Grave of Angels

by Michael Prescott

  Swann had betrayed him, but there was still a way to make things right.

  After fleeing the house, cutting through backyards and alleys, he’d returned to Westwood Village, where he’d left his car in a public parking lot. He’d been afraid to park at the house and draw attention to his coming and going. And he couldn’t park on the street—if he got a ticket, it would tie him to the neighborhood and spoil his alibi. He was supposed to be at the Biltmore in Santa Barbara, where he had checked in that morning, asking not to be disturbed. After check-in he’d retraced his route down the coast and taken up temporary residence at the corporate lodging.

  He shouldn’t have placed the bet from that computer. But he’d thought he was safe. He’d been certain the computer couldn’t be tied to the house. He still didn’t know how Malick had accomplished it.

  In the trunk of his car he kept a laptop with a satellite modem. He used it to access the latest headlines. The story leading the local news was a fiasco in Panic Room, a near-riot sparked by apparent gunshots that turned out to be firecrackers. Movie star Chelsea Brewer was among the patrons but left the club without injury…

  Without injury.

  So Malick was right. Swann had double-crossed him. The bastard broke their agreement and betrayed him to Malick, though how he even could have known about the bet in the first place, Farris couldn’t say. And because of that betrayal, Farris was finished.

  Oh, he could fly out of the country on one of his corporate jets, lose himself in Europe, where he had contacts and reserves of cash. Run for a while, maybe a long while. Not forever, though. He would be caught eventually, extradited…

  Except none of that would happen, because he wasn’t flying anywhere. He wasn’t going to run. He’d staked his life on this operation and failed, and now he would pay the price. He still had his gun, and he would use it on himself.

  But first he would find Swann. And the girl.

  Luckily, there were ways of getting it done. Backup plans, contingencies. Farris never took anything for granted, especially when dealing with a man he didn’t know.

  Although his firm employed people he could trust for minor black bag operations like wiretapping and extortion, none was suitable for a murder-for-hire assignment, especially when the target was someone as high profile as Chelsea Brewer. For that kind of job he had to go outside the loop. He’d gotten nowhere until, serendipitously, a mutual friend had introduced him to Jack Swann.

  Swann was the ideal choice, an obvious sociopath with the core competencies Farris was seeking. A man who had lived off the grid for years, who could execute the mission and disappear like smoke.

  Even so, Farris didn’t entirely trust him. He didn’t entirely trust anybody. That was why, before his second meeting with Swann, he tasked one of his most discreet security pros with observing from a distance and tailing Swann when he left. His operative reported that Swann drove a vintage Lincoln Town Car and was staying at a cheap Hollywood motel. When Swann was out, Farris picked the lock on the motel room door and spent some time with Swann’s laptop computer. There was no useful information on the hard drive, but there was a built-in webcam Swann didn’t use. Farris modified the camera so it would be on whenever the computer was running, with the telltale LED disabled. He installed a program that would send the audiovisual signal to a website, using any available Wi-Fi connection.

  Tonight he had been watching that website ever since he’d learned Chelsea was still alive. The site was dark at first, but shortly before two a.m. it came alive. Swann was using his computer at last. The camera picked up scattered glimpses of his activity in a dark location. At two o’ clock he sat before the computer, wearing a wireless headset, and made an Internet phone call. Farris heard Swann’s end of the conversation. He was talking to Kate Malick, making plans for Chelsea’s safe return, boasting of how he’d outwitted his employer and foiled his plans.

  The call ended in confusion. Swann, agitated about something, left the computer, though he was still talking over the headset. Distantly, from another room, there came a scream and a gunshot, then childish sobbing.

  Chelsea’s sobs. Farris had no doubt of that. She really was with him, then.

  He might have shot her, but if so, he hadn’t killed her. He couldn’t kill her until he received his payment. After that, who could say? He might dispose of her, or he might let her go.

  Might let her go.

  It was the one outcome Farris couldn’t permit.

