Fire Point (8 page)

26

Lock signaled for Ty to follow him. They walked back out into the hallway. Tarian and the two kids were still fluttering around Marcus. The little boy was trying to show his stepbrother some toy car while the little girl was asking him a million questions. Tarian looked like she was someplace between relieved and apprehensive.

Marcus stood in the middle of all the activity. When he saw Lock and Ty, Lock thought for a moment that he might bolt for the door. He looked scared. It didn’t take a genius to see it. He was staring at Lock with an air of defiance but his folded-in body language spoke of fear.

Tarian broke the ice for them: ‘Marcus, this is Ryan, and Tyrone.’

Lock winced a little at the first names. She was making them sound like camp counsellors. He stepped forward, hand out. ‘Ryan Lock. Good to meet you, Marcus.’

Marcus offered a sweaty hand. Ty followed Lock’s lead. ‘Hey, brother, Ty Johnson.’

‘What’s going on?’ Marcus said to Tarian. ‘Who are these guys? I already told you, I’m not seeing another shrink. I’m fine.’

Lock and Ty traded a look. Ty took the lead, moving next to Marcus and clapping a hand on his back, imposing himself on the boy. ‘It’s nothing to worry about. But we need to talk to you for a few minutes. Bring you up to speed. That’s all.’

Lock had physical presence but not the way Ty had it. There weren’t many people who would turn down a polite request from the six-foot-four, former Marine.

Marcus managed a weak ‘Mom?’ but she was already shooing away the kids. ‘They just want to talk, Marcus.’

Lock fell in on the other side of Marcus and they walked him into the living room. Ty closed the door behind them. Lock gestured for Marcus to sit down.

‘What is this? Are you cops?’ said Marcus.

Lock stayed standing. ‘Private security. Your mother was concerned about you. She wanted us to make sure you were okay. That’s all. Nothing you have to worry about.’

‘Well, I’m fine,’ said Marcus, getting up only to find Ty’s hand pushing him back down.

‘We ain’t done getting acquainted yet, son,’ he growled.

Marcus sighed and took a swipe at the curly hair that had fallen forward over his face. ‘I said I’m fine.’

‘When were you last at your apartment, Marcus?’ Lock asked.

Marcus shrugged. ‘Like three days ago. I’ve been staying with friends. Why?’

Lock studied his face. ‘We visited your apartment yesterday with your mom. Someone shot out one of the glass balcony doors. Then they took a shot at us.’

Marcus seemed surprised. It was hard to tell if he was acting or genuine. Lock always looked for the speed of reaction. Someone who reacted too fast to news like that usually knew it was coming. Either Marcus didn’t know or he’d prepared.

‘A shot? Like a gunshot?’

That came off to Lock like someone trying a little too hard to play the innocent. ‘Yeah,’ said Lock. ‘Bang. Bang. You know anything about that?’

Marcus got up and walked to the window. This time Ty let him go. ‘Maybe. I mean, I can’t be sure, but . . .’

‘You can’t be sure about what?’ said Ty.

Marcus turned round. He looked upset. He wasn’t faking that. ‘How much has my mom told you?’

Neither Lock nor Ty replied. They both just stared at him.

‘She tell you about the girl at USC?’ Marcus asked.

‘She didn’t, but we made it our business to find out,’ Lock said.

Marcus didn’t reply. Lock could tell that his answer hadn’t gone down well, judging from the fleeting expression of rage that flitted across the young man’s face.

‘She has friends. Well, a boyfriend,’ said Marcus. ‘Maybe it was him that took the shot. Or one of his buddies. They’re like big-time jocks, think they’re tough guys.’

‘With guns?’ said Ty.

‘Maybe,’ stuttered Marcus. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You been bothering her again?’ said Lock.

‘No! No way. It was stupid. The whole thing. I didn’t even do anything to her. Just some notes and stuff. She was a bitch anyway.’

Lock looked at Ty. They’d both registered some real emotion there. The girl was a sore point.

‘Did her boyfriend or any of his friends threaten you, Marcus?’ said Lock.

Marcus shrugged. ‘Maybe like stay away from her. Stuff like that. I didn’t think they’d use a gun.’

‘And did you stay away from her?’ said Ty.

‘Like I had a choice. Not that I’d want to go anywhere near her anyway. Like I said, she’s a cun––’

Lock held up a hand, cutting him off. ‘Ladies don’t like that word. I don’t much like it either.’ He turned to his partner. ‘You like the C-word, Ty?’

