Vegas Lies ( Lies Mystery Thriller Series Book 3)

by Andrew Cunningham

  An hour later I felt my first hint that it was cooling down. I wasn’t sweating as much and I actually felt a little breeze—and it wasn’t a hot breeze. That was good because I was out of water. Emma still had a few sips left. I guess she had more willpower than I did.

  Mid-evening, we hit a slight rise in the terrain and I could see the lights of Las Vegas in the distance. We still had a long way to go, though. A few minutes later we came upon a crossroad. It was a real road. I was trying to think back to my time in the trunk and whether or not we had made a turn, and I just couldn’t remember. I didn’t think so. It didn’t matter. This looked like a much more traveled road. I suggested to Emma that we turn right. It wasn’t exactly in the direction of Vegas, but there had to be a town somewhere. The road we had been on might eventually get us to Las Vegas, but we would be walking the entire way with little hope of ever seeing a vehicle.

  Less than fifteen minutes after making the decision to turn right, we saw headlights coming from the opposite direction. I stood in the middle of the road and waved my hands and shouted. Not exactly sure why I shouted. They wouldn’t have been able to hear me.

  The car slowed down, checking us out, then came to a stop. Would I have stopped for someone like me standing in the middle of the road? Good question. Maybe they stopped because they saw Emma and were worried about a young girl alone with an old fart. I certainly would have been. The fact was, they stopped, and that was all that mattered.

  “You folks okay?”

  Now I knew why they had stopped. There were three big bruisers in the car. They probably felt pretty safe in a group. They kind of had the look of farmhands, but they were dressed in “going-to-Vegas” clothes. Out for an evening on the town.

  “Thanks for stopping. Do any of you have a phone?” Stupid question in this day and age.

  “Have a phone,” said the driver, “but there won’t be service for another ten miles or so.” He glanced over at Emma, who was hanging back. Totally understandable after what she had been through. “Is she okay?”

  “No. She’s been through a horrific experience. We both have.”

  “Then hop in.”

  I motioned to Emma. She trusted me enough to follow me into the car. We squeezed into the back seat next to the lone dweller. I made sure to sit in the middle.

  “Thank you,” I said gratefully, ignoring the stench of the gallons of body spray they had each drenched themselves with in anticipation of their hot night out on the town. “Do you have any water?”

  They produced a couple of bottles and we sucked them down in a matter of seconds, whereupon they gave us each another.

  “Have you been out here long?”

  I gave them a condensed version of my troubles, starting with Peep’s disappearance. Then I told them who Emma was. When I was finished, one of them said, “Holy Hell!” He looked at Emma. “You’re one of the missing girls from Oregon?” Then he looked at me and said, “Sabrina Spencer the author? She’s been all over the news. She’s missing too.”

  “I know. So was I.”

  They didn’t quite know what to do with that, so they moved on.

  “We’ll take you straight into the city.”

  “Thank you. When you get service, I need to call the police.”

  “Got service now,” said one of them, handing me his phone.

  I pulled out Detective Miller’s business card and dialed. Was he a good guy or a stooge of Ludwick’s? He always struck me as a straight shooter, but Ludwick had indicated otherwise. I took the chance. I could have called 9-1-1, but then I’d have to explain everything. I decided I would send him to Ludwick’s house. If he was there alone when we arrived, I’d have the young men drive us straight to a police station. If he was there with other cops, we’d be safe.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Del Honeycutt. Ludwick is your man. He kidnapped Sabrina and Mo, then sent me out to the desert to be killed. I got away from my captor a few hours ago and some guys just picked me up. He also kidnapped the five girls in Oregon. Get to Ludwick’s house. Please!”

  He asked me a few questions, such as where my captor was and why I thought he had abducted the Oregon girls. I quickly explained that I was with one of the girls, and then with the help of my new friends, I was able to give him a general location of my captor. They were going to send out a helicopter for him. As I hoped, my new friends offered to drive us directly to Ludwick’s house. Hey, this was more exciting for them than a night in the casino.

