But Stan was already too far away. By the time Alan reached the bottom of the hill, he could not tell where Stan’s car had gone.
Alan knew of a couple of possibilities, at least. He first drove in the direction of downtown, toward Government Plaza. He took shortcuts that should have led him to Stan’s car before he arrived...assuming that was where the man was headed.
In the meantime, he tried calling Kelly...just because. Her phone went straight to voice mail.
Did that mean Alan’s ridiculous initial concern was valid—that this had something to do with her after all?
He hoped not, yet his instincts told him she was in trouble.
He didn’t see Stan’s car on his way to the plaza, nor did he see it in the parking facilities there. He slammed the steering wheel with his hand.
He had to find Stan. Better yet, he had to find Kelly and make sure she was all right.
After parking along the street outside the plaza, he again tried calling her—and again was directed straight to voice mail. What was he going to do now?
His phone rang, and he quickly looked at it. Could it be Kelly? No, it was a strange phone number.
“Hello?” he said, hating to take the time to answer. He intended to head to Stan’s home, in case he could find the councilman there.
“Hello, is this Alan?” said a young-sounding male voice. “This is Eli Grodon.”
Alan’s heart pounded as questions surged through his mind. “Yes,” he said. “This is Alan Correy. How are you, Eli?”
Why would Eli be calling him? How had he gotten Alan’s phone number?
Where was Kelly? Was she all right?
“I’m not doing great,” Eli said. “Can you come to my house now? I really need to talk to you.”
* * *
“Where are we going?” Kelly asked again as loudly as she could, hating how her voice sounded so raspy and scared.
But she had been tied up and tossed onto the floor of the backseat of the luxurious sedan Stan drove—another sign of his ill-gotten wealth.
“I told you before,” Stan snapped from the front seat. He turned the wheel fast enough that Kelly’s head hit the floor. Her neck, and much of the rest of her body, were already sore from lying at this angle. But she’d had no choice except to let him truss her up this way and toss her into his car, which he had parked in his garage. He had a gun. He had threatened her—and Eli.
No one had seen what he had done to her. No neighbor, at least.
Paul had, of course. And so had Eli.
Eli. He was the reason Kelly hadn’t tried—much—to fight Stan. Paul was now in charge of him.
Stan had said he would be home soon, without Eli’s aunt. If Eli was a good boy and listened to Paul, he could be sure that Kelly would remain okay. If he didn’t...well, Stan didn’t tell his son what might happen.
Kelly knew that the chances she would come out of this alive were slim to none. But Stan had intimated that Shereen was going to go visit Eli’s mother.
Would he take her to wherever he had hidden Andi’s body?
If so, and if Kelly died, too, she would at least gain that little bit of knowledge. But she wanted so badly to let other people know...
Stan turned his radio on and began listening to some shrieking operatic music, obviously not wanting to talk to Kelly, or even listen if she tried again to say something.
Fortunately, the ride had mostly been smooth so far. Kelly struggled some more with the ropes that bound her arms, but again it was to no avail.
If only she could talk to Alan, communicate with him some way, but that was impossible. One of the first things Stan had done when he entered his home and aimed that gun at her was to have Paul grab her purse, which held her cell phone.
She wanted to tell Alan where she was so he could save her.
And if that was impossible, she at least wanted to tell him goodbye...
The smoothness of the ride suddenly changed. The engine grew louder, its sound less masked by the shrieking radio music.
Kelly was pressed against the backseat. The road was clearly sloping upward.
Into the mountains?
To Andi’s cabin?
Kelly had realized, after Eli had mentioned it, that the cabin could have become a refuge for Andi—or her last resting place, if Stan had learned about it.
Was he driving her there now so she would join her sister in life...or death? All Stan had told her before about their destination was that it would answer some of Kelly’s questions so that maybe, at last, she would shut up.
* * *
Alan parked at the curb several houses away from Stan Grodon’s home. He wasn’t sure what he would find there, why Eli had called him. How he had called him—how he’d gotten his phone number.
Without answers to these questions, he had to treat this situation like an operation in which he would be using all of his official training and intuition to help the kid.
And Kelly? She had to be involved in this, too, at least in some manner.
He could only hope that she was still okay.
He exited his car, then stayed close to the fences at the outer perimeters of the neighbors’ property, in case Stan had come home and Eli had called Alan because he was in danger.
He didn’t see Stan’s car, but there was an alleyway behind the place lined with tall fences, and presumably a driveway there leading into a garage.
Another tall wooden fence ran along the sidewalk, but Alan could see the upper story of the large, attractive beige home that was Stan’s and his son’s—and that was also once his missing wife’s.
Alan kept his cell phone in his left hand, leaving his right hand free to reach toward the holster hidden beneath his shirt if he needed to draw his weapon. When he got to the gate in the critical fence, he assumed it would be locked, but was surprised when it opened for him with no trouble.
His mind had already devised a premise for showing up here if he was confronted by Stan. As part of the security team for the city council, he wanted to make sure that the important member who’d left the big party was okay. It was a bit flimsy, yes, but it was the best thing he could come up with.
