Holding Out for a Fairy Tale (28 page)

Ray started to shake his head, his eyes darting around again. He closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“Come on.” Elliot tugged on Ray’s elbow. Elliot grabbed his phone on the way out and guided Ray down to the plain brown SUV he’d checked out from the bureau motor pool. Before he started the car, he dialed his boss fast.

Ray turned on the police radio in the SUV and hunched forward to listen. There was no buzz of frantic calls. No shout-outs for extra cars to block off the area, no notice to clear the radio except for emergency traffic. “It’s been nearly twenty minutes. Why haven’t they done anything?”

Elliot shrugged. He expected every agent in the office to be mobilizing, so he was getting ready to leave a message when St. Claire’s exhausted voice answered the phone after three rings. “St. Claire, it’s Belkamp. I know you don’t have time, but I wanted to give you a heads-up that Delgado and I are going to Carmen Delgado’s house. They’re his family, his sister and her kids.”

“What?” He heard his boss fumble with the phone. “What are you talking about?” Elliot heard her clearly. There was no loud chaos in the background, no wail of sirens, not even the shifting noises of a woman walking and talking on the phone at the same time. Elliot could hear the rhythmic clicking of a keyboard in the background. “You both managed to stay off the radar these last four days. I really don’t think exposing him by taking him to visit his sister is such a good idea.”

“What?” Elliot felt his throat seize. “What is Hathaway doing?”

“Hathaway? He just went down to talk to Technical,” said St. Claire.

“She didn’t have Hathaway call you?” Ray said quietly, keeping his eyes glued to the radio.

“What? That’s not right. No. We got a call from Sophie Munoz! She said she and her cousin’s family were being held at gunpoint by Holland and that if Delgado didn’t deliver her laptop to his sister’s house within two hours, Holland is going to kill them all. I gave the details to Hathaway when you had him call for our location. He said he’d—” Elliot pulled the phone away from his ear as the woman on the other line shouted a dozen different orders in a voice that would make a drill instructor cringe.

“Elliot, if you’re there, stay put!” And then she hung up on him.

Elliot stared at the phone, dropped it into the center console, and started the car. He took a deep breath and flipped on the blue-and-red emergency flashers.

“If Hathaway called Garcia’s men, they’ll just kill them all,” Ray whispered.

Elliot knew that Ray was right. A hostage situation with one desperate maniac, with a secure perimeter, a tactical response team, and a trained negotiator was frightening. A team of hit men hired by Esteban Garcia wouldn’t bother wasting time with a safe point of entry or worrying about the safety of the hostages. If there were any hostages left alive after they gunned down Sophie and Holland, they would kill them too, just to guarantee they didn’t leave any witnesses behind.

“St. Claire has a team on the way.”

Ray nodded like a zombie.

“And there are vests and rifles in the back.”

Ray met his gaze for the first time since Sophie called. “No. Not you. I’ll go, but you…. No.”

“Ray, you’re a detective. You investigate after the fact. How many times have you walked into something like this?”

“Two or three times,” said Ray.

Elliot shifted into gear. “It would take three years in combat for you to catch up to me. Besides, if we’re the first ones on the scene, we can try to clear out the house. If Holland knows who’s coming for him, he’ll likely just piss his pants and run. If we don’t have time, we can use the car, use the vests and the rifles, and set up a show of force outside. It might buy them time to run.”

“You think showing these guys that each person they’ve been paid to kill is all conveniently gathered in one spot is going to be a deterrent?” Ray managed a frantic laugh.

Elliot turned on the sirens and glared at Ray. “Stop being an asshole and give me directions.”

“L
OOKS
LIKE
we beat them here.” Ray didn’t look at Elliot as he spoke, scanning the street instead. “Vests are in the back?”

“Yeah.” Elliot popped open the SUV hatchback and climbed out. They’d parked two houses down, to avoid being seen from the windows of the house. It was a two-story Spanish-style tract house with an orange tile roof and a lemon tree in the front yard. It was set close to the road, freeing up some of the small lot for a backyard. Over the faded wooden fence, Ray could see the frame and safety net of the kids’ enclosed trampoline. The backyard was dead quiet.

