Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  The room’s door was shut, locked, bolted and chained. Curtain hooks whizzed in the track. A light switch clicked. There was quiet movement, a bag was dropped nearby on a linoleum floor. Then someone drew near. Close. Body odor and cigarette breath invaded her nostrils.

  Without warning her head twisted and the hood was yanked off. She blinked, adjusting to the dim light that made everything in the room appear tinged with blood.

  A tall, muscle-bound man stood within a few feet of her. He was unshaven. He had short black hair, a disfigured ear, and sideburns tufting to his jaw in thick forests that thinned into a sea of growth reaching the beginnings of a moustache drooping over the rotting teeth of his sneer. His eyes traveled up and down her body.

  Ann felt the vibrations of her heart.

  The room was large. It looked clean. Two queen-sized beds. Large TV. A coffee table. A desk. A telephone. A lifeline? A sofa and sofa chair from where another big man studied her. He was in blue jeans, white T-shirt. Muscular, tattooed arms. Shaved head. Clean-skinned smooth face. His dark eyes locked onto hers, following them to the telephone.

  “Forget that,” he said. “You’ll do what you’re told. Understand?”

  Ann blinked once. She had it now from their voices. This one, the shaved-headed smooth-skinned one, was John. He seemed to be in charge. The other one with the misshapen ear and bad teeth was Del.

  “We’re going to take the tape off of your mouth, but don’t think about trying anything or making a sound. One: no one will hear you. And two,” John glanced at the man standing before her, “you’ll be punished.”

  The duct tape binding her wrists began clicking from her trembling.

  “Understand?”

  Ann shut her eyes.

  It’s a dream. A bad dream.

  “Do you understand, Ann?”

  She opened her eyes to meet his, then nodded once.

  “Good. All right then.”

  Del fumbled with the duct tape over her mouth, his big clumsy fingers stripping it, the adhesive side resisting, stretching her skin as though he were peeling it from her skull. It stung, but she swallowed her pain, working her sore jaw up and down as he sliced the tape from her wrists.

  “Go take a shower,” Del said.

  Shower? Then what? The beds. The threats. Don’t make a sound. You’ll be punished. Then what?

  Ann didn’t move until the air conditioner rattled to a dead-silent stop, making her flinch.

  “You do what we say,” John said. “Get in there. Shower. Put on fresh clothes from the bag.”

  Ann blinked back her tears, turned to the bathroom. Maybe there was a phone there? A window, door, a vent? Please, something. Del shoved her toward the bathroom.

  Inside, Ann locked the door, then fell against it to study the room. Beige walls and tile. No windows. No doors. No vents. Just a bathroom.

  No way out.

  Think. She had to do something. Anything.

  She started the shower, then turned to the vanity mirror over the sink, seeing herself for the first time since it happened. Shock and anguish had carved dark lines deep into her skin under blotches of dirt, nicks, and scrapes. Her hair was matted, gritted with sand and grime. She covered her mouth with her shaking hands. Her eyes glistened, remembering Zach and Tom—their faces—would she ever see them again? Their voices—would she ever hear them again? Aching to be with them. Hold them. The hot water hissing, her face fading in the steam clouding the mirror, until she was gone.

  Don’t give up.

  In the shower Ann sobbed, releasing her fear and panic. Del with the rotting teeth, deformed ear, and sideburns had whispered to her, “Don’t worry, darlin’. I’m going to get to you. Just like the other one.” Ann tingled with fear. She scrubbed furiously under the needles of hot water. “Do what we say”—as if she could cleanse herself free—“you’ll be punished”—scouring as she gasped for her life—“just like the other one”—feeling the first molten drops of rage burn in her gut against the indignity, against the violation her captors had inflicted.

  Don’t give up. Fight back. For your life. For Zach. For Tom. But there were two of them and they were big men. Strong men. Powerful men.

  Then think. You’re smart. Think. This is your life.