Ty solemnly shook his head. ‘Nope. Disrespectful. Don’t think your momma would like it either.’

‘Okay. Well, I haven’t breached my court order. And as for guns or people firing them, I don’t know anything about that. Now, can I go? I mean, if you’re not cops you can’t keep me here, right?’

‘You can go,’ said Lock. ‘Thanks for your help. We’ll look into what you told us.’

‘Good,’ said Marcus, stalking out of the room. ‘I hope you do.’

He opened the door and slammed it behind him. They heard him thudding up the stairs.

‘What do you think?’ Lock asked Ty.

‘I think he’s one lying little motherfucker,’ said Ty.

‘Yup,’ said Lock.

27

Marcus pushed open the door to his old bedroom. He opened the cupboards, and began to rifle through them. Someone knocked at the half-open door. It was his mom.

‘Are you okay? I’ve been so worried.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Apart from being interrogated like I’m some kind of a criminal, I’m fine. When you were poking around my apartment, did you happen to see my laptop? I can’t find it.’

‘I wasn’t poking around. I was looking for you. Making sure you were okay.’

He turned on her. He wished his shot had been better and that he’d blown her stupid head off. Krank was right. They were all the same.
Stupid bitches
. ‘Have you seen it? Yes or no?’

‘Yes. We brought it back. Mr Lock was worried it might get stolen, what with the door being broken and everything.’

‘So where is it?’ Marcus shouted. He wanted to punch her. Her and those two goons she had downstairs. Maybe he’d come back and kill them all. Teddy too. Put that poor bastard out of his misery.

‘It’s right there,’ said Tarian, pointing a manicured finger at his desk.

In his panic he hadn’t noticed it. He scooped it up and threw it into a rucksack, along with some fresh clothes.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m leaving,’ said Marcus. ‘You can’t stop me.’

She grabbed at his arm as he pushed past her. He shook her off.

‘I’m worried about you. We need to talk. Stay for a little while at least,’ Tarian begged.

He ignored her, shoving her out of the way and heading for the stairs. The rucksack slung over his shoulder, he took them two at a time. At the bottom he dug out his cell phone and texted Krank to come meet him and take him back to the kill house.

The two security guys watched him head for the front door. Teddy called after him but he ignored him too. He opened the door and went out into the fresh air. He felt a sense of relief. He had what he’d come for. No one knew anything about what he and the guys had planned. It was all good.

The next time his mom saw him he would be on the news. The national news. International. Worldwide.

28

Lock and Ty stood next to each other in one of the big bay windows that fronted onto the garden. They watched the heavy black iron gates at the bottom of the driveway swing open and Marcus dart through them without a backward glance. Lock had watched most of what had gone on from the upstairs hallway.

‘Pretty keen to get hold of that laptop of his,’ he said to Ty.

Ty dug into his pocket and pulled out a plug-in hard drive. He held it up for Lock’s approval. ‘Just as well I already cloned it, huh?’

‘You looked at it?’ Lock said.

‘He’s got some security that I can’t get past. Gonna drop it off with someone who’ll crack it. Chinese dude by the name of Li. Might take him a while, though.’

‘Hold the fort for me here?’ said Lock, as he glanced at his watch. ‘I’m heading out.’

‘Sure, but where you going?’

‘Few people I need to talk to down at USC,’ said Lock.

As he reached the door, Ty called him back. ‘Yo! Ryan?’

Lock turned.

‘She likes you,’ said Ty.

Lock knew exactly who he was talking about. ‘She’s married.’

‘For now,’ said Ty. ‘Good-looking woman. All I’m saying.’ He made a show of taking in the sweep of the room. ‘Got money too. You’d make a cute couple.’

‘Do me a favor, would you?’ said Lock.

‘What’s that?’

‘Just watch the house. Anything I should know about, call me.’

29

Kristina Valeris had reached a point where she had given up wishing for rescue. Now she could only wish for death. But death did not feel close. She had always assumed that someone in her position would be so traumatized by the shock of abduction and imprisonment that they would feel numb. Instead she felt raw, like her skin had been peeled away to leave her nerve endings naked and exposed.

They had her in some kind of shed at the back of the property. She had a belt around her waist. The belt was locked and connected to a length of chain that was attached to the back wall. It allowed her to move about six feet from the dirty single bed that had been pushed up against one wall. There was a bucket for her to urinate and defecate into, along with some wipes and hand gel. There was bottled water. There were some crackers and peanut butter for her to eat between meals. Once a day she was blindfolded and unshackled and taken, at gunpoint, to a shower.

