Ruthless Game (A Captivating Suspense Novel)

by Danielle Girard

  A suspicious chill raked its way across the hairs on her neck, forcing her to wait in hiding until the kid had passed her.

  Never lifting his head, he pulled open the door of a dark American-looking sedan and climbed in. Turning back, Alex tried to judge where he had come from, but the street behind her was silent. A walk this late at night? Or had he been out here taking pictures? She tried to dispel her misgivings.

  The headlights flipped on and Alex rose slightly to see the license plate as the car left. The car lurched back and then halted before starting forward again. Just like a new driver, she thought. From this angle, she couldn't see the plate. Crouching again, she waited for him to leave. He turned out of the parking lot and onto the road behind the hotel, heading for the freeway. She watched him until he was out of sight.

  Frustrated, she had started to stand when she heard the sound of another engine. It came from behind the hotel, where the kid had just come from. Alex stayed low. It was too late for so much activity, and the presence of another car confirmed something was up. Squatting, she pulled her gun from her waistband and waited for the car to get close.

  Following the path the kid had taken, the car started around the row of cars toward the exit, and then suddenly it turned back, accelerating. Alex blinked, adrenaline washing against her stomach.

  The car was speeding right at her.

  Chapter 29

  Heat and energy pumped through Alex's body like blood at the end of a race. She raised her gun, but the headlights shined in her face, making it impossible to take aim. She shielded her eyes from the blinding brightness. Like a stunned deer, she didn't move until the screech of tires and the howl of the engine made it clear the driver was not going to stop.

  Alex lunged left, running full force through the bushes of the hotel boundary, down the incline, over the curb, and onto the main street. The path yielded only a few moments of safety. Within seconds, the car swung out of the parking lot and gained on her from behind. Alex raced back up the incline she'd just descended.

  Through the bushes, she returned to the hotel parking lot. She spun around, looking for a safe haven, but the hotel was the only thing in sight. She shook her head. It would take too long to get there.

  In the middle of the street, the car stopped dead. Alex inhaled and followed its progress with her weapon. She had started to aim at a tire when the car whirled one hundred and eighty degrees and started back. She lowered her gun and waited. She wanted to take the best shot she could. If he was coming back, she'd wait.

  The hotel doors beckoned her, but Alex didn't move. He wasn't getting away. In the meantime, she could use the hotel boundary's small row of ivy bushes and trees for cover. The comforting feel of her gun in her palm reminded her she could protect herself if she had to.

  She needed to get a license plate, something. The car could be stolen, but this guy had to make a mistake sometime. The car screeched up the driveway and into the parking lot, the engine revved high. Alex waited on her toes, ready to run. She trained her gun on the front left tire. "Come on, you son of a bitch."

  If the driver wanted to hit her, he would have to jump the curb. That would mean crashing through the bushes and trees and totaling the car. She was betting he wouldn't do it, but she was ready to run if he did. She focused on the bumper, waiting for even the slightest angle to give away the plate number.

  The car approached at full speed. Alex aimed the gun and shot twice, putting out one headlight but missing the tire.

  The car continued toward her. Without time to shoot again, she dove left, landing hard on her shoulder just as the car hit the curb. She groaned, the wind knocked from her, and rolled herself onto her back and farther from the car.

  Brush and branches snapped under the tires as the car barreled down the incline. There was a moment of silence before the metal scraped and crunched and it landed on the street below.

  From the corner of her eye, Alex watched the car, but she couldn't move. Her left arm felt numb and she realized something was wrong. Her gun, which had been tight in her hand, was gone. She felt her heart in her belly, the splash of panic. Where the hell was it? Using her right hand, she groped the ground around her but didn't feel it.

  At the screeching sound of tires heading away, Alex exhaled. "Damn it." She'd lost him. Her head back, she felt the soft brush cool against her neck. In a minute, she promised herself she would get up. She just needed to slow the dull humming in her head.

  She rubbed her head, but instead of relief a slow dread began to seep into her gut. She raised her head. The hum wasn't her—it was coming from outside.

