The Final Kill

by Meg O'Brien

  “You know, Arnie, now that I think of it, there’s something wrong with all that.”

  There was a pause at his end of the line. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “See, Ben and those agents were at the Prayer House looking for Jancy, as well as Alicia, the other night. A woman and a teenager—Alicia and Jancy. But I told them they weren’t at the Prayer House. Right?”

  “Uh…right, I guess.”

  “Yet you called the Prayer House yesterday to tell me you’d found Jancy. Why would you do that? And come to think of it, isn’t there an APB out on her as well as Alicia?”

  “Dammit, Abby, I was just trying to do you and the kid a favor. The kid begged me not to take her in. She said she wanted to go to the Prayer House instead, and she promised to stay put out there if I let her stay with you. And yeah, I knew about the APB. But Abby, she’s just a kid. I wouldn’t want one of my kids sitting in a holding cell when there wasn’t any proof she’d done anything wrong.”

  “So, there still is an APB out on Jancy and Alicia?”

  “I can’t really talk about that, Ab.”

  “Because it’s been pulled, right? They’ve ordered it canceled.”

  “They?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Arnie! The FBI. The CIA. Pat Robertson. Who the hell knows?”

  “Like I said, I can’t—”

  “Never mind. And hey, thanks for taking Jancy out to the Prayer House. You’re a real pal.”

  “Do I detect a note of sarcasm in that?”

  “Just wondering how many people are watching the Prayer House now, and following Jancy’s every move.”

  “If that’s what’s going on, Abby, I swear I don’t know about it. Ben’s been keeping me pretty much in the dark on this one.”

  “So I guess he didn’t tell you they canceled the APB on me, too.”

  “Not a word,” Arnie said. “How were things in Phoenix?” he added casually, as if asking, “How was the weather?”

  “Oh, so-so,” Abby said.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d tell me anything. Had to try, though.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “Would you tell me how Ben and his cronies happened to find me there?”

  “Like I said—”

  “You don’t know anything,” Abby interrupted.

  “I swear. All’s I know is Ben went off on some special assignment with that CIA person, and he’s playing his cards close to the vest on this one.”

  “CIA person? You mean Lessing? FBI?”

  “Him, too, but Ben’s mostly working with that woman—Kris Kelley.”

  “Lovely,” Abby said.

  So they were together on the same assignment—tracking her, to see if she met up with Alicia.

  Well, not much chance of that. Alicia was proving a bit too hard to find. And now, it seemed, so was Jancy.

  23

  Abby tried to nap, but an idea nagged at her, keeping her awake. Finally she got up, took a shower and dressed in clean jeans, a warm sweater, a leather jacket and hiking boots. Grabbing the small kit of tools she sometimes used when helping to relocate the women who came to the Prayer House, she quietly slipped outside. The fog was thick and it was still cold and dark when she got into her car and drove into Carmel.

  At Highway 1, after checking to see that no cars had followed her, she turned left and headed south toward Big Sur. At this hour of the morning she had the winding road to herself, except for an occasional truck servicing food to the few inns that dotted the landscape on either side. With nothing but steep cliffs on her left and the ocean crashing against jagged rocks hundreds of feet below on her right, she followed a truck’s taillights. Her fingers, gripping the steering wheel, were white, but she felt reassured that as long as that truck stayed on the road, chances were she would, too.

  Jancy had told her that Mike and Betty Randolph’s house in Big Sur was the one the Gerards had been borrowing for vacations. Fortunately, she knew where the Randolph house was, having been there a couple of times during her marriage, when Jeffrey was part of the local political crowd. The three men—Mike, Gerry and her husband—had graduated from Yale and had that well-known “men’s club” thing going for them—buddies helping buddies, no matter what, for life.

  She was pretty sure now that Jancy must have been coming from the Randolph’s house the day before, when Arnie found her heading back into town. If Alicia had been in the Carmel area last night, what better place to meet Jancy than a secluded house on a peninsula overlooking the Pacific, ten miles south of town?

