by J. D. Allen
She’d done it.
48
“My car’s across the street.” Agent Webb headed for the door of Jim’s apartment.
The rage in Jim’s gut was back to levels he’d not felt since before his first anger-management class. At first he’d only gone because the court mandated it, but he soon realized the time with the group did him good. Like AA for people with shitty lives. But none of the stupid exercises were going to help with the absolute fury he felt brewing at the moment. When he got his hands on Sophie’s knife he would be slitting her throat. Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a slit throat and dust to dust.
“I’ll meet you there.”
Agent Webb hesitated but then flew out the front door. He calmly walked through his converted garage office and grabbed the small key hanging by the back door. His bike sat there, dusty and unridden for months. It roared to life with a turn of the throttle and a little ignition. He was closer to the neighborhood than Miller. He knew the back roads and the cut-throughs. The advantage of hour after shitty hour of surveillance in this town.
He whipped that bike through the side streets, ignoring stop signs, until he found a familiar path.
The dirt path cut from one subdivision to another. Kids used them to go from the smaller subdivisions and sneak into the pools of the larger. At the end of the third path was a narrow opening between fences. Six-foot chain link. He’d walked it before but his bike was bulky. At this speed, if it was too narrow, the consequences would be ugly. Pucker factor high.
He gunned it and zipped up the sidewalk and righted the bike as fast as he could so the machine would be straight up when he reached the gap. From this vantage point it looked like he was never going to make it.
He twisted the throttle. Grip it and rip it. The front wheel bounced when he hit the dirt.
“Never gonna fit,” he yelled as he went through. A jerk yanked the bike to the right as the handle bar brushed the metal fence pole. The fishtail pulled the rear tire to the left. Gripping the bars like his life depended on it, he did his best to minimize the oversteer. The dusty path didn’t help, but he’d made it.
Without slowing, he kept going, popping out at an intersection close to the new safe house. Cut a good five miles off his journey. He slammed on the brakes in time to skid up to the driveway. There was a fire truck across the street. People lined the sidewalks, taking pictures with smart phones. Everyone wanted the shot to post on their Facebook or Instagrams.
He rushed in. First thing he saw was a female face-down in her own blood in the hall. Must be Miller’s plainclothes girl. Jim stopped to check her pulse. None. He moved into the open living area.
Stephen was holding up Lynette’s limp little body. Her chair was lying on its back next to them. The back door was open to the night.
“Is she … ” Jim didn’t want to say it.
Steven was crying but shook his head. “She has a thready, weak pulse. I called for help.”
Miller and his team came in with guns up, ready to shoot.
“Officer down. Repeat, officer down,” Miller shouted when he saw the woman on the floor bleeding out. He glanced at Jim. “Momma okay?”
“Not really,” Steven said.
Miller signaled two men through the back sliding glass door. “See if they left a trail. Anything!” Two officers went into the night. He pointed at two others. “Check upstairs, see if Dan’s up there.”
Jim hadn’t bothered to check. Dan was gone. He knew in his bones that Sophie had taken him. He was long gone. Along with Sandy.
“FBI agent down out here.” Jim and Miller left Lynette’s side. The officer checked for a pulse. Too dark to see the blood on his jacket. With the shake of the officer’s head, they all knew the agent was dead.
Jim squatted back by the table. From that angle, he saw the young agent’s face. No open casket for his family. Fresh blood ran in streams along the scores in the concrete patio. Lynette shuddered violently in Steven’s arms. Her labored breathing got thicker with the struggle.
“Was she shot?” Jim didn’t see any blood on or around her. Maybe she’d be okay. That would be a miracle from the looks of this place.
“Help me get her to the couch.” Stephen lifted her upper body. Miller grabbed her tiny legs under the knees and helped move her. Sirens were approaching, but with all the commotion across the street Jim had no idea if it was the medics or more fire equipment.
Steven checked her over, careful not to cause any further damage to her frail body. “I don’t see anything.”
She coughed, gagged.
“Heart attack from the stress?” Miller headed back to the front room. On the radio. “Where’s my medical? I need at least two.”
“Could be something like that.” Steven straightened her dress as she struggled to breathe. It was automatic for him to do his best for her, to make her comfortable.
Medics came rushing in.
It was too late.
The life had drained out of Lynette as the EMTs tried to assess her condition. They started CPR, connected a mask to help her breathe.
Then she was gone, right before Jim’s eyes. Lynette Hodge’s obituary would join the articles on the wall.
If Jim didn’t find Dan, who would write her story? No more than seventy-five words. How could the life of a firecracker like her get wrapped up in seventy-five words?
Jim’s rage shifted gears. Sorrow, deep and profound.
He sat back on the recliner across from the medics. The sounds of their voices muted. Miller was screaming away in the front room, but that was white noise as well.
One of the medics went out to check on the FBI agent lying just outside the door on the patio.
Agent Ava Webb walked slowly into the room. Her weapon was drawn but she quickly holstered it. She headed straight for her guy on the porch. The medic shook his head.
