In Dark Places

by Michael Prescott

  "Dr. Cameron?" Wolper's voice, from far away. "Robin?"

  She didn't answer.

  Her daughter was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  "Inside," Gabe said again, as Meg hesitated on the threshold of the doorway.

  When she didn't react, he hustled her through the door, into a large open space lit by narrow windows and skylights high overhead. In the middle of the room were two long conveyor belts, rusted and useless. Crates tied shut with twine were scattered around the dust-caked concrete-floored room like islands in a gray sea. Doorways at the far end of the room hinted at side passages that perhaps branched into a warren of halls and offices, lavatories and lunchrooms, all the places used by the employees who were now only ghosts.

  "What kind of place is this?" she breathed.

  "Bottling plant. Some soft drinkDr Pepper, maybe. Shut down in the seventies, around the time this whole part of town was going belly-up. Been stripped of everything valuable."

  "How did you know about it?"

  "Years ago when I'd just started working patrol, we got a DB call here." He smiled at her incomprehension. "DBshort for dead body."

  "Oh."

  "Some bum had been squatting in here. OD'd or stroked out or something. Other vagrants found the body. I remembered it because the dead guy had been here a long time. Seemed like a good place to stash a body."

  Is that what I am? Meg wondered. A body?

  "So you really are a cop," she whispered.

  "Real as steel. Were you starting to doubt it?"

  "I'd like to think a cop wouldn't amp;"

  "Commit the occasional felony? Sweet meat, you got a lot of growing up to do."

  "Will I get the chance to do it?"

  He didn't answer. She hadn't thought he would.

  In silence he led her across the cavernous room to a metal door in the far corner. When he opened it, the feeble daylight from the windows and skylights illuminated a flight of stairs, descending into darkness.

  "Go down," Gabe said.

  Meg looked at him. "No."

  "It's only for a little while." He shifted the gun in his hand, just enough for her to become aware of it. "I need to stash you somewhere."

  "You'll kill me down there."

  "It's a holding area, that's all." He gestured with the gun. "Now go down."

  "Please," Meg said.

  "I don't have time to argue. Get the fuck down there. Do it."

  There was no pity in his face, no memory of affection.

  Heart pounding, she reached out for the metal handrail and made her way down the staircase with Gabe at her back. The treads were steel, and there were no risers, only gaps between the treads that threatened to catch her foot and pitch her forward into blackness.

  At the bottom she turned to look at him. He was right behind her, smiling. "Give me your hand," he said.

  "My hand?" she said blankly.

  He grabbed her left hand, not asking again. Something glinted in the semidarkness. Handcuffs. He fastened one cuff to her wrist, the other to the handrail at hip level.

  "Sit tight," he said. "I'll be back for you. That's a promise."

  He mounted the stairs. She reached for him with her free hand. "Please, Gabe amp;"

  He laughed, shrugging free of her. "That's not even my name, you dumb bitch."

  She watched him climb to the top, becoming a silhouette against the daylight. She expected him to look down, say something more, acknowledge her in some way, but he just closed the door. Darkness slammed down like an anvil.

  She hugged the handrail, listening as his footfalls receded into silence.

  Alone. She was alone in this place, this basement in a deserted bottling plant.

  She rattled her cuffed wrist uselessly against the handrail and tried not to cry. She prided herself on not being a crier, and normally she wasn't, but these circumstances weren't normal, and she decided she could cut herself a break.

  She cried because she was alone and scared, and because she would probably die soon, and because Gabe had called her an immature kid and worse things, and because she wanted to be out of here, home and safe, and she wanted her mom.

  Not Robin, not anymore.

  Her mom.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The offices of the OCB, Operations-Central Bureau, were located in the Central Facilities Building on Sixth Street in downtown LA, a spot conveniently close to Parker Center, LAPD headquarters, where Hammond intended to work someday.

  He let his adjutant follow him into his office and shut the door. His uniform hung in the closet, clean and unwrinkled, where Lewinsky had placed it after removing it from Hammond's locker. He took down the hanger.

