Immigrants. Illegal immigrants. Afraid of the law, afraid of even those who would help them save their child. He’d had a child stolen off the streets, replacing his ideal park-snatched victim with one he knew would give him time to linger. Bastard.
“¿Dónde está usted?” she shouted, calling on marginal Spanish skills that had only ever been enough to get her by on southern California streets.
He responded even before her words died away. “¡En la jaula!”
In the…not jail. Cage. Great. To a kid locked up, anything could be a cage.
As if he sensed her urgency and frustration, he started screaming wordlessly at her. Or if there were words, she had no chance of deciphering them, even had they been in English. “¡Calma!” she shouted. “¡Calma!” As if that was going to do any good.
It didn’t.
She gave an anxious glance over her shoulder, knowing she was moving ahead only on luck…and not believing in luck at all. If you did manage a little of it, someone like Longsford came along and took it. Or someone like Rumsey.
Or someone like Karin herself.
She threaded her way through the machines, beyond the tall columns and the plastic sheeting that had served as a back wall. There were a few stray carbon dioxide containers, big gray steel cylinders she assumed would be empty. There was a pile of junk under a tarp, and an odd, puzzling area of broken concrete flooring beyond it. And there, in the corner, was a maintenance area behind a steel-mesh cage. Jaula. He’d meant just that.
He saw her and flung himself against the mesh, fingers sticking through to reach out to her. She ran to him, forgetting her Spanish. “Hey, hey there. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. I’ll get you out of there.” He clutched at her through the mesh—skinny, dressed in clothes too big, as adorable as any kid with huge dark eyes and thick black hair could ever be. No visible signs of abuse. Maybe it was too soon. God, please let it be too soon. She twined her fingers through his as best she could. “I’m gonna get you out of there. No worries. It’s gonna be okay.”
He sobbed, his grip on her hands amazingly strong. Not fearful now, unless it was fear that she might give up. Just relieved. Just looking at her with those big dark eyes shining, innocent hope blazed across his features.
Karin’s heart started racing again, catching her by surprise. Her throat seemed too big for itself and she suddenly felt strong enough to do anything. Anything.
She knew what it was like to be not-rescued. And since Dave’s arrival in her life and that one sweet moment of safety on the cliff, she knew what being rescued felt like.
But she hadn’t realized what it would feel like to be the one who came to the rescue.
She floundered for a moment. The kid’s not rescued yet, Sommers. Not with that big fat padlock still hanging from the door. She scrambled for the asphalt rock she’d dropped when she’d rushed to the kid’s side, slamming it against the stout padlock. Within a few blows the asphalt crumbled into pieces, leaving Karin with bleeding knuckles and not much else to show for her efforts. She threw the remnants away and kicked the door in disgust, if not hard enough to damage any toes. She might need those toes to finish getting them out of here.
Karin eyed the door hinges, feeling her pockets for any sign of a tool that might pry them free…racking her brains for the memory of anything she might have glimpsed on her way through the building. Her penknife would break at the first application.
Doubt crept into the boy’s expression.
“Hey,” Karin said. “I’m Karin. What’s your name, kid?”
The boy sniffled. His face was filthy from the standard mix of kid tears, snot and grime. Karin had the sudden thought that Longsford would have someone clean him up. He obviously had a backup crew who knew about his recreational activities. And someone else had probably dumped that body so carelessly, someone panicked by pressure from the feebs. Longsford had been doing this for too many years to get such a simple thing wrong.
It would explain why the ex-boxer and his pal had been so insistent at their first meeting on Ellen’s farm, and so persistent afterward. They hadn’t just been sent on a blind errand; they understood the stakes.
“Atilio,” the boy said, prodding her from her thoughts.
“Okay, Atilio. Just hang tight. I’ll think of something.”
Yeah, like a call to 911. I was just walking past, Officer, and I heard someone crying inside. So I broke into the Fortress of Solitude and I found this kid and oh, by the way, I’m outta here! And say, can you delay your arrival till I can climb my way back out of this building and make myself scarce? Leaving this terrified kid by himself till you get here?