  Drying herself, Ann wrapped a towel around her, then examined the soiled, foul-smelling clothes she had worn. She retrieved Tom’s small gift from the jewelry store. She’d hidden it in her shoe, then her bra. It was her talisman. She squeezed it.

  That first night in the desert they’d yanked off her white silk blouse and tailored mauve suit, replacing them with dirty, torn jeans, a ripped and stained short-sleeved yellow blouse. The stains had dried brown. They had exchanged her clothes for something—someone—in the desert. The other one. Ann swallowed, then went to the bag. A dark green canvas bag. The tag inside said Carrie D. Addison. A San Francisco address.

  Who was she? What happened to her?

  The shovel. The pick. Digging. Ann knew. Carrie was the other one. Wasn’t she? Oh God. Oh, Carrie, dear God, whoever you are, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. Ann fought back her tears, her skin tingling as she struggled to push it all from her mind. She had no time. She swallowed. Took a deep breath.

  Think.

  She found fresh underwear, socks, clean jeans, a polo shirt, there was a woman’s toiletry bag. It had tampons, deodorant, toothpaste, a toothbrush, but she chose to use her fingers to clean her teeth. She found a hairbrush. After a few quick strokes, she rifled through the bag for anything to help. A cell phone. A gun. A knife. Something.

  There it was.

  She spotted it, seized it. Her mind accelerating, darting like a fleeing swallow. Hurry. This was hope. Her only chance. Come on. This was something. Come on—God, please help me.

  Ann jumped at the hammering on the bathroom door.

  “Get your ass out here!”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Reed left another message on Sydowski’s cell phone.

  “Walt, it’s Reed. Call me.”

  He couldn’t reach anybody since Molly called him about Arizona. Not Sydowski. Couldn’t reach Turgeon, Gonzales, or McDaniel. He tried Molly again at the paper. No luck.

  The investigators keeping vigil in his living room knew nothing more than he did, or were keeping tight-lipped. Nothing came up on the newscasts. Reed had accessed the Star's system from his home computer. Nothing about any breaks in the case on the wires. He hated being left in the dark. It felt like he was betraying Ann. Failing her. Do something.

  Reed searched the directories on his desk until he found a Phoenix number and dialed it.

  “Associated Press.”

  “I’m calling from the San Francisco Star. You hearing of anything breaking in your area that might be related to our jewelry store heist?”

  “Maybe. Just a minute.” A hand muffled the phone.

  Reed’s question was repeated to someone else. “Hang on. I’m going to transfer you.”

  The line clicked.

  “Hi, this is Julie Juarez. I think I know what you’re talking about. Hold on a sec.” Her keyboard began clicking.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Here we go. Near Winslow. We should be moving something soon. We’ve got an alert from our stringer there. A report of police sealing an area after a discovery at Clear Creek.”

  “Discovery of what?”

  “Doesn’t say.” The keyboard tapped. “A police source told our stringer it’s related to that Death Valley homicide, the one linked to your heist. Says here Winslow and Navajo County are on it with the FBI’s evidence team out of Phoenix. Must be a corpse, or something like that.”

  A corpse.

  Reed hung up. His chest heaved. How much more of this was he supposed to take? From his study, he could see their bedroom. His eyes stung and he shut his door just as the phone rang. As the detectives had instructed from the outset, he let it ring twice before answering.

  “Tom, it’s Sydowski.” On his cell, g
runting like he was ascending steps.

  “Walt, is it Ann? What they found in Arizona, is it her?”

  “No.”

  Reed closed his eyes, then opened them.

  “Are you absolutely sure this time?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “A guy fishing near Winslow found the rest of the remains of the victim you saw in the desert. We’ve ID’d the victim as Carrie Dawn Addison of San Francisco.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just got it confirmed through her fingerprints. Does her name mean anything to you, Tom?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “Just checking.”

  “What about Ann? Was there any trace, anything?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Any sign of where Ann is?”

  “Nothing yet. Tom, I don’t have much time. But there’s something you need to know, and you’d better be sitting down.”

  “I am.”

  “The remains the fisherman found were the head and hands.”