Elliot joined him near the back of the car and began strapping on a bulletproof vest.

“Elliot, I want you to stay outside.” Ray was adjusting the slide on his pistol and staring at the house, the movement automatic. He bit his bottom lip.

“If Holland does something stupid, I can take him out quieter and faster than you. Your sister’s kids are in there, right?”

Ray shrugged. “Carmen didn’t answer her phone.”

“They don’t need to see their Uncle Ray shoot someone,” said Elliot.

“I know. Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Ray didn’t want to take his eyes off the house, but he glanced at Elliot for a moment. He had too damn much to worry about. If Holland was desperate enough to use Sophie and Carmen’s family to try to get her laptop back, he could do anything. And whoever Hathaway had sold them out to might arrive at any moment. “You’re a soldier,” Ray whispered, more to himself than Elliot. “I’m serious, all right? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’ll follow your lead, okay?” He tucked one side of his hinged handcuffs into the back of his pants.

“Okay. I’ll go in through the front, since they’re expecting me. There are two rear entrances. One through the garage that provides access right between the dining room and the living room, and a sliding glass door that opens from the dining room into the backyard. Carmen never keeps the blinds pulled across the glass door so she can keep an eye on the kids when they’re playing. The garage will provide the most cover.” Ray dug his keys out of his pocket and worked one key free. He offered it to Elliot. “This opens both doors.”

Elliot took the key and shoved it in his pocket. “Give me two extra minutes to get into position?”

“Two minutes.” Ray checked his watch. “Elliot?”

“Yeah?”

“If things go wrong….”

“If things go wrong, St. Claire is on her way with a SWAT team. We’ll deal with it.”

Elliot nudged him in the shoulder. Ray turned toward him, opened his mouth to tell him to wait outside, and then closed his mouth again. Either one of them could get shot as soon as they walked through the door, and Elliot was still keeping things casual in public. It made Ray want to scream. “Elliot?”

“Hmm?”

Ray tugged at Elliot’s vest, pulling him in for a fast, desperate kiss. There was nothing arousing about the kiss, just a brutal need to touch the other man, to be close to him one more time, in case it turned out to be the last chance Ray had. “Don’t do anything stupid,” said Ray, against Elliot’s lips.

“Two minutes.” Elliot nodded, kissed him softly one more time, and took off in a low crouch.

He stayed close to the house as he went through the gate beside the garage.

Ray watched him go and glanced at his watch. He strolled toward the front door, keeping his pace slow and letting the seconds tick by. He was trying to time his steps so he ended up ringing the front bell at the two-minute mark, but when he got to the steps, he saw that there was no point. The front door was open, the wooden frame around the metal door shattered and cracked. He tightened his grip on his pistol and hurried in, sweeping the empty living room and the dining room fast. He carefully stepped around a splatter of blood on the cream-colored tile and headed for the side door. Elliot opened the door, gun raised, and stared at him.

Elliot cocked a single eyebrow at him. Ray shook his head and nodded toward the stairs. They swept the top floor of the house, checking all four bedrooms. The house was empty. There was no sign of his sister or the kids. There was also no sign of Sophie and Holland, but selfish as it was, Ray found they didn’t worry him as much.

As the sound of sirens exploded outside, Ray stood hunched over the single splatter of blood. He didn’t even flinch when the living room was filled with men in black tactical gear, shouting orders for them to drop their guns and get down on the floor.

Once IDs were sorted out and Carmen’s house was secure, Ray saw Elliot talking to his supervisor, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Frantic gestures were involved on the part of Elliot’s boss. Each of Ray’s senses felt numb, dead. Even the din of the SWAT team around him seemed like the faint echo of real noise. Through the haze, he didn’t immediately understand why his ass was vibrating.

