by R. J. Jagger
“Excellent.”
She chuckled.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing—just the irony that this detective actually ended up giving the lawyer a higher comfort level. I could just imagine the look on his face if he ever found out.”
Aaron laughed.
“Maybe we should call him from Monte Carlo some day and let him know.”
AFTER DARK, TARZAN STEPPED into the stairwell where no one could see him—if they were watching—and slipped into black jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. Then he silently snaked down the fire escape to ground level and skirted his way around the northern edge of the railroad yard.
The cool night air fingered its way into his clothes.
It felt good.
He hugged the shadows of the railcars, which were now nothing more than deep dark silhouettes, slightly blacker than the sky but not by much.
His feet moved with a catlike silence, not even remotely detectible, especially with the freeway noise blowing this way.
This was a total shot in the dark, figuratively and literally. But he needed to do it, not only for himself but for Scotty Marks. Del Rae had called the hospital from a public phone this afternoon in an attempt to get information on Scotty’s condition. They wouldn’t release anything to her. However, she gleamed enough to confirm that Scotty was in fact a patient, meaning he wasn’t dead.
The women would pay.
Who were they?
What did they want?
Why were they stalking him?
He continued to move through the shadows. From this location, at the north edge of the yard, he couldn’t see into his windows, meaning that anyone spying on him wouldn’t be around here.
He cut south, to where they’d be.
The chilly night air felt healthy in his lungs, crisp and fresh.
RIGHT ABOUT NOW THE LAWYER WOULD BE SLITTING his wife’s pretty little throat with a box cutter. It was too bad that Del Rae had to be there to witness it. Sure, she’d end up with enough money to paper the sky, but something like that could still leave a mental scar.
She was a good woman, a perfect woman, actually.
Mature.
Stable.
Beautiful.
Not to mention that she honestly and truly loved him deep down where it counted.
He slipped his left hand into his pants pocket and felt the tiny jewelry box, the box he’d been carrying around for the last three weeks. Inside that box was a flawless, 2-carat diamond in a contemporary gold setting.
He’d give it to Del Rae when the time was right which would be soon, very soon, maybe even tonight.
He smiled.
Then he turned his attention back to the night, just in time to hear something swish through the air.
His head immediately exploded in colors and he felt blood in his ear before his body hit the ground.
He’d been hit with an object.
Hard.
Chapter Sixty-One
Day Eight—May 12
Monday Night
______________
FROM THE HOTEL, PAIGE drove to Mitch Mitchell’s house first since it was so close. She didn’t spot Ta’Veya’s car in any of the likely parking places. Then against her better judgment she made sure the car doors were locked and drove down the man’s street.
No lights came from inside his house, not a one, so she headed over to Tarzan’s place with the gun on the seat next to her, fully loaded. On the way she called Ta’Veya.
Still no answer.
Then, bingo.
On an industrial side street on the west side of the railroad yard she spotted Ta’Veya’s vehicle in the same place they’d parked before. She pulled up behind it, killed the engine, grabbed the gun and stepped into the night. The freeway noise was louder than usual.
No one was around.
Ta’Veya’s car was locked.
There wasn’t much light, but there was enough that Paige could see into Ta’Veya’s vehicle and not spot a phone.
She exhaled.
Then she headed towards the railroad yard.
No lights came from Tarzan’s loft.
She searched the area and called softly, but got no response. Minute after minute passed and still there was no sign of Ta’Veya. Where was she?
Paige doubled back to Ta’Veya’s car.
It was still there.
Ta’Veya must have gone inside Trane’s building.
Paige swallowed and headed in that direction, gripping the gun with a tight, sweaty hand.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Day Eight—May 12
Monday Night
______________
THE RED ’67 CORVETTE SAT IN THE GARAGE with the nose pointed towards the street. Teffinger opened the garage door, climbed behind the wheel, popped the top of a Bud Light and sat there, staring into the night through the windshield and trying to shake the frustration of the day, the frustration involving Tashna Sharapova.
The hunt had been unproductive.
In fact, “unproductive” was too mild.
“Non-event” would be closer to the truth.
He knew a few things. She was at some abandoned hideaway out in the sticks where the coyotes lived. She was drugged and chained on a mattress. She had been, or soon would be, raped. Her hair had been chopped off. She had rules to follow. The guy drove a rusty vehicle, one that sat high, most likely an SUV or a truck.
He knew one more thing, too.
She had only two days, assuming the guy stayed consistent.
And Teffinger had totally wasted one of them.
He wasn’t a step closer to finding her now than he was last night when he first responded to her abduction.
He took another swallow of beer just as his cell rang. He pulled it out, didn’t recognize the number but answered it anyway. Rain’s voice came through.
“Hey, it’s me. What are you doing?”