  The engine wasn't moving farther away as she had expected. Instead, it drummed louder, vibrating through her toes and then crawling up her body. She choked on her breath as she forced herself upright, pain blazing a hot path down her side. The car was coming back!

  "Get up," she yelled to herself, rolling onto her right side to avoid the pain in her left. She struggled to her knees as her eyes caught the one remaining headlight coming back up the hotel driveway.

  Alex staggered to her feet. The pain sped up and down her left arm and shoulder, making motion excruciating. She couldn't make it to the hotel.

  The car was still forty yards away as she prepared to dive again. The loss of one headlight made the bumper slightly more visible in the dark. Squinting, Alex focused on the advancing license plate. California. She just needed a few of the letters—first or last or middle. It didn't matter. "Come on," she hissed, her fists tight.

  The car raged forward, closing the distance to fifteen yards or less. Alex remained still, struggling to read the plate. Too close, her internal alarms screamed. The car was within feet of her now, the driver a dark huddle behind the wheel.

  Her pulse catapulted, and she leapt from the car's path, seeking refuge between two small trees as the car hit the curb again. In the flash as the car whizzed past, Alex caught the letters 2XP on the plate. Behind her, the car hit the street with a louder crunch than the first time.

  Ready to end the game of dodge ball with the car, Alex dropped to her knees to hunt in the dark for her gun. Her left arm coddled against her, she counted. If she didn't find it in five, she'd have to run for it. One. Her hands hit dirt, caking her nails as she dug for the gun. Two. Three. "Come on." Four. As she moved to stand, a brief glimmer caught her eye, and she spotted the gun and grabbed it.

  Exhaling, she pushed herself off the tree with her right hand and steadied herself. She held the gun in her right fist, trying not to shake. She could hear the engine growing closer. A clanking rattle made it sound like the car was about to stop mid-route, but it continued toward her. She aimed the gun at the front right tire and pulled the trigger. She saw the spark of the bullet on the metal of the fender. The kick of the gun knocked her backwards and, on uneven ground, she fought to keep her balance. She raised her gun and fired again. She heard the tire blow, and the car swerved to the right before straightening and coming again. Though moving more slowly, the car was still coming fast enough to hurt her.

  She raised her gun to fire at the other tire as the car got within twenty feet. She aimed, fired, and heard the shot, but nothing happened.

  He closed the distance. Fifteen feet. Twelve. He was too close. She raised the gun and aimed. Her finger was on the trigger when she heard a loud pop from behind. Something whizzed by her ear. Gunfire.

  Dropping, she rolled across the ivy. She cursed as she rolled over her injured left arm, the pain like a fire inside the joint. The car slowed to a stop and Alex panted, waiting for the next move. Tears lined her eyes and she blinked them back. The pain in her shoulder was unbearable. She tried not to breathe, listening. There was something in the distance that sounded like shoes on the sidewalk. But then, suddenly, it was silent.

  The car had stopped fewer than seven feet from where she lay. Slowly, she rose from her belly, using the tree for protection. She looked in both directions and saw nothing. The driver of the car must have run for
it. She peered into the darkness behind her in search of the shooter. But it was all shadows and she couldn't make out a figure. There was nothing behind her but empty streets. She didn't know how anyone could have come up behind her without her knowing. The only real protection in any direction was the thin boundary of brush and ivy and a few scattered trees where Alex was sitting. It extended to her left and her right, but she saw no one in either direction.

  Focusing back on the car, she pulled herself up and began to creep slowly around the front of it. The engine was still running. And the one headlight made it difficult to see inside. She crouched against the fender, her gun out before her, and kept a close eye on her back.

  The driver was gone. She came around the driver's side and rose inch by inch until she could see over the hood of the car. The first thing she saw was the web of broken glass around a single hole. A bullet hole. She sprang to her feet and pulled open the car door, using the edge of her shirt.

  Alfred Ferguson was exactly how he had looked in his photos. Only now he had a large red circle that smeared across the center of his forehead.