  It took us about half an hour. During that time, they peppered me with questions about Sabrina, then gave me their names and phone numbers in case Sabrina wanted to thank them for saving my life. No subtlety there. I assured them she would. I just hoped I’d find her.

  When we pulled onto Ludwick’s street, we were confronted with a dozen police cruisers, all with lights streaming. Okay, so I guess we were safe. The guys let me out and I explained to a cop that Miller was waiting for us. He led us up to the house. Miller was standing there talking to Ludwick. Why wasn’t he in handcuffs?

  I don’t know what came over me—sheer rage?—but I attacked Ludwick. Miller saw me coming and tried to stop me, but there was no stopping me. I hit Ludwick in the side of the head and then jumped on him, my hands around his neck. I felt hands pulling at me, but still I hung on. Finally, I was pulled off Ludwick. That didn’t stop me though. As he started to get up, I kicked him in the face. The whole time I was yelling at him, screaming that Sabrina better still be alive, and that I was going to kill him.

  Miller was talking to me, but I didn’t hear him. I had tuned out the world. He got in my face and told me to calm down. At that point I had to. With the events of the day, I had no energy left. Someone forced me to the ground in a sitting position. I just sat there, my head in my hands, crying.

  I could hear Ludwick saying, “I want him arrested. I’m pressing charges.” Then I heard Miller tell him to shut up.

  I eventually stopped crying and someone helped me to my feet.

  “Here’s the situation,” Miller explained to me. “Ludwick says he has no idea what you are talking about. He says he hasn’t seen you or Ms. Spencer at all today.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. He had his guy take me out to the desert. He was going to kill me. The last I saw Sabrina and Mo, they were thrown in a van and taken away,” I said. “And Emma here saw him when she and her friends were being held in a basement somewhere.”

  Miller took one look at Emma and had someone call the paramedics. He then peppered her with questions, most of which she couldn’t answer. She didn’t know where she was held. She didn’t know where the men in the van were taking her. She was quickly losing strength, so he had her sit until the paramedics arrived.

  It seemed like we were there forever. Based on Emma’s identification of Ludwick, they had finally handcuffed him but hadn’t taken him away yet. Miller told us not to get our hopes up. Ludwick’s lawyer would have him free in a matter of hours.

  A cop came and told Miller he had a call on the radio, so he left us. He was gone about five minutes. Nothing was said during that time. When he returned he said to me, “Did you use a gun on your captor?”

  “No. I shattered his kneecap with a rock, but I didn’t shoot him. Emma can vouch for that.”

  “Well, he’s dead. He was shot three times and his car was torched. That’s how the helicopter found him so easily. The car was still on fire.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said. “He was still very much alive when I left him. In fact, I even left him with a bottle of water.” I thought for a minute. “Wait, you say the car was still on fire when the copter got there?”

  Miller nodded.

  “We’ve been walking for hours. There is no way the car would still be burning if I had started it. Also, the car was out of gas. What was used to start the fire? I also guarantee you that if he was shot, I didn’t do it.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Miller. “I believe you
.”

  I was glad they didn’t check me for weapons. I didn’t want to relinquish the gorilla’s gun.

  “Oh, him you believe?” whined Ludwick. “But you’re questioning me like I was guilty?”

  “You’re guilty of something, you slime,” said Miller. “Probably kidnapping those girls, if nothing else. We’ll take you down to the station for more questioning.” He had one of his men escort Ludwick to a police car.

  As he was taken away, Ludwick looked at Miller and gave an expression that I took to mean, “Fix this.”

  Miller turned to me. “We found your rental on the other side of town. It was stripped clean.”

  That figured.

  “We have to find Sabrina, Mo, Peep, and the other girls soon. Ludwick is going to ship them out of the country.” I proceeded to give him the whole story of us at the abandoned gas station.

