The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  He unlocked the padlock. “Let’s go!”

  Still no reply.

  Maybe he should just hitch the GEO up to the Pace Arrow and get out of here. That way he could leave her in her room. Deal with her later. She needed finesse, not force, and he didn’t have time to play games.

  “Okay, you want to play it that way, fine.”

  He walked outside and got into the GEO, drove it up to the hitch.

  As he got out, he saw two cop cars zoom by on Benson Highway. Going fast and silent, but with their lights on, headed in the direction of the Motel 6.

  Don’t be paranoid

  Maybe they were going to the Motel 6, maybe not. But what if they were?

  What if it had something to do with him?

  Shit! He didn’t have time. He clambered back into the motor home and pulled the seat cushions off the dinette seat, flung it open, and rummaged inside. He needed his duffle and his computer bag. He grabbed the duffle and started throwing things in. The main thing was the laptop, the power cord, the disks, his Jazz drive.

  His notebooks. His photo albums. His cameras, of course. His cash. And Summer.

  It took him three trips to get everything into the GEO. There was a lot he was leaving behind, but he couldn’t help that. Although no one had put his picture up on television, he could feel them breathing down his neck. He knew he was one step ahead of their snapping jaws—he could feel it. He always trusted his instincts.

  They knew who he was. Maybe it was the way the cop had looked at the motor home. He should have jumped on that earlier. At least they didn’t know about the GEO.

  After he’d stuffed everything into the back seat, he stood by the car, the sun beating down on him, hyperventilating.

  Where would they go?

  Mexico?

  He’d have to put her in the trunk. But what if the Mexican customs asked to see inside?

  He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

  Or he could head east or west on the interstate. Or take the back roads, lay low.

  Later. He’d figure it out later.

  He went back inside, feeling strangely jazzed. She was going to give him a battle. He knew it. The wildcat.

  And so he prepared everything ahead of time. The chloroform, the rag, his handcuffs, duct tape. It was all in the same place he’d stashed them after he’d used them on Jessica—

  The boyfriend, standing there in the doorway of the Pace Arrow. What’s going on?”

  The image so strong it seemed like real time. Stupid kid, surprising him like that. The girl, who’d just stopped struggling, a dead weight. He had no choice but to act—and act fast.

  Still amazed no one saw him drag the kid down into the woods.

  He had the rag, the bottle at the ready. Knocked on the door.

  No answer.

  He felt the beginning of impatience.

  “Summer, we can do this easy or we can do this hard. I guarantee you won’t like it hard." He tried not to laugh at the pun.

  Nothing.

  Bitch

  To think he’d bought a present for her. He reached into his shirt pocket and extracted the key to the padlock, unlocked the door, and pulled it open.

  Something jumped out at him like a jack-in-the-box.

  “What—?”

  He saw the stick clenched in her hands, and his mind had only a split second to wonder what it was when it hit him right in the midsection, punching into his side.

  Pain, tingly and bright and blood-colored. He thought he screamed.

  He grabbed at her as her impulsion carried her past him, his fingers snagging her dress—

  She jerked away, and through a fine haze of pain, he saw her bolt through the hallway and out the door, the door banging wham wham wham—

  And he was aware that he was holding his side and it was kind of like hot pudding, slick as snot as his father used to say, and he staggered back, spun around, and that was when he saw the object on the floor. Wood tapering down to a band of brass glimmering at the bottom.

  It was a leg off the swing-out table.

  She’d sawed it off. Somehow.

  Smart girl.

  He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and pressed it to the wound. Compress. It hurt like a sonofabitch, but it had missed everything vital. There were splinters, though, big ones.

  Time slowed. His nerve endings screaming. The towel turning red. Still, he’d better go get her and think about cleaning this mess up later.

  49

  As Laura walked across the parking lot to the Motel 6 entrance, the overheated asphalt yielded under her shoe like brownie dough. Traffic hummed and sighed on the street behind her, a constant pedal point. She shielded her eyes against the glare and glanced back at the van parked unobtrusively near the edge of the property—a unit from the Pima County Sheriff’s SWAT team inside.

  The young woman at the desk looked like a college student. She wore a nice blazer with the name tag “Marci”.

  Laura asked Marci if she had either a Dale Lundy or Jimmy de Seroux registered.

  Marci looked through the book. “No one by that name.”

  “Anything close? Maybe a combination of the two? Dale de Seroux? Jimmy Lundy?”

  Uncertain, the girl pored over the names again.

  Laura looked at the names upside down. “That’s it. James E. Lund. Could you pull the card please?”

  “I don’t know—“

  “We have a warrant.”

  “Oh. Okay." Marci found the registration card and pushed it diffidently across the desk.

  The date of check-in was July 15. James E. Lund, Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Drove a 1994 white GEO Prizm with a Colorado plate. He was in Room 17.

  A white GEO?

  Laura wondered if he’d ditched the motor home or if he’d just added the car. Sometimes the simplest things could slip under the radar. All the agencies were on the alert for a motor home. But they might not even see a motor home towing a car.

