by Brian Harper
The squad car’s key had been left in the ignition. Tyler cranked it, and the engine caught. High beams snapped on. He guided the Chevy between the house and the garage, then through the backyard to the rear gate.
Had he thought of it, he would have opened the gate from inside the house; there was a switch by the rear door. Since he’d forgotten, the gate would have to be pushed by hand.
“Do it,” Tyler told Blair, assuming his authority as Cain’s right-hand man, a promotion he’d obtained upon Hector Avalon’s demise.
The kid got out. Tyler sat in the idling Chevy, curiously at peace amid the radio’s occasional low squawks. The car was a Caprice from the early ‘90s, a big old boat popular with cops and cab drivers.
Boat. The thought made him smile. Officer Robinson was going to wish it was a boat.
Anyway, the Caprice wasn’t much of a car. Nothing like the Danforths’ Porsche. Man, just sitting in that 928 GTS had been a thrill, and starting the engine …
Soon he would have a Porsche of his own. Not a GTS-nifty as it was, it lacked the hard-riding feel of a true sports car. The one he would buy was a brand-new 911 Carrera. Two hundred forty-seven horses and a classic design. Black exterior … or red; he hadn’t decided.
He saw himself cruising down Pacific Coast Highway, Dr. Dre on the CD player at eardrum-bursting volume, a girl with big tits and no brains at his side.
The passenger seat creaked, but it wasn’t his dream girl sliding into the Chevy, just Blair Sharkey. The gate was open.
Tyler drove through, his foot resting lightly on the gas pedal, the speedometer needle pegged at a cautious fifteen miles an hour.
“Things are going slick enough so far,” Blair said.
“Would’ve been slicker,” Tyler answered evenly, “if your baby brother hadn’t gotten himself eyeballed while he was mucking around in the backyard.”
“Hey, Tex, lighten up.”
“I’m from Arizona, I said.”
“Sorry. Just an expression. Anyway, Gage is okay.”
Tyler wouldn’t let it go. “How could he let the Kent woman see him”
“I thought he was right behind me on the way to the patio. Guess he fell back. Tried to catch up by taking a shortcut past the gazebo.”
“Within view of the kitchen window.”
“He didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t he”
“We got in on this action kind of late,” Blair said, getting hot.
“Sure you did. But shit, we went over it a hundred times. Cain showed you blueprints, diagrams.”
“Look, he’s young, all right”
Young. Both of the Sharkey boys were young. Gage was sixteen, Blair just two years older. Tyler Sinclair, at twenty-two, felt like Methuselah by comparison.
“Yeah,” Tyler said, “he’s young, but he ought to be smarter. Didn’t he learn anything heisting boats”
Blair looked away. “I didn’t say he was with me on those jobs. That was me and some Mexicans.”
“You mean the kid’s a virgin”
“Nah, he’s done some stuff. Nothing this major.”
“Nobody here’s done anything this major,” Tyler said, stating the obvious. “What has he done”
“You know, the usual. Ripping off mailboxes, busting into parked cars … he’s shoplifted some pretty nice items too.”
“Sounds real small-time.”
“Hey, I’ll vouch for him, all right He’ll be okay. I got him into this, and I’ll talk him through it. Or do you got a problem with that”
“I don’t got a problem,” Tyler said coolly, “as long as he doesn’t mess up again.”
Blair gave no response. They finished the drive in silence.
The wide, paved path angled down a gentle grade for a quarter mile or so, past stands of live oak and bigleaf maple and dense pockets of yerba buena and fiddleneck. Night air blew in through the open windows, warm at first but cooling steadily as the lake drew near.
At the bottom of the slope, the Chevy’s high beams illuminated a narrow strip of sand bordering the lake. The Kents’ private dock extended out over the water, two small sport boats bobbing in moorage.
Tyler steered the squad car onto the dock and drove to the end, boards rattling under the wheels. He shifted the gear selector into neutral, then killed the engine and lights.
