by Brian Harper
“I will, and again, I’m so very sorry.”
“No harm done,” Trish heard herself say. The words, the first she’d spoken since leaving the car, seemed to come from nowhere.
Her whole attention was focused on the space around her and the desperate need to act natural. God, please don’t let her screw up now, because it wasn’t just her life on the line or Wald’s; it was the Kent girl who would die if this wasn’t handled right.
How young was she As young as Marta had been
Doubtful. A cup of espresso rested by her plate. A teenager, probably.
Don’t think of Marta. Don’t think of anything but getting out of this house alive.
Now she and Wald were in the living room, passing the sofa with Oxford stripe slipcovers, the silverado chest that served as a coffee table, the sea grass rug under the rattan magazine basket.
Trish scanned the room, alert for likely hiding places. To her left a door stood slightly ajar, darkness behind it. Most likely it opened on a den or study.
The doorway offered a clear view of both the foyer and the dining area. At least one of the intruders must be watching from that position.
Her hand brushed her holster. She couldn’t draw her gun without precipitating an attack.
Charles shadowed them, smiling anxiously. “Really a shame you had to come all the way out here.”
Wald nodded. “That’s all right. Hope your little girl feels better in the morning.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing we can’t take care of, I mean. Yes. We’ll take care of it.”
He was babbling, his voice uncomfortably loud. Trish wished he would shut up.
“Just a headache, after all,” Charles added. “It’ll pass.”
Damn. He’d just made a mistake. Barbara said Ally had an upset stomach, not a headache.
Had their hidden observers noticed Suspicions aroused, were they preparing to strike
She and Wald reached the foyer. Front door ahead, standing open.
The thought flashed in her mind that the foyer was the perfect place for an ambush. Tight space, little room to maneuver.
Carpet gave way to tile. She followed Wald toward the door, her back to the den. A marksman would aim midway between her shoulder blades. A clean hit would cut her down before she heard the gun’s report.
Five feet to go. Three.
Wald, nearly on the threshold, glanced back. ” ‘Night, Mr. Kent.”
Charles lingered in the living room. He seemed unable to answer, merely raised a hand in a shaky wave.
And still nothing had happened.
Trish allowed herself to hope they were going to make it, and then she remembered the coat closet opposite the potted plant.
Instantly she knew.
Too late.
The closet door blurred open, two ski-masked figures rushing out.
Panic burst like fireworks in her mind. For a heartbeat she stood paralyzed.
Wald reacted faster. With a backward lunge he threw himself clear of the closet, perhaps trying to shield her, perhaps simply putting distance between himself and the assailants.
His hand scrabbled at his service revolver, and Trish heard a single percussive beat, like the muffled pop of a champagne cork.
She didn’t realize a shot had been fired until spray misted her hair, and then she saw Wald’s face was gone, erased in a cloud of blood.
He toppled, dead weight, his gun belt clanking on the tile floor as he thudded down, and now there was nothing between her and two lifted pistols targeting her heart.
Her revolver was only halfway out of the holster. Useless.
Trish froze, knowing with total clarity that this was the final moment of her life.
From the den, a man’s voice.
“Wait.”
15
Silence, stillness, her racing heart.
Wait, someone had said, and she was still alive, still in the world.
The two killers glanced toward the den. She followed their gaze and saw a man in the doorway, masked like the others, watching her.
“Hands up,” he said without emphasis or inflection.
Shakily she complied. Her pulse throbbed in her neck. The pungent odor crowding her nostrils was the reek of her own sweat.
“Hook her.”
The thugs shoved her sideways, her face flush against the wall, rhododendron leaves in her hair. Pain flared in her shoulders as her arms were wrenched behind her back. From her gun belt, handcuffs were appropriated, the steel rings locking on her wrists.
Manacled, she was helpless, at the mercy of Wald’s murderers.
She fought to suppress the nausea coiling in her belly as the service revolver was removed from her holster, her trouser legs methodically patted down in a fruitless search for an ankle gun.
They’d blown Wald away without hesitation. Was she next Or would they keep her alive now that she posed no threat They had no reason to kill her, but were they likely to be reasonable
She was panting but couldn’t get any air.
Never should’ve become a cop. Must have been insane.
Gloved hands closed over her shoulders. One of the thugs hustled her out of the foyer while his partner held a gun to her face. The suppressor tube nuzzled her cheek with cold affection.
Leaving, she threw a backward glance at Wald, his head a blasted ruin, one eye staring. A stain discolored his crotch; at the moment of death his bladder had released.
He was the first cop killed in the line of duty in the department’s history. She could be the second. Strangers would leave flowers at her grave.
Stop it.
The living room and dining area seemed immense after the foyer’s claustrophobic narrowness. She blinked at light and space.
Charles Kent leaned on the mantel, his tan drained by shock. Blood speckled his navy blazer. He’d been standing close enough to be peppered by Wald’s arterial spray.
Trish glanced down at her shirt, and her stomach flipped as she saw dark blemishes on the blue fabric, wet and irregular like spattered pasta sauce.