  When the website went dark again, he reviewed the video file of the transmission, automatically saved to his hard drive. He ran through it slowly, looking for any clue to Swann’s whereabouts.

  He found one when Swann, adjusting the laptop, briefly tilted it up. The camera caught a few frames of something high, colorful, and bright. Image enhancement revealed a stained glass window, illuminated from outside by a streetlight. The design was clear and distinctive.

  A person with the right skills could find anything online. Farris found a site devoted to the churches of Los Angeles, with an image gallery of stained glass windows. He scrolled through the images until he found a match. According to the caption, the window was part of a church dating to 1925, which was condemned after sustaining structural damage in the 2008 Chino Hills quake. An address was helpfully provided.

  And now he was here.

  It was too late to save himself, but he didn’t care about that, as long as he could find the justice he’d been denied. Justice for his daughter. Peace for his wife. Vengeance for himself.

  Family was everything. A man who didn’t defend his family and avenge his precious dead was no man at all.

  He raised his head to look at himself in the rearview mirror. His reflection met his eyes in silent agreement, a handshake with his doppelgänger.

  He would die tonight. But Chelsea Brewer would die first.

  THE Farris house in Beverly Hills was dark. Kate rang the doorbell for a long time before the door eased ajar. Past a security chain, a round-faced woman in a bathrobe peered out.

  “Yes?” she said suspiciously, the word rendered chays by a heavy Latin American accent.

  “I need to speak to Daniel Farris.”

  “He is not home.” The woman frowned. “Is very late.”

  “I’m aware of the time. This is an emergency—life and death. I need to know if there’s any way to get hold of Mr. Farris.”

  “I no can call him. Is late.”

  “How about Mrs. Farris? Is she here?”

  “She asleep.”

  “Let me in. I need to talk to her.”

  “No.” The woman braced herself against the door as if fearful Kate would break it down. “Is late. You go away.”

  “I need to speak to your employer now.”

  From somewhere in the house, another woman’s voice. “What is it, Angelina?”

  Kate answered first. “I’m here on urgent business involving Daniel Farris. I need to speak to him or his wife.”

  The second woman appeared behind the housekeeper. “I’m Louise Farris. But I’m not in the habit of admitting strangers after two a.m.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important.”

  Mrs. Farris studied her. “You’re Kate Malick.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ve seen you interviewed. You…”

  Kate knew what she was thinking. “I work for Chelsea Brewer, among others.”

  Mrs. Farris stood unmoving for a moment, then stepped back. “Let her in, Angelina.”

  Kate entered the foyer. “Thank you.”

  Mrs. Farris made no move to invite her any farther into the house. “You said this matter involves my husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not here. He’s not in town.”

  “I saw him in Westwood less than two hours ago.”

  “No, that’s not possible. He’s gone to Santa Barbara. He’s there overnight.”

  “That may be what he told you, but it’s not true.”
>
  Mrs. Farris blinked several times, slowly and deliberately, as if delivering a coded message. “Why would he lie?”

  By the sudden fall of her voice Kate knew she already suspected the answer. “I need to speak with him. You don’t know where to reach him?”

  “If he’s not at his hotel…”

  “How about a cell phone?”

  “Well, yes, he has one, of course.”

  “May I have the number?”

  Mrs. Farris recited it. Kate noticed she didn’t insist on knowing what this was all about. It seemed she didn’t want to know.

  Kate tried the number. The call bounced to voicemail. “He’s not answering.”

  “It’s the middle of the night. He’s…he’s probably asleep.”

  “He’s not asleep. Mrs. Farris, have you ever met a man named Jack Swann?”

  “No.”

  “This man?” She showed Swann’s photo on her cell phone.

  “I’ve never seen him. Is he…connected to my husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all this has something to do with Chelsea Brewer.”

  It was not a question, but Kate answered anyway. “Yes.”

