No Escape

by Heather Lowell

  Tessa felt a change in speed once again, then the vehicle hit a particularly deep pothole. Gritting her teeth against the pain of being briefly airborne, then hitting metal as she landed, she managed to wedge herself into the space underneath the plastic storage bin. She held her breath when the cast on her left forearm clanged into metal, but hoped the men in the cab wouldn’t hear the noise over the road sounds.

  Once she was in place, she grabbed her cell phone to adjust the ringer. After squinting at the lighted display, she realized that they must have crossed over the border into California, because she apparently was in CalCell territory once again. Cheered by the news that she would be able to call Luke once she was left alone in the truck, she went through menus to turn the ringer off on her phone.

  A brief review told her the relevant ringer options were silent and meeting, so she chose the meeting mode. That ought to disengage the ringer, which would hopefully keeping her from being revealed by an untimely phone call. But her cell would buzz soundlessly if Luke managed to receive her frantic series of pages and sent her a message with instructions in return.

  Once the ringer had been set to meeting mode, Tessa took the time to type out one last text message to Luke. She wouldn’t send it yet, but instead would keep her finger on the button, ready to do so at a second’s notice. That way, if the men did happen to find her, she could immediately hit SEND and let Luke know what had happened.

  For whatever that was worth.

  Hell, she’d probably better start coming up with a backup plan to cover that contingency, too.

  The vehicle began to slow down, then threw her to one side as it made a wide turn and came to a stop. She waited with breath held as both doors opened and closed. She heard muted conversation and clenched her teeth against both the numbing cold and the tension building inside her.

  A minute, maybe two, and they’ll be gone. Hang in there. She concentrated on keeping her breathing shallow but even, telling herself that even though every noise felt magnified a thousand times to her, the men could not really hear her breathing. They had no reason to suspect that there was a stowaway aboard.

  No reason, that is, until one of them slammed shut the plastic bin she’d hidden beneath. She hadn’t even realized they had opened it until the whole thing reverberated half an inch from her nose.

  The bin’s momentary sound and motion were enough to cause her to jump visibly. That in turn jostled her cell phone off her belly, causing it to fall onto the metal truck bed with a clatter.

  “What was that?” A male voice demanded.

  Of course, Tessa thought bitterly. Of course I couldn’t drop the freaking thing onto my padded body. No, I had to drop it on god damned metal.

  “Shhhhhh,” the other voice hissed.

  Oh, God. I’m toast.

  At that moment, her cell phone received a text message. It lay against the metal of the truck bed and vibrated like a crazed hornet. Two short buzzes, then a long one. Under her horrified gaze, it actually moved several inches in the dim light, propelled by its vibrating battery away from her body. She snatched it up, hoping that no one had heard it.

  But of course they had.

  Ricky Hedges threw back the black tarp covering the pickup’s bed and shined a flashlight inside. Tessa flinched away from the brightness and knew she’d been caught.

  “Well look right here, Bobby. She don’t look much like her picture, but I think we’ve got ourselves a deputy district attorney hiding out in the truck.”

  Chapter 47

  Near Lake Tahoe, California

  Thursday night, March 18

  Tessa eased her finger over her traitorous cell phone and hit the SEND button. Since she was apparently in CalCell territory, she prayed that Luke would quickly receive her emergency message and understand things had just gone from bad to worse. She sat blinded by Ricky’s flashlight and decided that it would probably be a good time to come up with a new backup plan.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the earth was going to open up and swallow her anytime soon—so much for that idea. She’d have to come up with something else, and soon.

  Using the pretext of turning away from the light, Tessa managed to curl away from the men. She took a second to slide her brand-new, wafer-thin cell phone between the plaster of her cast and her wrist. Hopefully, they wouldn’t think to look for it there.

  “Come out of there, Miss Jacobi.”