  For that matter, what better place to hide out than the remote Randolph house?

  A memory flew back of the time she’d had to break into the house of an abused woman who was being held prisoner by her own husband. To keep her inside while he was at work, he’d boarded up all the windows of the isolated house, and installed several locks on the outside of the door. Neighbors believed the house had been abandoned, and the woman had been a virtual hostage there for months before she’d finally managed to call her sister for help. The sister had been referred to Abby by a friend who knew about her work with Paseo.

  “That phone call to me nearly cost Debbie her life,” the sister had said.

  Debbie Lutz, after one particularly brutal beating, had managed to screw up just enough nerve to smash open the locked cabinet where her husband kept the phone when he was out of the house. That was two months before, the sister had told Abby, and Debbie’d had to end the call abruptly, afraid that her husband had returned. It was the first time the sister had heard from her in months. The sister, who had thought they’d had a falling-out, was shocked to hear what was going on.

  The husband, when the sister confronted him, tried to cover by saying his wife was “going through one of those female things, a kind of depression, and the doctors didn’t want her disturbed.”

  The sister didn’t buy it. She tried all the legal channels, but was told time after time that if Debbie herself didn’t ask them for help they couldn’t do a thing. Finally, the sister ended up at Abby’s door.

  Abby, knowing full well what the consequences might be if she wasn’t successful, was too enraged about the situation to care. She knew what it felt like to be abused, and she wouldn’t be worthy of the job she was doing if she let this pass.

  With the sister standing by, Abby had driven out to the house in Seaside while the husband was at work, torn the boards off a window with a tire jack and broken the glass to get in.

  Since they hadn’t been able to warn Debbie that they’d be there, she was terrified when she saw daylight for the first time in months—not to mention a woman in jeans, boots and heavy leather work gloves bursting through shards of glass to get to her.

  The sister calmed her, though, and they managed to get Debbie to Abby’s car and then a safe place before the husband ever knew what had happened.

  Once free, Debbie was able to tell the police what had happened. After her husband had been arrested and jailed, she agreed to talk to reporters. She was asked why she hadn’t just screamed for help till it came. “Because my husband sometimes came back and stood out on the porch listening, just to make sure I wasn’t ‘trying anything funny,’” she told them. The one time she did try to scream for help, her husband was out there hearing it. He’d beaten her up and left her with a broken arm, warning that if she ever tried that again he would cut out her tongue.

  Abby shuddered at the memory, and in the fog, she almost missed the Randolphs’ drive on the ocean side. The truck she’d been following had turned off at one of the inns, and she’d had to creep along at ten miles per hour since then, her gaze fixed like glue on the barely visible stripe along the narrow road.

  It was the old “Survivor” tree that stopped her. A huge Monterey pine, it was famous for having withstood all the mudslides that had taken down parts of this highway over the years. The giant tree, its arms splayed wide as if warding off the winds that had barreled in from offshore over the years, stood at the foot of
the Randolphs’ drive.

  Abby braked and backed up a few feet, then parked just off the highway, out of sight of the house. Trudging up the muddy drive, she shivered in the chill air and buttoned her leather jacket, shoving her hands into the pockets for warmth. The house was about a hundred feet from the highway and around a curve, so she couldn’t see it until she was nearly on top of it. Then, what she did see made her catch her breath.

  Something new had been added—a tall iron gate with an intercom box, and a high-security fence around the front and side gardens that seemd to extend along the back as well. Along the top were four strands of wire. A sign stated that they were electrified.

  Of course, times had changed since she’d been here in ’92. People with money had to protect themselves now from home invasions and any number of dangers. But was all this necessary?

  Abby hunkered down next to shrubbery and studied the house. There were no lights on, and no sounds coming from it. She looked at her watch. Just after 5:00 a.m. If Jancy was in there, she’d probably still be sleeping. But Alicia? Would she be sleeping, knowing that the law was on her tail?