Wordlessly he got out and walked to the rear of the car. The lake stretched into darkness, walled in by high wooded hillsides devoid of light.
No one lived nearby. Cain had explained in one of their many briefings that all the land around the lake once had been owned by the Ashcroft family. Barbara Kent’s parents had ceded most of it to the county as a wildlife refuge and a public park, retaining ownership of the fenced estate and an easement for the path and dock.
Blair, still ticked off and not talking, joined Tyler at the back of the car. Together they put their weight against the bumper and pushed.
The dock was flat, and the sedan rolled easily at first. Then with a downward lurch the front wheels slid into space. The Chevy dipped, chassis scraping the dock.
They shoved harder, but the car’s underside kept catching on gaps between the planks.
“Put some muscle into it,” Tyler grunted.
Straining, they forced the Chevy forward another three feet until it was half off the dock.
It teetered briefly, balanced between the weight of the engine up front and the combined weight of Wald and Robinson in the rear.
A groan, a teeth-gritting squeal of metal on wood, and the car pitched headlong into the lake.
Water flooded through the front doors, open on both sides. The blue-and-white Caprice submerged ponderously like some immense aquatic creature returning to its element.
The rooftop light bar was last to disappear below the surface. Then the car was only a dim ghostly image retreating into the gloom.
It sank deeper than Tyler would have expected. The lake floor shelved down steeply just past the dock.
He waited. When clouds of silt rose like swirls of cream in coffee, he knew the Chevy had touched bottom.
“So long, officers,” he said softly. “Have a nice day.”
Leaving the dock, Tyler paused to look back at the lake’s wide expanse, mirror-smooth and starlight-silvered.
He wondered if the car trunk was watertight. It was a small matter, merely the difference between suffocation and drowning for the woman inside.
“You patrol this area,” he told Blair. “Any trouble, get on channel three.”
“I know the drill.”
“Just like your brother” Tyler asked, and started up the path without waiting for a reply.
The night was clear and still. Stars burned holes in the black sky. Somewhere a bullfrog sang, its croaking solo sonorous as a snore.
Tyler climbed higher, toward the house. He forgot Blair and Gage Sharkey, forgot the scuttled Chevy and the unlucky lady in the trunk.
He thought about his Porsche.
Red, he decided. Definitely red.
A smile brushed his lips. He was young, and it was summer in California, and life was good.
20
In the den Cain kicked his duffel bag behind an armchair, out of his way, then released a hinged section of oak paneling to expose a wall safe with a combination lock.
“Open it,” he told Ally.
The girl hugged herself, arms crossed high on her chest, as if conscious that her white dress was dangerously revealing. “Nothing’s in there except stock certificates. I don’t think you can fence those.”
“Open it anyway.”
“I don’t know the combination.”
He studied her in the spill of light from a green-shaded brass banker’s lamp. Her hair was teased into ringlets of dark curls. Freckles splashed her round face. Still a child’s face-but the tanned, supple legs below her hemline were the legs of a woman.
“Yes, you do,” he said evenly. “I saw you open this safe last Saturday night. Only you did
n’t take out any stock certificates. You took out a string of pearls. They looked pretty on you.”
There was something comical in the way her brown eyes widened and kept on widening in a caricature of surprise.
“You … saw…”
“I’ve watched this house on and off for weeks. With these.” He showed her the binoculars. “You people never close your curtains. I guess having no neighbors makes you sort of careless.”
“Oh, God …”
“What did you want the pearls for, anyway”
She responded mechanically, her thoughts still focused on her shattered illusion of privacy. “Some charity thing. My mom’s on the board. We had to go to the dinner.” Then her eyes cleared as a question occurred to her. “How come you didn’t just break in and rip us off while we were out”
Smart girl, but he had a ready answer. “Because I needed to know the combination. And because I wanted to spend time with you. Ally.”