“Sitting here alone in the dark and trying to think of a way to get brilliant.”
“You want some company?”
He did and gave her directions.
She showed up twenty minutes later, found him in the garage and slipped into the passenger seat with a chilled bottle of white wine.
“Nice car,” she said. “Yours?”
He nodded.
“Temporarily,” he said. “No one ever really owns a car like this. You just save it for the next guy. Right now I’m the next guy.”
She kissed him—something between Hello and I’m going to screw your brains out later.
“I’m not going to be any fun tonight,” he warned. “It’s been a long day.”
“You mean Tashna Sharapova?”
“Right.”
“No leads?”
“Not a one,” he said. “I may as well have played checkers all day. It turns out there were no surveillance cameras that shined on the museum parking lot. We interviewed everyone at the board meeting and no one saw a thing. They all just got in their fancy little cars and drove home.”
“She’ll turn up somewhere tomorrow,” Rain said.
Teffinger grunted.
That’s what he was afraid of.
“I’m in a total slump,” he said. “I got a bunch of other cases too that are just as dead in the water.”
“Which ones?”
He drained the rest of the beer and then crushed the can in his hand. “There’s a law student named Marilyn Poppenberg. We found her down by some railroad tracks, bound in blue rope, with a screwdriver pounded into her ear. So far we don’t have a clue.”
“That’s sick,” Rain said.
“Unfortunately there’s a lot of that going around,” Teffinger said. Then, of course, there was the razorblade killer—another case going nowhere—but he didn’t feel like getting into it. “If you ever get taken again, just pray I’m not the one who’s supposed to find you.”
She squeezed his hand.
“I wouldn’t want anyone else.”
He thought about kissing her but his cell phone rang.
WHEN HE ANSWERED NO ONE WAS THERE. Instead the phone clunked as if it had been dropped to the ground. Then he heard a woman’s voice, but it came from a distance and he couldn’t make out the words.
She sounded panicked.
Scuffling sounds came through, then everything faded and finally stopped altogether.
“Someone’s in trouble,” he said.
“Who?”
He looked at the display. It said, Private Number.
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Day Eight—May 12
Monday Night
______________
THE EXPLOSION ON THE SIDE OF HIS HEAD felt like it came from a two-by-four. That was the one and only thought that had time to enter Tarzan’s brain before he dropped to the ground.
He expected to pass out but didn’t.
He muscled his bulk up, rubbed blood out of his eyes and ran after the dark silhouette that was escaping into the night. His arms flailed wildly and his feet pounded the ground with heavy thuds. He forced his knees higher and picked up speed.
Then he was on her.
He had her on the ground and pounded her in the head again and again until she stopped moving.
He didn’t know if he’d killed her and didn’t care.
He stood over her and put a hand to his head. The wound was deep. He’d need stitches. But if it was going to kill him it would have done it by now. He reached down, pulled the woman up by her hair, flung her over his shoulder and carried her limp body back to the building.
He took her to the mechanical room on the ground floor, where they’d be away from prying eyes, and examined her enough to ascertain that she was alive and that she was the same woman who’d bashed him in the head with the beer bottle, the one who’d been stalking him, the one who screwed up Scotty Marks.
He slammed the door shut, locked it from the outside and then took the elevator up to the loft. He kept the main lights off, just in case anyone else happened to be out there watching, and then showered the blood off.
Déjà vu.
In the stairwell he examined the wound, using a flashlight and hand mirror. It was a three-inch gash on the side of his head, where it would be insanely tough to stitch. It still bled but not as much, thanks to the pressure he’d been applying. For a heartbeat he thought about stitching it up himself but couldn’t figure out how he’d do it and decided to wait for Del Rae.
He set the mirror on a step and walked down to the mechanical room to see if the woman had woken up yet.
SHE LAID THERE, A LIMP RAGGEDY ANN DOLL, still unconscious. He got a wet towel and dabbed the dirt and blood off her face. Her lip had a good-sized cut but wasn’t bleeding.
A search of her pockets turned up no wallet or identification, only a set of car keys.
He stripped her clothes off just so she’d be even more freaked out when she woke.
Then he locked the door behind him and headed outside into the dark with her car keys in hand. She must have parked somewhere on the west side of the railroad yard. No doubt her purse was in the vehicle. Inside it he’d find all the information he needed.
He had to be careful, though, and not leave any blood DNA in her car, just in case he decided later that he needed to kill her.
After a long search he finally spotted a car where there shouldn’t be one—two cars, in fact. He inched his way over, staying in the thick of the shadows.
He stopped about thirty yards short.
Good thing, too.
He spotted someone sitting behind the wheel of the second car.
It was a woman, no doubt the same woman he captured before, the one who stabbed him in the back with a pencil.
Good.
Perfect.
This was his chance to return the favor.
What was the best way to capture her?
