by Peter Sexton
Miranda let Lawrence take her into his arms and hug her. It felt good to be held. Safe. But it made her miss her father. She hugged him back, then gently pulled herself from his embrace. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course.”
Miranda got right to the point. “You have the key?”
Lawrence pushed his right hand into his pants pocket and came out with a small, silver key. A three-digit number was stamped on the round head. He handed it to Miranda.
She took the key and slipped it into the watch pocket of her jeans. “I need to get going,” she said. “Get this over with.”
“And then what? What are you planning to do?”
“I’m not sure,” Miranda admitted. “But I think you’re better off the less you know.”
Lawrence shook his head. “I think I should go with you to the mailbox place.”
“No,” Miranda said. “Absolutely not. No way.”
“I’m going with you,” Lawrence insisted. “I can’t let you go alone.”
“It has to be this way, Larry. Don’t you under- stand? You’re putting yourself at risk just by being here with me now. I can’t let you come with me.”
Lawrence ignored her and opened the door of the Town Car and slid in behind the steering wheel.
“Give me the keys,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
“Please,” Miranda pleaded. “Get out. I don’t have time for this.”
She thought about the urgent messages from Sarah. She wanted to get to Your Postal Partner, retrieve whatever was there, then hurry back to Nevada and find out what was going on with her friend, why she wasn’t answering her phone.
“Give me the keys,” Lawrence said again. He held his hand out through the open window. “Let me at least go into the place and make the pick-up for you. You could be walking into a trap. This way, if I go in and something happens you can still get away.”
“And leave you there?” Miranda fought to keep her voice down. “No way! Come on, Larry, get out of the car.”
Lawrence refused to budge.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We’re getting nowhere sit- ting here arguing about it.”
“Crap!” Miranda uttered under her breath. She pulled the keys from her pocket and tossed them through the window. “Fine,” she said. She went around and let herself into the passenger seat.
Miranda directed Lawrence to a little shopping center less than five minutes away on the corner of Kimball and Telegraph. Your Postal Partner was located between an independent coffee shop and a dry cleaner. He backed into a parking space about fifty yards from the entrance to the place.
“Why didn’t you just pull up right in front of the door?” Miranda asked.
Lawrence shook his head. “We should assume someone’s watching. Even with your new appearance they might recognize you.”
She thought about it for a moment. What if he was right? What if someone was watching for her? She scanned the area for potential danger.
“If anything,” Lawrence said, “they’re expecting a young woman. You stay with the car. If I’m not back in five minutes take off.”
“You sure about this? I wouldn’t blame you if you changed your mind.”
“You need my help.” A thoughtful beat. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”
“If anything doesn’t feel right, forget the box and just get the hell out of there.”
Lawrence didn’t answer, he just got out of the car and poked his head back in through the window. “Give me the box key. I’ll be right back.”
Thirty-Eight
Puckett climbed back into the car next to Trammel.
“It’s the same girl from last night,” he said, referring to the clerk of Your Postal Partner. “She hasn’t had a chance to talk with any of her co- workers, so she doesn’t know if there was ever a package in August’s box or not.”
“So we’re just going to wait here and hope Miranda shows?”
“You have a better idea?”
Puckett produced his little vile of cocaine, the micro spoon, and took two quick snorts up each nostril. He ignored the disapproving look from Trammel.
“What about Lee?” Trammel asked. “Did you find out where she went last night?”
“No. Bitch is MIA. And I sure as hell ain’t happy about it. I called her in. She works for me. I’m Anderson’s right hand man because I fuckin’ take care of business. Lee can’t just be taking off whenever the hell she feels like it. She needs to keep me in the loop. I need to know what’s going on.”
Trammel nodded. “So where are we supposed to bring Miranda if she shows up? Is Anderson meeting us somewhere here in California, or are we taking her back to Arizona?”
“We’re not screwing around with the girl any- more,” Puckett announced. “The circumstances have changed. We see her, we’re taking her out.”
“By whose order?” Trammel asked.
“The big man himself.”
“I don’t believe Anderson authorized that.”
“Believe it, the girl’s history. No more screwing around, no more chances. She’s creating too much heat, too much attention from the press.”
“I don’t like it,” Trammel said. He pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to hear it directly from Anderson. You’re talking about executing her. I’m not going to do that. This is not what I signed on for.”
“Fine,” Puckett said. “You wanna call him, call him. But I’m in charge here. You take your orders from me. And my orders come directly from Anderson. You don’t have to like them, you just have to follow them.”
Puckett watched Trammel call Anderson on his cell phone. Impatience and fear enveloped his face.
“Come on, damnit!” Trammel snapped.
“What’s wrong?” Puckett asked.
“Call’s not going through. Either his phone is turned off, or he’s in a dead zone.” Trammel closed the phone and dropped it back into his pocket. “I’m trying Anderson every five minutes. Neither of us does a damned thing until I reach him, understand? Not a damned thing.”
