by Jude Hardin
“Are you a police officer?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
Moffit laughed again.
“You and about a million other people,” he said again.
Wahlman gripped the steering wheel tightly, made a concerted effort not to lean into the guard shack window and grip Moffit’s throat.
“I don’t have time to explain,” Wahlman said. “Is Ms. Pierce somewhere here at the track, or not?”
“Again, I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Which pretty much tells me that she’s here,” Wahlman said. “If she wasn’t, you would just say no.”
Moffit shrugged.
“You can think whatever you want to think,” he said.
“I need to find her,” Wahlman said. “Or at least talk to her. I know she’s here. Is there any way you could call her on the phone?”
“There’s a car behind you,” Moffit said. “I’m going to need you to pull forward and pull over to the right.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’m going to take care of the gentleman behind you. Then I’m going to call the security office and let my supervisor know that we have a problem. Then my supervisor is going to come out here and talk to you, and there’s a good chance that you’ll be escorted from the property. And if you resist in any way, shape, or form, there’s a good chance—and I mean a very good chance—that my supervisor will notify the Louisville Police Department and let them deal with you.”
Wahlman checked his rearview mirror. There was indeed a car behind him. A very fat car with a very fat man in the driver seat, a man with curly gray hair and a mustache, tapping his fingers impatiently on the dashboard.
“How long is it going to take to get your supervisor out here?” Wahlman said.
“Not long.”
“Make the call. Make it now.”
“I’ll make the call when I’m ready to make the call,” Moffit said. “Pull forward and pull over to the right. We’ll be with you shortly. I promise.”
Wahlman didn’t pull forward and pull over to the right. Instead, he switched off the ignition and climbed out of the car and stepped around to the front of the guard shack and kicked the door in.
“This is an urgent situation,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t make that clear.”
The guard reached for the phone. Wahlman took a step forward and clouted him in the forehead with a closed fist, knowing that such an action could potentially end his career as a private investigator, especially if he was wrong about Janelle Pierce’s life being in danger.
But he was almost certain that he wasn’t wrong. He was betting everything he’d worked for over the past three years on it. He was almost certain that the guy in the plaid flannel shirt had killed Rokki Rhodes, and he was almost certain that the same guy was now planning to kill Janelle Pierce.
He didn’t know why the guy wanted to kill Janelle, or why he’d wanted to kill her lookalike. He couldn’t imagine a motive, but it was too much of a coincidence that the guy had been stalking Rokki one day and showing a great interest in Janelle’s racehorse the next. In Wahlman’s experience, coincidences weren’t really coincidences most of the time. They were the results of deliberate acts.
Moffit’s eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the floor. Wahlman made sure that he was still alive, and then he stepped over to the desk and checked the logbook. Which, similar to the system that the United States Navy used for watch duty and quarterdeck activity and other potentially important notations, was an actual physical book, with lined pages and entries written neatly in black ink. Computers were great for a lot of things, but even the tightest and most expensive digital networks were subject to attack. When you wanted to be absolutely certain that some bonehead down the street—or on the other side of the world—wasn’t watching your every move, the old ways were still the best ways.
Wahlman found the entry he was looking for.
Tamara Janelle Pierce, owner of a two-year-old filly named T.J. Ricochet, had been granted access to the V.I.P. parking area at 15:37, along with two guests, one male and one female.
And that was all that Moffit had written. There was no indication of where Janelle and her guests had gone after they’d gotten out of their car.
Wahlman looked around for a list of phone numbers. He didn’t know for sure, but he figured that someone as famous as Janelle Pierce would insist on a private suite. They were extremely expensive, but Janelle was one of the highest paid actresses in the world. She could afford it. Wahlman figured he could call every suite until he found the right one. Until Janelle or one of her guests answered the phone. But there was no list. No hardcopy, anyway. In-house phone listings were a lot different than actual log entries, which often included sensitive personal information. In-house phone numbers were of little use to hackers. They were probably kept in a file on the computer, easily accessible from any station in the network. Again, the way the Navy did it.
Wahlman stepped over to the desk and pressed one of the keys on the keyboard. The monitor blinked on and a pair of login boxes appeared on the screen, one for a user name and one for a password.
Which meant that Wahlman was going to have to think of something else.
He was thinking about grabbing Moffit’s walkie-talkie and keying the transmitter and pretending to be Moffit and trying to get the phone number to Janelle’s suite from whoever answered on the other end when he glanced out the window and saw three more uniformed guards running toward the shack.
12
T.J. Ricochet did not win.
Or place.
Or show.
“Good thing we didn’t bet a lot of money on that horse,” Janelle’s father said.
“She’ll do better next time,” her mother said.
Janelle poured herself another drink. Vodka on the rocks. Her fourth. She looked over at Marshall and gestured questioningly toward the bar.
“No thanks,” he said. “I really need to get going.”
Janelle set her drink down, stepped over and gave him a hug.
Another loose and quick one.
