Forests of the Night (7 page)

“He's in the bathroom, okay? He had to piss. Jesus, Charlotte, what the hell's going on with you?”

She stepped over to the front window and tugged the drapes aside. Panther's red pickup truck was still there.

“Charlotte? Talk to me, damn it. What's going on?”

She swung around, brought her voice to a hoarse whisper.

“FBI SWAT team is on the way. We've got a minute or two at most.”

“What!”

With a slash of her hand she silenced him.

She gave him the two-sentence version. FBI Most Wanted list. Eight homicides. When she was done, Parker stared up at the glitter of the crystal chandelier. His lips parted but no words came.

“Gracey's in my office. You go stay with her, Parker, and I'll keep Panther occupied till they get here.”

Parker clamped his lips and shook his head.

She gripped Parker's elbow and tugged him toward the door.

“Stay with your daughter. I'll handle this.”

He roused himself from his daze, stared at her hand, and shrugged loose.

“No,” he said. “No fucking way.”

She pointed a finger at him and he stared at it, bewildered.

She angled away from the door, lowering her voice to an airless hiss.

“This is my territory, Parker. When Panther's in custody, feel free to take charge, habeas corpus to your heart's content, but this situation right here, right now, this is what I'm trained for. This is what I'm about. Okay?”

He stepped back from her, hand rising to brush his cheek as if a bullet had skimmed his flesh. She'd never pulled rank on him before or used her cop voice. Never tried it, never had to.

Something shuddered in Parker's eyes. Perhaps he felt the faint slip and buckle of the tectonic plates, no earthquake yet, but a crack in the foundation of their bond.

Charlotte found a softer voice, as close to gentle as she could manage.

“Go stay with Gracey. Please. It'll be over in minutes.”

“Okay, okay.” He showed his palms. “But no gunfire, right? Taking him alive, that's the idea.”

“Always is.”

She shot a look at the door. Empty.

“It's got to be more than that this time. You've got to protect him, Charlotte, you've got to be absolutely sure.”

“Keep your voice down.”

Parker backed off to a harsh whisper.

“Don't let this get out of hand. Go the extra mile, okay? Promise me. You've got to promise.”

“What the hell, Parker?”

He dabbed his tongue at his upper lip and stared again at the empty brilliance of the chandelier.

“That boy…” Parker swallowed and couldn't go on.

“That boy what?”

Parker shook his head and lowered his gaze to hers. He shook his head another time as if refusing some command.

“What is it, Parker? Talk to me.”

“He's my son, Charlotte. My flesh and blood.”

It wasn't Frank Sheffield's fault. He repeated Monroe's address twice to the airfield dispatcher and thought he heard the confirmation behind the layer of static. But the MTS handhelds the chopper personnel used were regularly desensed by the Nextel site a half-mile away from where they were stationed. Depended on the weather, number of cell-phone calls coming and going. Miami field office had been complaining to D.C. long before Sheffield took over. Memos and more memos. Get them better equipment or move the chopper field somewhere out of the dead zone, or else blow the goddamn tower.

Finally, last year D.C. sent down two geeks to run a check with their spectrum analyzer. But after a week of crisscrossing the territory in question, the techies couldn't identify any discrete interfering signals.

“How about the Nextel tower?” Sheffield said. “You know, that twelve-story object that's taller than anything within ten square miles. Bouncing a few thousand microwave signals every second. Think that might be it, fellas?”

The techies couldn't confirm it. They left, and no one got back to Sheffield. Papers shuffled. Budgets cut, funds diverted to more pressing needs. Same old shit.

So tonight the chopper dispatched to Parker Monroe's address hovered ten blocks east of its objective, and its enormous spotlight scanned the front and backyard of Dr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Silberman's two-story Mediterranean, while seven black-suited, heavily armed federal agents battered down the heart surgeon's front door.

Considering how fucked their radios were, it was a miracle the rapid-response guys got as close to the target as they did.

 

With a steadying hand against the dining-room table, Charlotte said, “Panther's in his late twenties.” Struggling with the simple math, her head so fogged. “So you were, what, fourteen?”

“Fifteen,” he said. “It's a long story, Charlotte.”

He crossed the room and offered his arms. She hesitated, feeling her own geologic tremors deep beneath their common ground. She retreated a step, and Parker lowered his arms.

“You've known this how long? For years? That you had a son?”

“Not until tonight.”

“He told you that? He told you he was your son?”

“No one told me. I saw it in his eyes, his bone structure. Who his mother is, his age. Look, I'm just now sorting it out myself.”

“So you're not sure. You're guessing.”

“We don't need a blood test. He's my son, Charlotte.”

Outside in the driveway, tires screamed.

She got to the window in a second, yanked the curtains back, and caught a flash of the rear lights of Parker's Mercedes swerving onto Riviera Drive.

“Goddamn it.”

Before she turned away, she saw, above the oaks and royal palms, a helicopter's searchlight washing across a neighborhood at least a mile away.

“Aw, shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

She sprinted to the kitchen. Dug her cell phone from her purse and speed-dialed Gables emergency. Getting Mary Troutman, thank God, a veteran of twenty years.

“They've got the wrong address, so the perimeter's off. And it's not the red truck I told them he was driving. He's in Parker's Mercedes. Silver sedan, heading north on Riviera toward U.S. 1.” She spelled out Parker's vanity plate, DFENDR.

Mary kept her on the line while she patched into the FBI. As Charlotte drummed a finger against the stove top, Parker passed through the kitchen, heading down the hallway.

