by P. J. Tracy
“Dangerous?”
“No reason to think so, otherwise I would have been over that fence five minutes ago.”
Half his mouth lifted, like he didn’t want to fully commit to a smile. “I hear you. No one’s responding at the house?”
“No. Anything happening around here?”
“So far, just a barking dog call.”
It was Nolan’s turn to half-smile. “We’re going to stick around for a while and keep trying.”
“Thanks for the heads-up and good luck. Shout if you need anything, I’ll be around.”
Nolan sighed and put her head on the steering wheel. “This is so damned frustrating. Ortiz is here, we just can’t get to her.”
“That’s exactly why people have gates and why the Constitution has a Fourth Amendment. And you’re talking about Ortiz like she’s going to break the case.”
“Maybe she will. Run her name. See if she owns a black Jeep.”
“What’s the point?”
“If the guys on Traeger’s break-in finally come up with an ID and it matches…”
“… it still wouldn’t be exigent circumstances, so stop looking at the damn fence like you’re going to jump it. We are not getting in there without permission or a warrant.”
“Try the call box again.”
* * *
Somehow, Melody had managed to put a little distance between herself and Rolf and she was huddled in a tight vestibule, pondering the door there. It was an interior door, but now she was so terrified of alarms that she was doubting everything. She finally squeezed her eyes shut, turned the knob, pushed, and a loud chime rang. And rang and rang.
Jesus Christ, she’d set off an alarm and now she was dead. She launched through the door because there was nowhere else to go, tripped down some steps, and landed on a concrete floor. Bright stars swam in her vision as a searing bolt of pain radiated from her ankle up her right leg, pulsing with each beat of her heart. She bit down hard on her lip, trying to keep the instinctive, almost irrepressible cry of pain inside; took deep breaths like you were supposed to do in yoga—and smelled gasoline. A garage?
The pain is the least of your worries. Ignore it. Get your bearings. Find a way out.
The chiming stopped and there were no other sounds. Not footsteps, not Rolf’s voice. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out the hulking shapes of cars, dozens of them. On a far wall was a faint square of light—a window in a man-sized door.
She crawled under a car and waited for what seemed like years. If the chime had been an alarm, Rolf would have come running by now. Surely the alarm system would tell him which door had been opened. But there was nothing but silence. That gave her the courage to crawl out and toward the door.
Why are you crawling toward the door? If you open it and the real alarm goes off, you sure as hell aren’t going to outrun Rolf with a jacked ankle. You couldn’t even outrun a snail.
Tears burned her eyes as she sagged back against the tire of an SUV. An SUV that might have keys in it. She couldn’t run, but she could drive.
Chapter Sixty-eight
SAM LET OUT A RAW SHOUT of frustrated rage that made his ears ring. He was powerless, surrounded by inconceivable sickness—by stolen, private images of himself and people he cared about: his dead wife, Melody, and even his doctor. Their eyes were accusing. They had every right to be.
You’re a prisoner, in every way—in this room, in your head. Because you’re weak. Damaged. Helpless. Pathetic. Useless. You blacked out instead of fighting. All your men died, war hero, so why are you still here? What’s the point?
He had to get out of these goddamned ropes. That was his only mission. To be successful, he had to go to another place and block out everything else: the eyes, his own cruel, chiding voice, his fears, his past. His father had told him that sometimes you had to find peace where it didn’t exist in order to get a job done. The peace didn’t have to be enduring. It didn’t even have to be real. You just had to believe it was. That’s how you won the fight.
Sam focused fiercely, channeling all his energy to the ropes. His fingers burned, bitten by the rough hemp he was trying to untangle, but at some point he felt a knot start to give. The brief time Melody had spent working on it had loosened it, maybe just enough. In a minute, his right wrist would be free. He visualized it and he believed it. He was going to win this fight.
