by ML Gamble
The man screamed in rage and surprise and pain. The gun flew when Molly lunged toward him, swinging the satchel full of guns and plates and peanut butter jars smack into the man’s forehead. She was gratified to see the blond-haired man, who had nearly killed her last night, lying like a sack of old laundry on the floor.
Molly picked up the gun, the third in her rapidly growing collection, stuck it in the satchel and tried to think what to do next. If someone walked in, she would never be able to explain.
Hide the body, a voice inside her skull instructed. Without a moment’s hesitation, she dragged the unconscious man into the stall next to Alec and left him in a sitting position against the wall. She locked the door from inside and crawled underneath to find Alec.
He was sprawled across the commode, his head resting against the paper dispenser. He looked dead. Molly did not allow herself to accept that as a possibility.
With both hands, she grabbed his shirt, immediately realizing how hot his skin was. “He’s burning up,” she said, the echo of her voice reverberating throughout the small space.
Alec’s eyes fluttered and he made a movement as if he were going to fall. “Peggy,” he mumbled. “It’s okay.”
“It will be, Alec. Hang on to me.”
Somehow she got him on his feet and out of the stall. She half carried, half dragged him out of the bathroom into the lounge and propped him against the couch. Then she grabbed the phone. “Dr. Chen, are you still there?”
“Molly? What’s going on? Where’s Alec?”
“He’s here but he’s really, really sick. I need to get him somewhere quiet. Are you going to be able to come to the island?”
“Yes. Tonight. On a chartered helicopter out of Redondo Beach. It lands at 8:40.” The doctor’s voice dropped ominously. “Molly, things are very, very bad for you two. The police, the newspapers are both saying you are wanted for murder. I’m so worried.”
“Don’t worry, Alicia. Just come. I’ll either be here or I’ll call you at this same phone booth and tell you how to find us. You keep the number, okay? I’ve got to go, right now.”
“All right, Molly. I’ll see you one way or the other tonight. Godspeed.”
Molly hung up the phone. Alec’s eyes were open and he was staring at her as if he had never seen her before in his life. She somehow got him to his feet and out the door of the terminal without being stopped. The cop and his car were no longer to be seen.
“One tiny break,” Molly whispered to Alec as they finally made it back to the stolen truck. “Now all I have to do is remember how to hot-wire this thing, find a lodge in the middle of nowhere and keep you alive. If I can do that, it will be a good day.”
It was a big if, and she knew it. But she had no intention of letting anything stop her now.
* * *
AT 10:40, Trent picked up the pay phone and made a second call to the Maryland Relay number. This time he was patched through to a voice-mail system.
“Mr. Trent, please press one and the numbers of your prearranged security code to retrieve your messages.”
With a bruised finger, Trent punched in the code and listened. A series of clicks told him he was being patched through a private network of circuits to the phone in interview room number one of the Summer Point Jail.
Frederick Brooker answered. “Mr. Trent, you are twenty-five minutes late.”
Trent braced his hand against his forehead. It was the only thing that helped him control the pain enough to talk. “I’m sorry. What do you want me to do here?”
“You’re sure about the poachers?”
“Yes. I saw two of them knock your pigeon out last night. I don’t know what went on, but he’s loose. He’s with the girl. I think they just left on the shuttle to San Diego.”
“You did nothing about this?”
“No,” Trent replied, leaning against the booth to keep his weight off his sprained knee. For an instant, his mind wandered to Molly Jakes. He was going to kill her for his own personal satisfaction. Soon.
“Come back. I’m sending someone else to deal with this. My plan was for this to be taken care of before Tuesday, but...” Brooker let his voice trail off to humiliate the man on the other end of the line even more. The man’s failure wasn’t really important to the overall plan. His own preparations had seen to that. Brooker was a man who employed many people but depended on no one.
“I’ll be in touch,” Trent rasped.
