by Sean Black
Lock didn’t blame the guy. If you dated a woman as drop-dead gorgeous as Carmen Lazaro, you got used to the reactions of other men. Carmen had confessed to Lock early on that one of the reasons she liked him was that he was secure enough not to be bothered by it. He didn’t get defensive or, worse, jealous. He was one of the few men, perhaps the only one, Carmen had dated who had enough self-confidence not to be irritated by the attention she attracted when they went out together.
For Lock’s part it wasn’t a strategy. It wasn’t even conscious. He just figured that if they were together then they were together. Being jealous or possessive never made a relationship better. It could only achieve the opposite.
His attention shifted briefly from Carmen and the waiter. Outside the restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard, a black Ford Mustang with tinted windows had pulled up into a loading area directly opposite. It sat there, engine idling, no one getting out. No one getting in either.
“And for you, sir?”
Lock didn’t get much of a smile. Then again, he didn’t have the waiter trying to stare down his shirt either, so he figured it was a wash. He glanced back at the menu. “May I have the steak, cooked rare?”
“Cooked rare,” the waiter said, like he didn’t quite believe that was how he wanted it.
“As in, wipe its ass and throw it on the plate,” Lock said, keen to ensure there wasn’t any ambiguity in the kitchen about how he liked his steak.
“Yes, sir.”
As the waiter collected their menus, Lock glanced back to the Mustang. It was still parked across the street, the faintest shimmer of heat coming from its tail pipe.
“Ryan?” Carmen said, clearing her throat. “You’re doing it again.”
Pushing back his chair, Lock got to his feet. “I have to use the bathroom, be right back,” he said, heading, at speed, toward the restaurant’s front door.
Carmen called after him, “The bathroom’s that way.”
He half turned to her. “The one next door’s nicer.”
“Ryan!”
4
He dodged round the hostess, who was busy greeting a party of six, and pushed through the door. As he made the sidewalk, the Mustang bolted, narrowly missing a white Prius as it took off at speed down Wilshire, running a red light on 11th Street. A few seconds later it was a distant memory.
Lock looked round for a Santa Monica Police Department cruiser. No luck. He turned back toward the restaurant. Carmen was waiting for him at the door, clearly less than pleased.
“What was that?” she said, her toe tapping the floor.
Lock shrugged, and did his best to look innocent. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
He could feel an argument brewing. “There was a strange car parked across the street, like they were up to no good. I went out to take a closer look.”
“And?” Carmen asked.
“And nothing. They took off.”
Carmen rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling.
“What can I tell you? Old habits die hard.”
Carmen studied him. “What do I have to do to make you relax?”
Lock smiled. “I’m sure we can think of something.”
She reached out, slipped her hand into his and led him back to their table. For once he was happy to let someone else take charge. “I’m sure we can.”
* * *
As the waiter came with the check, Carmen’s cell phone pinged with an incoming message. She had already laid her American Express card on the table, ready to pick up the tab.
Lock handed it back to her. “I got this.”
“You got it last time,” Carmen protested.
“Last time was Fat Burger. I don’t think that counts as me buying you dinner.”
Carmen didn’t argue. It was unusual for her. She was big into making sure that she paid her fair share, even though the money he was pulling down must have been three times what her office could afford to pay her. Her brow furrowed slightly as she scanned the text message.
“Problem?”
“We just had a deposition rescheduled for tomorrow morning. I’m going to have to swing by the office on the way home and pick up some papers.”
Carmen’s office was downtown. A forty-minute drive from where they were.
“I can drive you.”
“That means I’d have to come back here for my car. It’s easier if I just go myself.”
“You sure?”
“Ryan, you do know that I managed to navigate this city on my own for years before you came along?”
“I was thinking you might like the company, is all.”
Carmen smiled. “Tell you what, you go back to my place. Open a bottle of wine for us, light some candles, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He didn’t answer straight off. His mind was still on the black Mustang that had been parked outside and taken off when he’d walked outside.
“Or we can forget it and you can go back to your place on your own. Maybe call up Tyrone if you get lonely later on.”
That got his attention. He’d spent enough time on his own with his business partner Ty Johnson to last two lifetimes. “Think I’ll go with your first proposal, Counsellor.”
“Wise choice, Mr. Lock,” said Carmen.
* * *
Outside, the valet pulled forward Lock’s car, a pearl gray Audi RS7. It had been kept up front, its position secured with a tip.
The Audi blended nicely with LA traffic. It wasn’t too ostentatious, but could move like greased lightning when he needed it to. Deleted badges meant that most people assumed it was a regular Audi and had no idea what lay under the hood—a four-liter V8 engine that went from zero to sixty in under four seconds.
Lock thanked the valet for his cooperation, and pulled out onto Wilshire Boulevard. A half-block down he eased into a spot on the street, and watched in his rearview mirror as Carmen got into her Honda.
Everything seemed normal. He started to feel a little bad for keeping eyes on her. His guilt soon evaporated as her Honda pulled out of the restaurant driveway, and the black Ford Mustang he’d seen earlier fell in behind her.
