The Nightmare Thief

by Meg Gardiner

  You’re an imbecile, Haugen thought. “No, you simply have no limits.”

  “Bingo.” Ratner laughed again.

  Haugen walked up the road. Ruben Kyle Ratner was nothing but an impediment. He could not be allowed to derail this finely calibrated plan.

  “Okay,” Haugen said. “I’ll deal.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. I know when it’s best to divide up the market. But I’m doing this in the expectation that there will be reciprocity down the line.”

  “I was in the Hummer when your morons drove it into a ravine. Reciprocity starts with you paying me for pain and suffering. Ouch. Think I have a touch of whiplash.” That whinnying laugh again.

  Haugen paced along, gravel squelching beneath his boots. He listened. The wind was gusting, but he knew Ratner was close. He had to be—otherwise these short-range walkie-talkies wouldn’t be working. He slowed and listened for Ratner’s voice to emanate from his hiding place.

  He approached the tree from which hung Von’s body. The wind moaned and beat against Von’s flapping coat. Haugen held quiet. The moan changed pitch.

  Haugen turned sharply and stared at Von.

  Von stared back. “Boss. Help.”

  Jo stroked Peyton’s back, trying to calm her.

  “I don’t want to die,” the girl rasped.

  “You’re not going to. Got that? You’re going to survive—like almost everybody else. The most important thing to do is to lower your heart rate.”

  But hearing that the snake was a Mojave green had alarmed Jo. Mojave greens were more aggressive than any other rattlesnake. Their venom was a neurotoxin. A high-enough dose could stop a person’s breathing. They had a fearsome—and justified—reputation as the deadliest variety of rattlesnake.

  “Do something,” Peyton said. “Ice it—pour cold water on it.”

  Gabe said, “Afraid not. Cold keeps the venom concentrated at the site of the bite.”

  “That’s not a good thing?” she wheezed.

  “No. The concentration can cause extreme tissue damage.”

  Necrosis. Tissue death. Muscle and bone could literally dissolve. Jo had seen it in the ER. And Peyton’s condition was already perilous. The bite wound was bruised red and blue and was swelling markedly. And her breathing sounded forced.

  “It burns so bad,” she said thickly. She scratched at her stomach and legs. “And itches all over.”

  She gulped for air. Under the glare of the flashlight, Jo saw that she was flushed.

  “Got to . . .” Her voice was a bare whisper. “. . . Stand up.”

  Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth and gasped for breath. All Jo heard was a rasp. And that instant was all the time it took. She clawed at her throat. Her eyes rolled back and she slumped to the ground.

  “She’s not breathing,” Jo said.

  “Lay her flat,” Gabe said. “Airway.”

  They straightened her out on the ground, and he lifted her chin and tilted her head back and put his face near her lips to check for breath. Jo felt an overwhelming rush of panic. This shouldn’t be happening.

  She had told Peyton she was going to survive. Almost everybody does. But Peyton lay motionless on the dirt, limp, sightless, her chest still.

  It shouldn’t be happening, but it was. Peyton was gone.

  47

  Tang swung her Hot Wheels racer into the parking garage at the Hall of Justice. Evan followed in the Mustang. The hulking building took up an entire city block. It was the size of a beached ocean liner. It looked flour white in the early morning air.

  The homicide detail was deserted, a skeleton staff on duty overnight. Fluorescent lights gave the office a cold sheen. Tang picked up her desk phone and dialed the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office.

  Through the speaker, the sheriff sounded strained. “Lieutenant, yes, we sent a deputy to investigate. He found the pickup truck.”

  Evan moved closer to the desk.

  Tang said, “And Dr. Beckett? Mr. Quintana?”

  “No sign of them.”

  Tang’s face tightened. She stared at the phone and straight on through. After a moment, she gathered herself. “Can you connect me to Deputy Gilbert?”

  The sheriff hesitated. “He’s not responding on the radio. I can’t raise him.”

  Tang sat down. “You’ve lost contact?”

  “Another patrol unit is on its way to Ron’s last-known location, but they’re forty miles away and the weather’s deteriorated.”

  Tang absorbed it. “How did Deputy Gilbert describe the scene where he found the pickup?”