When the chime sounded in the quiet house, Sam leapt in his chair and almost toppled over. If it was an alarm, it wasn’t like any he had ever heard. And it was erratic. A gate bell? Or was it a notification that a door had been breached? If that was the case, it meant Melody had gotten out, Rolf knew it, and he was after her right now.
He redoubled his efforts. Maybe he was beyond saving, but Melody wasn’t.
Win the fight.
* * *
Melody braced herself against the SUV for balance and stood up on her good leg, then tested her ankle. Bad idea—high voltage pain shot through her body and made her vision swim. But she had to fight through it because she had a plan now. She wasn’t going to die in this garage.
She pressed a cheek against the cool, black steel for comfort and waited for the throbbing to subside. With each breath, the sharp scent of gasoline burned her nose, reminding her of Aunt Netta’s Thunderbird, of Sam’s Shelby.
When the pain eased a little, she tested the door handle and it opened. A dome light clicked on, illuminating the interior. No keys in the ignition, no keys beneath the floor mat, no keys in the console. She climbed in and opened the glove box. No key there, either, just an owner’s manual. For a 2020 Jeep Rubicon.
Melody scrambled out of the Jeep as if it was incubating some fatal, contagious disease. Things started coming together piece by ugly piece, filling in a nightmare that started with Rolf. How would it end?
She glanced at the man-sized door again. The answer was there. It had to be. She stared at it until her eyes ached, and then a tiny flame flickered in her mind. It was just a dim glow in her mental shadows at first, but it flared and grew brighter and suddenly she heard Aunt Netta.
There are two ways out of every trouble. The right way sometimes isn’t the one you think of first.
The door was the answer. It had been all along, but she’d initially only seen it through the lens of a desperate, panicked person—as an escape, nothing else. But now she could see the right answer clearly. She would open the door and set off the alarm. Rolf would run to the source, see the open door, and chase after her. He’d never guess that she would be hiding under a car, watching his feet run past her, inches away.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was all she had.
She hobbled to the door, took a deep breath, and pushed it open. In an instant, a deafening wail filled the garage and she slid beneath the Jeep.
* * *
“Okay, Mags, we’re officially wasting time here. Get us out of here and stop somewhere for coffee.”
Nolan was too tired to answer or argue, and really, why should she? Either nobody was home or they simply weren’t answering. And he was probably right about the Ortiz angle not going anywhere. A woman getting in her car, big deal. She started to pull away just as the house alarm went off.
Crawford rolled his head to look at her. “I guess you just got your exigent circumstances. You think we can actually get over the fence?”
“Damn right we can. I’ve been studying it for the past hour.”
* * *
… death, on shadowy and relentless feet.
That’s what Melody thought of as she held her breath and watched a pair of purple Converse sneakers race past in the dim light, close enough to stir the air in front of her face. A poem she couldn’t remember, a terror she wouldn’t forget.
The alarm was silent now, so she could hear footfalls smacking the driveway. When they faded, she released her breath and scuttled out from under the Jeep. Her ankle was on fire now, and it certainly wouldn’t bear very much weight, so she used the front bumper to push
herself up off the floor. That’s when she noticed the damage. The Jeep had hit something.
Or somebody.
Katy Villa had been killed by a black Jeep. By this one?
Melody stumbled backward and limped as quickly as she could into the house and down a hall she hoped would lead her to Sam.
Chapter Sixty-nine
SAM COVERED HIS HEAD AND DROPPED to the floor when the alarm started whooping. He couldn’t forestall the reaction any more than he could stop breathing, and the thrill of freeing himself from the ropes contracted, making way for images of war.
The same thing had happened when Rolf shot the rifle, but this time he didn’t black out. In fact, the images seemed to hit an obstacle and began to recede. He couldn’t envision the obstacle, but he knew it was Melody. Amazing. He could fight for someone else, just not himself. Maybe that revelation would be important in the future, but it wasn’t important now.
The alarm went quiet. Rolf had canceled it before the cops would be called and now he was outside with his gun, chasing down his quarry. Sam vaulted up off the floor, ran full speed down the long central corridor to the foyer, and vaulted up the stairs three at a time. He felt like he could fly.
