“I see.”
“He said he was just checking to be sure his name wasn’t listed there, since Sam might see it. I told him of course I wouldn’t be that foolish. I was peeved at him. But that couldn’t have anything to do with…anything. Could it?”
“Who is this man?”
“He couldn’t possibly be involved. He’s not a criminal, for God’s sake.”
“Who is he?”
Victoria almost took another drag, then impulsively stamped out the cigarette. “Oh, hell, I can tell you. It’s Carson Banning. The movie star,” she added, with a note of pride.
The deck seemed suddenly slippery. Kate felt herself losing her balance. She retreated to the railing and placed a hand there, holding on with a tight grip.
“Kate? What’s the matter?”
Too many thoughts crowded in on her. His insistence on keeping their liaisons secret—for fear of the paparazzi, he said. But it was never about the paps. He didn’t want Victoria to find out he’d been two-timing her.
Banning knew Daniel Farris. He’d bought a plane from him. The two had become friends. That was how Banning knew about Mila—information he’d passed on to Kate, because the Brewers hadn’t wanted her, or anyone, to know.
And when he met her…
He’d just happened to be at the gun range she used for target practice. He struck up a conversation, charmed her. He was a pretty good actor. He made it seem casual and spontaneous, but it must have been planned.
He’d wanted to get close to her. To have an inside source of information on Chelsea’s security.
What had she told him? In their brief, hurried liaisons, they’d chatted about work, and she’d said things—the guns her bodyguards carried, their procedure for checking in with home base…
Tonight, when she visited him at home and got Skip’s phone call, he must have heard enough of her end of the conversation to know they were closing in on Swann.
Swann had left the church just before she arrived. Had Banning warned him she was on her way? Called him on his cell and told him to clear out?
“Kate?”
There was more, much more, but she couldn’t think about it now.
“The motel where you met him,” she asked, “where is it?”
“In Hollywood.”
“What’s the address?”
“The corner of Santa Monica and Vermont. It was easy to find. There’s a billboard for Chelsea’s last movie right across the street. Her last movie—God, I didn’t mean it that way.”
Kate remembered Swann’s voice in her ear: Have you seen the billboard for her last movie?
“I have to go there,” she said.
“But why? You don’t really think…?”
“I think Banning and Swann are in it together. I don’t know how it happened, or why. But Banning gave him inside information on you. And I’m guessing Swann has been to that same motel. Maybe he stayed there himself.”
And saw the billboard every time he came and went.
I’ve looked at it plenty of times…
“Even if he did stay there,” Victoria objected, “he’s not there now.”
“He could be, if he kept the room. He needs to hold Chelsea someplace, and with the church off-limits, he might have returned to the motel. Maybe that’s why he’s got her drugged—to keep her quiet.”
It was a long shot, but it was also her only shot.
“Then I’ll come with you,” Victoria said.
“No.”
“If there’s any chance of finding her—”
“There’s a chance of finding Swann, too.”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
Aren’t you? Kate thought. I am. Almost as afraid as Sam is—only, I’m not running away.
SAM sped north on Sierra Highway, now a two-lane road coiling between rising escarpments. A warm, dry wind blew through the passenger window, which he’d shattered with a rock to unlock the door. Housing developments dotted the canyons and mountainsides, scattered lights in the darkness before dawn.
It goddamn floored him that he’d pulled it off. Even as he’d approached the abandoned Ford on the gravel shoulder, he had been sure it was a trap. Down on his belly, he’d peered under the car, half expecting Swann to be concealed beneath the chassis. After breaking the window, he’d inspected the interior, thinking Swann might be lying on the floor of the backseat. Keys in one hand, gun in the other, he’d even opened the trunk to be sure Swann wasn’t curled up inside.
But the car had been clean. The engine had started on the first try. Since he’d left, his rearview mirror had showed no lights behind him.