And yet she’d already used too much time. Even if she had no reason to believe anyone would arrive so soon after the last guy had been here, she’d just taken too much darned time.
“All right,” she said out loud. “I’ve got one thing to try. If this doesn’t work, kiddo, I’ll make the call and take my chances.” She pushed away from the mesh door and went to check out the CO2 cylinders. Yep, the gauges all read empty. Just as well. She gave one an experimental heft and discovered it weighed half as much as she did. But she’d been hauling fifty-pound sacks of feed for a year now, and knew how to use leverage to her best advantage. She played with her grip on the awkward thing, knowing she’d have to rest it on her forearm behind the cast and knowing the whole exercise would be useless if she didn’t get up enough speed.
Screw breaking the lock. She’d try to warp the door enough so that skinny little kid could wiggle his way out. “¡Al revés!” she said, hoping she was telling him to move back away from the door. She gestured wildly at his hesitation and he slowly complied, clearly not quite understanding her intent. She only hoped he’d get the idea once she came charging at him with her modern-day battering ram.
And then, suddenly inspired, she pulled out her cell phone. The photos it took might not be high quality, but they’d do the trick. She snapped several of Atilio huddled in his cage, a few of the equipment to help establish location, and stuffed the phone back into the breast pocket of her field jacket, making the mental note to take pics of the creepy boy’s room on the way out.
Atilio said something querulous and Karin muttered, “Hold on, kid,” as she bent over the cylinder.
Oh. My. Gawd. Her first effort to lift the thing garnered her nothing more than a grunt. “Okay, Florentius,” she said, figuring the patron saint against ruptures was her best bet. “It’s you and me….” And with a loud grunt of effort, she got the thing off the ground, staggering back and forth as she tried to find its balance point. Her cast scrabbled against cold gray steel and she shifted the cylinder onto her forearm with no little effort—and then it started to tip forward.
Rather than lose it and start all over again, Karin mustered a warrior’s battle cry and staggered into a run. The brief image of Atilio’s startled face, the rush of looming mesh…stunning impact. She immediately lost her grip on the cylinder and flung herself sideways, out from beneath it. Her head and ears rang and when she hit the floor it wasn’t quite where she’d expected it to be.
And then, finally, silence.
She lay facedown on the cold, hard concrete, and when she opened her eyes she discovered just how dirty the floor was. Gross. Slowly, she pulled her knees beneath herself and climbed to her feet, patting herself for lumps and bumps. Everything seemed to be in its proper place. “Hey, Florentius! Way to go!” She straightened herself out and checked Atilio’s cage.
She barely had time to register that the impact of her improvised self-powered missile had indeed warped the door when he slammed into her, wrapping his arms around her low waist with all the strength of a full-grown bear. “Hey, hey!” she said, delighted; she knelt to hug him in return. “Let’s say we get the hell outta here, huh?” She stood, held out her hand to him and wasted no time navigating through the machinery and past the freezer. There she told him to wait and ducked inside Longsford’s creepy playroom, snapping a few quic
k phone pics.
When she emerged, Atilio was gone.
“Hey,” she said, trying not to raise her voice too loudly, or let the sudden tight anxiety come through in her voice. “C’mon, kid, where are you?”
He whimpered. She found him crouched behind the roller conveyer, and relief washed through her body in a startling wave of weakness. “Don’t do that to me, kid,” she told him, but froze as he pointed frantically at the door.
I am so not meant for slinking. She wasn’t used to checking doors or keeping an eye out for sly intrusions. She was used to being on the front line, bold as brass and running the show. It hadn’t occurred to her to check for movement at the window before emerging from the special little room.
And yeah. There it was. Movement. While she stood out in the open like a deer in the headlights. Too little too late…she dashed for the wall beside the stairs, where the angle was too sharp for anyone to see her through that window.
It occurred to her then that if Longsford’s men had arrived, they ought to be fussing about that window. They ought to be putting their keys into the lock and bursting in to take charge instead of rattling around the door in an experimental way. Huh.
