Stronghold | Book 1 | Minute Zero

by Jayne, Chris

  She pushed the frustrating thoughts away. Theory was a luxury she didn’t have right now. Right now, after being cocooned in this quiet room for the last forty-eight hours, she could no longer ignore that she had a horrifically bad man hunting her and she was most definitely not “safe.” She had two children, a young woman barely out of her teens, and a dog to worry about. And the person chasing her had managed to get her photograph shown on the national news dozens of times in the last week.

  The manager’s words that she looked familiar terrified her. Should they run? Right now? If she grabbed nothing but Grace and her computer, stuffed all of their clothes and toiletries in a bag, and abandoned the food in the refrigerator, she could have herself in the car in less than five minutes. The moment Simone and Brandon got back with Sasha they could be gone. It was tempting, but she pushed the temptation away.

  Running frantically was the last thing she should do. Lori knew, because she dealt with the public all the time, how quickly you forgot a face or name when another took its place. The manager had said they were overbooked for this football game weekend. He walked away three minutes ago to return to a lobby that probably had a line of people waiting to check in, and the random moment of curious recognition would be gone. She’d be the last thing he’d be thinking about for the next few hours.

  Still, it was time to say goodbye to Norman, Oklahoma. She had changed her looks, but Grace looked exactly like the little girl on television. It was a blessing now that Grace had been sick for two days and no one seemed to have a picture of Simone - it had never even been mentioned that the au pair might be with them - and that Simone, so far, could be out in public with impunity. Lori thought Brandon’s face was sufficiently hidden by the ice cream, but what if she were wrong? If someone recognized Brandon and wondered why he was with a person who was not mentioned on television, then that right there might be enough for someone to call the police.

  Another reason Lori knew she was dragging her feet was she did not want to deal with another reality. They were barely halfway to Montana. As incredible as it was to know that they had driven 300 miles on Monday, and another 600-700 on both Tuesday and Wednesday, they still had almost 1,400 miles to go.

  Lori again wondered if she they should just try to fly. They were just a couple miles from the major airport serving the area; planes roared over the hotel on a regular basis. She still had almost $2,000 in cash, plus another couple of hundred on the debit card. Walking into the airport, plunking down money, and being in Billings, Montana in just a couple of hours was so tempting that the possibility made her ill just to think about it.

  But, just as she had the other day, she rejected the plan. Totally aside - again - from the fact that she would not abandon her dog unless it absolutely came down to choosing between Sasha and her children, anyone with enough reach to get her photograph on the national news repeatedly, along with a bogus story about her, probably had a way of watching who went through airports.

  Every “on the run” movie she’d ever seen ended the same: the prey got caught because of mistakes made, not because those chasing were clever and crafty. Buying plane tickets, even if she could pay cash for them at the airport somehow, would be just about the stupidest thing she could do.

  1,400 more miles. At least twenty-eight hours in the car. It made her exhausted just to think about it, but she remembered an old saying her grandmother liked: If you have a hill to climb, waiting is not going to make it smaller.

  The sliding glass door opened behind her, and Brandon rushed in, his high voice piping, eager to tell Lori about a dead bug he’d seen. Lori knelt down next to her little boy and hugged him, hot tears welling into her eyes, swearing again that she would do whatever was necessary to keep him safe.

  Chapter 29

  Louise

  Friday

  3:00 PM Mountain Time

  Hobson, Montana

  * * *

  The sound that Louise had been dreading for two days rang through the house. The phone. Of course, it could be anything, telemarketers, a neighbor, but gut instinct told Louise it wasn’t.

  Cautiously looking around, she saw that Roger and Deacon were nowhere in sight and Sandy, who was chopping onions and peppers for a spaghetti sauce, didn’t react in any way. Why would she? It wasn’t her house.

  Louise hurried into the living room. As she had somehow known it would be, it was Lori. “Where are you?” she asked without preamble.

  “We’re still in Oklahoma. Just outside of Oklahoma City. Grace got really sick, threw up constantly for more than twenty-four hours, and I just couldn’t face leaving. She’s still running a fever and is completely wiped out, but we’re leaving in the morning.”