  “Jesus.”

  “They were in Ann’s bag. He found it in a picnic area trash can at Clear Creek, near Winslow.”

  No words came to Reed.

  “Tom, are you with me?”

  Reed managed to utter, “Yes.”

  “Tom, I’m telling you because it’s all coming out in a few hours. The task force is holding a media briefing at the Hall. We think Carrie Dawn Addison’s the connection because she once worked at Deluxe, the jewelry store. It’s a break. I wanted you to get it first from us. I’ve got to go.”

  Reed hung up, took a few deep breaths, absorbing the information, forcing himself to hang on and focus. After a long moment, he called Doris, alerted her to Arizona and the news conference. She wept for the dead woman’s family and for Ann.

  “I’m coming back to your house to be with you and Zach.”

  Reed admonished himself for being selfish. How could he forget what Ann was enduring, what had happened to Carrie Addison, Rod August, their families? Thinking of them, he steadied himself for what he had to do: tell his son what had happened before the entire Bay Area was informed.

  An F-18 jet fighter hung by a thread from the ceiling of Zach’s room. A large model of the aircraft carrier the USS Kitty Hawk sat majestically on one shelf, the walls were papered with the flag, posters of the 49ers, the Sharks, the Raiders, and U2.

  Half hidden by a curtain, there was a tattered poster of Reed. An ancient thing that had gone in Star boxes to promote his investigative series on unsolved homicides. Reed was usually blind to it. A younger, cockier version of himself haunted him. Not because it took him back to his dark, drinking days, but because he was a better reporter at the time. He took on everybody and won. A far cry from where he stood now, helpless to do anything to find Ann. Reed grasped a measure of comfort that at least his son still deemed him worthy for his wall of champions. Zach was sitting in the window seat looking at pictures from their recent family trip to Hawaii.

  “I heard you on the phone, Dad. They didn’t find Mom, did they?”

  “No. It was about the other woman in the desert.”

  “What about her?”

  Reed was apprehensive but told him the details.

  Zach’s face reddened. He blinked. “What about Mom?”

  “There’s nothing new,” Reed said. “And soon everyone will know the things I’ve just told you. It’ll be on the news and stuff.”

  Zach nodded.

  Reed sat on the edge of his son’s bed and fell into his thoughts, swallowed by a thousand fears—the religion editor’s caution on getting too close, Ann’s warnings, “You get the story but we pay the price.” Joking about cases with the homicide detectives at the Hall. The karmic wheel turning full circle on him, fate punishing him, locking its fingers around him, tightening.

  “Dad?”

  Zach stood before him and put his hand on his shoulder.

  “Sorry, Zach,” Reed said. “I’m trying to make sense of everything. I just don’t know what it means.”

  “I do. It means Mom’s not dead.”

  “I want to believe that.”

  “It means you have to find her.”

  “Find her? Me?”

  “Yes, because that’s what you do. You’re as good as anybody at finding people, even bad guys. You found lots of them, Dad. Now you have to find Mom.”

  Reed searched Zach’s eyes. They were radiant with the unshakable belief his mother was still alive. Did he possess some intangible link to her by virtue of having entered this world through her? His eyes were brown, like Ann’s, and at this moment, the way they caught the sun spilling through the window, Reed swore he was looking into her eyes, hearing her calling to him.

  Find me, Tom.

  Zach gripped his shoulder.

  “You can find her, Dad.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Ann stepped from the bathroom into darkness.

  John was in the sofa chair watching the large muted TV, the room’s only light source.

  “Sit down and keep quiet.”

  Del was gone.

  For an instant Ann considered hurling herself through the window to run screaming for help. But the curtains hid its size. Was it a big window? Was it barred? Could she get by him before he stopped her?

  She saw that the phone had vanished. So had the phone book, the motel’s color brochures, offer cards—all the items that would identify the location. In the TV’s flicker she saw newspapers scattered on the veneer coffee table before it. USA Today and the New York Times. National papers available most anywhere. No sign of a local daily.