The three people at the table were still seated in their frozen poses, now overtly guarded by a fourth gunman. They hadn’t heard the silenced shot, hadn’t seen Wald go down, and only when Trish was hauled in, blood soaking the front of her uniform, did they fully understand what had happened.
Judy Danforth started murmuring quietly, one hand on a silver bauble dangling from her neck. The bauble might have been a crucifix, and the murmurs might have been prayers. Philip’s mouth worked but produced no sound.
From a rear hallway a fifth killer appeared, training a gun on a high school girl, her eyes red from crying.
Ally, of course. Barbara Kent made a small, shuddering noise of relief when she saw her daughter alive.
The girl was pushed roughly into her chair. Her escort, Trish noted, was shorter and slighter than the others. A woman Yes.
Had Wald been here, he might have made some crack about an underdeveloped maternal instinct, flashing his wry grin.
Forget Wald. Wald was gone. She was on her own. She had to handle things.
What was she trained to do
Observe. Remember. So later she could make a report.
If there was a later. If this wasn’t the end.
She memorized details of the killers’ attire and equipment. The guns looked like Glocks. A 9mm Glock was a combat handgun, as efficient and deadly as any firearm available.
“Bring her here.”
The man from the den.
He sat on the arm of a sofa as the two killers hustled Trish across the room, each gripping one elbow, steering her with painful twists of her arms.
She stopped a yard from him. He studied her with a cold appraising gaze, his eyes gray and shrewd and empty of compassion, and she stared back, trying not to flinch, wishing she could shut out the beating furor in her head.
“You’re a kid,” he said finally, the words punctuated by a derisive snort.
; She lifted her chin. “I’m a patrol officer.”
The thug to her left giggled.
“A patrol officer,” the man echoed with patronizing politeness. “Well, of course you are. Been on the street long. Officer Robinson”
“Little while.” Her lips were very dry. She found it difficult to form words.
“Couple years”
“About.”
“Couple weeks is more like it. I can smell a rookie. A boot, they call ‘em. You a boot, Officer Robinson”
She knew her silence said yes.
“How old are you Wait, let me guess. Seventeen”
Anger throbbed in her, side by side with fear. She said nothing.
The female killer moved closer to the sofa, watching her with feral fascination, a predatory animal absorbed in scrutiny of its next kill.
“Are you seventeen, Officer Robinson” the man pressed. “Or haven’t you made it that far”
Baited, she answered. “I’m twenty-four.”
“That old” Feigned surprise. “You don’t look it. I’ll bet you still get carded. What’s your first name”
She wouldn’t speak again.
A flip of his wrist, and instantly the thugs who flanked her were emptying her pockets.
She stood motionless as they turned out the linings. Past the sofa she could see the people in the dining area, watching ashen-faced. Waiting for her to die as Wald had died, not wanting to see it when it happened, yet unable to turn away.
Every feature of her surroundings stood out with sharp clarity. Oversized book on a glass end table. Small discoloration in the sofa’s upholstery. Lost penny glinting on the carpet near a wicker wastebasket.
Her mother always said that any day you found a penny was your lucky day. Was this her lucky day She didn’t think so.
Her I.D. holder was tossed to the man in charge. He passed it unopened to the woman, who examined the police identification card inside.
“Patricia A. Robinson,” she reported, speaking the name slowly, savoring it as a spider savors the leisurely ingestion of a fly. A lisp slurred the sibilant sounds.
The gray eyes narrowed. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Patricia A. Robinson. What does the A stand for Amateur”
Laughter from the thugs flanking her.
“Annette,” Trish whispered.
“Annette Very nice. Very wholesome. Wasn’t there a Mouseketeer by that name”
She swallowed slowly.
“Were you a Mouseketeer, Officer Robinson”
“No.”
“Or a Girl Scout That seems more your style. I’ll bet you were a Girl Scout. Sold a lot of cookies. Am I right”
The hell of it was that she had indeed been a Girl Scout. But she would never admit it to this man.
“Way off base,” she breathed.
“I don’t think so. You’re the all-American girl, Officer Robinson. What do your friends call you, anyway Pat Patty Patsy, maybe You look like a Patsy to me.”
New giggles from her left. The thug on her right clucked his tongue behind his mask.
“Trish,” she said without expression.
“Trish. Even better. Well, that’s what I’ll call you, because I’m your friend, too. We’re all your friends. You know that, don’t you, Trish”
She used the only threat she could think of. “This was a priority call. Other units are in the vicinity. They’ll be here-“
“Unless you get on your radio”-the man interrupted so smoothly as to suggest an unbroken line of thought-“and say everything’s okay.”
So that was why he hadn’t let them shoot her.
“Of course,” he continued in the same conversational tone, “it’s always possible you’d be tempted to try something stupid. Like trying to warn the dispatcher.”
Raising his pistol, he thumbed a pressure switch at the rear of the handle. A diode on the trigger guard beamed a thread of red-orange light along the target acquisition line.
Laser sighting system.
She could almost feel the pinpoint of low intensity light on her forehead. The bullet would enter just above the bridge of her nose.
He nodded as if reading her mind. “You got it, Trish. Do anything dumb, and I’ll put a jacketed hollowpoint right between those pretty blue eyes.”