  Or maybe I’m on the wrong track entirely. Maybe the Randolphs are in there. Maybe I’ll get caught and arrested for housebreaking.

  For that matter, why aren’t the cops or the FBI here watching this place, in case Alicia does show up?

  Because they don’t know about it. Still…it couldn’t have been that hard to find out.

  Standing, she took a deep breath and released some tension along with it. She was still nervous, though, and her shaking hands were proof of it. Finally she straightened her shoulders and walked toward the gate. This wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the case of the abused wife, she reminded herself. All she had to do was ring the bell on the intercom, and see who—if anyone—answered. If the Randolphs were home, she could say in all honesty that she was looking for Jancy.

  Or, if Jancy answered, she’d somehow talk her into letting her in. Then, she thought, her mouth tightening into a grim line, she’d find a rope, hogtie the kid and carry her over her shoulder out to the car.

  Alicia, of course, was another matter. Abby didn’t like to think what she’d do about Alicia, after she’d almost been killed looking for her.

  24

  None of the scenarios Abby had imagined happened. No one answered the intercom, and the gate, on closer inspection, had been left unlocked.

  Odd, unless Jancy forgot to lock it when she ran from here yesterday. If she ran from here yesterday.

  Once on the porch, she rang the bell next to the door. There was no sound of approaching footsteps or of anyone calling out sleepily.

  She knocked several times, but still nothing. The beveled glass in the door bent everything out of shape, and she couldn’t tell if there was someone in there or if what she saw was merely a chair. The only thing she knew for certain was that a light was on somewhere inside.

  Just for the hell of it, she tried the door. If the gate was unlocked, maybe someone had left the door that way, too.

  But no luck. The doorknob didn’t even move. And there was still no sign of life inside.

  So, Plan B. Abby drew the small burglary kit from her jacket pocket, found the tool she wanted and after a few moments had the door unlocked. She opened it, then crossed the foyer and entered the living room, where she stood listening for the sound of a security alarm.

  Nothing.

  So she’d figured that right, at least. If Jancy had been in this house yesterday and was running from it when Arnie came across her, she probably hadn’t thought to set the alarm or lock the gate.

  Several questions remained unanswered, though. What, or who, had she been running from here? Had someone threatened her? Or was she nearly caught by someone and ran to escape being seen?

  Abby stood there getting her bearings. Sweeping the beam of her penlight, she saw before her a massive “great room.” To her left was a large living room area with high beams, wall-to-wall windows and a huge stone fireplace. To the right was a sunken family room area with a U-shaped sectional pointing toward a big, black eye that turned out to be a television screen at least seventy inches wide. Straight ahead of her, to the rear, was a kitchen with a long granite-topped island and six light oak stools facing it.

  On the far right side of this great room was a hallway, presumably leading to the bedrooms and baths.

  Abby crossed to the kitchen first and opened the refrigerator. The hardwood floors creaked as she walked, making her even more nervous. If anyone was in here, surely they’d hear that.

  Stop being paranoid. If there was anyone here, they would already have shown themselves.

  Picking up a carton of low-fat milk, Abby opened and sniffed it, making a face. Sour. Putting it back, she noted that the only other food in the fridge was a quarter-pound stick of butter and a moldy loaf of seven-grain bread. Her stomach growled. Bread and butter were her favorite guilty snacks, and she hadn’t eaten since the airport in Phoenix, waiting for her plane to take off.

  But even if she’d had the time or the inclination to eat here, there were no fixings for a meal, no sweets for dessert. Not even ice cream in the freezer. This did not look like a place where Alicia, Gerry and Jancy had been vacationing—at least, not anytime lately.