  His eyes were open and he looked about to say something. Something he would never get a chance to say. Alex moved in a slow circle, her gun raised, searching for the shooter. She hadn't shot Ferguson. She'd been aiming at the tire. Someone else had shot him. But why? Had he said too much, done too much? Was he too much of a risk? She thought about the kid in the hooded jacket who'd driven off only minutes before Ferguson had started at her. There had to be a connection. Had she been wrong—was that Tim?

  She looked back at the bullet hole in the window. Most cops didn't shoot that well. She moved around the car, keeping her back to it until she was on the passenger side. If someone was out there, they would've made their move already. She had to assume she was alone.

  She pulled on the passenger door, but it was locked. Damn it. Moving back around, she opened Ferguson's door and leaned across his body in search of something that would yield the identity of the shooter. The motion made her wince in pain. The console was clean. An empty coffee cup from 7-Eleven was wedged between the seat and the emergency brake. Some loose change littered the passenger seat and floors. Careful not to touch any surface that would hold a print, she felt his front pockets for something there. The muscle in his legs still felt strong and alive, and the sensation of touching it made her shiver.

  But she didn't stop. She could feel loose change in his front right pocket, but his left appeared empty. She reached behind him and pulled his wallet from his rear pocket. Using her shirt to hold it, she flipped it open and looked inside. It was a cheap, fake leather in a grayish black. Inside, he had one credit/ATM card for Wells Fargo Bank and about six hundred dollars in cash, mostly fifties like Tim had. There were two business cards—a parole officer and an Oakland auto repair shop called Montali Repair with no specific person's name. She also found two folded Post-its with handwritten phone numbers and a folded sheet of yellow lined paper. She pocketed the Post-its and the folded page, and committed the auto repair shop's name to memory.

  Leaning across Ferguson, she felt the bulk of his gut against her arm as she shut the engine off. She took the keys and unlocked the trunk. It contained jumper cables, a club, and a couple of stained rags. One was a large white towel that had been ripped in half. The part she could read said, "ford" in red capital letters. "Stanford," she figured the whole thing had once read. She lifted the towel and looked beneath it.

  There were a few miscellaneous tools and a pair of running shoes, and that was it. She turned the running shoes over and looked at the bottoms. There was a thin layer of reddish-brown dust that was consistent with what she'd seen at the warehouse lot in East Palo Alto. Besides that, the sole was clean.

  She unlocked the passenger door and jumped back at the sight of Ferguson's now raised hand. Pressing the heel of her hand to her chest, she told herself to breathe. It had to be some sort of postmortem twitch. He wasn't alive. Forcing herself to look back at him, she noticed a long blue thread caught in his watch. She looked down at her jacket and knew it had come from her. She yanked it free and tucked it into her pocket.

  In the distance she could hear the low wail of sirens the way she sometimes heard the neighbor's baby crying at night. Moving quickly, she closed the passenger door, returned to Ferguson's side, and put the keys back in the ignition. Ignoring the pain, she ran back to the side door of the hotel. It was weird that she hadn't found a gun on Ferguson. Maybe it was under the seat.

  Using the keycard for her room, she opened the side door and stepped into the stairway on the first level. Just as she made it back to her room, the phone began to ring.

  Chapter 30

  "Alex? Where have you been?" Greg asked. "It's the middle of the night."

  She frowned. "How did you find me?"

  "Carmen Hayes. She was the woman whose husband used to beat her up."

  Alex was too tired to think. "So what?"

  "So that was the name you registered under. James called about fifteen local hotels and had registries faxed to him. We looked through the names. When I saw it, I knew it had to be you. You always had a soft spot for Carmen Hayes."

  She'd known Greg would recognize the name. Wasn't that why she'd chosen it? But somehow he seemed to be everywhere lately and it made her jittery. She shook her head. Greg was her friend, her partner. She was tired and in pain and not thinking clearly. She cupped her left arm to her body and tried to ignore the ache. "Where's James?"

  "I left him with Chris. I headed back up to Berkeley. I'm supposed to be at work in the morning, but I wanted to check in with you first. You didn't answer me. Where have you been?"