  Gritting her teeth, she managed to slide out from under the storage bin and make her way across the truck bed. She made a big deal out of favoring her broken wrist, hoping that the sign of weakness would put Ricky and his colleague off guard.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Ricky asked. “You wearing a wire or something?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “My boss doesn’t know I’m here. I came for Kelly.”

  “What if I told you that Kelly was dead?” Ricky asked.

  “Then I’d say you’re a liar,” Tessa shot back.

  Ricky cocked his head. “The tracks around the cabin—you make those?”

  She didn’t say anything, just tried to look chagrined and defiant at the same time. Maybe if he believed that she was an overzealous prosecutor out here on her own, he would be taken by surprise when Luke and his men raided the cabin after midnight.

  That is, if Luke stuck to the plan. She had no idea what he would do now that she had been taken as well. She’d have to think about that—surely there was something in the careful plans they’d been working on that she could use to help in the current situation.

  “Put her in front of you on the ride to the cabin, Bobby.” Ricky turned away and headed toward the garage. “If she gives you any trouble, kill her.”

  Luke sat in the front passenger seat of their vehicle as MacBeth drove over the icy, rutted road. Stone had just taken a GPS reading, and they were less than ten minutes away from the clearing where they would park the truck and head toward Ricky’s cabin on foot.

  They were going to have to mix things up a bit, leaving Stone behind in the truck to wait for Tessa, even help her if needed. Luke and MacBeth would continue toward the cabin as planned, and if there was no sign of Tessa, they would hike down to the garage where Ricky usually parked his vehicles and pick her up there.

  If she was all right. If something hadn’t happened to her first, like hypothermia.

  Luke kept going over one of the jerky messages in his mind, the one where Tessa had indicated that she was hiding in the back of a truck. And she was cold.

  His cell phone, which was being charged on the console, gave a series of beeps to indicate another message. Luke snatched it up and pressed the button to read Tessa’s latest page. This one was in regular English, as if she’d taken time to write it.

  But the contents were urgent, and his gut clenched in fear as he read.

  They found me. Escape. Love you.

  “Kick it into high gear, MacBeth. Ricky’s got Tessa,” Luke said. “We’ll have to move to our contingency plan.”

  Chapter 48

  Near Lake Tahoe, California

  Thursday night, March 18

  Tessa got off Bobby’s snowmobile and made her way through calf-deep snow and slush to the front door of Ricky Hedges’s cabin. Although why anyone would call it a cabin was a mystery—the thing was probably bigger than Luke’s whole house. It was two stories and had to be pushing two thousand square feet.

  Maybe it was the log-style exterior that earned the cabin title? She tiredly pushed aside the meaningless thoughts and slogged up to the icy front steps. The clothes she was wearing were completely inappropriate for the heavy snow conditions outside, and the cold was beginning to sap her strength. She had a parka and hat, but beyond that was wearing jeans and running shoes.

  Thankfully, she’d managed to grab the shopping bag containing her new long underwear and gloves, and had put the gloves on before the snowmobile trip. But she was still shivering convulsively after being chilled in the back of the truck
. At that point, she was almost eager to get inside Ricky’s cabin.

  “Get her pager,” Ricky ordered his assistant, as they climbed up the stairs to the porch.

  “I l-left it in the t-truck,” Tessa said through chattering teeth.

  “Frisk her,” was Ricky’s reply.

  She stood there shivering as she was stripped down to her jeans and T-shirt and patted down by Ricky’s assistant. He didn’t have her remove her gloves, so she was able to conceal the cell phone jammed inside her cast—for a bit longer, at least.

  “Nothing here, boss.”

  Ricky motioned them into the cabin without a word. She put her sweater and parka back on and made her way painstakingly up the stairs.

  When she opened the front door, the two people inside looked up. Kelly had been sitting curled in the corner of the sofa, watching a movie on television. Ricky’s bodyguard, Otis, was sitting at a table cleaning the disassembled parts of a large handgun. Tessa tried not to stare at it.