“I already told you,” Puckett said. “You’re not running this fuckin’ show.” He used his thumb and index finger to simulate firing a gun, in order to illustrate his point. “Call or no call, man. When the girl shows her pretty little face she’s going down. I have my orders.”
Trammel was reaching for his cell phone again when Puckett’s phone rang.
“Yeah,” Puckett said. He listened to the girl from inside Your Postal Partner. “Okay. Your country owes you a debt of gratitude.”
“What?” Trammel asked, as Puckett dropped the phone back into his pocket.
Puckett was already exiting the car. “The box has been accessed. Let’s move.”
Trammel pressed redial on his own phone, raised it to his ear.
“Fuck the stupid phone,” Puckett snapped. “Let’s go.”
“Not until I’ve talked to Anderson,” Trammel said.
“I said let’s fuckin’ move!”
“Are you even sure it was Miranda? I didn’t see her go in there. It might not even be her.”
“The box was accessed, man. Who the hell else could it be?”
Lawrence scanned the immediate area surrounding the front of Your Postal Partner, not knowing who or what he was looking for. Seeing no apparent danger, he pushed his way through the entrance. A bell mounted toward the top of the door tingled and announced his entry. He hesitated for only a moment as he glanced around the place. The establishment was bigger than it appeared from outside. There were three short aisles of mailboxes to the left, shelves and display stands to the right offering a large selection of mailing and office supplies, and a long counter sep- arating the customer area from the back of the shop. Behind the counter were a small number of office machines, a couple of computers, and a large table with stacks of printed materials.
A young female clerk wa
lked out from behind the mail box section with a stack of letters and mag- azines in her hand, obviously sorting the mail for the day. She greeted Lawrence and told him to just ring the bell on the counter if he needed any assistance. Then she disappeared again behind the box section.
Lawrence took the key from his pocket and began searching for box number four-five-one. Down the middle aisle he saw a young brunette woman remov- ing the contents of her mailbox. He didn’t give her a second thought as he walked past her.
Then the woman approached him and said, “Aren’t you Lawrence Blackwell?”
Lawrence felt his shoulders tighten and his breath leave him. And though he knew he was perspiring, he refrained from wiping his forehead. He turned toward the woman and glanced down toward her hands, certain that he would find a gun pointed at him, certain that he was taking the last few breaths of his life. But he saw no gun; he saw no weapon of any kind.
She said, “I’ve read every last one of your books, Mr. Blackwell. I’m a huge fan.”
Lawrence didn’t respond, and a frown fell over the woman’s face.
“Oh, God,” she said. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to be bothered, do you? Jeez, I’m such a dope.”
Lawrence finally managed to force a smile onto his face. “It’s no bother at all.”
The woman was about to say something more when her cell phone rang.
“Sorry to have disturbed you,” she said to Lawrence. Then she turned her attention to the call.
As Lawrence made his way to the last aisle, the one furthest from the counter, he heard the woman telling the caller that he would never believe whom she had just met.
After a brief search, Lawrence found box four-five-one. He could still hear the young woman having her conversation, as he drew the key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. The tumbler turned smoothly and the small door opened wide.
But the box was empty.
Lawrence stared into it for several moments, not wanting to believe his eyes. This can’t be, he thought. There’s supposed to be a package. He continued to stare into the empty box, pushing his hand into it and feeling around, as if perhaps the package was invisible and would remain so until he actually touched it. Stupid. His writer’s imagination giving him a moment of false hope.
He was turning to go ring the clerk for assistance, when he heard the door burst open and footsteps hurrying into the establishment. Then he heard a male voice say:
“Hold it!”
After an instant of fear and panic, Lawrence realized that the man wasn’t talking to him but to the young brunette woman he had just met. He glanced back toward the counter and saw that the clerk had the phone up to her ear but did not appear to be speaking to anyone. The man, who was wearing an expensive-looking dark suit, moved just out of Lawrence’s line of vision.
To the young woman, the man said, “I’ll take all of that, thank you.”
Not sure what else to do, Lawrence moved past the man and started toward the front exit.
And then he heard the young woman say, “Kiss off, asshole. Unless you like the taste of pepper spray.”
Lawrence was picking up his pace when he heard a brief scuffle. Then the man cried out in pain and two gunshots exploded in the small establishment with such explosive volume that Lawrence was cer- tain he would never hear anything again. Though deaf and mind-frozen, thankfully, his legs seemed to be moving of their own accord. They carried him briskly toward the exit.
Now through the door, he didn’t look back or slow his pace, he just let his legs carry him as fast as they would.
Thirty-Nine
Miranda watched Lawrence as he walked away from the Town Car. He should have taken the gun she had offered him, but he had refused. He had told her not to worry and that everything would turn out just fine.
She hoped he was right.
There was something special about this man, Lawrence Blackwell, writer of mystery novels, and married to her mother. Miranda couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what exactly it was about him. But there was something. She sensed that his concern for her safety was gen- uine. It was a concern deeper than just his willingness to help.