“M-me” A stammer broke the word in half.
“You interest me. I’ve watched you at other times. I went around to the woods out back, scoped you out through the fence. You don’t close your bedroom curtains either.”
Mingled outrage and embarrassment flushed the girl’s face.
“Sometimes,” Cain added, “you walk around naked, right in front of the windows. You put on a hell of a show.”
Her knees shook. She reached out to grasp a table for support, and a Tiffany’s catalogue, robin’s-egg blue, slapped to the floor. “No …”
“Hey, don’t blame me for peeking. Couldn’t help myself. You’re hot, sweetheart. That tight little ass, and those nice firm titties-“
“Stop.”
“I’ll bet you let your boyfriend talk about your tits. Touch ‘em, too.”
“I … I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Well, you should. Ally. You really should.”
She blinked back tears, catching the obvious implication.
Cain slid a gloved hand into his side pocket and fingered Wald’s handcuffs.
It would be so easy. Wouldn’t take long at all.
But he was playing for bigger stakes tonight. He couldn’t afford to be sidetracked.
His hand withdrew from his pocket, leaving the cuffs within.
“Open the safe.”
He watched as Ally rotated the dial. The combination was 4-15-54.
“That number mean anything” he asked.
She wouldn’t look at him. “It’s my mom’s date of birth.”
“Your mom looks younger than forty-three.”
“Did you watch her get naked, too”
“You’re more my type.” Cain smiled, amused by her bravado. She reminded him of the rookie cop-young and scared and trying desperately not to show it. “Now clean out whatever’s inside.”
“How do you know my dad doesn’t keep a gun in there”
“Maybe he does.”
“Then how do you know I won’t grab it and shoot you”
“You’ve got better manners than that.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
She reached in and began piling jewelry and coins and bars of bullion on a rosewood table. Cain paid less attention to the loot than to the sleek, rippling muscles of her arms. There was still some baby fat on her, but a lean, mature young woman was emerging fast.
She dug deeper. The safe seemed bottomless, a cornucopia of wealth. Cain saw stacked Krugerrands taped together, kilogram bricks of silver with Credit Suisse certificates attached, handcrafted pendants and bracelets and earrings that must be Ashcroft family heirlooms.
“You were right.” His voice was very low. “Nothing but stock certificates.”
The girl bit her trembling lip.
“It’s not smart to lie to me. Ally. That bitch cop lied too. Played games on the radio. Now she’s dead.”
The last word wrenched Ally’s head sideways. “You killed her”
“Bad things happen to liars.”
Tears muddied her eyes. “But … but she was unconscious, that’s all. She was still breathing.”
“Not anymore. My associates put her in the lake.”
“The lake” The girl stared at her trembling hands. “I-I go swimming there. Go swimming.”
The words, soft and toneless, were spoken only to herself.
“Well, next time you take a dip”-Cain smiled through his mask-“you can say hello to Officer Robinson. And give her my regards.”
Ally resumed emptying the safe, weeping without sound, and Cain watched her, wondering why she would mourn for a woman she had never known.
21
A young girl skipping rope.
She was nine years old, in a summer dress of blue polka dots, her laughter high and thin and echoey like the keening of birds.
Marta.
The cry, so plaintive, so urgent, was Trish’s own.
Marta, do you hear me
Sweeps of the jump rope, bounce of blonde bangs. The girl was laughing, laughing. She didn’t hear. She never heard.
Marta-don’t!
A blur, a lens slipping out of focus, and the girl was gone, just gone.
Only her laughter persisted, mysterious and haunting-disembodied laughter in a horizonless field of white.
Are you there, Marta … Answer me!
Eyes.
Huge eyes, filling the world, staring blindly. A roach crept among a forest of stiff lashes, antennae twitching.
The eyes were bloodshot and unblinking. Marta lay in the weeds, limp, twisted, the jump rope knotted around her neck in a python’s caress.
