by P. J. Tracy
Sam was positive Rolf would be able to get into his own house when he wanted to; he would have control of the security system through his phone. But he might not have his phone, so every locked door might be a temporary blockade until the police arrived. “Show me where.”
“I don’t remember, I was lost.” Her voice was climbing up the panic scale.
Sam picked her up again. Her skin felt clammy against his. “The front façade of the house was visible when we drove up and there was no garage, so it must be in back.” He started jogging in the general direction. “Concentrate, Mel. Tell me if something looks familiar.”
“Everything was a blur,” she said, her voice bouncing along with his gait. “But I went through swinging doors into a kitchen. A small kitchen, like a maid’s kitchen. There’s a hallway to the left of it. That’s where I found the garage.”
A pair of swinging doors in a vast maze. But a maid’s kitchen would be in the back by the garage, so he was heading in the right direction. “Do you remember anything else? Artwork, furniture, something you noticed?”
“There was a room with a piano.”
The Conservatory. Sam stopped when he came to a literal fork in the road. Three hallways shot off in different directions. Door number one? Door number two? Door number three? “Do you remember this?”
“No, but I’m left-handed, so I would have gone left.”
Sam started jogging again, and Melody stiffened in his arms. “There! The room with the piano! From here, I went straight ahead.”
The swinging doors became visible in the gloom, and he followed Melody’s directions down a tight hall and into a vestibule.
“This is it, Sam!”
They both froze when they heard a door slam shut just beyond where they stood. Rolf was in the garage, coming inside. No time, no time at all. Sam could hide in the shadows and shoot him when he came in, but he didn’t want to do it in front of Melody, couldn’t do it in front of her. That left one option.
RUN.
Sam engaged the deadbolt of the interior door, then turned and flew down the hallway toward the front of the house, holding Melody tight against his chest. He heard Rolf thudding on the door—it was a loud, sharp sound, the sound of the rifle stock being used as a battering ram. And then a short burst of fire. The crack of splintering wood. Footsteps pounding behind them.
He was too close. If Sam took a wrong turn, just one, they would be trapped. And dead. At this point, Rolf wouldn’t want to talk about their options. He’d want to silence them and stash their bodies before the cops arrived. And the Colt, even wielded with all the proficiency in the world, still wasn’t a match for an M4; Melody had been right about that.
Speed was his only advantage, but he couldn’t run any faster without using his arms. Melody seemed to sense this because she started to squirm.
“Hide me and get help,” she whispered.
“No.” He tightened his hold on her and pushed harder, almost stumbled when he saw the front door ahead. Thirty feet, twenty, ten …
He became a terrestrial rocket man, launching out into the starry, moonlit space of a warm night that smelled like a Tuscan honeymoon. He ran faster than he ever imagined he could, even without using his arms.
Chapter Seventy-one
NOLAN WAS CRAB-WALKING THE MARGIN OF the driveway, sweating under the weight of the tac vest and rifle. When you heard automatic fire, you geared up for war. Max was with her, applauding her bravery, but conversely chastising her for being impulsive and not waiting for backup that was minutes away—and for her lousy form and clumsiness under tactical gear.
But his criticism was benevolent and joking because he’d always told her she was as good as anybody in the family who’d come before her. Fuck the people who said any different, she was just fighting a different kind of battle.
She froze when she heard another burst of gunfire, and an icy cold squishiness seized her gut. It was a totally unfamiliar sensation, but her heart knew it was the abject terror of realizing you were straddling the gossamer line between life and death. Every single movement from now on had to be deliberate and decisive. No room for error, no room at all.
A sob clutched her throat as she thought of Max again. He had felt this same way, over and over. She should have asked him about it, how he dealt with it, but she hadn’t known enough back then, and now he was dead and she and Al and Melody and Sam might join him if she didn’t …
“MOVE!” she hissed, waving Al forward. He flanked her right side and dropped to the grass. He was better at this than she was. Of course he was—he had ten years on her and outranked her by two grades. But he trusted her enough to let her take lead.
Please God, don’t let me get us killed.
As she signaled him to stay back and cover her, a third staccato salvo shattered the serene Beverly Hills night, much closer now. Pure instinct took over and she charged mindlessly up the hill of the drive, praying she wasn’t too late to make a difference for somebody. She hadn’t been able to save her brother, but goddammit, she was going to save somebody tonight.
She almost fired when a man crested the hill and came racing toward her; but before she inched the trigger back, he entered a corona of light from one of the lamps that lined the driveway and she recognized Sam Easton, recognized the cargo he was carrying, held close to his chest: Melody Traeger.
And then more gunfire, white and orange star-shaped blooms, now visible in the dark. Sam dove into the cypress with Melody. Nolan aimed at the retinal memories of deadly flowers and emptied her weapon.
* * *
Sam crawled along the tree line opposite and parallel to Nolan and Crawford, head rotating, his body rigid. It had been a long time since he’d been battle-ready, honed for a firefight and intoxicated by adrenaline, that magical, life-saving hormone. He didn’t know if it felt good, but it felt right.