Everything had worked out, and now he was racing past patches of desert scrub and rare stands of thirsty-looking trees, through a night so black he had to use his brights to pick his way through the sinuous curves.
He had no particular destination in mind. Vaguely, he thought about going to Vegas or losing himself in the mountains of Colorado, as he’d tried to do once before. In the longer run, he’d need to get out of the country. Mexico or Canada…or if he cashed in some of the jewels, maybe he could buy a plane ticket to some Caribbean paradise.
Of course, the law would be looking for him. He would need a fake ID, a new name, a change of appearance. But he could arrange all that. With money, he could arrange anything.
That was what people didn’t understand. They wondered why he stayed with Vicki when she gave him no love and hardly any kindness. He was pretty sure that, lately, she’d been sneaking around with some other guy. Which made sense, because she sure wasn’t getting any from him. It had been a year since he banged her—a quick, impulsive throw down after a drunken party. Neither of them spoke of it afterward.
So people looked at him and he could read the unstated question in their eyes. Why was he with her? Why didn’t he up and get away?
It all came down to money. Without a steady stream of cash, he would be reduced to seeking employment, when he hadn’t held an honest job in fifteen years. With his record and his lack of skills, he’d be lucky to find work as a dishwasher in a greasy spoon.
He could be rinsing the crud off people’s plates—or hanging with his ex-wife in a mansion. The choice wasn’t hard. Hell, it wasn’t a choice at all.
But now he had money of his own. He was free and clear. He had outsmarted Swann and saved his own skin.
And Chelsea…
Fuck Chelsea. Even the nun said Swann wasn’t going to give her back. And that half-assed plan to intercept Swann never would have worked. A couple of bodyguards would be no match for him in a gunfight. They would have been cut down like dogs in the street, and Sam with them, and Chelsea would have been no better off.
Besides, let’s face it, Chelsea’d never been much of a daughter, anyway. Spoiled and headstrong, rebellious and smug. Now she would be Swann’s plaything until he tired of her. Then he would cut her throat or put a bullet in her brain, and that would be that.
He supposed he ought to feel something about that outcome. The girl was his flesh, after all. He’d never loved her or even liked her much, but she was his progeny. There were blood ties. But there was no point in dwelling on it. She was finished, and he was free, and the rising road was carrying him to a new life.
He had left the developed area behind. The highway was climbing higher into the mountains, a tunnel of blackness, unrelieved by any light anywhere except his headlights, twin cones piercing the dark.
The Ford began to falter. The steering wheel tugged to the left, gently at first, then more insistently. The car was bumping even though the road surface was smooth.
Flat tire, he thought. Shit.
He eased the Ford to a stop on the shoulder. He stepped into the empty road to inspect the tires on the driver’s side. As he suspected, the rear was losing air. He ran his hand over the treads and felt a nub of metal.
The tire had picked up a nail.
He opened the trunk, wrestled out the jack and the spare, and knelt by the ca
r. He had most of the lug nuts off when he caught a glimmer of light on the road behind him.
A car, heading north.
It could be the bodyguards, looking for him.
He watched the car as it approached. Gradually, he relaxed. It wasn’t the Buick Skylark the two Guardian Angel guys had been driving. It was some boxy foreign job. A Hyundai, it looked like.
Not a problem.
He loosened the last of the lugs. The Hyundai was drawing near; its high beams were brightening, erasing his night vision. Everything around him was turning bright white in the glare. It was like one of those sci-fi movies where the hero is caught in a nuclear blast and the screen goes white…
Too late, he realized the beams were targeted at him.
He spun in his crouch, trying to bring up the gun, but the car was already on top of him, the headlights in his face and the front end impacting his chest as the Hyundai sideswiped the parked Ford.
It all happened so slowly. He was flung up in the air, weightless, floating, his gun flying away in unreal slow motion, and then he descended, the pavement hard against his back as he hit the ground.
