Missing: The Body of Evidence (30 page)

Kyle visiting Lilly confused her. If
they had taken him off Kelly’s case because of a conflict of personal interest,
then she failed to see why Logan would allow him to interview Lilly. Unless,
she thought, his visit was off the record. But to what ends?

Maybe, she thought, they were trying to
find holes in her statement about the last time she had contact with the family
and to give them more evidence to build a case against her. The SUV Lilly had
described caused her concern. Logan drove a black SUV with chrome bull bars,
but the driver’s hair colour didn’t match his description.

She began to worry for Lilly at the notion
that whoever had killed her son may see her as a loose end. At the same time,
she felt relief that Lilly had not described the person in the vehicle to Kyle,
as to who handed Dean the package. She entertained the thought that her
ignorance would be her saviour. Nancy scoffed at Kyle’s incompetence in not
pushing Lilly for a description of the guy in the SUV. But then she wondered if
it was because he already knew?

Nancy pulled onto the Pasadena Freeway. She
passed the Dodger’s stadium and drove toward Mary’s house. Glancing at her rear-view
mirror she noticed a vehicle, maybe one-hundred yards to her rear, join the
freeway with only the sidelights showing, which caused her mild concern. At the
lateness of the hour, the freeway was light of traffic and with the darkness;
it was hard to determine what type of vehicle it was that was following.
Stepping on the gas, she sped along the lane gathering speed, her eyes flicking
from the road ahead to her rear-view mirror. Taking one hand off the steering
wheel, she felt for the butt of her gun. The car behind maintained its
distance. Tightness in her chest and an empty feeling tugged away at her gut.

She placed her gun on the passenger seat.
Her breathing speeded up in tandem with her glances from road to rear-view
mirror. The vehicle behind was gaining and she fixed her eyes on the rear-view
mirror. The vehicle’s full headlights turned on, temporarily blinding her
vision. A glance at the road ahead and she pulled hard on the steering wheel,
almost careening into a slow moving truck. Her heart raced in her chest and her
sweaty hands grasped the steering wheel. Her car skidded and snaked along the
road to the sound of the truck’s horn. Her gun skirted off the seat and into
the foot-well. Nancy fought hard to control forward momentum. The inside of her
car flooded with light, as the vehicle behind tailgated her.

All she could think to do was to keep the
car behind her until the next exit, so she pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

Nancy pushed the switch for her hazard
lights, hoping it was just some crazy driver and the vehicle behind would draw
back. All the action did was to add an annoying, distracting ticking sound of
the hazards. In her side mirror, she could see the outline of an SUV as it
veered behind. The rear flashing lights on her car reflected off the SUV’s
chrome-bull bars. The image sent a chill through her body as she recalled the
description of the vehicle Lilly had given her. A loud thud from behind and a
jolt shocked her; throwing her against the tightened seat-belt strap as the car
behind hit her fender. Nancy swerved to the nearside lane, but the SUV stuck to
her tail like glue, as if some magical thread bound them together. She cursed
under her breath at not having replaced her cell phone. Unable to concentrate
with the distracting sound, she flicked off the hazards.

With her foot pressed hard to the floor,
there was no more speed to be had. The SUV pulled out, ready to overtake, and
she swerved to obstruct its path. All she could do was to weave from lane to
lane to try and keep the vehicle behind her and pray for a traffic cop to
intervene.

All her thoughts were honed to surviving
the ordeal. She took long deliberate breaths to try to slow down the adrenalin
that was flushing uncontrollable shivers in waves from head to toe. The
taillights and outline of a truck in the middle-lane loomed ahead as if they
had suddenly appeared. Flashes of light in her rear-view mirror and a staccato
of shots from an automatic overcame her slow breathing, sending a shivering
cold blast through her body. Her head ducked at the sight and sound of rounds
peppering the steel rear doors of the truck ahead. She feigned to make a move
to the right and at the last moment steered left around the truck, her tyres
squealing as if with delight at outsmarting her pursuer. For an instant, she
felt elated as she zoomed alongside the truck and relative safety, but trembled
as she came out in front of the truck with the SUV alongside.