She said his name. “Foster.” Ava knelt by his side. She touched her guy’s back. She too was now wrapped in a wet blanket of sorrow. Anger.
Jim’s anger slipped away, lost in yawning anguish as he watched Ava kneel there beside Foster and shed a tear for him. The medic returned and covered him with a sheet.
After a moment, Ava stood, her tears gone, her game face back in place.
Jim had moved in her direction without realizing. She found his gaze and looked down. Maybe she didn’t want to share the moment of sorrow. He understood.
The carnage around him was raw, fresh. In his line of work, the closest he came to a fresh crime scene was when defense attorneys hired him. His arrival came long after the fact, often when the tape was gone and the area clean of all signs of bloodshed. His job was digging to uncover missed clues and follow up leads. Not this.
More police showed up. More FBI.
Jim made his way to the front room and looked out the window. The yard and the fire scene across the street were both being roped off with yellow and black tape. He wished he had a cigarette. Some scotch.
Miller came out. “How’d you get here so quick?”
Jim pointed to the bike. “Took a couple off-road shortcuts.”
“You see her?”
“Nope.” Jim leaned against the rail. “Didn’t hear any shots either. She was gone.”
“Dan wasn’t upstairs.”
Jim knew that. Didn’t say anything.
They moved back toward the kitchen and the dead police officer on the floor. Ava approached and stopped before the bloody floor. Her body was slack with shock and pain. “She never used a gun before. With her profile, I’d have never thought she would.” Ava looked back to the porch. “Foster had drawn, finger not on the trigger. She had to be damned good to hit him.”
Miller tilted his head toward his officer, the woman on the ground with the slit throat. It was as if he didn’t want to look back at her. To see her again. “Kahill was
a marksman.” He picked up the spent smoke bomb with a gloved hand. A burnt chemical smell lingered in the room. “But we’d said the perp was a knife wielder. And Sophie used the fire and smoke for cover.”
“Dammit!” Ava kicked the side of the counter then paced the length of the small kitchen. “I have to go make a phone call I don’t want to make. Foster had a wife and two young kids. I need to get someone to his house before this hits the news.”
She walked away without waiting for a reply. Jim gave into the desire to follow. He managed only as far as the front porch, and then his legs stiffened. He hadn’t the slightest clue how to comfort this woman. So he watched her climb into the big FBI car and drive away.
Miller walked up behind him. “Thank god my captain makes those visits.”
A job Jim wouldn’t want. He kept watching as Ava’s car turned at the end of the street. “Lynette?” he asked.
“They think she was hit with the ketamine. Too much for her.” Miller shook his head.
Jim’s throat closed from the acrid taste of how much that pained him. Hard to breathe. All he could do was push that shock and sorrow to the back of his throat and try to swallow it down. He thought of Sophie Evers. Got mad. Anger was much easier to manage than pain. Always had been.
49
The girl was crying. She was awake enough now to know she wasn’t where she wanted to be. It was a pathetic whimper, really.
Sophie needed to pee. It was midafternoon and she’d driven for hours without a break. Dan would be rousing soon too. She needed to stop and manage all three.
“You ready to stop, baby?”
Carla jumped up from her comfortable pillow on the passenger seat.
“Okay. Give me a minute.” She’d seen a sign a ways back for a rest area. “Should be able to stop in a sec.” She patted the dog on the head.
You are more stupid than I ever imagined. Changing things up like this …
“Shut up. Shut up.” They approached the exit sign. “It’s only minor. Besides if Bean found my birth mother … our mother …”
No response to that taunt. The voice was not her. Or it was separate from her, but it was her. It had started with talking to herself as a kid. Trying to make herself feel better. It never worked. Eventually the internal conversations changed, and one day she couldn’t turn it off. It was all very confusing. The kind of thing that could give a girl a headache. Pinching the bridge of her nose didn’t help clear things up.
Sophie now figured the voice was her mother. At least the last few years it had been that cranky old shrew. Always there. Always nitpicking. That was a mother, right?
“It’s better this way. Plan C.”
If she could figure out how to do it, she’d get rid of the voice as well.
Nothing’s ready at that house. It’s all in Cali.
Sophie ignored the nagging and pulled off the highway, parking in the most remote spot in the rest area lot. Many cars were parked down around the bathroom and that meant lots of eyes.
She twisted to the back. The girl was still crying but out of it enough that she wouldn’t be any trouble. Sophie put Carla on the leash.
“You go. Then I’ll take care of our passengers.”
The dog hit the grass and squatted.
“I wish I could do that.”
After the dog was empty, Sophie did her own business, bought a vending machine coffee, and returned to the van.
“Where am I?” The girl was struggling to sit up.
Sophie patted her head. “Not to worry. We’ll be there soon and you’ll get to be in a much more comfortable position.”
Dan also moved, probably in response to the conversation.
She touched his face. His cheek twitched. The movement was cute, like a mouse wiggling whiskers. He had a tiny bit of gray coming on his temples. Mrs. Hodge’s hair was all white. Maybe the premature gray thing ran in the family. She imagined him salt-and-pepper with his rough face weathered and wrinkled from years in the sun. She smiled and carefully injected his neck with more of the tranquilizer. His eyelids fluttered.
