The Survivors Club

by J. Carson Black

  I’m going to die.

  She was sure of that. She also knew he would rape her first, and probably torture her.

  He was no cop.

  How had she been so stupid? He had her ten thousand dollars and he had her. She could feel the chain links cold and hard against her neck. Could feel her airway close, suffocating her. Realized that wasn’t really happening, but she felt it anyway. Panic exploded upward. Her gorge rose. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

  The man sat down across from her, cross-legged. His broad face all smiles.

  “Please don’t kill me!” she said through the duct tape. “I’ll do anything you want—anything. Just…don’t kill me.”

  He reached over and tugged on the chain. The choke chain pinched her throat.

  Suddenly, she had to throw up. She could choke to death.

  He ripped the duct tape off just before she vomited.

  He watched her like she was some bug crawling along the ground. Fascinated.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I had to establish the ground rules. You need to speak only when spoken to. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  He pulled a blade of grass out of the ground and stuck it between his teeth. It was hard to believe this was happening. He had such merry blue eyes. Hard to believe, looking at him, that he wasn’t a nice man. Maybe he would just have sex with her, take the money, and let her live.

  It was like a tender shoot of a plant inside her, reaching for the sun. Just a slim hope.

  “Okay, here are the ground rules,” he said at last. “You are my hostage. If you cooperate, you will go back to your family. Got that?”

  She nodded. She nodded as hard as she could.

  “Okay, where’s your phone?”

  She nodded to the back pocket of her jeans.

  He got up and came to her, bent and slid out her phone. “We’re gonna need this for later. The cash is in your truck, I take it?”

  She nodded furiously, tried again to speak through the duct tape. Tried to please him. There was hope. She was a hostage. That was okay. Hostages were kept alive.

  “Okay, I’ll be right back. Don’t you move. If you do, you might just end up hanging yourself and you’ll be no use to me and none to yourself, neither.”

  He ran down the hill. She could hear him beating his way through the tree branches and bushes.

  She waited. A fly zoomed around and lighted on her nose. She swatted at it with her manacled hands, but it kept coming back. She was in a twisted position, one shoulder high, her head stretched in the direction of the stake. She tried to get her legs under her so she could release the tension in her shoulders, neck, back, and hip. It was easiest just to lie down on her side.

  He returned, sounding like an elk stomping through the brush. Smiling.

  So weird—the way he smiled. The way he acted. And yet she realized he would kill her without a second thought.

  “I counted it. You did good. It looks like I can trust you.”

  She nodded, hard.

  He sat down again, cross-legged in the dirt, and leaned toward her, like he was a friend about to tell her a story by the campfire. “Here’s the deal. I want a lot more money than ten thousand dollars, and I think you can get it for me.”

  She could barely fathom what he was saying. He wanted more money?

  “See, I know what you, Brayden, and Michael have been doing. I know all about your little game.” He tipped his hat up on his head. “That should be worth a lot more than ten thousand dollars. I figure—don’t want to be greedy—that the information I have at my disposal, which I could give to the police, with evidence to back it up, is worth a cool million or two, at the very least. Just how much is your family’s net worth?”

  The realization came on her all at once, like a cascade, hitting her hard. He knew about their game? He wanted a couple million dollars? She couldn’t seem to process this.

  He looked at her—she swore it was in a kindly way—like he felt sorry for her. “I know, it’s a lot to take in. How could anybody know? But it’s true. I know all about your little game. But hey. We all get our jollies in our own way, and who am I to judge? Thing is, though, I see an opening, I take it. What’s good for you folks would be good for me.”

  He shifted again, his Roper boots stirring up the dust. He sat back, legs crossed at the feet, braced by his arms. Lazy and smiling and terrifying all at once.

  It felt like a dream.

  “By the way, the name’s Wade.” He smiled. “Now let’s figure out how we’re going to do this.”

