Carrying her, Angie staggered forward through the dark. Within a few steps she tripped over something and fell with Polly still in her arms. As she did, she hit her head on a shard of concrete and a wheelbarrow came crashing down on both of them. She cradled the child close to her. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to comfort her granddaughter even though she knew it was anything but okay.
****
Brian watched the road ahead. A sign read Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The entrance gate was closed. He knew that the side road wound across the desert floor to the visitor’s center. Beyond that, it snaked between rocky escarpments popular with both hikers and climbers. He thought of the “itsy, bitsy spider” clue.
“Maybe he went into the park,” he said.
Joe shook his head. His phone rang. After disconnecting it, he stared at Brian.
“What is it?”
“They’ve found the van,” Joe replied.
“Where?”
“When the patrolman first spotted the vehicle, he tried to follow, but the van disappeared,” Joe said. “With dozens of off-road trails in the area, that’s not surprising.”
“So how did they find it?”
“Campers escaping a flash flood in the area spotted it half-buried in mud in the middle of an arroyo. They called it in.”
“Was he in the van? What about Angie and Polly?” he asked, his worry increasing. He prayed Angie was there and alive. He didn’t want to hear she wasn’t. Again he pushed the horrible thoughts of her being dead away. He couldn’t face a life without her.
“The driver’s door stood open, the interior flooded, but the campers didn’t see any sign of life. We cautioned them to keep their distance just in case he remained inside armed.”
“What are we waiting for?” Brian said.
When Brian and Joe arrived on the scene, the desert canyon entrance blazed with flashing red lights and patrol car spotlights. Cops with powerful flashlights searched the area around the van. There didn’t appear to be anyone in the vehicle. Again, he wondered where the hell Angie and Polly were? He thought about his son’s shallow desert grave. No, he told himself, that couldn’t be the way it ended.
The van sat in the middle of what looked like the flash flood’s route as it swept down the valley. The water already began to recede leaving devastation behind. Mud, brush, and rocks surrounded the vehicle.
Several cops trudged out to the van, guns drawn. When they reached it and peered in, one of them turned and shook his head. “No one’s in there. It’s empty.”
“Shit,” he swore. He peered into the shadows beyond the van in hopes of seeing them, but saw nothing.
“People are searching downstream,” Joe said. “Whoever was in that vehicle was swept away by the flood’s current or escaped before the flood hit.”
Brian uttered another curse word.
“Don’t panic. Remember what I told you about thinking positive.”
“It’s not easy. If Angie and Polly weren’t with him, where are they? He’s the only one who knows, and he’s either gone or dead.” He studied the van. “Maybe they’ve gone to their watery graves, too.”
Dunning and his partner arrived on the scene and several of his men joined the search crew combing the area downstream.
“It doesn’t look good,” Dunning said. He’d shed his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt.
“How about thinking more positively,” Brian glared at the man. “We haven’t found any bodies yet.”
“More people die from drowning in the desert than die of thirst,” the special agent pointed out.
“Well, isn’t that a cheery thought,” he said. “I’m not interested in your statistical mumbo jumbo. Throughout this case you’ve referred to the people involved as victims. They have names. The abducted child is Angie’s granddaughter. Her name is Polly. Show some respect.” Just looking at the man made Brian fume, but now wasn’t the time to cross swords with him.
Both Joe and Dunning stared at Brian with shocked expressions. “Did you just say what I think you said?” Joe asked.
“Yes,” he confessed, realizing he’d divulged Angie’s secret. “Polly is her grandchild and Susan is the baby Angie gave up at birth.”
“We found someone,” one of the search party called out.
Joe rushed through the darkness toward the search team, Brian right on his heels.
“He’s alive, but barely. He might not make it.”
“Call the paramedics,” Joe said.
Using his flashlight, Brian spotted the cops crouched next to someone. Shoving his way through the onlookers, he arrived at the man’s side. The man, covered in bloody scratches and a large gash on the side of his head, was still recognizable. He stared at Dan Tucker, speechless. Was he involved in some kind of undercover operation gone bad? Is that why he was here? He couldn’t be the kidnapper.
He knelt down by the man’s side. “Dan?”
One of the cops tried to staunch the blood pouring freely from the head wound. Tucker batted the man’s hand away.
“You’ll never find them,” he gasped, a sick smile playing across his bloodied lips.
“You?” Brian said, still shocked. It didn’t make sense. “You’re the kidnapper?”
The man nodded, continuing to smile. “Surprised, aren’t you? Well, you’re too late.”
“What do you mean, too late?” Brian’s shock quickly morphed into fear for Angie along with bitter anger when he realized what the man had done.
Enraged, he grabbed the man by his shirtfront and shook him. “Where the hell are they? What did you do with them?”
The cop wrestled Brian away from Tucker. “Sir, the man is dying.”
“I don’t care if he’s dying as long as he tells me where they are first,” Brian shouted, yanking himself free from the cop. He wanted to smack the sick grin from Tucker’s face, but restrained himself. “They better be alive.”
“By the time you find them, they won’t be,” Tucker gasped, grimacing with pain.