She felt herself shaking. Couldn’t help it.
“Now, I don’t think you’re foolish enough to throw away your young life. But I could be wrong. Maybe I’m dealing with some kind of hero.” The gray eyes glittered with dark mirth. “So here’s my hole card.”
He nodded toward the dining area, and the killer guarding the table put his gun to Ally’s neck.
Reflexively the girl stiffened in her chair. Barbara groaned, and Judy went on stroking her crucifix.
“Any bravery on your part,” the man said, “and the young lady dies too.”
Trish stared across the room into Ally’s wide brown eyes and saw another, younger girl.
“I won’t try anything,” she whispered.
Slowly the man inclined his head. “All right, then. Get on the horn and say you found no problems here. Your unit’s leaving the scene, and you’re requesting a code seven.”
Code seven: out of service. It wasn’t entirely a lie. Wald was code seven, all right-permanently code seven-and she soon might follow.
“Okay,” she said, her voice husky and low.
“Do it.”
The thug to her left unclipped the radio from her belt and pushed it close to her face.
“Which channel” the gray-eyed man asked her.
“One.”
The thug activated channel one, taking the transceiver off the scan mode, then pressed the transmit button.
“Four-Adam-eight-one.” Somehow Trish kept her voice even.
Crackle of static, then Lou’s response: “Go ahead, eight-one.”
“We’re clear of the detail. No sign of a prowler.”
“Guess Pete was right. You didn’t need backup.”
“Ten-four.”
“Hey, is that the Kent place”
Oh, God. Slow night, and Lou wanted to chat.
“Ten-four,” Trish said again, hoping her stiff formality would preclude further conversation.
It didn’t. “Thought I recognized the address. I was there on a house tour once. Nice digs.”
Suddenly Trish saw a way to drop a hint, a very subtle hint but perhaps one Lou would pick up. Pete Wald had said Sergeant Edinger gave the same lecture to every rookie. Lou, who’d worked at the station for twenty years, surely would be familiar with the routine.
“Yeah, it’s nice.” Trish tried to sound normal, but it was hard to do with those deadly gray eyes watching her intently. “A lot like some places I’ve seen in L.A.”
“L.A.” Dubious.
“You know, Bel-Air, Beverly Hills. Ed and I were just talking about that.” Come on, Lou, read my mind. “About how things are in L.A.”
“Funny. Never knew Ed to pay any attention to architecture. And I don’t know when was the last time he was down in the city.”
Clearly the message hadn’t gotten through. Worse, Trish had aroused the suspicions of her captors. Restless stirring around her. A pent-up explosion in the air.
The gray-eyed man made an angry cutting motion: Wrap it up.
“Anyway,” Trish said, her heart beating faster, “we’d like to go code seven now.”
“Hey, your watch just started. What gives Pete taking a nap”
“You know it.” A long nap, Trish thought, wondering if it was about to be nap time for her, too.
“Request granted.” Lou signed off. “Twenty twenty-eight.”
The radio was withdrawn. Trish waited, afraid she had pressed her luck too far. She hoped Ally wouldn’t pay the price. Please, not her.
“What was that all about, Trish” the gray-eyed man said with cold amiability.
“Nothing. Lou wanted to talk, that’s all.”
“L.A. Someone named Ed. Where’d
that come from”
“I was just, you know, making conversation. Ed’s a guy who works at the station. He used to live in L.A., still talks about it a lot. It didn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I don’t trust you, Trish.”
“I did what you wanted.”
“You tried to mess with me.”
“No.”
He turned to the woman at his side. “How about it Can you sound like her”
“Easy.” She lisped the word.
Then her breathy voice altered its pitch, climbing an octave higher, and the lisp was magically gone, her delivery clear and sharp.
“Four-Adam-eight-one. We’re clear of the detail. We’ll be going code seven.”
The mimicry was more than adequate.
Her boss nodded, then looked at Trish again. “My associate can pass for you. I’ll feed her the codes and phrases.”
The implication wasn’t subtle. Trish’s wrists twisted uselessly behind her back.
“Won’t work,” she whispered. “Lou knows me. We talk all the time.”
“If we keep the transmission short, we can pull it off. These rover radios are crap anyway. All the voices sound pretty much alike.” He said it then, said what everyone was thinking. “I don’t need you, Patricia Annette Robinson.”
No more words. Rigid, she waited for the bullet.
The man watched her a moment longer. Then his gaze shifted, focusing on the killer to her right.
Some silent message passed between them, instantaneous as a spark, and the butt of a pistol clipped her hard behind the ear.
Coldcocked.
Trish had time to think it was better than getting shot. Then pain washed over her in a stinging wave, its undertow dragging her away.
Her last thought was a question: Will I ever wake up
Then no questions, no fear, only a humming void and a wordless sense of peace.
16
Cain watched Trish Robinson drop to the carpet in a graceless sprawl. A spasm ran briefly through her body, and she made a low retching noise, coughing up spittle, then lay still.
“You should have iced her.” Agitation brought back Lilith’s lisp, making her sound like a petulant child. “I wanted to see that.”