He clicked off.
I jumped up and ran for the door.
Gabe caught me by my shoulders and came around to face me. “You are not going in there alone.”
“He’ll kill her!” I meant to scream the words but they came out a tortured whisper.
His face went cop hard and he bore his gaze into me. “You will do what I tell you, or I will handcuff you inside my truck and leave you behind.”
Gabe didn’t bluff. The dangerous man beneath the almost-civil exterior was in full view now. I knew he meant it. I fought to be as tough and calm as he was. “OK. But, please, we have to hurry!”
He let go of me and glanced down at Zoë. “We can’t leave her.” He went to Zoë and picked up her wrist. “She should be awake by now. Her pulse and breathing are fine. I don’t have time to see if she’s playing possum.” He scooped her up in his arms. “Check outside, then open the back of the Jeep.”
I yanked open the door, feeling a draft of cool night air. No one was outside, so I ran to the Jeep and opened the back. Gabe followed with Zoë and put her inside. Then he looked at me. “I need some stuff from my truck. Get in the driver’s seat. Ali and I are going to hide in the backseat.”
I started the Jeep while Gabe shut Zoë’s motel door and got some stuff out of his truck. He and Ali got in the backseat. “Go, Sam.”
I backed out, passed the motel office, then made a left from the motel parking lot to the street. I was shaking so hard, it was an effort to steer the Jeep. “What do I do? I have to go in the theater.” I made a right turn onto Railroad Canyon Road.
“Drive past the theater and turn around, dropping me before you come back to the theater. Then I want you to drive in and spend a few minutes searching around the Jeep for the necklace. Put it on your neck for safekeeping. Spend at least four minutes. Get out with Ali, then call Mitch on your cell phone. Tell him you are there at the theater, but that you need him to tell you how to get in. If he says anything about Ali, we know he can see you. If he gives you a hard time about her, tell Ali to wait outside.”
He wanted me to stall and keep Mitch distracted. “What if he kills Angel? I don’t want Ali to get hurt, either. What are you going to do?” I got into the left-hand turn lane, which would put me on Mission Trail. There was a McDonald’s on my right and across the street on the left was a Burger King. Neither one of those could satisfy my desperate urge to get to the theater and find Angel. We had to get there in time. We had to save her.
Gabe’s voice floated up from where he was crouched on the backseat as I made the left turn. “Kids break into that theater once in a while. I tracked a runaway who tried to hide in there. I know a way in that I am banking Mitch doesn’t know about.”
It was dark, after eight now, so few cars were on the street. I braked for a red light. On the right was the Thrifty’s shopping center and the stoplight let people leaving that center make a left-hand turn.
If I got into the left-hand turn lane, that would take me between the boarded-up buildings that were once the town’s Kmart and movie theater. I struggled to keep my thoughts focused and organized. “So once I get in, what do I do? Give him the necklace?”
“Stall as long as it’s safe with the necklace. Fumble with the clasp around your neck, that kind of thing. I’ll be there, babe. I’m going to try to get in long enough before you to locate where Angel is. But I won’t let Mitch hurt you.”
I shuddered, and felt Gabe’s hand settle on my shoulder from the backseat. The light turned green. The movie theater slid past, a silent, boarded-up ghost of Lake Elsinore’s past. One of the big dreams of a bright future that Elsinore had a nasty habit of chewing up and spitting out.
God, I loved this town. It took real guts—fortitude—to live here.
I drove past the next traffic signal, then made a left turn onto a dark street. My hand shook when I put the Jeep in park.
Gabe opened the door, got out, and came around to my side and opened the door. “It’s been only five minutes. Lock up and wait here another few minutes. Then take as much time as you dare when you pull into the theater parking lot.” He leaned down and kissed me. Not a fast brush, but a seconds-long kiss boiling over with emotion.
Then he was gone, melting away into the dark shadows. I pulled the door closed and locked it. Ali made her way through the seats to climb into the passenger seat next to me. I reached out to my dog. “He’ll be OK, right, Ali?”
She licked my hand.
I looked over at her. “How’s the shoulder?” My dog never complained. Mitch was going to answer for hitting my dog with his car.
Ali sighed and found a comfortable spot on the seat to lie down on.
I looked at my watch. Two more minutes. I counted to one hundred and tried not to think about Zoë Cash bound up with tape in the back of the Jeep.
I would go to jail for kidnapping. My head throbbed in time to the fearful pounding of my heart. Swear to God, I never meant to get into this much trouble. It just happened. All we did, Angel and I, was take what we thought was a sample sex-toy kit from a seemingly legitimate businessman.
OK, in hindsight, it was possible we should have been a little more careful. I started the Jeep. Maybe Angel and I had been a little reckless in accepting a sample sex-toy kit from a stranger in a casino. But Angel didn’t deserve to die. Alone, scared, and thinking her life had meant nothing.
I made a three-point turn and then a right on Mission Trail. At the signal, I turned right into the parking lot of the boarded-up buildings.
I didn’t see anything. No cars, no lights. Behind the abandoned movie theater was the Lake Elsinore Resort and Casino rooms. But I doubted they could hear much. The theater had been soundproofed to play the movies and not bother the people in those rooms.
I turned right toward the theater and stopped. Where was Mitch’s car? It could have been behind the theater, but Gabe had told me to stall. I knew the boarded-up door that Mitch wanted me to use to get inside the theater. It was the side door that faced the other boarded-up building that once had been a Kmart. In case Mitch was watching somehow, I put the Jeep in gear and crept to the front of the theater, then around the far side. Once there, I looked around, working to get a confused expression on my face.
Then I turned the Jeep around and went back to the front. I idled there, and made a show of bending down and getting my purse. I fumbled through it, then put it back. I looked around the Jeep.
