by Matt Coyle
Sierra locked the front door and met me at the rail. I heard a rumble from the street that sent a frozen buzz up my spine. The loud purr of an American muscle car. Like a 1970s Trans Am. A flash of black cruised by the parking lot of the apartment building. Wayne Delk’s Trans Am, or its clone.
I turned to Sierra. “Is there a back way outta here?”
“There’s a gate to the alley on the side.” Big eyes. Tight mouth. Fear.
I grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the far staircase. “Go!”
She bolted for the staircase and I followed, lugging her suitcase and glancing over my shoulder at the street. No sign of the Trans Am, Delk, or any other Raptors. We shuffled down the stairs, and Sierra led me to the gate of an ivy-covered chain-link fence that separated the apartment complex from the alley. A car door slammed in the alley when we were two feet from the gate. And then another one.
I froze. Sierra grabbed my arm and pulled. I let her lead me around the back of the apartment building. We slipped in between two dumpsters and crouched down.
I pulled the gun out of my pocket. My hand trembled slightly. I put the gun down to my side so Sierra couldn’t see it shake. Two sets of footsteps thundering up the staircase vibrated the apartment building. I glanced at Sierra. In the dark, I could only see the outline of her head and the huge round whites of her eyes. Fists hammering on a door upstairs shook the building and echoed through the courtyard. The Raptors had made it to Sierra’s apartment. The whites of her eyes grew wider.
“Hey, you’re shaking the—oh, sorry, bro.” A neighbor’s voice. Fear hung off the last three words.
“Where’s Sierra and her brother?” Not Delk, but just as menacing.
“She just took off running down the stairs with some dude about a minute ago.”
Footsteps pounded down the front stairs. I gripped the gun tighter in my hand. It still shook. The clomp-clomp of boots on cement. A car door opened and slammed shut. Just one. The two Raptors had separated. The Trans Am fired up and peeled out of the alley. Running footsteps faded away.
“Where’s your car?” I whispered to Sierra.
“Trey took it.”
“What’s your phone number?” She gave it to me and I punched it into my phone. I gave her mine and had her do the same.
“I need to go get my car. I’ll be right back. Do you have a friend here you can stay with for a few minutes?”
“I just moved in here a few weeks ago. I don’t really know anybody.”
“Then just stay here. I’ll be right back. Put your phone on vibrate and stay here and wait for my call. If you think they’ve come back, call me and then call the police. I can get back here in less than a minute.”
I stood up and Sierra grabbed my arm. “Don’t leave me here alone. Let me go with you.”
“I need to make sure it’s safe first.” The Raptors may have spotted my Mustang and been out on the street waiting.
“Please.” She still held my arm, fingernails digging into my leather coat.
I pulled her hand off my arm and held it in my own. Then I put the .38 Special in it. “You ever fire one of these?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Just point and squeeze the trigger. It doesn’t have a safety, so if you pull the trigger, make sure you mean it.”
“I don’t think I can.” Her voice trembled like my hand had when I held the gun.
I didn’t think I could, either. And I wasn’t ready to force myself to find out. “You won’t have to. They won’t come back here. Not for a while. It’s just a precaution. I’ll call when it’s safe.”
I broke from Sierra before she could argue again and stayed close to the side of the building as I circled around to the front. I paused at the front edge of apartment #1 and scanned the courtyard, the parking lot, and then the street.
Clear.
But somewhere out there, Wayne Delk or someone just as dangerous was circling the streets in two thousand pounds of black death, and one of his men was on foot. Sierra Fellows now had the gun I’d pulled off Delk, but I still had the blackjack I’d used to take him down. I slipped my hand into my coat pocket just to be sure. Still there. I knew what damage I could do with it. A gun was still a question mark and might always be.
I eased through the lighted parking lot and then crossed the street to the darkened sidewalk.
Apartment buildings stood next to each other as the street pulled back away from the beach. Some with lighted parking lots. Most not. I stayed in the shadows, ears and eyes on high alert.