She glanced over to catch Atilio’s eye and put her finger to her lips. He stared back, deer-in-the-headlights. He did, at least, stay put and stay quiet as she moved closer to the stairs…close enough to catch a muttered French phrase of badness.
She hadn’t known she could grin quite so broadly until this moment. She leaned toward the door and said, “Pssst. Hey, little boy. You wanna cheap deal on some watches?”
The door noises stopped. “Karin?”
“You got my phone message?”
“Your what—?” She caught a glimpse of his head as he shook it. “No. I’ve been keeping an eye on the tracker, just in case you went back for it. I got back into the car at the gym and saw the thing was on the move…I just followed you here. What’s going on? How the hell did you get in there?”
He’d kept an eye on the tracker. Bless you. “How about we get out of here first? I’ve got a friend with me. An unwilling young visitor, let’s say.” She paused long enough for him to work through his favorite phrase all over again, then said, “I came in through that window. I’m sure we can get Atilio out that way, but there are stairs on this side of the door…I’m not so sure I can get up to the window.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said, his words determined. The voice of a man who truly believed he could make things work if only he tried hard enough. “Did you try kicking it in?”
“I thought a little quiet glass-breaking would draw less attention,” she said, not mentioning that she didn’t think for a minute she’d get through that sturdy metal door and wasn’t so certain he could, either. “But heck, now that you’re here—have at it.” She turned back to Atilio. “It’s okay, kid. He’s our amigo.”
Atilio probably took in one word of ten from the conversation he’d heard, but her tone and manner did the trick. His frightened features relaxed, and if his eyes didn’t shine with hope, they once again showed some spark.
Wham. The impact of foot against door shook the frame, but nothing seemed inclined to break.
“Hit it at the lock,” Karin suggested, knowing just how well such suggestions were likely to go over.
“Oh, right. Hit it at the lock,” Dave said, breathless. “Hadn’t thought of that.” Wham!
“Hit it hard,” Karin offered.
“You just think if you make me mad enough, I’ll turn into the Hulk and rip it off the hinges.” Wham!
“You never know.” She waited for his response. She only got his grunt of effort, an oddly surprised sound. “C’mon,” she said after a moment. “I think it’s working. The frame is starting to crack at the—”
At the lock. Which was now turning. As in, someone on the other side was using a key.
She didn’t hesitate. She whirled around to the boy. “Atilio! ¡Oculta!” She stabbed a finger at the freezer, around and beyond, and kept her voice low. Whisper-low. “Use the manta azul—that tarp! Go! ¡Vaya, vaya!”
He scampered away and she didn’t dare follow to make sure he fully concealed himself. She reached for the big Ruger, clutching it awkwardly. At least she knew it was a double-action only. A long, steady pull on the trigger would do it. No safeties, no cocking, no nothing. She pressed herself up against the rough cement brick wall. Be wrong, self. Be oh so very wrong about who’s coming through that door….
She wasn’t wrong.
First came one of Longsford’s men, his gun out but not pointing in any useful direction unless he intended toe target practice. And Longsford himself. And someone behind him, but by then Karin thought it’d be a good idea to introduce herself. She stepped away from the wall slightly and pointed the gun at them in a two-fisted hold. “How’d you know?”
Longsford and friend stopped short, assessing her stance with the gun, the confidence on her face—and slowly coming to recognize her without her Maia wardrobe, makeup and comportment. And the eyes—light again, like Ellen’s. Surprise flickered across his features but quickly faded to cold annoyance. “Exactly who are you?”
“Did you want to guess Ellen? You can sit on that a moment, until we get ourselves sorted out. My vote is that you all drop your various little guns and back yourselves into that corner on the other side of the stairs. You can hold hands if you’re frightened.”
Longsford looked back at her with those small, flat eyes and Karin’s heart suddenly did triple beat. It could be tricky, playing layered personalities. Longsford was just the man she’d have avoided for a real scam, and this moment was the perfect illustration of why. His expression teetered on the edge of something nasty before he gave her a cold smile from that almost-handsome face with its close-set eyes. He tipped his head at the figures behind him, and they moved forward.