He waited for them both to pass before he, too, pulled out into traffic. He doubted the guys in the Ford had seen him, but he hung back anyway.
It looked like his hunch had been correct after all. The question now was, who were the guys in the Mustang and why were they following his girlfriend?
5
Central California Women’s Facility
Chowchilla, California
Chance stared down from the top tier at Ginny Browell, who was sitting alone at a table in the far corner of the pod. All the other inmates were backed up into the opposite corner, as far away as they could get in such tight quarters. They shot nervous glances at Browell and whispered among themselves.
Before Ginny, there had been Gerard Browell, the serial rapist who had terrorized large swatches of southern California for almost ten years before he’d finally been caught. It was a long time to evade the law. Longer, Chance now thought, to evade justice.
Browell specialized, if that was the correct term, in leaving his victims barely alive. Never quite finishing them off, even when it would have been easier and, for his continued freedom, safer to do so. Many were so traumatized by their experience that it took the police months to extract any kind of useful witness statement.
The sheer terror that Browell left his victims as a legacy meant that descriptions of him varied wildly. After his arrest the police discovered he had deployed a variety of disguises from fake facial hair to dressing up, on a few occasions, as a woman. It was this that he would later use against the State of California to argue that he had the right to gender reassignment.
Once he had been granted the right to change gender, he immediately began petitioning to be moved to a correctional facility for women. Anyone familiar with Browell and what he had done had a strong hunch that he wanted access to fresh stock of fresh victims. Nonet
helss his case attracted a pool of people with the best of intentions and equally bad judgment.
His attorneys managed to successfully petition the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) for his transfer. The CDCR didn’t want to do it, but had judged it less costly than losing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit that would also set a legal precedent they could be held to in future.
They had sent him here because it was the highest security facility they had for female inmates. Which still meant it wasn’t all that secure. At least, not compared to places like San Quentin or Pelican Bay.
Chance had followed Browell’s case with interest. She’d been rooting for him. Where the others had seen a threat, she had seen an opportunity. Browell, Gerard or Ginny, didn’t scare her. There was nothing he could do to her that she hadn’t already suffered as a child growing up in foster care.
Chance strolled to the end of the walkway and started to make her way down the metal stairs. Ginny Browell looked up at her. There was a predatory flicker in Ginny’s eyes that Chance recognized. Blonds had been Gerard’s type. Chance doubted that had changed. All well and good, she thought. It would make this a lot easier.
At the bottom of the stairs, she ignored the rest of the ladies, and headed straight for Ginny. Chance had a broad smile on her face as she pointed at a seat. “You mind if I sit here?”
Ginny seemed taken aback. On guard. That was to be expected. “Go right ahead,” she said, in an affected Southern accent that grated on Chance, like nails down a chalkboard.
Chance opened her clenched fist to reveal a roll of candy. “Here,” she said, passing it to Ginny. “I thought you might not have been allowed to bring commissary with you.”
Commissary was the stuff you could legally buy. Ramen noodles, candy, and toiletry items, like soap and shampoo, were the big sellers. There was lots of other stuff you could get that was illegal and would be confiscated by the guards if they found it. From Chance’s experience, it was a plain fact that there were more drugs floating around jails than out on a regular city block. Drugs helped the time pass.
Ginny held the roll of candy in her open palm. “You put poison in it?” she asked, again with that sickly Gone with the Wind accent.
Chance reached over and snatched it back. She flipped the top piece of candy from the roll with her thumb and popped it into her mouth. Ginny’s eyes were still narrow. “Take a piece from the middle.”
Chance shrugged. Did just that. She opened her mouth, flicking her tongue, and curling it as she dropped in the second piece. Slowly, seductively, she licked her lips and made a show of how much she was enjoying it. It was a performance designed to test her theory that Ginny Browell was just as driven as Gerard had been. “Tastes so good,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper and locking eyes with Ginny.
Reassured, Ginny reached out her open palm toward Chance. Chance smiled and placed the candy roll on the table. Close enough that Ginny would have to reach for it from across the table.
“Go ahead, sweetie,” said Chance, her left hand disappearing below the table top and pulling the shank from where it was tucked into her pants. It consisted of a rigid black plastic handle with a sharpened metal blade. Chance had made it by melting down Styrofoam cups (the Styrofoam reconstituting as a hard plastic resin) and removing a metal disk from a fire sprinkler head, which she then sharpened to a point. It was more for slashing than stabbing but that was all she needed to get started. Behind her, unseen by Ginny, a couple of the other ladies were reaching for their shanks.
Chance would get the party started. Then the others would join her on the dance floor. That was the plan.
Ginny Browell leaned over the table. Her head was forward, her back at an angle. As her right hand went to pluck the candy, Chance grabbed Ginny’s wrist, pulling her off balance. Her free hand came up with the shank. She slashed directly across Ginny’s neck.
Ginny roared and reared back. She was strong. Stronger than even Chance had anticipated. But Chance kept a tight hold of the wrist as Ginny swung a punch with her free arm.