  CHAPTER 47

  AFIS showed no match for the partial fingerprint on the strip of duct tape that had remained stuck to the tree. It was possible that the duct tape was left by someone else hiding a weapon in the tree, as it seemed to be the best hiding place around there. As Peter Deuteronomy had pointed out, caching weapons in various hiding spots along the border had become a frequent occurrence. Either way, Tess couldn’t get Wade Poole on prints. Worse, she had no idea where to begin looking for him. He seemed to have disappeared. So far they had been unable to find an address for Poole in Glendale, California, where he was supposed to have lived. He did not register a vehicle at the DMV. He was not on the tax rolls. He had no phone number.

  He had ceased to exist.

  But they were on his trail. Danny, working from his computer at home, came across a likely conference earlier in the year, the annual Western Association of Homicide Detectives Conference, held in January. Tess had gone once, herself—there were plenty of good seminars, especially on the latest advances in law enforcement.

  “He was retired,” Danny said, “but that doesn’t mean anything. A lot of those old guys go to this conference—gotta keep their hand in.”

  Once a homicide cop, always a homicide cop, Tess thought.

  “He probably just got together with his old pals and played a lot of golf,” Danny added.

  It took them all of twenty minutes to get the information from Hanley’s records. He had gone to Palm Springs in January.

  “So what he said about having too much to drink was true,” Tess said. “Bert said if he drank more than one he was a falling-down drunk.”

  “I can see it. They’re hanging out together in the bar, he’s having such a good time with his old buddy and former son-in-law he drinks a little too much and spills the beans. He might not have even remembered it. But Wade sure did.”

  “So they decided to team up and prove that the family was killing people,” Tess said. “Only Hanley wants to build a case, and Wade wants something else.”

  “Money.”

  “Probably.”

  “He’s a mean son of a bitch,” Danny said. “It wouldn’t surprise me that he’d kill Hanley and try to pin it on the Alacrán. Thirty rounds to make it look like overkill.”

  “George trusted Peter Deuteronomy to keep his USB disk. He was afraid of what Wade Poole might do.”

  “Or do to him. You thinking what I’m thinking, guera?”

  Tess was. Wade Poole’s next target was the family. If you put yourself in his position, what would he do next?

  Extortion.

  They discussed the possibility that Wade Poole might go after the DeKovens. How would they react to extortion? What kind of pressure would it put on them? And how could Tess and Danny use it to further their own goals?

  “This might be the crack in the dam,” Tess said.

  “Yeah, it could be.”

  Tess got the feeling Danny was fading. She knew he was beginning to realize that everything had changed now, and would be changed for a long time, and sleep would be one of those catch-as-catch-can deals.

  “You sound like the walking dead,” Tess said.

  “But I’m the happy walking dead.”

  “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

  “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. What were you saying?”

  “What do you think Poole’s next move is gonna be?”

  “Depends. If he’s a hard-as
s, he’d start killing people. In the family.”

  Tess said, “To encourage the others to negotiate, or just because he could?”

  “Both, I guess. Maybe he’d kill one of them to scare them.”

  “Chad,” Tess said.

  “He’d be the obvious choice. He could show that he had a long arm. That he could get them anytime.”

  “What about Hanley? I think he killed him because he had everything he needed and he knew Hanley wasn’t going to go along with what he was planning.”

  “Sounds about right.” Danny sounded like he was drifting off to sleep. “Tell you what, that family better be scared, if they know what he did to Hanley.”

  “You think they know how he was killed?” Tess said. “Because if they don’t, maybe someone should tell them.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Doris Glazer and her dog Buster rounded the last curve of the trail before the pull-off where she’d left her car. It had been a good hike on a picture-perfect day, but now it was time to head home and take a nap before her shift at Fry’s in Nogales. She stooped to leash Buster, and when she looked up she saw a dog standing in the dirt road.

  The dog was a sorry sight, but Doris knew it was an Australian shepherd. It had a collar and tags—somebody’s pet.

  The dog stood in the road, head down, panting. And between pants, it was whining. Doris saw why. The dog was dripping blood from its hind end. Its legs were trembling and splayed out for balance.