“Nice seeing you,” she said. “Take care of yourself.”
Marshall leaned down and whispered in her ear.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he said. “In private?”
Janelle wanted for this little chance meeting to be over as soon as possible. She had no interest in talking to Marshall, in private or otherwise. She had no interest in talking to him, but she didn’t want to be rude to him in front of her mother, and she certainly didn’t want to make him angry. She knew from experience that his personality could change in a heartbeat. There was no reason to risk creating that sort of scene.
She backed away and turned toward her parents.
“I’m going to walk Marshall out to his car,” she said. “Be right back.”
Marshall told Janelle’s mother and father how nice it had been to see them. Janelle’s mother smiled and said likewise. Janelle’s father grunted and turned toward the window to watch the horses walk to the gate for the next race.
Janelle followed Marshall out to the hallway. She walked beside him on the way to the stairs, keeping her arms folded across her chest, hoping he wouldn’t try to hold her hand or put his arm around her. She was starting to think that the uninviting body language was going to be enough, and that this was going to be over soon, and that everything was going to be okay, when Marshall reached over and put his hand on her shoulder.
“Why didn’t you ever return my calls?” he said.
Janelle stopped walking.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she said. “I’m going to go on back to the suite now. You take care of yourself, okay?”
“All I ever wanted was to love you.”
“It was high school. It was a long time ago. People change. People move on. That’s just the way it is.”
“I still love you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
“Marshall—�
��
“Why can’t you give me another chance?”
“I need to go now,” Janelle said. “It was good seeing you, but I need to go.”
Marshall reached under the tails of his flannel shirt and pulled out a semi-automatic pistol and pointed it directly at Janelle’s face. A chill washed over her and her knees got weak and her heart felt as though it was going to thump its way out of her chest.
“We’re going to walk to your car,” Marshall said. “We’re going to do it slowly and calmly, as if absolutely nothing is wrong. If you scream, or shout, or try to run away—”
“You’re insane, Marshall. You need help.”
“I need you to shut your mouth and move on down the stairs.”
“You’re never going to get away with this. You know that, right? My parents are—”
“Move. I’ll be right behind you.”
13
The fat guy in the fat car was gone. He must have called the security office, and then he must have backed out of the V.I.P. lane and headed over to one of the general admission lots, hoping to avoid the kinds of misunderstandings and subsequent conflicts that sometimes ensued when an angry motorist climbed out of a sleek and speedy two-seater and walked around to the front of a guard shack and viciously splintered the doorframe with the heel of a size-fourteen work boot.
Two of the private security officers currently running toward the shack appeared to be unarmed. Like Moffit. The only things clipped to their belts were keyrings and walkie-talkies. They were chubby and slow, and Wahlman didn’t think they would pose much of a problem.
The third guard, however, the one leading the pack, the one out in front by a good twenty feet or so, was a different story. He was lean and fast and muscular and appeared to be packing a pistol and a stun gun and some sort of grenade—smoke, or tear gas—along with an expandable baton and a pair of handcuffs. He stopped a few feet from the shack and pulled his pistol out of its holster and dropped to one knee and aimed toward the window and waited for Chubby Guard One and Chubby Guard Two to catch up.
“Lace your fingers behind your head and step out of the shack,” the lean and muscular guard shouted.
“I’m trying to save someone’s life,” Wahlman shouted in return.
“Come on out and we’ll talk about it.”
Wahlman thought it over for a few seconds, decided to comply with the guard’s orders. Decided that he didn’t have much of a choice. He laced his fingers behind his head, stepped over to the ruined door and swung it open with his foot.
And was promptly met with a crushing blow to the side of his neck.
The expandable nightstick, he thought, as the pain swept through his body and the fireworks exploded in his head. His knees crumpled and a fist or a foot or a sledgehammer or something slammed against the center of his chest and he was suddenly inside the shack again, staring at the ceiling. Chubby Guard One jumped on top of him and straddled his torso and punched him in the face while the lean and muscular guard slapped the cuffs on his wrists.
“That’s enough,” the lean and muscular guard said. “Get him up to the chair.”
Chubby Guard One and Chubby Guard Two got Wahlman up to the chair. All six feet four inches and two hundred and forty pounds of him. It was a struggle. Chubby Guard One and Chubby Guard Two were breathing hard by the time they finished the assignment. Chubby Guard Two looked like he might throw up.
Moffit was still on the floor. He was still unconscious. There was a bump on his forehead where Wahlman had clobbered him.
Chubby Guard One crouched down and checked him for a pulse.
“He’s going to need some attention,” he said.
“The police and an ambulance are on the way,” the lean and muscular guard said. “We’re going to sit here quietly until they arrive.”
“Are you the supervisor?” Wahlman said.
“Yes. My name is Lancaster.”
“You’re name’s going to be dog shit if you don’t listen closely to what I’m going to tell you and do exactly as I say.”
Lancaster laughed.