Sometimes one of them came in to sit with her. They always wore masks, though she had seen most of them through one of the grimy windows, walking around outside in the garden. She had seen the guy she thought of as the taxi driver just once since she’d been taken. The one she had picked out as the leader was Asian, short but muscular, like he spent a lot of time at the gym. She’d heard them call him Krank.

Krank seemed to control the others. She heard them speaking about him when he wasn’t there. They seemed to be intimidated by him but it was more of a hero-worship thing than something that came from fear. It was like he was a guru. They talked endlessly about something he’d said and what it might mean. Or they would compete among each other about how close they were to him.

It creeped her out almost as much as the nightly visits when she closed her eyes and took herself away until they were done. At first she hadn’t understood how they could treat another human being like they treated her. Slowly, as she listened to them talk, she understood.

They talked incessantly about women and girls but never by those names. Women were bitches, hos, freaks, hamsters, sluts. Each one they mentioned had a number that related, as far as Kristina could tell, to how attractive they were. There was no recognition of women as people. They weren’t even objects. It was hard to hate an object as much as they did.

There was something else. Or, rather, someone else. They had turned up the morning after Kristina was abducted. At first she’d thought they had come to rescue her. She quickly realized that she was wrong. They had come to gloat.

That person made Krank, the driver and the other one look like well-adjusted members of society. Kristina was left alone with them for an hour. It was the most painful, horrifying hour of her life. She had tried to let her mind escape and float free, but they wouldn’t allow that. They kept calling her back. They would lean down and whisper in her ear: ‘Be here, Kristina. Experience the moment. Live in the present.’

It was the voice that had shocked her back, that wouldn’t allow an escape. If she lived, Kristina knew that she would hear it in her nightmares. She had never seen the person the voice belonged to. She was always blindfolded before they arrived.

The voice. Not just what it said, but the sound of it. Just thinking of it made her shake uncontrollably.

It was a woman’s.

30

Stacy Becker, the object of the misguided affection that had made Marcus subject to a court order, lived in Cardinal Gardens, a USC student-apartment complex, on the north side of Jefferson Boulevard. As with a lot of the country’s illustrious seats of higher education, the USC campus was not based in the nicest of neighborhoods. Lock parked his Audi on McClintock Avenue and walked the short distance to Cardinal Gardens.

The complex was made up of nine town-house-style buildings that faced onto a central courtyard. It looked pleasant but functional, a shorthand that could have applied to a lot of the city. Everything was pleasant and going along just great – until it wasn’t, and then it could get very unpleasant indeed.

Lock took a seat in the middle of the courtyard. He had already called ahead to let Stacy know he was dropping by. She was going jogging but said she’d meet him at one of the benches that were dotted among the trees. Lock had a lot on his mind, not least the fleeting return of Marcus and what was on the laptop he had been so keen to recover.

He couldn’t lie to himself either. Lock was thinking about Tarian. It was stupid to deny that he found her attractive. She had made it very clear that it was mutual.
Perhaps when this was all resolved, if it could be resolved, and when she was clear of Teddy . . . Perhaps what? They’d be in a relationship?

That was the problem with getting older. You already knew when things had no chance of working out with someone before you could even give them a chance. With age came complications. Kids. If not yours then the other person’s. People had careers and family that tied them to a location. It was a world away from the college kids he was surrounded by. No commitments. No baggage. Free to flit in and out of each other’s lives as they wished.

It made Lock wonder about Marcus and the anger he seemed to carry. He was one of those people who had it all yet believed that the world was out to get them. The kid was hardly a male model but he wasn’t unattractive. He was white, which already gave him a jump (as Ty never reminded of reminding Lock), he came from money and privilege. And yet Marcus had a festering resentment.

‘Hey!’

Lock looked up to see Stacy standing with a tanned athletic guy in his early twenties. They were both in shorts and T-shirts. Looking at what he assumed had to be Stacy’s boyfriend, it was evident that Marcus might have had a lot going for him but Stacy was still out of his league.

Stacy introduced her boyfriend, Brad. He shook hands with Lock while giving him his don’t-mess-with-my-girlfriend-bro face.

‘What did you want to see me about?’ Stacy asked, earnest.

‘Just a few more questions about what went on with Marcus. I promise not to take up too much of your time. I also wanted to let you know to stay alert. If you see Marcus you should call campus security and the LAPD straight away. They should both be aware of the situation because it’s already gone to court so they’ll respond quickly. Get somewhere safe, stay there, and wait for them to arrive.’