  “Truck was parked in the clearing at the trailhead leading to the mine. Driver’s door open, engine running.”

  Evan rubbed her forehead. Nothing good could possibly be spun from the news.

  She leaned in. “Evan Delaney here. I’m the one who contacted Deputy Gilbert with information about that location. Did he explore the scene? Did he go up the trail?”

  Tang’s cell phone rang. She stepped away from the desk and answered it.

  The sheriff said, “If Ron went up the trail he didn’t tell me. And I don’t think he had time.”

  Evan felt another prickle of worry. “Time?”

  “A vehicle came up the logging road. He flagged it down to find out if the driver had seen anything. He radioed that it was a latemodel Volvo SUV.”

  Tang ended her call and immediately her phone rang again. She answered, spoke briefly, hung up. When she spoke again to the sheriff, her voice took on a new urgency. “Did your deputy get the Volvo’s tag number?”

  “His dashboard camera captured it and sent it through.” The sheriff read it off. “It came back registered to a corporation. Ragnarok.”

  Evan wanted to grab the phone and pull the sheriff through the line onto Tang’s desk and kiss him.

  Tang leaned over. “Listen. I just got off the phone with our Bayview station. They got a call this afternoon from a citizen who was out for a walk at Candlestick Point. She wanted to report ‘shady business’ on the beach.”

  Evan turned. “Meaning?”

  “She described it as Beverly Hills, 90210 meets Miami Vice. Bunch of shiny-looking young people pull up in a limousine, drinking champagne. A few minutes later, a speedboat drives up and gunmen in ski masks chase them down.”

  The sheriff said, “What?”

  “However, one of the kids told the citizen it was all make-believe. It was a party. And one of the supposed gunmen—a woman—gave her a business card.”

  “Let me guess,” Evan said. “Edge Adventures.”

  Tang pointed a finger at her, like a pistol. “Bull’s-eye.”

  “So what gives?”

  “The female ‘gunman’ didn’t completely mollify the citizen. After the kids splashed away in the speedboat, the citizen took down the license numbers of two vehicles—the limousine and a black Volvo SUV. She phoned the police to report the incident. She said something didn’t smell right.”

  The sheriff said, “Was it the same Volvo SUV?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn.”

  Evan held her counsel. Tang looked both energized and pale with worry.

  “Here’s the thing,” Tang said. “The Bayview station reassured the caller that everything was fine. Edge Adventures phoned two days ago to inform them they’d be running an ‘urban reality game’ at Candlestick Point today.”

  Evan said, “Are you saying that everything’s copacetic? The SUV, the scenario—it’s all aboveboard?”

  “No. Edge Adventures doesn’t own an SUV.” She paused a beat. “And the second call I just got was from Terry Coates’s girlfriend. She gave me the list of game runners for this weekend’s reality scenario. Not one of them is a woman.”

  All wrong blared in Evan’s head. Way, far wrong. “There’s something else, Sheriff. Ragnarok—the company that owns the Volvo SUV—its number was in the cell phone Jo found near the abandoned mine.”

  The sheriff broke the
humming silence. “We need to track down that vehicle.”

  Tang said, “You need to set up a roadblock.”

  “My thinking exactly, Lieutenant.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  Evan opened her mouth to speak, and paused. “I hope Deputy Gilbert turns up safely.”

  Tang said, “Ditto that. Good luck.”

  She hung up. After a heavy pause, she said, “Coates’s girlfriend had another piece of information. Edge Adventures’ client this weekend is a young woman named Autumn Reiniger.”

  “The twenty-first-birthday girl?” Evan felt a buzz. “Excellent. That’s great.”

  Tang made another phone call, to a detective on duty. She told him to find out everything he could about Autumn Reiniger. When she finished, she shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “You should be more excited,” Evan said. “What is it?”

  “The Tuolumne deputy. It’s bad news. There’s not going to be a happy ending.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Deputy Gilbert found Jo’s truck abandoned with the driver’s door open and the engine running. Now he goes missing, immediately after this mysterious Volvo SUV appears on the scene. I’m not about to shake the pom-poms.”

