Fear

by Jeff Abbott

  He grabbed DeShawn’s hurt hand and twisted.

  Two finger bones popped and DeShawn sucked in breath and cussed. Miles reared back and punched him hard, twice, grabbed the hotel-desk alarm clock and brought it down hard on the back of DeShawn’s head. Once. Twice. DeShawn went down to his knees, trying to pull Miles close to get him in a neck lock, and Miles swung the Lucite clock again, into DeShawn’s temple. DeShawn went down, eyes closed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Miles said. ‘I’m really sorry.’ He knelt down, checked the pulse. Present and steady. He wouldn’t be down long and he’d be real pissed when he woke up.

  Miles ripped the cables from the TV, from the lamp. He bound DeShawn with them, took a sheet from the bed, tied it to the two cables holding DeShawn’s hands and feet, immobilizing DeShawn. Miles tore a pillowcase, tucked a wad of it into DeShawn’s mouth, careful not to block his breathing. He took DeShawn’s car keys from his pocket, left his badge, gun, and wallet alone. He put DeShawn’s cell phone on the bed. Then he gently dragged DeShawn into the closet, closed the door, jimmied the desk chair hard up under the knob.

  His face and his ribs hurt; DeShawn had pulled his punches but Miles ached as if he’d been sideswiped by a car. He had, at most, a few minutes. Most likely DeShawn had logged that he’d been heading to pick up Miles at the hotel, and if he didn’t report back in a few minutes, WITSEC and the FBI would start calling and come straight to the hotel.

  ‘I’m sorry, DeShawn,’ he said to the closed door. ‘Please forgive me. But I’ve got to make things right.’

  He hung the DO NOT DISTURB notice on the door and walked away from life as Michael Raymond.

  TWENTY

  Miles hoped Andy would stay behind in the hotel room, haunt it as a ghost, keep DeShawn company. But no. Miles was Andy’s haunted house.

  And now he had to drive.

  Fear pounded his stomach, a fist burrowing past skin and muscle to braid his guts. The Barradas were famous for wiring the ignitions of those they hated and Miles told himself as he walked toward the car that the fear was false, the Barradas would not be able to wire DeShawn’s car, wouldn’t be able to find DeShawn.

  ‘Of course they could wire DeShawn’s wheels.’ Andy hurried to walk beside him. ‘I mean, Allison knew your name. The Barradas could know DeShawn was coming to fetch you, they’d just need a few seconds to attach the bomb-’

  ‘No,’ Miles said. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Blow up you and DeShawn together. That’s justice to the Barrada boys. Wire up the ignition while you’re fighting with DeShawn upstairs.’

  Miles kept walking toward the car.

  ‘You don’t seriously think you’re driving, do you?’

  Miles stopped. Andy danced ahead, jumped atop the hood of DeShawn’s car, did an improvised twist. ‘I better be careful, I might set the fucker off!’

  He’s not there, there’s not a bomb. It’s perfectly safe. You’re just adding theft to your crime load today.

  ‘Too scared to drive.’ Andy dropped down to the hood, rested his feet on the bumpers.

  Miles ran, unlocked the car, sweat pouring down his back. His hand trembled as he shoved the key into the ignition, twisted it.

  ‘Ka-boom!’ Andy screamed from the other side of the windshield, twisting his face into a contortion, pressing hands and lips against the glass.

  But the engine didn’t explode; it just started.

  Miles gripped the wheel.

  ‘Better stop!’ Andy said. ‘Better stop. Right now.’

  Miles shot him the finger, gritted his teeth, and jerked the car forward. Andy fell off the hood and then started his low whisper again from behind Miles. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ Andy said in a low hiss.

  All I need, he thought, a backseat driver.

  ‘You killed me, and now you’ve killed Allison,’ Andy said. ‘Who will die next for your sins, Miles?’

  The scar on his chest burned, he closed his eyes, slipped into the steam of a Miami morning. Andy smiling at him and then a shocked Andy pulling his gun in sudden resolve, aiming it, the bullet hitting Miles, and then he was in a hospital, under heavy security, the government telling him he couldn’t be Miles Kendrick anymore.

