Dangerous Games

by Prescott, Michael

  “She’s gone, Abby!” Tess yelled above the roar.

  Abby shook her head.

  “She’s gone!” Tess repeated.

  “Not yet.” Abby bent to administer another round of CPR. Tess stopped her. Abby tried to shake her off. “I can get her back!”

  “You can’t!”

  Abby looked at Madeleine, lifeless on the iron rungs. Tess was right. It was over.

  She released her hold on the body, and Madeleine settled into the murk, dropping slowly, weighted down by the water in her lungs.

  As Abby watched in the glow of Tess’s flashlight, Madeleine sank under the surface and was gone. It felt like a betrayal, letting her go like that.

  “What do we do now?” she asked blankly. For once in her life she was at a loss for action.

  Tess pointed upward, toward the grate. “We climb.”

  49

  Tess didn’t wait for Abby to respond. The loss of Madeleine had left her uncharacteristically dazed. What she needed was a push. Tess grabbed her by the collar and thrust her higher up the ladder.

  “Climb!” she shouted.

  Abby scaled the ladder. Tess followed her up the narrow shaft. The climb was more difficult than she’d expected. The step irons were slippery, coated with black algae, and rain from the drain basin overhead poured down in a furious waterfall. But her flashlight, clipped to her belt, still worked, its beam augmented by bursts of lightning through the grate.

  The lightning flashes told her the grate must be exposed to view. Nobody had parked an SUV on it, thank God. But she remembered Mason saying drain lids could be too heavy to lift or could be corroded in place, immovable.

  Well, Mason was dead and she was alive, so she figured his opinion didn’t count for much.

  Halfway up the ladder now. It rose thirty feet, she estimated, with the opening still five yards above her. Abby, nimbler than she was, climbed faster, pulling ahead.

  Tess glanced down and saw blackness below her, and a faint swirl of water flecked with white foam.

  Madeleine was in that water somewhere. She would remain submerged until the putrefaction of her stomach contents produced gases that expanded her belly. Then she would float to the surface to be recovered in the tunnel network—unless she was washed out of the drain system altogether, into the sea.

  Above her, Abby scrambled off the ladder, then extended a hand to Tess, helping her up the rest of the way.

  They were in a drop box, the concrete basin beneath the grate that collected street runoff before channeling it into the tunnel system. The basin was narrow and low, offering no room to stand, the floor littered with fast-food containers, newspapers, leaves and twigs, and somebody’s shoe. The drain lid was directly overhead, water pouring through the rectangular iron grille.

  Abby pushed on the lid, straining to force it upward. That was wrong. Tess had seen one of these things opened at a crime scene during a search for evidence.

  “Not that way!” she shouted over the rain’s roar. “We have to slide it, slide it to the side!” Together they hooked their fingers around the bars and forced the grate sideways until it slid off the groove of its track. “Now push up!”

  They heaved the lid up, popping it clear of the slot. Leaves and other debris spilled down on them from above. Coughing, Tess blinked grit out of her eyes.

  Abby gestured for Tess to climb the remaining set of rungs to the surface. Using the rungs as handholds and footholds, she raised herself out of the gutter box. It was installed under a curb on a dark, flooded side street, empty of vehicles and pedestrians. She climbed out and felt a rush of light-headedness at the abrupt transition from the tunnels to the outside world. She had trouble processing her environment. Everything seemed suddenly too big and too far away, and her stomach was twisting with a surge of nausea, silvery sparkles glittering across her field of vision—

  An arm around her waist. Abby, holding her.

  “Let’s sit you down,” Abby said, no longer shouting, because the rain wasn’t so loud up here, in a world without echoes.

  Abby assisted her onto the sidewalk and under the canopy of a store closed for the night.

  “I’m all right now,” Tess said.

  “Sit down, anyway. Take a load off.”

  Tess sank down against the shop front, planting herself on the wet sidewalk. Abby plopped down beside her.

