by Lowe, Shelia
It took a few moments before her surroundings began to make more sense. Slowly, it all started to come back: Bert—Henry—the gun. She listened to the condo but heard no sounds aside from Annabelle, who was now sniffling quietly beside her.
Slowly, laboriously, fighting a wave of vertigo that nearly felled her, Claudia struggled onto her side, then her knees. “Shit. What happened?”
“That old guy slugged you with the gun. If I could have got it first, I would have shot them both.”
“That’s all we need to make a perfect day complete.”
“I was glad when you hit Bert. I wish you’d have hurt him.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Claudia sat back on her heels and looked at her watch through blurred vision. “How long was I unconscious?”
“It felt like forever.” Distress filled the girl’s eyes in her tear-stained face. “I thought he killed you.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Claudia muttered as she dragged herself to the sofa and crawled onto it. Her head still felt heavy and her hands went up to support it. She wasn’t any too sure about standing up. “Where did they go?”
“I think they’re in that bedroom where they kept me locked up.” Annabelle sat down beside her and laid her head against Claudia’s shoulder like the little kid that she really was. “They’re gonna kill us, aren’t they?”
Claudia reached up and held her hand. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I’ll think of something. We’re gonna be fine.”
She wished she felt as confident as she sounded. She wondered whether Jovanic would be able to trace her through her broken cell phone. Didn’t most cell phones have GPS these days? If that was so, the longer they stayed in this place, the better.
“What did Bert do with his key card after we got out of the elevator?” she asked.
The girl thought for a moment. “I think he put it in his pocket.”
“Damn.” Moving slowly, Claudia rose to her feet and looked around. “Maybe there’s an emergency exit somewhere. I’m going to look around. Don’t piss him off if he comes back before I do.”
In the foyer, she could hear muffled voices coming from a room down the hall. Moving in the opposite direction, she peeked into the first door on her right. An entryway led to a master bedroom, walk-in wardrobe, and master bath. Locking herself in the bathroom, she quickly began opening the drawers and cabinets under the sink, looking for scissors, razor blades, anything that might be used as a weapon.
All she found was the basics: extra toilet paper, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, and conditioner.
The wall-wide mirror reflected a pale face framed by thick auburn hair that currently looked like she had been pulled through a hedge backward. The normally bright emerald eyes were dull and lined with worry.
“You’ve got to get her out of this,” Claudia admonished her reflection sternly. “Don’t be a wimp. You’ve been in rough spots before. Figure it out!”
In the medicine cabinet she found an interesting item: a prescription bottle in the name of Elaine Falkenberg. Bert’s wife? Was he living a double life? He didn’t seem the type. But then, he didn’t seem like a murderer, either.
Elaine must be Lainie, Henry’s daughter, the skinny chain-smoker. The prescription was for an antianxiety medication. Apparently, the prospect of kidnapping and accessory to murder charges made Lainie anxious. Go figure.
When she had finished exploring the bathroom, Claudia took another turn around the kitchen, looking for a service door, not finding any. If there was an alternate way out of the condo, it was eluding her. She completed her inspection and returned to the great room and sat with Annabelle, her hopes of finding anything useful fading fast.
Now the voices of the men could be heard coming along the hall, and she worried about what they might have planned. Somehow, she had to protect the girl.
“Oh, you’re awake.” Bert said. “Are you okay, Claudia? Sorry Henry had to get rough with you.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re real sorry.”
He moved over to the bar and laid the gun on it while he took a tall glass from the overhead rack. He dropped in a couple of ice cubes, then took a bottle of Gordon’s from the freezer and poured himself a double shot.
“Can I get you something?” he asked, behaving as if this were simply a social event and Claudia was his guest.
“I don’t think it would help the concussion.”
Bert cut a twist of lime with an expert hand and placed it lovingly in the glass. “Regardless of what you think,” he said, after gulping down half the drink, “I really am sorry. I’m sorry about all of this. But it happened, and now I have to deal with it the best I can.”