But there would be no firefight tonight. At the top of the hill, they found Rolf sprawled on the driveway, pale and semiconscious, bleeding heavily from a ragged hole in his arm. It shone black and oily in the faint illumination of a landscaping light.
Sam knelt down and felt his neck, his thready pulse. He couldn’t shoot him in front of the cops, didn’t even know if he had the will to anymore, but he was going to keep this son of a bitch alive to face prison. He ripped a sleeve off his shirt, the last thing Yuki had touched before she’d left him, and staunched the wound. “Rolf? Rolf!”
Nolan crouched beside Sam and checked for other injuries. “I hit his leg, too. Shit. There’s too much blood. Crawford, get that gate open for the ambulance! Pull the cotter pins, knock it down with the car, just get it open! Jesus Christ,” she whispered, pressing down on the wound to his leg.
Sam patted his cheek lightly. “Rolf! Wake up!”
His eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open. “Telegram Sam?”
“Yeah, Rolf. Hang in there, there’s an ambulance on the way.”
“This is going to be one bitching movie,” his voice was weak and fading.
“Sssh, save your breath, Rolf.”
“Where’s Melody?”
“I’m right here, Rolf.” Melody was hobbling toward them, tears running down her face.
Rolf opened his eyes and his mouth trembled. “I’m sorry … things … didn’t work out…”
Melody knelt down. “Stay with us, Rolf.”
His eyes closed again. “Will you hold my hand?”
“Stay with us,” she repeated, looking away.
“Please.”
After a long moment, she took his hand and squeezed it tight, held it until he shuddered and went still.
Chapter Seventy-two
IN THE BACK SEAT OF THE detectives’ sedan, Melody leaned against Sam, her head on his chest, silently soaking his ruined shirt with warm tears. Of all the harrowing things she’d endured in the past few days, the reluctant communion with Rolf at his end would probably be the one that would haunt her the most.
He knew what it felt like
to hold somebody’s hand as their life departed. It was a shocking, devastating intimacy that stirred the deepest, most elemental sense of being, and of not being. You became small, utterly insignificant when you felt death settle, felt the crushing finality as it traveled from their fingers to yours. Mortality ceased to be an abstract concept, and what that person had been in life, good or bad, didn’t affect the impact of that grim revelation.
Sam looked out the partially open side window. The night was splashed with stuttering rainbows of emergency lights, loud with voices and the crackle of transmissions emanating from shoulder units as people told other people what to do.
Countless law enforcement and crime scene personnel had overtaken the property, which was now festooned with yellow tape and guarded at intervals by grim-faced police officers. The entire neighborhood was probably out on the street, hoping for a glimpse of whatever misfortune had befallen one of their own, but the barricades had been set back so far that nobody would be seeing anything. News choppers were trolling the skies, but their view wouldn’t be much better for all the trees sheltering the property. The sequestration wouldn’t last, and neither would any semblance of privacy for anyone involved, no matter how carefully this was managed.
Sam wondered if the Berlin police had contacted Hans Hesse yet—and if he’d even had an inkling of what his son had really been. He’d been complicit in creating him, there was no exoneration for him in that regard. Still, he felt sorry for him and would until the day he decided to exploit a tragedy and make a movie about it. Hopefully, he wouldn’t, although whether it was Hans Hesse himself or someone else, it seemed inevitable.
He saw Nolan duck beneath one of the plastic barriers and walk down the driveway, her expression flat and immutable as her face pulsed under the strobing lights. She engaged in brief conversations with some of the people on the ground, then walked through the gate and slipped into the driver’s seat of the sedan.
“Consuela Ortiz is okay. We found her tied up in the wine cellar.”
Sam let out a breath. “Thank God. I was afraid he killed her.”
Three pairs of eyes followed the wrecker coming down the driveway with the Jeep. “The coroner found black paint chips on Katy Villa’s body. We’re guessing they’re going to match.”
“It will. Rolf was following me. You saw the photo from San Vicente. Katy Villa was an accident, a distracted driving accident,” Sam said bitterly, pinching his eyes shut, trying not to think of the lives lost because of him.
Because of Rolf, not you.
Dr. Frolich’s voice was loud and clear in his head, and she was right. Maybe she’d be able to talk him down from the ledge of survivor’s guilt after all.
When he opened his eyes again, Nolan was watching him.
“Thank you both for taking us through the scene,” she finally said. “I know it was difficult.” Her gray eyes softened and she passed back a box of tissues. “How is your ankle, Ms. Traeger?”
Melody straightened and wiped her eyes. “Better. The cold pack is helping.”
“You should get an x-ray.”
“It’s just a sprain.”
“Maybe so, but you should still have it looked at. I can have somebody take you to the hospital now, or I can drop you off when we’re finished here.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“I mean thank you for saving us.”
“From what you both told me, you saved each other. And what you did for Rolf? In your position, I’m not sure I could have done the same.”
“You would have. He was a human being and he was dying, that’s all he was when I took his hand.”
“It was an act of grace, Ms. Traeger. And same for you, Mr. Easton.”
“Trying to keep Rolf alive definitely wasn’t an act of grace on my part.”
She nodded her understanding.
“What happens now, Detective?”