Was Zoë awake in the back? I hadn’t heard anything.
Finally, I leaned back against the seat and lifted my hips to get my hand into the front pocket of my jeans. I pulled out the necklace.
There wasn’t much light, but the cool necklace glittered. I carefully unhooked the latch, then slid it around my neck. Bending my head down, I secured the latch.
A quarter-million dollars around my neck, yet it felt like a hard, dead weight over my collarbones.
I reached across Ali again to the floor of the passenger seat and pulled my phone out of my purse.
Ali lifted her head and watched me.
I looked at her amber eyes in the dark car. “I have to do this right.” I dialed the number to Angel’s cell phone.
Mitch answered, “You better be here.”
My heart kicked up to a furious throbbing. Fear and adrenaline roared in my ears. “I’m here. In the front. I have the necklace. But all the doors look sealed with boards.” I glanced at the front of the movie theater. The marquee had only a few letters remaining from when it had read:
This Theater is Closed.
His voice was calm now, cooler and suave like it had been in the casino. “Very good, Samantha. Pull around the left side of the theater, the side that faces the other boarded-up building. Do it now.”
Here we go.
I glanced over at Ali. She watched me with her bright eyes. I inched the Jeep toward the edge of the theater, then turned right. I stopped at the door. It looked solidly boarded-up. There were a couple of big splotches of white paint to cover up graffiti; tagging was a fair-sized problem in this town. I took a breath. “OK, now what?” I wanted to scream at him that Angel better be OK. But I knew Gabe was in there, and I wanted to keep Mitch focused on me.
“Get out and walk to the door.”
“Uh, I have my dog with me.”
“The dog that chased my car?”
I had to fight down the sudden hot urge to scream at him that he’d hit my dog and I’d get him for that. “Yes. You . . . uh . . .”
Keep him distracted, don’t get him mad,
I reminded myself. “She was hit by your car. She’s not a threat.”
“Leave the dog in the car.”
I reached over to stroke Ali’s head and said, “Stay here.”
She didn’t like that and sat up to watch me. I hoped she’d obey me.
I got out of the Jeep and pushed the door to make it look closed, but I didn’t latch it. Then I turned and looked at the boarded-up door to the theater. To Mitch on the phone, I said, “Now what?”
“The outside board will swing to the side. Push it and step inside.”
That sounded like the kind of idea that ended in murder. From the cocky confidence in Mitch’s voice, I knew he thought that he’d already won. “Uh . . . why don’t you just meet me at the door. I’ll give you the necklace and you release Angel.”
“Or I could start cutting Angel up.”
“No!” I fought down panic and remembered that I needed to keep Mitch distracted so that Gabe could find Angel. Maybe he’d get her out to safety, then help me deal with Mitch. “I’m coming in.” My natural cowardice felt like a huge hand tugging at my back, trying to get me to turn around and run like hell. I fought down the urge and forced myself to walk to the door.
It looked like the board was bolted in several places. I reached out to the right edge and shoved.
It moved. The bolts were either fakes, or they had been cut through. My hand shook, but I pushed the board far enough to see inside.
It was one of the theater rooms. There was a glow of light to my left. I squinted and tried to see it.
“Come inside and let the board fall back.” Mitch’s voice came from behind that light.
I stepped in and let the board go. It slammed back into place. I blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust. A new beam of light hit my eyes. Instinctively, I put my hand up to shield my eyes and backed up a step.
“Hold your arms out to the side.”
I had left my purse in the Jeep. With only my jeans, a pink tank top, and the diamond necklace, it was pretty easy for Mitch to see that I was unarmed. I held my arms about a foot away from my sides and squinted to see into the light. “Where’s Angel?” Directly in front of me, I could see shadows that I figured had to be the rows of theater seats that faced the screen.
“Walk forward.”
Was Gabe there? Where was Angel? I tried to remember what the theaters had looked like. They had been simple. Screen up front with an exit door to one side of the screen. That’s where I had come in. Then rows of seats—hadn’t they been a red or burgundy? I couldn’t remember. Projection room in the back.
I took a step forward. I tried reasoning with him. “Mitch, let’s not make this any worse than it is. It was an accident that the necklace ended up in the sex-toy kit you gave us. We didn’t even know we had it. Then someone took it from me, not realizing there was a diamond necklace hidden in it.”
The voice behind the light said, “It was incompetence. But Zack paid for that.”
I stopped walking. I had to buy time for Gabe. Had he gotten in? Was he trying to find the theater we were in? There were four movie screening rooms, I thought. God. Dust coated my tongue and tickled my nose. The air smelled putrid, like decay. Maybe a small animal had died in there. Revulsion rolled through my stomach.
“You’re wearing the necklace.”
Startled, I looked directly into the light, then winced. “Yes. It seemed the safest way to get it here. I didn’t want to take any chances. I just want this whole thing to be over.”
“It’s a lovely piece, that necklace. The mark wearing it was a dried-up old biddy. I should never have sent that kid to do a man’s job.” He sighed.
I thought I heard a noise from my far left.
Mitch swung the light away from me, sweeping the beam across the seats in a leftward motion until it landed on Angel. Silver duct tape secured her wrists to the arms of the seat in the front row and there was a wide strip of tape across her mouth. Now that the light was out of my eyes, I could see Mitch’s back as he searched for the noise.
He was between Angel and me. Angel appeared to be watching us. Was Gabe with her? I couldn’t tell. If he was, she didn’t give anything away.
I had to distract Mitch. He had that powerful flashlight in his left hand and a big gun in his right hand.
I didn’t have any weapon, so I used words instead. “But you had to send another man, didn’t you, Mitch? Your wanger is on the blink. It doesn’t rise to the challenge.” I held my breath, counting on him not wanting to damage the necklace by shooting me before he got it off me.