“What are you going to do with us?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
“What about those ‘travel plans’ you mentioned for Annabelle? Travel where?”
“You don’t have to be concerned with that. It’s all been taken care of.”
He seemed to have gained some confidence. Maybe the presence of an accomplice fortified him. More likely, the weasel wanted the old man to see him in charge. Or maybe it was just the booze.
Claudia knew in her heart there was no way Bert could simply let them go. She had read somewhere that the desert was littered with the bodies of murder victims who would never be found, their bones soon picked clean by birds of prey and other animals. And there was plenty of desert around Las Vegas. Was that the fate that awaited her and Annabelle?
“Bert,” she pleaded. “You care about Annabelle. I know you do. You’ve got to let her go.” She closed her eyes, beyond despair.
“Stop worrying, Claudia. Nothing’s going to happen. She’ll be fine. I’ve got a little babysitting job for her, that’s all.”
“What are you talking about? What babysitting job?”
“Those little kids, I bet,” Annabelle said with an accusatory glare. She turned to Claudia and spoke urgently. “At that nasty old house where he lives.” She jerked her head in Henry’s direction. “They locked me up with these two little kids—I think they were Russian or something—I listened through the wall. They were talking about selling those kids for a whole bunch of money.”
Claudia remembered the two small children Lainie had ordered into the house. It dawned on her that he was probably planning to sell Annabelle into slavery along with them. She had never particularly liked Bert, but this appalling scheme sickened her.
She tried to get him to look her in the eye. “Bert, you can’t do this!”
He refused to meet her gaze, focusing instead on his drink. “I don’t have a choice,” he said, his voice tense. “Get yourselves together. We have a schedule to meet.” He turned to the old man. “Your cell phone ought to be charged enough to give Lainie a call and find out when she’s arriving. I’ll meet her at the airstrip.”
The old man cocked his head, narrowing his eyes. “You sure you don’t want me to come along? These two might try to give you grief.”
Bert gulped down the rest of his drink. “Drop it, Henry. They know if either of them pulls anything, it’s going to be a big problem for the other one. I need you to wait here for Lainie.” He brandished his weapon carelessly, deepening Claudia’s unease. By now his blood-alcohol level had to be well over the legal limit of .08, yet despite the large amount he had consumed throughout the afternoon, he did not appear drunk. His ability to function normally with so much booze in his system was the sign of a serious drinker.
Pointing the weapon at the two women he said, “Okay, let’s go.”
Claudia tried to stand, but the pounding in her head made her feel as though she were in a cave of echoes. She sank back onto the sofa. “I’m dizzy, Bert. Let me sit for a little longer, please.”
He strode over and grabbed her arm, yanked her up. “Nice try, Claudia, but it’s time to go.” He took the key card from his pocket. “Ladies, after you.”
Chapter 31
Bert unlocked the Escalade and fired up the engine with the keyless remote.
“You drive,” he ordered Claudia.
“I feel like shit. How about you drive?”
“So I can get pulled over for a DUI? No, thanks.”
Now, there’s the perfect irony, Claudia thought, privately wishing they would get stopped. The strobe of a black-and-white LV Metro police cruiser behind them would be an answer to a prayer.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have drank so damned much,” she snapped, slamming the SUV into gear.
Back on the highway, the wind had kicked up. Desert sand swirled around the car in dusty eddies. Getting through town at rush hour absorbed the better part of thirty minutes. By the time they made the city limits and Bert directed Claudia to take Highway 95, the sun was dropping fast over the outlying hills to their left—not that she could actually see the sun through the furious brume. Most drivers had their headlights on. A glance at the dashboard clock told her that sundown wasn’t far off.
Claudia’s hopes of attracting some attention were quickly dashed. There were few other travelers sharing the 95 with them. The smart folks were safe at home, not out in this twilight nightmare.