Brooker stared at the receiver a second, then hung up. He looked across the table at his attorney. “Did you get that catalog I asked you to bring? The October issue? It has a most remarkable miniature radio-control device. Made completely of cellulose. I’m very anxious to see it and send it to my son. He’s an expert on radio-control motors, you know. Only fourteen years old.” Brooker thought briefly of his life at fourteen, then turned off his thoughts before any of the pain could return.
“You’ve told me about your son. You must be very proud.” Mason Weil handed the catalog across the table so the guard could peruse it for drugs, weapons or explosives. The sergeant glanced at it, shook it, then handed it to Brooker and withdrew to the corner of the room.
“Thank you, Mason,” Brooker replied. “When I’m out of here, I’m going to take Erik to Germany to visit the plant that manufactures these. Possibly a good investment for Erik, down the road.”
Mason Weil nodded approvingly and decided Brooker was recovering rapidly from his near-fatal “accident” in the prison kitchen. “I may have a lead on Swenson, the man you thought might have been behind the kitchen thing.”
Brooker smiled and glanced at the guard in the corner. “Don’t waste any more time on that,” he said. “It’s forgotten. Taken care of,” he added in a whisper.
“I see,” the attorney replied carefully. He scribbled a note on the yellow pad and moved on to the next item on his list as Brooker continued to turn the pages of the catalog.
“We filed the motion I discussed. We should hear by 5:00 p.m.”
“Good.”
The attorney admired his client’s faith that he would be set free but worried at the source of his optimism. The district attorney’s office and police department had been joined by some suits from the FBI. Someone had tipped them off that Brooker had hired a known hit man, one Gerald Trent of Dublin, to kill Alec.
They were putting a lot of pressure on Mason’s firm about Brooker’s connection to the murders in Mission Verde and the disappearance of the two star witnesses in the trial.
Weil had told them, quite honestly, that he had absolutely no information about any of the happenings of the past few days. He had filed a motion on Thursday for a mistrial. That motion had been denied. He’d filed another one today, which probably would also be denied.
With any luck, the bodies of Alec Steele and/or Molly Jakes would turn up by Monday, thus saving him from having to file a third. After all, if the witnesses were “unavailable,” as he had been quoted in today’s edition of the Times, well, then, Mason would be done with Frederick Brooker for good. Except, of course, for cashing the checks.
That, after all, was what American justice was all about.
Weil straightened his tie and sniffed the air. Not that he ever actually went to the bank anymore. He had three administrative assistants and two law clerks who did that for him, and an accountant and bookkeeper.
Glancing at Brooker, who was completely absorbed in his catalog, the attorney picked up a yellow pad and wrote down a few errands for one of the law clerks to do. When he was finished, he said, “Well, Mr. Brooker, I think we’re done for now.”
Brooker waved him off with his gauze-wrapped hand and stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mason. Same time, same channel.”
With a most uncharacteristic smile, Brooker left the room.
Chapter Twelve
Frederick Brooker’s retreat was larger, more secluded and less appealing than Molly had imagined.
Fifteen miles from the city of Avalon, it was bui
lt on a low-lying piece of land that butted up against a scrub-covered hill. According to the historic landmark note on Alec’s map, the area was famous for wild-boar hunting in the 1920s. Molly parked the truck and wondered if wild boar were still in residence, but glanced at Alec, asleep and ashen-faced inside the stolen vehicle, and figured a few wild pigs were the least of her worries.
The house, a rustic, rambling single-storied structure of weathered planks, faced with stone glittering with the mineral known as fool’s gold, had the abandoned air of a place that no one had visited for years. Twenty yards behind the lodge and to the right was a two-storied wooden structure. Too small to be a barn, Molly thought, and judged it to be a garage of some kind, though the padlocked door at the front seemed a bit narrow for cars.
Molly hopped over a sagging log fence and crossed to the front door of the house, which was maybe fifteen hundred square feet in size. The brush had been cleared away from the yard, and a pile of firewood was stacked neatly against the side of the lodge, but the windows were covered with a thick layer of grime. For a moment she wondered about a caretaker, but dismissed that thought. If anything, Brooker probably had someone come by once or twice a year.