  “So that puts you here when?”

  “Sunday night.” Louise heard her sister exhale. “I’d love to think that we could just get in the car tomorrow, start driving and not stop until we get to you, but that’s not realistic. Simone gets tired after about an hour, so I’m driving most of it myself. It’s still well over 1,000 miles.” Lori paused. “Has anyone called, looking for me? Has Dad called? I was thinking he might have seen my picture on TV.”

  “No,” Louise said. “He hasn’t called. But you know how they are.”

  “Yeah,” Lori agreed. Their father had remarried about ten years after their mother had died, to a woman barely older than Louise, and had produced another family of three children. They now lived in Hawaii, where their father had invested in an isolated pineapple plantation. Their father and his new wife, out of a stated desire to protect their teenagers, had made the very deliberate decision to go more or less electronics-free. Lori always suspected it was also an excuse to have limited interactions with her and Louise, but she could never prove it. Lori knew their dad had a computer, but by his own admission, checked email at best once a week; she was fairly certain they did not have cable television. It was very possible, likely even, that he had not seen her on the news.

  “And you haven’t called him?”

  “No,” Lori answered emphatically. “I was going to wait until I got to Montana. I didn’t think it would take this long, though. I really hoped I’d be there by tonight. That was my initial plan. But Grace was so sick and I had to stop.”

  “Listen, Lor. I told Roger you were coming. I had to.”

  “Oh, God. What did he say?”

  “What could he say? Of course, he wants to help you, but he also wants to know what’s really going on. Like I do.” Louise avoided going any further. The last thing she wanted to tell Lori was that Deacon was in Montana.

  “I told you. I saw something I shouldn’t have, by accident. It has to do with the death of Kyle Michaels. I’m not safe and I can’t trust anyone in Miami.” She hesitated. “And I don’t want you to know another word, not until I get there.”

  “Roger wants me to get a phone number from you.”

  “No, it’s too risky,” Lori answered emphatically. “I’m calling you from a pay phone again. It’s a different one from last time, but I probably shouldn’t even be doing this. If anyone is watching your calls, they’ll know I’m still in Oklahoma.”

  “Watching my calls?” Louise’s voice went high with stress. “Do you really think someone’s doing that?”

  “I have no idea,” Lori snapped back. “But I will tell you one thing. Whoever is doing this has enough pull to get my picture all over cable news and in the tabloids, and to say that Kyle Michaels and I were lovers. That Jack and Senator Michaels were friends.”

  “They didn’t know each other?”

  “No, and don’t even bother to ask. I met the senator briefly at one or two parties over the last few years, and that’s it. I don’t know him. I wasn’t his mistress or his girlfriend, or even just a friend. I don’t know him. And then they release a fake story about how they were looking for me but now they’ve found me? I don’t know what kind of power it takes to do that, but it has to be a lot.”

  “Why would they say they found you, if t
hey haven’t? None of this makes sense.” Every time she talked to Lori, Louise felt like someone was punching her in the stomach, and this time was no exception.

  “I know! And I’m not going to even try to explain it because I can’t. If anyone calls you, just stick with the story. You can’t say I didn’t contact you because if they see the calls from the payphones and they think you are lying, then it’s even more dangerous.”

  “Why can’t I say I don’t know anything about it? That you called me just to talk and I never even noticed the different number, or something like that.”

  “No,” Lori insisted. “Don’t lie. Anybody that calls you is going to figure you’ve probably seen my picture on television so that’s not going to work. Just say that I called you and that I was really sad that my friend the senator had been killed and I needed to get away for a while. That I’m going to L.A.”

  “But you just said you didn’t know him.”

  “Louise, don’t be an idiot. I didn’t know him. But I might tell someone I did, if I’m trying to cover up the truth and protect the person I’m talking to, right?”

  “Right,” Louise said slowly.