Since he was going to use that story if he had to, he decided not to walk around the house to scope it out first. Besides, getting inside quickly might be imperative.
He walked up the path to the porch steps, climbed them and rang the doorbell.
He listened but heard nothing inside. Had Stan come here, retrieved his son, then left?
Was young Eli all right?
Alan thought he discerned some shuffling footsteps, then the ornate front door opened. Eli stood there.
“I’m glad you’re here.” The kid’s face was ashen. “Come in, okay?”
“Of course.” Alan crossed the threshold, following Eli into the entry hall.
The kid closed the door behind them. He wore a black T-shirt over jeans, plus athletic shoes—the outfit he had worn to school?
Why was he here instead of there?
“Eli, I’d really like to know—”
“Please, come in here.” The kid’s tone sounded urgent, so Alan obeyed. Eli led him into the kitchen.
No one else was there. Where was his father?
Alan started to ask, but Eli, standing right in front of him by a long tile counter, turned and looked up at him with scared brown eyes, light eyebrows drawn into a stricken curve. “My aunt said I could trust you,” he said in a soft, scared voice.
His aunt? Then Kelly/Shereen had identified herself to him? When? Where?
Once again Alan opened his mouth to start asking questions, but Eli continued talking, looking down at his feet. “I don’t understand it all. But my dad—I think he did something to my mom. My aunt ran away, and then she came back looking different but said she wanted to help me.”
“Yes, she does,” Alan put in gently, grasping for something to say to make the kid get to the point faster—like, what was going on now.
“She came here before. You know?” He looked up at Alan, who nodded to encourage Eli to continue despite not having been aware of it. “She said I should trust you,” he repeated, seeming to study Alan’s face as if he could somehow read in it whether that could be true. “I... I don’t know, but—”
“I understand that it must be hard to trust anybody right now with all that’s been going on. I know you trust Councilwoman Arviss, but she doesn’t know the background stuff you’re worrying about. And—”
Alan heard a noise, some kind of thump from somewhere in the house. He froze for a second, then glared at Eli. “Is someone else here?”
Once more the boy looked down, this time as he nodded. “I... I told Mr. Tirths that the tablet my dad wants is under the steps. He went there to look, and I was able to push him and lock him in there.”
Alan couldn’t help a brief smile, so he was glad Eli wasn’t looking directly at him.
“I see,” he said. “Where’s that tablet now? And where’s your dad?”
“He...he told me I’d better give Mr. Tirths the tablet if I wanted to see my aunt alive again. He’s taking her to see my mom, only...only I think my mom’s dead.”
Alan felt his heart stop beating for a moment. “And where is this?” He tried not to yell, to shake the kid, but searched for patience...even though he knew that every moment he didn’t start off after Stan Grodon and Kelly meant she could be another moment closer to death.
“See, my mom was scared of my dad, and she wrote stuff on that tablet that she didn’t want him to see. Then she hid it so he wouldn’t find it. Some of the stuff on it says she bought a cabin up in the mountains where she wanted to take me someday to keep us both safe. But the way my dad’s been talking about it, I think he took my mom up there and killed her.” His voice broke, and he again looked up at Alan.
Pity shot through Alan. This poor kid. How long had he suspected...or known? “And your dad was aware you knew about it,” he said gently.
“At first he acted like he missed Mom, too, but then he started asking me questions that told me he wondered what I knew. He didn’t know at first that I’d found Mom’s tablet and all the stuff she’d put on there.”
“Including the location of the cabin.”
Eli nodded solemnly. “I’ll go get the tablet for you, Mr. Correy. Only... I really can trust you, can’t I?”
Alan nodded emphatically. “And you can trust that I’ll do my damnedest to go save your aunt,” he told the kid.
* * *
A few minutes later Alan had the tablet in his possession—which was possibly the very evidence the ID Division was after—as he drove like a maniac toward the cabin at the address he’d found on the tablet that Eli had in fact given him.
He also had Kelly’s cell phone. She’d been forced to hand her purse to Paul, Eli said, but the kid had grabbed it away when he shoved the guy under the steps, and her phone had been in it, apparently turned off by Paul. Eli had turned it back on, and that was how he had gotten Alan’s phone number.
Alan had already called not only his security company colleagues but also Chief Sangler of the local cops, filling him in on the situation briefly—and letting him know that someone who had conspired with Councilman Grodon in the apparent murder of his wife was locked under some stairs in the councilman’s house.
He had ordered Eli to go back to school, since Councilwoman Arviss, his closest adult friend here, was at the festivities up at the Blue View. The kid might be in trouble at school, but a lot of people would be around to protect him if Tirths somehow escaped before the cops came.
And now, Alan could only hope that he arrived at that cabin in time to save Kelly. Good thing he had the information from the tablet plus his GPS to tell him how to get to the cabin in this unknown wilderness.
But would he get there fast enough?
Chapter 22
The cabin was as rustic as anything Kelly had ever seen—there were log walls with no insulation over them, uneven wooden floors, a large cot in one corner and a kitchen that consisted of a metal sink, a portable refrigerator, a propane stove and some enclosed cabinets that might—or might not—contain cooking appliances and serving ware.