  “Hell of a ride,” Abby said. “Wanna go again?”

  Tess wondered how she could joke about it, but when she looked at Abby, she saw the pain in her eyes. Humor was only her defense mechanism. Tess was surprised she hadn’t realized it before.

  She watched the sheets of rain streaming off the canopy. The gash on her cheek was starting to sting, but she barely felt it. “I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do,” she said.

  Abby shrugged. “What’s to explain? Mason tried to pull an ambush, but you were too quick for him.”

  “And the phone call that warned me about it?”

  “Does anybody know about that call besides us?”

  Tess considered the question. She’d been walking alongside Mason. He knew—but he was dead. Kolb might’ve noticed. He was dead, too. Crandall and Larkin had been too far behind to see or hear anything. “I guess not.”

  “Just say you saw Mason going for his gun, and you got him before he got you.” Abby ran her fingers through her wet, tangled hair. “That’s not the way it was supposed to go down, of course. They were planning to wait till you got to the junction room.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Mason wouldn’t have put Madeleine in the storm sewers if he hadn’t needed her as a diversion. He assumed once you found her, you’d let your guard down. He would hand his gun to Kolb, and Kolb would pull off a Valentine’s Day Massacre before you knew what was happening.”

  It made sense. “And I never even saw it coming,” Tess said.

  “You’re not paid to be omniscient.”

  Tess managed a smile. “Funny. Somebody said something just like that to me earlier today. Said I can only do my best, shouldn’t beat myself up if I’m less than perfect.” She looked at Abby. “And neither should you.”

  Abby didn’t return her gaze. “I’m not beating myself up. Masochism has never held much appeal for me.”

  “You believe you should have saved Madeleine.” Tess touched her arm. “But you did all you could, Abby.”

  With a slight repositioning of her body, Abby pulled free of Tess’s hand. “That doesn’t bring her back.”

  There had to be some words to say. Tess tried to come up with them. “At least she’s the last one who’ll drown in the tunnels. The last innocent victim.”

  Abby was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was barely louder than the rain. “Madeleine wasn’t so innocent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She planted the evidence that put Kolb away.”

  Tess blinked. At first she couldn’t make any sense of what Abby had said. “You…you knew about that?”

  Abby glanced at her and chuckled. “You did, too, huh? Did Madeleine tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you kept it to yourself. Cool.”

  All gentleness was gone from Tess’s voice. “How long have you known?”

  “Since I visited Kolb’s apartment last year.”

  “How?”

  “When I picked the lock on his door, I noticed that somebody else had been there before me. Somebody who’d left scratch marks on the lock.”

  “That could have been anyone.”

  Abby shook her head. “I knew it was Madeleine. I’d already sized her up as a person who’d go to considerable lengths to take care of herself. I hadn’t expected her to go quite that far, however. It was my fault, at least partly.”

  “Your fault?”

  “In my preliminary report I gave her Kolb’s unlisted address. I indicated I’d be paying a visit to his premises in the near future. Obviously that was all the informat
ion she needed. She got there ahead of me. Resourceful woman. You have to admire that.” Abby saw Tess’s face and added, “Well, maybe you don’t.”

  Tess still couldn’t put it together. “You never told Madeleine what you’d guessed?”

  “Believe it or not, I can be discreet when I need to be. Some things are better left unsaid.”

  “So when you found the kidnapping gear in Kolb’s apartment…”

  “I knew Madeleine had bought it and stashed it there.”

  “You knew,” Tess said.

  “Yes.”

  “You knew the evidence was a plant. You knew Kolb had been set up.”

  “Righty-o.” Abby sounded tired. “But I also knew Kolb was our guy. His e-mails to Madeleine were stored on his computer. Madeleine couldn’t have faked that evidence. Getting into Kolb’s apartment was one thing, but there was no way an amateur could’ve gotten past the security on Kolb’s PC.”

  “The e-mails were harassment. The kidnapping gear was what showed intent to do harm.”