“Why?” he asked. It was difficult to understand why Tucker had turned on Angie.
“Because of that woman, my son is dead,” Tucker spat out, blood oozing from his mouth. “He was all I had.”
He heard the heart-wrenching pain in the man’s voice. He’d felt that pain, too, when he’d lost his son. But he couldn’t take pity on a man who wanted to harm the woman he loved.
“She needed to pay for his death.”
Angie hadn’t been the one to harm Tucker’s son. She’d tried to help find him, but obviously Tucker didn’t think that. “Why take your anger out on an innocent little girl?”
“Angie had to suffer,” he gasped, his voice growing weaker. “Feel what it’s like to lose a child.”
He sucked in a wheezy breath before continuing. “I knew Polly was her granddaughter. The woman needed to be as tormented as I’ve been. Soon it will be over.”
“What about Ray? You killed him, didn’t you?”
He grimaced again, sucking in another sharp breath. “Had to. Him and the bastard that killed my son.”
Brian looked up at the cop administering first aid. The man shook his head. “He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s probably got internal injuries, too.”
Tucker coughed and spat up blood. A labored breath followed before he closed his eyes and the sick smile faded.
The cop took Tucker’s pulse and shook his head. “He’s gone.”
“You bastard. You can’t die,” Brian yelled. He itched to shake the man back to life. Make him reveal what he’d refused to. Joe, standing nearby next to Dunning, offered a hand to help Brian to his feet.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Joe said. “But there’s nothing we can do. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people die without telling me what I needed to know.”
He shook his head. “I still can’t believe he’s the kidnapper.”
“Why blame Angie?” Joe asked.
“He thought that bec
ause of her visions, the cops working the case followed the wrong leads or they might have found his son alive.”
“So revenge was his motive,” Joe said.
Brian nodded. “It looks that way. He had a temper, but he’d kept it in check until recently.”
“And then he snapped,” Joe said. “I’ve seen it before. The pressure gets too much and a guy goes over the edge.”
“After his son’s death, the department asked him to take a leave of absence to straighten himself out. When he returned, he buried himself in his undercover work.”
“And right now we don’t know where Angie and Polly are,” Brian said. “Shit, how are we going to find them?”
The ambulance with still more flashing lights arrived. As the attendants started to load Tucker’s body onto a gurney, Dunning shouted for them to hold up. “Tucker’s clutching something in his right hand. It looks like a piece of paper.”
Putting on his pair of plastic gloves, he carefully pried the piece of paper from Tucker’s hand and rolled it out. “It’s another one of his damn clues. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and there was no putting him together again. What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s the seventh clue,” Brian said. “The last clue in his game.”
“They could still be alive,” Dunning replied, rereading the note.
“With Tucker dead, we don’t know how or when he planned to carry out his final act of revenge.” Brian couldn’t stop the desperation filling his voice.
He was escaping Vegas when the flood took him down,” Dunning pointed out. “The way he talked before he died, they aren’t dead yet, but will be soon. How could that happen if he wasn’t around to do the job?”
He looked at Brian. “Before being abducted, did Ms. Martin tell you of any visions that might explain this clue?”
“You’re asking me about her psychic visions?”
“Hey, we don’t have anything else to go on,” the special agent answered, shrugging his shoulders. “All our evidence gathering led us nowhere. Hell, we didn’t even know the current kidnapper was a cop.”
Joe’s cell phone rang again. When he hung up, he grimaced. “As if there aren’t enough problems. A larger than expected crowd is gathering for tonight’s hotel implosion and some of the people are getting rowdy.”
“Implosion?” Brian said.
“Yeah, don’t you remember? An old hotel is about to be demolished.”
“Explosion,” he muttered. He snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?” Joe asked.
“A vision of an explosion kept haunting Angie. She described it as a loud, fiery bang.”
Dunning looked at Joe. “Where is the implosion and when?”
“In less than 30 minutes,” Joe said, looking at his watch. “I don’t think we’ll make it in time. Many of the area streets are blocked to traffic, and those remaining open are a zoo.” He hesitated. “Do you think Tucker’s left them in that hotel to die?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Brian said, dashing for Joe’s car. “Come on.”
Joe followed him, pulling out his cell phone as he did.
“How could he get Angie and Polly into the building without being seen?” he asked as Joe got into the car.
“With him I suspect anything is possible.” He connected his cell phone. After a minute he muttered, “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to reach someone who can stop the implosion. No one’s answering their phone.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” he said, his fear of losing Angie growing. He was determined to not let that happen.
Chapter Twenty
Late Friday night
With red lights flashing and siren wailing, Brian and Joe sped through the outskirts of Las Vegas, passing street after street of gated communities. Houses and condos stood dark with tenants fast asleep and neighboring strip malls were closed for the night. It was nearly midnight, the bewitching hour. The implosion was set for 12:01.
“Can’t we go faster?” Brian shouted as they ran through another red light. Fear and frustration fueled his words.