But she didn’t have much time to ponder the thought, for not more than a minute after Lawrence had disappeared into the building, Miranda spotted a man in a dark suit exiting a small sedan and hustling toward Your Postal Partner. She recognized him im- mediately as one of the gunmen from the other night at their home.
“Oh, Jesus!” Miranda muttered under her breath. “Come on, Larry. Hurry up. Get the hell out of there.”
Miranda thought she saw a second man staying behind in the car. She looked around, certain that there had to be more sedans with more men.
When she found none, she considered her options.
Running in there now, Glock or no Glock, would be suicide. She would be marching into her own death, unable to offer the least bit of assistance to Lawrence. But could she just cut and run as he had suggested?
Miranda’s survival instinct spoke up then, in a voice heavy with common sense. Start the car. Just start the fucking car and get out of here. They don’t want Lawrence, they don’t even know who he is. He’ll be all right. It’s you they’re after. It’s you who’s in danger.
The voice made sense.
And hadn’t Lawrence told her basically the same thing? When he had told her to get the hell out of there if she noticed anything that was not right. He had instructed her to just go, to not worry about him.
I’ll be all right, he had assured her.
“God, I really hope you were right,” Miranda said aloud.
She started the car, put it in gear, and slowly eased her foot off the brake. Then, as the car was just beginning to roll, she heard gunshots. She hesitated for only an instant as she debated what she should do.
You know what to do, common sense told her. The engine is running and the car is already moving. Just get the hell out of here.
Miranda pulled the Glock from her backpack, racked the first round into the chamber, then set it on the seat between her legs.
“Fuck you!” she said to common sense, as she gripped the steering wheel hard with both hands and stomped on the gas.
Forty
Lawrence saw the clerk take the phone with her as she retreated in a panic toward the back wall. He wondered if there might be another way out, though he couldn’t see a backdoor from where he was. Hopefully she had taken the phone in order to call 911 while trying to keep herself out of sight. He hoped she would still be alive by the time help arrived.
As Lawrence hurried toward the front exit, he glanced in the direction of the gunman who was still howling in pain. In one hand the man held a pistol; he used the other hand to rub frantically at his eyes.
Lawrence’s young female fan was now cowering on the ground in the corner away from the man.
Lawrence made a run for it.
Through the glass door he saw no additional signs of danger. As he hurried away, Lawrence flashed on the empty mailbox. Miranda had been certain that it held something extremely important, something apparently worth killing for. But it had been empty. Had the gunman already been here? Had he intercepted the package and simply lain in wait, a deadly trap set for Miranda to walk into? That would suggest that, package or no, Miranda was a tangible threat to them, a serious enough threat to warrant her termination.
Lawrence was through the door now, running toward the parking lot. People who had been sitting at the outside tables of the coffee shop sipping lattés and enjoying friendly conversation were now diving for cover or fleeing toward the parking lot. Some were seeking shelter back inside the coffee shop.
Though his ears were still ringing, Lawrence heard the faint chime of the bell hanging on the door of Your Postal Partner as he made his escape. Beyond the sound of the bell, he heard the gunman’s faint shout.
“Hey!”
Lawrence neither glanced back nor slowed his pace
as he hurried away. A shot rang out as he stepped off the curb. Then came a second and a third shot. Blinded as he must have been by the pepper spray, the gunman seemed to be simply shooting wildly in the direction of the door chime. Lawrence sprinted away from where he had left Miranda waiting in his car, not wanting to lead the shooter directly to her.
But then he heard the squeal of rubber on pavement, the roar of the powerful engine, and Miranda’s screaming voice: “Get in the car!”
He swung around and saw her sitting in the Town Car, reaching across the seat to throw the door open for him.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Lawrence dove into the passenger’s seat, as another volley of bullets slammed into the side of his car.
Miranda grabbed the Glock from her seat and yelled for Lawrence to get down. As he crouched forward as far as he could and covered his ears, Miranda fired several shots toward the approaching gunman. A moment passed following the explosions of gunfire: a moment of surreal silence as the world seemed to be moving in slow motion, swirling around like a drug-induced hallucination. Lawrence finally sat back up and was pulling his door shut when he saw a second gunman aiming at them through the open window of a nearby sedan.
“Get down!” Lawrence shouted at Miranda.
Forty-One
Miranda’s intention had been to slam through the glass doors of Your Postal Partner with the Town Car and come out shooting. With the element of surprise on her side, maybe she could get Lawrence out of there alive. Maybe not. But she wasn’t just going to bail on him, not after he had come through for her when she needed him. She would get him out of there or die trying.
But at the last minute Miranda saw Lawrence bolting out the door, moving fast. Alive and appar- ently uninjured. He had somehow managed to cheat death. But would his luck hold out until he was in the car and they had gotten safely away?
Miranda spun the car into a one-eighty, stopping it along the curb, surprised by her own driving. But Lawrence was moving in the opposite direction, away from where she had been waiting for him.