “I had no idea.”

 
“She’s taken off again,” Camilla said. “She left home Friday morning and hasn’t been back.”

  “I had an e-mail from her on Friday,” Ali said. “She said she was doing well and that she was working on a book about her former fiancé.”

  “She may have been doing well then, but she probably isn’t now,” Camilla said disparagingly. “This is what always used to happen to her. She’d do all right for a while, then she’d fall off the wagon, go off on a binge, and disappear for weeks at a time.”

  “But I still don’t understand why you’re calling me,” Ali said. “And how did you get my number?”

  “I have macular degeneration,” Camilla explained. “I had a neighbor come over today to help go through my phone records, which are also Brenda’s since I pay the bill for her cell phone. She read off the numbers from last summer’s bill. I guessed that this one might be yours and here I am. And the reason I called you is you’re where she went for help the last time this happened. I was hoping lightning might strike twice in the same place.”

  “She sent me an e-mail,” Ali said. “But she didn’t hint that anything was amiss.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure exactly what time. Sometime in the late morning or early afternoon. I could check my e-mail account and call you back with the time it was sent.”

  “And what did she want?”

  “From me? She wanted one of my friends to do a background check on Richard Lowensdale’s former employers, Mark and Ermina Blaylock.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “Something about meeting with Ermina sometime soon, but she didn’t give me a lot of detail about why she needed the information. Tell me about this book. What’s it about?”

  “I tried to tell Brenda that Lowensdale was trouble, but she wasn’t interested. It seems he had any number of women hanging around and I suppose Ermina was one of them. When Brenda finally wised up about him, she decided to track down all his women friends. I believe what she said he was doing was cyberstalking.”

  “And now she’s missing,” Ali said. “Since when?”

  “Since she left to go to an AA meeting yesterday morning. I tried talking to our local police department. At first the guy was really sympathetic, but then he was off the line for a while. I suppose he was checking her record. When he came back on the line, he pretty much told me to go jump in the lake.”

  Ali waited while Camilla took a ragged breath. “You see, I don’t care if Brenda’s drinking again. I just need to know that she’s okay. That she isn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  “Was she driving?” Ali asked.

  “No. She lost her license. I used to let her drive my car, but not anymore. If she had an accident, my insurance wouldn’t cover it.”

  “So she left your house on foot?”

  “Yes. She walked from here to her meeting. At least I assume she went to her meeting. That’s where she told me she was going.”

  “Couldn’t you ask some of the people who were at the meeting?”

  “I don’t know their names,” Camilla said. “They’re anonymous. That’s the whole point, you see. I was hoping I could talk you into coming here to help me with this situation. You’ve been a police officer. That guy at Missing Persons would probably listen to you, even if he won’t listen to me.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Ali said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Professional courtesy isn’t always offered to visiting cops. I suggest you keep right on calling until you get someone who’s willing to take a report.”

  “What if she doesn’t come back?” Camilla asked. “What if we never find her?”

  “Don’t think like that,” Ali said. “You’re probably one hundred percent right. She’s off on a toot somewhere. Eventually she’ll sober up and come home.”

  “But would it be possible for you to be here?” Camilla insisted. “Just in case?”

  Ali seemed to remember there was another daughter. “What about Brenda’s sister?” Ali asked. “Can’t she help out?”

  There was a pause before Camilla said, “I’m afraid Valerie and I are estranged at the moment. She’s made it perfectly clear that if it’s something involving Brenda, she won’t lift a finger to help. If she were here, all she’d do is say she told me so.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Ali said sincerely. “And I’m also sorry that I can’t come help out right now. I have another obligation that’s taking me to L.A. for the next day or two. If I can clear that up in a timely fashion, I might be able to come by Sacramento while I’m still in California, but I can’t promise.”

  Two of Ali’s counter customers had walked over to the cash wrap, where they were waiting patiently for her to deliver their check and take their money as two more customers settled onto the recently vacated stools.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Gastellum,” Ali said. “I’m really busy right now. I’ll have to get off the line. Keep this number handy so you can give me a call the moment Brenda shows up.”