A half block from my car, I turned right on the next cross street, and jogged along it until it hit Brighton Avenue, which ran parallel to Long Branch. I hurried up Brighton to the next cross so I could approach my car from behind. If a Raptor was there, he’d expect me to come from the direction of Sierra’s apartment building.
If I had to fight, I’d have the element of surprise and the blackjack in my pocket. A Raptor might have a gun. I gripped the blackjack and pulled it out. When I hit Long Branch, I stayed on the opposite side of the street from where my car was parked and walked slowly down the sidewalk.
Single-family homes had supplanted apartment buildings on this end of Long Branch. There were trees in front yards, hedges, and the occasional white picket fence. All possible hiding spots for Delk or his men. And for me.
I stopped behind an elm tree across the street and two houses down from my car. The house I’d parked in front of had a vine-covered picket fence about three feet high in front of it. I studied the fence and didn’t see a head poking above it. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one attached to a Raptor hiding on the other side.
A large pepper tree grew in the next-door neighbor’s yard abutting the picket fence. I focused my eyes on it, willing them to see through the dark, behind fences, and around trees. Nothing. Lights from a car rolled down the street. Not loud enough to be the Trans Am. I dropped lower behind the elm, but kept my eyes on the pepper tree. The car lights hit it, and I saw a flash of something dark, then it disappeared as the lights moved past. I kept staring at the tree. Nothing. No movement. The flash could have been a dark bit of bark, a shadow caught in the car lights, my imagination. Or it could have been a man’s beard.
My bet was on the beard.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I angled across the street, well behind my car, eyeing the pepper tree the whole way. No movement, no beard, no nothing. My gut told me I’d seen a beard and there was a Raptor behind the pepper tree waiting for me to approach my car. I wasn’t going to disappoint him. I silently walked toward the car and pulled my car key fob out of my pocket, careful not to let the keys jingle. Key fob in my left hand, blackjack in my right, I crept up to within fifteen feet of the tree. I stared at the back of the tree like I was trying to read the bottom line of an eye chart. Then the outline of a man snug against the tree slowly took shape.
Whoever he was, he was big. That’s the way the Raptors grew them. I tried to locate his hands to see if he had a weapon. Too dark. I carefully took another step closer, but my foot caught a pebble and it scratched along the sidewalk. I jabbed the key fob twice to draw attention away from me toward the car. The Mustang’s warning lights flashed and the horn sounded.
The outline jerked in the direction of the car. I bolted toward it and swung the blackjack down onto the back of the man’s head. He crumpled down hard and a crowbar clattered across the sidewalk. I pounced on top of the man and turned him over onto his back. Unconscious. I didn’t recognize him. Husky, black beard, leather jacket. A Raptor soldier. I rifled his pockets until I found a cell phone. I heaved the phone as far as I could and heard it crash down onto the street. The Raptor wouldn’t be able to call Delk, or whoever was driving the Trans Am, or anyone else when he came to.
The porch lights flashed on from the house with the pepper tree and the front door whipped open. I sprang up and dashed to my car and jumped inside.
“Hey!” A man’s voice.
I throttle
d the ignition and tore down the street, then yanked out my cell phone and called Sierra.
“Hello?”
“Out front. Now.”
I hung up and heard a low rumble in the distance behind me. Delk’s Trans Am was out there somewhere searching for Sierra and me, just a couple blocks away. I slammed to a stop in front of Sierra’s apartment building. No Sierra. The Trans Am rumble grew louder. Closer.
I fought the urge to hit the horn. Finally, Sierra trudged across the parking lot, both hands lugging her wheel-less ancient suitcase against her petite body. I jumped out of the car, ran over to Sierra, grabbed the suitcase, hustled her to the car, and threw it in the backseat. Just as Sierra and I slammed our doors in unison, I heard the siren.
Shit.
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
Must have been the man who owned the pepper-tree house. I prayed that he didn’t get a good look at me or catch a glimpse of my license plate. Thank God for the dearth of streetlights on Long Branch.