  “Tessa!” Kelly said as she launched herself off the couch. For a moment, everything was forgotten as the teenager flew into her arms and hugged her tightly. Then Tessa pulled back to look at the girl.

  “Are you all right? Has anyone hurt you?”

  Kelly shook her head. “I’ve just been bored.”

  The prosaic teenage complaint made Tessa shake her head, then she hugged Kelly again before turning to look at Ricky.

  “You may as well let us go now,” Tessa said.

  “You’re outta your fucking mind,” Ricky replied. “No way this little bitch goes anywhere.”

  “Her family is looking for her. The police are looking for her. You won’t get away with this.”

  “She wants to stay with me.” Ricky shrugged. “It might not be her mama’s idea of a good life, but the kid wants to be an entertainer. Right, Kelly?”

  The girl said nothing as she huddled at Tessa’s side.

  “That’s a very cute defense, Ricky. But for one fact—Kelly is a minor. According to the law, she can’t make that decision for herself.”

  Ricky began to look less relaxed. “How the hell am I supposed to know she’s a minor? Kid’s a liar. She told me she was eighteen and wanted to sing like Britney Spears.”

  Tessa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll find witnesses to counter whatever lies you tell. Let us leave, and things will go easier for you in the courts.”

  “You’re full of it, lady. If you had any evidence, you’d be here with the police to arrest me. No, I think we’ve got some kind of vigilante thing going. Or maybe you want Kelly for yourself? Yeah, I can see the headlines now—prosecutor and her young lesbian lover discovered dead in Tahoe cabin.”

  Tessa laughed confidently, even though her grip tightened on Kelly in a spurt of panic. “I’m not gay, and neither is Kelly. No one will believe it.”

  “They will if you two die in some kind of tragic murder-suicide. Hey, Bobby, I’m starting to like this idea. Think how the media would eat it up. District attorney’s star prosecutor visits Club Red and falls in love with one of the acts. Society can’t accept their doomed affair, and they commit suicide,” Ricky said.

  “There’s a Movie of the Week in that,” Bobby agreed.

  “I’ll tell you why this discussion is pointless, and everyone will know that you are responsible for anything happens to us. First of all, your club has been busted. So everyone will hear the kind of disgusting crap that’s been going on there for the last few years.”

  That got his attention. Ricky turned pale and gaped at her. “The hell you say?”

  “The FBI has been following your operation for over a year,” she said, hoping to impress upon Ricky the fact that the game truly was over. And that there would be no point in killing either her or Kelly at this time.

  “No way, I would have heard from—”

  “Jerry? Crystal? Or maybe your lawyer, Krugman?” Tessa finished. “They’ve all been arrested.”

  Ricky turned to Otis. “Get on my cell phone. Tell the pilot to have the plane ready in two hours, then start calling people from the club to check this bitch’s story.”

  “Getting the Learjet ready to fly to South America?” Tessa asked. “Rio, isn’t it? Don’t bother, the FBI knows about that plan as well.”

  Ricky jerked his head to indicate that he wanted to speak to Bobby in the kitchen, only a few steps away. Even though Otis ran upstairs, and they were left alone, Kelly stayed glued to Tessa’s side.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. I don’t want you to say anything, but there are a bunch of my friends who know exactly where I am right now. In fact, they were coming here to rescue you,” Tessa said. She ignored the little voice inside her head pointing out that she had no confirmation Luke had even received her text messages.

  “So I don’t have to be scared of him anymore?” Kelly asked.

  Tessa shook her head. “Have some healthy respect for the fact that he has a gun, but don’t be afraid. We’re going to get you out of here tonight. We’ve been planning for a couple of days now, and my friend Luke is a very thorough guy. We’ll be out in a couple of hours, and we’ll call your parents once we get back to L.A.”

  “And my brother? I really missed him,” Kelly said. “Ricky and Jerry threatened him. That’s why I said those mean things to you on the phone. I’m sorry, they made me do it.”