  Why was there this blot of snow in his memory, in his head? The sting went wrong – Andy reached for his gun, Andy knowing that Miles had gone government. A blot where he couldn’t see the past. He could hear the voices of the two undercover agents, saying, You did the right thing, man, you’re a hero.

  But he didn’t know why.

  Now. Focus on now. The cache of money and a gun at the Santa Fe bus station in case he needed it. He rooted in the duffel’s side pocket and found the locker key.

  He drove over to the bus terminal on St. Michael, slowly circled it twice.

  If WITSEC knows I rented the locker… would they routinely check on such things when they settled a witness in a new city? See if he rented a mailbox or a locker or a storage unit?

  Would WITSEC look for me here?

  Worse – would the shooter? No major airport in Santa Fe, you want out of town quick and got no car, you take the bus. He would have to risk it. The shooter wouldn’t know or guess he didn’t have a car.

  Unless he spotted you on the bike.

  Plan B. He drove back to Paseo de Peralta, searching for homeless Joe. He’d give him a twenty to retrieve the duffel; the shooter would ignore Joe, and the feds, if they knew about and surveilled the locker, would grab Joe but let him go when it was clear he knew nothing. But no sign of his friend on the streets, so Miles reluctantly wheeled back to the station.

  He had to take the risk.

  He walked inside. The terminal was busy on a late afternoon, a departure to Albuquerque and El Paso booming over the loudspeakers. He glanced around; no sign of the shooter, no one who stood with the iron spine of a federal officer. He grabbed the green duffel out of the locker, shouldered it, hurried back down the street to his car.

  Miles opened the duffel. His worldly possessions now, in addition to his few clothes, consisted of the ID and credit card in his deceased father’s name, a loaded Beretta, and a thousand in cash, hidden in the duffel’s false bottom.

  ‘Think you’re smart,’ Andy said next to him.

  Miles stopped. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, in a whisper barely above a breath, ‘I do. I’m smarter than you. You’re dead and I’m not.’

  Andy went silent.

  Miles needed a place to hide. He drove fast, sticking to side roads, until he got to Blaine the Pain’s house off Old Santa Fe Trail. He parked DeShawn’s car behind the house, next to Blaine’s car, and knocked on the door. No answer. Blaine the Pain was still in Marfa with his friend, reigniting his painter’s inspiration.

  He fished around in the flower pots on the porch of the adobe and in the third one his fingers found the shape of a key. He slid it home in the lock, unlocked the door, praying Blaine was still gone, praying there was no beeping chime of an alarm system.

  He slipped inside, closed the door, listened to the silence.

  Home sweet home. For now.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Thursday morning Miles watched, from behind a heavy curtain, Blaine’s neighbors driving off to work. Then he drove DeShawn’s car to a grocery parking lot and abandoned it, unlocked and keys dangling in the ignition, and hiked the mile back to Blaine’s house.

  He had slept atop the covers on Blaine’s bed, his mind cracked with exhaustion. And when he woke, he realized trying to find Nathan Ruiz was the wrong tack.

  He’d sooner be able to find Celeste Brent, who had left that strange message on Allison’s recorder about keeping her secret.

  Blaine the Pain apparently had taken his laptop with him to Texas. Miles found a Santa Fe phone book, scrambled through the alphabet, ran a finger down the listings. No Celeste Brent. No C. Brent.

  Okay. She was a TV star. Fame was a critical currency in Santa Fe. He’d seen several celebrities who stopped by Joy’s gallery on their jaunts through tow
n.

  It gave him an idea. He dug into his bag and searched the pockets of pants he’d worn Tuesday – he still had Blaine the Pain’s cell-phone number, scribbled on a note. He picked up the phone and set it down. Blaine’s cell would likely show him calling from Blaine’s house. Using his own cell phone was a risk – the feds could trace your location if the phone was on, he’d heard. But he couldn’t use Blaine’s phone. So he took the risk.

  He flipped open his cell phone and dialed.

  ‘Yeah?’ Blaine answered, sounding his usual grumpy self.

  ‘Hi, Mr. Blaine. It’s Michael Raymond at the gallery. I may have found a buyer for Emilia.’

  ‘Oh, man, Mike, that’s great.’ Blaine sounded happier than he ever had, and Miles’s chest twisted in guilt.