Oh, God, Marta. Trish heard suppressed sobs in her voice. I told you not to. I told you.
No response, no flicker of life in those staring eyes, save for the jerky progress of the roach, balanced on a glassy iris like a skater on a pond.
Trish shivered, suddenly cold, cold all over.
Wet and cold.
Wet …
She jerked awake.
For a disoriented moment she blinked, looking around. Vaguely she expected to see the porch light glowing through her curtains, the dark shapes of the scattered shipping cartons she still hadn’t unpacked, the luminous dial of the alarm clock resting near the foam pad where she slept.
Nothing. There was nothing.
And she was not lying on the pad, and this was not her new apartment, not any place she’d ever been.
The darkness was impenetrable, absolute. Her arms were twisted awkwardly behind her. She was soaked in chilly water, pants and shirt glued to her buttocks and back.
Pants, shirt-her uniform. She’d been on duty.
A groan escaped her lips as she remembered.
The prowler call. The Kents and their dinner guests. The cartridge case on the tablecloth. Ambush. Wald dead. A stinging blow behind her right ear.
They’d knocked her out and put her here, in this lightless, freezing, watery place.
Fear squeezed her heart. Impulsively she tried to bring her arms forward. Pain ripped her wrists as metal teeth bit down. Handcuffed-she was still handcuffed-and there was no air in here, no air, and she couldn’t breathe.
Come on, stop it, she was hyperventilating, that’s all. She had to breathe through her nose, through her nose …
Lips pursed, inhaling slowly, she convinced herself she wouldn’t suffocate. She was all right. Yes. She could get air in her lungs and she wasn’t going to die and she was all right.
The burning dampness in her eyes was a splash of tears.
What was this place What had those bastards done with her
She lay on her back, wrists pinned under her, knees partially bent in a semi-fetal pose. Immobility was bad, but the utter absence of light was worse.
No blindfold on her face. She was sure of that. So why was it so dark, so completely dark, without even the dim ambient light that bled into nearly any locked room
Had they-oh, God, had they done something to her eyes Blindness was her worst fear. That and paralysis. And
now she couldn’t see and she couldn’t move, and the tears came faster.
She was so damn scared. Even when the gray-eyed man had held his gun on her, she hadn’t been this scared. She had known what was happening, it had made some sort of sense, but this was a nightmare, a parallel universe, insanity.
A wave of shudders rippled through her body. Both legs straightened reflexively, her shoes banging against a hard stop.
A wall.
She kicked it-again-again.
Hollow metallic thuds.
Metal wall Some sort of bulkhead
Her terror escalated, though she didn’t know quite why. She made little mewling, grunting noises as she probed further.
Intersecting walls on either side. Maybe a yard apart.
Bigger than a coffin, but not much.
“Where am I” she whispered, her voice hoarse and faraway.
The water pooling under her seemed colder than before. No, not colder, just more pervasive, spreading to parts of her body that had been dry only moments ago.
Spreading …
She stiffened. Breath held, she listened tensely. Heard a soft, continuous gurgle from behind her and below.
Water seeping in through fissures and seams.
Water that was rising steadily and would keep on rising until she was fully immersed.
Her heart pounded harder. Sightlessly she sat up, and her forehead struck a ceiling, metal also and impossibly low.
That can’t-breathe sensation was toying with her again. She knew it was psychological. There was still enough air.
But for how long Two minutes Three
“Let me out!” she screamed, hoping they would hear her and show mercy. “Please let me out, let me out!”
The echoes of her cry clanged against the metal walls and floor and ceiling, and died unanswered.
She bit her lip to keep from screaming again. Waste of strength, of breath. Wherever she was, whatever kind of fix she was in, no one could hear her, and there was no escape.
She was trapped in this place, this room-not even a room-a sealed compartment-locker, maybe, or steamer trunk—
Trunk.
Car trunk.
The Caprice.
It rushed in on her, full comprehension, vivid and terrible.