Nancy feathered the brake pedal at the
sight of an automatic rifle poking from the window and positioned her car to
the rear assailant’s offside. Driving at speed, weaving along the lanes of the
freeway, they caught up with heavy traffic. Nancy gained some respite as she
managed to manoeuvre her car with a lane of traffic between her and her
pursuer. The exit road fast approached and she prayed to reach it before the
SUV’s driver found a gap in the tailgated traffic to continue the chase. Nancy
flicked the switch for the vanity light and reached for her gun. Grasping the
butt, she felt a surge of energy pass through her body at the security of
having something to fight back with, which steeled her nerve.

Her head pounded with pain. This was no
time to be starting with a migraine, but it developed with a vengeance. By the
time she reached the top of the exit road, she had to pull over, braking hard
with her car slewed across the road.

Her eyes were scrunched tight with intense
pain throbbing in the front of her skull. Managing to crack one eyelid open
then the other, she climbed out of the car leaving the door open and the engine
running. She scrambled behind the engine block and positioned herself facing
down the exit road, gun-in-hand.

From her vantage point, slightly elevated,
she could see the lines of traffic on the freeway. The lights of the cars were
blurred, but started to focus. She could just make out a space in the line of
traffic and a guy, an automatic rifle in one hand, banging his other hand on
the hood of a car in the lane nearest the exit road.

Her shoulders sagged as the car made way to
let the SUV through and the guy jumped in the vehicle. With a realization that
she couldn’t outpace them, she knew she had to meet them head on to stand any
chance of stopping them. She took aim down the road. Her head vibrated with the
pain and all around her peripheral vision blurred, but strangely the vehicle
remained perfectly focused, as if she were seeing it in tunnel vision. Nancy
firmed her finger on the trigger. Assuming the stance, resting her arms on the
hood of her car and looking down the barrel from sight to SUV, she prepared to
shoot.

Events unfolded as if in slow motion. The
windshield and headlights of the SUV imploded, the sound offending her hearing.
The car slewed in the road to a screech of tyres, revealing the rest of the
windows smashed, and the vehicle came to a shuddering halt, sideways. She
squeezed the trigger, with a muzzle flash and kick of the wrist as the round
exploded, the bullet taking out a front tyre. The pungent smell of swirling
nitro from the powder in the expended cartridge engulfed her as the casing
tinkled and rolled off the hood and onto the road. The car gave the appearance
of a sigh as the air expelled from the tyre. A wheel-trim fell off and rattled
on the ground.

The driver of the vehicle was slumped
forward on the steering wheel and there was no sign of the guy with the
automatic. Instinct drove her to keep low and to get behind the wheel to get
the hell away from there before they had a chance to recover from the
confusion. Tyres of her car burned tracks on the asphalt as she sped away to
safety.

Nancy’s strange reaction to the car chase
wasn’t fear, but sheer disbelief at the entire event. The pounding in her head
had settled to an ache behind her eyes. Her fingers locked around the steering
wheel. Staring ahead, with eyes narrowed, she drove as if by instinct. Streets,
roads and buildings, all zipped by in a blur. A vision of Dean lying in the
coffin, vied with the inexplicable image of the SUV’s windows imploding.

She didn’t know how long she had been
driving, or how she had managed to drive to her dad’s apartment. It was as if
the entire journey had been blanked. The last recall she had was when she had
sped away from her pursuers. Nancy switched on the vanity light, removed the
magazine from her gun. Only two rounds had been fired; one from her encounter
with the muggers and one from taking out the tyre on the SUV.

Nancy looked upward as if searching for an
answer to the vehicle’s glass imploding.

‘How in the hell did that happen?’

From zilch to saviour in just over a
week.
Nancy reflected on all the wasted years at
having no relationship with her dad as she trudged to his door. Nervously, she
kept looking over her shoulder, annoyed that she had developed a twitch in her
left eyelid, and knocked on the door. Apart from her attorney, she knew he was
the only one she could trust. Nancy shuffled her weight between her feet in a
restless dance as she waited.