Abruptly, time sped up, the dream sequence over, and the car was barreling back toward him, but swerved at the last moment, mostly missing him, just catching his legs with one rear wheel and crushing the bones to powder.
The sudden crunch was the worst pain he’d known in his life. He tried to scream, but no sound would come.
A few yards away, the Hyundai rolled to a stop. It creaked, shifting on its shocks, and the driver’s door opened, and Swann stepped out.
Of course it was Swann. That was no surprise.
Swann walked up to him, limping, one leg stiff. He had a pistol in his hand but showed no interest in using it.
Sam gritted his teeth and tried to lift himself to a sitting position, thinking dimly that he could retrieve his lost gun, make a fight of it, but his body wouldn’t respond. His legs were ruined, and his chest felt caved in, and when he coughed, something warm and dark, like chocolate sauce, bubbled down his chin.
He gave up and lay on his back, breathing hard, shivering with pain, and looking up at the night sky, the swirl of stars.
Then Swann was there, looming over him, bigger than the constellations.
“Hey, buddy,” Swann said.
Sam thought he should say something, but his mouth didn’t work anymore.
“I know you fucked me over.” Swann leaned closer. His voice was quiet, almost gentle. “Found out a while back that the feds had new intel on me. The stuff they knew—it had to come from someone I ran with in the old days. You or Bob or Giovanni. I thought it was Giovanni. I really didn’t think it was you. We were always so close, you know?” He put his fingers together. “Simpatico.”
Sam exhaled a bloody breath.
“So, not long ago, I went to Giovanni and got him talking. He told me about Bob, and where to find him. But I knew Bob hadn’t snitched on me. Bob’s a fucking retard. And Giovanni…well, he didn’t snitch, either. The things I did to him…he would have told me if he had. He would have told me anything I wanted to know. Eventually, I let him die. He might not have snitched, but he was still a loose end that needed tying.”
Swann moved out of sight, back up the road toward the Ford.
“So if it wasn’t Bob and it wasn’t Giovanni,” he called back to Sam, “then bingo, it had to be you.”
With effort, Sam turned his head sideways to see what Swann was doing. It was painful—every effort was painful—but he had to know.
Swann was crouched by the Ford, penknife in hand, digging the nail out of the tire.
“Remember this nail, Sammy boy? I pulled it out of Bob’s skull just a little while ago. It’s just itching to find a new home.”
Then Sam found his voice, or a remnant of it, and he made a strange sound.
“Aww…”
A soft, pitiful sound, the sound a kid would make when the ice cream dropped out of his cone.
“Aww…”
He didn’t know why he was making that goddamn sound. He wished he would stop.
Swann had worked the nail free. He returned to Sam, whistling. He knelt beside him, and he smiled.
“The thing is, Sam, I’m always three steps ahead. People keep forgetting that.”
Sam shut his eyes. He didn’t want to hear any more. He wanted to go away, just go away forever, anywhere—to hell, even—anywhere, as long as it was far away from Swann.
Then he felt a hand on his face, and against his will, his eyes opened. Swann was still there, crouched by his side, twirling the nail between his fingertips. It was rusty and dark with old blood.
“I went easy on Bob,” Swann said. “He only stole a sandwich. But you, old friend…I’m not going easy on you at all.”
WITH effort, Kate made Victoria understand she wasn’t invited to the motel. But that left a problem. She didn’t have a car of her own. To get there, she asked to borrow Skip’s Mazda RX-8.
“No one drives my car except me,” Skip said obstinately.
“So will you drive me someplace right now?”
“Is it dangerous?”
It could be, but Skip didn’t need to know that. “No.”
“Then I’m your man.”
She left Alan at the house to monitor the chase car’s progress. So far they’d seen no sign of the Ford.
She said nothing to Skip during the fast trip from the Brewers’ house to Hollywood. She felt antsy, uncomfortable without her Glock, especially knowing James was still out there. He’d managed to follow her even to the church. He could be following her now.