  Police cars filled the parking lot and Alex could tell that Greg had heard the sirens.

  "What happened there?"

  "Someone shot Alfred Ferguson."

  "Someone?"

  "It wasn't me."

  "You need to get out of there."

  She carefully looked out the window to see what was happening. "It's too late now. The police are all over the place. I'll wait until the morning and try to sneak out early."

  "You want to catch me up on what's going on?"

  Reluctantly, Alex told Greg everything, from the sound at her door to the bullet that killed Ferguson. When she was done, she took the Post-its out of her pocket and dropped them on the bed. She read Greg the phone numbers, then opened the folded page and scanned it. It appeared to be notes from a phone conversation. Alex read them out loud.

  " 'Don't involve kid. Take care Kinkhead.' "

  "He was taking notes. Someone was telling him what to do and he was taking notes."

  "Yeah, looks like it. My name's spelled wrong."

  "You think the kid he's referring to is Tim?" Greg asked.

  "That's exactly what I think. I told you—Ferguson's not in charge. He wasn't in charge," she corrected herself. "Someone else is. This guy manipulated Ferguson the way he's manipulating me."

  "Who?"

  "That's what we need to find out." She kept reading.

  "'Follow. Don't act. Remember power of the mind.'"

  "Power of the mind," Greg repeated.

  Where had she heard that before? "Power of the mind," she whispered and then it clicked. "The interview—Maggie Androus said Walter used to say the same thing."

  "You're right. I'll be damned. What now?"

  "I've got to find the link between Alfred Ferguson and Walter Androus."

  "Who are you thinking—the brother or sister?"

  She clenched her fist. "They seem like the only solution. Who else would dig all this up? Unless there was an accomplice at the time."

  "But there weren't any other prints," Greg argued.

  "Except the other kids'," Alex corrected.

  "You think he had a kid accomplice?"

  She moved her sore shoulder in slow circles. "I don't know. Maybe someone saw it as a kid and became obsessed." It sounded ridiculous. She was the only survivor left. "
Somehow, though, our guy met up with Ferguson."

  "I've already got a call in to find out more about who was in prison with Ferguson. See if there was someone he hung with, maybe someone from down here who could be linked to it from back then."

  She thought about the person she'd seen walking toward the car in the lot earlier. "See if there's anyone small—built like a teenager."

  "Like a midget?"

  "No. He seemed lanky."

  "But you were squatting, right?"

  "Yes, but he wasn't built like an adult." She sighed. "Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know."

  "I'll see what I can find out."

  "It's going to be a bitch to get anything out of them right now."

  "Hey, I'm used to bitches."

  She smiled. "Thanks, asshole. Check out the plate number, too. Not that I think it'll tell us anything."

  "Will do." He paused. "I should get going. You going to be okay?"

  She told him she would. What choice did she have?

  "Be careful tonight. Whoever was out there knows you're still around."

  "I'll be okay. He's not coming back tonight, not with all these cops."

  She prayed she was right.

  * * *

  After a restless night, Alex woke at five-fifteen, her left arm stiff and throbbing. She fingered her shoulder, relieved to find it didn't feel dislocated or broken. A thick scratch across her cheek was tender, and she could feel the cuts and bruises on her hands, chin, arms, and legs. None of them was anything major, but she had pulled or perhaps even torn a muscle in her shoulder that might have sent her to a doctor under better circumstances.

  But today left no time for healing. After taking four Advil, Alex drew a hot bath and soaked for ten minutes, hoping the water would lessen the pain and stiffness. If it did, the change wasn't noticeable.

  Dressing presented the next challenge, and she cursed and gritted her teeth as she worked her way back into her clothes. She made a makeshift sling with a T-shirt and tucked it into her duffel bag to put on later. First she had to get past whatever police were still downstairs taking statements. She combed her hair straight, carefully letting the one side fall over the scratch on her left cheek. She watched herself in the mirror and shook her head. If a cop saw the scratch, she was in trouble.