The fist came in from the side in a long arc that gave Chance plenty of time to raise the shank blade. The blade sliced across Ginny’s knuckles. Blood was spurting everywhere now.
The alarm had already sounded. There was a rush of movement from behind Chance as the others swarmed toward them, like the bench clearing at a baseball game to defend a fellow teammate. Only this was planned. Everyone had already been told what they had to do. Some were to go to the unit door to slow the guards. Others would help Chance with what came next.
6
Ginny rose from the table, half stumbling, half falling back toward the entrance door. Clarissa, the meth-addict who had killed her children, was already there with her little posse, blocking any escape. She didn’t look like much but she was strong. She shrieked and waved her arms wildly, her curly red hair falling over her eyes as she slashed her nails at Ginny’s face.
Chance advanced toward the melee. She handed off her shank to someone. They took it and passed her a fresh weapon. This one was a Christmas-tree deal made from pieces of metal scrounged up over the last month. It was barbed, tapering toward the end. That made shoving it in easy, but pulling it back out a whole lot harder.
Ginny was still fighting. Hard. Kicking and punching. Catching people too. A bulldog-faced woman, doing life for killing her girlfriend’s grandparents, was sent spinning backwards by a kick to her stomach.
That gave Chance an angle. She rushed into the squirming mass of bodies, the shank held down by her side. At the last second she brought it up and around, pushing off with her back foot and twisting her hips to get momentum. The tip pierced Ginny just below her ribs on her left side.
Chance kept pushing, using everything she had to force the metal deeper. Past flesh and into organs. Slicing blood vessels. She watched as Ginny’s eyes began to roll in her head. “See how you like it,” she said, her face close to Ginny’s.
Blood foamed at the corner of Ginny’s mouth. Another improvised knife slashed across Ginny’s face, the blood splashing Chance as the blade sliced through Ginny’s eye.
Kicking out one last time with her feet, Ginny wailed. The sound came to an abrupt stop. Her body slumped as life left her. She fell backwards.
Guards in full riot gear were pushing their way through the entrance and into the unit. Batons swung into the air. A Taser crackled as its barbs sank into Clarissa’s back. She jerked back and forth as thousands of volts shot through her, like a puppet with its strings yanked.
Chance began to grab women and pull them back, away from the guards. She urged them into their cells. “Come on now. It’s done,” she shouted.
They scrambled past her as she stood, her arms folded across her chest, a blood-soaked avenger. A baton slammed into the side of her leg. Chance smiled. The pain was just that. A physical sensation. Nothing more.
Slowly she put her hands down, palms open, and allowed herself to be bundled to the floor and shackled.
“You’ve gone and done it this time,” one of the guards shouted in her ear, so loud that it hurt worse than being hit.
“The hell you talking about? I didn’t do nothing,” she said.
“You gotta be shitting me. We saw you. It’s on camera.”
“I told you. I didn’t do nothing. I was giving her candy.”
Her denial drew more disbelieving grunts and declarations from the guards. They had all watched her murder Ginny Browell. She had started it, and she’d finished it too, with that Christmas-tree shank.
The other inmates in the unit had helped, but Chance had done the real damage.
Chance knew it too. Of course she had done it. But doing something and it being proved in a court of law, well, those were two different things. And Chance was going to have her day in court. Her attorneys would make sure of it.
7
Lock hung back in traffic, making it unlikely anyone in the Mustang would see him, but close enough t
hat if the occupants tried anything while Carmen was driving, the Audi’s powerful engine ensured he could close the gap within a few seconds.
He followed Carmen and her new buddies all the way down the 10 freeway to downtown. Traffic was light, which in Los Angeles meant it was moving at close to the posted speed limit, albeit in fits and starts.
Carmen exited via the 101 interchange. The Mustang followed. Now that sunset had turned fully to evening and it was dark, Lock tucked in a little closer. As far as they would see, if they noticed him at all, he was just another set of headlights among the mass.
At the bottom of the ramp, Carmen hung a left onto Grand. He held his breath, hoping she would park on the street. That would make keeping eyes on her, without being seen, a lot easier. And he didn’t want to be seen—not yet anyway.
Four blocks down, she turned into the parking structure next to her office building. Lock immediately pulled in behind a parked car, keeping enough of a gap that he could maintain visual contact with the Mustang.
The Mustang hung back for about fifteen seconds, then followed Carmen’s car down the ramp and into the parking lot. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .
He counted slowly. At zero, he pulled out from the parking spot.
At the bottom of the ramp, he powered down his window and took a ticket. The barrier lifted and the Audi headed back up the concrete ramps to the fourth floor where Carmen usually parked.
Up on four, he glimpsed Carmen’s back as she pushed through the doors that led from the parking area to a glass-sided walkway that connected to her office building. The Mustang was already in place, parked a few rows back. A quick look told him no one had exited.
He eased the Audi into a space where it was partially obscured from the Mustang’s view by a concrete support. His hand slipped to the butt of his SIG Sauer P229. The handgun of choice for many professionally trained close-protection operators, it was loaded with a fresh clip and good to go.