  Mrs. Farris looked away. Kate studied her face. She had been beautiful once—the bone structure was still there, the sharp cheekbones and firm jaw—but she looked beaten down, hollowed out. Her eyes were lusterless, her face creased with perpetual grief. She had the look of a woman who’d wept so long that nothing mattered anymore.

  She was what Victoria Brewer would be in a year—if Chelsea didn’t survive.

  “He’s gone and done something crazy, hasn’t he?” Louise Farris said.

  “Yes.”

  “I would help you if I could. But I don’t know anything. You’ll have to believe me.” She said it as if she didn’t care if anyone believed her or not.

  “I believe you.”

  “Is Chelsea all right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Farris nodded, unsurprised by the answer, and too incurious to pursue it further.

  Kate turned to go.

  “Wait.”

  She looked back and saw the first glimmer of life in Mrs. Farris’s eyes.

  “You used to be a nun.”

  “Years ago.”

  “Pray with me.”

  It was the last thing Kate expected. “I…I don’t have much time.”

  “It won’t take long. Pray with me, please. Pray for my daughter’s soul.”

  “Of course.”

  Mrs. Farris led her down the hall. “Angelina, you come too. We’ll all pray together.”

  At the end of the hall was a niche occupied, in better days, by a potted tree or an art object. Now it was a shrine to Mila Farris. Snapshots of the girl were arranged on the wall in a tidy collage, over a small table laden with personal items that must have been hers—a wristwatch, a necklace, a stuffed polar bear.

  Mila Farris had been a straight-A college student until last summer, when she had become part of Chelsea Brewer’s entourage. She began staying out late, partying with a fake ID, stealing money from her dad’s wallet. Her parents worried, but not enough. By the time they realized their daughter was out of control, it was too late. They woke up to find Mila comatose in her bathroom, sprawled on the lime-green tiles, haloed in a puddle of vomit. Serology tests showed high levels of Ecstasy in her bloodstream. The diagnosis was multi-organ failure brought on by an overdose of MDMA ingested sometime in the previous twelve to sixteen hours. Though there was no proof Chelsea had been with her when she took the drug, Mila’s parents blamed Chelsea for the overdose. Mila was kept alive for five days on life support, machines breathing for her, until her family consented to pull the plug.

  Remarkably, the story never made the news. The Farris family didn’t want their daughter’s memory despoiled. Victoria and Sam Brewer kept the secret from everyone—even from Kate herself.

  But privately, people talked. One of them was Carson Banning, who’d become friendly with Daniel Farris after buying a Pulsarix jet. Banning, in turn, told Kate.

  Banning was her source, the source she’d refused to give up to Victoria, because she owed Banning his privacy and owed Victoria nothing.

  And now, it seemed, Mila’s father had hired Jack Swann to make Chelsea Brewer pay for his daughter’s death.

  “This is where I pray for her,” Mrs. Farris said, and without ceremony, she got down on her knees on the hardwood floor. Angelina dutifully did the same. Kate followed their example.

  “I pray she’s with Jesus and the angels.” Mrs. Farris steepled her hands, eyes shut. “And with her grandparents. All together in heaven.”

  Mrs. Farris and Angelina bowed their heads. Mrs. Farris’s lips moved soundlessly.

  Kate did not pray for Mila. She prayed for Chelsea. And for Amber Banning. Prayed that both of them would be recovered unharmed.

  She prayed, though she knew there was no God to hear.

  SHE was driving out of Beverly Hills when her phone rang.

  “Hello, Kate.”

  Him again. The familiar, electronically distorted voice.

  She was in no mood. “Aren’t you getting tired of this routine?”

  “Tired? Things are just getting interesting. You have no idea how close you’ve already come to being dead.”

  “Look, I have a lot on my plate right now—”

  “Then you shouldn’t be wasting your time talking to bums.”

  He’d seen her with Lazarus. Followed her.

  “What would you know about that?” she asked slowly.