  “You encouraged the sheriff. Encourage yourself too,” Evan said.

  Tang’s eyebrows rose. “Are you kidding? Do you know who that was? Sheriff Walt Gilbert. He’s Deputy Ron Gilbert’s father.”

  48

  Peyton lay stretched out on the chilly dirt. Her eyes were half open. Her face was slack. Her chest was still. Gabe knelt beside her. Emotion burst across his face, flaring like a match. He swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Jo’s own chest was tight with anger and disbelief.

  Losing a patient hurt. Losing a young patient could be crushing. Doctors, paramedics, firefighters, PJs, all barricaded their emotions against the impact. And when it happened, it didn’t feel like a blow. It felt like a drain had opened, swallowing everything and leaving a vacuum in its wake.

  Jo could hear the river. It was turbulent, braiding around rocks, pouring cold down the mountain. Again, she thought: None of this should have been happening. Rattlesnake bites didn’t kill people this fast. Not even a bite from a Mojave green.

  She leaned over Peyton and flicked the beam of the flashlight at her eyes. Her pupils constricted.

  She was still there.

  “CPR,” Gabe said.

  He leaned down and began blowing air into Peyton’s lungs. Her chest didn’t move. Still no respirations. No sound, no evidence that Peyton was getting oxygen. She remained limp.

  “Airway’s completely blocked. Her throat’s swollen shut,” he said.

  The sinking, dizzy feeling ran through Jo and settled hard. Peyton was falling toward the far side, maybe already there. Jo seemed to hear echoes in her head. We have to go. He’s dead. I’m sorry.

  No. She focused.

  She looked at Gabe. “We are not going to have to tell her parents.”

  He stared at Peyton. “Absolutely not.”

  The vehemence in his voice, even sotto voce, felt like pressure in Jo’s chest.

  “Trach?” he said.

  It was a desperate idea, giving Peyton an emergency tracheotomy, but the situation was critical. He drew his buck knife and palpated Peyton’s neck.

  “Perimeter. Watch for people coming,” he said.

  Jo scanned the darkened slope. She could see nothing but shifting shadows in the moonlight. She grabbed Peyton’s wrist and checked for a pulse. It was there, solid. What was causing this?

  “Maybe an especially powerful load of venom?” she said.

  Wrong, wrong, this was so wrong—but real, and right there. Peyton’s words . . . “When I was little I . . .”

  Jo stilled. Oh my God. “Anaphylaxis?”

  The venom of a Mojave green could paralyze its prey and stop its breathing. But it should not cause a victim’s throat to swell shut.

  But a severe allergic reaction might. Anaphylactic shock.

  Gabe looked surprised and doubtful. “Allergic reaction to a snakebite?”

  Anaphylactic shock was a rare complication in snakebite. It could only happen if the victim had been previously exposed to venom.

  “Peyton said, ‘When I was little I almost got poisoned by a rattler,’ ” Jo said. “I thought she meant a snake got into the campsite. But—”

  “Maybe the rattler actually struck her?”

  Jo grabbed the first-aid kit. She foraged through it and grabbed the EpiPen.

  Gabe sliced a hole in Peyton’s velour track bottoms and ripped the fabric to expose her thigh. Jo popped the cap from the back end of the EpiPen and jabbed the pen into Peyton’s quadriceps, injecting epinephrine directly into the muscle.

  She pressed, counting slowly to ten. It seemed to take forever. She pulled out the needle and massaged the injection site.

  They waited, aching. Jo monitored Peyton’s pulse. The buck knife hovered in Gabe’s hand, gleaming in the beam of the flashlight.

  Peyton breathed.

  She wheezed. Her chest rose.

  Jo whispered, “Come on. Come on, honey.”

  Gabe held the knife poised above her throat. She gasped. She was getting air.

  “Recovery position,” he said.

  They rolled her onto her side. Her lungs were working. Her airway was open. Her mouth opened. Her eyes opened.

  “That’s it,” Jo said. “Peyton. Hang in there.”

  Gabe sank back on his heels. Despite the chill, he was sweating.

  Peyton looked at Jo. Whispered, “What happened?”

  “Allergic reaction. We gave you an injection of epinephrine.”