  “True. Whether or not Kolb would have carried out an abduction, I didn’t know. Madeleine clearly wanted me to think he would. Me—and the police.”

  “And you went along with her plan.” Tess’s voice was colder than the rain.

  “Yup. I put the evidence in plain view and brought the fire department to the scene. Didn’t you ever wonder why I resorted to setting a fire when there are easier ways to get attention?”

  The question had never occurred to Tess. “No.”

  “I was hoping the fire brigade would break down the door and smash the lock. Unfortunately, they got the landlord to open up, and the lock stayed intact—which meant the tamper marks were found, the DA’s office got suspicious, and Kolb cut a better deal than he deserved.”

  Tess sat up straight, anger stiffening her spine. “Than he deserved? He was framed.”

  Abby waved off the attack with a listless hand. “He was guilty.”

  “The evidence was phony.”

  “Only some of it.”

  “Some—all—it doesn’t matter. Don’t you understand that? For God’s sake, Abby—”

  “Would you have wanted me to wait till I had better evidence? Like Madeleine’s dead body?”

  “You sent Kolb away on planted evidence. And he knew the evidence was planted. He must have assumed the city was trying to frame him.”

  “No doubt.”

  “That’s what turned him against the city. That’s what made him crazy enough to become the Rain Man.”

  “He was borderline crazy, anyway,” Abby said with a shrug.

  “And you pushed him over the edge.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “You created the Rain Man.”

  Abby looked at her, no apology on her face. “Maybe I did. That’s why I had to take him out. I clean up my own messes.”

  Messes, Tess thought. Messes. “Angela Morris, Paula Weissman…”

  “I couldn’t foresee that.”

  “But you were responsible.”

  “Not necessarily. He might have done it anyway, even without being framed. Prison changes people. Toughens them, radicalizes them.”

  “He might not have gone to prison at all without the evidence of intent to kidnap. You made him paranoid and violent. You took a stalker and turned him into a killer.”

  “Those are the risks of the game,” Abby said.

  “It’s no game, Abby.”

  “Sure it is. It’s a contest between them and us. It’s blood sport. I play the percentages. My assessment of Kolb was that he was dangerous. Madeleine’s freelancing gave me a way to make sure he was taken off the streets. I took advantage of it. I’m not sorry. Given the same circumstances, I would do it again.”

  “And create another killer.”

  “I saved Madeleine’s life,” Abby snapped.

  “Not tonight.”

  Abby turned away. There was a long silence between them, broken only by the sibilant fall of rain.

  Finally Abby said, “Still, you’ve got to admit, I did save your butt.”

  Tess shut her eyes. Suddenly her anger was gone, replaced by a great weariness. “You did. And I guess I haven’t thanked you for it.”

  “Don’t get all mushy on me. That tender moment we shared back at the field office was sappy enough.”

  “Speaking of which…” She pointed to the ID tag, which somehow hadn’t been washed away and was still clipped to Abby’s shirt.

  Abby removed the tag with a smile and handed it back. “Thanks for the loan. Came in handy. By the way, Kolb kept a storage locker near Vermont and Olympic. Lots of neat stuff inside. I left the door open for you.”

  “Did anyone see you there?”

  “Yeah, the storage manager. I also visited this bar called Below Ground in the same neighborhood. The bartender and I had a conversation.”

  Tess sighed. “That’ll come out, you know. Michaelson was already going half-crazy trying to find you. When he learns you were running around town investigating the case, he’ll go into overdrive.”

  “Just wait until my car turns up in the drainage system.”

  “Your car? Oh, my God.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “When they find your car, Michaelson will know you were down there.”

  “He’ll know Abby Hollister was down there. That’s the name the car is registered under, just like my fake apartment. He’ll figure Hollister was some kind of unlicensed PI hired by Madeleine Grant. He’ll question Madeleine’s household staff. That’s okay. They only know me by my alias.”

  “He won’t stop looking for you,” Tess said.