  “I know everything you’ve been up to tonight. How you talked with the cop and that other guy outside Panic Room. Your little escapade in Westwood. Then you hooked up with Sam Brewer. What’s that all about?”

  He’d been on her tail half the night, and she hadn’t noticed. Too distracted by events.

  “If you want to meet me so badly,” she said, “just give me a time and a place.”

  “I don’t want to meet you. I want to kill you. I almost took the shot when you were over by the river. Nice, desolate area. But you weren’t alone. And there was that damned dog.”

  She remembered the barking Doberman. Her sense of being followed. Sam had called her paranoid. “Well, you shouldn’t have told me that. Now I’ll be on my guard.”

  “A security pro should always be on guard, Kate. But it won’t matter. I’ve got you in my sights. You’re going down tonight.”

  “Care to tell me what you’ve got against me?”

  “Maybe I don’t like nuns.”

  He clicked off.

  Two calls in one night. And he was tailing her and making explicit threats. The situation was escalating. She didn’t think he was bluffing.

  Well, James had never been the type to bluff.

  A stoplight snagged her on Wilshire. She sat there, engine idling, thinking of her ex. She was sure—almost sure—it was him. She hadn’t seen him in years, not since their last angry confrontation in LA after he tracked her down. She’d hoped he’d forgotten about her, moved on with his life. But he wasn’t the type to forget.

  After the calls started coming in, she asked Alan to track down James. It proved impossible. He had dropped off the radar screen. Simply vanished. Last known location—Seattle. That was four years ago, when he was the employee of an import-export firm that was going out of business. Since then, no credit history, no arrests, no tax returns, nothing.

  She didn’t know with certainty that her stalker was James, but it made sense. He’d always carried a grudge, hated her for abandoning and humiliating him. When he lost his job, he must have started fixating on his ex-wife, security consultant to the stars. The idea that she was flourishing while he failed would have been intolerable. Success had always been important to him. He loved money, loved control. Now he had neither.

  And so he’d come after her, disguising his voice electronically so she wouldn’t recognize him. And the threats of violence—they fit hi
m, too. He could be physical, even brutal. That was why she’d left him in the first place. She’d never known him to be a gun enthusiast, but a lot could change in twenty years.

  As the light cycled to green, her phone rang again. She answered with a snarl. “What now, you son of a bitch?”

  “Whoa, chief. What’d I ever do to you?”

  “Sorry, Alan. I thought you were our mystery man.”

  “He harassing you again?”

  “Don’t worry about it. What’s up?”

  “I’m afraid there’s a problem. Mrs. Brewer got hold of the bank manager at home, but he can’t access the safety deposit box with the jewels.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “The bank vault has a time lock. It can’t be opened until seven a.m. There’s no override.”

  “Seven’s too late. Let me talk to Mrs. Brewer.” Victoria came on the line. “Mrs. Brewer, did you buy most of these items locally?”

  “Yes.”

  “At one particular store?”

  “Most of them are from Étagère. It’s on Rodeo Drive.”

  “Call the owner and say you need the store opened now. Get duplicates or near duplicates of everything on the list. Sign an IOU or something, or sign over the deed to your house—whatever it takes to get the merchandise.”

  “I don’t know how to reach the owner.” Her voice was plaintive.

  “What’s his name?”

  “It’s a woman. Rachel Eisenbud.”

  “Alan can look her up. She’s probably unlisted, but he’ll get her number. Then you talk to her and make her cooperate. All right?”

  “Yes, all right. Thank you. You’re…you’re keeping a cool head.”

  Kate didn’t feel cool. “Put Alan back on.” She told him what they’d worked out. “Get it done.”

  “Right. Oh, one other thing. I don’t know if I should bother you with this right now, but we just got a tip on Amber.”

  Coming so soon after her prayer, the news felt like a small miracle. “Who from?”

  “Volunteer named Georgia at Teen Alliance, a drop-in center at Santa Monica and Las Palmas.”

  “I know the place.”