  "Give me the overview," he said, unbuttoning his shirt.

  "Gray escaped from custody at Cameron's office in Rampart. He stole her car and fled the scene."

  "Armed?"

  "He took the dead deputy's service piece."

  "Deputy shouldn't have been carrying when the prisoner was offloaded from the felony bus anyway."

  "Van," Lewinsky said. "It was a van. And no, he shouldn't have been carrying, but according to his partner, he was."

  "Why wasn't Gray in leg irons, handcuffs?"

  "Apparently Cameron had insisted on minimal restraints."

  "Stupid bitch. He should've offed her. Don't quote me on that."

  "No, sir." Lewinsky looked away as Hammond pulled off his pants.

  "Any witnesses report which direction Gray was headed in?"

  "No, but we caught one break. Because of that carjack attempt yesterday, Cameron's Saab is visibly damaged. It'll be easy to spot."

  "Gray will ditch the Saab as soon as possible, if he hasn't already. We got ASTRO flying?"

  "Choppers are up."

  "Area cars?"

  "Alerts have gone out to all patrol units, and of course we've dispatched BOLOs to the sheriff's office and all municipal PDs."

  "CHP too? Orange County? Riverside?"

  Lewinsky turned as Hammond buttoned up his uniform shirt. "The whole Southland."

  Hammond paused in his sartorial duties and stood thinking for a moment.

  "We need to put in place a general tactical alert."

  He resumed dressing.

  "A tac alert?" Lewinsky was bewildered. A general tactical alert was ordinarily reserved for situations in which there was imminent danger of civil unrest.

  "You heard what I said. All LAPD divisions on alert. Switch to twelve-and-twelves. We'll have to go through the chief, obviously, but he'll be amenable."

  "You expect this guy to start a riot?"

  "I expect the department not to get caught with its pants down." He glanced at his bare legs. "So to speak. We need to be prepared for every eventuality. More important, we need to look prepared."

  "Yes, sir."

  "It's called covering your ass, Carl," Hammond said as he pulled on his blue trousers.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Now where do we expect the son of a bitch to go?"

  "I've been on the horn to the RHD dicks who bagged him. They say he might go back to Culver City, his old neighborhood."

  "Culver PD get a lookout?"

  "Extra squads on the street. Plainclothes guys undercover outside Gray's former residence."

  "Former residence." Hammond fastened his tie. Like all police neckties it was the snap-on kind, chosen because in a struggle it could not be used to choke the officer. "What is it, a fucking flophouse?"

  "Low-rent apartment building. Courtyard with a pool, circa 1950."

  "He won't go back there. He's no genius, but he's not shooting to be the punch line of one of those world's-stupidest-criminal jokes. How about Cameron's office building?"

  "Sir?"

  "It's within the realm of possibility that the Saab theft was misdirection. Gray may never have left the damn building."

  "The car is gone."

  "The car could be driven by an accomplice."

  "Serial killers u
sually work alone."

  "Except for the twenty-five percent who work in pairs. I want that building thoroughly cleared. Office to office, floor by floor, a clean sweep. Bastard could be hiding in there, figuring it's the last place we'd look."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You think that's crazy?" Hammond shrugged on his jacket. "It may be. But let me ask you this. Why did Gray leave Cameron alive? He's a stone killer, but he leaves her breathing. Why?"

  Lewinsky flexed his brow, a sign of deep thought. "Because she's in on it?" he ventured. "Like, his secret lover or something?"

  "Jesus, no. What do you think this is, a movie of the week? Maybe he left her alive because he wanted her to report that he'd taken her car. He wanted us chasing that Saab."

  "You think so?"

  Hammond sighed, strapping on his equipment belt. "Of course not. The guy is a mope. He can't think that far ahead."

  Lewinsky was thoroughly confused. "Then amp; why search Cameron's building?"

  "Once again, it's called covering our asses, Carl. Come on, this isn't graduate school. It's the goddamned basics." Hammond holstered his Beretta and secured his side-handle baton. "Who's at the crime scene, anyway?"