  She shut her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Tentatively Jo reached out and with the tips of her fingers brushed tangled, wet strings of hair from the girl’s face. “When you were little, did the rattler bite you?”

  “Dry bite.”

  Jo frowned.

  “Jerked my leg free before its fangs sank in. But this time . . .”

  Jo and Gabe exchanged a glance. The childhood bite must have contained some venom.

  Eyes still shut, Peyton said, “I’m sorry.” Her lips quivered. “My bracelet. Grandmother gave—I just . . . sorry.”

  “Save the apologies for when we’re home. You can buy me a beer.”

  “Buy you a case.” She took a breath. “When I turn twenty-one.”

  Jo tucked Peyton’s hair behind her ear. “Deal.”

  They kept Peyton in the recovery position for fifteen minutes. Her breathing eased. The flushing and itching subsided. Her face, though still drawn with pain, no longer looked puffy. Her pulse remained strong and her respirations became regular.

  Gabe stood up and beckoned Jo out of the girl’s earshot. “We have a decision to make.”

  Peyton rolled over. “I don’t want to stay here.”

  “You just rest. We’ll figure it out.”

  “No. Don’t make me stay here.” She struggled to a sitting position. “I can walk.”

  They looked at her, patently doubtful.

  “Really.” She held out her left hand. “Help me up.”

  Jo thought, First, do no harm. Hiking out with a rattlesnake bite was far from ideal. Doing it in the aftermath of anaphylaxis was even more uncertain. But even more important than keeping Peyton still was getting her to an ER. Anything that reduced the time it took to get her to a hospital would improve her chances of survival and recovery. And staying here, where Kyle could find them, was the most dangerous option of all.

  Peyton pushed to her feet. “I can walk. Please. We need to stay together. I’ll do whatever you want, whatever you say. I promise.”

  Keeping Peyton in one place until she could be evacuated would be ideal, but she couldn’t be left alone. Jo could stay with her, but Gabe’s expression said in no uncertain terms that he would not let that happen. Either they all stayed, or they all went. And none of them was goi
ng to stay.

  Gabe looked up the slope, into the forest. Jo felt certainty hover in the air between them. They were going to find the others.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  49

  Evan felt a finger poke her shoulder and smelled scorched coffee. She jerked upright in the plastic chair beside Tang’s desk. The windows reflected the humming fluorescent lights. Outside, the sky was black. Tang handed her a cup of coffee.

  She took a harsh swallow. “Styrofoamy. Thanks.”

  Tang had to be tired, but it showed only around her eyes. She had put on glasses with black frames. She looked like Buddy Holly. She handed Evan an eight-by-ten photo: a grainy shot taken by the dashboard camera in Deputy Gilbert’s cruiser. The camera had been aimed backward, through the wire mesh screen and out the rear window. It was adjusted for night vision, and the lighting was green and eerie. The Blair Witch Cop Car.

  Parked behind the cruiser, headlights a screechy white, was the Volvo SUV.

  Evan came wider awake. “Two people inside it. No, three—somebody’s in the backseat.”

  The driver was a white man. A white woman sat in the front passenger seat.

  Despite her fatigue, Tang looked pumped up. “Ragnarok Investments is a Potemkin corporation that hides a rat’s nest of businesseson-paper behind it.”

  “And you found something,” Evan said.

  Tang handed her a printout. “Sabine Jurgens. She’s listed as the minority owner of a company four layers removed from Ragnarok.”

  “Who is she? The woman I spoke to on the phone this afternoon?” Evan held up the dashboard camera photo. “Her?”

  Tang sat down at her desk and typed on her keyboard, quick and fluid. She brought up Sabine Jurgens’s California driver’s license. Jurgens had pixie-short red hair and a gaze that could strip things bare—assets, a machine gun, men—and leave them burning.

  “She’s got dual U.S.-German citizenship. Looks clean, but there’s a strange flag on her file, waving deep in the background. I haven’t been able to crack it yet. It’s got an Interpol tag on it.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  Evan compared Jurgens’s driver’s license photo with the grainy green figure in the dashboard camera photo. She couldn’t tell whether it was the same woman.