With the line still empty, Charlotte grabbed the Cabernet bottle from the counter and took a slug. She put the bottle down, wiped her mouth, and craned to see from the kitchen window if the chopper was still there, but a hibiscus bush blocked her view. One of many chores Parker had been neglecting, working all that overtime to get a guilty kid off a murder rap.

“Everything's busy,” Mary said. “They're probably calling each other, a lot of backslapping.”

“Keep trying. Call me when you get through.”

When she snapped the phone shut, Parker was at her side, out of breath.

“Gracey's not in her room, not in your office. Nowhere.”

Charlotte's throat shut. Something hot and hard lodged there.

“We've got to go,” Parker said. “Now, Charlotte.”

“He took her? The bastard took her hostage?”

“We don't know that. Now come on.”

Charlotte clawed through her purse, grabbed her holstered Beretta Cougar. Then sprinted after Parker.

By the time she reached the truck, he was revving. Charlotte threw herself in the passenger's seat as he peeled toward the street.

“Left,” she said. “Left, north. Go.”

Parker slammed through the gears, fishtailing onto Riviera.

“Your headlights,” Charlotte shouted at him.

He found the lever, got them on, bumped to high beams. Roared down their street, toward a four-way stop.

“Which way?”

“Straight, I don't know. Yeah, straight. Best thing for him is to head for traffic. Up to Dixie. Assuming he knows his way around.”

Parker fired through the intersection.

“I don't get it,” Parker said. “Why would Jacob take her? It just complicates things, slows him down.”

“Maybe he got scared, thought he needed a hostage.”

“Doesn't make sense.”

“Or maybe she went willingly. God knows. She was having a major mood swing.”

Three or four blocks ahead, the Mercedes had pulled two wheels onto the shoulder. Parker was doing seventy through a twenty zone, maybe half a minute behind.

“They've taken off on foot,” she said.

But as Parker closed to a hundred yards, the Mercedes swerved back on the street and roared north toward the busy thoroughfare.

“He was waiting. Like he didn't want to lose us.”

“Not good,” she said. “Some kind of game.”

Her cell phone chirped and she pressed it to her ear.

Sheffield was yelling over engine noise. Men shouting.

“I'm standing in your living room, Monroe. What the hell's going on?”

She hesitated a moment, then began to fill him in, Parker waving no, grabbing for the phone.

Charlotte leaned out of range and gave Sheffield their location, told him they were giving chase, and snapped the phone shut.

“Goddamn it, Charlotte.”

“It's my duty. I have no choice.”

“Your duty? Putting your daughter in jeopardy, those gun-happy cowboys.”

“Getting my daughter
out
of jeopardy.”

“Jesus Christ, Charlotte.” He hammered the wheel. “Jesus H. Christ.”

Two blocks ahead, the Mercedes weaved back and forth, then took a sharp right into someone's front yard, disappearing into the shadows. Probably trying to duck down one of the narrow alleys that laced the area.

As Parker sped up, a pair of reflective eyes flashed in their path. A dog, a possum. He swung the wheel, hit the brakes, and the high-riding truck bounced over a curb, blowing through a hedge. Parker wrestled it back to the pavement and accelerated.

Behind them she heard the chopper coming low and loud. A moment later their windshield turned to blinding white light. Parker flipped down the visor, used one hand to shield his eyes, kept going.

“Those morons.”

A booming voice ordered them to halt, step out of their vehicle.

“What the hell're they doing?”

“Goddamn it. Sheffield doesn't know about the car switch. They think we're Panther.”

“Great. Just great.”

Charlotte flipped open her phone, then snapped it shut. It was useless now, things unfolding too fast.

“Will they fire?”

“Not the chopper, but
they
might.” She waved at the half-dozen cars peeling out of side streets, blue lights whirling, assembling a hasty barrier.

“The Benz. That yard two houses down. Something's wrong.”

Parker took his foot off the gas, staring out at the men and cars, coasting at fifty-plus.

“Don't do it, Parker. Stop right here, let them take over.”

But Parker shook his head. He grimaced so hard, the outline of his skull rose as if through the cloudy waters of his flesh. He was crossing some ancient line. Animal self prevailing over man-of-the-law.

He flattened the gas and picked his spot. Helmeted men in black were still piling out of their cars and vans, shotguns and assault rifles. But they were seconds too late setting up. Parker hurtled through the blockade, clipped a white Ford, nearly lost control. Their rear glass exploded and the slug blew out Charlotte's window, filling her lap with broken glass.

Twenty yards from the Mercedes, Parker stood on the brake and the pickup got sideways and began to tip, but he cut the wheel and brought it down. As they spun, Charlotte caught a glimpse of Parker's silver car. Front end crumpled against a tree.

Their truck finished its 360 and came to rest with its big bumper against the driver's-side door of the Mercedes.

Sirens howled behind them, and the chopper trapped them again in its dazzling lights. Through the shattered window, Charlotte saw long blond hair, longer and blonder than Panther's. She wiped her eyes, threw open her door. Her daughter was slumped behind the steering wheel of the Mercedes, air bag deflated in her lap.

Gracey's head lolled against her half-open window.

Charlotte unholstered the Beretta, held it two-handed above her right shoulder, and approached.

Rumbling from above, the voice in the chopper commanded her to throw down her weapon. Her last chance or they would commence firing.

Charlotte ignored him and stooped to aim inside the car. Her heart taking a wild flight around her rib cage. Just Gracey. No Panther.

She heard Sheffield yelling at her. To her right she glimpsed Parker on his knees, hands raised. Visored men slammed him facedown into the grass, a knee in his back.

Charlotte lowered her Beretta. As she reached out to grip the door handle, Gracey jerked upright.

She straightened slowly, then turned her head to look out the half-open window and she smiled.