  "Two or three Rampart units. Watch commander just got there. Oh, and Wolper."

  "Wolper?" Hammond glanced up. "Why? It's not even his area."

  "I'm not clear on that, sir."

  "Hell. I've never liked that son of a bitch. You know he started off as a probationer in South-Central? I was his training officer."

  "I know, sir."

  "He was all right on the street, but he was always making trouble with admin. Late with his paperwork, sloppy with his logs. Didn't seem to grasp the importance of the managerial side."

  "Or the political side," Lewinsky ventured.

  "That, too. The man has a tin ear for politics. He's too damn sure of himselfthat's the problem. He doesn't think he can learn from anyone else."

  "Including his TO?"

  "I may have taught him a few things."

  "I'm sure you did, sir." Lewinsky cleared his throat. "Forgive me for asking an obvious question."

  "I wouldn't expect anything else from you, Carl."

  "Yes, well, I was just wondering amp; We've got Rampart searching the office building even though we know Gray's not there. And Culver watching his old digs even though we know he won't go there. And everybody's looking for the Saab, even though he's probably ditched it."

  "Right."

  "So we're covered. I get it. But the thing is, how do we actually, you know, find him?"

  "We wait for him to fuck up." Hammond inspected himself in the mirror. "He will. He's a loser. Losers lose. It's all they know how to do."

  "Yes, sir," Lewinsky said, not sounding entirely convinced.

  Hammond was about to give him a lecture on the virtues of positive thinking when the door opened and Banner, the traffic cop turned publicist, walked in. "New development," he said. "It looks like Gray's got Cameron's daughter. Snatched her out of their condo in Brentwood."

  Hammond blew out a long, slow breath.

  "They're sure it's him?" Lewinsky asked.

  Banner shrugged. "Who else could it be? He got the address off Cameron's DL."

  "Shit," Lewinsky said.

  Hammond found this observation less than astute, but he didn't pause to comment on it. "I want the condo crime scene routed straight to RHD. We don't need West LA dicks fucking around over there." He looked at Banner. "Gray takes them into the desert, right?"

  "That's the MO."

  "We need Sheriff's to set up roadblocks on desert roads. Need choppers in the air over the Mojave. If he snatched her this fast, he may not have had time to switch cars, so they need to look for the Saab."

  "Guess we don't need the search of the office building after all," Lewinsky said.

  "Wrong. Gray could still be using an accomplice. He wasn't actually seen grabbing the girl, was he?"

  "No wits so far," Banner said.

  "Then we make no assumptions. We cover every angle. I'll make the calls while we're on the road. Let's go."

  "Where?"

  "Cameron's office. The initial crime scene." He glanced at Banner. "Media on top of this yet?"

  "We're still in denial mode."

  "That's fineofficially. Unofficially, I wouldn't be unhappy if Channel Four shows up at the Rampart site."

  "Another exclusive for Susy Chen?"

  "Why not? She always gives us good press."

  Lewinsky objected. "I think Rampart's been keeping the location secret. Cameron's still there. They don't want her facing a media circus when she leaves."

  "Fuck her. She can handle a few cameras in her face. Crying mother in distressthat's good footage. Am I right, Phil?"

  Banner nodded uneasily. "Sure thing, Chief."

  "Call Chen. If she goes there, the rest of the news vultures will follow. I want coverage."

  "Chief," Lewinsky said, "I hope you're balling that woman. Otherwise she's getting a lot of help for free."

  "I'm a married man," Hammond snapped, noting distantly that he'd neglected to say happily married. "Just call her. We need cameras."

  "We'll get 'em," Banner promised.

  "Good. Let's move." Hammond straightened his collar. "Nothing's worse than being all dressed up with nowhere to go."

  Chapter Thirty

  Wolper sat with Robin Cameron while reports came in from West LA. Unit 8-Adam-43 had been joined by a secondary unit, A-41. The condo had been secured as a crime scene. Neighbors were being interviewed.