She frowned. How had he tailed her to the church, anyway? She’d gone there after the car crash. She hadn’t noticed any pursuit, and she was looking for it.
And if he’d been shadowing her, why hadn’t he tried to take her out when she was wounded and unconscious or when she was walking alone in the deserted streets?
It seemed more likely that he’d been scared off by the police after the episode beneath the overpass. That he hadn’t followed her immediately afterward.
Yet he must have, or he couldn’t have known she would end up at the church. No one knew she was going there, except the people she was working with.
No. Wrong. There was one other person who knew, if her suspicions were correct.
Carson Banning might have overheard enough of her conversation to warn Swann. If so, Banning knew she was headed to Swann’s hideout.
Banning could have gone to the church after she left his house. Could have waited in the alley, hoping she would show up alone.
She thought back to their conversation in his house. He hadn’t pressed her for the location of the overpass. Maybe because he didn’t need to. Because he already knew. Because he’d been there.
Closing in on her from the shadows. Laughing at her in the dark.
She shut her eyes. She let it sink in slowly—the truth, the obviousness of it, and how wrong she’d been.
Banning had been her stalker all along. Not James. Never James.
It was no coincidence that he had chosen tonight of all nights to go into killing mode. He’d picked tonight because he couldn’t wait any longer. He had to be worried that Kate would learn of his affair with Victoria; in combination with his friendship with Farris, it was all she needed to start putting it together. But if she were out of the way, his worries would be over.
He’d covered his trail as best he could. Disguising his voice in phone messages so she wouldn’t identify him. Setting up the storyline of an anonymous stalker so her murder investigation would be on the wrong track from the start.
But why not kill her in the limo tonight, or in his house? He must have wanted to do the job in the streets, where there could be no possible connection to him. Shadowing her as she navigated the city, he expected to have his chance before long.
She’d called his home number after leaving the overpass. The call must have been forwarded to his cell. The caller
ID would have shown him who was on the line. He’d faked grogginess and surprise, then sped home to throw on a robe before she arrived.
But when she’d showed him Amber’s charm bracelet, his reaction had been real. He’d been genuinely moved. She had seen it in his face, and he wasn’t that good an actor.
After being scared off at the church, he’d switched his focus to his daughter. He didn’t expect Kate to go out alone again tonight, and the bracelet gave him his first solid lead to Amber’s whereabouts. Amber became his priority. After all, he couldn’t know Victoria would reveal their affair tonight. He expected to have more time.
He had no idea his cover had been blown.
He still thought he could get away with killing her.
Suddenly, she wanted to talk to him. Not to let him know she was on to him. If he knew, he might run for it, and she wanted him caught.
No, she just wanted to hear his voice. His lying words.
She called Banning’s cell. She wasn’t surprised when he answered, wide awake, on the first ring.
“I hear you’re out looking for her,” Kate said.
There was a beat of hesitation. Then he gave in. “How’d you know?”
“Georgia.”
“Right. I couldn’t very well ask her to keep it secret from you, since I had told her you sent me there.”
“I should have realized you wouldn’t leave it alone.”
“It’s her bracelet. She’s close. I can find her.”
“How, Carson, if she doesn’t want to be found?”
“I’m handing out bribes to everyone on the street. Getting some info.”
“That’s not very safe. They could jump you for the money.”
“I’m armed.”
Of course you are, she thought. “You’re still taking an awful chance.”
“She’s my kid.”
“I understand. Good luck. I hope you find her.”
She meant it. There would be time to deal with Carson Banning later. For now, she wanted him to rescue Amber. His daughter was an innocent. She deserved to survive.
She ended the call and put the phone away, feeling unsatisfied. Part of her had wanted a confrontation, a demand for information. But there was nothing he could tell her. Though he’d known about the church, it was unlikely he knew where Swann had relocated. Even if he did know, he couldn’t say anything without incriminating himself.
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