Then I saw Tiasa.
She came in from the side, shouting, pushing at Bradley, and without letting go of the other girl, he hit her across the face with the back of his hand. She disappeared from view, and then Bella appeared, yelling, gesturing. She pulled Tiasa up from where she'd been knocked to the floor, slapped her, screaming at her. Then she shoved Tiasa out of sight and, still shouting, reached out and yanked the curtains closed.
Somehow, I'd remembered to keep taking pictures.
I lowered my camera, thinking that I had a gun. Thinking that I could march across the street right now and put a bullet into Bradley, Bella, and anyone else I didn't like the looks of. Somebody in that house had the keys to the Porsche SUV. I could break in, free Tiasa, and be in Salt Lake City by morning.
There were other girls in that house.
I had a plan. I had to stick to it, no matter how hard it was to remember that at the moment.
So I didn't move, waiting, watching. When the Town Car returned,
parked itself in the garage once more, I lowered the camera, stowed it again inside my messenger bag. I left the house as I'd entered.
It was dawn when I reached the Jetta and started back to Las Vegas, and despite myself, I felt like I had abandoned Tiasa.
I felt like a coward.
CHAPTER
Thirty-three
I started printing out the new pictures I'd taken, all but
the ones of Tiasa, as soon as I got back to the rented apartment. They were still printing when I fell asleep, but they'd stopped when I woke midafternoon, because I'd run out of ink for the printer again. I got myself sorted, then took my laptop and the unused set of cotton gloves with me when I went out.
With a little searching, I found a postal service store in a strip mall. I put on the gloves before leaving the Jetta. The store had ink cartridges, so I bought replacements, and then pretty much took their stock of FedEx packs and labels. I got some looks, and explained away the gloves to the cashier by saying that I had dermatitis.
Back in the Jetta the gloves came off, and I drove around until I found a coffee shop that also offered wireless access. I got myself a cup of mint tea, then got myself online, began searching up the addresses I wanted. I compiled a list, finished the tea, and headed back to the apartment. Before touching the envelopes or the labels, I made sure I was wearing my gloves.
The gloves stayed on my hands for the next two hours, as I resumed printing. When I finally took them off, I had sixteen FedEx packs loaded and labeled, each one containing a set of all the pictures I'd printed, the CDs I'd burned, and the narrative I'd written.
Then I settled in once more to try to sleep, and to wait for morning.
Sharala called at 10:17 the next morning.
“Congratulations,” she said. “It's a monster fucking Wave Bubble.”
“I'll be right over,” I said.
I lied, but only a little bit. I had to get my things cleared out of the apartment and loaded into the car first. Having done that, I donned my white cotton gloves for what would be the last time, and took my stack of FedEx envelopes to a drop box I'd located earlier. I'd marked each of the domestic packs to be at its destination by ten-thirty the next morning. The internationals, of which there were four, would likely take longer.
With the envelopes on their way, I stripped off the gloves, threw them in the first trash can I could find.
That completed, I headed back to UNLV.
They were waiting for me in the RF lab, the same place I'd first met them three days prior. The toolbox was a large one, traditional bright red, resting on the worktable in front of them, and each of them beamed at me like proud parents. Auggie opened it up as I approached to allow me a look, removing pieces and explaining what each component was. I listened as if I understood, but for all his care in explaining it, to me it was simply a sandwich of yellow circuit boards with hand-soldered wires joining them together, all of them secured to a flat piece of wood. They showed me where the antennae would attach.
There was also, as promised, a big red button.
“Thank you,” I told them.
“You kidding?” Solomon said. “We should be thanking you. This was a blast.”
I shook my head, bemused.
“Nah, you don't get it,” Auggie said. “This is why we got into this stuff in the first place. We all wanted to make the shit Batman carries around on his belt.”
I laughed, then took out the envelope I was carrying in my jacket, handed it to Sharala.
“What's this?” she asked.
“Six thousand dollars,” I said. “Figure that's two grand for each of you.”
“That's too much. Maybe this was a thousand dollars parts and everything, shipping. This is too much to pay.”
I just shook my head.
Six grand was nothing next to what I was hoping my new toolbox would buy me.
CHAPTER
Thirty-four
I left Vegas for the final time at four that afternoon, and
was back in New Paradise before seven, just as the sun was starting to disappear over the desert. Then I had to make a choice, because what I needed to do next was kill time. My other option, one that I'd discarded, had been to leave Vegas later, much later, around one in the morning, to try to time my arrival closer to when I planned to hit the house.
The problem with that plan was that New Paradise wasn't very large, and a car driving down main street at three in the morning was more likely to attract police attention than one that did so at seven at night. It's why I had parked so far from the house on the cul-de-sac the night I'd made my surveillance;
the last thing I had wanted to earn was police attention. The Jetta had been purchased in Matthew Twigg's name, and the plates that had come with it led back to him. If the police knew I was coming, all my careful planning would be for naught.
So arriving earlier, when the town was still awake, seemed a better idea. The problem was it left me with time to kill, and time to kill brought with it nervousness. This was complicated by the need to find a place where I wouldn't draw attention while I waited.
For that, though, Nevada provided its own solution. Twenty-four hours, rain or shine, holiday or no, there is always a seat for you in a casino.
At three in the morning, I left Paradise Rollers and returned to my car. There were still enough vehicles in the lot that mine had remained inconspicuous. I was glad to get out. Cigarette smoke, lights, and noise had done nothing for my nerves. To top it all off, between blackjack and the craps table, I'd lost five hundred and thirty-seven dollars.
I hoped it wasn't an omen of things to come.