  “I will,” Camilla said. “I surely will.”

  Ali closed her phone, grabbed her order tablet out of her pocket, and added up the checks for the two waiting customers. By the time she did that, several more people had filtered into the restaurant and the rush was back on in earnest.

  Ali glanced up at the clock. Eleven thirty. Three more hours to go, then Edie and Bob would resume command.

  If I live that long, Ali thought. And if my feet don’t give out completely.

  18

  San Diego, California

  Brenda’s prison was completely dark and silent. Not so much as a crack of light appeared under either of the doorways she knew to be off toward her right, across the part of the room that wasn’t enclosed in the chain-link fence. Occasionally overhead she heard the sound of what seemed like military aircraft. They were certainly noisy enough to be military aircraft, but that was the only sound she heard. There were no traffic sounds, no sirens, no trucks.

  After Mina went away and left Brenda alone, she had tried screaming, but no one responded. Finally, falling silent, she had drifted into despair. For a long time, she simply sat and sobbed until she realized that at least she was sitting in a chair. It could have been worse. She could have been thrown down and left on the cold hard floor. With her hands taped—she assumed they were taped—behind her, they soon fell asleep. She finally managed to shift to a partially sideways position in the chair. That at least allowed circulation to return to her hands.

  For the first time she was aware of how thirsty she was and how hungry. How long had it been since that last meal and her last drink? That had to have been sometime on Friday, but she had no idea what day it was now or what time of day. And she had no idea if anyone would ever come here again. What if Mina Blaylock had simply walked away and left her? Would the next person who walked through one of the doors find only her dead and stinking corpse?

  How long did it take to die of thirst and starvation? It had taken a surprisingly long time—several days—for her grandmother to die, even after the hospital disengaged her feeding tube and stopped giving her IV fluids. But Grammy had been old and ready to die. Brenda wasn’t ready to give up. She still wanted to live.

  Finally, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  Salton City, California

  Mark Blaylock was astonished when he pulled into the driveway late on Saturday afternoon and found Mina’s Lincoln parked in the carport. She wasn’t supposed to be home until Sunday. Obviously there had been a change of plans. It was possible she had tried to call and let him know, but he had left his phone turned off. He was having fun with Denise, the bartender, and he hadn’t wanted anything or anyone—including his wife—to infringe on that.

  He let himself into the house. The AC was on. That was the funny thing about this part of the desert. Overnight you’d need to turn on the heat. During the late afternoon, you’d have to turn on the AC.

  But if Mina was behind that closed bedroom door, Mark didn’t want
to disturb her. There would be questions—a real grilling—about where he’d been, who he had been with, and what he had been doing. No, better to let sleeping dogs lie.

  Mark was still about half drunk. He grabbed one more bottle of beer out of the fridge, kicked off his shoes, and then lay down on the couch. Fortunately it was long enough for him to stretch out full length. In no time at all, he was fast asleep.

  19

  Sedona, Arizona

  We did it, Ali told herself when two thirty finally rolled around that Saturday afternoon and she was able to lock the restaurant’s front door.

  She and Jan Howard met in the middle of the dining room to give one another high-fives, then they both turned their attention to the cleaning, sweeping, and mopping necessary for the Sugarloaf to be ready to open the next morning when Bob and Edie Larson returned. There had been some question about their possibly returning on an earlier flight. That wasn’t Ali’s concern. All she wanted to know was that they would be in charge come Sunday morning and that she wouldn’t.

  The substitute cook finished cleaning up the kitchen and left for the day. Jan and Ali were within minutes of leaving themselves when the door opened and in walked Bob and Edie.

  “We’re home!” Bob announced, beaming proudly. He was as tanned as Ali remembered ever seeing him. “That cruise was just what the doctor ordered and it doesn’t look like you managed to burn the place down while we were gone.”

  Ali put down her broom and let herself be engulfed in one of her father’s bear hugs, then she went on to hug her mother.

  “I take it you caught the earlier flight,” Ali observed.

  “You know your father. Once we got off the boat, he was hot to trot to get home. He wanted to get here in time to make sure everything was shipshape for tomorrow.”