  “I guess it’s too late to tell you that it was a really stupid thing for you to do,” he said.

  “A little.”

  A police commander approached, so I figured it was time to find out whose side Miller was really on.

  “Ludwick also told us that you were on his payroll,” I said.

  Miller and his commander looked at each other and smiled.

  “That’s because I am,” said Miller.

  That was definitely a jaw-dropping line. And it could be that my jaw had really dropped, because the two cops thought it was all pretty funny.

  “Say again?” I said.

  The commander started. “I think it’s safe to tell you, now that this has all blown up, that Detective Miller has been worming his way into Ludwick’s organization for the last few months. As a cop, we knew he’d never get totally immersed, but we were hoping that he’d learn enough to give us some inroads. Ludwick is smart. We’ve known for a long time that he’s involved in a lot of deep shit, but we’ve never been able to prove it. Miller approached Ludwick as a cop with a massive gambling problem. Ludwick was willing to help him—for a price, of course. So over the last few months, Miller has been providing Ludwick with fixes and little bits of information to prove his value. However, now with your first-hand account, as well as the girl’s, we should be able to get him.”

  “But your first goal is to find Sabrina and the other captives, right?” I asked.

  “Of course. But be prepared. His lawyer will have him out of our custody in a matter of hours, so that’s going to hamper our efforts. We will interview the girl…”

  “Emma is her name,” I interrupted.

  “Sorry, yes. We will interview Emma and see if we can determine where she was being taken. We’ll work on Ludwick, but as I said, his lawyer might make that difficult.”

  Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling overly confident.

  Emma’s parents were called and Emma had a tearful phone reunion. They were going to take the next flight out. When she hung up, the paramedics took her to the hospital where they were going to admit her. Some of her cuts and scratches had become infected. Miller assured me that there would be a guard outside her room.

  Before the ambulance left, I went over to say goodbye to Emma. She reached out and took my hand and thanked me.

  “I hope you find Sabrina,” she said. “And maybe you can find my friends.”

  Funny that she put me in charge of finding her friends, and not the police.

  I gave her a kiss on the forehead and told her I would check in with her when I could. I also knew that her parents would be there in the morning. She wouldn’t need me.

  Miller himself drove me back to the Mirage and escorted me to my room. He left me there and said that he’d be in touch and not to worry.

  Of course I was going to worry. What kind of stupid comment was that? Miller was the one who looked worried. Was he afraid he’d never find the women and the girls?

  I locked my door after he left, deposited my ripped and filthy clothes on the bathroom floor, and took a long shower. Afterward, I put on some fresh clothes and sat on the end of the bed. The room was deathly silent. I looked around, desperately feeling Sabrina’s absence.

  And then I cried again.

  Chapter 40

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, it was the wee hours of the morning. I woke up thinking of my captor, but it wasn’t a dream so much as thoughts about him. It’s like my mind had started working before I woke up.

  I was thinking about something he had said when he thought he was about to kill me. He said, “…Then after I kill you, I’m going to boink your girlfriend—maybe both of them—before heading back. That’ll be fun.” I hadn’t put much attention on his words because I was too busy plotting my escape. But here in the middle of the night, his words came back to me verbatim.

  “Heading back,” he had said. Back to where? Las Vegas? Was I reading too much into his comment? I wasn’t sure, but since I had nothing else to do, I figured I would follow the train of thought. Just suppose he meant it the way it came out. Did that mean that Sabrina, Mo, and the girls were somewhere between the spot where his captor had parked and Las Vegas? Could it be that they were also in the desert somewhere? They had to be. And the fact that Emma was wandering around in the desert seemed to confirm it. And that would explain how my captor was killed without them passing us in the road. They were already in the desert. They wouldn’t have passed us. Maybe my captor was late checking in and they sent someone to find him. Seeing his condition, it was probably easier to dispose of him.