  “I don’t care who calls you, or what story they give you. I don’t care if someone tells you I’m lying dead in the middle of the road, do not believe anyone. You cannot tell anyone I’m on the way.”

  “All right, I won’t. What should I tell Roger about the phone number? He’s going to ask me again if you called.”

  “Tell him the truth. Tell him I called you from a payphone and I don’t have a working cell right now.” She hesitated a long moment. “He’s not going to turn me away, is he?” Lori asked hating how vulnerable her voice sounded.

  “No, of course not,” Lou responded stoutly. “But…” Her voice trailed off.

  “What?” Lori came back.

  There was a long pause. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I just, uh, don’t know where you’re going to sleep. Our house is really small.” Lou interrupted herself. “It’s nothing,” she repeated. “Just stay safe and get here as fast as you can.”

  Chapter 30

  Angela

  Saturday

  2:00 PM Eastern Time

  Miami, Florida

  * * *

  “It’s confirmed. Both of Dovner’s cars are in Hensen’s garage and no sign of the Escalade.” Rossi sat with Raoul Saldata and Angela on the veranda of Saldata’s home, eating sandwiches that Garth had driven out and picked up from a local deli. “You can see them through a window, the Range Rover with a broken black window and a dark blue Toyota Corolla. License plate matches the car that picked the children up at school.” Rossi said, “I had a black and white unit drive by every half hour last night. No sign that anyone is home.”

  “So, the old woman is with Dovner?” Saldata asked. “She left Miami with her?” He had tucked a napkin into his shirtfront and wiped his mouth as he talked.

  Rossi threw up his hands in frustration. “We can’t know that. But it’s certainly a good guess.”

  “We should talk to the neighbors,” Angela said. “Maybe some of them know something. It’s a good place to start, and a lot easier than trying to get search warrants.”

  “I can’t do it,” Rossi hissed. “I’ve already put myself out publicly a dozen times more than I should have. People around here know me.”

  “I’ll do it.” Angela shrugged. “Just knock on a few doors, flash my badge. No one will remember my name in ten minutes.”

  The first house Angela visited was inhabited by a mostly deaf elderly woman who didn’t even appear to know Sylvia Hensen. But at the second house, Angela hit pay dirt. From her list of residents, Angela knew that this was the home of Imelda and Scott Brown. Scott was nowhere in sight, but Imelda, whom Angela put somewhere near eighty, invited her into the living room. The blaring television was set to a 24-hour news channel, and Imelda only very reluctantly turned it to mute.

  She set the remote down on the coffee table. “I was wondering when one of you would show up.”

  “Why is that?” Angela asked carefully.

  “Sylvia’s niece all over the news? The caterer? That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” Imelda paused. “Does this mean you haven’t actually found her?”

  Angela had not gone to law school, but she spent her entire life dealing with the law, and like any good lawyer, Angela avoided asking questions she didn’t already know the answer to. Imelda Brown’s question took her by surprise, even as she absorbed the new information. Lori Dovner was Sylvia Hensen’s niece.

  Angela, along with Saldata, had surmised that Lori had not stolen a random car; that meant that somehow, she actually knew Sylvia Hensen, although until this second, they had not known exactly what the relationship was. What Angela had not anticipated was that any of the neighbors might know Sylvia Hensen well enough that they would also recognize Lori Dovner on the news. Angela cursed her mistake. She should have thought of this. Her prepared story of Hensen’s car and a possible hit and run still seemed the best bet, but it just got a lot more risky.

  Her only choice was, as the common phrase went, to neither confirm nor deny. “I can’t really give you any details. Let’s just say we’d like to speak to Mrs. Hensen and find her car.” She hedged, trying to lead Imelda without giving anything. “It may have been involved in a hit and run. We’re assuming that Mrs. Hensen and Lori Dovner are together.”

  “Well, they’re not.” A triumphant smirk came over Imelda’s face. “You don’t know where Lori Dovner is then.” Her expression softened. “I hope she’s okay. Those little children are so sweet.”

  When Imelda didn’t say any more, Angela prompted her. “Why are you saying they’re not together?”