  “Of course he will. Don’t you get it? Abby Hollister died in the tunnels. The car is proof. She drowned, and her body got swept into the ocean through one of the beach outfalls. Nobody spends any time looking for a dead person. So don’t sweat it, Tess. Abby Hollister is dead.” She got up, stretching. “And Abby Sinclair is dead tired. I’m getting out of here. You can call your playmates at the Bureau and have them pick you up.”

  Tess stood also. “Where are you going?”

  “To catch a cab or a bus, thumb a ride, something. I don’t live far from here. Maybe I’ll walk home.” She nodded at the streaming downpour. “Nice night for a walk, don’t you think?”

  “Abby…I’m sorry for what I said.”

  “No, you aren’t. You meant every word. Maybe you were even right.”

  “But that’s not going to change how you do business, is it?”

  “Nope.”

  Tess needed to say more. “Whatever happened last year, without you we wouldn’t have gotten Kolb. Not this soon. Maybe not ever.”

  “Well, that’ll be our little secret. As far as everyone else is concerned, you identified Kolb and nabbed him. You snuffed the bad guys and ended the Rain Man’s reign of terror.” Abby smiled, a slow, sad smile, rare for her. “And you did it alone.”

  Tess watched her walk away until she disappeared behind silvery sheets of rain.

  50

  “You wanted to see me?” Tess asked, entering the ADIC’s office. She deliberately avoided calling him sir.

  “Shut the door,” Michaelson said from behind his desk. He looked oddly small sitting there, although at the news conference earlier today he’d been puffed up to his full height as he explained how the case had been cleared.

  Tess, in the hospital getting stitches in her cheek and a full workover from a battery of doctors, hadn’t been able to attend. She’d watched the event on TV, amused to see Michaelson spend most of the question period fielding inquiries about her role in the investigation. Maybe that was why he seemed to have shrunk in his chair.

  “Sit down, please.” Michaelson was being very formal. Tess didn’t know what to make of it. She took the chair opposite the desk and waited.

  “So.” He rapped the desk blotter with his knuckles. “How are you feeling?”

  “The ER gave me a clean bill of health.”

/>   “That cut on your face—”

  “They say it won’t leave a scar. I’ll be as photogenic as ever in a couple of weeks.”

  “Well, good. You’ve been through quite an ordeal. You’re entitled to some R-and-R.”

  “All I want to do is get back to Denver. Crandall picked me up at the hospital. He’s waiting in the parking lot to drive me to LAX for a two-thirty flight.”

  “That was quick.”

  “No reason to delay it. I’m ready to go.” Tess sighed. “More than ready.”

  “Homesick?”

  She was, but she didn’t admit it. “There’s a lot of work piling up on my desk. How’s the investigation into Ed Mason coming along?”

  “We found the bank account numbers at his residence. We ought to be able to recover the two million dollars paid for Paula Weissman.”

  “Let the taxpayers rejoice. Anything else turn up?”

  “An impressive collection of vintage LPs. Two fully packed suitcases in his car—he was planning a quick escape.”

  “There was nothing holding him to LA, I take it.”

  “He was unmarried, no close relatives, and apparently no friends. His life consisted of his job, his record collection, and fantasizing about the perfect crime.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He had another collection besides record albums. True-crime books, hundreds of them. Evidently he liked to imagine himself as another D. B. Cooper, someone who could fleece the system, make a clean getaway, and end up as a legend in his own time. Anyway, that’s what the shrinks say. At the very least, he saw himself as something more than a humdrum civil servant.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  “His fantasy life was probably harmless enough until Kolb started working on him. Mason let himself be talked into their partnership. It was his dream scenario. He would pull off the crime of the century and pocket a few million dollars.”

  “At a cost of a few lives.”

  “Until last night, he never had to deal with the victims personally. I suppose that made it easier for him. They were just part of the game he had going in his mind. They were never real.”

  They’d been real to somebody, Tess thought. She said nothing. Michaelson, too, was silent.