  She asked Marci for the key to Room 17. Marci handed it over without asking to see the warrant, which was good because Laura didn’t have one. Victor Celaya was on his way with it.

  “How did he pay for the room?” she asked. “Cash, check, or credit card?”

  Marci looked up the receipt. “He paid cash in advance.” She anticipated Laura’s next question. “For a week.” Laura counted up in her head. He had three days left.

  She walked back out into the gun-metal haze.

  At this time of day, between check-out and check-in, there were few cars in the parking lot and no white GEO Prizm with Colorado plates.

  She walked back to the 4Runner, got in, and turned the air conditioner on full blast. Immediately her cell started bleeping. It was Charlie Specter. “A TPD officer spotted a motor home in a trailer court on Benson Highway that looked suspicious. He says it fits the description and the photo—the Pace Arrow. From the looks of the street numbers, it’s less than two miles from where you are now.

  “I got hold of the owner of the trailer court, asked him if he had anyone there by the name of Lundy or de Seroux. He said the guy with the motor home gave his name as John de Seroux.”

  Summer ran through the trailer park pounding on doors, screaming for help.

  But the trailers just dozed in the summer sun. Nobody was going to open their door to her. She didn’t know why, but she knew it was true.

  She started running up the lane toward the street.

  Behind her the motor home door banged open and she heard running feet.

  She knew it was him, but looked back anyway. Dale got into his car, backed it up and swerved around, heading toward her in a funnel of dust.

  Summer knew she wouldn’t make it to the road. She scanned the trailer court and saw a break in the fence near the last trailer she’d been to. She had to go back in the direction of the GEO, but the good news was he’d have to turn around.

  He saw what she was doing and hit the brakes, but by the time he had stopped the
car, she was past him and was already cutting across the concrete pad next to the trailer. Behind her, she heard the tiny engine roar as he put it in reverse. She darted toward the break in the fence, trying to figure out how to get through the clumps of prickly pear guarding it.

  Behind her she heard the car slam into park and the door jerk open.

  She had to get down on her stomach, which took time, and shimmy through, careful to avoid the cactus. chain link snagged her dress and she had to yank at it, legs flailing. Then she was free, out into the desert and running.

  “Summer, get back here!” Dale yelled.

  Then: “Dammit!" And the slam of the car door, the squeal of the engine again as he charged up the drive, spraying gravel.

  Summer’s mind raced. What would he do? Could he drive into the desert? He’d have to get out onto Benson Highway and get past the other businesses before he could get to the empty lot. It would be fastest and easiest for him to make a right onto the highway and another right, so he would probably be up ahead. She switched directions, following a path through the scrub, her sandals scarfing up dirt like an open mouth and stickers pricking her feet and legs. She stepped on the point of a doghead that went through the bottom of her sandal and yelped. Pulled it out and kept on going.

  She hoped she’d guessed right. As she ran she could see rooftops rising above the screen of creosote and mesquite—the next street, parallel to Benson Highway. A neighborhood. She ran for it.

  50

  Where did all this traffic come from? Musicman slammed the steering wheel with his fist. Summer was loose and here he was, just sitting here, waiting as a whole procession of cars drove by.

  His mind raced. Where would she go? Would she stick to the desert or would she make her way back to the highway? Or would she head for another road?

  Dammit! His side hurt. Raw, throbbing. Blood starting to show through the towel. If a cop stopped him now …

  How could this happen?

  Now he wished he’d chased her on foot. But even that would have been problematic; he doubted he could have gotten through the break in the fence.

  One more car and he could turn right. But as he watched, the white van slowed down.

  Come on, dammit!

  The turn signal came on.

  “Come on, come on,” he muttered. “Shit or get off the pot.”

  But the van didn’t turn in. It kept going, turn signal still on. He tried to catch a glimpse of what kind of asshole would play a game like that, but couldn’t; the windows were too dark.

  Suddenly he remembered the white van at the Motel 6, the one he’d flipped the bird at. He thought they were similar: a white Ford utility van with dark windows.

  The van continued past, and he pulled onto the street behind it. Suddenly, it U-turned four lanes and headed in the other direction. Cretin.

  Down the road from the El Rancho was the next business, the Desert Rose Motel. The Desert Rose was a horseshoe of peeling, white brick buildings around asphalt, a drained pool in the center. This was the kind of place that rented by the week. Place looked deserted, but he knew people lived here—if you could call this living. Could she have come here for help?

  He swerved in off the road. He scanned the highway, the few buildings, tried to see between them at the desert. Finally he turned in and drove around the horseshoe. He didn’t see anyone—it was too hot to be outside. Still, he looked, paying particular attention to the four cars parked nose-in to the cabins. Looking for movement, looking for feet underneath.

  He came back around to the road. He didn’t know what to do. She could be anywhere.

  At the next street, he turned right. He cruised along slowly, watching the desert, but he was thinking about the van. There was something about it that bothered him.

  It was the stripped-down version. Blackwall tires. Nothing fancy. But clean. Government? He wished he’d gotten a gander at the plates.

  Were they that close? He knew the FBI was involved—had seen it on CNN—but they’d been pretty close-mouthed. Not even a press conference. If they knew what he looked like, they weren’t letting the public in on it.