But what if this was one of those weekends? Shaking off her grim worries, Molly got down to the job at hand. She had expected the front door to have a strong lock and she wasn’t wrong. Well, now that she and Alec had stolen food, a boat, a truck, guns and money, breaking a window shouldn’t add much prison time, she thought sardonically. She went back to the truck, retrieved the ubiquitous satchels and returned to the house to set to work.
Within ten minutes, Molly had broken a window with one of the gun handles, entered and begun checking out the lodge. It was musty but serviceable, sparsely decorated with boring but sturdy furniture. The floors were wide-planked oak, dark with varnish and covered in several areas by hooked rugs. There was only one picture on the wall, a ten-by-twelve black-and-white photograph. It was of a toddler, a round-faced boy in jeans and a red shirt. He held a remote-control box, and a toy racing car lay at his feet.
Dark-eyed and Asian-looking, the child was beautiful, with an intelligent, watchful expression. Molly thought of the picture she had seen of Brooker and the teenager, and decided this must be a younger version of the child. This sign of parental affection and pride on the part of Frederick Brooker—a murderer, most likely the man behind the mayhem snapping at her and Alec’s heels—did not comfort her.
Lee Harvey Oswald had kids, Molly thought. So did most of the tyrants in history. Loving children was no guarantee one wouldn’t kill without batting an eye.
After rubbing her hands together to warm them, Molly stripped off the leather jacket. The first chore she tackled was building a fire in the potbellied stove. A cast-iron pail of kindling next to it, it sat in the large central room, which served as a living room and dining area. There was an electric match lying atop the stove. Magically, it worked. Once the fire was going, Molly began a search of the kitchen.
Surprisingly fresh water flowed from the pump into a stainless-steel sink. Tasting it a half teaspoon at a time, she judged it to be drinkable.
“It’ll probably kill me before morning,” she said aloud, feeling more and more nervous in the creaking, unfamiliar surroundings. Setting a teakettle to boil on top of the stove, Molly continued with a quick poke through the cabinets. There were dishes and pans, some paper goods, but no food save three cans of chili and one of mixed vegetables. There was a refrigerator, but it was empty and turned off.
The find of the day was in the last drawer she glanced into. A twelve-by-twelve-inch metal box, eight inches high, was wedged into the drawer. It had a red cross painted on the top and the words First Aid blazed in white letters.
Inside were bandages, alcohol wipes, gauze, a pair of tweezers and scissors, first-aid cream, an unopened bottle of aspirin and a small box of antihistamines. There was also a prescription bottle full of capsules. Molly held it up to the weak light filtering through the dirty windows.
The container was labeled for Erik Brooker. The instructions read: “Take one capsule three times a day with food.” It was a bottle of Augmentin, a wide-spectrum antibiotic she had once taken for strep throat. The expiration date was three months ago.
Gripping it in her fist, she decided to risk it. It shouldn’t make Alec any sicker, and it could give him a little jump on the infection before Alicia Chen arrived.
Cheered up a bit over her find, Molly continued her domestic chores and set about exploring the rest of the building. There were two bedrooms in the rear of the house, which shared an adjoining bath. Beyond the kitchen she found a smaller bedroom with bunk beds and a shower and sink. There was a narrow, locked room off that bedroom, not much wider than a closet.
There was no sign anywhere of a telephone or television, although there was an old-fashioned clock radio in the kitchen. When she had a moment, she would turn it on and find out how the search for her and the man outside was progressing.
Ignoring the wave of hunger that suddenly washed over her, Molly kept poking around. Inside the small bedroom she found sleeping bags and a cedar chest full of linens and blankets. The sheets smelled musty, but the blankets were zipped into plastic bags, and when she took them out, she found they were brand-new, pure wool and just what the doctor ordered for a house with a limited source of central heat.