  “Oh, my God.”

  The Australian shepherd had been shot in the flank.

  While the dog was in surgery to remove the bullet, Doris called Animal Control and gave them the registration number on the tag. The dog’s name was Bandit, and it belonged to a Jaimie Wolfe, who lived in Patagonia.

  Doris had seen Jaimie Wolfe around town, knew her to say “hi” to on the street. Jaimie had that ranch where she taught horseback riding. Her number was unlisted, and since it would be a while before Bandit would be released—and frankly, Doris was worried about paying for the surgery—she decided to drive over to the farm herself.

  But no one was there. It was getting late and she had to get ready to go to work, So Doris had to leave it for now. She’d done the right thing, and even if she had to pay out of her own pocket in the long run, Doris would figure out a way to make her dollars stretch a little more.

  She doubted it would come to that. Anyone who owned a horse farm had to have some money to pay for their own injured dog.

  CHAPTER 49

  Michael and Martin had spent the morning shopping and the afternoon sunning by the pool, a light lunch, and a massage for Michael’s aching muscles.

  As Michael had expected, Martin had forgiven him. Maybe it was thanks to the TAG Heuer Grand Carrera chronometer Martin now sported on his beautiful, lean-muscled arm. His feet were still tender, but Michael knew a foot masseuse at the Los Palmas Resort down the road and summoned him here on his lunch hour. Since the bastinado left no marks, the masseuse suspected nothing.

  Michael had told Martin they would “heal together,” and Martin was more than willing to forgive him. Now he was agitating to go to a play tonight in town. Michael didn’t let on to Martin, but he didn’t want to go out. He wanted to stay here and think. And maybe turn the place into a guarded fort. The phone rang. He glanced at the readout—Jaimie.

  He didn’t want to hear whatever hard luck story she was peddling this time, so he ignored the call.

  Jaimie had tried several times to raise Michael, but he wasn’t answering his cell. She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe the trouble she was in. And it was getting cold now. Spring nights in the desert mountains could get down into the teens and twenties, and she was wearing a tank top and jeans.

  The man—Wade—looked disappointed. “I thought you two were closer than that. He ignores your calls?”

  “Maybe he’s busy.”

  He’d stripped off the duct tape, partly because he wanted her to call her brother, but also because it was doubtful anyone would hear her out here.

  Wade watched her and massaged his forehead. He’d been covering his right eye and pushing his palm against his temple for a while now. Migraine. She knew, because she got them herself. “He’d better get unbusy. This is a limited-time offer.”

  She shrugged. It was hard to shrug being chained the way she was, but she did it anyway to show him that she didn’t care. Every muscle ached. She was cold—shivering. She hated her goddamn brother more than anything on earth except for Mr. Congeniality over there. “What did you do to my dog?”

  “I shot her.”

  “You bastard!”

  “Not very ladylike, are you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Jaimie wanted to kill him. Adele was hers. Adele belonged to her. She loved Adele. She didn’t love hardly anyone, but she loved that dog. And now Adele was gone.

  Tears slid down her face. She wiped her nose with her good hand, and was surprised when her captor shot up off the ground and kicked her in the ear.

  The pain was shattering. She rolled on the ground in agony, the pain flashing through her like a pulsing red-and-black orb, filling her vision, filling her whole world.

  He stood over her. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again.” He kicked her hard in the side.

  Jaimie heard the banging rattle, and suddenly felt him grabbing up links, jerking hard on the choke chain, the metal biting into her flesh. Her air stopping.

  Buzzing in her hears. Her vision dimming, little dots like a fuzzy TV screen turning dark, darker, can’t breathe…swimming in agony, needing air—

  And suddenly he released her. She fell forward, air gushing into her lungs. Air and dirt—she was facedown and gasping.

  “Mind your manners! I’ve killed women like you for a lot less.”

  She was aware she was gasping, trying to pull in air. Gasping and sobbing at the same time. Trying to get a deep breath and failing.