‘You’re kind of freaking me out, Mr Lock,’ said Stacy.

Brad slid his arm around her waist. The gesture seemed more territorial than protective. ‘Maybe you should come stay with me this week.’ He stared at Lock. ‘I live off-campus.’

Lock gave Brad his moment. Clearly living off campus was the mark of a man. ‘I think it’s probably better if you’re on campus, Stacy. I’m going to speak to USC security later and make sure they all know who to look out for,’ he said. ‘I don’t think anything will happen, or even close, but it’s always better to be prepared.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ said Stacy.

Lock had led with the warning for two reasons. One, he wanted Stacy to take it seriously. But he also wanted to establish some trust, to make sure that she knew he was working for Marcus’s family but that that didn’t mean he wasn’t on her side. Which was true. He didn’t want to see her hurt and he didn’t want to see a troubled young man do something stupid that would hurt not only him but everyone around him. It took only a moment of idiocy to ruin a bunch of lives.

‘I wanted to ask you about people that Marcus might have been hanging out with when he was here. Guys. Like a group of them.’

Brad was the first to react. He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Those losers.’

‘So you both knew them?’

‘Not really,’ said Stacy.

‘But you did, Brad?’ Lock pressed.

‘One of them, kinda. He was called Loser, or some dumb nickname like that. They both lived over on Severance.’

‘Was he a freshman too?’ Lock asked.

Brad shrugged. ‘Senior, I think. Older definitely.’

‘You know his real name?’

‘Drew something,’ said Brad. ‘Sorry, that’s all I got.’

Something occurred to Lock. ‘What about Marcus? He must have had a name, right?’

Stacy rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yeah, it was real imaginative. They called him MG ‒ y’ know, his initials.’

Lock spent another fifteen minutes talking to them before he sensed he was exhausting their patience and starting to go round in circles. He mentioned, in an oblique way, the shots fired at Marcus’s apartment and was met with a blank stare by both Stacy and Brad. That left him with a couple of nicknames. He could only hope that the copy of the hard drive from Marcus’s laptop computer would yield something more.

From what Brad had said, which chimed with what Teddy had told them, Marcus had fallen in with a crowd of self-styled pick-up artists. On the surface it didn’t seem to Lock like the most troubling thing in the world, especially for a kid like Marcus, who needed to bolster his confidence and social skills. Marcus would go out with his friends to pick up girls – just like every other bunch of young men since the dawn of time. But that wasn’t the worrying part. That came when girls weren’t interested. It seemed that Marcus wasn’t the only one who couldn’t take no for an answer.

But how did that fit with what else that had happened? The gunfire. Marcus’s moods and habit of going AWOL. His threats to Stacy. Did it add up to anything?

Perhaps the best thing would be for Tarian to give her son some space. To let him find his own way. It was a tough thing for a parent to do, perhaps the toughest, but it might also be the right thing. Marcus had seemed pretty together when Lock had met him. Surly, sure, but that hardly made the boy unique.

And what would end up happening if he stuck around Tarian? By the time he started the drive back to Brentwood he had made up his mind. He and Ty would finish up their security review. They could look some more into the hard drive, and what Marcus Griffiths might be hiding, but if that yielded nothing, they were done. Marcus wasn’t missing. He didn’t appear to be in danger ‒ at least, not from an external source. The LAPD and USC security could cover Stacy and her boyfriend. There was no job to speak of for Lock and Ty, and there were plenty of people out there who actually needed help. It was over.

Lock was in his car heading back to Brentwood when he thought of something. He couldn’t work out anything from the nicknames. Krank. Loser. They might as well have been named John Doe I and II. Instead of staying on the 10 freeway, he took the next exit and headed down Sepulveda, back to the Marina.

At the apartment complex, he parked outside the main office but didn’t go inside. They might have the information he needed but there was no way they’d give it to him. He headed for the booth that controlled access into the complex. A middle-aged Hispanic guard was on duty. Lock introduced himself, told him who he was. He got a break when the guard, who was called Ramón, mentioned that he’d served in the Middle East. Lock had been with Britain’s Royal Military Police specialist close-protection unit, but shared service gave him a platform on which to build.

Twenty minutes later Lock got back into his car and left the complex. He was a hundred dollars lighter but he had a promise from Ramón that he would provide Lock with a list of visitors to Marcus’s apartment. No one would have got past Ramón or his colleagues with something as flimsy as a nickname like Krank.