Sandy whimpered again, breaking the tender moment with Dan.
Sophie chose another syringe and plunged it hard into the girl’s neck. It was the third or maybe the fourth time. There would be a few more. Hopefully it wouldn’t kill her before Sophie was able to play this out. It wouldn’t work without the waitress, but Sophie’d had a great idea on the road that made the girl much more useful. Another change of plan.
Stupid.
“No. Genius.”
50
The meeting room would have been drab under the best circumstances given its tiny putty-gray tables and folding chairs with chipped brown paint.
The walls were decorated with a poster reporting some Vegas crime statistics, a picture of a missing kid, and several other memos. All taped to the wall. They reminded Jim of Lynette and her articles. It was downright depressing.
Ava looked ten years older than she had the day before. Yep, he was thinking of her as Ava all the time now. It didn’t really matter. What mattered now was getting Sophie. But Ava looked beat. Her neat hair was in a ponytail and mussed a little on one side. She’d not bothered to fix her makeup from the tears.
But then again, Miller looked like he was in need of a good stiff drink, and a clean pressed jacket. The one he wore looked like it had been tossed in the back of the car more than once that day.
“We got a hit on Maria Callas.” Ava tossed a sheet of paper on the table. “No address other than the PO box in Bakersfield, but we found an employer. Medical software. High-end stuff. I have the address.”
California. Miller was stuck. Out of his jurisdiction.
“Our office has the address and a supervisor’s name. I’m flying out in an hour.”
“I’m coming.” Jim figured that was going to be a no-go. Not that it mattered. At this point he’d find a way to get there on his own. He wanted Sophie himself and if he had to admit it, he didn’t want Ava facing this freak on her own. Of course she was FBI, she wouldn’t be on her own. But Jim didn’t want her facing Sophie Ryan Evers without him.
She almost smiled. “There’s an FBI flight scheduled. I managed to get you on as my witness. In reality, you are the only one who has seen her in person. My director wants a confirmation on her ID since this is such a high-profile case now.”
No shit? He’d expected to be left on the tarmac as she flew off like the heroine in an old romance flick.
Miller looked pissed. Jim knew the drill. Las Vegas police had a dead Cynthia Hodge, a dead neighbor, a dead cop, and Sandy was still missing and all Miller could do was sit on his hands while the Feds chased down the out-of-state leads.
Jim felt for him but was once again happy that he could play by the seat of his pants.
Miller was stuck. He might not even get to prosecute Sophie for any of his warrants. Feds would choose the charges that would be the easiest to make stick. Probably not even in Vegas courts.
“When do we leave?”
She glanced at her phone. “Thirty minutes.”
“That’s barely enough time to get to the airport.”
“Then we should go.”
51
MediBridge resided in a midsize building in Bakersfield. The receptionist was cheerful. The decor was a mix of bright orange and teal that gave the visitor the impression that the place was crisp, the business intelligent.
Jim leaned over and gave the receptionist his best smile. “Do you have pictures of your employees on your website, miss?”
She straightened her headset. “We do.” She held up a finger. “Mr. Layton, some people from the FBI are here to see you.” She paused to listen. “I’ll tell them.” She disconnected the call with the push of a button. “He’ll be right here.”
Ava moved closer. “Can you show us a picture o
f Maria Callas on the site?”
She typed away and then turned the screen in his and Ava’s direction. A professional-looking photo of Sophie Ryan Evers took up the left half of the screen. Her credentials were listed on the right side. It was a boring picture. Hair pulled back so you had no idea how long it really was. Beige suit, white shirt. Not like the yellow she was wearing when she came to him and started this ride. But it was definitely her.
Ava asked, “That her?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His stomach did a little flop. His brain immediately supplied the memory of the night in Texas.
Before he could get too worked up, a man came striding into the reception area in a very expensive suit. Jim was familiar. He’d seen plenty such on the big-time players on the Strip.
He greeted Ava first. “I’m Dave Layton. How can I help you?” Dave was typically handsome with a tight jaw and stubble just enough to make him look rugged. His fake, overly white smile and surgically perfect nose made Jim immediately think car salesman.
Ava was on her feet, showing her credentials and giving her name. Her suit was looking a bit better than it had that morning, but this guy and the receptionist had both out-labeled her for sure. Not that Jim gave a rat’s ass about fashion. He didn’t. In his business he would often use clothes to get a read on a person. See what they thought of themselves. How they wanted others to see them.
Jim was still in jeans and a black T-shirt and didn’t care what anyone thought of his fashion sense.
“We’re investigating a case and think one of your employees might be able to assist us,” Ava stated as matter-of-factly as possible.
Dave’s expression faltered for an instant. “Wow. The FBI? Really?” He glanced at the receptionist, who was still listening even though her head was facing the computer screen on her desk.
“We should pop into a conference room.” He gestured through the glass doors separating the reception area from the rest of the business and led them to a small conference room with a table that would accommodate eight attendees.