  ‘Well, sir, nothing’s set. I have a woman who indicated serious interest, but she didn’t leave a phone number – I guess she forgot. She’s local, and she’s famous, so I thought you might know her. Her name’s Celeste Brent.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t know her, no one knows her, but I know who she is.’

  ‘I guess I don’t.’

  ‘Well, I never watched Castaway. I prefer PBS.’

  ‘What’s Castaway?’

  ‘That reality show where they dump a dozen people on a godforsaken island and they compete to be the last one standing for five million dollars.’ He snorted in disgust. ‘A popularity contest on steroids.’

  Miles now recognized the show’s title. Most of his work for the Barradas had been done at night, so he didn’t follow many television programs. But her name had sounded familiar and a drop of the show’s incessant coverage must have seeped into his brain. ‘She was on this game show?’

  ‘Won the five million. A couple years back. Fifteen minutes of fame for running around in a lime-green bikini. A vicious, backstabbing game and she was the Queen Bee on the island. I’d be surprised to know how she saw the Emilia. She’s a total recluse. She makes a hermit look like a social butterfly.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Her husband was murdered and she went – how do I say it kindly? – nuts.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ Miles said. ‘Nuts how?’

  ‘Agoraphobic – is that what it’s called? She won’t leave her house, not even to go into the yard. But she must be recovering, if she’s out hunting art.’

  ‘She’s unlisted, and now I see why,’ Miles said, improvising. ‘Do you know anyone who’d know her address? She asked in the voice mail for me to bring the Emilia by for a private viewing.’

  ‘And she didn’t leave an address or a number for you? That’s weird.’

  ‘Sir,’ Miles said, ‘if she’s been a recluse for so long, she might not be smooth in her dealings with folks.’

  ‘True. Let me make a couple of calls and I’ll call you back at the gallery.’

  ‘Actually, call me on my cell phone.’ He gave Blaine the number. ‘I’m not at the gallery but I can run by there as soon as I know where Ms. Brent’s address is.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll call you back in a few. Thanks, Michael.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Miles hung up.

  Nuts. Maybe post-traumatic syndrome, just like him. Two minutes later his cell rang and Miles answered.

  ‘I called the top realtor in Santa Fe,’ Blaine said. ‘She knows everyone of a certain net worth. Celeste Brent lives on Camino del Monte Sol.’ He gave him the street number. ‘She sold Celeste the house. She said Celeste never leaves it. I mean never ever. She has a woman who does all her shopping, runs her errands. She doesn’t have any visitors inside, unless it’s her doctors or this caretaker. Isn’t that the craziest thing you ever heard?’

  ‘Yeah. Crazy. I guess she found the Emilia on the Web site.’

  ‘Crazy money is still as good as sane money.’

  ‘Okay.’ He felt real regret about the necessary trick he was playing. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Mr. Blaine.’

  ‘Let me know what happens. Talk to you soon.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Miles clicked off the phone and started thinking about how he might talk his way into a total recluse’s house.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The sheet felt cool on Celeste’s face. She lay in her bed like a corpse in the morgue. The crying was done; no tears left inside.

  Allison was dead. The past twenty-four hours had been full of numbing grief, shock, denial. Celeste kept a gun in the house and she’d gone and picked it up twice and then eased it back into its drawer. I can’t, Allison would kill me. Then she’d cry and then she’d laugh, the good memories of Allison plowing through the grief.

  She slipped out from under the sheet and sat at her vanity in the bathroom and, very lightly, touched the razor. She could cut herself, just a tiny nip. She knew cutting was a slide backward. She’d felt stronger in the past week, more sure of herself, than she had in many months. The razor’s edge gleamed; a perfect line. Like the line drawn in her life before Brian was murdered, before she died on the inside and she didn’t know how to resuscitate herself.

  She pressed the tip down into the flesh of her upper arm, the pain kicked, up rose a bud of blood.

  What are you doing? Allison’s voice rang in her ears. You really want to have a sharp edge be your answer to pain?

  She put the razor down, stared at the blood, saw the dead face of her husband, the dead face of his killer in the crimson bubble.