He grabbed his Colt and extra clips, checked his phone—locked, as Rolf had promised—then raced back down the stairs to the front door. Rolf was a dead man. He might know his own property, but he didn’t know shit about ambush tactics. He was going to surprise that little fucker and unload everything he had because Rolf was the enemy, and the enemy had to die …
“Sam!”
He spun around and saw Melody leaning against the wall, doubled over in pain, and his heart seized. “Mel, what happened, are you all right?”
“Twisted my ankle. Bad.”
It was puffy and triple in size, turning purple. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the first room he came across: the Safari Room, with animal heads on the wall and a green velvet sofa. He stuffed what was probably a thousand-dollar pillow under her calf. “Keep your leg elevated. Is Rolf outside?”
She nodded and winced in pain. “I tricked him, but I don’t know how long he’ll look for me.”
Sam gazed up at an antelope, its glass eyes fixed on him judgmentally. “Stay here, I’m going to go get him.”
“No! You have no idea where he is, and he has more firepower.”
“That doesn’t mean shit.”
Melody grabbed his hands and squeezed them hard. “It does to me, Sam. Stay inside and go find a phone. There have to be a million of them in here.”
Sam was so jazzed for battle that it took a moment for the blood lust to clear his system. She was right. It would be easier to defend the house and it was his best chance to keep Melody safe. “Okay, but you’re coming with me.”
“I can’t walk, I’ll just slow you down.”
“No you won’t, you’re going to be an extra pair of eyes. Hang on tight.” He scooped her up again, cradled her like a baby against his chest, and ran from room to room in a dark, strange house, looking for a lifeline. He hadn’t wanted to go back to the ugly place, but Sam reasoned that if Rolf spent so much time in it, there might be a phone.
He found a mobile in a box beneath a desk. He turned it on and the screen came to life, displaying a picture of him and Yuki mugging for the camera in Venice Beach, the day he’d bought her sunglasses. A waiter had taken it for them and it had been her home screen ever since.
Sam punched in her password, praying to God Rolf hadn’t messed with her phone, too.
* * *
Nolan and Crawford were skirting the driveway, staying close to the tree line, their guns drawn. The alarm was silent now, and their ears were honed to the slightest sound. When they flushed a startled bird out of a cypress, they both dropped and aimed.
Nolan could finally see part of the house now, but there were still too many damn trees, too many places to hide. It was worse than a parking garage. She wasn’t expecting to confront burglars. The alarm had been shut off promptly, which meant someone was inside; but that didn’t take the edge off, nor should it. Always assume the worst, hope for the best.
She and Crawford froze when they heard a rustle in the trees. Not a bird, not even a coyote, something bigger. A twig snapped. Assume the worst.
“LAPD, freeze! Hands up! Come out from your cover!”
A skinny kid with terrified, buggy eyes moved slowly out of the woods, his hands up. “You scared the hell out of me,” he said shakily.
“Who are you?”
“Rolf Hesse. I live here.”
Nolan lowered her gun. “Do you have an ID?”
“Sure. It’s in my back pocket, okay if I get it?”
Nolan nodded. “Go ahead.”
He passed her a California driver’s license that checked out. “I’m sorry we startled you, Mr. Hesse, we heard the alarm. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, fine. The alarm was my fault. I was letting my cat in and forgot I’d already armed the system. It scared the bejesus out of poor Bunny, so I’m out here looking for her, I’ve got to get her in. Coyotes, you know? They’ve been bad this year.” He looked at their clothing. “You’re not cop-cops, you’re detectives.”
“Yes.”
“Cool. Are you on a sting or something?”
“Just following up on some things in the neighborhood.”
“Like a robbery ring? Drugs? Human trafficking?”
“We really can’t say,” Crawford put in, a touch of amusement in his voice.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I know. I ask a lot of questions, I’m a filmmaker, I get ideas everywhere. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, right?”