  “Unless Lori Dovner flew to Italy.” Imelda shrugged. “You sure can’t drive there.”

  “Italy?”

  “Yes, Sylvia’s in Italy. She goes there every fall to stay with her sister.” Imelda paused, looking sly. “But I’m guessing you didn’t know that either.”

  Angela gave up. Imelda Brown knew a lot more than she did, and there was no point in denying it. “I don’t suppose you’d have a phone number for Sylvia Hensen,” she asked weakly, thinking that maybe the FBI could use Imelda Brown.

  With one huge swing of his beefy leg, Garth kicked open the back door of Sylvia Hensen’s house. Glass shattered and wood splintered. In spite of Garth’s neat appearance, Angela suspected that the man was wearing steel-tipped shoes. The back of Hensen’s house was shielded from all prying eyes by an eight foot high privacy fence, and while, from three feet away, the crash of the breaking door sounded very loud, Angela knew that the neighbors, behind closed windows with televisions playing and air handlers humming, almost certainly had heard nothing.

  And even if they did, they were unlikely to act. One rule law enforcement and criminals alike knew as gospel was that people almost never reacted to sounds, loud, mysterious even threatening ones, if they were not repeated. This included gunshots. If one shot sounded, people would listen, and when they heard nothing further, would go on with their business. Two shots, and a dozen people called 911. It was one reason, Angela knew, that Garth had made certain to get through the door with one kick.

  Deliberately, he pushed aside the now-splintered wood, walked directly to the keypad, which was flashing red, and entered a code. Whether it was Hensen’s actual code, that someone affiliated with Saldata had managed to hack, or whether it was a law enforcement override didn’t matter. What did matter is that the red flashing stopped; the system was disarmed.

  “What are we looking for?” Angela asked Garth. The truth was she was seething with resentment. Saldata was treating her like the hired help, and not a particularly bright example to boot. Considering that the only reason they were standing in Hensen’s house was that she had tracked down the car in a matter of a few hours (something that the Miami police had failed to do after four days) should count for something. Apparently, it didn’t. Now, she’d been ordered by
Saldata to get in the car and go on an unspecified errand with Garth.

  Was this where he drove her into the Everglades and killed her?

  Garth seemed utterly oblivious to Angela’s emotion. “Anything that tells us where Dovner went. Or how to get in touch with the old woman in Italy.”

  They’d already called the cell phone number they had for Sylvia Hensen multiple times but it did nothing but go to voice mail. They’d also tried to use the GPS tracking available in Italy, but it appeared as if Hensen was not only not answering, but the phone was turned off completely.

  Angela was cynical about their chances, but this time she was quickly proved wrong and it was Garth that made the discovery. She was still casing the house, getting a feel for the layout, as well as scouting ways out of the house if the need arose, when Garth called out. “Take a look at this.”

  Angela walked to a small desk located in the space that connected the kitchen to a family room. Unopened mail was heaped up, and next to the mail was a stack of papers, with a post-it note that said “Lori” stuck to the top-most sheet. Angela felt her stomach churn.

  Garth picked it up and handed it to her. The top sheet, under the post-it note, was a printed itinerary. Angela scanned it quickly. The outbound flight confirmed what Imelda Brown had said. Sylvia Hensen was definitely in Italy and had been there for three weeks already. The return flight was listed: a non-stop on Delta from Rome, arriving ten days hence, landing in Miami at 4:55 PM.

  Now, how to get in touch with her?

  Angela flipped to the next page in the stack. She blinked, almost not believing what she saw. It was a copy of a receipt from a vacation rental by owner website. “Here’s where we’re staying!” a notation stated in large cheery penmanship, followed by a smiley face. Angela flipped the sheet over. There, in the same hand, was written: “My phone doesn’t work at the house, but Julia’s does. Also, here is the number for the house.” The number that followed began with 39, which Angela recognized instantly as the country code for Italy. There was a final notation. A large arrow pointed to the number for the house, with the instruction, “You need to dial 011 first.”