  She sat in a hard-backed chair at the small table well across the room on the other side of the beds, as far away from him as she could get. Her stomach growled with hunger pangs. John’s attention remained on the TV. They sat that way for nearly half an hour until Del returned with two brown bags filled with Chinese takeout, six-packs of canned beer, cigarettes, and snack food. He started pulling everything from the bag, setting it on the coffee table.

  “Before you eat, go check the bathroom,” John said.

  “Why?” Del said.

  “See if she tried to leave anything.”

  “I’m hungry.” Del got at the food, shoveling plastic forkfuls into his mouth. The aroma of deep-fried and stir-fried chicken, pork, and beef dishes filled the room. “I’ll do it later.”

  “Do it now.”

  Del cursed, bit into an eggroll, tromped to the bathroom, banged around, then exited and returned to the food. “Nothing.”

  John turned to Ann, dropped a soda can and two containers of food into one of the grease-stained bags, then tossed it to her. Rice, mixed vegetables, and ginger ale.

  “Anything on the news while I was out?” Del said.

  John shook his head. The two of them smacked their lips, guzzled beer, belching. Food and sauces rained on the carpet as they surfed between news and sports channels. When they finished eating, Del lit a cigarette, lay back on the couch, opened another beer, downed half, and looked at Ann.

  “Everything all right over there, darlin’?”

  She kept her eyes on the TV and didn’t respond.

  “You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?”

  Ann said nothing.

  “Well, you just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  “Leave her alone.” John went to the bathroom.

  A moment later he came out holding a small piece of folded paper. He tossed it to Del.

  “Read it.”

  The air tightened.

  “What’s this? Where’d you find it?”

  John’s jaw was clenched. “Just read it. Out loud.” He glowered at Ann.

  “Please call the FBI now,” Del read. “My name is Ann Reed, I was kidnapped by two men from the San Francisco Deluxe Jewelry Store armed robbery. I saw them shoot a police officer. We’re going east. Men are named John and Del. Two white males about six feet d
riving a red late-model SUV with Calif. plate starting—Jesus Christ—” Del leaped from the sofa. “We got to drop her now. Right now.”

  “Sit down.” John grabbed the note. “I’ll handle it.”

  “John, I’m telling you she’s too goddamned dangerous. She’s going to bring us down.”

  John stared at Ann.

  “We had a plan, John, and this crap with her was never part of it.”

  “Shut up.”

  “We passed that warehouse. It had a row of dumpsters. We could put four hundred miles behind us easy before sunrise.”

  John’s eyes never left Ann’s.

  “No witnesses. That’s what you said, John. It’s what you promised.”

  “I said shut up.”

  John started toward Ann. She stood, pressing her back to the wall. He held the note before her face. It was written on a page tom from the address book she’d found in the bag. She’d hidden it in the bathroom’s dish of complimentary soap and shampoo.

  “This,” he said, “is going to cost you. Get on the bed.” She didn’t move.

  “Get on the goddamned bed.”

  Ann shook her head. He swatted the small table aside. It thudded to the carpet, spilling her food everywhere as he grabbed her. In one lightning motion she was catapulted to the bed, his large hands pinning her to the mattress. “I warned you not to try anything.”

  Del stood over them, a beer in his hand, grinning.

  “Hand me our stuff, Del.”

  There was a chink of metal as he tossed him the bag they’d used in the armed robbery. John took out two sets of handcuffs and a chain; locked her wrists into the cuffs, which he linked to the bed’s metal frame, leaving her enough length to sit up or lie down.

  Before Ann could brace herself, the back of John’s hand cracked hard across her face, stinging, making her head throb. Stars blurred through her pain and tears. John’s face came within inches of hers.

  “Now you listen good.” He grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back until his eyes burned into hers. “You try anything like that again or make a sound, you’re gone. Got that?”

  Ann sniffed. Sobbing, she nodded.

  He stroked her hair. “No matter what you do, Ann, I’m in control, understand?”