  “And don’t you think I don’t know what I’m doing,” he added. “Just ask Chad.”

  Tess called Cheryl Tedesco, who was about to leave for the day. Asked if there was anything new on the Barkman case. Her friend at TPD sounded harried. The case remained open, but Cheryl had been discouraged from pursuing it further. There was no evidence that Barkman’s death was anything but a freak accident. “There’s just not enough there, there. Anyway, we’re keeping it open but we’re directing our resources elsewhere.”

  Tess knew the directive came from above, and there was no point arguing about it. Move on. “We think we know who killed George Hanley.”

  “Remind me again who that is?”

  “The older guy in Credo. The one that looked like a drug hit.”

  “Oh, yeah, my bad. Sorry.” She sounded like she’d had very little sleep. The new case must be a bear.

  Tess described Wade Poole. “He’s former homicide. We think he killed his wife and made it look like a robbery—this is a really bad guy. I just wanted to give you a heads-up—he may be after the DeKoven clan.”

  Cheryl knew about Tess’s theory that the family was targeting people like Alec Sheppard, people who survived accidents.

  Tess realized it required a leap of faith to believe that. Half the time she didn’t believe it herself.

  So crazy, on its face.

  Cheryl said, “So you still think it’s true? They’re still playing that game?”

  “I think right now the shoe’s on the other foot. I think they’re running scared. We have an Attempt to Locate out on Wade Poole.”

  “Guy sounds like a phantom.”

  “The main thing. I wanted to go up to Michael DeKoven’s and warn him about Poole. I didn’t want to step on any toes.”

  “No toes stepped on,” Cheryl said. “Be my guest—I wish I could help but I’m inundated here. We have another shooting in midtown—and this time it’s one of ours who got shot.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too. Didn’t know him, but he had a
wife and two kids.”

  They talked a little about it until Cheryl drifted off. Nothing more to say. She’d just disconnected when a call came in from Will Fallon, a deputy out of Patagonia. “Something’s happened I think you’ll be interested in.”

  “Oh?”

  “There was an accident out on Harshaw Road, up near Mowry. Somebody driving by spotted a truck that crashed into the woods. It belongs to Jaimie Wolfe.”

  Tess drove out to see Jaimie’s truck. It was scratched up but possibly still operable. The driver’s-side door was open. She peered in, careful not to touch anything. The airbags had been deployed, but Tess could see a dog leash and a pile of bridles and halters on the passenger-side floor.

  Other vehicles had been on the road, so it was hard to see the tracks because the graded dirt road was hard ground, like a washboard. But she could see where the truck left the road and plunged down the embankment. She also saw a spot where a vehicle had stopped, slewed, and scattered gravel and rocks. And a place where the tires had dug in the dirt, two divots, as a vehicle laid scratch.

  Jaimie Wolfe was gone.

  Tess was worried that Jaimie might be disoriented from the crash. She could have tried to walk home or hitched a ride. Or she could be wandering in the forest. Tess drove in the direction of Jaimie’s place. On the way she called the sheriff’s office and asked for them to pull together a search team. There was a sheriff’s substation in Patagonia, and they were already looking. But they might need to send a search and rescue team. “I’m on my way to Jaimie’s,” Tess added.

  “Walt’s there. No sign of Mrs. Wolfe.”

  Tess was almost there, so she pulled in anyway.

  Walt Aronow was driving out. He rolled down his window. “She’s not home,” he said. “We’ve got a search and rescue team on the way out to the crash site.”

  Tess decided to look at the farm anyway.

  Everything was quiet. She went to the house—just as Walt had told her, everything was buttoned up. Next, she walked to the barn. The barn was typical of a horse farm: two rows of stalls fronting an aisle wide enough to drive a pickup through. The barn could be closed on both ends—two sets of double doors. She walked into the cool shade, and horses put their heads over their stalls and one nickered at her. They had hay and water, so they were all right.