“I have a couple more things to tie up, then Detective Crawford will stay to finish up here and pass it off to Crime Scene. We go back to the station for more details and statements. Sorry, but it’s going to be a long night.”
Sam leaned back and closed his eyes, stroking Melody’s shoulder as much for his own solace as hers, like a child caressing a stuffed animal after a bad dream. “How did you get here so fast?”
“It was dumb luck. We’ll get to that before the night is over.”
Melody leaned forward confidentially and captured Nolan’s gaze. “You told me you don’t believe in luck, Detective.”
“I’m reconsidering that statement.”
Chapter Seventy-three
CRAWFORD WAS STIRRING SUGAR INTO HIS sludgy, Homicide-brewed coffee, shaking his head. “This is absolutely insane. A fucking screenplay started this. Christ, LA is messed up.”
“An obsession started it, and that can happen anywhere.”
“Whatever. If the kid had made it, he’d really have something to write about while he was doing life in Pelican Bay.”
They’d brought Remy in to brief him on the possible Monster connection during their break and he was still in the room, intermittently tapping a pen on the edge of a table. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen, you know. Movie deals, book deals, offers nobody can refuse. Who’s going to be the first to sell out?”
“It won’t be anybody here,” Nolan said more sharply than she’d intended.
“I know that. What about Easton and Traeger? A bartender and a bar back looking at life-changing money? I’d be tempted.”
Crawford slurped his coffee and winced, either from the scalding temperature or the horror of how bad it was. “More power to them, I say. They went through hell, why not get something besides nightmares out of it?”
Nolan felt the familiar heat of blood rushing to her cheeks. “Easton and Traeger aren’t going to take money for something that almost destroyed them, Al.”
He met her eyes and the creases that had lately been eating up the real estate around his mouth softened and lifted with a small smile. “Yeah, I believe you, Mags. But the fallout is going to be nasty. Once everything comes out, they’re not going to have any peace for a long time, and no way Easton will be able to lay low with his face. How is this going to affect him? He’s already in tough shape.”
“He’ll get through it.” She looked at Remy. “So what do you think about his Rolf Hesse as Monster theory?”
“It’s a good one, I couldn’t make up a better suspect. We’re looking into it hard, but I don’t think it will go anywhere.”
Crawford rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Why not? Hesse was a freak and a heroin addict. He’d been following Traeger for years, Easton for six months; he probably carried around Sam’s address like some people carry rosary beads. It could explain the piece of paper from the Rehbein.”
“But it doesn’t explain why the dead guy’s prints were on it. Ronald Doerr was killed way before Easton was on Rolf Hesse’s radar, so there’s zero connection there, but Doerr and Easton served together in the same unit, and that bugs the shit out of me. I still want to talk to Easton. Are you almost finished with him?”
Nolan nodded, then gathered her computer and a bundle of files. “I’ll send him your way before I cut him loose.”
Crawford pushed himself up, but she dismissed him with a wave. “It’s just wrap-up, Al, I’ll take it from here. Go home and bother Corinne, she might actually miss you by now. She’ll change her mind if you start bitching about your adductor, so try to keep your mouth shut.”
“Mags is going to be fine,” he said after she’d left.
“I have no doubt about that.” Remy’s dark eyes cycled around the room absently, looking beyond the present, or maybe back into the past. He did that sometimes, and Crawford had always found it disconcerting, like he knew something nobody else did.
“She’s tougher than anybody I know. And mean.”
Remy laughed. “You think she has a mean streak?”
“Maybe you should p
artner with her and find out for yourself.”
“And ruin the pleasure of listening to you two snipe at each other? I don’t think so.” His smile faded. “Still, it’s a big thing, killing. Blood always runs red, and it’s a color you don’t forget.”
“Spoken like a man who’s shed some. Bayou wisdom?”
“Something like that.”
Chapter Seventy-four
AFTER REGURGITATING EVERY DETAIL OF THE past twelve hours for Nolan and Crawford, and clarifying some things preceding the ignominious visit to the Hesse mansion, Melody was dozing restlessly on an unyielding vinyl sofa in the conference room. Sam was somehow still upright, sitting across the table from Nolan. Crawford hadn’t returned after the last break, which gave him hope that things were coming to a close and he could go home soon.
He felt delirious, but not crazy, hallucinating, blackout delirious. He wasn’t stupid or insane enough to believe that another trauma was the remedy to healing from a previous one, but he felt a little better in spite of everything, like he’d reclaimed a small piece of himself that had existed before a roadside bomb had shredded bone and flesh and his tether to this world. He’d made it through this nightmare without falling apart when it really mattered. He’d won the fight. Melody had saved him; he’d saved Melody; and in the end, Yuki and Nolan had saved them both.
For the first time in a long while, he wasn’t worried about what would happen tomorrow. He was alive and that was good enough for now.
One day at a time.
He’d have a chat with Melody about that. She was incredibly resilient, incredibly strong, but nobody got through something like this unscathed.
Crawford had seemed a lot warmer now that he knew he wasn’t staring down Public Enemy Number One, but either way, Sam had nothing but respect for him. He’d just been doing his job, providing a necessary counterpoint to Nolan, whose perception probably was skewed because of her brother.