“Not if you want to stay alive,” Joe replied, his hands firmly planted on the steering wheel, his eyes focused on the road ahead. “I’m not risking our lives on a wild goose chase.”
He glared at him. “It’s not a wild goose chase.”
“Angie and Polly could be anywhere,” Joe replied.
“They have to be in that building,” Brian said. “It’s the kind of sick thing Tucker would do.”
Joe weaved past slower moving traffic. “Damn idiots,” he mumbled. “They’re supposed to move over for vehicles with flashing red lights.”
“Yeah, right,” he replied, gritting his teeth as they barely missed a car pulling out from a side street.
“Well, they should,” Joe said, slamming on his brakes as still another car pulled out.
“You don’t think she’s there, do you?” he said, looking at him.
His friend said nothing.
“I do. Angie saw that explosion. They’re in that building.”
Joe remained silent as he maneuvered the car through growing traffic.
“I don’t want to lose her, Joe.”
“I understand.” He tried using his cell phone again. “Why isn’t anyone answering? What the hell is going on?”
“We need to get around this traffic,” Brian replied, fear and impatience increasing.
“I’m trying, but we’re not making much headway. The end of the Strip near the hotel is already cordoned off. I’m not sure how much closer I can get.”
“Get us as close as you can. I’ll run the rest of the way.”
Nearing the Strip’s bright neon lights, heavy traffic forced Joe to slow even more.
“I don’t remember implosions attracting this many people,” he said, becoming more anxious with each passing minute.
“Tonight’s implosion includes a fireworks display prior to the detonation. Word is the event could draw over one hundred thousand spectators.”
“Great,” he mumbled. The thought of Angie and Polly’s deaths being part of a Las Vegas-style fireworks show and implosion was ghoulish. “Must every event here be a spectacle?”
“That’s Vegas for you,” Joe said. Using short bursts of his siren, he inched the car through the foot traffic now crowding the road and sidewalk. When they reached the police barrier stretching across the road in front of them, a uniformed patrolman appeared.
“Is that you, Joe?” the policeman asked, shining his flashlight into the car.
“Yeah. We’ve got to stop the implosion and get into that building, Kenny. Who’s in charge here?”
“Donovan, but you can’t talk to him right now. He’s in an ambulance en route to the hospital. During a scuffle down the street, someone bashed him on the head.”
“Who else can I talk to?” Joe asked. “There could be two victims in that building.”
“Does this involve that nursery rhyme case?”
“Yeah. Someone has to order the implosion be delayed so we can get inside. I can’t reach the police chief.”
“Word is he’s on vacation this week.”
“Shit,” Joe muttered.
Brian squirmed in his seat. Time ticked by far too rapidly.
“My orders are to keep everyone behind the police barricade,” the cop said, removing his hat and rubbing his head before putting it back on.
Not wanting to wait any longer, he jumped from the car, ducked under the roadblock tape, and sprinted toward the chain link fence ignoring the cop yelling at him to stop. He threw himself at the fence, struggling up and over with Joe right behind him.
“You’re going to cost me my job,” Joe huffed, landing on his feet with a thump. “Or maybe our lives.”
“She’s in there, I know she is,” Brian said, continuing to run toward the hulking shell of a building. Part of it already lay in ruin, a crumbled pile of concrete and
rebar. Dodging the rubble, he kept going. Bright searchlights began to play across the building’s façade.
“Hey,” someone yelled. “Get out of here! The building is about to blow!”
“It’s nothing but a shell,” he said to Joe, ignoring the warning. He stared up at gaping holes where windows used to be.
Joe trained his flashlight inside one of the lower floors. Everything was stripped away, leaving nothing but emptiness where room walls once stood. “Where could they be?”
“I don’t know, but they’re in there somewhere,” Brian replied, fighting the doubt threatening to surface.
A loud horn sounded.
The construction worker who’d just yelled at them appeared. “Didn’t you hear me? Get out now! The fifteen-minute warning just sounded. Soon the whole building will collapse in a heap. You’re standing near the planned impact point.”
“Who’s in charge?” Joe yelled, flashing his badge. “They must stop the implosion. There may be people inside.”
“You can’t stop it now. Everything is on timers set in a specific sequence. First the fireworks will go off followed by the implosion and collapse of the building. There’s no stopping it. We have to leave.”
“How the hell do you get in there?” Brian shouted, surveying the exterior with his flashlight.
“There’s only one way in. It’s over there,” the construction guy said. “You can’t go in. There’s no time.”
Ignoring the man, he ran toward the entrance the worker pointed out. He rushed inside the building to what was once the lobby. The construction worker and Joe followed him in.
Stepping over the concrete rubble littering the floor, he searched the cavernous room with his flashlight. He spotted stairs at the far end. “Where do those go?”
“The lower level meeting rooms,” the worker said following them. “But there’s no one down there. The implosion crew worked throughout the building for the past several days drilling holes and placing dynamite and charges. If anyone is in there, they’d have seen them.”
“When were they in the basement last?” he asked, making his way down the stairs.
“They start at the bottom of a building and work their way up,” the construction guy said, following him.
One Week To Live Page 20