  At some point, the Rampart patrol sergeant who'd arrived at the office informed Wolper that Deputy Chief Hammond was taking command of the investigation. Wolper greeted this news with raised eyebrows. He and the sergeant both knew it was unusual for an administratora pogueto get directly involved in a high-profile, high-risk case. "He must have his reasons," the sergeant said.

  Wolper nodded. "That he must."

  It was after five o'clock when Hammond made his appearance. He strode into the waiting room, surrounded by Rampart Division patrol officers and his own entourage of driver, adjutant, and press-relations flack. The flack was actually a traffic officer who had been reassigned to Hammond's office by some bureaucratic ruse that Wolper didn't comprehend. The D-chief was a one-man media event. Every time he announced some piddling change of policy or addressed a meeting of the Kiwanis club, the local media knew about it.

  Wolper stepped into the room with an extended hand. "Chief."

  Hammond ignored the hand. He eyed Wolper's civilian clothes. "Out of uniform, Lieutenant?"

  "Off duty, sir."

  "And a few miles outside Newton Area," Hammond observed. "Any particular reason you should be here?"

  "I know the victim."

  "Personal friend?"

  "Personal acquaintance."

  "She's unhurt, I take it."

  "So she tells me."

  "You have doubts?"

  "I think she got bonked on the head a little harder than she's letting on."

  "Then she should be in a hospital. We can't have this woman keeling over when she's in our care. That's not the kind of thing that looks good."

  Hammond knew all about looking good, as did the PR flack, who was nodding vigorously.

  "I don't think she's in any danger of keeling over," Wolper said. "Anyway, we have bigger issues to deal with. You've heard about her daughter?"

  "I've heard, but I don't understand how the hell it happened. As soon as Gray's escape from custody was reported, there should have been a squad car at Cameron's home address."

  "She called her daughter immediately and told her to leave the premises."

  "Apparently that wasn't good enough," Hammond's adjutant, Lewinsky, put in with a shit-eating smile.

  Wolper knew and heartily disliked Lewinsky, a drone whose sycophantic personality and regrettably topical name had given rise to a variety of suck-up jokes. He said nothing.

  Hammond shook
his head. "What a goddamned mess. How did Gray even know about the girl?"

  "As I understand it," Wolper said, "he met her once."

  "Met her? What is this woman running, a tea party for felons?"

  "Sir, if you could keep your voice down amp; She's in the next room."

  Hammond grunted. "Fucking mess. Makes me wish I wasn't involved."

  "Do you have to be, sir?"

  Hammond exchanged a glance with his adjutant, and Wolper could practically hear him saying to Lewinsky, You see the kind of insubordination and stupidity I have to put up with?

  "It's my bureau. I'm handling it. I asked for the responsibility."

  It was true enough that Operations-Central Bureau had jurisdiction. Central, the busiest of the four geographical bureaus of the LAPD, comprised four territorial areas, including Rampart, where Robin Cameron's office was located. Because the crime had occurred on his turf, Hammond, as commanding officer, bore ultimate responsibility for the investigation.

  Still, he could have palmed off the job of running the manhunt on the bureau's assistant CO or someone lower in the chain of command. The fact that Hammond was here meant that the deputy chief genuinely wanted to be part of the action. Wolper figured he knew why.

  "Has the media got wind of this yet?" he asked innocently.

  "Not to my knowledge," the PR man-cum-traffic cop said.

  That had to be a lie. It would take a division of Army Rangers to keep Deputy Chief Hammond away from the TV cameras on a case like this.

  "So Dr. Cameron is in there?" Hammond said quietly. "Coherent? Lucid? I need to get a statement from her."

  "She just found out her kid is missing. I think she's all talked out for the moment."

  "We don't exactly have the luxury of time."

  "Let me take her downtown, get her settled in an interview room, and then I'll talk to her."

  Hammond regarded Wolper with suspicion. "Are you under the impression you have an official role to play in this investigation, Lieutenant?"

  "She knows me, sir. She trusts me. She'll be open with me."

  Hammond hesitated for a long moment. "Get her downtown; then we'll decide how to handle the interview."