  Next, she made a quick survey of the entire house, opening doors to bedrooms, closets and, finally, an office. All of the rooms had been nicely decorated, but weren’t notable in any particular way until she came to this one. A bank of windows looked out to a slope with a row of evergreen trees at the bottom, and beyond them, the ocean. The trees were just becoming visible now that the fog had begun to lift and dawn had arrived. In the twenty-by-twenty-or-so room, two walls were lined with bookcases from floor to ceiling, while a third held light maple file cabinets and office equipment. On top of the low file cabinets was a combination fax, copy machine and color printer. On either side of that was a desktop computer. Smaller pieces of office equipment were lined up on the cabinets, along with an electric pencil sharpener and a large-screen plasma TV. The TV was hooked up to a VCR, a handheld video camera and a notebook computer.

  The computers had been turned off. Abby’s first thought was to turn them on and go through all three of them. Then she remembered that, from the first time they’d met, Allie had always had a notebook computer with her even before they were common. She liked working on planes and in airports to pass the time, and liked being able to write out her notes in hotel rooms the night before her speeches.

  Thinking it might be the most likely source of recent information, Abby crossed over to the notebook, turning it on. As she waited for the programs to load, she thought she heard a sound somewhere in the house. For a moment she froze, but the sound didn’t reoccur. She’d looked in every corner, every closet, every nook and cranny, she reasoned, and there was no one there. The tiny thud she’d heard was probably pinecones falling on the roof, or a squirrel running across it. She was nervous, that was all.

  The log-in screen appeared, telling her this was Alicia’s computer, and asked for a password.

  Damn. What would Alicia use as a password? Jancy? Abby tried it. Nothing.

  Next she tried Gerry, followed by H. P. None of them worked.

  Thinking back, she tried to remember everything she knew about Alicia. Within minutes, she realized that Alicia had never shared much about her personal life. That came as a shock. Funny how you can “know” someone for years and think you’re close, but there are so many things you never share.

  It was a stream-of-consciousness exercise that got her in. She’d been feverishly trying any combination of words she thought might apply when she made herself calm down and just let her mind wander. A few moments later, she remembered that Allie had sent her a postcard from Maui a couple of years ago. On it, she’d raved about the island and the beach house she was staying at with Jancy. “It’s called, Hale Pau Hana,” she’d written. “House of No Work. When I get home, that’s just the kind
of house I want!”

  The postcard was the last Abby had heard from Alicia, until she and Jancy had come to the Prayer House. She knew that people sometimes used their favorite vacation places for passwords, just as they used their favorite pets’ names or colors. Since she hadn’t come up with anything else, she typed in “Maui.”

  Nothing. Well, it was a reach.

  “House of No Work” was a bust, too.

  Holding out little hope, she tried, “Hale Pau Hana,” and almost fell over when the desktop miraculously appeared.

  A shiver of excitement went through her, but there was little time to savor the win. Starting with the obvious, she opened Alicia’s e-mail and ran down the list of saved mail, looking for something, anything, that might be a clue as to where Alicia was. A letter to someone, a travel itinerary, a confirmation of plane tickets.

  At first she looked only at the past week’s e-mails, both sent and received. Then she realized that Alicia wouldn’t be likely to have a record of where she’d gone this time, since she hadn’t expected to be on the run. Abby began to look back a month, then two and three. Four, then five.

  Nothing but sales ads from stores, brief notes to a friend saying the weather was good, bad, whatever, and what had her family been doing lately? One was a recipe for chocolate cake, and another was to a company, complaining about the quality of their foods.

  Abby was about to give up and go to one of the larger computers when she remembered a trick of her own, one she’d developed when she was married, to hide her daily journals from Jeffrey’s prying eyes. She’d set up a folder called Household Bills—nothing he’d be likely to care about—and then a subfolder under it for gas, another under that one for electricity, and so on until the seventh or eighth folder down said “Paid Bills.” That was the one she always saved her journal to, buried so deep that Jeffrey, who knew almost nothing about computers, would never be likely to find it.