  Why was that?

  And then it occurred to him.

  His ISP.

  They’d used his ISP to track him to the Motel 6.

  Nobody home in the Fleetwood Pace Arrow parked at the El Rancho Trailer Court. The door was ajar, the screen door dented as if someone had bulled through it. No car, but Laura noticed a tow rack on the back.

  The plates had been switched, but VIN numbers don’t lie. The motor home belonged to Lundy.

  After making sure the motor home was clear, Laura and Victor took a quick look inside as they waited for the tow truck.

  Laura spotted some drops of blood on the floor near the bedroom, as well as a few smears where it had been hastily wiped up with a towel. “Don’t come back here,” she said to Victor. “We’ve got some blood evidence.”

  She retrieved a can of fluorescent paint from the car and spray-painted a circle around each drop of blood.

  Victor said, “Not a whole lot of it.”

  “Unless he got a lot up with the towel.”

  “Look at this,” Victor said, showing her the padlock and the way the door was configured. “Doesn’t look anything like the floor plan we have back at the squad. The bedroom and bath have been modified. He remodeled the bedroom door into a swing-out door that locks from the outside.”

  He also noted the boarded windows. “His own personal dungeon.”

  Lace curtains squeezed between the window and the plywood. They looked like the ones at his mother’s house.

  Laura spotted a broken table leg on the floor. She squatted on her heels and studied it. “Blood on the end of this,” she said, pointing it out to Victor.

  “You think he stabbed her with it?”

  “Or the other way around.”

  She took photographs of the table leg while Victor went back into the living room.

  “What do we have here?” he said a few minutes later. She glanced back; he was holding two round, pleated stretches of vinyl. “Wheel covers. For the spare wheel on the back.”

  One of them depicted a quail under the legend THE ANDERSONS. The other, in cursive writing said: “Happy Trails! Jeff and Pat Lieber.”

  He laughed. “Pretty cute. We’re looking for a motor home with THE ANDERSONS on the back, and he morphs into Jeff Lieber and his lovely wife Pat.”

  “Too cute,” Laura said. “He’s a little too elaborate for his own good.”

  Victor shrugged. “Seems to have worked so far.”

  Laura heard gravel popping outside and ducked her head out the door. It was Buddy Holland in his plain-wrapped.

  She understood why he was here, but couldn’t let him in. He wouldn’t do himself any good, and he sure wouldn’t help Summer.

  “Buddy,” she said. “Two people in here is enough.”

  “What did you find?" Fear and hope warring on his face.

  “She’s not here.”

  His relief gave way to by worry. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and then squinted into the sun. “Was she here? Did you find anything?”

  “Nothing definitive,” Laura lied. “We’ll have to get prints—you know the drill.”

  “Where are we going to tow it?” Victor asked Laura from inside the RV.

  Laura excused herself and went back inside.

  Buddy peering in at her.

  “We’ve got a problem. We need to use Luminol—” Victor said. He saw her look and lowered his voice. “The DPS lab’s too small.”

  In order to use Luminol to look for more blood, the motor home would have to be in complete darkness. The DPS lab would not be able to enclose a super-sized vehicle like this.

  “The sheriff’s has a big room,” Victor said.

  “Door’s too small. We’ll have to wait until tonight, I guess, unless we can find an airport hanger nobody’s using.”

  She punched in the number for Charlie Sp
ecter. “We need to put an APB out for a 1994 white GEO Prizm with either a white male or a white male and a 12-year-old girl. Get a picture of the make and model and Lundy’s picture and get them to the media.”

  She closed the phone. She would always wonder if she’d made the wrong call not going to the media. One consolation, though, was that up until an hour ago, they didn’t even know about the white GEO.

  “I wonder if he bought that car here,” she said.

  “The GEO? It’s got Colorado plates.”

  Laura just looked at him.

  “Oh.”

  “Whether or not he changed the plates, we need to know the history of this car. He might have had it all along, or he might have bought it from around here.”

  “If he bought it from a private party, it would be hard to find.”

  “Buddy.” Laura hopped down from the motor home. “Can you get me the Sunday Star from last week? And the Citizen.” She described the car they were looking for. “Also the Sierra Vista and Bisbee papers, also last week. Oh. And a Dandy Dime.”

  He gave her a dirty look, but got back into his car and took off.

  It kept him away from the motor home, and the blood. For now anyway.

  51

  Breathing hard now, Summer ran into the subdivision. The houses looked new, a cheaper version of her mom’s townhouse in the foothills. The problem was they didn’t look moved-in yet. She heard power saws and hammering, though. Up the street, she saw construction workers up on a roof.

  “Hey!” she called out, slowing to a walk. Almost safe.

  One guy, up high stapling something to the wood frame of a house, looked in her direction and shouted something. She wasn’t close enough to hear, but at least he knew she was there.

  She’d escaped. Hard to believe that she’d done it, but she had. Her heart started to slow. Her legs felt like lead now that she didn’t need them for running.

  Tires squealed. She looked back and saw Dale’s car coming around the corner.