  And then I thought of the turnoff that had seen some recent activity. Was there a house or a building or something someplace down that “road?” Or was I just hoping? But then another thought. How did the gorilla choose that particular location to do away with me? Did he just drive and pick that spot at random? That was hard to believe. He must have known the area. The person who killed him must have known where he would be. And by car, the spot where we were and the turnoff to the other spot weren’t all that many minutes away from each other. Could it be?

  I called Miller.

  Okay, so calling an overworked cop at four o’clock in the morning probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

  His cell phone rang several times, then he picked up. “What?” His voice was hoarse.

  Not an early riser.

  “Detective Miller, this is Del Honeycutt. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Um, I think I know where Sabrina might be.”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I said I was sorry, but this is important.”

  “Okay, where?” It sounded like he was sitting up in bed now.

  “On the way to the spot where I was held and the other guy was killed, I saw a turnoff from that road that led into the desert. It looked as if it had been used recently. There might be a building down there that they are being held in.”

  “No buildings. I know that area. It’s just desert. There are no buildings anywhere around there. The activity was probably ATVs or motorcycles. Kids take ‘em out to the desert to race. Sabrina wouldn’t be out there.”

  My heart sank. It had seemed like a clue.

  “Did you get anything from Ludwick?” I asked.

  “Can we talk about it in the morning? Like I told you, he lawyered up and we had nothing to hold him on, so we let him go. We’ll keep after him though. I’ll call you back later.” He hung up.

  “Sure,” I said to a dead connection, and hung up.

  I was pissed. I was pissed that he so quickly dismissed my idea; I was pissed that he had let Ludwick go; and I was pissed that no progress had been made in the search for my friends. Well, screw him. I was going to follow up my idea on my own. Sabrina’s life was hanging in the balance. I got it that a cop has many cases in front of him and he ends up getting spread pretty thin. I got that. I didn’t care. I had one thing in front of me and one thing only: to find Sabrina, Mo, and Peep—and now Emma’s friends—and bring them home safely.

  I looked at my watch
. My new watch from the shop in the hotel. Almost five o’clock. I had to call for a new rental. I’d get it from another company and deal with Hertz and my destroyed car later. I also had to buy some bullets for my stolen gun. I was happy I hadn't needed to tell Miller that I had it. I also had to eat. I suddenly realized how starved I was. I would head down to one of the many restaurants downstairs. One of them had to be open. I had time since most of the car rental places weren’t open yet.

  I now had a plan!

  I took a long shower to wake up, then went online to Google Maps to figure out exactly where I was going. I had noted the name of the road where the Three Musketeers had picked us up the night before, but wasn’t exactly sure how to get to it. I considered calling one of them, but decided against it. They were so enamored by Sabrina, they might insist on accompanying me, and there was no way I was going to put them in danger.

  I figured out approximately where the road was and where it intersected with the road I had walked on, so that was probably enough to go on.

  I went to CNN online and saw the breaking news—it was always “breaking news”—that one of the Oregon girls had been found alive in Las Vegas. They had no other news but promised to keep us updated with all the details when they became available. World-famous author Sabrina Spencer, however, was still missing.

  At six I went down to breakfast and by eight I was in a new rental. They gave me a 4-wheel drive Jeep. I figured it might come in handy. I stopped at a Wal-Mart and picked up some ammunition and then was on my way.

  I knew that it all might be a wild goose chase, but I also knew that if I did nothing I was going to drive myself crazy. And if something bad happened to Sabrina, I would always wonder if there was more I could have done.

  It took me a couple of hours to find the road I was looking for. It didn't take me long to locate the road Emma and I were picked up on, but then I spent forever driving back and forth on it. Nothing looked familiar. It had been pretty dark when we were picked up, so trying to find something unfamiliar in the light that I'd seen only in the dark was close to impossible. But after a couple of hours I was pretty sure I had pinpointed the general area. There were several smaller roads—if you could call them that—that intersected with the one I was on, but which one was the right one? They all had the right “look”—dirt-covered and not well used.