“No, you never do. Mr. Hesse, does Consuela Ortiz live here?”
“She’s the housekeeper. God, she didn’t do anything wrong, did she?”
“We’d just like to speak with her. Is she here now?”
“No, she went to visit family. In Ensenada, I think.”
“When did she leave?”
“I don’t really know, I’ve been busy working on a film. She asked me a couple days ago if she could have some time off and I told her yes.”
“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Hesse. I hope you find Bunny.”
“I will, I have to. She means everything to me.”
* * *
Scaling the fence wasn’t any easier on the way out, and once they were in the car, Crawford started complaining bitterly about a pulled muscle. “Goddammit, it’s my adductor again.”
“Again? What did you do to it the first time?”
“Waterskiing. I thought I’d be cool and drop off, skim right up to the dock. Instead, I did the Chinese splits and got a Lake Arrowhead enema.”
“Ouch.”
“There are no words. Do we have a cold pack?”
“There might be one in the kit. You want me to check?”
“Yeah. And grab me some ibuprofen. If there’s anything stronger, bring that.”
Nolan smirked as she rummaged through the medical kit in the trunk. Men were such babies. A cold or a pulled muscle and they were in bed for a month, whining like croupy infants. What she couldn’t figure out is why, when they got shot or stabbed, they were damn near profiles in courage. Maybe she should spare Corinne and shoot Al in the leg.
She tossed him a cold pack and a bottle of baby aspirin.
“Baby aspirin? Are you kidding me?”
“Look at the bright side, you won’t stroke out on the way to intensive care for your pulled muscle.”
“Laugh all you want, but I have thorns in my ass, too. Rats nest in bougainvillea, I could have bubonic plague in my system right now.”
“You’re on your own with that one.”
“Why are you wearing that weird, scrunchy face?”
“Just thinking.”
“God help us.”
Nolan draped her arms over the steering wheel and looked up at the fence. There was a lot of missing bougainvillea where they’d gone over; she didn�
��t doubt Crawford had thorns in his ass, she’d gotten nipped herself. She wondered if the Hesses would sue the department for vandalism. In her experience, rich people got indignant over really petty things and were litigious about it. Probably because they could afford lawyers. “The house alarm is set. The place is locked up for the night, including the gate. We go moseying up the driveway, and Mr. Inquisitive never asked us how we got in.”
“He knew how we got in, it was the only way.”
“That would be worth a mention, wouldn’t it? Like, ‘Hey, how come you two detectives climbed my fence in the middle of the night? Kind of overkill for responding to a false alarm, don’t you think?’”
“You’d better hope he doesn’t ask that question. We’re on pretty thin ice here.”
“That doesn’t raise a red flag for you?”
“Sure it does, but he’s young. Kids his age, their brains haven’t fully developed yet. And he’s been drinking, we’re lucky the fumes coming off him didn’t ignite. Combine the two and you’ve got nothing but meat with eyes.”
Nolan made a U-turn and headed back toward Sunset Boulevard. She slowed when her phone rang, then slammed on the brakes when she saw the caller ID.
“Jesus, take it easy, Mags, I’m not buckled in yet…”
“This is coming from Yukiko Easton’s phone.” She put it on speaker. “Detective Nolan.”
“This is Sam Easton we’re at Hans Hesse’s house in Beverly Hills his son has an automatic rifle he killed Yuki and Ryan he’s going to kill us…”
Nolan flinched at a whimper in the background, then heard Melody Traeger’s voice: “Oh my God, Sam…”
The line went dead.
Chapter Seventy
MELODY’S FACE WAS GHASTLY WHITE, HER eyes foggy and unfocused. She looked shocky. “He killed Ryan and Yuki?”
“It’s going to be okay, Mel, the cops will be here soon.”
“Sirens,” she mumbled. “They’ll chase Rolf inside and I didn’t lock the garage door behind him, Sam. Goddammit, I forgot to lock the door. That’s the way he went out, that’s the way he’ll come back in.”