The door opened. Her eyes popped and her
jaw dropped. There was a gash across the top of his eyebrow and his nose was
bright red with a cut across the bridge.

‘Dad! What the hell have you been up to?’

He raised his hand to shield his face,
revealing cuts on his knuckles.

‘I could ask you the same. You look like
you’ve seen a ghost. And button your blouse up for God’s sake, the guys are
here.’

He closed the door behind her. Her cheeks
rouged with a warm glow as she fumbled to fasten her button. The sound of the
lock clicking and his presence lifted the ache from behind her eyes.

‘The guys are in the living room, best we
talk in your bedroom.’

Nancy followed him into her old bedroom and
sat on the corner of the bed.

‘What happened to your face?’

‘Later. We’ve been waiting to hear what you
discovered trailing Mary.’

Whether out of relief at finding sanctuary;
or simply with the dawning of the enormity of what she had escaped from, she
couldn’t be sure, but it started with the feeling of something wriggling in her
stomach. Then she felt a burning in her throat. Finally, she threw up on the
floor. Her dad took a step back.

‘Jesus, what have you eaten? Wait here.’

He left the room, returning with a towel
and a damp cloth. Nancy took the towel and cloth and wiped her face. Her dad
left the room again, returning with a mop and bucket.

‘Christ, Nancy, I thought I’d finished
wiping your ass years ago.’

Her fingers trembled and she began to cry.

‘Shhhh. Keep it quiet. When I said, wipe
your ass, I meant nappies. I didn’t…’

‘It’s… it’s not that.’

He put his finger to his lips and then
whispered, ‘Don’t let the guys hear you cry. They’ll think you’ve gone mushy.’
He stepped forward, sat beside her and placed his arm around her, holding her
tightly. ‘There, there, hush, hush. What’s wrong?’

His words and actions of comfort only
turned her tears to sobbing and she buried her head in his chest. Emotions
completely engulfed her very essence as he stroked her hair. She couldn’t
recall the last time he had ever shown her any affection.

‘Come on, try and pull yourself together
and tell me what’s brought all this on?’

The words struggled to escape her lips
between deep breaths.

‘Su… someone… tried … to kill me… tonight.’

He jumped up off the bed and stood before
her. He ran a hand down one side of his face, pulling the folds in his skin
taut and giving him the appearance of a stroke victim. His eyes bulged.

‘What... Tonight? How?’

Nancy buried her head in the towel and
regulated her breathing. Finally composed, she relayed all that had happened
since she had seen him at lunchtime.

‘Did you turn off your Sat-Nav, like I told
you?’

‘Hell, I forgot.’

His eyes rolled and he turned to pick up
the mop, slapping the head hard in the bucket as he returned to type. She drew
her knees to her chest and covered her face with the towel at the sight of his
face reddening.

‘Damn it, Nancy, don’t you ever listen. Why
didn’t you use the GPS locator I gave you? It damn well works on the move.’

She dropped the towel. He wiped the floor
with vigour, given her the feeling that he would have happily used her as the
mop.

‘I didn’t think...’

‘‘Didn’t think’? We’ve been waiting, ready,
all night for a signal. Did you get the registration number?’

‘No, it all happened too fast.’

He thrust the mop in the bucket.

‘For Christ’s sake, go and get washed while
I clean up this crap. Fucking shit for brains women. Fu…’

Nancy sprang from the bed and hurried to
the bathroom, his cursing reverberating in her brain. At the sink, she rinsed
her face and then stared at the mirror. Despite his foul-mouthed rant, taking
away the expletives and the chauvinist remark, she knew he was right and she’d
come up short. Taking a deep breath and letting out a long sigh, she returned
to the bedroom.

‘Sorry, Dad.’

‘No, I’m sorry, I’m just glad you’re alive.’
He raised his voice as she stepped into the room. ‘Don’t step on the wet floor,
damn it.’ His voice lowered again. ‘Listen, are you sure there were no muzzle
flashes when the windows exploded?’