  “I know, sweetie. I need you to be brave for just a little while longer. If we can convince Ricky that the police know everything, then he has no reason to hold us. Hopefully, he’ll leave us here and run for the border.”

  Which meant that she would have Kelly, but wouldn’t be able to prosecute Ricky Hedges for his numerous crimes.

  Tessa looked down at the platinum blond head nestled against her shoulder and decided she could live with that.

  “Be careful, Tessa. He’s acting all cool now, but he can be really scary. He turns bright red, and screams and yells at me sometimes. I just opened the door to the basement here and he flipped. I think he’s got a bad motherboard,” Kelly whispered.

  Tessa choked on a laugh, but took the advice with a grain of salt. After all, Kelly was a kid and easily intimidated. Crystal had painted a picture of Ricky Hedges as a basically spineless rich guy who preferred to let others do his work. And Tessa was gambling that Ricky would be more interested in protecting his money and his freedom than settling any scores with her or Kelly.

  In fact, she was betting their lives on it.

  She knew she had to find the right balance between confidence and the willingness to bargain. That she had to hammer into Ricky’s thick skull the idea that the best thing for him to do would be to give up. Her job was to convince him that there was no way for him to escape, but an infinite number of ways for him to make his inevitable capture and punishment much harder than it had to be.

  What she couldn’t do was let the man know that they were aware of his involvement in a murder for hire. If Ricky realized that he was facing a death penalty case, he might become desperate.

  Desperate men had been known to do horrific things, but she tried not to think about that.

  “What do the police know?” Ricky stalked back into the living room and stood in front of them.

  “Everything,” she said. “They know about the drugs and prostitution. The catering to celebrity athletes so that your club became a city hot spot. The, um, contributions that you gave to city council members through third parties to ensure favorable zoning changes around your clubs.”

  Tessa thought fast while Ricky absorbed the information. She had to get across the point that there was a major case being made against him—one that didn’t necessarily include her or Kelly. That way, she hoped to avoid giving him any further incentive to make them disappear.

  “It’s over, Ricky. The FBI was looking at you going back to last year. They have information on money laundering, illegal shell corporations, and your accountant cooking the books,” Tessa continued.

  Ricky shook his head
sadly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe I didn’t manage my employees closely enough, and they engaged in these activities outside of my knowledge.”

  “Put your hip boots on, folks,” Tessa drawled. “The B.S. is getting deep in here.”

  “Shut up, you vindictive bitch. I run a legitimate business in Club Red. And while the morality police might want to shut me down as a smut peddler, I’m only serving a need. If people didn’t buy it, I wouldn’t sell it.”

  “Come off it. You make money selling teenage girls,” Tessa said as she stroked Kelly’s soft hair. “We have corroboration from multiple individuals inside your operation who will testify that you make millions and millions every year off of the wholesale commercialization of women, among other things.”

  “I’d be happy to open my accounting books and let the FBI review them. They’ll see that I run a business with decent profit margins, but certainly nothing like you’re insinuating. If young girls seek out employment in my club,” Ricky sneered, “it’s because they’re greedy and into shortcuts.”

  “Shut up!” Kelly screamed the words as tears started to fall. “Jerry tricked me. I was willing to work hard for what I wanted, but you guys lied to me.”

  “Kids are so emotional,” Jerry said ruefully. “I hear they make terrible witnesses in court.”

  “Yeah?” Kelly yelled. “Wait until I tell them about the boxes of money in the basement.” She turned to Tessa, wanting to be believed. “I saw them—all these banker’s boxes filled with twenties and hundreds.”

  “I told you not to go down there!” Ricky bellowed.

  Tessa grabbed Kelly in an attempt to defuse the situation. But the teenager had apparently had enough of being victimized. She’d believed Tessa about help being on the way, and that gave her the confidence to finally defend herself after all these weeks of abuse.