The hollow feeling in her head was starting to subside. Now she just wanted to cry. Concussed people sometimes got overemotional, didn’t they? And so did someone racing toward their own death. How would you tell the difference?
She wondered about their destination. Bert was withholding specifics, but she recalled his mention of an airstrip to Henry. It had to be a private airstrip, she realized with a stab of fear, as they were many miles from any public airport. She assumed they were heading to the kind of place you saw in movies, the kind of place that would be hidden away, far off the beaten track, where drug traffickers—or in this case, human traffickers—could make their vile bargains in perfect privacy.
On the open road the wind gusted stronger. Claudia tightened her grip on the wheel, fighting the unpredictable blasts that rocked the vehicle. Sand whipped across the windshield, obscuring her vision. A harsh sound like radio static filled her ears as the storm slammed a million tiny grains against the body of the SUV.
Chancing a glance in the rearview mirror, her eyes met Bert’s. “How can you work at a school and sell children? Paige would be appalled.”
His eyes, bleary and red-rimmed, slid away from hers. “I don’t sell children. I have nothing to do with that.”
“Oh, you’re just an innocent bystander?”
“It’s Lainie’s gig,” he retorted with a petulant edge. “None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for the thing with Paige.”
Contempt surged in Claudia for the way he spoke of Paige’s death as if it had nothing to do with him. “What do you mean, ‘the thing with Paige?’ It didn’t just happen, you asshole. You made it happen!”
“For chrissake, this is better than the alternative, isn’t it?”
“You really think so?” She thought of the future that awaited the children and Annabelle if Bert and Lainie got their way. The most likely scenario was that they would disappear into Asia and be forced into prostitution or pornography. The prospect made her shudder.
She thought of the gun he held, of the way he had been drinking all day. Pissing him off might not be a good idea, but Claudia was fresh out of ideas. “Your wife doesn’t seem smart enough to pull this off by herself,” she said. “Who’s the brains behind it?”
“Don’t go there, Claudia,” Bert warned. “Leave it alone.”
“Human trafficking is big business, isn’t it, Bert? I saw a documentary on it. A child can bring forty-five grand. How much do you get for destroying those little lives, Bert?”
He struck his fist against the back of the driver’s seat, startling Claudia. The blow reverberated in her head and started it buzzing. It took all her concentration to keep the Escalade in its proper lane.
“Those kids were going to be the last ones,” Bert said. He put his forehead against Claudia’s headrest. His voice was barely above a mumble. “My gambling . . . I had to find a way to pay off the debt . . .”
She struggled to stay focused on the road. What she was hearing was hard to take, hard to believe of someone she knew. “Where did you get them? They’re not from this country, are they?”
She was surprised when he answered her questions. The alcohol must have loosened his tongue. “Ukraine,” he said, his words beginning to slur. “We have a contact. The parents think it’s a scholarship to the Sorensen Academy.”
“What? You’re not saying that Paige was in on this, are you?”
“Of course not. We just use the letterhead.”
“Does Lainie know about you and Paige?”
“It’s none of her business. We only stayed married so we couldn’t be forced to testify against each other.” Bert gave a wretched sob that caught in his throat. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Oh, poor baby. I guess you were forced to kidnap children and murder Paige.” The windows were shut tight, but Claudia tasted grit in her mouth, dry and choking. Visibility was worsening.
“You don’t understand! She made me crazy, coming to me right from his bed.”
“So plead temporary insanity—it’s better than compounding what you’ve already done.”
“It’s all my fault,” Annabelle broke in, tearfully. “If I hadn’t gone to Cruz’ house that night, Paige would be alive and we wouldn’t be here with this whacked-out freak.”
Claudia shook her head, then regretted the action, as it made the buzzing worse. “It’s not your fault, Annabelle.” She jerked her thumb violently in the direction of the backseat. “He’s the one who did it. Nobody else.”