‘No, there weren’t. Like I said, the
windows imploded, they didn’t explode. Besides, the headlights are on the
outside.’

He stroked the stubble on his chin.

‘There’s bound to be an explanation. It’s
surprising how the mind tricks you when you’re faced with something life
threatening. One thing’s for sure, you can forget following Mary on your own.
None of this would have happened if you had let us watch your back as I
suggested. But no, you’re too freakin’ stubborn. Come on; let’s meet the guys
now you’ve stopped snivelling. We need to make plans for tomorrow.’

‘Not until you tell me what happened with
your face?’

‘Oh, that. Let’s just say I think you can
be certain Bill will make sure you’re off the hook tomorrow, but it still won’t
guarantee you can return to work until all the rats are flushed from the hole.’

Wide eyed, she placed her hand on her hips.

‘What the hell does that mean? Are you
saying you’ve been fighting with Bill?’

He looked down at the floor and mumbled. ‘I
just wanted to make sure he did the right thing.’

‘Oh, for God sake, Dad, you can’t go around
threatening and fighting a cop.’

‘Hey, I didn’t threaten him about your
situation. I just wanted to hear what he was going to say. He owes you that.
The tussling had nothing to do with anything concerning the case. It was
something personal and it just sort of developed.’

‘So are you going to tell me what it is
with you two?’

‘No, like I said, it’s best left personal
between us two. Come on we have plans to make.’

He ushered her down the hallway and toward
the living room door. Nancy grabbed him by the arm.

‘I should phone the station first and tell
them what’s happened.’

‘No, definitely not. Leave it for now,
someone will have phoned it in.’

Not phoning it in went against her better
judgment, but for now, she wasn’t going to go against the only person she
trusted.

The living room door opened to a sight that
had Nancy thinking she had entered an ops room for a Special Services team. The
furniture had been moved to one side and three sleeping bags were lined up on
the floor, with backpacks at the bottom of each one. The boys sat at the dining
table, all wearing black fatigues with body armour hung over the backs of their
chairs. Strewn across the table were automatic rifles in varying degrees of
disassembly.

‘Sick leave tomorrow you, guys. Nancy is
onboard. Operation Mary’s a go. We need to start planning,’ Dad said.

Uncle Dave swayed on two legs of his chair,
putting the final assembly in place on a semi-automatic-assault rifle he was
nursing. A wide mouthed grin spread across his face, revealing two missing
front teeth.

‘Bout time,’ Uncle Dave said.

Nancy threw her hands in the air.

‘Whoa, there. What’s all this? You can’t go
following me around the streets of LA like some personal army.’

‘No need to follow you, Nance,’ said Uncle
Dave. He reached out for a hunting knife on the table and slipped it into a
pocket sheath on his pants leg. ‘Just give us the address and we’ll whisk her
away to the bunker for interrogation.’ He let out a roar of laughter.

‘Stop, right now. I’m not agreeing to
anything.’ She shook her head. ‘You are joshing?’

A loud knocking on the apartment door
interrupted them. Heads snapped in the direction of the sound and then to her
dad.

‘You expecting anyone?’ Nancy asked her
dad, to the sound of metallic clicks as they assembled the weapons left on the
table in quick time. She didn’t get an answer. His action told her what she
needed to know. Dave tossed him a semi auto and he racked the slide to put a
round in the chamber. Her dad barked out an order.

‘Stow everything unlicensed under the sofa.
Licensed handguns only and keep quiet. Dave, prepare an exit and flank.’

‘Got ya.’

Dave snatched his backpack from the floor
and took out a coiled nylon rope. Nancy followed her dad down the hall, drawing
her automatic from her waistband, gripping the butt tight and holding it aloft.

‘Stay back.’

Nancy scowled, continuing to tiptoe behind
him. Their visitor knocked long and loud. Dad approached the door and looked
through the spy hole. He turned and mouthed a whisper.

‘Some young stiff in a suit.’

He waved his hand as a signal for her to
move back, but she stood her ground. Dad stood to one side of the door and
called out.

‘Who is it?’

The hairs on Nancy’s neck bristled.