Molly took two sleeping bags and three blankets and returned to the living room, opened one bag and draped it over the oversize corduroy sofa next to the stove. She tossed the other bag and the blankets onto the reclining chair next to the sofa and thought to herself that, even in the upright position, the recliner looked like a heavenly place to sleep for about thirty-six hours.
Suddenly worried that she had spent too much time away from Alec, Molly ran to the front and looked out. His blond head was still propped against the door. Hurrying across the yard, she opened the door of the truck. “Alec, Alec. Try to wake up.”
His eyelids fluttered open and he looked at Molly. “What’s happened?”
“We’re at Brooker’s lodge, Alec. I need you to help me as much as you can. I want to get you inside.”
“The Strewth is sinking. The generator’s shorted out,” Alec announced. “We’re not going to be able to get the pump to work.”
“What?”
“Can you swim?”
“No,” Molly replied. “But it’s okay, Alec. We’re going to be okay.”
His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped against her. Molly realized the fever was causing him to hallucinate. She felt his forehead. He seemed warmer than before. His skin was blotched-looking and very dry to the touch.
He was going to die, Molly thought, her panic sudden and overwhelming. She had met an improbable man during an impossible time, a man, she realized at that moment, who meant a great deal to her, and she was going to lose him. He was going to die before they had a chance to see what might develop between them. Alec was going to leave her all alone to face a million murder charges.
Fighting against the self-pity threatening to overtake her, Molly sucked in a huge lungful of air to calm herself and gently shook Alec’s arm. “Alec, you’ve got to try to stand and walk. You outweigh me by a hundred pounds, mate. I can’t do this alone.”
The stress and fatigue and despair in her voice seemed to cut through his fever. Alec opened his eyes and looked at Molly. “What’s wrong? Where are we?”
“Come with me now, Alec. Trust me. I’m trying to help you.”
“I’d trust you with my life, love.”
And he had, Molly realized. Somehow he found the strength to move out of the truck, though he leaned heavily against her and had to fight to remain conscious. A noise in the distance caught Molly’s attention and she looked around. Off to the east, over the ocean, a helicopter was on its approach to Catalina Island Airport.
The police had helicopters. The Coast Guard had helicopters. Hell, her mind chattered, even the forest range
rs had helicopters. Molly’s anxiety percolated up a degree. She had to get Alec inside the lodge and hide the truck. The barnlike building was the obvious choice, though she had no idea what was inside.
Even if she managed to fit the wide-beamed truck through the door, she realized, they would have to be very careful not to tip anyone flying over that they were in the house. Especially with smoke and lights. The lodge’s electricity was off, but she had seen plenty of candles in the kitchen. She would have to be cautious with those since none of the windows had any kind of drapery. The one thing about hiding in the middle of nowhere was that you could be approached from all directions and never know it.
“Walk, Alec. Come on, it’s not too far.”
He looked at her and sighed. “I’m sick, Molly girl.”
At least he recognized her, she thought. “I know you are, Alec, but you’re going to get better if you can make it inside. I’ll make some tea and some soup. Good tucker,” she coaxed. “Then we can both rest. Dr. Chen is coming tonight. But you have to help me by walking. It’s not much farther. Try to walk, Alec. Please try.”
Somehow he managed to move the twenty yards necessary, but Molly couldn’t keep him from collapsing like a felled tree once they crossed the entryway. With her heart pounding, she dragged him into the house by the cuffs of his jeans, went back out and closed the door.
She stopped at the sound of another aircraft in the area. A light plane was circling a few miles away. It seemed to have some type of seal on its side, and Molly panicked. She ran at top speed toward the wooden structure, looking up at the sky. She never saw the large boulder that caused her to stumble and fall. For a few seconds she lay there, wondering how it would be to give up. But Alec’s warnings about cops with drawn guns, as well as her own feelings of rage, got her back on her feet.
Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get the two of them together. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to kill and maim many others. Before she left this life, Molly promised herself, she was damn sure going to try to return at least some of the pain she and Alec had received.