“Ev.”
Mom was watching a news bulletin. It showed police cars in front of a dilapidated apartment building, paramedics bringing out a body bag. A man with an eye patch, probably the building super, looking unkempt and distraught. Old lady, he was saying. Dead, unbelievable. Guy in a wheelchair.
Mom held my forehead while I leaned over the toilet and retched.
When I finished, I sat bunched on the bed and let her wrap a blanket around my knees. I called Jesse’s house and cell and got no answer. I dialed his parents’ number and hung up before putting the call through.
Arrest warrant
and
your son
were words that had already cut them to the bone, thanks to Jesse’s drug-addled brother. I called his former adviser at UCLA law school and his old roommate who worked in downtown L.A. Neither had heard from him. I sank down on the bed, spent and spinning with dread.
Mom brought me a glass of water and sat beside me, brushing her fingers through my hair.
“You know that he was trying to do the right thing,” she said. “Whatever happened, he did for the best of reasons.”
“I know. And he’s screwed.”
Wound like a top, I picked up my phone again and called Mr. and Mrs. Blackburn after all. His mom might drink herself into a stupor at the news, but I couldn’t let them hear it on television. After that, I drew my knees up and stared at the wall.
It was about half an hour later when my phone beeped. A message had come in. Grabbing it, I fumbled my fingers across the keypad, seeing,
Jesse
.
“Oh, God.”
Need U. Westwd
Westwood. My vision thumped. I punched his number and dammit, he still didn’t answer. I redialed. He had to be there, had to. A new message beeped.
Pls Hu
What? Please hurry? I shook the phone as though that would knock the rest of the message loose onto the display.
I clambered off the bed, searching for my shoes. The phone beeped yet again. I read the message and a moan broke from my throat.
Hurt
The last plane for LAX left China Lake at seven fifteen. The crew slammed the door while Mom and I were still threading our way down the narrow aisle to our seats. I had the phone to my ear. The young flight attendant asked me to turn it off, and I nodded and continued listening to it ring in L.A. The engines began spooling up before we buckled our seat belts. I hunched down below the seat in front of me, hiding.
Finally, a voice came on the other end of the line. “Swayze.”
I spoke under my breath. “What’s happened to Jesse?”
“Who . . . Evan?” Her voice gained an edge. “Jesse took a tire iron to my shoulder. Then he put a gun to my head.”
I closed my eyes. The trembling was coming back strong. “What have you done to him?”
“Huh.” Longer pause. “He threatened to ruin me. He forced me to go with him to that apartment in Hollywood. Let’s stop talking about what I did.”
“Tell me.”
“I treated him like the animal he is. I chased him off. Without involving the police, I add, for which you should be pissing with gratitude. Where he is now, I couldn’t care less.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Even with the engines blaring I heard her huff with indignation. “I’m finished with this whole affair. It’s in the hands of the authorities and I’m out of it. However, if you or your rabid dog show up here again, I’ll call SWAT. I mean it.”
My trembling was gone. I felt rigid. “Liar.”
I hung up.
The flight attendant was bleating her safety lecture over the PA. Every nerve was already stretched thin. One more time, I tried the number Special Agent Heaney had given me.
And God bless the FBI: He answered.
“Affirmative. Your boyfriend fled the scene of a murder, just ahead of the uniforms. LAPD is after his rear, big-time.”
The turboprop engines blared. I put my finger to my ear.
“Agent Heaney, I’m desperate.” I told him about Jesse’s text message. “Can you help me?”
“You’re the one who can help. He needs to surrender himself to the police. You can advise him to do so, promptly.”
“This is not Jesse. You have to believe me. Something’s screwy.”
“Yeah, him. I don’t know what sent him off the deep end, but he gave his business card to a witness before running from the cops.” His voice rose over noise in the background. “I’m coming to China Lake with an FBI response team to assist with investigating the murders there today. If you decide you can help, you’ll find me at the police station.”
The little plane taxied out, bumping over the tarmac. I leaned against the seat in front of me as though in brace position for a crash.
Heaney’s voice dropped. “I’m sorry about your friends, Evan. I truly am. Tommy was one of the good guys.”