Annabelle hung her head low and her hair tumbled around her face. “I was so stupid,” she said, her voice nearly lost in the noise of the dust storm. “I thought Cruz cared about me.”
“Sweetie, he does care about you. And he cared about Paige in a different way.”
Annabelle went on as if Claudia hadn’t spoken. “I made him a belt in art class. I wanted to give it to him for Christmas. He didn’t come to the door when I knocked. I was going to just leave his present for him.” Her voice dropped even lower. “The door was unlocked and I heard them in the bedroom. The bedroom door was open. I got really mad, seeing him with her like that. It freaked me out. I just kept getting madder and madder.
“He was in his office and he heard me.” She spoke rapidly, with the fervor of a confession, refusing to acknowledge Bert by name. “He acted all nice, like he wanted to know what was wrong. Then he used my phone and called Paige and said I was in trouble and she had to come back right away.”
“I was only going to talk to her,” Bert blurted. He had remained silent while Annabelle told what happened, but now his voice choked with emotion as he took up the story. “I just wanted to make her see how much she hurt people—I wanted to make her care about what she was doing to me. I loved her. You don’t understand.”
“You used her feelings for Annabelle to ambush her,” Claudia said. “You knew she’d come if she thought Annabelle was in trouble. That’s why you used her phone. She wouldn’t have answered if it had been your number showing up.”
“Yeah, she came. But she wasn’t interested in anything I had to say.”
His inner torment made his voice raw and ragged, but Claudia could feel no sympathy. After what he had done, his whining made her want to stop the car and beat the shit out of him, gun or no gun. Whether he had planned it or not, the man was a killer, and he was going to kill again, that much was clear. Even if he sold Annabelle into slavery, he couldn’t afford to let Claudia go. She knew it as undeniably as she was piloting this behemoth along the dark highway in a howling wind.
Bert kept on talking. Maybe he thought words could exorcise his demons. “She wouldn’t let me into her bed anymore, but that didn’t stop her from using me when she wanted something. As soon as she laid eyes on Cruz, it was over between us. It didn’t mean diddly that she was breaking my balls.”
“So you killed her.”
&nb
sp; “It wasn’t like that!” he protested weakly. “It wasn’t like that at all.”
“Yes, it was,” Annabelle shouted at him, twisting in her seat. Her voice was pitched high with torment. “It was just like that! Paige was yelling at you about Cruz and—and you grabbed the belt from me and you put it round her neck and you just kept twisting and twisting and she was choking and her face turned a funny color and I couldn’t make you stop and—and I kept screaming at you to stop, but you wouldn’t listen, and she was kneeling on the ground and—” The words ran together as she relived the horror of Paige’s final moments. Finally, she just covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
Claudia’s foot touched the brake, preparing to pull over to the side of the road and comfort the girl, but Bert pressed his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t slow down. We’ve got a schedule to meet.”
The gun he was holding made him dangerous, but contempt overrode Claudia’s fear. “Bert, for chrissake, you’ve put her through the wringer. Don’t you have a shred of humanity left?”
His cell phone bleated, saving him from having to respond.
“Yeah, Henry? Yeah, there’s a sandstorm. We’re right in middle of it . . . I know he can’t fly in this weather, but . . . you tell your idiot daughter to get her ass back on the road or there’s gon’ be hell to pay! If we’re drivin’ in this shit, so can Lainie.” His voice was showing the drag of too much booze. He clicked off with a muttered curse and tapped the back of Claudia’s seat with the cellular.
“Keep an eye out for a private road, it ought to be comin’ up any second. We gott’ turn there.”
About five minutes down the highway he grabbed the back of the driver’s seat and heaved himself forward. “Slow down. I think tha’s it.”
The wind had abated for a fleeting moment, and like the parting of the Red Sea, made a turnoff visible about fifty yards ahead. Claudia slowed the SUV, left with impotent rage at the situation Bert had created. Searching for a way to frustrate his plans, she braked onto the dirt track he had called a road