The ex-boxer, Diffie, had Dave’s arm slung over his shoulder, a careless support that was nonetheless the only thing still holding him up. Dave’s head lolled back, his mouth slack and his eyes rolled out of sight; blood streamed down the side of his neck.
Yet another new feeling roared through Karin’s body, rushing through her ears to drown out all other noise. Helplessness. But not for herself this time. For someone she knew. For someone she—
It wasn’t at all the same feeling. And to judge by the watery nature of her knees, not nearly as easy to fake her way through.
Diffie looked at her and grunted in satisfaction, recognizing her. With her hair hidden, her eyes their normal color and her grubby state, she probably didn’t look much different than she had at the farm. But the grunt was the closest thing to an I-told-you-so that he’d probably dare.
“This is a fine and interesting tangle,” Longsford said. “I think we’ll talk about it until I understand what’s going on.” At his infinitesimal nod, Diffie dropped his burden. Dave tumbled down the steps and sprawled there, jeans and sweatshirt picking up the dirt that Karin had already disturbed.
She almost went for him. She almost lost her advantage, lowering the gun to rush to his side. But no. I might be stupid, but I have no intention of being predictable. So she kept the gun where it was and asked, all in annoyance, “How the hell did you know I was here?”
Longsford nodded at the door. “How stupid do you think I am? This place is wired. You triggered motion detectors as soon as you came through that window.”
Karin swore resoundingly. Of course he protected this place.
Longsford’s eyes narrowed at her reaction. “You look like Ellen,” he said, scanning her up and down. “But Ellen couldn’t have hidden herself from me as you did. She wouldn’t have the nerve to have done any of this.”
“She wouldn’t,” Karin agreed. “Not to mention holding you at gunpoint.”
He responded without concern. “My men have guns trained on your friend. I don’t get the connection between you yet, but I will.” He turned to the man who’d come down the stairs first.
“Make sure the boy is secure.”
“No!” Karin fine-tuned her aim at the man. “You don’t come inside any farther than this. In fact, I think you should all leave. Go away. Run. I’ll bet you’ve got a nice nest egg set up somewhere. Now’s the time to take advantage of it. Forget about disappointing Mummy and run.”
Longsford shook his head in a patronizing gesture. “We’re nowhere near that point yet. I can clean up all my problems within a few moments.” To the errand boy, he said, “Go.”
Karin took aim and pulled the trigger. Or rather, she took aim and she pulled and pulled the heavy trigger, and by the time the big gun fired her aim had shifted and the man in her sights was no longer in her sights. He leaped at her, smashing his own gun across the injured wrist.
Karin howled, a sound she’d never heard from the inside out, and her legs crumpled. She curled up around the newly injured wrist with pain roaring through her mind as loudly as the helplessness. But she still had the gun and like an animal she struck out, snarling and leaping up with her finger already on the trigger.
The man met her movement with a dead-center kick to her chest, knocking her flat backward and on top of Dave. Dave grunted at the impact but made no effort to shove her off, no attempt to mutter his smarmy French curse phrases. The gun went flying somewhere; Karin had no idea where. She coughed, hunting air, and by the time she’d gotten to her knees, Longsford had taken over. “Brad, secure the boy. Diffie, stand at the door and keep these two in and everyone else out.”
Okay, fine. They weren’t going anywhere. Not just this moment. But the game wasn’t over yet.
And Karin knew how to play it better than anyone.
First she took the time to do that which she hadn’t allowed herself to think about. Dave, limp and injured and bleeding. He was scary-still, his breathing uneven and riding the edge of a groan, but even in his motionlessness he still gave the impression that he was trying, trying hard, to leap to his feet and save the day. You would. Karin rolled him over just enough to check his head. Glass crunched just to the side of her leg—old window glass, some of it now under her shin. She found an ugly wound, split and puffy and pumping a steady stream of blood, and glared up at Longsford. “You didn’t have to hit him so hard.”
Survival Instinct Page 23