“I know.”
“Listen, here’s a name at the LAPD. Lieutenant I know in Robbery-Homicide. She won’t be involved in this investigation, but she can put you in contact with the people who are. Use my name and hers; maybe you can get Jesse a more sympathetic hearing. Anyway, it might give them a reason to keep their weapons holstered when they make the arrest.”
I wrote down the name, thanking him profusely. The evening sun panned through the windows, gold light making the passengers shade their eyes. I dialed the number for the Robbery-Homicide Division and they put me on hold.
What sent Jesse off the deep end? I leaned back in my seat, staring at mountains silhouetted black in the distance. My father sent Jesse off the deep end. I tried to fight down the anger and couldn’t. This was a disaster in the making, and Dad had sparked it by attempting to manipulate Jesse. What the hell was he thinking, telling him there was no choice but to terminate the pregnancy? Telling Jesse something was impossible was like taunting a mountain lion with a sharp stick.
Robbery-Homicide answered the phone. Heaney’s contact was out of the station, so I reeled off my name and number and said it was urgent that I speak with her about Jesse Blackburn. I peeked up above the seat back. Urgent that someone meet me in Westwood to—
The flight attendant stood there with her hand out. “Ma’am, give me the phone.”
I shrank from her. “I’m speaking to the LAPD.”
“This is the third time I’ve asked you to stop talking. Give me the phone.”
“Thirty seconds. Come on.”
The pilot turned at the end of the taxiway and held.
“Surrender the phone or we’ll return to the terminal and you’ll be removed from the plane.”
I turned away from her but she was grabbing for it. Mom put her hand on me. Her voice was matter-of-fact.
“Give her the phone.”
Slumping, I handed it over.
“You can retrieve it in Los Angeles,” said the flight attendant.
The smirk on her face made me want to smack her. She tucked it in her pocket and flounced back to her seat.
I knocked my head back against the headrest. “Stormtrooper.”
Mom patted my hand. The engines revved and the plane surged down the runway. Now all I could hope was that the text message I’d sent to Jax and Tim would be received.
Primacon Labs. Help.
Fortune favors the bold. It was not a warrior who said that, but an ancient poet. But though Virgil understood the workings of the world, he didn’t know about wild cards.
Coyote drove through the encroaching dusk, assessing the op. She had been nothing today if not bold, yet fortune had sneered at her. Drawing Valerie Skinner on her own face, drawing Chang and Hankins out to the rim road, had not brought success upon the hunt. Today was an intolerable failure.
Chang and Hankins were gone, but she had not taken them. The moment she stepped around the van and saw the grenade in Abbie’s hand, she knew what Abbie intended to do. It had been like reaching a river only to watch it dry up before she could drink. Furthermore, Delaney and the children remained beyond her reach.
Her patience was running thin. When the grenade detonated, Delaney had been close on her heels, armed and accompanied by the police. Upcreek by the truck afterward, Coyote had seen her through the binoculars, watching the recovery operation. She supposed that Evan was honoring the dead.
Bravery: Abbie Hankins had it; she had to admit. Pinned beneath the van and unable to flee, she chose to fight. Abbie had meant to kill her. But the grenade had a four-second delay, and when Abbie pulled the pin, she ran. Still, two women in one day with uncommon courage; this was a sign.
The truck rolled through the darkening evening. The freeway was a river of traffic, taillights and tire drone, a soothing welcome back to Los Angeles.
She moved her shoulder. She had taken shrapnel. By putting Abbie’s van between herself and the grenade, she had ensured that the vehicle had taken the brunt of the explosion, but even so, she had sustained blood loss and minor penetrating wounds. She rotated her left arm. She couldn’t achieve full range of motion, and muscle strength was diminished, perhaps ten percent. That was within mission parameters but nevertheless a concern. And her shoulder was significantly abraded from jumping out of the van before it crashed into the ravine. She would need debridement and a stiff injection of antibiotics. Her fractured tibia was strapped with a makeshift splint, but needed to be more securely immobilized. She had to get back to base.
Her cell phone chirped with the sound of a message arriving.