A gloved hand nudged his shoulder. “Detective Delgado, are you going to answer your phone?”

Ray peered through the man’s riot helmet, then down at the nametag on his chest. The yellow embroidery read
Price
. “Stewart, right?”

“Yeah,” Price seemed genuinely surprised. “Your phone is ringing,” he said again.

Ray pulled his phone out of his back pocket. It vibrated in his hand. The ringtone and caller ID were his sister’s. A thousand nightmare thoughts raced through his head at once. He hadn’t wanted to think about what finding an empty house could mean. There were a lot of possibilities and none of them was good. The most likely explanation, given the broken door and the bloodstains, was that Hathaway had beaten them to Carmen’s house. If he had Ray’s family, Ray knew he would never see them alive again.

“Hello?” he answered, not even trying to keep his voice from shaking. He didn’t give a fuck if the men around him knew he was scared.

“Raymond?” Carmen’s voice sounded far away, scratchy. And annoyed.

“Carmen?” Ray let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Carmen, are you okay?”

Through the static, he caught a few words. “… sunburned… and the girls are bored stiff…. Mrs. Ramirez from across the street called… my house is under siege?”

Nothing she was saying made any sense. “Carmen, where are you?”

“Joshua Tree,” she announced, the words coming through crisp and clear. “And there’s hardly any reception in a quarter of the park. Even where there is reception, it sucks. Is that better?” The sound muffled again. “No! Get down! Only Mommy climbs the boulder!”

“Joshua Tree?” Ray laughed out loud, so relieved he wanted to cry. “The national park? What the hell are you doing there?”

“Hiking, mostly. And getting the kids out of San Diego until things calm down. Everyone’s so on edge with Sophie gone, and every day there was more violence on the news. Even if they can’t understand what’s going on, the stress isn’t good for them. And it’s dangerous to take them camping out here during the summer, of course. But Mrs. Ramirez across the street just called and said there are a hundred police cars outside my house. Do you know what’s going on?”

“I’m at your house right now. I’ll take care of it, all right? You need to stay there, do you hear me? Stay there. Go hiking. Go climbing. Don’t come home.”

“Is Sophie….” The phone crackled again.

“I’ll take care of it,” Ray said again. “Just stay there.”

A loud beep announced that the call had been lost. Ray dropped his head back, smiling like an idiot.

“She okay?” Elliot asked, right beside him.

Ray swallowed and took in a huge gasp of air. “She’s camping,” he laughed. “She wasn’t here. The kids weren’t here.”

“Just Sophie and Holland, then? She said he’d kill Carmen and the kids, though.”

“She did,” Ray laughed. “I’ve never been so happy to be lied to in my entire fucking life.”

“Come on.” Elliot spun him around and steered him toward the front door. “We’ve got to talk.”

Ray stopped walking when he realized Elliot was taking him back to the motor pool SUV. “Where are we going? What about statements? Reports?”

“St. Claire said it can wait. Hathaway made one stop before he left the FBI field office. Want to guess why?”

Ray didn’t need to give it a lot of thought. Hathaway had just ended his career and become a wanted felon. He wouldn’t have walked away without something to fall back on. “He took Sophie’s laptop. Who the hell regulates access to secure evidence over there?”

Elliot nodded slowly. “He’s been working with the NSA staff to figure out what’s on that laptop. He’s checked it out a couple of times over the last week. We’re following St. Claire and the rest of my team to Hathaway’s address.”

“We are?” Ray’s eyes bulged. “She’s okay with me being involved?”

“She’s willing to say that it was an unfortunate mix-up in the final report. Get your ass in the car, we’ve got to hurry.”

“Your boss is awesome.”

Ray hung back nervously as Elliot and a team of special agents raided a small townhouse an hour north. Elliot came out ten minutes later, and Ray knew, just from the slight shake of his head, that the townhouse was empty. As he watched the FBI agents arguing in a small circle, he pulled out his phone, desperate for something to do with his hands, something to do with his thoughts.