From the casino to the Albertson's parking lot took two minutes. From the lot to Oasis took another six, and I doused the headlights on the Jetta before I made the turn toward the still-open gates that led into the development. I slowed, lowering my window. The desert air had gone cool with the night, still dry. My stomach was already working its way through a Boy Scout's handbook worth of knots. During the entire drive I had seen only four other vehicles, none of them police, and all heading the opposite direction, and I thought that maybe I'd caught a break.
No such luck.
The spotlight hit me as soon as I was through the gate, coming from behind, its reflection in the rearview mirror blinding me for a moment. Then the other lights came on, blue and red, and the New Paradise police car that had been parked in the shadow of the wall as I'd passed pulled in behind me.
I stomped the Jetta's brakes, coming to an abrupt halt, and whoever it was behind the wheel of the cruiser had to do the same, surprised that I'd stopped so quickly. The light from the spot shifted, trying to scan the interior of the car, and I didn't turn around in my seat, staying still, furious with myself for not having counted on this, for not having a contingency.
The driver's door on the police car opened, followed immediately by the one on the front passenger side. Two cops, and I didn't need to check my mirrors to guess who they were. Again I cursed myself; I'd been so damn concerned with getting into the house, with what I'd do once inside, I hadn't considered the possibility I might not even reach the place at all.
A new light joined the glare from the flood, a flashlight beam, and I'd been right, it was the same two cops who'd stopped me before, the talker and his silent brother in corruption. It was the talker holding the Maglite, and he recognized me immediately.
“Jeezus, buddy,” he said. “Can't you take a hint?”
I tensed my shoulders, tightened my grip on the steering wheel, set my jaw, still staring straight ahead, refusing to look at him. He read my body language, shifted further around toward the front of the car, now wary, pivoting to keep his eyes on me. One hand dropped to cover his holster.
“Out, asshole,” he said. “Kill the engine and get out.”
I hesitated, then snapped the engine off, put my hands back on the wheel.
“Get out of the fucking car, now.”
“I didn't do anything,” I said, and it came out as both petulant and angry.
“You're trespassing.”
“Bullshit, that's fucking bullshit.”
“Get out of the vehicle, keep your hands where I can see them.”
I unfastened my seatbelt, shoved open my door. As soon as I was out, the other one had me into the side of the car. I kept my body tensed, pushed back, my hands on the roof of the Jetta, and got shoved a second time, harder.
“There's no sign,” I said. “There's no sign, there's nothing. You can't do this.”
“You want to make this hard?” the talker asked. “That what you want to do? Because we can do that, we'd be happy to do that.”
I glared at him, trying to place his position behind the flashlight in his hand. He was still covering his holster, still keeping his distance. Behind me, his silent partner shifted, and I heard the ring of metal on metal as he pulled out his cuffs, and that was the cue I'd been waiting for. With an audible sigh, I let myself sag against the side of the Jetta, let every muscle that I'd been holding tense relax, let my posture shift from resistance to submission.
“I want a lawyer,” I said softly.
The talker read my surrender, stepping closer, the Maglite coming down, his other hand no longer covering the butt of his pistol. He'd seen my behavior before on a hundred drunks faced with the power of the badge, the moment when reality sets in just before the cuffs go on.
“Tell you what, we'll go down to the station, sort this out.”
I nodded slightly, thinking that all three of us knew damn well there was no station involved in what they had planned.
The one behind me closed the cuff around my right wrist, pulled my hand from the top of the Jetta, bringing it down and behind me toward the small of my back, and that's when I moved, using my hips to pivot into him and away from his talkative partner. My right hand found his wrist, and I twisted, brought his arm up, straightening it and locking his elbow before slamming my left hand upward, into the joint. It broke and he screamed and I let go.
The talkative one had dropped the Maglite and was trying to index his pistol, but distance is everything, and I was too close to him already. I took his right knee with my boot before he could clear his holster, pounded my fist into the side of his neck even as he was going down. He landed on his side, and I stole the canister of pepper spray from his belt, gave him a faceful, then spun back and sprayed the rest of it at his partner.
Tossing the can, I took the cuffs off the talker and trapped his hands behind his back. He wore his keys on a lanyard, and I yanked them free from his belt, unlocked the set that dangled from my wrist, and reapplied them to his partner. He gurgled in pain when I twisted his arm behind him. I took his keys as well, along with his radio, then went back for his partner's. I let them keep their guns.
Both men were still mewling and gagging when I loaded them into the back of their cruiser. The residue of pepper spray was strong enough to make my own eyes water, and I was coughing when I locked them into the backseat, coughing even more when I slid behind the wheel and backed their car into the shadows beneath the wall. With the three of us in the vehicle, we sounded like a symphony of bronchitis.
I shut off the car, used the keys to lock it up, then climbed back into the Jetta. Without their personal radios, locked in the back of their cruiser, the cops wouldn't be able to call for help.
From what I'd seen behind the wheel of their car, the New Paradise PD tracked their units via GPS, which meant that somewhere, someone would eventually notice that they hadn't moved in a while. How long a while that would be, I had no way to know.
But somewhere, a clock was now running, and I had no more time to waste.
I crept the Jetta through the barren streets, using only the accelerator, afraid that brake lights would give me away, afraid of more of Bella Downs's bought-and-paid-for police lurking in the darkness. My visit the night before last had given me a good lay of the land, but now I had another decision to make. The cul-de-sac was a problem, because cul-de-sac meant dead end. That would leave only one route of escape. But the car would provide protection and speed.
In the end, I parked the Jetta behind the house I'd used for my surveillance, leaving it unlocked. The entire time I'd kept watch on the McMansion, I'd seen police come through the area only once, and that had been almost an hour earlier than it was now. Unless Bella had the entirety of the New Paradise Police Department patrolling her neighborhood, no one would notice the car.