She glanced at it and the red flame ignited around the edges of her vision. It was a photo of her amulet. The sound grew in her throat. Somebody had stolen it. They knew. They’d found the apartment.
But this was not in the possession of the police. This . . .
Sway. She recognized the phone number. Sway had taken this. Why?
She drove, trying to comprehend. Sway was
hers
. Sway had given her everything. Why would she take the amulet away?
Another beep: A second message had arrived. When she saw it, the sound subsided in her throat. Power and prey, alpha and omega. The hunt was going to draw to a successful conclusion after all. Sway had taken the amulet, but she was going to give it back, along with the thing Coyote sought.
She crested the top of Sepulveda Pass and flowed down the hill with the river of traffic on the 405. Where the city poured out at the bottom of the hills Coyote caught a glimpse of Westwood. The towers along Wilshire Boulevard stood out like steel trees along a stream bank. Soon. She put down the window and smelled Los Angeles, that familiar metallic jazz in her nose. Car exhaust and greenbacks. And sweat, blood, garbage, all the things she’d known as a child, all the things Sway had helped free her from. Now drawing her back.
Her arm was stiff. She could feel dried blood on the back of her undershirt. She had to complete the mission before her physical condition degraded any further. She glanced once more at the words illuminated on the phone display.
Evan Delaney.
She drove through the electric night toward Argent Tower.
33
Jesse felt metal digging him between the shoulder blades. The buzzing sound ebbed and swelled in his ears. His head pounded, and his mouth felt like sand. He really, really had to take a leak.
He opened his eyes and saw the plastic face next to his, grinning obscenely.
He batted it away. It flopped into the air, but its big round O of a mouth didn’t change its expression. Shit. Taylor’s inflatable doll.
He was on the floor in the backseat of the truck.
Light pissed through the windows. His shoulders were wedged between the front and back seats, and his legs were jackknifed, and whatever he was lying on was drilling him in the back.
Swayze had drugged him and dumped him back here. Goddamn, he hadn’t watched her closely enough. She must have found the syringe and sedatives in Coyote’s medical kit.
He looked around for some way to sit up. The passenger-side shoulder belt hung from the door frame. Stretching, he grabbed it and pulled himself up.
Christ. His head banged like a snare drum. He un-jammed himself from between the seats and hauled himself up, gritting his teeth. His back was going to spasm; his legs were going to spasm if he didn’t keep calm. He breathed, waiting for the cymbals to quiet down inside his skull.
After a minute he took stock. The truck was parked in a dim corner of the garage beneath Argent Tower. Level five, bottom of the garage. There were no other cars. He was alone.
It got worse. His cell phone was gone. The keys were gone.
The Glock was gone.
Feeling a bruise on the inside of his elbow, he saw blood clotted over a needle mark. Shit, Swayze had jammed the first hypo into his leg and then given him an intravenous dose to keep him out. Sodium thiopental, probably, from the way his head was racketing. He looked at his watch. It was eight ten p.m.
Swayze wanted him out of commission. Why?
Pain hammered down his back and into his legs. He forced himself to breathe slowly, leaning forward, trying to stretch out the spasm. Getting out of here was paramount. Swayze thought she’d marooned him here, but there was something she didn’t know: He had a spare set of keys. They were in a magnetic case stuck under the frame of his chair. He straightened slowly. On the floor he saw what had been jabbing him between the shoulders. It was the quick-release axle for one of his wheels. The buzz in his ears swelled again.
One wheel was in the back next to him, but the frame and second wheel were gone. So were his crutches.
For the longest moment he just stared. His head was about to implode.
Slinging himself toward the front seat, he reached and hit the horn.
The sound echoed in the garage. He held it for almost a minute, his heart drumming, but got no response. He lowered his hand and slumped between the seats.
He couldn’t wait around hoping for somebody to come along and find him. Swayze was playing out some kind of endgame. He had to get out of here and find out if Evan was all right. Pushing himself up again, he glanced down the long, dim expanse of the garage. The elevator was at the far end. There was no camera above the elevator door on this level. He fell back against the seat.