No doubt she was waiting for her buddy to show up. The big question is whether she had the car doors locked. Assume she does. He retreated farther into the shadows and looked around for something to smash the window with, finally finding a steel pole about five feet long.
Then he circled around so he could sneak up on her from behind.
The freeway noise blew in, masking all his little sounds.
He worked his way through the dark with a racing heart until he got right up to the back of the car. He crouched there, swallowed hard, and then got in position to lunge.
He would smash the window and grab her by the hair before she could turn the ignition.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Day Eight—May 12
Monday Night
______________
PAIGE SAT BEHIND THE STEERING WHEEL of the rental in the middle of a dark world with the gun in her lap, wondering what to do next. As far as she could tell, Ta’Veya hadn’t entered the building. The window by the fire escape, where they slipped in last time, was now locked shut. Nor had she found any other means of entry. Plus, even if Ta’Veya had found a way in, she would have gotten out of there long before now.
So where was she?
Then it dawned on her.
Ta’Veya must be on the east side of the building. She parked over here by the railroad yard to look in his windows but Trane wasn’t home. So she headed over to the other side of the building to check him out when he came back.
Paige cranked over the engine, put the car in reverse and almost stomped on the gas before she acknowledged that the pressure building up in her bladder had suddenly reached critical mass. She shifted the car back into park, left the engine running and stepped into the night carrying the gun, not needing it but liking the feel.
She almost squatted down right next to the rear wheel but then detected a slight rustle behind the car, no doubt a mouse or something, and headed over to an even darker area across the street.
She relieved herself.
There.
Much better.
She got back into the vehicle and drove over to the east side of the building.
She parked in a remote spot, probably farther away than she needed to, but not wanting to take any chances. She doubled back on foot, expecting to find Ta’Veya behind the dumpster.
Or the electrical shed.
But she wasn’t there or anywhere else for that matter.
Paige started to hoof it back to the rental when headlights suddenly appeared. She scurried into the shadows barely in time to avoid detection. The vehicle passed her and pulled up to the base of Tarzan’s building. The headlights died and a dark figure stepped out—a large figure with a mane of hair, unmistakably Trane. A minute later the garage door opened, the vehicle pulled in and the door closed.
Paige watched the building for a few minutes, didn’t detect anything of interest, and then worked her way back to the rental. She drove back over to Ta’Veya’s car on the west side of the railroad yard.
Strange.
Very strange.
Ta’Veya’s vehicle wasn’t there anymore.
Paige parked on the side of the road and dialed Ta’Veya’s phone.
No one answered.
Ta’Veya must have gone back to the hotel.
Paige headed that way.
When she arrived, the room was dark and empty. Ta’Veya wasn’t there and didn’t show up during the next half hour as Paige paced back and forth in front of the TV. She must have left Trane’s to stake out Mitch Mitchell.
Why would she be doing all this on her own? Was she trying to protect Paige from the danger?
Well screw that.
They were a team.
They were in this together.
All the way.
Paige stormed out of the hotel, got back in her car, slammed the door and squealed out of the parking lot, heading to Mitch Mitchell’s house.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Day Eight—May 12
Monday Night
______________
TEFFINGER DIDN�
��T HANG UP. Instead he kept the cell phone connection alive, on the off chance that the caller’s phone would pick up sounds that might tell him where the call came from—traffic or airplanes or whatever.
He half expected to hear coyotes.
Meaning the call had come from Tashna Sharapova. But how could she possibly have his cell phone number?
She couldn’t.
But her captor could.
Maybe he’d placed the call, just to rub the whole thing in Teffinger’s face. He told Rain, “Be right back,” and then stepped into the house, pulled a fresh beer from the fridge, and called Sydney and Katie Baxter from his house phone to see if they were okay.
They were.
When he got back to the Corvette he was surprised how good it felt to have Rain waiting for him. So far he hadn’t shown her much of a good time but she didn’t seem antsy or on the verge of leaving. She appeared to be content to be around him.
Very nice.
They stared out the windshield into the night and talked. Humidity crept into the air and a deep thunder crackled over the mountains, rolling this way.
It turned out that Rain had a sister named Dawn who needed a kidney transplant. She was on a list but needed to come up with $250,000 cash to actually get the operation. Rain was saving up to help her.
That explained the $50,000 he found in her closet.
He checked the battery of his cell phone to be sure it wasn’t about to die. It was two-third’s full; good enough for the time being.
Every minute or so he put the phone to his ear and concentrated.
So far no sounds came through.
Not a one.
Then the weather moved in; just a drizzle at first, followed by a heavy rain that pounded straight down.
“So have you christened this thing properly, yet?” Rain asked, referring to the car.
Teffinger had a pretty good idea what she was talking about, but wasn’t positive.
“You mean the back seat?”