“Breaking and entering. Assault and battery. You’re in a lot of trouble, my friend. I don’t think you’re in any position to—”
“Just shut up and listen,” Wahlman shouted.
But Lancaster didn’t shut up and listen. Instead, he whipped out the expandable baton and smacked Wahlman on the thigh with it, smacked him hard, with great force, as if he were trying to swat some sort of flying pest. A fresh jolt of agony traveled up the left side of Wahlman’s body, searing a pathway through his jawbone and up to the tip of his scalp.
“What part of quietly did you not understand?” Lancaster said.
Wahlman breathed in through his teeth, tried to huff some of the pain away.
“There’s a very good chance that a young lady is going to die this afternoon,” he said. “And if she does, it’s going to be your fault. You can either stand there and beat me to death with that thing, or you can—”
Something outside of the shack caught Wahlman’s eye.
Something about a hundred feet from the window.
A man and a woman. Walking toward an SUV. They were too far away for Wahlman to make out their facial features, but there was no mistake about the shirt the man was wearing.
No mistake whatsoever.
“They’re out there,” Wahlman said. “They’re getting into a car. Surely you’re not going to just sit here and—”
Lancaster smacked him with the baton again. Same leg. Same spot.
After fighting off a wave of nausea for a few seconds, and after several more seconds of careful consideration, Wahlman came to the conclusion that any further conversation with Lancaster would be a waste of time. Therefore, he didn’t say anything as he leaned back in the desk chair and kicked the security supervisor’s right kneecap with approximately the same force as he’d used on the door earlier. Lancaster shouted out in pain and fell to the floor and reached for his pistol. Wahlman stood and stomped on his face until he stopped reaching.
Chubby Guard One and Chubby Guard Two came at Wahlman and grabbed him by the arms and tried to wrestle him to the floor. Which was a big mistake on their part. They should have kept their distance. They should have exited the shack immediately, and then they should have used their walkie-talkies to call for help. Maybe this would be a learning experience for them, Wahlman thought. Maybe they would be smarter next time. Probably not, but it was possible. At any rate, they came at him and grabbed him by the arms and he quickly put one of them down with a knee to the ribs and the other with an elbow to the jaw, and then he crouched down and grabbed the stun gun from Lancaster’s holster and made sure that neither of them would bother him while he hunted for the keys to the handcuffs.
14
Marshall kept the pistol aimed at Janelle’s core as he steered the SUV through the parking complex and out to the main thoroughfare. He’d locked the controls on the doors and windows, so there was no way for Janelle to escape, even if a momentary diversion from outside of the car caused a momentary lapse in concentration on Marshall’s part. Even if some other kind of unforeseen opportunity presented itself. Her only hope was that Marshall really wasn’t as crazy as he seemed to be, that it was all just an act, an extreme and misguided effort at winning back her love.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“Does it matter?” Marshall said.
“I know you’re not going to kill me. That’s just not who you are.”
“Like you said, people change.”
“You’re just trying to scare me,” Janelle said. “Well, it’s working. I’m scared. You’ve accomplished what you set out to accomplish. So put the gun away and—”
“We had something special,” Marshall said. “Or at least I thought we did. But I guess people like me don’t matter anymore, since you’re a bigtime movie star now.”
“That’s not it. That’s not it at all.”
“Then what is it? You loved m
e before. Why can’t you love me now?”
Janelle couldn’t love Marshall now for the same reason she couldn’t love him eleven years ago. Because he was an asshole. An abusive jerk with a short fuse and a total disregard for other people’s feelings.
But of course she didn’t tell him that. She didn’t want to antagonize him, didn’t want the situation to get more out of hand than it already was.
“I just don’t think we’re right for each other,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, or that I’m a bad person, or that—”
“Shut up,” Marshall said.
Janelle glanced down at the gun. Marshall’s hand was trembling. He was nervous. His finger was on the trigger. One hiccup and a large-caliber bullet would bore a large-caliber tunnel through Janelle’s ribcage. She hoped that one of the tires on the SUV didn’t hit a bump or sink into a pothole or something.
“You need to let it go,” she said. “You need to move on. Turn around and take me back to the track right now, and we can forget that any of this ever happened.”
Marshall didn’t say anything. And he didn’t turn around. He kept driving and he kept pointing the gun at Janelle, and she suddenly realized where they were going.
To the park.
Where it had started, and where it had ended, all those years ago.
15
Janelle didn’t feel right. She’d consumed quite a bit of alcohol, but that wasn’t it. She could hold her liquor with the best of them. This was different. Some kind of drug. Marshall must have slipped something into one of her drinks back at the track. Everything seemed more vivid than usual. More colorful. Bright squiggly lines made their way from one side of her visual field to the other. Like tiny psychedelic worms. She tried to blink them away, but it was no use. Maybe the drug would wear off soon. She hoped that it would.
She still didn’t think that Marshall was planning to kill her. She just didn’t think that he had it in him.
Then she saw the traffic barricades and the crime scene tape blocking the turnoff to the second lookout.