After blowing my opportunity to lie in wait and assault Wayne Delk, I’d managed the deed against one of his minions. The fact that he’d been lying in wait for me and was armed with a crowbar might be mitigating circumstances if it ever went to trial. Cold solace.
I gunned the car down the street but eased the clutch enough not to squeal the tires. We made it onto Sunset Cliffs and out of Ocean Beach without a tail by either the police or the Trans Am. Safe. For now. I turned on my police scanner and listened for a possible 242: battery, what I did to the Raptor, or a BOLO, Be On the Look Out, for a black 2006 Mustang GT. Nothing.
Sierra sat quietly, staring at her side view mirror. When we hit Interstate 8, she turned and faced me.
“Maybe we should call the police,” she said.
“We could, but I’m not sure what we’d tell them. That some bikers came looking for you and your drug-dealing brother? We don’t really have enough to press charges and, without that, I doubt SDPD is going to use scarce manpower to guard you twenty-four/seven.”
Not to mention the fact that, without too much twisting of the story, I could be arrested for assaulting two Raptors. I doubted that it would come to that, but I didn’t want to take the chance. The Raptors would dole out their own brand of justice when they had the opportunity. That’s what I really had to worry about.
“I guess you’re right.” She slumped down in her seat.
“Look, I know you’re scared. I don’t blame you. But I’ll put you up in a hotel tonight where you’ll be safe.” I exited I-8 onto 805 North. I wasn’t sure where we were going yet, but north felt safer than south. “The Raptors are after Trey, not you. They took a shot that he might be with you, and it almost worked. Now that you’ve disappeared, they’ll focus all their attention on finding Trey. That’s why I need you to tell me where he is, so I can help him.”
“I don’t know where he is.” She looked out her window.
“Sierra, I can help him, but you have to tell me where he is.”
“I told you. I don’t know where he is!” Still wouldn’t face me. Still lying.
“Then call him and tell him to meet us somewhere.”
She turned from the window and looked down at her hands. She took a deep breath and let it out. “He threw away his phone. He said he’s going to buy another one and call me when he can. But I don’t know when. I don’t know how to get a hold of him.”
Trey had gotten rid of his personal cell phone and would buy untraceable burners in its place. No one could track him through the GPS from his cell phone. Smart. Trey was thinking. Good. That would keep him alive for a while. I just had to find him before the Raptors did.
“But you know where he was going. Come on, Sierra. You gotta tell me. You know he’s in danger. Where did he go?”
“He said he was going back to get the rest of his stash and then he was going to leave town for a while.”
Bingo. Candlelight Drive.
Trey had gone from safe and smart to endangered and stupid in thirty seconds. If the police caught him with five pounds of marijuana, they wouldn’t need a frame job to put him away for a while. And even if Timothy Buckley could get him released to testify in court on behalf of Randall Eddington, Trey’s credibility would be shot.
On the other hand, if the Raptors caught up with Trey before the cops did, his whole body could end up being shot. The Candlelight address had been on a piece of paper in the ashtray of Wayne Delk’s car. His men might be racing over there right now. Or, worse yet, they may already be there waiting inside the house. Trey could be heading into an ambush, and I had no way to warn him. I couldn’t call the cops and send them over to find Trey walking out with five pounds of weed. I was his only hope.
By taking I-8 to the 805, I’d pushed us way east of where we needed to go. It would take at least ten minutes to get to Candlelight. Ten minutes Trey Fellows might not have. I gunned the Mustang up to eighty-five, hit Highway 52, and took it until it emptied into La Jolla.
“Where are we going?” Sierra asked, as we went up winding Hidden Valley Road to the steep serpentine climb of Via Capri.
“To find your brother.” I didn’t tell her that the Raptors might already be way ahead of us. She was scared enough.
We took Via Capri all the way up to the top of Mount Soledad and circled by the cross and war memorial. A favorite place to visit with my father as a child. Now forever a dark beacon of death inhabited by the man with the black staring eyes from my nightmares.