  Allison would be ashamed of her. She stopped the blood, dabbed antiseptic on it, covered her weakness with a bandage. She put the razor back in its sheath, tucked the sheath between two folded twenties in her purse’s billfold, and slid a fresh rubber band onto her wrist. She called it her cutting condom, the bit of rubber that was supposed to ease her off an addiction to pain. She started snapping the rubber hard against her wrist, again and again, until fatigue seeped through her and nausea claimed her stomach. But the urge to cut was gone. She curled back under the sheets.

  Call the police. And say what? The afternoon before my doctor died, she showed up, acted odd, used my computer? Well, so what? All it would do would be to bring the media’s attention swinging back toward her, a blinding, inescapable light. She could imagine the headlines: ‘Former TV Star Linked to Shrink Death.’ She knew nothing; there was nothing to tell.

  She stayed in her room when Nancy Baird, who did all her shopping and errands for her, came by with the twice-a-week grocery run.

  ‘Celeste? You okay?’ Nancy called from the kitchen.

  ‘Yes. I’ve got a cold, so I’m just staying in my room.’

  Nancy opened the door. ‘I ain’t scared of no cold germs. You want me to run to the pharmacy and get you medicine?’

  ‘No,’ Celeste said from the sanctuary of the sheets.

  Nancy, fiftyish and no-nonsense, came into the room and put a hand to Celeste’s forehead. ‘Not hot or clammy.’

  ‘No. It’s in my throat.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘Oh, honestly, Nancy, let me alone.’

  ‘You got too much leaving you alone,’ Nancy said. ‘Get up and out of bed, girl.’

  ‘Just leave me alone!’ Celeste screamed. ‘Just unload the groceries and go.’

  ‘There’s no need for shouting,’ Nancy said, unruffled. ‘You want me to call Doctor Vance?’

  ‘No,’ she said, not adding, She’s dead, you must not read the papers. ‘No. I’m just…’

  ‘Sad and lonely,’ Nancy said. ‘You want to come home with me, have dinner with me and Tony?’

  An invitation, always extended.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Celeste fought back fresh tears. ‘Nancy, Doctor Vance is dead.’ Shock blossomed on Nancy’s face. Celeste told her the news accounts.

  ‘My God.’ Nancy sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘So the paper said it might be a gas explosion, but what if it wasn’t, what if someone wanted to kill her?’ Celeste got up out of bed, started pacing the floor. She showed up unexpectedly, she acted weird, she asked me to keep her secret. From the hospital. Bu
t she couldn’t tell Nancy about Allison’s request – Nancy would call the police, they would come, then the press… no. Never again. But she should call the authorities… tell them what Allison had said. What if it was important? What if Allison had been murdered? That thought, one she’d been keeping at bay, rushed at her like an avalanche.

  ‘Honey. Listen to me.’ Nancy put an arm around her. ‘It was an accident, I’m sure, no one would want to hurt Doctor Vance.’

  ‘She works with crazy people. We’re dangerous.’ Celeste paced the floor.

  ‘You’re not crazy, dear…’

  ‘Yes, I am, I am crazy, Nancy.’ Celeste stumbled to the curtains, leaned against the wall. ‘The price I pay for not saving my husband…’

  Nancy steered her back to the bed. ‘Did you stab Brian?’

  ‘No… no…’

  ‘Then you didn’t kill him. Banish that thought from your mind. You’re not responsible.’ Nancy shook her head. ‘You’re not nuts. Nuts is thinking that how you’re living is normal, and you know it’s not. Now. You’re not going to hurt yourself, are you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I won’t.’

  Nancy glanced at the fresh bandage on Celeste’s arm. ‘I better stay tonight.’

  ‘No. You have a life. Go live it.’

  ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘I won’t hurt myself. I’d rather be alone. Really. Please. I’ll call you if I need you.’

  ‘You’re alone too much. Have you eaten today?’

  ‘Breakfast. Before I saw the news.’

  ‘Then I’m going to make you a pot of vegetable soup before I go. I’ll get you a plate of cheese and crackers to snack on while it’s cooking.’

  ‘Stop being so nice.’

  ‘Stop acting like you don’t deserve it.’ Nancy gave her a hug and Celeste let her, although she didn’t much like being touched.

  ‘Thanks, Nancy.’

  ‘I don’t mean to sound insensitive to Doctor Vance,’ Nancy said, ‘but it might be wise to find another therapist.’