Not that she could see much of it. At least she was sitting up now. Stan had half led, half dragged her in from the car once he’d parked beneath the trees surrounding the place. Kelly was stiff, so any kind of movement was a little painful. She saw another door in the far wall, which she presumed led to a bathroom. Or maybe it was a rear exit leading to the outhouse.
Maybe...
“It’s been a long ride,” she told Stan. “I need to use the restroom.”
“Sure,” he said with a smirk. “Right there.” He pointed toward the door in question. “And in case you’re wondering, the room has windows, but they’re locked.”
He did at least untie her and push her toward the room that was her goal. Could she somehow lock the door and simply stay there till...till what? Till her hero Alan somehow learned where she was and showed up here to save her?
Yeah, right.
She did take her time in the room—at least it had adequate facilities—and rinsed her hands, though there was no towel to dry them on so she used her slacks. And the slight respite gave her time to think.
No, she didn’t want to just hide out here. Maybe she could get Stan talking so she would learn, at last, what had happened to Andi.
Plus, Judge Treena’s Identity Division Transformation Unit team had taught her the rudiments of self-defense—not that she was ever supposed to need to use them with her new, innocent identity.
She thought about them now, how to attack Stan—despite his gun. Beat him to the ground, then run.
Where? Could she steal his car keys first? Otherwise, how would she ever survive in the outdoors here, far from any kind of civilization?
Oh, Andi, she thought. If you had to buy a cabin to run to for safety—why someplace like this? She’d been in real estate. Had loved attractive homes. Weren’t there any other somewhat remote locations that were just a little closer to civilization?
But this place gave Kelly an even better idea of how stressed, how scared, her sister had been. If only they’d talked more about it.
Fled together back then, with Eli...
But now what was Kelly going to do?
Well, she couldn’t accomplish anything by staying in here for the rest of the day. She opened the door and walked out.
And didn’t see Stan. Had he just left her here? Would she be that lucky?
Although if he had, how would she survive? What would she eat?
How would she return back down the hill? And—
“Okay, finished?” Stan had just reentered the one-room place through the exterior door.
“Tell me about Andi now.” Kelly kept her tone calm yet insistent. No use showing even a hint of the fear she felt. “Is she hiding out here?”
She’d be shocked if Stan suggested that Andi might still be alive. Instead, the miserable SOB just laughed, his round face contorting into something macabre.
Kelly had an urge to slug him but stayed still, waiting for him to speak.
“Oh, yes, she’s hiding. She didn’t want to see you again at the end, you know? That’s what she said when I told her I’d bring you to see this wonderful place.”
Kelly felt tears rise to her eyes at the same time her fury increased a thousandfold. “So you did kill her here?” She tried to make her tone matter-of-fact instead of accusatory, no matter what she felt inside. She’d probably get more of an admission out of him that way.
As if it would do her any good now. She had no way of recording his confession. And although she would be able to testify directly now about what he said instead of trying to get the hearsay of what she’d heard from Paul Tirths into evidence, her chances of surviving this were slim to none.
But for Andi’s sake, and especially Eli’s, she had to try.
“Well, yes, she did die here,” Stan a
dmitted, the wryness of his smile now appearing extremely fake. “And I did kill her, but it was all self-defense. She attacked me because I was in the way of her real estate deal for that tree-hugging agency, the National Ecological Research Administration. I just figured that Jerome Baranka’s property was a better fit for NERA.”
“So he’d get the commission, but you’d get a lot more out of him and his political connections—and money—if he was the successful real estate seller.” Kelly didn’t make that a question. He could deny it if he wanted, but she knew it had to be true.
Stan just shrugged. “Come on outside while it’s still light. I’ll show you where your dear, interfering sister ended up.”
Kelly wasn’t sure where Stan had hidden his gun before, but it was back out now, pointed at her.
This was going to be it, she was sure. Yes, she might see where poor Andi had ended up—but then she would end up there, too.
Would it help if she kept Stan talking? She figured it wouldn’t hurt, at least.
“So you followed Andi up here to convince her your deal was the way to go?” Kelly asked conversationally as Stan shoved her back through the door and outside onto the leaf-covered dirt surrounding the cabin.
“Sort of. The damned bitch was about to ask Regina Joralli for an appointment to speak in front of city council about the transaction and what I was going to get out of it. I figured our dear council president might be pleased to hear Andi’s lies, since I’d been maneuvering to take over her position, so I got mad at Andi. She threatened to run away that night with Eli, but she’d already bought this place and I knew about it, thanks to Jerome and his knowledge of local real estate. She wasn’t going to steal my son from me, so instead I threw her in my trunk and brought her here, exactly where she was headed. And when I let her out of the trunk, she ran at me, so I had to shoot her to save myself.”
The man was clearly insane. Otherwise, how could he sound so calm as he spouted such horrible details of her sister’s last moments? Unfortunately, that might give him some defense against being found guilty if he ever went to trial—which was unlikely now, of course.
Covert Alliance Page 20