I pushed the nightmares aside and sped down the winding back side of Soledad Mountain. Three minutes later, I turned down Candlelight Drive. No sign of Sierra’s yellow VW or Raptor trucks, Trans Ams, or motorcycles. Good. Unless the damage had already been done. I drove past 5564 and parked around the corner on Lamplight.
Sierra sat rigid. A statue. Her eyes, below blond bangs, round in permanent fear.
“You know how to drive a stick?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Let me have your phone for a second.” She handed me her phone, and I punched in Buckley’s cell number but didn’t hit send. “If I’m not back in five minutes, or if you see biker types coming down the street or a police car drive by, go check into a hotel. A nice one with a lobby and multiple floors. Call this number and tell the man who answers what happened tonight.”
I handed her back the phone.
“Can’t we just go now?” Eyes big and voice high pitched. “My car’s not here, so Trey isn’t either.”
She was probably right, but I didn’t want to tell her that I needed to make sure that Trey wasn’t lying injured in the house. Or worse.
“Sierra,” I gently grasped her wrists. “You’re going to be fine, and I’ll be back in a couple minutes. If for some reason I’m not, just do what I told you. Okay?”
She nodded her head.
“Okay. Now give me back the gun I gave you.” I wasn’t going into a possible Raptor ambush unarmed. I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out if I could ever pull a trigger again.
“The gun?” Sierra’s eyebrows went up. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets and pulled them out empty. “I…I think I left it back behind the apartment building.”
The good news was that I wouldn’t have to face my fears. The bad news was that I might have to face armed Raptors without a gun. I fingered the blackjack in my coat pocket. It had worked twice tonight. Would three times make me charmed?
“That’s okay. I won’t need it.” I prayed.
“I’m sorry.” She looked like she was about to cry.
“Don’t worry. Remember what I told you. Now come around and get in the driver’s side.”
I got out of the car, and Sierra took my place behind the wheel. I walked along the sidewalk and turned left up the hill on Candlelight. No one else was outside and there were only a few lights on in the homes along the street. It was close to midnight and this was a hard-working, middle-class neighborhood.
One of the homes w
ith lights on was Trey’s old hideout. Good. If someone had been in there waiting to attack whoever came through the door, they would have wanted the cover of darkness. I felt better about not having a gun. But not by much.
I avoided the light coming through the kitchen window and went up to the front door, making sure no one in the neighborhood was staring out a window. Clear. I’d forgotten to grab my lock-pick set from the trunk of the car. Shit. Maybe I’d get lucky.
I tried the doorknob. Unlocked. Because Trey had left in a hurry and hadn’t locked up? Or because the Raptors wanted to make it easy for him to walk into a trap? I took a deep breath and pressed my luck.
I pushed the door open six inches and realized I’d been wrong on both counts. The sickly sweet and rancid smell of undiscovered death wafted out of the house. I’d smelled it before back on the job in Santa Barbara. This wasn’t overpowering like a cloistered old woman who’d been found a week too late. This was fresh. Certainly not someone who’d been killed in the last half hour like Trey would had to have been. There wouldn’t yet be an odor. But probably no more than a day old.
I could either call the police or find out who it was on my own. Or I could close the door and leave right now. Candlelight Drive was in La Jolla and LJPD would handle the investigation. The dead body inside could have been planted there by the Raptors to set up Trey so he couldn’t testify against their leader, Steven Lunsdorf. LJPD had their own reasons to keep Trey from testifying in a hearing to free Randall Eddington. They weren’t likely to look past a murder rap against Trey dished up to them on a silver platter.
But Trey might still be in the house. Alive. Or dead.
I pushed the door open and went inside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The stink pressed against me like a sheet of chain mail. The reason for it lay in the foyer that led to the living room. A large man was splayed out facedown on the floor. A halo of dried black blood circled his head. A black hole, smaller than a penny, stared out from behind his left ear. Black stippling from gunpowder dotted the bare skin around the hole. He’d been shot at close range. Like the killer had been waiting behind the front door and shot the man when he entered the house. The dried blood around his head came from what must have been a gaping exit wound out the man’s face. I didn’t have to or want to see it. The man wore a black leather Raptor jacket.